The Whole of My World (14 page)

 

 

‘Huddo wins. No contest,' Dad says, pushing leaves of iceberg lettuce around the salad bowl, trying to get the French dressing to run evenly through it.

Josh offers an exaggerated eye roll in response, which Dad ignores.

I'm forcing down a Straz and tomato sauce sandwich, but the dough sticks in my throat. All I can think about is how much I want to get out of here. Dad's been watching me too closely, frowning at my long silences and crabby mood. He doesn't ask me what's wrong – that's not how things work in the Brown household. Though I couldn't tell him even if he did. My head is spinning with everything it has to hold – the way Mick looked at me at the social club, Tara's tear-streaked face, her mum's unsteady gaze, her absent father, and Mick's wife seeing right through me before she drove away – all these things I don't want to know or think about.

I know this much, though: the sooner I can get out from under Dad's prying eyes, the better. The only problem is that Josh is here and he's determined I make good on my promise to watch the Raiders.

‘Come on, Mr Brown. Coleman was a superstar!' Josh counters. He's taking his sweet time over lunch. I shoot him my best ‘Hurry up!' filthy, and nudge him under the table.

He blows me off with that wicked grin, deliberately slowing his chewing rate. I should know better – no one rushes Josh McGuire.

You'd think he'd be in a hurry too, now that I've finally agreed to watch him play. Dad even offered to pack our lunch. But Josh plonked himself down at our kitchen table like somebody's king. Sometimes I wonder what goes on in Josh McGuire's head. If anything.

‘Coleman was spectacular to watch,' Dad says, refusing to let his favourite subject slip. ‘That's why so many people say he's the best full forward in history.' I feel a small pang in my chest as I watch Dad, his face as animated as it gets nowadays. I used to be able to do that to him – make him light up. ‘But Huddo did what no one else could – be ahead of the ball, like he knew where it was going before the ball did.'

Josh leans forward, his eyes dancing. They've had this conversation many times before, and I know Josh starts it deliberately to see Dad come alive like this. I feel my stomach slowly unclench itself, and I can taste my sandwich again.

‘He was so far ahead of the ball – and his opponent – they didn't have a chance. Nobody did.' Dad spears a slice of Straz and makes another sandwich for us both. I've finished mine and have unexpectedly regained my appetite. I take the sandwich he offers me and slather it with tomato sauce.

‘But Coleman could fly like no one else,' Josh argues.

‘You're right,' Dad agrees. ‘Huddo rarely took speccies.'

‘Right, and a full forward needs to dominate overhead. That's how they win the ball – how they set up shots at goal.'

Dad shakes his head gravely. ‘It's not that he
couldn't
take a big mark, Joshua. He just didn't
have
to.'

I grin at Josh, who grins at me. Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea after all.

‘He knew what was going to happen before it did and would barely break a sweat. He could get into position and force his opponent
out
of position, while the ball seemed almost to hang in the air. And he'd mark it on his chest. You always want to do that if you can. Safest way to take the ball. Whether you like how it looks or not.'

‘Still,' Josh persists, ‘Coleman kicked so many goals. Took
so
many marks. He must have been incredible to watch!'

Dad sets down his sandwich, looks us both evenly in the eye and nods slowly. ‘Coleman was spectacular, no doubt about it. But Hudson . . .?' Dad leans forward. ‘Hudson made it look
easy
.'

I sit back and smile. I'm stuffed, but I feel better than I have all day.

I think about Mick, carefully replacing the memory of the night at the social club with the image of him on the football field – the moment he kicked the last of seven goals, right before we slaughtered the Gorillas. ‘Mick Edwards is doing all right,' I say.

‘Not in the same league,' Dad says, dismissively.

A part of me knows he's right, but not the part that controls my mouth. ‘Give him time. He's got a way to go still.'

Josh lets out a dry laugh. ‘Yeah, a long way. Like to
Antarctica
.'

I frown at him. He's supposed to be on my side. ‘Give him a couple more years.'

‘If his leg holds up. Be lucky to get through one,' Josh says, oblivious to my irritation.

‘He kicked an almost-perfect game against the Gorillas,' I argue, my voice rising in frustration. ‘Seven goals.'

Dad shakes his head, his brow furrowing. ‘He could kick ten and he still wouldn't be a patch on Hudson.'

Josh is too caught up in teasing me to notice my shift in tone. ‘You just like him 'cause you're mates,' Josh says, nodding at Dad as though he's in on the whole thing.

Dad's face freezes. Josh has no idea, chomping away on the crust of his sandwich like nothing's happened. Slowly, Dad returns to his chewing, carefully, deliberately. Twenty-one times. He swallows. ‘How do you mean?' he says to Josh, as though I'm not there.

Josh offers a brittle laugh, finally noticing the mood. He does the only thing he can do in the face of Dad's question. He stalls. ‘You know . . . her favourite player.'

Dad isn't buying it, and suddenly I don't care. ‘At training,' I say. ‘We hang out.'

‘You
hang out
?'

‘Yeah.' My voice is more confident than I feel. I jut my chin and level my gaze, but my fingers are trembling. I fold my hands in my lap so no one notices.

Dad stops eating. ‘What does that mean, exactly?' He looks like a coiled spring, holding everything in as tightly as he can.

