Tigers and Devils

by Sean Kennedy

  I collected all my things together again and ran out of my office to Nyssa’s desk. “Are you okay?” she asked, standing up.

  “Nyss, I have to go, sorry. Will you be okay here today?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t think you were coming in, so I have some friends coming in to help.”

  “Thanks,” I said, giving her a quick kiss.

  “Where are you going?” she yelled after me, but I was already too far gone to reply.

  I CAUGHT the tram up to Spencer Street, fidgeting nervously. I was still getting looks from passengers who could flick between the front page of the paper and compare the man in the photograph with the one standing before them.

  Once off the tram I ran through Southern Cross Station and across the Webb Bridge to Declan’s apartment complex.

  Declan’s spare key still hung off my set, although I was only planning to let myself into the security door; but my courage faltered when I actually got there, so I pressed the intercom for his apartment.

  It took a while, but a voice eventually answered. “Hello?”

  A female voice. Bewildered, I just stood there.

  “Simon?”

  “Umm, yeah.”

  “It’s Lisa.”

  “Oh!” Damn those intercoms could really disguise a voice. “Uh, hi. How did you know it was me?”

  “Videophone up here,” she reminded me. Yes, that’s how flustered I was. The amount of times I had stayed here, I should have remembered.

  “I’ll buzz you up.”

  I pushed the door open when it clicked, and in the elevator I wondered what reception I was going to get when I walked in. Did Lisa even ask Declan if I could be brought up? Was he going to be pissed at her?

  She met me at the door and gave me a big hug. “I’ve been wanting to call you.”

  “I have as well,” I admitted. I nodded towards the door. “How is he?”

  Lisa looked at me sadly. “He’s not here.”

  “What?”

  “Come in.”

  I shook my head. It would be too weird. “Not while he’s not here.”

  She took me by the elbow and brought me into the apartment. It looked the same as it always did, except for the glaring omission of Declan himself. It was too normal; it shouldn’t be this way when I felt like everything had changed.

  “Where is he?”

  “Tassie.”

  He wasn’t even in the state? When I drove people away they had to go far, I guess.

  “Both he and Abe had to go for training for a junior squad, recruiting new members who can start next year. It’s kind of a PR, role model thing.”

  “Why are you here?”

  She walked over to the balcony and slid the door open. We stood in the sunlight, which was warm although the air was cool. I leaned against the railing for support.

  “I told Declan I’d pick up his messages and mail.”

  I stared at her, my stomach somewhere around my ankles. “You listened to the messages I left?”

  “Sorry, I had to,” she rested her hand over mine. “Hey, they broke my heart, so I can only imagine what they would have done to him.”

  “He still hasn’t spoken to me,” I said. “So he can’t be that upset.”

  Lisa pulled her hand away. “Don’t be a dick, Simon. Declan’s devastated. He’s gone into complete shut-down mode, which he does whenever he’s upset. It’s not living, it’s existing.”

  I couldn’t stand her being mad at me as well. “I know he would be upset. I just want him to talk to me again.”

  She nodded. “You’re just going to have to let him come around on his own time.”

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  Lisa looked as if she wished she had a better answer for me. “I don’t know.”

  I sat on one of the banana lounges. “I have to stop doing this.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not like I purposely seek melodrama out,” I told her. “I just think I can handle things, and I make them worse. And every time I swear to myself that I won’t do it again… but then I always convince myself that it’s different this time, and I can handle it. I just keep doing it over and over again.”

  She sat on the other lounge. “Can I offer you a bit of friendly advice?”

  “Yes, please,” I said, truthfully and gratefully.

  “You had the perfect person to speak to about this the other night, and you brushed him off. Abe was probably the only person who could understand what you’ve been going through recently.”

  “Abe?” I asked, confused.

  “Yeah, Abe,” she rolled her eyes. “You’re really thick sometimes.”

  “No argument here.” I was being serious.

