Big Little Lies (17 page)

I
t’s nothing! I was happy for an excuse to get out of the house,” said Madeline over the top of Jane’s teary gratitude. “Now, quick sticks, let’s get you dressed, Ziggy, and we’ll knock this project over.”

Other people’s problems always seemed so surmountable, and other people’s children so much more biddable, thought Madeline as Ziggy trotted off. While Jane collected the family photos, Madeline looked around Jane’s small, neat apartment, reminded of the one-bedroom apartment she and Abigail used to share.

She was romanticizing those days, she knew it. She wasn’t remembering the constant money worries or the loneliness of those nights when Abigail was asleep and there was nothing good on TV.

Abigail had been living with Nathan and Bonnie now for two weeks, and it seemed it was all going perfectly well for everyone except Madeline. Tonight, when Jane’s text had come through, the little children were asleep, Ed was working on a story and Madeline had just sat down to watch
America’s Next Top Model
. “Abigail!” she’d called out as she switched it on, before she remembered the empty
bedroom, the four-poster bed replaced by a sofa bed for Abigail to use when she came for weekends, and Madeline didn’t know how to be with her daughter anymore, because she felt like she’d been fired from her position as mother.

She and Abigail normally watched
America’s Next Top Model
together, eating marshmallows and making catty remarks about the contestants, but now Abigail was happily living in a TV-free house. Bonnie didn’t “believe” in television. Instead, they all sat around and
listened to classical music and talked
after dinner.

“Rubbish,” scoffed Ed when he heard this.

“Apparently it’s true,” Madeline said. Of course, now when Abigail came to “visit,” all she wanted to do was lie on the couch and gorge on television, and because Madeline was now the treat-giving parent, she let her. (If she’d spent a week just listening to classical music and talking, she’d want to watch TV too.)

Bonnie’s whole life was a slap across Madeline’s face. (A gentle slap, more of a condescending, kindly pat, because Bonnie would never do anything violent.) That’s why it was so nice to be able to help Jane out, to be the calm one, with answers and solutions.

“I can’t find glue to paste on the photos,” said Jane worriedly as they laid everything out on the table.

“Got it.” Madeline pulled a pencil case out of her handbag and selected a black marker for Ziggy. “Let’s see you draw a great big tree, Ziggy.”

It was all going well until Ziggy said, “We have to put my father’s name on it. Miss Barnes said it doesn’t matter if we don’t have a photo, we just put the person’s name.”

“Well, you know that you don’t have a dad, Ziggy,” said Jane calmly. She’d told Madeline that she’d always tried to be as honest as possible with Ziggy about his father. “But you’re lucky, because you’ve got Uncle Dane, and Grandpa, and Great-uncle Jimmy.” She held up
photos of smiling men like a winning hand of cards. “
And
we’ve even got this amazing photo of your great-great-grandfather, who was a soldier!”

“Yes, but I still have to write my dad’s name down in that box,” said Ziggy. “You draw a line from me to my mummy and my daddy. That’s the way you do it.”

He pointed at the example of a family tree that Miss Barnes had included, demonstrating a perfect unbroken nuclear family, with mum, dad and two siblings.

Miss Barnes really needs to rethink this project,
thought Madeline. She’d had enough trouble herself when she was helping Chloe with hers. There had been the tricky matter of whether a line should be drawn from Abigail’s picture to Ed. “You’ll have to put in a photo of Abigail’s
real
dad,” Fred had said helpfully, looking over their shoulders. “And his car?”

“No we don’t,” Madeline had said.

“It doesn’t have to be exactly like the one Miss Barnes gave you,” Madeline said to Ziggy. “Everyone’s project will be different. That’s just an example.”

“Yes, but you have to write down your mother’s
and
your father’s name,” said Ziggy. “What’s my dad’s name? Just say it, Mummy. Just spell it. I don’t know how to spell it. I’ll get in trouble if I don’t write down his name.”

Children did this. They sensed when there was something controversial or sensitive and they pushed and pushed like tiny prosecutors.

Poor Jane had gone very still.

