The thin lip of the sun slides above the horizon before he falls asleep.
The brutality of another sweltering day envelop him as Chris drags himself, crusty-eyed, from the couch at six am, leaving behind a cushion ringed with sweat. He goes to the bathroom and splashes water on his face. The mirror reveals vertical furrows down the sides of his mouth. Easy to see whose they are now; and his hair, though wheat-pale, is thick like Ben’s.
Maybe he could shave it off.
It’ll still be Ben’s hair.
He dries his face and hangs the towel on the rail, then snatches the ends of it and pulls. When nothing happens he braces his foot against the wall and wrenches back with every ounce of strength. The sound of screws tearing from the timber is music. He kicks the wall and the house shudders.
In bed, Diane stirs. ‘You’re up already? What was that noise?’
‘Nothing,’ he says, hobbling to the wardrobe.
‘It wasn’t nothing. Are you limping?’
‘No.’
Diane slips her feet into waiting slippers, pulls on her robe and gives Chris the flicker of a frown as she walks with contained elegance from the room.
He slides open the door of the wardrobe which, with imagination, could be called walk-in, and pulls on a T-shirt and shorts. Backing out, the pocket snags on a hook. He yanks it free and the shorts tear. He raises a fist and slams it into the skin of the door. Two fists. Again, and again.
Diane comes hurrying down the hall. ‘What on earth—?’ She looks aghast at the door, reaches out and touches its wound gently. ‘Christopher . . . tell me you didn’t do this.’
‘I didn’t do it.’
‘But . . .’ She shakes her head. ‘This isn’t you.’
‘It is me,’ he says. ‘It’s this me.’
‘Don’t be silly. There’s only one you, and you don’t do things like this. If you’re angry, go for a bike ride or a walk.’
‘Ah – how eminently sensible. Why didn’t I think of that?’
He ducks through the house, torn pocket flapping, out the door and down the stairs. He strides up the hill, past the school, past Prime Video, Helen’s Hair Klinik and the Seven Day Pharmacy, thundering along at six thirty in the morning with the sun stinging his skin, his glasses misting and his breath coming hard in his ears.
What a fool! All his life so pathetically grateful to Ben for his name and for treating Chris as his own son.
He takes a side street to the park, circles it a couple of times and flops down in the sparse shade of a ghost gum. Apart from the few miserable drops of rain last night, there’s been nothing for weeks. Overhead, a bird – an eagle or a kite – soars and dips on invisible currents, then slowly wings away. At his feet a lizard zigzags through the dry leaves; ants accommodate their journey to his arrival.
Chris picks up a stick and scratches a circle in the dirt, giving it big ears, dot eyes and glasses. How could they – Ben and Jo – have kept silent for an entire lifetime?
You should know. You have.
Different. Completely different. Telling them how Liam really died would have destroyed them. Theirs is a shabby, sleazy cover-up.
Then uncover it. Dig. Demand answers. Things won’t happen until you make them.
Chris draws stitches across Fletcher’s mouth.
Think that’ll work? The only way to shut me up is to chop off your head.
Good idea.
Diane is mopping the kitchen floor.
‘Feeling better?’ She eyes his dusty tracks across the damp timber.
‘I’d need more than a walk in the park to make me feel better. I’ve got to . . . to get away – somewhere I can think.’
‘Running away wouldn’t solve anything.’
‘It might.’
It did – once.
A month after Liam’s death, Jo and Ben were struggling to establish life with three instead of four. It was like trying to balance a table with three legs. Dust gathered on the furniture, washing piled up, Jo and Ben wandered about like zombies. Jo would stop in the middle of something, regard Chris in an unfocused way and murmur, ‘Good boy,’ as if grateful for his inability to speak. Ben patted his head absently and stared into space.
Chris began to wonder whether they’d notice if he turned cartwheels, or even notice if he wasn’t there.
One morning he woke utterly convinced that by the time he reached school he would be invisible. He packed his knapsack with pencils, his exercise book, a toothbrush, T-shirt, socks and a torch with a dodgy switch. Then he upended his piggy bank, pocketed the contents and crept out of the house. At the grocer’s on the corner he bought a bottle of lemonade and a packet of biscuits – cheap because they were broken.
