Tigers & Devils (43 page)

I answered anyway. “Hello.”

“Simon.” It was Dec. His tone was restrained, like he was fighting screaming.

“Hey,” I said, tonelessly. “Where are you calling from?”

He didn’t have to answer me; the big screen flashed the image of Dec calling from the coaches’ box, Scott beside him looking uncomfortable.

“Oh, there you are.”

“Get out of here, Simon. You don’t have to put up with this shit.”

The cameramen had obviously picked up what was going on, because I was back on the screen. I noticed Lisa was scratching at her nose with her middle finger; such a high school action but one that I would have laughed at if I weren’t so mad. “No.”

“Simon!”

I used Lisa’s trick again, tilting my head so my lips would be hard to read. “I’m not giving them the satisfaction, Dec. It’s just a fucking poster.”

“I can tell you’re upset.” Declan, however, had obviously never been taught the subtle art, as I could see when he appeared on the screen again.

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“Yeah? Well, I can tell you are too.”

“It’s not me they’re targeting today.”

“So? It will probably be your turn next game. And what was that fight about on the field, anyway?”

“It was nothing.”

“Yeah, well, that poster’s nothing as well,” I said, sounding more honest than I felt.

“Now, laugh like I said something funny.”

I could see him oblige, even though his mouth was still rigid. I was actually surprised he did so, but it made me feel slightly better. “Speak to you later, Dec.”

“Bye.”

I snapped my mobile shut and gave Lisa a small smile. There was a tap on my shoulder. Anna was standing behind me, holding two cups of beer.

“I thought you could use this,” she said, handing me one. Wow. “Thanks,” I said, taking it.

“Hang in there.” She shrugged. “We all get the crap at some point. They’ll get tired of it. Unless, of course, you’re Rachel.”

I heard Rachel make some comeback, but it got lost in translation. Lisa gave me a surprised look, but Anna hadn’t finished. She handed the second beer over. “This one’s for you, Lisa.”

Now it was Lisa’s turn to be surprised. “Uh, thanks, Anna.”

“You’re welcome.” Anna turned and settled back into her seat.

“Holy fuck,” Lisa said, “am I dreaming?”

“I think we’re both officially accepted WAGs now,” I said. We smushed our cups together in bittersweet triumph.

THE Devils lost the game. I fumed a little as the other WAGs left the box, wondering if I would be blamed for it in the papers tomorrow.

“You’re more upset than you’re letting on,” Lisa said.

“I’ll be fine,” I told her.

She didn’t look convinced.

“Let’s just go, okay?”

As we exited the box, I saw one of the offending posters lying discarded on a seat. I heard Lisa mutter something, and she bent down to pick it up, probably meaning to throw it in the bin.

I stopped her, took the poster from her, rolled it up carefully, and put it in my backpack.

306 | SEAN KENNEDY

“Simon, what are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Tormenting yourself, that’s what you’re doing.”

“My mother’s been making a scrapbook,” I said with a dismissive shrug. “She might as well have everything.”

Lisa stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jacket and pushed past me. We made our way down to the change rooms in silence; the security guards nodded at us, although my paranoia turned their usual friendly greetings into sneers and smirks. Most of the team were leaving already; it seemed that they wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. They stonily ignored me and, by default, Lisa. As we walked up, Abe stuck his head out of the change room doors. He jogged up to us, relief visible on his face.

“How is he?” I asked immediately.

Abe never lied. “Not good. He’s going off his rocker at the bosses.”

“Why them?” I asked stupidly.

I could tell Abe was afraid of my reaction to what he was going to tell us. “He wants security to try and examine all posters at the next game and confiscate any that are about you.”

Yeah, that’d work. “Has he gone insane? That would be impossible!”

Abe didn’t want to criticize his best friend by taking sides against him. “I told you. He was upset.”

“Can I go in there?” I asked. “I have to stop this. It’s crazy.”

“Simon—”

“Abe,” Lisa said, and that was all it took for him to capitulate.

“Come on, then,” he sighed.

I had only ever seen the inside of a change room in the telecasts, when they would follow the players after the win to record them singing the team song in victorious harmony. Need it be said, as a Richmond supporter, I never got to see it that often. Abe led the way past the benches, and I could hear Declan before I saw him. He sounded ropable, and as we passed a collection of lockers I could see him in a small office, standing in front of the window with his coach and someone else that I recognised from my own meeting with the board.

“Oh, crap,” I whispered. Ed bloody Wallace.

“We’ll just wait back outside,” Lisa said, catching Abe’s arm as she knew the fewer people in this situation the better.

I nodded and made my way over to the office while Lisa and Abe went back towards the exit.

Dec saw me before I got there, and if it was possible for him to look even unhappier, he did. My old friend Ed had his back to me. I felt my stomach drop. The last

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time I’d met him and Coach Scott hadn’t exactly been the social soirée of the season, back when Dec was in the hospital recovering from his operation and his two bosses had looked upon me as some sort of interloper bothering their cash cow. I knocked on the door, and the two other men turned to look at me.

“Hey,” I said. Wow, there was an opening.

“Simon,” Scott said politely.

Ed, however, glared at me. “Can we help you?”

“I was just wondering if I could steal Dec for a moment.”

“We’re kind of busy,” Dec told me, his tone telling me to go away. Which of course, I wouldn’t do. “Look, Abe told me what you guys were talking about.”

“This is game business, Simon,” Ed told me.

I stood my ground. “It’s my bloody face plastered over those posters, so I’d say it’s my business too.”

“You can’t honestly expect us to search over sixty thousand people who attend the games!” Ed spat.

“Hey!” Dec warned. “Don’t talk to him like that.”

