I Give My Marriage a Year

by Holly Wainwright

  Parks and playgrounds, previously only for pounding around in her trainers, tucking kilometres under her belt as she calmed her mind, were now essential escapes from her ever-shrinking home. She was there even in the cold, even in the heat, early, desperate to get out of the house. She hadn’t pulled on her running shoes for eighteen months.

  Conversations revolved around poo and food and sleep. Even more alarmingly, these were now topics that Lou had opinions on. She actually spent time thinking about them. Quite a lot of time.

  But maybe the change that surprised her the most was the one between her and Josh. Because it felt as if from the moment they walked in the door with newborn Stella, their roles began to shift.

  Lou had never aspired to be a homemaker. In fact, she’d spent a large chunk of her life dismissing her own mother’s preoccupation with domestic matters; Annabelle’s very identity was tied up in having a nice Australian home and well-turned-out children. In all the time they’d been together, Josh and Lou had both been busy working – Lou more so, to be honest. Ever since she’d moved into Josh’s place in Redfern, they’d shared the household jobs. If she cooked dinner, he would wash up, and vice versa. They both cleaned, they both paid bills. It had never occurred to her that this might change, and when friends complained that their partners weren’t pulling their weight, she would tell them that the bonus of living with a man who’d been looking after himself for years was that he wasn’t looking for a second mum, someone to do his washing. Josh had always done his own washing.

  At least, he used to do his own washing.

  It would be churlish, since this year she’d mostly been home all day with the baby, not to do Josh’s washing along with hers and the never-ending mountain of Stella’s tiny clothes. And it would seem petty not to fold it up and put it away.

  But slowly, over the course of the year, she’d noticed that Josh no longer went near the washing machine at all, and sometimes he’d say things like, ‘Do you know if my black jeans are clean?’ And she’d say things like, ‘Oh, I haven’t done darks. I’ll get them done this afternoon.’ And he would nod, rather than say thank you.

  It was the same with food. Because he’d always finished work before she was home from school, Josh had almost always cooked the dinner. But now, she was home, and he was taking on any extra hours he could find, so again it seemed reasonable that she should be the one to decide what they were eating, take Stella out in the pram to shop for it, and then cook it, often with a squawking baby under her arm.

  At first, Josh had been all, ‘Don’t do that, you don’t need to do that, you’ve got enough going on.’

  But now? Now he was much more likely to ask, ‘What’s for dinner?’ when he called her in the middle of the day to check in. Occasionally he even appeared disappointed with the answer.

  And then there was Stella. Josh adored her. Every day, when he got home from work, he’d take her from Lou to whisper and giggle and play with his little Stella star, his sunshiny Stell-Stell. Often, he’d take her out for a walk or, later, to the playground, to give Lou ‘time to yourself’, but she was the keeper of all Stella knowledge.

  It was Lou who knew that if she slept for an extra half-hour for her afternoon nap, it’d take two hours longer to get her down to bed that evening.

  It was Lou who knew what number of zeroes were on the labels of Stella’s clothes at any given time.

  It was Lou who knew their baby liked apple, but only if you peeled it, and pear, but only if you didn’t.

  How did all that just happen?

  ‘I’m sure that will change when I go back to work,’ she’d say to other women, who would just smile and shake their heads.

  ‘You used to be equals,’ said one of the mothers’ group mums. ‘Now you’re just Mum.’

  Fuck that, thought Lou.

  But she also realised that she and Josh, consumed with each other as they were in the years before Stella, had never had a conversation about the time when it wasn’t just the two of them anymore. About how it would work. About who would do what. Was that a mistake?

  *

  ‘We can’t afford it,’ Josh said, the minute Lou told him about the house with the tree.

  Which was exactly what she’d known he’d say. She was prepared.

  ‘Don’t dismiss it without even looking.’ They were sitting at their tiny dining table in the kitchen of their tiny unit. Stella had just gone down, and the dinner that Lou had cooked that afternoon – a Moroccan tagine, if you don’t mind – was ready to be served. ‘You don’t know that for sure.’

