The Game You Played (16 page)

Nissa, a dark-skinned lady who’d recently emigrated from India, had shaken her head at Marta and Gina. “My husband would never do any of that. But he wants to
do
me
every day. I’ve lost all interest in sexy times since the baby. It is a desert wasteland in my privates now. His mother tells me I must give him sex or he’ll leave me.”

Marta had batted her chubby hand in the air. “Tell him and his mother to give you some time to get back on the horse. In the meantime, he can get himself a hobby.”

Nissa had clapped a hand over her mouth and giggled like a little girl.

“I had an affair once.” Those words had randomly come from the most unlikely source. The quietest one of us—Adele—a woman with a tiny waist and the most
childbearingest
hips I’d ever seen. “Your husband is nothing like mine, Nissa. He only wants sex a couple of times a month. He tells me that’s normal. Maybe it is, but it’s not what I want. He has an easy job—working for his father and he gets lots of time off. But he just wants to play console games or potter around when he’s at home. I have to wait for him to get in the mood. If I ask for sex, he gets all defensive. I mean, men have a serious design flaw—why can’t their penises just be hard all the time? Then we could have sex with them when we choose, the way they do with us. Anyway, I couldn’t cope anymore. I signed up to a dating site. I didn’t really mean for anything to happen. It was just meant to be a release valve. But something did happen. I met someone, and we did it.”

“Just the once?” I had to know.

“No. It went on for seven months,” Adele told me. “The guy kept trying to move things forward. He’d invite me out on the weekends, but I’d always make excuses. I finally admitted to him that I was married. It was awful. I felt like a bad, bad person.”

Marta had dabbed at her baby daughter’s dribble with a tissue. “See, that wouldn’t happen in the swingers’ community. Everyone knows the score. You go in with your eyes—and legs—open.”

I’d thought about Luke and me then. I knew I didn’t want to share him, even though the passion between us had already fizzled out like stale soda. Maybe I was territorial. I wasn’t about to parcel out my land. I didn’t want to bring someone else into the bedroom or join a swingers’ club or have an affair. But my little sub-group within the mothers’ group gave me the bravery to imagine walking away from this life if I had to. I could drop the program and get off the married-life grid.

My mother would have been horrified.

The conversation had swapped then to Marta’s husband’s haemorrhoids that he swore he’d developed in sympathy for his wife’s pregnancy.

Mothers’ group had become the unexpected bright spot in my week. For six months, it became my refuge.

But the day that Luke came home with the news that he’d just bought a house for us was the day that it all changed.

He didn’t tell me where the house was—just told me that we were picking up my grandmother on the way to go and see it. I didn’t suspect anything when we kept driving up Southern Sails Street after getting Nan. I had no idea that the house was going to be on the same street, just up on the hill.

The last thing I’d wanted was to come back here to this street. But I didn’t know how to begin to have that conversation with Luke. He was so proud he was beaming. The townhouse was new, it was beautiful, and it was in an incredible position. How could I say anything negative? We could barely afford it, but Luke said that if we didn’t buy into the market now, we’d miss out.

My mothers’ group was now on the other side of the city. I could have continued to go there. But I let it slide. It was true that Tommy’s sleep times made it hard to undertake a two-hour round trip to the mothers’ group. It was true that Tommy fussed on long car trips. In truth, though, I was mostly just lazy.

So, I settled into my new house with its new furniture and new appliances. Luke liked things brand new. I think one of the things that Luke especially liked about Tommy was that he was new—our own freshly created being.

When Tommy was a year old, Luke’s mother began minding him often enough that I could start looking for acting roles again. And plus, we now lived on the same street, so it was convenient. Nan wasn’t able to look after a baby and her house was anything but babyproof.

But the dream of gaining substantial movie roles was just about over. Due to Tommy, I couldn’t turn up for casting calls on the spur of the moment anymore. I wasn’t free to just walk out the door. I appeared in a couple of commercials and scored a bit part in a
made-for-TV
movie. I must have looked tired around the edges because my
sexy young girl
roles in commercials soon became
sexless-young-mother
roles.

I grew tired of the commercials and of the movie casting calls that either didn’t want me or required me to be on set in another location for weeks for a small part that didn’t pay well. I could no longer do that. Neither Luke nor his mother treated my acting seriously. It was a hobby, something that should never get in the way of Luke’s business.

Just like mothers’ group, I let my acting career slide. It seemed silly, vain even, to keep trying. People had this notion about aspiring actors, that they were chasing a foolish dream and not a real career. It was a dream held together by stardust and face powder and boob glue.

