Big Little Lies (14 page)

Two Months Before the Trivia Night

G
OOOOO GREEEEEN!” cried Madeline as she sprayed green hair spray into Chloe’s hair for the athletics carnival.

Chloe and Fred were “Dolphins” and their house color was green, which was fortunate because Madeline looked good in green. When Abigail had been at her old primary school, her house color was unflattering yellow.

“That stuff is so bad for the ozone layer,” said Abigail.

“Really?” Madeline held the spray can aloft. “Didn’t we fix that?”

“Mum, you can’t fix the hole in the ozone layer!” Abigail rolled her eyes with contempt as she ate her homemade, preservative-free, flaxseed-and-whatever-the-hell-else-was-in-it muesli. These days whenever she came home from her father’s place, she got out of his car, weighed down with food, as if she’d been provisioned for a trip to the wilderness.

“I didn’t mean we fixed the whole ozone layer, I meant the thing with aerosol cans. The, umm, the something-or-others.” Madeline held up the hair-spray can and frowned at it, trying to read the
writing on the side, but the type was too small. Madeline had once had a boyfriend who thought she was cute and stupid, and it was true, she was cute and stupid the whole time she was with him. Living with a teenage daughter was exactly the same.

“The CFCs,” said Ed. “Aerosol cans don’t have CFCs anymore.”

“Whatever,” said Abigail.

“The twins think their mum is going to win the mothers race today,” said Chloe as Madeline began to French-braid her green hair. “But I told them you were a trillion times faster.”

Madeline laughed. She couldn’t imagine Celeste running in a race. She’d probably run in the wrong direction, or not even notice the starter gun had gone off. She was always so distracted.

“Bonnie will probably win,” said Abigail. “She’s a really fast runner.”

“Bonnie?”
said Madeline.

“Ahem,” warned Ed.

“What?” snapped Abigail. “Why shouldn’t she be fast?”

“I just thought she was more into yoga and things like that. Non-cardio things,” said Madeline. She returned to Chloe’s hair.

“She’s fast. I’ve seen her in a race with Dad at the beach, and Bonnie is, like,
much
younger than you, Mum.”

Ed chuckled. “You’re a brave girl, Abigail.”

Madeline laughed. “One day, Abigail, when you’re thirty, I’m going to repeat back to you some of the things you’ve said to me over the past year—”

Abigail threw down her spoon. “I’m just saying don’t get upset if you don’t win!”

“Yes, yes, OK, thank you,” said Madeline soothingly. She and Ed had laughed at Abigail, when she hadn’t meant to be funny, and she didn’t quite understand why it was funny, so she now felt embarrassed, and therefore enraged.

“I mean, I don’t know why you feel so competitive with her,” said
Abigail viciously. “It’s not like
you
want to be married to Dad anymore, do you, so what’s your problem?”

“Abigail,” said Ed. “I don’t like your tone. Speak nicely to your mother.”

Madeline shook her head slightly at Ed.

“God!” Abigail pushed away her breakfast bowl and stood up.

Oh, calamity,
thought Madeline.
There goes the morning.
Chloe swiveled her head away from Madeline’s hands so she could watch her sister.

“I can’t even speak now!” Abigail’s whole body trembled. “I can’t even be myself in my own home! I can’t relax!”

Madeline was reminded of Abigail’s first-ever tantrum, when she was nearly three. Madeline had thought that she was never going to have a tantrum, all due to her good parenting. So it had been such a shock to see Abigail’s little body whipped about by violent emotion. (She’d wanted to keep eating a chocolate frog she’d dropped on the supermarket floor. Madeline should just have let the poor kid eat it.)

“Abigail, there’s no need to be so dramatic. Just calm down,” said Ed.

Madeline thought,
Thank you, darling, because that always works, doesn’t it, telling a woman to calm down.

“Mu-uuum! I can only find one shoe!” hollered Fred from down the hallway.

“Just a minute, Fred!” called back Madeline.

Abigail shook her head slowly, as if truly flabbergasted by the outrageous treatment she was forced to endure.

“You know what, Mum?” she said without looking at Madeline. “I was going to tell you this later, but I’ll tell you now.”

“MU-UM!” yelled Fred.

“Mummy is busy!” screeched Chloe.

“Look under your bed!” shouted Ed.

Madeline’s ears rang. “What is it, Abigail?”

“I’ve decided I want to live full-time with Dad and Bonnie.”

“What did you say?” said Madeline, but she’d heard.

She’d feared it for so long, and everyone kept saying,
No, no, that would never happen. Abigail would never do that. She needs her mother.
But Madeline had known for months it was coming. She knew it would happen. She wanted to scream at Ed:
Why did you tell her to calm down?

“I just feel it’s better for me,” said Abigail. “Spiritually.” She’d stopped trembling now and calmly took her bowl from the table over to the sink. Lately she’d begun walking the same way Bonnie walked, back ballet-dancer straight, eyes on some spiritual point on the horizon.

