An Astronaut's Life

by Sonja Dechian

  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.’

  ‘No, Wifty,’ Lucas said.

  Victor looked at me, confused.

  ‘Do you mean Lifty?’ I said. It was the problem with the ls again.

  ‘Yes,’ he sniffed. ‘My precious Wifty.’

  I presumed this whole thing was a story. We’d never had a dog, and what kind of name was Lifty, anyway?

  ‘Thank you very much, detective,’ I said, and offered my hand, to suggest he should probably go.

  ‘Please, best to just call me Victor,’ he said.

  I made breakfast for Lucas and put on coffee for myself and considered whether I should offer coffee to everyone. But how many of them were out there? I’d spotted at least six cops by now, it was too many; we probably didn’t even have that many cups. I sat down with Lucas and we looked out the window as two women led dogs into our backyard.

  ‘That’s Gravy,’ he said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The dog. It’s her name.’

  ‘Good. How’s your Rice Bubbles?’

  ‘Those dogs are searching for objects, you know.’

  ‘Are they?’

  One of the cops looked over. I wondered if they could see us given it was much brighter outside than it was where we sat in the kitchen. I smiled, in case. The cop was quite young and pretty so I tried to catch her eye. I was thinking, how does someone so young come to do this sort of thing, and then I saw her say something to one of the male cops, and he crossed over the yard and came to my window. He tapped his knuckle against it.

  ‘Yes?’ I said.

  He gestured: roll down the blind.

  ‘Are we in trouble?’ Lucas said.

  I pulled the blind down and explained we weren’t in any trouble, the police were just here to find something that was lost.

  ‘I know that,’ he said.

  ‘So, why did you tell the police you had a dog?’ I said.

  ‘What dog?’

  ‘You said you had a dog. You said he was called Lifty.’

  ‘Oh yeah, he was my dog.’

  ‘But when did you have him?’

  There was still a small chance he’d had a dog I hadn’t heard about, maybe before my time.

  ‘Well, I don’t know when, he was just my imaginary dog,’ Lucas said.

  ‘I see. But you said he got killed.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘So why would you imagine your own dog got killed?’

  ‘I don’t know. That was what happened.’ He chased the last Rice Bubble around the edge of the bowl. ‘He always just wanted me to feed him.’

  I was about to say I knew how he felt when I heard Gina thunder in the front door.

  ‘What the hell?’ her voice broke.

  I hadn’t realised it was so late. I stood up.

  ‘I’m sorry. Oh shit, why didn’t I text you?’ I said, although I could not yet see her.

  ‘I don’t know, I came up the road and—Lucas, are you okay?’

  She went over and held his face in her hands. He twisted to get free, but she planted a kiss on him anyway.

  ‘He’s fine. They knocked at the door, I was asleep.’

  I was going to try to explain it all, but she interrupted.

  ‘I saw the cars, I thought something had happened.’ Her voice was still light, airy.

  I put my arms around her.

  ‘Those dogs are looking for objects, Mum.’

  ‘Are they, sweetie?’

  Gina leant forward, against me. She was exhausted, of course—she’d just worked through the night. Out in the yard a dog barked.

  ‘Objects!’ he said.

  ‘I thought something happened,’ Gina said again.

  ‘I know, I thought the same. A car crash, or—’ I couldn’t think of what else I’d thought. ‘Did they explain to you yet?’

  ‘No, I just freaked. They said you were inside.’

  There was a knock at our door.

 
‘Here we go,’ I said.

  Gina went to answer and Lucas climbed up in his chair. I found my phone and convinced him to stay put with it, then I closed him in the kitchen and followed.

  Gina wasn’t as understanding.

  ‘Can I see some ID?’

  ‘Certainly, ma’am.’

  ‘Gina,’ I said, but Victor took out his ID and she looked it over, as if she knew how police ID was supposed to look.

  ‘What evidence?’ she said.

  ‘I’m afraid we can’t go into details, as I’ve explained to your—?’

  ‘Partner.’

  ‘Of course. What’s taking place here is a search for key evidence in a long-running investigation. I understand the inconvenience to you is great, but we have no option but to search this area thoroughly.’

  ‘But how long will it take?’

  ‘I’m afraid we can’t say.’

  ‘Oh, well great.’

  ‘It depends what we find.’

  ‘And what do you expect to?’ Gina was never at her most patient after a night shift.

  Victor gave her a stiff smile.

  ‘We understand, detective,’ I said. ‘If there’s any way we can help?’

  He nodded and turned away. I shut the front door and waited for him to leave.

  ‘We’re just letting them dig up our lawn?’ Gina said.

  ‘Not letting. We don’t get any choice.’

  ‘What, we’re suspects?’

  I turned up my palms. ‘If there’s bodies in the yard.’

  I could tell from the look on her face she hadn’t thought of this yet. Bodies.

  ‘What did you think?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know, drugs? Or a knife?’

  I saw again how tired she was. It was my fault she was tired, because it was my fault she had to work so hard, and I resolved to be more supportive now that this was happening too.

  ‘I think I saw a metal detector, so maybe. But they’re homicide squad, they told me.’