By the time Tommy was eighteen months old, I’d walked away from acting.

I concentrated on Tommy from that point on. My world drew in tight and small. I spent Luke’s money buying Tommy everything a little boy could possibly wish for. Actually, that wasn’t true. Tommy wished for very little. Blocks and cardboard boxes and dirt were his favourites. And boats. He’d scream in excitement when he saw the ferries and yachts cutting across the harbour.

Being with Tommy was like being in another world. Everything slowed down to a snail’s pace. A world where ladybugs and butterflies and slugs were exciting and paper boats sailed off for adventures in puddles. For a while, I was content living in Tommy’s world.

But then the boredom and resentment would crawl over me like a smothering blanket. Sometimes, I hated Tommy. I wanted him to disappear.

Every day was the same thing. Every day the struggle to get him to eat healthy things instead of him screaming for ice-cream and biscuits (or cookies on the days he’d watched the Cookie Monster). Every day the endless
what’s that, Mumma?
(Even though he knew perfectly well what the thing was that he was pointing to.) Every day the sticky fingers and the poo and the dressing and undressing and the miniature missing socks and the eating of dirt.

On more days than not, I found myself drinking the bottles of alcohol that Luke’s clients had given him for getting a good price for their house.

No bottles of
hiphiphurray
for me. No one gave me prizes or rewards for my job, which was the job of looking after house and home and the kid. All I had were Tommy’s sippy cups dribbling juice onto the carpet.

Sometimes I woke up on the sofa after I’d had a couple of drinks, not knowing where Tommy was. And I’d have to go look for him. Sometimes, he’d make a game of it and hide from me, and I’d get angry and start yelling his name.

Luke, on the other hand, went from strength to strength, winning industry awards and gaining bigger and bigger clients. The commissions got more impressive. The overseas trips got flashier—not that we ever went away for long.

Along with that, Luke started pointing out things that weren’t getting done around the house. Subtly at first. Then not so subtly. He was used to seeing perfect homes that were styled for sale, and he didn’t understand baskets of washing sitting on our bedroom floor or tangles of paper boats and blocks and playdough in the family room.

In Luke’s view, my role was to clean the house he provided, make meals with the food that he paid for, and care for the child he’d given me (via his sperm).

I didn’t remember any contract with my name on it where I’d agreed to scrub the toilet in return for a roof over my head. I didn’t need Luke’s roof before I had Tommy. I had my own roof, paid for with my own money. As far as I was concerned, Tommy was my day job. Luke could scrub his own damned toilet when he got home from
his
day job.

Somewhere along that road, even sex started to be on Luke’s terms. He wanted it when and how he wanted it. Somehow, I’d joined the service industry. My job was servicing Luke. Servicing his house, servicing his kid, servicing his stomach, servicing his dick. Because he was paying for it all. He supplied the money, I supplied the service.

His semen became a poison thing. Poisoning my body. A potion given by an evil tyrant. Day by day making me a prisoner of the house. Because his semen had given me Tommy and made all of this happen. And he was starting to make noises about a second child. A brother or a sister for Tommy.

Resentment made of bile lined my gut. I started making excuses whenever Luke touched me:
Tommy had worn me out. It was a bad time of the month. The sciatica I’d had ever since Tommy’s pregnancy was playing up.
Sometimes it was true. Mostly it wasn’t.

He made comments about the wives and girlfriends of his colleagues. “Lucy Harrington really bounced back after that second baby. Rob and I couldn’t believe it when we saw her in those jeans last night.”

Luke flirted in front of me. Even with Sass. I didn’t blame Sass. Flirting was like breathing to her. It was Luke I blamed.

I was still flabby a whole year after having Tommy. Luke never mentioned it outright. It would have been better if he had. Each subtle dig dug me deeper into the hole. It was only after Tommy went missing that I dropped the baby weight—within weeks.

Silently, I made plans for tomorrow.

Sunday morning

NAN STIRRED HER TEA AROUND AND around, clinking the spoon against the inside of the cup until my bones felt raw and exposed.

Clink, clink
of the spoon on my spine.

Clink, clink
on my shoulder bones.

Clink, clink
on my skull.

I didn’t know anyone who stirred their tea as vigorously as Nan did. The tiny square of Nan’s kitchen seemed to close in around me, the century-old cupboards giving off a faint mouldy musk.

“Women stayed and fought for their man in my day,” she informed me, the hollow of her cheeks severe in the dim light.

“There’s nothing to fight for, Nan. He’s seeing someone else.”

