Jack gazed down from his post on the Cunningham Casuarina outside his house to see Daniel pulling up in the station wagon. Jack had been humming the ‘Flower Duet’ in his head. Mel and Juliet had lent him the record, and he’d played it all afternoon in the shed.
The night was clear, with every visible star visible.
‘Jack,’ said Daniel, unpacking his station wagon, somehow sensing his son was perched above. ‘Thought you’d be at Mel’s?’
Jack said nothing as Daniel made his way to the front door where Jean had appeared, arms folded.
‘Mrs Jeffries wanted to take Jack to the opera,’ she explained tersely.
Daniel cocked his head.
‘With her lover!’
A small flame of jealousy shot up in Daniel but he suffocated it almost instantly. If nothing else, he would not give in to this systemic pettiness. ‘Oh well, bit of sing-song,’ he shrugged, kicking off his boots.
‘I’m not having them turn him into a… well…’
Daniel looked at her sharply. ‘Oh, Jean.’
Jean was silenced by the staggering disappointment on his face. A disappointment, a weariness, so profound, it almost made her question her words. This stolid patience of Daniel’s! She quickly stalked inside. Daniel stepped off the paving in his socks, and padded up to the trunk’s base.
‘You’d better start your homework, son. School tomorrow.’
Reluctantly, Jack swung down, and the two walked companionably towards the house. Suddenly Daniel stopped, having remembered something. He pulled a letter from his overall’s pocket.
‘Oh, I forgot. Your mother wanted me to give you this letter this morning. It’s for Mr Higgins. We’re having a barbecue at the weekend.’
Jack looked at the sealed letter.
Daniel smiled. ‘Don’t tell your mum I forgot now, will you, son?’
Jack took the letter, his mind focused on that word his mum had been about to use. He knew what it was because she’d finished other sentences with it in, and Simon made frequent use of it too.
Sissy.
Did a love of stories, music and the arts make him a candidate for that name?
‘Jack,’ said his father gently, and Jack stepped inside.
The next morning, Higgins, seated at his desk in his office, took the sealed envelope from Jack. He opened it with a silver letter opener and glanced at its contents.
‘Oh, lovely. Tell your mother I’d be delighted to attend.’
Jack turned to leave.
Higgins looked down at his hands thoughtfully then at Jack with a serious expression on his face. ‘Oh, Jack, can I see your exercise book?’
Jack stopped in his tracks. Although he didn’t understand all that fuss with his drawing, he had hoped it was at least forgotten. He hated that he now nursed an odd feeling about something he’d previously only felt pride in. And that feeling about his gift was… shame. Irritably, he slowly trudged back to Higgins’ desk, opened his bag, and handed over his exercise book. He watched, fidgeting, as Higgins licked and thumbed each page till he got to the page, the one with the revised charioteer.
‘Hmm, this is actually quite good.’ Higgins scrutinised Jack suspiciously. ‘You drew this?’
Jack sighed with exasperation. It was such a silly question; it was his exercise book, wasn’t it? ‘Of course.’
Higgins pursed his lips, got up from behind his desk, walked to the front of it and put a hand on Jack’s shoulder.
‘Don’t lie, Jack.’
Something snapped in Jack. ‘I did draw it!’
‘Jack!’ yelled Higgins, offended to the core by the boy’s impudence. ‘Sit down!’
Jack obeyed, reluctantly. Higgins walked to the sash window to calm himself, and peered through the glass.
The kids were rolling in outside, generation after generation. How many would he, Higgins, see through the revolving door, before the wheel of life completed its revolution for him?
Still gazing outside, he said more softly, ‘Jack, I know your father used to paint pictures before he painted houses.’
Jack glanced up from his exercise book, which he was scribbling in with a pen he’d taken from Higgins’ desk. What a stupid thing to say. While Daniel played with him in most games, he refused to engage in drawing or painting himself.
‘Dad can’t draw.’
Higgins tapped on the glass; no doubt a student outside was running or some other such misdemeanour, Jack thought wryly.
Higgins cleared his throat. ‘When he met your mum, he was a doodler just like you. But doodling doesn’t support a wife and kids.’
Jack digested this information. Daniel had never said he couldn’t draw… just that it hurt somehow. Jack resumed his drawing.
Higgins still had his back to him.
‘Don’t dream your life away like your father. You could be one of our best students, Jack. Others might come and go. These city girls—kids, I mean—with all their airs. Miller’s Creek Comprehensive might only be small, but I have always prided myself on giving every child who comes to this school a solid grounding.’
