The Fence (19 page)

*

Christmas Day dawns overcast and humid. The children run into Frankie's bedroom to wake her. Brandon is already up making pancakes and brewing coffee. He stops to join the children in a circle around the tree. They pillage their Santa sacks for the chocolates, bubbles and the mini packs of Duplo Frankie always includes. Brandon fusses over each child as they rip the paper from their presents. Frankie eases herself onto the couch and takes photos, capturing pictures of the very happy family they aren't.

Silver's eyes widen when he unwraps the drum kit. He wants to play right away so Brandon helps him put the kit together. Marigold hugs her Grow Up Daisy doll, rocking her whilst singing a lullaby. Bijoux shakes a box of Duplo, laughing at the noise. Amber begins to cry.

‘What's wrong, darling.' Frankie touches Amber's shoulder. ‘Don't you like your karaoke machine?'

Amber shakes her head. ‘I wanted a skateboard.'

‘But you asked Santa for a microphone too and look what he gave you instead,' she says, upselling the karaoke machine. ‘Why don't we plug it in and sing a song?'

Amber's face erupts into a violent mottled pink. ‘Santa promised me a skateboard.'

Frankie tries to keep the edge out of her voice. ‘Well maybe Santa, like Mummy, thought you were a little young for a skateboard.'

‘And I asked for a bikini,' Amber yells.

Frankie struggles to remain sweet-tempered in the face of Amber's disintegrating behaviour. ‘You're not behaving very nicely, Amber. Remember how we put gifts under the Wishing Tree at Rosedale Square? Lots of children get nothing for Christmas and you have plenty of lovely presents.' Probably too many, if she's honest with herself. Each year she tries to ration the number of gifts, each year she overindulges them. ‘Grandma and Grandpa will have presents for you too,' she adds, hoping to distract Amber from her mood.

‘Do we have to go to Grandma's?' Silver lisps, holding the cymbal whilst Brandon screws it onto the stand. Brandon smirks and ducks his head so she won't see but Frankie does. None of them enjoy Christmas at her parents' house. Noelle has so many rules and expects the children to eat in the formal dining room and use the correct silverware. There'll be white damask tablecloths starched and ready for the inevitable spillage from four small children. Her mother's insistence on using the Waterford crystal means a tumbler will be broken and Noelle will sigh and say something like, ‘They were a wedding present from my mother,' even though Noelle bought her crystal ware from David Jones.

Frankie grins and says, ‘It will be fun. You'll be spoilt rotten.' Though that's true, she always feels stranded by her siblings who somehow don't feel the same sense of filial obligation towards their parents as she does. Martin has the excuse of living in London, her sister Sophia lives in Saudi Arabia. Georgette's in Tassie and Anabel and Flick point blank refuse to come. As the eldest, perhaps her sense of duty is overdeveloped. Perhaps she and Brandon should have moved to Perth not Rosedale.

‘I want a skateboard,' Amber shouts and stomps to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. She refuses to come out for pancakes and babycinos. Frankie sends Brandon in to negotiate but when he opens the door, Amber yells, ‘Skateboard. Skateboard. Skateboard!' until Brandon shuts her back in.

‘Maybe Diane Slaughter's right, Frankie,' he says, re-joining breakfast.

Frankie cuts Bijoux's pancake into thumb-size pieces. ‘Meaning?'

‘Amber's ability to self-regulate her behaviour leaves a lot to be desired.'

Frankie doesn't reply. To do so will mean that Brandon is right and she has no intention of giving him that small satisfaction. As further punishment, she leaves Brandon to drag Amber out of her room and lock her rigid body in the car seat. The rest of the children, clean and dressed in identical Christmas outfits, observe Amber's audacious behaviour in silent awe. Frankie waits for Brandon to manoeuvre the multivan onto the street so she can climb in. She checks the time on her phone. It has just gone eleven. They are officially late and her mother will be furious.

Over lunch, no mention is made of Frankie's marital disharmony. Not least because her father drinks too much wine and ends up dozing off on the lounge. Frankie knows Brandon envies her dad's way of opting out but she's watching him and he knows she is watching him.

Silver tells Noelle all about the dollhouse. Noelle is amused at the Hills' gift giving and encourages the children to tell her more. Silver is listing the tiny toys that belong in the miniature nursery when Amber interrupts.

