So Much to Learn (20 page)

"What's up with
you?" I asked as he collapsed onto my bed with a groan.

"I
hate
Wednesdays," He whined.

"Yeah," I
agreed, but silently I added, 'But not this one. No, not this one
at all.'

~*~

"Matthew Seamus
Davenport," I snapped that Friday afternoon. "If you say so much as
another word I am going to bite you!"

Tempers were
frazzled as the five of us, Jack, Matt, Simone, Tommo and I, were
running late for our trip back to our hometown. The fact that Matt
had been complaining non-stop for the last hour was not helping
matters.

Matt looked at
me with an expression that said, 'I'd like to see you try,' and, in
the nick of time, Simone grabbed my arm and steered me out of
lunging distance from my brother.

"Deep breaths
now," she murmured calmingly. "We've got a long car ride ahead of
us and if you kill him now he might begin to smell by the end of
the journey."

"That's
assuming we take his dismembered body along with us," I grumbled.
"I was thinking of chucking him out the window on the highway."

"Well, it
wouldn't technically be littering," Tommo said, hearing the end of
our conversation as he put the last bag into the tray of Jack's
Ute. "I mean he'd be biodegradable."

"The bones hang
around for quite a while, though," Simone pointed out. "And,
besides, I think a littering fine would be the least of our worries
if we were pulled over by the police for throwing a body out of a
moving vehicle."

"A dismembered
body," I reminded her.

"Sorry, a
dismembered
body," she corrected herself.

"Don't humour
her," Matt called over, slamming shut the boot of his car. "If
she's encouraged she'll never shut up."

"Hark who's
talking," I bit back and Simone and Tommo exchanged amused
glances.

"So I think
it's fairly safe to say the two of them won't be going up in the
same car then," Tommo laughed, fastening the edges of the tarp
covering the tray. "So what do you think? Her and Jack in the Ute,
you, me and Matt in the car?"

"Sounds like
the safest plan, all things considered," Simone agreed, her curls
bouncing prettily as she nodded.

I had to
restrain myself from leaping into the air and shouting, 'Yes!' at
their suggestion as that might have given the game away…just a
little bit!

Because the
truth was I’d barely had a few seconds alone with Jack since
Wednesday night, let alone a solid four hours. Thursday we had both
had lectures and tutes, then he had worked late that night and I
had taken the opportunity to stay at Simone's, catching up and
indulging in some 'girl talk.' I'd gone straight to my lecture from
hers and only returned to the flat an hour or so before we were due
to leave.

I say
due
,
that time was nothing but a distant memory now as the light faded
and the street lights flickered on. At the rate we were going we
wouldn't reach Bridunna until well past 11 that night. At least we
were finally all packed and ready to go, we were just waiting on
Jack who was still in the flat on the phone discussing some finer
point of the scholarship requirements with someone in the
know.

"How about you
guys go ahead and we'll catch you up?" I suggested when we'd
lounged against the cars for a good ten minutes. "Then maybe mum
will have used up all her disapproval at our tardiness on you
guys."

"Our mum use up
her disapproval?" Matt snorted. "Chance would be a fine thing."
Still, he wrestled open the back door for Simone (it always got
jammed) and made his way over to the drivers’ side.

"See you there
then." Simone waved and slid into the backseat, bracing herself as
Tommo closed the door after her with a great bang before he too got
into the car.

"Drive safe!" I
called out to Matt as his car roared into life.

"I always do!"
He yelled back before, with a great squealing of tyres, they
disappeared off into the gathering gloom.

Why is it that
boys get words like 'always' and 'never' confused?

I contemplated
waiting down with the Ute for Jack, but before long, the air got
beyond ‘a little nippy’ so I wandered back into the building. As I
entered our flat I heard Jack say, "In terms of animation of space
surely the most conclusive method is the sun?"

