Last Day in the Dynamite Factory (37 page)

She looks up and fixes him with a glare of incomprehension. ‘Do you realise what you've done, Christopher? Sanctioned the killing of our grandchild. How can you live with yourself, knowing what your mother endured to give life to you?'

‘Phoebe is not my mother.'

‘Phoebe is
our
child.'

‘Yes, and I love her more than I love her baby.'

‘It shouldn't be a choice. It needn't be a choice.'

‘But it is a choice, Diane, and she's the one who has to make it.'

Chris has a full day ahead of him and not much sleep to base it on. He tips up his mug and drains every last desperate drop of coffee before picking up his knapsack.

‘Where are you going with that?' Diane says.

‘Oh. Sorry. With everything that … happened yesterday, I forgot to tell you. I have a meeting late this afternoon at the Gold Coast. A new job. I'll stay the night so I can look over the site in the morning.'

‘Really?' she says flatly.

‘A hospital at Southport. I'll be doing a lot of shuttling back and forth. You're welcome to come with me if you want.'

‘I'm working at the library this afternoon,' she says. ‘As you well know. Can I assume you'll be available on your mobile?'

‘Yes.'

‘You won't run out of battery or hang up on me?'

‘I'm going alone, Diane.'

She picks at her nails. ‘I'm thinking … of Phoebe.'

‘I know you are. I'll keep the phone charged, and I'll see you tomorrow.'

It's one o'clock by the time Chris finalises the Tuckers' plans. When he hands the specification to Tabi she raises an eyebrow. ‘You've remembered the plaster cupid on the bedroom wall, I hope?'

‘Two,' he grunts, checking for the next job on his list. Pattersons' house. Painting at the wool store. Nothing that can't wait. He could go to Southport now, do the site inspection today rather than tomorrow, and be better prepared for the meeting.

By five-thirty, the inspection is done and the meeting is over. There were only three board members present and no waffle or disagreement. He phones Diane to tell her he'll be home after all but the line is engaged. Doesn't matter. They can eat out tonight for a change.

A single unwashed wine glass and a crumby plate lie, uncharacteristically, in the kitchen sink. Chris drops his knapsack on the bench and goes into the living room. Diane's shoes are abandoned on the floor, a book is open upside down on the coffee table, a biography of Berlioz. From down the hall, he hears the strangest sound – Diane, singing.

He finds her in his den with his headphones on, singing to the night beyond the window. A single lamp illuminates the room. She's wearing only a transparent, silky gown. Beneath it, she's naked. He stands in the shadows of the hall, transfixed. It takes him a moment or two to register she's singing a song from
Tramp
, the musical she's always dismissed as crassly sentimental, and as her voice curves around the lyrics his heart sets up a nauseating thump. Her movements are languid, her voice velvety.

‘
Remember me
,' she sings, trailing her fingers slowly down her thighs. She leans over, unplugs the headphones from the boom box and the seductive voice of Christine Courtney fills the room.

‘
You are my fantasy

My secret memory …
'

Diane lifts her arms and sways in time with the music, her movements erotic, mesmerising. The sight of her abandonment is both heart-breaking and galling. This woman, this lovely woman is his wife, but not his lover.

And he is not hers. He never was and never will be. She chose him because he represented what she wanted in a husband, without any risk of her falling in love with him.

When the music dies away she switches off the player, runs her hands through her hair and turns.

‘Oh – my God! You frightened me!'

‘Sentimental twaddle, huh, Diane?' He takes in her tousled hair, her naked body beneath the gown, her bare feet. Then he turns and strides down the hall, scoops up his knapsack and plunges down the stairs two at a time. When he hears her following, he ducks into his workroom, to the smell of timber, the certainty of drills and nails and glue and the conviction that he can make something, something beautiful, something to be treasured; but not with Diane. He shuts the door but it has no lock and she pushes it open.

‘Chris … Don't read more into that than—'

‘
Don't
.'

‘It was nothing, honestly. I'm just emotional … over Phoebe.' She reaches for him but he steps back, pinning himself between her and the bench.

‘Stop.' He raises his hand. ‘Just … stop. For years you let me chase after something I could never have – always pretending you didn't want what I wanted, you didn't
know
what I wanted.' He turns, picks up a chisel and stabs the bench. ‘You knew; you wanted it too. Just not with me.' He pushes past her and goes towards the door but she grabs his arm.

‘Don't go.'

Chris looks at her with painful curiosity. ‘Why? Why this … half-life? How can you not want more? I want more. I want to be loved,
really
loved. I want to be wanted.'

‘I …'

‘You – what? Come on, Diane, look me in the eye and tell me you
want
me.'

She stares at her hand on his arm, as if even blinking will commit her to something with consequences she cannot imagine.

