Sticks and Stones

by Ilsa Evans

  ‘How many kids do you have?’ asked Lyn suddenly. ‘I’m sure you told us but I can’t remember. And what’re their names?’

  ‘Two. They’re called Sam and Ashley.’ Maddie swallowed again. Her nerve ends tingled. She looked towards Lyn, loving her big friendly face. ‘Or Max and Courtney.’

  Lyn frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘They started off as Max and Courtney,’ explained Maddie, still staring fixedly at Lyn. ‘But then I . . . I took them, six years ago, and changed their names to Sam and Ashley.’ She watched Lyn’s eyes widen and then went on hurriedly, as if this would make all the difference. ‘They chose them, not me.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘But . . .’ began Fiona, then waiting until Maddie turned to look at her, reluctantly. ‘Was it because he was abusive?’

  Maddie nodded. ‘Yes. Very.’

  ‘To the kids as well?’ asked Jenny softly.

  ‘No, not really. Although they started to become more and more involved, towards the end.’

  ‘That’s usually the breaking point,’ said Jenny, nodding. ‘Women go on for years and then suddenly the kids are under threat and that’s all it takes.’

  ‘Though you’re the first I’ve ever met who’s actually done a runner.’ Lyn gazed at Maddie rather admiringly. ‘They talk about it but hardly anyone follows through.’

  Fiona nodded. ‘There was a woman I knew years ago down in Melbourne who went overseas with her two girls. He was a real bastard. She got charged under the Hague Convention.’

  Jenny was still gazing at Maddie. ‘Yours must have been pretty bad too.’

  ‘He was. At first I thought we could just split up, share custody. I even thought we might work things out eventually, maybe get back together.’ Maddie tried to laugh but it came out too harsh, almost violent itself. She paused, embarrassed again, until the sound dispersed. ‘But he just got worse. Much worse.’

  ‘More violent?’ asked Lyn softly.

  Maddie paused, staring at a point just over Jenny’s head. ‘More every thing. He’d ring my friends, steal my keys, sneak in my unit in the middle of the night and leave notes. Even left a dead bird on the table once, as a message. And other stuff, just to make it harder, like dobbing me into Centrelink or anywhere that would listen. And, oh, the kids. They were like property to him. Pawns. He’d refuse to bring them back, or take them out of school early so they’d be gone when I got there. Telling them everything was my fault.’ She closed her eyes briefly. ‘Or just beating me up, while they listened.’

  No one said anything. Maddie flushed, afraid that she’d said too much, and stared down at her lap, waiting for the silence to break. After a few minutes, she glanced up to find that rather than staring at her, each of the women seemed lost in their own thoughts, their own world. And this gave her an unexpected rush of warmth, a sense of camaraderie. Because she knew, quite suddenly, that they each related to some degree. They understood.

  Lyn was the first to speak. ‘Aren’t you always worried that he’ll find you?’

  ‘I used to be. I’d even see his face in a crowd, things like that. Not any more.’

  ‘Why not? Is he dead?’

  ‘No such luck,’ said Maddie, meaning it. ‘He found us, a couple of weeks ago. After six years he finally found us.’

  ‘Oh god, Maddie!’ Jenny stared at her, aghast. ‘What happened?’

  Maddie looked from face to face, drinking in their concern. ‘He took the kids before I got home from work and I haven’t seen them since. Apart from at the airport. We ended up in court on Tuesday and . . . it was a disaster.’ Maddie paused, not terribly surprised to find that she had tears in her eyes. She blinked them back. ‘His lawyer just twisted everything around, said the violence was mutual. And that I was mentally unbalanced. In the end the magistrate said he had strong reservations about my story. That every child has a right to know both parents and that I had wilfully taken that right away. And that I needed to learn to put the kids first, not myself.’

  ‘Oh, Maddie.’ Jenny got up suddenly and came over to Maddie’s chair, bobbing down to put an arm around her. ‘Oh, how awful.’

  Maddie wiped her eyes roughly, angrily. ‘Apparently he’s the better parent.’ She gave an abrupt laugh that held no humour. ‘And because he’s such a great parent and he doesn’t want to disrupt them, he’s moving up here so they can stay at their school. For now anyway.’ She laughed again but this time it was moist. ‘And I get weekend access only. Friday through to Sunday. Maybe not even this weekend either, because it seems they’re sick. Already.’

