Outside In (12 page)

‘That's the opposite of what
I
want to do,' he said.

She wasn't a fast runner, and laughing made her even slower. It was easy to catch up to her.

In some ways.

‘Did you hear anything about the scout?' Sam asked, leaning over his three-legged stool in woodwork class.

When Jack went to answer, he was competing with the bang-bang of Sam's hammer.

‘Nah. Coach. Reckons. He'll get a call. By tomorrow. One way. Or another.'

Sam looked up. He stopped hammering. ‘Did your old man turn up?'

Jack shook his head.

Back at his dad's after the game, it had been the regular bullshit. His dad was six beers down. Microwave dinner. He didn't even say anything about the showcase game until halfway through sloppy lasagne in tin foil. Even then it was with one eye on the telly.

‘Couldn't get there tonight,' he'd said. ‘Got some overtime at the warehouse. Need the extra bucks now your mum's taken me to the cleaners.'

Jack had got up from the table. He hadn't commented. It was best not to comment.

‘So, how's the girl?' his dad had asked as Jack threw his foil dish in the bin. ‘She a good sort?'

‘Jordan,' Jack had answered.

‘Want my advice? Don't get too serious. Play the field.'

Not really. Jack
really
didn't want his advice.

When his dad opened another can, Jack took the cordless phone into his room and re-hashed the game with Coach for ages.

When he came back into the lounge, his dad had passed out on the couch. Jack covered him with a blanket, tucked it around his feet. His dad's face, cocooned by the blanket, looked old. Behind the closed lids were blue eyes just like Jack's.

He wondered what else he had inherited from his father and it made him shiver.

So many times, his mum had asked what his dad was feeling. She tried to draw him out, but was drowned out by the telly.

His dad seemed to regard words as litter. Minimise the output. Minimise the pollution.

His mum was locked out by his dad's couch-slumped focus on the telly. And still, he was shocked when she'd said it was over. He was angry and poisonous. Bent over as if he'd been punched in the gut. As though it was the first he'd heard of it.

Of course, it was her fault. Couldn't possibly be his. Funny, then, how she seemed younger without him. Happier.

‘We tried to have a bet at our house on whether you'd make the team,' Sam said with a grin. ‘But nobody would take the negative.'

Jack smiled. Sam was trying to make him feel better. Again.

‘You need to shave down that stool leg, Sambo,' he said, and it was probably the only advice he was able to give. ‘It's too long, that's why your stool is wobbly.'

Sam nodded and pulled the leg out of its cavity. He put it onto the woodwork table for sanding.

Jack nudged him. ‘How much do you like Moo?' he asked.

Sam's head was down so Jack couldn't see his reaction.

‘Apparently she's
really
into you.'

Jack could sense something now. When Sam lifted his head, Jack saw that he was biting his lower lip. But there was a smile there anyway. Sam was trying to kill it, but he couldn't.

‘Serious?' Sam asked.

‘Nah, just bullshitting,' Jack stirred.

And Sam must've been practising because the corkie he delivered made Jack's arm throb all through English and PD.

Jack was at his mum's when the phone rang.

He was showered. Homeworked. On the TV some housemate cried and pleaded with Big Brother from the diary room. It was like watching a car crash – he couldn't look away. Raw pain on national TV. She wanted out of the Big Brother house, and she wanted it from a giant chair dressed in shorty shorts. He could see how the fake breasts, impossibly round, hadn't delivered the desired results. She kept touching them, as though they still might rescue her somehow. She wanted to be adored, to be worshipped for her looks. She reminded him of Tylah.

It made him shiver to think how different Jordan was, like he'd discovered another species.

‘Big Brother suggests you sleep on it.' The disembodied voice bounced around the diary room. In her distress, she seemed to have forgotten she was on telly. Jack wanted to tell the voice to get stuffed.

Get out of there
, he willed the girl, and suddenly it seemed all too true.

Sometimes you just have to get out.

The phone was on its third ring. Jack followed it down the hallway, past his mum's bedroom. He could hear the shower going in her ensuite. The phone was never on its cradle. Never where it should be. Warm, warmer, hot, and there it was, under a pile of towels on the laundry bench.

