Big Little Lies

  Abigail shook her head slowly, as if truly flabbergasted by the outrageous treatment she was forced to endure.

  “You know what, Mum?” she said without looking at Madeline. “I was going to tell you this later, but I’ll tell you now.”

  “MU-UM!” yelled Fred.

  “Mummy is busy!” screeched Chloe.

  “Look under your bed!” shouted Ed.

  Madeline’s ears rang. “What is it, Abigail?”

  “I’ve decided I want to live full-time with Dad and Bonnie.”

  “What did you say?” said Madeline, but she’d heard.

  She’d feared it for so long, and everyone kept saying, No, no, that would never happen. Abigail would never do that. She needs her mother. But Madeline had known for months it was coming. She knew it would happen. She wanted to scream at Ed: Why did you tell her to calm down?

  “I just feel it’s better for me,” said Abigail. “Spiritually.” She’d stopped trembling now and calmly took her bowl from the table over to the sink. Lately she’d begun walking the same way Bonnie walked, back ballet-dancer straight, eyes on some spiritual point on the horizon.

  Chloe’s face crumpled. “I don’t want Abigail to live with her dad!” Tears spilled copiously. The color on the green lightning shapes on her cheeks began to run.

  “MU-UM!” shouted Fred. The neighbors would think he was being murdered.

  Ed dropped his forehead into his hand.

  “If that’s what you really want,” said Madeline. Abigail turned from the sink and met her eyes, and for a moment it was just the two of them, like it was for all those years. Madeline and Abigail. The Mackenzie girls. When life was quiet and simple. They used to eat breakfast in bed together before school, side by side, pillows behind their backs, their books on their laps. Madeline held her gaze. Remember, Abigail? Remember us?

  Abigail turned away. “That’s what I want.”

  Stu: I was there at the athletics carnival. The mothers race was fucking hilarious. Excuse my French. But some of those women—you’d think it was the Olympics. Seriously.

  Samantha: Oh rubbish. Ignore my husband. Nobody was taking it seriously. I was laughing so hard, I got a stitch.

  • • •

  Nathan was at the carnival. Madeline couldn’t believe it when she ran into him outside the sausage sizzle stall, hand in hand with Skye. This morning of all mornings.

  Not many dads came to the athletics carnival, unless they were stay-at-home dads or their children were especially sporty, but here was Madeline’s ex-husband taking the time off work to be there, wearing a striped polo shirt and shorts, baseball cap and sunglasses, the quintessential Good Daddy uniform.

  “So . . . this is a first for you!” said Madeline. She saw there was a whistle around his neck. He was volunteering, for God’s sake. He was being involved. Ed was the sort of dad who volunteered at the school, but he was on deadline today. Nathan was pretending to be Ed. He was pretending to be a good man, and everyone was falling for it.

  “Sure is!” beamed Nathan, and then his grin faded as presumably it crossed his mind that his firstborn daughter must have taken part in athletics carnivals when she was in primary school too. Of course, these days, he was at all of Abigail’s events. Abigail wasn’t sporty, but she played the violin, and Nathan and Bonnie were at every concert without fail, beaming and clapping, as if they’d been there all along, as if they’d driven her to those violin lessons in Petersham where you could never get a parking spot, as if they’d helped pay for all those lessons that Madeline couldn’t afford as a single mother with an ex-husband who didn’t contribute a single cent.

  And now she was choosing him.

  “Has Abigail spoken to you about . . .” Nathan winced a little, as if he were referring to a delicate health issue.

  “About living with you?” said Madeline. “She has. Just this morning, actually.”

  The hurt felt physical. Like the start of a bad flu. Like betrayal.

  He looked at her. “Is that . . .”

  “Fine with me,” said Madeline. She would not give him the satisfaction.

  “We’ll have to work out the money,” said Nathan.

  He paid child support for Abigail now that he was a good person. Paid it on time. Without complaint, and neither of them ever referred to the first ten years of Abigail’s life, when apparently it hadn’t cost anything to feed or clothe her.

  “So you mean I’ll have to pay you child support now?” said Madeline.

  Nathan looked shocked. “Oh, no I didn’t mean that—”

  “But you’re right. It’s only fair if she’s living at your place most of the time,” said Madeline.

