Chapter 65
March rolls around as if the world has nothing better to do than change its clothes, easing from white to green, shedding its old skin.
Race leaves the lodgehouse. Jack doesn't see him for two whole weeks, and frankly, he's absolutely terrified. Race isn't one who goes in for the deep conversations, not unless you catch him at three in the morning in a haze of cigar smoke, and he hadn't brought up the fact that he was leaving, so Jack hadn't asked. It isn't until his presence comes to be noticeably absent from their kitchen for an entire fortnight that Jack begins to worry.
So, one Saturday, late on in March, Jack leaves Katherine tapping out a final chapter of whatever wonders she's working with that typewriter of hers and heads through to Queens, to the only place he can assume that Race will be, now that he's no longer selling papes: the Aqueduct Racetrack. And he hopes, desperately, desperately, that he's wrong and that Race hasn't been absent from their kitchen for the past two weeks for the reason that he thinks he has.
Jack sneaks in the way the newsies always used to in the heady days of lost summers, slipping between the struts that support the stands, wafting away the cobwebs that have gathered there and slipping out into the track complex. He could afford to pay a quarter for the entrance fee, but he isn't here to watch the races. He's here to watch out for one particular Race. Jack spots him quickly, a boy with a halo of messy golden curls, a cigar clamped between his teeth, working his way along the row of spectators, shaking their hands with betting slips surreptitiously concealed in his palm. If Jack wasn't trying to save him, he'd absolutely kill him.
See, Race got his nickname when he kept getting a pool going in the lodgehouse and lying his way into the Aqueduct Racetrack of a Saturday afternoon to wager with the other newsboys over stakes of sandwiches. Hell, Jack's even joined him a few times, in the summers when the air was fresh and money wasn't so tight. He has fond memories of selling out their papes in the mornings, quick as shots, then sprinting over to Queens to sneak in beneath the stands, emerging into bright sunlight and freshly cut grass to drink lukewarm stolen beer straight from the bottles and watch the races. It's one of the few good memories he has. But this? This is not the same thing. This isn't teenage rebellion, but something that could wreck Race's entire future. And Jack isn't going to let any of his boys fuck themselves up like that.
Jack elbows his way through the crowd, forcing himself through the gaps where the middle-class bowler hats rub shoulders with the drunks sacking off from the dockyards, eyes fixed on that yellow head that bobs through the stands in front of him. When he finally catches up with him, Jack grasps hold of Race's collar and bodily drags him through the mass of people, the sweating, squirming masses there to witness the moment of the starting gun, ignoring the boy's writhing and wrestling until they're outside and Jack can shove him to the ground.
"What the hell were you thinkin'?" Jack snarls as Race lands in the dusty ground outside the track.
"What the fuck, Jack?" Race staggers to his feet, rubbing at the scruff of his neck where Jack had grabbed him. "I thought you was the bulls-"
"You best be glad I ain't." Jack spits, hating the images such a statement conjures up. He's run away from the bulls too many times, several of them in this very racetrack, weaving through the crowds, sweat on his brow, piercing whistles and flashes of navy blue behind him, their race as close as the one going on down on the track but with stakes infinitely higher. "Illegal gamblin', Race, really?"
"Like you don' break the law whenever you sees fit-"
"Whenever I needs to feed you an' the boys, you means. Why the hell didn't you ask for help?"
"'Cos you ain't some sorta saviour, Jack!" Race throws his hands in the air, laughing humourlessly, immune to the stares of the people passing by. He can't just be throwing himself on the mercy of the only one of their band of brothers who's managed to claw himself out of nothing. He's supposed to be able to do this himself. He shouldn't have to need anybody else. "Ever thought I don' want your help? Jus' 'cos you believes in Jesus now don' mean you is him."
Jack's jaw clenches. "I ain't lettin' you get thrown in prison –"
And that's what snaps Race, after his first two weeks of hellish adulthood. Because who is Jack, now, to let him do anything? If he's expected to sort himself out like an adult, then Jack can't put rules on him like a child.
He hits Jack before he even thinks about it, a right hook that catches Jack's jaw and sends him staggering backwards. "Where the hell else I goin' to end up?"
Jack doesn't take kindly to this, launching himself at Race, the two of them scrabbling and scrapping and rolling in the dust, gathering a small, distant crowd, as if they are their very own spectator sport, some sort of demented bullfight. Jack wouldn't be surprised if Race turns out to be part bull. He's certainly bull-headed enough. Jack's rusty, he hasn't been in a fistfight since Rawlings and that was months ago, but he's got a good six inches of height on Race, a decent amount more muscle, and the benefit of eating good food on a regular basis. Race lands a few punches, but there's no competition, not really. Before long, Jack has the kid pinned to the ground, digging his knee into the boy's abdomen. Just for a moment, just to make a point, Jack shifts his weight onto that knee, knocking the wind out of Race. Then he stands up, brushing the dust from his hands and his clothes. Race stays on the ground, panting. At a glare from Jack, the small crowd disperses, muttering something about drunkards.
