Last Day in the Dynamite Factory (34 page)

The mortgage papers lie on the drawing board. Diane Bright would sign them, she said, as long as Tabitha did not return to work, otherwise her philandering husband had lost them two thousand dollars deposit.

Land versus Tabi.

Mrs Bright versus Mr Bright.

Tabi's home is a neat 1920s pale pink confection perched high on a narrow block. White cane chairs with pink check cushions flank the front door. Doris stands at one side, unadorned. A doorbell, when Chris presses it, sounds drunk. Maybe it needs new batteries or maybe, like the house, it's simply old. A muffled thump of footsteps, and the door swings open.

‘Well, look who's here,' she says.

He looks at her incredulously. ‘Gum – at seven in the morning? Do you chew it in your sleep?'

‘Stick around and find out,' she says, sweeping him inside. ‘You look stuffed.'

‘Yeah, I didn't sleep well last night. Worrying about you.'

‘Sweet, but stupid,' she says. ‘Got time for a coffee?'

He perches on a bar stool in her pretty primrose kitchen while she loads up an old-fashioned percolator. ‘You're early. Going to a meeting?' She breathes life into a pink bubble.

‘No. I came for you.'

Pop!
The gum lands in a sheet from her nose to her chin. She gropes behind her for a stool and sits carefully, scraping the gum off her face and tossing it in the bin. She smiles slyly. ‘Did you come by for a comfort fuck?'

He laughs. ‘No, I came to make sure you come back to work.'

The percolator begins to plop. She unwraps another piece of gum and offers it to him.

‘God, no.'

Tabi sighs. ‘What about
him
?'

‘Judge is sorted.'

‘Why is he so shitty with me – because I slept with you? Anyone'd think he was jealous.'

‘Not jealous. It's stress. Problems I didn't know about, problems with me, problems with his speech – all got too much and unfortunately, you were the scapegoat.'

She pours the coffee and turns to him thoughtfully, one red-nailed hand on her hip. ‘You know what?' She goes to a drawer. ‘This might help.' She fishes out a card and passes it to him.

Sammy Leong

Traditional Chinese Medicine

Acupuncture

Herbs

‘Someone else mentioned acupuncture.'

Roberta.

‘Sammy's great. He totally fixed my knee,' Tabi says. ‘Shagger's Knee, did you know? True. Sammy's Chinese; speaks good Australian, but. Good-looking, too.'

One by one they arrive – Maureen, Mick, Hamish … Tabi, lugging Doris. A collective sigh of relief ripples around the office. Mick tosses her a packet of gum. She smirks, unwraps one and pops it in her mouth.

Chris feels as if someone has drilled a hole in his head. A day's work before it's begun. He's not sure whether he feels sick or hungry or is simply falling apart.

‘Maureen,' he says. ‘I'm going home. Tell Judge.' He stops by Tabi's desk. ‘Will you be okay?'

She waves him away. ‘Course I will. Go. You look cactus.'

He sits in the car park with his hands on the steering wheel, craving rest, relief … long grass beneath a railway line, the beach. Anywhere but home. Diane will be frigid after his early departure this morning.

‘Six thirty?' she asked disbelievingly. ‘Oh – let me guess – a concrete pour you simply can't bear to miss.'

‘I have a visit to make.'

She gave him a steely look. ‘What sort of visit?'

Chris said nothing.

‘Don't tell me … Her? You're going to see
her
?'

Chris starts the car and stifles a yawn. Just go. Go anywhere but number 10 Appleby.

Ben's.

Yes, Ben's away for a few days. Chris takes the Rover through the back streets to Red Hill and goes for the key which used to live under a rock on the kitchen window ledge. When his fingers meet the cool metal he sighs with relief.

The atmosphere inside is tranquil and orderly – different from Jo's organised mess. He goes down the hallway to his old room and flops on the bed, his eyes gradually focusing on the ceiling and a stain so faint it might be imaginary. Fletcher before it was Fletcher. The night of the storm. The night of Liam's memorial service. His brother. Chris remembers him laughing. Holding his hand as they walked to school. Clowning. Running … so many Liam memories, fondled so many times they've lost their ability to surprise.

Except for one. One as sharp as the glass that killed him.

Fletcher looms down from the ceiling.
It will never go away
.

Piss off.

Fletcher topples onto the bed, closes his eyes and surrenders to exhaustion …

The sound of a car crunching on gravel wakes Chris from a deep sleep. He drags himself off the bed and staggers into the kitchen just as Ben comes in.

Ben takes in Chris's dishevelled state with a look of surprise. ‘Saw your car outside.'

Chris also digests an unexpected sight – Ben covered in wood shavings, peppered from head to toe with dust. The smell of camphor hangs in the air. ‘I came to, ah, for …'

Ben waves his hand. ‘Doesn't matter what you came for, lad. You're always welcome here. Cup of tea?' He fills the kettle and switches it on, then looks down at his clothes. ‘I'll just clean up a bit.'

Chris stands in the kitchen, feeling the requirement to be elsewhere but having no idea where. He listens to the kettle rise to the boil, reaches up and knots his hands behind his head. The simple effort of stretching is so depleting he realises with a bolt of fear that he's reached the physical and emotional limits of his capacity to insist that people be who he wants them to be. Judge has changed and may never again be the way he was. Diane has not changed and is unlikely to. Whatever feelings she has for him will always be constrained by a crappy childhood and the scar of a wound inflicted by Whatshisname. But Ben's love, long circumscribed by Jo's fear of losing Christopher, has now relinquished its boundaries. He accepts whatever version of his son turns up, and whatever Chris is able to give … or not.

