The Whole of My World (18 page)

‘I will.'

Mr McGuire jogs off to the Raiders' bench, stopping to chat with some parents along the way.

I'm about to leave when I see the Comets' dressing-room door open and the team runnning back onto the field. A moment later, the Raiders trudge out. Josh is in the middle of the pack, a grim look on his face. He sees me and cocks his head. He knows I always listen to the half-time address. I shrug and look away, knowing that the moment has passed. I can't leave Josh's game, no matter how hard it is to stay.

I watch Josh jog by, determined to push the picture of his moronic gawking at Ginnie Perkins out of my head. ‘Come on, Josh!' I urge. ‘Go long – go hard.'

Josh nods in acknowledgement. It's his signal – our signal – that the fun's now over. This is when the real work begins.

I'll stick it out for Josh. It's his moment and it's right that I'm here for him. I scan the crowd for unfamiliar faces. I'm not sure what a professional scout looks like, but the arrival of two men in a shiny new Ford Fairlane has my attention. They're wearing normal weekend gear and don't look any different to the bulk of parents around the boundary, but the fact that there are two of them and that they came at half-time instead of the beginning of the match tells me they're not here to watch their kids.

I wave at Josh as he gathers the practice ball. Everyone is waiting for the umpires to come out so there are a few minutes before the match will resume. Josh looks up and I nod in the direction of the two new arrivals. He studies the men who are now walking around the boundary, talking quietly between themselves, their eyes scanning the players and the field.

Josh bounces the ball, spins it in his hand then bounces it again. When he smiles at me I know he'll blitz. And he does – he turns on a pearler. The Raiders win by fifteen points, stealing the game in time-on when they kick three in five minutes, forcing our hearts into our throats. When the siren sounds, the players roar, their bodies exhausted and spent but their spirits soaring. The scouts disappear soon after that, their Ford Fairlane nosing its way out of the crowded car park before the inevitable post-match traffic jam.

Mrs McGuire comes out from the canteen and waves at me before she rushes up to hug Josh in front of the entire team. He looks mortified but doesn't pull away. He couldn't if he wanted to. His teammates are crushing him to her, to each other, the bruising joy forcing her to laughingly extract herself. Mr McGuire and Jacko slap each other on the back, stepping back then pushing forward, part of it one moment, not wanting to intrude the next, but unable to hold back in the end.

Ginnie hovers just outside the circle, a bemused smile on her face; her perfect blonde hair and white, white teeth stark against the mud and grime of the sweaty boys who are dancing around like mad things. I see Josh escape from the middle. He looks up, scans the crowd, searching for . . . Ginnie. My heart sinks. He sees her, grins and waves, before he's once again lost in the chaos of his teammates' delight. I try to ignore the ache in my chest, the bitter taste in my mouth. The way he looked at her, looked
for
her . . .

I press back my shoulders and pull my coat more tightly around me, determined not to let it get to me. This is Josh's day. It's not about me, or even Ginnie. I haven't been here for him when I should have been. But I'm here today, and I can do this much.

I take a deep breath and smile, joining in the celebrations with the other Raiders fans, moving away if any of them stay with me for too long, or seem likely to ask me how I am. The umpires call the teams together and declare Josh Best on Ground. He accepts the award humbly, his grin hidden beneath the layers of dirt and his awareness of the losing team slumped on the ground, struggling to even look up.

Finally, Josh's eyes find mine. We look at each other for a long time; the only gaze I have been able to meet all day. And I know that Josh is the only one who feels a lot of what I'm feeling and understands what it took for me to come here. I smile, genuinely happy for him, knowing Angus would have been too. But Josh's smile is a little lopsided now, like he's trying to rein it in. Maybe he's thinking about Angus too, missing him just like I am. I want to tell him not to. I want to tell him to celebrate wildly,
freely
, without worrying about who isn't here. But the words stick in my throat. The best I can do is offer the brightest, shiniest smile I can muster. I guess it works because Josh grins back wider, clearer. Truer.

Feeling a lightness I don't expect, I wink at him exactly how he'd wink at me – a huge cheeky, carefree gesture, so unlike me that I feel quite dizzy with my boldness. Josh throws back his head and laughs, and I feel such a rush of delight that it takes all my energy not to grab him in an enormous hug, just like his mum did. But not like his mum, either.

As the players jog around the muddy oval, arms entwined, ribbing and mocking each other, whooping and hollering in bursts as though feeling their joy in waves, I hang back and smile. This is what it feels like. In a couple of weeks, I'll get to experience this with Mick and the boys, multiplied by a hundred.

I leave the McGuires at the ground despite their offer of a lift, determined to walk alone. I want to take my time. Let the beginnings of excitement grow in my gut in preparation for my moment next Saturday. I want to fan it and build on it, knowing I'll need to draw on that warmth to get through the long and difficult silence that waits for me at home.

 

 

 

Mick got out of hospital the week after I visited but he's been so busy with physio at the pool and at the clinic that I haven't seen much of him. It's not like he's mad with me or anything. It's just that when he sees me now, the way he smiles, polite and cool . . . I could be any of the other kids. I know it's because he's worried about the grand final. I know it'll go back to normal soon. I just have to be patient.

