Last Day in the Dynamite Factory

by Annah Faulkner

  But his words had the effect of a bucket of ice. She froze. Gathered in her wayward desire and left her body to do with as he pleased. He willed her back but it was too late. He rolled over, stared up at the fan on its journey to nowhere and felt like slitting his throat. Words … or maybe the sound of his voice – either way, he’d destroyed it. Never had disappointment been so bitter.

  Yet, there was a time when words might have worked. After her father died, Diane tried to draw close to her mother but Valerie resisted. Diane shrugged off the rebuffs but the night of her mother’s death, Chris, on the edge of sleep, heard a sound he didn’t recognise. A strange crusty utterance that sounded like hiccups. He put out his hand and Diane turned to him, her face damp with tears.

  ‘She never loved me.’

  ‘Oh, Di.’ He pulled her close. ‘She did, in her own weird way.’

  But he had doubts. Valerie’s remoteness defied any definition of love he knew. Twelve years of excellent report cards from her school – an achievement that even coaxed grudging respect from her father – left her mother indifferent. Only at their wedding did she show real approval, eyeing her daughter’s gently swollen belly and her new husband and commenting briefly, ‘Well done, dear.’ As Chris held his wife, he sensed a chance to convince her she wouldn’t fall apart if she opened up. But the only language he could summon was desire, and longing made him hasty. He kissed her face and stroked her body and he knew he was going too fast but he couldn’t help himself. Diane put her arms around him and he slid inside her and rode her gently until it was over but he knew with every inch of his being that he’d failed her. Failed himself. They fell asleep with their bodies touching but their souls apart, and in the morning her tears were gone.

  ‘Dad – where are you?’ Phoebe is peering at him with an uncertain smile.

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Grandpa?’

  He nods.

  ‘It’s sad – you know? Sort of … pathetic. Something he and Granny must have started and got stuck with – like the sorcerer’s apprentice. Bigger mess. Bigger secret.’ She sighs. ‘Poor Granny. Imagine. Her husband and her sister. Yet she loved you. What a heart.’

  Chris looks at his daughter and nods slowly, realising he’s been so fixated on himself and Ben, he’s given little thought to how difficult things must have been for Jo.

  ‘That’s settled then,’ Archie says, hijacking the conversation. ‘A no-expense-spared anniversary dinner.’

  Chris makes coffee while Diane loads the dishwasher.

  ‘You need to set an example for Archie,’ she says.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Stop acting like this business with Ben is some catastrophe. If you move on, Archie’s more likely to do likewise. It’s well past time you did.’

  ‘You know what, Diane? Just for once I wish you’d put yourself in my shoes.’

  ‘I have, and they don’t fit,’ she snaps. ‘I understood your initial shock, but you’re so morose and self-absorbed lately I hardly recognise you. You need to move on.’

  Chris bangs a cup down in front of her and slops in coffee to the brim. ‘Yes ma’am. Moving on, right away. Enjoy your coffee, but make sure you don’t choke on your self-righteous advice.’

  In his den, he puts Les Misérables in the boom box, clamps on the headphones and turns his thoughts to Jo. Phoebe was right. Jo was the one stuck with the fallout, and she dealt with it valiantly. Took him in, mothered him, loved him. But did she really believe that a lifetime of silence, based on her fear of losing him, was justifiable?

  Chris drags her boxes towards him and takes out her journals. The earliest one begins with Liam’s birth – nearly two years after they adopted Chris. If there were earlier diaries, he’s certain they’re gone; his and Ben’s cleanout of the house was thorough. He trawls painstakingly though every diary but finds nothing. He changes the CD and turns up the music.

  ‘I’m not who you think I am,

  Not that simple, foolish man

  Yoooou used to knoooooow …’

  As he picks out the words in his rough, tuneless voice, there’s a tap on his shoulder. Diane’s mouth is moving but he can’t hear her words. He takes off the headphones. ‘What?’

  ‘I said, it’s time you came to bed.’

  ‘What are you – my mother?’ He peers at his watch. ‘It’s only ten o’clock. I’ll come when I’m ready.’

  ‘You have work in the morning, don’t forget.’

