Sticks and Stones Read online

  Ilsa Evans lives in a partially renovated house in the Dandenongs, east of Melbourne. She shares her home with her three children (off and on) and a variety of animals, including a mentally challenged dog and a psychotic cat.

  She has completed a PhD at Monash University on the long-term effects of domestic violence and now teaches creative writing when she is not writing fiction herself. Sticks and Stones is her eighth novel.

  Also by Ilsa Evans

  Spin Cycle

  Drip Dry

  Odd Socks

  Each Way Bet

  Flying the Coop

  Broken

  The Family Tree

  First published in Macmillan in 2010 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited

  1 Market Street, Sydney

  Copyright © Ilsa Evans 2010

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  Evans, Ilsa

  Sticks and Stones / Ilsa Evans.

  ISBN 978 1 4050 3992 5 (pbk.)

  A823.4

  Typeset in 11/15 pt Birka by Post Pre-press Group

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  The characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance

  to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  These electronic editions published in 2010 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  Sticks and Stones

  Ilsa Evans

  Adobe eReader format

  978-1-74262-345-0

  EPub format

  978-1-74262-347-4

  Mobipocket format

  978-1-74262-346-7

  Online format

  978-1-74262-344-3

  Macmillan Digital Australia

  www.macmillandigital.com.au

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com.au to read more about all our books and to buy both print and ebooks online. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events.

  This book is dedicated to

  every woman who has ever walked a mile in Mattie’s shoes,

  with a wish that they would all lift their heads

  and realise they are not alone.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  To all those wonderful people who read through the manuscript and/or gave me advice – Robyn Cotterell-Jones from Victims of Crime Assistance League (VOCAL) Inc NSW; Maggie Woodhead, Nerida Mulvey, Cathri Caljou, Melissa Meadows, Michael Yata. The list goes on but unfortunately my memory doesn’t, so if I’ve forgotten you please accept my thanks regardless.

  And also to all those who emailed after reading Broken, letting me know how much they appreciated the book, and those who wanted to know what happened to Mattie afterwards. For good or for bad, here is her story.

  There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to them. Appearing before her eyes with shutter speed and then, blink, they were gone. As if her life had been captured on film, the past tethered to the present with snapshots of what had gone before.

  Flashbacks, the counsellor said. Which she thought went well with the camera metaphor but also made them sound a little insect-like. Parasitic. She even began to imagine them as alive, with thin, multi-jointed legs, burrowing along just beneath her skin. Abdomens swelling as they fed voraciously on her memories.

  And the funny thing was that even though the images took her breath away, on the outside, apart from a tendency to hug her arms into stillness, there was no visible indication that anything significant had occurred. But inwardly, now that was another story altogether.

  ONE

  The Ferris wheel turned lazily, with wedges of cobalt sky revolving within the spokes. Cages rocked as children waved excitedly at those scattered below. Maddie shaded her eyes against the spring sunshine as her daughter climbed towards the peak, huddling across the red slatted seat to giggle with her friend. When they reached the top the pair leant back, brown hair streaming down below, so that for a moment all they would see above was the huge expanse of brilliant, cloudless sky. A panorama of virgin blue. Then they were on the downward spiral once more.

  ‘Doesn’t it make you nervous?’

  Maddie nodded slowly as she turned to face the woman who had come up beside her, even though rather than feel nervous, she’d actually been vicariously enjoying the ride. Especially the weightlessness of those few seconds that hung, rocking slightly, just before the descent. She wondered momentarily whether that made her a bad mother.

  ‘And those safety bars don’t look very safe to me. Why, most of the kids could slip right under, and then . . . well, they’d be toast.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Besides, look at that operator! He can’t be more than eighteen. More tattoos than brains. What’s he going to do if something goes wrong?’

  On the Ferris wheel, Ashley and her friend Georgia were now using their legs to swing their cage wildly as they ascended once more. It looked like tremendous fun, and the safety bars seemed perfectly secure. Maddie glanced back at her companion, expecting another comment, but to her surprise the woman had already turned and was now trudging solidly across the school oval towards the row of stalls set up along the perimeter. Maddie stared after her, suddenly concerned that she may have appeared rude. She replayed the conversation, rubbing her arm absent-mindedly, and then took a deep, level breath and made herself stop.

  The two girls were now dipping towards ground level, their car still rocking slightly, and Ashley waved as they glided past the young operator and then began the outward ascent once more. Maddie thought suddenly of a game she used to play with the children when they were very little, tracing her finger around the palms of their hands. Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear. One step, two steps – and tickle you under there.

