22

Nell

Notes for affidavit – Madeline Murray

How do you even start this? Where do you begin? There are distinct points, obviously, like the first glimpse across a crowded Carlton pub or the slide of a diamond ring down a foolishly eager finger. But those are a bit too obvious, aren’t they? A bit too same same, like a made-for-TV movie. Because that’s what it is, really, when you look at the basic structure of my life. The big house – actual picket fence and all – the charismatic couple. I’d be played by some middle-aged actress who the audience recognises but can’t quite place, whose Hollywood offers dried up alongside the spread of her crow’s feet. Eric would be the male equivalent, only he’d probably get nominated for an Emmy and skyrocket back into the A-list. So typical it doesn’t seem real or interesting at all.

Perhaps, for me, it all started at the breakdown of my parents’ marriage when I was eight, my father relocating to continental Europe for a sabbatical that never ended. I blamed my mother, of course, for making him leave, never considering for a moment that he may, in fact, have chosen to leave and that it was, as I found out many, many years later, his decision entirely.

He was a genius, my father, or at least that was how people liked to portray him, a man of high standing whose infamous stubbornness and pig-headed perseverance saw a number of notable breakthroughs in whatever scientific research he spent much of his time immersed in. Physics of some sort is all I know because my mother never bothered to ask too many questions and he apparently wasn’t that forthcoming with information. She knew he was important and won awards, and I suspect that was as much as he needed her to know.

I wonder sometimes if this was where it started, because his leaving so early meant I didn’t truly have the opportunity to age in his presence and see for myself the impact of his moods at home which would, I imagine, have vastly changed my perception of him. Instead, I was left with an entirely unreasonable portrait of what to me was a normal functional relationship, and the blueprint for what I would come to accept in my own life. Brilliant mind = patient wife. This is not to say he was an abusive man exactly, but more that his stubbornness and temper fluctuations seemed to me a basic and acceptable hallmark of every relationship. My mother only spoke of these things decades later, at the time employing the fortitude and resilience often found in generations of women raised on the land. I suspect this influenced me too, this lineage of long-suffering women, there in our veins and pulse, helixed into our DNA and stored on the stiff starched shelf of our stout upper lips. Taught by my mother to just get on with things because that was how they were. He was a genius, she long maintained, and brilliance needed to be accommodated.

Eric was my first proper boyfriend. I didn’t have much to measure him against except that to me, and those around me, he seemed perfect. Handsome and clever, the two of us raced each other for top marks each semester like some kind of legal studies power couple. The other girls in my share house were smitten with him too. He would show up at all hours unannounced, with flowers or longnecks or expensive items from the Lygon Street delis that none of us could afford. Checking in to see that I was okay, that I didn’t want for anything, that I had everything I could need – the way we’d always imagined our boyfriends would be, but never seemed to happen in real life. Like a prince, as embarrassing as that sentiment is when put down on paper.

It’s an insular little world that cloisters around the residences and share houses of Parkville, everyone in and about each other’s business like the gossip columns of 1920s Hollywood. We would happily have been the golden couple if this was a title on offer, as if it were entirely natural and expected that the two students ‘most likely to’ were among other things most likely to end up with each other. And we were proud of this – both of us – because those things matter so much when you’re young, don’t they?

We had tremendous fun in those days, inventing games to aid our study, buying buckets full of sour warheads to keep us going and rewarding ourselves for our all-night study with a second full night down at the Tote listening to Magic Dirt or Spiderbait. We’d styled ourselves on the Clintons initially, his’n’hers lawyers set to take the world by storm, only to later use them as a cautionary tale for all that we wouldn’t become. This was the time of his impeachment and I’d judged her so readily for her choices in a way I would never do now. ‘I’d die before hurting you,’ Eric told me at the time as we watched a media-lashed Hillary stand by her man, and I’d taken this as proof of his love. I sometimes wonder how early I knew things were wrong, somewhere deep beneath the excuses and accommodations I occasionally made for him.

