The Talisman

exactly what I’m talking about.’
    Her cheeks reddened; her mouth thinned into a line. ‘That’s so unfair it’s despicable, Jacky. You can’t use what Philip might have known as a weapon against me.’
    ‘What he did know, not what he might have known.’
    ‘you’re talking total horseshit, sonny boy.’
    The waitress, setting a plate of scrambled eggs, home fries, and sausages before Jack, audibly inhaled.
    After the waitress had paraded off, his mother shrugged. ‘I don’t seem able to find the right tone with the help around here. But horseshit is still horseshit is still horseshit, to quote Gertrude Stein.’
    ‘I’m going to save your life, Mom,’ he repeated. ‘And I have to go a long way away and bring something back to do it. And so that’s what I’m going to do.’
    ‘I wish I knew what you were talking about.’
    Just an ordinary conversation, Jack told himself: as ordinary as asking permission to spend a couple of nights at a friend’s house. He cut a sausage in half and popped one of the pieces in his mouth. She was watching him carefully. Sausage chewed and swallowed, Jack inserted a forkful of egg into his mouth. Speedy’s bottle lumped like a rock against his backside.
    ‘I also wish you’d act as though you could hear the little remarks I send your way, as obtuse as they may be.’
    Jack stolidly swallowed the eggs and inserted a salty wad of the crisp potatoes into his mouth.
    Lily put her hands in her lap. The longer he said nothing, the more she would listen when he did talk. He pretended to concentrate on his breakfast, eggs sausage potatoes, sausage potatoes eggs, potatoes eggs sausage, until he sensed that she was near to shouting at him.
    My father called me Travelling Jack , he thought to himself. This is right; this is as right as I’ll ever get.
    ‘Jack—’
    ‘Mom,’ he said, ‘sometimes didn’t Dad call you up from a long way away, and you knew he was supposed to be in town?’
    She raised her eyebrows.
    ‘And sometimes didn’t you, ah, walk into a room because you thought he was there, maybe even knew he was there – but he wasn’t.’
    Let her chew on that.
    ‘No,’ she said.
    Both of them let the denial fade away.
    ‘Almost never.’
    ‘Mom, it even happened to me ,’ Jack said.
    ‘There was always an explanation, you know there was.’
    ‘My father – this is what you know – was never too bad at explaining things. Especially the stuff that really couldn’t be explained. He was very good at that. That’s part of the reason he was such a good agent.’
    Now she was silent again.
    ‘Well, I know where he went,’ Jack said. ‘I’ve been there already. I was there this morning. And if I go there again, I can try to save your life.’
    ‘ My life doesn’t need you to save it, it doesn’t need anyone to save it ,’ his mother hissed. Jack looked down at his devastated plate and muttered something. ‘What was that?’ she drilled at him.
    ‘I think it does, I said.’ He met her eyes with his own.
    ‘Suppose I ask you how you propose to go about saving my life, as you put it.’
    ‘I can’t answer. Because I don’t really understand it yet. Mom, I’m not in school, anyhow . . . give me a chance. I might only be gone a week or so.’
    She raised her eyebrows.
    ‘It could be longer,’ he admitted.
    ‘I think you’re nuts,’ she said. But he saw that part of her wanted to believe him, and her next words proved it. ‘If – if – I were mad enough to allow you to go off on this mysterious errand, I’d have to be sure that you wouldn’t be in any danger.’
    ‘Dad always came back,’ Jack pointed out.
    ‘I’d rather risk my life than yours,’ she said, and this truth, too, lay hugely between them for a long moment.
    ‘I’ll call when I can. But don’t get too worried if a couple of weeks go by without my calling. I’ll come back, too, just like Dad always did.’
    ‘This whole thing is nuts,’ she said. ‘Me included. How are you going to get to this place you have to go to? And where is it? Do you have enough money?’
    ‘I have everything I need,’ he said, hoping that she would not press him on the first two questions. The silence stretched out and out, and finally he said, ‘I guess I’ll mainly walk. I can’t talk about it much, Mom.’
    ‘Travelling Jack,’ she said. ‘I can almost believe . . .’
    ‘Yes,’ Jack said. ‘ Yes .’ He was nodding. And maybe , he thought, you know some of what she