The Life and Times of Gracie Faltrain

by Cath Crowley

  ‘Have you ever done something that you were really ashamed of? I mean something so bad you felt sick just thinking about it?’

  ‘Everyone has. Why, what’d you do?’

  ‘I didn’t say goodbye to Mum.’

  ‘That’s not so bad.’

  ‘Did you say goodbye to your mum before she left?’ I’d never asked Martin about this before. I didn’t want to hear his answer.

  ‘She left before I had a chance.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘That’s what I like about you, Faltrain. You always know just what to say.’

  MARTIN

  Good on you, Faltrain. Wake me up and remind me of Mum and then go back to sleep. Look at her, sleeping like the dead. I wish I’d had a chance to say goodbye. I want to say more than that. I’d want to know why she left in such a hurry. Was it the socks under the couch that no one cleaned up? Was it cooking the dinner every night? I’d understand that.

  I reckon it was because she just didn’t love us enough to stay. It wouldn’t have done us any good, hearing that though. I want to look her in the face and say, ‘Because of you it feels like Dad’s left us too. He wouldn’t even get off the couch to come see his son play in the most important game of his life. Your daughter’s twelve and she still wets the bed. And your son? He’s not going back.’ He’s going to catch a bus somewhere after the Championships. He wants to follow in your footsteps.

  BILL

  I like watching Helen drive. It reminds me of summer holidays we took with Gracie. We’d take off up the coast to a little part of the ocean that was blue and crisp and clean. We’d bury our sandwiches in the sand to keep them cool and then swim until we were hungry. Gracie was always hungry. How could I have forgotten all this?

  ‘Do you remember our afternoons at the beach?’ I ask her at the petrol station just outside of Melbourne. For a minute I see her smile.

  HELEN

  Of course I remember.

  30

  home noun: the fixed residence of a

  person. Built from wood. And brick.

  And memory.

  GRACIE

  You know the way your cat looks at you when you’re late feeding him? Sort of like, give up the goods, baby, or I’m going to dig my claws into your leg, one at a time? Imagine a soccer team of cats. They haven’t been fed for days. That’s how they’re looking at me.

  I want to play soccer again more than anything. I’m just not sure if I can win like I used to. It doesn’t seem like the right time to tell them, though, as they stand there sharpening their claws, that I’m pretty sure there’s no Whiskas left in the cupboard.

  The hotel makes me feel sick. It’s one of those places where the fluorescent lights flicker in the hallways, lighting up swirls of orange and black carpet. I can see burn marks in it, like the people who have stayed here weren’t allowed to smoke in their rooms so they stood in the corridor, leaning against chipped paint and grinding butts in with their heels. I don’t feel sick because of this. I don’t care that I stand apart from the group. I feel like I’m going to throw up because I catch sight of a payphone down the hallway, and for a second I imagine Dad, pressing the phone to his ear, telling me that he’ll be home soon.

  I’m sure Dad never stayed in a place like this. I’m sure he called me from friendly hotels where the owners left towels and chocolates on his pillow. I’d always imagined his trips away as fun, ordering room service late at night and watching videos. Maybe that’s why it was easy to get angry with him for staying away so long. But what if this is what his life has been like for the past five years? What if this has been his home?

  I start to cry.

  There are three groups of people in the world. There are the cryers – those who can work themselves up into a state just by thinking about something sad. These people can flood towns with their tears. Then there are those who cry sometimes – at funerals and weddings and stuff like that. Then there are the non-cryers, the get-on-with-it people. These people have no idea what to do when faced with a swollen-eyed, cry-till-you-choke person. I fall into the second group, but today in the hall, I am rapidly working my way up to a promotion. I am crying like there is no tomorrow. Martin is definitely in the third group and what he has here is a situation.

