Last Day in the Dynamite Factory (22 page)

‘Her name is Tabitha.'

‘Woooow,
Tabitha
. What's eating you?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Doesn't sound like nothing to me.'

Judge has been forbidden to drive for three months, so at the end of a long day, cold for early May, Chris drives him home. Judge huddles against the passenger-side door, squeezing the life out of his rubber ball. He looks miserable. Efforts to express himself, and tantrums when he couldn't, have left him exhausted. They've left everyone exhausted.

Chris stops outside his house. ‘Can I pick you up in the morning?'

‘No. Karen'll bring me.' Judge opens his door, hesitates and half turns. ‘Sorry,' he mumbles, but is gone before Chris can reply.

Diane is established at the dining table with her computer and a pile of notes. She has new, dark-framed glasses which make her look owlish. When Chris goes to the fridge for a beer, she caps her pen and follows.

‘Ben phoned today, wanting to know how you are.'

‘All right, I suppose. Right now, stuffed.'

‘Then tell him. Go and see him. He needs reassuring.'

‘What about?'

‘He needs to know that nothing's changed between you two.'

Chris draws on his beer and burps gently. ‘But it has.'

‘No, it hasn't. You've always been his son; you simply didn't know it. Nothing's
actually
different.'

‘
Actually
, Diane, it is. It's very different.'

She glares at him through her new glasses. ‘Listen, Chris. Judge had a stroke at forty-eight. Ben's seventy-two. How would you feel if something like that – or worse – happened to him?'

Like shit.

‘Yes, all right. I'll give him a call.'

‘Never mind
call
. Go and see him.'

‘I haven't time right now. The office is a dog's breakfast. Judge came back to work today. Nobody could understand a word he said, everyone's jittery and every damn thing took twice as long as it should have.'

‘I suppose it's to be expected and I'm sorry but I dare say it'll sort itself out. Right now, Ben is more important. You seem to forget he's lost a son and a wife. You're all he has left.'

‘No, I'm not. He has friends. You, Phoebe, and—'

‘Christopher! That's unworthy.'

‘Of who?'

‘Of whom.'

‘What?'

‘Of you,' says Diane.

‘Did you just … correct me?'

‘I said it was unworthy of you.' Diane turns away. ‘And it is.'

When Tabi's eyes focused on his mouth he knew she'd stopped listening. He gazed at her hungrily, an adulterer already, guilty before he began.

She touched his hair gently. ‘I thought you were getting it cut.'

‘You told me not to.' His eyes flicked nervously about the office.

‘Nobody here, Mr B, except you and me. All at lunch.'

He tried to smile.

‘You have a beautiful mouth, you know; lovely lips.' She twirled a curl of his hair around her finger.

He cleared his throat. ‘I have a site inspection.'

‘So do I.'

‘You don't do site inspections.'

‘Oh, yes, I do.'

The tide in the Brisbane River begins its journey towards the sea, unseen by the occupants of room 808.

Tabi strokes the golden hair on his chest. ‘Have you done this with anybody else?'

‘Tabi – I
am
married.'

‘I mean, since.'

Chris rubs his stubble. ‘No.'

‘Before you were married?'

‘I wasn't a virgin.'

Beyond the windows, the sun breaks free from drifting clouds and smudges their bodies with late autumn light.

‘Anyone special?'

‘Tabi, this is now. Just us. And you're special.'

‘Oh.' She nuzzles his stomach. ‘You're sweet, Mr B, but I'm hungry.'

‘Again?'

‘For food.' She crosses one tanned skinny leg over his. Those thighs, firm and resilient, had pinned him to her body. Her skin was rougher than Diane's but more willing. It shivered and swelled to his touch and her arms gripped him with unfeigned desire. Fumbling, jerking, tangling, laughing.

He looks at this sweet woman, then shuts his eyes. Forget look. Feel. She blows gently on his groin, making his skin flutter. He wants her again. He wants that sensation of fusion, when they defy the maths and became one plus one equals more than two, when flesh and hearts are wide open and for a precious few moments love flows between them. She lifts her face and he kisses her gently, smelling the fresh sweat of her neck and feeling grateful – so grateful – for this brief, blessed moment when he is not wondering what more he could do to make
it
work.

‘You've restored pieces of myself I thought I'd lost,' he says.

‘I must be smarter than I thought.'

‘You are.' Chris gazes at the blur of her face and realises how silly he is to resist contact lenses when there is, after all, much in this life he wants to see.

‘But?'

‘But what?'

Tabi studies her nails, shiny and purple. ‘I know what you're thinking, Mr B. We're not Cathy and Heathcliff.'

