by Nicole Hayes
Josh’s face is red. He really pushed himself and it shows.
I grin at him, delighted to beat him for real.
‘I held back,’ he gasps, matching my stance almost exactly.
‘Ha!’ I chortle. ‘Like you’d tell me if you didn’t.’
A wicked smile crosses Josh’s face. ‘Best of three?’
I laugh and shake my head. I can still beat him – just – but there’s no way I can do it twice. I’m okay with that, too. Knowing the things I can do and the things I can’t. Dad says you have to take the ball that comes your way and make it work for you. ‘Not on your life, Josh,’ I grin. ‘Not on your life.’
We wander over to the long grass and plonk down by the chain-link fence. He wants to say something, to apologise. After the Ginnie incident I began avoiding him, ignoring his calls and visits. He quickly worked out something was going on. She must have told him. They’re not friends anymore, which is fine by me.
The thing is, Josh didn’t say a word to Ginnie. He knew what it meant for me to start again. To walk into St Mary’s, horrible as it was, and be complete. A singular, complete person. Not the half that’s left behind, not the surviving Brown girl or the twin with the dead brother. Just me. Just Shelley Anne Brown. For a while there, I managed it too.
But I shouldn’t have kept Angus a secret. Somehow I have to live with this – I have to keep him in my life, even as I make it entirely my own. I don’t know how I’ll do that yet, but at least I don’t have to do it alone.
So I showed up at Josh’s house this morning, enjoying the shock and quiet apology I saw in his eyes when Mrs McGuire let me in.
‘Someone at the club probably said something,’ Josh says, breaking into my thoughts.
‘I know.’
‘But she’s a cow for saying all that.’
‘I know.’ I don’t want to talk. I just want to lie here and let the breeze cool my hot cheeks, feel the soft grass against my skin and listen to my heart beating.
And Josh’s. My head is close to his chest, barely touching, so that I can feel his heart pounding. And even though we’ve been resting here for some minutes now, it doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all.
I smile to myself secretly. I did that. I’m doing it still. I’m making someone’s heart beat faster, and it doesn’t hurt at all.
Two weeks after the grand final, I visit Tara at her home to see how she’s doing. She looks good, or much better than she did on grand final night, despite the plaster cast on her elbow and the disorder of her room. She broke her arm when she fell in the press box. No one knows when or how, but it can’t have been long before we got there because she’d been spotted only half an hour earlier back at the party, according to Red, who’s the only reliable witness.
Tara’s room is stacked with neat boxes, ready for their move. Mr and Mrs Lester are getting a divorce. They’re selling the house so Mrs Lester can move back to where her parents live in the country and she’s taking Tara with her. Tara doesn’t know what school she’s going to yet, or if they’ll stay near her grandparents. She says she doesn’t care. Either way, she’s happy to leave St Mary’s.
Dad told me that Mrs Lester is getting help – with Tara, and with her problem. I hope she meant what she said at the hospital, and that seeing Tara so sick scared her enough to make sure it never happens again.
I know it has for me.
‘What about your dad?’ I hand Tara the last of her albums, full of pictures of Glenthorn players – whole generations of men who have pulled on a Glenthorn jumper are wedged between the pages of Tara’s thick albums.
She takes a long time to answer. ‘He used to buy me a present every time he went away.’ She pushes one of the large boxes against the wall, stacking a smaller one on top of it, and smiles thinly. ‘I got a lot of presents.’
‘If it’s okay with your mum, we can meet up over the holidays. You can stay with Dad and me. And, of course, when the footy season starts, at the games . . .’
Tara nods. We both know this won’t happen. Or it might, every now and then, but it won’t be the same. She’ll start a new life because she has to and I’ll make this one work better because I have to. That’s what we do. Pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off and get back to position.
I’m not sure I ever want to set foot at Fernlee Park again, but I don’t say that out loud – that’s the kind of thing you can’t take back once it’s said. ‘Angus . . .’ I say quietly. It’s still shocking to hear his name spoken out loud. To say it myself. But it gets a tiny bit easier every time I do. ‘My brother Angus was eleven minutes older than me.’
