House of Sticks (8 page)

Obediently, Louie went to his own stump and draped himself over it, pillowing his head with his arms.

She tipped her head back and looked up into the crowns of the trees, the bunches of foliage so high up, the skinny branches like pointing arms. Somewhere down on the road a truck went past, its brakes a thin, far-off sound. She thought of Pete in the car. That thing happened, where she tried not to but couldn't help her mind snaking into the wrong places. She saw Pete take a corner, a truck coming the other way. Metal hitting, smashing, their car hurled off the side of the road, crushed and broken. Rolling, bouncing back off a tree. Panicked birds shooting upwards. Gravel dust in a cloud. All the noises — the screeching, the bang, the thudding tumble — happening in such a tight succession and then over. And then the moments when things settled. Upturned wheels spinning, slowing, stopping. A wrenched side-mirror swinging into stillness. Some last bits of glass tinkling, detaching, pattering into the dirt. Silence. Until the door of the truck opened and the driver climbed down and went over.

How long before she got worried and tried to call him? Or before the truck driver or someone else — police probably — used Pete's phone and called her? Answering to the foreign voice, that dropping-away feeling, her arms and legs getting heavy.

Or what if there were no mobile phones? How long would they wait here at the house before she took the kids and walked all the way down to the roadside to flag down a car? What if it got dark? If she kept thinking he'd come, kept looking for his headlights in the falling dusk until it was too late? Waiting longer, sitting by the stove. And then what? Would she put the children to bed? Sit up and wait by herself? Fall asleep and wake in the middle of the night, the fire died down, the chill creeping in? Getting up to put on more wood. Going to stand by the window, staring out into nothing while the kids slept behind her.

Or would she go down sooner? That night, that evening. Knowing something must have happened. Finding a torch in a drawer. Rugging the children up, strapping Jess to her in the sling. Tottering down the unmade road with the twins clinging, fighting over who got to hold the hand without the torch. The weak beam of light giving them only a wavering little circle directly in front, the black dark pressing in on it, on them. The awful thought of the battery running out.

The road. A car. Waving the torch.

‘Cock-a-doodle-doo,' went Edie.

Bonnie blinked and looked around, and up rose Louie off his stump.

They walked behind the shack this time, uphill. Jess in the sling blowing bubbles and grabbing at Bonnie's hair, her cheeks bright with the cold. Edie tramping ahead, gumboots swishing, beanie bobbling. Louie dragging a fallen branch that collected ribbons of bark in a jiggling pile. It was easy walking, the spaces wide between the trees, the ground uncluttered, the grass tussocks scattered evenly as if sown by hand.

Up they went in a serious procession. ‘Here?' she said, and Edie looked around and shook her head. ‘Here?' she said a bit later, and Edie shook her head again. ‘What's wrong with here? There's a nice flat spot, and we can look back down at the house and watch the smoke come out the chimney.'

‘Not quite right.' And Edie stamped on. Up and up between the trees, until behind them enough of the spare bush was aligned to screen the house and it became just a darker blob amongst all the other dark blobs.

‘Oh.' Edie stopped. It was the fence. Drooping wire and leaning posts, a wattle sapling thrusting through it — but a fence still.

‘Well,' said Bonnie. ‘That's it. That's the end of Jim's land.'

‘But whose land is on the other side?' said Louie, poking the wires with his branch.

‘I don't know. Somebody else's.'

‘But what's their name?'

‘I don't know. Jim might know.'

‘But who are they? Is it a boy or a girl?'

‘I don't know, Lou. I don't know everyone in the world.'

‘Can we go and visit them?' said Edie.

‘No. I don't even know if there's a house on that land. It might just be bush.'

‘But where do the people live?'

‘Well, there might not be anyone living there. It might just be bush — trees and stuff, and animals and birds. But the land still belongs to somebody and we don't know that person and that's why we can't go on it.' She turned back to where the smoke from their fire rose in a string above the treetops. ‘So,' she said, ‘where shall we have our picnic then?'

Edie sighed. ‘I s'pose it'll have to be here,' she said in a world-weary tone.

Bonnie plonked down the bag. She spread the canvas-backed picnic rug in a clear spot and knelt on it. She took Jess out of the sling and put her down on her tummy on the rug. She set out plastic plates and the bottle of water. Sandwiches in a Tupperware container. Apples and pears. A little tub of dried apricots and sultanas. Everything tilting on the grass tufts and sticks underneath.

They ate and looked back down at the scrub and the string of smoke. The sun came out and warmed them. She stretched out her legs. A bird hopped nearby, angled its eye at them, sprang into the air and away.

‘What if there are people on that land?' said Edie. ‘If there are people, can we visit them?'

Bonnie put her head back, her face to the sun. She closed her eyes. ‘No. You can't visit people you don't know.'

‘But what if they came down here, to the fence, and invited us?'

She sat up and reached for the water. ‘Well, then it would be okay.' She drank. The water from Jim's tank was sweet, with a slight taste of ti-tree.

Pete came back in the late afternoon.

‘I found some good timber.' He sat down at the table. ‘Eastern mahogany. Two big fallen trees — be almost enough for the whole job.'

‘Great.' She filled the kettle and switched it on.

Edie climbed onto Pete's lap. ‘We had a picnic, Daddy.'

‘Did you?' Pete kissed her, but Bonnie who was watching from the bench could see him gazing off, out the window. ‘It's beautiful wood,' he said, resting his cheek against the top of Edie's head. ‘Should work really well with just a bit of Vic ash as trim.'

‘Great,' she said again, opening the tea canister. ‘Good on you.'

‘And it's quite cheap too. He's ready to mill it on Monday and he can deliver, maybe even on Tuesday, so I could get started this week.'

‘That's so good.' She took mugs from the drying rack. ‘Will it all fit in the workshop?'

