The Family Men (12 page)

The girl watched, fascinated by their rituals – stretching their calves, decricking their necks, limbering their arms and shoulders as though it was a ballet recital, and she a junior understudy. Outside it was dark, the Southern Cross tilted in the night sky, off-kilter, a picture frame slipped off a hook. This was their world now, the punters relegated to abstraction, distantly audible as a recital hall audience might be audible backstage as patrons made their way into the auditorium, settled themselves into their seats, the girl paying lip service to the MC's commentary the way she might pay lip service to a stranger's telephone conversation on the bus, of interest only in so far as she recognised the odd name. But most of the jokes went over her head. And it wasn't all meant to be funny. She tuned out again, her mind skipping from one thought to the next: what her mum might be doing now, if she was suspicious about her daughter's whereabouts – she doubted it, too busy screwing Ray to give her a passing thought, hating her for it and then not caring, projecting beyond, thinking about her new life, on the phone to her friend Cassie, saying,
I'm on the pool deck. Everyone in WA has got a pool
. And then Greta suggesting, “You might try warming up too,” breaking into her reverie. “Get yourself loosened up.”

“Here,” said one of the other women, extending her hand.

The girl stood, accepting the offer, she and her dance partner engaging in an awkward pas de deux, step ball change, step ball change, just like Greta had taught her during their rehearsals.

“Only the best for the boys,” she'd say as she made the girl do it again and again. Rinse and repeat. “Practice makes perfect.”
Anything worth doing is worth doing well. There are no shortcuts to greatness
.

Or was that someone else? Nevertheless, it was an ethos the girl respected. It was why she was here. All part and parcel of her plan. Because what was the point of marking time at home when life awaited elsewhere? A concept she would happily have explained if anyone had stopped for five minutes to listen.

It was nearly showtime. The atmosphere in the room changed as though they had been put on notice; backs straight, heads up, like a herd of deer as a lion approached the plain. At some soundless signal the girls were on their feet, waiting at the door. She found herself at the rear of the line marching up the steps. And then she heard the MC introducing them, the crowd going mad, a curtain opening, the lights blazing and they were on.

*

The media conference is called for 3 pm the following day. After the statement, a pack of journalists lunge at him with microphones, their questions thrust right up into his face. Laurie tells them to back off but doesn't do anything to make them. Harry turns pink from all the fuss. People think he is shy around strangers, but that isn't it. From the glare of their lights, he knows them too well – like his dad, they have the same haunted eyes as junkies.

How he loathes them. Question after question: “Why has he done it?” “What is the matter?” “What is it all about?” He sticks to the script, reads his prepared statement, then gives one-word answers. “Yes.” “Sometimes.” “Maybe.” Though the truth is he doesn't know. Not really. All he is sure of is that he has to do something; it is either this or something much worse.

He can see now why those kids snap. The ones who blow up their schools or prang their cars into the houses of their ex-girlfriends. Because so many people expect so much yet so little is offered in return.

He doesn't mean money, it isn't about material things. It's just that some people are forever being written up, while for others the umpire is always looking the other way. Everyone banging on about fairness and accountability when the truth is as long as you are scoring, nobody really cares what else you do. At times Harry feels that the only way to move forward is to become wholly unacceptable himself, to push the envelope until the situation is made clear.

His father keeps saying you'd better not be doing this on account of me – such avid protestations – pundits speculating that he is exactly the reason, not because of the drinking, they don't know about that yet (his most recent tumble off the wagon), but manipulating his offspring with his own failings – famously on record as collecting the most Brownlow votes in a career but never winning a premiership – unable to let his children enjoy their moment of glory, knowing that securing the flag will trigger an audit of the family's past, thrusting him back into the limelight, front and centre, Harry having resigned to avoid the intense media attention.

But Harry maintains his father's history has nothing to do with it. Not that he's read all the clippings, pored over the scrapbooks (the old man's scrapes and successes). He isn't about to either. He doesn't need to. He already knows what they'll say.

HARRY FUREY ON HIATUS

By Margo Milne-Arthurs

November 30, 2006

Hopes of back-to-back flags are on hold with the news that star recruit Harry Furey will skip out on training camp in Arizona and is rethinking his future.