Tara stops packing and faces me.
‘We used to play footy together, Angus, Josh and me. For the Raiders for a while and just for fun.’
Tara seems afraid to move.
‘I miss him,’ I say. ‘I miss them both. My mum and Angus. How we used to be, you know? I thought that if I didn’t talk about them, I could start again. Dad and I both thought that. I didn’t really expect him to make them disappear the way he did – to take all the pictures and the memories and to lock them away – but after a while, I got used to it. And it did seem easier, somehow, to just start again.’
‘Draw a line between last week and next,’ Tara says quietly.
I smile. ‘Yeah.’ I look up at the tower of boxes and around at the chaos of her room – at all the bits and pieces that form a life. I run my hand along one of the albums, the smooth cover lined with a fine layer of dust. I rub my fingers together.
‘Do you think you can?’ she asks. ‘I mean, really?’
‘No, not really,’ I say, thinking it through carefully. ‘You can’t draw a line in time. It doesn’t work like that, like something you can organise or stack in towers. It’s more like . . .’ I hunt around for something that makes sense. Something that shifts and slips through space. ‘Like sand.’ That’s not quite right but it’s the best I can do. ‘All the tiny bits move when you separate them, but grains escape and blow about, and soon you can’t see the line anymore anyway.’
‘My mum’s stopped drinking,’ Tara says. ‘I don’t know if she’ll last . . .’ She holds out her hands, turning them up like she wants me to fill them.
‘It’s something,’ I say, and she nods.
I’m not sure we’ll ever understand what it all means, or what’s going to happen. All we can do is make the best of what we know, and just keep going.
There’s a knock on the door and Mrs Lester pops her head in. ‘Your dad’s here, Shelley.’ Mrs Lester looks younger today. And . . . hopeful.
After she closes the door I smile apologetically at Tara. ‘It’s Josh’s presentation night. I promised I’d go. He’s convinced he’ll win – cocky bastard.’
‘Yeah.’
The silence hangs between us, neither knowing what to say next.
‘I’d better go,’ I say.
Tara nods, and manages a tight smile.
‘I’ll see you later.’ I turn to leave, but she stops me at the door.
‘Yeah?’
In her arms is her glorious duffle coat. I stare at it, not knowing what to do next. ‘It doesn’t fit me properly anymore,’ she says, and pushes it towards me.
‘Are you kidding?’ It seemed to fit her perfectly on grand final day, barely three weeks ago.
‘No. It’s yours.’
I shake my head. ‘You can get another year or two out of this. You’re not that much taller than me.’ I laugh, nervously. I’m touched by this, even though I can’t accept it. I can’t imagine what this costs Tara – to give me her coat, to risk my rejection. I realise too late that I shouldn’t have protested.
Tara presses it against me. ‘Take it.’
I stare down at the coat in my arms, overwhelmed. ‘Thanks,’ I say, my voice made small by such an enormous gift.
Dad and Mrs Lester are chatting in the living room as though they’ve known each other forever, except when I get closer I notice that Dad has his hands sho
ved deep in his pockets like he doesn’t know what to do with them. I don’t think he’s all that comfortable inside this mansion, just like me when I first came here. Now that I know its secrets, though, I’m not quite so intimidated.
We say goodbye to Mrs Lester and Tara, Mrs Lester raising an eyebrow at Tara’s duffle coat, which I’m already wearing. ‘Nice coat,’ she says, her eyes swinging back to her daughter.
‘I’ve outgrown it,’ Tara says with a shrug. The defensiveness isn’t there anymore and the contempt seems to have gone, or at least to have softened. I look at them standing side by side – not touching, but leaning towards each other, as though at any moment they just might. It’s a new week. A new season. Anything is possible.
I watch the Glenvalley streets streak past us through the car window. The gaps and wide, empty roads don’t seem as suffocating as they used to. I wind down the window, push my face out into the cold rush of air and breathe deeply. It feels good.