  “You think that Abe isn’t getting shit from some arseholes because he’s best friends with Declan? That he isn’t being asked if they’re more than friends? Except they word it worse than that. He gets sledged on the field as well. They make little cracks about him on all the shows as well, but he seriously doesn’t care. Because Dec is his best friend, and he loves him. Except straight guys don’t say that to each other. Stupid, I know.”

  Her speech got to me. “Has he told Declan that happens?”

  “Dec’s not stupid. He knows. But they get past it because they’re so close. And you have to get past it, Simon. Jesus, you really need to open up to people instead of thinking you have to deal all by yourself.”

  “I know.”

  She gave an exasperated sigh. “You say that, but I still don’t think you get it. You’ve been used to being single for so long that you’ve forgotten how to be part of a couple. It’s not easy, but other people aren’t as resistant to it as you are.”

  “I don’t want to resist it,” I said softly.

  “Well, tell that to Declan,” she paused. “When he lets you.”

  “You know what, though? I’m not the only one at fault here.”

  “Believe me, I know. Dec’s a runner. He always has been. It’s the only way he can cope.”

  “Yeah, well, I wish he was here.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I bet you he does too.”

  “But does he wish me to be here as well?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I wish she could have been more sympathetic for me, but I guess I needed the tough love. I also wondered if she was just avoiding revealing Declan’s feelings on his behalf. All I wanted was to talk to him, to stop feeling empty.

  Lisa checked her watch. “Anyway, I’ve got to go. I have a meeting with the building co-op.” She looked at my puzzled expression. “Didn’t I tell you? Abe and I are buying in here.”

  “That’s great,” I told her. “Really.”

  We went back into the apartment and locked up, heading back towards the lift.

  “Think about what I said,” Lisa told me as she got off on the fourth floor.

  I nodded. “Thanks. And Lisa?”

  “What?”

  “Abe doesn’t hate me, does he?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “But that might change if you truly break Dec’s heart. You don’t even want to know what he planned to do to the ex.”

  I truly didn’t, but the thought of losing Dec was actually far scarier.

  ALTHOUGH my mad dash to the Docklands hadn’t exactly gotten me the results I had hoped for, I was in a slightly better frame of mind when I got back to the office. Nyssa and her friends were doing a ring-around, finalising catering and invitations for the opening night, and they all greeted me warmly when I walked in. Nyssa had the presence of mind not to ask me anything about what she already suspected caused my absence, although I knew she would grill me for details later. But she did stump me when she followed me into my office.

  “Alice Provotna came in to see you.”

  It had actually been a while since I had seen Alice. She had decided to adapt the focus of her documentary to being a “one year in the life” piece on Declan and his first year of being out, but a family wedding had kept
her away from the Brownlows for which I was thankful for even before the trouble between Declan and I had occurred.

  “Oh,” was all I could say.

  “She said she was having some trouble getting the Devils to talk to her today about releasing some footage. In fact, she accused them of being cagey.”

  Oh, shit. All we needed was for her to scent something in her newly self-anointed role of documentary-auteur. This wasn’t the ending I wanted depicted in her doco. I didn’t even want it to be the final-act storyline before the hopeful happy ending.

  “She wanted to know if you could use your contacts to pull some strings,” Nyssa continued unhappily, knowing the effect it could have on me.

  I nodded. “Okay. I’m going to go home, Nyss, but if she calls again just tell her I’ll look into it.”

  It was a brush-off; we both knew it, but Nyssa nodded. “Sure.”

  “Thanks for your help, guys,” I told her friends. “Keep a record of the hours you’ve worked, I’ll make sure you get some kind of pay.”

  I left them happier than I was, because Alice’s request had brought up all my fears again.

  I DIDN’T hear from Declan at all, although I tried calling his mobile and his landline in Hobart again and again. I refused to give up.

