Egg Shell Scaffolding

He unclips his toolbelt for smoko on Saturday morning and sits on an inverted milkcrate with a cup of tea in his left hand and a tennis ball in his right. The red kelpie eyeballs the toy and demanding it be thrown. Checking his watch without spilling his tea, he sighs through his nose at the lateness of the morning having arrived later on-site than he wanted but it meant he saw his girls in the morning. He plans to work back later if he has to and stay on target.

The kelpie inches forward, tongue lolling to the left, taut with anticipation. He launches the tennis ball down the backyard. The kelpie pivots to pursue it, skidding to a halt under the lemon tree in the back corner. The dog trots back and drops the tennis ball at his feet.

He rolls the tennis ball under his left foot and is resigned to the knowledge that he’d agreed to this private job, done on Saturdays after the week’s work. An extension for a kids’ playroom and television room. Good money to help pay some bills as his wife had to leave her job fifteen months ago because her anxiety and depression slowly robbed her of confidence. She’s hoping to get back into part-time work in the future. Whenever that might be. This job’s a chance to keep afloat a little. But it’s tight. There will need to be more jobs on the horizon after this one.

The kelpie waits, patiently poised. He throws the ball towards the lemon tree again where it rolls to a stop amongst the half-rotten windfalls. And all he can think of is the jars of lemon butter his father makes with fruit from his own tree. Each season his father gives him a couple of jars of lemon butter and the taste of it is the bitter prick of thorns and his father’s acerbic tongue.

Last week’s conversation with his dad was a repeat, asking him again why he hadn’t started his own business, be his own boss, rather than slugging it out for someone else in their early forties. He reads the subtext: You’re the provider. His dad doesn’t the get the role he plays as carer for his wife. He takes on the extra jobs because he has to. There’s a pressure in his gut to continue providing and maintaining a presence for his wife and daughters when he wants rest and recovery. The shadows of expectations overlap one another and sink into the soles of his work boots.

He is tired. Stretches his right leg out and digs his heel into the loose soil. The extra hours are hard, taking him away from the family on the weekends but at least he’s not home too late on weekday afternoons to see his girls.

After a few rounds of throwing the ball, he offers the last of his cuppa to the dog who laps eagerly at the dregs and when done, waits for him picks up the tennis ball. He throws it again and from the esky he picks up a stack of buttered pikelets in Glad Wrap. The dog potters back, drops the ball and her tongue circumnavigates her muzzle. Open mouthed, tongue lolling, she looks longingly at the pikelet in his hand.

“These were made for me, ya boofhead. Not for you.”

The kelpie wags her tail and sits. Inches forward. Relenting, he offers the pikelet to the dog and picks up the last one.

His girls “helped” his wife make them earlier this morning. They pulled the ingredients from the cupboard and the fridge as his wife came into the kitchen.

“Thought you might have slept in this morning,” he said to his wife wrapped in her dressing gown.

“I promised the girls we’d make pikelets for your morning tea.”

“You doing ok this morning?”

She pops blister packs of anxiety meds and swallows them with a mouthful of water. “Not too bad. Will see how the day goes.”

The girls barrel up to the kitchen bench. “Dad, can we have dippy eggs and soldier toast, please?”

He monitors the roiling ruckus of water, slipping the eggs in carefully while the girls pour batter into the electric frypan on the bench, watching the bubbles appear in the batter before turning them over.

The girls count out the pikelets as they cook while he pops bread into the toaster, slices them into thin strips as regimented soldiers. He makes his own toast, skipping over the jar of lemon butter for Vegemite. Lathers the toast in margarine like sunscreen and watches it melt into the open pores then scratches a thin layer of Vegemite, cuts it into triangles, and leaves the corners of the crusts uneaten as a set of parentheses on the plate.

The girls sit at the kitchen bench with their soldier toast as he cracks open each egg with a serrated knife, hoping he has cut down far enough to reveal the yolk, amazed at the tensile strength of the eggshell. One by one the soldiers descend and rise and yolk spills over the edge of the shell and onto the eggcup. The girls ask him for help to scoop out the last of the egg and he excavates the flesh watching the membrane pulling away from the inside of the shell. They turn the empty shell over and whack it with the back of their teaspoon sending shards across the kitchen bench. Grabbing a cloth, he wipes down the bench, scraping the scraps of shell into his hand, the juxtaposition of the strength of creation and its fragility in destruction.

