by Nicole Hayes
‘Yeah. She invited me down to the club, too,’ I continue. Now that the subject is open, I don’t want to lose momentum. This isn’t technically what she said, but it will make Dad feel better to think I’ve made a friend, and a small part of me believes that if you say things out loud often enough they have a better chance of coming true. ‘She’s really nice,’ I add, tearing at the schnitzel like I haven’t eaten all day, hoping to distract him. Faking enthusiasm for a school that clearly doesn’t want me is harder than I imagined. I’ll have to become a better liar to have any hope of being a good daughter.
Dad watches me closely. ‘What’s the point of going to training? Just a bunch of sweaty footballers running around an oval . . . Hardly worth the effort.’
This is the closest thing to a real conversation we’ve managed to have in days and it’s so unexpected that I protest where usually I wouldn’t. ‘Isn’t that what we do every weekend?’ I say, tacking on a strangled chuckle, just in case. ‘Watch sweaty footballers run around an oval?’
‘That’s a match, Shelley. A sporting endeavour,’ he adds, as though that explains it all.
‘But I could learn from their training methods. Their fitness and speed . . .’
Dad keeps chewing in silence. Seventeen, eighteen . . .
‘I’m sure I could use it for athletics. St Mary’s has a team.’ I think they have a team. They must. Doesn’t everyone?
Dad is chewing more slowly now. Maybe, maybe . . .
‘I think it would be really cool. I’ve never been to Fernlee Park before,’ I add, hoping the truth works.
Nineteen, twenty.
‘I won’t be home late,’ I add. ‘Promise.’
Twenty-one.
Dad eyes the remains of his schnitzel and mashed-up peas as though they’re the cause of everything that’s wrong with the world.
‘I really want to go,’ I say quietly, hating the weakness in my voice. ‘More than anything.’ It’s all I’ve been thinking about since that first class. The one good thing that’s happened all day. I don’t know how I’ll face tomorrow without something to look forward to.
Dad turns his eyes on me, studying me with such unexpected directness that I have to look away. It’s hard enough to meet his gaze usually, and almost impossible after today’s general crappiness. The one thing I’ve counted on since the accident is his silent acceptance of anything I tell him, no matter how untrue.
Dad cuts off a small piece of schnitzel and looks at it speared on his fork. He turns it over, back and forth, then returns the fork to his plate. He takes his time to be absolutely sure he’s got it right. It’s a good thing too, as frustrating as it seems, because he never ever changes his mind.
‘All right, then. See what it’s like. But be home for dinner.’ He returns to his schnitzel. ‘This could do with more salt.’
Which means ‘conversation over’.
‘Not in your dreams!’ Josh shouts, his voice whipped from his mouth as we sprint along the home straight. He’s ahead of me, again, but only just. I feel the wind on my face, blood pumps in my ears, and my feet fly beneath me. I push myself so hard that my heart feels ready to explode in my chest. He’s so close. I can’t stand the idea of him beating me. He could never beat me before. He couldn’t beat either of us.
Josh McGuire is the only friend I have left from Glenvalley High. I’ve known him since we were kids, even before we started school. He lives down the street, at number 39. We used to do everything together – our mums were best friends, basically forcing us to play together so they could talk about books and films and all the things they’d studied at university and never got to talk about with anyone else. I didn’t mind the afternoons at the McGuires’. Mrs McGuire was always sunny and kind. She made me laugh, and Mum adored her. I try not to think about what Mum would say if she knew how long it’s been since we’ve seen Mrs McGuire. It’s not all my fault, I know. But some of it is.
Those afternoons were full of laughter and fun. Josh has always been a clown and brilliant at footy. We used to play for the Glenvalley Raiders together, and he was the only other kid who had any hope of catching me before I stopped playing. Josh never made me feel like I was less than anyone else, like I was less than a boy. He used to pick me first or, at worst, second for any team he captained in primary school, and would never let the other boys tease me, even when I beat them. Josh is the main reason I was able to stick with the Raiders for as long as I did, and his was the loudest voice protesting when I had to stop. Almost as loud as mine.