  ‘I do know that for sure, Lou,’ Josh said, reaching for the rice. The recipe had said to serve the dish with couscous, but they didn’t have any couscous, and Lou wasn’t about to go through the hassle of leaving the house with Stella and all her paraphernalia just for a grain swap. ‘It’s been a while since a chippie and a teacher could afford a house in any bit of Sydney worth living in.’

  That was the first time Lou had heard Josh refer to himself as a chippie. She didn’t like it; it embarrassed her, somehow. ‘You’re not just a chippie,’ she said. ‘You’re a craftsman. And a musician.’

  Josh had looked up at her in that moment, and there was something like surprise on his face, and Lou suddenly felt guilty. ‘Well, great, but there’s no shame in being a chippie,’ he said. ‘People need chippies.’ He went back to his food.

  ‘I was thinking that we could . . .’ Lou took a breath, preparing herself. ‘I was thinking we could ask my parents for some help with the deposit.’

  He looked up at her again. ‘We can’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?’ Lou busied herself with the chicken, very keen to act as if this wasn’t the big deal that she knew it was. ‘Lots of people do. And if we don’t . . . well, then we really can’t afford it.’

  Josh put down his knife and fork. He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Lou,’ he said, and she’d always loved when he said her name, but not in this moment, not in this tone. ‘I really don’t want us to do that.’

  Lou was trying to read what, exactly, was the worst part for Josh. Pride? The idea of moving out of the neighbourhood he’d always considered part of his identity? Stress about the money? All of the above?

  Judging by his face, it was all of the above.

  ‘Josh,’ Lou said, ‘it’s not such a big deal.’

  ‘It’s a very big deal,’ Josh replied. ‘To be honest, I’m surprised you’re even asking me to do this.’

  ‘I’m not asking you,’ Lou said. ‘I don’t need to ask. I’m not a child.’

  Lou really wasn’t asking. She’d already done it. She thought about the conversation she’d had with her mum. The one Josh must never know about, because he would be devastated to think she’d talked to Annabelle and Brian about their lives, their money and the gap between what she wanted and what she had.

  Lou knew it was a betrayal. And even as she sat there with tagine on her fork, she knew this was a line she had crossed that hadn’t been crossed before – the first time she and he were not on the same team. That she and he were not the team.

  ‘Of course you’re not, Lou, but we’ve tried so hard to –’

  ‘To what? Keep on living in a shoebox? With neighbours upstairs, downstairs, across from us? In a place where I feel trapped, all day?’

  ‘You’ll be back at work soon.’

  ‘And meanwhile we’ll live in a place where Stella has no room to run about?’

  ‘Well, of course we’re going to move eventually,’ Josh said. He put a piece of chicken in his mouth and chewed, and for the very first time, Lou noticed how when he chewed his food, his lips never really met. She could just make out the yellowish chicken turning in his teeth, a tiny speck of fat on his lower lip. Why had she never noticed before that her husband chewed with his mouth open?

  ‘How is that the end of your sentence?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Josh spoke, but he hadn’t fully swallowed all the chicken.

&nbs
p; ‘We’re going to move eventually . . . Where to, and how? If we want things to happen, we have to make them happen.’

  ‘Well, now you just sound like a bad greeting card, Lou.’ He swallowed. ‘Is that your inspirational quote of the day?’

  She stood up. Went to the sink and ran the tap. Passed her finger through the stream to check it was cold, then grabbed a glass from the drainer and filled it almost to the top.

  ‘Lou?’

  ‘Josh.’

  ‘We can’t afford it.’

  She took two big gulps of water, looked at the kitchen clock. It was seven thirty. She needed to be in bed by nine. Stella still woke up at least once in the night, usually more like twice, and Lou was trying to work out a way to push her through. It was less than two weeks until the end of the Easter break and after that Lou was going back to work. Suddenly a full night’s sleep felt urgent.

  ‘Josh, my parents will lend us the money to add to our savings to get the deposit.’

  He leaned back in his seat and looked at her. ‘How do you know they’ve got that kind of money?’

