by Scott Monk
Fire extinguishers blasted the car as the crowd arrived. One of Blackwell’s mates asked if he was okay, but Aaron pushed him away.
‘Kelly, let’s go,’ Matt said, grabbing her arm. The rawness of the conversation was starting to unnerve him.
She agreed and they turned to leave. Blackwell clutched her shoulder and twirled her around.
‘I still want to talk to you,’ Aaron said.
‘And she said no,’ Matt growled.
‘Oooh, is that jealousy in your voice, Cassidy? C’mon, I’ll fight you for her. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Winner takes the girl?’
‘I don’t fight.’
‘Good, that’ll make it easier for me.’
The first punch hit Matt straight in the eye. He buckled and collapsed to the ground. Most of the students saw it and stopped. A teacher rushed over to Blackwell, but he too was pushed to the ground.
‘Get up and fight!’ Blackwell shouted at Matt, as he rolled on the wet ground. ‘Prove that you’re a man for once.’
‘Aaron, no!’ Kelly said, hurrying to Matt’s aid.
‘See, you do love him. You’d never do that for me.’
‘Stop saying that!’
‘Why? It’s the truth.’
And to make his point, Blackwell kicked Matt in the guts. The pain was biting. His stomach felt like it had burst.
‘Aaron, don’t!’
‘Only if you promise to get back with me.’
He kicked Matt a second time. Kelly started crying and placed herself between Blackwell and Matt, before he sunk the boot in a third time. Aaron considered another attack, before a couple of Princes boys grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him away. The teacher who had been pushed to the ground, yelled at a student to get help.
‘Hey!’ Blackwell protested. ‘What are you doing? She’s my girlfriend.’
‘Getting you out of here before you get yourself into any more trouble,’ one Princes boy answered.
‘Let go of me! Let go of me!’
Blackwell bucked like a brumby, until his two peers couldn’t hold onto him any more. They released him, only to find him turning on them.
‘Traitors! Both of you! All of you!’ he shouted, waving his arms. ‘None of you are my friends, you hear me? You only like me because I’m popular. Well, you know what? I’ve never liked any of you. You all disgust me.’
‘Aaron, that’s enough,’ one of his mates said.
‘Don’t tell me to shut up. I can look after myself. I’m sick of people criticising me. You, my mates, my teachers, my girlfriend, my dad … Especially my dad. It’s not easy being me, you know. You all want to be me but you’ve got no idea, do you? Do you!’
Another of his friends tried calming him down. ‘You’ve said enough tonight. We’re calling you a taxi.’
‘Stop treating me like a baby!’ Blackwell said, spinning around. ‘I can look after myself.’
‘Fine, but this is a party and you’re ruining it.’
The Lions captain shoved his mate in the chest. ‘You wouldn’t be celebrating if it weren’t for me, would you?’
‘Back off, or you’ll regret it.’
‘What are you going to do, Doherty? Fight me?’
Blackwell threw a drunken punch but missed. Doherty dodged it, but didn’t have time to retaliate. A group of Princes Boys jumped on Blackwell and wrestled him to the ground. He threw several punches as he struggled to get them off him.
A siren shrieked in the distance. The wrestling match stopped and everyone looked up. Blackwell’s face paled. The cops! He had to run!
He staggered past the car but a couple of security guards were lumbering his way. He turned back but almost bowled over a couple of his angry mates. Finally, he ran through the back of the crowd and across the school grounds. The security guards chased after him, holding their radios as the siren grew louder. They disappeared into the darkness just as the fire truck appeared.
Kelly bent over Matt, who was in severe pain. He tried smiling but wasn’t doing a good job of it.
The police arrived shortly after. They took Aaron away in a patrol car for questioning. The guards had caught him cowering in a garden. He’d lost one shoe and he was bleeding from where rose thorns had cut him.
Handcuffed, he looked a mess. He was cursing at everyone when the cops pushed him into the back seat. They wouldn’t say what would happen to him.
