Tigerland

by Sean Kennedy

  “That’s why I asked you. I have no idea. When they’re with each other, it’s like they’re back together in every way except actually being together. Like, they’re not really doing any couple-y affectionate things. But they still seem like a couple.”

  “I guess they’re just trying to work things out. It’s bound to be awkward at the start.”

  “It wasn’t for us,” he reminded me.

  “We were only broken up for a few weeks. It’s been about eight months for them. Plus, we weren’t even technically broken up. You were just being an idiot.”

  He laughed. “I was?”

  “Yeah.”

  His lips brushed against my forehead. “I guess I was. But so were you.”

  “I was at the start. And you were in the middle. But in the end it all worked out, and that’s why we’ll be together forever.”

  “That sounds like a threat,” he teased.

  “You bet it is. Now are you going to tell me how you really are?”

  “Tired,” Dec admitted. “Everybody wants my bloody opinion at the minute. Work, my parents, my sister—even my brothers, and they hate asking personal stuff. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing, I’ve gotten about seven invites to go on different shows, Fran and Roger stopped by—”

  “Bugger! I missed them?”

  “Fran was in fine form. I know she wanted a blow-by-blow account of everything Greg and I had ever done.”

  “Dirty bird!”

  “Not the sex stuff. Even Fran’s not that bad.”

  Thank fuck for small mercies. “That’s privileged information even I haven’t ever gotten.” I tried not to let a slightly whiny tone break from me.

  “I always thought you didn’t really want to know.”

  “And you’re right, I don’t. But I also don’t want to read it in his autobiography.”

  “We don’t know he’s writing an autobiography.” Dec shifted slightly, and my head sagged more into the crook of his arm. “He didn’t even read a frigging book when we were together—none that I saw, anyway.”

  Maybe that was one thing I had on the guy.

  Because everybody knows book reading is rated so much more highly than sport prowess.

  “He was lucky you turned down the offer that was made to you to write one.” Even though I knew Dec would never have outed them as a couple, or even hinted at Heyward being a fellow traveller, you would have had to imagine Dec even writing an autobiography in the first place. He was so private he made J.D. Salinger look like a Kardashian in comparison. Publishing houses offered to throw Scrooge McDuck-level of moneybags at him for it, but that didn’t play any consideration in Dec’s decision—which, incidentally, was made about four seconds after the offer was first pitched.

  “He called.”

  I tensed up immediately, and it would have been obvious, as I was squashed into a single banana lounge with him. “Heyward did?”

  “Yeah. While Fran and Rog were here. And that’s not the only reason I’m telling you.” He added that last bit quickly, just in case I was thinking of accusing him of it.

  “What did he want?”

  “Oh, to catch up. Two words you never want to hear your ex say to you.”

  “I think technically it’s one word, as it’s a noun in that usage.”

  “Whatever, I don’t want to do it.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “But I think maybe I should.”

  I wanted to smash one of those beer bottles against the wall and take to the streets with the broken neck as my weapon of choice, looking for Greg Heywood to have an old-school style rumble (my knowledge of which was obviously taken from Grease and Rebel Without A Cause). But I swallowed to try and take the dryness out of my mouth and calmly said, “If that’s what you want.”

  Dec laughed, but it was bitter. “You’re saying I shouldn’t go.”

  “I didn’t hear me saying that.”

  “I didn’t have to be a mind reader to catch it.”

  I wasn’t going to debate the point. “So, are you?”

  “I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “You’re kidding, right? You wanted to check it out with the little woman, just in case he had a hissy fit?”

  “Notice how I didn’t say that?”

  “I only had to catch it,” I replied, throwing his words back at him.

  “Don’t start.”

  So I shut my trap. Considerable restraint, I know.

  “Of course I’m going to want to talk to you about it,” Declan said, more gently this time.

  “It’s your decision in the end.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “Then do it,” I goaded him. And the thing is, I did want him to go. It was for the best, especially as he could find out exactly what Greg was planning to do in The Great Coming Out Extravaganza.

  “Do you really mean that?”

  “Yes.” I heard the bark in my voice, so I repeated it, much softer this time. “Yes.”

  The stubble on his chin rasped against my skin as he kissed me. “I love you. And you have nothing to worry about.”

  “I know.”

  But it wasn’t Dec I was worried about. I still didn’t trust Greg at all—and, hey, that was my right. The last time Dec had really spoken to him, Greg had tried to win him back. Now that he was free from the closet he might be even more emboldened.

  Of course, I could also be wrong.

  I often was.

  Chapter 4

  WE USUALLY had the telly on in the mornings as background noise to making breakfast and getting ready for work, listening in to the news and weather in between bites of toast or gulps of coffee.

  The morning after Heyward’s press conference our apartment remained silent, punctuated only by the beeping of the toaster and the concentrated hissing of the espresso machine.

  Neither of us really wanted to discuss Heyward and how the media would be reacting right now. We knew we would be dealing with that issue at work. With both of us employed in television, Dec specifically in AFL coverage, it was not going to be a news story we could avoid.

