An Astronaut's Life (13 page)

So I invited Eugenia to come home with me. Gina was at work, I knew no one would
be there, so we caught the train together and I showed her inside. What followed
was a long tour of our home, of the life I had made with Gina—
Here are the chairs
we sit in, the plates we eat off, what do you think of it all?
As if I thought the
reassessment of these things through a stranger's eyes might give me some fresh way
to value it.

We sat at the kitchen table and I made tea, because Eugenia did not drink coffee.
She wore a long silver
chain around her neck, on the end of which were two pendants,
a sun and a moon. She curled this around her finger then let it slide back into the
neck of her T-shirt as if to draw my eyes in that direction. An unsubtle gesture,
I knew what it meant—she would stay if I asked her to. But my fascination with her
had already begun to unravel in light of this insight: she could offer no explanation
or escape from my unease, no more reason to be digging up every part of my life and
finding it wanting. So we stood in the hallway and we kissed, only once, goodbye.

Eugenia still messaged me some days.
You know we had something, you can admit it
at least.
That sort of thing. But all I had to admit to was that I'd learnt how easy
it was to shift a person's focus from a situation in which she feels mired in deep
responsibility and failure to one in which she is accompanied by none of her past.
I'd made my decision, anyway, and so none of this mattered.

‘No,' I said to Gina. ‘I don't think I have done anything.'

How much did she already know?

‘Where are you standing right now?' she said.

‘I'm in the hallway.'

‘Is it cold?'

‘No. I mean, I've got no shoes on.'

‘Are they there? The cops?'

I listened for them.

‘There's some lights outside, but I can't hear anything.' Gina walked down a flight
of stairs to keep herself moving. Because of her soft work shoes she did not make
any sound. I could not tell she was moving. I waited, shifting my feet on the rug.
I was thinking of how I had thought of all the things that might go wrong with us,
but I had never thought of this.

‘You feel far away,' she said.

‘I'm right here.' I knew it wasn't what she meant. ‘Your mum's here, I should go,'
I said.

She climbed back upstairs to the lab.

When I woke, the day's first light was visible through the crack of the blinds. I'd
had a series of broken dreams that revisited the one from earlier, the one about
the lumberjack and the party.

By now I couldn't be sure I even recognised the man I now called ‘the lumberjack'
as the man from the original dream, the tennis ball one. Had I even seen him? Had
I made his presence constant only by giving him a name?

I drifted in this circular conversation for a while before I dragged myself from
bed. I showered and dressed, during which time the sun made it fully up and over
the horizon, and all three of these things helped to clear my mind.

I opened the fridge to find we had no milk, which I wanted for my coffee, and we
were low on everything else, too.

I made tea and worked until Lucas woke, and then got him dressed and ready for school.

Gina had texted to confirm she would come via the house to collect him and drop him
off, before returning to the hotel. When she arrived he was crunching on a bowl of
dry Rice Bubbles. I hurried him into his shoes.

Gina tooted the horn from the driveway so I opened the door and waved her over, but
she would not come in. The cops turned to look at us. I helped Lucas put on his backpack,
then he ducked my goodbye kiss and ran across the lawn to meet the car, where Gina
buckled him in, gave a half-hearted wave and drove away.

The cops had seen me, so I was expecting a knock at the door. I would probably be
forced to leave. To preempt this, and maybe to prove something to Gina, I took my
handbag and glasses and a few empty shopping
bags, and I left. No one seemed to notice
as I strode off down the street, but it felt good anyway; I had not been out of the
house for two days now. The local shops weren't open so early and the nearest 24-hour
supermarket was five ks away so I headed out along the main road.

In the end it took much longer than I'd planned. I knew the cops would be out in
force when I returned home, but I'd already decided: I'd pick up my things and go
to the hotel. I'd been an idiot leaving Gina there alone. She had one night shift
left and then the three of us would spend some time together.

I'd convinced myself it was my responsibility to stay at the house — but being honest,
wasn't it only curiosity? At least Gina could admit the whole thing was having a
bad effect on her. Here I was having nightmares and obsessively searching the news,
in denial, I suppose, and only once I was out of the house, having coffee and fruit
toast at the shopping mall, could I find the perspective to see that I should leave.

And I probably would have done it, had I not come around the corner to see fifteen
or twenty people gathered on our lawn.

I hurried the length of the street, two bags of groceries thumping my legs, but no
one turned as I charged up the lawn. Some of them held cameras or pushed microphones
into the air. A press conference, of course.

I couldn't get through and I couldn't see over the cameras so I passed around the
back of the group to higher ground. They were up to the questions. It was the older
detective, Deborah, up front.

A: As I said, we do expect to have identification soon, but pending that information
I can't say what the next step will be.

Q: Do you have any hunches about suspects?

A: We're not in the business of hunches. We will keep you updated when we have facts
to hand. I understand this situation is upsetting for the community, and we have
every confidence of sorting it out quickly so life can get back to normal.

Q: Any indication how long ago the bodies might have been buried? Are we talking
historical cases, or something more recent?

A: We believe this to be a contemporary case.

Q: So in the last five years?

A: In the last five years, yes.

Q: Can you comment on whether the deceased are adults or children?

A: I can't comment on that, no.

Q: Do you expect to find more bodies?

A: Our initial discoveries suggest there may be others. We are continuing our enquiry.

The journalists exploded into questions and I slipped away and unlocked my front
door.

Inside I took out my phone to call Gina, but it was after 10am; she'd be asleep.
I called her anyway, thinking I'd just leave a voicemail, she keeps her phone on
silent if she's sleeping—but she picked up.

‘Sorry, did I wake you?'

