Absolution (31 page)

This was not the Jack he knew. The Jack he knew didn’t go around looking for an excuse to punch someone.

“So I started working out in the gym on my way home from work – just punching the shit out of stuff, running till I could barely walk – getting everything out, all the crap that was in my head. And the more I worked out, the better I felt. Then one night, I got talking to this guy who said he had a friend who was doing this thing where he was fighting for money. Asked if I was interested. I thought yeah, why not? It wasn’t like I had anything to lose. So I went along with him and I got into the ring with this other guy.”

“And what happened?”

“He beat the snot out of me,” Jack smiled wryly. “Took me three weeks to recover.”

Callum shook his head, frowning. “I don’t get it. Why not just call it a day there and then? Why go back for more?”

“Because it felt good, it felt right, somehow. Don’t ask.”

“Getting the shit kicked out of you felt right?” Callum frowned.

“I told you not to ask.” Jack shrugged half-heartedly. “Anyway, after a few fights, something happened – I started fighting back. Channeling my frustrations, I guess. I don’t know.”

He sank back into his chair again. By contrast, Callum felt like a coiled spring. When he had seen him attack Andy that night, he knew something was different about Jack, but he’d had no idea how different.

“We’ve all done stuff we’re not proud of,” he said.

Jack snorted derisively. “You sound like Ally.”

“I’m guessing she doesn’t know about any of this?”

“No, and she’s not going to either, not if I can help it. These were my choices – more shitty ones, as it turns out, but mine just the same. I don’t want her thinking that any of this has got anything to do with her.”

Callum leaned forward and grabbed his beer bottle off the coffee table, taking a long pull. “It has though – got something to do with her,” he dangled the bottle between his knees. “You put yourself through all this because of what happened.”

“Because of what I did,” Jack insisted, steely-eyed.

Callum could see he wasn’t going to get anywhere, so he conceded defeat, changing tack.

“So, how are things going with you and her? From what I saw earlier, it looks like things are getting pretty serious.” He tried to keep his tone conversational as he met Jack’s gaze across the table.

“It’s going okay.”

“Okay? Looked more than just okay.”

“What’s your point?” Jack’s gaze was solid and steady, clearly on the defensive.

“Calm down – I’m just asking,” he clarified. “Honestly.”

Jack took a swig from his bottle. “I think she trusts me a little more,” he admitted after a few moments. “We can talk about things now – some things, anyway. She seems more comfortable.”

“And what about you? Are you more comfortable?”

Jack glanced up at him sharply.

“It’s not easy,” Callum said. “There are a lot of changes to get used to.”

Jack stood up, throwing him a sidelong glance as he walked over to the window.  He made a show of checking the road outside through a slim gap in the curtains.

“I think it’s gonna take some time,” he said, deep in thought. “She still keeps a lot of stuff to herself.”

“You’re right there.” Callum watched his back as he stood staring out into the street. “There’s stuff that she won’t even talk to me about and I’ve been here since it happened.”

Jack glanced over his shoulder at him. “That surprises me, given how close you two are.”

“Yeah, well, she keeps her cards pretty close to her chest. Sometimes you have to guess what’s going on inside that head of hers, and sometimes it’s just better to accept that she’s not gonna talk about it until she’s good and ready so you better settle in for a long wait.”

Jack continued to stare out the window, taking a slow pull on his beer. Callum debated whether he should say what was in his heart or not. Honesty won out. “It’s a really big deal, y’know – what’s happening here, with you and her.”

Jack half-turned around, waiting.

“There hasn’t been anyone since you left, since the accident.”

“I didn’t know that,” he said quietly.

Callum shrugged, unsure why he had even shared that with him. He took a hasty sip of his beer, draining the last of it. “I need to get some sleep. Some of us have work in the morning.”

He stood up, abandoning his empty beer bottle on the coffee table. Pausing in the living room doorway, he turned back to Jack.

“I think maybe you should stay away from her for a couple of days, just until we can be sure this is all a storm in a teacup.”

Jack nodded. “I hate lying to her, but I think you’re right.”

More lies, even if they too were disguised as little white ones.

She felt as if she were running in quicksand. Each step sucked her leg into the molten road, but she fought on regardless. Smoke filled her lungs as the wind changed direction, blowing smoke and ash from the burning car straight into her face. People ran past, heading for the burning car on the road up ahead, but for some reason she couldn’t explain, she didn’t call out for help.

She kept her eye on the car, horrified as the flames engulfed it. People pushed past her, blocking her view, and panic began to take hold, squeezing her chest.

She could hear Jack up ahead, screaming her name. She tried to call back to him but the smoke got caught in her throat and she choked on her words.

