Tigerland (24 page)

We sent texts to Fran and Roger and both sets of parents, chickening out of calling them in case we were talked out of running away, and then we were off, the city disappearing behind us in the rearview mirror. With each kilometre the odometer increased, our moods grew lighter. We were entering a world without Heyward, Jasper Brunswick, and the media at large. And it was
glorious
.

But I had a little secret of my own that I was keeping from Dec. While I was texting Roger, an SMS came through from Jasper Brunswick.

We need 2 talk. I know u prbly

don’t want 2, but it’s important.

Not only was I enraged he had the gall to contact me, but I was appalled at his spelling, reliance on “text speak,” and lack of punctuation. And he was meant to be a
writer
!

So I was pretty happy to turn off my mobile for the unforeseeable future. It meant that I could forget about it, or at least try to, and if there was one thing I excelled at it was procrastination.

With its burning little secret, my mobile was tucked away in the glove box—we had decided to bring them just in case of car trouble, but swore to leave them off until we made a mutual decision to turn them back on. Neither of us particularly wanted to be stuck out on lonely roads relying upon the kindness of strangers.

We didn’t have a plan. We stopped off at various locales along the way, most notably the Twelve Apostles, a spectacular rock formation not far from the shore—a set of worn-away cliffs that rose out of the water like teeth. One of them had crumbled into the ocean a few years ago, and it felt like it could happen to them all as time went on. Not exactly a comforting thought—nothing is immortal. We didn’t stay there too long, as the area was swarming with tourists, and crowds were the last things we wanted to be around.

We drove on to the outskirts of Port Campbell and pulled into the car park of the Comfort Lodge in the late afternoon. The look of it alone suggested that the comfort supplied was in name only.

“Aren’t you glad now that I brought our own bedding?” I asked Dec.

“I think you’re being a bit paranoid.”

“I told you about that study that was done—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Seven different types of semen on the doonas and semen and blood up the walls.”

“You sound weird saying
semen
.”

“You’re the one who started that particular conversation.”

“I’m just telling you what they found.”

“Yeah, in
America
.”

“You think it’s any different here?”

“Okay, okay. Thank you so much, Simon, for thinking ahead so we’re not lying below other people’s semen tonight.”

“That’s all you had to say.” I cocked my arms in triumph.

“That would be more impressive if you had muscles.” Declan opened his door and stepped out onto the gravel.

“Bastard,” I muttered and followed him into the office. No foyers in this neck of the woods.

At the sound of the bell ringing above the door, a small middleaged woman wearing a Sydney Swans baseball cap emerged from the back room.

“Good evening,” she said and visibly started when she saw Dec and recognised him.

“Hi,” Declan said, turning on the charm as usual. “We want a room for the night.”

She looked at the two of us. “
One
room?”

This was bullshit. If she knew who Dec was, then she probably knew who the hell I was. “Yep,” I jumped in. “With
one
bed, thanks.”

She pursed her lips, and I thought she was going to try and refuse us, but she reached into a cabinet behind her and produced a key. “Room 12. That’s eighty-nine dollars for the night.”

Only eighty-nine dollars? Fuck knows what kind of hovel we were letting ourselves stay in.

Dec handed over his credit card. “Thanks.”

I took the key. “Meet you there.”

I stumbled back out into the cold and headed across the car park. The rooms were more like a series of connected units, and they all seemed in the same shabby condition. This was the kind of motel you only planned to stay in for one night, and gritted your teeth while doing so.

The lock took some major twisting and turning before it finally opened, and I stepped into the room to find two twin beds staring me in the face. For a moment I just stood there, wondering whether it was an honest mistake or a completely unsubtle judgement of Dec and I as a couple.

Dec found me still standing in that same position. “What’s the matter?” He then moved past me and took in the room. “Fuck no.”

“It might just be a mistake.”

“Well, I’m going to get them to move us.”

“No, don’t.” I grabbed him by the arm. “You know normally I would be rampaging down there, but I’m tired, and if it is going to lead to an argument, the last thing I want is for us to end up in a news story about a bed in a country motel.”