Central, he wrote for the bus driver, and at the station, Coolum.
‘No trains to Coolum, chum,’ the ticket seller said.
Chris thought, then wrote, Beach.
‘Oh, the Southport line. You must mean Coomera.’
Chris paid for a ticket which took most of his money and Chris found an empty carriage near the back of the train. The guard punched a hole in his ticket and disappeared. It was only about thirty-five miles to Coomera but the train stopped at every station and the suburbs of Brisbane had barely dropped away before Chris fell asleep.
He woke with the guard shaking him. ‘Coomera, young fella.’
Chris took his knapsack and stepped onto the platform. Not the beach. Nowhere by the look of it; all he could see were scrubby trees and low hills. The stationmaster whistled away the train and returned to his office. Chris went to the end of the platform, jumped down onto the railway line and followed it back towards Brisbane. About ten minutes along he came to a narrow bridge where the ground fell steeply away from the tracks into a hollow. He scrambled down the bank and sank into the long, dry, cushiony grass. It was a peaceful spot, the silence broken only by birdsong, a rustle of wind, and the distant murmur of a car. Chris ate some biscuits.
Crunch-crunch. The sound was loud and satisfying.
He picked up a dry leaf and crushed it. Crrrrunch.
He beat a little tattoo on his knapsack. Thumpety-thump.
Here, at least, he existed.
He stayed in the hollow all day, with Fletcher as his only companion – in his exercise book and in his head. He pulled up pieces of long grass and wove, plaited and knotted them into shapes. Trains came – three more that day – and even though they were a long way above him they were very exciting and just a bit scary. He lay back and watched their black underbellies thunder and vibrate overhead, scattering dust and soot and delivering their staccato rattle: da-dang, da-dang, clackety-clack. Sun flashed through the gaps between the carriages and then whoosh, the train disappeared, its sound fading into the distance. Part of him went with each one, all the way to the sea. The other part stayed where he was, listening, watching. Later in the afternoon he ate more biscuits and watched the light change, sink lower in the sky and turn orange. He lay back and shut his eyes.
A piece of grass tickled his cheek. He opened his eyes and there – less than six feet away – was a small wallaby, staring at him with liquid brown eyes. Not an empty gaze – not like the kangaroo they’d killed on the road, nor like Liam’s blank stare – but bright and inquisitive. For a moment Chris and the wallaby looked at each other, then slowly Chris lifted his hand.
‘Kanga . . .’ he whispered.
Startled, the wallaby bounded away.
Chris, wide-eyed, touched his throat. ‘Kanga.’ He heard the sound, felt its vibration against his fingers. ‘Kanga – oooo-roooo, kanga-roo, kangaroo – Chris! Chris! Chris-toph-er – me! Me!’ He scrambled up and punched the air, gurgled, laughed and crowed at the sound of his voice. Words came hesitantly at first, then faster and faster in a rapturous, random jumble. He squealed and shrieked and whooped, not daring to stop in case his voice stopped again. And when tears came he didn’t stop them, the sound of his sobs relief, at last, from Liam’s crushing weight.
Even as he grew tired, Chris babbled on. When night fell, he pulled his knapsack under his head and prattled to the stars.
‘There was an old man from Gosham
Who took out his balls to wash ’em.
“Look out!” said Jack,
“You’d best put ’em back,
Or I’ll tread on the buggers and squash ’em.”
There was a young man from Kent
whose cock was terribly bent . . .’
Not until he slept did Chris’s mouth stop moving.
He woke to a high, bright moon and for a moment wondered if he’d dreamed his voice back. But no – it was still there.
‘I can talk,’ he said to the stars. ‘Can you hear me, Liam?’ The stars winked back, and Chris knew that wherever Liam was, he was fine. He nibbled a biscuit, drank some lemonade, lay back and fell asleep.
He awoke with the first frenzy of birdcall. ‘Oy!’ he shouted. He ate the remaining biscuits, finished the drink, changed his T-shirt and walked back to the station. Without enough money for a ticket, he was uncertain what to do. A train for Brisbane came and went, whistled away by the stationmaster.