  ‘God,’ said Lyn, stretching the word out. ‘Oh, Maddie, that’s bloody awful.’

  Fiona cleared her throat. ‘Some magistrates ought to be hung. They’ve got no idea. No concept of how manipulative these men can be. How it’s all about power and control.’

  ‘I went around to his place afterwards,’ went on Maddie, suddenly unable to stop. She took a tissue from Jenny and blew her nose. ‘I just wanted to see them but they weren’t there. He was so . . . triumphant. And when I challenged him, he got nasty all over again. Nothing’s changed. He dragged me out by the hair. Told me I was getting everything that was coming to me.’

  ‘Did you go to the police?’ asked Fiona.

  Jenny laughed. ‘For what? Unless she had obvious bruising, they’re not going to do anything. Especially since she went round to his house.’

  ‘You’d better watch it,’ added Lyn. ‘Otherwise he’ll slap an intervention order on you.’

  ‘So now I’m thousands out of pocket for legal fees. Which would be worth it if I had them. But it was all for nothing.’ Maddie looked from one woman to the next and it was like seeing them through gauze as the tears welled up again. Jenny tightened her arm briefly and then stood.

  ‘I think this calls for something a little stronger than coffee.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Maddie quickly, the very thought making her feel ill. She wiped her eyes again. ‘Thanks but I couldn’t. Seriously. I had a few drinks last night and, well . . .’

  ‘In that case, strong coffee it is.’

  ‘Don’t much blame you.’ Lyn shuffled her bottom awkwardly to the edge of the couch so that she could lean forward and pat Maddie on the knee. ‘D’you know what? The thing is it’ll get better from here on out. Because you’ve hit rock bottom, so the only place to go is up.’

  Fiona laughed, rather flatly. ‘I’m not sure how good that is as a pep talk, Lyn.’

  ‘And I’m not sure if it’s true anyway,’ said Maddie, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. She dropped them again and everything blurred within bursts of light. ‘Because what if he gets them at the final hearing? That’s going to be worse.’

  Lyn continued to pat Maddie’s knee. ‘You have to be more positive.’

  Maddie was flooded with irritation. She jerked her knee away and then, almost immediately, felt guilty, rude. ‘Sorry, I was just –’

  ‘No problem,’ Lyn waved airily as she sat back in the couch.

  Fiona had been watching this exchange with some interest. She picked up her cup of tea and finished it, letting the silence stretch before she finally turned back to Maddie. ‘Have you put in an application to vary the orders?’

  ‘Not yet. I’ve got an appointment with my lawyer next week. But I’m not sure about her either, because she just didn’t seem to –’

  ‘Understand?’ Fiona waited for Maddie to nod, surprised, and then smiled. ‘That was probably your first mistake. I know, because I did the exact same thing. You need to find someone who does this sort of thing all the time. In my case I used the friend of a friend and it turned out they were mostly corporate. I ended up changing halfway through.’

  ‘Did that help?’

  Fiona nodded. ‘Mind you, mine was a property settlement, but I expect the same rules apply.’

  ‘They do.’ Jenny came in from the kitchen with the replenished tray. She refilled Fiona’s teacup and passed a mug of coffee ove
r to Maddie and Lyn. ‘I mean obviously mine was only property too, but there were quite a few women with kids at the place I went to. This women’s legal service that was crammed into a little old weatherboard. You should have seen it. The kitchen had been turned into the reception area and it still had those old pots and pans tiles from the seventies. But god, they were good.’

  ‘I haven’t bothered,’ said Lyn. ‘Things are bad enough without me riling him up.’

  Fiona frowned at her and then shook her head, just slightly, as if she couldn’t deal with that at the moment. She turned back to Maddie. ‘Lyn was right before though, when she said you need to be more positive. Even if it sounds trite. But you also have to be more proactive. Start thinking strategically. Fight fire with fire.’