  “Obviously, I would never take your money, Maddie,” he interrupted. “Not when I . . . when I didn’t . . . when I wasn’t able to . . . when all those years—” He grimaced. “Look, I’m aware that I wasn’t the best father when Abigail was little. I should never have mentioned money. Things are just a bit tight for us at the moment.”

  “Maybe you should sell your flashy sports car,” said Madeline.

  “Yeah,” said Nathan. He looked mortified. “I should. You’re right. Although it’s not actually worth as much as you . . . Anyway.”

  Skye gazed up at her father with big worried eyes, and she did that rapid blinking thing again that Abigail used to do. Madeline saw Nathan smile fiercely at the little girl and squeeze her hand. She’d shamed him. She’d shamed him while he stood hand in hand with his waif-like daughter.

  Ex-husbands should live in different suburbs. They should send their children to different schools. There should be legislation to prevent this. You were not meant to deal with complicated feelings of betrayal and hurt and guilt at your kids’ athletics carnivals. Feelings like this should not be brought out in public.

  “Why did you have to move here, Nathan?” she sighed.

  “What?” said Nathan.

  “Madeline! Time for the Kindy Mums Race! You up for it?” It was the kindergarten teacher, Miss Barnes, hair up in a high ponytail, skin glowing like an American cheerleader. She looked fresh and fecund. A delicious ripe piece of fruit. Even riper than Bonnie. Her eyelids didn’t sag. Nothing sagged. Everything in her bright young life was clear and simple and perky. Nathan took his sunglasses off to see her better, visibly cheered just by the sight of her. Ed would have been the same.

  “Bring it on, Miss Barnes,” said Madeline.

  Detective-Sergeant Adrian Quinlan: We’re looking at the victim’s relationships with every parent who attended the trivia night.

  Harper: Yes, as a matter of fact, I do have certain theories.

  Stu: Theories? I’ve got nothing. Nothing but a hangover.

  25.

  The kindergarten mothers gathered in a ragged, giggly line at the start line of their race. The sunlight reflected off their sunglasses. The sky was a giant blue shell. The sea glinted sapphire on the horizon. Jane smiled at the other mothers. The other mothers smiled back at her. It was all very nice. Very sociable. “I’m sure it’s all in your head,” Jane’s mother had told her. “Everyone will have forgotten that silly mix-up on orientation day.”

  Jane had been trying so hard to fit into the school community. She did canteen duty every two weeks. Every Monday morning she and another parent volunteer helped out Miss Barnes by listening to the children practice their reading. She made polite chitchat at drop-off and pickup. She invited children over for playdates.

  But Jane still felt that something was not right. It was there in the slight turn of a head, the smiles that didn’t reach the eyes, the gentle waft of judgment.

  This was not a big deal, she kept telling herself. This was little stuff. There was no need for the sense of dread. This world of lunch boxes and library bags, grazed knees and grubby little faces, was in no way connected to the ugliness of that warm spring night and the bright downlight like a staring eye in the ceiling, the pressure on her throat, the whispered words worming their way into her brain. Stop
thinking about it. Stop thinking about it.

  Now Jane waved at Ziggy, who was sitting on the bleachers near the sidelines with the kindergarten kids under the watchful eye of Miss Barnes.

  “You know I’m not going to win, right?” she’d said to him this morning at breakfast. Some of these mothers had personal trainers. One of them was a personal trainer.

  “On your marks, mums!” said Jonathan, the nice stay-at-home dad who had gone with them to Disney On Ice.

  “How many meters is this, anyway?” said Harper.

  “That finish line looks like it’s a long way away,” said Gabrielle. “Let’s all go have coffee instead.”

  “Is that Renata and Celeste holding the finishing tape?” said Samantha. “How did they get out of this?”

  “I think Renata said that she—”

  “Renata has shin splints,” interrupted Harper. “Very painful apparently.”

  “We should all stretch, girls,” said Bonnie, who was dressed like she was about to teach a yoga class, a yellow singlet top sliding off one shoulder as she languidly lifted one ankle and pulled it up behind her leg.

  “Oh, by the way, Jess?” said Audrey or Andrea. Jane could never remember her name. She stepped right up close to Jane and spoke in a low, confidential voice, as if she were about to reveal a deep, dark secret. Jane had gotten used to it by now. The other day she stepped up close, lowered her voice and said, “Is it library day today?”