“Sweetheart,” she said carefully, her eyes on Ziggy, “I’ve told you this story so many times. Your dad would have loved you if he’d known you, but I’m so sorry, I don’t know his name, and I know that’s not fair—”

“But you have to write a
name
there! Miss Barnes said!” There was a familiar note of hysteria in his voice. Overtired five-year-olds needed to be handled like explosive devices.

“I don’t
know
his name!” said Jane, and Madeline recognized the gritted-teeth note in her voice too, because there was something in your children that could bring out the child in yourself. Nothing and nobody could aggravate you the way your child could aggravate you.

“Oh, Ziggy, darling, see, this happens
all
the time,” said Madeline. For God’s sake. It probably did. There were plenty of single mothers in the area. Madeline was going to have a word with Miss Barnes tomorrow to ensure that she stopped assigning this ridiculous project. Why try to slot fractured families into neat little boxes in this day and age?

“This is what you do. You write ‘Ziggy’s dad.’ You know how to write ‘Ziggy,’ don’t you? Of course you do, that’s it.”

To her relief, Ziggy obeyed, writing his name with his tongue out the side of his mouth to help him concentrate. “What neat writing!” encouraged Madeline feverishly. She didn’t want to give him time to think. “You are a much neater writer than my Chloe. And that’s it! You’re done! Your mum and I will stick down the rest of the photos while you’re asleep. Now. Story time! Right? And I’m wondering, could
I
read you a story? Would that be OK? I’d love to see your favorite book.”

Ziggy nodded dumbly, seemingly overwhelmed by her torrent of chatter. He stood up, his little shoulders drooping.

“Good night, Ziggy,” said Jane.

“Good night, Mummy,” said Ziggy. They kissed each other good night like warring spouses, their eyes not meeting, and then Ziggy took Madeline’s hand and allowed her to lead him off to his bedroom.

In less than ten minutes she was back out in the living room. Jane looked up. She was carefully pasting the last photo onto the family tree.

“Out like a light,” said Madeline. “He actually fell asleep while I was reading, like a child in a movie. I didn’t know children really did that.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Jane. “You shouldn’t have to come over here and put another
child to bed, but I am so grateful to you, because I didn’t want to get into a conversation with him just before bed about that, and—”

“Shhhh.” Madeline sat down next to her and put her hand on her arm. “It was nothing. I know what it’s like. Kindergarten is stressful. They get so tired.”

“He’s never been like that before,” said Jane. “About his father. I mean, I always knew it might be an issue one day, but I thought it wouldn’t be until he was thirteen or something. I thought I’d have time to work out exactly what to say. Mum and Dad always said stick to the truth, but you know, the truth isn’t always . . . it’s not always . . . well, it’s not always that—”

“Palatable,” offered Madeline.

“Yes,” said Jane. She adjusted the corner of the photo she’d just glued down and surveyed the piece of cardboard. “He’ll be the only one in the class without a picture in the box for his father.”

“That’s not the end of the world,” said Madeline. She touched the photo of Jane’s dad with Ziggy on his lap. “Plenty of lovely men in his life.” She looked at Jane. “It’s annoying that we don’t have anyone with two mummies in the class. Or two daddies. When Abigail was at primary school in the Inner West, we had all sorts of families. We’re a bit too white-bread here on the peninsula. We like to think we’re terribly diverse, but it’s only our bank accounts that vary.”

“I do know his name,” said Jane quietly.

“You mean Ziggy’s father?” Madeline lowered her voice too.

“Yes,” said Jane. “His name was Saxon Banks.” Her mouth went a bit wonky when she said the words, as if she were trying to make unfamiliar sounds from a foreign language. “Sounds like a
respectable name, doesn’t it? A fine, upstanding citizen. Quite sexy too! Sexy Saxon.” She shuddered.

“Did you ever try to get in touch with him?” asked Madeline. “To tell him about Ziggy?”

“I did not,” said Jane. It was an oddly formal turn of phrase.

“And why did you not?” Madeline imitated her tone.

“Because Saxon Banks was not a very nice fellow,” said Jane. She put on a silly, posh voice and held her chin high, but her eyes were bright. “He was not a nice chap at all.”