  She turned, her glass still in her hand. ‘I just do.’

  Josh seemed to think about this for a minute. He knows, Lou thought. He knows I’ve already asked.

  ‘They’d be borrowing it,’ Josh said, still watching her closely. ‘Surely.’

  Lou shrugged, took another gulp.

  ‘It’s humiliating,’ Josh said. ‘For grown-up people like us to be begging from your folks.’

  ‘No it isn’t.’

  ‘How isn’t it?

  ‘It’s practical, Josh. It’s how people get ahead.’

  ‘Well, isn’t the world fair?’ Josh’s tone was sneering.

  ‘Josh, I’m not putting that complaint ahead of my kids . . .’

  ‘Kids? Plural? Is there something I don’t know?’

  ‘We can’t keep living in this very moment, Josh.’ Lou’s voice was rising to a shout, but she felt a sense of desperation she hadn’t before; her heart was beating faster, her hand with the glass in it was shaking a little. ‘We might have another baby. People do.’

  ‘Let’s stop talking about “people”, Lou, and talk about us.’

  This is a proper fight, thought Lou, putting her glass down. They never did this.

  ‘We – me and you – have always talked about how every family doesn’t have to need a quarter-acre block . . .’

  ‘We’re not talking about a quarter-acre block, Josh. We’re talking about a townhouse with a concrete garden.’

  ‘But it’s got a tree?’ He rolled his eyes, and Lou noticed he still had a tiny piece of chicken on his chin. Her hand twitched with the urge to slap it off.

  ‘Yes, out the front.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I know we always said we weren’t house-in-the-suburbs people. And we’re not, I promise we’re not. But there’s a reason why families move out of tiny units in the city . . .’

  ‘Not all families! There are lots of kids around here.’

  ‘There’s a reason,’ she repeated.

  He sighed. ‘Okay, I’ll bite. What is it?’

  ‘It’s so they don’t kill each other, Josh.’

  She saw him smile, in spite of himself.

  ‘I can have a bit more room, Stella has space to grow. If we decide to have another baby . . .’

  ‘Which we haven’t even talked about.’

  ‘And there’d be space for other things.’ Lou returned to the table and sat down again, across from Josh. ‘There could be space for music. Maybe even a little workshop in the garage . . .’ Lou knew she was being manipulative now, and the way Josh just flicked his eyes at her told her he knew it, too. ‘You’d have more space to be you.’

  This was a moment, Lou could feel it. Like the one when she’d told him she was pregnant. Things were really changing between them. Here, in the kitchen, sitting at the tiny table, with the chicken congealing between them and Stella making a quiet grunting noise from their bedroom.

  ‘Even if your folks would help us with the deposit,’ Josh said, and Lou knew it was happening, ‘even then, the mortgage repayments would kill us.’

  ‘No, they wouldn’t,’ Lou said. ‘I did some maths. I can show it all to you. It would be tight, but if I go back to five days sooner than we’d planned, and we get Stell into that community day care and not the private one, and you keep doing those extra jobs for Mick . . .’

  Lou stopped talking, and it should have been a silent moment, the big decision in the quiet kitchen. But there were footsteps on the ceiling, and the clink of beer bottles from a backyard two houses down, and the soft but relentless thrum of the techno music that next door was playing, and would be playing until midnight.

  ‘I’ll come and look at it,’ said Josh.

  Lou reached across the table and took his hands. But as relieved as she was, she could also see her mother’s face in her head. The particular expression Annabelle had worn, her mouth a thin line, her eyes twinkling with something like pleasure, as she’d said, ‘I always knew that we’d never stop supporting you if you married him.’

  And Lou had just thanked her mother for her generosity, and carried Stella back down the hallway of her family home, past her old bedroom, and out through the front door where Josh had once turned up out of the blue to ask her to be with him.

  Josh

  23 April, 2012

  ‘And this is where our children will study to become Nobel Prize winners,’ Lou was saying, spinning in the alcove off the living room where she was, apparently, picturing a ‘study space’ for her, their one-year-old and any hypothetical further offspring. She was thinking a desk, she told him, something distressed maybe, painted off-white.

