Spinning Around (6 page)

And then there's the house. How could we possibly keep the house? Suppose he decided on divorce, and wanted to rent his own place—how could we keep up with the mortgage payments? We couldn't. We'd have to sell this place, and I'd have to move out to . . . I don't know. Punchbowl? Penrith? What's more, I'd have to quit work, because we can only afford childcare two days a week as it is; Matt always looks after the kids on a Tuesday. Unless I was to ask my mother for help, of course. But I'd rather die than ask my mother. I'd never hear the end of it. ‘I told you so' would be hanging in the air for ever after, and I wouldn't be able to ignore it because I'd be in her debt, God forbid. I'd be a pitiful welfare mother living miles from all my friends, squabbling with Matt about child support payments, agonising over his new girlfriend, over his new
wife
, over his new
family
—my God, what if he goes off and has more
children
?

But that's silly. I've got to calm down. Because this whole business about the purple-haired girl—it might be perfectly innocent. And if it is, would Matt ever forgive me for suspecting him? Would it screw up our marriage? I don't want that to happen. I don't want it to happen because I love him, and I don't want to lose him.

It's true, I'm not angry. I'm frantic—even though he's been annoying me so much lately. I know it's unreasonable, but I can't seem to help it. I've been grinding my teeth over all sorts of things: his CD addiction, for instance. He's always been one for impulse buying, and not just CDs—he'll often come home with toys for the kids, boxes of Darrell Lea chocolates (he loves Darrell Lea), new videotapes or strange liqueurs. He's been pining after a DVD player, recently; I'm so frightened that he'll go out and buy one. God knows, I'm not mean. I didn't
mind
when we had separate bank accounts and no mortgage. I didn't mind when I had lots of my own money. But those days are gone, and he doesn't seem to realise it. He still seems to think that he can throw his money around the way he used to, even though we're on a tight budget. I don't think he understands about budgets. He probably thinks they're what people used to have before credit cards were invented.

And then there's his drum kit. It's so big that it fills up
vast
tracts
of our sunroom (because he won't put it in the garage, even though he hardly ever practises, these days). It's impossible to clean, and it's blocking the linen cupboard, and when he does play it—about once a month—it's so noisy that I live in perpetual fear of the neighbours complaining. There are cobwebs on it, for heaven's sake. And yet when Jonah scribbled on the snare drum with a biro, Matt threw a monstrous tantrum, even though he tells me that I ‘overreact' when Emily gets into my make-up or jewellery.

As for the housework issue, don't even ask. The fact that he's never been much good didn't matter before—not when we were living in that rented flat in Darlinghurst. I remember we used to do the housework every Saturday morning, with the stereo turned up high, singing along at the tops of our voices. We'd take it in turns to vacuum, wash the kitchen floor and clean the bathroom, and it didn't matter that Matthew was hopeless, because the flat was such a tip to begin with. The bathroom was so mouldy that the grouting was past redemption; nothing that either of us did made the slightest difference (and God knows, I nearly poisoned myself spraying mould killer about), so in the end we gave up. Same with the toilet, which had an unsightly brown stain on the porcelain just where the water gushed down from the cistern. When the shower curtain became slimy and black, we threw it away and bought a new one. When the plastic soap dish became too encrusted, we applied the same principle. It didn't matter that the mirror was always streaky after Matthew cleaned it, because it was already a spotty mess, with brownish patches showing where the silver had peeled off, or rotted away.

As for the carpet, it was so disgusting to begin with that vacuuming made almost no impression at all. Neither did steam-cleaning. We had it steam-cleaned when we first moved in, and the only result was an analysis of all the stains that seemed to be indelible. We were informed by the steam-cleaning man that the greyish spot near the wall had been a leaky sewage pipe, that the round, brownish one near the sofa was vomit, and that the orange one beside it was very possibly tandoori chicken. ‘It's the smell that gives it away,' he said cheerfully, before hastening to assure us that he'd seen worse—much worse. In one flat he'd cleaned, the previous tenant had kept several large dogs, and the carpet had been disfigured, not only by an ankle-deep mist of fleas, but by countless shit stains.

