Jack, by Steve Gray
He could sit for hours, though the hours often bled into days, measured only by the shifting weight of the sun across the room and floorboards. He’d sit and wait, a quiet observer wallowing in the honeyed gentleness of the light.
Outside the glass, a riot of tangled thoughts and grasses encroached on the window, their runners threading through the cracks in the grey, splintering timber of the verandah. The boards there were tired, bowing under the weight of decades of weather, returning slowly to the earth.
No one dropped by much. On the rare occasion a car crunched on the gravel of the track, he could simply fade into the background, a shadow among shadows, unless he was expecting someone. Occasionally, it would be a representative from a local church group, their voices bright and intrusive: ‘Come on over to our way to being part of the world.’
Jack would listen to their remarks about the 'loneliness' of the bush, his face a mask of sullen indifference. He would stand behind the screen door, saying little if anything, peering out through the vignette created by rusted flywire and a fine veil of grey dust.
From the outside, he was a smudge of grey; from the inside, he was like a ghost. He would gently step back, letting the darkness of the room swallow his image. They might still be chatting, but he was already gone. Sometimes he would ease back a few steps and then turn to one side, but mostly he simply turned and retreated to his seat in the front room, where the air smelled of old paper and cold ash. They would get the hint; some seemed to get it faster than others. Either way, they would be gone, leaving behind a lingering sense of disquiet that may have taken hours to settle.
Then, sometimes the rain would come, drumming a frantic rhythm on the corrugated iron roof.
When the breeze picked up, carrying the scent of wet eucalyptus, he would rise and click the back door shut. The world would go quiet, well, quieter. The walls of the cottage would muffle the roar of the downpour into a distant, rhythmic hum, a terrifying normality that felt like the earth itself was breathing down his neck.
If the damp chill crept through the floorboards, as it often did, he would light the fire. It was slowly becoming a physical struggle now, the timber feeling heavier each year, but he kept a stash of silver-grey kindling on the back verandah and a few heavy chunks of dry gnarly hardwood. With a steady hand, worn smooth as a river stone, he would strike a match and bring the kindling to life.
Who could even begin to estimate how many fires had breathed life into that hearth? The cottage was over a hundred and thirty years old, its chimney stained by a lifetime of winter nights.
The days would fade, the sun sometimes setting in a bruised purple smudge over the far horizon. Occasionally, a plume of golden dust would rise from a car hurtling along the back track, two paddocks over. In that syrupy afternoon light, he’d watch the trail of dust set off against the afternoon light, knowing someone was finally heading home from a day of toil.
Life in the middle of the paddocks held a slow, tectonic interest. An owl might settle on the rusted ridge-capping of the middle distance hayshed; a brown snake might meander with liquid grace through the overgrown yard. There were finer details, too: a rogue hollyhock popping up in the garden or the way the lichen crept a fraction further across the gatepost.
As the day dissolved, night would settle in, and the darkness blurred the line between reality and visual hoaxes. The yard, gardens and grass, played tricks; illusions of movement in the shrubs, a shape there, then gone. For an old man, there was little left to startle him, though sometimes a sudden, sharp crack from a falling tree branch left him rattled a little.
Noises were often just the house breathing: a falling branch thudding into the dirt, or the sweeping arc of headlights from a car in the distance that had taken a wrong turn. The flash of white would sweep the ceiling and be gone soon enough.
Morning would arrive with a pale light easing into the bedroom and the small, linoleum-floored kitchen. He would lie there, listening to the magpies, and rise only when the urge took him. Sometimes the sun was higher in the sky than most ‘productive’ folks would dare to entertain, but for him, time had lost its teeth. What mattered was the quiet dignity of living his life exactly his way, finding comfort in the small spaces of his home where the world couldn't reach him or his dank memories.
There were aches, of course, the stiff knee, the cloudy eye, and the obligatory pilgrimages to the clinic. All par for the course.
