More Than Us

by Dawn Barker

  I saw Emily’s car swing into the school car park and a few moments later, she hurried over to me. She wore a loose dress, black with a white floral pattern, and silver flat sandals. Her strawberry blonde hair was tied up in a messy bun with her sunglasses on her head. Her normally pale shoulders were pink from the sun.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d quickly run into the library to return some books and the time got away from me. How did the physio go today?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said, smiling. ‘It feels a bit better.’

  She smiled up at me then stretched on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. I put my arm around her slim shoulders and squeezed her. ‘Okay, let’s do this.’

  She laughed. ‘You sound like you’re getting ready to go into war. It’s just a routine meeting.’

  I raised my eyebrows at her. ‘That’s what they always say. Then we get in and they say the same things – he’s not listening, he’s not sitting still, he’s failing…’

  Emily shook her head, no longer laughing. ‘Paul! That’s not fair. He was much better towards the end of last year.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ I straightened my back and tried to look confident as we walked along the smooth concrete path towards the main building. As a kid, I had never set foot in a private school; it had never been an option for people like me. I had always planned for my own kids to go to the local school too. After all, when Cameron was old enough to start school, we were living in the well-to-do Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, not the rough housing estates of Aberdeen: the local school would be more than adequate. But when he started kindergarten, Cameron was constantly in trouble. After a terrible year, Emily had persuaded me to send him here, Oakfield Grammar, a private boys’ school that had promised us the world. They said that they knew how to teach boys, that while Cameron had a different learning style, they could help him thrive. We paid the fees and forked out for the uniform, but nothing has really changed in the years he’s been here. When Tilly started school, we sent her straight to the girls’ school, but her parent-teacher interviews were always great, and we always left smiling, with our egos plumped up, like the way Emily pounded the sofa cushions before guests arrived. It made Cameron’s all the more heartbreaking.

  Inside, the receptionist smiled warmly at Emily and greeted her by name. We sat on a sofa opposite the reception, whispering small talk to each other, until his teacher arrived and shook our hands. We followed her past some classrooms to a small office.

  After some brief pleasantries, she started. ‘I’ll get straight to the point. I’m a bit worried about Cameron. He hasn’t settled in to Year 5 as well as I’d have hoped.’

  I closed my eyes for a second, deflating, then opened them and saw her peering at me, looking for my reaction. She hadn’t even started by stirring in some praise to sweeten things. Why had I even bothered to hope that this meeting would be different?

  ‘He’s not playing very well with the other boys, not joining in in class. I thought it was maybe just nerves at starting a new year, and we do have some new boys this year, but the other boys seem to have settled in. How has he been at home?’

  I glanced at Emily who caught my eye, then sat up straight and leaned forward. She took a deep breath. ‘He’s been okay, well, just the same. You would have heard from the other teachers, and the school counsellor, that we’ve had some problems, that Cameron’s had some problems I mean, for a long time, haven’t we, Paul?’

  I nodded, then put my hand on her leg. She put her hand on top of mine. I felt tears well up; I kept my eyes down, horrified at my reaction.

  Emily was still talking. ‘He was like this last year, but he’s not good with new things and we thought—’

  I cleared my throat, able to look up now. ‘Do you think it could be that he’s just a bit nervous? He’s just started a new year, new teacher…’

  ‘But he’s always like this, Paul,’ Emily said quietly. She looked up at the teacher.

  ‘I also need to tell you that there was an incident yesterday,’ the teacher said, hesitantly.

  ‘What kind of incident?’ Emily said, her voice high and wavering.

  ‘Mrs Vanetti was on playground duty and she heard a commotion, on the grass beside the tennis courts. She went over and there was a ruckus.’

  ‘A ruckus?’ I said, frowning.

  She carried on, still looking at Emily. ‘She saw Cameron on top of another boy, hitting him, and the other boys were in a panic.’

  ‘But…why? What happened?’ Emily said.

  I felt sick. ‘You told us that no one is playing with him, they’ve probably been giving him a hard time.’

  ‘Paul, that doesn’t excuse him punching someone.’

  ‘She didn’t say he was punching him, Emily,’ I said, then turned to the teacher. ‘That’s not what you said, is it?’

  ‘Regardless, he was very distressed, and was using physical violence—’

  ‘You don’t know what happened. Maybe the other kids hit him first…’

  ‘You’re right,’ she said, smiling sweetly. ‘That’s a possibility. But the other child denies hitting Cameron first. They agreed that they’d had a verbal disagreement over who was sitting on the bench first, and the other child says Cameron became aggressive. When I asked Cameron, he agreed.’

  I could see Emily wiping a tear away and trying to calm herself down. She tried to speak light-heartedly. ‘I never thought I’d be called into school to discuss my son being a bully.’

  ‘Emily. No one’s saying he’s a bully,’ I said. ‘That’s not what you’re saying, is it?’

  Emily pressed her lips together then looked at the teacher, who was shaking her head. ‘What will we do? What do you suggest?’

