time. His hand tightened further. It looked like he was making a decision: exactly how much to hurt her.
It hurt, but not that much.
He shoved her, just hard enough so that she staggered back clumsily.
Then he took a step back and lifted his chin, breathing heavily through his nostrils, his arms hanging loosely by his sides. He waited to see what she’d do next.
There were so many options.
Sometimes she tried to respond like an adult. “That is unacceptable.”
Sometimes she yelled.
Sometimes she walked away.
Sometimes she fought back. She punched and kicked him the way she’d once punched and kicked her older brother. For a few moments he would let her, as if it were what he wanted, as if it were what he needed, before he grabbed her wrists. She wasn’t the only one who woke up the next day with bruises. She’d seen them on Perry’s body. She was as bad as he was. As sick as he was. “I don’t care who started it!” she always said to the children.
None of the options were effective.
“I will leave you if you ever do that again,” she said after the first time, and she was deadly serious, my God she was serious. She knew exactly how she was meant to behave in a situation like this. The boys were only eight months old. Perry cried. She cried. He promised. He swore on his children’s lives. He was heartbroken. He bought her the first piece of jewelry she would never wear.
A week after the twins had their second birthday, it happened again. Worse than the first time. She was devastated. The marriage was over. She was going to leave. There was no doubt at all. But that very night, both boys woke up with terrible coughs. It was croup. The next day Josh got so sick, their GP said, “I’m calling an ambulance.” Josh was in intensive care for three nights. The tender purple bruises on Celeste’s left hip were laughably irrelevant when a doctor stood in front of her saying gently, “We think we should intubate.”
All she’d wanted was for Josh to be OK. And then he was OK, sitting up in his bed, demanding The Wiggles and his brother in a voice still husky from that awful tube. She and Perry were euphoric with relief, and a few days after they brought Josh home from the hospital, Perry left for Hong Kong, and the moment for dramatic action had passed.
And the unassailable fact that underlay all her indecisiveness was this: She loved Perry. She was still in love with him. She still had a crush on him. He made her happy and made her laugh. She still enjoyed talking with him, watching TV with him, lying in bed with him on cold, rainy mornings. She still wanted him.
But each time she didn’t leave, she gave him tacit permission to do it again. She knew this. She was an educated woman with choices, places to go, family and friends who would gather around, lawyers who would represent her. She could go back to work and support herself. She wasn’t frightened that he’d kill her if she tried to leave. She wasn’t frightened that he’d take the children away from her.
One of the school mums, Gabrielle, often chatted with Celeste in the playground after school while her son and Celeste’s boys played ninjas. “I’m starting a new diet tomorrow,” she’d told Celeste yesterday. “I probably won’t stick to it, and then I’ll be all filled with self-loathing.” She looked Celeste up and down and said, “You’ve got no idea what I’m talking about, do you, skinny minny?” Actually I do, Celeste thought. I know exactly what you mean.
Now she pressed her hand to her upper arm and battled the desire to cry. She wouldn’t be able to wear that sleeveless dress tomorrow now.
“I don’t know why . . .” She stopped. I don’t know why I stay. I don’t know why I deserve this. I don’t know why you do this, why we do this, why this keeps happening.
“Celeste,” he said hoarsely, and she could see the violence draining from his body. The DVD started again. Perry picked up the remote and turned off the television.
“Oh God. I’m so sorry.” His face sagged with regret.
It was over now. There would be no further recriminations about the party. In fact, the very opposite. He’d be tender and solicitous. For the next few days up until he left for his trip, no woman would be more cherished than Celeste. Part of her would enjoy it: the tremulous, teary, righteous feeling of being wronged.
She let her hand drop from her arm.
It could have been so much worse. He rarely hit her face. She’d never broken a limb or needed stitches. Her bruises could always be kept secret with a turtleneck or sleeves or long pants. He would never lay a finger on the children. The boys never saw. It could be worse. Oh, so much worse. She’d read the articles about proper domestic violence victims. That was terrible. That was real. What Perry did didn’t count. It was small stuff, which made it all the more humiliating, because it was so . . . tacky. So childish and trite.
He didn’t cheat on her. He didn’t gamble. He didn’t drink to excess. He didn’t ignore her, like the way her father had ignored her mother. That would be the worst. To be ignored. To not be seen.
