The Man in the Shed

by Lloyd Jones

  You’re in there, she said.

  The door stuck when I tried to open it. My sister rolled her eyes and got up from the step. She wrenched it open. There was a dead fly on the laminated table. It wasn’t squashed. It had died of boredom. I dumped my bag and we walked over to the showers and toilet block, then on to the kitchen. There we encountered another camper. A cheerful woman about Mum’s age who after Pen introduced me said, So you’re the proud uncle.

  No one at home had pointed this out to me—this new status I’d acquired on the back of my sister’s efforts. There was a trampoline near the office. We looked at it, and that was that. We went back to our caravans. My sister sat down in the door and reached for her magazine. After a few minutes she looked up, annoyed to see me there. You can’t just stand there doing nothing. Do something. She reached around behind her for a magazine and gave it to me to read. I took it to my caravan step and for a while read about women dieting with spectacular results—down from 350 pounds to 130 pounds in twenty-one days. The weather girl on TV was getting married. Its pages were filled with stories of broken marriages, gossip, horoscopes, all of which gripped my sister. She read avidly and in a way I never saw her read at any other time.

  I gave up and went off to explore. I followed a tall wire fence around the camp. I came upon some tents and three motorhomes. I found a creek and followed its bank. Mostly though I wondered what was going on at home. I stood at the fence separating the camp from another world where men strolled about with their golf clubs. I watched three men carrying two bags of clubs between them. They pushed one another and rolled away from friendly punches and howled with laughter at the insults flying between them. An aeroplane rose into the deep-blue yonder. A black bird swooped up and over the hurricane-wire fence. I moved along it to follow the shadows of the golfers falling across the mown grass until all I could hear was their laughter.

  Later I blamed the golfers when my sister stood angrily before me demanding to know how I hadn’t heard her calling for me. She needed milk but now I’d shown I couldn’t be trusted and so she’d have to wait until Jimmy Mack finished work. I listened to her in silence (I’d been told not to upset her given her condition) and when she finished and dropped her head back inside a magazine I sloped back to the hurricane fence with the view of the golf course. The clouds stopped as soon as I looked at them and the blue sky shot away from my eyes. A plane gently rolled over and its wing dissolved in a flash of light. I thought of the large fish I’d seen at the start of the summer. Its plump white belly. Then it had moved back into the normal shadow of a fish. And I was left hyperventilating with excitement. There was just the irregular and non-comprehending stones on the seabed to look at but my heart was still beating wildly long after the event. In the days ahead the laughter and good-natured shouts and insults of the golfers reached deep inside the camp, and each time my sister looked up from her magazines she’d ask, Now what are you smiling at?

  The grass hadn’t been cut and, after a summer that had been long and hot, I felt straw scratching and poking my jandalled feet. One stalk actually broke the skin. I could feel it. I was even aware of blood. But I did nothing about it. I didn’t stop to inspect it as I might once have but walked on with the stabbing pain and ooze of blood between my foot and the jandal. I walked on with a kind of dull fascination and insight. It was the first intimation that I wasn’t my own invention at all. Already, at a certain level, I was turning into my father. A bit of a scratch, and blood was nothing. Because I had come into pain of a different kind, a vague under-the-skin disappointment that would not go away, that by comparison made a bit of blood nothing more than a mild curiosity.

  All the time I wondered what was happening at home, day and night. I spent far too many hours standing at that hurricane-wire fence staring up at a slow-moving sky. I knew it was all about waiting. And I was really just waiting for the ‘mess’ at home to be over.

  Towards the end of the month Dad came and got me. He told Pen that she and Jimmy were coming home. It wouldn’t be that day but in a short while.

  In the car Dad seemed changed—lighter. But I didn’t look too closely because I had an idea he was looking out for exactly that. So we talked about sport. Rugby, actually. The pre-season weigh-in was coming up. This coming Saturday he wanted me to go over to the club and jump on the scales. He had an idea I would be going up to another weight division. It sounded like a good idea.