  ‘How could I for-bloody-get?’ He slaps the headphones back on but music fails to erase a persistent image he’s had lately of Fletcher, packing. Stuffing his knapsack with T-shirts, underpants, toothbrush, torch, broken biscuits and bow and arrows, and going out through the front door, between the strips of lawn he’s mowed all his married life, up the street and around the corner, past Prime Video and Helen’s Hair Klinik and the Seven Day Pharmacy, plodding along on his sturdy pancake feet.

  Where are you going, Fletcher – Coomera?

  No. I’m going where I was headed forty years ago and never made it.

  ‘I’ve decided to go away for a bit.’

  Chris drops his news on the dining table at nine fifteen the following Saturday evening. The announcement settles between the candles and the china and glowing crystal and lowers the temperature in the lovely room two uncomfortable degrees. Judge continues to wolf down Diane’s strawberry meringue basket but Karen’s spoon hovers mid-air and Diane places hers carefully on her plate.

  ‘And why would that be, Chris?’

  ‘I need to clear my head.’

  ‘I see,’ she says in a dangerously reasonable tone. ‘Would I be right in assuming this is about Ben?’

  Chris fiddles with his napkin. ‘Yes … among other things.’

  ‘A trip away so you can indulge in a marathon of uninterrupted bone-picking over everything you imagine your father’s done wrong.’

  ‘I just want time to sort through everything that’s happened.’

  ‘More time? To sort through what, exactly? You’ve found your father. Mystery solved. Instead of muck-raking why don’t you look around and be grateful for what you have. Family, friends, health, a beautiful house, money in the bank and a job you love.’

  Chris gazes into the candlelight. ‘I am grateful. I’m truly grateful, but for the record, I don’t love my job. I’m fed up with it.’

  A symphony of gasps ripples around the table.

  ‘But you love architecture,’ says Diane.

  ‘I like architecture but I’ve had it with restorations and constantly butting up against people with romantic visions of the past.’ Judge grunts and Chris tosses him a steely look. ‘Don’t you bloody look surprised. You’ve known how I’ve felt for years.’

  Judge pokes at his dessert. ‘I just wondered what brought on this particular … episode.’

  Chris drops his napkin on the table and sighs. ‘Violet. Our neighbour. She wants her house to be original. Original? I said. Original was four claustrophobic little rooms – two of them barely nine feet square. The original kitchen was out the back, the original bathroom was bare boards and a tub, the original dunny was down the yard.’ He gulps wine. ‘There were no ceiling fans, no air-conditioners and a wood stove going all day long – and you want original?’

  ‘I hope you put it more diplomatically than that,’ Diane says.

  ‘Look. She’s got real history there. It started off as a worker’s cottage but it actually got better instead of worse; there’s some good stuff from the forties and fifties. Forget restore, I said. Renovate. It could be really nice; an authentic and pleasant place to live in rather than some pokey, anachronistic reproduction.’

  Judge lets out a long, slow breath. Karen spears a strawberry.

  ‘Anyway.’ Chris pings his wineglass. ‘Like I said, I need to get away.’

  Diane stabs her meringue, sending a snowy explosion onto the table.

  Judge licks his finger and presses it into the meringue crumbs. ‘Actua
lly, I think it’s a good idea. It’s been donkey’s years since he had a holiday and it’s the only way he’ll find out how much he misses us … and heritage work.’ He grins slyly.

  Diane scoops meringue off the table with the side of her hand. ‘It’s been donkey’s years since I had a holiday too. His issues are here, with Ben.’

  ‘Give him a break, Di,’ Judge says recklessly. ‘Poor bugger is having to rewrite his life. His father turns out to be his aunt’s husband … or is it the other way around? His cousin turns out to be his brother, as well as his cousin. It’s a mind-fuck, if you’ll excuse the expression.’

  ‘Peter!’ says Karen, as Diane gathers the dishes and takes them, poker-faced, to the kitchen.

  The use of his name is a clear reprimand and Judge glances at his wife guiltily. She rises and follows Diane to the kitchen.

  ‘Are you fair dinkum about restorations, Wren?’

  ‘Oh, come on. I’ve been saying for years I’ve had enough of repairing other people’s work.’

  ‘What would you do instead?’

  Chris shrugs.

