Tigers & Devils (14 page)

“Well, pencil me in,” he said with a smirk.

“I’ll
ink
you in,” I told him.

I almost had door-to-door service as he pulled quickly into an emergency bay just down from my building. As car horns started honking between us, I threw him a quick look.

“I had a great night,” he said.

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“Me too. I can’t wait for Saturday.” I realised that might have sounded a little sleazy, so my mouth did its usual trick of letting my foot insert itself. “And not just for the sex part. Just because I like seeing you.”

“I see you’ve been working on your compliments.” He chuckled. I wanted to kiss him goodbye, and I got the feeling that he wanted to as well. But there was no way we could. I grabbed his hand quickly and squeezed it gently. He smiled and stroked his thumb over the back of my hand.

“Bye, Simon. I’ll call you.”

“Bye, Declan.”

I got out of the car, and he sped off in an effort to stop the honking of the impatient drivers behind him. I watched his SUV slow down at the traffic lights and then execute a hook turn as he turned right past Flinders Street Station and continued in the direction of the Dome. Then I slowly trudged in to work.

I COULD almost have believed that the previous night
had
been a dream. The work day continued on as normal. Except for when Roger and Fran were ushered into my office by Nyssa.

Roger didn’t even work in the city. So I knew that a special trip had been made on my behalf.

“What are you doing here?” I asked bluntly.

“Boss needed someone to deliver stuff to Bourke Street, and I volunteered,” he said without an ounce of shame. “So I thought I would take up lunch with my wife and best friend.”

“You hate delivering stuff,” I replied. It was true; he always tried to get out of it because he couldn’t be bothered signing out the work car and dealing with the paperwork that followed.

He shrugged. “I also wanted the goss.”

Fran, his partner in crime, giggled.

“There is no goss,” I said, slamming the manila folder that I was holding closed.

“Liar,” they accused in unison.

“That’s cute,” I snarled.

“Come on, your fake bad mood is showing,” Roger said goodnaturedly. “Come to lunch. My shout.”

His
shout? Man, he really wanted to know.

“Never turn down a free meal,” I said reluctantly.

“That’s my boy,” Roger grinned.

He didn’t really get his money’s worth; I skimped on a few of the details. But that was the Roger Reader’s Digest version I was giving, pretty light on the graphic smut. I

92 | SEAN KENNEDY

was sure that Fran would try to get those gaps filled in for her own Special Extended Mix later on.

“So,” Roger said, mouth slightly agape. “It could be getting serious, then?”

Fran slapped him gently. “The man went out
especially
and bought him breakfast the morning after. It’s the sensitive guy way of getting flowers for another guy.”

I liked her spin on things. Roger huffed to himself. “I would have thought that would have been
beer
.”

“I said
sensitive
guys, Roger.”

“Sensitive is such a dirty word,” I said. “It makes him sound…
wrong
.”

“Well, you can be a sensitive guy sometimes,” Fran said casually. Roger burst out laughing. “Simon?”

“Who came home with a second Hawthorn scarf because of him?” Fran pointed out, and Roger fell silent. “Hah.”

I shifted food around on my plate with the fork and pretended that I wasn’t there.

“So, what’s next?” Fran asked, undoubtedly happy for me.

“He’s arranged a couple of extra days off this week in Melbourne, so I’ll see him this weekend again.”

“Cool,” Fran said, and she did look very pleased for me. Roger, however, scowled. “And after that?”

I pointed my fork at him. “We had a deal.”

“A deal for that
day
,” he pushed.

“No, I believe the words I used were
for now
.”

“And how long does that specify? A day? A week? A month? Forever?”

“It means
for now
,” I said stubbornly. “Until I decide.”

“You can’t have it that way!”

“Says who?”

“Me!”

Fran’s eyes were darting between the two of us like she was at the Australian Open.

“So, is this what you guys were fighting about?”

“No,” we both answered at the same time.

“Wow, you aren’t at all transparent.”

