Last Day in the Dynamite Factory (5 page)

Chris brushes the hairs but they stick stubbornly to the fabric. He begins picking them off, one by one. ‘Hell, don't these things
cling
!' He glances up at Diane, who is watching him, mesmerised.

‘What's wrong?' he says.

‘My … my parents did that.'

‘Did what?'

‘Picked me off them. They said I clung.' She shakes her head. ‘Sorry.'

‘No – tell me.'

She shrugs. ‘When they went away – field trips or whatever – I used to stay with a friend, Jane. Every night after dinner her family played music and Jane would climb onto her father's lap for a cuddle. It looked so … appealing, I tried the same thing with my father. But I knocked the pipe out of his mouth and it fell on the floor and scorched the rug. He pushed me off – prised my fingers from his arm. He said I stuck like dog hairs.'

Chris stares at her, aghast. He knows that her archaeologist father and anthropologist mother had always been emotionally distant – but
this
? Her face is splotchy with embarrassment. He reaches for her hand. The toast begins to burn. She pulls her hand free and grabs the pan off the stove.

‘I'll make some more.'

‘Forget the toast, Di. Come here.'

‘No, I'll make some more. I'm happy to.' She pulls more bread from the packet.

‘Are you?' he says.

‘What?'

‘Happy?'

‘Oh … um, yes, I'm content.'

‘Just … content?'

‘Y-yes, but that's all right. Content is better than happy; more enduring, more … stable. You're not all over the place, emotionally.'

She dips bread into the egg mixture and takes it to the pan and Chris wonders if she'll ask him whether he's happy. Probably not, and probably just as well. He is neither happy nor content, but yearns for something which has no name. It's a longing, a lurch of his soul that sends it crashing against an invisible wall. He's certain there is something beyond that wall which does fulfil, but walls keep life in place. You don't destroy a perfectly good house without a perfectly good reason.

Diane slides now-perfect toast onto two plates and sits opposite him at the bench. Recomposed, she slices her toast neatly and drizzles it with maple syrup. Chris's eyes travel the length of her body, encased in a dark gold linen sheath. She favours these sorts of dresses and they suit her. In winter she wears them with a smart little cardigan or a contrasting jacket. Her skin is palest olive and invites touch, her body substantial without being fat. She has the allure of a woman who doesn't seek to attract but does anyway, and she still attracts him. Beneath her clothes, her body leans towards some unidentifiable longing. Chris wishes it was him, but doubts it. He wonders if even Diane knows what it is.

He watches her hands, strong and smooth. Efficient with a deck of cards – she's a killer Bridge player and has tried to get him interested but what appeals to her about Bridge is exactly what puts him off. Rules. Diane likes rules; she likes knowing what is expected. Chris hates rules but is good at them, a trait he finds depressing. His reputation as a responsible, reliable, decent husband, father and architect is harder to kick than smoking was. Not that he ever smoked much; it interfered with his tennis.

Every Saturday for the last twenty years he and a bunch of mates have played on a court at Bardon, a lovely spot overlooking Ithaca Creek, partly shaded by a massive camphor laurel tree that reminds him of the tree Grandpa dynamited on his farm all those years ago. The tree has been declared a weed and the pest police want it dead but Chris loves it. He'd like to hug its trunk but settles for patting it – casually – in case anyone is watching. On the court, the
thock
of the ball and the urge to remind players ten years younger that there is still plenty of life in the old bloke obliterates the need for hugging trees. In the nippy days of winter, adrenalin floods his limbs and convinces him that he could, if required, leap tall buildings at a single bound. Yesterday, in the heat of late spring, he wasn't quite so spry but he still won.

After the game he flung his racquet onto the cracked leather seat of his old Rover and drove home, humming. Bounded up the stairs and burst into the kitchen.
Hail, conquering hero!

Diane looked up from her textbook. ‘Good game?'

‘Whipped their arses. Got Judge running like a bunny.'