  MARTIN

  ‘Gracie, mate, you’ve got to stop it,’ I say. I should have known better. The last time I tried to tell her to be quiet she kicked me in the privates with the soccer ball. She said it was an accident, but something in her eyes told me never tell her what to do again. This was for her own good, though. The team is just waiting for a reason to bench her. I grab the sleeve of her t-shirt and pull her into her room.

  ‘Faltrain, I’ll help you train. You’ll be okay.’

  ‘It – it’s n-not the soccer . . .’ She’s working herself up into a state now.

  ‘Maybe you need to sleep. Things will be better tomorrow.’

  ‘I – I . . . my – parents are getting divorced.’ And then she starts using my sleeve for a tissue. I let her, because I remembered how I felt when Mum left. I hadn’t seen anyone cry like Faltrain since Karen when I told her that Mum wasn’t coming home. I figure sometimes it’s best to let them get tired.

  Eventually Faltrain calms down.

  ‘Martin, tell me about your mum.’

  What should I say? Not that she left us for dead, that wouldn’t be the right story. I tell her about the lunches. ‘On Saturdays Mum would always ask Karen and me what we wanted for lunch. She knew what we’d say, but she asked anyway. ‘What do you feel like eating?’ She knew we’d want a bacon sandwich. She made the best bacon sandwiches you ever tasted, Faltrain. She cooked the bacon till it was all crispy and then put just the right amount of butter on fresh white bread. She’d lay two slices of cheese over the bacon, and then she put the pieces together and cut it into triangles. We’d eat them at the table. I’d get the drinks for us and we’d sit together with the telly on in the background. I’ve never had a sandwich that tasted better.’

  Faltrain is asleep by the time I finish the story. Coach comes into the room about ten-thirty and tells me I shouldn’t be there. I pull the sheets up around her chin, catch a whiff of soap and toothpaste. The smell I remember from before Mum left. It’s the smell of home.

  GRACIE

  I wake up in the morning face down on the pillow, my eyes stuck together, and Martin yelling at me. ‘Get up, Faltrain,’ he’s calling at me from the hallway.

  ‘What are you yelling from the corridor for, you idiot? Come in and shut the door. I’ll get up in a second.’

  ‘Nah, I’ll wait for you out here.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing. Hurry up. We got work to do.’

  ‘Remember, kick to the centre!’ Martin yells across the field at me.

  ‘I’ll remember!’ I yell back at the shape that I’m guessing is Martin. The field is so big, and he is so far away from me that it’s hard to tell if it’s him.

  ‘Move your ass, Faltrain,’ the shape calls. ‘Coach wants to talk to us at nine.’ Yep, it’s Martin all right.

  It’s as if I’ve suddenly developed a life-threatening disease and he’s scared to death of catching it. He walks about ten paces in front of me and once we arrive runs as far away as possible. I cup my mouth with my hand and breathe hard into it. Nothing wrong there. I must have freaked him out last night when I wiped my nose on his sleeve. Some guys can break sprinting records if they think someone is about to cry.

  Last night I cried rapids and now Martin has his floaties on and he’s paddling so hard in the other direction that I can hardly see him anymore. Who would have thought I could feel lonelier? Take a good look, Faltrain, that shape running in the opposite direction is your last friend on the team. Tomorrow at the game, you’re on your own.

  Jane, I thought, I’d give anything to have you there with me tomorrow. I’d give anything to see some friendly faces in the crowd.

  31

  frenzy nou
n: delerium;

  frenzied adjective: Gracie Faltrain

  GRACIE

  ‘Here’s how the matches will run,’ Coach yells, ‘so listen up. Knight? Knight, stop looking at Faltrain and listen to ME!’ he barks across the room. ‘This is our only chance at this and I want to make sure we PLAY HARD.’ It’s like he’s woken up as the star of his own Nike commercial.

  ‘There are a total of six matches between us and the Championship. We have to win at least one match out of the next two to go into the second round. You get that, Faltrain? Faltrain? STOP looking at Knight, Faltrain. Look at me,’ he says, motioning to his eyes with his two fingers and then back to me. ‘Look at me. I don’t care if we lose, but I want to be proud of you. I want you to play your best.’

