Tigers on the Way

by Sean Kennedy

  “Mystic Meg!”

  Dec wrinkled his nose. “That old psychic from daytime TV? Isn’t she dead?”

  “Just another ghost,” I teased, and he rolled his eyes.

  And took my hand again.

  THE PROSAIC nature of selecting items for dinner broke the strange spell Margaret had us under. As we piled turkish bread, olives, cheeses, and meats into our trolley, the world around us turned to normal, especially when Dec made a slight squeak of protest as I grabbed a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream and dismissed him, knowing he would end up eating three quarters of it anyway. Mint chocolate chip was his Kryptonite.

  It was still raining as we exited through the sliding doors. We both put up our hoodies, and Dec opened the umbrella. The streetlights glittered as they reflected in the puddles at our feet, and the air was amazingly crisp. The world seemed like somebody had set the contrast filter a little higher, and Dec’s body heat seemed even warmer than usual as we huddled within the dome of canvas above our heads.

  “It’s a sit-in-your-bathrobe-in-front-of-the-telly kind of night,” Dec said, making sure I had ample coverage of the umbrella. The trolley was unprotected, but the top cover let the rain roll right off it.

  “You are such an old man.”

  “I thought you liked my little shorty robe.”

  “It depends if you’re wearing anything with it,” I said, waggling my eyebrows even though he couldn’t see them.

  “Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

  “Margaret didn’t say any of my dreams were coming true,” I teased him.

  “That’s because they already have,” he teased right back.

  Waiting for the traffic lights to turn red so we could cross the road, we managed to lock gazes.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right,” I said. It wasn’t far from the truth.

  He gave me a quick kiss, and the pedestrian crossing started flashing. The bottom of my pants had gotten wet, and all I could think about was getting home and into something dry and warm. And looking at Dec’s long legs exposed in his shorty robe.

  “She was right about one thing, though,” Dec said as we hit the opposite curb just as the red man appeared to tell us to stop walking. “I do have a lot of dreams.”

  “I know. I was only joking about marriage,” I said. “I know there are other things higher on the list.”

  I was actually talking about having a family, but Dec stopped in front of me, expertly twisting the umbrella at the same time so it still covered us even though our positions had changed.

  “I love you, but you can be such an idiot sometimes.”

  This was suddenly news to him? “That goes without saying.”

  “You want to know exactly what I was hoping she was hinting at?” he demanded.

  “Babies?” I asked.

  “They’re a dream, yeah.” He was really exasperated with me, his knuckles white on the handle of the umbrella. “But I was thinking of you! In the clear, no chance of your tumour growing back again. That’s my dream.”

  If my face wasn’t already wet from the rain, I’d think I was crying. Actually, I was crying. I let go of the shopping trolley and hugged him. He lost his grip on the umbrella, and as it dropped behind his back, we were drenched once again. Neither of us cared. I kissed him, barely able to breathe, stealing oxygen from him as he stole mine in return. This was the only way we could keep on, although the change to carbon dioxide was making me dizzy. I was so fucking lucky. And you know what? Let me sing my own praises for once. He was pretty fucking lucky too. We were both lucky to have each other, even though the rain soaked every piece of clothing and formed freezing-cold rivers that ran through our hair, under our shirts, and down our backs, making us shiver despite the warmth coursing through our bodies simultaneously.

  Everything in our life had worked towards this one moment, much like how we had begun on a cold winter’s night in Carlton, across from a graveyard and under a tree that offered us enough privacy to give in to our initial feelings for one another. It turned out that the graveyard hadn’t been a bad omen after all. But it was this moment that would be written as a historical one, perhaps only in our own book, where we very publicly displayed our love for one another without worry or fear or even knowing what was happening in our surroundings as we got lost in each other while kissing in the rain on St. Georges Road.

  Chapter Eighteen

  WE BOTH looked like drowned rats as we reached the outer wall of the old firehouse. I was already struggling to pull the keys out from my pocket when Dec stopped short.