‘Where is the dollhouse, Mummy?'

Frankie licks her thumb and wipes ice-cream from Amber's lip, saying, ‘I packed it away until after Christmas, sweetheart.'

‘Why?' Amber frowns at her.

‘Because,' Frankie lies, ‘you have so many other presents to enjoy, I thought you might like to save it for later.'

Silver stares at her from under his fringe. Noelle raises an eyebrow.

The children have no right to be suspicious of her, she knows what's best for them. ‘Who'd like more ice-cream?' she says, struggling from her seat and away from the inquisition.

When at last Noelle yawns and sneaks a discreet glance at her watch, Frankie's relieved to finally have her cue to leave. ‘It's been lovely, as always, Mother,' she says, stuffing toys into bags, ‘but I better get this lot home before they disintegrate.'

‘Must you?' Noelle says, rising and scanning the room for forgotten gifts.

‘We must. Daddy's obviously tired and you must be too after such a long day.' Frankie glosses over the truth.

‘Yes, it's a big job preparing lunch for so many. I've forgotten after all these years.' Noelle gets in one last dig.

The annual pantomime complete, Frankie hustles the children into the car and sighs in relief as they drive away. She glances at Brandon, thinks of her mother. It's such a wretched thing to love someone and resent them at the same time. Longed for approval greases the wheels of her relationship with Noelle. How she relished the freedom of that year she spent in Europe after finishing uni. A year without her mother's constant critique of the way she lived her life. Her choice of husband. In her mother's eyes, nothing Frankie did was satisfactory.

Dwelling on her mother is interrupted by their arrival home. With a start, Frankie notices that the gates are open. ‘Didn't you lock them when we left?' she asks Brandon as she climbs out of the van.

Brandon says, ‘Yeah,' but his expression is less certain. Wasn't Frankie last in the car?

‘Yes or can't remember?' snaps Frankie, releasing Bijoux from her car seat and carrying her up the drive. She stops. The front door is open. Frankie hesitates before stepping inside, the keys dangling from her fingers. The only sound is next door's chickens but there is a ghost of a presence louder than clucking hens. And the house, oh the house. Amber and Silver race up behind her.

‘Stay outside,' she shouts. She doesn't want them to see. ‘Brandon, can you come here please?' she yells as she herds the children back down the stairs to the driveway.

A dense weight settles in her chest. When he is close enough, she passes him Bijoux and fetches the phone from her handbag. Brandon stares past her, taking stock of the utter devastation.

The Christmas tree lies on its side. One branch has pierced the skin of the bass drum of Silver's drum kit. The screen of the TV is caved in as if smashed by a mallet, so is the mirror that hangs over the fireplace. Their kitchen floor is littered with pieces of crockery, as if they have walked into the aftermath of a Greek wedding. Red paint splatters the lounge room rug and the leather couch has several slashes along its length.

‘Where are the kids' Christmas presents?' Frankie asks.

The Santa sacks are gone and, with them, most of the presents. Bright beads from Amber's necklace-making kit scatter the floor. Hungry Hippos lies in several pieces. The only intact present is the karaoke machine. Thankfully, Marigold has not let go of Grow Up Daisy the entire day.

Tails wagging, Peanut and Butter press their noses to the glass sliding door.

‘Some guard dogs you are,' Frankie mutters. But she doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out why the dogs let the house be trashed. Though they too know the perpetrator, they don't share her outrage at this violent incursion. This is her sanctuary, no one has a right to be here, to lash out at them this way. The devastation of her house, the theft and destruction of their belongings, is a physical pain as if it were her body that had been violated. In large part because of the note written on the feature wall in big red letters.

‘Babe, I'm so sorry,' Brandon says, though it seems like sorry doesn't cover the half of what he's feeling. Fear, anger and humiliation are battling it out for supremacy on his face.

Frankie wheels on him anyway. ‘Don't you dare talk to me. I'm so angry I can't speak.'

Brandon steps away, as though she might actually hit him.

Frankie shakes as tears fight with rage. ‘Here I was wondering, will he do it this time? Will he actually break up with her for good? And now,' she gestures at the words bleeding on the wall, ‘now I guess I have my answer.'

She picks her way through shards of broken baubles and strewn tinsel towards the wall, presses her fingertips to the sticky paint. Camilla has gone to town. This isn't some wash and wear paint easy to scrub off the obscenities scrawled on the wall. She's used oil-based gloss for the job.

