Jack Mutant - Which Way is Down (part 7)

 

Jack glanced at the window, it was dark now and their meal was finished, his heart sank, he knew it must be late but he didn't dare check the time on his phone. They sat in silence for a few moments, it seemed as if the pain of separation was already skimming the atmosphere. Jack felt a few butterflies rise in his stomach as he watched the familiar figure of his father standing at the bar paying the bill.

 

‘The barmaid says we look alike.’

 

‘Do we have to go now dad?’

 

‘Come on I promised your mum I’d get you back home on time didn’t I.’ Jack got up, his head felt fuzzy as they walked out into the carpark. The air was damp and nippy and the smell inside the van seemed stronger, more musty. ‘I’ve got work in the morning son. I came down here to do a delivery, that’s why I got this old van, extra money, I can make deliveries on my days off and every time I’m down this way Jack I’ll get in touch and we can meet up.’

 

 

‘Okay….but when do you think you’ll be down again?’

 

‘I don’t know...but it’ll be soon.’

 

They continues the journey in silence for several minutes, down the dark country lanes, along the A roads until they entered the suburbs. Back to reality, thought Jack and he felt a horrible sensation inside him, a black hole; the vapid glow of the streetlights, the right angles of suburbia, the hopelessness of passing time. He thought about school tomorrow and felt the tight seal of his fate and the terror of his diminishing freedom.

 

Mr Massey seemed attuned to his son’s sense of doom, perhaps he had given off some physical symptom of inner-panic. ‘Don’t worry Jack’ he said, ‘we’ll fix a date.’

 

They pulled up outside the house. A curtain twitched. ‘Mum’s waiting,’ said Jack and he removed the Monster Munch packet from the door panel, folded it neatly and put it in his pocket.

 

‘Jack, you mustn’t get anxious. You know something which really helped me was learning to meditate, well I still can’t properly do it but I still try and just trying helps.’

 

‘Meditate?’

 

 

‘Yes son. Just go back, back to a time before your thoughts joined up when they were just threads, to arrange and rearrange, nothing fixed.’

 

Jack frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

 

‘When you get to your forties like me your thoughts are all joined up in long lengths of string and they wrap all around you, tighter and tighter until you can’t move and they move up your body until they reach your neck and you can’t breath,’ he placed his rough hands around his neck and pretending he was being strangled. ‘And then they squeeze your head and you cannot think anymore.’

 

Dad is getting weird now, thought Jack and the weirdness lightened the atmosphere, made it easier to leave. He laughed. ‘Dad!’

 

They hugged ‘I won’t get out, you go, tell your mum I’ll be in touch and give Chloe my love...and your grandad when you see him.’

 

Jack walked to the front door, put the key in and turned around to absorb his father’s wave like a final infection of love before the blue van rolled away. There was always a predictability to the way his mum would behave on his return from these fatherly encounters, to avoid this he went straight upstairs to his bedroom. There on the floor was his blazer and tie, crumpled trousers and shirt. His curtains were still open and instead of closing them he turned off the light, sat on the edge of his bed and looked out at the sky. There were no clouds, just faintly twinkling lights barely visible through the light pollution, and a sharp, slithered moon. If only there was a way to avoid tomorrow, he thought as he imagined the blue van travelling across the surface of the earth as if it were the only thing in the world in existence.  

 

Reality returned with the opening of his door, his mother’s outline in the doorway, she stood there in silence sniffing the air. ‘You’ve had Monster Munch,’ she said.

 

‘Yes,’ Jack held up the packet.

 

‘Why as you sitting here in the dark?’ She lifted her hand up to the lightswitch.

 

‘No! I don’t want the light on mum.’

 

‘Okay calm down.’

 

I am calm, thought Jack, it’s you who isn’t calm you stupid woman, go away, I hate you. He sighed, no no no, he thought, I don’t mean that. ‘I am calm,’ he said quietly.

 

‘Your dad seems down and out a bit doesn’t he,’ She asked, still standing in the doorway, her voice concerned but forced slightly.

 

‘No, he seemed really happy, he’s got a new job.’

 

‘In a hotel?’

 

‘Yes, they’ve given him his own room.’

 

‘What does he do...in this hotel?’

 

Jack shrugged. ‘Different things.’

 

She became angrier suddenly. ‘I’m going to go and watch the news now Jack but it’s gone ten o’clock now so when I come back I want to see all your uniform folded and you showered with your teeth brushed and in bed.’

 

‘Yes mum.’

 

Jack lay back on his bed, gravity pushed down on him, tiredness caught up with him. He turned on his side, full up with the evening’s activities, his brain craved the sort of deep sleep which enabled cerebral digestion. His eyes slowly closed and on the inside of his eyelids was the blue van travelling to a place where time doesn’t exist and kindred souls are always touching.