So Much to Learn (21 page)

It seemed like
everyone was talking at once and as loudly as possible. There was
definitely more noise than it seemed possible five people could
make, what with Mum squawking about her adult education course, Dad
explaining his new plans for the garden, Jack trying to listen and
reply to both of them at once, and Matt and I warbling away about
our lives at uni.

Not usually the
best of cooks, it must be said that my mother's hot chocolate is to
die for. It also seems to contain sedatives as, by the time we were
slurping up the dregs, I could barely keep my eyes open.

"Well," Matt
said with a huge yawn, "I'm bushed, time to hit the swag, I
reckon."

This statement
was greeted with more yawns and nods from the rest of us and we
began the laborious task of pulling ourselves away from the warmth
of the kitchen to our beds upstairs.

The house has
two bathrooms, one downstairs, which has always been known as the
parents’ bathroom, and one upstairs which Matt, Jack and I use.
Through losing out to both of them in games of rock, paper,
scissors, I was the last to get to brush my teeth and do all the
other bedtime toiletry necessities and so, by the time I left the
bathroom, everyone else was in bed. Sticking my head round my
parents' door I bade them good night and then padded my way across
the landing to do the same to Matt and Jack. I paused, however,
with my hand on the doorknob of Matt's door, as I heard Jack's
voice rise angrily. That was weird, Jack hardly ever shouted,
especially at his best mate.

"I've said no,
Matt, drop it alright?"

Man, he sounded
really pissed off.

"You're going
to have to see him sometime," Matt replied insistently, seemingly
unperturbed by Jack's unusual behaviour. "Have you even told him
about the scholarship yet?"

"What's the
point?" Jack snapped. "He'll just tell me there's no chance in hell
of me getting it and he's probably right."

I heard Matt
sigh and I knew that he was making a face at Jack. "So you're going
to have come all this way and not even go and see him for a moment?
It's a small town, Hammer, your dad's gonna know that you're
here."

"Yeah, so why
doesn't he pull his bloody finger out and come and see me? Why do I
always have to go to him?" Jack still sounded angry but there was
something of a small wounded boy in his voice that time.

"You're going
to have to see him sooner or later," Matt said after a long pause,
"Why don't you just get it over with now?"

"Because," Jack replied, reverting to a hard, flat voice,
"when it comes to my father later is
always
better than
sooner."

There was an
extended silence and then Matt sighed again. "Night then, you
stubborn bastard." And then, slightly more loudly, he added,: "And
good night to you too, Natalia, you little sneak."

I jumped
guiltily and fled to my room.

Safe in the
room I grew up in, I snuggled down under my doona and tried to
reclaim the sleepy feeling I'd had before I'd eavesdropped outside
Matt's room. Alas, it wasn't to be, even though what had been said
hadn't been for my ears, I couldn't stop thinking over the
implications of the short, semi-argument I'd overheard.

So Jack was
avoiding his dad? It was news to me, but not exactly surprising. I
remember when Matt and Jack used to hide in my dad's shed or under
the house when Mr Whitby came to fetch Jack home in the afternoons.
Sometimes my parents would convince him to let Jack stay the night,
but more often than not, the boys would be called out of their
hiding spot and Jack was sent home. Still, he was always back first
thing in the morning, with the twins, to collect Matt and I for the
walk to school. Sometimes it seemed that he only ever went home to
put the twins to bed and to sleep himself.

The twins had
pretty much been his responsibility as his mother had never been
the particularly maternal type. In fact, when Jack was ten and the
twins only three she had disappeared for an entire month,
reappearing after that time and refusing to tell anyone where she'd
been or what she'd done. Not long after that her drinking had
become less of a family secret, and more like common knowledge. Not
that Jack's dad would ever admit it, and he angrily turned away any
offers of help from my parents or anyone else in the community.

I'd always
hated Jack's dad and I don't think he was particularly keen on me
either. He's the strictest man I've ever met and seems to think
that Jack has turned out as a bad kid, constantly remarking how
he'll amount to nothing and he'd do better to stay at home and help
train horses rather than go off to some poncy university.