Smoko’s over. Swirling the last drops of his cuppa, he throws it on the lawn. He tosses the ball for the dog a final time before putting on his tool belt. The dog potters back, drops the ball next to the crate then saunters off to flop under the shade of the lemon tree and the mottling of the dog’s coat darkens to deeper, shadowy tones and he exhales in despondency. This is not his home nor is this his tree.

The toolbelt clicks into place and he’s thankful the client is patient and accommodating. The frames are up and today’s plan is to put in the trusses and run the battens for the roof. The Colourbond for the roof arrived yesterday so it’s under the cover of the carport. If he gets it done today, he can get the roofing up next Saturday, followed by the exterior cladding and then the Gyprock up after that.

There’s the slam of car doors in the driveway and the excited running of feet. His dog is alert and retrieves the ball and stands at the back door. The client’s young boy and girl burst out the back door and dance around the dog.

“Sit,” says the girl to the dog, motioning with her hand, palm down, as he had shown her on the first day. “Sit.”

He whistles. “Jackie, sit.” The dog obeys.

“Drop the ball,” says the girl.

She picks up the ball, still relatively dry from the dog’s slobber, and throws it.

“Hi,” comes the client’s voice from the backdoor. “Hope they aren’t annoying you.”

“It’s all good. Jackie loves the attention.”

“Can I get you anything? Cuppa?”

“Nah, all good, thanks.”

The kids play with Jackie for a few minutes longer and go inside when bored. The dog trots to the backdoor and waits for a few moments, leaves the ball at the backstep and drops onto the grass, tongue lolling out.

In the waning of the afternoon, his concentration falters and he nicks himself. It isn’t much of a cut; a slip of the Stanley knife but deep enough to make him wince and consider if it needs stitches. This is nothing; he almost cut off his left index finger with a drop saw as an apprentice. He sucks his finger, spits the blood out and wipes the finger on his shorts then heads to his ute for the First Aid kit. This scratching of the surface is a recognition of mortality. This fragile tension of skin is a counterpoint to the belief that his will and mind are as strong as steel. The scent of blood, sawdust, metal, the dog, is overpowered by the acrid odour of Dettol splashed on a cotton ball. Physical wounds are easier to treat than the wounds of the mind. The pungent smell is an hallucinogen, tart and biting yet friendly, and a reminder to his lungs that this is how healing occurs. Here lies the miraculous: the body knows how to heal. His mind does not.

He texts his older brother a photo of the wound and captions it: What do you put on a little pig’s scratches? They’ve shared this joke since they were kids so he knows what the reply will be. Scrounging in the First Aid kit he pulls out the box of Band Aids. Applies two. He watches as the blood pools into the pads.

His phone pings. Oinkment.

This acknowledgement of being heard through call-and-response eases the tension of caring and providing which create wounds he finds hard to manage in the darkness. The text from his brother is the smallest firefly of light to dispel enough of the darkness to let him tend to his injuries and help see the next step forward. He doesn’t know how to ask his brother to borrow more light.

As the afternoon light wraps up the battens and joists for the roof are done. He can do the roof next Saturday. After packing up the ute he knocks on the backdoor.

“I’m off. I’ll see you next Saturday.”

“Have a great week.”

He whistles for the dog. “Fetch your ball, Jackie.”

The kelpie rushes back, collects the tennis ball and leaps into the tray of the ute and he tethers her, putting the ball in a small recess to stop it from rolling around.

Saturday night rolls on after he cleans himself up in the shower and cleans the kitchen after dinner and he sits on the couch with his girls to watch Moana. Gets them into the bath and brushes their hair once they have their pyjamas on. As he tucks them into bed and kisses them goodnight, he asks them about their day and what they did to punctuate the in-between space from getting up until bedtime. There was making pikelets and gymnastics and being bored and doing the shopping with mummy and visiting Nanna and dancing in the loungeroom but not being allowed to do cartwheels in the house. This he holds as precious and his absence from it burns his heart.

Back on the couch he’s watching the end of the footy but not tracking the game. His wife walks behind him and kisses the top of his head.

“I’m heading for bed. Today took a lot out of me,” she says. “Thanks for everything you’ve done.”

