Broken (2 page)

Mattie would have stayed like that, silent and still, for the rest of the evening but along with the darkness came a crisp spring chill that her jeans and t-shirt did little to dispel. So, before it got too dark to see, she unpacked only one box, the one marked ‘bedding', and delved through the contents until she found the thick, checked Onkaparinga blanket with the satin edging. Her share of the matched pair that had been a wedding present ten years ago from her father, back before Alzheimer's honeycombed his brain and they buried his shell in the local cemetery Mattie kicked her runners off and then flipped the blanket out, wondering melodramatically if she would ever be able to match it or whether it was now doomed to end its days lamenting the loss of its identical twin, its soul mate. She grinned at herself, without humour.

After pouring another glass of wine, Mattie tried to wrap the blanket around her shoulders Indian-style, but as she dragged it across, something sharp scratched her arm and pierced the soft flesh inside her bicep. She dropped the blanket in surprise and, licking her finger, dabbed it against the beads of blood tattooing her skin. Now she could see that there was a note pinned to the satin edging, so she undid it clumsily and held it close to make out the words.

Mattie stared at the note for a few moments while the drops of spitsmeared blood elongated across the cut and began to trickle down her arm. Then she stuck the pin into the nearest cardboard box and folded the note up, making sure the edges were aligned. She took it out into the kitchen where she put it on top of the fridge and then, grabbing a tissue, mopped up the thin trickle of blood from her arm. She folded the tissue over and held it against the cut, hard, until the bleeding slowed, before fixing a bandaid in place. It was a bright purple Harry Potter bandaid, with the youthful wizard astride his broomstick and waving a magical wand through the air.

Mattie went to the sink and washed her hands, working up a rich foamy lather with a bar of soap she'd placed there earlier in the day.
After she rinsed, Mattie went back into the lounge-room, wrapped herself in her blanket and started to cry. Fat, silent tears that tracked down her cheeks and dripped onto the blanket to soak into the thick weave. And even though part of her despised the tears and the selfpity, she simply couldn't summon the energy necessary to rise above them. It was too enormous a step. And too final. The unit, the move, the light-globes, the unpacking –
especially
the unpacking. Because, folded amongst the odds and ends of clothing and crockery and ornaments was all her other baggage. All the guilt, the recriminations and the nostalgia that come when you pack up a decade of marriage and try to close the lid.

And besides, if she didn't unpack the boxes and assemble the couch and make up her bed – if she didn't scribble across the blank slate of this unit with
herself
– then she could always change her mind. She could simply ring Jake and tell him she was on the way Because she'd made a mistake. A big mistake. A
huge
mistake. And it was a call he would probably be expecting because, although this was the first time that she had gone so far as to rent a unit, this was certainly not the first time she had left. Twice before she'd gone to a hotel, returning the next day only to pack but being persuaded to stay instead. Her other, and most recent attempt had resulted in a prolonged stay at her mother's house, where her kind-hearted bewilderment, the children's wide-eyed watchfulness and Jake's misery brought Mattie back home within a week.

And she knew the reason he had – eventually – become so accommodating about this latest move was that he didn't really believe she'd see it through. So if she picked up the phone now, right
now
, and rang home, his voice would smile with relief, and a certain smugness. And she could be back there within minutes. With her family. Jake would light the open fire in the lounge-room while she curled up on the couch with the children and watched the flames. And she could reunite the Onkaparingas and instead wrap herself with hearth and home. A place where she knew every nook and cranny, and the pictures on the walls spoke of their shared past, and where all the furniture had a tale to tell that only they understood. And they'd celebrate her return with champagne while he teased her about her silliness and, after the kids
went to bed, they'd make love on the carpet while the embers washed their bodies with a smouldering glow.

But she didn't make the phone-call. Although tonight would be marvellous, and tomorrow, and probably even the next day also, sooner or later she would be back in that bad place. And it wouldn't matter that she knew every nook and cranny, because none of them would be safe. For some of the tales living within her home had been written with her blood, and her sweat, and her tears – and she didn't want to hear them anymore. So she didn't make the call, but she didn't unpack the boxes either.