‘Well, that's nice.' She returned to her book and silence descended, an incongruous Saturday silence. Archie, he supposed, was at work, supplying the thirsty footy crowds. He went to his den and put a Joe Cocker CD into the boom box, played a track or two and then swapped it for
The Phantom of the Opera
.

A few minutes later Diane appeared at his door. ‘Chris, would you mind using the headphones? I'm trying to concentrate.'

‘Sorry.'

He put on the expensive headphones she gave him last Christmas so she wouldn't have to put up with his schmaltzy taste in music, and warbled tunelessly along with a song. When he went into the kitchen for a beer fifteen minutes later, Diane had neat balls of cottonwool pressed into her ears.

Subdued, he returned to his den, a room reminiscent of a shipping container with windows at one end and a door at the other. It doesn't inspire. If ideas, especially subversive ones (of which there are pathetically few), were to pop up, they'd be more likely to do so in the dunny which overlooks a verdant sweep of lawn and the park at the bottom of the street. Light from the window in the den is plentiful but the garden beyond it seems remote, more like a picture than a reality. The room is furnished with a reclining chair, a desk, a drawing board and stool. Shelves on the wall are stacked with CDs, books (mostly adventure),
National Geographic
and architectural magazines. The bag of wood off-cuts from his friend in London sits on the desk. On the wall above is a picture from the same friend – a simple sketch of a woman lying naked in front of TV with a glass of wine. Beside it is a bold acrylic of a dog and a cat eyeing each other across a stream. A bridge between them has collapsed. Diane, who dislikes both pictures, gave him a fine antique drawing of one of Brisbane's earliest churches. It hangs on the opposite wall.

The corner of the den is occupied by a handsome chunk of camphor laurel Chris salvaged from Grandpa's farm in the Mary Valley during his teens. A piece of wood enfolds a story, sometimes instantly visible, sometimes hidden. He still hasn't decided on the fate of the camphor laurel.

‘Finished?' Diane reaches for his plate.

Chris slides from the stool. He'd like to say something to acknowledge the chilling significance of what she has told him about her father but doesn't know what. So he goes to the other side of the bench and puts his arms around her. She stands for a moment, tolerating his embrace, then begins to squirm. Although it's her standard response to displays of affection outside the bedroom, Chris has never stopped hoping that one day it will be different. At night, with the lights out, her body is his. There's nothing she won't do – if he asks.

He drops his arms and kisses her cheek. ‘I'll be in my den. We'll leave at nine.'

‘Chris?' She looks at him with a small frown.

‘What?'

‘I wonder, is – is everything all right?'

‘Yep.' He shrugs. ‘It is, it's all right.'

‘Only, you seem … preoccupied.' She searches his eyes, as if behind his glasses they guard a thought she can't decipher.

She may be right, but whatever it is, he can't decipher it either. He's been aware of a certain restlessness lately, but wonders if it isn't simply the result of Phoebe leaving home. ‘I'm fine,' he says.

In his den he sends a pencil meandering around the blank face of his drawing pad until Diane knocks, a gesture of respect for the possibility he is immersed in work.

‘Yep?'

She comes in with his mug of tea. ‘You forgot.' On the way out she stoops to pick something off the floor, some rogue particle so minuscule that when she rubs her fingers over the waste basket nothing visible falls.

‘Di,' he says, ‘after Jo's ashes, why don't we go somewhere special for lunch?'

‘That's a nice idea. I'm sure Ben will appreciate it.'

‘Will you?'

She smiles.

‘I don't take you out enough.'

‘Oh, that doesn't matter.'

‘The kids are grown. Phoebe's gone. You and I should do more together.'

‘Yes, I suppose we should. But right now, don't let your tea grow cold.'

For forty years Chris and Ben have come to Coolum to remember Liam. Now they've come for Jo.