Josh is my best friend, if a teenage boy can ever be best friends with a teenage girl without hormones getting in the way. So far we’ve made it through okay, although recently the fact that he’s a boy seems to be harder to ignore than it used to be. He’s always been good-looking, like his mum, with tanned skin and curly brown hair that flops over his green eyes. A lot of girls like him. It never used to bother me. Now, sometimes, it’s all I can see. He makes me blush now, too, which is ridiculous.
I pump my legs harder, faster, gaining pace. There’s no way I can let him beat me. I thrust my chest forward, lunging in an effort to pip him at the line. It’s not like there’s anyone around to clock us or referee the inevitable argument, but I need to feel like the gap between us isn’t as big as it looks from behind. I lunge sharply – too sharply – losing my balance. My arms flail, reaching for anything that will stop my fall, finding Josh, who, I realise, isn’t as far ahead as he was. As we both trip and nearly fall – him yelling, me laughing – I can’t help but grin at the ground I made up in the last twenty metres. We collapse on the grassy track, laughingly trying to catch our breath.
Incredibly, I don’t hurt myself when I land, and apart from possibly straining muscles from laughing so hard, Josh seems fine too. The track’s deserted, being off-season. No one’s mown it in weeks. The grass is already looking tired and worn, the strange mix of wet warmth and cold dry that makes up a Melbourne autumn doing its best to ruin the only official running track in Glenvalley. We lie there, our rasping breath the only sound between us apart from a handful of birds and the occasional roar of a truck passing along Summervale Road.
I roll over, grinning.
‘I won!’ Josh gloats.
I laugh. ‘Another five metres and I would’ve had you.’
‘Rubbish,’ he says, but not with his usual confidence.
‘You know I did. You just can’t admit it.’ He’s quick for short distances, like I am. But I have stamina. That extra distance used to be enough to take him every time.
Josh shakes his head but doesn’t argue, which is as good as admitting defeat. Josh never gives up when he’s right. Or when he thinks he’s right.
The grass is soft against my back, the air cool on my face. I haven’t been running with Josh as much lately, not like we used to, and I can feel the tightening of my calf muscles at the very idea of how much they’ll kill tomorrow. But I feel good, better than I’ve felt all week.
‘How’s St Mary’s?’ he asks, ruining the moment in a single shot.
‘Fine.’
Josh props himself up on one elbow.
‘What?’ I say crossly. I don’t want to talk about it.
‘Fine?’ The arch of his eyebrow adds an extra sting.
‘Okay. It’s crap. They suck. I hate it. Is that better?’
Josh sighs. ‘Have you made any friends?’
I sit up, ready to snap. ‘What sort of question is that? You’re not my dad.’ But the energy to be angry seems to slip away when I see the genuine interest in his face. And then I want to tell him about Tara and the invitation to go to Fernlee Park next Thursday. I want to tell him about The Great Gatsby and even Sister Brigid, who, while a nun – which is just plain weird – actually seems nice. I won’t tell him about Ginnie Perkins, though. I don’t want to think about her or her friends on my weekends. Monday to Friday is bad enough.
I lie back again, knowing it’s always easier if I don’t have to look at hi
m. His green eyes. His floppy hair. ‘One girl, Tara, is cool. She barracks for the Falcons –’
‘Loser.’
I shoot him the required filthy and continue. ‘We’re going to Fernlee Park next week – to watch the Falcons train. She says they’re just walking around like anybody else.’
Josh laughed, half snort, half chuckle. ‘What, like real people?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘Geez, you want blood? No, there’s no one else. It’s only been a week.’
Silence settles naturally then. Our usual arrangement of him being annoying and me shutting him down is reassuring. Maybe not everything has changed after all.
‘The kids at school asked about you.’
‘Who?’ I try to sound like I don’t care.
Josh hesitates a second too long, like he’s struggling to come up with some names. ‘Julie . . . and Sam.’
A fly hovers near my eyes, my nose. I brush it away but it refuses to give up. ‘They didn’t care much when I was there. Barely talked to them all last year.’
