Last Day in the Dynamite Factory

by Annah Faulkner

  Ask no questions …

  And he didn’t, because if Ben said there was nothing to tell, then there was nothing to tell. Chris scoops his old exercise book from the floor. Fletcher, his childhood alter ego, is everywhere. Can I go to the shop? Milo, please. Yellow shirt. In one, he is gazing, empty-eyed, at the sky.

  Chris takes a black pen and draws a circle over Mrs Stanton’s living room. A smaller circle on top, but not so small it can’t accommodate a brain far smarter than his own, ears sharp enough to detect bullshit and glasses strong enough to see what is hidden. Still Fletcher, but an older, wiser Fletcher. He gives his little man a bow, a quiver of arrows and a mental directive: kill.

  Fletcher gazes at him solemnly. I’m a fletcher, not an archer. My arrows are made for the pleasure of crafting something beautiful. They’re for target boards, not people.

  ‘Tea, Chris,’ Diane calls.

  In the kitchen she pours tea into two fine China mugs – proper leaf tea, not bags. She takes a lettuce from the fridge, snaps off leaves and rinses them under the tap. Chris puts a glass beneath the running water.

  ‘Don’t.’ She empties the glass and refills it from a jug of filtered water. ‘Lunch won’t be long.’

  He stares at the glass, at the tea and at the pen in his hand – an arrow poised to fall on a traitor’s heart. But all that fall are tears, great slow stripes down his face, a sight so disturbing Diane looks away. For a moment, the air holds only the sound of her husband’s sobs, then she lays a tentative hand on his shoulder. Tears plop from his chin onto the expensive German laminate, chosen especially for its resilience. Chris leans his head on his wife’s shoulder and she puts an arm around his back but her discomfort is unmistakable, as if he – the man – should be the comforter, not the consoled. Men must wear the pants, even if they don’t fit. Tap-tap; her hand beats softly on his back.

  Chris lifts his head. ‘Sorry,’ he whispers. The tears have, at least, restored his voice.

  ‘It’s okay. You’ve had a shock. Why don’t you go and wash up and I’ll finish making lunch. You’ll feel better after something to eat.’

  She will, anyway.

  He goes to the bathroom, now cleared of his smelly distress, and washes his face with a bar of pear and ginger soap.

  Back in his den, Fletcher waits on the drawing board. A Crying Room, he mutters. A place where you can cry without being embarrassed.

  A crying room. What a good idea. Chris runs his eyes over Mrs Stanton’s drawing. Who needs a third toilet, anyway? He’s about to redesignate Mrs Stanton’s toilet when Diane comes to the door.

  ‘Lunch is ready.’

  Chris attends a Caesar salad.

  ‘They should have told you,’ Diane says. ‘When you were old enough to understand.’

  ‘Understand what? My mother had a baby with her sister’s husband. How … how could she do that?’

  A Vita-Weat on its way to Diane’s mouth stalls. ‘She was young, Chris. Young girls do foolish things. Things they wouldn’t do if they were thinking straight.’

  ‘She didn’t do it on her own. Ben was hardly a kid; he was the same age as us when we had Phoebe.’ He screws up his eyes. ‘Can you imagine pretending Phoebe wasn’t ours? Nothing could make me do that; not starvation, war, torture or universal annihilation – nothing.’

  ‘It was a different era back then. I suppose he did what he thought was right at the time.’

  ‘You’re defending him?’

  ‘No, but … at least he didn’t abandon you.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Chris drops his fork and stares at his plate as if memories are stored in lettuce and olives and feta. ‘I thought it took the finest kind of person to love a kid you got lumbered with through no choice of your own. And when your own child died, it took greatness to keep loving that kid with no apparent resentment that he’s alive and yours is dead. All my life I’ve thought that. But it was bullshit; I was cheated of relationships that were rightfully mine. Liam was my brother, Diane. My brother.’

  Jo’s parents arrived at Liam’s memorial services dressed head to foot in black. Mary Johansson allowed her cool, unfocussed gaze to rest briefly on her surviving bastard grandson before turning away, as if his presence, when her legitimate grandson was dead, was unbearable. Her tall, dour-faced Swedish husband stared straight ahead.

