An Astronaut's Life (9 page)

‘No,
Wifty
,' Lucas said.

Victor looked at me, confused.

‘Do you mean
Lifty
?' I said. It was the problem with the
ls
again
.

‘Yes,' he sniffed. ‘My precious Wifty.'

I presumed this whole thing was a story. We'd never had a dog, and what kind of name
was Lifty, anyway?

‘Thank you very much, detective,' I said, and offered my hand, to suggest he should
probably go.

‘Please, best to just call me Victor,' he said.

I made breakfast for Lucas and put on coffee for myself and considered whether I
should offer coffee to everyone. But how many of them were out there? I'd spotted
at least six cops by now, it was too many; we probably didn't even have that many
cups. I sat down with Lucas and we looked out the window as two women led dogs into
our backyard.

‘That's Gravy,' he said.

‘What is?'

‘The dog. It's her name.'

‘Good. How's your Rice Bubbles?'

‘Those dogs are searching for objects, you know.'

‘Are they?'

One of the cops looked over. I wondered if they could see us given it was much brighter
outside than it was where we sat in the kitchen. I smiled, in case. The cop was quite
young and pretty so I tried to catch her eye. I was thinking, how does someone so
young come to do this sort of thing, and then I saw her say something to one of the
male cops, and he crossed over the yard and came to my window. He tapped his knuckle
against it.

‘Yes?' I said.

He gestured: roll down the blind.

‘Are we in trouble?' Lucas said.

I pulled the blind down and explained we weren't in any trouble, the police were
just here to find something that was lost.

‘I know that,' he said.

‘So, why did you tell the police you had a dog?' I said.

‘What dog?'

‘You said you had a dog. You said he was called Lifty.'

‘Oh yeah, he was my dog.'

‘But when did you have him?'

There was still a small chance he'd had a dog I hadn't heard about, maybe before
my time.

‘Well, I don't know when, he was just my imaginary dog,' Lucas said.

‘I see. But you said he got killed.'

‘Yep.'

‘So why would you imagine your own dog got killed?'

‘I don't know. That was what happened.' He chased the last Rice Bubble around the
edge of the bowl. ‘He always just wanted me to feed him.'

I was about to say I knew how he felt when I heard Gina thunder in the front door.

‘What the hell?' her voice broke.

I hadn't realised it was so late. I stood up.

‘I'm sorry. Oh shit, why didn't I text you?' I said, although I could not yet see
her.

‘I don't know, I came up the road and—Lucas, are you okay?'

She went over and held his face in her hands. He twisted to get free, but she planted
a kiss on him anyway.

‘He's fine. They knocked at the door, I was asleep.'

I was going to try to explain it all, but she interrupted.

‘I saw the cars, I thought something had happened.' Her voice was still light, airy.

I put my arms around her.

‘Those dogs are looking for objects, Mum.'

‘Are they, sweetie?'

Gina leant forward, against me. She was exhausted, of course—she'd just worked through
the night. Out in the yard a dog barked.

‘Objects!' he said.

‘I thought something happened,' Gina said again.

‘I know, I thought the same. A car crash, or—' I couldn't think of what else I'd
thought. ‘Did they explain to you yet?'

‘No, I just freaked. They said you were inside.'

There was a knock at our door.

‘Here we go,' I said.

Gina went to answer and Lucas climbed up in his chair. I found my phone and convinced
him to stay put with it, then I closed him in the kitchen and followed.

Gina wasn't as understanding.

‘Can I see some ID?'

‘Certainly, ma'am.'

‘Gina,' I said, but Victor took out his ID and she looked it over, as if she knew
how police ID was supposed to look.

‘What evidence?' she said.

‘I'm afraid we can't go into details, as I've explained to your—?'

‘Partner.'

‘Of course. What's taking place here is a search for key evidence in a long-running
investigation. I understand the inconvenience to you is great, but we have no option
but to search this area thoroughly.'

‘But how long will it take?'

‘I'm afraid we can't say.'

‘Oh, well great.'

‘It depends what we find.'

‘And what do you expect to?' Gina was never at her
most patient after a night shift.

Victor gave her a stiff smile.

‘We understand, detective,' I said. ‘If there's any way we can help?'

He nodded and turned away. I shut the front door and waited for him to leave.

‘We're just letting them dig up our lawn?' Gina said.

‘Not letting. We don't get any choice.'

‘What, we're suspects?'

I turned up my palms. ‘If there's bodies in the yard.'

I could tell from the look on her face she hadn't thought of this yet. Bodies.

‘What did you think?' I said.

‘I don't know, drugs? Or a knife?'

I saw again how tired she was. It was my fault she was tired, because it was my fault
she had to work so hard, and I resolved to be more supportive now that this was happening
too.

‘I think I saw a metal detector, so maybe. But they're homicide squad, they told
me.'

I pulled the curtain over and we looked out. I motioned for Gina to step back so
she wouldn't draw their attention. She came in beside me and I kissed the top of
her head.

‘I'm glad you're okay,' I said.

‘Me too. All of us.'

We looked for a while but it felt weird to be glad or loving if cops were searching
our property for a body.

‘Why don't you get changed? I'll get you something to eat,' I said.

Gina dropped Lucas at school, and then she slept most of the afternoon. Or tried
to, anyway, while I sat at my desk and did not try all that hard to distract myself
from what was going on outside. I had work to do: the business I'd mentioned to the
two young cops was not so much a business yet as an excuse for having taken so long
to find a job after I'd been laid off a year earlier.

After almost twelve years in the same government department, I'd at least received
a decent pay out. Forty-five of us were made redundant across the country, as well
as some others on contracts that were never renewed. While I was better off than
some, this was just six months after we'd bought the house—without my income we were
in over our heads.