 

T
hey hadn't lived together before marriage. Not because of any moral objections, but simply because it wasn't practical. Even staying with each other had been less than ideal. Mattie shared an already overcrowded flat whilst Jake rented with two other males who, although friendly enough, made Mattie feel awkward with their flashing eyes and hearty innuendo. So it wasn't until they married that all the little mundane differences, only discovered through cohabitation or time, began to surface. Like the fact that Mattie admired a garden with untamed, luxurious foliage, while Jake preferred it orderly, lined with pine-bark and edged with miniature fencing. Then there was the shower stall, where Mattie drove Jake mad with her inclination to scatter products across the floor. And she enjoyed board games like Scrabble and Pictionary, while he preferred strategy games like chess. And Mattie liked to dance, but Jake didn't. And she also loved to lie in on the weekend, whereas Jake would leap out of bed at 6.30 am but liked to nap on a Sunday afternoon, especially after sex
.

But the hardest thing to come to grips with, for Mattie, was Jake's meticulous planning. He valued budgets and goals and key objectives, and she suspected that he saw her occasional impulsiveness as a character flaw, or a sign of immaturity. But, over time, they learned to give and take. On the weekends, Jake brought her breakfast in bed and they read the newspaper together. And they bought a wire shelf to hang from the showerhead, and shared the garden – this section for him, this one for her. Occasionally she'd even get him to dance with her around the lounge-room, and he called her his ‘Waltzing Matilda'. And, for their first anniversary, Mattie bought Jake a compendium of 64 computer strategy games. All the traditional ones like chess and draughts, as well as the newer ones like Freecell and Tetris and Spider Solitaire. And she gave it to him with a silver embossed anniversary card that read: ‘To Jake with love. Forever
'.

T
he next morning Mattie woke with renewed determination. Her neck was stiff from sleeping so awkwardly and her eyes were grainy from the wine, but with the light that now streamed through the curtain-less windows came a sense of optimism that invigorated her with its buoyancy. Mattie relaxed and let it flood her, smiling as it met the residue of last night's despair and dispersed it condescendingly. She snuggled down underneath the blanket and watched the daylight dapple over the mottled brown carpet, illuminating scores of tiny dust particles spiralling through the air. If anything, the unit looked even more lacklustre during the day but this didn't affect Mattie as it had before. Instead she felt strengthened by possibilities and armed by a sense of survival. Besides, when all was said and done, it was only a one-year lease and she was confident that by then she'd have sorted out what she wanted, and where.

She stripped off her jeans and dropped them on the floor. Then, dressed in just her t-shirt and knickers with the blanket draped across her shoulders, she went into the kitchen to give her hands a wash and put the kettle on. The Harry Potter bandaid had come partly unstuck so she pulled it off and threw it in the bin. Then she bobbed down to read through the motivational sayings on the fridge again, nodding when she came to one she felt particularly apt.
Happiness resides not in possessions but in the soul
. When the kettle boiled she made herself a cup of coffee and then, spooning baked beans straight from the tin, she did a tour of her new home.

The floor plan was simple. The front door led straight into the lounge-room with the kitchen to the left and a tiny passage ahead that had a bedroom up the far end, a bedroom off the middle and then a toilet and bathroom off the other end. The lounge-room itself was fairly spacious, with just one triple bank of windows close by the mission-brown front door. Cream walls and white ceilings. Somehow comforting in its traditional unexceptionableness.

The kitchen was also big, with white formica cupboards around three of its walls and room for a table and chairs against the fourth. A window behind the sink showed an elevated view of the backyard, which could only be reached through the laundry at the far end of the kitchen. Mattie went through to the back door, unlocked it and walked out onto the small wooden veranda. There were six steps down the stairs to the yard, and then only eight steps across to reach the far fence. It was tiny. Mostly concrete, with just a small patch of grass in the centre. And she knew the children were going to be extremely disappointed, accustomed as they were to a spacious property with room for trees and trampolines, swings and sandpits, adventures and imagination.

