Tigerland (32 page)

“Well, it doesn’t hurt that I don’t like you.”

“At least you’re telling the truth now. Shame you couldn’t do it in that piece of shit book you’re hawking.”

“You think my book is that bad?”

“It stinks of all the bullshit that’s in it.”

“Greg gave Declan the opportunity to collaborate.”

I couldn’t believe his gall. “Yeah, when he had already finished it. There was no way he wanted Dec to write it with him because then he would have had to tell the truth.”

“Well, that’s all subjective, isn’t it?”

“No, I’d say it’s the definition of
lying
.”

Jasper sneered. “Wow, you really think Declan is perfect, don’t you?”

“Oh, I
know
Dec isn’t perfect—” And with that I realised I was giving Jasper the perfect sound bite.

“Yes?” Jasper asked eagerly. Too eagerly, in my humble opinion.

I leapt for him, my hands scrabbling at the front of his shirt. He howled and tried to pull away, but I was ripping his buttons open and holding onto the material at the same time, so escape was practically impossible.

“What are you doing?” he cried.

“Checking you for a wire!”

“You’re fucking crazy!”

Maybe I was. Or maybe I was just too buzzed on champagne. But I needed to check, and this meant seeing a lot more flesh of Jasper Brunswick than I had ever wanted to see in my life. Nothing was attached to the sparse hairs on his chest, but I wasn’t satisfied. He tried to pull away again, and in some action I probably saw in an episode of
Highway Patrol
or
Border Security
or some bull crap local reality show that tried to scare us into thinking that our moral order was rapidly deteriorating, I yanked the back of his shirt down to his waist, effectively pinning his arms together.

“Help!” Jasper yelled to some of the passing crowd, but to them on this night of nights it probably looked like we were just involved in some strange courting ritual.

He was clean. There was nothing strange on his back, except for one mole that he should probably get his doctor to check on his next appointment.

“Let me go!”

I pushed him away, and he stumbled while trying to free his arms.

“You are absolutely insane!” Jasper yelled.

“No,” I said. “I’m just a little drunk.”

“Well, for someone who is trying to stay out of the spotlight, just wait until this is all over the media tomorrow!”

“Just you try it.”

“I have witnesses!” he cried, buttoning his shirt back up. A couple of buttons were ripped and hanging freely, and he was pretty pissed off about it.

“Who?” I asked, gesturing around us. “Nobody gives a fuck!”

“What about him?” Jasper asked, pointing behind me.

As I turned, Jasper made his escape.

It was Declan, coming to see what all the commotion was.

I whirled back around. “Keep running, Jasper Brunswick! Head straight for the river!”

“Did I just see you manhandling him?” Dec asked.

“Oh, he wishes!”

“Somehow, I don’t think he does.”

I tripped over my own feet walking over to him, and Dec caught me.

“Oh, my hero,” I said, kissing him and giving a small blessing in my head that there were some events like this where we could do this in public like a “normal” couple.

He seemed pleased by the attention, at least by the way he responded to my kiss, but when he pulled away he still looked concerned. “You know, it probably wasn’t the best thing to antagonise him.”

“I’m past caring what Jasper Brunswick thinks about me.”

“What about the things he could write about you?”

“What’s the point?” I asked, and I may have sounded a little bit mean when I did so. “He’s just going to write them anyway, and both him and Heyward are never going to have to worry about either of us responding to it.”

I pulled away from Dec and made my way back to the others. It took a few moments for him to follow me.

T
HINGS
were a bit more sombre after Jasper Brunswick’s intrusion into our group, and although everybody tried to put on a happy face for both Abe and Lisa, and Coby for his film entry, we never got back to the same high we had before. After my “manhandling” of Jasper Brunswick, I decided to switch to coffee and stay away from alcohol at least until I reached the safety of home.

Things got worse when, at the screening on the foreshore, Heyward took to the stage, wearing his tacky gold crown as King of Midsumma, to open the film festival. Everyone visibly stiffened, and I could feel their gazes upon me and Dec.

