Archaeology

It’s of no consequence, says the stranger on the plane, but was your wife any pleasure in bed?

We haven’t spoken before.

Needless.

His miniature is akvavit.

We did it in the bathroom. I won’t go into the whole history but I can tell you that bathroom was small. One person in there was uncomfortable. Two was a risk. It was an old house and of course they didn’t wash then the way we do now, enjoyed a good build-up of honest sweat before they took to the bath. Coalminer’s pleasure. Weekly scrub. And that was a proper bath too, not some steamy shower fogging up the whole place, your exhaust fan be buggered, don’t think we didn’t try it, plumbers and electricians every five minutes, nothing could cope. Which included as well, I should mention, moved in by some previous owner from originally out the back, the house jakes. Cheers.

On the aisle.

Full flight.

His lowered loaded tray.

In point of fact, actually, there was a second one as well, when we bought the place, where the verandah’d been made into a sunroom, on the end of that, which wasn’t a bad arrangement either until a neighbour’s kid paid the carpet in there a visit which accelerated us in the direction we were thinking of anyhow, or she was, more plumbers, more electricians, gave the son a bigger room. You got kids yourself?

Photographs now?

The flipped-open wallet?

Handed proudly across?

Well, I won’t go into the whole history but she was taking a shower. Dinnertime. Kids starving. I was reading a book. John le Carre, as a matter of fact. Pure horseshit, of course, but as my father used to say, no horseshit, no radishes, such is the garden of life. Good man. Except I wasn’t really reading, as you’ve no doubt guessed. Otherwise, what are we talking about here, eh, hombre? Just between you and me.

The knowing elbow?

The nudge?

A wink?

So let’s say that was the first time. Followed by a second time. In perpetration of human act, as previously. Likewise each subsequent and successive visit or venture or occasion or call it as you will. I should draw you the exact dimensions of that bathroom, give you a better idea. With the kids, let me add in Dickensian detail, through the thin door just outside.

Dickens?

Le Carre?

Who next?

You get the picture? You starting to get the picture? You need the frame around it as well? Because if it wasn’t there it wasn’t anywhere. And I’m not talking shyness, coyness, strict religious upbringing, whatever the hell that is. Or that the pleasure was all mine except it wasn’t any pleasure. Comprende? Mud in your eye.

His somewhat vexed.

Unanticipated honesty?

Shouldn’t have asked?

What detectives we have to be. Who wrote that? Something vaguely stirs. Whatever. It’s of no consequence. The mad are always with us, like the rich. Akvavit. Like bad armpit. This way and that way, how life forces us. Not to go into the whole history. The deed was done.

Hergesheimer is writing a novel. His tools are archaeologist’s pick and shovel, dustpan, tweezers, a camel-hair finest brush. His magnifier folds down to fit in a pocket, the long-handled Sherlock Holmes number when he poses for photographs, promotion, publicity, the back of the book. He has roped off his area, his territory, his site or dig. Volunteers he doesn’t need. Flags and notices, in four diagrammatic languages, warn the wary away. Carefully, carefully, a cake crumb, a shard of saucer, a fragment of fossilized froth, a teased-out tassel of talk by other or self-spoken, an edge, an outline, a further corner comes revealed.

Funny, but I keep thinking about those plumbers. Well, there were two. The first put in that fan that was worse than useless. Complete waste of money. Didn’t do a thing. It was supposed to work by the pressure of the steam turning the fan or some such foolishness, no electricity required. Maybe in your bathroom, brother, not in mine. Skip it and forget it. Napoleon’s army couldn’t have got the steam out of that configured space. That said, I liked the chap. Straightforward. Didn’t over-charge. Tried his hand at everything. Jack of all trades. Painted our house. Wired up the laundry. Told me once he’d never read a book. That was when he saw I had lots. I suppose you need them for your ideas, he said. Took a day off once to go to the dentist, had to have all his teeth taken out. Told me it was only the second time he’d been to a dentist in his life. He lived out in the country so his daughter could have a horse. Not his idea, his wife’s. I met her once. She dropped in, needed some money. A mini skirt, long black lace-up boots. Poor bastard. That was a hard ride.

I don’t know where I got the second one from, maybe out of the paper. This was to remove that toilet I told you about, also some work under the house. Install a handbasin, stuff like that. A week’s work all told. Maybe he was recommended, I don’t recall. Curious fellow. Told me he’d spent every spare moment of the past three years designing and outfitting a mobile home, beds, stove, washing facilities, you name it, it had it. Set off then, the whole family, wife, four kids, holiday of a lifetime. First place they stopped, some total stranger admired it, he sold it to him on the spot. What happened to the holiday? How’d they get home? Don’t ask me. I told you, a curious fellow. Worked for us for a week, never sent in a bill.

Morris Lurie (1938–2014), who had been suffering from cancer, died in his sleep in Melbourne in the early morning of October 8. He was a prolific writer of many types of fiction and non-fiction, but perhaps most notably of short stories, many of which appeared in Quadrant