When our final results came out I hid mine from him, letting him believe that he’d bested me for the fourth year in a row, sensing this was important. How prophetic that turned out to be, as it eventually became part of his arsenal of insults to hurl at me throughout our marriage. Second best, he would taunt, unaware he was mistaken.

Engagement seemed the natural next step, something our friends around us seemed to be doing, and seemingly inevitable when you’d reached the point our relationship was at. How proudly he displayed me around his office, his clever beautiful wife – second best, but nonetheless! – with her impressive job in politics and the promising future this conveyed. His colleagues’ jealousy comforted him, as if I was a secondary validation for his achievements in life. They would joke at barbecues about stealing me away with jewels and travel and towering houses – as if that was all it would take – and he’d play along with the suggestion that the heavy gem on my finger was a security investment to keep me by his side. I would play too, despite my reservations, careful not to come across too flirty or coy because where once he had laughed at this, soon it aroused suspicion and irritation, particularly after we’d married. He couldn’t bear to live without me, he told me, so I wasn’t to joke about it. Besides, he was recently promoted and it was important he look the part, and what kind of man couldn’t keep control of his own wife?

Marriage changed everything. It was as if that ring bound me to him in a way that allowed no room for independence or difference. Where once his suspicions had been endearing, they now became unreasonable, and he monitored every exchange I had with a male in his presence with the thoroughness and precision of a scientist. You were flirting with the butcher, he’d say, disgusted and wounded, as if a half-kilo of lamb chops was a euphemism for something unseemly. You do it to make me jealous, he’d say, convinced I’d made lingering eye contact with strangers I never even noticed.

Nonetheless, we bought the big house and the fancy furnishings to go with it, and things progressively got worse from there. He never actually hit me. He was clever like that. You don’t actually need to, though, do you, if you go about it the right way. What he would do was punish me if I did something wrong. First with things like silence or a sudden feigned lack of hunger in the middle of an exclusive restaurant, then eventually with unexpected work emergencies that left me solo at family occasions, hurriedly untangling plans for couples’ weekends away with friends or unpacking clothes from suitcases as planes took off without us. Then, after some unpredictable amount of time – two hours, one day, an excruciating weekend – things were suddenly back to normal and we’d giggle about his silliness. It was always little things – insignificant things – that led to these huge reactions. This is what caused the separation. I had a porcelain statue – an ugly little thing – but it had been my grandmother’s and her grandmother’s before that. A quaint hokey little eggcup shaped like a duck. It lived on the mantle by a framed photograph of my grandmother and was one of the few possessions of hers I had. I’d worked late one evening, arriving home to find him sulking about his spoiled plans to surprise me with a candlelit dinner. We fought, as we often did at that time, and when I got home the next day the eggcup was gone. It took me a while to realise, sitting on the sofa watching the television, but eventually my brain settled on why things looked ever so slightly off. I turned the house upside down, scouring each of its giant vacuous rooms after work each night, until one day I found it in the back of a drawer in one of the guest rooms. It was crushed into a fine dust, identifiable only by a few bright red shards. He never mentioned it but I could tell when I returned to the living room that night that he knew I knew. His smirk. You wouldn’t understand, but it was his smirk that always gave him away.

Why did we get back together? What a wonderful question that is. I went to stay with my mother and no one – not she or my friends – could really understand what the fuss was about. Surely eggcups, even ancestral ones, aren’t worth a whole marriage? they’d say. Eric too had started a campaign of redemption, showing up at my mother’s door, emailing my friends, trying – they all told me – to work out what he had done wrong. He loved me unbearably, they relayed, and just wanted to make me happy. Perhaps, they suggested – his words in their mouth – it was the stress of my job. It wasn’t right to work such long hours and my wellbeing was more important than any employer. Eventually, I too decided I was overreacting. It was, after all, a hokey old eggcup and not worth losing my marriage over. So I went back. And soon enough I was pregnant. And it wasn’t hard, then, to be convinced that I needed to leave the job that had caused so much strain on my marriage and wellbeing.

