Last Day in the Dynamite Factory (29 page)

‘Oh … Diane,' Chris shakes his head. ‘That's a résumé. What about love?'

She looks out at the whirling leaves and bobbing red flowers. The wind is blowing billy-o, slamming branches against the railing and scraping the roof. She doesn't reply.

‘There's a silence that speaks volumes,' Chris murmurs.

‘See?' says Diane. ‘This is what happens when you start unpicking everything. Some things don't survive analysis. I tried so-called “love”.' She quote-marks the air with her fingers. ‘But I found out substance is more important, a commitment that goes beyond five-minute infatuation. Commitment is what
we
have. And just so you know, Christopher, I will
never
let myself be lost to another human being or be hurt like that again.'

‘But it's the risk you take when you love someone.'

‘I didn't love Adrian. I was obsessed with him. Love is more than a few hot nights.'

Chris looks at his wife's grim face. ‘But I need those hot nights, Diane.' He reaches for his jacket. ‘I need to be warm.' He touches his chest. ‘In here.'

Judge has taken advantage of Chris's brief absence to establish himself in the driver's seat of Baillieu & Bright.

‘Successful trip?' he asks guardedly as Chris perches on the visitor's chair.

‘Did what I went to do.'

‘Good. Good. Maybe now you can do what you're here to do.' He picks up his ball. ‘Noland is in a spin. You went off without telling him. He's a control freak; you need to sort him out.'

‘I will. But I need to sort out something with you first.'

A muscle dances in Judge's jaw.

‘I'm through with conservation work.'

‘So you said.'

‘I mean it; completely. I'll finish what I'm working on but that's the end. I'm sorry about the timing but I can't do it any longer.'

‘I can't do what I used to either, but you don't see me spitting the dummy.' Judge puts down the ball. ‘There's shit going on here, Christopher. Besides, you can't be that good at something you don't like. Take a break if you must, but get over it.'

‘I am over it. I'm not asking you. I'm telling you.'

‘Conservation work is a third of our business; what the hell are we supposed to do about that?'

‘I don't know. Maybe, you—'

‘Ah yes, very funny. Why not the cleaning lady?'

‘Hamish. His attention to detail will work in his favour. I can help if he gets totally stuck.'

‘Yeah, sure,' says Judge, pushing back his chair. ‘And people reckon
I've
changed. You want out, you organise it. You tell Hamish and you supervise. It's still your bloody responsibility.'

Violet is digging over her garden, baggy body propped on swollen ankles, cardigan dangling off to one side.

Chris watches her through the kitchen window while he waits for the kettle to boil. Such a warm, decent soul, but the job he's promised to do for her is already driving him nuts and he hasn't even put pencil to paper. It's the same at the office. Having ditched heritage work he is having to take whatever comes along.

His gaze shifts to his own side of the fence. It seems like yesterday he built that fence to keep the kids in and the neighbourhood dogs out. Laid a path of flagstones to the clothes line and put pine bark everywhere else so the kids could play without cracking their heads. They did anyway. Phoebe split her ear almost clear of her head and held it in place with a trembling hand as she made straight for her father, blood pumping into her flaxen hair. Archie scraped his finger and howled for his mother, a great cave of noise that tempted Diane to wrap the bandaid around his mouth instead of his finger. She smothered his noise against her stomach and rolled her eyes. Chris had laughed.

Violet straightens and scoops stray strands of hair behind one ear. Suddenly Chris can't stand it. He cannot do her house. He'll tell her. He'll tell her right now. He goes downstairs and wedges through a gap in the hedge.

‘Got a minute, Vi?'

‘Hi, Chris. Sure. I'll make us a cuppa.'

He prowls the kitchen while she fills a kettle. It's a neat, clean room but the dismal victim of a 1950s makeover with stained cupboard fronts and discoloured apricot fibro walls.

‘I've had a wonderful idea for this kitchen,' she says.

‘Oh, Violet . . .'

The kettle begins to squeal. ‘What's wrong?'

‘Thing is, um . . . I've stopped doing restorations.'

‘But I thought they were your specialty.' She rips open a packet of Tim Tams and tips them onto a saucer. ‘Bickie?'

He takes a biscuit, then puts it back. ‘Not any longer.'

Violet pours boiling water into the teapot and plonks on a red knitted cosy. ‘In that case, I'm lucky. Am I your last job?'

‘Um . . . yeah. Yeah, you are.'

Weak. If he'd just said
no
, as he intended, he wouldn't have wasted an hour on it last night and another this morning.