Staring up at
the familiar ceiling, which I had plastered with glow in the dark
stickers as a kid, I thought angrily of how many opportunities
Jack's dad had held him back from. After everything that Jack has
been through, how dare his dad be so hard on him?

From what I can
tell, Mr Whitby simply clammed up about his wife and children's
deaths, never talking about it to Jack, never offering any support
to help him through his grief. I do understand that, as Matt said,
he had a hard time of it as well, but surely he must have realised
that doing nothing but criticising his one surviving child was not
the best way to cope with his loss?

As I tried to
force these thoughts out of my head so I could finally get some
sleep, I heard a door being stealthily opened and closed and then
the sounds of someone moving very quietly along the landing.
Glancing over to where my door was opened a crack I saw someone
move past my room and then their silhouette steal down the stairs.
A moment later the screen door creaked and, getting out of bed and
crossing to the window, I saw, through a gap in the curtains,
Jack's form cross the lawn and disappear into the shed.

Clearly I
hadn't been the only one unable to sleep.

I got back into
bed, determined to quash my curiosity for once and let Jack have
the time to himself that he so obviously craved. Squeezing my eyes
tightly shut, I began counting backwards from 100 in that time
honoured sleep bringing tactic. I had just got into the 50's, and
was still feeling wide awake, when I heard a very soft thump
thumping noise start up from out in the shed. I knew what it was
immediately, Jack had got the boxing gloves out.

The month after
the accident, when we had all been so worried that Jack would sink
so far into his misery we would never be able to get him out again,
my dad had bought a pair of boxing gloves and a red leather
punching bag which he had hung up in the shed. Without saying a
word he had handed Jack the gloves and walked off.

Apparently when
all else fails, give a boy something to beat the crap out of and
leave him to it.

It had worked
too, Jack had begun taking all his frustration out on the stuffed
piece of leather, developing a brutal pounding routine which he
could keep up for hours on end. Sometimes Matt would go in with
him, but more often than not, it would be Jack alone striding
towards the shed, gloves in hand and I soon became used to the
thump, thump noise of his fists hitting the punching bag.

Listening to it
now, after so many years without it, I felt tears spring to my
eyes. I'd become so accustomed to thinking of ‘strong, capable
Jack’ that I'd almost forgotten about the ‘angry, confused
adolescent Jack’ who had always looked like a tightly coiled spring
about to release. Over the years that scared, lost look had
retreated from his eyes, but the familiar beat of fists on leather
reminded me that he hadn't stopped grieving for his family, but
rather, pushed it down and learnt to control it.

It was no use,
the image of Jack out in the cold shed trying to punch out his
demons drove me out of the warm sanctuary of my bed and towards the
door. I realised, however, that I couldn't go outside wearing only
my thin blue pyjama pants and a white tank top, I'd freeze to
death. I grabbed my sandshoes and the thin jacket I'd been wearing
earlier and made my way out onto the landing and down the stairs.
At the back door I slipped my feet into the shoes and shrugged on
my jacket before opening the door slowly to reduce the creaking
noise and stepping out onto the veranda. I wished immediately that
I’d brought my warmer pyjamas with me or grabbed a thicker jacket
as dew had already started to form on the grass and my breath
showed up as a little white cloud in front of me.

Trying to
ignore the cold, I set off across the lawn towards the shed where I
could see thin slivers of light showing in the gaps between the
corrugated iron. The door to the shed was slightly ajar and,
through the crack, I could see Jack, with his back to me, the
muscles in his arms and back, obvious in his thin T-shirt, tightly
bunched. He wore only loose track pants and the T-shirt, no jacket
and his feet were bare. I shivered just seeing them exposed to the
cold air and even colder concrete floor. The fluorescent light of
the shed gave the scene an almost unearthly look and tinged Jack’s
skin an unhealthy grey colour. Then again, I doubt his pallor had
been that fantastic to start off with.

