The Rules of Backyard Cricket (31 page)

She lowers her brow ever so slightly. ‘But it hasn't always been good times.'

‘No, certainly.'

‘Let's go back to March 1996 at the MCG. The Shield final against Queensland and you were in the form of your life.'

I nod and smile ruefully.

‘West Indian fast bowler Federal Collins was playing for Queensland, and you—'

‘We had an altercation.'

‘Quite a big one as it turned out. Tell us what happened to your hand.'

‘Well, Fed crushed my thumb.' I hold the wonky digit up in front of my face and regard it sorrowfully. ‘It's not clear whether the ball hit the end and drove the bone here down through its socket, or whether
it just got crushed against the bat handle. End result was the same. It didn't mend well after the surgery, and I can't fully bend it.'

I give it a wiggle to illustrate the problem.

‘What effect did that have on your career?'

I shrug helplessly. ‘There's no feeling in the thumb—it never came back. As I say, I can't form a complete grip, and that fine motor control, well, it's everything. So my days were numbered. I struggled on for a while, but it was basically all over from then on, so, yeah.'

I look straight down the barrel of the camera with a larrikin grin: ‘So, kids, don't ever modify your batting gloves like I did, okay?'

‘And don't taunt fast bowlers,' chimes in the lovely Elizabeth.

‘Absolutely, don't do that either.'

We both have a gentle laugh as the exchange fades.

‘Times were tough after your retirement?'

‘Yes they were. Looking back on it, there wasn't the support that athletes get these days. The money stops coming in, and you're released from all those disciplines you're accustomed to. And you know, people have been saying yes to you all your life, and then the music stops.'

‘You seem to have taken refuge in the arms of some very glamorous women.'

She's arched one eyebrow.

‘One or two. We're not naming names, are we?'

Laughter.

‘There were drugs?'

I let all the levity wash off me, as visibly as I can.

‘And booze, yes. It's a, it's a hard thing to describe if you're not wired this way, but…I just…needed more and more of everything. Excess. I just wanted excess.'

‘There was the tragic disappearance of your niece, Hannah Keefe.'

I suck in a sharp breath and look down. She watches me for a few moments.

‘What do you believe happened to her?'

‘I just know that we lost the most beautiful child, someone who was…innocent. Completely innocent. Beyond that, I don't know anything. It's baffling and it still hurts.'

She's found a segue in that. ‘So let's move to another innocent girl. The night when it all came crashing down.'

I need to relax. This is why we're here, after all.

‘Emily Weil was nineteen when she died of an overdose after a night of partying with you. What on earth went wrong?'

She's put it open-ended, nice and fair. No kind of ambush, this.

‘I was at a nightclub. I met her there, her and her friend Keely, and we danced a bit and at some stage we wound up with these drugs, this pentobarbital in little glass vials, and that's—I know it sounds unlikely but that's all I remember.'

And I don't know if it's the lights or the knowledge that I'm being laid bare, or the invitation in her voice to do it, but without warning I'm sobbing. I'm just plunged into a slobbery fit of weeping, head bowed and face in hands. I know they've left the camera running because this is what the punters want to see, but here and now, in the boot that is my deathbed, I promise you the tears were real.

After the storm subsides, I squeeze out my eyes and mumble an apology. Deep breaths.

‘I failed that girl terribly. I mean, I'd only known her a couple of hours, but I had a…a responsibility to them both. Christ, I'd been so indulged for so long that I'd lost sight of consequence, you know? Someone else always took care of everything. I can't imagine the sorrow I've caused, can't fathom it. It's a stain on my soul that I can never be rid of. I'm so sorry. I'm…'

The blubbering starts again and this time they cut after a minute of it.

‘Terrific Darren,' coos Elizabeth. ‘This shit is
gold
.'

But I can't stop, and now she seems surprised by the notion that the grief might be real.

‘Have some water?' she asks meekly.

The rest of the interview is more straightforward—what the future holds, what I think of my brother's career, more flirting. The tears are forgotten, and along with them, Emily Weil. I can feel Elizabeth winding up to a conclusion, when she asks me a surprising question.

‘So Darren, your agent has negotiated a hefty fee on your behalf for this interview. What are you going to do with that money?'

‘He has?' I blurt. Then I look out into the darkness to see Big Al frantically nodding. ‘Yes, he has. We did that so we could donate every cent to the Weil Family Foundation. And I urge any family who's been touched by the scourge of drugs to do the same.'

‘Darren Keefe, it's been a pleasure.'

‘Thanks Elizabeth.'

They cut the cameras and Elizabeth lets out a whoop of joy.

