extract #2

"Feet."
Joe gave the covers a sharp tug and Jack moved his feet. He bundled the covers into a ball and went through and dumped them under the table opposite the fridge.
He could hear Jack start to move so he went and sat down on the chair. While listening to the noises behind him he tried to make out what it was Jack was doing in the reflection of the big window he was facing. It was difficult with the rain breaking up the image.
The chair had always been their dad's chair. He claimed it and no-one could sit there if he was at the caravan too. He would sit and drink looking out at the view of the sea in the distance. He could sit for hours, sometimes rambling on as the drink went down about how he could have been in the Merchant Navy seeing the world. He had joined but lasted only two days because he didn't like the way the Captain talked to him, so he threw a punch.
"The sea's wild son," he once told Jack, " ye cannae make rules for it."
Jack loved sitting up past his bedtime in the caravan listening to his dad's slurred stories. He got little glimpses into his life, about what happened on those day-long walks he was always out on.
Late one night when it was just the two of them in the caravan his dad said something that so affected Jack that he went and wrote it down. It was a day like this day, with the rain hissing against the caravan in a ferocious slant. His dad had been telling him about maybe buying a wee boat one day and the two of them could go out and sit and fish. Then he fell silent and closed his eyes. Jack watched him, still as a tickled trout.
"Listen son. Listen tae that rain. That's the sky bringing me the sea."
There was only the sound of the rain. Jack waited for what would come next but when his dad started to snore he realised that he had fallen asleep. He got up and went to the bedroom and wrote it down.
Early the next morning he heard his dad about to leave and leapt out of bed and met him just as he was stepping out of the caravan.
"Dad? Would it be okay if I come way you on your walk?"
His dad had his hand on the handle of the open door and looked away from Jack out into the morning.
"No son. You'd better no. Away back tae bed."
At that he stepped down out the caravan and closed the door, and its shadow darkened where he'd left Jack standing.
Jack went back to bed and Joe sat up as he entered.
"You'd better no let our maw hear you talking like that.."
Jack got into bed and turned his back on Joe.
"There's nothing tae him Jack. He's never provided for us. It's been our maw that works all the hours. It's cause of her that we can have the odd weekend doon here. Don't let that dosser kid you."