House of Sticks (33 page)

Oh god, the fucking idiot
. Bonnie reared back, clenched her arms around her own torso, turned her face away.
Oh god
. She scanned the empty street.
Help. Someone
. But there was no one, and there was no time anyway. She straightened, dropped her arms. She was going to have to deal with this herself.

‘Stay there.' She darted back past him, into the house. Ran to the kitchen and grabbed a bundle of tea towels. Ran back. Heard her own voice rapping out — ‘Sit down properly' — and then she was behind him, touching him, pulling him to the bottom step, moving him away from the broken glass. She smelled his dirty hair, his unwashed clothes, the stale smoke of his cigarettes. She felt his ribs under his shirt. His blood ran down warm over the back of her hand. It was shocking how warm he was, how solid his body.

He let her move him. He didn't say anything. She could hear his breathing, jerky and fearful.

Kneeling, she folded the first tea towel lengthwise and wrapped it around his wrist. Her hands shook.

‘Not tight enough.' Unwrapping it, a fleck of blood hitting her face. Breathing, trying to steady herself.
Get it right
. Rewrapping, pulling the cloth as taut as she could, pressing down with her thumbs over the place where the red kept soaking through.

The same with the second tea towel, and then a third. Keeping her hands on the place, pressing, pressing. Skidding in the blood as she changed position.

‘Got your mobile?' Patting his pants, glancing at his face. He made no move to help, just looked up at her, tongue working at colourless lips.

Pressing, pressing, fingers sticky, kneeling in blood. Feeling the oblong shape of the phone, drawing it out.

She dialled, thumb awkward on the unfamiliar keypad, spoke to someone, answered their questions. She hung up.

She rang Pete, without hesitation, without thinking. He answered, and she gabbled something. Put the phone down. Clamped the free hand back over the other.

‘They'll be here soon,' she said to Doug.

There was a hush, then, the two of them waiting. The cold, clear night, the arms of the lemon tree open to the sky. Far-off car noises, and a dog barking. No siren, yet.

‘They'll be here soon,' she said again, flicking her eyes up to Doug's face and then down again, back to her hands on the lumpy band of sodden cloth.

His eyes were closed, his mouth too. She noticed his cheekbones, how high they were.

‘Doug?' She checked his face again. ‘You okay?'

He didn't answer.

‘Doug?'

His eyes stayed closed. When he spoke it was quietly, almost whispering. ‘Who'd fucken miss me?'

‘Oh, of course people would miss you.' Her voice came out too bright, too sure. ‘Your friends, your …' She faltered, looked back down at her hands. The blood was soaking through the outside tea towel. She could feel the weight of all the liquid in the cloth, the squish of it under her fingers. ‘Anyway,' she said, ‘there's no need for that kind of talk.' She strained her ears for the ambulance.
Come on
. She thought she could hear it now, faintly, the rise and dip of the siren.

Doug made a hissing sound between his teeth, and his shoulders shook, but she couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying. He tipped back his head into the cold air and hooted. Threw out his hands, Bonnie clinging to the bandaged one like a limpet. ‘Who'd fucken miss
me
?'

She sat on the top step and watched as they bent over him with their blue gloves. Filling the front yard with their uniforms, their practised, steady movements, their calm voices.

‘Well done. You did well,' said one of them, reaching up, touching her on the arm.

The smooth lowering of the stretcher on its wheels, the points of Doug's knees through his pants as they lifted him.

‘One. Two. And three.' The stretcher up and rolling towards the gate.

Pete there, standing aside as they passed. Moving to her in a few quick steps.

‘You okay?' Bending, hands on her shoulders.

‘Yeah.'

His eyes, staring right into hers. ‘You sure?' Him touching her cheek. ‘There's blood on your face.'

‘I'm fine.' Her voice distant and warped. ‘It was Doug. He — I don't know, he's really drunk, he just turned up here, and then he had a beer, a bottle, and he fell …'

Pete standing again. The slamming of doors behind him, out in the street. The lights flashing red. ‘I'm going to go with him, okay? Will you be okay?'

