The Whole of My World (17 page)

 

 

It's a surprisingly warm day for August, despite the breeze. The sun feels good on my arms and face. I stand in a splash of sunlight, using a paperbark gum tree as a windbreak while I watch the Raiders warm up. It's like time has stood still. I let myself pretend that no one I love is dead, that Tara doesn't hate me and that Mick didn't look at me in the hospital like I was some stupid little kid. Like I was nobody special.

Today, while the sun beats down, bright and cheerful, all that exists is the excitement of the game I love and the chance to see Josh make his dream come true. The Raiders are in the grand final, which is pretty exciting on its own. But bigger than this, it's Josh's hundred-and-fiftieth game – a club record he's managed sooner than anyone else because he played an extra year in the under 8s, as well as all those fill-in games in the higher grades. Everyone is pumped – parents have brought streamers and flags, while some of the younger kids from the junior grades have made a banner for the team to run through. The Raiders haven't won a premiership for years – not since we were little – and there's a rumour that some professional scouts are going to show up.

I didn't want to come; I'd thought long and hard about making up some excuse to stay home. The idea of seeing all those faces that I've grown up with, so familiar yet strange now, is bad enough. I haven't heard from Josh at all since that day at our house. A part of me is angry and hurt, though it's not like I've called him either. I have no idea what he's thinking. I just know that all the stuff that used to be easy between us is suddenly not easy at all. And that makes me sad.

So that's why I'm here – to get back to what we know: simple, uncomplicated football.

Seeing everyone hasn't been as terrible as I'd dreaded. I thought they'd act really weird about it, or weirder than they have. But I'm still here, still standing. And really, if I'm totally honest, I couldn't let Josh down. If the rumour about the scouts is true, Josh is why they're coming. Cameron Evans is slick and exciting when he's on song, but Josh is the real star of the team. Since the accident, anyway – since Angus.

I brush away that thought. For today, at least, I'm determined to direct all my energy into hoping Josh pulls a blinder.

As though reading my mind, Josh jogs over, still in his tracksuit and runners.

There's only fifteen minutes before the first bounce. I glance over at the club rooms, just in case Jacko is looking for him. ‘Careful. They'll start without you,' I joke.

It's working. The footy, as always, does its magic. The way the grass smells, the chirp of the umpire's whistle signalling the final warning, the joking commentary on the sidelines while parents await the first bounce – all of it melds together into something so familiar to me, so good and warm and real, that I can almost pretend that none of the other stuff happened. I half expect to see Mum waving from the car or Angus haranguing me for stealing his lucky pair of Raiders socks, as though nothing has changed in two years and we're still a whole family.

Almost.

Josh smiles and looks away, kicking the dirt with his left foot. ‘Just finishing the warm-up. Got a few minutes.'

‘Avoid that wing,' I tell him, pointing to the far side where there's a huge patch of soft ground in the middle. He's got the prettiest blind turn I've seen on anyone this side of the pros, but he can't do it in the wet. Even at his cockiest, Josh knows this.

He's still avoiding my eyes, and it's making me nervous. He keeps stealing glimpses towards the clubhouse, but I can't make out what he's looking at. Or
for
. It's as if he's on guard, like he's waiting for something bad to happen.

I wonder briefly if his mum told him she'd asked me to come. She's here, of course. But having faced her that night, seeing her today doesn't worry me so much. She saw all there is to see.

‘What's going on?' I ask finally.

‘Nothing. Not really. I need a big one, today. You know, in case the scouts show up.'

‘You'll be fine,' I tell him, meaning every word. Everyone says he's playing his best footy this year. ‘Just keep off that wing and you'll be fine. Don't get fancy. It's the small stuff – the hard stuff – they look for.'

Josh's familiar grin is fighting through his discomfort. I can see it – the battle between his nerves and his cockiness.

‘Hey. What are you doing here?' A high voice from out of nowhere slices through the tension, startling us both. I turn to see Ginnie Perkins standing behind me. She's smiling at Josh but talking to me. And she's not happy, despite the light tone of her question.

The feeling is mutual.

‘I live here,' I reply before I have a chance to stop myself. I sound like a moron. ‘I mean, I've been here for years.' I don't say that my whole family belonged here once, all of us entrenched in the side, from the bottom up. I don't say that I used to play for the Raiders either because,
technically
, I didn't. Besides, she'll only turn it into something embarrassing or pathetic. It sounds tragic, now that I think about it. Playing football for a junior team without ever being allowed to play in a real game is as pathetic as you can get.

‘Josh is my friend,' I add, not even tempted to mention Angus, even though my supposed
friend
is standing there in total silence, gawking at Ginnie Perkins like she's Elle Macpherson. I stare hotly at Josh, wondering what the hell he's thinking.

‘Hey,' he manages eventually, not helping my cause one tiny bit.

‘Hey, Josh. Good luck today,' Ginnie says with disturbing familiarity, each word slicing through me. She's smiling at Josh like she knows him well, like he's someone special to her.

‘Thanks.' He grins like an idiot. It's the voice that bothers me again –
his
voice this time. He knows her, and I think he
likes
her. They're sharing something right now, this moment, while I'm standing between them like some kid who's tagging along at her big brother's school dance.