Roger and I glared at each other. I had a bad feeling this issue wasn’t going to die between us. And quite frankly, I was pissed off that he was taking up arms for me over the matter. I was an adult; I had made the decision to take this relationship as it came. It wasn’t up to Roger to start making judgements on what was right or wrong for me. I threw my fork down upon my plate and stood. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

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“Simon—” Fran said, but I shook my head and laid some money next to my plate to cover my part of the bill.

“See ya,” I said brightly, too brightly, and left the restaurant without looking at either of them. I heard Fran call my name once more, but I continued on back out into the street and made my way back to the office.

I hadn’t even been able to look Roger in the face. I was so angry that I was scared about what may have happened if I had.

EVERYONE always says they want you to be happy. Then when you become happy, they resent it in some form or another. They nitpick to make you feel uncomfortable and question everything.

I wasn’t stupid. I knew what I could be committing myself to by continuing to see Declan. But the guy was really growing on me. And that was an understatement. And I was beginning to really hate Roger… well, that was a lie, I didn’t hate
Roger
, just his continual questioning about things I didn’t really want to think about at this point of time. I wanted to revel in this newfound happiness before reality managed to crush the spark and grind it into the ground with its usual steamroller antics. Nyssa was out to lunch when I made it back; the sign on the door said somebody would be back in an hour. I still had twenty minutes of relative peace if nobody called me. I left the sign on the door, grabbed a Coke from the fridge, and turned on the television in my office. I managed to find a news update, and as always in our fair country, it was centred on sport.

As I had been expecting, Declan’s face flashed upon the screen. He was sitting beside his coach, Scott Frasier, with a bank of television and radio microphones before them. The backdrop to their table was the Devils logo. Declan’s face was set in stone as Frasier talked for him.

“…with the full go-ahead from the doctors, we are pleased to announce the return of Declan Tyler to the game this weekend.”

Even through the television screen, I was almost blinded as the reporters’ flashes went off in conjunction with the appearance of a smile on Declan’s face. I felt happy for him and wished I could have been there to tell him so. He was getting his dream back. I got out my mobile to text him and offer congratulations, but it sprang to life in my hand as someone was calling me.

It was Roger.

I grimly pressed Reject and had no qualms doing so. For the moment. I navigated the menu to start writing my message, when the screen disappeared with Roger trying to call me again.

Reject. Once more.

This time he got the hint. I fired off a quick message to Declan and grinned to myself as I heard the unmistakable sound of a received message being picked up by the

94 | SEAN KENNEDY

microphones at the press conference. Declan remained still. Maybe he was anticipating a slew of such messages. Of course he would be.

The office phone rang. I startled slightly and pondered who it could be. It obviously wasn’t Declan; he was still talking to the reporters. I couldn’t risk picking up in case it was Roger; we both might say things we would really regret later. Best to let it go to the messenger service.

But there was the sound of Nyssa’s keys in the door. “Can you get that, Nyss?” I yelled.

“Sure!” And I heard her picking up the phone with her usual cheery greeting. Moments later she had stuck her head in the door. “Fran’s on line two.”

I tore my eyes away from the screen, where stock footage of Declan in his preinjury days was running. I couldn’t help but notice the now-familiar roll of his hips were taking on a new significance to me. “Can you take a message?”

Luckily for me, rather than jumping to the conclusion that I was fighting with my friends, Nyssa noticed the television and rolled her eyes at my inability to stop watching football long enough to speak to Fran. “Okay.”

“Thanks.” I knew I wasn’t fighting with Fran, but she would be playing the dutiful wife and trying to sell Roger’s better points to me in an effort to make me forgive him. And I couldn’t really listen to that right now.

On the screen, Declan was running in slow motion, and then they faded back into the press conference. He and Frasier were now standing and making their way back to the change rooms while the cameras and their flashes ineffectually tried to capture their every move.

I switched off the television and suddenly felt very lonely.

HALF an hour later, a text finally arrived from Declan.
Still can’t believe it’s finally happening.