  The two of them started to talk about the same old things: psychologists and buddies and team sports and family counselling but I could barely hear them for the noise of the blood pumping through my head as the fibres of my muscles all over my body swelled and tensed, but somehow, I managed to grip the arms of my chair and stay calm and nod at the appropriate places until we heard the school bell ring and we too were dismissed.

  There wasn’t time for Emily and I to discuss anything as the boys poured out of the classrooms. We met Cameron outside, both smiled brightly and talked too loudly, then I drove him home while Emily went to collect Tilly and take her to her dancing class. I said nothing to him of the meeting, and he said nothing to me of the fight.

  That evening, after we’d had dinner as a family and put the children to bed, Emily went outside in the warm twilight to hang the washing. I opened a beer, then sat down at the kitchen table, opened my computer, and scrolled through my emails. After a few minutes, Emily came back in, filled the kettle and switched it on. She slammed mugs down, then dropped teaspoons into them with a clang. I closed my eyes and sighed. She walked over to me, then put her hand on my laptop and closed it.

  I sighed. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I spoke to him,’ she said. ‘When I went to kiss him goodnight. It’s true, what the teacher said. He started it.’

  ‘He’s only ten years old, he just lost his temper.’

  ‘Don’t excuse it. Would you think it was okay if Tilly punched someone over and over? You need to teach him that it’s not acceptable to be violent. And you need to tone down your behaviour, your reactions.’

  I screwed my face up as I looked at her. ‘Me? Why’s this my fault?’

  ‘He asked me if you were going to be angry with him. He looked frightened. Paul, you forget that you’re big, and when you snap at them, even if you don’t mean to, your voice is loud and you scare them.’

  I tried to keep my voice quiet, though I wanted to raise it. ‘Emily, I don’t know where this is coming from. What does this have to do with what Cameron did? Anyway, we don’t know what the other kid said. Maybe it was self-defence. We can’t hover beside him to fight for him; he needs to learn to stand up for himself.’

  ‘Stop defending his behaviour, Paul!’

  �
�He’s just a kid! I’m sick of all these people deciding that he is a problem. I was the kid labelled as the troublemaker before I found football; there’s only so many times that people can tell you you’re bad before you just give up and do what they expect.’

  She shook her head, exasperated. ‘I’m not expecting him to be bad. He is being bad, Paul. Don’t blame me. As if I wouldn’t give anything to see him happy.’ Her voice broke.

  I let out a long breath then nodded. It wasn’t worth a fight right now. ‘Okay. Sorry. You’re right. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. Sometimes I just feel so sorry for him. It’s like… everyone’s always on at him. He never gets a break. At least he was honest.’ I tried to smile.

  ‘That’s even strange, don’t you think? Kids usually lie to get out of trouble, but he didn’t seem to care, or to understand. It’s like he doesn’t understand the social… usefulness… of it. I’ve been reading about empathy and social skills and I think—’

  ‘Emily, are you really saying that our son has something wrong with him because he’s telling the truth? He’s doing what we’ve always told him to do – be honest, own up to the consequences of his actions.’

  Her eyes were wet. ‘Can’t you for once just admit that we’re having some problems with him? No other parents are being called up to see the teacher. Maybe it’s not him, you’re right, maybe it’s us. Me, if that’s what you’re implying by rolling your eyes, Paul. Regardless, I’m not coping with this and I don’t know how more clearly I can put it. I need help!’ She wiped away a tear, waiting for me to respond. I didn’t know what else to say. The last two days had been a nightmare and I had run out of space in my head to think clearly. I looked away then opened up my laptop again. Emily stormed out of the room, and I heard the bedroom door slam.

  * * *

  Emily had always struggled with Cameron. From the moment he was born, I knew something wasn’t right between them, and it became even clearer later, when Tilly came along. She and Tilly bonded so tightly from the moment she was born, and they’re still the same. They go shopping together, go out for tea and cakes in the cafés, watch movies and musicals. It warms my heart: that’s what mothers and daughters should do. But she was never like that with Cameron.

  I’d always imagined a close relationship with Cameron too. I pictured us going to matches together, and spending weekends cheering for him and his mates on the field, just like my dad used to do with me. Dad was always proudest of me when I was on the pitch; he knew that football was the thing that would lift me into a world wider than the home town that he’d never left. I don’t remember talking about anything else with Dad but the how the Dons – the Aberdeen football team – were faring, or my own game. We were closest when we were singing the team songs with thousands of soaring voices in the stands at Pittodrie pitch. But Cameron wasn’t like me: I had to edit that image of our relationship pretty quickly; I’m not sure Emily has ever adjusted.

  Maybe it wasn’t Cameron. Maybe Emily would have struggled regardless of which baby came first. We hadn’t planned for her to fall pregnant so young. We had only been in Australia a couple of years, we had not long married, and were living a brilliant life full of parties and travel. When she became a mother, it was hard for her to adapt to not being able to do everything that she wanted to, as she tried to cling onto the threads of our life before kids. When she was pregnant, we’d sworn that our children would come with us wherever we went, do what we did, learn to love travel and eating out. But once Cameron was born, and then Tilly, we realised that was impossible. Those threads of our previous life snapped and instead she became knotted up with a toddler and a baby. I know it was Emily who was tied most tightly to them; it was my role to support her and the children, and I took it seriously.