Raising his arms above his head, his wife bends down to embrace him. After they disentangle themselves and she leaves, the footy commentary talks to itself. Picking at the edges of the Band Aids he examines the cut underneath. The line of opened flesh in his eggshell skin is a chasm he could fall into. If he was to fall into the shadows of the chasm, he wonders if he would have enough within him to lay a correct foundation to erect scaffolding and shore up the walls in the hope it would hold him. Shadows hide depth and memories create steps allow him to climb out when he remembers holding his daughters’ hands for the first time, pushing the trolley through the supermarket, replacing the toilet paper roll, attending gymnastics classes and swimming lessons, finding some space on the couch between the television programs, and imagining a life lived in the periphery of the pages of the Aldi Special Buys catalogues after spending six days a week on the job site for months on end.

When he shuts up the house for the night, he gives Jackie one last pat and puts her outside where she retires to her kennel. After he turns off the bedroom light, the weight of darkness pushes into his stomach, puts pressure on his lungs and desperation scribbles over his heart and mind with a thick black Texta until they threaten to tear under the sodden weight of ink. He reaches into the darkness to find his wife’s hand and holds onto it until he falls asleep.

Early on Sunday arvo his old mates come around for an afternoon of online gaming, a throwback from high school when they played Call of Duty. Traipsing into the house after embracing each other on the doorstep, they wave their beers, meat for the barbeque, and snacks to share. One carries in a couple of bags of bread rolls. Two of them brought a bag of salad each from Woolies.

He points them through to the kitchen and they grab plates and utensils, bowls and sundry items from the kitchen as if it were their own. Heading out to the barbeque under the pergola, he fires up the barbeque  and as the meat cooks, Jackie hangs about his legs looking for handouts.

“Had to take this massive dump the other day and it hit the water with the precision of an Olympic diver and it splashed up and hit me right square in the taint. Sent a shiver up me back.”

“Homemade bidet.”

“My wife’s been crook with the flu for a week. Sounds like death warmed up. Keeping her quarantined so no one else picks it up. Been sleeping on the couch to give her space. Buggers the back, though.”

“Mate, sneeze the wrong way at our age and you’ll kink your neck.”

“Do you wake up with odd parts of body being sore for no reason?”

“All the time.”

“Time to trade your deodorant for WD-40.”

“Gotta fork out for the Year 6 Canberra and Snowy Mountains excursion this week. Bloody hell it’s expensive these days.”

The shared financial pain sends murmurs amongst the four of them. He notices the conversation is a canvas, painted to represent the narrative arc of their lives that stays on the surface and will dry up after they have eaten and gone home. Their group chat is shallow, too. He dare not speak of how last week his fears made him drop his hammer on the work site or how he tallies the red lights on the way to work and on the way home and if the tally is less on the way home, it’s been a good day. Or how the cost of psychologists and psychiatrists for his wife have eaten away at their savings. And he doesn’t know how to communicate with his wife and reach for the person he knows is beyond the anxiety and depression. Or will she become a different person he has to get to know? He wants to ask her who she is because he is confused as to who he is. To speak aloud, he first has to be honest with himself and speak to the shadows loitering in the toolbox on the ute that tell him he is not enough. He catches the scent of lemon butter with the refrain.

Avoidance is a game he plays very well, setting up the system to play on the telly in the lounge room. When the game starts, he and his mates are teens again, jumping online for multiplayer battles or setting up scenarios where it’s the four of them running around the battlefield trying to take one another out, ribbing each other, strategizing, being tactical, laughing at stupid deaths. They maintain their gamers’ handles: General Disaster, Corporal Punishment, Sargeant At Arm’s Length, and Private Function. Lives lived through an avatar and friendship conducted side by side on the couch for a few hours.

Late in the afternoon, leaning against the back of his ute with Jackie at his feet, he waves off his mates, watching their taillights flash on and off as they brake going into the corner to turn right and head home. There’s toot of a car horn and Jackie barks. He closes the front door behind him and the click of the lock is both a comfort and a caution.

Popping his head into the bedroom, his wife is watching something on Netflix on her laptop with a cup of tea, and on his way out to clean up he smiles at his girls who have set up the Nintendo Switch on the telly and are laughing over explosions and crashes while trying to come first in Mario Kart.

