Shallow Breath

30

Jackson




Jackson has resigned himself to a restless night, with Kate asleep only metres away from him. He can picture her slender form curled in her sleeping bag, her blonde hair fanned on her pillow. Perhaps he should go over there and tell her to come back. He should reassure her that, whatever is going on, he will support her. That’s what you were meant to do when the times got tough. You had to show a little faith. Why is the first hand he plays always the one where he pushes people away?

Before he knows it, he has cracked open a bottle of bourbon bought in duty-free, and is mixing it with some flat Coke. It tastes disgusting, but that doesn’t seem to stop him from pouring another. When he cannot determine a course of action, it seems he can’t help but invite drink to choose it for him. It usually does, by slowly blanking out the questions until they don’t matter.

He will go round to see Desi later tomorrow, once Kate has visited her. Then he can find out what Kate wanted. But by that time she’ll be gone, and he has no idea where she’s heading. He feels sick at the thought. If he lets her leave, he might never see her again. But can he bear the humiliation of begging her to stay?

His hand is shaking as he refills his glass, while his head is a slurry of indecision. A stream of discontented faces begins to swim through his mind. He can see Pete’s eyebrows inverting to a frown as he wondered why Jackson hadn’t taken more notice of Maya’s whereabouts. He can hear the hidden question as Desi asked ‘How are you?’, when what she actually meant was ‘I haven’t seen you in a long time. Why didn’t you visit me?’. He has no idea where Maya is, or how she’s doing, when he should have been busy supporting her these past few weeks. And Kate – who had recently become the guiding light on his horizon – has abruptly extinguished her presence in his life.

To top it all off, he’d caught sight of Charlie at his bedroom window, watching them all from a distance. He slugs back the last of his drink and begins to mix himself another while he thinks about his dad. He wishes he’d known his father in his prime, before he sold the boat and stopped crayfishing. Desi had always talked disparagingly of going out on the water with Charlie and Rick, but Jackson would have loved to experience it – their dad as skipper, and Rick hauling pots. Instead, he’d grown up listening to Rick’s boasting after he took over the boat, while his dad quietly massaged his painful hands each time Rick got up to collect another beer.

As a boy, Jackson had jumped every time Charlie paid him attention, mainly because those times were few and far between. If there was something practical to be conveyed, Charlie could teach Jackson how to build a fire, or fix a pipe, or gut a fish. But, other than that, his dad had little to say. Jackson has spent a lifetime trying to work him out, and has never succeeded. Desi gave up long ago. It had been Hester who bound the family together, but when she died those ties had dissolved. Jackson doesn’t even need to be a bridge between his father and sister. Where possible, they like to pretend that the other doesn’t exist.

He feels sorry for his dad, but he would never let it show. He is pretty sure Charlie would rather be reviled than pitied. But still, Charlie is the patriarch of the family, and none of them give him the time of day unless they need something. No wonder the old man is sulky and obtuse. Is that what sixty-odd years of hard graft got you? A dead wife and a fractured family.

Screw that! he thinks, slamming his drink down and collapsing on the bed, his head spinning. He is better off a free agent. He should be thanking Kate for letting him go.

He reaches over to find his phone and text Desi, to tell her to ask Kate about White Wave. Then he remembers – his sister doesn’t have a mobile, or an email connection. The thought strikes him as incredibly funny, makes him laugh out loud. Perhaps Desi will finally come and join them in the new century now she is home. She’s only missed a decade or so. Then he will be able to speak to her without having to turn up on her doorstep.

And yet, he really should go and see her. It’s probably time they had an honest conversation.

He sits up, momentarily sober. If he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life avoiding his sister, he is going to have to ask her to tell him the truth. He needs to confront her, to see if she really blanked out that day, or if she remembers that he was with her, and what he had said. Originally, he had been scared about reminding her, in case he jolted her memory and it made a difference to the trial. He’d thought he was doing her a favour. He’d never imagined she would go to prison, so he’d kept away.

But he has a sneaking, uncomfortable suspicion that he was the trigger for what happened. Because less than an hour after he had confided in her, and told her what he knew about Rick, Desi had gone and attempted to kill him.