  ‘Heritage work is a huge chunk of our business. If you’re going to pull the plug you’ll have to come up with something else. Your stuff is what distinguishes us from every other outfit on the block. Think about it, hey? Take a break. It’s a good idea.’ He glances towards the kitchen. ‘The harness seems to be chafing.’

  Chris’s eyes widen. ‘You make us sound like a couple of draughthorses.’

  Judge manages to look guilty. ‘Yeah. Sorry.’

  Diane is curled in the big sofa on the verandah, her knees drawn up beneath a long dress. She looks orderly and composed, but so solitary, Chris’s heart twists. She has friendly acquaintances but no-one close. Her aura of self-sufficiency does not invite confidences.

  Since the dinner party he’s been unable to shake off the image of them as draughthorses, tethered and plodding side by side, but when Diane drops her head on her knees, it’s a gesture of such loneliness he has an urge to hold her close and tell her they don’t have to be like this. They can be different. Barely the urge registers before he imagines her alarm. ‘Lonely?’ she’d surely say. ‘I’m not lonely. I’m fine as I am. Why would we want to be different?’

  She lifts her head.

  ‘I’m going on Friday,’ he says.

  A bleak expression passes over her face and he sees again the insecurity of her childhood self. Something’s happening that’s beyond her control. Her husband has gone feral and she doesn’t know what to do.

  ‘Where will you go?’

  He shrugs. ‘Haven’t booked anywhere. I’ll see where I finish up.’

  ‘That’s silly. You could finish up having to sleep in the car.’

  Chris shrugs. ‘Then I’ll sleep in the car. There’s only me to worry about.’ He goes to the verandah rail and snaps a leaf from its hoary lifeline, twirls it and drops it into the bush.

  ‘You’re thinking about Germany,’ Diane says.

  He nods.

  ‘You still resent me for spoiling your holiday.’

  ‘Of course I don’t, Di. It was an accident. History.’

  History that changed the course of their lives.

  In London, Judge found work with a group of young designers like himself, Chris with the firm of conservation experts. Within a month Judge had met Karen and eighteen months later was married and back in Brisbane. Chris stayed on for another year, at the end of which he landed a plum summer job with a cabinet-making firm in Germany. Six weeks before he was due to start, Diane arrived for a holiday. The day she was booked to fly to Paris she fell off a balcony, breaking three ribs, one leg, her holiday plans and Chris’s job arrangements.

  She slides off the sofa. ‘At least see your father before you go. Hear his side of the story.’

  ‘I have heard it.’

  ‘Then you should know it was Jo who insisted you never be told.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And that she had good reasons.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘If you’re asking me, you haven’t listened very well.’

  ‘But you have?’

  ‘I asked Ben and he told me. He’d tell you too, if you gave him half a chance. But you’d rather go off and brood.’

  ‘Friday,’ he says. ‘I’ll go off and brood on Friday.’

  Judge sprawls in the swivel chair that dwarfs him, his small, booted feet on the desk. Chris spins the chair and sends them flying.

  ‘Piss off, Wren!’

  ‘Can you manage for a couple of weeks if I go tomorrow?’

  ‘Shit yes. We’ll have a party. Go. Shout, curse, drink, whatever. Deal with it. It’s eating you up. You’re gouging holes in the tracing paper.’

  ‘Don’t try to run the place while I’m away. Let Maureen do it.’

  ‘Right.’

  Chris finds Maureen at her desk flicking through a set of drawings. She looks at him over her glasses.

  ‘Don’t let him take over,’ he says, only half joking.

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘And don’t let Tabi chew that crappy gum.’

  ‘No, Chris.’ She turns and takes a sheet of paper from the shelf behind her.

  ‘And Maureen …’

  ‘Yes, Christopher?’

  ‘You’ll have it all in hand, won’t you?’

  ‘I’ll have it all in hand. Now, may I please go and get Tabi to deliver these plans or do you want to tattoo your instructions on my arms?’

  ‘Yeah, okay. It’s just –’

  ‘I know, Chris. I know what Judge is like. I know what Tabi’s like and I know what you are like and the sooner you get out of here the better. And don’t be phoning in every five minutes, either.’

  From his rented unit at Point Arkwright Chris overlooks a sweeping arc of pale sand that stretches twenty kilometres north from Coolum Beach to Noosa Heads. He lounges with the newspaper in a plastic recliner on the balcony. John Howard is organising a constitutional convention to determine whether Australia should become a republic. Why not? Formalise what, in essence, already exists. A GST is inevitable too, but will be an administrative headache for Maureen.