Dec pretended not to feel it, and stared ahead as if Heyward was just any other person on the stage. I couldn’t. I stared down at the paper cup in my hand and started shredding it from the lip, uncurling it in one giant piece like an apple rind.

“We have a wide range of films to show here tonight,” Heyward was saying, even though it sounded as if he was speaking underwater as everything around me was starting to take on the surreal twinge of a nightmare. “The feature film selections will be running for the next week, while all short films selected will run tonight. There are a large range of genres, and some very talented directors, including up and comers like Sarah Vujcich, Diana Perino, and Coby Harker.”

At the sound of Coby’s name our small group immediately started hooting and cheering, which was a mistake, as it immediately drew Heyward’s attention towards us.

“Seems to be a pretty popular guy,” Heyward said with his faux affability. “But I have to say, ahead of accusations of conflict of interest, although he is the personal assistant of Simon Murray, I have no say in the voting.”

It seemed like most of the audience had now turned to look around at where our cheering had come from. I might as well have been on the stage next to Heyward, with the spotlight shining upon my sweaty, panicked face. I might not have been as famous as my partner, but in this circle even I was well known just by association with him.

Heyward paused long enough for the audience to start feeling uncomfortable, and I wilted under the attention. “But enough about that. The first film in the projector is a comedic tale of a high school teacher who must decide whether to acknowledge her own sexuality when teaching equal marriage rights in a debate class.”

He continued to ramble on, and now that the audience’s full attention was back on him I got to my feet and muttered that I had to find the loo. Dec looked as if he was about to follow me, but I waved him off.

I felt like I needed to go to the loo, but it was more a churning in my stomach, and it felt more like I was going to puke. The cheap champagne from earlier seemed to be having a bad effect on me—my head was pounding and I felt sweaty and overheated.

I ended up behind the stage, calmed by the water lapping at the bank. I sank down beneath a tree and closed my eyes, trying to concentrate on the sound of the river rather than the pain in my belly and the tinny noise coming from the film playing behind me.

“Simon?” a familiar voice asked.

I opened my eyes. Coby was standing above me.

“Hey, Coby,” I said, although it was more of an indecipherable mutter than anything else.

“You saving that seat?”

I gave him a weak smile. “Me and all my friends.”

Coby sat beside me. “All your friends are sitting in that audience. And one’s sitting beside you now.”

“I know. I just needed… air.”

“You’re in the open air. You were in the open air where you were sitting before.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do. I’m really sorry that dick did that to you.”

“It’s not your fault. He just used you because it meant he could then take a pot shot at us.”

“Doesn’t make me feel any better.”

I laughed, but it was more of a disappointed snort. “Nah, me neither.” I lifted a small rock and threw it into the water. I heard it crash through the surface but couldn’t see it. “When is your film showing?”

“It’s the fourth one.”

“Is he going to introduce each one?”

“I’m afraid so. Look, you can go home if you like.”

I shook my head. “He’s already been a shit. If he does it again, he knows he’ll look bad, and he’s smart enough to avoid that.”

I felt stupid now for running away, and even more foolish for pushing Dec away. On some level I guess I was trying to punish him because I wanted him to stop Heyward from doing this, but I also knew there was no way he could really stop him. Even if he wanted to confront him, in that stupid macho sportsmen way they’d probably resort to blows, something that easily happened on the football field as a way of resolving sledges.

“I better go back,” I said. “I don’t want to miss your film.”

I got to my feet and went to give him a congratulatory handshake, but he surprised me with a hug.

“Thanks, boss.”

I wanted to tell him to stop calling me boss, that we had gone beyond that now. That he was a friend. But as usual, I had trouble saying it. “That’s okay, plebe.”

But he knew what I meant. He’s worked with me too long not to know.

I didn’t want to make my way back from the front of the stage and pass through a whole crowd of people who had just seen me called out by Heyward, so I cut through a small swathe of trees to enter from the back when I saw Heyward and Dec before me. They hadn’t seen me, and I ducked behind a tree for cover, curiosity getting the better of me.

They were arguing, but I was having difficulty making out what exactly they were saying. Luckily they were too distracted to see me moving closer, but still under cover, so I could hear them better.