‘It's okay. I was going to send you a message.'

‘I thought you'd be asleep.'

‘I can't. I can't get to sleep. I'm sorry about this morning,' she said.

‘It's all right.' I understood I was supposed to come after her, to call. Which I
had, but for the wrong reason. ‘You must be exhausted.'

‘I am. But it wasn't just that. Are you going to come here?'

‘The hotel? Sure. But there's not much point right now—you're already having trouble
sleeping,' I said.

‘But tonight?'

‘If you want me to. I've got a lot to get done first.'

‘Hey, that's our house. On TV. Did they have to do it right outside?'

The press conference.

I looked for the remote to turn on our TV, but by the time I found it the segment
had finished.

‘Did you hear what they were saying?' I said.

‘I don't think I want to know.'

‘There are more of them. More bodies,' I said.

‘I mean it. Do you get I'm saying I mean it? I really don't want to know.'

I didn't unpack the groceries. I went straight to my desk to find the press conference
online. It wasn't the whole thing, just an edited version, but I watched through
and at the end, when they cut to a wide shot, I saw myself, shopping bags in hand.

It is very strange to see yourself acting as you do when you are unaware of being
watched.

I watched it again. After a few times I turned off my wireless connection, determined
to focus on work.

It would be fair to say things grew worse over the following days.
The cops appeared bent on destroying everything left in our yard. Our outdoor furniture
had gone—I did not see them take it—and only the roar of machinery alerted me to
their decision to tear down our pergola.

I came down the hall to watch as a small backhoe uprooted all six poles from their
concrete supports with little effort. They peeled up the decking and with it the
herb garden we'd started that spring. I could have reminisced about the day we'd
planted it, but what would be the point?

The cops pulled our plants from the soil and bundled them into evidence bags. I never
found out what they did with them.

During the week that followed I stayed inside. I did not turn on the lights, I resisted
flushing the toilet as much as possible and avoided any other activity that might
draw their attention. I fell into a routine of work and sleep and watching their
progress. Then one afternoon the cops stopped work, and their machinery and radios
fell silent.

I looked out on our wrecked backyard. It was a
vacant lot of upturned mud, mounds
of soil beside shallow graves that I presumed could not be covered or disturbed until
the investigation was complete. So the piles of dirt stayed, and the graves that
mirrored them, shielded by plastic and guarded by the remaining cops, as they supervised
the media and others who came to look from the street.

The police still had not released any information about the victims. No one knew
who had killed them, or how, so with nothing for newspapers to report all that was
left was to string people along with possibilities.

I read all the far-out theories, the online forums where people compiled lists of
missing people and potential perpetrators. It horrified me, but at the same time
it was a relief to indulge this obsession. I slept late and worked late and made
lists of my own; these are the crimes people are capable of, and they are much worse
than my own.

As time went on, a number of grieving parents came forward to claim the bodies as
their own lost children. Some had been missing for thirty years or more, but here,
at last, were some bones they could bury. Before long there were more families than
bodies to be claimed, and I watched as the evening TV shows played them off
against
one another: ‘But how can you prove this is your son? Can you prove it?'

Of course the parents
knew
. They had kept empty bedrooms for long enough, they had
slept for years aware the unmade bed in the room down the hall would never again
hold the warm shape of the little one whose smell was still there, whose indentation
could still be seen in the pillow if you looked at it right, or long enough.

I missed my family, too. Gina had not come home all this time, nor had we spoken.
I guessed she meant it, she did not want to know any more about what was happening
at the house and I had become part of that; I was linked to it, unable to stop telling
her the truth, as if to make up for all the things I would not talk about. So I stayed
away, at first out of respect and then because an inertia settled on us. Falling
into silence was easier than I'd have thought it would be.

I ran out of milk again, but this time I did not go out.

I was at my desk the day Gina came up the drive. She knocked, and I opened the door
and she showed me she'd brought Lebanese pizza, which was our favourite. ‘Why are
you knocking? Where's your key?'

‘I didn't want to sneak in,' she said.

She hesitated in the doorway and I thought to hug her but there were strangers on
the lawn looking up at us, so I hurried her in and closed the door. I felt the weight
of explanations.

‘It's all okay. It's just our different ways of dealing,' she said, and I was relieved
she knew what to say.

Gina sat in the living room and I went for plates so she wouldn't have to see the
extent of damage to the yard. I tried to fix my hair before I returned.

‘You could have worked in the hotel room,' she said. I handed her a plate and sat
beside her.

‘You're right, I could have. But, like you said, it's our different ways of dealing.'

‘I know, but it's a really nice room.'

‘I believe you, but I've needed to be here.'

‘Why?' Gina pushed her hair behind her ear.

‘I haven't talked to anyone for days, I'm not sure how to say it.' I said. ‘But I
really miss you, so much, and Lucas. How is he?'

‘He's fine, he's asking for you.' She looked away. ‘I know I should have called you
too. I just don't want to hear the details. You won't talk to me about anything,
and then this happens and it's like you can't stop.'

‘I know that now. I won't make you hear it,' I said.

I put my arms around her, leaning my face into her neck. ‘I'm sorry,' I said. ‘We're
still good, aren't we?'

She nodded, so we withdrew from the hug and ate and made small talk, but there was
still some distance and I wasn't sure how to move things to a place where we could
relax.

‘I've been thinking about us having a baby,' Gina said after a while.

‘Do you want to talk about that now?'

‘When, if not now?'

‘Let's deal with one thing at a time?'

‘That's just an excuse.'

‘But it's not. It's just, now? Here? I can't even think about bringing Lucas back
here,' I said.