‘We fucking
smashed
that!' she screams. And before the words are out of her mouth, Al's lumbering in, those porcine eyes wide with fury. ‘What the
fuck
were you thinking? You reckon I work for free? You miserable, self-indulgent cunt…' He's grabbing at me, flapping, tripping on cables, losing his shit. I peel the little mike off my lapel and throw the cord at him. His abuse fades to background noise as I slip into the fire escape and down into the street.

It gets easier from there, just as Craig predicted.

The network picks me up, first in a handful of guest reporter slots on
Boarding Pass
, the travel show for the cashed-up and unimaginative. All I have to do is lie on banana lounges and grin while I read a script. Now and then I liven proceedings with a spot of paragliding or heli-skiing. The contract is for an annual salary, so occasionally I roll
up for an MC gig, or maybe a Christmas special, but none of it's too onerous.

They send me to a warehouse in Thomastown to pick out some suits. So far in life, I'm a guy who's only worn suits to court. Nothing looks more pitiful than an athlete in a borrowed suit. But these ones are magnificent, even to my untutored eye. The company people walk in small circles around me, dropping pins in the hems and peering intently at the seams. They smooth their hands downwards over the lapels, hitch with thumb and forefinger at the waistbands of the trousers until they're completely sure everything hangs as it should.

When they feel the climate is right, the network brings me back into cricket, this time as part of a well-informed expert panel, talking about the game before and after it's happened. I've got the suits. I've got the teeth, and they spend ages on the hair, which is getting just a little blonder. I've discovered spray-tanning: a light golden glow for those times that I'm doing public things but I'm not in TV makeup. Trust me, you can hardly tell.

The highlights are sliced up and fed into blog posts and other smallgoods. When controversies arise—a drug bust, a late-night-car-crash-and-fail-to-report, I write in a major daily. Vague homilies about personal responsibility, calculated to provoke outrage because outrage sells.
How dare he lecture anyone
, etc. Then back to the cocktail bar.

I get some more fantastic suits out of it. Just a little glossier than the previous ones. The sheen works well under the lights. I get free flights, hotel rooms. The money isn't a fortune, but when you're not paying for much else it's certainly enough.

Wally calls a press conference one dull April day and announces he's retiring from Test cricket, effective immediately.

It's been coming, of course. His movements have lost their feline
fluidity, and his air of serene permanence at the crease has been replaced by something more like stubbornness. There's constant injury speculation, to which I mischievously contribute now and then.
He's had dodgy hamstrings since we were kids
.

Sitting there in a Cricket Australia polo shirt encrusted with logos, he reads from a statement. His head is down over the microphones, his brow tense with strain. I know that look, though you don't see it often. His voice, his worried face, carry into millions of Australian homes and cars, into sheds and kitchens and print media and syndication globally. Over the smell of the evening meal browning on the stove, Australians will learn that their monarch has abdicated. The Governor-General could take a walk and it would be lesser news. Adults will feel their own mortality just a little; kids will mourn. He must choose his words carefully.

‘It has been the greatest honour of my life to captain my country. So many kids dream of the opportunities that I've had, and I am well aware of how lucky I have been. I have had wonderful support from the game's administrators, from my family and from my team-mates. But I must be conscious at all times of what is best for Australian cricket, and I now believe it's best that someone else steps up and takes the national side forward. My passion for the game is undimmed, but time stands still for no man. And I need to consider the welfare of my family, who have made sacrifices for me to occupy this role. It is a matter of public record that the captaincy of Australia has exacted a terrible price from me and from my wife Louise…'

His voice cracks, just enough, just enough.

‘From here on, I wish to focus on the various charities I am now involved with, and yes, I can confirm that I will bore you all with a book about myself, just as my predecessors have done.'

There's a ripple of polite laughter at this. He answers a few questions in brief and clinical terms, then climbs to his feet, scooping the
papers as he goes. Shouted questions erupt as the pack clamours for just that little bit more.

But he's gone.

The board arrange a testimonial dinner at the Ambassador in Sydney and the network quickly closes a deal to have me compere it. In media terms, this is a dream combination. The graceful retiring captain, feted by his incorrigible kid brother in front of a room of five hundred and a live television audience. Are the rumours of disharmony true? Could Darren Keefe say something wildly inappropriate on the night?

The board wouldn't have dreamed of having me near a thing like this only a few short years ago. But such is the effectiveness of my redemption tale, not to mention the magnitude of the rights deal struck by the network, that they're powerless to intervene.

I get a few shots beforehand: over the eyebrows, under them, and a few around the corners of my mouth. Within hours, the poison has pulled my face back into an approximation of what it looked like at twenty. Like a chord with one bung note in it: you can just hear it but you can't quite identify it. Still, it's better than looking my age.