‘You lost?’ he asked Chris.
‘No.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then go and do it at home.’
‘I can’t. I haven’t got enough money.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘Red Hill.’
The stationmaster whistled. ‘Brisbane! Did you run away?’
Chris nudged a stone with his sandshoe. The man led him to the office, took his phone number and telephoned Uncle Ben.
‘You lost a kid?’
A voice exploded from the earpiece.
The stationmaster turned to Chris. ‘Your name Christopher? Yeah, he’s fine, by the look of him. Yep, talking. Why – you want to talk to him? Okay. Coomera Railway Station. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he stays put.’
A lady came into the office with a basket of food. ‘Got company?’
‘A runaway. His father’s coming. Frantic.’
‘Goodness. You must be starving.’ She handed Chris a packet of sandwiches. ‘Go on, dear; there’s plenty. Mercy me, your poor parents.’
‘They’ve had the police out looking for you,’ said the stationmaster. ‘If you were mine I’d belt the living daylights out of you.’
Ben did no such thing. He gathered Chris in his arms and swiped away tears. ‘My son,’ he whispered. ‘Thank God you’re all right. We thought we’d lost you too.’
‘Sorry, Uncle Ben.’
Ben hiccupped – half laugh, half sob. ‘Your voice! How wonderful it is to hear your voice.’ As they drove home, Ben put his hand on Chris’s. ‘I’m sorry we’ve been so . . . especially when you’ve looked after us so well. We’ll always miss our Liam but that doesn’t mean we love you any less. You’re everything to us now.’
Piece by piece, the diminished family built life without Liam. They spoke about the good times, but never about his death. Silence, Chris learned, was easy. If nobody asked, you never had to tell.
And he never ran away again.
‘That was the first time he called me son.’
‘Pardon?’ Diane stows the mop.
‘Never mind.’
‘Oh.’ She glances at her watch. ‘Goodness, I’m running late. I have an early lecture. Sorry, but you’ll have to get your own breakfast. Make sure you have something substantial. You hardly ate a thing yesterday.’
Chris skins a banana, chews unenthusiastically for a moment, then puts it down. He goes to his den, picks up the diary and takes it to his car.
Driving up Waterworks Road, he considers what he might say. Anger, unbidden and unhelpful but unstoppable, begins to charge through him. He flattens the accelerator, hangs a right at the lights at the top of the hill and skids to a halt in Ben’s driveway. He strides, heart pounding, around to the back of the house. The kitchen door is open. Ben is standing at the sink, dipping a tea bag in a mug. He watches, gape-mouthed, as Chris snatches the bag, hurls it into the sink, opens the fridge, grabs milk, sloshes it in the tea, inhales deeply and wills himself to speak.
Silence.
Blood roars to his face. He slaps the diary on the table, flips it open to the offending page and stabs it with his finger.
‘Sss-sit . . . Father!’ He drags out a chair.
‘Chris—’
‘Shut it.’
Ben gropes behind him for the seat, his expression so nakedly confused Chris wonders for a moment if he’s made a mistake. Then he sees the fear, and for a split second he’s mesmerised by his father’s features, the wonder of them, the face he knows so well yet is only now seeing for the first time. His heart swells with familiar love before he reminds himself that he’s here for answers, not to bawl. But the rage that propelled him has suddenly gone. He gropes for a question – something powerful enough to compel explanation for all that is . . . inexplicable.
‘Why?’
The word is a bleat, a sound so pathetic Chris turns away in embarrassment. He fumbles in the sink for a glass, forces his gaze out the window – to the view of the western hills bathed in the deep golden glow created by the purple threat of rain – and down to the flaccid tea bag in the sink. Traffic whooshes distantly down Waterworks Road. He fills the glass with water and gulps it down.
‘All my life . . .’ His voice is hoarse, despite the water. ‘All my life you let me wonder, let me carry around this great hole inside. Who am I? Where do I belong? Who is my father? What does he look like? Does he ever think about me? Does he know about me? Has he tried to find me? Did he try but couldn’t? So I tried to find him and . . . and you . . . let me.’
