The Family Men (11 page)

It felt like an eternity as they drove around, the city an aimless grid of uneven laneways and wind tunnels, poorly lit alcoves and overbright shopfronts, but it might only have been ten minutes, each intersection looking much like the last, the street signs missing or obscured by trees or other traffic. Was this a mistake? For the first time she had real misgivings.
Hello, excuse me.
Where were they going? Where were the other girls? Where was Greta? Would her mother be able to find her if she needed to? But her questions went unanswered, the men smoking, listening to the radio, a lively jangly music that never seemed to end. She couldn't get her bearings (
pin the tail on the tail
). For all she knew they could have been driving around in circles.

She decided she wanted to go home. She was going to say something –
stop, let me out
– but thought better of it, realising it made more sense to wait at least until they reached the venue, then she could explain to Greta in person and, if need be, catch a taxi back to the station. She had thirty dollars in her wallet. That should be enough for the fare. But then what? Home? Take two with her mother and Ray doing it on the couch? That had been an unwelcome surprise, opening the door to find Ray's pale hairy bottom staring her right in the face. And not at all funny either, their laughter yet another sign that she didn't belong there, that it was time to leave. Plus, there was the issue of the money.

They turned down an alley, pulled into a parking space beside a dumpster and the driver shut down the engine. She thought they were still in town but she wasn't sure where.

The men said something to each other but she didn't recognise the language, telling herself not to panic as they got out of the car.

It was only after they ushered her out too that she understood she had arrived.

*

Harry knows Rosie will be waiting up for him but his is the wrong frame of mind tonight for her glass-half-full disposition. He goes home to find his dad sacked out on the couch, the Nurofen and a packet of Stilnox open on the kitchen bench, the tube of liniment lying uselessly on the coffee table. It isn't the first time. “Back or headache?”

“Both.”

Smokey and the Bandit
is on TV.

“What's this shit?” says Harry, pointing at the telly. “Change the channel, will you? Here, give us the remote.”

His father swipes his hand away as his youngest son leans across him on the couch, almost knocking his coffee cup to the floor. “Leave it alone. My house, my rules. You know the score.”

“But you're not even watching it,” Harry protests. “How many of those pills have you taken? It says a maximum of four every twenty-four hours. You're not supposed to mix them.”

“Those labels are just guidelines. I know what I need.”

“If you're that uncomfortable you should go back to the doctor,” says Harry, rubbing his own thigh automatically, as though the pain is infectious, a gesture he's picked up from being in the company of too many has-beens over the years, the effect of years of “physical abuse”, his mother calls it, the last thing he wants from the game, that kind of arthritic legacy. It is too late for heat packs. “Do you want a cup of tea?” he offers.

“No. I already had one.”

Harry leans back, resigns himself to Burt Reynolds (that is a moustache), taking mental inventory of his own physical condition, an orchestra of clicking ankles and knees, missing toenails, blisters, aching shins, intermittently tender Achilles tendons. His brother already has a bung shoulder. Barely eighteen months older than him, and his arm is taped more often than not. Matt isn't allowed to lift so much as a stubby without a trainer's permission. “Maybe you should lay off it,” Harry suggested when he first did it (popped the joint right out of the socket), Harry re-enacting the moment for their mum at the dinner table complete with sound effects, worried it could signal the end of his brother's career if he didn't allow time to fully recuperate, but Matt blew him off. “It goes with the territory,” he said, his tone another rebuke, it being plain that he found Harry's concerns irritating, unmanly, certainly a sign that he didn't have the right stuff. “You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs,” he continued, trotting out another cliché. Publicity would have been proud; it was exactly the way they'd been trained to talk, following up one sound bite with another. Enough practice and it came off sounding completely unrehearsed.

The house smells of fried fish fingers and burnt potato puffs (Birds Eye), what his dad had for dinner.

“I've had enough of this shit,” Alan announces during the ad break then, uncharacteristically, “I'm going to bed.”

“But it's only ten-thirty,” says Harry. The leftover fish fingers are still warm in the pan.

Senior glances at his watch. “Really? It feels much later than that.”