‘Mummy, what's a slut?' Silver asks, reaching for her hand.

She squeezes his hand tight. ‘That's the name of the person who wrote these rude words on our wall, darling.'

‘But why's your name there too?' he says.

Amber might be struggling to write her own name but Silver is much more advanced than his sister. ‘Let's go outside,' she says, ‘and see if we can see the police car coming.'

‘Cool! Will they let us turn the siren on like last time?' Silver bounds ahead of her.

Frankie assures him they will.

*

A much calmer Frankie tells the police of their day, explaining the relationship to Camilla. The young officers refrain from showing surprise at Brandon's extramarital affair. A part of Frankie is angry they refuse to share her outrage, as if this kind of furious attack occurred every day.

‘Did Miss Fernandes have her own key?' the constable directs at Brandon.

Frankie looks to Brandon, confident the answer is no. But Brandon, sunk in by humiliation, shakes his head, saying something no one can hear.

‘Can you repeat that please, sir,' asks the polite young officer.

Frankie wonders if cases like this make it worth being rostered on Christmas Day. Whether they will go back to the station and laugh at her humiliation.

Brandon clears his throat. ‘She knows where the spare key is hidden.' He can't believe he's been such a fool. When they first moved to Rosedale he was so angry at Frankie that he'd sought revenge in allowing Camilla to visit. The sex didn't thrill him half as much as slipping beneath Frankie's radar, undermining the control she thought she had over him. He lied to Frankie about so much, including that Camilla had never been here when the twins were home. But ever since that day Silver caught him and Camilla kissing, only kissing thank God, Brandon had been trying to push her away. She wasn't worth the price of his family. He'd thought he'd handled it well. Clearly he was wrong.

‘Can you show us where it is, sir?'

They traipse down to the garage, along the side path to the vents in the brickwork. The constable squats and examines the alcove, taking photos with his phone. ‘So she let herself in?' Standing, he inclines his head towards the fence. ‘What about the neighbours?'

Frankie's first reaction is that he is suggesting the Hills are in cahoots with Camilla, but then he says, ‘Might they have seen or heard something?'

His colleague grabs the fence and shakes it. ‘New fence,' he says.

Frankie nods.

They leave soon after, promising the detectives will follow. ‘Whatever you do, don't try to contact Miss Fernandes. She might be volatile and do something regretful.'

As if she has not already, Frankie thinks.

She watches them cross over to the Hills. Frankie wonders if they, like the dogs, are so used to Camilla popping in that they wouldn't react. It chills her to think that they knew how Brandon spent his day whilst she was at work.

Desperate to escape, she tells Brandon that she is taking the kids to the beach. ‘Once the fingerprint people have finished, you can make a start on this,' she waves her arm to encompass the broken glass, the smashed china, the ruined Christmas presents and that violating red paint.

The children are subdued as she drives. The twins are old enough to realise something terrible has happened. Her poor children, caught in the crossfire of an unhappy marriage. And all because of Brandon. The question repeats in her head, why? What is wrong with him? He's lied to her, been unfaithful. Not once has he said, ‘This isn't working for me'. How can she be expected to fix things when she doesn't know what is wrong? What has Camilla got that she hasn't, that makes her so irresistible, and what on earth went on between them to trigger such an attack? Those awful words on the wall blaming her, calling her names. What has Brandon said about her to make Camilla write such filth? How dare Camilla think she has the right to cast judgement on their marriage.

Balmoral is crowded, its parks populated with people celebrating Christmas. Frankie breathes in the salty fresh air and it eases her pain. The children build sandcastles. Amber directs Marigold to collect shells and Silver uses the bucket from the set Noelle gave them for Christmas to fill a moat around their castle. Happy. They might move here, she thinks, her and the children, after the baby's born. How nice to come to the seashore and dip in the waveless waters of Balmoral. There are good schools nearby and she'd be driving against the traffic to work. A fresh start. It's what she should have done the first time instead of listening to her mother. Moving to Rosedale has not been the wake-up call Brandon needed. If anything, it has made him more miserable and she's never enjoyed that smug feeling of vindication. Not for one moment. If anything, her insistence on the move to Rosedale has compounded their problems. In a way, she has pushed him into Camilla's arms. She sees that now.