I shrug, forcing a lightness neither of us feels. What does that mean, exactly? When I'm with Mick it's so perfect and clear, but then I see how it looks in other people's eyes, see what they're thinking or hear what they're saying – Tara, Mick's wife and now Dad – and it changes in ways I don't understand. ‘He's my friend, Dad. We talk at training and he gives me a lift to Stonnington sometimes.'

‘He drives you . . .
In his car?
'

‘Just to the station.' Like the fact it's only a short distance will make a difference.

‘You're alone, when this happens?'

‘Well, kind of. I mean . . . we're in
public
. He waits while I catch the train – when it's dark. To make sure I get on okay.'

‘He's a grown man! What can he possibly want from you?'

He sounds like Tara. Why wouldn't Mick want to be my friend? It's so obvious to me what we have. Why can't anyone else see it? ‘He's new,' I start, knowing it's more than this. ‘And lonely . . .' My throat tightens and a lump like a fist restricts my breathing. ‘Like me,' I rasp. Words I've been avoiding for two years, and now they're out there and can't be taken back.

‘Jesus,' Dad whispers.

I've never heard Dad swear before. He's making it sound ugly and wrong. He's making it sound like Mick's face looked at the social club – like a secret, a lie. Something a man doesn't want his wife to see. The queasiness in my gut has returned. I get up, my whole body clenched in frustration and something that feels a lot like fear.

‘He's my friend!' I yell, hot tears stinging my eyes. ‘He understands me – better than you do, that's for sure!' I suck in air, hold in my fury, and stare him down. I refuse to cry.

Josh has turned pale, his face trying to gesture apology, while Dad won't even meet my eyes.

‘This is what you do at the football club? You
hang out
– alone – with sweaty footballers?'

I breathe deeper now, my lungs struggling for air. ‘You make it sound horrible!' I choke, cringing at the whine in my voice. I clear my throat and fight back tears, but still my voice croaks and simpers. ‘He's my friend, and the best thing that's happened all year!'

Josh stands up. ‘Mr Brown? Are you okay?'

For a terrible second I think Dad might have a heart attack. His chest is heaving, his face granite.

I shake my head. ‘Dad? Please, it's no big deal. Are you okay?'

He takes an excruciating minute to find his voice, and it's so soft when he speaks that I wonder if I've heard right. ‘You're grounded,' he says, his eyes glazed over like a blind man's, his hands spread out between us, as though reaching for something that makes sense.

I stand there, stunned. I want to move, to get away, but a horrible paralysis pins me in place.

‘No more football. No more Fernlee Park. No more
Mick Edwards
.' He spits out Mick's name like it's something foul.

‘No! Please! I promise I won't let him drive me anymore. Tara can come too. And there are others . . .' But it's clear I've lost him. Dad's mind is made up and there's no going back. ‘Please,' I whisper, the hurt huge in my throat, my voice weak and trembling.

‘Wait outside, Joshua,' Dad says briskly, managing to seem something nearer to reasonable. But his eyes are cold.

I steal a glimpse of Josh. He can't look at me or at my dad. ‘Mr Brown . . .' he starts nervously. Josh is always so confident but right now he looks like a child. ‘Shelley would never . . .'

Dad's gaze swivels hard onto Josh.

Never
what
? I want to scream at Josh. At Dad.
That's
what they think of me?

Josh can't finish the sentence. He doesn't have to. Somehow, to them, I've become a person who could do this thing they can't even say.

‘I'm not a kid anymore!' I cry.

Dad snorts in disgust or disbelief.

‘I'm not a kid,' I say again, quieter now. Fighting the panic in my chest, I turn away from him.

‘Come back here, Michelle.' Dad's voice is like gravel. ‘Come back
now
.'

I continue to walk, each step taking me further from something that I'm not sure I can ever come back to.

 

I lie on my bed, counting the Falcons posters that line my walls, to soothe my racing heart. I look at the photos I've begun to collect around my mirror – Mick with his sheepish grin, outside the gym entrance; Mick and Chris Jury passing short kicks between each other in the grey twilight of a training session a few weeks ago; Mick with a footy thrust in front of him, his face a little weary with having to pose yet again for the camera.

I turn away, unable to look another moment. I reach up to take
My Brilliant Career
off the bookshelf and carefully, reverently, open it. I can't always face this story. But I'm desperate now and I can't think of a single other thing that will make me feel better, short of a trip to Fernlee Park – now forbidden and impossible. For the first time since I made that trek down Leafy Crescent, I'm not sure it would help anyway.

The first page is a handwritten inscription from Mum, with a picture of her when she was young sandwiched between the pages. She's staring straight at the camera. I trace her mouth with my finger, then her chin. Her beautiful dark eyes smile up at me and her rich black hair is curled into soft ringlets that look like they've come out of a hairdresser's salon, except they haven't. I don't know how I managed to miss out on Mum's beautiful curls or even her silky raven-black hair. Dad used to say I looked like her when I smiled but I don't see it.

I pull myself up from my bed and stand in front of the mirror. I draw back the black felt and force a smile at my reflection to see if I can uncover those dimples that used to mimic Mum's. I study the image, twisting and turning my head to catch the right angle, to find her. But it doesn't work. The face in the mirror is all Shelley.