  The light is fading. Chris puts the paper aside to watch the reflected sunset. Pink, gold and flame ignite the underbellies of clouds and mirror their fire in a rippling pathway across the sea. The air is warm but night-time is beginning to arrive earlier. Below him, an incoming tide thumps against the cliff.

  These past three days, Chris has walked and jogged along the ridges, beaches and bays, finishing up at the rock pool where he and Liam played. The strip of sand and glittering prize that lured his brother have long since disappeared but the rock pool continues to evoke memories. Memories strong enough, despite his love for the sea, to deter him from swimming. As he leans forward to touch the still-visible scars on his shin the sun drops behind the hills. Shadows creep up the chiselled black faces of rocks, and cars winding soundlessly through the trees below switch on headlights. A breeze stirs Chris’s newspaper and his sketches of Fletcher.

  In one, the small man lies in a stony desert, his eyes closed, arrows scattered about him like broken toothpicks. His glasses are broken, his face is deathly pale. Grief has eaten him gutless, like a victim of the insect that sucks out another insect’s insides, leaving only the shell. The praying mantis … ? No, she’s the one who bites the head off her mate after sex.

  Chris gathers the paper and sketches, takes them inside and dumps them on the kitchen bench. On the floor of the living room, T-shirts, shorts and underpants spill from his knapsack. The clock on the microwave says six. He has stocked the kitchen with baked beans, bananas, butter, bacon, bread, biscuits, beer and potato crisps. A bottle of whisky and a box of Orange Pekoe tea bags. From the fridge he brings out the prawns he bought that morning from a fishing trawler at the Mooloolaba Spit. He begins cracking shells and pulling off heads.

  Female mantis.

  When the prawns are done he takes out his ph
one. If he doesn’t call Diane she’ll call him.

  But it’s not her number he plugs in.

  When Ben answers, Chris’s mind blanks.

  ‘Is that you, Chris?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Yeah …’

  ‘Diane said you’d gone away.’

  ‘I’m at Coolum. She … said there were things you wanted to tell me … about Jo.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ben sighs. ‘Yes – sorry. She turned up on my doorstep and I couldn’t …’

  Chris sighs. ‘I know – micro-managing.’

  ‘It was … I wanted to explain – better than I did when you came around – about Jo’s take on things.’

  ‘You said she reckoned I’d disappear if I knew the truth.’

  ‘Yes, she did. But by the time you got to about fifteen or so I thought she might be over it and I tried to get her to tell you. But she wouldn’t. She was still convinced it would destroy our family. Even if you didn’t write us off, it would change the family dynamic. Knowing you were my son, you would regard her as the outsider.’

  ‘But that’s crap! Jo was the only mother I’ve ever known. She was my mother in all but name.’

  ‘I know – and that was another thing. Neither of us wanted you to forget Alice, or have your impression of her overshadowed by what … she and I did. She was a wonderful mother; she loved you to distraction.’

  Chris tugs his ear. ‘You never told me. Or, maybe you said the words but they didn’t carry any weight.’

  ‘I know. And I’m so bloody sorry. I was always very nervous about how Jo might react to anything I said about Alice so I said as little as I could. I didn’t think about what it was doing to you. I just wanted a quiet life. Weak, Chris. Weak as piss. I wish I could change it but I can’t. I’m glad you rang though, lad. Please, any time, you know … you want to just talk, or anything …’

  ‘Yeah. Okay. I’ve, ah, got to go now. I’ll … be in touch.’

  He hangs up, gets a beer from the fridge and goes outside to watch the light fade. The stupidity of it all – Jo frightened of being the outsider. His eyes mist as he tries to recall the Jo of his childhood: strong Jo, stubborn Jo, yet always tender with him. But these earlier memories have been hijacked by later images of the ravaged Jo she’d been at the end. How difficult it must have been for her: his constant presence a permanent reminder of Ben’s affair. If the truth had been known … maybe it would have weakened their family unit. He might have felt complicit in something he didn’t understand. Even now, knowing isn’t easy. Silence was a kind of raw concrete, a workable surface. There was a certain freedom in not knowing.