Perry’s rage was an illness. A mental illness. She saw the way it took hold of him, how he tried his best to resist. When he was in the throes of it, his eyes became red and glassy, as if he were drugged. The things he said didn’t even make sense. It wasn’t him. The rage wasn’t him. Would she leave him if he got a brain tumor and the tumor affected his personality? Of course she wouldn’t.
This was just a glitch in an otherwise perfect relationship. Every relationship had its glitches. Its ups, its downs. It was like motherhood. Every morning the boys climbed into bed with her for a cuddle, and at first it was heavenly, and then, after about ten minutes or so, they started fighting, and it was terrible. Her boys were gorgeous little darlings. Her boys were feral little animals.
She would never leave Perry any more than she could leave the boys.
Perry held out his arms. “Celeste?”
She turned her head, took a step away, but there was no one else there to comfort her. There was only him. The real him. She stepped forward and laid her head against his chest.
Samantha: I’ll never forget the moment when Perry and Celeste walked into the trivia night. There was like this ripple across the room. Everyone just stopped and stared.
23.
Isn’t this FANTASTIC!” cried Madeline to Chloe as they took their really very excellent seats in front of the giant ice rink. “You can feel the cold from the ice! Brrr! Oh! Can you hear the music? I wonder where the princesses—”
Chloe had reached over and placed one hand gently over her mother’s mouth. “Shhh.”
Madeline knew she was talking too much because she was feeling anxious and ever so slightly guilty. Today needed to be stupendous to make it worth the rift she’d created between herself and Renata. Eight kindergarten children, who would otherwise be attending Amabella’s party, were here watching Disney On Ice because of Madeline.
Madeline looked past Chloe at Ziggy, who was nursing a giant stuffed toy on his lap. Ziggy was the reason they were here today, she reminded herself. Poor Ziggy wouldn’t have been at the party. Dear little fatherless Ziggy. Who was possibly a secret psychopathic bully . . . but still!
“Are you taking care of Harry the Hippo this weekend, Ziggy?” she said brightly. Harry the Hippo was the class toy. Every weekend it went home with a different child, along with a scrapbook that had to be returned with a little story about the weekend, accompanied by photos.
Ziggy nodded mutely. A child of few words.
Jane leaned forward, discreetly chewing gum as always. “It’s quite stressful having Harry to stay. We have to give Harry a good time. Last weekend he went on a roller coaster— Ow!” Jane recoiled as one of the twins, who was sitting next to her and fighting his brother, elbowed her in the back of the head.
“Josh!” said Celeste sharply. “Max! Just stop it!”
Madeline wondered if Celeste was OK today. She looked pale and tired, with purplish shadows under her eyes, although on Celeste they looked like an artful makeup effect that everyone should try.
The lights in the auditorium began to dim, and then went to black. Chloe clutched Madeline’s arm. The music began to pound, so loud that Madeline could feel the vibrations. The ice rink filled with an array of colorful, swooping, whirling Disney characters. Madeline looked down the row of seats at her guests, their profiles illuminated by the blazing spotlights on the ice. Every child was looking straight ahead, little backs straight, enthralled by the spectacle in front of them, and every parent had turned to look at their child’s profile, enchanted by their enchantment.
Except for Celeste, who had dropped her head and pressed her hand to her forehead.
I have to leave him. Sometimes, when she was thinking about something else, the thought came into her head with the shock and the force of a flying fist. My husband hits me.
God almighty, what was wrong with her? All that insane rationalizing. A glitch, for God’s sake. Of course she had to leave. Today! Right now! As soon as they got home from the show she would pack her bags.
But the boys would be so tired and grumpy.
• • •
It was fantastic,” said Jane to her mother, who had called up to ask how Disney On Ice went. “Ziggy loved it. He says he wants to learn how to ice-skate.”
“Your grandfather loved to ice-skate!” said her mother triumphantly.
“There you go,” said Jane, not bothering to tell her mother that every single child had announced after the show that they now wanted to learn how to ice-skate. Not just those with past lives.
“Well, and you’ll never guess who I ran into at the shops today,” said her mother. “Ruth Sullivan!”
“Did you?” said Jane, wondering if this was the real reason for the call. Ruth was her ex-boyfriend’s mother.
“How’s Zach?” she asked dutifully as she unwrapped a new piece of gum.
“Fine,” said her mother. “He’s, er, well he’s engaged, darling.”
“Is he?” said Jane. She slipped the gum in her mouth and chewed, wondering how she felt about that, but there was something else distracting her now, a tiny possibility of a tiny catastrophe. She began walking around their messy apartment, picking up cushions and discarded clothes.
