Tigerland (5 page)

“Dickhead.”

“Shut up, or else I’ll do your other eye. How did that happen, anyway?”

“The gym.”

Tim burst out laughing. “No, really.”

“Shut up, Tim.”

Gabby and Dad were in the kitchen. Gabby rushed to hug and kiss us. Declan accepted it easily; I did it a little more stiffly. I wasn’t used to this newfound overt affection between my family members. We had always been a bit standoffish, but when Tim started going with Gabby, she let us know in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t playing that game. She was a hugger. She was a kisser. She was an arm toucher in casual conversation. Personal boundaries were something she either disregarded or didn’t even know existed. Dad and Declan were shaking hands while Gabby squeezed me against her ample chest.

“Your eye!” she exclaimed.

“He did it at the gym,” Tim mocked me.

Gabby looked puzzled. “You go to the gym?”

“Okay, everybody, I think we’ve established that I don’t go to the gym that often. Can we eat now?” I threw myself down at the table.

“Spoken like someone who doesn’t go to the gym,” Tim said, sitting opposite me. I chucked a fork at him, and it went wide. “If you went to the gym, your aim would be better.”

“He does just fine,” Dec said, passing behind me to get to his chair. He bent down and gave me a peck against the cheek.

Yes, it had gotten to this point. Dec was more affectionate before my family than I was, but after we had broken through that wall and the house hadn’t collapsed in upon us, I started returning it. Now it didn’t seem that strange, even though Tim liked to harass us every now and again. But that was Tim’s way, and I didn’t rise to the bait as often as I used to.

Dinner at the Murray household was its usual boisterous affair, especially once the baby woke up for a feed and in doing so roused her older brother as well. While Gabby and Tim dealt with him, I sat with Nikki on my lap. For some reason the kid liked me, even though she constantly reached out for Declan, who was too busy making gooey-eyes at me for being paternal. He was only used to me being like that with Maggie—Nikki had far less hair and only two legs, but she was cute in her own way.

At some point I slipped away and used the loo. On my way back, I stepped into my old room, which Mum had turned into a shrine for the Essendon football club.

The sight of the red and black paraphernalia instantly brought out a natural revulsion to me, borne since childhood. Growing up in a house where both your parents support one team, bordering on religious mania, makes you either succumb or rebel. And both Tim and I rebelled.

But more recent events had dampened that revulsion, because there was one person on that shrine very dear to me. The same person who was in other picture frames around the house, in the form of my partner. In this room, however, he was football god, ex-Devils player come Essendon star—Declan Tyler.

He was grinning self-consciously in his official team photo, the red and black guernsey stretched across his chest.

“Should have been Richmond,” I muttered.

“Get over it,” said that way-too-familiar voice behind me. “They couldn’t afford me.”

“You could have done it for a reduced fee.”

Dec hugged me from behind. “Not even for you.”

“I think, deep down, you did it just to win over my parents.”

“They loved me even before I played for Essendon.”

That was true. Their love just went stratospheric when he became both their team’s captain and their “son-in-law.”

“It’s embarrassing coming in here and seeing that all the time,” Declan muttered.

“It’s just a photo.”

Dec snorted. “I’m surprised there isn’t incense and votive candles in here.”

There was, however, an Essendon scarf draped lovingly around his frame.

“Number one son. You’ve even supplanted Tim.”

“Sure, you drama queen.”

We stood in silence, looking at the shrine.

“You miss it, don’t you?” I asked quietly.

He took a moment to answer me. “Of course I do. But I knew it couldn’t last forever.”

“You wanted it to last longer.”

Dec nodded. “It could have lasted longer. But it didn’t. It was a career, and now I’ve got another one. People do that all the time.”

“I guess.”

“
You
did.”

He had a point. Film had always been my love, but I had changed jobs, moving sideways into television. Instead of arranging for films to be shown to the public, I was now actually producing shows.

“But I chose that. A sports star doesn’t choose change. Their body decides for them.”

“True. And it was strange at first. But I like what I’m doing.”

Like, but not
love
. That made me kind of sad. Maybe he was still adjusting.