  Now Nyssa’s friends had been promised pay for their services, they threw themselves into doing even more jobs for the festival, and I didn’t go in for the rest of the week. I swore even if I had to end up paying them somehow out of my own pocket it would be worth it. All I wanted to do was slop around the house and feel sorry for myself and try to get hold of Dec. I avoided calls from my parents and Alice Provotna, too scared that they would be able to wheedle out of me that something was wrong.

  On Friday an invitation for Tim and Gabby’s wedding came in the post, addressed to both Declan and myself. It was to be held in the first week of December; I filled out the RSVP to send back to them, saying we would both be attending.

  Doing stupid little things like that were the only thing to gave me hope. I wanted to imagine into reality the vision of Dec and I turning up at the ceremony in Fitzroy Gardens, bickering light-heartedly as I knew undoubtedly we would, more than likely because I would be wishing to be anywhere but there, and Declan would be having to keep me in line. Then later we would shock some of the more conservative guests at the reception when we slow-danced together as couples were invited to join the bridal waltz.

  I let my message bank take calls from any number I didn’t recognise on caller ID. Checking later, most of them were from media sources that wanted sound bites about the Brownlows. I ignored them. Jasper’s article caused a little bit of a stir when it was picked up by the AAP and reprinted in other papers. I dreaded the thought of Declan being contacted for follow-ups by the press when I was probably the last thing he wanted to talk about.

  Returning to work the following Monday, I was in what Lisa would probably call “shut-down mode.” I threw myself into the festival, and Nyssa and I were lost in a crazy schedule again, where I only saw my own house when I crashed into bed and then left as soon as I got up again in the morning. I had to rely upon Roger and Fran again to feed Maggie, as there was no Declan to pick up the slack.

  I don’t know whether it was the insane amount of work I had to do or whether I had just resigned myself to it being over, but I didn’t attempt calling Declan that week.

  However, I did send an invite for opening night out to him. I scrawled across it desperately Please come. I miss you. I didn’t know if it would work.

  Just because we hadn’t spoken didn’t mean that I was in the dark about what he was up to. The news showed footage of him in Hobart one night, helping to coach the junior squad Lisa had told me about. Aware that the cameras were on him, he had his media-smile on. Or maybe I just wanted it to be his media-smile. The possibility he actually was happy was something I didn’t want to consider, even though Lisa had made out he wasn’t.

  I received an RSVP from Lisa and Abe saying they were coming to the Triple F opening night; still no word from Dec. I was glad that they were making the effort, although it could be awkward on both ends. I didn’t want them to be caught in the middle.

  It was three days before the opening of the festival when I collapsed over the paper in exhaustion with a wilting salad roll to try and find fifteen minutes of peace and found a piece on Declan buried back in the social pages.

  The subheading asked TYLER’S NEW SQUEEZE? and the picture showed Declan walking down a set of stairs, his hands in his pockets. He was in the process of turning back to look at the guy walking slightly behind him, and they were both laughing. The reporter commented that they had been hanging out together “quite a bit” in Hobart.

  I choked on a mouthful of roll and had to spit it out into a napkin as there was no way I could get it down. I stared at the photo, unwilling to accept any other explanation.

  It was in the paper, so of course it must be true. The logical part of my brain was saying Declan isn’t like that, there’s no way he would be with someone else when he hasn’t even sorted out once and for all what is happening with you; my emotional and exhausted self was saying You fucked him over, why should he show you any courtesy?

  And I really couldn’t think of a reason. Except I knew Dec wouldn’t do that.

  But it still hurt when I got home at about midnight and found a message from my mother asking if we had broken up.

  I deleted it halfway through.

  I picked up the phone and punched in Dec’s mobile number. It went straight to message bank again. “Dec,” I said, knowing that I was dancing on a knife’s edge between white-hot anger and melancholy insanity, “just put me out of my misery for fuck’s sake. And you know what? You can stop running away. You’ve done it the whole time we’ve been together, and I’m sick of it. Maybe this is the last time I’ll ever have to deal with it. I don’t know. And I don’t know because you haven’t bloody talked to me. I still love you. It’s time to let me know what you feel one way or the other.”