‘Well, they asked. They wanted to know why you left – after . . . all this time.’
He means since the accident. Why it took almost two years to leave. I shrug and push my hair off my face. ‘I have to have a reason?’
Josh shakes his head. I almost feel sorry for him. He’s trying to say the right thing but there’s no right thing to say. ‘The boys at the club have been asking, too.’
This one cuts like he knew it would. My heart ices over and I don’t feel sorry for him anymore. The fly buzzes and hovers, its fat body slow and lethargic as I try to wave it away. ‘Bloody flies!’
‘They asked if you were coming back.’
I roll away from Josh and face the edge of the track. The way the white paint bites deep into the turf, as though the weight of the paint flattened it and not the line machine that drew it.
‘Jesus, Shell.’
‘What?’
Josh nudges me to face him, fixing me in that green-eyed stare. ‘You know what.’
‘I tried, didn’t I? Gave it a year – almost two. They didn’t treat me the same. Like some of me was missing or gone. Like I was less than what I used to be.’ I shake my head, the memory of it sitting like a rock in my chest. ‘I’m done with them – with all of them, even the Raiders. Especially the Raiders.’
‘How can you just be done? That’s not how it works.’
‘I’ve drawn a line, Josh. Between before . . . and after. Then. And now.’
‘Is that you talking or your dad?’
I sit up, tuck my knees under my chin, tight and small. ‘Me.’
‘It doesn’t sound like you.’
My shoulders lift and fall almost involuntarily. ‘I’ve changed.’
‘I can see that.’
I ignore the wave of panic that threatens to topple me. I want to claw it back, claw him back to where we were. Except there’s that line, and I’ve drawn it. We all have.
After a long minute, Josh says, ‘Mum wanted to invite you and your dad to our house.’
‘She’ll have to ask Dad.’
‘I’m asking you.’
‘Why? It’s not up to me.’
‘I guess she thinks it kind of is.’
I frown at him. ‘Why? When is it?’
Josh is beside me now, forcing me to look at him. ‘The eleventh.’
‘Of what?’
Josh doesn’t need to answer that. I already know.
‘June.’ He says it quietly, like something sacred.
It’s weeks away. She’s trying to get me ready for it. She knows I’m avoiding her – that Dad and I both are – and she’s trying to break through before . . . it’s too late.
I shake my head, no, unable to form the word, even though my whole body shouts it. Did he even need to ask?
Josh releases a dry, humourless laugh. ‘I told her you’d say that.’
Sound still won’t form in my throat. I take long, slow breaths, forcing moisture into my mouth, hoping my voice will come with it.
‘So . . . what? You can’t even celebrate your birthday anymore? Everything has to be different? Everything has to change?’
Yes, I want to say. Everything has changed. Even my birthday – especially my birthday. The idea of it, the shape of it. What it means. There’s no one around and suddenly I’m conscious of the absence of noise, the emptiness of this place. The fact that it’s just us.
‘You only turn fifteen once,’ Josh says quietly. ‘You can’t pretend it isn’t happening.’
I should just go along with it but I can’t. No one knows that better than Josh. ‘No,’ I manage eventually.
Josh sucks air noisily, his frustration almost physical.
‘I can’t,’ I rasp, my voice stronger, though still a shadow of itself. ‘Everything is different, whether you like it or not. I thought it would be okay by now but it’s not. We just have to get used to it and start again.’
But it’s more than this. Much more. How could he ask? How could he?
I pull myself up and brush my trackpants roughly. ‘You ready?’
But I don’t wait for him to reply. I’m already headed to the gate.
A cyclone fence stretches along Leafy Crescent, rusty and broken in parts. Fernlee Park is green and overgrown, with small billboards along the boundary. A long race leads into a brown-brick stadium. No one is out on the ground yet and the whole place looks deserted.
I follow Tara into the car park behind the stadium, loose pebbles rolling beneath my feet. Dust kicks up whenever a car drives by, and there are already other kids waiting at the entrance. They all clutch notebooks and pens, and a few have cameras slung around their necks.