"I got sentenced the second I ended up in the Refuge." Race finally spits out, a trickle of blood slipping from the corner of his mouth. "I ain't like you, there ain't no way outta this for me."
"Of course there's a way out. 'S always a way out." Jack tells him, holding out a hand to help Race up. The boy ignores it, but Jack keeps it there, a challenge. "Come home."
"I ain't got a home." Race snarls, propping himself up on one elbow and spitting a mixture of blood and saliva into the dust. "In case you's forgotten, I ain't allowed to stay at the lodgehouse no more."
"Not the lodgehouse, y'idiot. Home. Wi' me an' Kath. We's got a spare room, we'll help you find a job, we'll get it sorted. I ain't goin' to visit you in prison."
Race blinks up at him, eyeing Jack's extended hand with suspicion, but some of the vitriol is gone when he says: "I ain't takin' your spare room-"
"I ain't givin' you a choice."
"Kath won't want me-"
"Fuck off, Kath loves you." Jack rolls his eyes, leaning down properly in order to yank Race to his feet. "'Sides, y'won't need to stay long. Once you's got a job, a proper one, you can find your own place. 'S jus' a stopgap."
Race looks at him, a long piercing look. Then, he nods, and Jack nods back, and that's the end of it. No matter what anybody says, a brawl between newsies is pretty good at solving most things, according to Jack's experience at least. He slings his arm around Race's shoulders, bonier, he notes, than the last time he felt them, his shoulder blades sharp like the tips of a bird's wings, and they start to walk back. They're both of them a little bit battered and a little bit bloody, but such things aren't out of the ordinary for them.
Katherine, however, is less convinced by this protest when the two of them walk in looking as if they've gone two rounds with a brick wall. Race, at least, has the decency to apologise, feeling suddenly uneasy in the house in a way he never has before. Before, he's always just wandered in, unbothered by the notion that it might be an inconvenience. Now, though? He feels as though his very existence is an imposition. Jack has no such qualms, lazily grinning up at Katherine as she cleans up the scrape on his face, using rather more rubbing alcohol that is strictly necessary when he begs her, teasing, to kiss it better. She doesn't really hold it against him, though, as she presses a quick kiss to his uninjured cheek before he takes Race upstairs.
"Woah." Race says, as he walks into the spare room, eyes fixed on the mural that covers the entire back wall.
"Sorry." Jack mutters, scratching at the back of his neck as he hunts around for some clean bedsheets. "Was for Lucy."
Race is quiet for a long moment before he speaks. "She'd have liked it."
Jack's eyes flick up to meet his and Race stares him right back down. They share another nod, then, something like agreement, silent but very much there. Suddenly, Race doesn't feel quite so unwelcome anymore.
The following day, Race leaves the house in search of work, planning to scour various businesses for a sniff of gainful employment. His hopes aren't high; the only thing Race has ever been good at is lying, predominantly about newspaper headlines and betting odds, so, unless he can somehow get a gig as a politician, he doesn't think he's going to get very far. Still, he feels a strange sort of duty to at least try and sort himself out with some work after Jack and Kath have opened their door to him so readily.
Jack and Katherine go to church, as usual, though Marge invites Katherine back to her house for lunch, so Jack walks back from church alone. And that's fine, he's been alone most of his life, and he doesn't need his wife by his side every second of every day to feel whole or anything. Except, he'd really quite like her there right about now.
Jack's grieved enough people to know that the pain doesn't just go away after a few weeks, despite everybody treating it as though it does. He's been fooling himself, though, or trying to, that he's been feeling better about the loss of Lucy. Which, today at least, isn't true. See, between Katherine, the rest of his family, and their new church, he's been doing okay. He's accepted things. And he still has accepted things. He's sad, naturally, but both he and Katherine have figured out how to give themselves permission to be happy again. Except Race and that spare room have thrown him off again, like that time that the coalman succeeded in dislodging him from the side of the train and he'd ended up sprawled on the gravel at the side of the tracks, scraped up and bleeding. That day, six-year-old Jack got up and limped home. That's what today's Jack does too.
And he tries to concentrate on other things, he really does, he tries to work on a commission and scrubs the front step and tidies up all of the socks that he's left all over their bedroom floor. But he ends up back there, eventually, stood in the barren little spare bedroom, staring at the wall of jungle that rises before him, not entirely sure how he got here.
