Last Day in the Dynamite Factory

by Annah Faulkner

  ‘And your children – how old are they?’

  The conversation feels like a brakeless rush down a mountainside. ‘Archie’s twenty. Phoebe’s just turned twenty-four.’

  ‘And, they’re – what – studying? Working?’

  ‘Phoebe’s just finished her Masters in Architecture.’

  ‘Oh, really? How wonderful! A chip off the old block; you must be proud.’ Bertie attacks a piece of toast with her knife. ‘I’m proud too. I’m soon to be a grandma.’

  ‘Blimey.’

  ‘Lily and John are having their baby in August.’

  ‘Heck,’ says Chris. ‘Doesn’t it make you feel old?’

  ‘No – I’m thrilled.’

  He dabs his forehead with a paper serviette. ‘Congratulations. Diane hankers after grandkids too.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘I’m in no hurry. I have enough going on at the moment.’

  ‘Work?’

  He nods. ‘My friend Judge and I have an architectural practice in Brisbane. You didn’t meet Judge in London, did you?’ He knows she didn’t. It was only ever them. He still remembers the day they met; an icy cold morning that sent him hunting for hot coffee in a crowded bar. He slid into a booth and found himself staring into a pair of deep blue eyes – eyes he hadn’t seen since he was twelve.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘It’s you.’

  ‘Me, yes. Shit, no.’

  Half an hour was over in a heartbeat. Bertie had blossomed into a fully realised version of the feisty, independent kid she’d been at school. Afterwards all he could remember of their conversation was that she worked in Cambridge with a firm of interior designers and lived with Oliver.

  ‘Next Friday?’ he said, when they stood to go. She looked at him for a long moment and then nodded. As she walked to the door he saw she still wore a boot – the legacy of polio – but had lost the chip that used to go with it.

  ‘No,’ says Bertie. ‘I never met Judge.’

  Silence gathers.

  ‘Chris …’

  He glances at his watch. ‘Yes. I’d better let you get on. Is your art class at a school?’

  ‘No, I teach adults. Special needs, retirees, rehab patients, prisoners, smart Noosa ladies. Today, it’s parolees.’

  ‘Good grief. What do parolees paint?’

  ‘The walls of their cells. What do you think, Chris?’

  ‘Sorry.’ He stacks the dishes. ‘Not thinking well. Thanks for breakfast, and for arranging such a beautiful sunrise.’

  ‘My dad and I used to watch sunrises together. Sunrises and the sea make me feel everything will be okay, even when it isn’t.’ She stands up and stretches. ‘Look at that ocean. Lucky you – all day to swim. Where’s your favourite spot?’

  ‘I, ah, I don’t swim.’

  ‘You – what?’

  ‘I never learned.’

  ‘Chris! All that time in Port Moresby when we were kids and you didn’t swim? No wonder I never saw you at Ela Beach.’

  He picks up the tray of dishes and carries it to the kitchen.

  ‘You’re missing one of life’s great joys,’ she says.

  ‘More than one.’

  She walks with him to the door and looks into his eyes with such tenderness his skin prickles. At school they were nearly the same height but she never grew to be as tall as he expected.

  ‘Where’s your sparkle gone, Chris?’

  ‘What sparkle?’

  ‘You used to have sparkle. At school. In London. It’s gone.’

  The wind blows the newspaper every which way, driving him from the balcony. In the mirror on the living-room wall he catches sight of his reflection. She’s right. Solemn. No sparkle. Bertie has, though, in spite of her tragedies. Twice married, widowed, divorced, living with another man. Two kids, one dead, the other with a baby on the way. A roller-coaster of a life compared with his and Diane’s.

  Theirs is a quiet life; a decent life. Not what he’d imagined, but …

  He can still see the telegram.

  COMING LONDON FOR HOLIDAY STOP NEED ACCOMMODATION STOP ANY ROOM?

  He did have room. After Judge moved back to Australia Chris had entertained a string of Aussie guests, but he wasn’t keeping the flat on for much longer. In two months he’d be leaving for Germany to spend the summer honing his cabinet-making skills.

  FINE TILL END MAY he wired back.

