The Whole of My World (25 page)

‘There's a party down the road. A lot of the players are there.'

I swallow. I don't know if I should leave Fernlee Park. How would I find the party anyway? ‘Do you know where?'

Red shrugs. ‘Of course.'

I wonder then why she hasn't gone herself. ‘I need to find her. Come with me?'

Red shrugs again, which I take as a yes, and we make our way out of the stadium. It's a slow process. She occasionally places a steadying hand on my arm, guiding me with short directions. I feel like a child being led by her parent, but I don't mind. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have made it by myself.

We head down Leafy Crescent, turning onto a side street about fifty metres before Fernlee Park Road. Red doesn't have to point out which house it is. The lights are on – all of them. People have spilled out onto the footpath, the front yard, the other side of the street. Like outside the social club, everyone has brown and gold somewhere on them, though they're mostly young men. I recognise some under 19s, some reserves players, as well as a lot of boys I think I've seen on the Fernlee Park Road tram. These are the boys who get off the tram at Riverglen Road and disappear into those enormous mansions with dates carved into them, or head down those pretty tree-lined streets.

Red walks a bit behind me now, as though using me for cover. I maintain the position, in a kind of shepherding strategy. I now know why she needs me. She wouldn't have come in alone – no one would have let her. She's nowhere near cool enough, or even normal enough, to make the grade, and she's pinning her hopes on me.

One of the boys nods as I walk in, recognising me and allowing me entry in a single gesture. He shoots Red a questioning look but shrugs and returns his focus to the pretty brunette who's half propped on the letterbox, half slumped against him. The girl looks at him adoringly, her lips shiny with pink gloss, pursed and ready for his.

I look away, an ache the size of WA in my chest.

Inside, there's more of the same. There are a couple of senior players here, though none who made today's team. They're drunk and miserable in a different way to their teammates, the missed opportunity made worse somehow because of the extra unanswerable questions that fill their heads. If only they'd been selected . . . If only they'd been given a chance . . .

Someone hands me a drink, which I accept and drink slowly. I can't see Tara anywhere, but I'm sure she's here. Or if she isn't, she will be. I drink more and watch the lights and the floor continue to spin, let it swallow me up because anything is better than standing still. Red has disappeared and I've found a comfortable place in a corner of the living room. I rest against the wall, hoping Tara gets here soon, feeling a lot like I might fall asleep if I don't move, at the same time lulled by the delicious idea of sleep.

One of the under 19s players, Scott Wiltshire, grabs me by the hand and leads me to the bar. ‘I need someone to help me behind the bar,' he smiles, not letting go of my hand until a full minute after I take my position beside him. He goes to Celtic and is a year ahead of me, though I don't think we've ever exchanged more than a ‘hello' before tonight. He's always seemed very shy to me, not cocky like his friends. I wonder how drunk he must be to approach me like this. How drunk I must be to let him.

My whole body is awake now, although my brain is a good five seconds behind my actions. Like watching a slow-motion replay, I'm seeing things happen to me before I feel them. As though there's two of me, but only one is real. I pour drinks and top up my own, while Scott encourages me, laughing. His hand keeps touching mine, his body pressing against me whenever we squeeze past each other in the cramped space behind the bar. After a while he stops apologising and doesn't even bother to move away when we make what had earlier masqueraded as accidental contact. He stays tight against me, his body strong and unmoving. I don't move either.

He turns me around and looks at me. There's a long silence that seems impossible to fill. I think he's going to kiss me when he leans forward, but instead his lips brush my ear. ‘I always thought you and Eddie –'

I shake my head quickly – ‘No!' – cutting him off, and nearly cracking heads in the process.

Scott smiles, then lets me go.

