The Whole of My World (29 page)

 

 

Ever since Mum and Angus died, I've hated Sundays. Especially during the footy season. For most people it's Mondays. But for me, Monday is a day closer to the weekend, while on Sunday, the weekend – the bit about it that I love, anyway – is already over. And there's something so quiet about them, when the relief and excitement of a day at the footy has passed and I'm left alone with the worry and the dread and the quiet of our house.

That was before. I like Sundays now. Sometimes I go to Josh's for lunch, or he comes here. I've been at the McGuire house a lot lately. It was weird at first with Mrs McGuire knowing that Josh is my boyfriend. I'm not really sure what I expected her to say or do that first time I saw her after he told them. In the end, I stood in their kitchen, flushed and frowning, thinking hard about what I should say, if I should say anything different or special. But she didn't wait for me to work it out. Before I had time to adjust to this new situation, she took me in her arms and kissed my forehead like she does with Josh. ‘I'm so happy we're going to see more of you now, Shelley,' she said. ‘We really missed you.' And that was the end of it. Everything went back to exactly the way it was all those years before.

Well, not
exactly
. Not with Josh anyway.

So after Josh's on Sunday afternoon I usually work on my articles for
The Falcon's Nest
. I'm learning a lot, and the editor there, Mrs Evangeline, is nice. She's a bit bossy and really hates it when anyone's late, but she loves writing and she wants the paper to be great. No second prize. No room for carelessness. She says that if you're going to do something, you might as well do your best or why bother. I like her a lot, although I'm not sure everyone else does.

Fernlee Park is deserted when I go there. It's off-season so the players aren't around, and the cheersquad has no reason to show up. I haven't seen anyone since the grand final, but two months after my internship starts, I run into Lisa on Fernlee Park Road on my way to work. She looks so different without make-up, her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail; the flat school shoes and the square, sack-like school uniform changing her whole shape and even the way she walks. I almost walk past her without realising until she stops me and says hello. She says she's on her way to the Glenthorn library, and I explain about the internship.

‘That sounds like fun. Must be weird, though, being there off-season.'

‘Yeah. It's quiet. They'll be back, though,' I say.

‘What about you? Will you be back next year?' she asks.

‘The internship lasts for a year,' I say, without really answering her question. She means the cheersquad. And training. Will I be back? Honestly, I don't know the answer, though I know it won't be the same, no matter what I decide. ‘You?' I ask.

She shrugs. ‘I'll be doing my HSC. Doubt I'll have time,' she says, laughingly. ‘Renee won't be happy. She said she'll have to go back to Carringbush now, since we're all so boring.'

I shake my head in disbelief. ‘How's Kimberly?'

‘Fine. She's seeing Danny now. Think it's serious. I doubt they'll be back next year either.'

‘Not going to be many left,' I say, not really believing it. Red will be there – I don't even have to ask about her. Sharon and Jim-Bob and their endlessly bickering kids will be there too. Even David and the committee members who always get the best seats. Or someone just like them. There's always someone to fill their spot. That's how it works.

Lisa asks about Tara and I tell her the basics. Nothing about her parents, just about changing schools and moving house.

‘She looked pretty wasted on grand final night – and pissed off too,' Lisa says. It's meant to be a question and I realise then that she doesn't know what happened later.

‘Yeah, she was pretty drunk. We all were,' I say. ‘Nothing serious, though.' Some lies are good. The ones that don't hurt anyone or don't fester inside you. The kind that can save your friend from humiliation.

I'm not sure she believes me, but I don't care.

‘Good luck next year,' I say, meaning it. I have to start thinking about Year 12 too. And about what happens after that. I have some ideas about what I want to do, but nothing for sure. One week at a time, I tell myself. One week at a time. I'm about to cross the road when I remember someone else. ‘Hey – Lisa! Do you see Bear at all?'

She stops mid-step, almost slamming into a woman with a pram. She apologises to the woman and turns around, her face flushed and a funny smile on her face. ‘Er, yeah.'

I stand there, waiting.

‘He's fine,' she says.

But there's more. I can hear it in her voice. ‘Wait . . . He's mates with Danny. So you'd see him a bit, wouldn't you?'

She does something cute with her shoulders before she nods. ‘Yeah. He's . . . good. Jason is really good.'

Jason?
No one calls him that. ‘Are you and Bear together?'

She blushes furiously, smiling. She doesn't quite nod. It's more of a shrug.