Ben drops his head in his hands. ‘I . . . we . . . we didn’t know how to stop you, without . . .’
‘For years I looked for Jack Ward but I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to hurt you. And when I couldn’t find him I told myself it was probably a good thing because compared with you he’d always be second best.’ Chris scrubs his forehead. ‘I am a complete fool, but you . . .? What kind of person does something like that? What father doesn’t acknowledge his own flesh and blood? My life is lies – all lies.’
Ben stares at the milky film that has formed on his tea.
‘I want the truth, Ben. Do you understand truth?’
‘Yes.’
‘All of it.’
Ben nods.
Chris’s chest feels banded, the air is like dough. ‘Where did you meet . . . my . . . Alice?’
‘At our wedding. She was living in Melbourne but came back to be Jo’s bridesmaid.’
‘You . . . had an affair at your wedding?’
‘No, no. Alice was only in Brisbane for a couple of days. She came up on the train with my cousin, Ian. You know, my best man. It was later . . . about a year. In Melbourne.’
Chris looks away, his eyes roaming the room and the familiar patterns of his old home. There’s a broom in the corner. New. He can still see Jo poking a broom at the ceiling to hook down a cobweb. She hooked the spider too, which dropped into Chris’s bowl of porridge and sent him and Liam into paroxysms of laughter. At the back of the dresser sits the old General Electric jug that no-one can bear to toss out; a survivor of countless gadgets since, a survivor of Liam, and of Jo. Once a benign symbol of his childhood, its shape no longer reassures. It’s a relic, cracked and unreliable.
‘Melbourne,’ Chris says.
Ben clears his throat. ‘Work took me there. I saw Alice and Ian together at first. They’d been dating on and off since our wedding.’ He contemplates the muddy contents of his mug. ‘Alice was boarding with her father’s cousin, Ellie, her husband and their swag of kids. Nice people. I loved her, Chris. I loved your mother so very much.’
‘What about Jo?’
‘I loved her too . . . but different. Completely different. As soon as I saw Alice I felt like I’d been holding my breath all my life and finally let
go. What we had—’ He smiles sadly. ‘What we had in our month together was . . . a lifetime of happiness packed into thirty days. It couldn’t last, we both knew it. When I left Melbourne it was the end, physically. Not in here, though.’ He taps his chest. ‘Never in here.’
The room is suddenly suffocating. If Chris doesn’t get out he’ll pass out or throw up. He pitches through the door and stumbles back to the car, fumbles getting the key into the ignition. His legs shake so much he can hardly operate the pedals. The engine roars to life and the car bunny-hops back down the driveway onto the road. Chris puts it in first and plants his foot – second, third – down the hill, eighty in a sixty zone.
It doesn’t last. However fast he goes, there’s no escape. He opened the book on his history and it will not be closed until it is read.
Bats have attacked the mango tree again. They come in the last light of day, twittering and cheeping and gorging on the ripe flesh with their sharp little teeth. If Diane gets to the mangoes first, it’s mango mousse from November to February. Chris picks up the discarded seeds and notices, in a detached way, that the fishpond needs cleaning. Life is bent beyond recognition but the bats go on feasting and squealing and the fish go on shitting and swimming. Around and around.
The fish came to their household when ten-year-old Archie brought five home in a bag for his mother. Diane exclaimed happily over the gift and Archie was as proud as a rooster. She put the fish in a bowl and Chris watched them go around and around, mouthing silent protests against the glass until he reckoned if the fish didn’t go mad, he would. He bought a fish tank with bubbles and fake grass and watched the fish go from end to end instead of around and around. Every so often one would float to the surface, dead. Chris would take the body outside to poorly attended funerals: just him and the birds dotted along the clothes line like pegs.
The fourth time Chris interred a golden body he suggested Diane might be over fish. But, no.
‘There’s only one left,’ he said.
‘I’ll buy more. They’re soothing.’
‘What’s soothing about watching fish do the same thing over and over, day in, day out? And then die.’
Last Day in the Dynamite Factory Page 7
