Yearning (20 page)

Max hunched against the side of the bed, careful not to make contact with her. When she reached out to touch him he shifted away. When she tried to talk, her voice sounding irritatingly small in the darkness, he ignored her and pretended to be asleep. He had no words left. He was too tired to talk, too angry to care.

To escape he drank. Buried furies emerged with the beer, loosing a rangy creature inside him. Fed up with everything, he obliterated glasses on the floor, threw
unpaid bills at her, yelled at her till he was hoarse. She wept and wept endlessly, begging him not to wake Joshua, but it only made him hate her more. It was in those moments that he felt the violence in him punching up against his self-control. He spat poison at her, belittling everything that ever meant anything to her, calling her hopeless, selfish – even a rotten lover.

She withstood the torrent as best she could. She tried to understand, knew he was tired and frustrated, but so was she and he didn’t seem to care about that. She closed her eyes and imagined the violence washing over her, clattering and splintering on the tile floor like the dishes he threw. She just wanted to talk, to reconnect with him and share the load of domestic life, and the joy of parenting their sweet son. If only he would be her partner, her husband, her friend. But all she ever got was this sharp rain of ugly words. She knew she didn’t deserve it, but she took it, knowing that come morning, even if he remembered nothing of the night before, he’d at least be sorry and beg her to forgive him.

She watched Max spend the next few days filled with remorse, promising it would never happen again. He reassured her it was the booze talking, not himself. To make amends he’d play with Joshua while she had a long bath and, with a certain calm between them, she’d relent and he’d settle. Peace lasted for a few days, or a few weeks, but she could see the frustration slowly building in him and she was powerless to stop it. In the end she could do nothing but stand by watching as it wore away his patience and he sank again into the blind oblivion of drink.

One night she made the mistake of mentioning how
she’d enjoyed cuddling her friend’s new baby. Assuming she was insinuating she wanted another child, Max drunkenly badgered her for over an hour, pointing and accusing, telling her that she’d bullied him into it once and she wouldn’t get away with it again. She tried to get away from him, not wanting to fight, but he followed her all over the house. Finally, exhausted from ranting and too much beer, he passed out snoring on the bed.

Red-eyed from crying, she crept into the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror. The toneless droning drifting in from the bedroom made her hate him. Looking at her reflection she saw her face had become hollow and lined with the strain of constant tension. She ached for the constant yelling and tension to stop. She just wanted it gone. Wanted him gone. Or back the way he was in the beginning.

She hid in the bathroom, squeezing her body into a ball on the floor until there was barely space for her to breathe. A boil of melancholy swelled and burst, spilling out and burning a hole of longing through her. If she could make herself small enough, maybe she could disappear altogether.

It wasn’t all bad. There were lulls between his outbursts, times when they settled into a peaceful family life together. She wondered if that was what other people called happiness, the dull contentment of the in-between times. Maybe she expected too much of him, maybe they’d left it too late, perhaps she was a bit unreasonable. He’d tried to tell her he didn’t want children, but had given her Josh anyway. If she protected him from the demands of fatherhood, he might come back to her. If she tried harder, maybe she could make them all happy.

She thought about Solomon, wondering again where he was now. Maybe she was being unfair to Max. Solomon took up so much space in her heart there was hardly any room for Max anymore. If she gave Solomon up, would it help? Would it free up some love and make a difference to what she could give Max? The idea made her feel irrevocably sad. She knew she should, Max was the man she’d made marraige vows to. But Solomon was her only escape, proof that her soulmate existed and that there was hope for the kind of love she longed for.

She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, her chin wobbling. Who was she kidding? She had to exorcise Solomon. Even if he returned, what could she offer him? She was a needy, hopeless mess, mother to a two-year-old and dependent on a man who she was beginning to think no longer loved her. She hardly remembered who she was anymore. What business did she have with Solomon, or Solomon with her? None. It was clear. It was time to let go.