  I almost expected to see Nyssa again, as she was usually the person most likely to turn up out of the blue. I didn’t know this guy, even if he looked slightly familiar.

  “Dec, I was just about to call you.” The man stepped forward and shook his hand.

  “We were just at the shops,” Dec said, gesturing to our trolley. I could sense nervous energy pouring from him, so I knew this guy was a big deal. “Um, Paul Derrits, this is my partner, Simon.”

  The name meant more to me than the face. This was one of the new higher-ups at one of Dec’s old teams. He hadn’t been there when Dec played, but they had obviously met at club functions since.

  “The famous Simon Murray,” Paul said pleasantly, shaking my hand.

  That didn’t sound good. “Hopefully not notorious.”

  I was thankful most of my “controversies” were when Dec was playing in Tasmania, not with Essendon, just in case it was a black mark against him.

  “Come inside,” Dec told Paul. “You’re just as wet as we are.”

  It was a lie. We were survivors of the Titanic pulled from the Atlantic Ocean; he was a little moistened from the night air.

  “How did you get so wet?” Paul asked as we ushered him in, my hands shaking a little with the cold as I manipulated the locks. “My excuse is not having an umbrella.”

  “Damn thing’s full of holes,” I said, throwing ours into the wooden box that served as a depository for shoes, coats, umbrellas, and scarves.

  Dec gave a weak smile. I guess he didn’t want to tell this bigwig that he had been pashing out in the rain like a lovestruck teenager.

  I showed Paul to the downstairs lounge while Dec went and fetched some towels so we could all make some attempt at drying off. The ducted heating got cranked up so we wouldn’t contract pneumonia, and I made coffee as Dec tried to figure out why Paul was here.

  I eavesdropped as best as I could, but the coffee machine regularly drowned out Paul’s and Dec’s voices with its various pumps and whistles, and in the end, I gave up, resolving just to get out there as quickly as possible. Playing the elegant host was so not my scene.

  I had laden a tray—one of those cheap wooden ones Fran had painted in a craft class taken in a fit of artistic vision that only lasted three sessions—with cups and saucers and a plate of biscuits, and entered the room just as Dec was saying, “That’s a very generous offer. How long can I take to think about it?”

  “You have to think about it?” Paul asked, obviously taken aback.

  “I have to talk to Simon before I make any decision.”

  “Oh, okay.” Paul sounded bemused.

  I bit down on an irrational—or maybe totally rational—rejoinder, especially as I really couldn’t lay claim to what Paul actually meant and offered him a cup of coffee instead. He took it, and an uncomfortable silence fell.

  I was starting to think I shouldn’t have come back in. And then I was irritated again, because of Paul’s reaction to Dec. If I were a traditional WAG, would Paul find Dec’s request to confer with his partner over a major decision so strange? Or was this like a man’s man thing, where the alpha male was meant to decide everything on their own?

  “Could you let us know by Wednesday?” Paul downed his coffee in a few gulps, eager to be out of our house ASAP.

  “Sounds good.” Dec sounded pleasant enough, but maybe only I could pick up his slight iciness—which to anybody else would probably seem pe
rfectly affable given Dec’s easy-going nature.

  “Nice to meet you, Simon.” Paul shook my hand again, and Declan showed him out. I decided to eat the share of biscuits he had left behind and was vigorously dunking a shortbread cream in my coffee when Dec came back.

  He sat with his hands in his pockets, on the arm of the couch, his legs stretched out in front of him.

  “That was… interesting.” He reached for his coffee and took a long sip, lost in his own thoughts.

  “Okay, it’s not like I’m sitting here waiting in antici—” I deliberately broke off.

  It was an old joke, and he waited patiently.

  “—pation,” I said. I couldn’t believe he actually waited for it. I also thought he deserved it for making me wait in the first place. But that was Dec for you. Calm, considered, measured, always thinking before he spoke.