  “It’s Jane,” said Jane. (She could hardly be offended.)

  “Sorry,” said Andrea or Audrey. “Listen. Are you for or against?”

  “For or against what?” said Jane.

  “Ladies!” cried Jonathan.

  “Cupcakes,” said Audrey or Andrea. “For or against?”

  “She’s for,” said Madeline. “Fun police.”

  “Madeline, let her speak for herself,” said Audrey or Andrea. “She looks very health-conscious to me.”

  Madeline rolled her eyes.

  “Um, well, I like cupcakes?” said Jane.

  “We’re doing a petition to ban parents from sending in cupcakes for the whole class on their kids’ birthdays,” said Andrea or Audrey. “There’s an obesity crisis, and every second day the children are having sugary treats.”

  “What I don’t get is why this school is so obsessed with petitions,” said Madeline irritably. “It’s so adversarial. Why can’t you just make a suggestion?”

  “Ladies, please!” Jonathan held up his starter gun.

  “Where’s Jackie today, Jonathan?” asked Gabrielle. The mothers were all mildly obsessed with Jonathan’s wife, ever since she’d been interviewed on the business segment of the evening news a few nights back, sounding terrifyingly precise and clever about a corporate takeover and putting the journalist in his place. Also, Jonathan was very good-looking in a George Clooney–esque way, so constant references to his wife were necessary to show that they hadn’t noticed this and weren’t flirting with him.

  “She’s in Melbourne,” said Jonathan. “Stop talking to me. On your marks!”

  The women moved to the start line.

  “Bonnie looks so professional,” commented Samantha as Bonnie crouched down into a starting position.

  “I hardly ever run these days,” said Bonnie. “It’s so violent on the joints.”

  Jane saw Madeline glance over at Bonnie and dig the toe of her sneaker firmly into the grass.

  “Enough with the chitchat, ladies!” roared Jonathan.

  “I love it when you’re masterful, Jonathan,” said Samantha.

  “Get set!”

  “This is quite nerve-racking,” said Audrey or Andrea to Jane. “How do the poor kids cope with the—”

  The gun cracked.

  Thea: I do have my own ideas about what might have happened but I’d rather not speak ill of the dead. As I say to my four daughters, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

  26.

  Celeste could feel the pressure of Renata’s grip at the other end of the finishing tape, and she tried to match it with her own, except that she kept forgetting to concentrate on where she was and what she was doing.

  “How’s Perry?” called out Renata. “In the country at the moment?”

  Whenever Renata made an appearance at school or school events, she made an amusing point of not talking to Jane or Madeline (Madeline loved it, poor Jane not so much), but she always talked to Celeste, in a defensive, prickly way, as though Celeste were an old friend who had wronged her but she was choosing to be mature and rise above it.

  “He’s great,” called back Celeste.

  Last night it had been over Legos. The boys had left their Legos everywhere. She should have made them pick them up. Perry was right. It was just easier to do it herself after they were asleep, rather than do battle with them. The whining. The drama. She just didn’t have the resilience last night to go through it. Lazy parenting. She was a bad mother.

  “You’re turning them into spoiled brats,” Perry had said.

  “They’re only five,” Celeste had said. She was sitting on the couch folding laundry. “They get tired after school.”

  “I don’t want to live in a pigsty,” said Perry. He kicked at the Legos on the floor.

  “So pick them up yourself,” said Celeste tiredly.

  There. Right there. She brought it on herself. Every time.

  Perry just looked at her. Then he got down on his hands and knees and carefully picked up every piece of Lego from the carpet and put it in the big green box. She’d kept folding, watching him. Was he really going to just pick it all up?

  He stood and carried the box over to where she sat. “It’s pretty simple. Either get the kids to pick it up, or pick it up yourself, or pay for a fucking housekeeper.”

  In one swift move he up-ended the entire box of Legos over her head in a noisy, violent torrent.

  The shock and humiliation made her gasp.

  She stood up, grabbed a handful of Legos from her lap and threw them straight at his face.

  See there? Again. Celeste at fault. She behaved like a child. It was almost laughable. Slapstick. Two grown-ups throwing things at each other.