Chris unhooks a couple of mugs hanging above a shelf bearing a photo of him and Liam in school uniform, holding hands. Chris is smiling and Liam is staring at the camera with the uncertain stoicism of a small boy facing his first day at school. As he contemplates the photo, Ben comes back.

‘My favourite picture, that,' he says, opening the tea caddy and carefully measuring three spoonsful into the pot.

‘What happened to tea bags?'

‘Rosa.'

‘Rosa?'

‘The tea lady.' Ben snorts. ‘Sorry, I mean, the cleaning lady. Real tea. Real fish. Real veg. She brings me stuff she grows herself.'

‘Casseroles?'

‘No, I make my own.' He pulls a knitted tea cosy over the pot.

Chris looks at it with a pained expression.

‘Yes, she made the hat,' says Ben. He drops milk into the mugs, twirls the teapot three times and pours the tea. His eyes move between the mugs and the photo of Chris and Liam. ‘You were so good, the way you looked after him.'

‘Not good enough.'

Ben stares at him with an appalled expression. ‘Don't tell me … You can't – surely – imagine yourself responsible for Liam drowning?'

‘No. Sorry, just tired.'

‘You look it. Sit. Sit. What's wrong?'

Chris gulps his tea and grabs his lip. ‘Bugger. Hot. Oh … work. Diane. A real estate fiasco.'

‘Diane told me you've stopped doing restorations.'

‘Yeah.'

‘What's the real estate fiasco?'

‘Long story.'

Ben pulls out a chair. ‘I'm listening.'

Chris tugs at his ear. ‘I found some land at Coolum; two blocks, back to back, just off the David Low Way near the rock pool. Beautiful. Put down two grand deposit but I needed to finance it with a mortgage, either on the house or the rental property. Only problem is everything's in joint names and Diane is refusing to sign.'

‘Why?'

Chris fiddles with his mug. ‘A kind of payback.'

‘What for?'

‘An – um – an indiscretion … at work.'

Ben raises his eyebrows. ‘Really?'

He needn't look so surprised.

Ben takes a sip of tea, wipes his mouth and presses his lips together and Chris has the unsettling impression he's trying not to laugh. ‘Go on,' says Ben.

‘If I don't sack the … lady involved, Diane won't sign. I can't sack her. I won't. She's a good person, a good worker and I'm not having her made the scapegoat. It only happened once and won't happen again. It hasn't affected our working relationship. And it's not funny.'

‘No.' Ben drags a hand across his mouth. ‘I'm just, ah – I suppose I shouldn't say it but I'm, ah, kind of proud of you. Not for … but for sticking up for your employee. Are you … do you need a place to stay?'

Chris takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. ‘I don't know. I don't know anything.' He sighs. ‘I don't even know who I am these days. What irony; now that I know, I don't.'

Ben puts his hands together, prayer-like. ‘I've done you so much damage. I wonder how I ever justified not telling you. Fear, I know. Fear of losing you like we lost …' He picks up the photo. ‘My sons … I still wonder, you know, after all these years, about Liam. How long he took to die, whether it was painful, how much he struggled, how scared he must have been. I wonder if a shark got him – makes me sick every time I think of it. And I know it's crazy but I wonder – what if he didn't die? What if he got washed up on a beach somewhere with amnesia? Got kidnapped? Stupid, stupid. But still I wonder.'

Chris's heart lurches into his throat.

‘Sorry. Here I am, on about … hey – are you all right?'

Chris is fish-mouthing. He struggles to his feet and walks unsteadily back to his old room, curls up on the bed, closes his eyes and meets Liam's blank stare. He hears Ben come in, feels his weight on the bed.

‘Are you sick, lad?'

He shakes his head. He must tell him. He
must
tell him. But after he does, nothing will be the same.

Nothing's been the same for nine months.

‘Water?' says Ben. He disappears and returns with water.

Chris takes a gulp but his mouth remains dry. ‘I … I have to tell you something. Should have told you before, when it happened.' He licks his lips and sits up. ‘I know that now, but I didn't … before.' He holds his father's anxious gaze, as if doing so will keep them both from going under.

‘Liam didn't drown.'

Ben tilts his head.

‘He died before the sea got him. He ran. Got out of the pool and ran. Fell over.' Chris swallows. ‘A piece of – of glass was sticking out of the sand. He went down, straight down on it …'

A siren wails up Waterworks Road.

‘What in God's name are you talking about?'

‘He didn't drown. He fell on a piece of glass. It went into his chest, right in. He …' Chris brings his hand to his chest. ‘He died, Ben. It killed him. He was gone by the time I got to him.'

‘This is absolute bunkum.'

‘No. It's true.'

Ben's head wobbles.

‘I'm so sorry. I'm truly, truly sorry.'

‘What are you talking about? Glass – what glass?'

‘A … broken bottle. A piece of it was sticking out of the sand.'

Ben stares at him uncomprehendingly. ‘If it's true … why didn't you tell me … and Jo … before?'

‘Gran told me not to. She made me swear not to. She said it would kill you to know. She said—'

‘Gran? My
mother
?'

‘Yes. She saw it happen.'

‘She …?' Ben drags a hand through his hair. ‘Is this true?

‘I swear to God it is.'

‘How? How could you let us think – for all those years – that he drowned?'

‘Gran said it was kinder. She said drowning was a peaceful way to die.'