Higgins turned, his eyes adjusting to the dimmer interior light and stepped towards Jack.
‘Therefore I expect the truth from each and every…’
Higgins made a ‘tsk’ sound, disappointed to see Jack doodling again, when he had sermonised on just that topic.
‘So you mustn’t lie to me, Jack. You mustn’t—’ He stopped, peering over the boy’s bent head.
The bastard! Higgins pushed Jack back, ripping the offending page from the exercise book.
Surprised and afraid, Jack got up and retreated to the entrance door.
‘Out,’ was all Higgins could utter.
When left alone, Higgins dared un-scrunch the paper. Yes, it was unmistakably a caricature of him… in a nappy… sucking his thumb. The worst of it was, he knew it would not sting so acutely were there not a kernel of truth in it. The kid had seen unsympathetically into his soul.
Jack was in a dark mood, singing in his head the Kinks’ ‘I’m Not Like Everybody Else’. He was at a desk in the school library, which was hemmed between rows of metal bookshelves, all plated khaki green.
He was defacing his revised drawing of the charioteer, putting blood splotches here, blood splotches there, arms being lopped off. First one, then another, of his classmates, attracted no doubt by the sight and sound of him scribbling so furiously, had gathered to peer over his shoulder, till there was quite the crowd. Miss Ashton, the librarian with a bob cut, dark glasses, and precise small movements from always putting away books, glanced through the gap in the shelves between F and G at the strange throng.
Naturally timid, she hoped the kids would either disperse of their own accord or that the teacher meant to be supervising them would appear and put them in order.
Jack finished his revision by drawing an enormous penis on the charioteer. This elicited a raucous laugh from the other children, including Mel.
Their mouths shut as one.
His stomach dropping, Jack followed their gaze. Rush, a discoloured linen-bound book of Greek myths in his hand, was standing in front of them.
He surveyed the children before removing his reading glasses and theatrically craning his entire body from the waist down till his head was hovering over Jack’s exercise book, his eyes a mere ruler’s length from its open pages.
Rush recoiled slightly in surprise before removing his glasses and taking one last squiz of Jack’s picture to make sure he’d seen correctly. He put his book under his left armpit the better to fog up then clean his reading glasses with a purple silk handkerchief.
Jack, by this stage, would have all but slipped under the table if it hadn’t been jammed up against his chest from the other kids pressing behind him.
Many worries and thoughts crowded in on his mind, but the worst was whether this might be communicated to Juliet, and Jack’s friendship with Mel threatened as a result.
Rush put his glasses back in his pocket.
‘My, Jack, that’s an unfortunate-looking penis,’ he quipped before walking off, head back in book once more.
Miss Ashton, who was still spying between the gap in F and G, hit her head on the above shelf, dislodging several books, all of which she somehow managed to catch in a juggling motion without making the slightest sound.
‘You’ve had it now,’ Glen gloated over Jack’s shoulder.
Jack looked up at the sea of faces. ‘What’s he gonna do?’
Kate chimed in. ‘Tell Mr Higgins, I bet!’
Mel, who until then had thought the whole matter rather harmless, noted the worry on Jack’s face. It was slick with perspiration.
‘No, he won’t,’ she rejoined hastily.
Jack’s eyes locked hers. ‘Mel, do you think he’ll tell my mum?’
Mel was already reassessing the adequacy of her concern, judging from not only the consternation on Jack’s face but her classmates around her. She felt fairly sure what Dash would do (they’d agreed not to call him Dash at school to avoid ‘rocking the boat’) but she wasn’t so sure of Higgins’ response should he find out.
Mel looked worriedly at Rush, who was now sitting in the beanbag in the corner by the window, reading the book of Greek myths. She turned back to Jack. Was it something Dash would tell Higgins?
With library over, the kids piled back into their homeroom class. Mel sat at her and Jack’s new spot up front, before discovering that Jack was hesitating to join her. Hearing Rush whistling as he brought up the stragglers, Jack pulled his head into his shoulders and made straight for the back.
‘Jack!’
‘I don’t want him to see me, Mel. Maybe if I sit at the back, he’ll forget.’
Mel got up promptly. ‘I’ll sit with you.’
‘No,’ said Jack, rather more loudly than he intended, but Rush’s unruly hair was looming into view at the door, and he had no time to be polite.
‘No?’ questioned Mel.
Jack leant in and hurriedly whispered. ‘No, Mel. Maybe I should sit with Michael. I don’t want to be called a… a sissy.’
When Jack stumbled into his old seat, Michael looked up and smiled, happy to have company again.