“I wasn’t sure I should tell you,” said her mother. “I know it was a long time ago, but he did break your heart.”
“He didn’t break my heart,” said Jane vaguely.
He did break her heart, but he broke it so gently, so respectfully and regretfully, the way a nice, well-brought-up nineteen-year-old boy did break your heart when he wanted to go on a Contiki tour of Europe, and sleep with lots of girls.
When she thought about Zach now it was like remembering an old school friend, someone she would hug with genuine teary tenderness if they met at their school reunion, and then not see again until the next reunion.
Jane got down on her knees and looked under the couch.
“Ruth asked about Ziggy,” said her mother meaningfully.
“Did she?” said Jane.
“I showed her the photo of Ziggy on his first day of school, and I was watching her face, and she didn’t say anything, thank goodness, but I just knew what she was thinking, because I have to say, Ziggy’s face in that photo does look a teeny bit like—”
“Mum! Ziggy looks nothing like Zach,” said Jane, getting back to her feet.
She hated it when she caught herself deconstructing Ziggy’s beautiful face, looking for a familiar feature: the lips, the nose, the eyes. Sometimes she thought she’d see something, a flash of something out of the corner of her eye, and then she’d die a little, before quickly reassembling Ziggy into Ziggy.
“Oh, I know!” said her mother. “Nothing at all like Zach!”
“And Zach is not Ziggy’s father.”
“Oh, I know that darling. Goodness. I know that. You would have told me.”
“More to the point, I would have told Zach.”
Zach had phoned her after Ziggy was born. “Is there something you need to tell me, Jane?” he’d said in a tight, bright voice. “Nope,” Jane had told him, and she’d heard his tiny exhalation of relief.
“Well, I know that,” said her mother. She quickly changed the subject. “Tell me. Did you get some good photos with the class toy? Your father is e-mailing you this wonderful place where you can get them printed off for . . . How much is it, Bill? How much? No, Jane’s photos! For that thing she has to do for Ziggy!”
“Mum,” interrupted Jane. She walked into the kitchen and picked up Ziggy’s backpack where it lay on the floor. She held it upside down. Nothing fell out. “It’s fine, Mum. I know where to get the photos done.”
Her mother ignored her. “Bill! Listen to me! You said there was a website . . .” Her voice faded.
Jane walked into Ziggy’s bedroom, where he was sitting on the floor playing with his Legos. She lifted up his bedclothes and shook them.
“He’s going to e-mail you the details,” said her mother.
“Wonderful,” said Jane distractedly. “I’ve got to go, Mum. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
She hung up. Her heart pounded. She pressed the palm of her hand to her forehead. No. Surely not. She could not have been so stupid.
Ziggy looked up at her curiously.
Jane said, “I think we’ve got a problem.”
• • •
There was silence when Madeline picked up the phone.
“Hello?” said Madeline again. “Who is it?”
She could hear someone crying and saying something incoherent.
“Jane?” Madeline suddenly recognized the voice. “What’s the matter? What is it?”
“It’s nothing,” said Jane. She sniffed. “Nobody died. It’s sort of funny, really. It’s hilarious that I’m crying over this.”
“What happened?”
“It’s just . . . Oh, what will those other mothers think of me now?” Jane’s voice quavered.
“Who cares what they think!” said Madeline.
“I care!” said Jane.
“Jane. Just tell me. What is it? What happened?”
“We’ve lost him,” sobbed Jane.
“Lost who? You’ve lost Ziggy?” Madeline felt the panic rise. She was obsessed with losing her own children, and quickly confirmed their respective locations: Chloe in bed, Fred doing his reading with Ed, Abigail staying at her dad’s place (yet again).
“We left him sitting on the seat. I remember actually thinking what a disaster it would be if we left him behind. I actually thought that, but then Josh got his nosebleed and we all got distracted. I’ve left a message on the lost-property number, but he wasn’t labeled or anything . . .”
“Jane. You’re not making any sense.”
“Harry the Hippo! We’ve lost Harry the Hippo!”
Thea: That’s the thing about these Gen Y kids. They’re careless. Harry the Hippo had been with the school for over ten years. That cheap synthetic toy she replaced it with smelled just terrible. Made in China. The hippo’s face wasn’t even friendly.
Harper: Look, it wasn’t so much that she lost Harry the Hippo, but that she put photos in the scrapbook of the little exclusive group who went to Disney On Ice. So all the kids get to see that, and the poor little tots are thinking, Why wasn’t I invited? As I said to Renata, that was just thoughtless.