  ‘Absolutely true,’ Jenny spoke softly, sympathetically. ‘I don’t know you all that well, Maddie, but I know at the end of my marriage, and even long after, I was consumed by guilt. That I’d given up, failed, and that I hadn’t loved him enough, otherwise he’d have been different. And that I should give him another chance.’ She grinned flatly and waved a hand. ‘Oh, for all sorts of reasons. Which made me so vulnerable, in court. I’m guessing that’s how you feel at the moment, except even more because of those kids. That you’ve let them down as well.’

  Maddie stared at her. She opened her mouth but her lips rasped against the cool air.

  ‘It’s the guilt that sucks us in,’ said Fiona, watching her. ‘And we could probably talk here for hours about why you shouldn’t feel guilty, and it’d make no difference. So maybe it’s best to just draw a line and say what’s done is done. Then take stock and move on.’

  Lyn moved forward on the couch again. ‘Besides, the last thing you should feel is guilt over those kids. Not when you gave them the greatest gift, the most irreplaceable gift a mother could possibly give.’

  Maddie licked her lips and then slid the word out. ‘What?’

  ‘A childhood. You gave them a childhood.’

  Jenny clapped, quite suddenly, as if the statement deserved applause. Maddie glanced across with surprise and saw that she was beaming at her. ‘Yes! That’s right! And that’s something that can’t be taken away by anyone, certainly not an idiot magistrate. I mean, you’re in a bad place right now but, well, maybe that’s the trade-off?’ She held out both hands, palms facing up, as if they were scales. ‘On one side you have six years of a non-abusive childhood, the other side a few months while you get your act together and get them back.’

  ‘Not a bad investment,’ said Fiona, nodding. ‘Not bad at all.’

  ‘A childhood,’ said Maddie slowly, watching Jenny tip the scales down theatrically towards the six year side and then grin. Maddie picked up her mug, nestling it between her hands and making a pretence of blowing gently onto the coffee. Needing some time to absorb this perspective. And all three of them were huddled on the bottom bunk, listening to him get dressed for work in the adjoining room. A small finger pointing, hovering. Mummy, you’ve got blood in your hair! And now the footsteps were coming and her mouth was dry and she could hear their hearts beating. Like drums, building to a crescendo as the door was pushed open and there he was, silhouetted in the doorway. And shortly afterwards she had made her decision and they had been gone. All she had to do now was juxtapose another image, of the home they had built during the intervening years, to know that the decision had been the right one. The sense of security, the easy warmth, even the mundane bickering. She might be paying the price now, and it might be higher than she thought she could bear, but Jenny was absolutely right, it still didn’t, couldn’t, take away anything from what had already been given. When faced with the classic choice between two evils, she had chosen the lesser of the two and given them a childhood.

  SIXTEEN

  On Saturday morning Maddie bought a new mobile phone from the post office to replace the brick she had owned for the past five years, which had been kept in a kitchen drawer and only used to call home. She spent over an hour reading through the manual and including the new number on the answering-machine message. So that she would always be reachable, wherever. The remainder of the day she devoted to a thorough clean of the house, opening the windows wide to expunge the closed, stuffy smell and stripping Sam’s and Ashley’s beds, rewashing the sheets. Every now and again she checked her landline to make sure it was working, so often in fact that this action in itself became a portent. If she managed to go a full hour without checking, then it was more likely one of them would call. And she would count the final minutes, fingers itching, pushing herself to her limits. But the phone stayed silent.

  She had given up trying to ring the Mont Gully house. Clearly nobody was answering and, even if someone had, she now knew that the chances of the children being delivered at five were close to nonexistent. This was Jake flexing his muscles, proving he was in charge. He had wanted the children this whole weekend, for the big move, and therefore he would have them this whole weekend. It was that simple.

  The irony was that he was also the first person to actually ring her on the new mobile phone late the following afternoon. She had spent much of that day in Melbourne, at Hannah’s house, where Nicholas and Charlotte joined them for lunch. With the main topic being, naturally, the court case and its repercussions. And the rapidly gathering evidence of Jake’s intention to manipulate the orders whenever it suited. Her companions’ evident surprise over this might have amused Maddie had the situation not been so personal. Further evidence of how little they really understood. As was Hannah’s tendency to lace her dialogue with exclamations such as ‘absolutely unbelievable’, or ‘something should be done’ or ‘I’ve got a good mind to write to the attorney-general’.