Bonnie looking up at him, his face full of shadows. ‘Yeah.'

‘Is anyone here? Where's your mum?'

‘I'll be okay.'

‘Okay.' Him turning, going back down the path. ‘You sure? It's just — I'd better catch them, before they go.'

‘Okay.' Trying to focus on him. ‘Pete?'

‘Yeah?'

‘Is he all right? I mean, is he awake?'

Pete just a figure at the gate. ‘I think so. He's breathing anyway.' Starting towards the ambulance, but then pausing. ‘I'll come back.'

‘WHAT DO YOU WANT?' SAYS PETE. ‘I MEAN — DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ACTUALLY WANT?'

‘Yes,' she says. ‘I want us to be together. I want everything to be how it was. Before.'

There's a waiting feeling in the early quiet of the house, the children still asleep.

Pete leans his elbows on the table. He's still in his clothes. He speaks softly — ‘Me too' — and hope balloons in Bonnie, quick and clumsy. But then he looks at her, and in the morning light lines show on his face. ‘But you know it can't …' Sad creases at the corners of his eyes. ‘It can't ever be the same.'

And the hope sinks as fast as it rose.

‘Bon?'

‘Yeah.' Her voice scratches out. ‘Yeah. Of course.'

They sit there, not speaking, and down the hall Jess makes her first cry, and the day begins.

And of course it's not the same.

But the way in which it's different changes, as the days take them, lift and sweep them on like waves. Kinder, library, swimming. Supermarket, park, dinner. And it loosens, very slowly, the strangeness between them, the web of it.

They kiss again, one night, and Pete pushes her back on the couch. His mouth, his tongue, the taste of him so familiar it's hard to believe any of it happened. She reaches down and undoes his belt. He lifts her top, tugs her bra straps off her shoulders, puts his mouth to her breast. She kisses his hair, smells his sweet sawdust smell, hooks her fingers around the button of his jeans. Their bodies fit together. It isn't difficult, or awkward, or strange. It's like it has been for years — two people who know what to do to make each other come. Bonnie stops thinking, goes into that blind, beautiful place, and it could be any time, any one of the countless times they've done this. They could be right back in Pete's share-house bedroom.

Afterwards, though, when she cries, when she leans over him and kisses his face and whispers, ‘I'm so sorry. I love you so much,' he moves from underneath her, sits up and reaches for his clothes.

For a moment he stays like that, with his jeans and shirt in his hands, and then he puts his arm around her and lands a fumbling kiss on her ear.

‘I don't want to talk about that,' he says, looking at the floor.

She sees Doug, one afternoon, two or three weeks afterwards. She's driving with the kids and she sees him come out of the sports bar of a pub. He has someone with him, another man, short and slight. The word
crony
flicks through Bonnie's mind. In the moment of her passing she sees the dirty white edge of the bandage at the cuff of Doug's shirt, the swagger of his shoulders, the wag of his head as he shoots off some sideways comment.

And then she's past, and he shrinks in her mirror like any other person, any other dot on the street.

She turns from making porridge one morning and there's Jess, up on all fours, rocking, chubby knees edging forwards, eyes alight with uncertain triumph. ‘Quick!' calls Bonnie, and then hesitates.
Pete!
she wants to yell, but her throat clogs. It feels too bold, an imposition. ‘Everyone!' she calls instead. ‘Quick!'

‘What?' Edie and Louie run in.

‘Look.' Bonnie points. ‘Jess's almost crawling.'

‘She is crawling!' Louie and Edie fling themselves down beside the baby. ‘Jess! Jess!' they cry, patting the floor in front of her.

Jess, dribble running in a clear string from her chin, mouth agape in an astonished smile, shuffles one hand an inch over the lino.

‘She's crawling!' yells Edie. ‘Dad, Dad — Jess is crawling!'

