Or did he actually see her, and it was just that he didn’t care? Because this was what she deserved, still: penance, for a selfish act.
Shut up, you’re a whiner, Lou told herself. But also: Is this it? Is this really all there is now?
For a moment, lying there in the dark, the tree tapping gently at the window, Lou felt as if she lifted up and drifted ahead, looking into the next ten, fifteen years of raising these girls, these remarkable little humans. And then they’d be gone, off to have their own adventures. Just like she had left, barely looking back.
But would they also find themselves, after years of freedom and being told they could do anything they wanted, wiping spills and messes and tears and blood and snot, the one who was working double-time to please everyone? Would they be the only person in their family without a present under the tree, because they were the ones who bought all the gifts?
And when her girls left her, would this relationship and Lou’s own career be enough? Teaching and lying next to Josh every night, hoping his hand wouldn’t stray across the bed?
The room was still but the house’s noises snaked in under the door – one of the girls was crying, guitar music, laughter, clinking bottles.
She lay there, trying to stop sobbing.
Get your shit together, Lou.
Next year, she thought. Next year has to be the year this changes.
Big deep breaths. Someone has to go and make those girls sleep.
Another deep breath. Come on, calm down.
Lou sat up in the dark and swung her legs to the floor.
And then her phone lit up next to her.
Weirdly, the text message said, I’m thinking about you on Christmas night. And I like it. After all this time . . .
Josh
New Year’s Eve, 2018
At 9 a.m., Josh was hastily wrapping Lou’s Christmas present in his guitar room.
You complete idiot, he was saying to himself. What were you thinking, not buying Lou a present?
He didn’t notice, on the day. But he had noticed the next day, and the next, that she was very quiet. Quiet in a way he hadn’t seen for a while.
Yes, a certain distance blew through their relationship regularly since they’d pieced things back together, but silence was never a good sign.
Idiot, idiot, idiot.
‘Are we doing presents this year?’ he was sure he’d asked, some weeks ago.
And Lou, he was almost certain, had shrugged. ‘If you want.’
And then the end of the year had happened, in a whirl of preschool graduation (because that was a thing now), carol concerts, Lou working overtime to finish up the school year, Josh out on last-minute jobs for people who thought their holidays would be perfect if only they had a Balinese door fitted on the pool house.
It was a stinking hot December; every end-of-year concert was steamier than the last. They both came home drained, wrung out.
He hadn’t thought about presents again until Christmas Eve, when, after the kids had gone giddily to bed, a mound of wrapped and unwrapped gifts appeared on the living room floor, and he was handed a beer, a roll of sticky-tape and some wrapping paper.
‘Where the hell do you hide all this stuff?’ Josh had asked Lou as she, like a magician making coins appear from assorted ears, came holding another toy, another book, another ball.
And under the tree the next day there was a present he hadn’t wrapped. It was for him, from Lou, and it was a guitar strap he’d been lusting after. Leather, American, the brand once used by Johnny Cash, for God’s sake.
She did all that, and he didn’t have time to buy her a present? Idiot, idiot, idiot.
Maybe that’s why she was so quiet.
Now, it was New Year’s Eve and at 10 a.m., after getting distracted by an email newsletter from Guitar Nerds United (terrible name, deeply informative newsletter), Josh went to give her his present.
He could hear the girls splashing outside in the oversized paddling pool they’d got for Christmas that had taken him a day to blow up. He knew Lou would be near, and she was, out in the kitchen at the back door, folding washing with her headphones on, one eye on the girls and the water, one on the mountain of underwear and T-shirts.
‘I got you something,’ Josh said, coming up behind her.
She didn’t react.
‘I got you something!’ he said, louder.
The girls stopped splashing and turned to watch.
‘I GOT YOU SOMETHING!’ Josh yelled, and he leaned forward to pull one of Lou’s earbuds out. Reactively, she slapped his hand away.
‘Don’t do that!’ she shouted, like he was the most annoying creature to have entered her orbit in a very long time.
‘Sorry.’ He held out the small, hastily wrapped parcel. ‘It’s your Christmas present.’