Funny, I thought the same thing, although for different reasons. It was only a few seconds before another came through.
Wish I could see you tonight. But you know the rules. Looking forward to Saturday.
I might even watch the Richmond game with you.

Guiltily, I thought of Roger. But it wasn’t like they were playing Hawthorn this weekend anyway, so it wasn’t guaranteed that we’d be watching it together. Even though we almost always watched
some
football game on the telly with each other every weekend.

My mobile buzzed again, impatient with another message. Speak of the devil, and by that I didn’t mean Declan. It was from Roger.
Are you avoiding me calling you?

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I thought about it a minute and then sent a terse reply.
Yes.

He didn’t respond. I think he got the message.

It didn’t make me feel any better though. I chewed at my thumbnail, stared out the window, and waited for the work day to end.

I TOSSED and turned most of Thursday night, thinking of Declan at his parents’ house. Wondering what they really knew about their son and his private life. Wondering what they would think of me if they ever met me, which if truth be told, seemed to be a moot point anyway. And I wasn’t sure if that was merely the moment or the whole of the unforeseeable future.

When I wasn’t thinking of Declan, I was thinking of Roger; how I felt justifiably pissed off and also slightly ashamed of how I had reacted to him. Roger and I never fought for long periods of time. But I had never felt so resentful of him before. There are times when you have to suck it up and let your friends do what they have to do, even if you know it’s the wrong course of action to take. Fuck knows I had done it with Roger before. I had said my piece initially and then kept my trap shut until it was time to help him pick up the pieces.

That was what I needed for him to do for me right now. And he wouldn’t grant me the same favour in return.

As I got off my tram at the corner of Collins and Elizabeth streets, I saw Fran on the opposite side of the road heading up from Flinders. She must have caught the train rather than the tram, which she only ever did if she was running late. I wanted to run over and catch up with her, but my feet failed to move. I watched her disappear within her building and made my way to my own.

Nyssa was biting at her fingernail and studying an unruly file full of papers when I walked into the office. “Hey,” she said without looking up. “Alice Provotna called. She wants to film you today.”

I groaned. “It’s not on the schedule.”

“She won’t be able to make it Monday, so she’s coming today.”

“But there’s nothing for her to film today, really.”

Nyssa slapped the file shut. “Well, she’ll get a realistic depiction of the office, then.”

“Nice.”

“Oh, and Roger rang. He wants you to call him back. It sounded urgent.”

I managed to stop myself from making a dismissive huff and just nodded before walking into my office.

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THE day passed relatively smoothly, although I was a bit troubled by the fact that Roger never called back again and that Fran didn’t even try once. I know that I had taken the step of ignoring them in the first place and it was extremely hypocritical for me to be upset when they started doing the same, but I now felt that as I supposedly had the moral upper hand I couldn’t cave in.

Yeah, I know. You don’t have to say it.

The interview with Alice Provotna was a perfunctory one, at least on my end, and I was glad of it. It was a series of questions dealing with how it could take all year to plan for a festival that only took place for a couple of weeks towards the end of the year. Basically, it was me justifying my job. Seeing as I had to do a performance review with the board every year, I felt I could do it by rote.

I knew my answers would be sliced into soundbytes and probably used as voiceovers over different bits of footage throughout the doco. So I made sure they were serviceable and tried not to sound too bored. And Alice tried not to look too bored as she hovered over her camera and asked her questions.

Declan sent me a brief text during lunch, and I wished him luck for the game. Even his text sounded preoccupied and stressed about what might happen that night. He sounded like a man staggering under the weight of expectation, and I wished there was something I could have done for him. But there wasn’t anything I could do. By the time of our customary knockoff for Bog-off-to-the-Pub Fridays, I was ready to call it a day. As Nyssa hovered in the doorway, I waved her on.

“Can’t make it tonight,” I told her. “Tell the guys I said sorry.”

She slumped into the chair opposite me. “You’re not coming?”

