Last Day in the Dynamite Factory

by Annah Faulkner

  Diane downs more wine. ‘You never told me.’

  Chris pokes with fierce concentration at a French bean. ‘No reason to. Besides, you’ve never talked about who was before me.’

  ‘What makes you think there was anybody?’ She drains her glass.

  ‘You … you weren’t a virgin when you came to London. There must have been someone.’

  She reaches for the bottle and refills her glass. Already she’s had more than usual. ‘No-one who mattered.’

  ‘I find it hard to believe that you would lose your virginity to someone who didn’t matter. Do you mind me asking who?’

  She stares into her wine and huffs carelessly. ‘I don’t mind. His name was Adrian Locke. A mistake.’ She makes moue. ‘A big mistake.’

  ‘An important one, by the sound of it.’

  She pushes her wineglass backwards and forwards across the table. ‘I suppose so. He made me wise to men.’

  ‘Oh?’ Chris tries to catch her eye but she won’t let him. ‘How so?’

  ‘Made me realise I didn’t want another one like him, I wanted one like you.’ She snorts. ‘You were everything he wasn’t. Until lately, anyhow.’

  ‘He burned you,’ Chris says. ‘Badly.’

  Diane straightens. ‘It doesn’t matter. This isn’t about me and him. It’s about you and her.’

  ‘There is no me and her. It’s over.’

  Chris stops by the bureau in the hallway, arrested by a flurry of framed photos newly arranged on the top. There’s a picture of Phoebe aged five, gussied up in a floaty blouse of Diane’s, her high heels and a broad-brimmed hat that reaches her bum. She looks sweetly ridiculous but her expression is that of a queen. There’s one of Archie with his tongue stuck out, a photo of Diane and himself (in tails!) at a Government House do, and another of Ben, Liam and himself horsing around with a hose. Family photos – all of them. A reminder, perhaps, for straying eyes. There’s even one of his mother. Young and spirited-looking. How old was she? he wonders. Who took the picture, and where? What was she thinking? He feels again the long-familiar surge of frustration at the meagre diet of information he was fed on. His mother is a stranger, a woman in outline. He’s wasted so much time looking for his father when all along the biggest gap was Alice.

  Ben has pine-barked the garden and the wind has scattered loose pieces over the path to the front door. Chris stands beside the car waiting for his heart to steady, listening to a droning lawnmower churn up the air.

  When Ben opens the door, hope leaps to his eyes. ‘Come in,’ he says, sweeping Chris along with his arm. ‘Good to see you, lad.’

  ‘Sorry I haven’t been around. Things are arse-up at the office since Judge came back.’

  ‘You’re here now – that’s all that matters. Coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ He perches on a chair watching Ben fuss over coffee. So much palaver for instant. A carefully measured teaspoon of freeze-dried, one and a half of sugar and a precise dollop of milk. He beats the mixture vigorously, banging the spoon against the china mug and emitting a wheezy, whistling sound that Chris hasn’t heard before. He tips water – hot, not boiling – over the mix, stirs again and puts the spoon in the sink. An eerie stillness settles. It’s nearly a year since Jo died and her absence fills the silence more than her ghostly presence might. Chris tries to picture her at the sink or the stove or bending her head to a cross-stitch, but the images are hard won. They belong to a different life and a different Jo from the one he found in her diary. Questions leap to mind, the same endless loop that’s run in his head for five months.

  Ben puts out glasses of water and a tin of biscuits – an old tea caddy with a bent lid and the faded smile of a young housewife. Chris knows if he looks closely he’ll still be able to see the B and the two small Ls of a Bushells tea label. He rubs his finger over an old nick in the table.

  ‘I might sound like a stuck record, but there are still things I need to know.’

  ‘Of course. Just ask.’

  ‘Adopting me … What was it like, adopting your own son?’

  ‘Awful, terrible. Wonderful. I’ve never been so resentful or so relieved.’ Ben leans against the sink.

  ‘Resentful?’

  ‘You were my son but I couldn’t prove it. I had no legal claim over you, no say in your future. As next of kin Jo held all the cards and her condition for adoption was that no-one, including you, ever be told.’

  Chris gazes at his glass of water. ‘Was anyone else told?’