As the red and blue flashing lights disappeared with most of the crowd, Matt put an arm around Kelly’s shoulders and drew her close to him. She hugged him tightly and pillowed her head against him.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
‘Yes, now that you are,’ he answered.
The removalists swung open the back of the truck then dropped the ramp onto the ground with a metallic clatter. Checking their clipboards, they scaled the steps to the unit above the fish and chip shop. Watching the parade from the ground, Matt was almost embarrassed. The frayed sofa with a sag in the middle, a couple of chairs scavenged from an op shop, a wooden coffee table covered in green plastic, second-hand mattresses and a fridge right out of the 1970s were all loaded into the truck.
Their new home was a two-bedroom unit in an apartment block on the Hume Highway. It was slightly bigger than their old place but noisier. Rowdy eight year olds played space pirates on the green carpeted stairs, while the unit above them rumbled with the dull thomp! thomp! thomp! of techno music. He’d almost forgotten how cramped it was to live in a concrete beehive with forty other families.
‘You will be okay,’ Mr Nassaris said. ‘When this trouble is all finished, you can come back here to live. Me and Mrs Nassaris would be happy to have you.’
‘Thanks.’ Matt smiled bitterly. He had enjoyed the old couple’s company.
‘You ready to go?’ his mum asked, walking up to the small group. ‘The removalists have offered to drive us over to the new place.’
‘Nah, I’ll meet you there. I’ve got a few things to do first.’
‘Okay. Say hello to Kelly for me, won’t you?’
He smiled as he broke into a jog. Mums. They always knew.
Nerves increased his speed. He was excited and jittery as he zigzagged through the streets, thinking of Kelly and her beautiful face. He’d stayed up all night preparing himself for this moment. With Blackwell gone, he could finally confess his feelings for her.
He rang her doorbell and waited. Sweat flooded down his temples.
An athletic man in his forties with a busted nose and wispy hair answered. Matt recognised him from old television footage.
‘G’day, Mr Sinclair. Is Kelly in?’
‘Are you a friend of hers?’ her dad asked suspiciously.
‘Yeah, Matt Cassidy.’
‘The footballer? Of course. How are you? Kelly talks about you all the time.’
Matt grinned.
‘Sorry mate, but she’s not here.’
‘What time do you expect her back?’
Her dad paused. ‘I don’t. She’s already left with her mother for Central Station.’
‘Central Station?’
‘Didn’t she tell you?’
‘Tell me what?’
‘She’s leaving for Perth.’
‘Perth! Why?’
‘I thought she would have told you by now. Her mother and I have decided to send her to live with her aunt and uncle for six months. She wants to get as far away from Aaron as possible.’
‘What time does her train leave?’
Mr Sinclair looked behind him at a clock on the wall. ‘It would be pulling into the station as we speak. Why?’
‘I need to tell her something.’ Matt started running.
The Bankstown-to-city train squealed into Central Station and Matt hopped off. He sprinted along the platform and into the main building with its clock spire and high roof crisscrossed with beams. Commuters stomped in front of him while country travellers flicked through magazines or sat down on benches with cups of stale coffee. He skidded to a stop near
the television monitors listing departure times. The train to Perth was due to leave at 11:19am. His watch said 1:52pm. He’d missed her.
Out of breath and out of luck, he felt like he was going to be sick. He couldn’t believe it. This was so cruel.
‘You wouldn’t be looking for me, would you?’
‘Kelly!’
He nearly bowled her over with an enormous hug.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, taken aback by his outburst.
‘Trying to find you. What’s this about you going to Perth?’
She smiled painfully and looked behind him at her mum who was sitting with her luggage, decoding a crossword. ‘It’s for the best,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘I need to get away. Too much has happened. I don’t feel comfortable here.’
‘But everything’s cool now, isn’t it? Aaron’s gone.’
‘He is, but it’s going to take some time for me to clear my head. Moving to my aunt and uncle’s place will help me do that.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?’
‘Because I was afraid.’
‘Afraid? Why?’