  Apart from this there was nothing particularly new on the table, although Hannah had dot-pointed all the information that Maddie had missed out on after she had left the courtroom so abruptly. The real revision would take place the coming Wednesday, when they had an appointment with Diana Le Gassick to discuss the next step. And Maddie was not looking forward to the meeting. The more she thought about her day in court, the more her resentment at Diana grew. From her sudden push for a compromise at the very beginning to her performance before the bench, where she had appeared not nearly as well prepared or tenacious as the opposition.

  But Maddie also knew that having chosen the lawyer herself, Hannah felt personally, and financially, invested in Diana. So she kept her doubts to herself, along with her interest in the legal service Jenny had mentioned. Lunch was pleasant, and it was almost therapeutic to discuss the hearing out loud, but by midafternoon Maddie had a headache that felt like it was enfolded within her brain. So she made her excuses a little earlier than anticipated, glad to have made the effort but equally glad to be leaving. The mobile rang when she was almost halfway home, its metallic ringtone surprising and then filling her with sudden anticipation. She pulled over to the side of the road, her tyres scrunching neatly into the gravel.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Well, well. Out and about, are we?’

  Disappointment cleaved. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You know perfectly well what I want.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  His voice instantly lost the bantering tone. ‘Drop the act. If you think this’ll help your cause, think again. And you can tell him from me that I won’t think twice about having you arrested.’

  Maddie adjusted the tiny phone against her ear. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘So that’s the way you want to play it?’

  ‘Play what?’

  ‘Fine. Have it your way.’

  The phone went dead and Maddie brought it down to her lap, nestling it in the palm of her hand and staring as if it still held some answers. She replayed the conversation slowly, puzzling over each word, each nuance. And then suddenly her eyes widened as suspicion and realisation merged. In one fluid movement she threw the phone towards her handbag on the passenger seat, glanced perfunctorily into the
mirror and accelerated back out onto the road, tyres spitting gravel across the tarmac. And now the leisurely progress was gone, metamorphosed into protracted frustration and the need to continually adjust her speed as it crept up over the limit. Getting stuck behind a slow, ambling caravan on the outskirts of town and weaving to and from the white line until she could overtake. Finally turning into her street, and then her driveway, with her chest hollow with hope.

  Having rushed so frantically to get here, Maddie now sat rigidly in her car, hands clasped on the steering wheel, staring over at the unlit kitchen window. If she stayed where she was then anything was possible, whereas inside the house lay reality. And the darkness of the window might even be a sign that it wasn’t the reality she had hoped for. Maddie took a long breath, dragging it down deep and willing it to pillow the thumping of her heart. She found her phone and shoved it inside her handbag before exiting the car, then walking slowly around to the rear of the house. Taking another deep breath as she unlocked the door and moving just one step inside as it swung open, its creak louder than ever before. She took another step, staring into the silence, craving a sign.

  ‘Sam?’ Her voice came out with a hoarseness that sounded painful, so she cleared her throat and tried again, louder. ‘Sam? Are you there?’

  Maddie froze, listening as the words faded into stillness. She flicked on the light, the sudden absence of shadows making the room seem even emptier. And then, just as she began to sag with the knowledge that she had been wrong, there came a low answer. ‘Mum?’

  ‘Sam!’ Maddie was already moving, turning the corner into the passage and, with a sense of utter wonder even though she had just heard his voice and so knew he was there, coming face to face with her son. She took a fleeting moment to drag her eyes across his face, taking in his features, inspecting, assessing, confirming, and then threw her arms around him and brought him in tight. Holding him against her, breathing him in. Knowing that she only had a minute or so before he would begin to pull away with gauche embarrassment. When it happened, Maddie allowed herself the luxury of reaching up and touching his face lightly, with one hand. Then she stepped back, rubbing her arm as if cold, and stared at him. Trying to think of something to say that wasn’t maudlin, or inflammatory, or accusatory. Realising that the dog was there too, standing back slightly as if recognising that they needed a minute alone.