The boys were a gift to both of us. To me they were these wondrous, helpless little creatures who needed to be loved and encouraged and cuddled. To Eric, they were the perfect conduit through which to berate and control me. You see, I was never very good with them. Latching issues, teething troubles, reflux, sleeplessness and nappy rash; these were all evidence that I wasn’t doing it properly. I didn’t go back to work – children needed a mother at home, Eric believed – and besides, I’d lost my confidence by then. If I couldn’t handle getting two kids under three to sleep each night I certainly couldn’t manage a politician’s office anymore.

Eric was a great father, except when he wasn’t. Then he would mutter and moan, as if the boys’ inability to keep their food down was a personal insult to him. It was always on his good work shirts, he once told me, as if they did it on purpose. He worried, too, about their intellects and milestones. They didn’t do things fast enough for his liking and he was sure I didn’t provide enough mental stimulation during the day. He would email me articles from work with instructions on the types of games to play with children to ensure the highest level of cognitive development. No play for play’s sake, but targeted activities ‘proven’ to produce the most intelligent of children. Once, when he thought I was in the other room, I watched him playing with Josh, who in the middle of his terrible twos had decided everything around him was an idiot. ‘You’re the idiot’, Eric snapped back at him, then became red-faced and angry when I reprimanded him. I was imagining things, he told me, projecting my insecurities onto him. He was worried about my mental health again – was I coping all right?

He worried about my wellbeing a lot. He knew how wearing finances were so he took care of all this himself. It was unnecessary stress – why would I argue with that? At the time I thought him generous and caring. Who wants to worry themselves with that kind of thing? But I realise now that I know absolutely nothing about our finances. They are, in a practical sense, his finances. The house, the cars, the savings – we could be on the verge of financial collapse or be completely mortgage free for all I know. And this makes me feel so incredibly stupid, how little I know of these things. Spending was similar too. Rather than bore me with all the various accounts, I simply had access to a debit card linked to a little household account from which to buy all our daily expenses. It was topped up automatically from his wages – I needn’t worry about that, he said – and I didn’t. I didn’t need to. If ever big purchases were to be made I would do all the research then he would go out and buy them on his credit card, which was linked to his work or something; there was a complicated reason why it wasn’t in both our names. And this was never a problem, until now.

The thing is, none of it seemed a problem at the time. Not on its own. Not as a collection of discrete distinct behaviours. But now when I piece it all together like some kind of terrifying tapestry I see how these things wove together to bend my actions – muffle my choices – to shape the things I did or said so that I wouldn’t upset him. The way I retreated bit by bit until I had nothing left to control. The way I withdrew, shut off, became dependent. The way I let myself believe his concern came from a place of compassion and care, and that I was the one at fault. Because this is what they told me, those supposed sounding boards around me – my friends, my family, all assuring me that I was overreacting, imagining things, making mountains out of molehills and other damning idioms.

I don’t know when I started drinking, or rather, when it became an issue. Or if it ever really was an issue in anyone’s eyes but Eric’s. I was fine during the day but what started as a gin and tonic as I prepared dinner eventually turned into a couple of glasses of wine over the course of the night. Never when it was just me and the children, and only after they’d been tucked into bed. It was never more than a glass or two to help me sleep, and when this stopped working, perhaps a glass during the day so I could manage a nap before picking up the children. Never anything dangerous, but of course why would Eric represent it as anything other than that? Easier to convince everyone I’m crazy, isn’t it?