The girl groans. Harry puts his hand over her mouth to quieten her as he thrusts into her, her hands and feet secured to keep her still. Her eyes wide as she struggles for breath, her head thrashing from side to side as she fights to shake him off. He presses harder, feeling the wetness of her mouth as his fingers penetrate her lips, her teeth gritted against his skin. He closes his eyes and lets his mind go blank, a crackling
zzzzz
of static, his own private white noise, driving out the doubt, the ever present chatter. It works. For a moment he even forgets where he is. His whole being transported to a quiet place, as though he is sitting atop a very tall tree peering down through the leaves on a distant speck of himself, everything a long way away. And then all the resistance leaves her body and she goes limp, abruptly bringing him back to earth as his fingers slip all the way down her throat like she is trying to swallow him. Harry slaps her to wake her up, lunging at her as she feigns unconsciousness.
Stupid bitch. How can she fall asleep?
She flaps against the floor like a shook rug. He slaps her again, harder now, noticing the way her head jogs lazily against the floor. It reminds him of an unclaimed football finally coming to rest after hitting the post.

He wakes with a start, his torso sopping wet, his heart pounding as his eyes go straight to the clock. 2.06 am. He stares at it, a beacon in the dark, hearing its soft flicker as it clicks over to 2.07.

This is his brother's fault. If Matt had just let him talk about her he wouldn't be dreaming about the girl again now, her touch, her smell, the sound of her voice hounding his thoughts, bullying him for attention. Or is that the problem, he shouldn't have tried to talk to Matt about it? When had that strategy ever paid off?

Already the sweat is cooling, the sheets tacky to touch.

He needs to make these nightmares stop.

A ribbon of light shines under the door. His father is up again too. He throws back the blanket and pulls on his tracksuit pants.

He expects to hear his father moving about, his usual late-night patter, but the house is suspiciously still. Harry bowls into the kitchen thinking perhaps he's made a mistake, his dad has simply forgotten to turn out the light, only to find his father reeking of alcohol, sitting with legs outstretched in the middle of the floor, the linoleum strewn with paper and tiny jigsaw pieces.

“What the fuck?” says Harry, picking up one of the pages.

“London Bridge has fallen down,” Alan answers, his voice slurring, his face wet with tears.

So much for a puff piece. The article proofs had come in. As everyone suspected, the journalist had lied.

The next morning Harry doesn't bother fetching the newspaper. He can see it in its plastic wrap languishing on the scrappy lawn as he dials Laurie's number. “It's over,” he tells his coach. “I'm done.”

“Done?”

“Yeah,” he repeats. “Done and dusted.”

“Have you talked to anybody about this?” says Laurie, scrambling for his glasses. “Your brother? Does your mother know?”

“Oh fuck it,” says Harry. “I'm sick of talking. I'm sick of the whole bloody mess.”

II.

Reconsideration

ALAN FUREY ON “THAT NIGHT” AND THE PRICE OF FAME

By Stuart Whitehall

November 28, 2006

Alan Furey has finally opened up about his history of substance abuse and the tragic death of Tracy Adams nearly ten years ago.

“This is hard for me stepping back into the public eye, but it's important to be honest about everything, to honour people with the truth. If I wanted to lie it would be easy to say that I turned to drugs because I was sick, depressed, that it was something medical, but that wasn't the reason, not at first. I'd stayed off them for most of my career. It was as the body began to wind down that they became a shortcut to the energy I'd had when I was younger, a way to hold on to the magic. And they were fun. I'd go out and people would give me handfuls of pills, ecstasy, girls cut lines of coke on their breasts. I was always a drinker, a heavy drinker. The drugs hit hard later.

“The thing about drugs – and it's probably true for any addiction – is you don't notice you're crossing the line. At first it's fun, you can keep up with the younger blokes, look like you're still cutting it. But then without realising how, you go from this easygoing attitude to this hardness, you know, and all you can think about is getting more. And then you're on the other side and you have to have them and if you don't get them your life turns to shit.

“I was an equal opportunity junkie, I loved them all. I'd shoot heroin and cocaine, snort speed, crystal meth. I tell my own kids, stay off it, don't go near the stuff, don't believe what your friends say. Drugs are like a virus: they get you from the inside out. Have you seen those zombie movies? It's like that. You become a monster. I destroyed my marriage. I destroyed my career. With the devil in my corner I've done evil things.”

He's referring to the death of Tracy Adams. “I know her friends say I knew she was sixteen, but I didn't. As far as I was aware she was nineteen, an adult. That's what she always told me and I believed her. What I didn't understand was how naive she was. We both were.”

Adams' personal diary entries claim Furey supplied her with heroin, involved her in orgies with strangers in exchange for speed, that he regularly flew into rages, threatened her with violence if she wouldn't do what he wanted, allegations he vigorously denies. What can't be denied is that the relationship spun out of control, culminating in the terrible events on the night of October 6, 1997, when Adams ran out in front of Furey's car, sustaining fatal injuries.

