Read Online House of Sticks by Peggy Frew - Free Book Online Page A

that she knew it was probably exhaustion and a hangover, the lighting and the luck of the moment that lent her face in this photograph — her hair falling in her eyes, her smile bright white and just a tiny bit blurred — that easy, dreamy quality you saw in those classic rock photos, like in old copies of Rolling Stone . The illusion worked even for her. A current of something like homesickness ran through her, tugged insistently. She replaced the CD.
    She didn’t put Pete’s book on lay-by, or search out something affordable but special for the twins whose birthday was not far off. She left the shop and went across the road. Without trying them on she bought two dresses and two tops in the size she was before getting pregnant with Jess. When she got home she’d hang them in the wardrobe and not even look at them for at least another month. And she’d reply to Mickey’s email, and say yes.

THEY LEFT EARLY FRIDAY MORNING.
    At Sale they stopped for lunch and afterwards all the children fell asleep. It would have been a good time to talk, but they didn’t. They sipped their bad takeaway coffees and drove in silence, not even playing music. Outside the car the landscape changed. Stretches of paddocks and stretches of bush. Towns at regular intervals, like stations on a train line. The sun moved over them.
    On the outskirts of one town Bonnie saw a woman emptying a bucket outside a flat-fronted white house. The entrance was set in, but there was no veranda or porch or anything, only a boxy area the same width as the door, like the narrow opening of a fort or something, unwelcoming, defensive. There were no trees in the yard. She twisted in her seat as they passed but she couldn’t catch the woman’s face.
    At the shack they unloaded into the dark room, shivering, talking just to send their voices into the undisturbed air. She set the esky on the floor by the bar fridge and something scurried away under the sink.
    â€˜Are there spiders here?’ Edie stood close to Louie in the middle of the rug.
    â€˜Probably,’ said Bonnie.
    â€˜Oh, oh — but I’m scared.’ Edie pulled her arms in against her chest and hopped up and down.
    â€˜Me too.’ Louie hopped as well.
    â€˜Don’t worry. They don’t like people. They’ll keep away from us — we make too much noise.’ Bonnie squatted and peered down the side of the fridge, looking for the switch to turn it on.
    â€˜God, it’s cold.’ Pete slung the last of the bags onto the low couch. ‘Let’s get the fire going.’ He went to the wood-burning stove and clanged its door open, wiped his hands on his jeans. ‘Who wants to help me find some kindling?’
    But the twins went to perch on the edge of the couch.
    â€˜Is this Uncle Jim’s house?’ said Louie.
    â€˜Yes,’ said Bonnie.
    â€˜Where is he then?’
    â€˜Well, he doesn’t live here all the time. He just comes here for holidays sometimes.’
    â€˜Where will we sleep?’ said Edie.
    â€˜Here, on the floor.’
    â€˜All of us?’ said Louie. ‘Even Jess?’
    â€˜We’ve got the port-a-cot for her.’
    â€˜Oh. Can we make our beds now?’
    â€˜No, because then we’d be stepping on them all afternoon.’
    â€˜Oh.’
    â€˜Come on,’ said Pete from the doorway. ‘Who’s going to help me get the kindling?’
    Silence from the twins.
    â€˜Let’s all go,’ said Bonnie. ‘We can have a look around.’ She went over to Pete and took his hand. ‘Come on, you guys.’ She stretched out her other hand and wiggled her fingers. Louie came first and took it. Edie took Pete’s free hand, and like that, in a chain, they stepped out and off the narrow veranda, down the steps and past the parked car with Jess still sleeping in it, blankets tucked in and the windows down. Into the sparse trees they went, lifting their