  She closed her eyes briefly with the memory. The fat little starfish hands trembling with anticipation, and then the frantic, hysterical wriggling as her fingers leapt. The Ferris wheel halted suddenly, cages swinging, and the operator lifted the safety bar to release the pair unfortunate enough to be on ground level. Maddie tucked the memory away as she strolled towards the ride and then waited until it was Ashley and Georgia’s turn. The two girls clutched at each other, giggling, and then came running over.

  Maddie smiled at them, loving their pleasure. ‘How was it?’

  ‘It was okay.’ Ashley replaced her grin with pubescent nonchalance. ‘Bit gay though.’

  ‘Gay?’

  ‘Like it got boring after a while,’ she shrugged for emphasis.

  ‘Yeah,’ offered Georgia supportively. ‘Gay.’

  Maddie swallowed a chuckle, lest it offend, as she marvelled at the evolution of connotations.
<
br />   ‘Anyway, why’re you here? I thought you were with Kim? We’re supposed to be meeting later.’

  ‘Kim’s doing her stint at face-painting. And I was just going past and saw you up there.’

  ‘You don’t have to watch me,’ Ashley continued as if her mother hadn’t spoken while her friend giggled and then dipped her head. ‘I can look after myself. FYI, I’m twelve years old.’

  ‘Ah yes, I’m vaguely aware of that fact. Fine then. I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Good.’ Ashley grabbed Georgia’s hand and tugged her away. Then she paused and, with one of her lightning moves, dashed back and kissed her mother on the cheek. ‘Love you, Mum.’

  Immediately softened by the unexpected gift, Maddie resisted the urge to lay her fingertips across the cooling kiss as she watched the two girls leave, breaking into a run as they crossed the oval. Children once more. Were all girls so mercurial? Certainly Ashley’s brother was very different. The calm eye of the storm that was his sister. Or maybe it was just that she wore her emotions so thinly that they simply could not be contained.

  The Ferris wheel was revolving once more, with the operator leaning back against the engine housing smoking a cigarette with a James Dean casualness that was surely contrived. Maddie glanced away, doing a sweep of the festively bedecked school grounds. A throbbing pulse of music floated across the oval, the loudspeakers lending a tinny edge that only added to the carnival atmosphere. She could just see the face-painting stall in the far corner, where her friend Kim would be busily decorating an array of sticky faces with tiger whiskers, or fairy glitter, or football colours. And amongst the crowd were other people she knew, each of whom grounded her. Here, in this place, at this time.

  Maddie took a deep breath of it all, letting the colours and the music and the sheer joyousness permeate before she headed over. The word gay flitted across her consciousness and she grinned, happily. And was almost immediately struck by a compulsion that she had to close her eyes for a full minute to keep everything safe. The fact that someone might see her, stupidly standing in the middle of the oval with her eyes closed, just added to the sense of sacrifice. She made herself count slowly, evenly, otherwise she’d have to start again, and opened her eyes half expecting a passerby to be staring curiously, breathing a sigh of relief to find herself still alone.

  The oval felt spongy underfoot, courtesy of a week of nonstop rain that had threatened to cancel the festivities before they had even begun. A huge banner had been strung across the side of the partially built school hall with jagged white-capped writing: Help us finish! Badgerton Secondary College needs you! Nearby, a band had set up on the ad hoc stage, with the bass turned up disproportionately so that as Maddie drew closer, even the ground seemed to vibrate in time. Clusters of teenagers were scattered around the stage area and some girls had started dancing, affecting not to notice their audience. A few younger children dashed past on their way to the Ferris wheel, the smallest bringing up the rear with a yellow balloon tugging against its string. She stumbled in a grassy rut and thrust her hands out, releasing the balloon which instantly shot upwards. A splash of egg yolk against the blue.

  Maddie slowed as she watched the balloon’s bid for freedom quickly become curtailed by the gnarled branch of a nearby tree, leaving it to genuflect hopelessly towards the sky. She looked away and saw him almost immediately. Everything froze, everything, as recognition arrived within a heartbeat. It might have been six minutes since she had last seen him instead of six years. The same tall, thin build, the same olive skin, the same dark hair worn slightly longer in front to disguise his receding hairline. All the same. It was him. Here.

  And she was staring straight into the barrel of the gun. A ring of smooth, cold steel that was perfectly steady, with not even a tremble to indicate doubt. Lined up with the space between her brows where only recently she had noticed a crease forming, and had carefully applied wrinkle cream to ward off the inevitable.

  She took an involuntary step backwards even as she blinked, forcing her mind into focus. He was leaning against a brick wall near the Devonshire tea stand, one hand in his pocket as he stared towards her. Graffiti blossomed from either side of his head, indecipherable words within clouds of colour, so that he seemed to have thought bubbles which she could no longer read. He wasn’t close enough for Maddie to see his expression but she suddenly thought he might be smiling, one of those half-smiles that crinkled up his eyes.