I check the members' area before the game to see if he's there, squinting through the cyclone fence that separates us. You have to have a special pass to get into this section. Geoff from training sometimes gives me a spare one, but as the end of the season gets closer, all those extra privileges are harder to come by. It's the first quarter in the early game, so there's not a huge crowd yet. I spot Mick's head poking out above the other players who fill the stand. They're all dressed neatly, the injured and dropped players watching the reserves match like they care, when you can see they just wish they were playing. Some of the players' wives and girlfriends have come, and in the back row I recognise the Lovely Ladies slotted between some under 19s, more interested in each other and the player they're next to than the game. Mick's alone, though. I've never seen his wife at a match. She hasn't once come to watch him play with the Falcons. I wonder if she used to in WA.

When Mick sees me he gets out of his seat and threads his way past the injured list, his smile wide and open. ‘I'll be fit, Shell,' he says, pulling me towards him in a rough hug the moment he comes through the gates. ‘You were right.'

I almost step back, so surprised by the feel of his warm, strong arms around me, and I can't seem to make eye contact. I'd told myself that it was just a matter of time before we'd be back to normal, but maybe I didn't believe it after all. He releases me from the hug too quickly, but grabs the iron railing of the stairwell, his hand just touching mine. I study the iron railing where I'm clinging on for dear life. I don't move even the tiniest bit, just in case it scares him off. We're partly blocking the entrance to the members' area but there's no way I'm going anywhere. If Mick's hand is going to leave mine, he'll be the one to move it.

I look up finally, braving a glimpse of his beaming face, trusting myself not to weep with relief that we're okay; that we are untouchable, like I've believed all along.

He nods at the oval, his hand falling away naturally. ‘Good start, hey?'

We're up by twenty points – a nice lead for the first quarter. I drag my gaze away from him, half convinced he won't be there when I look back. And nod.

‘I feel good, Shell,' he says, and it's like all the tension inside me has gone.

I grin back stupidly. ‘You look it,' I say. I'm too delighted by his hug to feel any shame.

He winks and tells me he'll see me later, returning to his spot among the other injured hopefuls. I float back to the cheersquad, finding my way to Tara. ‘We're gonna win,' I announce to Tara the second I get back to my seat.

‘Don't!' she warns too late, screwing up her face. I've broken one of her rules. But Tara is either too nervous to make a big deal out of it or she's getting used to me, because she lets me prattle on about Mick and his knee long after she'd usually tell me to shut up.

When Danny and Bear climb across the seats to slum it with us in the fourth row for the rest of the reserves match, I could swear Tara's face is going to crack with all the grinning.

 

When the final siren blows, the Falcons are a hard-fought eight points up against the Warriors. I hug Tara so hard I think she'll suffocate.

‘We did it! We're in the grand final!' Tara gushes, jumping in place in the tiny space between rows. I try not to overreact to Tara's joy, but she looks so different, her face flushed and glowing, her eyes wide with excitement . . . I want to tell her how good she looks, how
happy
. But we're quickly caught up in the joy of the crowd around us, and I'm pretty sure that would have been a mistake anyway.

Bear and Danny are high-fiving and David is down the front with his arms up, getting us all ready to start a chant. This is the game we needed to win – not just because it gives us an advantage to have a week's rest before the grand final, or even because beating the Warriors in the semi is a huge confidence boost, but because it gives Mick time to get his knee right. Premierships are what it's all about, no matter what players say about taking it one week at a time. There's only one game that matters. Only one day that counts. And the Falcons have secured a place in that game, proving my faith in a single, delicious afternoon.

As the rest of the cheersquad launches into the ‘Are we good? Are we good?' chant, I notice Mick move out to congratulate his teammates on the ground, his clean Glenthorn polo shirt looking out of place against the filthy woollen jumpers of the other players. He looks so happy, so pumped. We all are. My heart soars at the idea of what comes next. I study the faces around me, all rapt and lost in the sheer joy of success. Nothing else matters right now – for them, for Tara, for me. We're in this together, and all the crap that's dragged us down is forgotten. I knew we'd make it. Just like I told her. I remind her of this as we hug awkwardly one more time, the result in and untouchable. ‘Told you so,' I grin.

‘Yeah,' she smiles, a funny, twisted smile that I don't quite understand. ‘You did.'

‘You coming?' I ask, as the crowd begins the slow exit from the chaotic Valley Park car park. It's the worst of all the grounds. You take your life in your hands just finding the bus stop.

We catch the shuttle back to Glenvalley Station, losing the rest of the cheersquad in our hurry to make the replay. From there we walk through the meandering parkland to my house, rehashing the game, the highlights, the lowlights all the way there. We argue about who's going to play where, who's going to miss out and what Stretch will say before the match. She doesn't mention Mick and I don't rabbit on about him playing full forward.

