Six Feet Under

The water pressure had been nonexistent and our yard bled brown water. There was a leak in the main water pipe. Dad had taken a shovel and dug a hole deep as he was tall in the centre of the smelly slosh and recruited me as help. Crouched in the hole, head to toe muddy and mutinous, I made a suggestion.

'Maybe we should call a plumber.'

'Kate,' grumbled Dad warningly. Dad was no plumber. He was a doctor. I supposed all his years in the business had ingrained in him an instinct for fixing things that was impossible to resist. But looking down at the bone-coloured pipe that I wrestled in my arms and that Dad was trying to fix with something like liquid cement, with the slimy wall of the hole six feet above us, I couldn't help but feel that this patient might already be through death's door.

The pungent smell of exposed clay, something like wet dog or open wound, was attracting wasps. They hovered low, their wings and poisonous colours buzzing.

'You know, I'm rather fond of wasps,' I began conversationally. 'They're quite-'

'Kate!'

'Sorry.' I replaced a sore arm with a strategically-wedged knee as my Dad began to nod.

'Okay. You stay here, I'll go turn the water back on and we'll see what happens.' I scrambled out of the hole after him and stood, wiping sweat off and mud onto my face, as he disappeared behind the house. After a few moments, there was a whining creak and the pipe exploded like a burst artery, sending the wasps careening. The water began to wash the clay out of my hair and threw a dancing rainbow into the heady haze rising out of the hole. My Dad returned, head to toe muddy and mutinous.

'Maybe we should call a plumber,' he said.