His doctor, a man who smelled of peppermint and worry, suggested aged care assistance as the years piled up. ‘People could come around, Jack. Help with the heavy lifting. Just say the word.’ It would be a long while before he’d agree to that. Perhaps someone to whack back the waist-high grass or a sturdy youngster to crack open the ironbark logs, but not yet.
One night a week, he would venture out to the local pub. He’d arrive early, catching the kitchen just as it opened, and be gone by the time the roar of the evening crowd began. A man of simple means, he stuck to the seniors' plate of fish and chips, crisp batter and a lemon wedge.
‘Jack,’ Karen, the barmaid, would nod, her voice softening with genuine respect. She’d ask if he wanted his usual beer.
‘Yes please, Karen,’ he’d say. He would count out the exact change in silver and worn notes, then retreat to his seat in the corner where the light was dim and the draft was minimal.
Meal and beer consumed, he was off. He had no desire to be on the roads after dark any longer than necessary. He’d give a slight, two-finger wave to Karen if she wasn't mid-pour; otherwise, he’d simply ease out the door and vanish into the cool night air.
Home safe, he’d heave one last log onto the coals to top things up for the night. His old TV, a bulky unit with a slight hum in its speakers, had seen better days, but Jack saw no reason to change it. There was no one left to tell him the picture was fuzzy or that he deserved better. He sat in the warm glow of the hearth, perfectly content with the graininess of the screen.
TV shows came and went. The remote control still worked but anyone else would wonder how or why. After enough viewing, the off button would cause the room to descend into a half lit space. Jack would shuffle to his bedroom and shake things into some semblance of comfort and warmth in his bed.
The day came, assistance required, something in Jack’s head said he could ‘live things up a little.’ He thought that maybe it was something to do with the season, the autumn heading into winter, perhaps that did it. Assessment arranged, the grass was soon mown, some logs split, and a cleaner once a fortnight. They wanted to do it more often, but Jack laughed, shook his head, and said no.
Somewhere further ‘down the track’ he said yes. The second visit was more of a chat and a cuppa. Alan, who showed up, bought a packet of Tim Tam chocolate biscuits occasionally. Jack seemed to like that. The two of them would sit in the kitchen, exchanging fragments of stories that built a bridge over the silence of the near distance paddocks. They both learnt about each other, their families and their nuances.
They would chat for ages. On one occasion Alan brought around a mate who was a window cleaning expert. Inside and out, he made sure things were bright and shiny. Jack was now able to see details he hadn’t noticed in a long while and was very appreciative. It was a new kind of collective, notional strength, a quiet agreement that even an old retiree didn't have to face the winter alone.
The kitchen table, once a solitary island of scarred mountain ash, became the anchor for their Tuesday afternoon sessions. Alan had a way of sitting that didn’t feel hurried; he’d lean back, his presence filling the small spaces between the hum of the fridge and the ticking clock. Jack, usually sullen and guarded with strangers, found himself offering up big fragments of words, bits of history that had been buried like quartz in the hills.
'You ever miss the noise, Jack?' Alan asked one afternoon, dunking a biscuit with practiced precision. 'The work? The blokes?'
Jack looked out through the now-crystal-clear window in the kitchen. The tangled thoughts he usually kept coiled tight began to unfurl. 'It wasn't the noise you missed,' Jack said, his voice raspy from disuse. 'It was the collective strength of the shift. Knowing if something went wrong, the worker next to you was already moving to fix it.'
They talked about how the town had shrunk, businesses had moved on, some of the shops boarded up one by one, a slow-motion vanishing act that most people met with dismissive remarks about 'progress.'
'It’s a terrifying normality, isn't it?' Alan remarked, looking at the empty paddocks. 'The way things just... stop. And we're expected to just keep walking over the top of it.'
Jack nodded, feeling a rare moment of being understood. He shared things that usually left him rattled if he thought of them alone, the way the silence of the cottage sometimes felt too heavy, or the phantom itch in his hands to hold various tools. Alan didn't offer pity; he offered a steady nod and another Tim Tam.
'I reckon the house remembers,' Alan said softly, tracing a crack in the linoleum. 'One hundred and thirty years... that's a lot of ghosts to keep company.'
