The Whole of My World (21 page)

Finally, Mick straightens up and jogs slowly towards the players' race.

I lean over the boundary fence, alongside the hundreds of other kids doing exactly the same thing. I want to tell him he's not alone, that I know Stretch is going to select him and that Saturday will be the greatest day of his life.

‘Good luck, Eddie!' Voices around me join together to wish him well.

‘You're a champion, mate!'

‘Knock 'em dead!'

What can I say that hasn't already been said? ‘Good luck, Mick,' I say, my voice drowned out by the sea of voices.

With his head down and his eyes on the ground, Mick jogs up the race and, without a word to anyone, disappears into the gym.

 

Tara and I shiver in the rain, huddled under her Falcons umbrella. It's barely big enough to shelter her, let alone both of us. Large drops of rainwater gather on the spiky ends before dripping down my right shoulder. I shake them off as they land, but can't do much about the wet patch forming on my blazer.

‘I'm going home,' Tara says after yet another car drives out of the Fernlee Park car park without a single player having emerged. It's dark and getting darker. The rain drives steadily and doesn't look like it's going to let up any time soon. ‘You coming?'

‘No, I'll wait,' I say lightly. I was hoping we'd have heard the team announcement by now – I don't want to be alone, just in case . . . I don't let my head finish that thought.

‘See you tomorrow.' Tara shrugs, taking her bag and the only shelter I have with her. In hindsight, her small inadequate umbrella is looking pretty good as it disappears into the dark street. I press myself against the damp bricks, hiding beneath the narrow eaves, but the water drips relentlessly and there's nowhere left to hide. It feels like the whole club has emptied out and I'm nervous about being the only one left.
Is it possible
, I wonder,
that the players all went out another way?

As though hearing my thoughts, the first of the regular senior players emerge. It's two hours later than usual and they look like they've had a long and difficult day. Some of the players nod at me or tell me I should get out of the rain. I've got my schoolbag above my head now and it's doing a reasonable job, but I shudder to think what my maths folder looks like, or the soft-cover copy of
Modern Australian History
.

After another twenty minutes or so, Mick emerges. He looks shocked to see me and glances around the almost-deserted car park as though checking out who else might be there.

‘How'd you go?' I say, unable to wait another second. I thought I'd know the instant I saw him, but his expression is unreadable and he seems more confused by my presence than anything else.

‘You're soaked,' he says, his voice flat. He steers me and my drenched schoolbag towards his car.

‘Shake off a bit first,' he says when I'm about to open the passenger-side door.

I brush the excess water off my bag and blazer, the droplets freezing against my numb fingers. Then I get inside and sink into the warm seat. It feels so good to be inside his Holden that I almost start to cry. There is so much I don't understand right now – things I can't seem to fix or change or even face. The one thing I've held onto – that's kept me sane – is the grand final. And all he's worried about is whether I make his car wet. ‘Well?' I say, daring him to say a word about the crack in my voice.

He studies me, and for a second I think he's about to touch me. His hand rests on the headrest behind me, so close to my cheek that if I moved, even the tiniest bit, we'd make contact. ‘You're soaked,' he says again, making that clucking sound parents make, before starting the engine and twisting around to make sure the path is clear. He backs the Holden out and steers it through the car park, his eyes focused straight ahead.

We're a block from Stonnington Station before he speaks again. ‘Yeah,' he says, as though I've only just asked the question. ‘I made it.'

But he's not exhilarated like he should be. Like I am. ‘But that's great! That's it! It's all you need,' I gush, relieved.

‘Of course it is,' he says quietly.

‘What then?' I lean forward, trying to get him to look at me.

‘Shelley . . .' he begins. He's using that voice adults use when they think we know what they want to say, like they've said it a hundred times before.

‘I don't understand. You're in. We're in. And we're going to win.'

Mick looks at me carefully, turning back to the road too soon for me to work out what he's thinking. Or maybe I'll never work that out. Maybe there's never enough time to look at someone long enough to understand them. ‘You must be freezing,' he says again, and I know that's all I'm going to get out of him.

He pulls up to the train station, and I wish it was further away. Whatever is going on, I need to know now. I don't care that it's late and that Dad will know where I've been. I don't care that I'm cold and wet and a long way from home. I just need to know that it's going to be okay. ‘Tell me,' I plead in the dark silence.

Mick sighs long and hard. He leans back in his seat, letting his hands fall by the side of the steering wheel. If I move my right hand to rest beside my leg, the backs of our hands would be touching. I look at my hand and his, picturing that moment, knowing it won't happen.