  As we pulled in the drive the house drew up out of memory, its red brick reasserting itself after my time away. I went straight to my bedroom and before I’d dumped my things I stood at the window looking into the backyard, and I knew. I knew, without anyone telling me, the man in the shed had gone. That evening over dinner and later, before the TV, and for several days after, I waited and I waited, but nothing was ever said about his departure. For that matter, as I was surprised to discover, I couldn’t even remember his name.

  For a period the house reverberated with new energy. It was just the washing machine, the tumble and motion of wash, but there was something like the promise of newness, and a festiveness about the colours of the clothing spinning around in a porthole of glass that was infinitely more interesting and dynamic than the view from Pen’s caravan window. The clothing came out of the wringer mangled and twisted and as stiff as cardboard—like bits of ruin, the holes and body spaces pressed out of existence.

  I helped Mum peg up these scraps and I watched them become whole again. Sleeves filled with air, trouser legs bloated out, socks became whole again. A fresh wind restored purpose to these bits of clothing. One of the cast-offs was a shirt of Dad’s that he couldn’t fit into anymore but which I had grown into, an old denim shirt whose colour had faded. It was the fade I liked, the idea that the world had left its mark and now I had that bit of experience draped over me. That shirt gave me fresh measure against a world I was growing into.

  Mum sat on the swing, watching me preen in Dad’s shirt. Look at you, she said. She smiled and just for a moment I saw a glimmer of my sister. It was as though two selves momentarily met and passed through one another. I kept staring to see if I could hold on to the moment but it was gone. Mum’s smile widened to a laugh. What are you looking at? she asked. What are you looking at?

  the thing that distresses me the most

  Let me start by saying this: my husband is not a bad man. I don’t know the others all that well—Don Seeward, another from Auckland, Phil someone, James More from down south; ‘Macca’, I think they call him. Two others as well. Jim? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I’ve met Don once. The others I must have spoken to when they’ve rung the house for Stuart. They all work for themselves. Stuart knew Macca at university. The rest of them he’s picked up over the years in different jobs.

  Once a year they get together to discuss ‘engineering issues’. This year it was Stuart’s turn to host the occasion.

  They flew in a few weeks before Christmas. It was a Saturday, a gorgeous day. On the way to taking the kids to the beach I stopped by Stuart’s office to drop off a quiche and a cake. I could see them in the window gathered around the table in serious discussion.

  ‘Knock, knock,’ I said as I came in. They all leapt up like a bunch of thieves. Soon as they saw the food they gushed with compliments. Don gave me a hug and a kiss. Stuart introduced those faces I’d spoken to on the phone. They were happy about the food, and I was happy to leave them to it. I had the kids waiting outside in the car.

  I saw them again, about five that afternoon. I drove by with the kids to find out Stuart’s plans for dinner. I slowed down, and from the street I could see them in the window. They were standing now, beer bottles in hand. Someone must have been telling a joke because I could see Stuart in a convulsive fit with a hand over his mouth and Don, more expansive, as he leant back, mouth open wide. I thought Stuart could ring home later and let me know his plans.

  I was glad to get home. Clara and Bella were acting up in the car. Both of them had got too much sun.
At home I ran a bath for them. I made that old-fashioned emulsion my grandmother used to drum up from vinegar and rubbed it into their sunburn while they squealed and shouted. They were hungry, and around six Bella started whining for pizza. I said, ‘Let’s wait and see what your father’s plans are.’ It would be like Stuart to invite everyone back here; that would mean a quick run down to the supermarket. The pizza place is on the same block. I didn’t want to make two trips. To take their minds off their stomachs I switched the telly on. I thought I would ring Stuart’s office. But each time I picked up the receiver to dial I put it down again. If they were having fun I didn’t want to be that grumpy bitch who brings things to a close. So I thought I would text Stuart. But the moment I had the idea I saw he’d left his mobile on the table. It was sitting with some papers I think he had meant to take to the office.