“You ever do that again—”

“And what?” Heyward hissed. “What are you going to do about it?”

“You leave Simon out of this. This isn’t about him.”

“It’s always been about him. About the both of you. How was I supposed to compete with that?”

“It’s not a competition! Jesus, you could have had the bloody spotlight all you wanted. Neither Simon or I care! We’d be happier without it.”

“But you got there first,” Heyward said, and I was surprised at the anger in his voice. “The only way I could do it was to try and top you.”

“You never cared about coming out when we were together,” Dec reminded him. “So it seems pretty fucking stupid to worry now about who deserves the glory.”

“Yeah, because you’ll always have it. You and that idiot—”

Dec punched him so fast that it didn’t even register with me that it had happened until I saw Heyward lying on the ground. Dec didn’t even seem to care that he had done it. He just stood there waiting for Heyward to pick himself back up, which he did while wiping the blood from his mouth.

“Are you finished?” Dec asked. “I told you not to bring him into it.”

“You better hope that doesn’t bruise, Dec.” Heyward grinned. “It’ll be a great story to add while going on my book tour.”

“If you’re going to do that then I better make it worth my while,” Dec said, taking a step toward him.

Heyward flinched but stood his ground.

I was about to make my presence known—I had wanted Dec to take action, but not this type—when Dec made a disgusted snort, either at what he had done, or Heyward, or maybe even at both of them and what they had been reduced to, and started walking away.

Heyward saw this as his opportunity and sprang for him. Declan must have sensed it, as he spun around and landed a blow in Heyward’s stomach before he could do anything. Heyward sank to his knees, holding his gut.

“That’s it, Greg,” Dec said. “For fuck’s sake, just stop it.”

With that, leaving Heyward speechless in the dirt, he walked off to where our friends were sitting.

I was about to follow him when Jasper Brunswick appeared to help Heyward to his feet. I ducked back, starting to feel like I was in some anachronistically contemporary production of a Shakespeare comedy. Queen Mab was definitely in the air tonight, bringing both wish fulfilment and plague—and the two were inextricably linked.

“What happened?” Jasper asked.

“You didn’t see?” Heyward demanded.

“Not the actual act, no. I just came around to see you on the ground.”

“Then what fucking use are you? Nobody was here to see Declan Tyler hit me!”

“He hit you?”

I felt like yelling “twice!” because Heyward neglected to say so.

Heyward stumbled to his feet, still holding his gut. “Yes, he fucking did.”

“Why?”

“Does it matter?”

Jasper didn’t reply.

“Fuck,” Heyward groaned.

Jasper tenderly put an arm around him. “Are you okay?”

Heyward shoved him away. “Look, Jasper, just because I let you suck my cock every now and again it doesn’t mean we’re
boyfriends
.” He said the last word so mockingly that it skewered me, so I couldn’t even imagine how much it must have hurt Jasper. He looked so crushed that I realised I finally had the reason why Jasper was doing what he did—he was doing it for love. And I hated the way it was making me reassess Jasper Brunswick. From the look on his face he truly seemed to be in love with Heyward, because it would have to be love if you were so hurt.

Fuck, I was feeling sorry for bloody Jasper Brunswick. But it was because I could see a link, surprisingly enough, between him and Dec. Dec had put up with over a year of emotional… well,
abuse
was the only word for it. It had damaged his self-esteem and his sense of self-worth, and now Heyward was working his special brand of dark magic upon Jasper. I could debate with myself endlessly about how Heyward’s actions probably stemmed from his own self-hatred (even though he would never admit it), but in the end you could only excuse him so much, especially when he was damaging other people at the same time.

“Okay, Greg,” Jasper finally said, and dropped his arm. I have to give him credit, he walked away dignity personified.

I don’t know why I found myself following Jasper instead of going back to Dec. I skirted around the trees until Heyward was behind me and tracked Jasper back in the crowds of the festival.

“Jasper!” I yelled.

He turned, and when he saw it was me he kept on walking. There had been a fleeting look of hope on his face. He was wanting it to be Heyward and knew it wouldn’t be, but he still wanted it just the same.