  Josh looked at thirteen-month-old Stella and raised an eyebrow. She was spinning on the spot. She stopped, wobbled, and plonked down on her bum. ‘Dizz!’ she yelled, then threw her head back and laughed.

  ‘Genius material, certainly,’ Josh said to Lou, who nudged him back towards the kitchen, which was big and open plan and had doors that opened onto a concrete yard.

  ‘You could build us a deck, put down some grass . . .’

  ‘On concrete?’

  ‘Whatever.’ Lou pushed on. She was trying so hard. He knew that she knew he’d agreed to the house in theory, that his feelings about borrowing large sums of money had been largely overruled, that his opinions about a townhouse far from the inner west had been mostly discounted, but now she needed him to be happy about it. To want it.

  And he just couldn’t, not yet.

  The possibility of this house felt like the end of something he wasn’t ready to end. And the beginning of something he wasn’t ready to start.

  Resentment was shooting out of him in uncharacteristic ways. ‘You do know,’ he’d said to her this morning, as they were in the middle of the now-familiar hundred-step process of leaving the house with a toddler, ‘that if we buy this house it’s officially the end of my music career.’

  And Lou had looked at him sideways as she was trying to wrestle a pair of shoes onto a wriggling Stella. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Mortgage payments, Lou. I’m talking mortgage payments. I’m never going to be able to turn down a Mick job for a muso gig with the bank breathing down our necks, am I?’

  He’d been rummaging through their seemingly bottomless pile of clean washing as he said this, trying to find his Rage Against the Machine T-shirt. It suited his mood and signalled what he wanted to say to the real estate agent who was going to be guessing at Josh’s take-home pay from their first interaction, no doubt gauging how much to jack up the price.

  ‘When was the last time you did that?’ Lou asked. ‘Turned down a job for a gig?’

  Josh tried to think. Not lately, it was true. But. ‘If I didn’t have to grab every job that came my way I’d have more time to write and get things moving,’ he said, pulling out the T-shirt with a feeling of triumph.

  ‘And we seem to manage to pay the rent every month
. . .’ Lou looked up from Stella’s now-shod feet. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Please don’t wear that.’

  It was the first time Josh could remember Lou ever saying such a thing. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said, as Stella jumped up and started to stomp in her shoes. ‘I’m not dressing up for a real estate agent.’

  ‘Oh, but you are,’ he heard Lou say under her breath as she moved past him towards the door.

  And now here he was, feeling a little bit silly, if he was honest, in his T-shirt and jeans, as the shiny house guy showed them around Lou’s dream home.

  It was nice enough, this place, but it didn’t feel like them, to him. Not his vision of them, at least. But clearly it was Lou’s.

  ‘Look,’ she was calling from upstairs as he stared out of the open door at the front garden and the road outside. Stella was bumping down the bottom few steps on her bum while the real estate guy looked at his phone in the kitchen. ‘The spare room can be your music room for a while. You know, until we need it. Come and see, Josh, I think you’ll love it!’

  He turned to lift Stella into his arms and take her with him. ‘Stairs are very dangerous for a toddler, Lou,’ he called. ‘That’s not a problem we have right now.’

  But Lou was at the top of the stairs, giving him a look. ‘We can get safety gates,’ she said slowly, as if he was very stupid. ‘I don’t think we should be afraid of stairs.’

  There were three bedrooms, two bathrooms, windows in two of the rooms that overlooked the tree and the street. Josh dragged his feet a little, walking over to see the view. You’re trying to find faults, he thought. You know it, she knows it.

  Lou stood behind him as he looked. Stella lay down on the carpeted floor – only floorboards and rugs in their flat – and moved her arms up and down, as if she was making snow angels.

  ‘Soft, isn’t it, Stell?’ Lou said.

  ‘So what does he say, Mr Suit downstairs, about the price?’ Josh asked.

  ‘He says seven-fifty.’ Lou put her arms around his waist, pressed her face into his back.