‘Good,’ I lied. In fact, I still had the bruises, though the nightmares were beginning to fade. To be honest I was a little suspicious of his question. If I said I was still in pain, was he going to smack me in the face with an ice-cold sponge again? It was something he appeared to enjoy.
‘I’ve got exciting news,’ he said.
I waited. Most adults’ exciting news isn’t exciting. It’s often not even news.
‘There was a scout at the game,’ Mr Broadbent continued. ‘Someone from the state under-sixteen squad. To be honest, I think he came to see members of the St Martin’s team, but it seems he left with only one name on his lips. Yours. He rang me half an hour ago.’
This was probably incredibly exciting for a PE teacher, though it wasn’t too much of a struggle for me to hide my enthusiasm.
‘The state under-sixteen squad,’ I said. I had to say something.
‘Yup. He wants you to try out.’ Mr Broadbent held up a hand as if to stop me from blubbering and dribbling with over-excitement. ‘Doesn’t mean you’ll get selected for the team, you understand. No guarantees. But it’s a fabulous opportunity.’
I held up my own hand. ‘Mr Broadbent,’ I said. ‘You’ve obviously mistaken me for someone who gives a poo poo. Let me tell you something. I don’t like sport. I hate soccer. I only played in that game to impress Destry Camberwick, who wasn’t impressed because she wasn’t there. This makes me a complete and utter dill. I nearly lost an eye and a couple of limbs. I flirted with brain damage and all for nothing. If you think I’m ever going to go on a soccer pitch again, then you are delusional. Please tell this scout to insert his offer where the sun is unlikely to ever shine.’
Actually, I didn’t say any of that. I made it all up later.
‘Oh?’ I replied, which, to be honest, isn’t quite as witty.
‘Yes,’ he continued. ‘You’d go for training with the rest of the squad and there’s a distinct chance you’ll be part of the interstate soccer tournament taking place in Brisbane next winter.’
‘Brisbane?’ I said. I didn’t want to give the impression that ‘Oh’ was my only conversational gambit.
‘Yes. Isn’t that great? All expenses paid. And, who knows, it may be the start of a tremendous career.’ His eyes were shining. For a moment I thought he might blubber and dribble with over-excitement. ‘As far as I know no one from Milltown has ever been offered anything like this. What do you say?’
I looked at the basketball guys warming down but found nothing in the way of inspiration.
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said finally.
‘Of course,’ said Mr Broadbent. ‘I’m happy to meet with your parents and we can talk it over. But you can’t think about it too long. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and you need to grab it with both hands. Come with me to the office and I’ll print out the state enrolment forms for you.’
I trailed behind him to his office. Every second counts when it comes to putting off maths problems.
‘Okay,’ said Andrew. ‘Let me summarise your argument so far.’
We’d gone back to his place after school. I hadn’t mentioned the state soccer squad offer to him because I was doing my best to forget it.
‘You’re thinking about performing in the Milltown’s Got Talent competition because your mystery texter suggested it, and for some reason you think it’s a good idea to follow his or her suggestions …’
‘It’s not so much …’
Andrew held up a hand. This was happening often lately.
‘Shush,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking, and that’s a delicate matter at the best of times. If you talk I’ll lose my thread and go and play video games instead.’
I shushed.
‘But your problem,’ he continued, ‘is that you get panic attacks when you’re the centre of attention, so you want to perform an act in front of the whole school in such a way that no one notices you. Is this fair?’
There was a long pause.
‘You can talk now, Rob,’ he said. ‘I have control.’
‘Basically, yes,’ I said.
‘Okay. Here’s what we do. I get up on stage and introduce you. I say, “Please welcome Rob Fitzgerald, the Invisible Man” and that’s it. Two minutes of no one on the stage – you can hide in the toilets if it suits – and then … thunderous applause.’
‘“Doctor, the Invisible Man’s outside.” “Tell him I can’t see him!”’
‘Is that a joke?’
‘Kind of.’
‘Okay, so that’s ruled out the stand-up comedy routine.’