  So we pretended everything was normal, even though we usually spoke to each other a lot more over the dining table. We didn’t even pick up the paper. Instead, I picked it out of our mailbox in the lobby and threw it into the bin. I didn’t even open it up to see if anything was in it.

  Maybe I was being paranoid, but I could feel some scrutiny from fellow commuters as we made our way over the bridge. Dec was a celebrity of sorts, so he always got some attention, but Heyward had brought him back into even more prominence. Declan, hiding behind his sunglasses, seemed nonchalant, but it was always his default visage. He was much harder to read than me, whose default visage was a twisted grimace.

  “Are you okay?” he asked as we reached our separation point—where he headed towards the Docklands studios and I continued on to catch my tram to the other end of Collins Street.

  “Bee’s knees, baby.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You?”

  “Bee’s ankles?”

  “See you tonight,” I said, leaning in for a quick peck.

  When I looked back, he was watching me walk away. He raised his hand, and I waved back. When I turned again, he was finally on his way as well.

  I decided to walk. I was nowhere near the level of Dec’s celebrity, but as his partner I got a fair share of press. I didn’t want to put up with any stares of recognition on the tram, in close quarters where I couldn’t escape.

  It was a warm morning for Melbourne, and I was flushed and sweating by the time I reached the office. Coby gave me a cursory look over, his eyebrows impressively raised.

  “I hope that’s after-sex glow and not heat stress.”

  “Immature,” I wheezed.

  “Worse, it’s exercise flush.” He pushed me into my office and poured me a glass of water from the cooler. “That isn’t like you.”

  “I didn’t want to get on the tram.”

>   “Normally you would catch a taxi, then. Or drive yourself, Lazyarse.”

  He was right. Way to draw attention to myself by acting out of character.

  “I wasn’t thinking straight, okay?”

  He opened his mouth, which was already smirking with anticipation at the bon mot he would unleash, but I held up my hand.

  “Yes, yes, I know you’re so camp you’re a tent, but stop right there. I’m not in the mood.” I did, however, gulp down the water and held the glass out for a refill.

  “Maybe coming in to work today wasn’t such a great idea,” Coby said, bending over the water cooler.

  “What else was I going to do? Sit at home and wait for the next wave of assault from the Greg Heyward Publicity Frontline?”

  “You could do what my mum does when she’s stressed. Wash down some antidepressants with a bottle of red Lambrusco and sleep through the next few days.”

  No wonder Coby was so unflappable and anally retentive. He was obviously rebelling against his mother and her ways. The same reason why I was a Richmond supporter to my red-and-black-from-birth Essendon supporting parents. No kid wants to be exactly like their parents until they grow up a little and realise their parents really aren’t that bad. There were times mine could still annoy the shit out of me, and vice versa, but since Dec and Gabby had come along we settled into a more comfortable reverie—of which I really think Declan was the glue. He even had Tim on his side, although my family’s reverence at his football past was slowly starting to subside, and he was becoming less godlike and more human and fallible to them.

  “I might not take that bit of advice from the Judy Garland School of Coping Mechanisms, if that’s okay.”

  Coby wrinkled his nose rather cutely. “I don’t get it.”

  Nobody appreciates queer history anymore, but I decided to spare him a lecture. “How much is QueerSports going to focus on Heyward this week?”

  “Are you kidding me? We’re a sports show for queers, by queers. This is the biggest gay sporting story since your boyfriend came out. It’ll probably take up the whole hour.”

  Boyfriend? I think we’d been together long enough for people to stop thinking of us as boyfriends. It sounded so naff.

  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “You can’t avoid the topic, boss.”

  “I know.”

  “This isn’t even the only show we produce that will be mentioning it.”

  “I know.”

  “So you have to buck up.”

  That I didn’t know about. Buck up? Were we in Pleasantville all of a sudden? I must have been glaring at him, because he suddenly sucked in his breath and murmured, “Okay, probably went a bit too far there.”

  “You think?”

  “I know this must be hard for you.”

  I wanted to give the melodramatic you have no idea how hard this is speech. After all, Coby had never lived my life. And the fact that it felt like it was beginning to happen all over again, like some bad horror movie sequel, was getting to me. Instead, I sucked it up. I built a bridge and got over it, and other crap sayings. I think Coby could read the clichéd speech on my face, though, because he continued with an I’m going to get fired or killed for this expression. “But it is your job.”

  “Really, Coby? It’s my job? Thanks for pointing that out.”

  “It’s not like we can pretend it isn’t happening. You know management would come down on us if we don’t cover it. Especially after sending out a camera team yesterday.”

  I nodded.

  “Are you pissed at me?” he asked hesitantly.

  It was so hard having assistants. Especially because I had no boundaries. They always became my friends, and it meant that when I had to be the big scary boss I could never do it. Coby may not have had the Bambi-eyes of Nyssa, but he was doing his best impersonation of them.

  “No. I’m just pissed generally.”

  Coby nodded, and wisely decided to leave me alone.

  I sat and stewed in my office for the next half hour, making calls and arranging meetings with the “talent” of the shows. All seemed excited to get my reaction, but I danced around the subject or, as my patience began to wear thin, flat out refused to acknowledge their questions.