Gina remained such a source of comfort during this period. Something would come up,
she always said, let's
see this as an opportunity, etc, and I took her lead. I'm
sure I tried to tell her that things would soon be dire, the job market was competitive
and I had no special skills, certainly no ambition; I must have mentioned that, in
fact, I was feeling more and more relieved to be out of the workforce all together.
But something will still come up, she said.

A friend of mine once told me you always know at the start of a relationship what
it is that will cause it to end. I had not known with Gina, even though I'd thought
hard about it before we bought the house. Was it my cynicism that would drive her
away? Were we a mismatch? Maybe tensions over the child that was not mine, legally
or otherwise, or once money started to become an issue—maybe that? But still I could
not see how any of this would be enough to derail us.

Not long into my period of unemployment, Gina began to take extra shifts at the hospital,
although we did not yet need the money. Despite all her reassurances, she was preparing
for me to fail.

Still she encouraged me to be proactive. Maybe enrol in a course, she said. So I'd
found one in comms
planning and on the first day I rose early and dressed for work
and caught the train, and although I was only going through the motions for Gina's
sake, for a short time it seemed as if the whole exercise might wake something in
me, after all.

Then I joined a room of unemployed strangers and for the next four-and-a-half hours
we sat and watched as a series of amateur PowerPoint slides swam before us.

At lunchtime I'd gone to the bathroom and the zipper on my pants had come off in
my hand. I sat on the toilet for fifteen minutes trying to force the teeth back in.
I didn't even have a safety pin to hold it, so I tied my jacket around my waist and
stepped out into the hall where I asked another woman from the course if she had
one, but she didn't. I explained quietly why, and she went around asking everyone
until it became a sort of bonding exercise for them, the six women in the course
rifling through handbags in a little hallway conspiracy. Someone handed me a pin,
I fixed things up as best I could, but I did not return to class.

I've come to see the space that had opened up when I lost my job had to be filled,
but I hadn't thought
carefully enough about this. I was vulnerable to the wrong perspectives
and obsessions. I could feel myself becoming unmoored from our relationship, from
us,
but I didn't know how to stop it from happening.

And I couldn't explain this to Gina.

‘You're not even trying,' she said, which surprised me. I had not been trying for
some time.

The Friday before the arrival of the cops, we'd celebrated my very first contract.
‘The birth of your business,' Gina called it, even though it was only one contract,
and I'd won it with a quote that was much too low.

Gina had picked up a bottle of bubbly on her way home from Lucas' school and they
came in from the car singing a sort of
hip-hooray
for Ma. Lucas had a postbag in
his arms. It was stamped from Singapore—a package from his father.

He sat on the floor and tore at it. Things felt festive; champagne and Lucas's excitement.

‘School bag away first,' Gina said, which was the rule. Lucas ignored her and she
tried again until he took the package from between his teeth to speak.

‘No, but can I please? It's from my dad.'

‘All right, but let me. You'll break your teeth.'

He wouldn't let Gina take it so she went to the kitchen for scissors.

‘Let Mum help,' I said, and he held it out for her. Gina snipped the top end of the
package and angled it down.

‘Shake it out,' she said.

A card and gift in boyish wrapping fell to the carpet and Lucas squealed, scooping
the present with such care there might have been a kitten inside and not just an
ill-fitting item of clothing, like always.

He put the present on his lap and picked up the envelope to do the card first.

‘Want me to read it for you?' said Gina.

‘He can read it,' I said. ‘Go on.'

He couldn't quite, but he got most of it. It was more or less, ‘Dear son, happy birthday
to you, love Dad,' in what appeared to actually be his father's handwriting this
time.

It was not Lucas's birthday. The gifts had a way of turning up at random times that
were so far from his birthday it was difficult to tell if they were early or late.

Gina had explained that Singapore was very far away and mail took a long time and
he seemed to buy this, for the most part. He had a globe of the world in his room
and we'd find Singapore sometimes, and he'd already pointed out it didn't seem that
far away. ‘Maybe two or three days by plane,' he estimated.

He would soon piece this information together to form some sort of conclusion, and
when he did, I'd told Gina, I didn't see the point in lying.

Not that I resented the man. We'd never met and in my better moments I even felt
grateful to him for creating Lucas and the family I'd inherited. I'd never formally
adopted the kid, though; Gina said it was complicated and unnecessary and she was
probably right. But still, sometimes I worried what would happen if he returned,
if he'd changed back to the man he apparently used to be and if he wanted his family
again.

Lucas unwrapped his gift with careful movements.

‘It's okay, just rip it open,' Gina said, but he continued to tear unbearably slowly.

I could see how every strange thing he did brought her closer to the possibility
that the wrong parts of the boy's father had made it into him.

‘Oh wow.' He'd torn the last of the paper away but he still didn't know what the
gift was. A T-shirt of some sort, he rolled it out to see. It was too big.

‘I love it,' he said.

‘Who's on it?' Gina knelt beside him and spread the picture out.

‘I don't know.'

It was a topless tough guy with cropped hair and white tape around his fists.

‘Is it a boxer?' She did not try to hide her disapproval.

‘Let's look him up.' I did a search on my phone. ‘Triple H. He's a wrestler.'

‘Well that's fine, then,' Gina said.

‘He's a world-champion wrestler,' I said.

He put the T-shirt on. It looked like a dress.

‘It is just a little big for you,' Gina said.

‘But that's how they wear them these days,' I added.

Lucas looked down at himself, patting the print against his stomach. We rolled up
the sleeves and he flexed his biceps for us and gritted his teeth like the man on
the shirt.

‘Take a picture of me now, doing this for my dad?'

So Gina texted a photo, but I don't know if his father ever replied.