  The more he tells me not to look at Martin, the more I can’t stop myself. I keep trying to catch his eye. I want my smile to say, see, I’m not freaking out anymore. There’ll definitely be no more tears. But then every time he looks away I want to cry and then he looks over and there are tears in my eyes and he sees and then he freaks out even more. Faltrain, stop it. Stop being a total idiot.

  Martin walks off after Coach finishes his speech. I watch him leave and feel like our garden at the end of autumn. Bare. I’ve been lonely for most of the past few months, but I’ve never really been alone. Mum was always there. I had Dad and Jane, even though they’ve felt miles away. Up until now I’ve had Martin.

  I have this overwhelming urge to apologise to someone. Maybe if I do, then I won’t feel so guilty. I want to tell Mum and Dad that it’s awful that we’re not going to be together. I want to say that it makes me sad because I love them, and because they won’t be happy. I run to the change rooms to call home. Mum’s not there. I ring Dad’s mobile – no answer either. There’s nothing worse than needing to say sorry and having no one to say it to.

  I keep thinking, what if I can’t say sorry and something happens to them both? What if there’s a tornado and we all get blown away and I never get to say it? I’m working myself up into a sorry frenzy.

  Then I think about Mum and the look on her face when she told me about Dad. She was worried about me. His face was the same when he found me at the field. I know it doesn’t matter that I haven’t said sorry. They’ll wait until I’m ready. And when I am they’ll listen. Even if it’s in the middle of a tornado.

  MARTIN

  I can’t go back. Not even for Faltrain. I might as well stop thinking about her.

  32

  pass verb: the transference of a ball

  from one player to another;

  pass out verb: to collapse, to fall into

  an unconscious state

  GRACIE

  It takes me about fifteen minutes to get dressed and ready for the first match. I’ve got my lucky socks on and my lucky hair clip in. It takes me about fifteen seconds to realise that it’s going to take more than luck to get me through this match.

  The problem isn’t that I can’t kick the ball. It’s not that I shoot for goals and miss. No, the problem is much more basic than this. No one in my team is passing me the ball. I spend the first forty minutes of the game running laps. I’m running so hard my legs are aching. I realise after about the first ten minutes why there’s a ball in soccer. It’s because you look pretty stupid chasing nothing.

  I have a feeling that Martin would kick it to me, but he has the same problem. Nobody is passing it to him. Eventually Coach does the only thing he can do: he takes Martin and me off. Together, we watch our team play possibly the worst game of soccer in our history.

  ‘Morieson, pass it to Flemming!’ Martin screams beside me, his voice whirling with the roars of the crowd and the wind. ‘He passed it to Corelli.’ He covers his eyes with his hands and peeks through the gaps. ‘He’s never kicked a goal in his life.’

  We are down 4–0. Corelli kicks. It flies wide. I’ve never seen a kick quite like that before. It flips back, lands in their midfield, and knocks Singh out. Cold. Coach is silent for the first time in his life. Or maybe Martin is doing all the yelling for him.

  It’s a disaster of a game. The final whistle goes and our team walks off the ground without looking at the crowd once. They file silently, a small funeral procession, past Coach, past Martin, past me. Somehow, even though I haven’t played the game, I feel like I’ve lost it for them, lost it for Martin. There’s hardly a sound on the bus as we drive, just the whine of the engine and the changing of gears. If we don’t win tomorrow, we’re out.

  CORELLI

  Sorry, Singh.

  SINGH

  Won’t dorry, Corelli, I’m fine.

  COACH

  I lied when I said I don’t care if we lose. I do care. I want us to feel like we’ve won something.

  33

  detour noun: an alternative route, one

  used temporarily to avoid an

  obstruction

  HELEN

  ‘The turn-off is on the left,’ he says. I don’t trust his sense of direction. It has never been good. We ran into a detour hours ago and have been trying ever since to find our way back to the main road.