When we arrive at my house, I don't feel the uncertainty I'd expected about Tara being here. I'd originally struggled to picture Tara and my dad under the same roof and, although I don't remember making a decision either way, I think I subconsciously kept putting it off, thinking that the longer I kept my home life apart from St Mary's, the better my chances at holding it all together. But Tara is so different from the St Mary's girls, so cut off and remote that, really, it wouldn't have made any difference if she'd been here before.

Dad offers a nod and a ‘hi' when we come in from the game, the TV already tuned in for the replay.

‘Hi, Mr Brown,' Tara says politely. ‘Great game today. You should have come.'

I don't know what I expected from her when she met Dad, but it wasn't this. The surliness and grim courtesy have vanished. She seems just like a normal kid.

‘Next time, maybe,' Dad says.

‘What's for dinner?' I ask, changing the subject.

‘Pizza,' Dad says, smiling at Tara. ‘Do you like pizza, Tara?'

‘Yes, Mr Brown. I love it!'

I can't ignore the pang in my chest. Pizza is still very much a novelty in our house. Fish and chips on a Friday is fine, not flash or special. But pizza is a birthday thing. A special event. But here he is, offering it up on a normal Saturday night just because I have a friend over. Maybe this matters to him more than he'd let on.

‘Awesome!' I cry, way too enthusiastically. He's trying. Maybe it's just because of Tara, but I don't care. I'll take what I can get right now.

Tara shoots me a weird look but lets it pass.

‘Why don't you two get sorted before dinner?' Dad suggests.

I show Tara to my room. ‘I'll set up your bed,' I say, before heading into the spare room. Dad stores our stretcher bed under the single bed against the wall. I hesitate only briefly when I lift up the bedspread, the familiar tiger-emblazoned bedsheets still in place as if Angus is about to slip in between them at any moment. It's the only thing Dad hasn't changed. I don't know when we stopped calling it Angus's room.

I drag the stretcher to my room and open the squeaky hinges while Tara studies my Glenthorn memorabilia approvingly. I unfold the bed and give Tara a clean set of sheets. I return to the spare room to straighten the bedspread when I see an old metal Arnotts biscuit tin protruding from under the bed. The stretcher must have knocked it free on the way out.

I remember the tin. Mum used to keep her sewing odds and ends in it. Buttons and thread, scraps of cloth and other bits and pieces that needed to be altered or mended. I stand there for a long minute deciding what to do. It's hidden there, out of the way. Deliberately out of the way. I glance over my shoulder. I can hear Dad moving around in the kitchen and Tara is still busy in the next room. I shut the door behind me and sit on the bed, setting the tin on my lap. The edge is rusted, the corners rough from age or dampness. The lid doesn't loosen easily, but after a solid tug and a neatly split fingernail, I manage to pry it loose.

Inside are photographs – lots of them, of all different shapes and sizes, from different eras and with different textures and shapes. Small square black-and-white photos with a shiny surface and grainy faces; larger, round-cornered colour ones; and older sepia-style photographs that look like they were taken by a professional. Most of them, though, are more recent. The only pictures I knew we still had that were taken before the accident are the ones in my room – the one of the whole family on the beach and the photos in my mum's book. I never knew what Dad did with these ones, and I never asked. Part of me couldn't bear to see them anyway. The other part of me couldn't bear to see Dad look at them.

But here they are.

I take a handful out and splay them on the bed beside me. The first ones are black-and-white images of Mum and Dad when they were young – all those bold 1950s clothes – the hats, the sunglasses, the tiny belted waists and tight busty sweaters. There are also photos from their wedding day – Mum looking stunning in ivory silk, her rich, luscious hair curling gently around her olive skin. She looks like a movie star. Dad stands tall and straight, barrel chest thrust out, chin high and strong, so proud and in love. He's staring adoringly at my mum as though there is nothing else in the world more beautiful – more important – than this woman standing beside him. It's intimate, the way he's looking at her. No one else exists.

I wonder what that would feel like. To have someone look at you like that.

The photos change as the years shift from the 50s and 60s to more recent ones. Some of them seem to have been taken on the same day as my photo – Angus and me at the beach, Mum and me on a cliff's edge looking out over London Bridge in Sorrento, Dad with his back to the ocean, the waves lapping at his feet. There's also a shot of Mum, Angus and me outside Luna Park. It's just the three of us – Dad is taking the photo – and yet we look so complete, as though the four of us are so strong and united that he doesn't even have to be there to be included. We're smiling at him, grinning hugely, having just come out of the Giggle Palace or the Big Dipper – I can't remember which.

That's a
family
.

The door to the spare room opens and I startle, knocking the tin off my lap. I stoop to cover up the evidence, worried it's Dad, already seeing the horror on his face in my mind's eye, at the same time hating that I feel like a trespasser in my own house.

Tara stands in the doorway, curious but reluctant to come in. ‘What are you doing?' She sees the photos and instinctively bends down to try to help me clear them off the floor.

I push her hand away. ‘I'll do it,' I say brusquely, glancing over her shoulder to make sure Dad doesn't come in.

She sees this and rises to shut the door. Then she bobs down on the floor again and, ignoring my objections, helps me return the photos to their box.