  Diane arrived a week later with a large suitcase and a matching smile.

  She’d changed in the two years since Chris had last seen her; she looked more mature, more … worldly, a far cry from the clingy kid of their school days in Port Moresby. Though both their families had relocated back in Brisbane, they’d lived in different suburbs and gone to different schools and didn’t see much of each other until they went to university. Diane was studying English Lit and they kept bumping into each other at parties, reviews and student meetings. They didn’t date per se – Chris already had a girlfriend – but he and Diane both loved theatre and movies and sometimes they went out together.

  The evening after she arrived in London, Chris came home from work to find the table set, wine poured and dinner being prepared.

  ‘What’s the occasion?’

  ‘Celebrating our re-connection,’ she said, handing him a glass of wine.

  Chris tugged his ear. He hadn’t ever considered them ‘connected’ in the first place, simply good friends. ‘Well, thanks, Diane, but you didn’t need go to all this trouble. You’re here to see England, not me.’

  ‘You, too.’

  During the day, she took herself off sightseeing around London but every night Chris came home to a hefty glass of scotch and an excellent meal. His weekends had hitherto been spent prowling galleries and flea markets or visiting friends, but now Chris felt courtesy demanded he show Diane something beyond the city limits. So he borrowed the company’s shooting brake and took her on trips into the countryside. It was no hardship; she was good company; intelligent and stimulating and amenable to whatever he suggested.

  But her determination to return his hospitality was so overwhelming – with theatre tickets, concert tickets, exotic food, expensive wine and immaculate housekeeping – that Chris began to feel uncomfortable. He’d refused her offer of rent, imagining she’d stay only a week or two but now wondered if he should have made a more formal arrangement. He asked about her holiday plans.

  ‘Nothing definite,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d do England first, then see what appeals.’

  To encourage her holiday spirit he brought home travel brochures which she courteously acknowledged and put aside. One evening he arrived home to find his laundry – which he’d stuffed into the bottom of his wardrobe – fastidiously washed, ironed and laid out, folded, on his bed. As he contemplated the neat stacks he began to suspect he’d been misreading her signals.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said warily as he stowed his underwear.

  ‘You’re very welcome.’ She sat on the bed and curled her finger towards him. ‘And look.’ She drew back the quilt. ‘Lovely fresh sheets.’

  ‘Yes … thanks.’

  She took his hand. ‘Would you like to try them out?’

  That night Chris discovered a Diane he had never imagined. She gave him her body and knew what to do with it. His, too. But when he woke during the night he found himself alone.

  The next morning she was pleasant but remote and Chris wondered if she regretted what had happened. Yet night-time found her once again in his bed but gone the following morning.

  ‘Did I dream the last two nights?’ he asked at breakfast.

  ‘No.’ She smiled.

  ‘That’s a relief.’ He bent to kiss her but she ducked.

  ‘So, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She put the kettle on the cooker and a match to the gas. ‘Nothing to do with you, Chris. It’s me. I’m … I’m a night-time person.’

  ‘What – not even a kiss between dawn and dusk?’

  ‘Oh … yes, but
…’ She fussed over a bowl of cereal. ‘But not … you know.’

  He didn’t know and wasn’t inclined to enquire too deeply. Diane’s sleeping dogs, whatever their names, were not his business.

  Thus it continued. For three weeks Chris veered between delight and confusion, submission and domination, surrendering to her hands and mouth and plundering her lovely flesh. But flesh was all he found. Try as he might, he could neither evoke nor inspire any sense of transcendence in their nocturnal couplings. For Diane, the act was resolutely physical; her spirit maddeningly, tantalisingly out of reach. Years later, tantalising would become frustrating, then isolating. But back then, she was a feast – for his eyes, his hands and his cock – a feast that never ended, yet never quite satisfied.

  ‘Will I see you when you get back to Brisbane?’ she asked, as he began to pack up his gear.

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  ‘I mean, as … this?’

