Tigers on the Way

by Sean Kennedy

  “What’s wrong?” Dec asked as soon as we were out of the ballroom. His steady hand at the small of my back comforted me as he ushered us towards the car park.

  “I’m bleeding,” I said.

  “Where?”

  “Where do you think?” I would have rolled my eyes had he been looking at me.

  “Fuck,” he grunted.

  “Don’t say anything.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You said fuck,” I reminded him.

  “One word,” he said tersely. “One.”

  “It spoke volumes.” We were now at the lifts that led to the underground car park. Dec hit the button again, even though the display was telling us the lift was on its way.

  “Are you trying to pick a fight?” Dec asked.

  “I’m just waiting for ‘I told you so.’”

  “Sounds like you’re trying to pick a fight.” The doors dinged open, and we stepped inside the lift. I sagged against the wall, hoping it would support me. Or that it would give way and plunge me into the open lift shaft and save me from this conversation and the fear of another possible operation pending the diagnosis of what was going on with me.

  He slipped his hand into mine, and I looked up to see him staring at me with an overwhelming compassion mixed with concern.

  “You told me so,” I said as I hugged him. “I’m sorry.”

  “I told you you were overdoing it.” But he sounded too tired to be angry.

  “Please don’t bust my balls, Dec. They’re already pretty busted.”

  “Don’t.” He stepped back, my arms suddenly empty. “Don’t you dare make this into a joke.”

  “It’s probably just that a couple of the sutures broke. Don’t panic.”

  “That’s bad enough, if it’s ‘just’ the sutures. That isn’t meant to happen. Not if you had taken their advice and rested more.”

  I didn’t want to argue and say this could have happened regardless. Sometimes stitches break. I knew I hadn’t been resting as much as the doctors had told me to. I really had no one to blame but me.

  “You have no fucking idea how much I worry about you.” Dec turned his back on me as the lift doors opened, and exited before I did. I shuffled after him, and I could tell by the stiffness of his back that he was doing his damnedest not to turn and see how I was going, to fall back to his default of looking out for me.

  But he waited at the passenger door of the car and helped me in. I winced involuntarily as I sat, no matter how comfy the seat was.

  “I appreciate it,” I called out to him as he made his way around the back of the car to jump into the driver’s side.

  He waited until he was pulling at his seat belt and said, “Then do me a favour and listen to your doctors.”

  When we were out of the garage and onto the road, his left hand drifted down and rested on my knee. I laid my hand over his and squeezed it.

  He squeezed back.

  I hoped I wasn’t bleeding onto the car seat and ruining it.

  “OUCH,” THE doctor on call at the Austin Hospital Emergency Department said as he stared at my junk.

  I couldn’t be bothered trying to make a joke. “That bad?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”

  “Can you tell my partner that?” I asked.

  The doctor turned to Dec, who was hovering over his shoulder. “I’ve seen worse.”

  Dec frowned. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  “Well, he’s not going to die,” the doctor said, winking at me where Dec couldn’t see.

  Dec’s eyes widened.

  “See, a good diagnosis!” I told him.

  “Go get yourself a coffee,” the doc said to Dec. “I’ll have him fixed up in a matter of minutes.”

  “And you’ll be telling him he has to take it easy from now on, yeah?” Dec was hardly being subtle.

  “Of course. Otherwise I won’t be as nice next time he’s in.”

  “There won’t be a next time,” Dec muttered as he closed the door behind him.

  “Good thing we don’t have marriage equality yet,” I said. “Or else I’d be looking at equality divorce right now.”

  “He’s worried about you.” The doc began preparing a needle full of some kind of drug that would hopefully render me unable to feel a thing as he stitched me up again.

  “I know. He’s told me many times.”

  “Then give him a break.”

  “Are you a doctor or a psychologist?” I grumbled.

  “The two go hand in hand sometimes. But I can tell your partner only wants what’s best for you. And you’ve kind of showed today that you may not be listening even if you say you are.”

  “That’s unfair,” I grumbled. “And I didn’t know you were a counsellor as well as a doctor.”

  “I see this a hundred times a day,” he replied, nonplussed. “Patients trying to act better than they actually are, and then ending up having a longer recovery time and being even more miserable. Learn from your mistake.”

  “Don’t sutures break all the time?”

  “Not usually on their own merits.”

  When Dec returned, I was stitched up, sore, and subdued.

  “He’ll be a good boy from now on,” the doc told him.

  Dec snorted, but at least he looked a lot calmer than before.

  “Yes,” I said. “You can wait on me hand and foot, giving me the service and attention I deserve. I promise I won’t move a muscle unless it is completely necessary. You can even carry me to the toilet as needed. Bath time is mandatory, and I expect full body washes. Now take me home.”

  “See what I put up with?” Dec asked the doc as he went to fetch a wheelchair with a spring in his step.

  AND I was pretty good, mostly. Dec truly was the Cinderella to my ugly stepsister, with a servitude he bore with patience and the unhappy realisation this was his lot in life. Luck was on my side.

  To tell you the truth, I was on my best behaviour. I rested, I did my best not to cause Dec any grief, and I was a model patient.