‘Just. I'll have to move some things around.'

‘We found a fence,' said Edie to Pete. ‘It was nearly falling down, but Mum said we couldn't go on the other side because we didn't know the people.'

‘Yeah,' said Pete. ‘Best not to climb over fences when you're in the country.'

Edie reached up and took hold of one of Pete's ears. ‘And do you know what it looked like, on the other side?'

‘No.'

Edie made a face of theatrical bemusement. ‘Just the same. It even had the same birds.'

That night when the kids were asleep they sat down on the couch with Pete's laptop and a pile of DVDs.

‘What's this?' Pete held one up. ‘
Cockatoo Island
.'

‘Oh, you know — that music festival I did with Mickey, ages ago. Someone made a documentary about it. Mickey sent me a copy.'

Pete slid it into the computer. ‘Let's have a look.'

‘Oh, do we have to? It'll probably be really boring.'

‘Come on. You might be in it.'

‘That's what I'm worried about.'

‘Just quickly.'

The opening credits rolled. Aerial views of Sydney Harbour, beautiful, blue water and lush green land. Scruffy-looking musos dressed in black and wearing sunglasses loading equipment onto ferries. Windblown hair. Laminated passes around necks. A view from side of stage — some young indie-rock band in full swing, heads bowed to guitars, legs jerking and kicking as if independently. A drummer bent forward, eyes closed. People in the crowd, faces upturned, rapt. A group of girls laughing, arms around each other.

Fade to black. Then the opening scene. A young guy with a goatee, sitting on a leather couch, arms spread along the back of it. ‘It's always just so amazing when something like this all comes together,' he said. ‘It's such a pleasure and a privilege to be a part of an event like this.'

‘Who's he?' said Pete.

‘Oh, you know, the guy from — what're they called again? Anyway, some band. He's boring.'

The goatee guy was still talking.

‘… really appreciate how much hard work goes into …'

‘Yeah, okay, he's boring.' Pete went back to the main menu. ‘Here we go — live performances.' He scrolled through. ‘Mickey Meyers.' He ran the cursor over Mickey's name and it lit up.

An outdoor stage. Half in shadow. Mickey in the sunny bit, saying something into the mic. A burst of laughter from the crowd, and cheering. Mickey turning to the rest of the band, looking to the drummer for the count-in, lifting her arm high before bringing it down to her guitar. Doing one of her funny little dances, shuffling, dipping her knees. Swinging back around to the mic stand, leaning in, starting to sing.

‘Where're you?' Pete put his face closer to the screen. ‘I can't see you.'

‘There, next to the keyboards.'

‘You're in the shadows. I can't even tell it's you.'

‘Oh well.' She watched the little silhouette of herself sway, arms working, head down. ‘I'm not very interesting.'

The camera zoomed in on Mickey's face, her bright red lipstick, the yellow scarf knotted around her hair, the way she made funny faces as she sang, rolling her eyes, shaking her head. The sight of it brought that feeling again in Bonnie, the one that had come over her in the bookshop. A lost, desolate pang that almost hurt, lunging through her.

‘That's a good look Mickey's got going on,' said Pete. ‘Looks like a cartoon character. Like Minnie Mouse or something.'

‘She looks great.' Bonnie watched as Mickey finished the first chorus and turned from the mic again to dance over towards the drum kit, dropping first one shoulder and then the other. The camera followed, and as Mickey skipped into the dark part of the stage the rest of the band came properly into view. The camera panned across them. First the bass player: Will, the tall, beardy one Mickey used on that album that time, who only drank Coopers beer because it was vegan and who tended sometimes just a little bit too far towards funk for Bonnie's taste. Then the drummer: another one whose name she had forgotten; Mickey seemed to change drummers the most. This guy was small and thin, and very good; he actually somehow lifted up off his stool sometimes when he got really into it. Then a woman on the keys, blonde hair, pale skin. ‘Kristen,' she said aloud. ‘God, I'd forgotten about her. She was lovely.'

She stared into the screen at Kristen bouncing on her toes behind the keyboard, head nodding. The camera went right in close and Kristen's eyes moved sideways and she smiled, and then the camera followed the smile and there was Bonnie smiling back. The camera pulled out again and showed just her and Kristen, holding that smile between them for a moment longer and then letting it drop as together they launched into the bridge. Bonnie watched her own fingers move over the strings, her head bent, hair hanging in her face now. Like a spider her left hand ran up and down, limber, fluid. The right hand went from picking to strumming and back to picking again. Incredible, that those were her hands, that that was her.

‘Sound's not too good,' said Pete.

‘No. It's terrible.' But she could hear it anyway, perfectly, each run of notes as they flew from her fingers, each riff uncurling, opening out and moving through its cycle, bringing itself back to the beginning and then starting again, living out its own small, perfect life.

‘Bye, house!' called the twins, twisting in their booster seats as the car bumped down the track to the main road. ‘Bye, trees! Bye, birds!'

She waited until they were on the bitumen before opening the thermos. The coffee steamed as she poured it carefully into the little round cup. She sipped and then passed the cup to Pete. She watched him drive one-handed, elbow braced against the inside ledge of the car window, fingers at the top of the steering wheel, lips pulling back to sip, his throat moving as he swallowed.

Overhead the limbs of the giant trees almost met. Leaves hung down, greenish grey, swirling like floating masses of seaweed. And the flashes of white bark — the undersides of branches exposed like something else belonging to the sea, the pale legs of swimmers seen from below, or the bellies of fish. In the murky shade beneath they drove on.

She looked back at the children. Louie and Edie on either side, heads tilted to the windows, eyes flicking, catching at passing sight after sight, holding and letting go. And the top of Jess's head just visible in the rear-facing capsule. The soft hair. The curve of that small skull.