Lou pulled out the earbuds. ‘What?’
‘It’s your Christmas present.’
‘It’s New Year’s Eve.’
‘I know. New tradition,’ he said, a little bit pleased with himself.
‘When did you buy it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When did you buy this?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Yes, if you bought it yesterday.’
Josh shrugged. ‘Just open it.’
Lou turned over the present and peeled back the sticky tape.
Josh waited for her reaction. It was a necklace. He’d bought it at the hippie shop over in Newtown. When they were first dating, she’d loved that shop, buying up cheap rings that turned her fingers green, weighing up the pros and cons (mostly cons, let’s be honest) of tie-dyed rainbow fisherman’s pants.
The necklace was silver and had a stone that looked something like an opal, pale with bits of colour in it, kind of sparkly, and there were twiddly bits around the outside.
She held it up.
‘Do you like it?’
‘She doesn’t wear silver anymore, Dad!’ Stella said, in a tone of voice that reminded Josh of Lou’s when he’d done something wrong. ‘She likes rose gold now.’
‘Shush, Stell – it’s lovely,’ said Lou. And she looked at it again, turning it around.
‘And she hates opals!’
‘I don’t think it’s really an opal . . .’ Josh started, but he could see this wasn’t going well.
‘Thank you, it’s lovely,’ Lou repeated, and she put it back in the box and closed the paper around it. ‘Very thoughtful.’
‘It’s from that shop in Newtown,’ Josh pushed on. ‘You know – the one you like. In fact, girls’ – he turned to Stella and Rita – ‘it’s just a few doors down from where I met your mum for the very first time.’
‘In a pub,’ said five-year-old Rita.
‘That was a long time ago,’ said Lou. And she put the box on the kitchen counter and turned back to the washing.
‘It won’t turn your neck green!’ he went on, even as he knew he should stop. ‘It wasn’t that cheap.’
And for the first time, Josh noticed that Stella was looking at him like he was an idiot.
‘What?’ he said to her, and she shook her head at him.
‘I want to go to that party tonight,’ Lou suddenly said, from the washing basket. ‘The one Beth from school’s having.’
That was the last thing Josh was expecting Lou to say. ‘On New Year’s Eve?’
‘People go out on New Year’s Eve, Josh.’
‘Not people with kids,’ said Josh. ‘We haven’t been out on New Year’s Eve for nine years.’ And he poked his tongue out at Stella, who was still fixing him with a withering look. ‘You really cramped our style, Stell.’
‘What style?’
‘Ha. Anyway, I thought we were just having a few people round.’
‘Exactly,’ said Lou, still not looking at him. ‘I don’t want to have a few people round. I want to go out and have a few drinks, and not have to organise, and entertain, and clear up tomorrow.’
‘Well, I could . . .’ Josh w
as about to say that he would help with all that, but he knew he was on dangerous ground. ‘Okay,’ he said cautiously.
‘I thought Maya could babysit.’
‘My sister Maya?’
‘Yes, your sister Maya,’ said Lou. ‘She’s back from your mum’s and she always says she hates Sydney on New Year’s. Ask her.’
‘It’s a bit short notice.’
‘When was the last time she babysat? Lay a guilt-trip on her, Josh – she’ll do it.’
Josh was running out of excuses.
‘I’m driving up to Mum’s tomorrow, remember?’
‘So what? I’m not suggesting we stay out till dawn.’
*
By 5 p.m., Josh was settling Maya in with the girls and Lou was getting ready upstairs.
Josh felt heavy, and irritated. He hated house parties, and going out on New Year’s Eve. He hated the drama of getting to where you were going, never mind getting home. He hated the idea of making small talk with Lou’s colleagues and school friends, whom he barely knew. He hated that he was also currently having to make small talk with his sister, whom he hadn’t seen enough of over the last couple of years, meaning their interactions required the kind of effortful politeness usually reserved for acquaintances, albeit one who was very comfortable doling out the insults.
‘You’ve been in Chile?’
‘No, Josh, I’ve been in Gili.’
‘Where the hell’s that?’