He picks up the empty cans and beer bottles for recycling, takes the bowl of Cheezels in for the girls, and clears off the back table, washes up, cleans the barbeque hotplate. Jackie pops up at his heels expecting leftovers. There’s a couple of snags on the plate and Jackie devours them and comes back with the massive rubber ring from the plumbers’ co-op asking for playtime.

“Not now, Jackie,” he says to the dog while scraping the congealed fat from the hotplate.

He feels lighter after the clean-up. Order and tidiness are elements he can control. And yet it leaves him as empty as the beer bottles he collected because the evening closes in and the jobs list for work on Monday starts running through his mind, and he wants to shut it out rather than stressing about it. Instead, he holds onto the lightness of having his mates over, sitting around talking shit and playing games. Yet still, the emptiness.

On Monday morning, he skips breakfast to get fuel for the ute and picks up a sausage roll from the warmer at the Coles Express Shell servo, pairs it with a coffee, holding off from the 4-pack of V this morning. It’s half five and half dark. He joins the procession of hi-vis at the counter paying for diesel and smokes, meat pies and coffee, sandwiches and energy drinks. Once upon a time, when he was an apprentice, there was a 7-11 servo with a hot dog roller like the Quik-E-Mart in The Simpsons. He doesn’t know anyone who ever ventured to test the boundaries of their stomach and buy one.

After paying, he clocks the other regulars with a nod of the head, a second’s worth of movement as second-hand acknowledgement. In the second it takes to pass one another, it is another second of silence he endures. Back in the ute he rips open the sausage roll packet, cracks the tomato sauce sachet and squeezes, then pauses as he feels his heart ripped open by the violence of so many silent interactions. He bites into the sausage roll, kicks over the ignition, and silently leaves the servo.

Late in the afternoon as he’s cleaning up the job site, he collects the loose offcuts and plans to make a fire in the firepit at home for the girls on the weekend so they can scorch marshmallows. Maybe he’ll teach his girls the process of making a fire as his father taught him: shredded newspaper beneath a tent of light kindling, touching the match to the paper and watching the flame lick the edges of the paper and the wood, tapering down yet with enough energy to ignite the small twigs and thin strips of cut down fence palings, and knowing when to add more fuel to keep the fire alight. Start small. The smallest light pushes back the darkness. Build again from the embers.

After the girls are in bed, he takes Jackie’s leash from the hook inside the backdoor and whistles for the dog.

“Just taking Jackie for a walk,” he says to his wife.

Pulling the back door closed, he leaves it ajar. Striding through the night he remembers the fun he had with the guys yesterday and how a couple of months back, his best mate sent him an impromptu message on a Thursday night: Got an hour for some bowling?

His wife was with the girls, she was doing ok that evening, and dinner was sorted.

“You mind?” he had asked.

“No, not at all,” she said. “Go have some fun.”

Over a couple of games of friendly competition, they celebrated the strikes. Bemoaned the gutter balls. Laughed at the stupid splits they couldn’t spare. And couldn’t spare anymore time because their families required attention. Before they waved each other off in the carpark, his best mate started to say something, but he brushed it off and went on his way. He wondered if the X’s and /’s on the scoreboard had scratched at the granite surface of who they were, and maybe who they might have become if they had allowed their friendship to be sandstone, worn by vulnerability, and marvelling at the shapes and colours and patterns that emerged, amazed at what was revealed within themselves? But he never followed up and asked his mate what was wrong. Didn’t know how. While they were gaming yesterday, he wanted to take his best mate aside and ask him how he was, but he never made an opportunity.

He turns the corner into his street and passes the payphone down from the bus stop, the one he can see from his lounge room. He sometimes sits with a cuppa and waits to see if someone uses it.

While Jackie squats outside the telephone box and takes a dump, he steps into the vestibule and checks for coins like he and his brother did when they were kids. Empty. His belief in the simplicity and eagerness of youth is revisited every time he walks past, remembering the time the teenage iteration of him kissed Ashleigh under the shelter of a phone box because at Craig’s party they were dared to make out in a public space and it was raining. The rain was their shield in the dark and the static sound of it on the roof was the soundtrack to the softness of her lips that tasted of Fanta and the pressure of the receiver into his shoulder blade as Ashleigh pressed against him. He wonders if he had her number, could he call her and ask if she remembers the kiss?

He lifts the receiver just to listen to the dial tone, taps his pockets for coins he knows are not there, and wonders if he could call his brother.