Ally woke up gasping for breath, her lungs burning. She was trembling all over. She knew instinctively that she had been moaning in her sleep, maybe even screaming. She whimpered, hating how pathetic she sounded. Her thighs ached and she tried to hang on to the phantom pain, even as the last threads of sensation died.

Uncharacteristically angry, she pulled the sweat-soaked pillow out from under her head and flung it across the room. Lying alone in the dark, she crossed her arms over her face and cried.

As Callum headed home after work the following day, he scanned the streets for any sign of the car he had seen outside Tom’s house.

He had spent the day going over and over the conversation with Jack the night before. Putting himself in Jack’s shoes the night he found out about Tom, he was on the brink of understanding. But the nagging feeling that this wasn’t just going to go away refused to leave him.

He checked the rear-view mirror again. Who knew that Jack would turn out to be the one involved in an underground boxing ring? With his own history of ‘misunderstandings’, he was sure that even money would have been on him.

He pulled into his driveway a short time later. The light was just beginning to fade and the streetlights hadn’t yet come on, but Jack had the curtains pulled in the living room. His car was still hidden from sight, around the back of the house. Jack wasn’t taking any chances, and that was worrying in itself. He reached over for the bag of takeout he had picked up on the way home and headed into the house via the back door.

“Honey, I’m home!” he called, pocketing his keys as he closed the door after him.

Jack appeared in the doorway, bleary-eyed.

“Enjoy your nap? I got Chinese food.”

“Great – I’m starving.”

Jack rubbed his short brown hair roughly, making it stand on end even more. Callum grabbed a couple of forks out of the drawer and handed one to him, along with a carton of Chinese food.

“What? No chopsticks?”

“Rule number one: we don’t do chopsticks in this house.”

“That’s right. Sorry,” Jack said, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.

He grabbed two bottles of beer out of the fridge and handed one to Callum, who eyed it greedily. “Jesus, I deserve that after the day I’ve had.”

“Tough day at the office, dear?”

“Something like that. Dealing with idiots can give a man a healthy thirst.”

“I called Ally earlier. She seemed a little out of sorts,” Jack said, heading into the living room.

“Yeah, I stopped by to see her on my way home from work. Nothing out of place, but she seemed a little down at the mouth. Said she was tired, so I’m sure that’s all it is.”

He collapsed in his favourite armchair, taking a good long swallow of beer as Jack switched on the TV. They sat in comfortable silence while they ate.

The whole situation had a thoroughly surreal vibe running through it. Jack, sitting in his living room, having a beer with him. The last couple of weeks had been a rollercoaster. Tom’s death, Jack’s sudden reappearance and the resulting chaos – not to mention Jack’s revelation of the previous evening – all of it felt completely bizarre. It had thrown him off-kilter, especially hearing about what Jack had been up to in the past year. What the hell was he thinking?

He glanced over at him now, as memories tumbled over him.

The night of the accident. Joking around outside Tom’s house. Jack’s new t-shirt. Discussing how Jack was going to pop the question. His best man speech. Talk of the bachelor party.

Jack throwing punches at Tom’s funeral. Andy McLeish going down in a screaming heap. Cage-fighting. Heavies who travelled in pairs.

Jack and Ally kissing in her backyard.

How the hell did we get from there to here?

Things would never be the way they were – too much water under the bridge for that. But perhaps, despite everything, they could find a middle ground somewhere? He couldn’t help but think that Tom would want them to try. He already knew what Ally wanted.

A couple of beers later, the conversation turned personal.

“Can I ask you something?” Jack lay stretched out on the couch, one arm behind his head, the other holding his beer bottle.

“That’s a loaded question.”

“What happened between you and Jane?”

Callum shrugged. The question was an easy one – the answer, not so much. He took a few moments, mentally tossing things around. “We realised that we weren’t happy.”

“Since when?” Jack frowned. “I mean, things seemed fine before I left.”

“Yes… and no. I could tell then that something was up, but it just seemed easier to leave it alone and pretend everything was okay.”

Jack eyed him over the top of his beer as he took another swig.

“After the accident, everything changed,” Callum said, staring at a spot on the wall. “I spent a lot of time with Ally, and with Tom. Priorities shifted and we both ignored the obvious because it was easier that way.”

“I had no idea,” Jack said. “You never said anything. I thought you guys were solid.”

Callum shrugged, peeling his gaze away from the wall as he took another sip from his bottle. “You had your own stuff going on, if I remember rightly. A little thing called a marriage proposal.”

“Did you ever tell her about that? The ring, the plans – any of it?” 

“Didn’t seem much point afterwards.”

Callum found himself thinking back to the accident for the second time that night. Apparently, Jack was doing the same.

“She really can’t remember anything about that day?” Jack glanced over at him from the couch.

“Nope. I actually think it might be better this way. The doc said it was like some sort of protective amnesia – her brain blocked it out because she probably couldn’t handle it. He might be onto something there.”