Mel sat down, hurt. Kate entered class, the last of the female stragglers, and eyeballed Mel contemptuously when she saw there was nowhere else to sit but next to her.
Rush was about to enter class when a large bear-like hand stopped him.
‘Frank?’ said Rush, surprised.
Higgins shot a glance at a few boys still entering class.
Rush corrected himself, amused. Placing the appellation of Mr or Mrs before a surname, or even a Sir or Miss, did not necessarily bring with it a student’s respect. Personally, he wished everyone called him Dash, no matter their age.
Nonetheless, taking his own advice that he’d dished out to Jack and Mel before the holidays were over—not to ‘rock the boat’—he smartly corrected himself.
‘Mr Higgins.’
Higgins reached for the collection of Greek myths in Rush’s hands, which Rush reluctantly relinquished. Higgins made a show of reading the cover before flipping through the pages without focusing on them.
‘Mr Rush, don’t you think some of the stories you tell in class are inappropriate for primary school children?’
Rush felt a tightening of his mouth. ‘Inappropriate?’
‘Yes,’ said Higgins. ‘Now, why not tell something from the good book?’
Higgins pulled a large, leather-bound tome from his voluminous coat pocket.
Rush stared at it a moment, reading the title. Reluctantly, he took the bible. He then held out his other hand for the book of Greek myths.
Higgins concealed it behind his back.
Rush flushed with anger.
Higgins smiled.
‘I’ll return it to the library for you.’
Higgins about-turned and loped back down the corridor and towards his office.
The anger had subsided in Rush, but he couldn’t help feeling perturbed by the incident.
He entered class and noted that Jack and Mel were not sitting together. His unease at Higgins’ behaviour swelled slightly at this further oddity, till he decided the two incidences could in no way be connected. His eyes travelled from Jack, who seemed weirdly like a tortoise trying to hide in its shell, and settled on Mel, straight and erect of carriage as always. She shrugged.
The lightness of that very gesture, the warmth and humour of it, buoyed him in a second. He would not be bested. He never had been.
Slowly, he leafed through the bible as the kids wondered at his uncharacteristic taciturnity. He stopped flipping suddenly, at Matthew 19:20, which he then proceeded to paraphrase in a tone more solemn, more serious, than the kids were used to from him. His characteristic pacing, however, was still very much in exhibition.
‘There was once a rich man who owned a vineyard. One morning, he hired several labourers to pick grapes. At midday, he went out and hired several more. Then, late in the day, he hired a final group of workers. When it came time to pay the labourers their wages, those who started early in the day expected more pay than those who started later, and yet the man gave equal, generous pay to all. “Why?” they asked. “It is not fair that they that worked less should be paid as much as those who worked longer.” “Can I not do as I like with my own money?” replied the rich landowner. “Why be jealous of my kindness?” Thus will the last be first, and the first last.’
Rush finally stopped pacing and gazed at the class. ‘What might that be about, do you think?’
Glen, who was leaning back in his chair, and who had been influenced by his father talking about the oddity of the new teacher, said to elicit a response from his classmates, ‘Getting ripped off!’
There was a dull laugh, which did not seem to disturb Rush. Mel noted he had that sparkle back in his eye.
‘Ah,’ he said, his voice alive and animated once more; finger raised. ‘But they all got paid well in the end. Some worked longer for their money, though. What might you substitute the money for? Could this story really be about something else?’
Jack looked up from his desk, the parable having drawn him in. He’d listened to it avidly but he had also been thinking about what Mel had done earlier. She’d offered to sit at the back of class with him. He’d been wrong to rebuff her because he now saw it was her return gesture for him accompanying her to detention. And the fact she’d unhesitatingly reciprocated had flooded his heart with a joy not even his worry could extinguish.
Mel raised her hand.
‘Yes, Mel?’
‘Satisfaction?’
Rush smiled encouragingly. ‘Perhaps, but what about…’
‘Love.’
Rush shot him a look. ‘Yes, Jack, love. Some find it early in life, some later, but the reward is always the same.’
Jack blushed; he had not meant to say that out loud.
Mel raised her hand. Jack laughed inwardly—she might as well keep her hand up, she knew all the answers!
Rush gestured for her to speak.
Glancing over her shoulder at Jack, she answered in a chastising tone, ‘Some people never find it at all.’
A sadness flashed over Rush’s face. ‘Ah alas, Mel, I think that’s true.’
Jack felt even more ashamed for rejecting something as magical as a person wanting to stand alongside him, to form a windbreak against the travails of life.
Toco Productions 