We continue to feed the thirsty partygoers, getting into a smooth rhythm. It feels good to have something to do, to keep my head and my hands busy. And Scott is helping me forget. I become an expert at pulling beer from the keg and learn to flip a champagne cork from a bottle in one movement. At one point, I recognise Renee in the corner of the living room, her top exposing one shoulder, caught between two players from another club. I want to go to her, to see if she's okay, but then she laughs suddenly and there seems no point. An hour later, hardly anyone left is still awake. There are bodies everywhere, sleeping or just resting, half-conscious or not conscious at all.

Scott turns to me, holding me close. ‘Hey,' he says. He leans in to kiss me, his body firm and unyielding. I don't resist, I don't even move. I feel nothing because it isn't happening to me. It's happening outside of me, to someone else.

And then a hand grips my arm, strong and firm and masculine, but it's not Scott's. It's as familiar to me as my own. I've watched that hand mark, punch, juggle a footy a thousand times before, never sick of marvelling at it, always impressed by its power and skill. And now it's on my elbow, pulling me away from this boy, the possessiveness as intoxicating as the Yellowglen and UDLs.

‘Sorry, mate,' Scott says, backing off and shaking his head. ‘She said you weren't together.'

Mick's jaw is a hard line of anger. His eyes glint with fury. I think it's aimed at Scott and for a moment I'm tempted to stand between them, but when Mick looks my way I realise it's aimed at me. He drags me out from behind the bar and through the house, not stopping until we're outside on the street.

‘What the hell are you doing?' he says through gritted teeth, swinging me around.

‘Hey, are you okay?' Scott calls out from the front door.

‘She's fine,' Mick says, without letting go, his eyes pinning me in place.

After a brief hesitation, Scott returns inside, slamming his hand against the doorjamb on the way, either in frustration or resignation. Whatever concern he has for me ends at the word of his senior teammate.

My mouth quivers, my lips part and tears fall. And fall. And fall.

‘Jesus.' Mick steps away, releasing me like he's been burnt, but his eyes never leave my face. ‘Jesus.'

I shake my head, ashamed and confused. ‘I didn't want that . . .'

‘What did you think would happen? What do you think they want from you?'

I blink numbly. How can I answer that when I don't even know what I want from them? What I want for myself?

Mick softens, his voice dropping. ‘What did you think would happen?' he asks again, gently this time.

I want to tell him I don't care about that – about them.
This
is what matters. This thing right here. I want to beg him not to leave. To say that he's my family, my life, the only thing in my world that is consistently good. But I can't stop crying to form the words.

Mick slumps then, resigned, and he places his arm around me like a father sheltering a child, protective and determined but also awkward. I let him hold me while the tears flow. We stand like that for ages, neither moving, the dark silence shielding us from the world outside. We could be the only people left on earth and that would be fine by me.

Eventually, my tears stop and I'm all emptied out. I wipe my face, straighten my clothes and try to put some space between that child who couldn't stop crying and the girl I want to be. I move towards the front of the house and sit on the cold ground by the letterbox. My bones ache. My whole body feels empty and hollow. Whatever was inside me, holding me up, keeping me strong, is spent.

Mick sits beside me, his long legs stretching out in front of him. He moves his bad knee up and down, a habit that allows him to find a comfortable position so it doesn't ache. He flinches and straightens it, then flexes it again. We both watch this ritual in silence, the words piling up in the dark night between us.

‘Please don't leave, Mick,' I whisper finally. That's all I need to say, and I'm glad I've said it.

‘I have to,' he says simply.

I place my hand on his leg and watch my fingers shake, my whole body weak but determined. I kiss him on the cheek, then gently on his lips. He doesn't move, his body rigid with uncertainty. I press against him, press into him.

I know they're my lips, my breasts, my hand, but they feel like they belong to someone else. I'm looking down at this girl, who looks like me, doing this thing that I could never do. I'm not here. That's not me. And yet, my hands travel across his chest and my mouth caresses his face. His silence is impossible to read but he doesn't push me away, so I continue. This girl continues.

I'm not here.
I'm not here
.

