The Whole of My World (20 page)

 

 

I wonder how other people do it. When it feels like the world is falling apart and nothing makes sense anymore, what helps them get through the day? This happens to everyone at some point, surely, so they have to do
something
to cope. They must have some kind of hobby or distraction. Something that allows them to forget and just breathe – in, out, in, out – even when all they want to do is curl up on the floor and sleep forever.

When I was little, I used to write stories. I'd take out some paper, think about something good or nice and build a world around it. Like fairytales but without the evil witch or the cunning fox. They were probably pretty boring when I think about it. No suspense, no danger, no drama, because only good things happened. It was always about the same little girl who played and laughed in her tiny world, went on amazing adventures, and lived happily ever after. But then one day the stories turned monstrous, their gentle outlines and flimsy plots twisted and contorted into the shape of a mangled car, with a whole family trapped inside – or the part of it that made it a family. One dad and one half of a set of twins were left outside, staring through the shattered windows, watching their lives disintegrate before them.

Football was all I had. Football always lured me in, held me close, a reliable barrier against the emptiness and silence outside. Play first, watch later. The Raiders then, Fernlee Park now. There was never a decision, just the delicious feeling of falling in love and forgetting myself –
losing
myself – in a whole other place. I get the same feeling when I see the Mayblooms Stand towering over Fernlee Park now that I did whenever I began a new story.

And that's how I know, no matter how Dad looks at me, or who Josh tells my secrets to, or whether Tara trusts me again, there is no way they'll bring me down. Not now. Not when the Falcons are in the grand final and the world is caught up in this magical week. It feels like everyone is talking about the game.

So rather than let the things I've lost hurt me, I escape to Fernlee Park every chance I can, to hang out with Mick or talk to the trainers, the other players, even the rest of the cheersquad – anyone and anything that wears the brown-and-gold and loves the way the Sherrin bounces. The way it feels in your hands. How it stands out red and shiny against a wintry sky.

When the club is quiet and no one's around, I wander along Fernlee Park Road to soak up the atmosphere. Glenthorn is positively buzzing. Shopfronts are decorated with brown and gold crepe paper, cars drive by with Glenthorn scarves streaming from their windows, and even the streetlights are strung with ‘Go Falcons!' flags. It's as though the whole of Glenthorn – the whole of my world right now – is on our side. On
my
side. They want what I want, just like I want it, and it's all I can do to keep my feet on the ground and continue walking, when really, it feels like I could fly.

By the time Thursday night training comes around I'm ready to burst. The whole club has come alive. Tara and I have avoided each other since Miss Whitecross's class. But I can't let it follow us to Fernlee Park. There's a huge crowd at training when I get there – more than a thousand people, maybe two thousand. They're even making you pay to get in, like it's an actual game and not just a token training run. I don't have to pay because kids get in free if they're wearing Glenthorn colours. The bloke on the gate is one of the club volunteers, and he recognises me as soon as I approach the entrance.

‘Hey, Shelley,' he says, smiling.

‘Big one tonight,' I say, nodding at the enormous crowd, unable to shake the feeling that none of this can be real. I feel possessive of this place as I watch the masses take up residence in all my favourite spots. I want to stand where I usually stand and do the things I usually do – the routine calms me, particularly now as the mounting pressure of Saturday squeezes me tight. And yet, seeing all these people wanting to share my world for a night warms me too. Being one among the thousands watching the team train is almost as exciting as watching a real game. My heart throbs wildly in my chest. I can't imagine what the players are feeling if this is how
I
feel.

I buy a barbecued sausage from beneath the Mayblooms Stand and make my way towards the cheersquad, which has taken up residence over by the past players' room. The cinder block building is barely visible beneath the swathes of brown and gold crepe and the piles of Glenthorn floggers amassed in front of it.

The cheersquad has nothing to do tonight except watch training because we finished making the banner a week ago. David got the main picture designed by an artist. It really looks amazing. There's a painting on one side the size of a house, with a picture of Killer Compton and a Falcon devouring a Warrior. It's huge. On the other side is the beginning of ‘The Man from Snowy River', which continues on banners that will be hung all the way around the ground, the words changed to support the Mighty Falcons. It's a big secret that only a handful of cheersquadders know.

I hear the cheersquad all the way across the stand. Despite the noise of the crowd and the occasional roar of the Yarra Valley train, Bono's voice pierces through the din, blasting out of Danny's boom box propped on a table outside the past players' room. I stand at the boundary, between Red and Bear, and wait for the players to run out onto the ground. Tara is further along the fence, her eyes trained on the oval.

I head over to take my place beside her. We both stare at the oval, waiting for a reason to be distracted. The silence presses down on us both, tense and impenetrable.

If I don't break it, no one will. ‘Hey,' I say, quietly.

After the tiniest pause, Tara nods. ‘Hi.'

That she is even talking to me – a single word, yes, but it's a start – gives me the courage I need to push forward. ‘I'm so nervous I can't sleep.'

Tara nods her agreement, and I feel more confident that I can make it right.

‘I'm sorry about . . . everything.'

Tara shrugs. ‘Whatever.'

I turn to face her, finally, but she doesn't move. ‘I didn't tell Ginnie,' I say. ‘She found out.'

‘I don't care about her.'

‘No, I know.'

Tara faces me squarely now, her hands shoved into the pocket of her duffle coat, the shiny faces of the Glenthorn players smiling up at me from her badges, mocking the tension between us. ‘Just don't lie to me. Okay?'

I think about all the lies she tells her mother, the silences that save her from telling me anything about her own life. And then I remember her mum's vacant gaze, her workaholic dad and his pretty assistant, and her absent sisters. ‘Okay,' I say. ‘No more lies.'

