The Piper's Son (30 page)

“Yes,” Tom said with gritted teeth. The kitchen he keeps spotless. Now he’s really angry.

Francesca, Will, and Justine stop at the lights.

“We’re going down to the Hopetoun to see the Jezebels,” Francesca calls out. “Are you guys coming?”

“No,” they both snap at the same time.

He doesn’t quite promise Francesca that he’ll be kind and hospitable to Will Trombal, but he’s already committed to going to the football match with them. Another reason to hate Trombal is for his choice of football teams. The Dragons are an aberration to anyone Tom has ever known, and sitting next to a supporter almost makes him feel like speaking to his father. His father and Tom still do football. Just like they do the AA meetings together. Just like they work in silence in Georgie’s backyard on the cradle Tom’s making and the rocking chair his father’s restoring.

The irony of Francesca coming to a game she has no interest in is that she knows half the people here and spends the whole time socializing instead of getting to know the rules. Tom tries to explain them to her at one stage, but both Francesca and Trombal stare at him, the latter with hostility.

“Don’t even try,” Francesca says. “Not interested. Only here because my beloved is leaving tomorrow and this is the best I can get. Baby, this is settling.”

She’s enjoying herself at Trombal’s expense, but it’s at Tom that Trombal is directing his hostility.

When she waves at yet another person and jumps out of her seat to say,
“Oh, my God, what are you doing here?”
he feels Trombal’s intense stare again.

“What makes you think I haven’t tried explaining the rules to her?” Will says.

Trombal has already had a whinge about Leichhardt Oval and what a dump it is and how it doesn’t have a screen or even a proper scoreboard. Tom resorts to drinking through the first half, relieved when it’s his shout again.

“Do you want a beer?” he asks his father out of instinct, wanting to tear out his tongue the moment he finishes speaking.

“I’d love one, but might just have a Coke instead,” his father says, not missing a beat.

And Tom actually thinks his father is having fun at his expense.
Join the Trombal club, Dominic.

He makes his way to the kiosk bar, where Francesca is finishing up a conversation with a girl in a Tigers jersey.

“I’m making her wedding dress,” she says as if Tom is interested.

“Wonderful,” he says.

“Thomas, talk to Will,” she says. “Just about life and the stuff you won’t talk to us about. He is the best listener in the world.” When she says the word
best,
she shakes her head and grimaces with emphasis. “You need to get things off your chest and I reckon talking to him would be so helpful.”

While she’s speaking, he’s staring at the line in front of him. He can’t believe it. Mohsin the Ignorer is here. Tom waves Francesca away and stands behind him in the line, drilling holes in his head with his eyes and it’s as if Mohsin the Ignorer feels the impact because he turns around.

For a moment there is a look of surprise on his face and almost a smile and hello, but Tom’s not interested and looks the other way. But after a moment it really begins to get to him and it’s the beers he’s consumed and having had to sit next to Will Trombal and his father that pushes him over the edge. He leans forward and taps Mohsin on the shoulder.

“You’re a rude bastard,” he says.

“I’m sorry?”

“Too late to be sorry,
my friend.
But just some advice. Next time someone wants to make your life a little bit easier and befriend you, try actually responding to their hello or to the questions they ask.”

The bartender calls out a
“Next”
and Mohsin has no choice but to be served. As he walks away with his drink and hot dog, he looks at Tom as if he’s a lunatic.

Back in the stands, Francesca is still speaking to the whole of Leichhardt and Tom is stuck with Trombal and his dad again. Worse still, the Tigers are getting slaughtered.

“You know I’m not interested in her.”

It’s the type of confession you make at the footy after a plethora of beers and your team is losing. Will Trombal does
not
want to talk to him and gives him a look that says he
especially
doesn’t want to talk to him about Francesca.

“I just get the sense that you think I’m going to poach her,” Tom continues.

“Like an egg?” Will asks.

“No. Like taking something you want that belongs to someone else.”

There is a part of him that’s buzzing with excitement because Trombal has a fist clenched and all this emotion bunched on his face. Best-case scenario, Tom suspects, is a punch-up with this prick.

“But as I said, I don’t want to do that.”

He’s been hanging out with Francesca for too long and her need to explain every statement has caught on.

“It’s just that sometimes I want to cuddle up against her and just let her take over, you know. So she can look after everything around me, but when I picture it, I’m never the one doing the holding. It’s always her.”

This time Trombal does react.
“Fuck. Off,”
he says in a pissed-off, flat tone.

“That didn’t come out right. It’s the same with Justine. Those chicks are such huggers and every time their arms are out, I’m there.”

He leans closer to Trombal because he doesn’t want his father or anyone to hear.