  Ben’s parents came from their farm in the Mary Valley. Grandpa could only stay a day – the cows needed milking – but Gran stayed on to cook, wash and take down the Christmas decorations. She made things look normal again, even though they weren’t.

  Liam had gone, yet he was still there. Jo and Ben were still there, but they had gone. Uncle Ben stayed in his shed, appearing only for meals which he barely touched. Aunty Jo lay on their bed and cried, a terrible sound that came from so deep inside her it was no more than a wheeze by the time it got out. Chris was locked in silence, most of his communication coming through Fletcher.

  Eventually Gran had to go home. There was nothing more she could do. Before she left she took Chris outside and sat with him under the jacaranda tree.

  ‘I need you to promise me something, Christopher. What you and I saw – what really happened to Liam – we must never tell anybody. Yes, I know you can’t talk now, but soon you will be able to, and you must never tell anyone about the – the glass. Uncle Ben and Aunty Jo didn’t see what happened. They think Liam drowned, and it’s kinder to let them think that because drowning is a much more peaceful way to die. It’s their only consolation. Do you understand?’

  Chris stared at the ground, at the mossy softness of lies, and nodded.

  ‘Promise me?’

  Again, he nodded.

  ‘Good boy.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘You’re all they have now, so go kindly with them; make them proud. Proud enough for two boys – yes?’

  Yes.

  Chris hadn’t been able to save Liam but he would do whatever he could to save Aunty Jo and Uncle Ben. After Gran left, he took on the job of Mother and Father Bird. If fledging was a matter of feeding and caring for the helpless until they could manage on their own, he would. Tea, coffee, fruit, biscuits and sandwiches: vegemite, peanut butter, cheese or jam. He took it all on trays to the shed and to the bedroom. He washed up, dried up and put away the dishes, made his bed, did the laundry and squeezed it through the wringer. Hung it out to dry in the backyard, standing on an old butter box.

  One day Aunty Jo appeared by his side, her eyes all puffy and blinking in the sunlight. ‘When does school start again?’ she said, handing him a peg.

  Chris held up five fingers.

  She looked at him and blinked again. ‘You still can’t talk?’

  He took a sock from the basket and pegged it up.

  ‘Chris,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry …’

  They took him to a doctor who looked down his throat, and then to another one who didn’t. He asked Chris to lie on a couch and dangled a plumb-bob in his face that went from side to side until Chris felt dizzy and closed his eyes …

  Liam running … Chris hobbling after him, his leg on fire. Can’t keep up. Gran howling from somewhere above and – Liam! No … the terrible gleam … the unbearable weight … the hair in his face … the bloody bubbles and …

  The doctor was shaking him. ‘It’s okay, boy. You’ll be all right. Shock,’ he said to Jo and Ben. ‘Don’t worry. He’ll talk when he’s ready.’

  Chris was ready but the words were not.

  Words were scarce in the Bright household. Ben and Jo guarded their grief, Chris guarded the unspeakable. He had discovered how few words were necessary to communicate but the inability to make any sound at all terrified him. People who couldn’t hear you couldn’t see you. He could survive without words but without the sound of his own voice, he stopped hearing his own questions. People talked hectically at him for a few minutes, then matched his silence with their own.

  Uncle Ben went back to work, but every night returned to his shed. Aunty Jo took up the housework again but o
ften got muddled; putting out cereal for lunch or toast for dinner. She’d go to the sink or the clothes line and stare at her hands as if she’d forgotten what they were for. One time she gave Chris her purse with the same look she’d given her hands and told him to buy himself a treat. He went to the corner store and bought a selection of lollies – humbugs, milk bottles, Fantails and Jaffas – which he tipped into bowls and took to Aunty Jo in her bedroom and Uncle Ben in his shed. They were still there a week later when he started the new school year. Alone. No small, chattering cousin bouncing along beside him.

  School was different. Lonely. No-one knew what to say to a kid who couldn’t talk. Sometimes words felt so close he’d open his mouth and expect them to pop out, but they never did. He was becoming invisible, the walls of his cell closing in. Some nights he woke wide-mouthed with the weight of Liam’s body on his chest and terror drove him into the corridor to beat his hands against the walls. His thumps brought Ben.