We pull into the twilit car park at the Glenvalley Raiders’ home ground and park behind the clubrooms. Dad slams the car door hard when he gets out – too hard. Then he opens it and slams it again, as though it didn’t work quite right the first time. He’s nervous. This is the first time he’s been back since Angus was playing for the Raiders. Since Mum and Angus died. He’s seen the people, the players, the officials and other parents – at the funeral, on the street, at school functions – but not here at the club. I slip my hand into his, thinking that I can’t remember the last time I held his hand for no reason. Then I realise that it’s for all kinds of reasons. His fingers stiffen at my touch. For a second, my heart squeezing impossibly tighter, I think he’s going to pull away. But he doesn’t. Instead, his hand closes around mine.
The club is packed. It’s been going for a while already. The queue for the pies is short, most of the kids and adults having already eaten theirs. The beer queue, however, remains consistently long.
Mr McGuire calls everyone’s attention and tells us to take our seats. Hard plastic chairs are lined up in the middle of the room, though there aren’t enough for everyone, and most of the boys are sent to stand at the back, forming a noisy cluster of jeers and laughter.
Dad and I take a seat in the back, just in front of Josh, who, as always, is in the middle of the chaos, the centre of attention.
‘Hey, Shell,’ he calls out to me as I take my seat, only to be met with more taunts and jeers from his teammates. He laughs it off, completely sure of his place in this world. I wish I could buy some of that confidence, or even borrow it now and then.
We settle in and listen to the various speeches and introductions, the wrap-up of the season and the plans for next year. Then they move on to the team awards, age group by age group, all the way up to Josh’s team. Jacko reads out each player’s name, handing them their medal for having won the premiership.
The noise level lifts in anticipation of the under 16s Best and Fairest Award, the last of the junior grade awards tonight. Mr McGuire nods at Dad, and then holds up the trophy. ‘We’ve made a change in the Glenvalley Raiders’ Best and Fairest Award. From this year on, in honour of the contribution of a much-loved and sorely missed player, the award will be known as the “Angus Brown Award for the Most Valuable Player”.’
I hear the words clearly enough, but it takes a long minute for the meaning to register. I look at Dad in confusion, wondering how this could have happened without us knowing, and panicking that Dad will freak out. But Dad turns stiffly towards me and manages a tight smile.
He knew. I feel a sudden, powerful rush of love for my dad. Do they know how much this cost him? The trophy is a symbol of all the things that Angus won’t have – the brilliance of youth and the potential for an amazing future. I tuck my arm through Dad’s, determined for him to know what this means for us.
When Dad looks at me, I see something lovely and unexpected – a deep and absorbing pride. And my heart soars a little that he might soon be able to remember Angus without that crippling pain that nearly destroyed everything else.
Jacko takes over, assuming his role as coach and team leader. ‘The inaugural winner of the Angus Brown trophy is . . . Cameron Evans.’
I’m still absorbing the idea of the Angus Brown Award before I realise that Josh didn’t win. I turn around to find him at the back, cheerfully pumping Cameron Evans’ hand with his usual gusto, no trace of disappointment or shock in his expression. He sends me that infuriating wink-grin thing he does, his delight at my surprise all the more infuriating. He knew he wouldn’t win – that was just the plan to get me to come.
My cheeks burn and I struggle with the possibility that it’s not because I’m embarrassed he’s fooled me but because I’m flattered and strangely pleased. It’s starting to feel like we’ve entered a whole other dimension – a place where Josh McGuire is less annoying than cute, where grief is not the unmentionable ghost in the Brown house, where footy can be the thing we share but not all that we have. If the Angels start winning next year, I’ll know for sure we’ve entered a parallel universe.
Later, after the last of the awards are announced, I hang back and watch Dad talking to Mrs McGuire by the bar, each with a half-drunk almost-flat beer in their hands. They’ve been talking for ages.
Josh comes up, doing a very uncool strutting action that probably looked funny in his head but ended up looking idiotic and uncoordinated in practice.
‘Smooth, Josh,’ I say, smirking. I want to ask about the Most Valuable Player award but don’t know how to raise it without reminding him he didn’t win.