I fell pregnant again in 2012. Maybe it surprises you that I still had sex with him, but he was my husband. Often it was more out of a sense of duty – he would sulk and mope and make things miserable if I didn’t – but sometimes it was something we both wanted. The pregnancy wasn’t planned and I worried because of the drinking. I was a few months along and hadn’t realised because my period had been irregular since the boys, which meant a few months’ worth of drinking in that vital first stage. I told Eric one night, convinced he would share my worry and we’d work out what we needed to do to make things all okay. He didn’t say anything, simply rising from the outdoor setting where we had hidden ourselves from the boys, and walking back inside. I watched him, hugging myself against the cold, as he turned and stared at me through the sliding glass doors. Then he raised his hand and locked them. I froze. I was convinced he was joking. That he would unlock them, hold me and comfort me, but he turned his back and joined the boys as they played on the carpet by the fire. I watched them for a while, that while turning into minutes, and eventually I walked to the door and knocked. It was freezing outside and I was hardly dressed for it. Only the boys looked over; Eric continued to ignore me. He must have said something because they looked away quickly. I continued to knock and eventually he rose, made his way over and flicked off the outside lighting.

I stood there for what seemed like hours, wanting to bang at the glass but anxious of startling the boys. Instead, I paced about the yard. We’d built ourselves a fortress, you see. High gates, secure locks that needed keys. Eric had even set up security cameras at the entries and exits which he could monitor live from his phone, ostensibly to keep people out, but he could also see if I was coming or going. As I paced the yard, I realised I couldn’t get out. I curled up on one of the pool chairs, too cold to sleep. Soon enough the inside lights went out and I stayed there until I could bear it no more. I started pacing again, shaking the fence, my bare hands numb. I was worried about the cold, you see, and what it might do to the poor creature growing inside me. Eventually I climbed my way up the high side gate, pulling myself up to the cast iron spikes lining the top. But my limbs were too numb and I stumbled, losing my footing and crashing back down to the ground atop the wooden outdoor chair I had used as a ladder. My chin split and a rib broke against the heavy furniture, and this was when Eric finally unlocked the doors. At the hospital they told me I had lost the baby. I don’t know if it was the fall or if in that moment the poor thing realised it was better off somewhere else, but Eric never spoke of it again. I told the hospital staff that I’d come home late, forgotten my keys and, not wanting to wake my family, had attempted to get in the back way. It seemed like the best thing to do at the time.

I don’t want to suggest that Eric became a monster after this. He was still the same man who enjoyed playing with the boys, would smother me with attention and gifts, and promised me the world when he felt like it. But the time between his silences became smaller and smaller, and all those things that had once been so romantic morphed into obsessive and frightening. ‘I can’t bear to live without you’ became ‘If you leave I will kill myself and it will all be your fault’. I had stopped drinking when I found out I was pregnant but now there didn’t seem to be a reason not to. I could have a quick drink in the morning, sleep it off after lunch, then be back on my feet to pick the boys up when the school bell rang. I was very good at it, you see. What I couldn’t manage was my anxiety. It had started properly after the miscarriage, refusing to diffuse over the years. It didn’t help that a perfectly happy family activity could turn suddenly depending on Eric’s mood, and something that one day may have brought laughter and togetherness, the next resulted in mockery and abuse. I couldn’t read him anymore and this unpredictability was terrifying. When he was feeling loving, Eric would fret over me and encourage me to get psychiatric help for the anxiety. Then when he was upset he would use it against me, threatening to tell people about my drinking and mental health issues if I ever tried anything on him. Then he would become concerned again, telling me I was overreacting, that he’d never say things like that, that my anxiety was making me imagine things. This is what made it hard to leave, my own internal doubt that I was justified in making that kind of decision. Besides, my marriage wasn’t like my parents’, I told myself. Mine wouldn’t fail and my children would always have both their parents around. Because he was good with them, mostly, just like he was good with me, mostly, and it took a long time to realise this reason for staying was really the reason to go. This all led to the school incident.