Smiling fondly
(I loved it when he talked smart!) I threw myself down onto the
couch and half listened to the intense conversation he was having
with whoever was on the other end of the line. This was Jack at his
most pure; sensible, serious to a fault and incredibly
single-minded. I knew he would keep the other person on the phone
until he had all the facts firmly arranged in his mind so there
would be no room for error. He liked to know he'd done all he could
to make sure things worked out and if they didn't he needed to know
where things had gone wrong.

For all we'd
basically adopted him, this boy was no Davenport, that's for sure.
As a family we're more of a happy go lucky bunch although, of
course, none of us had ever had our lives go as wrong as Jack's in
quite such a spectacular fashion.

Speaking of
which, I glanced over at the calendar and saw that it was the 10th
of September and, therefore, 10 days until the six year anniversary
of the accident that had so decisively destroyed his family.

I wondered what would happen this year. Matt had always
thoroughly shielded my parents and me from Jack's antics on the
night of the 19
^th
, but I knew this year
was going to be different. How would I react to Jack bringing home
some girl like Kristin, maybe even Kristin herself, to help block
out the pain? I had no idea. I wasn't naïve enough to think that it
might be different this year because of our arrangement. After all,
the rule was no dating and I was sure the debauchery which took
place on the 19th could in no way be construed as that.

Well, I told
myself sternly, I would just have to wait and see what happened
and, if he needed to bring a girl back to the flat and…well…go for
it hell for leather, then that would be what would happen. I would
just have to be mature about it and understand that it was
something that Jack found necessary to do to escape from the
hurt.

I dragged my
mind away from thoughts of the night of the 19th then, because,
after all, I'd never been particularly good at being mature about
things. I thought, instead, about how good it would be to go home
and do nothing for a couple of days. I know I complained about the
loss of my weekend, but as Dorothy so elegantly put it, there's no
place like home.

I heard Jack
wrap up the phone conversation and I rolled over onto my stomach,
grinning lazily at him over the armrest of the couch.

"All sorted?" I
asked as he chucked the phone down onto the kitchen counter and
gave a little shrug.

"I got my
questions answered, yeah," he said in the repressed tone which
indicated he was mulling over something. I stayed quiet and watched
him as he put his thoughts into all the little boxes he obviously
thought they needed to go into.

Eventually he
looked up and smiled. "Sorry I kept you guys waiting. Are the
others still out in the car park?"

"God, no!" I
exclaimed. "They would have died of hypothermia by now if that was
the case. No, I sent them on to try and dispel some of mum's
wrath."

"Chance would
be a fine thing," Jack snorted and I laughed.

"You and Matt spend
way
too much time together."

Jack shrugged
again as if to say, 'yeah, so what?' and then there was a
pause.

It was fine at
first, Jack is pretty succinct with his conversation most of the
time and so pauses are kind of the norm. However, this pause
stretched on and soon I realised that I had no idea what to say to
him. This was somewhat disturbing as talking shit is a particular
skill of mine. To cover my awkwardness I sat up and fussed around
with my shirt, twisting it around, trying to make the neckline sit
better.

"Tally?"

I looked up,
the hem of my top clutched tightly in my hands. Jack was leaning
against the dining table, his eyebrows raised in question at my
strange behaviour.

"I…uh…I don't
think this top is hanging right," I said, pretty pathetically.

"OK," Jack said
slowly, his tone making it clear he thought I was nuts.

I sighed and
released my top. "And I don't really know what to say," I admitted.
"I mean, we kissed, so what happens now?"

Jack
straightened and, walking over the couch, he crouched before me.
"What do you want to happen now?" He asked seriously.

Completely
unbidden, an image suddenly popped up in the front of my brain. An
image from my dreams. An image with a decided amount of entwined
naked limbs in it. I immediately went bright red, bit down on my
lip and hid my eyes behind my eyelashes. When I looked up again it
was to see Jack smirking at me, clearly with a pretty good idea
what I'd been thinking.