‘You know each other?' I ask, stating the bleeding obvious.

Josh tears his gaze from Ginnie long enough to send me a strange, almost pitying apology. ‘We hang out at the station sometimes.'

They hang out together?
How can I not know this! Why didn't he mention it?

And then I remember that morning I saw Josh at the station. He never told me why he was there, just that he'd had a half day of school. But I saw Ginnie, didn't I? With her clique heading towards him before my train left.

But none of this is the point. It doesn't matter when or how. The point – the sharp and painful point – is that he likes her. And she likes him.

‘Cool,' I say, my heart a dead thing in my chest. ‘See you after the game,' I manage, encompassing them both in an awkward wave that looks more like the universal signal for drowning, which is kind of right. And even though I'm mortified and hurting, I don't blush. Thank God, for once, I don't blush.

 

The first half of the game is excruciating. Josh does all right but not great, and while the Raiders are only nine points down, it's due more to the Mountvalley Comets' inaccuracy in front of goal than any real success on Glenvalley's part. The wet is slowing the game right down, forcing the players to rely on short kicks and handballs in a dull kick-for-kick arm wrestle that lacks skill and purpose. They need to break it up.

I manage to avoid Ginnie for the first half, although it takes enormous effort not to follow her into the clubhouse at half-time. I'd normally listen to Jacko's address – I love to try to out-think his game plan or identify changes in strategy. The thinking part of football is almost as much fun as the game itself, which makes my distance at half-time all the more frustrating. I watch Ginnie disappear into the dressing rooms as though she has a right to be there, even though she wouldn't know a drop kick from a torpedo and probably doesn't care if we win.

As I wander along the boundary, fighting the urge to check up on the team, they start yelling out at me, their deliberately light voices determined to pretend that nothing has changed since the old days. It seems that whatever Brown-family amnesty the Raiders' parents had silently agreed upon has been lifted by half-time.

‘We should send you in to sort them out,' Cam Evans' father says to me, while everyone laughs with way too much enthusiasm.

‘How's that right foot now, Shelley?' Richard Leckie's brother shouts. My very last kick for the Raiders was a shanker down the back line that ended in a free kick to the other side, along with the title for the lightning tournament. It was not my finest hour, and although it happened more than two years ago, apparently they haven't forgotten.

The thing is, they're ribbing me because that's what they do – what
we
do. Basically, they're trying to be nice. While I know that and even appreciate it, somehow I end up feeling more alone than ever. No one wants to ask about Dad or acknowledge the fact that I'm here alone when this was always
our
thing. Our family thing. And now Ginnie's here poisoning this place for me too. The whole point of putting Glenvalley High behind me was to move on, to draw that line so that the world Before did not clash with the world After. I've been trying to claw them apart with my fingernails these past months and now they've come crashing together.

I realise I don't want to be here another minute, and it hits me with a force that takes my breath away. I hunch over and clutch my stomach. Then, remembering my athletics training, I straighten up, put my hands on my head and breathe in, out, in, out, slowing the rhythm of my lungs, opening my airways wide. My head is spinning, blood rushes to my temples. In. Out. In. Out.

It works – the breathing, the momentary stillness. I'm okay.

‘Shelley?'

I feel a hand on my back and turn to face Josh's dad, who is watching me closely. ‘You all right?' Mr McGuire is in his Raiders' tracksuit, a dirty white towel around his neck, looking very official as the team's trainer. He's club president this year, too, and spends most of the match sprinting around the ground, tending to the boys. He stepped up when Dad stopped coming. I think he thought it was temporary, but has been stuck in both roles ever since.

I nod. I want to fill the awkward silence but nothing comes. A twisted smile is the best I can do.

Mr McGuire nods, understanding. ‘We've missed you,' he says simply.

I could cry. I want to cry. I think about where I can go to escape this weight, the pressure against my ribcage, the hard stone in my throat. I can't go home. I can't stay here. I shake my head and look away.

Josh's dad places an arm around me. The warmth of this gesture and the familiarity of it is almost more than I can bear. ‘Josh is so glad you came, Shell. It means a lot to him. To us. Thank you.'

Mr McGuire is not the most expressive of men but he has a way of making you feel good even when what he has to say is bad. He's the Human Resources Manager at Big Ten Hardware, in charge of hundreds of staff across the whole of Victoria. Mum used to joke that if he ever had to tell anyone they were sacked, there's a good chance they'd walk away feeling like they'd won the lottery. I don't quite feel like I've won anything, but the pressure on my chest is easing. ‘I'm not sure I can stay,' I manage, ashamed at my weakness.

Mr McGuire nods. ‘You do what you need to do, Shell. It's enough that you came at all.'

The weight has lifted now; I'm free to go. I smile gratefully at Mr McGuire. ‘Tell Josh he needs to step up. It's now or never.'

‘I'll do that,' he says. ‘Tell your dad I said hi.' He looks at me carefully then and I realise he knows more about what's happening at home than I thought. I don't know why I didn't expect Josh to tell his parents. I'm mad at him for saying anything but also oddly relieved that Mr McGuire spoke up. It feels a little less like I'm doing this alone.