  “Remember before all this stuff with Nyssa began, I told you about how I wanted to eventually get into the coaching side of football?”

  I had kind of already jumped to this conclusion, but I wanted him to tell the story himself. He deserved this moment. “Yeah, but the timing got all screwed up with decision-making, and all the stuff you were doing with GetOut.”

  Dec nodded. “And now it’s just fallen into my lap.”

  “So what did Paul say?”

  “There’s an opening in their coaching team. I’m starting at the bottom, but that’s exactly what I wanted and what I had told them I wanted when I put out the feelers last year. I don’t want to walk into a higher position, as if I think I know everything already. I was a player, sure, but coaching is totally different.” He was almost talking to himself now, a reassurance that he could do this and that he was ready for it.

  I knew he was, and I was sure deep down he knew it as well. It was only natural to be nervous.

  “So?” I asked, waiting for him to say the words that would clinch the deal.

  His brow furrowed. “What do you mean, so?”

  “When do you start?”

  “I’m not! I said I wanted to talk to you about it.”

  This was crazy. “What’s there to talk about? Of course you’re going to take it!”

  I don’t think he realised how ramrod straight he was sitting, because relief was evident on his face as he relaxed. “But I want to know what you’re thinking. I’m not going to make a decision without you.”

  “I can’t believe you’d even think I would tell you to turn it down. Who was it who pushed me to start my own production company with Coby?”

  “Coby,” Dec said, without a beat.

  “Well, yeah, but you did too. I couldn’t have done it without your support.” I grimaced. “Well, actually, we’re still doing it with your support, as we’re no way in the black yet, and you’ve just given us a space in your offices but—”

  “It also means everything will change again,” Dec said in a rare interruption. “The media will start prying into our lives—”

  “Dec, you’ve never been out of the public eye.”

  “But it kind of calmed down over the years.”

  I laughed. “In waves.”

  “And it won’t just be us if we end up having kids. They’ll be caught up in it too.”

  He looked pale and was chewing on the inside of his cheek. I stood and crouched before him, resting my hands on his knees.

  “There’s already interest in them, and they haven’t even been conceived yet,” I reminded him. “We’ll just have to do our best to shield them from the worst of it.”

  “That doesn’t sound very convincing.”

  “What, we’re not meant to live the lives we want?” I asked him. “We’re so lucky, Dec. A lot of people aren’t. We have to take these chances, and we have to take the shit along with them. Otherwise, what’s it all for?”

  “I don’t know if that’s inspiring me, or just scaring me even more.”

  I shrugged. “Sounds pretty normal to me.”

  “I don’t know,” Dec said. “I just don’t know.”

  “Do you want me to take the decision out of your hands?” I reached for his and held them tight. “Then you can blame it on me. I can handle it.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to blame you. I just want to be sure you really want to go along for the ride I’m going to drag you on.”

  I stroked the back of his hand with my thumb. “Vice versa. And hey, we’ve done it before, and we’re still here.”

  He grinned. “We are.”

  “So the kids will just have to deal.”

  He laughed. “Okay.”

  “I’m serious. They need happy parents to try and give them a good life. This is what you’ve wanted all along! To be able to go on somehow in footy. It’s a continuation of your lifelong—”

  We both looked at each other, an uneasy comprehension dawning at the same time.

  “Dream,” we said together.

  I used his knees to hoist myself up, took his hand again, and pulled him along with me so we could sit on the couch together. I hooked one of my legs over his, and his hand automatically rested on my thigh.

  “I suppose you think it’s possible that Margaret is in cahoots with the Essendon Football Club?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what to think anymore, except maybe one thing.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t automatically write off the supernatural talents of little old ladies in your local supermarket.”

  I laughed. “I’ll remind you of that when Margaret starts coming up to us with visions of an apocalyptic future where you and I are riding across the desert Mad Max–style in search of water.”

  “Hey, as long as we’re together.”