"You should go
back to bed," Jack said suddenly, his voice echoing in the large
shed and making me start.

How had he
known I was there? I was sure I hadn't made a sound. Still, I
suppose we all know when we're being watched and, if you know
someone well enough, you can sometimes know who it is without
actually seeing them.

"So should
you," I replied, entering the shed. "Why are you out here?"

He hadn't
altered his punching rhythm at all at my entrance; he was still
tattooing a quick one, two motion out on the bag, his punches
perfectly timed and coming as regularly as if he was a machine. In
fact, in the weird light, that's kind of what he looked like,
hardly human at all.

"I couldn't
sleep," he answered me tersely.

"And so,
naturally, you left your lovely warm bed and came out to the
freezing, spidery shed in hopes that you'd have a better chance of
getting to sleep out here?" I asked sarcastically.

He didn't reply
and I moved round the punching bag until I was facing him. As I
caught sight of his face I almost wished I had stayed where I was.
His face was taut and expressionless, his eyes red rimmed and
sunken showing hardly any of their beautiful blue colour. His mouth
was drawn in a thin line and his brow was creased with the
concentration of maintaining his intensely fast pace.

"You look like
crap," I told him frankly.

"Thanks," he
bit back, his eyes remaining fixed on the swinging punching bag
before him.

"Seriously,
though," I added, moving closer, although still out of range of the
jerking bag, "is this because of your fight with Matt?"

He completely
ignored me. It was as if I hadn't spoken, as if I didn't exist
even.

With a sigh I
walked over to the side of the shed and took a seat on one of the
old trunks my parents store camping equipment in. Pulling my thin
jacket closer around me and crossing my arms I proceeded to stare
at Jack.

As I had hoped,
this seemed to unnerve him, and I saw his eyes slide over to me as
if wondering what I was doing.

"Go back to
bed, Natalia," he repeated, his voice hoarse and cracked, his one
two rhythm finally faltering.

"Only when you
do, James," I replied cattily. Honestly, there was nothing I hated
more than people using my full name to patronise me. OK, maybe I
hate one or two things more than that: racists, homophobes,
terminal illnesses, that kind of thing, but it's certainly high up
on the list.

There was
silence between us again as Jack picked up speed on the bag once
more. When the cold really started to bother me I chafed my hands
together, stamped my feet and distracted myself by enquiring, "So
this helps then does it?" I crossed my arms and tucked my hands in
against my body. "Getting up in the middle of the night, coming out
to a freezing shed and beating the crap out of an inanimate
object?"

"As opposed to what?" He asked almost immediately, showing
that he had been waiting for me to break the silence. "Getting up
in the middle of the night, coming out to a freezing shed and
beating the crap out of an
animate
object?"

"You saying you
want to hit me, Jack?" I countered quickly and was perversely
satisfied to see him hesitate in his punch.

"It's getting
to be an increasingly attractive prospect," he muttered, though I
could tell I had thrown him with the suggestion that he would
strike me. Still, he didn't let up his punching, in fact I think he
started to get more furious. He was like one of those Vikings that
used to do that berserk thing where they were out of control. It
was scary as hell.

Restraining
myself through great force of will from getting up and touching him
as, in his state, I doubt he would even have noticed, I searched
through my brain for some way of getting him to calm down. I know
usually you're just supposed to let people get things out, but he
looked like he was going to do himself some serious damage unless I
did something. Suddenly I realised what it was I needed to do.

"Jack," I
called out to him in a clear, commanding voice. "Jack, calm down,
please just take a breath and calm down." Like before, I don't
think he could hear me. Time to bring in the cavalry or, as we
liked to call them, sheep. My voice rising, and allowing some of
the fear I felt to creep into it, I tried again. "I'm calling in
rule 5, do you hear me? I'm not comfortable, I don't want you doing
this anymore. I'm serious, that's enough. Sheep, Godammit,
sheep!"