“But when I think of Tara, I’m doing the holding. I’m in charge. I’m the he-man. Alpha man. I’m beating my chest. My arms are out and she’s there.”

Something different registers on Will Trombal’s face. Disbelief.

“Tara?
Tara Finke?”
he says. “Dude, you broke her heart.”

“Is that what you and Frankie talk about when you’re together?” Tom snaps.

Another sound of disbelief. “Frankie and I have better things to do when we’re together.”

Trombal looks satisfied. Tom doesn’t know whether it’s because the smart-arse is thinking about what he gets up to with Francesca or because the Dragons have possession of the ball. But then he’s looking at Tom again. “Tara told me. When I was in Timor. Her exact words were, ‘He broke my heart and I’m not letting him anywhere near it again, Will.’”

Hearing those words, Tom’s own heart feels like it’s disappeared in a puff of smoke. “Well, that’s that, then,” he mutters.

Will makes a sound. A hmphing sound. Plus he’s shaking his head.

“What?” Tom asks. Behind them, someone’s yelling hoarsely and thumping Tom’s seat.

“Nothing. It’s nothing,” Will says, shouting above the noise. “You and I? We’re just different.”

“How different?” Tom is desperate for anything. Even from Will Trombal. “What would you do?”

Will goes back to the game, but even when the Dragons score, he doesn’t react. After a couple of moments, he turns back to Tom.

“If I did something to hurt Frankie and she said that I was never getting near her heart again, I’d spent the rest of my life trying anyway.
That’s
the difference between you and me, Tom. I’d go back to the moment it all fell apart and I’d start there.”

The one-and-a-half-night stand.

“You know why?” Trombal’s on a roll. He’s not shutting up. “Because women are elephants and watch the way you say that in front of them because they’ll think you’re calling them fat and there’s no coming back from that moment. But they hoard. They say they don’t, but they do. We think that if something’s not spoken about again, it goes away. It doesn’t. Nothing goes away just like that, Mackee.”

Francesca comes back and sits between them, an arm over each shoulder, pushing Tom against his father.

“Missed me?”

Will Trombal doesn’t respond. Tom figures he’s not into cutesy conversation.

Francesca shivers from the cold and Will takes her hand and tucks it in his jacket pocket and for a moment Tom feels an ache of loneliness for whatever these two have that works for them. He wants to sigh, but he holds back.

Beside him, he hears his father sigh instead.

Georgie and Sam walk home mostly in silence, which is not as common these days, so she knows something’s wrong. It’s late and they’ve been out for coffee and
cannoli
in Norton Street and Callum is already asleep in his arms.

“What is it?” she asks.

“What makes you think there’s something?”

“Because I know you.”

Because she knows him. That belongs to the language of intimacy, not strangers. He looks at her and it’s like each time he does it these days, she can’t help thinking,
How did I love this man again?

“Leonie’s interested in joint custody,” he says, his voice tired. “A week each.”

She can’t speak for a moment because she doesn’t know what it will mean to them.

“How did you answer?”

They stop at the Parramatta Road lights and she thinks of their walk down here earlier, where she imagined the next time they’d be doing this pushing a pram.

“I didn’t say anything,” he says as they cross. “But if you and I don’t have a future together living under the same roof with this baby, I’m going to agree. I can easily arrange to get home by four every afternoon those weeks. Then when the time is right, you and I work out the custody arrangements for our baby. I’ll want the same thing. To keep them together on those alternate weeks.”

Her stomach churns. “Is that what you want?” she asks.

“No, Georgie,” he says. “It’s what I’ll settle for.”

“And if we live under the same roof with this baby?”

And still the bitterness is there on his face. She can see it, or feel it. In this half-lit street close to home. Is it directed at her, or the universe, or himself?

“Then I won’t go for joint custody and on the weekends I get Callum, I’ll go to my mother’s.”

Someone beeps the horn and they both wave automatically to God knows who.

“So the ball’s in my court?”

“The ball is always going to be in your court, Georgie. Always.”

It’s like
Sophie’s Choice
for him, she thinks. Without Auschwitz and death. But all the same it’s about choosing between children or choosing her over Callum, and that makes her feel evil. She’s the Nazi.

“Is this because of the boyfriend? Because she wants more time with him?”

“Maybe. Or maybe because I ask for this every year and she’s finally giving in.”

“Because it suits her,” she says sharply.

“Regardless, Georgie, it suits me too. Personally and financially. Look,” he sighs, shifting to get comfortable with Callum. “I don’t want this to be hard work. Let’s talk about it another time.”

She thinks of a conversation she had with Tom last night about girls and hard work. They had argued about the terminology.