“Can’t. Sorry.”

“Why not?”

I started throwing things I didn’t even need into my briefcase, so I wouldn’t be hooked by her imploring look. “I have things to do.”

“Yeah, like coming to the pub,” she asserted. “You
never
miss the pub on a Friday.”

“Well, I have to today.”

“But why?”

“I told you, I have things to do,” I said. Vaguely.

“What things?”

“Give it a rest, Nyss.”

She glowered, her light eyes suddenly seeming dark. Which was kind of scary. “Are you fighting with Fran?”

Wrong person, but close. “No. Why?”

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“I saw her on the street during my lunch. She seemed remarkably vague about you when I said something.”

Great. Now Nyssa thought she was a private dick. “I’m not fighting with Fran.”

“Is this about your secret boyfriend?”

I knew I must have been turning red, because I could feel the heat rising in my treacherous face. Even though this had nothing to do with Declan! Nothing! Well, not directly.

“I don’t have a secret boyfriend,” I lied. Unsuccessfully, I’m sure.

“Uh huh.” Private Dick Nyssa saw right through me.

I couldn’t even use him as an excuse because then Nyssa would probably say something to Fran and Roger about it at the pub, and the last thing I needed was them thinking they were being ditched for the boyfriend. Nothing stirs up bad blood between the friends and the partner like being dumped in a blatant display of favouritism. So I trotted out Old Faithful. “Of course, you
could
do one more ring-around of the sponsors—”

Nyssa gathered up her bag. “Gotta go if I don’t want to miss the tram.”

At this time of day, there was one every six minutes. “Have a good weekend, Nyss.”

The slamming front door was her reply. Great. I was losing friends at a substantial rate. And I only had myself to blame.

Rather than breaking out the world’s tiniest violin to play an ode to myself, I turned off all the lights in the office and locked the doors behind me.

I WAS just getting off the tram and walking towards my house when a message sounded from my mobile.

Opening it, I saw it was from Roger.

You’re not even coming to the Napier? No balls, Simon.
Ouch. I was definitely pushing it too far. I hoped my response would be somewhat conciliatory.
I just can’t handle it tonight. I’ll call you tomorrow.
There was no reply from him.

I kicked off my boots as soon as I got inside and sought sanctuary within my bedroom. Maggie was stretched out upon the bed; I fell upon it next to her and buried my face in her fur.

I woke up unexpectedly in the dark; Maggie had in the meantime fled for safer ground. I stumbled groggily into the lounge room and turned on the Devils and Bombers game. It was only the pre-game banter, so I called Maggie and realised she was on the chair behind me. Once she was fed, I grabbed a beer and collapsed onto the couch.

“…the eagerly awaited return of star midfielder Declan Tyler.”

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My body sprang into action unbidden, sitting me up and pushing me forward as if that distance of two extra inches would allow me to see the television more clearly. The footage switched to Declan in the change room, togged out in the Devils’

orange and green guernsey as he nervously batted a football between both of his hands. Someone spoke to him off camera; he nodded and moved towards another player and they started handballing between themselves.

“That is a man who is holding the entire weight of a team’s hope on his shoulders,”

said one of the commentators. “Let’s hope it isn’t too much for him.”

His colleague did the faux wince to camera. “If anything, Tyler has proved in the past that he is more than capable of supporting his team. It’s his body that’s the problem.”

I don’t know, I thought it was an exceptional body. For altruistic reasons, of course.

“Tyler is probably the most injury-prone player in the past decade of AFL,” the first commentator agreed.

The footage switched back to Declan. The team was now in a circle with coach Scott Frasier in the middle. It was time for the pre-game litany of
go out there and win
. No
do your best
. They were Devils; they had to act like such. Blah blah blah. It would have perhaps been more inspiring if they weren’t so close to the bottom of the ladder.

“Let’s hope he remains injury-free tonight,” commentator two said in his overly ingratiating tone.

I hoped for Declan’s sake he would as well.