‘Because I knew you’d try to convince me to stay.’
‘Of course I want you to stay. Why wouldn’t I?’
Kelly smiled again, but Matt felt anything but happy. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve made up my mind. I really have to do this. There’s no other choice.’
‘But you’ve changed your mind, haven’t you? Your train left two hours ago.’
‘Wouldn’t you know it; it’s late. There will be a boarding call any minute.’
As if that was a cue, a voice announced the train to Perth was departing within the next five minutes. It was followed by an apology for the delay.
‘I better go,’ she said. ‘I’ll miss you.’
She hugged him and he melted into her warmness. The moment was addictively swift. She broke off then walked towards her mum.
He reached out and grabbed her hand.
‘No, please, Kelly. Don’t go. It’ll be all right.’
‘Matthew, I can’t stay. You know that. Not after everything Aaron did to me.’
‘But you’re running away.’
She squeezed his hand then moved closer. ‘I know this is hard, but all the help you gave me will be wasted if I don’t get on that train. I have to start my life over again. I lost three years to that creep and I need to learn to trust people again.’
‘But don’t you trust me?’
‘Of course I do. You’ve been a true friend over these past weeks, Matthew. In fact, you’ve probably been my only friend. But I can’t let you continue to fight my battles for me. I’ve got to learn to do that for myself. Otherwise, another Aaron Blackwell will come along and this will happen all again. You don’t want that, do you?’
‘No.’
‘Then be happy for me. I really don’t know whether what I’m doing is right or wrong. I’m afraid that I am running away from everything. But please, trust me. Let me do this. Okay?’
He cast a sorrowful gaze downwards and nodded glumly.
The announcer’s voice said the train to Perth was about to leave. Kelly’s mum called out to her that she’d better hurry. Agreeing, Kelly once again said goodbye to Matthew. But once again, he couldn’t bare to see her go. He had one last chance to convince her to stay.
‘Kelly, I’ve got something important to tell you. I’ve been wanting to say it since the first time I met you. I just haven’t had the guts to do it until today—’
‘Matthew—’
‘No, let me finish. If I don’t tell you now and you leave, I’ll be devastated. I can’t keep it a secret any longer. It’s hurting to keep it in. You see—’
But before he could say those three little words, Kelly leaned forward and kissed him.
The bliss of her lips was still warm on his when she moved back and quieted him with a whisper. ‘I know. But that’s your secret. Share it with me when I get back.’
And that was the end. She walked out of his life.
Sitting in a train seat, he stared out the carriage window at the empty track Kelly’s passenger liner had departed from twenty minutes before. There was no Hollywood ending of the girl appearing on the platform after the train had left. He’d checked. There was only misery.
He was a good guy, wasn’t he? Good guys always got the girl in the end. Then why had it ended like this?
He should have been happy. His first kiss. It had been explosive. But at what cost?
Slumping against the window, he caught sight of his reflection and the shiner eclipsing his left eye. Instinctively, he poked at it to see if it still hurt but caught himself. Kelly had had one of those too. That was why she was leaving.
Matt breathed deep and stared back out the window just as his train jolted to a start. He wanted Kelly to stay. Selfish, he knew, but what was wrong about being greedy for love?
The football bounced on the roof of a red Honda and Matt cringed. With one eye open, he squinted at a second-storey unit below his new home. No one appeared at the balcony screaming and telling him off. Good. It was bad enough his mum had yelled at him to stop moping around the place and go outside.
‘If you look any more down in the dumps, people will start throwing rubbish on you.’
Dragging himself across the concrete parking bay, he retrieved his football, dropped it onto his boot then kicked it back into his hands. He really should go find an oval and practise but he didn’t feel like it. He didn’t feel like doing anything.
Twisting the ball in his hands, he lay on a low brick wall that also served as a nest for mailboxes. He listened to the traffic flow along the Hume Highway, hearing pamphlets fluttering in their slots and on the grass. He’d have to do another delivery drop that night. The thought only depressed him more.