She didn’t blink or miss a beat. “Then give him a reason to stay married to you.”

“The reason we had for staying together was Tommy . . .” My voice fell away like crumbling earth. I hadn’t admitted that to myself until now.

For a moment, there was something bright and soft in her eyes. But it didn’t stay. I knew it was for Tommy. She loved him in her own way. I wondered if she ever wished she’d been nicer to him on the day he vanished. Probably not. If Tommy wandered back in through the door right now, within five minutes she’d be scolding him for touching the ornaments.

Luke had threatened me with all kinds of things earlier this morning. Saying he’d call Dr Moran and have me committed to a mental health facility. Freeze our bank accounts. He’d even threatened to call a reporter and tell them it was me who sent the letters. Then he’d broken down and said he didn’t mean any of it. Finally, he’d agreed to me having a short break, and he’d insisted on driving me up the street to Nan’s house.

“How long do you intend staying here for?” Nan sipped her tea noisily, her gaze skewering me.

We’d reached the business end of things now.

“Not long,” I told her. “I just need to get myself together. Then I’ll organise somewhere else to go. I need a bit of time. I’ve had . . . issues with my medication, as you know. But all I need is just some rest.”

Her mouth pursed in the way it always did when someone was doing something she didn’t approve of. “Just remember that you made your bed with your husband and you can’t just flit away.” Then she did her signature huffy sigh. “Look, you’re likely to be feeling a bit upside-down at the moment, due to those silly letters. Stay here for a few days if you need to, but then you’ve got to go back to him.”

I took the cup of tea that Nan offered me—she never had coffee here. “What if he doesn’t want me back?”

“That boy was always obsessed with you, Phoebe. It was obvious.”

“Well, not anymore.”

Another sigh. Extra huff. “Well, I’ve said my piece. What about this sleepwalking trouble of yours? How are we going to manage that? I need to know that the whole incident with the toolshed isn’t going to happen again.”

“It won’t. I promise. My psychiatrist changed my medication.”

“That’s a relief to hear. I wouldn’t know what to do with you. You were quite frightening.”

“I was? I’m sorry.”

Her sparse eyebrows pulled together. “The police took some odd things from the house yesterday. Some notepads. My old typewriter and ink. I didn’t know what they were after. Thought it had something to do with that strange fellow that’s been hanging about.”

“Yes, the police are . . . being very thorough.” I winced, wondering if she’d end up figuring out that I’d written the letters.

“They asked me not to mention it to anyone. All very odd.”

“Yeah. Odd. Nan, who’s the
strange fellow
that you said has been hanging about?”

“A couple of the neighbours said there’s a man who walks up and down the streets quite a lot at night. Could be homeless, though they usually don’t come all the way up here.”

“Okay. Think I’ll head upstairs for a nap.” Taking my cup of tea with me, I stepped out to the hallway and made my way up the narrow stairs to my old bedroom. It’d been my room from the time I was born right up until my first year of university. My childhood books still occupied their spot on a shelf:
Charlotte’s Web
,
Anne of Green Gables
,
Lemony Snicket
, and a host of other dog-eared volumes. A poster of an anonymous ballerina still hung on the wall—the same ballerina silhouette you saw on the internet, turning around and around and you couldn’t tell if she was turning left or right. The room carried the dust of many times the number of decades I’d lived in it, the dust lying thick in the cracks in the floorboards. This had been my mother’s room when she was a baby. Her childhood doll sat on my shelf alongside the books, dull eyes staring out from a brittle plastic face.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I slipped it out. It was Sass. I knew exactly what her reaction was going to be to the news that I’d separated from Luke: tightly controlled excitement. She hadn’t been as impressed with
married-Phoebe
as much as she had been with
fancy-free-Phoebe
.

“Hey, babe,” came Saskia’s voice brightly through the phone, “how are you doing today?”

“I left Luke this morning.” Might as well get it out of the way.

“You
what
?”

“He’s been seeing some other woman.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Before she exploded. “What!
No.
How could he? God, Phoebe, I’m sorry.” She paused, and I could almost hear the thoughts running wild through her head. “Where are you? Look, if you want to bunk in with me—”

“I’m at Nan’s.”

“You’ll die there. Get your stuff together. You’re coming to my place.”

“I appreciate it. You know I do. But I’m fine.”

“Sorry, babe, but I’m not leaving you alone to deal with this. You didn’t deserve this on top of everything else. It’s fucking cruel of him.”

