understand, they won’t care.’
How best to attach tops to bottoms. The crude use screws. But wood moves – it shrinks as it dries, and it also moves with the humidity levels. The wider the surface, the bigger the movement. Something has to give. Since the screws won’t, the tabletop cracks. Less crude woodworkers use metal fasteners that allow for movement. Not Charlie. Charlie scorned metal. He solved the problem in the most difficult way: dovetail-shaped pieces attached to the top slid into dovetail blocks on the rails.
Charlie pushed half-a-dozen blocks my way, a sweep of a hand. ‘I can hear on the wireless nonsense,’ he said. ‘You want to be useful or talk rubbish?’
‘Oh, all right,’ I said. ‘You should be a talkback host on the ABC, drawing things out of people, sympathetic.’
I went to the chisel cupboard and chose one. All the tools were sharp. In this workshop, following some ancient European work discipline, blades were sharpened after use, wiped with oil and put away. Those chisels prone to rust had their little oily socks to wear.
At the bench, I held a male piece against a block and marked the angles with a knife. ‘A router,’ I said. ‘This is what routers were invented for. We’re like printers rejecting the Linotype machine.’
Charlie finished a block, removed the dead cheroot from his mouth and blew down the precise channel in the wood. ‘You can teach an idiot,’ he said, ‘but you cannot make him learn. Grosskopf said that.’
‘And we’re all indebted to him. On the money every time was Grosskopf. Didn’t go to his head either. What’s the bowls news? Still thrashing the pishers?’
‘Four on the ladder,’ said Charlie, holding up massive fingers. ‘Good thing for them I don’t start earlier. Before they were born. The fathers, some of them.’
We worked side by side, finished the blocks, testing the slide of each one, they couldn’t be too tight. Then we set about fixing them to the short rails of the desk, gluing them into housings Charlie had chiselled out. After that we made buttons for the long rails.
When I looked up, the light was almost gone from the high and dusty northern windows. ‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘Beer time.’
We sharpened chisels, burnishing on leather strops. I swept, coaxed Charlie out of the front door, slightly easier this evening because there was nothing being glued, no clamps to fiddle with.
On the way to the Prince, walking down wet streets lined with Golfs and Civics, here and there a bump in the line made by a four-wheel-drive, Charlie said, ‘They want me to give it up.’
‘Give what up?’
He waved a hand. ‘The work.’
The early autumn evening colder now, felt on the face. ‘Who wants?’
‘The family.’
We parted around a puddle, came back together, touched for an instant, my twenty-year-old raincoat from Henry Buck’s brushing an overcoat that John Curtin might have worn.
‘All of them?’ I said.
Charlie had three children, all female, and six grandchildren.
We turned the corner, the pub was in sight, a lick of light on the pavement, two people leaving, parting, heads together for a few seconds, more than just friends.
‘Most,’ Charlie said.
‘And Gus?’
Gus was a grand-daughter, a trade union executive. Charlie thought she was the brains of the family, his true heir.
‘No, not Gus.’
‘I’m glad to hear that.’ I was partial to Gus. ‘So what do you tell them?’
Charlie looked at me. ‘What do you think? I tell them, they find me not breathing, they can know I’ve given it up.’
‘Sensible retirement plan,’ I said, returning to breathing.
The pub was busy, Stan’s scalp glistening. Charlie headed for the bowls cabal. The Youth Club was in its corner, animated, an argument in progress, situation normal. Wilbur Ong, sitting against the wall, saw me coming in the dim, freckled mirror that had seen my father and my grandfather coming.
‘Jack,’ said Wilbur, ‘listen,
How best to attach tops to bottoms. The crude use screws. But wood moves – it shrinks as it dries, and it also moves with the humidity levels. The wider the surface, the bigger the movement. Something has to give. Since the screws won’t, the tabletop cracks. Less crude woodworkers use metal fasteners that allow for movement. Not Charlie. Charlie scorned metal. He solved the problem in the most difficult way: dovetail-shaped pieces attached to the top slid into dovetail blocks on the rails.
Charlie pushed half-a-dozen blocks my way, a sweep of a hand. ‘I can hear on the wireless nonsense,’ he said. ‘You want to be useful or talk rubbish?’
‘Oh, all right,’ I said. ‘You should be a talkback host on the ABC, drawing things out of people, sympathetic.’
I went to the chisel cupboard and chose one. All the tools were sharp. In this workshop, following some ancient European work discipline, blades were sharpened after use, wiped with oil and put away. Those chisels prone to rust had their little oily socks to wear.
At the bench, I held a male piece against a block and marked the angles with a knife. ‘A router,’ I said. ‘This is what routers were invented for. We’re like printers rejecting the Linotype machine.’
Charlie finished a block, removed the dead cheroot from his mouth and blew down the precise channel in the wood. ‘You can teach an idiot,’ he said, ‘but you cannot make him learn. Grosskopf said that.’
‘And we’re all indebted to him. On the money every time was Grosskopf. Didn’t go to his head either. What’s the bowls news? Still thrashing the pishers?’
‘Four on the ladder,’ said Charlie, holding up massive fingers. ‘Good thing for them I don’t start earlier. Before they were born. The fathers, some of them.’
We worked side by side, finished the blocks, testing the slide of each one, they couldn’t be too tight. Then we set about fixing them to the short rails of the desk, gluing them into housings Charlie had chiselled out. After that we made buttons for the long rails.
When I looked up, the light was almost gone from the high and dusty northern windows. ‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘Beer time.’
We sharpened chisels, burnishing on leather strops. I swept, coaxed Charlie out of the front door, slightly easier this evening because there was nothing being glued, no clamps to fiddle with.
On the way to the Prince, walking down wet streets lined with Golfs and Civics, here and there a bump in the line made by a four-wheel-drive, Charlie said, ‘They want me to give it up.’
‘Give what up?’
He waved a hand. ‘The work.’
The early autumn evening colder now, felt on the face. ‘Who wants?’
‘The family.’
We parted around a puddle, came back together, touched for an instant, my twenty-year-old raincoat from Henry Buck’s brushing an overcoat that John Curtin might have worn.
‘All of them?’ I said.
Charlie had three children, all female, and six grandchildren.
We turned the corner, the pub was in sight, a lick of light on the pavement, two people leaving, parting, heads together for a few seconds, more than just friends.
‘Most,’ Charlie said.
‘And Gus?’
Gus was a grand-daughter, a trade union executive. Charlie thought she was the brains of the family, his true heir.
‘No, not Gus.’
‘I’m glad to hear that.’ I was partial to Gus. ‘So what do you tell them?’
Charlie looked at me. ‘What do you think? I tell them, they find me not breathing, they can know I’ve given it up.’
‘Sensible retirement plan,’ I said, returning to breathing.
The pub was busy, Stan’s scalp glistening. Charlie headed for the bowls cabal. The Youth Club was in its corner, animated, an argument in progress, situation normal. Wilbur Ong, sitting against the wall, saw me coming in the dim, freckled mirror that had seen my father and my grandfather coming.
‘Jack,’ said Wilbur, ‘listen,
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