Pete comes in, and Bonnie watches his face. She sees the gentleness there, the smile that comes so easily for the baby, and then the caution when he glances at her, and she feels the jaws of a lunging helpless need swing open. She closes her hands into fists. She turns bluntly back to the stove.

But then Pete comes over and touches her, his hand warm on her arm, and there's something, some shy offer there, and her heart takes off in soaring, fraught hope.

A delivery arrives, a giant cardboard box. Corrugated plastic tubing in a loop on top, tied with wire. They all stand round it.

‘What is it?' says Edie.

‘It's a dishwasher,' says Pete. He bends and pulls away the plastic packet that's taped to the side, tears it open and takes out the invoice. Glances at Bonnie. ‘It's from your mum.'

‘Wow,' she says. ‘I think it might be a good one.'

There's a pause, and then Pete grins. ‘So,' he says, ‘Suzanne comes through with the goods.'

They stand each side of the hulking box, smiling nervously at each other.

Mickey sends new demos, wants to book in more studio time. Bonnie sits up late with headphones on and plays and plays. Her calluses harden again. She drifts away from the children during the daytimes, goes to the living room, picks up the acoustic.

‘I like that song.'

It's Edie, hanging over the end of the couch. She comes round to sit, back straight, hands in her lap, trying so hard to be good that Bonnie's chest is squeezed with love.

Bonnie smiles, and before Jess can start to cry or Louie run in, or Edie get bored and fidget and bump the guitar, she shifts round to face her daughter, and she plunges back into the song, and the chords roll full and open around the two of them.

An afternoon wears on. The twins bicker. Jess cries and grabs at Bonnie's legs. Pete comes in late from the workshop, and she clangs a saucepan lid down and yells, ‘Fuck this!'

And Pete says, quietly, ‘You wanted this. This is what you wanted.'

And he picks up the baby and turns and leaves the room, and she is left standing there, gasping, breathless.

But later he puts his arms around her and says ‘Sorry', and Bonnie feels the strength in his arms, the heat of his body, his face, his scratchy chin as he kisses her. She feels it, close and alive.

Sometimes she looks at Pete, and he looks back at her, straight, the way he always did, and it comes so easily, the hugeness of their old love. And for a moment they slip out from under it, the shadow that flaps and skims, waiting, ready to bring them undone. And the love flares bright between them like nothing ever happened, and it doesn't matter that it's only for a moment.

He'll come back, one day, Bonnie knows. Doug.

She tries to prepare herself, to rehearse the scenario.

She puts herself outside, returning to the house with a load of washing from the line. It's night. She'll climb the steps holding the laundry basket, stop at the kitchen door and look in through the glass.

Pete will be at the bench with Jess in his arms. The twins kneeling on chairs. Doug standing directly under the hanging light, in its beam, arms spread, eyebrows jerking, lips curved away from the wreckage of his grin. He'll bend his knees, bob his head, bounce back up with the triumph of a story's end.

And Bonnie, out in the dark, will watch her children, their keen interest, their open faces. And she'll watch Pete. She'll see his ease, his generous smile. And it will come leaping up, that love, like a living thing. And she will pull it close around her, hold on to it. And she'll open the door, and go in.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to The Readings Foundation, The Wheeler Centre, and Writing at Rosebank via the Victorian Writers' Centre for providing valuable time and space during the development of this book. I'd also like to acknowledge the Victorian Government's investment in new writing through the Victorian Premier's Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer.

For help in various forms thank you to Claudia Murray-White, Naomi Rottem, Trisha Valliappan, Edward Frew, Tim Frew, Ian See, Robin Lucas, Miriam Rosenbloom and Caroline Kennedy-McCracken.

For her assistance, encouragement and good humour, I'm grateful to my agent, Clare Forster.

Special thanks to Louisa Syme for all her reading and insights, and to Mick Turner for many late-night discussions.

Extra-special thanks to Aviva Tuffield, publisher and editor at Scribe, for her thoughtfulness, her honesty, and her incredible hard work. It's been a pleasure to share this project with her.

And to my family, as always, my gratitude and my love.