  I hoped he wasn’t still convinced I was dying on him. “We will be. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  His fingers stretched towards my temple and rested there. “I’ll try not to.”

  “So when are you going to tell Paul?”

  Dec was flustered and full of nervous energy. “No time like the present, hey?”

  I kissed him. “Go get them, Tiger.”

  He wagged his finger at me. “I keep telling you, they can’t afford me.”

  “Sigh, alas.” I pretended to swoon. “I know. Margaret didn’t tell us my dreams were coming true.”

  “We still have the Tigers guernsey,” he reminded me, a devilish grin on his face.

  I laughed. “Go, call Paul.”

  He leapt off the couch and took off running, phone in hand.

  Now that I didn’t have his body warmth, I recognised I was still in damp clothing. I took the stairs two by two, not really noticing that I was imitating Dec’s personal glee. I entered the bedroom and started stripping off, my shirt almost hitting where Maggie lay stretched out on one of the pillows. As I got into a pair of comfortable frayed trackies and a fisherman’s sweater that was so large it was practically a dress—key slob attire for around the house on a cold night—my mobile rang. I gave Maggie a quick tummy rub as I picked the phone off the bed, and Nyssa’s face stared up at me.

  She was using FaceTime and seemed to be sitting in darkness, her face illuminated only by her phone’s light.

  “Hey,” I said, “isn’t it a bit late out your way?”

  “You know me, I’m just a night owl.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Is Dec around?”

  A brief shiver ran through me. A million possible scenarios as the reason for her call raced through my mind, and none of them were good. I thought of extremely happy Dec downstairs, thinking everything in his life was clicking into one perfect piece, suitable for framing. I didn’t want that destroyed.

  “Is something wrong, Nyssa?”

  She waved me off. “No, you paranoid nuff nuff. I just want to speak to you together.”

  I walked out of the bedroom and made my way down the hall. “He might still be on the phone—”

  “Wait, who’s that?” Nyssa asked, her eyes focused over my shoulder
.

  I turned, thinking maybe Dec had come upstairs and was exiting the bathroom. The hall was empty. “Dec?”

  “I’m downstairs!” I heard him yell from below.

  I turned back to Nyssa. “Who did you see?”

  She shrugged but seemed more confused than dismissive. “Probably just a shadow.”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  “You look a little jumpy, Simon.”

  “You’re the one making me jumpy!” By now I had reached the bottom of the stairs and almost smacked into Dec, who was responding to my call.

  “Hey, Nyssa.”

  “Hello, gorgeous boy!”

  “You didn’t call me gorgeous,” I mumbled.

  “That’s because you’re my gorgeous boy,” Dec said, bringing us back into the downstairs lounge room.

  I threw myself onto the couch and he settled next to me. “But doesn’t that make you my gorgeous boy, rather than Nyssa’s?”

  “You’re both gorgeous,” Nyssa said.

  “Yeah, you’re saying that now.”

  “What’s up, Nyss?” Dec asked, trying to move us all on.

  “Oh, not much. I’m just thinking you two are going to be the best-looking daddies in Melbourne.”

  Dec punched the air, and tears immediately came to his eyes. He seemed to be reacting in slow motion; even Nyssa’s words came out distorted and elongated. The couch shifted beneath me again and again as Dec jumped about. His kiss grazed my neck and the touch of his hand warmed my cheek as he brought me in closer to him. His lips met mine, and it felt like we fused for millennia before he pulled away to start talking to Nyssa again.

  We were having a baby. The procedure had been successful. Such a clinical way to describe it, but the reaction the news produced from Dec was pure and natural.

  Gravity seemed to be working upon me, though, squashing me down as Dec ascended through the stars. All I could think about was how life as we knew it would change, and how we were responsible for a little life about to come into this world. How was it possible to have a child without having to prove yourself capable of raising it for the rest of its life? Why would anybody think that I, with my history of mishaps and fuck-ups, should have a tiny baby in my care?