  I planned to say a few more things, but I ran out of time. I hung up, thinking I had probably made an even bigger mistake.

  And then I put on some Joni Mitchell.

  WE HAD arranged things to be a little bit different for the opening night of the Triple F this year, riding off the back of last year’s success and what it did to boost our reputation. The Yarra City Council had allowed us to use the Studley Park amphitheatre, and we were going to be screening the films on a floating screen in the river itself; it was going to be even bigger than Federation Square the year before.

  There had still been no word from Declan. I steeled myself for having to turn up with Roger and Fran, and when questioned about Declan I would just say he had other commitments. As he hadn’t made an official statement, I wasn’t going to either. There was plenty of speculation in the media, however. Declan had turned up in another picture in the social pages, standing out on his balcony with some guy I didn’t know from a bar of soap. MORNING COFFEE? the caption asked sneakily.

  I couldn’t believe I was now accepting it; it had to be over. It had been over two weeks since I had last spoken to him, and you had to assume that anybody seeking some form of reconciliation would have been in contact by now.

  I told Roger and Fran I would drive so they could drink; alcohol wouldn’t be my friend tonight when there was so much to do and so much to hide. Loose lips sink (relation)ships.

  My spirits were raised when we parked the car and walked down to the amphitheatre. The Chinese lanterns Nyssa and I had been stringing up all morning in the branches above the pathway filled the air with a festive glow, and the amount of people milling around already guaranteed that the night would be a success.

  “It looks great,” Fran said.

  “Thanks.” I grinned.

  “Yeah,” Roger said. “Where’s the bar? It’s open this year, right?”

  “All class,” Fran muttered.

  “Just wait for the pho
tos first, Rog,” I laughed.

  As soon as the photographers saw me, they surged forward. I knew it wasn’t really for me, just they mistook Roger to be Declan from a distance. The flashes rapidly diminished in number as they realised he wasn’t there, and they were just stuck with the nonfamous half of the couple and his doofus friends.

  “Simon, where’s Declan tonight?” one of them yelled out to me.

  I kept my voice clear and light. “He had other commitments tonight.”

  “What about the reports that have been published in the papers lately?” asked a woman holding a microphone emblazoned with a radio station logo at the bottom.

  I grinned; it looked far more easy and comfortable than I really was. “You should know not to believe anything—” and I gave an exaggerated whoops expression, “Sorry, I mean everything in the papers.”

  There were actually a few laughs at that one, and the three of us fled to relative safety.

  “That was good,” Fran said comfortingly. “You did well.”

  Nyssa swooped upon me, and Roger went off in search of the bar. “Quite a lot of people are looking for you,” she said, frazzled and forgetting to even indulge in any greeting. “But the most persistent are Alice Provotna and Gigi Jones.”

  Alice, I had to avoid. But what did Gigi Jones want with me?

  “Where is Gigi?” I asked.

  “Near the projector.”

  Fran gave me a kiss. “Go. I’ll find my husband.”

  As I followed Nyssa through the crowds, I couldn’t help but look for Declan, hoping he would be here with Lisa and Abe, even if he was angry and would be difficult to talk to.

  Because just him being here would mean something.

  “I haven’t seen him,” Nyssa said quietly, unable to avoid seeing my transparency.

  “I wasn’t thinking about that,” I lied. “I was just wondering what Gigi needs to see me about.”

  IT TURNED out that Nyssa’s most paranoid fear turned out to be real.

  I had been headhunted.

  Gigi Jones ran another, bigger, slightly more mainstream film festival. And she wanted me as part of the team. I would be in charge of local and national entrants, while her other team would handle foreign acquisitions. I would be in charge of five people and get a rather substantial pay rise. As guilty as I felt about considering leaving the Triple F (especially on the opening night of their current festival), it was a great opportunity.