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Success comes to those who try
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October 1900
Elias could hardly believe what Woody was saying.
“The rimu sideboard you made has been sold. Didn’t I tell you it would be the first to go?”
Most of the time, Elias made the smaller items: side tables, wall racks, coat and hat stands, and portable writing boxes. He’d learnt a lot in the last ten months but he still had more to learn. He wanted perfection, but Woody assured him his skills were far superior to many who’d been at the lathe a lot longer.
One day, Woody suggested Elias try his hand at a larger piece. The timber Woody offered him had suited his idea perfectly, but the project had taken longer than Elias had expected, and he’d only finished it a few days earlier. “Sold? Already. My goodness. Who to?”
“Didn’t I tell you it was a fine piece and would be snapped up. It went to a new establishment about to open. The owner said it would be ideal for the purpose.”
Woody didn’t elaborate and Elias didn’t ask any further questions. For the first time, he felt as if he was doing something worthwhile, and which would bring greater rewards to the business.
Working on the sideboard had kept him sane and given him purpose. The intricacies of the cupboards and getting the hinges to sit so the doors shut exactly against the shelves, the dovetailing of the drawers and the polishing of the long top, brought him a degree of satisfaction out of the wasteland he’d created.
After the exhausting and traumatic events surrounding the death of Johnno Jones, he’d felt all his anger and hatred returning. He wanted to lash out – at the police, at Gwenna, at anyone he could point the finger at – even, obscurely, Woody, for seeing his shame. Alice had been shocked by what she’d learnt after Woody had dragged him away from the clutches of the police. She’d sat and listened, saying nothing, getting paler by the moment.
The next day she began asking questions, lots of questions, too many questions. “I want to know everything,” she said. “It must have been awful for you. You must feel terrible. Talking about it will help, Eli. Truly, it will. Tell me.”
She meant well, but he couldn’t. He tried, but his anger made him tongue-tied. In the end, he stopped talking altogether. He’d had nothing to do with Johnno’s death but he’d ended up involved up to his neck. His newfound happiness and sense of satisfaction dissolved, and a vacant, unfulfilled void entered his being.
He’d moved out of the house in North Street, where Gwenna and Bethan were still living, and found a boarding house. He didn’t want to ask Woody if he could move in with him. He couldn’t – not until he and Alice reached an understanding – if they ever did. He’d been too scared to speak to her since, to ask her to marry him, even though he felt sure she would accept him. He believed Woody would approve, but something kept holding him back.
Alice, upset by his behaviour, kept asking what was wrong, but he had no answers. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything kindly or meet her eye to eye. Now she barely spoke to him. Her eyes beseeched him sometimes when she caught him watching her. He yearned to say something, but couldn’t.
Fear kept him mute. If his temper still resided at the edge of his control and he lost it every time something went wrong, Alice would suffer. And he couldn’t bear the thought. It would be better she was hurt by his silence than by his fists.
He turned his attention to the large, turned leg of a dining table he was working on and dismissed all the conflicting thoughts from his mind. When he was under the spell of the timber, he felt at rest. The noise from the planer, the leveller and the saw became a panacea, and the turmoil inside his head faded into the background. Swirling dust tickled his nose and sawdust lay around his feet, clinging obstinately to parts of his clothing and sticking in his hair, but he didn’t notice. The world outside no longer existed. His timber world was all that mattered.