‘Hi.’
‘Hey.’
Tara doesn’t introduce me, but no one seems to care either. Or notice. ‘Who’s here?’ she says to no one in particular.
A short, thick, redheaded girl, who, up close, looks much older than the others, answers with the tired voice of someone sick of having to know everything. ‘Rocky and Jury came by. I haven’t seen Blackie yet but his car’s here.’ She points to a dark green Toyota Corolla, a hotted-up two-door with a black spoiler and dark windows. ‘I’m sure he’ll come out to say hi.’
‘He’s in physio,’ a boy says. ‘He came early to see Barry.’ He looks about sixteen and is sporting a blond-streaked mullet that I think is supposed to look like Bono’s from U2, given his ‘Under a Blood Red Sky’ T-shirt, but looks more like Kim Wilde’s.
‘Did you see him?’ The redhead isn’t happy that someone knows something she doesn’t.
‘No,’ Bono Boy sniffs. ‘But I heard on the news he’s injured, and Barry’s door is shut.’
‘It’s probably a hammy,’ one says.
‘Might be his knee again,’ says another.
Either way, they all agree Blackie is with the physio.
The redhead sticks her hands in her jeans pockets and draws a semicircle with her toe in the dusty ground. If it wasn’t for her lined face, you’d think she was a kid – thirteen at most. But then she smiles and tiny creases touch her eyes, and I wonder if she could be in her thirties. ‘Buddha’s had his hair cut,’ she says, as if making an earth-shattering announcement – and it must have been, because she gets everyone’s attention fast.
‘Really?’
‘What’s it look like?’
‘I bet it was his girlfriend’s idea.’
‘Yeah, Brandy must have made him do it.’ They all laugh, nodding and smiling as though they’re talking about their best friends.
I keep silent. So far no one has spoken a word to me. They don’t look at me, not even a curious glance. I try to fight the churning inside, the frustration, even though I don’t actually have anything to say.
As though reading my mind, Tara suddenly remembers I’m there. ‘We’re still early. Plenty more players to arrive. Did you bring your autograph book?’
&nb
sp; Autograph book? I can’t believe how stupid I am! Of course I should have brought an autograph book. I don’t actually own one but it’s suddenly so obvious I need one that I can’t believe I’ve managed this long without. I don’t know how I would have filled it, because I’ve never met anyone famous before, but that’s not the point. I need one now.
‘That’s okay,’ Tara says when I shake my head dumbly. ‘I have some spare paper. You can have a few sheets,’ she offers, and begins ripping pages from the back of her Geography exercise book.
‘Thanks. If you’re sure you don’t need them . . .’ This is the longest conversation Tara and I have had since that first day and, as I’m still not entirely sure she actually wants me here, I’m more than a bit relieved. I’d hung around her the whole day at school, waiting for a sign that her offer to go to Fernlee Park tonight still stood, or if it was something I’d just created in my head. But at the end of the day she came up to my locker and, with a shrug to suggest she didn’t care how I answered, said, ‘Are you coming?’
I’m unexpectedly pleased by the offer of pages from her Geography exercise book. I blink hard and focus on the paper, the whiteness almost too bright for my suddenly sensitive eyes. I blink again, furiously. Then I remind myself I’m about to meet my heroes and suddenly I’m fine, and I decide right then that nothing else matters. I feel bigger – stronger – just thinking about it.
Tara holds up a Glenthorn Football Club Official Autograph Book, opening it for me to see. Apart from the pages filled with scrawled signatures, it also has a section with rows of stats under headings like ‘History’, ‘Premierships’, ‘Charlie Medals’ (followed by a fat zero) and ‘Goal Kickers’. I decide that I will definitely buy myself an official Glenthorn autograph book like this one and that Tara is suddenly the coolest girl I know.
A car appears in the driveway and everyone scatters. Every kid lines up at the doorway to the gym as though the whole thing has been organised and everyone has – and knows – their place. I find myself wondering if there’s room for a newcomer. And how you qualify if there is.