Furey, a first-round draft pick snapped up under the father-son rule, is ambivalent about the limelight, preferring to keep to himself when he's not on the field. Unlike his older brother, key forward Matt Furey, who thrives under pressure, sources suggest the younger Furey's decision is based in part on personal issues arising from the additional attention that comes with winning a premiership. The well-documented health problems and recent media exposure of the footballing dynasty's patriarch, Alan Furey, have no doubt also contributed to the situation.

The Club was surprised by the move but has talked with Furey and will meet with him again later this week. “A change is as good as a holiday,” said coach Laurie Holden, who has encouraged Furey to enjoy a short vacation. “It's a long season and everyone's tired but we are confident Furey will be back and ready to rumble after he's recharged his batteries. We fully support his decision to take some personal time.”

But it is not clear whether Furey has the stamina or interest to return to the sport at the elite level. “Does he have the fire in the belly? That's the stuff that counts,” says teammate Jack Feddersen. “Only time will tell.”

Does familiarity breed contempt or simply
provide a platform for its expression? Harry has never known a time without reporters skulking around. At the playground fence, shameless, looking to him for a sound bite. Something quotable. Even a noteworthy rebuff. Always pushing for a reaction. Making up bullshit if they didn't get what they wanted – stories of naked models riding ponies around their living room, Lolitas keeping the old man company in the bath – plying him and his brother with Redskins and other lollies through the cyclone wire, hoping one of them would eventually spill. Or tailing him from the oval to the milk bar and back again, sausage roll in hand, waiting for him to do God knows what, baiting him with choice highlights phrased as questions, a litany of tasteless crimes and misdemeanours (his father's drinking, his drug taking, his cavorting with teenage girls, now that was an education – “Do you know anything about him providing alcohol to minors?” “Are there drugs in the house?” “Have you ever seen him smoking hash?” – incendiary inquiries, doing their best to provoke an outburst, a revelation, anything to get their byline on the front page.

Legend's Son Goes Berserk
(the one time he fell for it).

And then this current attention, which confounds him because he can't imagine there is anything left to be said about his family; their entire lives having been stripped and spread, bent back on themselves for public consumption – assignations and separations, resignations and reconciliations, deaths and divorces – so that they have become almost new again they are so worked over. New yet empty, dispossessed of anything they ever once possessed, whatever it was they ever housed now lodged beyond themselves in some plastic location neatly furnished by the press.

At school, the kids used to have a field day giving him and his brother hell whenever a new story broke. Your dad's a fuckin' loony, they commonly said. A bullshit artist. A quitter. That, or that he was a stupid junkie. A drug pusher. The grim reaper. Such eloquence from the mouths of fourteen-year-olds (all confirmed and correctly educated in the politics of sin and resurrection, none of them having the compassion to keep their traps shut). Charming little chips off their older blocks.

Matt seemed to be able to tune them out. “Fuck 'em,” he'd say, his teeth red from the sugary contraband.

Fuck them!

Harry practised but he never felt any better for it.

He knew what the Bible said about turning the other cheek, but he would have been much happier with a gun.

As soon as they are finished he goes into the bathroom, leans over the sink, the stained porcelain muffling his hurried breath.

It is the rumble of the sea inside of him. The quiet roar of a shell held up to his ear.
Shhhhhhhhh …
But there is no peace. All he can hear is the music. Still.

I'm a sexy mama (mama) …

It was so loud at first that he didn't actually notice it until it stopped, the atmosphere quickly dropping in temperature and then heating up again as Marty “Lightfoot” Karnahan (a retired journeyman and Sportsman's Night veteran) took to the stage to welcome them all to the event.

“Good evening gentlemen,” he enunciated deliberately, each word given ample space, an audible leer, the sound distorting as some technician adjusted the microphone levels backstage. “I'm happy to see so many of you here on this players' night of nights. And from what I understand – if last year is anything to go by – this is not a night for the faint of heart, so I trust you're busy fortifying yourselves.”

The room erupted in cheers and stomping.

Marty was about six foot tall and chunky in his tight tuxedo and crimson velvet cravat, the waves of his unnaturally bright hair held in rigid whorls but for one determined ribbon that drooped above his right eye like a flaccid windsock. “Before I start, the manager has asked me to request that, for health and safety reasons, none of you get up on top of the chairs and tables during my standing ovation. No seriously, that's what he said. Personally, I don't have a problem with it, but he doesn't want you blokes getting carried away.”

