An Astronaut's Life (8 page)

‘I'm sorry,' the receptionist said. ‘You'll have to wait today.'

It was a Thursday afternoon. He'd left work the same time as always.

‘Is there some problem?'

He began to spell Leisel's name, but the receptionist pointed to the waiting room
and lifted the phone.

The architect flicked through a newspaper. He wanted what was best for Leisel—maybe
there was news? What if her delusion had lifted—could that happen? He tried to imagine
the adult woman who might greet him. Would she remember what had passed between them?

The receptionist gestured.

‘Sorry for the wait,' she said. ‘Leisel had a difficult night. I wasn't sure she
was having visitors, but you have the all-clear.'

She was sitting on her bed, dressed
and ready. The architect was relieved at the recognition in her eyes.

‘I have to tell you something,' she said.

‘You can tell me anything.'

‘I've been thinking how things aren't the same.'

He sat beside her. ‘What do you mean?'

‘I'm really sorry. We've had a lot of fun. We'll always be friends,' she said.

He reached a hand to comfort her.

‘Don't worry. Relationships have their ups and downs. We'll work through this,' he
said.

‘No, you don't get it. I think I need to be independent now. I need to start thinking
about university, my future.'

He rubbed her shoulder. ‘I don't mind if you want more independence. We'll come up
with a plan,' he said.

Leisel drew back. ‘I think we both need this,' she said.

‘But you're not well. You can't make these decisions.'

She looked away from him and
to the window. ‘I'm sorry, I think you should go.'

The worn cotton of Leisel's T-shirt clung to her thin shoulders and chest. He followed
the freckles that ran across her arms until the trail disappeared under her sleeves.

‘But I love you,' he said.

Leisel opened the drawer beside her bed. ‘I made you this one,' she said.

She lifted a horse with both hands. There were clouds painted across the body and
head, but the left side was all blue sky, broken in the centre by one soaring bird.
He thought of his wife, what she would say when she saw it: the adolescent motif.

‘Please go now,' Leisel said.

So the architect took the horse and went. His heels clipped against the hospital's
floors, his echoes swallowed by all the long hallways that stretched behind.

At the exit he paused to find a bin, then he changed his mind. He'd keep it. He laid
the horse on the passenger seat and started out along the highway. He was not prepared
to think of his wife: the resentment he'd earned, the distrust.

But he called her anyway.

‘The key for your brother's house, it's still in the spot?' he said.

‘Why?'

His wife's brother had a holiday house about an hour away; the architect and his
wife had visited three or four times. The brother and his family mostly went there
at
winter, and mostly on weekends.

‘They said go up anytime, remember?'

‘She's with you now, isn't she?'

‘Who?'

‘Who do you think?'

‘Leisel? Of course not. She's in hospital. You know she's unwell.'

‘So I've heard.'

‘The key, is it there?'

He sensed a change as her anger became resignation, and so he softened. He thought
maybe he would invite her. She'd skip the radio show to drive up.

‘You're not taking her to my brother's house,' she said.

‘I'm not taking anyone.'

‘Do you swear?'

‘No. I'm not swearing. I'm not swearing anything.'

‘So she's there now?'

‘She's in the fucking hospital.'

‘She's with you, isn't she?

‘Yeah, she's with me, right here in my fucking pocket. I broke her out of the hospital.
What is wrong with you? I'm going to the house.'

He hung up.

The key was where it was meant to be. It was dark inside and the lights weren't working
because, he remembered, you had to flick the master switch in the fuse box to the
side of the house. He did it, but the rooms were still dim. He'd never been there
alone before.

The architect opened a bottle of wine and sat on the verandah with a blanket and
a couple of old books, crime novels someone had brought on holiday and read in the
afternoon sun. It was already too dark to read but he stacked the books beside him,
like props.

She'll ring the hospital and they'll tell her everything. Or she'll drive up. She's
on her way right now. She'll come down the long dirt driveway, headlights hiding
her face until she gets out and it's her, still in her work clothes.

He will pick up a book, marking the page with his thumb as he greets her.

There will be a long scene of shouting, but they are in the country; it's okay to
shout long and loud.

NIGHTS AT THE HOUSE

The police came to our door, it was 6am, and the sound of them knocking worked itself
into my dream as someone bouncing a tennis ball out on the road. It was a kid, at
first—a boy. I thought he must have been waiting for Lucas, but then I realised that
it was a man instead, and the bouncing took on a more considered and foreboding tone.

‘Hello?'

I woke to a voice from our front porch.

‘Please, can you open the door? It's the police.'

I went down in just my T-shirt; I didn't think to put on pants. In the hallway I
pulled back the curtain, doubtful it could really be cops.

A man and a woman stood by my door. They weren't in uniform, but there was a cop
car on the road behind them, and along the street a van I didn't recognise. A shifting
behind its windows gave the suggestion of more of them inside.

‘The door needs to be opened, ma'am.'

I flicked the lock and pulled it.

‘Is it Gina?' I said. ‘She's okay?'

‘It's nothing like that, please don't be alarmed,' the male cop said. He was a short
man with a barrel chest, serious and middle-aged.

‘Who's Gina?' the woman said. She was the taller of the two, and older, and also
the one with more hair.

‘She's my girlfriend,' I said.

‘But she's not here?'

‘No, she's at work. She does nights at the hospital.'

The woman appeared to make a note of this and the man told me their names: Detective-Sergeant
Victor something, Deborah something else. They'd wanted to come in and what choice
did I have?

So they tramped up our concrete steps and stood in our hall. A pile of our shoes
lay jumbled by their feet.

‘Is it okay if I go get some pants on?' I said. They shrugged and so I went off towards
the bedroom.

‘When's she due home?' the woman, Deborah, said after me. ‘When's Gina due home?'

‘About eight,' I called back.

I pulled my jeans from the clothes basket. Because of my calves, jeans are never
as simple as they should be and I had to sit on the bed to tug them up.

I walked as I zipped, feeling that now I had pants on I would be more in control.
But when I reached the hallway Lucas was there, squinting his face against the morning.

‘Hi, Ma.'

‘Back to bed, you. It's early.'

He still had on his Spider-Man shorts but the top he must have pulled off in his
sleep.

‘No, but I'm awake.'

‘I can see that. Didn't we have a deal?'

He made a show of thinking about this.

‘I don't think we did. Did you write something down?'

This was it now; I had to get promises in writing from a six-year-old.

‘Let's put your top on.' He followed me into his room and put his arms up as I untangled
the shirt from the bedclothes and tugged it over his head.

‘All right,' I said. ‘You want to play on my phone for a minute?'

‘But is someone at the door? I think I can hear them.'

I ducked back into my bedroom
and he followed so I lifted him onto our bed. He settled in as I unlocked the phone.

‘Angry Birds?' I said, and he reached out, despite himself.

‘Only five minutes of that,' I said, which we both understood meant half an hour,
maybe more.

At the front door the detectives gave me impatient smiles. ‘Sorry. My kid woke up.
So what's this about?'

‘You're the owner of this residence?' Victor said.

‘Yes. And Gina. We both own it.'

‘And does Gina always work nights?'

‘Only sometimes. All this week.'

‘Might have to put them in a hotel,' Deborah said and wrote something down.

‘Why? What's happening?'

Victor cleared his throat. ‘We have reason to believe evidence pertaining to a major
investigation may be buried within the grounds of your premises.'

‘Buried?'

‘We'd appreciate your cooperation.'

‘So wait, you want to dig? Can I check with Gina first?'

‘What time did you say?'

‘Around eight?'

‘I'm sorry. The matter is time-sensitive. We need to get started.'

‘Right now?'

‘Strike the iron when it's hot, as they say.'

I wasn't sure anyone said that, but a car alarm took our attention to the street
where a cop wearing jeans and a police-issue vest was rifling in his pockets for
the clicker. The siren had set his dogs barking—police dogs, right there on our lawn.

‘Ma!'

I heard little feet on the carpet and a moment later Lucas had a grip on my leg.

‘It's just dogs, Lucas,' I said.

‘But what are they doing here?'

At last someone managed to turn the alarm off and the cops ordered their dogs into
silence, but too late, because the neighbourhood dogs had taken up the cause, spreading
an uneasy mood across the morning.

‘Do those dogs bite?' Lucas said.

‘No.'

‘Only bad guys,' said Victor.

‘But there are no bad guys,' I said.

Lucas rolled his eyes as if this were obvious, as if the two of us had not been awake
at three that morning finding ways to disprove his theories about the upside down
house buried under our own, and the
very bad guy
who lived there.

‘Would you like to come and meet our dogs?' Victor said. ‘Lucas, is it?'

He looked up at me.

‘Put your shoes on first.'

He scrambled to the floor and sorted a match from the pile.

‘If it's okay, ma'am, I'll send in some officers to discuss matters with you while
your son meets our dogs?' Victor said.

‘Sure, go ahead.'

I watched Lucas shuffle across the lawn in his short pyjamas and sneakers, no socks.

They sent two young cops for my interview. They took my name, date of birth, checked
my license, etc and then they asked for a deed to the house, which I
miraculously
found in the study.

‘Gina Lim?' they asked me.

‘My girlfriend. She'll be home in a minute.'

‘Here?'

‘She lives here.'

‘L-I-M?'

‘Yes. Like it says.'

‘What kind of name is that?'

‘Excuse me?'

‘I mean where's it from?'

‘Singapore, she's from Singapore.'

‘And she's the nurse,' the detective said, ‘she's a nurse?'

‘No, a sleep scientist,' I said.

‘What's that, exactly?'

‘She monitors people's sleep overnight. People with sleep issues, insomnia, sleep
apnoea mainly.'

‘She's not a doctor?'

'No, she just records data while they sleep.'

‘And what do you do?'

‘I'm self-employed.'

‘In what sort of work?'

‘I've just started this business. Scientific-editing services, you could call it.'

A rising guilt reminded me this was not entirely true,
but Gina was always telling
me to be more confident, more positive, talk it up. She wouldn't have meant to the
cops, but it was the principle.

The cops could not have cared less about my business anyway.

‘And have you done much to the yard since you moved in? Any landscaping?'

‘Yeah, at the back. We put in grass and the decking. Not the front, though, we haven't
gotten around to it.'

They took some notes and turned off their recorder.

‘I think we have all we need.'

‘So, can I ask something?' I said.

‘Of course.'

‘Is this a murder investigation? Are you homicide cops?'

‘Yes, we are.'

I hadn't expected them to tell me, so I pushed for more. ‘Is this related to those
drug murders in the news?'

But they were back to their script after that minor admission, and although I tried
a few more questions, I could not get them to tell me another thing.

Lucas was back a few minutes later, wide-eyed about all he would have to tell his
class, as if things were not
already bad enough with the school without the mention
of cops at our house. Victor stood by him, attempting a casual demeanour.

‘But remember, catching bad guys is not the job of our dogs. These dogs are trained
exclusively for detecting certain types of objects, via'—he pointed his finger to
the kid's nose—‘smelling, with their noses. That is what they are here to do.'

Lucas wriggled with laughter. ‘Remember when I used to have my puppy?' he said. ‘He
was called Wifty, he was cute, only he got killed.'

He pronounced it
kiwwed
, since he could not make an
l
sound.

‘I'm sorry, mate,' Victor said. ‘Sorry to hear about poor Wifty.'