Big Little Lies

  “Yes, the Year 6 teachers invented it. They’re calling it ‘Not on a School Night’ or something.” The Blond Bob did a double take. “Oh! I do know you! You’ve had a haircut. It’s, er, Jane, isn’t it?”

  Yep. That’s me. The mother of the bully. Except he’s actually not.

  The Blond Bob dropped her like a hot potato. “Have a great night!” she said. “There’s a seating plan over that way.” She waved a dismissive hand in no particular direction.

  Jane wandered into the crowd, past groups of animated Elvises and giggling Audreys, all of them tossing back the pink cocktails. She looked around for Tom, because she knew he’d enjoy joining her in analyzing exactly what was in it to make it taste so good.

  Tom is straight. The thought kept disappearing and then popping up in her head like a jack-in-the-box. Boing! Tom is not gay! Boing! Tom is not gay! Boing!

  It was hilarious and wonderful and terrifying.

  She came face-to-face with Madeline, a vision in pink: pink dress, pink bag and pink drink in her hand.

  “Jane!” Madeline’s hot-pink silk cocktail dress was studded with green rhinestones and had a huge pink-satin bow tied around her waist. Almost every other woman in the room was in black, but Madeline, of course, knew exactly how to stand out in a crowd.

  “You look gorgeous,” said Jane. “Is that Chloe’s tiara you’re wearing?”

  Madeline touched the tiara with its pink plastic stones. “Yes, I had to pay her an exorbitant rental fee for it. But you’re the one who looks gorgeous!” She took Jane’s arm and spun her around in a slow circle. “Your hair! You never told me you were getting it cut! It’s perfect! Did Lucy Ponder do that for you? And the outfit! It’s so cute!”

  She turned Jane back around to face her and put a hand over her mouth. “Jane! You’re wearing red lipstick! I’m just so, so . . .” Her voice trembled with emotion. “I’m just so happy to see you wearing lipstick!”

  “How many of those pretty pink drinks have you had?” asked Jane. She had another long sip of her own.

  “This is only my second,” said Madeline. “I have terrible, ghastly PMS. I may kill someone before the night is out. But! All is good! All is great! Abigail closed her website down. Oh, wait, you don’t even know about the website, do you? So much has happened! So many calamitous catastrophes! And wait! How was yesterday? The appointment with the you-know-who?”

  “What website did Abigail close down?” said Jane. She took another long draw on her straw and watched the pink liquid disappear. It was going straight to her head. She felt marvelously, gloriously happy. “The appointment with the psychologist went well.” She lowered her voice. “Ziggy isn’t the one who bullied Amabella.”

  “Of course he isn’t,” said Madeline.

  “I think I’ve finished this already!” said Jane.

  “Do you think they even have alcohol in them?” said Madeline. “They taste like something fizzy and fun from childhood. They taste like a summer afternoon, like a first kiss, like a—”

  “Ziggy has nits,” said Jane.

  “So do Chloe and Fred,” said Madeline gloomily.

  “Oh, and I’ve got so much to tell you too. Yesterday, Harper’s husband got all Tony Soprano on me. He said if I went near Harper again he’d bring the full weight of the law down on me. He’s a partner in a law firm, apparently.”

  “Graeme?” said Madeline. “He does tax law, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Tom threw them out of the coffee shop.”

  “Seriously?” Madeline looked thrilled.

  “With my bare hands.” Jane spun around to see Tom standing in front of her, wearing jeans and a plaid button-down shirt. He was holding one of the ubiquitous pink drinks.

  “Tom!” said Jane as ecstatically as if he were a returned soldier. She took an involuntary step closer to him, and then stepped back fast when her arm brushed against his.

  “You both look beautiful,” said Tom, but his eyes were on Jane.

  “You don’t look anything like Elvis,” said Madeline disapprovingly.

  “I don’t do costumes,” said Tom. He pulled self-consciously on his nicely ironed shirt. “Sorry.” The shirt didn’t really suit him. He looked far better in the black T-shirts he wore at the café. The thought of Tom standing bare-chested in his little studio apartment, conscientiously ironing his unflattering shirt, filled Jane with tenderness and lust.

  “Hey, can you taste mint in this?” said Tom to Jane.

  “That’s it!” said Jane. “So it’s just strawberry puree, champagne—”

  “—and I’m thinking vodka,” said Tom. He took another sip. “Maybe quite a lot of vodka.”

  “Do you think?” said Jane. Her eyes were on his lips. She’d always known Tom was good-looking, but she’d never analyzed why. It was possibly his lips. He had beautiful, almost feminine lips. This really was a very sad day for the gay community.