  He slapped her across the face with the back of his hand.

  He never punched her. He would never do anything so uncouth. She staggered back, and her knee banged against the edge of the glass coffee table. She regained her balance and flew at him with her hands like claws. He shoved her away from him with disgust.

  Well, why not? Her behavior was disgusting.

  He went to bed then, and she cleaned up all the Legos and threw their uneaten dinner in the bin.

  Her lip was bruised and tender this morning, like she was about to get a cold sore. It wasn’t enough for anyone to comment upon. Her knee had banged against the side of the coffee table, and it was stiff and painful. Not too bad. Not much at all, really.

  This morning Perry had been cheerful, whistling while he boiled eggs for the boys.

  “What happened to your neck, Daddy?” said Josh.

  There was a long, thin, red scratch down the side of his neck where Celeste must have scratched him.

  “My neck?” Perry had put his hand over the scratch and glanced over at Celeste with laughter in his eyes. It was the sort of humorous, secret look that parents share when their children say something innocent and cute about Santa Claus or sex. As if what happened last night were a normal part of married life.

  “It’s nothing, mate,” he’d said to Josh. “I wasn’t looking where I was going and I walked into a tree.”

  Celeste couldn’t get the expression on Perry’s face out of her mind. He thought it was funny. He genuinely thought it was funny, and of no particular consequence.

  Celeste pressed a finger to her tender lip.

  Was it normal?

  Perry would say, “No, we’re not normal. We’re not Mr. and Mrs. Average, mediocre people in mediocre relationships. We’re different. We’re special.
We love each other more. Everything is more intense for us. We have better sex.”

  The starter gun cracked the air, startling her.

  “Here they come!” said Renata.

  Fourteen women ran straight at them as if they were chasing thieves, arms pumping, chests thrust forward, chins jutting, some of them laughing but most looking deadly serious. The children shouted and hollered. Celeste tried to look for the boys, but she couldn’t see them.

  “I can’t run in the mothers race after all,” she’d told them this morning. “I fell down the stairs after you went to bed last night.”

  “Awwww,” said Max, but it was an automatic whine. He didn’t seem to really care.

  “You should be more careful,” Josh had said quietly, without looking at her.

  “I should,” Celeste had agreed. She really should.

  Bonnie and Madeline led the pack. They pulled in front. It was neck and neck. Go Madeline, thought Celeste. Go, go, go—YES! Their chests hit the finishing tape. Definitely Madeline.

  • • •

  Bonnie by a nose!” shouted Renata.

  “No, no, I’m sure Madeline was first,” said Bonnie to Renata. Bonnie didn’t seem to have exerted herself at all. The color on her cheeks was just a little higher than usual.

  “No, no, it was you, Bonnie,” said Madeline breathlessly, although she knew she’d won because she kept Bonnie in her peripheral vision. She bent over, hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. There was a stinging sensation on her cheekbone where her necklace had whipped across it.

  “I’m pretty sure it was Madeline,” said Celeste.

  “Definitely Bonnie,” interrupted Renata, and Madeline nearly laughed out loud. So your vendetta has come to this now, Renata? Not letting me win the mothers race?

  “I’m sure it was Madeline,” said Bonnie.

  “I’m sure it was Bonnie,” countered Madeline.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, let’s call it a tie,” said a Year 6 mother, a Blond Bob in charge of handing out the ribbons.

  Madeline straightened. “Absolutely not. Bonnie is the winner.” She plucked the blue winner’s ribbon from the Year 6 mother’s hand and pressed it into Bonnie’s palm, folding her fingers over it, as if she were entrusting one of the children with a two-dollar coin. “You beat me, Bonnie.” She met Bonnie’s pale blue eyes and saw understanding register. “You beat me fair and square.”

  Samantha: Madeline won. We were all killing ourselves laughing when Renata insisted it was Bonnie. But do I think that led to a murder? No, I do not.

  Harper: I came in third, if anyone is interested.

  Melissa: Technically, Juliette came third. You know, Renata’s nanny? But Harper was all, “A twenty-one-year-old nanny doesn’t count!” And then, of course, these days, we all like to pretend Juliette never existed.

  27.

  Samantha: Listen, you need to get your head around the demographics of this