Autopsy results showed heroin and alcohol in Adams' system. Furey has always maintained he didn't know he'd hit anything. Medical experts agree Adams would likely have survived if taken to a hospital.

Furey was exonerated at the inquest, the coroner ruling the accident a death by misadventure.

“But the guilt gets you anyway. It gets you and it doesn't let go,” says Furey. “Every day I think about Tracy and her family. The ordeal they've endured. Every day.

“If God has taught me anything it's about consequences. Back then I was too screwed up to know they mattered. Now I know they're the only thing that does. If there's one thing I take away from this tragedy it's to count my blessings. Life is short. I have welcomed God fully into my life and cherish every moment I get to spend in His company, spreading His word.”

But Furey still refuses to respond to charges that his entire story is a fabrication. “He knows what he did,” says Michael Adams, Tracy's father. “He was drunk and he was high on the same drugs he gave my daughter. My teenage daughter. She wouldn't do what he wanted and so he ran her down. He ran her down like she was a kangaroo on one of his hunts. He put his foot on the accelerator and he went after her, and then like the coward that he is, he took off. Didn't call an ambulance, nothing. By the time police caught up with him, days later, it was too late to test him for alcohol. The car had been washed. One of the detectives told me they found him sitting in his shorts by the river, fishing, like he was waiting for them. He didn't even ask what they were doing there.”

Furey is apt to quote scripture: “
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths
. That's what I do now, I trust and pray. And hope to find the strength to accept myself and all of my failings. Someone once said, we don't see the world as it is, but as we are. By embracing God the world becomes a holy place coloured by the Lord's compassion.”

Michael Adams is not so forgiving. “What rot. He can tell himself whatever he wants but this is a farce. He's just trying to make himself feel better. He doesn't deserve the public's affection. Everyone knows he's guilty. He knows it and his Maker knows it and no amount of prayer can alter the fact that he killed my little girl. I'm glad he believes in God. He knows very well then what's on the line. I will not rest until he pays for what he's done. May his soul burn in eternal damnation.”

It doesn't take long for Laurie to get over
there. Harry isn't surprised to find him at the front door, newspaper in hand, hair an uncombed mess, barely out of his pyjamas, hopping about on the doormat like an agitated rooster. Famous for forcing the issue, he's never been one to duck a contest, always encouraging the boys to be direct. “Are you going to invite me in?” he says, pulling at the fly wire. Harry reluctantly steps aside.

They head straight into the kitchen where Harry offers him a coffee.

“No. I'm right,” he says. It isn't a social call. They lean against the kitchen cupboards as Laurie demands to know what is going on.

“What do you mean?” says Harry, churlish, as though he is being accused of something frivolous, a heartless prank orchestrated at his expense by some numbnuts in the locker room.
What is going on?
It is the sort of thing a teacher might say when they know exactly what is going on. The prelude to many a detention. He has the same fight or flight response (hit or be hit), thinking,
everything
,
nothing, what's it to you
, Harry having cleaned the piss from the floor, set his father's clothes in the machine to wash, the doctor having worked his magic, Alan now bathed and sedated, “resting comfortably” (sleeping it off) in bed. “Nothing,” he adds quietly a half second later, stifling the impulse to run. His tone lacks conviction.

Laurie shakes his head, smiles to himself. “Look, son, don't give me that crap. Obviously something's up. Your father's a mess. And from what I can make out you're not much better off. You skipped out on the footy trip, you've made it clear you're not coming to Arizona, you haven't returned my calls for weeks. And now you ring up at the crack of dawn to say the old man's drunk again and you're quitting. I'd say that's something, wouldn't you? Do you want to tell me what it is or are we going to keep playing this bullshit guessing game?”

Laurie's Harpic-blue eyes are barely visible through the narrowed lids, his half-time stare. No time for sugar coating. He looks Harry square on, scanning for a sign of recognition. “I assume this is what this is about?” he says, holding up the newspaper,
Furey Reveals All
, a photograph of Alan on the front page. “Stupid bastard. Or are you still hung up on that other business?”

“What other business?”

Like he has to ask. The girl. Sportsman's Night. There isn't any other kind of business.

The social club had been full, pulsing, when they arrived, everyone pressed up against each other in their penguin suits, already red-cheeked and bleary-eyed, Matt welcomed by the throng like a long-lost son, while Harry, naturally reticent, hung back, observed the way his brother, a stray ball of mercury, was effortlessly reabsorbed into the pool. Harry felt eyes on him though he never caught a direct stare, but he could sense the disapprobation, was about as comfortable as a chaperone on a third date.