He pours tea into two cups. Weak.

He's done it properly, the way Diane likes, with real leaves, but it's so pale it looks more like lemongrass than English breakfast. He dips a tea bag into the cup, darkening the liquid and improving the appearance, if not the taste. He scrapes butter and vegemite over a piece of wholemeal toast. He offered to make Diane breakfast in bed as a gallant start to their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary but she's opted for brunch at Frogmore's Cafe instead; early enough not to spoil the dinner Archie has planned. It has already been marred by his refusal to cook if Ben came to the celebration. Archie had just started to thaw towards his grandfather when Chris told him about Alice. The story moved Phoebe to tears, Archie to fury.

‘He dumped her in a
dynamite
factory? What a complete shit!'

‘He's not a shit and he didn't dump her,' said Chris.

‘He killed her!'

‘Don't be an idiot.'

Diane smacked her hand on the table. ‘Stop it!'

Archie flounced off. Diane turned to Chris. ‘I warned you this would happen if you told him about your mother. You
know
what he's like. You should have kept quiet.'

‘No, I'm fed up with secrets. There've been too many in this family already,' Chris said. ‘It's time Archie learned to put his brain in gear before he mouths off.'

‘Like you, you mean?'

Chris suggested they move the dinner to a restaurant but Diane demurred. It was Archie's anniversary gift and it wasn't for them to set the conditions. And as the subject hadn't been raised with Ben, it was better to let things be.

Chris takes the tea, toast, his gift and card on a tray to the bedroom. The card was the hardest part. All those funereal-looking watercolours of tranquil gardens, deserted benches and buckets stuffed with flowers; teddy bears swathed in tulle or entwined with spangled hearts – and everything pink – with verses sickly enough to make him puke. Considering the water that has passed beneath his and Diane's particular bridge lately he's opted for a blank card and his own take on the occasion.

Dear Diane,

Wishing you a very happy 25th Wedding Anniversary

With heartfelt thanks and love,

Chris

Hopeless. Bloody awful, but he didn't know what else to write. The gift is better; an elegant silver locket engraved with an art deco flourish, threaded onto a black leather band. He raided the photo album for pictures of the kids and put them inside. Phoebe declared the gift ‘very Mum'.

Diane reads the card without comment but delights in the locket.

‘Beautiful.' She traces the engraving with her finger. ‘Really lovely, Chris. Thank you.'

She too has raided the photo album for her gift to Chris: a tiny family snap set into a stylish Georg Jensen key ring.

‘It's great,' he says, kissing her cheek. ‘Very classy. Brunch at eleven?'

She nods, bending her head to the tea.

Chris goes to his den. Beyond the window the potato vine nods jubilantly in the breeze. Rampant damn thing. Six months ago he cut it down and poisoned its roots but now it's taken over the lilly pilly again. Inde-bloody-structible. He forces his attention to a northern elevation drawing of Violet's and Hugo's house. Wouldn't be so bad if she didn't insist on restoring what was never there. As he scowls at the drawing the phone rings.

‘Bright,' he answers absently.

‘Happy anniversary.'

‘Pebbles! Thanks.'

‘What are you doing today?'

‘Taking your mother out for brunch. She's saving herself for tonight.'

‘Did she like the locket?'

‘Loved it.'

‘You sound a bit flat. Anything wrong?'

‘Just trying to get my head around a job I promised to do for our neighbour. A renovation she insists on calling a restoration. I should have said no.'

‘Why?'

‘I'm through with conservation work.'

‘You're
what
?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Are you serious?'

‘Hmm.'

‘Are you having a breakdown?'

‘Not that I know of.'

‘Stay put, Dad. I'm coming for breakfast.'

‘I haven't had a lobotomy, Pebbles. I'm simply tired of old buildings.'

‘That's ridiculous. You're a heritage architect. You bring history back to life.'

‘I'd rather make it.' He slides a plate in front of his daughter. ‘Here. One perfect boiled egg, made especially for you.'

‘But you love what you do.'

‘I liked it for a while, and yes, I was good at it. But I never set out to do conservation work. I got landed with it and bloody hell – you knit socks for half your life, beanies start to look like fun. Come on, eat up.'

‘But . . . your socks are so good. I can't imagine you doing anything else.'

He can see himself dissolving before her eyes. He understands how unsettling it is to discover a parent isn't who you thought they were; how it makes you question your judgement about so much else. He lops the top off Phoebe's egg, salts it, scoops out the flesh and takes the spoon to her mouth. ‘Open.'