‘It's now or never, Shell,' he says quietly, his voice faint and uneven.

‘It's the
grand final
. Of course it's now or never.'

‘I mean, for me.'

‘What do you mean?' I'm shivering again, but I don't think it's from the cold.

He turns to look at me, finally letting me see his face properly, or as properly as I can under the faint glow of the station lamps. ‘You should go, it's late.'

It feels like I'm losing something, like it's all disappearing before my eyes. ‘You're going to blitz on Saturday, Mick,' I say, my voice strained with the beginnings of panic. ‘It'll be a whole new start. Everything good that you want to happen will happen. I know it. I can feel it.' I ignore how empty those words sound, how wrong I've been about this in the past. This is it. It has to be.

Mick chuckles. ‘You never give up, do you?'

‘No,' I say simply, because I don't. I can't. ‘It's all about to happen for you – for us.'

Mick looks at me oddly then and I realise my mistake. ‘I mean for the
Falcons
. You're the best full forward in the competition. Everyone knows that. Everyone.' And I lean in towards him and kiss him lightly on the cheek.

Mick stares at me in shock but doesn't pull away. He stays there, his face near mine.

I don't know what's happening. My lungs feel tight and I can barely see. I have no idea what I want him to do next, what I want to happen. Except it feels like he is really seeing me,
all
of me, and I've never felt more important in my whole life.

‘Shelley.' He says my name like a caress. He touches my face with his long, strong fingers, holding my chin in their tips. We don't move for a long time.

A train toots in the distance and it startles us both out of the moment.

He sucks in air, his breath ragged. ‘You'd better go,' he whispers, before touching his lips to my cheek. Then he sits back, gently pushing me away. But he smiles to soften it, and I know it's okay. ‘You'll miss your train.'

I can't speak or object. All I can do is grab my bag and slam the door behind me. I run from the car, through the cold, hard rain, arriving at the platform just in time to see the headlights of my train approach from Yarra Station. I don't look back. I can't stand the idea of hearing him take back what he did. Right now, all I feel is magic and light. Like I'm flying. Like I'm free.

As I step onto the train, my blazer no longer feels damp and uncomfortable, and my feet tread lighter than they ever have. Suddenly I don't care if the whole of St Mary's is onboard, ready to judge and condemn. They can't hurt me. They don't matter.

No one can touch me now.

 

 

Dad doesn't say anything when I walk in and he doesn't argue or complain when he sees how sodden I am. ‘Have a shower,' he says, not asking for an explanation. ‘You'll freeze like that.'

‘Missed the bus. I stayed back to help Tara with her book review,' I say into the silence, his back already turned away, the TV doing an excellent job of providing the distraction we both count on. His eyes are trained on a brief recap of the swimming from the Friendship Games that nobody seems to care about except for Dad. ‘She's pretty hopeless at English,' I add lamely.

Dad drags his gaze from the screen and eyes me tiredly. ‘Next time, call from the station.'

He knows I'm lying. He knows but doesn't care. ‘I will,' I say, telling myself that this will make the whole weekend much easier to get away with.

When I get in the shower, I stand there for so long that my fingers shrivel to prunes. I don't get out until the hot water runs cold.

When I finally get to bed, the sheets warmed by my electric blanket, I feel completely drained of energy. Drained of everything. Despite the confusion of thoughts clouding my mind, I won't have any problems sleeping. One more day of school and then I'll know.

If it's all been worth it.

 

‘We need to get our stuff from the warehouse first,' Tara reminds me, as we head out the school gates, past the six-foot fence. Tara told me it was only three-feet high when she first came to St Mary's, but the nuns were always shooing the St Ignatius boys away from the front gate. She came back to school in Year 8 after the summer holidays to see the fence had been raised to twice its previous height. ‘Next it'll be razor wire,' she'd joked. That's probably why Dad was so keen on me coming here.

The party-supplies warehouse is a few blocks from school. We've already bought coloured hairspray and theatre make-up in gold and brown, but we still have to get balloons and crepe paper for the mini floggers. We walk the first block, keen to put distance between school and the weekend, then we break into a jog for the next kilometre. Like everyone, I love Fridays, but the day before the grand final is magic. I start laughing for no reason and Tara joins in. It feels like summer, even though it's barely twenty degrees in the sun.