Race won't want a wall covered in silly animals. Nobody will. It's not like they're ever going to have child small enough to appreciate them staying in here – even Carl and Peter are rather too old for it. And Edith, it must embarrass her. It embarrasses him. He wonders if it was tempting fate, to paint something so soon, something so wild. Jack wonders if being lost in the jungle could even compare to being as lost as he feels right now. So, he goes and finds the white paint. It'll take a few coats to cover it up. It'll do him good. It'll put things to rest. It will.
He's just got the lid off the tin of paint when he hears Katherine return home. Jack dips the brush in the paint, watching the way that it disturbs the perfect surface, then swipes it across wall. It erases the monkey's eyes, a blindfold of white cloth, or that's what it would look like if the paint didn't start to drip down the wall, teardrops rolling down the tree trunks. The leaves are the same green as the booties that Katherine was knitting, the one that was buried with Lucy, the one that is pinned inside the front cover of Katherine's bible. And, somehow, it's the green that breaks him.
Men don't cry, his father used to say, but Jack does, because she's gone. And he knows that they're okay, knows that they can adopt, knows that he has his family, knows that he has Katherine, that he always has Katherine, he knows; but it hurts and the knowing doesn't stop the hurting. He hurls the paintbrush at the wall, white splattering across the jungle, fists his hands in his hair. He might scream, he might not – then decides that he has when Katherine appears in the doorway, a horrified expression on her face and he can't deal with that, he can't deal with that at all.
She steps towards him, arms outstretched, but he throws up a hand, a warning, stay back. He can't deal with somebody touching him right now, not even Katherine. She stops, lowers her arms. Jack swallows, screwing his eyes shut. Run, his brain keeps telling him, just run. Get out of here. But he presses his heels into the floor and stands his ground, though he squeezes his eyes shut so hard that it hurts. Jack presses his fingers against the warm metal of his wedding ring, trying to bring himself back to earth.
Do you think that you could try to tell me that next time, before you walk away? That's what she'd asked him to do. He can do that. He can do most anything for Katherine.
"I's goin' out. I ain't leavin'. I jus'… need a breather."
"Okay." Katherine says, nodding tightly and stepping out of his path.
So, he goes out and Katherine tells herself that he isn't leaving. Somehow, Jack's assurance isn't very comforting. She turns to the wall and sighs at what she sees, at the erasure there. But it won't do any good, this being still. So, she fits the lid back onto the tin of paint and cleans off the paintbrush the way she's watched her husband do a thousand times. Under the stairs, in their little store cupboard which is filled with the canvases that Jack hasn't got propped up against the walls to dry and the books that don't fit on the bookshelves that Katherine has situated in almost every room, she finds the little pot of lacquer thinner. She takes it up to the spare room and she waits. She waits a long time, it seems, before Jack returns, but he does return, like he promised her he would. And she realises, when he appears in the doorway scratching at the back of his neck with bags under his eyes like bruises, that she never for a moment doubted that he'd come back to her.
"Lucy?" She asks, knowing the answer already, and he just nods. She nods back. "Come on. We need this painting. For when we adopt."
Jack frowns at her as she holds out a cloth to him, but he takes it anyway and follows her lead, dipping his cloth in the lacquer thinner as she does with hers, beginning to gently remove the flaky white paint from over the mural. It takes them almost an hour as the work is both delicate and hard, fingers aching and backs cramping. They don't speak, not even a word, until they're done. But when they are, when the mural is back as bright as it ever was, Jack sits with his back against the opposite wall and pulls her down beside him, tugging her into his embrace. They're silent for a long moment, basking in the togetherness, the forgiveness, that is painted in the late afternoon sunlight that filters through the little window, illuminating the dust like so many fireflies.
"Can people who ain't babies get baptized?" Jack asks, gazing up at the wall.
"Well, of course they can. Lots of people do." Katherine replies, tearing her eyes from the mural and pulling away from him just slightly to look at him. "Why?"
Jack swallows, a heavy thing that lingers in his throat. "I think I'd like to. Not in front o' everybody, like. Jus'… quiet."
That is… not what she was expecting. Sure, she's known that Jack listens in church in a way that he never used to, spotted the little prayers in messy, backwards handwriting that have replaced his signature in the corners of the drawings in his personal sketchbook. But this? Her instant reaction, honestly, is that he can't. He can't even read the Bible, for goodness sake. But Katherine pushes that away. Jack wouldn't raise something like this, she knows, if it hadn't been preying on his mind for a good long while. He's serious about this. Just because his faith is quieter than hers doesn't make it any less real.
Katherine knows better than to try and make a big deal of get, to congratulate him on finding faith or something like that. There's too much honesty and openness about his features for that. It fills her chest with a fizzing feeling, though, that he's come back to her, that he's trusting her with this. So, she fights down squeals and nods, slowly.
"Why don't we talk to the reverend about it next Sunday? I can help you get the conversation started."
"That sounds good, yeah."
"Good."
And it is good. It is so very, very good.