  “Aha!” said Madeline. “Aha!”

  “What’s that?” said Tom.

  “Gidday, Tom mate.” Ed strolled up next to Madeline and put his arm around her waist. He was in a black and gold Elvis outfit with cape-like sleeves and a huge collar. It was impossible to look at him without laughing.

  “How come Tom doesn’t have to dress up like a dickhead?” he said. He grinned at Jane. “Stop laughing, Jane. You look smashing, by the way. Have you done something different to your hair?”

  Madeline grinned idiotically at Jane and Tom, her head turning back and forth like she was at a tennis match.

  “Look, darling,” she said to Ed. “Tom and Jane.”

  “Yes,” said Ed. “I see them. I just spoke to them, in fact.”

  “It’s so obvious!” said Madeline, all shiny-eyed, one hand to her heart. “I can’t believe I never—”

  To Jane’s immense relief, she stopped, her eyes over their shoulders. “Look who’s here. The king and queen of the prom.”

  71.

  Perry didn’t speak as they drove the short distance to the school. They were still going. Celeste couldn’t quite believe they were still going, but then again, of course they were going. They never canceled. Sometimes she had to change what she’d planned to wear, sometimes she had to have an excuse ready, but the show must go on.

  Perry had already posted a Facebook photo of them in their costumes. It would make them look like good-humored, funny, fun people who didn’t take themselves too seriously and cared about their school and their local community. It perfectly complemented other more glamorous posts about overseas trips and expensive cultural events. A school trivia night was just the thing for their brand.

  She looked straight ahead at the briskly working windshield wipers. The windshield was just like the never-ending cycles of her mind. Confusion. Clear. Confusion. Clear. Confusion. Clear.

  She watched his hands on the steering wheel. Capable hands. Tender hands. Vicious hands. He was just a man in an Elvis costume driving her to a school event. He was a man who had just discovered that his wife was planning to leave him. A hurt man. A betrayed man. An angry man. But just a man.

  Confusion. Clear. Confusion. Clear.

  When Gwen had arrived to babysit the boys, Perry had turned on the charm as though something vital depended on it. She was cool with Perry at first but it turned out that Elvis was Gwen’s weak spot. She launched into a story about how she’d been one of the “golden girls” when Elvis’s gold Cadillac toured Australia, until Perry cut in smoothly, like a gentleman stealing a woman away at a dance.

  The rain eased as they drove into the school’s street. The street was jammed with cars, but there was a space waiting for Perry near the school entrance, as if he’d prebooked it. He always got a parking spot. Lights turned green for him. The dollar obediently went up or down for him. Perhaps that’s why he got so angry when things didn’t go right.

  He turned off the ignition.

  Neither of them moved or spoke. Celeste saw one of the kindergarten mothers hurrying past the car in a lo
ng dress that forced her to take little steps. She was carrying a child’s polka-dotted umbrella. Gabrielle, thought Celeste. The one who talked endlessly about her weight.

  Celeste turned to look at Perry.

  “Max has been bullying Amabella. Renata’s little girl.”

  Perry kept looking straight ahead. “How do you know?”

  “Josh told me,” said Celeste. “Just before we left. Ziggy has been taking the blame for it.”

  Ziggy. Your cousin’s child.

  “He’s the one the parents are petitioning to have suspended.” She closed her eyes briefly as she thought of Perry slamming her head against the wall. “It should be a petition to have Max suspended. Not Ziggy.”

  Perry turned to look at her. He looked like a stranger with his black wig. The blackness made his eyes appear brilliant blue.

  “We’ll talk to the teachers,” he said.

  “I’ll talk to his teacher,” said Celeste. “You won’t be here, remember?”

  “Right,” said Perry. “Well, I’ll talk to Max tomorrow, before I go to the airport.”

  “What will you say?” said Celeste.

  “I don’t know.”

  There was a huge heavy block of pain lodged beneath her chest. Was this a heart attack? Was this fury? Was this a broken heart? Was this the weight of her responsibility?

  “Will you tell him that’s not the way to treat a woman?” she said, and it was like jumping off a cliff. Never a word. Not like that. She’d broken an unbreakable rule. Was it because he looked like Elvis Presley and none of this was real, or was it because he knew about the apartment now and everything was more real than ever before?

  Perry’s face changed, cracked open. “The boys have never—”

  “They have,” cried Celeste. She’d pretended so very hard for so very long and there was nobody here except the two of them. “The night before the party last year, Max got out of bed, he was standing right there at the doorway—”

  “Yes OK,” said Perry.

  “And there was that time in the kitchen, when you, when I—”

  He put his hand out. “OK, OK.”