‘I’ve got other jokes. Knock-knock ones, mainly.’
Andrew held up his hand again. What is it with raised hands? ‘And I’d be grateful if you’d keep them to yourself. No, it’s a tricky one, Rob. As far as I can tell you have no talents whatsoever.’
‘Oi, cut it out. I don’t come to you for insults.’ It was true. Grandad normally supplied those and he was very good.
‘You can’t sing, you can’t play a musical instrument and you can’t tell jokes. What about dancing?’
‘Well …’
‘Here.’ Andrew pulled out his phone, pressed a couple of icons and dance music spilled out at surprising volume. ‘Dance for me.’
‘What, now?’
‘Yes, now.’
So I did. I’m rather proud of my dancing. There’s a full-length mirror in my bedroom and I sometimes dance in front of it. It may seem immodest, but I think I’m very innovative in my dance techniques. I do moves (please note that I never bust them) that no one else has ever tried, interpreting music in new and exciting ways. After thirty seconds, Andrew switched off his phone.
‘Okay, you can’t dance either.’
‘Wait a moment …’
‘Trust me, Rob.’ Andrew got up and paced the room, his hands on either side of his head, fingers against temples. ‘Think, Andrew,’ he said in a low voice. ‘There has to be something that Rob can do. You’ve been friends for ages. Surely, you must have detected some talent, no matter how carefully hidden?’
‘Oi,’ I said, but he ignored me.
‘Soccer, true, but you can’t enact a soccer game on stage.’ He clicked his fingers and wheeled around to face me.
‘That dog you walk. Does it do tricks?’
‘You mean Trixie.’
‘Trixie the tricksy dog. Perfect. Didn’t an act like that win Australia’s Got Talent one year? Some woman and her dog that could do amazing things. Somersaults, baking a cake, performing quadratic equations and singing a medley from The Sound of Music? All at the same time.’
‘I don’t think so. Anyway, Trixie doesn’t do tricks, as far as I know. Unless you count pooing twice your body weight in one go as a good trick.’
‘Frankly,’ said Andrew, ‘I’d pay good money to see that on the Milltown High stage, but I don’t think it’ll work. Unless it does it on command?’
I shook my head.
‘Pity,’ he said.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘Let’s just give up. You’re right. I have no talent and anyway, it’s crazy to think I could control my panic attacks long enough to get through an act. It terrifies me just thinking about it. I have to accept my limitations. I’m useless …’
‘GOT IT!’ yelled Andrew. He rushed over and punched me hard on my arm. It’s his way of showing affection and I wish he wouldn’t.
‘Ow,’ I said. ‘What have you got?’
‘The act you’ll do in Milltown’s Got Talent. It’s something you already do really well, according to you. And it’s perfect because it won’t be like Rob Fitzgerald will be up on stage at all, so you shouldn’t have a panic attack. It’s woeful, true, and everyone will hate it, but that’s not the point, is it? The point is, it’ll achieve the first challenge. Call me a genius, mate. Call me a genius.’
‘You’re a genius.’
‘I know.’
‘So are you going to tell me this amazing plan whereby I’ll be up on stage and not up on s
tage at the same time?’
He did.
‘You’re a genius,’ I said.
‘I know,’ he said.
Grandad comes to our house for lunch once a week, on Sunday. Dad picks him up and drops him home again. Pop doesn’t stay long. According to Mum it’s because he’s independent. According to Pop it’s because he doesn’t like us.
This time, two of us passed on the roast beef. Grandad has been vegetarian for as long as I can remember, but I’ve never asked him about it. It’s just the way it is, a peculiarity that isn’t really a peculiarity because I’m used to it.
Mum placed a burger on my plate and one on Grandad’s.
‘What’s this?’ he said, poking it with his fork as one might poke a body to discern if it’s still alive. The burger didn’t twitch.
‘Bean burger,’ said Mum.
‘I don’t care what it’s been, what is it now?’ said Pop.
‘Very funny, Dad,’ said Dad. ‘It was funny the first time I heard it, back in 1987, and you have to say that as a joke, it’s aged well.’
