Last Day in the Dynamite Factory Read Online Free PDF

Chris sat on her bed, watching her pack. Part of him applauded her independent spirit but another part hated letting her go.
    â€˜Don’t look at me like that, Dad.’
    â€˜Like what?’
    â€˜Like you’re going to cry.’
    â€˜No. Just thinking.’
    â€˜What?’
    He tried to assemble an I-can-cope-with-anything look. ‘Not sure. I’ll let you know when I’ve thought it.’
    Some vague guilt. Was it just him or did all parents fret about whether there was something more they could have said or done to prepare their reckless innocents for a world immune to their charms? Trying to do the right thing but not always knowing what it was. Phoebe’s departure did relieve him of the immediacy of concern; he can imagine everything is fine and not be faced with trying to fix the unfixable.
    Diane lamented Phoebe’s departure but looks forward to grandchildren.
    â€˜We’re a bit young,’ Chris said, with a worm of discomfort. ‘I’m not ready for grandchildren.’
    â€˜I am. I have lots of time.’
    It’s true. Even working part-time at the library, keeping the house immaculate and the meals coming, time seems to hang about Diane with the weight of a wet wool cloak. Recently she returned to university and Chris is relieved. Since the kids stopped needing her so much she’s turned her attentions on him and he finds it unsettling.
    In the kitchen she’s fixing breakfast. Designed as much for Archie as for Diane, the kitchen still gives Chris pleasure, being both user-friendly and user-proof, with surfaces that are good-looking but resilient enough to withstand a budding cook. Archie was born with one spoon in his mouth and another in his fist. At three he was making rissoles; at four, cupcakes. At fifteen he developed an inexplicable and intense appetite for cookie baking which continued for a month until Chris became curious when no-one in the house was ever offered one. The next time he saw cookies in the oven, he pinched one before they were done. The wide-eyed, smirking husband Diane found crooning in his den and the smattering of half-cooked biscuits on his drawing board told Diane all she needed to know. It took her less than five minutes to unearth a row of pot plants thriving under UV lights in the top of Archie’s wardrobe. These days he either hides his plants more carefully or is too busy cultivating relationships with women, attending lectures in food science and working at the bottle shop.
    Diane dips bread into an egg mixture for French toast and puts it in the pan. On the table she puts bacon, butter and Canadian maple syrup. Chris can’t tell the difference between Canadian maple syrup and any other sort but Diane insists on having the right one. She tucks her precision-cut silky brown hair – never dyed and now slightly grey at the temples – behind her ears. Composure is grafted to her face; only in her eyes does doubt sometimes linger. If Chris looks carefully he may glimpse traces of the Diane he met at school – sweet, needy and vulnerable. But not often.
    â€˜How’s uni?’ he says, then mentally kicks himself. He can’t ask her again. He
must
write it down. Then he can say, ‘How is the course in
Logical Reasoning, Argumentation and Critical Thinking
going, Di?’ That’s it!
    â€˜It’s fine, thank you.’
    Fine, thank you. No details. He wouldn’t mind details but unless he asks, he won’t get them. He likes that she isn’t a chatter-box but lately their silences seem louder. Not, unfortunately, suggestive of two people who don’t need words to communicate, but of a couple who have run out of things to say. As he drops a napkin on his lap Chris notices a splash of sturdy golden hairs, suspiciously dog-like, on his dark trousers.
    â€˜Has there been a dog in here?’
    Diane looks miffed, as if he’s suggested she’s farted, then registers his