Tigerland

by Sean Kennedy

  Chapter 12

  HAVE you ever had déjà vu?

  HAVE you ever had déjà vu?

  Well, that was what life felt like for us over the next couple of weeks as the media proved themselves unrelenting in their quest to get the “truth” behind the “sexual Bermuda Triangle” between Dec, Heyward, and myself.

  Sexual Bermuda Triangle? Really? That was the level of journalism coming out of our finest national broadsheets?

  Dec continued to keep up a stony-faced visage, even in press photographs. I, unfortunately, was not so lucky. The day after the GetOut event, the picture of the three of us caused quite a stir across the news and the net. Even though Dec had been obviously unhappy at the time, he still managed to look at ease, while Heyward came across as if he felt all three of us were the best of friends and had just happened to run into each other at some shindig. And then there was good old Simon, looking clearly uncomfortable in the situation, or as Jasper Brunswick wrote in his column that day, “ready to shove Greg Heyward out of the picture, much like the infamous YouTube video of a live ABBA performance where Frida catches Agnetha flirting with Benny.”

  Yes, Jasper Brunswick. He had emerged fully out of the shadows, dragging his Voldemort-ian cloak behind him—although, really, comparing him to Voldemort was a bit of a stretch. I think even Harry Potter would have dragged me aside and whispered confidentially, “Dude, your nemesis is annoying!”

  It also made me extra grumpy when, for the next couple of days, Roger thought it was hilarious to call me Frida.

  Our escape to the country already felt like months before when Dec and I returned to work. Coby had been running the fort admirably well, despite stressing over finishing his short film in time for consideration to be played at the Midsumma Festival and the threat of a coup d’état by Emcee Gee. “It actually was Emcee Gee,” he told me. “Filip Carver himself never said a bad word against me. It was all her doing.”

  Possibly mentally unbalanced talent aside, I stepped back into my role with minor setbacks from my absence, although the higher-ups were wanting to see if they could get Heyward or Declan back on QueerSports.

  I doubted it. Heyward had only wanted to be on our show for one reason and one reason only—to fuck us over. He had bigger fish to fry now. Even if he wanted to unsettle Dec and I further, there was much bigger media to achieve that through.

  I politely declined on Dec’s behalf. I didn’t think he would be that bothered.

  As a reward for fobbing off media all day, Coby would keep pestering me about his film. He was using CTV equipment for free, as I turned a blind eye to his practically moving into the building for the past two weeks to work on postproduction and avoiding security guards, but that wasn’t enough. “You have to come and support me,” he wheedled. “I need all the fans there I can get.”

  “I’m your fan?”

  “Yes, one of those bizarre fancy ones without blades. Please.”

  I wanted to, and I would have gone without protest, except for one little fact. “Heyward is the king of the festival this year.”

  “I know that. And I know you don’t want to go. But like I said: please.”

  With his annoyingly floppy blonde hair and sad puppy dog eyes, he was like the evil twink surfie younger brother I never had. “Fine.”

  He probably would have jumped up and down on the spot if I wasn’t already restraining him by hanging onto his shoulders. “Really? Even if Dec doesn’t go?”

  “We’re not Siamese twins. We do leave the house separately sometimes.” That being said, however, I really would have preferred him to go with me.

  Coby gave me a suspicious look. “I thought that wasn’t possible in Happy Happy Couple Land?”

  “If you hadn’t noticed, we’re not exactly in Happy Happy Couple Land at the moment.”

  Coby looked stricken. “What?”

  “Oh, nothing like that,” I said quickly. “Just everything around us isn’t that Happy Happy. We’re fine.”

  “Good. You two are like my role models for a stable gay relationship to aspire to.”

  I suddenly felt old. I was thirty, for fuck’s sake, not ready to pick out a plot with a nice view. “Good luck, kid.”

  Fricking floppy-haired twink surfie younger brother I never had.