  “You’re up to something,” he said over lunch. “I don’t know what it is, but I guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

  “I’m not up to anything,” I replied, trying to look as innocent as possible sipping at my coffee. “I’m just trying to make your life easier.”

  “Why start now?” he mused.

  It was banter like this that sustained us, and often showed the true emotion we felt for each other. When Dec said why start now, what he meant was “I like our life together. I wouldn’t want any other person in the world, just you.”

  Which was why I was making such an effort to get better and not cause myself any relapses. Because soon Nyssa would be undergoing her first IUI procedure, and I knew Dec wouldn’t want to leave me if I wasn’t a hundred percent. I wanted him to be a part of every single step in the process; that was the guy Dec was and the father he wanted to be. I wasn’t going to deny him that.

  Chapter Fourteen

  AIRPORTS ARE the worst. Especially if you’re the one waving people off. Usually if you’re the one departing, you’re too full of excitement to give a second thought to the people you’re leaving behind. Even though I knew Dec would only be gone for a week, I didn’t want him to leave. I wanted to go with him, but the doctors wouldn’t clear me so soon after an operation.

  He was off to the Land of the Long White Cloud to be with Nyssa while she had her first procedure. It wasn’t a vacation by any means, but I made him promise he wouldn’t go to Hobbit Town without me. He assured me, lips twitching as if to fight off a laugh, that he could wait to traipse all over Middle-earth with me next time.

  I was being clingy, and I proved it by hugging him too tightly as he said his final goodbyes. But he held on, allowing me to be the one to decide when to let go. A gentle kiss, and then he looked over to Roger.

  “Take care of this one while I’m away. If he ends up in hospital again, you’re responsible.”

  Fra
n snorted. “I think it’s best you leave the responsibility to me.”

  “I know, I was just saying it.”

  Roger shrugged, accepting the truth without a care. He knew Fran would be a better prison guard and night nurse.

  Especially prison guard. She was already swinging her large keychain menacingly.

  “You better go,” I said and stepped away from him.

  He looked torn, and I could tell he was thinking of cancelling.

  “I’ll be fine,” I told him. “Seriously. I have Fran.”

  “Hey!” Roger protested.

  “I’ll FaceTime you as soon as I get there,” Dec promised.

  “How romantic.”

  “I love you.”

  “Yeah, I love you too.”

  And like that, he turned his back and disappeared through the gates to be cleared by security. I gave a loud, heavy, sorry-for-myself sigh.

  Roger and Fran flanked me on both sides, my protective besties.

  “Let’s get drunk,” Fran suggested.

  Both Roger and I were agog.

  “You’re meant to be the good one!” I said.

  Fran shrugged. “While the cat’s away….”

  “I love you.” I hugged her close.

  “Hey, hands off!” Roger said.

  I grabbed him and pulled him in with us.

  Satisfied, he hugged us back. “Hands on.”

  I wished Dec was there as well to share the extremely lovey-dovey, slightly snarky feeling of bonhomie. “Hey, Rog?”

  “What?”

  “I know you’d take good care of me.”

  “Damn straight.” He grinned and kissed me on the forehead.

  WE COULD have walked to Piedimonte’s, as it was only a hundred metres from the house, but I made Fran stop on the way.

  “My balls hurt,” I said in a baby voice, and she rolled her eyes.

  “There’s only so long you can keep using that excuse.”

  “Dec said we had to take care of him,” Roger countered.

  “You’re just as lazy as Simon.” But she was already pulling into the tiny car park and managed to snag a spot as someone else pulled out. “I’m only waiting five minutes. Then I’m leaving, and you have to walk home all forty metres.”

  “It’s closer to a hundred,” Roger told her.

  “And my—” I started.

  “If you say anything about your balls one more time, Simon Murray, I swear to—”

  I jumped out of the car and slammed the door on her threat so I wouldn’t hear it.

  “She feels guilty about leaving the kids with my folks,” Roger said as we entered the supermarket. What I loved most about Piedimonte’s was that it was still a little bit grungy and eclectic—you didn’t find that in most general shops nowadays. But the produce was always good and the staff friendly—a true local.

  “Why? They have raised three kids of their own,” I said absentmindedly, heading for the liquor section. “I’m sure they can’t stuff up yours.”

  Roger glared at me. “You’ll understand—”

  “Oh, you’re not going to give me the ‘you’ll understand when you have kids’ speech, are you? Save me.”

  “You know, for someone who may be having kids soon, you might want to stop being so antichildren.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked to his departing back. “I’m not antikids!”

  He didn’t come back, so I followed him.

  “Oi!”

  My voice echoed through the store, but it least it made Roger—and a few other shoppers—turn.

  “I am not antikids!” I repeated in a whisper.

  “Then stop acting like it!”

  “I’m not!”

  “You keep saying that, but you sound differently.”

  “Why do all parents get so touchy about their kids?”

  “You’ll understand—”

  “Don’t you even finish that!”

  Roger leaned in close. “All I’m saying is you better get used to the idea of having children, because if things go to plan in New Zealand, you’ll be having them in nine months.”