You know what triggered it? You’d think after all this time it would have been something huge, but in the end it was a simple joke. I was driving the boys home from school one afternoon and they were sharing jokes in the back seat. Silly knock-knock jokes that had them in fits of laughter and had descended into them just saying whatever came into their heads. Josh: Knock knock. Leo: Who’s there? Josh: Daddy. Leo: Daddy who? Josh: Daddy’s home so we better run and hide! That was it. That was what pushed me over the edge. It bothered me all night and the next morning when I woke it was still there. It festered inside me all day until I could take it no more. This was one of the things the alcohol did – it made me brave enough to believe I was strong. That I could leave. So after two glasses that morning I was adamant I was leaving. I would go to school, take the boys and just run. But what I hadn’t realised was that the new medication I was on for the anxiety didn’t mix well with alcohol, and instead of brave and confident, by the time I got to the school I was a complete mess. Eric blamed the alcohol entirely, feigning concern like he had done for years, and promising I would get treatment as part of the plan agreed to with the Child Protection worker.

I didn’t drink again for a long time. Until recently, actually, after everything that happened with the police. I hadn’t touched a drop the night he called the police. He knew I hadn’t. I made dinner that night, we ate together as a family, and once the boys went off to watch television I told Eric I was leaving him. No tricks or plans. Straight out told him it was over and I wanted out.

When I tried to leave the kitchen he refused to move, blocking the doorway with his body. I asked him politely. I asked him again and again. I was leaving and he needed to move out of the way. He wouldn’t though. Planted his feet and crossed his arms. I was being unreasonable, he told me. I wasn’t in my right mind. I was a risk to myself and he couldn’t let me leave. He wouldn’t let me leave. Even if I tried, I would never be able to leave. And I would regret it, when he was finally through with me, if he ever let that happen. He smirked then, the way he always did, and that was too much for me. I yelled at him to move. I told him again that I was leaving. When he wouldn’t move, I started shoving him, but he didn’t do anything, just stood there blocking my way, and the walls of the house were suddenly closing in on me as he took a single step towards me. So I started throwing things at him, first plastic things then plates, glasses, anything to make him move. Scrambling about the kitchen, trying to get out. That’s where the bruises came from. Like I said before, he’s never hit me. He’s clever like that. Just stood there smirking, taking it all. Not fighting back. And it was bursting out of me – this fire I’d swallowed up for so long – until I winded myself, struggling against the counter to try to open the locked window, and as I stood there doubled over and panting he calmly pulled his mobile from his pocket and made a call. And in less than sixty seconds he managed something I had dreamed about doing for years, and it seemed so easy for him.

When the police arrived I was momentarily relieved. I was so sure I would tell them everything and finally we would be free. But as my adrenalin wore off and reality set in, I recalled the words he’d told me so many times before: If you leave me I will take everything from you, including the boys. And what had seemed a hollow threat for so many years now felt more real and certain than anything else did. So I lied to them, covered it all up, because if I didn’t he would take everything from me. And despite all that, he’s done so anyway, hasn’t he?

‘What are you still doing here? They work you hard, don’t they?’

Nell looked up from the computer, blinking slowly. There was a clatter of metal on metal and Lou, the office cleaner, emerged from the doorway.

‘Just reviewing something,’ she replied, minimising the screen. ‘I’m done now.’

She emailed it to DB so he’d see it when he returned with the pizza. He’d review her notes and then they’d set about pulling Madeline’s story into shape.

‘I’m surprised, you know,’ Lou continued, hefting the vacuum pack onto his back and connecting the nozzle. ‘On account of me being late and all. Caught up in traffic. They’ve closed off the streets up by Fed Square again. Swanston and Flinders. Some candlelight thing for those poor bastards who died in the detention centres.’

He tugged at the cord, wrestling it into the wall socket.

‘Poor bastards,’ he said again. ‘Every time you turn on the news it’s this, that and the other thing, isn’t it? All the killing and the war and the violence. But what you gonna do? State of this world, eh?’

Lou adjusted the straps of the pack, shaking his head.

‘What you gonna do?’ he repeated to himself, the vacuum roaring to life as he flicked the switch.

Nell watched him, her head suddenly overwhelmed by the hiss and thunder and everything else that ran rampant around the world. She laid her head on her desk, her arms shielding her ears, and tried as hard as she could to block out all the noise.