  ‘Only my parents.’ Ben takes a cautious sip of coffee.

  A small pulse begins in Chris’s neck. Gran and Grandpa. They knew. All that time, they knew. He can see their faces; kind and creased, and a barrage of memories pours back: holidays on their farm in the Mary Valley; weekends, birthdays, school vacations and the promise Gran extracted from him never to tell about Liam. All that time, and they never said a word.

  ‘What about Gregor and Mary?’

  ‘Jo’s and Alice’s parents? God, no. They were mortified enough by Alice’s pregnancy, let alone knowing I was responsible.’

  ‘What about Gregor’s cousin, the one Alice lived with in Melbourne?’

  Ben shakes his head. ‘No. Alice told no-one.’ A fleeting smile crosses his face. ‘No-one could drag out of her what she didn’t want known.’

  ‘See – that’s what you never told me – what she was like. I know nothing about my mother. I don’t even know when she was born. Do you have her birth certificate?’

  Ben shakes his head.

  ‘Wh-when was she born? When was her birthday?’

  Ben gnaws his lip. ‘I’m sorry, lad. I don’t know.’

  Chris screws up his face. ‘You had a month-long affair with a woman you claim to love but don’t even know her birthday? Do you know when she died?’

  ‘Yes. Of course. I’ll never … never forget it.’

  ‘Do you have her death certificate?’

  Ben spreads his hands on the table and Chris recognises with disconcerting fascination his own gesture. ‘I don’t, Chris. I’m sorry.’

  ‘What date was it? What day of the week?’

  Ben says nothing.

  Chris pushes himself from the table. ‘For God’s sake, Ben! What do you know? Ah, stuff it. I’ll get her death certificate from the records.’

  ‘No, no. You don’t have to. She – it was the thirteenth of October, Thursday the thirteenth. Chris, I … I only knew her for that one month, I only knew … what lovers know.’

  ‘Her favourite colour?’ Chris says, not expecting an answer.

  ‘Green. Emerald green.’

  He knows. He knows a truckload more than he’s saying.

  ‘What about my adoption certificate? You must surely have that.’

  ‘Yes, but don’t you have a copy? You’d have needed it for a passport.’

  ‘Only my birth certificate. It was reissued with the name change. You should know that.’

  ‘I’ll get it.’ Ben disappears down the hall. He returns a few minutes later with a sheet of heavy paper, creased and handwritten in careful script.

  No. 57138

  NAME

  Christopher John Ward.

  DATE OF BIRTH, NATIVE PLACE, RELIGION

  19th June, 1949.

  Melbourne.

  Church of England.

  DATE OF COMMITMENT

  14th November, 1949.

  CAUSE OF COMMITMENT

  No means.

  PREVIOUS HISTORY OF CHILD

  Has been paid for under Sec/3’.

  Paid for? How much for a five-month-old baby? Chris gulps water. ‘Gregor’s cousin in Melbourne – what was her name?’

  Ben shakes his head. ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘You said Ellie Something-or-other.’

  ‘Did I?’ He rolls his shoulders, as if something’s stuck to his back.

  ‘You know you did. What was her name?’

  Ben says nothing.

  ‘You owe me the truth, damn
it.’

  ‘Maybe, but I don’t remember.’

  ‘Oh, you remember, all right. But you’re going to make me search – all over again. I will, you know. Why don’t you just tell me? Why are you making me do it the hard way?’

  ‘I’m trying to stop you from wasting your time.’

  ‘You could have stopped me wasting my time looking for Jack Ward. But my mother was real, and I won’t stop looking until I’ve found out what you don’t want me to know.’

  He upends Jo’s boxes and scours her diaries for clues to his grandfather’s cousin’s identity, and any references to his mother. So far, all he’s found is a copy of her birth certificate which told him she was born in Brisbane on 11 January 1928. Jo’s diaries reveal nothing – four of them spanning seventeen years and no reference to Alice’s life in Melbourne or the cousin she lived with. He drops the books back in the box, removes his glasses and grinds his fingers into his eyes.

  The facts of Alice Mary Johansson’s life are few. Date of birth, date of death, her passion for clothing design and a child by her sister’s husband. He could apply for a copy of her death certificate but it wouldn’t tell him what he most wants to know – about the person who was his mother.