‘Do you love me at all?'

She glances away with a small frown, her eyes roaming the rough wooden walls punctured with nails and hooks and hung with tools and the detritus of life: their life; their accumulations, omissions and silences.

‘Yes,' she says at last, as if she has carefully weighed all that the word implies – every ingredient of her affection and every effort made on his behalf – and concluded that, yes, she can rightly claim to love him. Yet the way it curves up at the end betrays doubt. Nothing so crude as a ‘but'; more an implied proviso that nothing in the world can be considered absolute, nothing in the world is certain, not even love. And Chris knows if he were to stay, it would have to be enough for him. She never promised love, only that she would do her best. And she has.

‘Chris …?'

His heart begins to race – anticipating her question – but her voice trails off and he exhales with relief. One such
yes
is enough.

But what her
yes
contains is not sufficient to fill the days and years ahead. Chris is weary of his half-realised, half-developed self. For years he's ignored the empty spaces between work, family and home life. Not any more.

‘Yes,' he says, ‘but there's no risk of you losing your heart to me, is there?'

She draws in a deep, tired breath. ‘I don't need to lose my heart in order to love.'

‘Perhaps not. But you do need to feel desire in order to connect. And you don't desire me, Diane. You never have, and you never will.'

Chris stares through glass doors at the city that is his home. Strange to be holed up in a hotel less than eight kilometres from where he lived until an hour ago.

He never imagined, when he left number 10 Appleby Street this morning, that this would be the last day of a life he's known for twenty-five years. Not life in abundance, perhaps, but leaving nevertheless cuts deep. So does the knowledge that Diane does not want him.

You've always known it. You just didn't want to admit it.

Some lies sound sweeter than the insistent murmur of truth. The price of knowledge is … well, just ask Adam.

His watch says eight o'clock. He needs to eat. Driving to the Gold Coast and back, leaving his wife and downing two beers have left him almost senseless. He orders a hamburger from room service and turns on the TV. When his phone begins to ring he's inclined to ignore it but suddenly realises it might be Phoebe.

It's Ben.

‘I've just been talking to Diane. She tells me you're at the Gold Coast.'

‘I'm not at the Gold Coast. I'm here, in town, at a hotel. I've left Diane.'

‘You
what
?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Are you all right?'

‘More or less. Just tired, I think.'

‘Good God, Chris. Is this fallout from what happened at work?'

‘No, it's been coming for a long time. Years.'

‘Oh, lad. I'm sorry.'

‘Are you?'

‘Of course. The end of a marriage is very sad.'

‘Yet you don't sound very surprised.'

‘Well …'

‘Go on. Today's the day for confessions. Let it rip.'

‘Well, I … I never got the sense of there being much, um, passion between you. A bit like me and Jo. I loved her, but I wasn't
in
love with her.'

‘That's about it.'

‘Chris, you're welcome here, you know. There's a bed always, and you don't have to … talk, or anything.'

‘Thanks. But right now I'm more worried about Phoebe. Did Diane tell you? She's pregnant.'

‘Yes; that's why I rang. Not a cause for celebration, I gather.'

‘James doesn't want the baby and Phoebe won't have it without him. Diane's in a terrible state – I've never seen her so upset.'

‘And you?'

‘My opinion doesn't matter. My job is just looking after Phoebe. I've said we'll support whatever she decides but I don't think she's convinced. She's lying low. I've phoned, left messages, been to her flat, but I can't track her down. She's not even at work. I don't know what else I can do.'

‘Nothing. You just have to wait. The hardest part of being a parent: letting go when you most want to hang on.'

‘I don't want to hang on, I just want to fix it.'

‘Yeah, I know. Like when you found Jo's diary, all I could think was: how can I fix this? Rosa told me I couldn't. You were the only one who could do that.'

‘Rosa … your cleaning lady?'

‘Yes. Lovely lady; good friend. Told me to stop wallowing in guilt and get myself in a fit state to help if you ever need it. To make sure you know that if you walk through my door – in five minutes or five years' time – you'll find someone you can trust. Okay, maybe not trust, but rely on. I'll be here, Chris. I'll wait. Forever. And that's all you can do for Phoebe.'

‘I'm worried she won't come.'

‘She'll come. She knows you're a stayer.'

‘I've just left Diane.'

‘That's knowing when to quit. You'll never quit your kids. You're like your mother. Your heart's so huge you can't help yourself. Phoebe knows that.'

A buzz at the door interrupts them. ‘Sorry,' says Chris. ‘I have to go. Room service.'

He sits in front of the TV with a hamburger skewered by a long red plastic toothpick shaped like an arrow.

Pathetic-looking thing.

He removes it and takes a bite. Nothing to complain about, but not the taste of Coolum. He'll be doing his own cooking from now on.