Jack felt the weight of the house press down, but for the first time in years, it didn't feel like a burden. It felt like a shared secret.
Alan had a thought, Jack had a lot of stories, some relating to local history, perhaps these could be recorded as some form of memoir. Alan sought advice, the idea was put forward to break up his life into five year chunks, a page for each five years, just in point form and then it could be fleshed out further. If he got stuck he could skip to more current memories.
Jack agreed, now in his mid eighties that meant just over sixteen pages per five years. He put the dates to be covered at the top of each page. They figured out the first bunch of pages based on school and then where the family lived, what they did and so on.
The pages soon filled and for some of the dates Jack had his Marriage certificate and a few other things that would indicate specific dates. His wife, Marlene used to keep records from holidays they had been on, that made some things easier to pin down.
There were key dates, like Marlene’s birthday, then the date of her passing at age seventy two, that was clearly etched in Jack’s brain, then the loss of his brother Carl’s business that caused Carl into a mental breakdown, a heart attack and an untimely death. Things were sold off and Jack ended up with just this old farm house. He was way too old to take on a loan so this was all he could afford. The whole thing had been a struggle, recalling that period of time caused Jack to slowly shake his head in quiet disbelief.
Neither he or his brother had any kids to consider, Jack only had Marlene, Carl didn’t have any interest in women, he just wanted to work. Funny how the one thing he really wanted would kill him in the end.
Jack talked about Marlene, his voice somehow softened and Alan noted how Jack could reel off the times they went on holidays, the events they attended and then how Marlene’s friends faded away at the first sign of her becoming ill. Jack sat silently for a long moment, simply stating, ‘Cancer is a bitch, no matter how you look at it. One minute Marlene was as happy as could be, then faded, it was rather sad. Her funeral was a drab affair, some of the friends returned, some just stayed away.’
Alan felt he had to ask… ‘Do you miss Marlene, or has that grief faded to some degree?’ Jack looked up briefly, Alan felt regret for having asked… ‘She and I were joined at the hip you might say, hearing the diagnosis of her illness knocked both of us for six. I’ve been heartbroken ever since.’
Alan walked away that day, struck by the depth of sorrow he felt Jack had held onto.
Two years later, the memoir was well and truly developed, typed up and edited. Jack was well pleased but silently wondered who would read it or take any interest in it. Distant relatives didn’t seem to show any interest, so Jack had simply gone along with the concept and watched as memories would trickle and then sometimes flood back.
Alan chatted to the local library, they had a small local history section and were keen to have the memoir as part of that.
It wasn’t long after that Jack took on the advice of his Doctor and started to check out aged care facilities. Alan was very attentive, making sure that his ‘mate’ of a few years would be well catered for.
The farmhouse was cleared out, although there was little to clear out. Then Jack settled into the new facility. He met people and soon forgot their names. He opted to wear his own name tag, just in case others decided to do the same, some said they would, but didn’t.
The time went by, the surroundings were brighter than the old farmhouse and it was pleasing to have three meals a day offered to the residents. Activities weren’t something that Jack was overly eager to take part in, but with Alan’s encouragement he did some of the things on offer.
Jack watched people come and go, visitors and residents alike. Some were there for the ‘long haul’ others for a short term, an old smile and a fading disposition. Jack soon resigned himself to the passing parade of people. He too would be part of that passing parade at some stage.
He and Alan would chat about the idea of passing away and what that might mean. Jack had a forthright approach, ‘No invisible friend up in heaven is going to be there to take things onto a new level for me, that stuff is the stuff of ‘horse shite.’’ Alan simply smiled and agreed.
There was a Sunday catch up group that would have argued black and blue that things would be different, but to Jack and Alan, they preferred facts, data and science to tales from a distant past that didn’t bear any form of scrutiny in their eyes.
One morning Alan was aroused by a call on his phone. The advice was that Jack had quietly passed in the night.
A small memorial service was held at the facility, those who had met Jack recalled he was a gentle man whose memoir made for fascinating reading.
Jack.
© 2026 Steve Gray