  Her heart leapt painfully, and then sunk again so quickly that she felt physically ill. Still he stared, and she imagined that he was amused at her shock. Strangely, the thought of that amusement went some way towards calming her because, as she well knew, there was worse. She found herself able to take a breath, and then another. Hoping that these would slow her heart from beating so loudly that it echoed painfully, scarily, within her throat. In the periphery of her vision she could see people moving, mothers, fathers, children, all enjoying the fete and the beautiful weather. A blur of normality which, as a frame for the frozen tableau, seemed discordant, bizarre. She flicked her focus back to him, and he was gone.

  Her eyes widened in disbelief and then frantically searched the area. Nothing. Just a single, undulating cloud of graffiti. She moved forward slowly, and then more rapidly, stopping again just before the wall and then reaching out to trail her fingers across the brickwork. Needing that tactile confirmation of his absence. She sucked in air, forcing it past the lump in her throat, and then turned to look around. Across the faces at the stalls, over the people in the crowd, up to the teenagers mulling by the makeshift stage. She tried to remember what he had been wearing but drew a blank. Oh god, where were the kids?

  And she stared into the barrel until everything around became indistinct. The room beyond, the finger on the trigger below, the face just above. With eyes like gunshot wounds themselves. But as the minutes stretched, the blackness slowly began to engulf her until she was part of it all, and yet still horribly alien. Until she couldn’t stand it any longer and she simply had to close her eyes after all. Giving up.

  ‘Maddie? Hey, are you okay?’

  Maddie took a moment to identify the woman by her side. Medium height, dark blonde hair, brown eyes. Diane. The mother of one of Ashley’s friends. ‘Um, no. I mean yes, I’m fine.’

  ‘You sure?’ Diane looked at her questioningly. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘A ghost?’ Maddie resisted the urge to laugh. Instead she shook her head, needing the conversation to end so that she could think. ‘No . . . nothing like that. Really, I’m fine.’ She mustered up a smile. ‘Probably too much fairy floss and Ferris wheel.’

  ‘A lethal combination,’ Diane grinned, willing to be convinced. ‘Well, make sure you take it easy now. Sit down for a while. Hey, how good is the weather after all that rain last week?’

  ‘Fantastic.’ Maddie kept the smile in place. ‘Marvellous. See you later.’

  Diane nodded as she moved away, leaving Maddie to scan the crowd once more. He still wasn’t anywhere in sight but, to her immense relief, she saw Ashley over by the stage with Georgia and a few other girls. Maddie closed her eyes briefly, then dug in her pocket for her mobile and rapidly rang home.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Sam? Are you . . . okay?’

  ‘Yeah. Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’

  Maddie breathed out and it was like releasing a toxin, leaving only giddiness behind.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘I’m still here. Good. Glad everything’s okay.’

  ‘You know you can be really weird sometimes? Later.’

  Maddie listened to the dial tone for a moment, soothed by its monotony, and then flipped the phone closed and thrust it back into her pocket. She rubbed her arm fiercely and then, with an effort, made herself stop. Wiping her hands down the sides of her jeans as she glanced around again, searching faces. Finally she took a few deep breaths. In through the nose, one, two, out through the mouth. Maybe the graffiti had always been an un
broken cloud of colour. Because how could he have found her anyway? It was improbable. Impossible.

  And it wasn’t like it hadn’t happened before. She had glimpsed him many times through the years, waiting for a bus, sitting nearby in the cinema, queued up at a checkout counter – only to have him fade just as the breath caught in her throat. To be replaced by a stranger with a minor point of similarity. The hair, the height, the smile, or that particular confidence. But this time had seemed so real. And there had been no replacement once he had gone; nothing but an empty space.

  Which meant she was getting worse. And this thought brought a hopelessness that bloomed out from deep within, until she sagged under its weight. She wanted desperately to go home, but couldn’t bring herself to face the inevitable argument with Ashley should she cut the afternoon short. Instead she thrust her hands into her pockets and then took another few breaths, long, calming ones. In and out, in and out. But the graffiti mocked her with its gay splashes of colour. And she wondered, with a heaviness that made the words feel thick, when it would ever end.

  TWO

  Acongested feeling remained with Maddie right through into the evening. Just enough to shade all that went on, making it that little bit heavier. As if gravity itself was slightly askew. It was a sensation that irritated as well as depressed, but one which she knew, from experience, would dissipate given time. So she tucked it to one side and tried, as far as possible, to ignore it.

  As befitted a Sunday full of fete and sunshine, tea was fish and chips in front of the television. It was a meal much favoured in their household, simply because it catered for each of their differing tastes. Most other meals were accompanied by the vociferous complaints of whoever didn’t like it. Ashley if there was anything with too much liquid, and Sam if the food involved a casing of any type, like pies or schnitzel or even ravioli.