The noise level picks up a couple of notches as some of the team officials emerge from the gym. Expectation ripples across the crowd. Someone has begun to pound the metallic signs that string the boundary – a slow, rhythmic beat a lot like the one that follows Dennis Lillee when he bowls. It picks up speed, gets louder and more urgent, crescendoing into a thunderous roar.

My heart feels like it might explode, and I want to share it with Tara. I want to marvel out loud at this beautiful thing. ‘I love how this feels,' I gush, knowing I haven't said it quite right, but hoping Tara is with me enough to understand anyway.

She doesn't answer. The silence between us is engulfed in the roar of the expectant crowd. ‘I hope Eddie makes it,' Tara says eventually, her voice so low I have to lean in to hear her properly. ‘I hope he can play.'

‘Thanks,' I say, because I know she says this for me, not for Mick or Glenthorn. Wanting Mick to play is one thing but saying it out loud, right to my face – that's a peace offering. ‘We'll know in a couple of hours.'

Tara sucks in air. ‘Yeah.'

We both look over as the clacking of cleats on the race interrupts us. The players jog onto the track, wearing their best training jumpers, all clean and neat with their numbers in place. Usually they wear all kinds of stuff to training, mostly brown and gold, but never their playing numbers.

I peer into the playing group, trying to pick out individuals. Killer Compton and Chris Jury lead the way, while Brendan O'Reilly brings up the rear. I can't see Mick. He must be getting treatment inside.

Lights flood the oval suddenly and I notice news cameras from two different networks sticking out from the crowded boundary fence. I recognise the team from
World of Sport
and the new bloke at Channel 10 who looks about sixteen. They're all hovering around the cameras, clapping their hands and stamping their shiny shoes to keep the blood flowing. Puffs of steam escape their mouths, lit briefly by the powerful camera lights.

A lump forms in my throat, hard as a knuckle.

‘They won't stay out long,' Tara says.

‘No?'

‘It's for the cameras, the crowd. This isn't real training. They'll just play around a bit, get the crowd pumped, then go inside for the team meeting.'

The knuckle-sized lump has grown to a grapefruit.

‘Where's Mick?' I say out loud, half to myself, half to Tara.

‘There,' she says. I look at the ground to see Mick jog out past the cameras towards the players, now in a huddle in the centre of the ground. The players break apart and Mick heads towards the goals. Stretch shouts something to Mick, who looks over, nods, then heads deeper into the pocket.

The music is blaring even louder than before. I watch the players kick the ball back and forth, the thud of the ball against the ground or their chests, their feet stomping, divots of mud spraying, the heat of their bodies glowing under the floodlights. ‘New Years Day' kicks in, and almost immediately, Gavin Black breaks from position and heads towards the boundary, right up to me.

I wait, breathless. ‘Hey, Blackie,' I say, as coolly as I can manage. The entire crowd is watching us now – or that's what it feels like.

‘Turn up the music, Shelley. I love this song! Turn it up!' He's grinning like a mad thing, steam rising from his body.

‘Okay,' I reply, wishing I could come up with something funny or smart to say. He's so handsome up close. ‘I'll tell them.'

He runs off, knowing that whatever he asks, I'll deliver.

I sprint over to Danny and Bear outside the past players' room. ‘Blackie said to turn it up,' I say.

Danny smiles, like I've just told him he's been selected in the side, and immediately turns the volume up so loud that the Warriors could probably hear it at Flemington Hill. We start singing at the top of our voices, and although he's on the other side of the ground by now, I swear I can hear Blackie joining in.

As soon as the song ends, Danny switches the tape. The opening notes of the club song blast across Fernlee Park, grabbing everyone's attention, and soon the entire crowd is singing along, drowning out the boom box completely. Unable to resist, Tara comes over and joins in beside Danny. Midway through the chorus, he swings his arm loosely around her, and although she's grinning widely, she also looks a tiny bit terrified. Which seems perfectly reasonable to me.

The players are back in the huddle as we sing. Danny has multiple copies of the song on the same tape, so it starts again only seconds after it finishes. I watch Stretch addressing the players, slowly, seriously, probably trying to calm their nerves. I imagine his patient drawl, the careful, unflinching way he delivers his address. I wish I could listen.

As the club song breaks through the night for the third time, some of the players turn around to face their adoring fans. The younger players look confused and almost scared. The older guys don't even look up at the crowd, but slowly make their way back towards the race, heads down, their minds already targeting Saturday.

I see Mick standing alone in the pocket, a pile of footballs by his feet. He's not going in yet. He's not ready. I can't see his face but I can guess what he's thinking. He'll know in a matter of minutes whether he's going to be selected to play, whether he's going to be given a chance to save the career he so desperately needs.

He kicks a batch of balls deep and long into the crowd, most of them sailing comfortably through the goalposts, a couple shaving the edge, all of them met with a roar by the remaining audience. He looks so tall and mighty as he stands alone in the middle of the oval, the whole world as we know it centred around him. He kicks a massive torpedo into the crowd, so deep this time that it lands in the stand above the press box. The crowd explodes when a little kid triumphantly holds the ball above his head as he's lifted onto his dad's shoulders.

‘What's he doing?' Tara asks, as though reading my mind. ‘How long is he going to stand there – doing nothing?'

I know what he's doing. He's stalling. He's holding out as long as he can because the moment he crosses the gym threshold and enters the players' room, the answer to his question will be as irreversible – as
absolute
– as life and death. As simple as win or lose. Win, he lines up at full forward on Saturday. Lose, Brendan O'Reilly keeps his place and Mick is forced to watch the game from the sidelines; all that work in rehab and therapy wasted, his hopes for a new contract fading to nothing.