As Marty ran through another icebreaker or two –
What's the difference between kinky and demented? Kinky is using a feather, demented is using the whole chicken; How can you tell a blonde's been in your fridge? There's lipstick on the cucumber –
Harry sensed a presence behind him, Jack's boozy breath blowing down his neck.

It was an occasion for celebration and reflection, Marty running through a history of the Club's achievements culminating in that year's premiership flag, acknowledging the contribution of various people along the way. Then he was done with it, the first formalities of the evening, and it was time to move on to the real attraction. “So let's get this party started, shall we?” he said, picking up the microphone stand and moving it stage left. “Kicking off tonight's entertainment, they're sweet and sexy, the Honey Traps. Always a pleasure. Let's make them feel welcome—”

Jack leant in and raised his voice to be heard above the applause. “Welcome to the big league, Nipper. You're in for it now.”

Margo is waiting for him when he comes out of the bathroom. “Are you okay, mate?”

Okay? Mate?

No.

He smiles at her. “Yeah, I'm fine.”

She is like a pit bull, Margo. Holding her own at those media events. Never taking offence at the crap they sling at her. At press conferences he always looks for her, doesn't feel right if she isn't in the crowd.

She jots something in her notebook. He tries to peek but she won't let him see. “What is it?” he asks. “Come on. I've got a right to know. Is it about me?”

She holds it to her chest. “I'll show you mine if you show me yours. What do you say? Do you want to tell me what this is really about? Why didn't you go away with the boys for the footy trip, and why aren't you going to Arizona? Is it about your dad? Did something happen at Sportsman's Night? You never called me back. You said you'd ring me if you had any news, but you didn't. Is the Club putting some kind of pressure on you?”

Harry thinks he might faint, the corners of his vision blurring, a bird's wings fluttering, a barrel closing out. He considers returning to the bathroom, but figures she'll probably follow him inside, someone as familiar with the interior of clubhouse changing rooms unlikely to be intimidated by a simple “Gentlemen” sign on the door. “You know, I really don't have time for this,” he says, one of his mother's favourite lines, and turns to walk away, duck and weave, wishing he could run, that the room would miraculously open out before him and that he could disappear.

This is the thing about modern football, gaining possession of the ball is much easier but it is no guarantee you can make good use of it.

Still, Margo must sense he is serious. “Alright then, if it means that much to you.” She holds up the book to the relevant page. An incomprehensible entry, all squiggles and dots. “Shorthand,” she explains. “Us girls, we all started out as secretaries.”

Outside it is warm and bright. Another long November afternoon. In the car park, asphalt wedges portion out the vehicles, a sea of cars huddled in the sun, now a stately grid. “Chin up, Harry,” says Margo, as she hands him a note out the window of her olive-green Citroën GS. More squiggles and dots. “Everything looks better after a good night's sleep.”

It is almost four, but still glare dances across the bonnets, pirouetting off the windows, a blinding display, so that even with his sunglasses on he has to squint to find his way.

Lately he is always squinting, as though the world around him is overexposed, smudged, difficult to read. Diana is waiting for him in the car. “You should get your eyes checked,” she says. “You might need glasses.” But that won't help. It is his eyes but not his eyes, a different kind of vision.

He picks up his mother's magazine. “You can write shorthand, can't you?” he says, as they stop at the lights, the slow drip of passing traffic.

“I could once. A long time ago.”

“But you know what it means, all those curly little lines?”

“It's no mystery, Harry. It's the same as English, just a different alphabet.”

“So you could translate it?”

“That depends. I could give it a go. Why?”

“No reason.” He moves the magazine further and further from his face imitating his father with the form guide, trying to pinpoint a position where the text starts to blur.

“Stop that,” says Diana, grabbing her
Women's Weekly
.

Harry looks like he's been through the wringer.

“Maybe you should move home again,” she proposes (guilt). “Until you sort yourself out, figure out what you're going to do next. Did you ask the Club? Can't they find you something to keep you busy?”

“No.” It hadn't crossed his mind. Not that he wants them to find him something. Unless it means having nothing to do with them. That is a job he'd happily sign on for. “Dean's asked me to fill in over the break. And Dad says he can probably get me a couple of shifts at the warehouse, at least until Christmas.”

