Free Field Study by Rachel Seiffert Page B

seems attractive for a day or so, an hour or two, but nothing lasts. At night he dreams structures, wakes hopeful and forgets them.
    He asks his father for a loan, and it turns into a row.
    – I’d like to see what you’re designing.
    – You wouldn’t understand it anyway.
    – If your mother were alive.
    – If you were the last person on earth.
    The dismissal notice from his boss – brimful of disappointment and regret – rests behind the clock on the mantel. Barely read, unacknowledged. It didn’t happen. He never had that job.
    The architect spends as much time as possible outside, driving out to the country at dawn, and only returning after dark. He turns no lights on in the house, and fantasises about being found dead on a hillside. Flat on his back, arms outstretched against the damp ground. He imagines the last thing he’d see would be sky, blinkered by the long green grasses fluttering against his cold pink cheeks.
    He talks to no one and worries about the need to be something worthwhile, meaningful, substantial, good. He worries about being boring.
    His brother is impatient, irritated. Why doesn’t he get some work, stop sponging off Dad, think about other people for a change, get on with it. The architect sells his house, his car, his record collection, and moves in with his father. Back in his old room with the Meccano under the bed, the architect feels much better.
    His days are spent sleeping and eating. His dad takes him to the allotment and sets him to digging, so as the boy will get some movement. He discusses sowing patterns with his son, and weeding strategies. Frosts and pests, composts and companion plants. And though the architect is quiet, his father is glad to have him around because he loves him very much.
    His brother comes to visit regularly, and even brings his girlfriend once. She has a thoughtful manner and lovely hair. His dad is happier than he’s been in weeks, cracksjokes and opens an extra bottle.
    After dinner, she washes while the architect dries, and he asks her to take off her clothes. She is charming, unfailingly polite and ignores his request. The rest of the evening passes without incident, but his brother comes round the next morning with harsh words. On the way to the doctor’s, his dad tells the architect that he really mustn’t say such things. At lunchtime, his father’s eyes are red, but he heats the soup as usual, and they even listen to some music together.
    Three months later the medication is reduced, although the twice-weekly hour of silence with a counsellor continues. The architect doesn’t tell her that he no longer has ideas. That floor plans make his chest ache. That he dreams of staircases crumbling beneath his feet. He knows all these things himself, and he also knows how banal they are. Instead, he cries a little, and after she expresses approval, he cries a great deal.
    He starts looking in the paper for jobs. Wills himself to search through the architectural appointments, but finds his mind stubbornly closed to the idea. The shame of this is almost too much to bear, and he is regularly nasty to his father. Both know this is uncalled for, neither says anything about it.
    In job interviews he cites an elderly parent as a reason for leaving his last employment. A change of direction was needed, he smiles, confesses. Dad was the catalyst, really.The old charm trickles back again from the brink, and the managers understand crossroads, family commitments, appreciate the honesty, the evidence of storms weathered. Not all of them think this makes him employable, but he soon has a job.
    A month in, over dinner, he tells his father and brother about it. That he is enjoying his new work and feels relevant too, in an engaging but not too demanding way. Dad is pleased. It is exactly the life he wanted for his boy. But his brother is angry. What has this whole bloody crisis been about? They argue in hissed whispers in the kitchen, so their father can’t hear. A