“Simon—”

“Please, Dec.”

He kicked the door shut. “Fine. I guess we can pretend we’re like parents in a 1950’s sitcom.”

“Fuck that.” I moved to the nearest bed and began to push it over. Dec joined me, and voila, the twin beds became a double. I stripped it of its clothes and replaced them with the ones I had brought from home while Dec switched on the heater and boiled the kettle.

I lay on one side of the new bed and yawned. “I am so tired.”

“For someone so concerned about the state of the doonas, you’re lying on ours with your shoes on,” Dec observed.

I looked down at my feet. “Oh. So I am.” I kicked them off, and they flew across the small room.

Dec stared at them. Anally retentive.

“Go on,” I mocked him. “Live a little.”

He rolled his eyes and kicked off his own sneakers so that they flew in opposite directions. He hesitated for a moment, and I knew he wanted to pick them up and place them neatly by the door, but he took me by surprise with a flying leap to land beside me on the bed.

“It’s a whole new world,” I said.

“You’re not going to sing again, are you?”

“Nope,” I said, resting my hand upon his stomach. “I’m going to do this.” I kissed him, my hand pulling at his belt loop. He responded eagerly, his arms wrapping around me. I rolled over to pin him down so he would be my helpless captive, and found myself sliding down between the two beds, my hand clutching frantically at Dec’s waist even though I knew logically there wasn’t that far to fall.

It was like I had fallen in an open grave composed of white sheet rather than dirt, and Declan was peering in over the top at me. I expected him to be sympathetic, but he was actually tearing up from laughter.

“Oh, yes, very droll,” I said. “Help me up!”

Dec tried to speak, but could only wheeze.

I reached up, grabbed him by the hood of his jacket, and pulled him on top of me. The collision of our bodies made us both wince, but soon we were just staring at each other, and Dec wiped hair out of my eye.

“This is cosy,” he said.

“I didn’t know these sheets were so stretchy.”

“They should put it on the packaging. It’s a major selling point. But do you know something?”

“What?” I asked, my hands aching to get busy on him again.

“They’re the only thing protecting us from the carpet, which you said—”

“Is even worse than the doonas!” I cried. “Get off me!”

It took some finesse, and some slight injuries such as being poked in the ribs by elbows, but we eventually freed ourselves of our sheeted grave and stood surveying the wreckage of the bedroom.

“It would have been so much simpler if they’d given us the bed we asked for,” Dec said.

“Easy fixed.” I wheeled the two nightstands together and wedged them in against the wall on one side and the beds on the other. Now there would be no separation, and I even jumped up on the bed to test it.

Dec whistled with appreciation at my handiwork.

“Come here, you.” I grabbed him by the zipper on his jacket and pulled him onto me.

The beds held together just fine.

I
N
THE
morning the woman asked with a small smile whether the room was to our satisfaction. Before Dec could say anything, I gave her the exact same smile that Dec had said was creepy the day before.

“It was fantastic! There was a mix up with the bed, but when we pushed them together we managed quite well, if you know what I mean!” I gave her a wink on that last bit, at which her eyes widened and her face coloured.

Dec handed her back the key and signed the final receipt. “Thanks for a lovely stay.”

He pushed me out the door ahead of him. “I can’t take you anywhere!”

“Oh, it was a bit of fun.”

Dec laughed. “You were the one who didn’t want to cause a scene last night, and now you’ve given her the ammunition to say that Declan Tyler and his boyfriend were having horrible horrible gay sex in Room 12.”

“Horrible horrible gay sex?” I smirked as I got into the car behind the wheel, deciding I was driving for the day. “That’s not what you said last night.”

He jumped in beside me. “Just get us out of here before she gets her pitchfork and arouses the other villagers.”

“Arouses the villagers? No chance,” I said in rather mean spirits.

Declan gave me a disapproving look.

“Okay, okay! I’m sure she is very arouse-worthy to the villagers. We’re going, we’re going!”

And so Room 12 was left behind us to bask in its newfound infamy.