  At seven o’clock I went to get pizzas. The girls came along for the ride in their pyjamas. There were half a dozen people in the shop so we had a bit of a wait. After giving the pizza order I thought I’d run by Stuart’s office and gauge the mood. This time as I slowed down the blank window stared back. If anything the letters in the window were more bold—S. Richards. Engineer and Quantity Surveyor. Bella asked why we were back at Daddy’s office. ‘No reason,’ I said.

  I thought they must have gone off for a drink somewhere. A phone call to that effect would have been nice. But then perhaps Stuart was planning to come home soon anyway.

  At home I put the pizzas out on the table and left the girls to it. I walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver. Bella looked up, a wedge of pizza jammed into her mouth. I put the receiver down and poured myself a glass of wine.

  The girls watched the Saturday-night movie on Two. I tucked them into bed at ten and without complaint from either. This was as late as they had ever been up. They seemed to know that something about the night was different but they didn’t want to know what it was. While they were watching TV neither one could shift their eyes from the screen.

  There was some washing to bring in, and outside under the clothes line I looked up at the night. We live in one of the inner-city suburbs. There must have been some cloud about because the sky over the city was a sickly yellow. I heard a siren, and closer, maybe two streets over, the God-awful noise of a boy racer tearing up the night, and more distantly the steady rumble of the city. The washing still contained the airy warmth of the sun from earlier in the day, and for some time I stood there, with Stuart’s shirts bunched in my arms, just listening.

  I thought I would wait until midnight before taking further action. I sat on the couch watching the minutes tick by. At the stroke of midnight I picked up the phone and rang the police. I was surprised to hear a woman’s voice answer. It made me hesitate—just a bit. ‘I don’t know where my husband is,’ I said. There was a pause at the other end, and in the intervening silence I heard the silliness of my complaint. Stuart wasn’t missing. I was sure he knew where he was. I apologised and hung up.

  There was nothing else to do but go to bed. I pretended to read. I managed to stay awake until one-fifteen before I switched off the light. Some hours later I woke with a start. I sat up in bed, bright as a whistle. I got out and walked to the phone in the hall. I picked up the receiver. There was no message. I thought about calling the police, but I was afraid of getting the same woman again and telling her the same thing. I suppose I was afraid of my embarrassment. So I returned to bed. This time I slept; I slept well. When I woke, sunshine was pouring in the windows. I could hear the TV blabbering away at the other end of the house.

  I got up and looked into the spare room in case Stuart had come home in the night and got lost.

  It was 11 a.m. before his Subaru wagon pulled up in the drive. I watched from the living-room window. Stuart had on his sunglasses. In the strong morning light he looked pale. I watched him walk towards the front porch. I came out to the hall. I heard him fumble with the key. I could have unlatched the door, but I thought, bugger him. Eventually he got the door open, and as he staggered in I could smell the alcohol on him. His shirt was torn. There was a nasty scratch on his cheek.

  ‘I feel sick,’ he said.

  For a moment I thought he might mean something else but, no, he leant against the wall rubbing his head, his other hand on his stomach.

  ‘It’s eleven o’clock on Sunday morning,’ I said.

  He held up a hand—to stop me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m really sorry. The night just got away on me.’

  The night just got away on me. What a wonderful expression that is. Like it was the night’s fault. The night was a bull he’d wrestled with and finally submitted to, but not without a fight. Is this what he meant?

  Still, I was surprised by my own calm. I said, ‘What do you need? Coffee?’

  ‘No. No. Jesus, no,’ he said. He waved a soggy arm at me.

  I ran him a bath and helped him out of his clothes. In the bath he lay back like a man dying. I got a cold cloth and held it against his forehead. I wondered about the scratch on his cheek. A red crescent tapering off to broken skin. A proper fight and there would have been bruising. A fight with a man, that is. It’s funny, isn’t it, where your thoughts lead you? Not in a million years would I have thought that one day I would be led down that dark path by a scratch on my husband’s cheek. I handed him two disprin and a glass of lemonade. I watched him gulp down the disprin, and sip at the lemonade. I waited, but nothing more was said.