It was so hot. Someone thrust a cold beer into his hand. Steady? Jack?
Get that into you
. He took a sip, the condensation dripping down his starched shirt.

Across the way his brother raised his glass in a toast.

Watch your back.

“I thought Matt told you to forget about it. Didn't he tell you to forget about it? For crying out loud, how many ways do you want me say it? These things happen. They happen all the time. Everyone's together to celebrate, it's the end of another successful season. People are going to let their hair down, blow off some steam. So it got a little wild. Big deal. That's all it was. They're not bad buggers. You can't afford to waste your energy on some tart at a strip club. It'll only cloud your judgement. The booze, the bravado, the girls. It's the whole fucking point. I doubt she's given it a second thought. Too busy counting her money.”

Laurie licks his upper lip and adjusts his posture, crossing his arms, shifting his weight to the other foot. “Unless you don't want to let it go, in which case we've got other fish to fry. Is that what we're dealing with here? Or am I reading this wrong? Your brother and I were just talking about his contract. He must have mentioned it. You're both up for renewal. No one would blame you for having it on your mind. We can adjust the terms, if that's what's nagging you. Mutually agreed, of course. Everything's open for discussion. If you want to have a talk about your future, my door is always open.”

Harry considers his coach, standing barely two metres from him, a wrinkly mongrel up close, with grey stubble and thick salt-and-pepper hair, thinking perhaps he hates him more right now than he's ever hated him before. He's always attributed his aversion to intimidation rather than dislike, the way Laurie would march up the front of a room and demand to be listened to, throwing his weight around like a hungry bear. Now Harry sees that intimidation has nothing to do with it. He simply detests the prick. “I think I've made my intentions pretty clear. Why are we talking about my future?”

“All I'm saying is it's natural at this time of year to be sizing up your options.”

“And why would you say that?”

“I'm not saying anything. Just that if it's not for you, that's okay. Ted's going to try to guilt you about the money, how much they've sacrificed for your career, but I know the kind of pressure you were under to choose this life. If you want to ‘unchoose' it there's plenty of kids out there who'd relish the opportunity.”

“I haven't been relishing it enough? So what, now you're firing me?” Harry laughs. It is so typical of Laurie to make out he is on about one thing, only to turn around and actually be on about something else. He can't believe he didn't see it coming. “Is this about Dad again? 'Cause you know, he'll be up soon enough. I can get him to ring you.”

“No, it's not about your father. I know you think it is, but it isn't.”

“And I had as much right to play in the finals as anyone? All fair and square. Our family's connections are beside the point.”

“You're the one who wants to quit.” Laurie goes to say something else, but stops himself. “Look son, if you're going to stick around you've got to look like you want to be there. I just need you to pull your finger out, that's all.”

“And where do you want me to put it?”

“Don't be a smart-arse. You know what I'm talking about. When your brother's on the field he's on it one hundred and ten percent. I don't have to worry about his thought processes, plan how to get the best out of him that day. Even when he did his rotator cuff he still turned up to training; I told him he didn't have to but he was there. Every session. ‘For the boys,' he said. For the boys. That's how much he loves the team. He had a free pass, he could have sat that one out, no questions asked, but he didn't want to. You, on the other hand, your head's somewhere else. Always has been. I'm not doubting your talent, when you're on you're untouchable, you might even be better than your brother – you're a joy to watch – but that's no good to me. It's too erratic. I don't need flashes of brilliance. This isn't a crap shoot. I need your mind on the job.” He taps the cupboard door. “You're no good to me unless your head and body are in the same place. You can't do this with one hand tied behind your back. It's not going to work any other way. And now you're living here. Stupid fucking idea, for both of you. I know the great man's got your best interests at heart, but times have changed. There's no winging it anymore. You can't just turn up and say that's good enough. Plan, prioritise, prepare, execute. That's what we're all about. That's what won us this premiership. And it'll win us next year's flag too if we're all pulling in the same direction.”

“You think I'm like Dad, that I'm going to screw it up.”

“Are you?”

Harry shrugs.

“Yes, well, same direction or no, the board doesn't want to see you go. Not now. Not yet. They've invested a lot in your potential and want the payoff. What's it going to take? There's too much riding on you to just let you walk away.”

Later that afternoon Harry meets with Laurie and Ted, the Club president.

“It's just a friendly chat,” says Laurie (like there's any such thing), as he shows Harry into the executive lounge. They offer him beer and coffee. He asks for a water.

“I appreciate you coming down,” says Ted. “We'd really like to resolve this before it blows up in our faces.”