  She stopped.

  After a moment he said, “So you’ve leased an apartment?”

  “Yes,” said Celeste.

  “When are you leaving?”

  “Next week,” she said. “I think next week.”

  “With the boys?”

  This is when you should feel fear, she thought. This is not the way Susi said it should be done. Scenarios. Plans. Escape routes. She was not treading carefully, but she’d tried to tread carefully for years and she knew it never made the slightest difference anyway.

  “Of course with the boys.”

  He took a sharp intake of breath as if he’d experienced a sudden pain. He put his face in his hands and leaned forward so that his forehead was pressed to the top of the steering wheel, and his whole body shook as if with convulsions.

  Celeste stared, and for a moment she couldn’t work out what he was doing. Was he sick? Was he laughing? Her stomach tightened and she put her hand on the car door, but then he lifted his head and turned to her.

  His face was streaked with tears. His Elvis wig was askew. He looked unhinged.

  “I’ll get help,” he said. “I promise you I’ll get help.”

  “You won’t,” she said quietly. The rain was softening. She could see other Audreys and Elvises hurrying along the street, huddled under umbrellas, and hear their shouts and laughter.

  “I will.” His eyes brightened. “Last year I got a referral from Dr. Hunter to see a psychiatrist.” There was a note of triumph in his voice as he remembered this.

  “You told Dr. Hunter about . . . us?” Their family GP was a kindly, courtly grandfather.

  “I told him I thought I was suffering from anxiety,” said Perry.

  He saw the expression on her face.

  “Well, Dr. Hunter knows us!” he said defensively. “But I was going to see a psychiatrist. I was going to tell him. I just never got around to it, and then I just kept thinking I could fix it myself.”

  She couldn’t think less of him for this. She knew the way your mind could go round and round in endless pointless circles.

  “I think the referral is out of date now. But I’ll get another one. I just get so . . . When I get angry . . . I don’t know what happens to me. It’s like a madness. Like this unstoppable . . . and I never ever actually make the decision to . . . It just happens, and every time, I can’t believe it, and I think, I will never, ever, let that happen again, and then yesterday. Celeste, I feel sick about yesterday.”

  The car windows were fogging up. Celeste ran her palm over her side window, making a porthole to see out. Perry was speaking as if he genuinely believed this was the first time he’d said this sort of thing, as if it were brand-new information.

  “We can’t bring the boys up like this.”

  She looked out at the rainy, dark street, which was filled with shouting, laughing, blue-hatted children each school morning.

  She realized with a tiny shock that if it weren’t for Josh’s revelation tonight about Max’s behavior, she probably still wouldn’t have left. She would have convinced herself that she’d been overdramatic, that yesterday hadn’t been that bad, that any man would have been angry if they’d been humiliated the way she’d humiliated Perry in front of Madeline and Ed.

  The boys had always been her reason to stay, but now for the first time they were her reason to leave. She’d allowed violence to become a normal part of their life. Over the last five years Celeste herself had developed a kind of imperviousness and acceptance of violence that allowed her to hit back and sometimes even hit first. She scratched, she kicked, she slapped. As if it were normal. She hated it, but she did it. If she stayed, that was the legacy she was giving her boys.

  She turned away from the window and looked at Perry. “It’s over,” she said. “You must know it’s over.”

  He flinched. She saw him prepare to fight, to strategize, to win. He never lost.

  “I’ll cancel this next trip,” he said. “I’ll resign. I’ll do nothing for the next six months but work on us—not on us, on me. For the next—Jesus fucking Christ!”

  He jumped back, his eyes on something, past Celeste’s shoulder. She turned and gasped. There was a face pressed gargoyle-like against the window.

  Perry pressed a button and Celeste’s window slid down. It was Renata, smiling brightly as she leaned down into the car, a gauzy wrap about her shoulders clutched in one hand. Her husband stood next to her, sheltering her from the rain with a huge black umbrella.

  “Sorry! Didn’t mean to startle you! Do you need to share our umbrella? You two look fabulous!”

  72.

  It was like watching movie stars arrive, thought Madeline. There was something about the way Perry and Celeste held themselves, as if they were walking onto a stage; their posture was too good, their faces were camera-ready. They were wearing similar outfits to many of the guests, but it was like Perry and Celeste weren’t in costume; it was as though the real Elvis and Audrey had arrived. Every woman wearing a black Breakfast at Tiffany’s dress touched a hand to her inferior pearl necklace. Every man in a white Elvis suit sucked in his stomach. The levels of pink fizzy drinks went down, down, down.