‘Jesus,' he says again, and then he's kissing me back, hard and firm. He pushes me down against the cold cement, his whole body encloses itself around me, holding me still. His hands travel inside my clothes as he kisses my face, my neck. His fingers start to pull open my top, his lips find my bra, my breasts, the icy air cutting through the layers like a knife, the graze on my hip burning.

I want to move. I want to stop him. This is not what I want, it's not how I feel. But I can't move. Or I don't because this is Mick and he's holding me close and maybe,
maybe
this means he won't leave. I force myself to stay still, to not push him away even though that's all my body wants to do. I try to control it, my tired, blurry mind caught between will and impulse, not surrendering to either, eventually betraying me completely when I start to shake.

Great waves of shock or maybe cold rip through me, beyond my control. My entire body is gripped by it. I can't stop. My hands quiver, my chest shudders, the tears I thought had emptied out of me spring to my eyes. Mick presses harder, his hands digging in, the footpath cutting into my back. He's hurting me and he won't stop. I struggle, finally, trying to say no, but just like me, he's no longer there.

Except suddenly I am and I want it to stop. ‘No!' I manage to say, dragging my mouth out from under his, my skin bruised and raw, my lips burning in the cold night.

Mick takes a long second before, with a muttered curse, he pulls away, his eyes closed, his chest rising in short sharp breaths. He opens his eyes and sees that it's me. Sees what he's done. His face is ashen with horror. ‘Jesus,' he whispers, no longer able to look at me.

I roll away from him, my stomach roiling as the world spins around me. I shakily draw breath, trying to stop the dizziness.

Mick looks like he's going to be sick. I feel both horrified and guilty, and have no idea who's done the wrong thing here, except I know absolutely that it's wrong. Any way you turn it. I pull up my legs, tugging my blouse straight. There's nothing I can do to take any of this back. Worse than this, there's nothing Mick can do either.

‘I told Angus I wished he was dead.' The words stand over me, tall as a mountain. ‘It's the last thing I said to him.'

Mick is shaking his head, confusion clouding his already uneven gaze. ‘Who's Angus?'

But there's no time to answer, even if I could. I don't hear Tara's footsteps or her ragged, laboured breath before I feel her kick me. ‘He's married, you slut!' she screams. ‘He's married!'

Mick shouts something but I don't hear what.

‘You slut!' Tara's words echo shrilly in the quiet night, despite her drunken slur. She's standing over us both, her legs wide apart as though to hold her steady, her chest heaving with the effort. ‘He's married,' she says again, quieter now, pain etched on her face.

Mick carefully pulls himself up and stands between us both. ‘Hey. Nothing happened. Okay?' Fear widens his eyes. And shame too. I'm not sure what hurts most.

Tara looks right past Mick, her accusing glare saved for me. She shakes her head, disgust raw on her face, and throws the butt of her cigarette at us before turning away to leave.

‘Nothing happened!' he shouts after her, and I know he's worried she'll tell someone. That this is what bothers him most.

I sit there perfectly still for a long time. I can hear Mick crouch back down beside me but I don't want to look at him. And there are simply no words to fill this silence.

‘I'm sorry.' It's a small voice for a big man. The words, though, are useless. We're all sorry. It doesn't change a thing.

I drag myself off the ground, brushing the dirt and scum off my clothes, longing for a hot shower and my PJs. I want my dad. I want my mum. I want to go home.

‘I'll take you home.' He takes my hand but I shake him off, my heart surging with a fury I can't control. Humiliation, disappointment, anger and hurt – all conspiring to destroy every last thing that matters to me. My pace quickens with every step until I'm running as fast as I can down the dark street. I run and run until I stop outside the social club, gasping for air, my heart hammering in my chest. I collapse against the wall, letting the great wrenching sobs take over, wracking through my wasted body until there's nothing left inside me except the toxic mixture of beer and spirits that now makes an unwelcome return as I stagger into the garden and throw up.