  I caught the eye of an older lady who was watching us, and not doing a very good job at hiding it. Her heavy make-up gave her a theatrical quality, which I liked. You could almost tell exactly what kind of woman she was. Like she acted in a local playhouse company or ran her own gift shop with items from local artists. Hopefully she didn’t gouge them too much when it came to their cut.

  “You don’t seem to feel very guilty about having a night off,” I said, on the attack. “Is that a dad thing? What happens when there are two dads?” It was like I was writing my own homophobic diatribe against the worst characteristics of gay couples having a family.

  “Of course I do,” Roger said. “But I still want it. And so does Fran. It’s nice spending time with friends. Even if they’re dicks sometimes.”

  “I’m not a dick, you’re a dick.”

  Roger shrugged. “Whatever. I’m going to go get some Caramello Koalas. I’ll meet you in the car. I’m not walking back to yours.”

  I imitated his shrug, but he didn’t even see it. I found refuge amongst the wine bottles, muttering curses against my best friend. Babies, babies, babies. That’s all anybody ever talked about. Couldn’t I worry about it in nine months? Dec had all of that covered for the both of us, surely.

  I grabbed a couple of bottles of red, not even looking at the labels, and turned to find myself face to face with the woman I had seen watching me earlier.

  “Holy fuck!” I screamed and had to lunge to stop one of the bottles from falling to the floor.

  “Did I scare you, dear?” she asked, leering like a Disney villain.

  “Well, you were kind of all up in my face, so—”

  “Fight with your boyfriend?” She didn’t let me finish.

  “Roger?” I jerked my head over in the general direction of the Caramello Koalas. “Him? Eww, no.”

  “Of course not, because you’re the husband of that football player.”

  “Not husband,” I said automatically. “The government won’t let us be.”

  She shrugged. “Don’t worry about that. It’s coming. I know it.”

  Oh, this was some kind of fortune teller act. She’d be disappointed, as I didn’t have any cash on me, and I doubted she had a portable EFTPOS machine in her bag so she could take a credit card. Then again, you never knew these days. All kinds of small businesses were taking full advantage of technology. “You have an in with the Bureau of Statistics about how the vote’s going to go?”

  “I’ve seen it.” Up close, the make-up was a wonder of artistry, especially the cat’s arch beneath her eyes that made her look both canny and curious.

  “Oh, you’re like a time traveller?” I asked, facetious in tone but secretly wanting more of these shenanigans.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she reprimanded me. “That isn’t possible. Yet.”

  I loved the qualifier at the end. “But even if it isn’t possible yet,” I told her, “surely in the future, they have discovered how to do it and they’ve already travelled back in time, so you could be a time traveller for all I know.”

  She grunted at me. “You’re smarter than you look.”

  “I get that a lot,” I admitted.

  “I’m not a time traveller. But I can see the future.”

  “Of course.” I nodded emphatically.

  “You’re going to buy those girly vodka drinks along with your red wine.”

  Amazing! I really had been thinking about that. And now she had cemented it in my mind, the thought had become a craving. “Wow, you really are psychic.”

  Maybe she actually worked for Piedimonte’s, implanting in shoppers’ minds the desire for certain products that needed to sell. She abruptly changed tack. “You bought the old firehouse.”

  “Yeah. But I mean, everybody knows that. It was in the papers and everything.” Although she couldn’t be that much of a psychic if she had thought Roger wa
s Declan.

  She was nonplussed. “Have you seen her yet?”

  “Who?” My arms were starting to feel heavy with the wine.

  “You know who.”

  “I actually don’t.” I resisted doing my Pauline Hanson impersonation of “pliss explaiiiin.”

  But I guessed. Those strange feelings I’d had about the house ever since we moved in. I might not have known it was a “she,” but I knew there was something there.

  “You’ve been feeling her in the house from day one.”

  “It’s definitely a her?” I asked, no longer pretending. The “feeling” had come and gone, and although it was never a bad one, it was still enough to disconcert me.

  “You didn’t know?” She seemed surprised.

  “I was hoping it was a hunky firefighter, really.” My bravado was pretty transparent, though. I was a scared white guy in the middle of a busy supermarket who was looking paler by the minute. For a split second I wondered if this strange soothsayer before me was really there, and whether the woman who gave me a weird look as she manoeuvred her trolley around my frozen body was doing so because I was actually standing in the middle of the aisle talking to myself.

  She shook her head. “No, but she likes you both. So don’t be scared of her. She’s looking forward to the baby coming.”

  Okay, everybody kind of knew we were trying for a family thanks to The Footy Show and the newspapers, but this was taking things a bit too far. “What, is she going to babysit them for us?”

  “You’re very snarky.” She was obviously unhappy with my lack of positive reaction.

  “I’m sure they printed that in the paper too.” Seriously, they were always going on about my—insert air quotes here—attitude. Mainly because they liked going with the bitchy gay stereotype.

  The woman sized me up, as if she hadn’t made up her own mind about me. “You must be okay, if she likes you. She didn’t like the last tenants.”

  “What, did they run out of the house at three one morning, screaming about bleeding walls and demonic voices urging them to kill each other?”

  “She’s not a stupid horror movie. If she hears you saying that, maybe it will be you running from the house next time.”