"Well that
settles that then," he chuckled before standing up, and offering me
a hand. When I took it he hauled me up off the couch and straight
up against his warm chest, releasing my hand only to wrap both his
arms around me.

"Smooth move,"
I laughed, putting my arms loosely around his neck and looking up
at him.

"Sweetheart,
you ain't seen nuttin' yet," he growled in an appalling American
accent that would have made me laugh even more if my mouth hadn't
been put to use moving against his in the next moment.

I would have
been quite happy to stay as we were for the rest of eternity (I
mean that's why we have noses right? So we can breathe whilst
engaging in a good old pash?), but after only about five minutes or
so, Jack pulled his mouth from mine and gave a hoarse little
laugh.

"We'd better
stop there or we might not make it to your parents tonight at
all."

I felt a little
shiver of excitement at the idea and tucked my head into the crook
of his neck before replying, "Would that be such a bad thing?"

Jack shook his
head. "No, you're absolutely right, let's just stay here," he said,
reaching past me and grabbing his phone. "So why don't you just go
ahead and call your mum and explain to her why we won't be
coming?"

The very idea
sent another shiver through me but it wasn't such a good feeling
this time.

"Point taken,"
I said pulling away and pouting exaggeratedly. "But I'm starving, I
can't do the four hour drive without having tea first."

Jack reached up a finger and gently pushed my protruding
bottom lip back into my mouth. "We'll stop for something on the
way," he promised me. "And, if you're a
very
good girl, we might even get you
a child's meal that comes with a toy."

~*~

It was coming
on to half eleven as the Ute’s tyres crunched across the gravel of
my family home's driveway. The headlights illuminated the large
metal shed (my dad's pride and joy and favourite refuge from my
mum) surrounded by three large gum trees, before sweeping round and
lighting up the federation style white weatherboard house encircled
by a large veranda.

The large,
French doors were flung open as Jack cut the engine and warm,
orange light spilled down the steps and lit up the path of worn
stones which led to the edge of the driveway.

"Doesn't take
her long," I remarked with a tired smile as my mum hurtled down the
path to the Ute and, opening the drivers’ side door, practically
yanked Jack out and into her embrace.

"And what time
do you call this?" She asked, pulling back and holding Jack at
arm's length so she could scrutinise him in the poor light. "You
look tired," she decided, pursing her lips.

"I don't feel
tired," Jack protested mildly.

"Which just
goes to show that I know you better than you know yourself," Mum
clucked, pulling him in for another tight hug.

"Oh, don't mind
me," I grumbled hopping out of the cab of the Ute and stretching
expansively, accompanying the movement with a loud yawn. Seeing
another figure coming down the steps, however, I immediately forgot
my tiredness and raced round the side of the Ute and straight into
my dad's open arms.

"Hi, Dad," I
said happily, squeezing him tightly and revelling in the feeling of
coming home that hugging my dad always gave me.

"Hello, pet,"
he said fondly, ruffling my hair.

Matt appeared
in the open doorway and surveyed the scene with a look of disgust.
"I'll just get the bags shall I?" He said as he stomped down the
steps between the two hugging pairs. "Seeing as how I'm clearly the
least favourite child."

"Darling, you
had your hugs earlier. Don't be greedy." Mum finally released Jack,
presumably finally allowing him to get some air. "Come here, Talia,
I'm ready to swap now."

After the
greetings were concluded, the boys grabbed the luggage (well it's
nice for them to be useful at something, isn't it?) and we all
trooped inside.

Without any
discussion, we all gravitated towards the kitchen, otherwise known
as the heart and soul of the house. Matt, Jack and I threw
ourselves into three of the chairs surrounding the large, scarred,
scorched and scored table which had dealt the brunt of the
Davenport family lifestyle for as long as I could remember. Dad
settled himself into his armchair which was situated in the corner,
exactly, and we know this because Matt and Jack measured it once,
equal distance between the fridge and the TV, and Mum bustled
around making hot chocolate for everyone.