‘Wow,' I say, then wish I could take it right back. But when I try to picture this pretty, slim girl hand in hand with the huge, tattooed Bear, the only thing that can come out is another
wow
.

‘He's enrolling in TAFE,' she says, her blush fading, her smile widening. ‘He's getting fit and losing weight,' she says quickly. ‘It was the job – all that crappy food on building sites. But he looks great now.'

I realise she's defending him to me. ‘No. Hey. Bear – Jason – is
great
. Really, really great. I think you make a perfect couple,' I add, meaning it. ‘Say hi to him for me, will you?'

‘Yeah. And say hi to Tara for me.'

‘I will,' I say, and decide to call Tara that night. We could catch up for a movie or a concert – something that has nothing to do with football.

There's a first time for everything.

 

The next Sunday, I'm sitting in our lounge room, having just finished my final draft for the week's article – a summary of the new players and what we can expect from them over the next few years. Dad has already given it the nod of approval, and we're both watching the TV. The news is halfway over. There are still footy stories occasionally – the Warriors' end of year trip, that kind of thing. But it's faded out with the cricket season starting up. ‘And the big news in footy tonight is the trading of Mick Edwards from Glenthorn to Sydney in what's seen to be the beginning of the fallout after Glenthorn's surprise loss in this year's grand final.'

I knew it was coming, but I thought he'd go back to South Perth, to be honest, back to those beautiful beaches. Either way, I knew he was leaving Glenthorn, and I thought I was okay with that. Except now, as I sit here in the quiet living room, the words ring in my ears like a siren, announcing the end of something important.

I can't look at Dad. He's been so good with everything that's happened – with Josh and me, with the McGuires being back in our lives, and with my new job at Fernlee Park. Over the weeks, I've noticed some of the photographs from the Arnotts tin appear in brand-new frames on the wall: one of Mum and Dad at their wedding, another of the four of us at the beach – Rosebud, I think, or maybe Rye. And another of Angus and me when we were babies, both of us looking so different to each other – him dark-skinned and dark-eyed like Mum, and me fairer with blonde stringy hair and eyes that look like a mix of Mum's and Dad's – that you wouldn't think we were related, let alone twins.

Dad has even bought a standalone frame for his bedside table, and in it he's slipped a photo of him and Mum, taken when they were young, both dressed for a formal dinner or party. Right next to it is a matching photo of them taken right before Mum and Angus died, their clothes from a different time, but there's the same shiny happiness in their eyes. I think that one's my favourite.

I blink at the TV, surprised that seeing Mick still hurts. I don't brave a look at Dad, but I can feel his worry and discomfort like they're physical things, standing beside him, dwarfing us both. I'm a little ashamed of myself that it still matters, so I force a smile – which comes out more like a grimace – but Dad seems to take something from it, because he smiles back.

After the news item finishes and the weather report begins, Dad breaks the awkward silence. ‘I taped the game,' he says.

It takes me a moment to work out what he means. There are no games on right now. It's almost summer.

‘The grand final,' Dad clarifies, sensing my hesitation. ‘I taped it for you.'

Of course he did. Through all our silences and our difficult moments, Dad always did what he said he'd do. I asked him to tape the match because I thought we'd win. I wanted to sit in the lounge room and relive our success over and over. To revel in Mick's win –
our
win – blow by blow, goal by goal, and analyse it all until I knew it by heart. Except we lost and Mick has gone. And nothing will be the same again.

But I'm still here and this is now, and I refuse to let these moments defeat me.
Pick myself up, dust myself off and get back to position
.

I widen my smile and nod at the TV. ‘What are you waiting for? Put it on.' My voice sounds unnaturally bright, even to me, but it doesn't crack, and the tears that prick the back of my eyes don't spill.

Dad sits on the couch beside me, places his legs on the footrest and smiles gently. He suddenly looks strong to me. Bigger than when I was a little, but more distant, too. And I understand that I will never feel as safe as I did back when I was a small child in my dad's arms, back when I had a mother and a twin brother, all of us taking care of each other, being a piece of a whole, the whole being better than the sum of its parts, the champion team always better than a team of champions. But that's okay. There's still Dad and me. It's not perfect, but it's okay. We'll be okay.

The Falcons theme song kicks in and we watch the boys burst through the cheersquad's amazing run-through banner, the house-sized image of Killer Compton tearing through the middle, and for a second I'm right back there, the roar of the crowd in my ears, the buzz in the air. One hundred thousand people united in the singular hope that today they'll come out on top. The sun shines with that delicious September clarity and the commentators remind us that this is the biggest day on the Melbourne calendar.