“I know. But to be honest, I don’t even know if I care. I mean, I thought we were still a couple and everything—up until I knew about the other woman that is—but we weren’t. We were Tommy’s parents and that’s all.” I didn’t need to say the rest. Without Tommy, we were nothing. If Tommy hadn’t vanished and if life had gone on as normal, would either of us have guessed that our marriage wasn’t real?

“I’m coming down to see you after work. You’ll be there at Nan’s?” All my friends called my grandmother Nan.

I hesitated. I wasn’t ready to see anyone. I didn’t deserve anyone’s sympathy. The video of me placing the envelope in the mailbox kept looping in my head.

“I’m sorry, Sass. I’m just really, really tired.”

“You poor thing. You looked so tired yesterday. We put a blanket on you and tiptoed out.”

“I’m sorry for falling asleep on all of you.”

“Don’t be sorry. Don’t you dare. I have to go away for work tonight, but I’m coming to see you the minute I’m back. Get some good rest, okay? I’ll call you later.”

The line went dead. Sass was always the one to end the conversation and hang up. It was like an unspoken rule between us.

The phone rang again almost as soon as I’d dropped the phone back in my pocket.

I expected Sass again. She often forgot to tell me something and she’d call back five times in a row to rush out a couple of sentences and then hang up again just as quickly.

But it was Detective Gilroy.

“Phoebe, Luke told me you’d left to go stay at your grandmother’s.”

“That’s right. I have. Hey, it’s Sunday. Don’t you ever have a day off?”

“I am off work today. But I’m a little worried about you, so I thought I’d call. Is her house secure?”

“Yes. She’s had deadlocks for years. And she’s home during the day. Unlike Luke.”

He seemed to hesitate. “Luke said you two had a series of arguments last night?”

“Yes, we did. I just found out Luke’s been seeing someone else.”

“Seriously?” I heard exasperation in his voice. “That makes things difficult. Well, I’m very sorry to hear it. I think I need to call Luke back and have a chat.”

“Don’t you believe me?”

“Of course. It’s just that this throws in an unexpected twist. As I said, I’m worried. I’d like to think that you’re going to be somewhere where someone can look out for you. You’ll be putting yourself in danger if you head outside sleepwalking again.”

“Obviously, the person to look out for me can’t be Luke. He’s got other priorities.”

“Do you have some other family that you could stay with? Somewhere away from here might be good. A change of scene.”

“A few aunties and uncles and cousins, but I don’t want to go and stay with any of them. I want to stay on my street.”

“Okay, it’s your decision. Luke told me you saw Dr Moran yesterday. That’s good.”

“She put me on new medication. I’m feeling better.”

“Well, keep getting better. I’ll stay in contact. We’ll get back to concentrating on Tommy’s case. You need to focus on yourself.”

“I will.”

The call ended.

I heard heavy scraping sounds coming from outside in the courtyard, setting my teeth on edge. I didn’t have a view of the backyard from here. My bedroom window looked out onto the street.

Gulping down the tea, I headed back downstairs. Nan wasn’t in her armchair as usual.

I stepped out through the back door. My tiny grandmother was struggling to shift a large pot of ivy against the shed. I’d tidied and swept up all the broken pots and dirt earlier this morning.

“It won’t get any sun there, Nan,” I pointed out.

“It’s ivy. It’ll do just fine.” She turned to me, a smear of dirt embedded in her lined cheek.

“You should wait and ask me for help if you want to move things that heavy.”

“I’m perfectly capable. I’ve been living here alone a long time.” Her voice held a note of sad astonishment, as though she herself couldn’t believe how long she’d lasted by herself in this house.

I frowned, noticing that she’d roughly hammered a large piece of wire mesh onto the shed door. Stooping, she began winding the ivy tendrils from the pot into the mesh.

Fine threads of panic pulled tight in my veins. It had just been a dream that Tommy had wanted desperately to get inside the shed, but the dream had stayed with me. “Nan, you won’t be able to access the shed ever again once that takes hold.”

“I’ve told you there’s nothing in there that’s of any use. I might as well use the shed to grow my vines on, the ugly old eyesore that it is.” She continued to insert the ivy into the mesh.

I wanted to stop her. But I had no reason to. It was probably just an old memory of Tommy playing in Nan’s yard that had surfaced in my sleepwalking dream. I couldn’t insist that she stop what she was doing. It was her shed and her ivy.

High above the yard, the morning sun made the top-storey windows of Mrs Wick’s townhouse opaque. But not so opaque that I didn’t catch the blurred sight of Bernie Wick’s large frame as she stared down at us from her bedroom window, her mother’s cat in her arms. She moved away as soon as she saw me looking at her.