"Give me a minute.."
I waited.
This was not unusual.
The silence, punctuated by his rhythmic breathing, stretched out into a long minute. He stared into the middle distance, legs extended, crossed at the ankle, one forefinger crooked across the bridge of his nose, calculating.
I assumed he was calculating, but I could never be sure. He would sit motionless, the thought process unvoiced. Perhaps he was casting into memories, fishing up similar occasions, and how they were handled. Or maybe he was reminiscing about friends now gone. Or maybe silently cursing my intrusion into his meanderings. I never knew.
Then...
"I'll be back in a minute." Both hands pushed on the arms of the chair as he heaved his bulk upright and set off down the stairs. For a big man he moved with surprising ease and smoothness. I watched as he walked to the shed, arms swinging slightly, palms facing back. Each step deliberate, a solid statement of a man firmly connected to the planet, and comfortable with his place on it. Head down, he whistled to himself. It was an aimless tune, much as another man would puff a pipe, or chew gum. It was something that got you from one place to the next, without having to consider the journey.
I waited some more. In the distance I could hear him moving around in the shadows of the corrugated iron and slab-sided work shed. The clatter of tools, opening and closing doors and lids, then a quiet curse.
Silence.
A brief flurry of noise as two or three things were picked up, and he re-appeared in the doorway, looking down at the items he carried.
He walked the path back towards me, brown shoes crunching on stones. Grey shirt tucked into faded work shorts. You never saw Dad's shirt hanging out, unless after heavy labour, or when he was getting dressed for a formal occasion, and even then it was temporary, a phase of the process.
The shirt was old, becoming threadbare. Double breast pockets holding chewing gum, a pencil, and often a packet of Life-savers, for himself and any Grandchildren who may happen to arrive. The seam above the left-hand pocket carried a small "King Gee" label.
He arrived, dropping his items into the tray of the ute, clattering them on the metal. Two screwdrivers and a block of wood. "So where's the problem." It was a statement more than a question. I pointed out the heavy screw, recessed into the corner of the wooden chest that sat in the back of the ute. "I need to get that out." he looked and rubbed one long finger across the top of the screw, gauging the depth of the recess.
"Why?", he didn't believe in fixing things that weren't broken "it seems to be doing the job."
"It's not original," I said. "That's a mortise and tenon joint that somebody put a screw through to hold it in place. If I want to bring the box back to original, I have to get it out."
"But you don't want to ruin the timber to do it." his eyes had not left the screw as we spoke.
"No."
"No lubricant you can use?"
"I don't want to risk staining the wood, Dad"
Frowning, "It doesn't seem too hard. I would've thought you could handle that"
"Normally I would", I said "But I thought you might have a neater way to do it." I also enjoyed watching his solutions to little problems. The tiny innovations he found would always give me a secret delight. "Besides, you can see that I gave it a try."
"Yeah." he bent closer to examine the scratched and deformed screw head, it's single slot broadened and bent out of true by my efforts. "What did you use, a wrecking bar?"
"Thanks, Dad."
He grinned.
"Let's see what we can do. After a cuppa."
And he turned and headed inside.
Later, leaning on the side of the vehicle, he shuffled the tools into the shadow cast by the box,. The clear day held the hint of Winter in the air, but the sun was still hot enough to make unattended tools too hot to handle. "Oh well, at least the wood's nice and warm. That will help." Already he was delighting me. "Very clever." I said. "Warm timber is more pliable. But won't the screw have expanded in the heat?"
"Not enough to make a difference. Let's see how we go. Pass me that lump of wood."
I hefted the piece of hardwood. It was small enough to grasp easily, and almost as long as my forearm. No point in asking what it was for, Dad preferred to show, rather than tell.
He took the timber and tapped it lightly on the top of the tray absently, and eyed the screw.
Without a word, he picked up the larger of the two screwdrivers and fitted it into the recess. Any bigger and it would not have fitted. How did he know to bring that particular one, when he hadn't looked at the box before going to the shed?
"I'd normally use a cold chisel, but somebody borrowed mine and hasn't brought it back!"
"Not guilty." I said.
"Didn't say you were."
He positioned the screwdriver over the screw head and I realized what the timber was for. A preliminary tap-tap on the handle of the screwdriver, followed by a solid blow. "Couldn't find my mallet either." I pitied the poor soul who was neglecting to return Dad's tools. He didn't fly into rages, but he could reduce you to jelly with a comment and a tone. Whack! went the timber again.
His fingers were long, and on a different man, his hands would have been called slender, but the muscles were large and firm, blurring the length of the hand into a squareness that made them capable rather than artistic. Whack!
He stopped and examined the results. "That's a bit better." I looked, our heads almost touching above the corner of the box. The slot of the screw had been broadened and deepened by the blade of the screwdriver, negating my handiwork somewhat. He moved his hands, and I stepped back, an adult student, watching years of experience and co-ordination work seamlessly. He could have told me how to do it, in fact I knew how to do it, but he would never consider that. He would never expect someone else to do a job that he could do himself.
Whack!
"And one for luck" Whack!
He picked up the other screwdriver from its shaded resting place, and I saw that the blade was shortened, thickened and blunter than it's counterpart. This allowed the blade to fill the slot completely, and allowed no lateral movement. He grasped the handle firmly, one hand enveloping it completely, with the other covering the first in a locking embrace. He bore his weight down upon it, elbows out and down. I could sense the tension across his shoulders and down through his chest, back and stomach. He braced, motionless, then imperceptibly, silently, he rotated his entire body to the right, just an inch. The blade turned a fraction. He reset his stance. Again, another fraction. Again. Another fraction. Sweat was showing through the shirt, the sun cast his shadow sharp on the ground. The trees were still, almost with an air of expectancy, as he set his stance again. And turned.
He didn't look up, made no sound, and didn't relax until the screw head was clear of the hole, and had pushed the curling edges of the wood around the hole up and away. By then it was easily turned with one hand. He wiped sweat out of his eyes. "Stubborn bugger," he panted. "But we got 'im" and he grinned. "Fancy a cuppa?"
Later, as I heaved the box back into my own workshop, my wife came out the house and leaned against the door frame. "You were gone for ages. I thought you were just going to get that screw out. I bet you've been sitting around drinking tea all afternoon."
I thought of the sweat on his shirt, the long fingers and capable hands. Pictured him gathering up the tools from the back of my ute "So they don't disappear over to your place", and the steady tread of his steps, walking down to the shed, whistling softly.
"Well, yes. We did have a cuppa." She smiled and pushed off from the doorway; "I'm sure he enjoyed the chat. I just hope you didn't waste the whole afternoon"
The image of him sitting, thinking, one finger across his nose, ankles crossed, came into my mind. "No," I said "It definitely wasn't wasted."