  I went out to the front room. I switched off the TV and sent the girls outside. Then I went into the bedroom and closed the curtains. A moment later Stuart came out to the hall, a towel around him. He saw me staring at that scratch. He said, ‘It’s not what you think it is.’ But that’s all he said. He said he needed to sleep. He would explain all later.

  Bella was due at a friend’s birthday party in an hour. I ran down to the bookshop and picked up a gift, then I dropped her off on the other side of the city and left Clara at my sister’s.

  When I got home Stuart was up. He was in the kitchen waiting for the jug to boil. As I came in he barely looked up. I pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘this is what happened.’

  After the office, the younger ones had wanted to go to one of the bars. Stuart and Don had lamely followed. Stuart is forty-one years old and Don is perhaps a year or two older. I am thirty-seven. The other engineers who’d flown up from the South Island for their ‘conference’ are younger still. According to Stuart the younger ones led the charge. And one thing led to another. Or, more true to say, one bar led to another.

  Around eleven o’clock it occurred to Stuart to ask the others where they were staying. Well, that was the funniest thing, according to Stuart. It seemed none of them had stopped to think that far ahead, so Stuart led them to a backpackers, where the engineers checked in their bags before heading back out to the bright lights.

  It seems … well, it doesn’t seem so much as it happened … they headed off to a well-known strip club. This wasn’t so much a surprise, I have to say, as Stuart admitting to it; as a result I feel able to trust the rest of what he had to say.

  At the strip club, one or two or more, god knows, paid for lap dances. It doesn’t matter who, though Stuart did mention names, but a few of them headed upstairs to pay for a woman. That’s when I found myself looking back at the scratch on Stuart’s cheek.

  ‘So. That’s it?’ I asked.

  ‘More or less,’ he said.

  ‘You spent the whole night in the strip club?’

  ‘No. They did. I didn’t.’

  Stuart said he left them; he doesn’t know what hour that was. He’d had enough, he said. He says he couldn’t remember where he’d left the car, which is a good thing. And he’d forgotten about the room he’d paid for at the backpackers. He says he didn’t have any idea where he was headed. It was late, but not that late, he claims. Anyway, he says there were still lines of people waiting to get inside the more popular night
spots.

  Within a block he’d left behind the noise and the lights and the crowds. He was on one of the streets running down to Te Papa on the waterfront. His legs carried him on. He says there was no decision in his head or will left in his body except for in his legs, apparently. Somehow he got himself across those lanes of traffic on Wakefield. I shudder to think. Then, he says, he walked around to the seaward side of the national museum and that’s when he saw the flax bushes. As soon as he saw them, he says he knew what to do. He crawled into the flax, where I suppose he passed the rest of the night and which, I gather, accounts for his torn shirt and the cut on his cheek.

  In the morning, as he woke in the flax bushes, he says he became aware of others—drunks, I suppose, hoboes, I guess, whatever you wish to call them, street people. That’s the company he kept that night sleeping in the flax bushes outside the national museum.

  Now, if someone else was telling this story, in other words if all this was being recounted by someone else and it involved someone else’s husband and family, I wouldn’t know what would have appalled me the most. The lack of a phone call—at any time that night. The binge drinking. The strip club. The lap dancers, or the business upstairs in the strip club. But no, the thing that distresses me the most is the thought of Stuart crawling into those flax bushes. It is the thought of the man I married in good faith waking in the flax bushes with all the other drunks of the city, and it is also this: he is really no better than them, and that fact would be known to everyone if he didn’t have a home to go to.

  Sunday night I ironed a fresh shirt and left it on the bed. Monday morning I dropped Stuart off at the office for an early meeting with a client. Later I went along to Te Papa as a parent helper with Clara’s Year 8 class. It is that time of year when teachers cast around for activities outside the classroom. We took in the Maori waka, and after that the kids scattered and flew like moths to the voices of piped history in various parts of the museum. The trip ended up on the marae level overlooking the waterfront. From there I could look down to the flax bushes where my husband had spent Saturday night.