Phoebe joins them at Point Perry and the family walks together down to the beach. Ben, with Jo's ashes in a small, faux Grecian urn, picks his way across the rocks towards the sea. He stands for a moment, then turns and looks at them all, bestowing Phoebe with a brief, melancholy smile. He says she reminds him of Chris's mother, Alice.

Chris's knowledge of his mother is limited to facts and adjectives. He's tried to construct a more complete picture of her but Jo's apparent anguish whenever he raised questions made him reluctant to ask.
Determined
was the most-used description. When she was nineteen, Alice Johansson landed a coveted job as a clothing designer at the Myer Emporium in Melbourne. She left Brisbane, boarded with her father's cousin near the city, and for two years happily dedicated herself to building a career. Then she fell pregnant. With the support of the family she lived with she left work, took in sewing and, against all the social mores of the time, had her baby. Four months later she was knocked over by a delivery truck in William Street and killed. As next of kin, Jo, and her husband Ben, adopted baby Christopher and took him back to live with them in Brisbane.

The enduring mystery is his birth father. Jo and Ben did not encourage Chris's many futile efforts to find Jack Ward, suspecting the name was an invention by Alice to conceal his father's true identity.

Ben lifts the urn, but instead of scattering its contents, he flings both the urn and ashes into the belly of a wave. It rises up and curves over like a giant tongue, sucking away Jo's remains. Ben stands for a moment, watching the swell retreat, then walks slowly back across the rocks, his shoes and trousers blackened by water. No words, no speech. Just gone. Gone, as Liam had gone, dead as Liam is dead.

‘That's it, then,' Chris murmurs to Diane. She glances at him; her face composed but her eyes troubled. Apparently not closure.

Back at the car, Ben elects to skip lunch. They buy bottles of juice, farewell Phoebe and begin the drive home.

The Rover chugs stoically towards Brisbane. It's old; it rattles and creaks, its suspension is stuffed and lately everything seems to need replacing. Chris knows it's time for a trade-in but every time he looks at a new car he feels disloyal.

The return trip is quiet. Archie dozes in the back seat, Diane murmurs intermittently about household trivia. Ben and Chris are silent. It's hard to know what to say after an occasion so devoid of ceremony.

‘Casserole for dinner is it, Ben?' Chris says eventually, in a feeble attempt at humour.

‘Bloody women. The freezer's full of them.'

‘Women?'

‘Casseroles. Not that I mind the food, it's the women …'

‘What's wrong with women?'

‘Oh, you know. Keen.'

‘Shocking,' says Chris, glancing sideways at Diane, who doesn't appear to have heard. ‘I read the other day about a ninety-three year old bloke who married his childhood sweetheart. She was eighty-nine.'

Ben catches his eyes briefly in the rear-vision mirror. ‘Half his luck.'

Chris pulls up outside Ben's house in Red Hill and glances at his watch. ‘I'll check in at the office, and then how about I come back after work for a beer?'

Ben nods, delivers a one-fingered salute, and disappears inside.

Chris drops Archie at the pub and takes Diane home. ‘After I've had a beer with Ben, why don't we go out for dinner?'

‘I don't think Ben will want to, Chris; he didn't want lunch.'

‘I meant just you and me.'

‘Isn't it a bad night to leave Ben on his own? Bring him home and I'll make something for all of us.'

‘Yeah,' says Chris. ‘Okay. Another night, though, eh?'

It's two thirty before he gets to work and he can't concentrate. Lack of any commemorative speech or reminiscence has left him with a feeling of unfinished business. Maybe Diane was right about closure.

Tabitha comes into his office waving a piece of paper. She's taken a phone call from someone in central New South Wales wanting Chris to restore a shearing shed.

‘What for?'

‘Convert it to an operating theatre for a remote hospital?'

‘Tabi …'

‘Oh, I don't know, Mr B. Farm-stays, I think.'

‘Great.' Maybe it's the day, or the time of year with all its pre-Christmas hype, but Chris can't generate any enthusiasm for a flight to woop-woop and the cloying smell of lanolin.