Last Day in the Dynamite Factory (15 page)

‘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. ‘Actually, 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 phone. If he doesn't call Diane she'll call him.

But it's not her number he plugs in.