  When the kids were little, I was playing all the time. Emily would tell me I worked too much and that she wished she could come with me when I travelled or went out to a function. I honestly would have rather stayed home than go out and make small talk with strangers, but I had to go. I know it seems glamorous, but every awards dinner is the same: the same people, the same meals, same wine. It was just work. She didn’t believe me. And, as I started to take longer to recover from injuries, I used to float around the function room with that familiar cloud of anxiety building up around me, aware that when the wind changed, I’d be forgotten like all the others who had been dropped back into real life before me. Retirement was inevitable. I had to work harder at networking than I ever did at football; that was my future.

  I tried to spend as much time as I could with Cameron. When I was home, he and I kicked the ball to each other over and over in the back yard, scoring goals between the jacaranda tree and the trampoline. When he was five, I signed him up for kids’ soccer. I couldn’t wait for Sunday mornings down at the oval.

  But I missed the first day. I was away playing in Adelaide.

  Emily was stressed about taking him before they even got there, which would have stressed him out too. Sure enough, about half an hour after the session started, while I was at the airport, waiting for a flight home, she called me. I picked up straight away.

  Emily didn’t even say hello. ‘It was a disaster.’

  I groaned. ‘What? Why?’

  ‘You didn’t tell me I had to actually take part! You should have seen me – I had Tilly with me in one arm, while I’m trying to kick the ball to him, and he was crying because I couldn’t kick it straight, and Tilly was crying because she was being jostled around and all the kids were yelling. You could have warned me!’

  ‘I didn’t know! I’ve never been before either!’

  ‘I thought the coaches taught them. He didn’t want to do it, as soon as they did some game where they had to line up and kick at the goals, he lost it.’ I could hear the anger in her voice.

  ‘Lost it? How?’

  ‘You know, the way he always loses it? He started to cry, then got worse when I tried to calm him down, so I had to pick him up in one arm and drag him away while he punched me.’

  ‘It was his first time, Emily, I’m sure he wasn’t the only one who was a bit worried. Weren’t any of his friends there?’

  ‘All the other dads were there, Paul. You should have seen me, in my sandals with two kids having meltdowns. I didn’t even know how to kick the bloody ball. Eventually some other dad took pity on me and tried to look after Cameron as well as his own kid.’

  I stayed silent. ‘I’ll be there next week.’

  ‘This was meant to be your thing with him. I felt like an idiot.’

  ‘I’m sure Cammie felt worse.’

  Silence. Then, ‘I can’t do this on my own.’

  ‘It’s my job,’ I said, keeping my voice even.

  And that was how it was, little jabs at me for not being there, for not doing what dads were meant to do. Jesus, when I was growing up my mum and dad both had to work, and when Mum wasn’t working, she was looking after us. My kids wanted – want – for nothing. They have their mother full time. They never had to go to childcare. They go to a great school where they learn languages and music and they get taught PE by an ex-Olympian. They go to parties in cinemas and trampoline centres and science centres, they go out for smoothies and sushi and yum cha, they download movies instantly at home. One day in their life is like the best day ever for me when I was growing up.

  What I really wanted to say to Emily when she complained about me being away was, I’ll just stop working then, will I? Give up my career to make sure that both his mother and his father see every little thing that he does and praise him whether he won or lost? Then not only would we have to move to a new house, and a state school, but he’d have to quit the bloody soccer because that all costs money.

  But I didn’t say that.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I wish I had been there to help you.’

  And now that my playing career was over, I would be here to help her. But still fears lingered: had I left it too late to try and slot back into my family? What i
f I’d listened to Emily back then, said no sometimes to work, put my family first like she wanted me to? Would Cameron be different? Perhaps if we’d had less, life would have been simpler for all of us.

  Three

  Emily

  Weeks passed, then months. It wasn’t all bad. They set Paul up with a psychologist to help him adjust to life after soccer. They linked him up with a mentor, another player who had left the sport and became a PE teacher at a private school. Paul’s agent, Jock, arranged for him to be interviewed on some radio shows, although that was unpaid, and found him some jobs here and there: opening a fun run in the city, writing a couple of pieces for a magazine and a paper on the retirement of athletes. Paul turned up and said all the right things, he did everything that was expected of him but I could sense he was slipping away from us as it became clear that by leaving school at sixteen and going straight into football, he wasn’t really qualified to do anything else. We had savings, things weren’t desperate yet, but we had been living as if his income would stay the same forever.

  He hadn’t wanted me to go back to work at first.

  ‘I want to,’ I’d said, after I poured us both a glass of Pinot and we sat down to dinner. The kids were in their rooms watching something or other on their iPads. We often ate separately from them; it was too stressful to watch Cameron fussing about everything, so we just took the path of least resistance. My stomach fluttered as I spoke quickly. ‘You know I’ve missed it. While you were playing, it was too hard for me to work and look after the kids.’ I saw him flinch. I leaned towards him. ‘Paul, it’s not something that we have to avoid talking about any more. It has happened, let’s deal with it and move forward.’

  ‘But when I get something permanent, what will we do with the kids?’