  ‘It’ll be all right, lad. You’ll talk again. I promise.’ Only that promise stopped him from going crazy.

  ‘Chris.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You’ve eaten nothing.’ Diane leans over and removes his plate. ‘Go and have a lie-down; you look exhausted.’

  ‘He called me son, but he never let me call him Dad. How could he do that?’

  She rinses the plates. ‘You’ll have to ask him. He can’t feign ignorance after this.’

  ‘I spent my life asking him, and look where that got me!’

  ‘Shh … calm down.’

  ‘Calm down? Thirty years I looked for a father who didn’t exist! My history’s an invention. A farce.’

  ‘Yes, well … give yourself a few days to absorb it. You’re still in shock. When you’re thinking more clearly you’ll see it’s a good thing. Everything will sort itself out.’

  Will it? Will the world slide obediently back onto its axis after a lie-down? Does she have the slightest inkling of what a mess his head is? What kind of words would he need to explain?

  He goes downstairs and follows the meandering pathway to the tree house he built for the kids fifteen years ago. He hoists himself up and prises open the hinged roof Phoebe insisted on so she could look up at the trees and the night sky. The floor is littered with leaves and dirt and the broken remains of a child’s tea set. Seems like yesterday Diane brought a yellow ribbon for the opening ceremony. Phoebe, claiming the superiority of age, demanded to cut it. Archie resorted to brute force and yanked it down. Phoebe made straight for the rope ladder to be first up but Archie shook it so hard she couldn’t get a foothold. Chris lifted him away, allowing Phoebe to climb in, then deposited Archie on the floor at precisely the same moment. Phoebe brought mirrors and cups and saucers to the tree house which Archie promptly chucked out. Phoebe shoved Archie after them; he landed on his arse and screeched like a band-saw.

  ‘Great success,’ Chris shouted over their howling son.

  Diane rolled her eyes and asked why they’d bothered.

  ‘To build the tree house or have kids?’

  ‘Both,’ she said, and they’d laughed.

  He reaches for two pieces of doll-sized teacup and brings them together. They don’t belong. In the blotchy mirror dangling from chicken wire Chris catches sight of his reflection; the hair – Jo was right – springing from his forehead like Ben’s. How could he not have seen it? Looking for Jack Ward all those years and every question put to Jo and Ben met with evasion and discouragement because – he believed – they were afraid of losing him back to his birth father. So then he took care to protect them from knowing about his endless enquiries; the letters, the searches and scouring of records, all in vain. Year, after year, after year.

  He drops down, landing on weak legs, and takes the path back to the house. Jo’s diary is still on the floor of his den, red and threatening as a branding iron. Chris clamps it cautiously between a finger and thumb and goes back downstairs. Diane watches with a puzzled expression as he gets into his car.

  He heads for the office. The staff are still on holidays; maybe there he can think. Familiar territory passes by: the Oswald’s decaying house, their huge weeping fig tree, Woolworth’s grubby brick facade, cars baking in the hard sunlight. Same, yet different. Everything’s the same, yet everything is different.

  Doris, Tabitha’s garden gnome, is decorated in tinsel and Christmas lights. No matter what assaults that thing endures, it continues to smile with the same everlasting, obnoxious cheer.

  The office is not empty. Judge is leaning on Hamish’s drawing board, scowling. He looks silly in shorts, with his bony little legs and leprechaun knees.

  ‘Hey ho,’ he says. ‘Come and have a look at this. Perfect, of course. That bloody Hamish – always, always accurate. Wouldn’t it be great to find a mistake in his work? We could plant one. Imagine his mortification – wouldn’t that be something? What are you doing here?’

  Chris opens the diary with fumbling hands and pokes at the offending entry.

  Judge raises his eyebrows.

  ‘Read it. My aunt’s diary.’

  Judge takes the journal and begins to read. After a moment he glances at Chris with a stunned expression before continuing to the end of the page. He shuts his eyes and rubs them. ‘Shit.’ He wanders into the small kitchen and comes back with a couple of beers. ‘You poor bastard.’ He hands Chris a beer. ‘Diane know?’

  ‘Yeah. She’s already written a happy ending.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Judge shakes his head.

  ‘She hasn’t a clue, Judge; not a bloody clue.’