  ‘Are you sure, Bill? When I looked at the map it was on the right.’

  ‘It’s definitely left. Then we head down Creighton Street and we’re near the soccer field. Why are we stopping?’

  ‘I want to look at the map.’

  ‘I told you where we have to turn off. You always do this.’

  ‘Do what? I always do what? Get the directions right?’ I pull the car over to the side of the road.

  ‘You always try to tell me what to do.’

  ‘When do I do that?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Here, check the map.’

  ‘I don’t want to check the map.’ I throw it onto the back seat. I want to know now. Somehow I think that knowing what he means by that comment will either ruin us completely or save us and I have to hear the answer. I decide that he will not get out of the car alive unless he tells me the truth. I tell him this and even as I do I know that I am proving his point. That’s when I see him again for the first time. Really see him. He is forty and tired and travelling everywhere with the books he loves so much piled in the back of his car.

  ‘I forgot about your bookshop,’ I say.

  ‘Baby, you and Gracie are more important to me than books or a shop,’ he answers, and I think two things: when I get back I will find a way to give him his dream, but more importantly for the moment, he called me baby.

  BILL

  I grab the map from the back seat. ‘Let’s find Gracie,’ I say.

  GRACIE

  Martin gets off the bus and sits on the seat in front of the hotel. This is the first game I can remember him spending on the bench. The thing about Martin is, everyone likes him. He’s a good player. He doesn’t always score the goal, but he’s usually the one who lines up the shot.

  Martin helped me kick my first goal. He trusted me enough to pass the ball, even though it was only my second match as part of the team.

  ‘Martin, why won’t they kick to you?’ I don’t really want to hear his answer.

  ‘Because I’ll pass it to you, Faltrain, and they know it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Martin.’ He doesn’t answer for a while. It feels like years and years of quiet are spreading out between us. I want to fill them with something, but I’m not sure what to say. ‘Martin?’

  ‘Faltrain, why do you play soccer?’

  ‘I guess I play because I’m good. And because when I’m out there it doesn’t matter so much that I’m not great at other things. Nothing exists at the centre of the game except the wind and the ball and the score and me. I don’t think about school or missing Dad. I just play.’

  ‘Do you think you’re the only one on the team who needs to feel like that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then stop playing like you are. You didn’t start off as that sort of player.’

  Martin’s right. When I watched my first soccer match I cou
ldn’t move my eyes from the ground. Every player looked connected to the person beside him. The ball spun from one boot to the next. That’s what I loved. When did that change?

  I’m having one of those moments when everything becomes clear and you realise what an awful person you’ve been. No wonder everyone hates me, except Martin, that is. He’s the one person who should be angrier than anyone. But he’s not.

  ‘I’ll fix it, Martin. I won’t play in the next game. I don’t want you to miss out because of me.’

  ‘You just don’t get it, do you, Faltrain?’ he says, looking at the passing cars. ‘I don’t want to play without you.’

  I have this strange feeling looking at him. It’s like I’m about to get up in front of the class and give a speech. It’s just Martin though, Martin who yells at me and tells me what to do. Martin with his knees covered in dirt and his hair sticking up at the back. Martin who sits on the bench for me.

  I wait. I’m not sure what for; I just know I don’t want to leave until it happens. I can feel his arm next to mine. I can hear him breathing. He smells of grass and sweat and toothpaste. I make the smallest move towards him.

  Nick? Nick who?

  MARTIN

  I want to grab her hand but the air is like iron. I can’t move through it. I want to tell her that I like sitting next to her. She makes me feel as though I’m home again.

  ‘Faltrain. I’m not coming back with you after the Championships,’ I say instead. I want to take it back as soon as it hits the air but I know I can’t. To do that I’d have to go back and find a way to make Mum stay. I’d have to get Dad off the couch.