We buy the last bits and pieces we need for our costumes then catch the tram back to Tara's house. We've almost finished the floggers and have laid out our costumes neatly when her bedroom door opens. A dark-haired, thickly built man stands in the doorway. He looks younger than my dad, although on closer inspection, I realise it's his hair that makes the difference. It isn't grey, while Dad's is. But his eyes have that same crinkled unevenness at the edges, and the five o'clock shadow on his chin is speckled with grey. I wonder if he dyes his hair to keep it that smooth brown colour. It doesn't look real, and doesn't match his whiskers at all.

Tara's face lights up. ‘Daddy!' she says, leaping at her father with an animation and excitement I've never seen before. She suddenly looks like a little girl, the worldliness all gone.

‘Tara,' he says, without any of his daughter's animation. He nods curtly at me, but doesn't ask my name.

‘How long are you back?' Tara asks, her fingers still twisted in her father's. For the moment, I don't exist.

‘I'm not. The car's waiting outside. Next week, though. We'll have a special lunch.' It's a kind of apology, one that seems to come easily.

Tara's face does something remarkable then. First, it collapses in despair, which turns into something resembling rage, with a glimmer of grief, and then her features reshape themselves into her usual cool detachment. These shifts happen so abruptly, so intensely, that it's almost comical.

Her hand drops from her father's and dangles awkwardly beside her thigh. I look at her dad and realise he didn't see any of it. He's already halfway out the door, glancing down the corridor or into another room. ‘Where's your mother?' he asks, turning back to face his daughter.

‘I don't know,' Tara answers, any hint of her earlier joy obliterated. Whatever she's feeling, she doesn't want him to see.

My heart wrenches as I watch her performance and recognise it as something painfully, unbearably
familiar
. We have never been more alike, Tara and me, than at this moment.

‘Typical,' he says lightly. But there's a slight sneer on his lips.

Tara flinches, just barely, but doesn't move.

I want to stand between them to protect Tara.

‘Tell her I was here, will you?' he says, then manages his first real smile. ‘Or don't and see if she notices.'

Tara matches his smile, although hers doesn't have the cruel twist to it that her father's has. ‘You'd have to empty the liquor cabinet for that to happen,' Tara says unexpectedly, her voice dry and grating.

Mr Lester looks up sharply as though ready to rebuke his daughter.

She stands there defiant, and yet brittle, too.

A car horn toots outside and the moment passes as he checks his watch. ‘I have to go,' he says. ‘Are you okay? Do you have money?' He doesn't wait for Tara to answer. He's already pulled out his wallet and is rifling through it, extracting some twenties and fifties and holding them out to her.

For a long second, Tara doesn't move.

He cocks his head, waiting, impatience etched into the line of his mouth. He isn't going to move closer or meet her halfway. I think of Tara's coat and my surprise that her father would sew on all those bits and pieces. The idea is suddenly ridiculous.

Finally, Tara steps forward and takes the money. She doesn't look at him. The delight at his arrival has been replaced with something I can't quite name.

He leans in to kiss her brusquely on the cheek, and I think about Mick's light, easy kiss the night before. They are nothing alike, and yet . . .

‘See you next week, honey,' he says, without a trace of emotion, and shuts the door behind him.

Tara returns to our tasks like nothing has happened, laying out our props, straightening our costumes and getting everything ready for our early departure. But where before there was a nervous energy in the activity, now her movements are slow and deliberate. Every action seems to take an enormous effort on her part. And yet she doesn't skip a beat or ask for help. She doesn't even look at me.

There is a long moment of perfect stillness when we hear the front door bang shut, as though time has frozen and no one else exists outside this room, and then Tara steps across to the window beside me. Her dad's car is shiny and silver – sporty, like something a famous footballer would drive. In the passenger seat is a young woman with dead-straight blonde hair and lips so red I can see the swollen shape of them in profile before she turns towards us. She's very pretty and
young
.

I know better than to look at Tara. We both remain fixated on the vision of this handsome couple disappearing in their shiny car. After a difficult silence, Tara steps away from the window, freeing me to do the same. Without once looking up at me, she whispers flatly, ‘That's his assistant.'

Neither of us believes her.

Tara returns to our arrangements, continuing to collect her things, her back as straight as a rod, her head stiffly turned away from the door and away from me. When she tries to close her backpack, bits of flogger and scarf protruding in all their brown-and-gold glory, I notice her hands shaking so hard that she can't manoeuvre the zip. I don't speak as she fumbles with the metal tag – I don't dare. Instead, I reach in to draw the contents of the bag in tighter for her, pulling the tracks together so she can slide the zip shut. The metallic
zing!
of the teeth connecting on their tracks cuts through the silence as clearly and as finally as a slamming door, the teeth gleaming like a brand-new sports car.