  “Wait!” Coby called after me as I headed back to my office. “Did I just piss you off?”

  I swung my hand around my back and raised the middle finger. And laughed when I closed the door to my office behind me.

  If only I could do that to the rest of the Melbourne media.

  DEC jumped off the couch as I entered our apartment. “I tried calling you earlier. You didn’t pick up.”

  “I was on the tram. I was already attracting enough attention, so I didn’t want to try and have a conversation with anybody.”

  “Oh.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I also ignored Lisa, Roger, and my mother.”

  He kissed me. “Somewhat better. People were staring at you?”

  “Someone even made the point of… well, pointing to that picture.”

  “Aah, you saw it then.”

  “Loads of times. On the net, on the telly, on the tram….”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “Who?”

  “Whoever pointed to it.”

  “Nothing. I just kept listening to my iPod and stared blankly out the window like half the people on the tram normally do.”

  “That’s remarkable restraint.”

  “What can I say? I was tired.” This time I kissed him and sagged into his warm body.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Fuck yes,” I mumbled against his shirt.

  “YOU’RE quiet tonight,” Dec said as he poured me another wine.

  I played with the spaghetti on my plate and gratefully took the wine instead. “Like I said, I’m tired.”

  “You normally yack my ear off anyway. It’s a remarkable talent you have, no matter how tired you are.”

  “Well, not tonight.”

  He hesitated, but then reached across to take my hand. “Simon, what’s up? You’re not even eating.”

  “Nothing.” I took a bite of spaghetti to placate him. It might as well have been dry Weet-Bix, it was so difficult to swallow. A mouthful of wine was needed to make sure it pushed its way down my throat.

  “Is that your non-subtle way of telling me to drop it?”

  The wine was gone, and my throat was still dry. “It’s my non-subtle way of telling you ‘nothing’.” I reached for the water sitting between us and didn’t even wait to pour it, drinking straight from the bottle.

  “Okay.” Dec folded his hands before him and stared down at his plate.

  I knew I was being difficult, but the truth was that I really was tired. I helped him clean up and was in bed by eight. I must have been dead to the world by the time Dec joined me, as I never even heard or felt him climb into bed.

  When I woke up my bladder was ready to burst, but I felt so weighted down I knew it was the beginning of a cold. I rolled out from under Dec’s arm and made it to the loo before I pissed myself. Flushing the toilet brought on a dizzy spell, and after washing my hands and looking at my even-more-than-usual pallid complexion I poked Dec in the chest before retreating back under the covers.

  “I think I’m contagious,” I told him as he blinked sleepily at me. “You may want to save yourself.”

  He felt my forehead tenderly and winced. “You’re hot.”

  “I know I am, but not now, darling, I have a headache. And a sore throat, and muscle pain—”

  He moaned at my bad joke. “Oh no, Simon has the man flu. The world must stop and attend to him.”

  “I have to go to work.”

  “Not like that you don’t.”

  “I’ve already missed enough days. I have to go in.”

  “You’re stupid.”

  I laughed, and it turned into a coughing fit. When I had my breath back, I laced my f
ingers through his. “That was never in doubt.”

  “At least it explains why you were out of sorts last night. Your body knew before you did that you were coming down with something.”

  It actually didn’t explain my mood last night, but I was happy to let him think it did.

  I went to work, against Dec’s better judgement, and while emptying my nose into an increasingly deteriorating wad of tissue I was almost bowled over by an enthusiastic Coby.

  “My film’s been accepted!” He danced around with me on the spot. Well, he danced; I was just pulled around like a possessed marionette. “I’m going to be the next Baz Lurhman!”

  I would have said that one was enough, but I’m a sucker for Strictly Ballroom so I have to forgive him for the travesty that was Australia.

  But before I could say anything, I was given two resounding kisses on each cheek.

  “Hey! Boundaries!” I cried, which only caused me to start hacking up a lung.