She heaved an enormous sigh and hugged her knees tightly to her chest. A question floated around her, vague and unformed. A question she didn’t want to openly ask or answer. It plagued her and made her hurt way down deep, because maybe, just maybe, what Max said about her was true. Perhaps she
was
hopeless in every respect and that’s why Solomon was never going to come, had never intended on coming for her. He’d left her, forgotten her, because she wasn’t worth it.

*

Max felt the weight of the axe as he hefted it high in the air. He brought it down hard on the edge of the block
of wood splitting it with a crack that resounded in the cool evening air. Outside the dark house he toiled, bare-backed and shivering in the winter cold. Sweat ran down his cheek and he smeared it quickly with the back of his hand before raising the axe again.

Hard physical work had become like a penance for him. A penance to pay for the filthy envy that festered inside him. He collected an armful of wood and trudged inside with muddy boots. She was sitting crosslegged on the worn carpet playing with Joshua. Dumping the wood into the tin tub next to the open fire, he moved past her towards the bathroom.

She glanced up quickly, her voice tired, irritated. ‘Can’t you wipe your feet before you come in?’

He gritted his teeth, willing back the sour spite that bit at the back of his throat. Pulling off the boots he hurled them noisily into a corner of the room. She rolled her eyes.

‘Bad Dadda,’ yelled Josh cheekily.

He ignored them both. In front of the bathroom mirror he slapped his torso, forcing warmth into his slate cold skin. He fought hard the urge to yell, to hit, to push her into recognising him.

‘God-damned kid,’ he cursed under his breath. ‘God-damned life.’

His clean shaven face was freckled with sawdust. He turned on the hot water to wash up. Icy blue eyes laced with red lines reflected back at him in the mirror, holding him hostage to his aggressive urges. He bent to splash the water over his face. It wasn’t hot enough. He turned the tap harder. It had to burn. He needed searing heat to remind him of who he needed to be for them.

Steam clouded and condensed on the cold surface of the cracked tiles in a slippery film. The gloss of her had worn well away for him now. He loved her still, but insisting on a child had made life hard for them both. And the child had taken her away from him, had turned her podgy and dull, not the glittering prize she’d been when they first met.

Wiping his face with a rough towel still damp from Josh’s bath, his free hand groped for his razor. Instead his fingers closed on an unfamiliar plastic stick. He squinted and frowned as he held it up to his face, trying to fathom what it was. White. Small blue lines on the end. Glancing down into the bin he saw the empty box for a pregnancy test.

Panic rising in him, he picked up the box to read the instructions on the back, frantically turning it over and over, searching for the words that would tell him what the result was. Finally he found it. Staring helplessly at the guide he held the stick up against it.

Positive. Positive? How could it be positive?

His world crumbled as he tried to remember the last time they’d made love. It was weeks ago. Opening the cupboard, he checked for her contraceptive pills. They were there, half-used. He had no idea when she had taken the last one. He’d never had the need to pay any attention to it. Just another thing he’d always left her to take care of. Had she tricked him into this? God, how could she be so bloody selfish?

He stared at the mirror into a face of fury that looked as though it would smash itself through the glass, shattering and splintering in all directions. Another goddamned baby? Wasn’t it hard enough as it was?

Josh giggled at his mother in the other room. He heard her crooning gently, the tenderness in her voice fuelling his anger.

‘C’mon, bubby, time for stories and sleeping.’

‘Molk! Molk!’

‘Okay, let Mummy get a bottle for you to drink while I read stories.’

He finished washing up as he considered his options. How would he talk to her about this? Injustice saturated every thought. By the time he emerged she was hidden away with Josh in the bedroom. He listened to the lilt of her voice as she read the three little pigs, Josh squealing every time the wolf blew a house down. The sounds didn’t soften him.

When she returned to the kitchen, silence descended. Max sat in the lounge with a beer, staring stiffly out the window. He sensed she was avoiding him. She made herself a cup of tea then, with her diary under her arm, passed by him saying, ‘I’m tired, Max. I’m going to bed early. Your dinner’s in the oven.’