When we bought this house, however, we were lucky. The carpet was brand new, and the bathroom was only two years old. It's a lovely bathroom, with brass taps, a wooden toilet seat and a claw-footed bath. The shower recess has glass screens, not a curtain; there's a porcelain soap dish cemented to the wall. Naturally, I've worked hard to ensure that this room has remained lovely, polishing the brass and keeping an eye on that hard-to-reach spot under the bath, where the dust collects. But has Matthew felt the same sense of responsibility? Has he hell. He never remembers the spot under the bath unless I remind him. He seems to think that scrubbing the ring off the bath and giving the S-bend a quick poke with the toilet brush constitutes a ‘good clean'. I don't know how many times I've pointed out that we
paid big money
for this bathroom—that it's an investment which shouldn't be allowed to deteriorate. I might as well be talking to myself, for all the notice he takes of me.

Sometimes I wonder if it's a case of middle-class hang-ups versus working-class informality, and become prostrate with guilt. After all, hadn't that always been part of Matthew's attraction, for me? His had been a childhood of noisy, communal sessions in front of the TV; friendly, beat-up, smoke-kippered loungeroom furniture; football boots on the kitchen table; five strapping boys being served by ancient, stoop-shouldered Nonna as the dog snored underfoot. Weren't Matt's housekeeping deficiencies the natural result of his exotic background? Should I really be giving my pinched, Anglo, middle-class world view so much priority in our relationship?

At one stage I decided that I'd stop flogging a dead horse, since it was perfectly obvious that Matthew wasn't going to stop vacuuming around things (instead of moving furniture), or start wiping down windowsills without being endlessly nagged about it. I thought to myself: why fight the forces of history? Why not go with the flow, stop struggling, and surrender yourself to your traditional role? But that didn't work either. For one thing, I would have been forced to give up my job, and for another, Matthew couldn't manage the traditional male role any better than he'd been managing the New Age one. He broke our lawnmower, the other day. He also cracked a wall putting some pictures up. And though he's not a bad hand with the fuse box (thank God), his understanding of tap washers, car engines and barbecue gas bottles is as rudimentary as mine. In other words, while I've been playing my part, he hasn't been playing his. And even this wouldn't matter so much if it wasn't costing us money. It costs money to fix a lawnmower. It costs money to have a couch recovered, because he let the kids play on it with markers. Couldn't he see what was going to happen? Why doesn't he
think ahead
sometimes?

I don't know—maybe it's biological. I saw a documentary on television the other day that described how men's and women's brains are wired up differently. Apparently it's a
scientific fact
that women are better at multi-tasking than men are. So why am I blaming Matt, when I should be blaming myself for my unrealistic expectations? Lots of people would ask me what I'm moaning about: Matthew lends a hand, doesn't he? He looks after the kids, and irons his own shirts. He even cooks, on occasion. At least he makes an
attempt
at cleaning, and who's to say his way is the wrong way? Who's to say it matters that there's soap scum on the shower screens? Perhaps it doesn't. Perhaps I'm being a neurotic perfectionist. Sometimes I stop, and think, and realise that I'm turning into my own mother. Once that would have been an appalling thought. I used to say to Matthew: Please, please, if I ever start turning into my mother, you must tell me. You must warn me.

Now, however, it doesn't seem so simple. After all, it was my mother who taught me how to hemstitch, and what to do with bloodstains. Matthew didn't even know how to sew on a button, when I met him. I had to show him how to do it. Am I really so anal, just because I insist that he doesn't walk around with half the buttons off his shirt? Perhaps I am. I must be, or why else would he be seeing the Girl With Purple Hair?

When I think of losing him—when I think of how lovely he is, and how mean I've been—I can't bear it. Do you know that he once came home with a cappuccino maker he'd bought for me (an impulse buy) and I was cross with him for wasting our money? How could I have done that? And the drum kit. Why have I been so horrible about the drum kit, when I used to love watching him play so much? The power of his arms, the loose and casual speed of them—I loved that. I loved his half-closed eyes, and his huge smile, and the way he sat on his stool, with his long legs folded up in their dusty black jeans.