“You're not doing that.”

“Why not? What's wrong with it?”

“It's undignified, that's what's wrong with it. Don't make me explain, Harry, you can see that.”

He can but he doesn't want to discuss it again, all the ways he should or shouldn't behave, when it is okay to be himself and when it isn't, who he has to check with and why. Dean doesn't give these matters a second thought. If he wants to go to the pub, he goes to the pub. And if he gets shit-faced, he gets shit-faced. No one gives a stuff which DVDs he watches. He could rent
The Notebook
for all anyone cares. But they've been over this ad nauseum. He isn't up for another colloquium on the price of being in the public eye. It is an argument he is never going to win. He changes the topic back to the press conference. “So if I show you something can you tell me what it says?”

“What ‘something'? What are you talking about?”

He presents Margo's note. “Shorthand.”

“I don't know. Possibly. Parts of it. It's been twenty years. Twenty years at least. Why? Who wrote it?”

“Margo,” he says. “And in her notebook too. Pages of it.”

“Give me that,” says his mother, snatching the paper out of his hands. She presses it against the steering wheel to examine while she is driving. “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” she manages with some difficulty
.

“What's it mean?”

“It's one of those sentences with all the letters of the alphabet. They used to make us type it over and over at school for practice. Not much call for it these days. Why'd she give it to you? Is it code for something? An in-joke?”

“No. I don't know.”

“You don't know? Are you sure?”

“It's nothing. She's okay.”

His mother is far from convinced. “You watch yourself there. You don't want her hanging around. You remember what she was like at your father's inquest. A leopard can't change its spots, Harry. Just 'cause she's a woman doesn't mean she's playing straight with you. We're not all sugar and spice.”

Daylight saving makes the early morning look like evening and the evening glow like dawn, the shoulder hours stretching out the middle, slowing time until it almost stops. Father Murphy drops by to check on Alan, to exercise a little pastoral care, the two men poking about in the tomatoes, like that has anything to do with God. He catches hold of Harry on his way out. “You're not going to do anything rash, are you, son? No need to quit the team to make a point. Your dad's worried enough about you as it is. He doesn't need any additional stress.” Like the article is Harry's fault. “This is a good opportunity for both of you. Time for some mutual healing.”

You look after him then, thinks Harry. You tell him everything's okay and this is just a blip, that his new sponsors won't find out, that he'll be back on track again before he knows it. You call the doctor at three in the morning and help strip him and wash him while he's hurling his abuse: “Pussy, pussy, pussy,” hissed under his breath, then the following day no sign of recalling any of it (“You're weak. Toughen up. I would have fixed you up alright,” his father trying to punch him in the stomach, then collapsing again on the floor, sobbing like a child. The doctor telling the old man to quit it, to cut it out, and to Harry, not to take it on, not to take it to heart. Part of the sickness, he says).

Everyone's always got such good advice about what
he
should be doing. But why don't you try it, he would like to have said to Father Murphy. You and all your do-gooder friends with all your Christian energy and best intentions. You take care of the shit and stink and mess for a change then show up to practice on Monday after school fresh as a daisy like the two things have nothing to do with each other. But he doesn't. He doesn't say anything much, other than “Thanks for coming,” and then shows Father Murphy the door.

“What a know-it-all. But I told you, I told you, I told you.” She keeps saying it, over and over, that they have come for her, that this is the way it would be. The sound of knuckles hammering at the door. “Let us in.” Or is it, “Let me in” (and that voice again with the vaguely familiar ring)? He isn't sure now. The fluid nature of dreams frustrating any sense of accurate recall. The girl laughing to herself, then daring him. “So, will you?” Sitting there calmly and unafraid as all hell is about to break loose.

“Will I what?” says Harry.
Will I what?
Picturing himself saying it as he speaks, his mouth wide open, unnaturally so, bellowing in the tiny hotel room (though what sort of nasty hotel is that?), as though he is addressing a crowded stadium, and then his jaw opening wider and wider, hinged, like a cartoon character, until that is all one can see of the room, his oral cavity, like a player's race, the floor bounded by his tongue, a thick pink spongy carpet on which the girl now sits, a perfect dummy, expertly balanced between his teeth.