I glared at Dec, trying to tell him to back down through the powers of the mind. He didn’t want to, and he folded his arms defensively over his chest.

“Well?” Ed demanded.

I could see Dec straining, waiting for my response.

“No,” I said, finally. “I can’t. It’s just not feasible.”

Ed looked pleased, Scott anxiously awaited Dec’s next explosion, and Dec shook his head at me.

“What do you suggest then?” Ed was suddenly very interested in my opinion now that he thought I was on his side.

“There’s nothing to do.” I shrugged. “And I wouldn’t want anyone doing that on my behalf either.”

“But they shouldn’t be targeting you,” Declan said with gritted teeth. “You’re not a player. They—”

Old argument, and one that was never going to be solved with continual rehashing.

“Dec,” Scott said calmly. “You know sledging happens on the field. Sometimes it even involves family. Just because you choose not to do it, doesn’t mean other people won’t.”

“But this isn’t other players doing this,” Dec argued. “This is the crowd. And they’ve never gone after anyone who isn’t actually a player before.
That’s
why this is different.”

“Dec—”

308 | SEAN KENNEDY

“You shouldn’t be in here, Simon,” Dec said, glaring at me. I had never seen him look at me that way before, with pure anger. Sure, we’d had tiffs and major disagreements, but he’d always tried to battle me with humour. He was beyond that at this moment.

“And you’re not turning me into the poster boy for censorship,” I said, my tone made of steel. “Think about how fucking ironic that would be. I may not be on that field like you are, but I can take shit when it’s flung my way. And I can deal with it as well.”

Dec and I continued to stare at each other, neither of us wanting to back down.

“Well,” Ed interrupted, sounding much happier than he had when I first came in.

“That’s that, then.”

“No, it’s not,” Dec said firmly.

“You’re alone on this one, Declan,” Ed told him with more than a hint of satisfaction. “You’re asking the impossible.”

“I’ll wait outside,” I told Declan.

He didn’t answer me. Ed went to shake my hand, but I pointedly ignored it. I hated having to take sides against Dec, but he was upset and being more than irrational. I had hoped to calm him down, but it seemed I had made things worse. Abe and Lisa were waiting outside the change room, and they jumped up as soon as they saw me emerge from it as if it were from the entrance to hell.

“What happened?” Lisa asked.

“It’s not good,” I said truthfully. “He’s pissed, and now he thinks I’m against him too.”

“I’d feel the same if I was him,” Abe said, “and it was Lisa they were doing that shit to.”

“Thanks, Abe. That’s helpful.”

Abe looked upset by my mild sniping.

“Yeah, and I’d be doing what Simon is doing,” Lisa frowned, deciding that because everybody else was sharing their opinions she may as well jump in as well. “I wouldn’t give those arseholes the satisfaction of thinking they got to me.”

“You don’t understand—” Abe started.

“Stop!” I interrupted him. “You two are not going to argue about this as well!”

“Okay,” they said together, chastened.

“Look, Dec’s really in a foul mood. You don’t have to wait around if you don’t want to.”

“Are you sure?” Abe asked quickly. I didn’t blame him; he’d had to handle Dec on the field for close to two hours.

“I don’t need
protection
,” I scoffed.

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I was hugged goodbye by both of them, although they looked reluctant to leave. Once they had disappeared behind the huge security doors, I sat down on one of the couches and dug my book out of my backpack.

Two chapters had been devoured, although my mind really didn’t process anything I read, before Declan silently stood beside me.

I shut my book and looked up at his stony visage. “How did it go?”

“You know how it went,” Dec said in a dangerous monotone.

“You’re mad at me.” It was a statement, because I already knew the answer.

“I don’t want to get into it here.”

“Okay,” I said, faux-cheerily. “Your place or mine?”

Dec’s grip tightened on his bag. “Actually, I want to be left alone tonight.”

I stuffed my book into my backpack. “Oh, come on.”

“Don’t start,” Dec warned.

“It’s stupid for us to fight about this,” I tried to placate him. “You know they couldn’t have done it. And when you calm down—”

“I’m calm!” he snapped.

“Yeah, you sound it.”

“I told you not to start.”

“And you’re sounding like an arsehole,” I fumed.

The anger flared in his eyes again. “Simon, goddammit—”

“Seriously, you can’t go off mad. Let’s talk about it.”

“I’m not going to talk about it here. Do you remember, Simon, not that long ago, when you said that you would make them pay if you were in my position, and they had sledged me?”

I did. But this wasn’t vengeful fantasy. “Of course I would
feel
that way. But there are realistic ways to deal with it, and then there’s trying to make your club pay for security to search people so they won’t be mean to your boyfriend.”

“Great way to reduce it, Simon. I’m going.”

And he began to walk off.

“Hey!” I yelled.

Dec turned back and said hoarsely, “Don’t
ever
do that to me again. Pull me aside if you have to, but don’t make me look like a fucking idiot in front of my bosses.”

“I tried to, if you recall, Dec, but you were doing that on your own,” I said, and I meant it to burn.

He didn’t say a word. He just walked off in the direction of the car park. So I was left there. And I didn’t have my car. I sat there stupidly for ten minutes, wondering if he would calm down and then come back to get me.

310 | SEAN KENNEDY

He didn’t. In the end I slung my backpack over my shoulder and left the Dome, heading over the footbridge through the Southern Cross Station and down to Collins Street to catch my tram.

This wasn’t the way I had imagined the rest of the day would go. By now Dec would already be at home, stomping around his apartment. I wondered how long it would take him to calm down. I wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable conversation we would have to have in which we hashed over who said what and what do we do now. I just wished the damn fight hadn’t happened and that he had listened to me from the start. Or had just let me go back home with him and sort it out straightaway. Time would just make it worse.