  He hesitated. ‘I … I really like you a lot, Diane, and maybe … but you’re … you’re not very …’

  ‘I know. Demonstrative. And I’m sorry; it’s not that I don’t care, it’s just the way I was brought up. Maybe … in time, I’ll …’

  She’d decided to go to Paris. Two days before he left for Germany Chris drove her to the airport. On the way they stopped at a building site where Chris was overseeing the partial demolition of an old house. On the second level the chippy had tacked up a temporary balustrade. Diane went up to investigate, leaned on the balustrade and it gave way, dropping her fourteen feet to the ground. She broke her leg and three ribs. During her six weeks in hospital, an additional complication was revealed through routine checks.

  She was pregnant.

  Diane was shocked, but happily so.

  Chris was thunderstruck. He’d taken precautions and been honest about his feelings. Unwilling to abandon Diane in hospital, he’d already surrendered his prized summer job. Now this. In two months his world had upended.

  Yet, as the shock wore off, Chris came to accept his new situation. He rather liked the idea of becoming a father and concluded there were worse things than marriage and family. Diane was a good friend, a capable and pleasant companion, and while he’d have preferred a more affectionate mate, it was not beyond imagining that in time, respect and liking might turn to love.

  There was no-one else. The door on that had closed six months ago; now he was merely locking it. In architecture, form followed function. A house was designed for a family. A family was designed for its members. A mother, a father and a baby. The question was obvious and he asked it.

  Chris drops onto the sofa and rattles the newspaper but memories of those pre-marriage days continue to creep between the lines. Pregnancy dulled Diane’s sexual intensity – naturally enough – but it never returned. Not that it bothered him nearly as much as her ongoing emotional detachment. He can drench himself in Diane but his soul remains dry.

  He abandons the newspaper and puts the kettle on for tea. When it boils he fills the mug, squeezes the tea bag with his fingers, then blows on them to cool. Diane bought him a tea bag squeezer which he never uses. She has long since given up asking why. He can’t tell her; he doesn’t know. He takes the tea to the balcony but it’s so windy he brings it back to the sofa.

  Seeing her again?

  He slurps his tea.

  Are you?

  Go away.

  He stretches out on the sofa. Its square arms crick his neck. He stuffs a cushion under his head which pushes the flesh of his cheek into his eye. He worms further down until his head is flat but now he’s too long for the sofa; one leg dangles over the end, the other over the side. Somehow, he manages to fall asleep.

  He wakes with a stiff neck, eases himself up and goes to the kitchen. Lunchtime, but he’s not hungry. Outside, the scabby wind makes mean little waves. Not inviting. Perhaps a drive.

  He guides the Rover north, avoiding beaches and opting instead for Noosaville by the river. With a flabby white-bread sandwich – all that’s left at the deli in the wake of the lunchtime crowd – Chris sits under a cotton tree to eat, listening to the plop and slap of water and gazing across at the grey-green bush of the north shore. Ben is there, in his head.

  Their phone conversation has provided a sad kind of logic behind Jo’s silence. But her fear of the family cracking has been realised anyway, and if it is not to shatter beyond all repair, Chris is the one who must fix it.

  Bertie has accommodated unimaginable difficulties in her life, losing her husband and her daughter, yet still remaining soft and sane. She’s even looked beyond death to form a new kind of relationship with Stephanie.

  If he wants a relationship of any consequence with Ben he must do likewise, and build something new. The kind of reconciliation urged by Diane – caulk the cracks, tape the mouths, guard the silence – is not possible. Truth is out and everything has changed. He must change with it.

  He gets up and dusts off his trousers. A walk. Food. Not a crappy sandwich but proper food, for dinner.

  A couple of hundred metres down the road he finds a bustling fish shop with gum-booted staff sliding shiny seafood onto icy trays. Oysters, prawns.

  Dinner.

  Invite Bertie.

  Yes, why not? They are, after all, old friends. Even before … even after. If she and her Stuart bloke can’t come he’ll eat the food himself.

  Two dozen Sydney rock oysters, a bag of king green prawns, beef rib and salad stuff from the supermarket.

  Twenty minutes later he’s knocking at her door. Nobody’s at home except for a smoochy, flaxen-haired cat with a broken tail. Chris bends down to stroke it, instantly evoking a loud, rattly purr. He leaves a note under a stone on the doormat and returns to his unit.

  When the buzzer sounds, he jumps.

