Big Little Lies(119)

She pulled herself upright and felt the back of her head. It still felt tender, but it was OK. It was amazing how fast the healing and forgetting process had begun again. The cycle was endless.
Tonight was the trivia night. She and Perry would dress up as Audrey Hepburn and Elvis Presley. Perry had ordered his Elvis outfit online from a premium costume supplier in London. If Prince Harry wanted to dress up as Elvis, he would probably get his outfit there. Everyone else would be wearing polyester and props from the two-dollar shop.
Tomorrow Perry was flying to Hawaii. It was a junket, he’d admitted. He’d asked her a few months back if she’d wanted to go with him, and for a moment she’d seriously considered it, as that might be the answer. A tropical holiday! Cocktails and spa treatments. Away from the stress of day-to-day life! What could go wrong? (Things could go wrong. He had hit her once in a five-star hotel because she’d teased him about his mispronunciation of the word “menial.” She would never forget the horrified humiliation on his face when he realized he’d been mispronouncing a word his whole life.)
While he was in Hawaii she would move herself and the boys into the McMahons Point apartment. She would make an appointment with a family lawyer. That would be easy. The legal world wasn’t scary to her. She knew lots of people. It would be fine. It would be awful, of course, but it would be fine. He wasn’t going to kill her. She was always so dramatic after they had an argument. It seemed especially silly to use a word like “kill” while her supposed “killer” was downstairs frying eggs with her children.
It would be terrible for a while, but then it would be fine. The boys could still make breakfast with Daddy when they had their weekends with him.
Yesterday was the last time he would hurt her.
It was over.
“Mummy, we’ve made breakfast for you!” The boys came running in, scrabbling up on the bed next to her like eager little crabs.
Perry appeared at the door with a plate balanced high on his bunched-together fingertips like a waiter in a fine-dining establishment.
“Yum!” said Celeste.

Chapter 67
67.

I know what to do,” said Ed.
“No you don’t,” said Madeline.
They were sitting at the living room table, listening to the rain and gloomily eating Jane’s muffins. (It was terrible the way she kept giving them to Madeline, as if she were on a mission to urgently expand Madeline’s waistline.)
Abigail was in her bedroom, lying on the sofa bed they’d moved in to replace her beautiful four-poster bed. She had headphones on and was lying on her side with her knees up to her chest.
The website was still up. Abigail’s virginity was still available for purchase anywhere in the world.
Madeline had a grimy, exposed feeling, as if the eyes of the world were peering in her windows, as though strange men were right now silently creeping down her hallway to leer and sneer at her daughter.
Last night Nathan had come over and he and Madeline had sat with Abigail for more than two hours: begging, reasoning, cajoling, yelling, crying. It had been Nathan who cried, finally, with frustration, and Abigail had been visibly shocked, but the ridiculous child still would not budge. She would not give them the password. She would not take it down. She might or might not go ahead with the auction, but that wasn’t really the point, she’d said; they needed to stop “obsessing over the sex part.” She was leaving the website up to raise awareness of the issue and because she was “the only voice those little girls have.”
The egocentricity of the child, as if international aid organizations were sitting around twiddling their thumbs while little Abigail Mackenzie on the Pirriwee Peninsula was the only one taking decisive action. Abigail said she couldn’t care less about the horrible sexual comments. Those people were nothing to her. That was completely irrelevant. People were always writing mean stuff on the Internet.
“Don’t suggest calling the police,” said Madeline to Ed now. “I really don’t—”
“We contact the Australian office of Amnesty International,” said Ed. “They don’t want their name associated with something like this. If the organization that really does represent the rights of these children tells her to take it down, she’ll listen.”
Madeline pointed her finger at him. “That’s good. That might actually work.”
There were bangs and crashes from down the hallway. Fred and Chloe did not respond well to being stuck indoors on a rainy day.
“Give it back!” screamed Chloe.
“No way!” shouted Fred.
They came running into the room, both of them gripping a sheet of scrap paper.