Max didn’t move. He remained on the couch, white-knuckled and fuming, letting the fire go out and the coldness of night surround him. The more he thought about it the easier it was to believe she’d devised this against his will. She’d manipulated him, trapping him into a life of lonely obligation. His future raised itself up before him – work, kids, routine, suffering, old age. He was already over forty. What hope did he have of ever having any freedom again?

He recalled the peaceful days of their early marriage before she wanted kids. They could have had a wonderful,
free life together. He thought about what he was missing – long uninterrupted afternoons in private rented cottages with wine and food and lovemaking at night. With sad regret, he realised the colour she had brought to his black and white world was gone now. She’d made them both grey and listless and he was infuriated by it.

It was after two in the morning when he finally crept into bed beside her. She woke when his icy skin touched hers.

‘God, what have you been doing? You’re freezing.’

He didn’t answer.

She lay on her back and sighed resignedly. ‘What’s the matter, Max?’ she asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Come on. You’ve been sitting up in the cold stewing on something. What is it?’

He didn’t know how to answer so he made her wait. When he finally spoke his words were stiff with tension. ‘When were you going to tell me you’re pregnant?’

She paused. ‘How do you know?’

‘You left the kit in the bathroom. Obviously you wanted me to find it.’

‘No actually, I didn’t, Max. I got such a shock myself I must’ve just left it there. I’ve been worrying about how to tell you all afternoon.’

‘Are you telling me you didn’t plan this?’

‘Plan it? What are you talking about? How could I plan it?’

‘You’re the one who takes the pill.’

‘Max! You can’t possibly think I would try to get pregnant without telling you?’

‘I don’t know, do I? How would I know?’

‘Max, I wouldn’t do that to you.’

He was silent. He wanted to believe her, but couldn’t. ‘So what are you going to do?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Are you going to get rid of it?’

She sat up, her mouth dropping open in disbelief. ‘Get rid of it?’ Her voice was rising. ‘How could I get rid of it? It’s our baby!’

Max said nothing. His stomach churned in fury. How could she call it
our
baby? He’d had no say in it. It didn’t have anything to do with him.

‘You bastard! You’re serious, aren’t you?’

‘Well, it hardly makes sense to have another one, does it? We’re struggling as it is. Besides, I had no say in it.’

‘I can’t believe you would even think that. Would you have got rid of our gorgeous Joshie that quickly?’

He kept his mouth shut tight, afraid of what might come out if he opened it again.

‘I’m not getting rid of it, Max. Forget it. I’m having this baby.’

‘So I don’t get a choice then?’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Max, you are such a wounded bull. Don’t you get it? This time neither of us gets a choice. It’s just . . . happened. We have to accept it. Better yet, we should be excited about it. I am.’

When Max sat up he was already yelling. ‘It just
happened
, did it? Can you tell me how? How did it just happen? You stopped taking the pill, didn’t you? Or maybe . . . ’ His voice disappeared into the unspoken accusation.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Max, don’t you dare accuse me of sleeping with anyone else!’

‘Well, you never want to have sex with me anymore.’

‘Keep your voice down, you’ll wake Joshie. For your information I have been taking the pill. It must have happened when I had gastro last month. It was probably flushed out of my system along with everything else.’

Max felt shame creeping under his skin. He remembered. Impatient with her and not believing she was all that sick, he’d left her caring for Joshua while he went fishing with his mates for the weekend. She’d been wan and lifeless when he returned, lying on the couch surrounded by a mess of toys, the sink filled with dirty bottles. There was no dinner waiting for him. He thought she’d been trying for attention by being melodramatic, so he’d ignored her.

‘I’m sorry, Max, but unlike you I’m actually happy about it. I know it’ll be hard but I’d love another baby. This baby is like a last-chance gift.’

Max hated her then. She didn’t care about him. What was it to her that she was destroying any possibility for a happy future? She had what she wanted. He waited a few moments for the white heat of his anger to subside before he replied. ‘It doesn’t matter, my life is ruined anyway.’

She groaned and rolled over to stare at the digital clock. After half an hour or so he heard the regular rhythm of breath that told him she was asleep. He closed his eyes, but for him sleep wouldn’t come.