‘Islands in Indonesia. For fuck’s sake, Josh, do you listen to anything anyone tells you?’
Fair enough. But he wasn’t ready for Maya’s sudden change of topic.
‘You two alright?’ she was asking. ‘Lou seems a bit . . .’
‘We’re fine,’ Josh said, too quickly. ‘Don’t worry about us. Help yourself to whatever you want, and I’ve made up the sofa bed in the guitar . . . in the spare room. Don’t touch anything in there, though.’
‘Why would I?’
‘I don’t know . . . You guys strum guitars around the campfire, right?’
Maya, with her cheesecloth shirt and her baggy purple shorts and her dollar-shop thongs, rolled her eyes. ‘You’re a dick.’
Stella and Rita were delighted by the idea of a night of unlimited treats ahead with Maya in charge.
‘Daddy, can we have ice cream?’
‘Ask Aunty Maya. She has to deal with you afterwards.’
‘Can we play on the iPad?’
‘Up to your aunty.’
‘Movie night? Popcorn?’
‘Again, ask Maya . . .’
And Lou came downstairs looking bloody gorgeous in a rusty-red dress he didn’t remember seeing before.
‘Wow. Is that new?’
‘No, it’s old. Just haven’t worn it for ages.’
‘You look amazing.’
Lou smiled, and he knew she was pleased he’d told her that. He really must remember to compliment his wife more often. She always liked it.
They kissed everyone goodbye at about 6 p.m. and got in an Uber to travel across two suburbs to Lou’s work friend Beth’s place.
Josh bit his tongue about the price of cabs on New Year’s Eve. He bit his tongue about the route the driver took them, and he bit his tongue about how early they were, and how they were definitely going to be the first ones there. Let’s not have a fight, he kept thinking, let’s not have a fight . . .
‘You’ll be alright at this thing tonight, won’t you?’ Lou asked, and she took his hand in the back of the car, which gave him a surge of hope. ‘You won’t feel too left out of all the teacher talk?’
‘No, I’ll be fine,’ he assured her.
‘I’m sure there’ll be people there you can talk to, and Beth has great taste in music, so you’ll like that . . .’
‘Sure. Lou, it will be fine.’
‘Just don’t drink too much because you’re nervous.’
‘Come on, Lou, I’m not a child,’ he said, and he squeezed her hand. ‘I won’t embarrass you in front of your friends.’
*
By 9 p.m., Josh was definitely drunk.
I am definitely drunk, he thought, as he pulled up his fly after peeing on Beth’s back fence, just out of reach of the light streaming from the house. I could just hide out here for a while.
He looked back towards the crowd through the yard, and he wondered, as he always did at parties, at the ease with which all these people were talking to each other. Laughing out loud and touching each other on the arm and passing each other drinks and putting their hands on each other’s backs. Josh thought there was a handful of people in the world he was that comfortable with. Not whole rooms of them.
‘That’s why you’re not a fucking rock star,’ he muttered to himself. ‘You didn’t go to enough parties.’ Then he laughed, because even he knew that wasn’t true. Shit, he was a bit drunk.
He could see Lou, in her hot dress, talking to Beth and some other teachers from school he vaguely knew by sight but couldn’t have named with a gun to his head.
He’d been in that circle a couple of hours ago, and he could hear grabs of conversation floating up from that group and the others, over the shit music – was that really Dido? – that sounded to him exactly the same as all the other conversations in every other little circle in the kitchen and backyard.
It was the sound of what teachers talked about.
‘No, please, let’s have another meeting about that . . .’
‘Yes, Mrs Gabbet, of course it’s on the curriculum . . .’
‘Only a can of Coke in his lunchbox . . .’
‘Fucking Trump . . .’
‘I want to go live in a cave . . .’
‘Is it too late to retrain?’
That’s why I’m drunk, he thought. I didn’t know what to say so I just kept drinking, and going to get another beer, and another beer, mostly to avoid standing in one of these circles like an idiot. And I hardly ever drink that much anymore. I thought it would be okay, but I think I might be wrong.