“You’d tell me if you were unhappy, right?” I asked.

“Of course I would. Now let’s get out of here. I feel like I’m being watched by myself.”

“You’re lucky my parents haven’t had you stuffed and put behind glass like Phar Lap.”

“You’re creeping me out now.”

I took his hand and dragged him out of the Museum of Declan Tyler and Assorted Essendon Players. “Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll wait until you die first. I think.”

“That’s very comforting, thanks.”

I
T
WAS
a relatively early night. Dec and I were tired, and after some grumblings that it meant we were getting old, we crashed at a time when most people were gearing up for a Saturday night out.

Sunday morning dawned far too early for my liking, and it didn’t help that there was somebody banging on our door. Declan was snoring and practically comatose, so I knew I wasn’t going to be able to convince him to go and see who it was. I disentangled my legs from his, pulled on some clothes to be decent, and stumbled blindly to our front door.

Lisa jumped, her hand raised in the air, ready to knock again.

“Oh my God!” she cried. “He really did do it!”

“Huh?”

She reached out to touch my eye, and I’m a little ashamed to say I yelped. I wasn’t awake enough to remember the state of my face. Now that I had been reminded, it was aching unpleasantly.

“That son of a bitch,” Lisa fumed.

“Uh, it’s nice to see you and everything,” I said, my hurt at the café from the day before coming back to me, “but what are you doing here?”

Her face fell. “Simon, please don’t be like that.”

“What, like I’m upset? We haven’t seen you in months, and suddenly you’re here.”

“I hoped you’d understand. Can I come in or not?”

I shrugged, hating myself for doing it because I would have preferred to hug her and never let her go so she couldn’t disappear on us again.

“Come into our gracious drawing room,” I said in an accent Merchant Ivory would be proud of.

She pushed past me and flung her bag on the couch. It bounced off and succeeded in knocking over a set of empty beer bottles that Dec and I had polished off when we got home last night. Declan had been too tired to do his usual anal-retentive clean before sleep. Lisa surveyed the mess of our lounge with a critical eye and muttered, “Boys.”

“We’re
men
,” I reminded her, stooping to pick up the offending objects. I think once you’re out of your twenties, you can claim that for yourself.

“You’re
boys
,” Lisa countered.

“So it’s been two months, and you just came over to insult us?” I dumped the bottles in the recycling bin that slid easily out of sight under the kitchen counter.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“You could have asked me yesterday,” I pointed out, “when you avoided me at the cafe.”

“You saw me.”

“Yep.”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t ready to talk at that point of time. And, hey, in my defence, you weren’t injured at that point.”

“Well, what a difference a day makes.”

She sat down heavily on the couch. “Can you please not make this any harder than it already is?”

Before I could tell her that, yes, of course she was forgiven, and that all I wanted was for things to go back to the way they were, we were interrupted by Declan stumbling in, pulling a T-shirt over his head. It seemed Lisa had even managed to waken the beast.

Dec stopped, surprised, and squinted at her. “Oh. Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” she replied. Her voice was still pretty narky.

A thought suddenly occurred to me. “How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“About Abe hitting me.”

“I
am
friends with Fran and Roger as well.” She strode over to the kitchen and started banging around with the coffee machine.

“You’ve been speaking to Fran and Roger?”

“They
are
my friends as well.”

“Well, it’s nice you kept in contact with them, at least.” And I was going to kill them for not telling me as soon as I saw them. They knew how not seeing Lisa was affecting me.

“Simon! How many times do you want me to say sorry?”

I knew I had to drop it and just be glad she was finally there. “Make me a coffee, and that’ll be the end of it.”

She smiled at me. “Deal.”

“So Fran and Roger told you?”

Lisa began pouring beans into the grinder, and her response was drowned by the whirr of the tiny engine.

“What did you say?” Declan asked, reaching out to the couch as if he were blind and feeling his way. Instead of sitting on it, he lay down and clung to it as if it were a life raft. “Can you add two Aspro Clear and a Berocca to my coffee?”

With the beans now ground, Lisa gave him a thumbs up and poured them into the coffee machine. A new noise started to drown out our conversation.