  He pulls out the phone book. The last time he trawled the Melbourne phone directory he’d been looking for his father, Jack Ward, a man who didn’t exist. But Ellie Something-or-other had existed.

  There are sixteen Johanssons in the Melbourne area and over the next week Chris manages to contact them all, but none have heard of Ellie, Alice Mary or her parents, Gregor and Mary Johansson. He’s grateful Ellie’s name wasn’t Smith.

  It wasn’t Johansson, either.

  Oh, shit.

  Of course not! Ellie was married – idiot. Chris applies for a copy of a marriage certificate for E. Johansson from Victoria’s Births, Deaths and Marriages, but is advised no such document exists.

  Naturally. The Johanssons were from Queensland.

  God almighty – what is wrong with him?

  An application to Births, Deaths and Marriages Queensland reveals that on the twenty-first day of May, 1931, one Elspeth Anna Johansson married Bruce Harvey Ashe of Richmond, Victoria. Ellie – surely short for Elspeth – appeared to have moved with Mr Ashe to Melbourne. Back to the Melbourne White Pages.

  Andrew Ashe, of Mitcham, the first of fourteen Ashes in the phone book, had a mother named Elspeth – maiden name Johansson – and a hazy recollection of the name Alice Johansson. Chris would be better off talking to his older sister, Julie. Would he like her number?

  Chris scoots into the kitchen and grabs the whisky bottle. Five weeks. Five bloody weeks Ben could have saved him by providing one little word – Ashe.

  T-shirts, jeans, underpants, socks, razor. He buckles up the knapsack.

  Throw in a packet of biscuits and we can go anywhere.

  Diane hovers in the doorway. Despite her height she looks like a doubtful teenager. A year ago her expression would have been one of tolerant indulgence, now it’s undisguised anxiety. ‘How long will you be gone?’

  ‘As long as it takes.’

  ‘Let’s hope you find out what you want to know so you can put this matter to rest.’

  ‘I don’t want to put “this matter” to rest. I want to give it life.’

  ‘I wish you’d let me come with you. I don’t like to think of you alone … unless—’

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘You’re taking her?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Roberta.’

  ‘No, Diane. I’m not taking Roberta.’ He sighs. ‘I told you – it happened only once and it’s over.’

  Over, perhaps, but not without suspicions. He and Tabi had been working in the office alone during the lunch break a week before, checking over a specification. When they finished, Tabi touched her fingers to her lips and pressed them to Chris’s forehead. ‘What a team we are, Mr B.’

  Chris looked up and smiled, then his eyes slid past her to the figure standing in the doorway who was definitely not smiling. That afternoon, Judge asked Chris to stop at the Regatta for a beer on the way home, something they did occasionally to wind down, but Judge didn’t look like he wanted to wind down. They sat in the beer garden at a rickety aluminium table which the waitress swiped with a cloth the colour of wet cement. Judge worked at this ball. Chris knew he didn’t need it any longer but recognised it was probably his version of Fletcher.

  Except the stupid thing has no head.

  ‘How are things with Ben?’ Judge asked, taking a mouthful of beer and wiping foam from his lips.

  ‘Fairly crappy.’

  ‘Diane?’

  ‘Could be better.’

  ‘You gettin’ on all right with the staff?’

  ‘Yes, Judge. What’s your point?’

  ‘I’m wondering where you been putting it.’

  Chris stared at him.

  ‘You’re fuckin’ Tabitha.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me.’

  ‘I’m not lying.’

  ‘Listen, I might sound stupid but I’m not. Your life’s a mess. So’s mine. Sort it. Don’t bring it to work an’ don’t fuck the staff.’

  ‘Finish your beer, Judge, I have to get home. I’m going to Melbourne in the morning.’

  ‘I know where you’re going and I know where you’ll finish up if you don’t sort yourself out.’

  Coffee, peanuts and a sketch-pad. Wedged against the window by a man with aggressive elbows and faulty adenoids, Chris survives the flight by drawing Fletcher as an airline pilot.

  Excellent, but gimme a bigger plane. Concorde or something.

  I’ll give you a dress. You can be a flight attendant.