A
S
WE
passed newsagencies in small towns, we resolved not to look at the boards advertising the day’s headlines. At each new town I made us stop and try the bakery—country towns have the best bakeries, or maybe I just have the most traditional taste buds. But I was content to try every lamington and vanilla slice I could find, and then report back with my findings as to who made the best. Dec could usually be convinced to partake in the lamingtons but not the “snot blocks.”

In Allansford he was forced to try the local meat pie by the owners of the town’s bakery, which one said was “the best pie to have at the footy.” An avid Essendon fan, she begged Dec to sign all her memorabilia and pose for photos, which he did, sheepishly. I was even shoved into one, but after the cold shoulder we had received in that motel at Port Campbell, I was actually more than happy to be accepted as just any other partner of a celebrity than the dreaded
homosexualist
.

Luckily, nobody ever told us of any developments in the Greg Heyward saga. If they were happening, we remained ignorant. We were more than happy to remain that way until we had to return to Melbourne.

There was a stretch of beach just before we reached Warrnambool that looked so beautiful it immediately called out to us. The coast had so many spectacular views this was just one of many, a gem amongst others crying out for attention. Perhaps because it wasn’t as famous as the other attractions there was nobody there, and that made it even more attractive to us.

“It’s almost like it’s
our
beach,” I said, trying to get as close to the shore as possible without getting my feet wet.

“Well, today it is,” Dec said, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around my chest. I felt like we were vampires stepping out into the sunlight and not bursting into flame, such is the life of a gay couple who have to decide when and where public displays of affection can be safe. “Feel like a walk?”

Not normally, no. But I felt just good enough to be suckered into it. Dec led the way as he always did—I liked to blame it on his long, lean legs rather than the fact he was in much better shape than me.

The sun was warm, but not hot. In fact, the wind coming off the water was cold and overrode any heat the sun was giving out. I reached forward and grabbed Dec’s hand. It pulled him back a little, and he turned, surprised. Then he smiled, a smile so full of love and tenderness it seemed to be brighter than everything around us—the white sand, the sun reflecting off the surface of the waves—it could envelop me and swallow me whole. The mantra I often repeat to myself in one of these rare moments of PDA begins:
This is for those times when I want to take his hand, or he wants to take mine, but we don’t feel safe enough. This is for those times other couples get to take for granted, but we have to snatch in limited amounts when they become available to us. This is for those times when I can’t do such a simple thing as hold the hand of Dec as the tiniest gesture of affection and to show him how much I love him.

We stopped for a rest, sitting beneath a rocky outcropping that sheltered us from the full force of the wind. We huddled together for warmth, Dec wrapping his arm around my thigh and resting his head on my shoulder.

“You could almost think we’d stepped back in time,” Dec said.

“This was a prime whaling area. On that basis alone, I think now is much better.”

“True. Plus, we wouldn’t have been able to get a hotel room together at all.”

“I don’t know. People weren’t as suspicious back then. I think the fear of the dreaded gay is a more modern affliction. I mean, you read
Moby Dick
and it’s almost like a gay romance, what with all the bed sharing and cuddling they got up to below decks.”

“Maybe it was,” Dec laughed, staring out over the sea. “We could build a house here. Then we would never have to leave.”

“I doubt we’d be able to buy government land,” I said, ever the pessimist. “Even if we did, we’d have to leave to consult architects, hire builders, and everything else.”

“Shatter that dream, Simon.”

“Sorry. It’s a nice dream, though.”

“Can you imagine having this as your view every day?”

It would certainly be breathtaking. The skies were darkening now, and the wind was picking up, causing the now-grey waves to hurl themselves upon the sand with a force that was to be reckoned with. The friendly sea had turned into a monster, but it was still a beautiful one.

“It would be fantastic,” I said, “but you know what?”

“What?”

“I like our life back in Melbourne, recent Heyward drama notwithstanding. I like our balcony overlooking the river. I like the fact that Abe, and now probably Lisa again, live a few floors down, or that Fran and Roger only live a couple of suburbs away. That we’re within walking distance to Etihad, and a short tram ride from the MCG, and that even if we’re not at a game we can still hear how a team is going by the way the crowd is roaring. It’s a good life.”