Chloe’s face crumpled. “I don’t want Abigail to live with her dad!” Tears spilled copiously. The color on the green lightning shapes on her cheeks began to run.

“MU-UM!” shouted Fred. The neighbors would think he was being murdered.

Ed dropped his forehead into his hand.

“If that’s what you really want,” said Madeline. Abigail turned from the sink and met her eyes, and for a moment it was just the two of them, like it was for all those years. Madeline and Abigail. The Mackenzie girls. When life was quiet and simple. They used to eat breakfast in bed together before school, side by side, pillows behind their backs, their books on their laps. Madeline held her gaze.
Remember, Abigail? Remember us?

Abigail turned away. “That’s what I want.”

Stu:
I was there at the athletics carnival. The mothers race was fucking hilarious. Excuse my French. But some of those women—you’d think it was the Olympics. Seriously.

Samantha:
Oh rubbish. Ignore my husband. Nobody was taking it seriously. I was laughing so hard, I got a stitch.

•   •   •

N
athan was at the carnival. Madeline couldn’t believe it when she ran into him outside the sausage sizzle stall, hand in hand with Skye. This morning of all mornings.

Not many dads came to the athletics carnival, unless they were stay-at-home dads or their children were especially sporty, but here was Madeline’s ex-husband taking the time off work to be there, wearing a striped polo shirt and shorts, baseball cap and sunglasses, the quintessential Good Daddy uniform.

“So . . . this is a first for you!” said Madeline. She saw there was a whistle around his neck. He was volunteering, for God’s sake. He was being involved.
Ed
was the sort of dad who volunteered at the school, but he was on deadline today. Nathan was pretending to be Ed. He was pretending to be a good man, and everyone was falling for it.

“Sure is!” beamed Nathan, and then his grin faded as presumably it crossed his mind that his firstborn daughter must have taken part in athletics carnivals when she was in primary school too. Of course, these days, he was at all of Abigail’s events. Abigail wasn’t sporty, but she played the violin, and Nathan and Bonnie were at every concert without fail, beaming and clapping, as if they’d been there all along, as if they’d driven her to those violin lessons in Petersham where you could never get a parking spot, as if they’d helped pay for all those lessons that Madeline couldn’t afford as a single mother with an ex-husband who didn’t contribute a single cent.

And
now she was choosing him
.

“Has Abigail spoken to you about . . .” Nathan winced a little, as if he were referring to a delicate health issue.

“About living with you?” said Madeline. “She has. Just this morning, actually.”

The hurt felt physical. Like the start of a bad flu. Like betrayal.

He looked at her. “Is that . . .”

“Fine with me,” said Madeline. She would not give him the satisfaction.

“We’ll have to work out the money,” said Nathan.

He paid child support for Abigail now that he was a good person. Paid it on time. Without complaint, and neither of them ever referred to the first ten years of Abigail’s life, when apparently it hadn’t cost anything to feed or clothe her.

“So you mean I’ll have to pay you child support now?” said Madeline.

Nathan looked shocked. “Oh, no I didn’t mean
that
—”

“But you’re right. It’s only fair if she’s living at your place most of the time,” said Madeline.

“Obviously, I would never take your money, Maddie,” he interrupted. “Not when I . . . when I didn’t . . . when I wasn’t able to . . . when all those years—” He grimaced. “Look, I’m
aware
that I wasn’t the best father when Abigail was little. I should never have mentioned money. Things are just a bit tight for us at the moment.”

“Maybe you should sell your flashy sports car,” said Madeline.

“Yeah,” said Nathan. He looked mortified. “I should. You’re right. Although it’s not actually worth as much as you . . . Anyway.”

Skye gazed up at her father with big worried eyes, and she did that rapid blinking thing again that Abigail used to do. Madeline saw Nathan smile fiercely at the little girl and squeeze her hand. She’d shamed him. She’d shamed him while he stood hand in hand with his waif-like daughter.

Ex-husbands should live in different suburbs. They should send their children to different schools. There should be legislation to
prevent this. You were not meant to deal with complicated feelings of betrayal and hurt and guilt at your kids’ athletics carnivals. Feelings like this should not be brought out in public.

“Why did you have to move here, Nathan?” she sighed.

“What?” said Nathan.

“Madeline! Time for the Kindy Mums Race! You up for it?” It was the kindergarten teacher, Miss Barnes, hair up in a high ponytail, skin glowing like an American cheerleader. She looked fresh and fecund. A delicious ripe piece of fruit. Even riper than Bonnie. Her eyelids didn’t sag. Nothing sagged. Everything in her bright young life was clear and simple and perky. Nathan took his sunglasses off to see her better, visibly cheered just by the sight of her. Ed would have been the same.

