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

feet high over the tussocks of grass.
    Pete cooked sausages in the electric frypan, boiled potatoes and broccoli over the little gas stove. They ate in front of the fire, Bonnie and Pete with their plates on their laps, the twins kneeling at the coffee table. Behind the blackened glass of the little door the fire burned, settled into a concentrated heat, red and liquid at its centre. They stared into it.
    â€˜When’s our birthday?’ said Louie.
    â€˜Soon,’ said Bonnie. ‘About a month away.’
    â€˜And who’s coming again?’
    â€˜Oscar, Frankie, Tom …’
    â€˜Maya?’ said Edie, licking tomato sauce from her fork.
    â€˜Yes, Maya. All your kinder friends.’
    â€˜Grandma?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Nan and Pop?’
    Bonnie looked at Pete.
    â€˜No,’ he said, reaching forward to smooth Edie’s hair. ‘Nan and Pop live too far away. They can only come at Christmas-time.’
    â€˜Are Nan and Pop your mum and dad?’ said Louie.
    â€˜Yes,’ said Pete. ‘My mum and dad.’
    â€˜And Grandma’s my mum,’ said Bonnie.
    â€˜And your dad’s dead,’ said Edie.
    â€˜Yes.’ She reached to bounce Jess in her baby chair. ‘You’re getting tired, aren’t you, possum?’
    â€˜I can’t believe these guys are nearly five years old,’ said Pete.
    â€˜I can’t believe it either,’ said Edie. She straightened her spine and put down her fork. ‘Lovely dinner,’ she said in an important voice. ‘Very nice.’
    Together Bonnie and Pete ducked their heads, slid sideways smiles at each other.
    Louie speared a slice of sausage and collected a gob of sauce with it. ‘Doug says when he was six he could drive a car.’
    â€˜I don’t know about that,’ said Pete.
    â€˜It’s true,’ said Louie, posting the sausage into his mouth.
    â€˜I don’t think so,’ said Pete. ‘He must’ve been joking, Lou.’
    â€˜He wasn’t joking.’ Louie’s brow knotted. He chomped furiously. ‘He told me.’
    Pete softened his voice. ‘Well, maybe —’
    â€˜Actually,’ said Bonnie, ‘Doug did say that.’ She looked at Louie. ‘The world has changed a lot since Doug was a little boy,’ she said, feeling her way. ‘I’m not sure what the rules were back then. But now you have to be really quite grown up to drive a car.’
    â€˜You have to be sixteen,’ said Pete. ‘And then you can have lessons. Your mum or dad has to sit in the car with you and show you what to do.’
    There was a pause. Louie kept up his chewing, eyes on his plate.
    Pete stretched, reached his arms up, elbows out, hands behind his head. ‘That’ll be you one day, Louie and Edie.’
    â€˜One day,’ said Bonnie, ‘but not for a long, long time.’
    Silence. Louie chewed on, his fork stuck upright in his fist.
    Bonnie and Pete sat at the table with a bottle of wine. The children were two dark huddles on the camping mattresses in the middle of the rug, Jess quiet beyond them in the nylon travel cot. The glow of the fire threw the corners of the room into darkness. Over Pete’s shoulder she could see her own face hanging in the black window.
    â€˜How could a six-year-old reach the pedals?’ said Pete.
    She shrugged. ‘He must’ve made it up.’ She poured herself more wine.
    Pete sipped from his glass and leaned back in his chair. ‘I feel like a cigarette.’ He got up and started searching through the drawers of the single kitchen bench. ‘Maybe Jim left some.’
    She looked into her reflected face. ‘I didn’t know he smoked.’
    â€˜He doesn’t really,’ said Pete, rummaging. ‘Only sometimes. Like me.’ He shut the last drawer, scanned the room. ‘No luck.’ He came over and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘You