The Idea of Perfection (8 page)

Oh well, he said.

Chook glanced at him, waiting for more, but he did not say anything else, just got out a big blue hanky and sneezed into it.

Dust, he said, and laughed as if it was funny.

The road was winding uphill but Chook was not going to let a hill stand in his way. Douglas watched his big coarse hands throwing the ute round on the corners. The
Engineering Digest
was flung to the floor and he picked it up. He did not know where to put it so he sat holding it between his knees.

Chook smacked the gear stick down through the gears, forcing the ute along. The engine roared and snarled. Douglas had not known that his mild-mannered white ute was capable of making such a sound. He glanced over at the tachometer. The needle was nearly in the red. He stared anxiously ahead, wishing for the crest of the hill. He could hear something rattling angrily underneath and the whole vehicle trembled with the strain. Chook was solid in his seat, his profile impassive.

He could not think of how to draw the position of the needle of the tachometer to Chook’s attention in a tactful way.

They were over the hill now, rocking around the corners down the other side, and Chook was lighting the cigarette. Douglas watched him press the dashboard lighter against it so that it bent like a banana. Finally it began to smoke, and Chook blew out a few big blue puffs. He took it out of his mouth, pulled a shred of tobacco off his tongue, stuck the cigarette back on his lip, settled himself comfortably behind the wheel. He was ready now.

Douglas braced himself for a conversation.

Yes, Chook said.

He resettled the cigarette on his lip and blew out a lot of smoke on the word.

Glad to see the back of it, tell the truth, he said. Danger to life and limb.

He had to shout over the noise of the engine.

Douglas was feeling queasy from the bouncing and the smell of Chook’s roll-your-own at close quarters. He seemed to have missed something. Chook seemed to be waiting for an answer. He thought there must have been a question. He tried to focus.

Greenies! Chook shouted.

He was shouting, but somehow Douglas could not hear him properly.

Chook swung the wheel hard to avoid something dark and dead in the middle of the road.

Douglas looked away and saw another lot of sheep out of the side window. Having to ask Chook to stop so he could be sick would be getting off to a pretty poor start. He made a vague answering noise that he thought Chook would not hear over the engine.

But Chook was not worried about what he was saying. He was enjoying his next thought.

Be saving the bloody dunnies next!

He laughed a big laugh with a rattly cough on the end of it. He took the cigarette off his lip, wound down his window, and spat.

Matter of safety, isn’t it? he said. Responsibility to the public.

The phrase made him serious. He was watching Douglas, waiting for an answer. Douglas watched a corner approaching with a big pothole on the left-hand side and a tricky narrowing of the road.

You’d agree with that, wouldn’t you?

It was clear that Chook was not going to stop watching him until he answered. He spoke up loud and quick.

Oh yes, certainly. Absolutely.

The feeling of wanting to be sick was making him break out in a sweat.

In the nick of time Chook looked at the road, skirted the pothole, got the ute around the corner. He seemed satisfied, although Douglas would have liked to know what it was that he had so earnestly agreed to.

He felt foolish, clutching his
Engineering Digest.
He opened the glove box, but the
Engineering Digest
was too big for it, so he had to go back to holding it.

No shortage of timber, those days, Chook said. For the bridges and that.

Douglas wished Chook would stop watching him.

Yes, he said. That’s true enough.

He could feel Chook waiting for something more. He supposed it was a bit bland, but it was hard to think of words when you were about to be sick.

He could not see the speedo, but he could feel how the ute was sliding its back wheels out on the corners, and hear the rattle as stones were flung up against the paintwork. Pre-Existing Damage: Nil, he had written on the form.

He was pretty sure that even if he was not about to be sick he would still not know what Chook was talking about.

You’d think they’d be happy, Chook said. Saving the trees. But no, not on your nelly.

He laughed richly. Talking seemed to make him drive faster.

No, Douglas said vaguely.

He stared out the window at where two cows watched the progress of the ute and its cloud of pale dust. One had its mouth in a long funnel, mooing, but he could only hear the roar of the engine.

Talking made Chook go faster, but at least he looked at the road. When he was waiting for Douglas to say something he watched him. He was watching now, waiting for something better than that pale little
No.
There was another sharp-looking corner coming up.

How do you mean? Douglas asked.

This was not the way he wanted to die, tangled up in a paddock with Chook Henderson and the ute from Head Office, with the
Engineering Digest
clenched in his white hand.

Happy? Who d‘you mean, exactly?

All the bloody timber! Chook shouted. What they’re on about, the greenies! Bloody possums and that. Endangered this that and the other thing!

He made a big gesture with one hand that made the ute swerve on to the wrong side of the road.

They want the old bloody bridge, see. The bloody Heritage. But they want the bloody trees too. See what I mean?

Douglas nodded, watching the
Engineering Digest
between his knees. He could not bear to see the corner coming towards them.

Well, he said.

He had to force himself to speak. It came out in a tiny squeak.

The timber is certainly a factor.

He could feel Chook still watching him.

A big factor.

Chook snorted, finally looked at the road, jerked the wheel around casually. Douglas could feel the back of the ute slide on the gravel, the whine as the wheels failed to grip. Then they were round.

You bet your bloody life it is, Doug! Chook shouted. A factor.

The word hung satirically in the air between them.

He looked out the window again. There was no sign of the river now, or the tributary with the
old bloody bridge
across it. He wondered how much further it would be, and whether he would be sick before they got there or after.

They don’t want the bloody concrete, Chook bellowed suddenly, giving him a fright.

They’re against the bloody concrete. Know what I mean?

Douglas looked around at last.

Against the concrete! he repeated.

Chook glanced at him and smiled a brown-toothed smile. He took a fresh grip on the wheel, settled back against his seat. Douglas could see how pleased he was to have finally got his attention.

How’s that, then? he asked.

It seemed to him that Chook was driving less fast now. Concrete seemed to have something of a steadying effect on him.

Being against the concrete?

Not organic, Chook said.

He thought for a moment, and elaborated.

Not bloody organic enough.

He gathered the phlegm in the back of his mouth with a ripping sound and spat out the window.

It’s the compost and earth-toilet lot. The bloody vitamins and let-the-bloody-chooks-free lot.

He gestured with both hands to demonstrate the letting-free-of-the-bloody-chooks and the ute sailed towards the bushes beside the road.

But concrete! Douglas said quickly.

Concrete!

His mouth faltered, trying to find the words to do justice to concrete.

Chook was not a man to wait around for the right word. He laughed a short unamused laugh.

Course it’s organic!

One hand was holding the wheel casually, the other was out the window, elbow on the sill, hand gripping the edge of the roof so his shirt sleeve flapped in the slipstream.

Organic as bloody anything!

Douglas turned slightly towards him and put the
Engineering Digest
on the floor. He thought he was probably close enough to grab the wheel himself, if worst came to worst. The thing was to turn towards Chook in an interested way, but to keep his eyes on the road.

You’ve got no rot, no bloody maintenance at all!

Yes, Douglas said. I mean, no.

Neat and tidy! See you right for years!

Yes, he said again. Absolutely.

Chook grew quieter, put both hands back on the steering-wheel.

Nearly there, he said.

He coughed.

You’ll find there’s a bit of it in town, he said casually.

Douglas wondered what there was
a bit of
in town. As Chook turned to him and nodded, he noticed one eyebrow was tufted up, giving him a lopsided look.

Oh? he said, feeling helpless.

Nothing to worry about, Chook said.

Douglas was immediately anxious.

The bloody
Heritage Committee.

Chook loaded the words with irony. He swung the ute around a corner, down a hill, and suddenly there it was, the tributary, and the bridge that was a
danger to the public.

It was a cock-eyed little thing with a bend in it as if someone had given it a push in the middle. Chook switched the engine off and a hot humming silence established itself.

Knew a bloke once with a dick that shape, he said.

Douglas laughed. Then he wished he had not.

With his thumb Chook killed a fly trapped against the windscreen, and wiped his hand on his pants.

No worries, he said.

He glanced at Douglas, who nodded, but in fact he was full of worries, especially about the drive back. He would have to try to be sure to drive, except that he was not certain of the way. If he could not be the one driving, the next best thing would be to lead the conversation on to subjects less inflammatory than the bridge. Something nice and boring.

There was a lot to be said for being boring, and it was something he was good at.

 

 

He stood beside the stream, balancing on a big bean-shaped stone. Beside him a fallen tree had been silvered by years of floods and sun, the grain streaming like hair around the knots and holes in the wood. A small bold bird in a suit of green perched on it, cocked its head at him, and flew off. On the map, the stream was called Cascade Rivulet, but it was neither a cascade nor a rivulet, just a modest flow of water that travelled sinuously over rocks and logs in a series of shining bulges. It was a comfort, the way it kept coming, calmly obeying gravity, threading its way diligently downhill, whether anyone was there to see it or not. It did not have to be authoritative or impress anyone. It just took the line of least resistance.

The bridge had not started life bent, but during some long-distant flood the middle of it had been pushed downstream by a raft of drifting timber. Generally that was the end of it with bridges: they broke up then and washed away. But this one seemed to have chosen to bend rather than break. The centre piers had allowed themselves to be shifted bodily downstream through the sand of the riverbed and then, as the flood receded, they had planted themselves back in. On the top, the timbers of the roadway had slewed around on their bolts into a stiff curve that was higher one side than the other, like a shrugging shoulder.

Now the bridge looked weak, but it was not. It had been damaged, but the damage was the very thing that made it strong.

However, it was condemned. The file had come to Douglas Cheeseman, in at Head Office:
Replacement of the Bent Bridge.
It was a straightforward job. You demolished the old one, straightened up the approaches, and put in a prefabricated concrete beam. He had done it before, many times. The old timber bridges had all been built around the same time, so they were all wearing out together too.

Knocking down the old timber bridges was not his favourite job. He liked them, the innocent clumsy structure of them, the way the wood developed personality in its old age, although as a professional he could see how inefficient and over-engineered their structure was.

He was a good engineer. He had always been good at the sums. He sat at his desk with the surveyor’s figures, doing the site plans and working out the specifications. The plans for the Bent Bridge were rolled up in his hand now.

Out on site, you were never parted from your plans. They were your Bible. They got dog-eared, yellowed, smeared with mud, peppered with little holes from where you had unrolled them on the ground.

But although so sacred, the plans were only the start. Once you got out there on the site everything was different. No matter how carefully done, the plans could not foresee the
variables.
It was always interesting, this moment when you saw for the first time the actual site rather than the idealised drawings of it.

He knew men who hated the
variables.
They had their plans and by golly they were going to stick to them. If the site did not match the drawings it was like a personal insult.

He himself liked the variables best. He liked the way that the solution to one problem created another problem further down the line, so that you had to think up something else, and that in turn created another problem to solve. It was an exchange, backwards and forwards. Some men thought of it as a war, but to him it was more like a conversation.

The variables had been the unexpected reward for getting through the exams and out on the sites. The other thing had turned out to be the bridges. They had a special fascination for him. He had been told there was even a word for people like him: he was apparently a
pontist.