I settle back into the couch and rest my feet on the ottoman beside Dad's. ‘You never know,' I say, the beginnings of a real smile starting somewhere inside me, rising up to touch my eyes. ‘We just might get up and win this time.'

 

 

I am and always have been a huge AFL fan. Much like Shelley, and to the chagrin of my twin brother, I ‘played' for the local footy club during my primary school years. Because of how girls were viewed back then, this was limited to training with them religiously and wandering wistfully along the boundary line, hoping I might one day get a game. There was a lot of talk that I would, too. This lasted until, following an appeal by my coach to the competition tribunal, the administrators officially banned me from playing, on the grounds that the game wasn't safe for girls to participate. Although this ban was lifted for girls under 14 only a couple of years later, it was too late for me. By then I was ensconced in secondary school and had already found my way to the steps of Glenferrie Oval, where I deposited myself for a good chunk of my teenage years. There were many times that the only solace I could find from that endless ache that is adolescence was in the shape of a muddied red Sherrin and those impossible-to-accessorise brown-and-gold stripes. So before I thank the
people
in my life, I'd like to acknowledge my first real love in that oft-cited, heartfelt cry: ‘
Carn the Hawks!
'

That you are reading this book is largely due to my agent and friend, Elizabeth Troyeur, and her unwavering support and limitless patience. (She said this was the one and she was right. As usual.) Special thanks to the brilliant team at Random House Australia, especially Zoe Walton and Catriona Murdie for their gentle guidance and boundless wisdom. I am confident they now know more about AFL than either of them ever dreamed of – or wanted to. Now if I can just drag them along to a game . . .

A huge thank-you to my long-suffering writing partner, fellow author, first reader and dear friend, Melanie Benjamin, for reading more drafts of this manuscript than anyone should have to and never once complaining. Her feedback, encouragement and insight into the publishing world has been critical to my development as a writer. To Jacqueline Tomlins and Sarah Nichols for their excellent feedback and unbridled enthusiasm for this story, despite having a healthy antipathy for all things football. To PD Martin, crime writer extraordinaire and friend, for her practical, no-nonsense critique and her laser-sharp editorial eye. To Eliza Graham for reading a late draft at short notice in record time and still managing to offer brilliant feedback. To my oldest friends, Rose Giannone and Elena Christie, who have been spurring me on and inspiring me to write since our schooldays. (And thanks for the feedback, Rose.) To Anna for keeping me company on the boundary line on those bleak and wintry afternoons at Glenferrie. And to my reader, friend, babysitter, sounding board and personal cheersquad, Veronica Pardo, who was also happy to beat me upside of the head any time I suggested this book might not happen.

Peter Bishop and the Eleanor Dark Foundation gave me the time and space to revise early drafts of this novel at Varuna, more than a decade ago. Guiding me in the battle was Mark McLeod, who nailed it from the start, and my talented friends and fellow writers in the trenches, Steven O'Connor, Meg McKinlay, Ian Trevaskis, Gillian Wadds and Kylie Stevenson. Their company, enthusiasm and certainty that this would happen, despite all evidence to the contrary, drove me onwards at those darkest of moments.

To the Writerscave dwellers, to Karen Dionne and the crowd at Backspace, as well as the team at Done Deal Pro, especially Will Plyler and Craig Mazin – you have all taught me about story, craft and collegiality, demonstrating a generosity of spirit that I can only hope to emulate.

To the Phoenix Park Writers and staff – thank you for sharing your stories and wisdom. And to the talented women of Tuesday Writers – you're next!

A very special thank-you to my family: the Webbs and Dunstons in New Jersey, who are supposed to be the ‘dreaded in-laws' but have turned out to be great friends and the most devoted fans, especially Madeline, Allan and Joanne, who I could hear cheering for me all the way from America. To my sisters, Ryse and Amanda, their kids Ellyahne and Liam, Jessica and Kirsty, for their support, encouragement and unwavering loyalty, and to my twin brother, Damien, for letting me steal from our lives. (The good bits, anyway.) To my mother, Linda (Yolanda) Hayes, for never doubting – not for a second – that this would happen, and to my much missed father, Geoffrey Hayes, for so eloquently showing me the power of language and the poetry in football. We miss you, Dad.

But most of all to Frank, Hannah and Emily for letting me close the door and write. There would be no novel without you. And, frankly, no point.