  Coby flung himself back like I had Tasered him. “You’re sick!”

  I nodded and wiped off a few shreds of tissue from my fingers.

  “Why didn’t you warn me? I can’t get sick before Friday! Goddammit, Simon!” He ran off in the direction of the bathroom, presumably to disinfect himself.

  “Congratulations!” I yelled after him.

  For the rest of the day Coby tried to keep as much distance between us as possible, and I humoured him. At least until I pretended a dollop of hand sanitiser that I had hidden in my palm was snot and smeared it across one of his files. I think they heard him screaming in Geelong until I made him smell it, and the overpowering chemical fragrance convinced him that the liquid hadn’t come from my nose.

  So when he brought in the press release I thought it was a, rather cruel admittedly, way to get me back.

  GREG HEYWARD REVEALS ALL!

  We tag along with recently retired and newly outed Greg Heyward as he does a rather revealing shoot for DNA Magazine, and also present an exclusive excerpt from his upcoming book, which deals with some of the fallout from his breakup with fellow AFL star Declan Tyler. What exactly happened, and how does Heyward now feel about his ex and his new partner?

  Make sure you grab your copy of WHO tomorrow when it goes on sale across the country!

  But I knew from the expression on Coby’s face that it wasn’t a joke, as much as I would have liked it to be.

  “It’s a bit rough calling you the new partner, isn’t it?” Coby asked. “You’ve been together for years!”

  “Well, Heyward has a very good PR manager, coaching him in the right terminology to use so he looks like the perpetual victim while maximising the amount of empathy he can get from the public,” I said in an increasingly croaky voice.

  “You know, you get very clinical whenever you talk about him.”

  “Thanks, Freud. I know, purposefully distancing, blah blah blah. If you want to be nice to me, get me a pineapple donut and a coffee.”

  Coby nodded and disappeared with a sense of relief to get out of there.

  I wasn’t that serious about the pineapple donut, but I was grateful when it appeared on a serviette already stained yellow with that heavenly, oily glaze. “Thanks, Coby.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m still going to come on Friday.”

  Coby tried not to look too hopeful. “I wasn’t expecting you to, not after that. I mean, Greg Heyward’s going to be there. He’s the Midsumma King and all.”

  “He’s no king. If I have to rip that crown off his head with his scalp attached, I will.”

  “Ooookay.” Coby slowly backed out.

  The donut was demolished in two bites. I washed it down with the coffee, pulled out my mobile, and called Dec.

  “Are you feeling any better?” he asked after the usual hellos.

  “Feeling about a hundred times worse.”

  “I told you you shouldn’t have gone to work. Please tell me you’re going home.”

  “No, I’m seeing the day out. But I guess you haven’t seen it yet.”

  “Seen what?” he replied, which was pretty self-explanatory.

  “Hang on.” I went into my e-mail folders, where I knew Coby cc’d me all digital copies of press releases anyway, and sent it on to Dec. “Check your e-mail.”

  I don’t think he knew he was humming to himself as he tapped away on his keyboard, and that small private moment in which he was caught unaware made me smile and wish I was there to see it. The snatch of tune stopped in midbreath as he sighed heavily.

  “We knew this was coming.”

  “I know,” I said. “I was just hoping it would be later. You know me. I love to procrastinate.”

  “Yeah, well Greg never did.”

  I didn’t even like casual references to their past life together. I tried to tell the acidic green giant within me that it was just Heyward and what he was doing to us that made me react in such a way. Had it been a genuinely nice guy who Dec had gone out with once upon a time, I’m sure I wouldn’t be going around saying things like how I planned to decapitate him.

  I think I must have paused too long, because Dec said my name.

  “Huh?”

  “You’re being quiet again.”

  “That really worries you, doesn’t it?”

  “It can at times. Look, I’m going to pick you up from work tonight, and we’re going to go out like normal people and have fun.”

