An Astronaut's Life (10 page)

The morning the cops came to our door, work on my first contract came to a halt.
By lunchtime, I'd managed to get about as far as opening a spreadsheet.

My office was at the front of the house. I had positioned my L-shaped desk in one
corner so my computer screen sat against a large window draped by two thick curtains.
This arrangement kept the room dim, which I liked, and believed to be more conducive
to work than bright or expansive views.

Seated at the desk, I could see about half of the frontyard, including the driveway,
but there wasn't much to see until the cops re-emerged with their dogs and loaded
them into the van.

I stood up at this point. Could they be done already? I took myself off to the kitchen
and put a pot of coffee on the stove to appear occupied. I positioned myself against
the corner cupboards, between the stove and the sink, a spot where I could view the
backyard without being seen.

The cops had not finished. Instead they had started with shovels in an area beside
the garden shed. They did only a light bit of digging before pausing to snap photos
of their work, then they swapped the shovels for trowels and began to clear the soil
with more delicate movements. It was going to take all day at this rate, and seeing
this I considered heading back to my desk—until I saw a cop fall to his knees and
begin to pull at the
soil. They'd found something. They took more photos, then, with
something like a pair of tongs, they lifted the object—it was fabric, or a torn piece
of paper. I watched as they dropped it into a plastic bag. It was fabric, I was sure.
I'd never seen it before. How long had it been there?

I pulled my coffee from the stove before it could make any noise, then I went back
to my desk and Googled
How long fabric takes to decompose
. The results were inconclusive.

Gina got out of bed about an hour later. She came up behind me in her robe and wrapped
her arms around my shoulders as I worked.

‘How much noise do they have to make?' she said.

‘I'm sorry. At least the dogs have gone now.'

‘But still, the coming and going, the voices. They must be almost finished.'

‘I don't know. They found something.'

‘What?' She straightened and I swivelled my chair to face her.

‘They've been digging out there for ages. I saw a piece of fabric.'

‘That's all?'

‘So far.'

‘It could be anything.'

I hadn't eaten lunch so we set to making sandwiches in the dim kitchen. Gina parked
herself in a chair by the window and snuck the blind up a fraction.

‘It could be a body,' she said.

‘It's hardly even a hole in the ground.'

‘But the size of it, don't you reckon?'

I had taken my spot beside the stove again. I did think it could be a body, but that
still seemed unlikely and, I wasn't sure how it would affect Gina, or myself, to
be honest, so I didn't admit it.

We watched the cops sift dirt through a sieve. They were building a mound beside
the hole, which was now a few centimetres deep. I went back to constructing sandwiches.

‘That guy has sleep apnoea though,' Gina said.

‘Which?' I looked back out.

‘The one I met, who came to the door. The short one by the fence.'

‘Victor?'

He stood with his arms crossed. I couldn't make out what he was saying but he appeared
to be frustrated.

‘Look at the size of his neck. He can't even do his top button.'

‘I guess.'

‘Red face—I bet high blood pressure. Plus the gut, obviously.'

‘I never get those guts that float in the shirt like that,' I said. ‘It's weird,
how they can do that.'

‘I bet he's a bitch of a boss.'

‘He seemed fine with us this morning. He's just doing his job.'

‘Should I tell him?

‘Your diagnosis?' I made a face but I didn't say no in case that made her do it.

I finished by toasting the bread in the pan the way she liked and then I joined her
at the table.

‘You don't look that flash yourself,' I said.

‘I managed maybe three hours. I was having stupid dreams.'

‘I should have asked them to keep it down.'

‘I'm sure that's a priority. Anyway, it's not just the noise. It's as much knowing
they're there, and what they're doing.'

‘I had one this morning too. A weird dream.'

I'd forgotten about it until then.

‘Mine was this guy looking over the back fence,' Gina said. ‘He was big, like big
shoulders.'

‘Like bulky, a weight-lifter?' I said.

‘He made me think of one of those guys who chops wood.' She mimed an axe.

‘A wood chopper?'

‘No, not the competition ones, the ones who do it for real.'

The description stirred a memory from my own dream.

‘A lumberjack?'

‘He was standing behind the fence and looking over into our yard so I could only
see him from the shoulders up. Standing there, completely still—and he was barking.
Like his head back and
woof woof woof
.'

‘That's weird,' I said.

‘It was really creepy. What was yours?'

‘I can't exactly remember. Something with a tennis ball. You going to finish that?'

‘You have it,' Gina said.

I took the last corner of her sandwich; she always left the last bite of her food.
We sat by the window until it seemed nothing new was going to happen.

‘Well, I'd better shower,' she said. ‘Want to join me?'

‘I don't know. It seems too weird with them out there.'

She pressed her hand over mine.

‘I hope they go soon. It feels awful thinking something might have happened here.'

‘I know. Me too,' I said. But already part of me was caught up in the search, and
I wasn't sure I wanted them to go.

By the time Gina was ready to leave for work the sun was low in the sky and the cops
were still going at it outside. Lucas was in bed but not asleep. I sat with him as
Gina went around the house collecting the things she would need that night and shoving
them into her handbag. When she was ready she came in to kiss us goodbye and he added
a surprise into her bag, which Gina pretended not to see—a neat little scene that
gave no indication of the hour of drama that had preceded all this.

I'd made the kid's dinner, coerced him into eating what amounted to no more than
a few mouthfuls, then we'd renegotiated to get at least a cheese stick and some yoghurt
into him. Gina did not approve of using the games on my phone as a bargaining tool,
but he was going through a stage where he did not like to eat
anything—the games
were the only thing I had in my favour.