Madeline returned to her normal voice. “Oh, Jane, what did that bastard do to you?”

J
ane couldn’t believe she’d said his name out loud to Madeline. Saxon Banks. As if Saxon Banks were just another person.

“Do you want to tell me?” said Madeline. “You don’t have to tell me.”

She was obviously curious, but not in that avid way that Jane’s friends had been the next day (“Spill, Jane, spill! Give us the dirt!”), and she was sympathetic, but her sympathy wasn’t weighed down by maternal love, like it would be if it were Jane’s mother hearing the story.

“It’s not that big a deal, really,” said Jane.

Madeline sat back in her chair. She took off the two hand-painted wooden bangles she was wearing on her wrist and placed them carefully on top of each other on the table in front of her. She pushed the family tree project to one side.

“OK,” she said. She knew it was a big deal.

Jane cleared her throat. She took a piece of gum out of the packet on the table.

“We went to a bar,” she said.

•   •   •

Z
ach had broken up with her three weeks earlier.

It had been a great shock. Like a bucket of icy water thrown in the face. She thought they were on the path toward engagement rings and a mortgage.

Her heart was broken. It was definitely broken. But she knew it would heal. She was even relishing it a little, the way you could sometimes relish a head cold. She wallowed deliciously in her misery, crying for hours over photos of her and Zach, but then drying her tears and buying herself a new dress because she deserved it because her heart was broken. Everybody was so gratifyingly shocked and sympathetic.
You were such a great couple! He’s crazy! He’ll
regret it!

There was the feeling that it was a rite of passage. Part of her was already looking back on this time from afar.
The first time my heart was broken.
And part of her was kind of curious about what was going to happen next. Her life had been going one way, and now, just like that—wham!—it was heading off in another direction. Interesting! Maybe after she finished her degree she’d travel for a year, like Zach. Maybe she’d date an entirely different sort of guy. A grungy musician. A computer geek. A smorgasbord of boys awaited her.

“You need
vodka
!” her friend Gail had said. “You need
dancing
.”

They went to a bar at a hotel in the city. Harbor views. It was a warm spring night. She had hay fever. Her eyes were itchy. Her throat was scratchy. Spring always brought hay fever, but also that sense of possibility, the possibility of an amazing summer.

There were some older men, maybe in their early thirties, at the table next to them. Executive types. They bought them drinks. Big, expensive, creamy cocktails. They chugged them back like milk shakes.

The men were from interstate, staying at the hotel. One of them took a shine to Jane.

“Saxon Banks,” he said, taking her hand in his much larger one.

“You’re Mr. Banks,” Jane said to him. “The dad in
Mary Poppins
.”

“I’m more like the chimney sweep,” said Saxon. He held her eyes and sang softly,
“A sweep is as lucky, as lucky can be.”

It’s not very hard for an older man with a black AmEx and a chiseled chin to make a tipsy nineteen-year-old swoon. Bit of eye contact. Sing softly. Hold a tune. There you go. Done deal.

“Go for it,” Gale said in her ear. “Why not?”

She couldn’t come up with a reason why not.

No wedding ring. There was probably a girlfriend back home, but it wasn’t up to Jane to do a background check (was it?) and she wasn’t about to begin a relationship with him. It was a one-night stand. She’d never had one before. She’d always hovered on the side of prudish. Now was the time to be young and free and a bit crazy. It was like being on holidays and deciding to give bungee jumping a go. And this would be such a
classy
one-night stand, in a five-star hotel, with a five-star man. There would be no regrets. Zach could go off on his tacky Contiki tour and grope the girls on the back of the bus.

Saxon was funny and sexy. They laughed and laughed as the glass bubble elevator slid up through the center of the hotel. Then the sudden muffled carpeted silence of the corridor. His room key sliding in and the instant, tiny green light of approval.

She wasn’t too drunk. Just nicely drunk. Exhilarated. Why not? she kept telling herself. Why not try bungee jumping? Why not leap off the edge into nothing? Why not be a bit naughty? It was fun. It was funny. It was
living life
, the way Zach wanted to
live life
by going on a bus tour around Europe and climbing the Eiffel Tower.