“Bring it on, Miss Barnes,” said Madeline.

Detective-Sergeant Adrian Quinlan:
We’re looking at the victim’s relationships with every parent who attended the trivia night.

Harper:
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do have certain theories.

Stu:
Theories? I’ve got nothing. Nothing but a hangover.

T
he kindergarten mothers gathered in a ragged, giggly line at the start line of their race. The sunlight reflected off their sunglasses. The sky was a giant blue shell. The sea glinted sapphire on the horizon. Jane smiled at the other mothers. The other mothers smiled back at her. It was all very nice. Very sociable. “I’m sure it’s all in your head,” Jane’s mother had told her. “Everyone will have forgotten that silly mix-up on orientation day.”

Jane had been trying so hard to fit into the school community. She did canteen duty every two weeks. Every Monday morning she and another parent volunteer helped out Miss Barnes by listening to the children practice their reading. She made polite chitchat at drop-off and pickup. She invited children over for playdates.

But Jane still felt that something was not right. It was there in the slight turn of a head, the smiles that didn’t reach the eyes, the gentle waft of judgment.

This was not a big deal, she kept telling herself. This was little
stuff. There was no need for the sense of dread. This world of lunch boxes and library bags, grazed knees and grubby little faces, was in no way connected to the ugliness of that warm spring night and the bright downlight like a staring eye in the ceiling, the pressure on her throat, the whispered words worming their way into her brain.
Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about it.

Now Jane waved at Ziggy, who was sitting on the bleachers near the sidelines with the kindergarten kids under the watchful eye of Miss Barnes.

“You know I’m not going to win, right?” she’d said to him this morning at breakfast. Some of these mothers had personal trainers. One of them
was
a personal trainer.

“On your marks, mums!” said Jonathan, the nice stay-at-home dad who had gone with them to Disney On Ice.

“How many meters is this, anyway?” said Harper.

“That finish line looks like it’s a
long
way away,” said Gabrielle. “Let’s all go have coffee instead.”

“Is that Renata and Celeste holding the finishing tape?” said Samantha. “How did they get out of this?”

“I think Renata said that she—”

“Renata has shin splints,” interrupted Harper. “Very painful apparently.”

“We should all stretch, girls,” said Bonnie, who was dressed like she was about to teach a yoga class, a yellow singlet top sliding off one shoulder as she languidly lifted one ankle and pulled it up behind her leg.

“Oh, by the way, Jess?” said Audrey or Andrea. Jane could never remember her name. She stepped right up close to Jane and spoke in a low, confidential voice, as if she were about to reveal a deep, dark secret. Jane had gotten used to it by now. The other day she stepped up close, lowered her voice and said, “Is it library day today?”

“It’s Jane,” said Jane. (She could hardly be offended.)

“Sorry,” said Andrea or Audrey. “Listen. Are you for or against?”

“For or against what?” said Jane.

“Ladies!” cried Jonathan.

“Cupcakes,” said Audrey or Andrea. “For or against?”

“She’s for,” said Madeline. “Fun police.”

“Madeline, let her speak for herself,” said Audrey or Andrea. “She looks very health-conscious to me.”

Madeline rolled her eyes.

“Um, well, I
like
cupcakes?” said Jane.

“We’re doing a petition to ban parents from sending in cupcakes for the whole class on their kids’ birthdays,” said Andrea or Audrey. “There’s an obesity crisis, and every second day the children are having sugary treats.”

“What I don’t get is why this school is so obsessed with
petitions
,” said Madeline irritably. “It’s so adversarial. Why can’t you just make a suggestion?”

“Ladies,
please
!” Jonathan held up his starter gun.

“Where’s Jackie today, Jonathan?” asked Gabrielle. The mothers were all mildly obsessed with Jonathan’s wife, ever since she’d been interviewed on the business segment of the evening news a few nights back, sounding terrifyingly precise and clever about a corporate takeover and putting the journalist in his place. Also, Jonathan was very good-looking in a George Clooney–esque way, so constant references to his wife were necessary to show that they hadn’t noticed this and weren’t flirting with him.

“She’s in Melbourne,” said Jonathan. “Stop talking to me. On your
marks
!”

The women moved to the start line.

“Bonnie looks so professional,” commented Samantha as Bonnie crouched down into a starting position.

“I hardly ever run these days,” said Bonnie. “It’s so violent on the joints.”

Jane saw Madeline glance over at Bonnie and dig the toe of her sneaker firmly into the grass.

“Enough with the chitchat, ladies!” roared Jonathan.

“I love it when you’re masterful, Jonathan,” said Samantha.

“Get set!”

“This is quite nerve-racking,” said Audrey or Andrea to Jane. “How do the poor kids cope with the—”

The gun cracked.

Thea:
I do have my own ideas about what might have happened but I’d rather not speak ill of the dead. As I say to my four daughters, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”