“There's nothing to resolve,” says Harry. “This is a waste of time. I told Laurie, it's over. I'm baked.”

“I understand you're pretty worked up. But that doesn't mean we can't find a way through it. I know your dad has his troubles but he's a tough old boot. He'll be alright. We'll make sure of it. It might not always look like it but he's still got a few friends in the ranks. We don't abandon our people, Harry. Including you. They don't call us the family club for nothing.”

“What concerns me is I don't want to see you making a mistake,” says Laurie. “One foot wrong at this stage in your career and you can kiss goodbye any dreams you might have for later. Forget coaching or commentating. You'll be lucky to be pulling beers full-time at the local pub. And that'd just be a waste, not good for anybody.”

“That's right,” says Ted. “What we want is to reach a mutually beneficial outcome. Something that ticks everyone's boxes. I think Alan would agree.”

“I think you should leave Dad out of it.”

“Okay. Done. Fair enough. Whatever you like. It's not a good time, I get that. Just as long as all our cards are on the table. And what I want to make very clear to you, Harry, and I'm telling you this eye to eye so there can be no misunderstanding, is that the Club has absolute belief in you.” He jabs his finger in Harry's direction. “That's why I asked Laurie to bring you down here today, right to the heart of this organisation, so you can hear it from me. We have absolute belief in you on the field and we have absolute belief in you as a human being. So let's at least consider all the options before you go heading so far down the highway that there's no point turning back.”

They discuss flexible game rosters, lucrative endorsement deals, scheduling inducements and his post-playing career. Harry doesn't care so much about that but he is vulnerable on the subject of loyalty, his family's long association with the Club – relations might be strained, but he isn't looking to forever poison the well.

“You know I trained under your grandad,” says Ted. “At Sunshine. Before your time. Back when they were still the Devils.”

“And me,” says Laurie. “Here. Right at the end. He was a good man.”

“Yes,” echoes Ted. “Everyone was upset when he retired.”

Harry looks to the photograph of his grandfather amongst all the other player portraits hanging behind the bar, trying to line up that image of the blue and gold with the man he remembers from their school holidays up north, a ropy water rat trawling through black mangroves hauling mud crabs. Heading off at dawn as the tide went out, then returning later as it came back in; stringing them up on snapped tree branches then trekking the quarry back to the house, two to three dozen crabs between them, Harry's arms and legs covered in sandfly bites, his limbs crosshatched in bloody scratches.

“See, you're making my point for me,” says Ted, following Harry's gaze. “This isn't just about you. Your legacy's as much your brother's legacy as it is your father's and your grandfather's. And that's your privilege, your inheritance, but it's also your responsibility. Have you considered the impact of your decision on them? And what about all the other people who've supported your career? Your mother? She'll be disappointed. Think about all the sacrifices she's made. I can't imagine she'll be too happy. Or have I got that wrong? She might have other ideas for you.”

Harry feels a tightness in his chest, becomes aware of the chemical tang of furniture polish rising off the lacquered brown coffee table. Remembering the weight of all those crabs on his shoulders, the sharp briny smell, his grandfather explaining how mud crabs were opportunistic eaters, the larger ones often devouring the smaller ones, descending on them when they were moulting their shells.

“It's the pressure,” says Ted, as Harry takes a deep breath. “It can make things seem more urgent than they are. But there's no need for any pressure. You should take your time. We're all friends here.”

They strongly suggest he reconsider his resignation, at least for another year.

Eventually Harry capitulates, agrees to think it over.

*

The girl was the last one to arrive, the group assembled in the green room, a dank basement unit smelling of onions, with cockroach traps in the corners, the tessellated linoleum flooring worn and curling at the edges. The other women were clearly older than her but not much, mostly in their early twenties, though at fifteen anyone over eighteen was ancient. Greta did a cursory round of introductions, none of the names sticking, several of them not even bothering to look up as they finished dressing and applying their make-up. She had thought the place would be cleaner. Greta assigned her a seat (her own plastic lawn chair) under which she could store her bags. Then she handed her a pill and a glass of water. “Just a beta blocker,” said Greta. To wet her whistle and help her to relax. “Trust me. It'll be fine.”

The girl put on her costume, Greta helping her with some extra bright lipstick, drawing a line around her mouth first then filling it in, as she tried to contain her terror and excitement, her first professional performance and for so many local heroes. She wondered if she'd recognise any of them, could get an autograph or two after the show – but she was determined not to appear unsure of herself.

Somewhere out of sight someone turned on a microphone, the distortion squealing through the green room like an alarm. The women were alert now. Several of them started pacing about, reviewing the routines.