Samantha: Yes, and you know what’s really shocking? Those were the last photos ever taken of Harry the Hippo. Harry the Heritage-Listed Hippo. Harry the . . . Sorry, it’s not funny. It’s not funny at all.
Gabrielle: Oh my God, the fuss when poor Jane lost the class toy, and everyone is pretending it’s not a big deal, but clearly it is a big deal, and I’m thinking, ‘Can you people get a life?’ Hey, do I look thinner than when we last met? I’ve lost three kilos.
24.
Two Months Before the Trivia Night
GOOOOO GREEEEEN!” cried Madeline as she sprayed green hair spray into Chloe’s hair for the athletics carnival.
Chloe and Fred were “Dolphins” and their house color was green, which was fortunate because Madeline looked good in green. When Abigail had been at her old primary school, her house color was unflattering yellow.
“That stuff is so bad for the ozone layer,” said Abigail.
“Really?” Madeline held the spray can aloft. “Didn’t we fix that?”
“Mum, you can’t fix the hole in the ozone layer!” Abigail rolled her eyes with contempt as she ate her homemade, preservative-free, flaxseed-and-whatever-the-hell-else-was-in-it muesli. These days whenever she came home from her father’s place, she got out of his car, weighed down with food, as if she’d been provisioned for a trip to the wilderness.
“I didn’t mean we fixed the whole ozone layer, I meant the thing with aerosol cans. The, umm, the something-or-others.” Madeline held up the hair-spray can and frowned at it, trying to read the writing on the side, but the type was too small. Madeline had once had a boyfriend who thought she was cute and stupid, and it was true, she was cute and stupid the whole time she was with him. Living with a teenage daughter was exactly the same.
“The CFCs,” said Ed. “Aerosol cans don’t have CFCs anymore.”
“Whatever,” said Abigail.
“The twins think their mum is going to win the mothers race today,” said Chloe as Madeline began to French-braid her green hair. “But I told them you were a trillion times faster.”
Madeline laughed. She couldn’t imagine Celeste running in a race. She’d probably run in the wrong direction, or not even notice the starter gun had gone off. She was always so distracted.
“Bonnie will probably win,” said Abigail. “She’s a really fast runner.”
“Bonnie?” said Madeline.
“Ahem,” warned Ed.
“What?” snapped Abigail. “Why shouldn’t she be fast?”
“I just thought she was more into yoga and things like that. Non-cardio things,” said Madeline. She returned to Chloe’s hair.
“She’s fast. I’ve seen her in a race with Dad at the beach, and Bonnie is, like, much younger than you, Mum.”
Ed chuckled. “You’re a brave girl, Abigail.”
Madeline laughed. “One day, Abigail, when you’re thirty, I’m going to repeat back to you some of the things you’ve said to me over the past year—”
Abigail threw down her spoon. “I’m just saying don’t get upset if you don’t win!”
“Yes, yes, OK, thank you,” said Madeline soothingly. She and Ed had laughed at Abigail, when she hadn’t meant to be funny, and she didn’t quite understand why it was funny, so she now felt embarrassed, and therefore enraged.
“I mean, I don’t know why you feel so competitive with her,” said Abigail viciously. “It’s not like you want to be married to Dad anymore, do you, so what’s your problem?”
“Abigail,” said Ed. “I don’t like your tone. Speak nicely to your mother.”
Madeline shook her head slightly at Ed.
“God!” Abigail pushed away her breakfast bowl and stood up.
Oh, calamity, thought Madeline. There goes the morning. Chloe swiveled her head away from Madeline’s hands so she could watch her sister.
“I can’t even speak now!” Abigail’s whole body trembled. “I can’t even be myself in my own home! I can’t relax!”
Madeline was reminded of Abigail’s first-ever tantrum, when she was nearly three. Madeline had thought that she was never going to have a tantrum, all due to her good parenting. So it had been such a shock to see Abigail’s little body whipped about by violent emotion. (She’d wanted to keep eating a chocolate frog she’d dropped on the supermarket floor. Madeline should just have let the poor kid eat it.)
“Abigail, there’s no need to be so dramatic. Just calm down,” said Ed.
Madeline thought, Thank you, darling, because that always works, doesn’t it, telling a woman to calm down.
“Mu-uuum! I can only find one shoe!” hollered Fred from down the hallway.
“Just a minute, Fred!” called back Madeline.