“Seriously,” I yelled, “what did you mutter just then?”

She was talking while pulling three mugs out of the dishwasher.

I looked at Declan to see if he understood her, but he was staring at the floor and looking decidedly green. I waited until the machine spat out our coffees and asked again.

Lisa sighed, and this time what she said was audible. “I said, I spoke to Abe.”

Even Dec raised his head up at that.

“What?” we demanded in unison. Well, not quite. Dec was about a second behind me, a close echo.

“I saw him yesterday.”

“
When?” I asked.

“After he was with Declan. He called me.”

“And you answered him?” She hadn’t answered our calls at all over the past two months, only sending a couple of text messages.

“
He left four messages. And he sounded really upset, just talking to thin air about what had happened. So, yeah, I called him back.”

“And?” Declan prodded.

“We met up for coffee. He needed it to sober up. And we talked.”

“Huh,” was my sterling addition to the conversation.

“And how did it end between you?” Declan asked.

Skilfully avoiding the question, Lisa brought the mugs over to the coffee table and sat next to me. “I have to say, Simon, it was a surprise to hear him say he beat you up.”

“It was
one
punch,” I groaned. “Not a bashing.”

“Still, it’s bad.”

“It was meant for Declan!” I was wanting to be helpful, but it made her eyes narrow.

“That makes it all better, then!”

“I just got in the way. If it had been Declan, well,
he
has quicker reflexes. There would be no bloody noses or bruises.”

“Bloody nose?” Lisa asked.

Obviously new information for her. Whoops.

“It stopped after a while,” I said weakly, tapping the object in question. “Look, all good!”

Declan snorted. “How can you tell the difference?”

“I think he’s claiming I have a big nose,” I told Lisa.

“You do.” She sipped at her coffee.

I sniffed the aroma from my own mug appreciatively and tried not to wince. “See, I couldn’t do that if it was broken!”

“You still look pretty roughed up,” Declan said, not fooled.

“You’re full of compliments this morning. That’s not what you were saying yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Declan asked, screwing up his face exaggeratedly. “I don’t remember much of yesterday.”

I think Lisa had sat next to me so she wouldn’t have to look me in the eye. I wasn’t having any of that. I stood and unceremoniously knocked Declan’s feet off the couch to slide in next to him. Immediately they were in my lap as he lay back down.

“I’m not a cushion,” I said.

Too tired to respond, he waved my complaint away.

“That’s what I don’t get either,” Lisa said.

“What?” I asked. “Because what I don’t get is why you ignored us for so long.”

“You were too close to Abe. You live in the same bloody building, for a start!”

“And we could have met you in a neutral zone. Hell, we could have come to your parents’!”

“I wasn’t ready, okay?”

“Simon, she told you to drop it,” Declan said quietly, as if he thought only I could hear.

“I know you’re upset with me, but I needed to do it.”

I sighed. “I know. You do know that the main reason I’m really angry is because we couldn’t help you?”

There was a long pause.

“Who is this, and what happened to the real Simon Murray?” Lisa asked Declan.

“He has his moments,” Declan said with a small smile.

Lisa reached over the table and took my hand. “I’m not hiding anymore.”

“Good.” I squeezed it and held on for longer than was really necessary to reassure myself she was really there.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Declan said, swinging his feet out of my lap and sitting up again to drink his coffee. “How did things end with Abe yesterday?”

“We’re… talking. And will be again. Soon.”

“That’s news to me,” Dec grumbled.

“Look, he’s jealous. Abe hasn’t been giving him updates fast enough.” I was rewarded for this comment with a poke in the ribs. “Ouch!”

Lisa rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I came over to make sure you were okay.”

“Aww, thanks. But now you don’t need an excuse. Especially since you and Abe are
talking
again.”

“Talking is all we’re doing. We’re just… going to see what happens from here.” She didn’t say that she was worried about what that could entail; after all, it was evident in her voice. How could she know that the same problems that plagued them before wouldn’t start all over again? She blinked rapidly and then suddenly turned on Declan. “And you! Abe hits your partner, and you go out
drinking
with him?”