‘I wish I could say the same for you, you blankety heap of dog vomit,’ said Grandad.
‘I know which act I’m doing for Milltown’s Got Talent,’ I said. I wasn’t trying to stop an argument. Sunday dinners are always like this and everyone seems to have fun. It stopped the conversation, though.
‘I’m sorry, Rob,’ said Mum. ‘What’s Milltown’s Got Talent?’
I explained. I felt slightly bad that I’d taken Grandad into my confidence but not my parents. In my defence, I hadn’t made any decisions to actually do it – in fact, the odds were overwhelmingly against. Mum and Dad listened and didn’t say anything, but I could read their expressions. What about panic attacks? Rob has difficulty talking to the search assistant on a computer …
‘The beauty of this act is that it won’t be me doing it. Well, it will, but in some ways, if I can get my head space right, it won’t. Even though it will be me on stage, it won’t be me doing it …’
‘That’s it,’ said Grandad. ‘Rob’s finally cracked. Alan, you call the ambulance while I fashion a straightjacket from a pair of curtains …’
‘Can I perform the act after dinner?’ I said. ‘I need to get as much practice in as possible and I want your honest criticism.’
‘Of course,’ said Dad. ‘And you can rely on your grandfather being honest. And critical. Unfortunately.’
I set up the front room while Mum and Dad loaded the dishwasher. Grandad helped me. Well, I say ‘helped’, but basically it was drawing the curtains. I moved the furniture back against the walls so there was a round space in which I could perform.
‘Are you sure this is a good idea, Rob?’ said Grandad while I was doing this. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s brilliant if you can stand up in front of people and perform, but …’
‘But you worry I won’t be able to.’
‘I worry you’ll try, get a panic attack in front of the entire school and freeze. Not the end of the world, true, but you aren’t full of confidence now and I’d hate to see you hurt.’
‘Ah, Pop,’ I said. ‘That’s so sweet. You really care about me.’
‘No need to exaggerate,’ said Pop. ‘I’d find it embarrassing, that’s all. You’re family, even though I will deny that in a court of law if you ever claim I said it.’
‘I have to try, Grandad,’ I said. ‘That’s all I’m doing now. Just trying.’
‘Well, I’m proud of you,’ said Grandad, ‘though I will deny …’
‘I won’t quote you,’ I said.
Mum and Dad came in and sat in the chairs against the wall. Pop sat on the couch. I stood to the side and briefly gazed at my audience of three.
‘I need to give you context,’ I said.
‘You need to give me dessert,’ said Grandad.
‘Shhh,’ said Mum and Dad together.
‘Lady Macbeth,’ I said, ‘has just persuaded her husband, Macbeth, to kill the Scottish king, Duncan, who has come to stay at the Macbeth house overnight …’
‘It’s one reason I never stay over here,’ said Grandad.
‘Will you shut up?’ said Mum. She turned to me. ‘So that’s the plan. Acting out a scene from Shakespeare.’
‘It’s why I said it would be me, but not me,’ I replied. ‘If I can get into character, then it will be someone else up there – in this case, Macbeth himself. I will be hiding beneath him.’
‘But what about putting it into context? Like you’re doing now,’ said Dad. ‘You aren’t hiding now.’
‘True,’ I said. ‘But I won’t be putting it into context in the show, I’ll just be acting the scene. Maybe my English teacher can do that, or maybe it’s not important. I just thought you guys should know.’
‘Okay,’ said Pop. ‘So this Macbeth person is going to kill the king. Is this after dessert?’
‘Shut up,’ said Mum and Dad.
‘It is, actually,’ I said. ‘They’ve had a banquet and the king’s gone to bed. So Macbeth is trying to pluck up the courage to do it. Are you with me?’
My audience nodded. Every single one of them.
I took a deep breath and stepped out into my homemade theatre in the round.
Okay. Attempt number forty-two at the Destry poem. The previous forty-one have been consigned to the garbage bin where they rot, along with assorted fish-heads and broccoli stalks.