  Diane looks up from her computer. ‘Oh, good. You’re back. I was beginning to worry. Been with Ben?’

  Chris takes off his glasses and mashes the heel of his hand into his eyes.

  Diane stands up. ‘I know it’s been a shock, Chris, but can’t you see it’s a good thing? You’ve found your father.’

  ‘He didn’t want finding. He didn’t want to be my father.’

  ‘Nonsense. He’s been a wonderful father. Imagine if you’d had mine.’

  ‘At least yours didn’t pretend he wasn’t.’

  Diane goes into the kitchen and takes the makings of dinner from the fridge. ‘I agree, he should have told you, but until you know why he didn’t, try not to blow things out of proportion.’

  ‘There is no bloody proportion!’

  ‘All right, we’ll leave it for now. I’ll make chilli burgers for dinner, your favourite. That’ll make you feel better.’

  He pushes his favourite food around the plate; poking the meat and torturing the noodles with his fork until Diane puts a stilling hand over his. She clears away the plates and fills the dishwasher, hands him a glass of wine and pats the sofa beside her in front of the TV.

  ‘We’ll watch Rumpole,’ she says. But it’s the wrong night for Rumpole of the Bailey. They watch instead the long green legs of a frog thrash futilely in the jaws of a snake. Its head has disappeared down the snake’s gaping mouth. Chris looks away in distress, feeling complicit in the frog’s death, while the narrator calmly proclaims nature is taking its course.

  Diane, similarly repelled, aims the remote at the TV and switches it off. ‘Early night?’

  Chris wonders if it’s an invitation to cuddle. But no. ‘You’ve had a big day. A good night’s sleep and tomorrow things will be clearer.’

  He dozes restlessly; wakes damp with sweat. Gets up and turns on the ceiling fan, climbs back into bed and nuzzles Diane’s neck, inhaling her smell of linen and shampoo. His balls begin to ache. He twirls a hank of her hair between his fingers, feels it slip from his grasp and moves his hand over the Swiss cotton nightie onto her flesh. His fingers begin a joy-ride over her skin – smooth as wet soap, cool and deliciously fine – down her arm, over her breasts, stomach and thighs. He rests his cheek against her back. She stirs, turns to him and gropes sleepily for his penis – reliably ready – and begins to stroke it with competent pressure. When he is primed, she pulls him on top of her,
but as he glides into her accommodating warmth he feels another part of her withdraw – her spirit or soul – the part of her that never waits for him. He holds her, kisses her, pumps her, harder and faster in his lonely quest, but all that lies between them is the sweat of his endeavours. After a while she shifts and he rolls onto his back.

  For a while they lie side by side, not touching. Then Diane turns to him. ‘Are you all right?’

  A pulse bangs in his neck.

  ‘You didn’t come,’ she says.

  ‘Neither did you.’

  ‘I never do. You know that.’

  ‘I wish … I wish you trusted me enough to … to let go.’

  ‘I don’t trust anybody enough.’

  ‘Not even yourself?’

  ‘Especially not myself.’

  ‘Why, Di?’

  ‘Oh, please. Not this again.’

  ‘Why is it a crime to want to be closer to you?’

  ‘How much closer can we be? I’m right here, right now. We’ve just had sex.’

  ‘What about love?’

  ‘Ah, come on, Chris. You’re tired, I’m tired. It’s been a big day. Let’s just get some sleep.’ She pats his leg. ‘Don’t worry that you didn’t come. You will next time.’

  He turns away and shuts his aching eyes, drifts into a patchy sleep, dreams strange dreams and thrashes about. Diane wakes and suggests milk.

  Milk?

  Chris goes into the kitchen where pale moonlight spills over the furniture and the television’s blank face. Everything seems to be waiting. He drinks some water and lies on the sofa, feeling a pulse throbbing in his neck. Shadows of trees shift in distorted patterns on the ceiling. After a while it begins to rain, softly, water tapping the leaves. He is dissolving. Everything in his life that was certain is melting away; memories cannot be trusted. The rain peters out, leaving only the steely echo of drips in the downpipe. A hush settles; an unbearable, impersonal silence broken only by the disapproving tch-tch-tch of a gecko. Chris drags a cushion over his head.