  And then I’d had enough. I told Coby I had to go to a meeting with senior management, and although he looked suspicious because he hadn’t heard anything about it he didn’t push the subject.

  I just needed a break. I planned only to dart across Spring Street and head for the Fitzroy Gardens, but I hailed a taxi and headed home. I needed sanctuary.

  I also needed distraction, and that occurred when the lift stopped at Abe’s floor to let Lisa on. I immediately had a warm rush at the sight of her, and I realised I needed a friend to tell me everything would be okay. Even if they maybe didn’t believe it yet themselves. Lisa, however, seemed to shrink inwards a little bit, caught out.

  “Why, hello there.” I smirked.

  “Good morning, Simon,” she replied, straightening up and relying on some quickly summoned inner courage to appear as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  “It’s afternoon, actually. Going down?” I asked, and she blushed. “Because this is going up.”

  “Crap. I didn’t check.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Her resolve dropped. “Dammit, I hate it that you guys all live in the same building!”

  “Blame your boyfriend. He was the one who bought in after Dec did.” My choice of word for Abe was out before I even thought about it, and before she could object I held up my hand and silenced her. “Figure of speech.”

  “You think you’re so damn smart.”

  “I am.”

  “Bastard. Why aren’t you at work, anyway?”

  “I told them I was in a meeting with all the bigwigs. I needed a few hours respite.”

  “How’s Dec?”

  “Quiet and withdrawn. Look, since you’re on your way up here with me, want to come in for a coffee?”

  “Is Dec home?”

  “Nope. He’s at Docklands Studios. He had some filming.”

  “Okay.”

  And the tension in the air dropped just that easily. It felt like it was Lisa and me again, the way things had been, my original comrade in arms against the WAGs.

  “By the way, are those yesterday’s clothes?”

  “Fuck you, Simon.”

  But she laughed.

  WE AVOIDED the obvious subject, and coffee soon moved on to wine. We lay on the couch in a mess of comfortably tangled limbs. The more alcohol that was consumed, the warmer and braver I became, until the pressure building up within me demanded release, and I jovially elbowed Lisa. She returned the favour, and we were both laughing when I asked, more loudly than I meant to, “So, are you and Abe back on together, or not?”

  Lisa choked back both her wine and her laugh. “Jesus, Simon, get to the point, why don’t you?”

  “I figure we’ve been patient enough, and we’re getting sick of it.”

  “‘We’ meaning you and Dec?”

  “Or the royal ‘we’, whichever you prefer.”

  Lisa took a long sip of her wine. “Wouldn’t Dec already know?”

  I took her empty glass off her and set it down on the coffee table without missing a beat. “Abe’s keeping pretty quiet about it.”

  “Wow, he’s really trying, then.”

  “To what? Keep secrets?”

  “No, to listen to me. To think of what I want as well.”

  “Was that the problem?”

  Lisa stretched across the coffee table for the wine and refilled our glasses. “It was one of them.”

  “Which brings me back to the question. Are you together? I mean, you stumbled out of his flat this morning in the same thing you were wearing yesterday. Which means you either stayed the night or your wardrobe has become really fucking boring.”

  Lisa considered it for a long moment and then finally said, “Kind of.”

&nb
sp; That vagued it all up for me. “Kind of?”

  “That’s all I can really say at the moment. I don’t know myself. It’s all a bit weird.”

  “Do you think sleeping with him will make things easier?”

  “Listen to you, Mr. Moral Majority.”

  “Sorry, that did sound a bit conservatard. But I’ve been there, done that, bought the book and the audiotape.”

  “It’s not outside my experience, either. But this is different. It’s Abe.”

  “Then how will you know if you really are together again?”

  “Oh, probably when we move back in together.” She tried to make it sound like an off-hand comment, but I knew better. She had already made up her mind. She wasn’t sure exactly when she would be moving back into our building, but it was going to be happening sooner or later.

  “Fuck, I’ve really missed you,” I said, overcome at the thought of her living under the same roof—technically—as us again.

  “Simon, you’re drunk.”

  “Maybe. Doesn’t mean I’m lying.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see when we see.”

  But she turned her face at the last moment so I wouldn’t see her smile. It was all the confirmation I needed. When she looked at me again, her expression was impressively nondescript. “So Abe really hasn’t been talking to Dec?”

  “If he has, Dec hasn’t said a word to me about it.”

  “Then he mustn’t have.”

  “Dec doesn’t tell me everything, you know,” I groused.

  “Do you tell him everything?”

  “Of course not. Are you claiming that you and Abe do?”

  “Hardly,” Lisa admitted. “A couple can’t survive without some secrets.”

  “Listen to us being all cynical.”

  “I have a right to be cynical. Abe and I have been separated for almost a year. You and Dec are living in bliss.”

  “It’s not so blissful at the moment.”

  Lisa sobered up, and stared at the bottom of her glass. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “I mean, everything’s okay with Dec and I, I think. It’s just that it’s never easy when an ex appears on the scene.”