‘For now, maybe.'

‘Yeah, for now. Mind you, neither are me and Jeremy. I don't know why I put up with him,' she says of her on-again, off-again boyfriend. ‘Except I'm so used to being with him, if I stopped I'd miss him. Even if I didn't.' She giggles. ‘You know what I mean.'

He props himself on an elbow. ‘Tabi, you don't feel …?'

‘Nah.' She pats his cheek. ‘I don't. I make my own decisions.'

He sighs, suspecting there are times when the adult is not always the oldest. ‘Are we going to be okay working together?'

‘I am. Are you?' She cradles his chin between her thumb and forefinger. ‘You're v
oo
lnerable, Mr B.'

His heart contracts. She can read him; why not Diane?

He kisses Tabi's cheek. ‘Thanks to you, not as vulnerable as I was.'

She swings her legs over the side of the bed. ‘Now I'm
really
hungry.'

Chilli prawns; crisp and garlicky, oiling fingers and lips. They sit at the bar downstairs with plates of seafood, feeding each other mouthfuls between sips of wine.

Tabi licks her fingers and stretches. ‘Gosh. After all that food, I think we need to go back upstairs and have a nice lay-down.'

As the world outside condenses to the world in their bed Chris becomes nobody, simply awareness, emptying out, filling up, breathing all the way from his toes to the ends of his hair like a Wandjina man. Inhaling memories, precious wraiths from his 23-year-old self. Another time, another place. Forget it. There is only now; this time, this place. Now is all that matters.

He presses a goodbye kiss on Tabi's thin, sweet lips – so different from Diane's firm mouth – and turns the Rover homewards. He's later than usual; the traffic has thinned and the journey is quick.

He pulls into the driveway, stands for a moment smoothing his hair, and goes upstairs.

‘Hi,' Diane says. ‘You're late.'

He nods. In the bedroom he hangs his jacket in the wardrobe with weak arms. His body is so relaxed, so unwound with sex and satisfaction he can hardly stand up. He catches sight of his face in the mirror. Treacherous. Triumphant. A flush spreads through his whole body. He splashes water on his face and brushes his hair, waiting for the heat to subside before going to the kitchen where Diane is draining vegetables into the sink. Watching her, so undisturbed and unsuspecting, the flush returns – hotter and sharper – with a flare of guilt. He tugs his ear. She pushed him to this. Somebody wanted him, somebody
really
wanted him.

‘Big day?' She drops thinly sliced wafers of potato into a pan.

‘Been down at Cleveland on site. Traffic was constipated all the way back.'

When Diane says nothing further he begins to elaborate. The traffic hold-up was caused by road-works. There were detours, lane merges, lights not operating properly, witches hats and speed restrictions and people doing silly things like he's doing now – running off at the mouth with too many details – unnecessary, unbelievable details – too, too many words, and when she says, ‘Uh-huh,' with a kind of grim triumph, he's certain she knows.

At dinner, she keeps her head turned away from him as if he reeks of female skunk. He swallows his guilt along with the perfectly grilled steak. She doesn't interrogate him and it's infuriating, as if she doesn't need a trial to prove him guilty. He wants a chance to defend himself, to tell her he's normal and someone wanted him. Someone told him he had the most beautiful balls in the world and cradled them like eggs. Someone had wanted him so much she'd even wanted to do it again.

She had.

They had.

So.

Maybe now Diane would admit they have problems and help him sort them out.

She drops her dressing gown on the bedroom chair and reveals a silk chemise with shoestring straps. Slithery. Dressed for reclamation. In bed she moves close and trails her hand down his body, around the curve of his hip and across the hollow of his groin. He flinches. She takes hold of his penis, as spent as over-chewed gum, and strokes it. Nothing happens. She moves her hand away and he hears her fumble in the bedside drawer for gel. She brings a slippery hand back to his flabby cock and paints the underside.

Nothing. It's had it. Fucking worn out.

For the first time in his life, he shrinks from her touch. Unable to respond and too embarrassed to pull away he suffers her pointless quest, the darkened room crowding with thoughts. Eventually, her hand falls away. They lie beside each other in silence. He waits for her to move, to turn over, to sigh or say something but she is utterly still. Slowly Chris drags the pillow under his ear; hears the dull, despairing thud of his pulse and the laboured tick of their old alarm clock measuring out each minute of the night.

He rises early, shaves, showers and goes to his den. A sketch he made of Fletcher two days before looms up from his drawing board with a knowing, almost cynical expression. He brandishes an arrow.