He’d already busied himself checking out Beth’s music collection, which was nowhere near as good as Lou had led him to believe. He’d spent quite a long time in the inside toilet, playing on his music trivia app, but people kept knocking on the door. He’d offered to help with the barbecue, but was ushered away.
He knew Lou would be pissed off with him if her friends saw that he was drunk, so now he was kind of hiding. Beth had a big, bushy backyard, with a chicken coop and a vegie patch, so sitting here on a tree stump for a while, pretending to be looking at something important on his phone, might buy him another hour. Did they really have to stay till midnight?
‘Hello there.’
Shit. Someone had found him. Josh turned towards the voice that had greeted him and saw another man doing up his flies. Thank God.
He was huge, this guy. Taller even than Josh, and about twice as broad. He had what Josh would describe as a private-school-boy haircut – neat, but a bit floppy on top – and he was wearing chinos. He didn’t really look like one of the male teachers, who on a night like this were all more likely to be wearing ironic band T-shirts and beards.
‘Oh, hi. I was just checking out the vegie garden. We’re thinking of . . . getting one.’
‘Right.’ The guy looked around for the vegie garden.
‘It’s here.’ Josh pointed to the wooden bed next to him. ‘These are tomatoes.’
‘Right.’ The guy nodded. ‘Yes, I can see the appeal. You must get a sense of achievement, eating something you’ve grown.’
‘As opposed to smoking something you’ve grown, right?’ Josh laughed, and then immediately felt terrible. That was a stupid joke to make to chino man, who was probably important. Where did it even come from? It’s not like he’d even smoked weed in the last ten years.
The guy didn’t walk away, though. He was looking at Josh’s face like he was trying to work something out.
‘I’m Josh,’ said Josh, hoping he didn’t sound as out of it as he felt. ‘I�
�m here with my wife. She’s . . . a teacher. With Beth.’
‘Oh, right!’ Chino man’s face seemed to change. It was like something had clicked with him, like he knew where to file Josh now. He smiled and stuck out his enormous mitt of a hand. ‘I’m Theo. I work with Lou at Bayside, too.’
‘Oh, I see.’ What to ask? What to say? ‘You’re a teacher too, then?’
‘I’m the deputy principal,’ Theo said. He had this big, bouncy voice. ‘I think Lou’s just fantastic.’ His smile grew bigger.
‘Good, good,’ said Josh. ‘So do I.’ Why did he say that?
‘She’s one of the best teachers we’ve got,’ the man said. ‘I think she’s going to have an amazing career now that, you know, her children are . . . your children are . . .’
Are what?
‘Older.’
‘That’s nice,’ said Josh. Again, why? ‘I mean, um, that you know about our kids. Our girls. They are . . . getting bigger.’
Please go away, big man, thought Josh. I don’t want to keep talking to you. You’re important and I will get Lou in trouble, I know I will.
Theo looked at the chicken coop, then back at Josh. ‘Are you alright out here? You coming back in?’
Not with you, thought Josh.
‘Yes, sure, in a moment, I just need to . . .’ Josh remembered he was holding his phone. ‘Make a call. Check in with the babysitter. I mean, my sister. She’s the . . . babysitter.’
‘Well, okay.’ This guy was looking at Josh with more interest than he’d expect from a chino man, or maybe Josh was imagining it. ‘I’ll see you in there.’
‘Yep, right.’
He turned to walk inside, finally, and Josh felt a quick rush of embarrassment. He needed to get himself together and go find Lou.
But the big man stopped and turned around. ‘You’re a lucky man, Josh,’ he said. ‘Happy New Year.’
And Josh wasn’t sure if the guy meant he was lucky because he was hiding in the garden and not inside the party, or if he . . . did he mean because his sister was babysitting? Babysitters were expensive on New Year’s Eve.
‘Yeah, I am, thanks. You too,’ Josh said. And he watched the guy walk back towards the light and over to the circle with Lou in it, and she looked up at him and said hello and the guy pecked her cheek and Josh sat down on the tree stump and threw up on his shoes.
I Give My Marriage a Year Page 32