He poured her a glass of champagne, and they drank together, looking at the view, and then he removed the champagne glass from her hand and placed it on the bedside table, and she felt like she was in a movie scene she’d seen a hundred times before, even while part of her laughed at his pretentious masterfulness.

He put his hand on the back of her head and pulled her to him, like someone executing a perfect dance move. He kissed her, one hand pressed firmly on her lower back. His aftershave smelled like money.

She was there to have sex with him. She did not change her mind. She did not say no. It was certainly not rape. She
helped
him take her clothes off. She giggled like an idiot. She lay in bed with him. There was just one point when their naked bodies were pressed together and she saw the strangeness of his hairy, unfamiliar chest and she felt a sudden desperate longing for the lovely familiarity of Zach’s body and smell, but it was OK, she was perfectly prepared to see it through.

“Condom?” she murmured at the appropriate point, in the appropriate low throaty voice, and she thought he’d take care of that in the same smooth, discreet way he’d done everything else, with a better brand of condom than she’d ever used before, but that’s when he’d put his hands around her neck and said, “Ever tried this?”

She could feel the hard clamp of his hands.

“It’s fun. You’ll like it. It’s a rush. Like cocaine.”

“No,” she said. She grabbed at his hands to try to stop him. She could never bear the thought of not being able to breathe. She didn’t even like swimming underwater.

He squeezed. His eyes were on hers. He grinned, as if he were tickling, not choking her.

He let go.

“I don’t like that!” she gasped.

“Sorry,” he said. “It can be an acquired taste. You just need to relax, Jane. Don’t be so uptight. Come on.”

“No. Please.”

But he did it again. She could hear herself making disgusting, shameful gagging sounds. She thought she would vomit. Her body was covered in cold sweat.

“Still no?” He lifted his hands.

His eyes turned hard. Except maybe they’d been hard all along.

“Please don’t. Please don’t do that again.”

“You’re a boring little bitch, aren’t you? Just want to be fucked. That’s what you came here for, hey?”

He positioned her underneath him and shoved himself inside her as if he were operating some sort of basic machinery, and as he moved, he put his mouth close to her ear and he said things: an endless stream of casual cruelty that slid straight into her head and curled up, wormlike, in her brain.

“You’re just a fat ugly little girl, aren’t you? With your cheap jewelry and your trashy dress. Your breath is disgusting, by the way. Need to learn some dental hygiene. Jesus. Never had an original thought in your life, have you? Want a tip? You’ve got to respect yourself a bit more. Lose that weight. Join a gym, for fuck’s sake. Stop the junk food. You’ll never be beautiful, but at least you won’t be fat.”

She did not resist in any way. She stared at the downlight in the ceiling, blinking at her like a hateful eye, observing everything, seeing it all, agreeing with everything that he said. When he rolled off her, she didn’t move. It was as though her body didn’t belong to her anymore, as though she’d been anesthetized.

“Shall we watch TV?” he said, and he picked up the remote control and the television at the end of the bed came to life. It was one of the
Die Hard
movies. He flicked through channels while she put back on the dress that she’d loved. (She’d never spent that much money on a dress before.) She moved slowly and stiffly. It wouldn’t be until days later that she would find bruises on her arms, her legs, her stomach and her neck. As she dressed, she didn’t try to hide her body from him, because he was like a doctor who had operated on her and removed something appalling. Why try to hide her body when he already knew just how abhorrent it was?

“You off, then?” he said when she was dressed.

“Yes. Bye,” she said. She sounded like a thick-witted twelve-year-old.

She could never understand why she felt the need to say “bye.” Sometimes she thought she hated herself mostly for that. For her dopey, bovine “bye.” Why? Why did she say that? It was a wonder she didn’t say “thanks.”

“See you!” It was like he was trying not to laugh. He found her laughable. Disgusting and laughable. She was disgusting and laughable.

She went back downstairs in the glass bubble elevator.

“Would you like a taxi?” said the concierge, and she knew he could barely contain his disgust: disheveled, fat, drunk, slutty girl on her way home.

After that, nothing ever seemed quite the same.