  “Wow. Celeste looks so beautiful.”

  Madeline turned to see Bonnie standing next to her.

  Like Tom, Bonnie obviously didn’t do costumes. Her hair was in its normal single plait over one shoulder. No makeup. She looked like a homeless person on a special night out: long-sleeved top of some faded thin fabric falling off one shoulder (all her clothes fell off one shoulder in that irritating way; Madeline longed to grab her and straighten everything up), long shapeless skirt, old leather belt around her waist, lots of that weird skull-and-bones, crazy gypsy-lady jewelry, if you could call it jewelry.

  If Abigail were here, she would look at her mother and her stepmother, and it would be Bonn
ie whose outfit she would admire, it would be Bonnie she chose to emulate. And that was fine, because no teenager wanted to look like her mother, Madeline knew that, but why couldn’t Abigail admire some random, drug-addicted celebrity? Why did it have to be bloody Bonnie?

  “How are you, Bonnie?” she said.

  She watched Tom and Jane melt away into the crowd. Someone was asking Tom for a soy latte to much hilarity (poor Tom), but Tom didn’t seem bothered; his eyes kept returning to Jane, as Jane’s did to him. Watching their obvious mutual attraction had made Madeline feel as if she were witnessing some beautiful, extraordinary, but everyday event, like the hatching of a newborn chick. But now she was making conversation with her ex-husband’s wife, and although the alcohol was numbing her nicely, she could feel the subterranean rumbling of her PMS.

  “Who is looking after Skye?” she said to Bonnie. “I’m sorry!” She tapped her forehead. “We should have offered to have Skye over to our place! Abigail is looking after Chloe and Fred for us. She could have babysat all her siblings at once.”

  Bonnie smiled warily. “Skye is with my mother.”

  “Abigail could have given them all a tutorial on website design,” said Madeline at the same time.

  Bonnie’s smile disappeared. “Madeline, listen, about that—”

  “Oh, Skye is with your mother!” continued Madeline. “Lovely! Abigail has a ‘special connection’ with your mother, doesn’t she?”

  She was being a bitch. She was a terrible, awful person. She needed to find someone who would let her say all sorts of horrible, bitchy things and not judge her for it or pass them on. Where was Celeste? Celeste was great for that. She watched Bonnie drain her glass. A Blond Bob came by carrying a tray of more pink drinks. Madeline took two more drinks, for herself and Bonnie.

  “When are we starting the trivia competition?” she said to the Blond Bob. “We’re all getting too drunk to concentrate.”

  The Blond Bob looked predictably harried. “I know! We’re way off schedule. We’re meant to have finished the canapés by now, but the caterer is stuck in a huge traffic jam on Pirriwee Road.” She blew a lock of blond hair out of her eyes. “And Brett Larson is the MC and he’s stuck in the same traffic jam.”

  “Ed will be MC!” said Madeline blithely. “He’s a great MC.” She looked about for Ed and saw him approaching Renata’s husband, all handshakes and backslaps. Great choice, darling. Are you aware your wife ran into his wife’s car yesterday afternoon, resulting in a public screaming match? Ed probably thought he was talking to Gareth the golfer, not Geoff the bird-watcher, and was currently asking Geoff if he’d been on the course much lately.

  “Thanks anyway, but Brett has all the trivia questions. He’s been working on them for months. He’s got this whole multimedia presentation planned,” said the Blond Bob. “Just bear with us!” She moved off with her tray of drinks.

  “These cocktails are going straight to my head,” said Bonnie.

  Madeline was only half listening. She was watching Renata nod coolly at Ed and turn quickly to talk to someone else. She remembered suddenly the hot gossip she’d heard yesterday about Renata’s husband being in love with the French nanny. That news had gone straight out of her head when she’d found out about Abigail’s website. Now she felt bad for yelling back when Renata yelled at her for running into her car.

  Bonnie swayed a little. “I don’t drink much these days, so I guess I have a very low tolerance—”

  “Excuse me, Bonnie,” said Madeline. “I need to go collect my husband. He seems to be in a very animated conversation with an adulterer. I don’t want him picking up any ideas.”

  Bonnie swung her head to see who was talking to Ed.

  “Don’t worry,” said Madeline. “Your husband isn’t the adulterer! Nathan is always monogamous right up until he deserts you with a newborn baby. Oh, but wait, he didn’t desert you with a newborn baby. That was just me!”

  Bugger niceness. It was overrated. The Madeline of tomorrow was going to regret every word she said tonight, but the Madeline of right now was exhilarated by the removal of all those pesky inhibitions. How wonderful to let the words just come slip-sliding out of her mouth.