  No!

  Sporadically visible through cloud, Melbourne’s lush green hills and flashing water of Port Phillip Bay twirl slowly below.

  Chris is not expecting miracles. If he learns even one more thing about his mother, it will be worth the trip. He knows it’s unlikely he’ll discover what he wants to know most: what was Alice like? What did she sound like? What did she smell like: Cashmere Bouquet and hot mashed potato, like Jo, or sewing machine oil and linen? Why – though he hated to think about it – did Ben love her so much? What would have happened if she’d lived and he’d grown up with her, instead of with Jo and Ben? Why has he never wondered?

  As the plane descends, Chris draws Fletcher in a skirt and high heels.

  ‘Sir, would you please stow your tray table?’

  Chris stows his tray table and his sketches of Fletcher. His chest is tight. Somewhere below him is the exact place where he was conceived, the exact place where he was born, and the exact place where his mother died.

  The hotel on Flinders Street is close to the station and overlooks the Yarra River. Rounding a corner into the lift alcove on the way to his room, Chris is confronted by a sight so exquisite and unexpected he drops his knapsack. Against the wall separating the two banks of lifts in this otherwise unremarkable hotel is a finely crafted cabinet. About a metre and a half in length and less than one metre high, the timber on its front is dark, inlaid with ash-toned, scrolled vertical fillets. The top is reversed – ash inlaid with dark. The handles are ply, bent to the shape of a wave.

  Wow!

  Chris runs his fingers along the top – cool and satiny as flesh, glowing with untold hours of sanding, steel wool and wax. A tag on the drawer handle informs: ‘Blackwood and Huon Pine Cabinet. Peter Semple. $6,000’.

  Gulp.

  But the design – its simple beauty and perfect execution is, quite literally, breath-taking. He opens a drawer—

  Gliders?

  Furniture this good shouldn’t need gliders. He wouldn’t use them. But he’d need to know considerably more about fine woodworking than he does at the moment to make something this good. Yet the idea of designing and creating the entire product is very seductive, entirely different from architecture, which is but one part – however crucial – of
a creative process involving many minds and many hands. He drags his gaze away and goes to his room on the eleventh floor. The sky has become overcast. Flags flap lethargically in a cold breeze and a thin mist hovers over the river. His mind is elsewhere, consumed by the vision in the foyer. He shakes his head, puts his knapsack in the wardrobe and checks his watch.

  He didn’t come to Melbourne for a cabinet.

  Julie Dart (nee Ashe) is like Fletcher: two circles – a small one atop a big one. She shuffles about in mauve fluffy slippers and makes room for him on the sofa between a stack of Who and Woman’s Day magazines and a basket of ironing. She has a terrifying smoker’s cough which punctuates her sentences without warning and continues for so long she forgets what she’s saying. Chris wonders why she isn’t dead. Julie asks him about his flight and tells him she’s never been on an aeroplane. She’s never been further than Ballarat. Her eyes are grey and damp. She gathers the volume of her dress in one distressingly fat arm and topples into a chair.

  ‘Sad, sad business,’ she says, ‘and you just a baby.’ She runs her eyes over his face and hair. ‘Your hair is the same colour as hers – did you know? I don’t know about your father. Do you know him?’

  Chris nods.

  ‘Oh, good. Alice never told us who he was. We thought it was Ian but she said no.’

  ‘Do you remember much about her?’

  Julie nods. ‘I was about fifteen when you were born and Alice wasn’t easy to forget. A determined little thing. Brave. Nobody was going to take away her baby. Girls in those days had it bad – tricked or drugged or forced to sign away their babies, made to feel rotten about not being able to give them a good life.’ She drags in a lungful of smoke and eyes the ceiling reflectively. ‘Didn’t you go and live with her sister?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wouldn’t she have told you this?’

  ‘Oh, sure, but there are blanks for the years my mother lived here.’

  ‘So tragic. So very tragic.’

  ‘Her death?’

  ‘Yes.’ Julie stubs out her cigarette, shakes another from the packet and clamps it between her teeth. ‘It doesn’t do to dwell. What do you want to know?’ She settles with the air of a philosopher and Chris wonders if she has many visitors. He wonders what happened to Mr Dart.