She took a spoonful of baked beans and ate them pensively. They'd just have to be creative, and she would have to help them. Perhaps some pot-plants, or a tent – or even a puppy. Mattie's face brightened at this last idea, because it had definite possibilities – something to sweeten the deal, encourage them to call this place home. A golden retriever, a cocker spaniel, or a border collie. Any one of those breeds known for their loyalty. That could turn from a gentle pet into a snarling, jugularripping protector in the blink of an eye. She smiled at the thought.

Mattie closed the back door and turned the key before heading towards the little passageway behind the lounge-room. She had already worked out that it took three large steps from the lounge-room doorway to reach her bedroom at the end, three very small ones to reach the children's, and three medium ones to reach the bathroom to the left. She opted for the latter and then leant just inside the doorway, still eating her baked beans. The bathroom was compact, functional and predominantly white. White tiles over a white bath near a white vanity unit with the shower stall at the far end. One of the vanity's corners had been
snapped off at some stage, leaving a jagged curve of chipboard on display, and a few of the tiles were cracked with the grouting interspersed by deep grooves. The missing grouting and the chipboard grated on her but overall it was liveable. And that was the main thing.

From the doorway, Mattie could see her reflection in the mirror. A small, slim figure clad only in a loose red t-shirt and a hint of floral knickers. Facial features a bit on the thin side but in proportion, with a cloud of short, dark, wavy hair, even messier than usual. A slightly toowide mouth that turned down automatically but still smiled well, and good teeth, except for a side molar that was tinged with grey through nerve loss. A frown line that punctuated the once smooth space above the bridge of her nose. Dark brows and thick dusky lashes framing dark brown eyes that stared back at her trustingly. Show us the way and we will obey.

Leaving the bathroom door open, Mattie turned and flung open the bedroom doors as well, because the whole unit had the musty, damp cardboard smell that came from lack of occupation. Both bedrooms were almost identical – the same two-door wardrobe set into one wall, the same double bank of windows lidded by clanky white metal Venetian blinds, the same mottled carpet as the lounge-room, and the same standard cream and white paintwork.

Lengths of polished pine lay on the floor of the children's room, waiting to be assembled into a set of bunks, and a pine tallboy sat by the window with a small pine desk next to it. Mattie had purchased the furniture through a local second-hand store, and Jake had spent all yesterday morning collecting and delivering it for her. The same store had supplied the double bed mattress and base that was in her room, and the old-fashioned white dressing table with its huge round mirror and chunky wooden drawers.

And that was all the furniture she could afford. All she'd taken from the house was the modular couch from the family room, a nest of walnut side tables, and the old pine kitchen table and chairs from the shed. A fair and reasonable split of the possessions they'd collected over the years would only take place if this ‘trial' separation became permanent. That was one of the rules, same as with their savings. But Mattie had
been willing to agree to almost anything to obtain Jake's assistance, because only in movies were women able to leave with just one suitcase that miraculously furnished an entire new life. In reality there were all the complications of a negotiated fair share, and the needs of the children, as well as the fundamental minutiae of baby photos, and certificates, and old school reports, or even the set of blankets that had been a wedding present from a now dead father. The truth was that it was hard to leave without some level of cooperation from the other partner. Life could become very difficult, very quickly, without that.

Mattie touched each of the walls in the children's room, for luck, and then took the three steps required to reach the lounge-room. One, two, three. She headed into the kitchen, threw the half-empty can of baked beans into a plastic bag she'd tied onto a drawer handle, and dropped the dirty spoon into the sink. She stared at it for a moment and then rinsed it off, along with her coffee cup, before drying them, putting them away and washing her hands. Then she took two headache tablets, swallowing them dry so that they rasped painfully down her throat, and stared out of the window at the tiled roof next door as she worked on reigniting her optimism. Once this was achieved, Mattie took several deep breaths and decided that the children's room was the priority That way, even if Jake turned up early, it would send a message that she could accommodate them. That she was able.