One Tuesday, when he was minding the kids, he went out with them and bought some furniture polish. They were going to help him polish the coffee table in the living room, you see, and what's more they did it. But naturally they used too much polish and didn't wipe enough of it off, so the coffee table was sticky and streaky when they had finished. And of course Matthew had neglected to change the kids into their old painting clothes before they started, so their nice little matching Osh Kosh overalls (a gift from Mum) were ruined. And I was furious. Really. When I got home I was furious, even though the whole episode was one of those endearing, klutzy things that made Matthew the sweet-natured guy he always had been. Can you see what I'm saying? Can you see why I'm scared?

I'm afraid to ask Matthew if he's having an affair, because in a funny sort of way I'm also afraid that, if he is, it's because I deserve it.

I decided to look through our old phone bills. Fortunately, we get them itemised for tax reasons because I work at home a lot, so I knew that it would be easy to check whether Matthew had been making any unexplained phone calls. But I couldn't get on to it right away. I had the dishes to wash (no dishwasher, unfortunately), the laundry to do and the kids' breakfasts to make. What's more, I had to tackle all these chores whenever I wasn't changing nappies, making beds and settling quarrels. It's amazing how scatty I've become, since having Emily. The house is always full of half-completed jobs, because no sooner do I begin to hang up the washing than Jonah demands another piece of cheese. So I cut the cheese, and give it to him, and then the phone rings, and then Emily wants me to put a dress on her doll, and then Jonah does a dump in his nappy, and I have to change it, and next thing you know it's hours later, and the cheese is drying on the kitchen benchtop, and the wet laundry is still sitting in the laundry basket.

It doesn't help that Emily takes her time over breakfast. She grazes, in other words; the meal can be spread over two hours, and I never know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, nutritionists say that it's natural for small children to graze, rather than eat three solid meals a day, because they have small stomachs. On the other hand, dentists say that grazing leads to tooth decay. All I know is this: it plays havoc with my schedule when Emily demands one piece of apple, followed (ten minutes later) by one piece of orange, then one rice cracker, then one dry Weet-Bix—which will shed its flakes all over the floor—one prune, one apricot bar, one cheese stick . . .

At least she eats, though. Jonah doesn't eat. The lengths I go to, trying to persuade him that his meals should be put in his mouth. The vegetables I've tried to disguise! The boats I've made out of fish fingers and halved cheese slices! He's very creative, though—I'll give him that. What
he
does with his food is far more original than what I do with it. It's been left in some pretty amazing places, I can tell you. And every time he sits down to eat, his highchair tray ends up looking like a work of abstract expressionism.

This morning, he asked for a honey sandwich. And I was delighted, at first. I'd forgotten that when Jonah is given honey, it ends up everywhere. On everything. And then he spilled his drink on Emily's T-shirt, and Emily insisted that she had to change her clothes, and while I was helping her Jonah trod on the farm truck that he loves, and broke it, and cried, and I had to divert him with an old plastic pig of Emily's, which she suddenly wanted to play with . . . well, you get the picture.

But I made it to the shops, at last. I put Jonah in his stroller, and pushed him up to the local supermarket (very slowly, so that Emily could stop every two minutes to check out an ants' nest, a discarded shoe, a dead caterpillar, a bit of graffitti . . .), and bought a few things for dinner, more to keep the children entertained than anything else. I never do much shopping when I don't have the car, because I can't carry more than I can put in the stroller. Anyway, I don't really care for that supermarket. It's a bit crummy. The rice shelves are infested with weevils, and I've seen a squashed cockroach on the floor. What's more, there are always big, sticky spills everywhere; there was one this morning, which Emily trod in. She made a bit of a fuss, because the soles of her shoes started to snap when she walked. But then Mandy came by, and she was distracted. That's the thing about Emily. It doesn't take much to cheer her up—not like Jonah. Jonah broods. He broods because he can't get his stroller harness undone, or because he can't line up five plastic horses precisely in a row. He's frustrated, I think, by the fact that he's still a small child. It's a difficult sort of age, when you're a perfectionist.