  “I hate to break it to you, Dec, but after work most normal people go home and crash so they have enough energy to go back to the drudgery of work the next day. Life’s kind of like a depressing Ken Loach film in that way.”

  “I’m going to pretend I know what you meant then, and tell you that I’ll pick you up at six.”

  “Fine. But don’t expect me to be good company.”

  “Wow, you must be tired,” Dec said. “You just handed that one to me on a silver platter.”

  “Ha ha,” I told him. “See you at six.”

  THE warm light that spilled out from the windows and the open door of the Napier couldn’t help but cheer me as we found a parking spot only a few doors down.

  “Good choice,” I told Dec, and he was glad to see me relatively happier.

  The road was practically deserted as the pub was situated on a residential street, and Declan must have thought it pretty safe as his hand wormed its way into mine. I wished we had parked a little further away so we could prolong the walk, because I knew as soon as we reached the door we would have to separate. It was an unspoken safety rule. Sometimes even Dec’s fame couldn’t protect us.

  Stepping into the yellow light, Declan’s hand dropped away from mine, and we entered the warmth of the pub. I immediately headed for our usual corner in the back of the room with the mosaic walls. I stopped short when I saw Abe, Lisa, Fran, and Roger at our table.

  “Thought you could use some cheering up,” Dec whispered in my ear as he moved around me to say hello to everybody.

  I really wished he hadn’t. It was hard enough to pretend to be “up” with just Declan. Being under the possible attention of four more people meant more energy would have to be invested, which I wasn’t up for at the moment.

  But I plastered on my smile and followed Dec around the table, bestowing hugs and kisses like I was the Queen meeting the talent at the Royal Variety performance. But as the night went on I began to flag, especially when the elephant in the room was brought up by Abe: the excerpt of Heyward’s book in the next day’s Who.

  “Are you planning a response?” Abe asked Dec.

  “Nope,” Dec said with forced cheer.

  “Do you think that’s the right thing to do?” Roger asked.

  “I guess,” Dec replied in the same singsongy tone.

  “What do you think?” Roger asked me, obviously hoping for a more verbose response.

  “I think I need another beer,” I said and got up from the table.

  The bartender, who knew us as regulars, was cha
tty as he took my order. When I felt someone stand beside me I assumed it was Declan checking up on me, but I turned to see Roger.

  “Do you want another?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “You’re turning down a beer? You okay?”

  “I’m here to ask you the same question.”

  I moaned and rested my head upon the counter. Then I lifted it straightaway, as it was sticky and smelled of old beer. I wondered if I would look too anal if I used the small bottle of hand sanitiser hidden in my messenger bag when I got back to our table.

  “I’m fine.” I gave him my big fake smile and slid a ten dollar note over to him. “Can you take my beer back for me? I need to go to the loo.”

  I didn’t give him time to respond. I threaded my way through the crowd of people lining for drinks and breathed easier when it sparsed out further into the bar. I threw myself into the loos and stared at myself in the mirror for a moment. The warped perspective and blue light that supposedly stopped junkies from finding veins to shoot up into only made me look worse than I already felt.

  “You sexy thing,” my mirrored self said mockingly.

  “Shut up. What do you know?” I asked him.

  Talking to yourself, Simon. Soon you’ll have a one way ticket to the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital if you don’t sort this out.

  I could only imagine the spin Heyward would put on it. The next cover of Who would likely proclaim There for Declan: Greg Heyward comforts his ex-lover through his recent romantic trials. Or maybe not. I may have claimed his scalp by then and be in Barwon Prison, where I would probably be the only inmate who didn’t have a series of Underbelly based on his exploits.

  I lathered my hands with the gross liquid soap provided and scrubbed at my face. I don’t know if it was actually making my face feel better, because instead of the pungent smell of stale beer, the overpowering fragrance of the soap was making my stomach turn.

  The door swung open, and Roger came to a stop behind me.

  “Hey, what about my beer?” I protested.