Mo clambered in the direction of the rail and Frank turned to the nearest pile covered by a dust sheet. He pulled the sheet back to reveal a stack of papers and ledgers. He took the top few and saw that it was paperwork taken from his father’s office at home. Sitting down on the floor he started to leaf through them. The first thing he came across were drawings of Rhombus House. Some of the early prototypes were markedly different from the final structure. Frank looked at the different approaches pursued. Many of the drawings had scribbled notes in his father’s handwriting around their edges. There were so many different images tracing the project from initial conception through to final design that it seemed strange to Frank that they should stop there. He imagined the sketches carrying on through time beyond the completion of the building. The faceless figures would develop faces and coats and carrier bags containing their lunches, their silhouettes changing with the passing fashions. One sketch would show the skateboarders who would come and make new use of the access ramp outside office hours. Later drawings would show the neglect of the exterior followed by the inappropriate facelift. A later one still would show the office workers moving out, Manila folders and houseplants in boxes. Then a series of images of the empty building, buses passing in front, the leaves on the trees coming and going. Then the JCB, like a dinosaur, taking the first of many bites out of the building, reducing it to rubble and dust and finally to its present state, a vacant plot of land.
He looked at the piles and piles of drawings and notebooks documenting all his father’s projects. He thought that there in the dusty attic all the stories stopped at just the right place, finishing at the optimistic start.
Mo called from the other end of the roof space. ‘Dad, did Gran really wear these dresses?’
Frank squinted down towards the rack. ‘Yes, she really did. We’ve got photos of her in some of them.’
‘But, Dad, they’re like the kind of clothes people wear in space.’
‘Well, it was the sixties — it was all a bit futuristic.’
‘But Gran isn’t futuristic.’ She paused. ‘She’s totally pastistic.’
‘Well, that’s just getting old, Mo. When you’re young, life’s all in the future; when you’re old, it’s all in the past.’
‘My life is present, Dad.’
‘Yeah, I know. That’s the best way.’
‘Dad? Can I keep this dress?’ Mo held up a short, silver A-line dress.
‘I thought we were supposed to be getting rid of stuff. Anyway, isn’t it a bit too big for you?’
‘When I wear it, I will be a bad robot.’
Frank shrugged. ‘In that case, you’d better keep it.’
He turned back to the piles around him and wondered if the library might be interested in his father’s archive. Maybe the library was full of plans for buildings that no longer stood, just waiting for the day when someone came and reassembled the city as it had once been. Dead buildings risen from their graves.
Mo had finished sorting the clothes and now wandered into the far corner of the attic. Frank heard her exclaim and turned to see her standing in a cloud made by the pulling of a dust sheet. She managed to say. ‘Dad! Look at this!’ before sneezing.
Frank started to walk over to where she stood.
‘It’s one of your old toys.’
Frank frowned. ‘I don’t think so — they’re all long gone.’
He reached her and saw what she was looking at. ‘Oh … that.’
‘Did you used to have little toy figures to put on the streets and in the buildings?’
He smiled. ‘I did, actually, but I wasn’t supposed to.’
‘Why not?’
‘It wasn’t mine, Mo. It’s not a toy.’
Mo looked at it again. ‘But it’s a town.’
‘I know, but it’s not a play town. It’s an architectural model. It was my dad’s.’
‘Didn’t he let you play with it?’
Frank laughed. ‘No. You didn’t play with his stuff, Mo. You didn’t touch it. Well, I did, but only when he was out and Mom was off somewhere else.’
Mo walked around the model slowly. ‘So this was a model for a real town?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is the town still there?’
Frank was staring at the model now, lost in thought. He remembered Little Cloud standing on top of the tallest building.
‘Dad?’
He’d done a good job putting it all back together after his father’s death. The fine lines where he had glued the shards back in place were barely visible.
‘Dad?’
‘Yes?’
‘The town? What’s it called?’
Frank looked at Mo and realized he hadn’t been listening to her.
‘The town? It’s called San Francisco.’
44. Michael, October 2009
Elsie and Michael often saw Phil on television. They’d watch him sometimes on Saturday nights, surrounded by his glamorous assistants, his skin glowing, his teeth and eyes catching the light like glass, and he was the same old Phil to them. He was still the boy with too much oil in his hair who wanted to be Stewart Granger. Elsie would say, ‘You should drop him a line,’ and Michael would nod and agree that he should.
He remembers Phil’s wedding. Michael didn’t think he was right for best man. He thought Phil should pick someone better with people, better with words and speeches. Phil told him he didn’t care about any of that. What he wanted was a best man who would look after him on the scariest day of his life. He said that Michael had always looked after him, that he relied on him. Michael found that funny. He’d always thought it was the other way round.
He supposes now that the usual things happened to them: wives, jobs, house moves. They saw less of each other over time. They’d send a few scribbled lines in Christmas cards, but then a new address got missed and they drifted out of touch completely. It would have been easy for Michael to contact Phil through the television, but because Phil was in their living room so much he never really felt as if they’d lost touch.
Elsie sometimes worried that Michael was too self-contained, but Michael didn’t think that was true. She contained him; he had no need of anyone else.
He and Elsie walked a lot when they were courting. He had never been a great talker and she had never made him feel that he should be, but when they walked they talked. Nothing, they’d be the first to admit, of any great consequence, just the easy flow of observations, memories and thoughts possible only with each other. They always ended up in the park, under the tree they thought of as theirs, lying in the long grass, glimpsing the sky through the leaves and feeling the earth spin beneath them.
When she had the fourth miscarriage, he held her tightly all night, not letting her slip away. They cried and knew it was the last time. He promised her they’d be okay, just the two of them, told her they didn’t need anyone else. He knew it was harder for her, but for him it was true — he already had everything he wanted.
Even now, he’s never lonely. He stands at bus stops on busy streets and no one sees him. He sits in the lounge at night listening to the stairs creak. He spends his days in the unit crafting fine-precision tools that no one, as far as he can tell, wants. But he’s never lonely. He has no desire to attend the coffee mornings at the local community centre. He doesn’t want to talk to the limping young vicar who knocks at his door once a month. He doesn’t reply to the invitations that come from the school to their annual old-folks’ party.
He feels no connection to his hands and feet. He stares at them and wonders who they belong to. He watches with fascination as they put teabags in cups and shuffle to the post office. He isn’t lonely. He doesn’t want company. His Elsie has gone. His Elsie has gone.