Last Day in the Dynamite Factory (25 page)

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.

‘Anything you can tell me,' he says, willing her memory out of mothballs.

‘You know she worked at Myer?'

‘Yes, designing clothes. But I don't know how she got the job in the first place.'

‘The whole family came down from Brisbane for a holiday; Ma's cousin, Gregor, his two girls and their mother.' Julie pulls a face. ‘Posh side of the family. A bit, you know … but the girls were nice. A few years older than me. Alice brought a dress and a coat with her she'd designed and made herself. A real smart outfit. She took it to Myer and showed them and oh, maybe a few months later, they offered her a job. Her parents didn't want her to take it but she was eighteen and could do what she wanted.' Julie tweaks an eyebrow. ‘She did, too. That was Alice. Lovely girl. Nice clothes, nice figure, nice person – you know – in herself. Always pulled her weight. Every night after tea she'd do the washing-up then sit at the table, designing. She'd get that involved Ma had to remind her to go to bed. Must have been good at her job; I remember some raises – she always bought us presents when she got a raise.' Julie stops to accommodate a cough. ‘I don't remember her getting pregnant but I do remember when she began to show.' She nods at the memory. ‘Ma expanded all over. Alice just got a great big balloon out front, low down. I was always worried she'd fall over.'