Read Online Last Day in the Dynamite Factory by Annah Faulkner - Free Book Online Page A

suppose – but there were things … I dismissed them. There was a boy at uni, the living spit of his father, yet he was adopted. You look so much like Jo, I – well, you have some of Ben’s mannerisms – but I put that down to living with him.’ She fans her face with the diary. ‘I suppose … I suppose it’s good that it’s out in the open but what a shock. You’ve always wondered who your father was. Now you know.’
    Chris shakes his head, more shudder than shake. Diane nods, shuts the diary and puts it on his drawing board.
    â€˜Yes, a lot to absorb. I’ll make some tea.’
    When she leaves he sweeps the diary onto the floor and leans on the drawing board, cradling his head in his arms. Beneath his elbows, Mrs Stanton’s plans for renovation await his attention. Renovation? Ridiculous. Her house is so badly fucked about with, it should be demolished. He’ll tell her. He picks up a pencil and gouges an X across the drawing, his eyes following his hands.
His
hands? Long, strong-fingered, adept with a pencil, a computer and a lathe. The lathe, taught to him by his … Ben, who also taught him to play cricket and tennis, who explained the spark plug, the head gasket and the diff. Ben, who showed him how to shape timber on the bench in his shed, to use handsaws, chisels and planes that coiled slivers of wood as finely as butter in a dish, who taught him to make joints – biscuit, dovetail, mortise, who advised the best knives for scribing against a rule – single-bevel skew, double-bevel skew, spearpoint – the sharp ends of which allow crisp straight lines in either direction. Crisp straight lines. Despite architecture’s convincing case for straight lines, he doubts there are any. Adopted. Adopted by his own father.
    Ask no questions
…
    And he didn’t, because if Ben said there was nothing to tell, then there was nothing to tell. Chris scoops his old exercise book from the floor. Fletcher, his childhood alter ego, is everywhere.
Can I go to the shop? Milo, please. Yellow shirt
. In one, he is gazing, empty-eyed, at the sky.
    Chris takes a black pen and draws a circle over Mrs Stanton’s living room. A smaller circle on top, but not so small it can’t accommodate a brain far smarter than his own, ears sharp enough to detect bullshit and glasses strong enough to see what is hidden. Still Fletcher, but an older, wiser Fletcher. He gives his little man a bow, a quiver of arrows and a mental directive: kill.
    Fletcher gazes at him solemnly.
I’m a fletcher, not an archer. My arrows are made for the pleasure of crafting something beautiful. They’re for target boards, not people.
    â€˜Tea, Chris,’ Diane calls.
    In the kitchen she pours tea into two fine China mugs – proper leaf tea, not bags. She takes a lettuce from the fridge, snaps off leaves and rinses them under the tap. Chris puts a glass beneath the running water.
    â€˜Don’t.’ She empties the glass and refills it from a jug of filtered water. ‘Lunch won’t be long.’
    He stares at the glass, at the tea and at the pen in his hand – an arrow poised to fall on a traitor’s heart. But all that fall are tears, great slow stripes down his face, a sight so disturbing Diane looks away. For a moment, the air holds only the sound of her husband’s sobs, then she lays a tentative hand on his shoulder. Tears plop from his chin onto the expensive German laminate, chosen especially for its resilience. Chris leans his head on his wife’s shoulder and she puts an arm around his back but her discomfort is unmistakable, as if he – the man – should be the comforter, not the consoled. Men must wear the pants, even if they don’t fit.
Tap-tap
; her hand beats softly on his back.
    Chris lifts his head. ‘Sorry,’ he whispers. The tears have, at least, restored his voice.
    â€˜It’s okay. You’ve had a