‘Hi?' he said, and the dryer provided background.

‘Jack? It's Rob. Rob Teasdale.'

Jack was already nodding. It was Coach, and he didn't need a surname.

‘Hang on a sec,' he said, and he took the phone into his room. He needed to be sitting down.

‘Mate, you did it! You're in the bloody state squad!'

Jack had never heard Coach swear before. Despite all the stress of all the games he'd coached. Coach was obviously pumped, but Jack couldn't find any words.

‘He's gonna sign you. And Bronco. Jack?'

Jack's body was an electric current, full of the message. He felt charged. He punched the air.

It was a few seconds before Jack realised that Coach's own son hadn't made it. And yet here Coach was, congratulating Jack. ‘I want to have a barbie for you. To celebrate. Friday night, our place, OK? Bring some mates. Anyone you want. Jack, are you there?'

Jack took a deep breath, thinking about Coach. He was a guy who had supported, encouraged him. A guy who gave him extra time, on the court and off. To reward Coach's efforts, Jack would leave his team. Getting signed was so good. So great. It felt like he was at the beginning of something amazing. And he felt like he was about to leave something amazing behind him.

‘Rob,' he said, and he had to say it again and clear his throat because his voice was shot. He wished he was smarter, had something proper to say. ‘Rob … thanks … for everything.'

‘No worries, Jack. So proud of you, mate. You deserve it. It's been a pleasure. Just you fly, Jack. Just you fly.'

Jack wished it was his own dad. Who spoke like that.

‘Dad's working late,' said Jordan. ‘Won't be back until six, so we'll probably eat around seven-thirty. He's going to make a curry.'

Jack looked around the flat. It was just like his dad's, and so unlike it. A fruit bowl on the kitchen table held a load of different types of fruit. Their fridge was stocked up with veggies and meat and drinks. Not beer.

Jordan looked at him looking. ‘He's kind of getting into it,' she said. ‘The shopping and cooking and stuff.'

Jordan had changed out of her school clothes. It was the first thing she did, before eating, even. Her singlet was black with silver writing. When she reached into the pantry there was a gap of skin between her top and her pants. It was only a packet of biscuits she brought down.

Jack grabbed a banana. He would be starving by 7.30. His body knew it wouldn't be enough. His body seemed to decide so much.

He followed her up the hallway and into her room. She put her iPod into a docking station, pressed shuffle. Jack picked up a photo on her windowsill. It was of Jordan, obviously, standing between her parents.

‘Your mum looks like you. Or you look like your mum,' he said, sitting on the bed to study it.

Jack saw her body stiffen a little, and then she was behind him, kneeling, looking over his shoulder.

‘How do you ever get used to it?' she asked.

Jack lay back, resting his head in her lap. He thought about the fruit in the bowl, the promise of a curry. Jordan would be OK. Jack could see that she was healing. Her dad must have started healing, and hopefully her mum was, too.

And he was glad for her, even though he knew it could never be that way for him.

‘I guess,' he began, and he wanted to get something right, he wanted to be able to tell her
something
, ‘I just try to make other parts of my life work.'

Jordan stroked his hair.

‘Like making the state squad. It's so great, Jack.'

‘And like us,' he said, without thinking about what he was saying first.

He lifted his head, pulled her down towards him. He kissed her and his hand splayed her back, found the gap between singlet and pants. Her skin. And she hadn't said anything, but her body responded. Jordan's body replied.

‘Dad'll be home soon. Are you there, Jack?' Jordan asked.

He reached up, ran his finger over her lips. The mouth that said so little.

‘Yes,' he said. And it was a question he could answer. There was so much he didn't know, but at least he knew this, and it felt like it was enough for now. ‘I'm here.'

There's a buzz at school today. I sense it way before I know for sure. It's like the world has shifted, and everyone is trying to figure out why. Something flies through the air while voices and flags are raised to ‘Advance Australia Fair'. An extra dose of patriotism.