  ‘It’s me.’ Bertie’s voice is tinny through the intercom.

  Chris waits by the lift. She steps out, alone.

  ‘Stuart not with you?’

  ‘No, he’s busy this evening.’ She hands him a bottle of wine and surveys the tired white walls of the unit, the beige sofa and maroon Indian cushions. ‘Gee, the decor really has that wow factor. Oh, look! A knapsack, a real one with buckles and all.’

  ‘I’ve had that since I was a kid.’ Chris pulls the cork from the wine and uncaps a beer. ‘I ran away with it when I was eight.’

  ‘Really – where to?’

  ‘Coomera. I was headed for Coolum but there was no train to Coolum and the ticket seller assumed I meant Coomera.’

  ‘Why did you run away?’

  ‘Long story.’

  ‘I like long stories.’

  Chris takes the oysters from the fridge. ‘Let’s sit outside.’

  Bertie hooks her stick over the back of a chair. Chris brings out the drinks and oysters, takes one from the plate, tilts his head back and drops the creamy softness into his mouth. ‘Food of the gods. My favourite. What’s yours?’

  Bertie smiles.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Chris says. ‘Don’t tell me it’s—’

  ‘Toasted cheese sandwiches, crunchy on the outside, squishy on the inside and a chocolate malted milk.’

  ‘After all this time?’

  She sniggers. ‘Yes.’ She downs an oyster, then picks up the newspaper with its sketches of Fletcher in the margins. ‘Who’s this little fellow?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘He looks like you – glasses and all.’ She squints at Chris’s writing. ‘Fletcher: is that his name? You’re quite the artist.’

  ‘It’s hardly art.’

  ‘Says who? I’ll bet this little chap thinks he’s art. Ask him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t ask that little chap anything. He’s got too big a mouth as it is.’

  ‘Why did you run away?’

  ‘Oh.’ Chris takes another oyster. ‘I thought I wasn’t wanted. I was wanted but it was a – a very difficult time and I got it wrong.’ He pauses to remove a piece of shell. ‘I’m good at that.’

  ‘Have yo
u run away again?’

  ‘No, although Diane would dispute that. I’m taking time out. Trying to digest some unexpected revelations about my … unconventional family history.’

  Bertie raises her eyebrows.

  ‘Did I tell you about my parents?’

  ‘You were adopted, weren’t you? By your … aunt?’

  ‘Yes – my birth mother’s sister and her husband, Ben. My mother was killed when I was four months old.’ Chris takes a mouthful of beer. ‘All my life I’ve been told I was the product of my mother’s affair with a man called Jack Ward. Turns out to be bullshit. Ben, who I thought was no relation at all is, in fact, my father. My birth father.’

  Bertie looks confused. ‘I’m not sure I get it.’

  ‘You get it. Ben had an affair with his wife’s sister and got her pregnant with me. When my mother died, he and my aunt adopted me.’

  ‘But … but that’s bizarre. When did you find all this out?’

  ‘A couple of weeks ago. My aunt Jo died last year. Ben and I were packing up her things and I found her journals. Didn’t really intend to snoop but I couldn’t resist looking at one from Port Moresby which happened to contain the dynamite.’

  Bertie takes a mouthful of wine and searches the darkness. ‘I don’t know how I’d deal with something like that. You must be feeling … slightly crazy.’

  ‘And stupid. I spent years searching for my birth father.’ He lifts his glasses and rubs his eyes. ‘But this is one scenario I never figured on. And the ramifications: Jo’s and Ben’s son, Liam – who I thought was my cousin – was my brother.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘He died. A long time ago. Here, in fact.’ Chris waves his hand towards the ocean. ‘The sea got him when he was five. They never found his body.’

  ‘Oh … no,’ Bertie whispers, shaking her head. ‘It never goes away, a child dying. You always wonder how they’d have turned out, what they’d be doing, what they’d sound like, look like, be like. I’m so sorry, Chris. I never knew that. In all our … our time, you never said.’

  ‘No, well …’ He picks at the label on his beer bottle. ‘Things can take a back seat for years and then suddenly rear up. You’re right, though – it never goes away.’