I suspect my poems stink more than the decaying foodstuff.
I’m reluctant to give up rhyme, though so far the ones I’ve chosen verge on the desperate. (For example, I just realised that Destry and ‘broccoli’ might go together. Destry in the vestry, sweet and tasty as broccoli. I know. The smell makes you gag; maggots are gathering around my pen.)
Rhyme can be tricky, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be sneaky with it. There’s no reason to simply use end-stopped lines all the time. What about enjambement (when one line flows on to the other)? Or half rhymes? No one would argue that these weren’t respectable literary techniques. I feel inspired.
She seared my vision, this angel called Destry,
And I knew she was the best she
Could be. Her last name, Camberwick,
Was magic, a miracle, a wondrous trick
Of sound. I was totally smitten,
A love-lost kid, a freaked-out kitten …
Forgive me while I bang my head against the wall until it hurts.
My head, not the wall.
I crouched a little, looked over my shoulder and took a tentative step towards my audience. I froze, my gaze fixed somewhere above their heads, a look of fear (hopefully) plastered across my face. Slowly, slowly, I stretched out one arm.
‘Brilliant,’ said Grandad. ‘Let’s have pudding.’
‘Oh, for Pete’s sake,’ yelled Mum. ‘You’re like a small child, Pat. Have some respect. Rob is acting and all you can do is make stupid jokes.’
‘Yeah, act your age,’ said Dad.
‘Oh, you guys need to lighten up,’ said Grandad. ‘Rob knows I’m joking, don’t you Rob?’
I had to smile.
‘It’s just the four of us,’ Pop continued. ‘I wouldn’t have done it if we’d been in the blankety Sydney Opera House, for crying out loud. Rob can start again.’
‘And will you shut up this time?’ said Mum.
Grandad pulled an imaginary zipper across his lips.
I did the whole crouch, backward glance, step, freeze and arm stretch routine once again. ‘Is this a dagger which I see before me,’ I hissed. ‘The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.’ I closed my hand over empty air and started back a step or two. ‘I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable as this which now I draw.’
I stepped out of character for a moment. ‘I’ll have a dagger in my belt when I do the a
ctual show,’ I explained. ‘A plastic one because I suspect Milltown wouldn’t be too happy if I brought a real one to school.’ That was something of an understatement. They’d probably judge a lunchtime detention a serious under-reaction for threatening the whole school with a blade. ‘Are you with me so far?’ I said.
‘Absolutely,’ said Mum.
‘Lay on Macduff,’ said Grandad. He spread his arms out as Mum and Dad turned towards him. ‘What did I say? Rob asked.’
I took up where I’d left off.
‘Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going; and such an instrument I was to use. Mine eyes are made the fools o’ the other senses, or else worth all the rest.’ I gave a small scream of terror. ‘I see thee still, and on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, which was not so before.’ I shook my head. ‘There’s no such thing: it is the bloody business which informs thus to mine eyes.’
I straightened and looked around me, one hand outstretched. This was the hand that was going to hold the plastic dagger. I wished I’d thought of it before, because I felt a bit of a dill, but I wasn’t going to stop now and get one from the kitchen. Grandad would almost certainly ask me to bring him back a piece of cake.
‘Now,’ I said, ‘o’er the one halfworld nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse the curtain’d sleep; witchcraft celebrates pale Hecate’s offerings, and wither’d murder, alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf, whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, with Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design moves like a ghost.’ I looked down at my feet. ‘Thou sure and firm-set earth, hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear thy very stones prate of my whereabout, and take the present horror from the time, which now suits with it.’ I gave a hollow laugh, one (I hoped) full of anguish and self-loathing. ‘Whiles I threat, he lives: words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.’
‘Ding dong,’ said Grandad. Mum opened her mouth to speak, but I beat her to it. Who’d have guessed Grandad knew this play so well?
‘I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell.’ I walked off between Mum and Dad’s chairs. The effect was ruined slightly because that meant I ran into the wall, but I hoped my audience would get the general idea.
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