‘It was Mum’s idea,’ he said, as though reading my mind. ‘She spoke to your dad first,’ Josh adds quickly.
Except Mrs McGuire told me earlier that it was Josh’s idea and I know she’d never lie. I want to hug him. He’s irritating and as cocky as all get-out, but I want to hug him with all my heart. It takes a good measure of willpower not to give in. ‘Thanks,’ I say, ignoring his protests.
‘Thank my mum.’
‘Yeah, whatever.’ He’s so pleased with himself but I’m sure it’s not just about the Angus Brown trophy. ‘Go on, then. Tell me what’s going on. You look like you’re about to burst.’
Josh nods smugly, that ridiculous grin both infuriating and – it’s so hard to admit – gorgeous. It’s there, though, plain enough. I’ve been ignoring the idea for as long as possible, but have decided that ignoring my feelings and the things that matter – the things that make me me – doesn’t work. In fact, it seems to have made a lot of things worse. Admitting it to myself, however, is a very different thing to admitting it to anyone else, especially the person it’s aimed at. But footy is safe. Or real footy is – the actual game anyway. It’s the extra stuff around it that gets messy.
‘You should have won. Cam Evans is a hog.’
Josh laughs. ‘Thanks for the support, but you only saw one game.’
‘I’ve been listening,’ I say, defensively, realising my absence mattered to him more than I thought. ‘I’m not the only one who thinks you were robbed. Besides, he’s always been Jacko’s pet.’
Josh shakes his head, enjoying this conversation way more than he should. Why isn’t he disappointed? Why isn’t he angry? He knows I’m right. ‘Yeah, well, I’ve got bigger fish to fry, Shell.’
I raise my eyebrows.
‘Got some news,’ he says, deliberately dragging it out.
‘I can see that. Go on then.’
Josh looks around, then he grabs my hand and leads me outside. Night has set in and the temperature has dropped several degrees. He takes me to the dark corner of the car park, near Dad’s car. We’re just outside the glow of the club lights, as private as this clubhouse could ever be. Some of the younger kids are playing kick-to-kick on the dark oval, oblivious to the fact they can’t see, their voices breaking the still night in between the hearty thump of a football.
My fingers are still tingling when he lets go. Nothing that happened on grand final night feels even
a bit like this. My feet are cold from the damp ground, the breeze is steady on this cool spring night, and Tara’s duffle coat is hanging uselessly on the back of my chair inside the clubhouse. But I feel a warmth rise through my whole body, starting at my toes and ending somewhere around my furiously blushing cheeks. ‘Have you been drinking?’ I blurt out, even though it’s the furthest thing from my mind.
He frowns and shakes his head. ‘No. What? No.’
‘You’re acting weird, Josh.’ So am I. But maybe if I focus the attention on him, he won’t notice. Despite the chilly air, two damp patches of sweat are forming under my arms. I hope to God my deodorant holds up.
‘Shelley . . .’ He stops.
I’m staring at his mouth. I have to force my lips shut so I don’t kiss him right then.
He sees this and he knows. I’m quietly dying here and he knows exactly why.
‘So what’s the surprise?’ My voice is way too loud for two people standing only inches apart.
‘Just a minute,’ he chides, like I’m an impatient kid. I bristle at his arrogance but that turns to water when Josh leans in to me, his voice dropping to a whisper. ‘First I have to ask you something.’
My pulse throbs in my ears so hard I can’t hear my own thoughts.
Josh pushes his hand through his hair, his floppy fringe settling right back where it was before. But in that gesture, I glimpse the freckle by his hairline, the one Angus used as an excuse to call him ‘Spot’. My fingers itch to touch it, to brush his hair back so I can see it more clearly. His eyes are so intense, boring into me like a laser beam.
‘What?’ Amazingly, my voice doesn’t catch. I sound angry.
He steps back, as though suddenly aware of how close we are, how intense the moment is, and I worry that he’s misunderstood. He laughs nervously, looks over his shoulder again. ‘You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?’ he says, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes, but I think I see uncertainty too.
I want to. I think I want to.