A white Commodore indicated and turned into the parking bay. Matt didn’t know the driver but then again, he didn’t know any of his neighbours. They all averted their gaze when he made eye contact. Private people with private lives and private secrets. How fitting.
Itching to do something, he rose to his feet and stretched. He was about to start sussing out the local oval when the driver of the white Commodore called out to him. He was an Aboriginal man in his thirties with cropped hair and a gap between his front two teeth. ‘Excuse me, mate. Do you live here?’
Matt turned around, his face half-hidden by his cap. ‘Yes.’
‘You wouldn’t know where unit nineteen is, would you?’
‘I live in nineteen. Why?’ he asked suspiciously, realising he had seen this guy before.
‘Your name wouldn’t be Matthew Cassidy, would it?’
‘Yeah.’
The man walked over to him and squeezed his hand in a powerful handshake. ‘G’day, my name’s Martin Blake. I’m glad I’ve finally found you. I’ve been searching for you all day.’
Matt stepped backwards, ready to bolt. He didn’t know this guy. And he and his mum hadn’t told anyone their new address.
‘How’d you find out where I live?’
‘I asked the owners of the fish and chip shop where you used to live. They didn’t want to tell me but I told them it was urgent.’
‘Look, mate, if this has something to do with my father, we don’t want to get involved, okay?’
Matt circled around the man and headed towards the steps leading up to his unit.
But the man wouldn’t let him leave that easily. He stopped Matt with a simple question. ‘Ever dreamt of playing for a Sydney club, Matt?’
‘Yeah. All the time.’
‘Ever heard of the Tigers?’ the man asked, toying with him.
‘Of course. Who hasn’t? They’re a great team.’
‘I think so too. Especially when they pay my salary every week.’
Mr Blake pulled a business card from his wallet. He handed it to Matt, who saw the words: Martin Blake, Assistant Coach typed under the black, gold and white Tiger
s logo. A million questions filled his head as he stood there trembling. He was too afraid to ask them.
‘I’ve been to a couple of your matches and I’m impressed by what I’ve seen so far,’ Mr Blake said. ‘I’d like you to come down to the club and meet a couple of the other coaches first. I suspect they’ll be just as impressed.’
‘What …?’ Matt answered, dumbly, unable to believe what he was holding. He also knew where he’d seen Mr Blake before. Watching him from the sidelines with that other talent scout.
‘So, you interested? Or do you want me to call a doctor to treat you for shock?’
‘Is this for real?’
Mr Blake nodded, amused at Matt’s reaction. ‘Only if you want it to be.’
Overwhelmed, Matt sat down on the brick wall then suddenly jumped up and yelled with delight. He was going to be a footy star!
Earsplitting cheering and applause rolled round the colossal stadium as the first team ran onto the football field. Tens of thousands of fans rose from their seats, screaming and whistling at their favourite players. Flags whipped back and forth, giant foam hands chopped through the air and the massive scoreboard flashed messages of support as the ground announcer read out each player’s name. Camera crews ran up and down the sidelines, shooting footage that was watched by millions of supporters worldwide.
Nerves spidered across Matt’s back. For weeks, commentators had billed this grand final as the best ever. ‘It won’t get any better than this, folks …’ The hype had everyone talking about the match, from bus drivers to students to even the Prime Minister. Barbecues, street parties and pubs were firing up across the country. Two super teams were going to produce some of the best football ever. Sports lovers were urged not to miss a second of it on TV.
One person who would miss the coverage was Matt. He’d love to be watching it but for him this was no ordinary grand final. He was playing in it.
Two years had passed since he’d first played first grade for a Sydney club. The promising rookie had blitzed his opponents so thoroughly that he was being touted as the ‘New Face of Rugby League’. Rumours of clubs ready to offer him million dollar contracts were regularly written up in the Sunday tabloids. Agents were forever harassing him to let them represent him. And Australia Post regularly dumped canvas sacks of fan mail at his door. Life was looking pretty good for the kid from the poor side of town.