THEY rested him at halftime.

Declan kicked two glorious goals over the first quarter, but by the start of the second the strain on his body was starting to become apparent. The commentators were very pleased with themselves that they had a potential tragedy unfolding on the ground that they could talk about endlessly.

“What was meant to be Declan Tyler’s night of triumph has quickly turned into one which we’ve seen all too often before,” the annoying one said, his arch smile threatening to split the screen in two.

It was official before the third quarter even began. Declan was out of the game, being rested upon the advice of the team doctor. Although he hadn’t done any further damage to his knee, it was obvious to everybody that he couldn’t play on.

“We brought him back too soon,” the team doctor said on camera. The footage cut back to the two commentators of the game, who shook their heads with seasoned perfection.

As the third-quarter siren sounded, the cameras cut away to a dejected Declan sitting on the bench, staring blankly out onto the ground where his teammates continued to play without him. I just knew that would be
the
picture all over tomorrow’s sport pages in the papers, with some pithy caption designed especially to twist the knife in

100 | SEAN KENNEDY

further, rather than a photo of his body stretched triumphantly as he booted in one of his two goals.

I wanted to call him, but I knew I couldn’t. And that was when it hit me for the first time; a girlfriend probably would have been able to do so, with no questions asked. But a male, who wasn’t an immediate family member? That would just look strange. Mind you, a girlfriend would probably already be at the field, doing the loyal partner thing. The footballer’s wife. And I was no Posh Spice.

Devil’s advocate always nagged at me, though. If I were Declan (don’t laugh), Roger would certainly be calling me at this point of time, and we weren’t fucking. But I guess that’s always the guilt and the secrecy of the gays masquerading as straight. It was too late at night for my thoughts to be this heavy. In the end, the Devils lost again. As they walked off the field, the reporters attacked them in waves, most making a beeline for Declan. Stony-faced, he mumbled brief answers that gave very little away.

“Declan, how do you feel after tonight’s game?”

“Crap, of course.”

“Declan, do you think you’ll be able to play next week?”

“It’s up to the coach.”

And that was the last bit of footage they showed of him. The Devils seemed to restrict entry to the change rooms, because there was a crossover to the Bombers’

victory song in their room, and that was where the camera stayed for the rest of the broadcast.

I stayed up a couple of hours after that, just in case Declan called. He didn’t.

I WAS woken by the ringing of my mobile at about half past two.

“Hello,” I mumbled, still in that stage between coma and the shot of adrenaline you get when your phone goes off in the early morning and you automatically expect some form of tragic news.

“Simon, sorry to wake you.”

It was Declan. I immediately sat up. “Dec, hey. Stupid question, how are you?”

His voice sounded slightly shaky. “Yeah, not so good.”

“I wanted to call you earlier—”

“I wish you had.”

Damn. I should have done it.

“I only just got out of the debriefing with the coaches and the doctors.”

“What did they say?”

He hesitated.

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“What is it?” I could now feel the worry starting in me.

“Do you mind if I come over?”

“No, of course not.”

“Cool. I’ll see you soon.”

I closed my mobile and sat there groggily for a few moments. I stumbled back into the lounge and turned on the heater as it was freezing in there. I wasn’t sure if either of us wanted coffee, but it felt good to be going through the motions by making a pot anyway. With the sound of the water hissing through the grounds in the filter and then spitting into the carafe, I sat on the couch and promptly fell back asleep. I was awakened by the sound of Declan knocking on the front door and the smell of freshly brewed coffee perking up my senses.

Declan still looked just as unhappy as he had on the television. “Hi,” he said. He sounded like saying one syllable required too much exertion for his body. I pulled him into the house and into my arms while simultaneously kicking the door shut with my foot. He didn’t shy away from my hug; in fact, he welcomed it. Instinctively, years of living with my mother kicked in. Obviously if you’re upset, you need food. “You must be hungry,” I told him. “I could make something. I also put on coffee, if you want coffee. Do you want coffee?”