Once she left, Lucas settled into his pillows. He pulled a coil of green paper from
under his sheet, a practice run for the surprise he'd given Gina, a concertinaed
snake that was supposed to spring up from her bag when she reached in for her lunch.
We had been making these at bedtime all week.

‘What will we read tonight?' I asked him, although lately it was always the Frog
and Toad book, which he knew by heart.

‘The one about the dream,' he said. ‘
Are you your own right size?
'

I picked the book from his shelf and began, but he interrupted.

‘Did any of those dogs find objects?'

He'd been disappointed to come home from school and find the police dogs gone.

‘I think so. I think they found a few things.'

‘Those dogs are my friends.'

‘I know. Do you want this story?'

‘Yes.'

I read a bit. Toad woke up and found Frog standing by his bed.

‘
Are you your own right size
,' we read together. ‘Yes, I think so, said Frog.'

He interrupted. ‘But Ma?'

‘What?'

‘Please check on me three times tonight?'

‘I always check on you.'

‘Yes, but three times?'

‘At least three times, I check on you all the time, every night.'

‘Good.'

It took another two stories before he drifted off and I could sneak out and along
the hall. I continued on to the kitchen where I put away the day's dishes and took
the opportunity to open a window. When I heard no argument from outside, I snuck
the blind up, too.

I had almost finished tidying the kitchen when the cops switched on a series of floodlights.
These were serious lights, they lit up sections of the yard like an artificial day,
and it was only then I understood they would be here all night.

No one came to the door to update me on their progress. Perhaps they'd already forgotten
I was inside. I watched them digging their increasingly significant hole until I
grew bored and my guilt crept back. I hadn't
done a scrap of work all day, so I went
and sat in my office with good intentions, but even then I couldn't summon the effort
to begin.

I texted Gina,
I'm thinking of you, I hope work is all right. XX.
Then I set to work
searching out news that might explain what had taken place in our yard.

I had no clue where to start, so I searched for news of a missing person in our neighbourhood.
But was I looking for a man or a woman? Was it some sort of ‘cold case' like cops
said on TV, from twenty, thirty years ago? It couldn't be more recent than that,
could it? Unless someone had run through our yard depositing some sort of drugs or
weapon in a desperate hiding spot—but none of these possibilities seemed likely.

It was late when I gave up on this and defrosted a dinner of minestrone. The house
had fallen dark around me, but I kept the lights off and used only the light of my
phone to identify which frozen leftovers to eat, and to wash my dishes in the dark.

Once I'd found my way to bed, I lay listening to the hum from outside.

I had no idea what to make of what had taken place that day, or of what the following
morning might hold.
But I hardly felt troubled at all. Had the stress of the day,
the horror of what might be, worn down my faculties until all I could feel were the
most uncomplicated things; relief to be in bed and an unfamiliar safety? Or was it
because my usual feeling of guilt, the doubt I went to bed with most nights, was
now disguised by more urgent concerns?

I thought of my dream again. Was the man in my dream the same as the one in Gina's?
It did sound like it: the man with the tennis ball was exactly the lumberjack type
she'd described. If he was not the same person, he represented the same idea.

So did she know?

Was he a symbol, this figure laughing at her from over the fence, for not seeing
the truth? Just as he bounced his tennis ball in my dream, waiting for the penny
to drop?

Probably not. It was just understandable unease over a strange and troubling day.

Except he had come to me
before
this troubling day began, hadn't he?

Next morning the noise ramped up soon after dawn, but I held out in bed as long as
I could. I'd slept well.
Despite it all, there were no dreams, no lumberjack. I looked
in on Lucas just after seven. He was asleep, which at that time of the morning was
unheard of, so I continued on to the kitchen.

There was no activity outside; I supposed the cops were on a break. I closed the
window and inspected what they'd done overnight, then I changed my mind about making
coffee. I'd start work right away.

I felt focused and ready to make up for yesterday's wasted time. It was okay that
I hadn't done any work yet, these were very extenuating circumstances—what kind of
person would be able to resist a distraction like this?

I opened the report and some supporting documents and began work on the first translated
paper,
Host Parasite Interactions in a Shallow Chinese Lake,
it was called, or something
like that.

Gina came in before eight.

‘You're early,' I said, and we hugged.

She leant in to give Lucas a kiss but he managed to deflect her.

‘You guys sleep okay?' she said.

‘We did, great. Even this one, he slept right through.'

‘Is he off-colour?' She pressed her palm across his forehead.

‘No, he's fine, can he not just sleep well?'

‘I'm like a log, Mum,' he said.

I was often concerned that Gina did not trust my judgment when it came to Lucas.
She sensed this and backtracked, congratulating him on the good sleep effort, being
such a big boy, etc, and moments later the real reason for her annoyance became clear.

‘They're going to drive us to a hotel,' she said.

‘The police are?'

‘I spoke to that detective guy, the sleep apnoea one.'

‘Wait a second,' I said. I did not like to discuss things in front of Lucas, so we
put him to work selecting grapes for his lunchbox and stepped out into the hall.

Gina was impatient. ‘He thought I was already there. Didn't they tell you we had
a room?'

‘In a hotel? I think they only mentioned it as a possibility.'

‘Well, I wish you'd told me. I'm exhausted.'

‘It wasn't like they offered it. I would have told you.' She took a long breath.

‘It was just a long night, after another long night, and I'm not looking forward
to another day of this.'

‘This?'

‘Not you, I mean'—she flapped a hand at the yard—‘there's cameras out there, you
know.'

‘What, TV?'

‘Yes, it's news now. We're like a house of horrors. I mean, the neighbours?'

‘They'll know it's not us. The neighbours will see on the news that it's not about
us.'

‘We should grab some things,' she said.