A Song Only I Can Hear

by Barry Jonsberg

  I thought about injustice as we watched the St Martin’s team step down from their customised bus. The Socceroos would have been jealous of the transport. You see, I also know St Martin’s receives more government funding per student than our school does, and we have plenty of kids with special needs. Depending on who you talk to, that includes me. And St Martin’s charges an additional twenty-five thousand dollars a year in fees. We ask for fifty bucks from parents to buy books for the library, though few cough up.

  No wonder they kick our sorry butts.

  The whole system is rigged.

  ‘Grandad,’ I said. ‘I need something to believe in.’

  ‘Me too,’ Pop replied. ‘I believe I’ll have another beer.’ He took one from his fridge, unscrewed the cap and took a long swig.

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘Me too. I never joke about beer.’

  I sat on Grandad’s couch and gazed out the window. It was a gorgeous afternoon and the grounds at the aged-care facility are splendid, even beautiful. Paths weave between garden beds and there is a slightly dysfunctional fountain in the central lake. Even at this distance I could make out Jim talking to a duck. It was peaceful. Not the duck, which seemed slightly agitated. Or maybe puzzled.

  ‘Is there one single thing,’ I asked, more to myself than anyone else, ‘that could be easily done to make the world a place less full of suffering and inequality?’

  ‘Of course there blankety is,’ said Grandad. ‘Simplest thing in the world.’

  I waited, but he appeared to be done. He sat in the chair opposite, stared at the wall and sucked on his teeth. I had to ask, if only to stop the whistling.

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘What’s what?’

  ‘I don’t know why I talk to you sometimes, Grandad,’ I said, not even trying to keep the exasperation out of my voice. I would almost have welcomed the return of the whistling.

  ‘Neither do I.’

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘What is the simplest thing to make the world less full of suffering and inequality?’

  ‘Vegetables,’ said Grandad.

  ‘Vegetables?’ I said. I knew I shouldn’t because it only encourages him.

  ‘And I’m not talking about the inmates here in the Old Farts’ Palace. I’m talking vegetarianism. I’m talking about how meat eaters like you are destroying the planet.’

  He suddenly leaned forward and pointed his beer bottle at me.

  ‘Do you know what I think is the biggest blankety lie spread around by people who should know better?’ I opened my mouth to answer, but that apparently wasn’t necessary. ‘It’s that young people are better informed, have greater access to news and information than any generation in history. Frankly, Rob, you’re a bunch of blankety idiots who couldn’t find your own bumholes with a torch and a road map.’

  ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, Pop.’

  ‘Do you ever watch the news? On television or probably on those blankety phones you seem to have superglued to your fingers?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ I said. Indignation was definitely present in my tone. ‘Well, no, come to think about it. Not much.’

  ‘Well, get on your Raspberry phone or your iPatch and Goggle it. What would happen if the whole world became vegetarian? Go on, Goggle it. You’ll be amazed.’

  I did.

  I was.

  The whole school turned up for the game because they didn’t have a choice.

  Most of St Martin’s came along as well, in about fifty chartered buses. Students filed off coaches in their maroon uniforms and straw boaters. They clutched little pennants with the St Martin’s flag and motto emblazoned on them. Their motto is, of course, in Latin, and translates as ‘We have poo-loads of money and are much better than you nasty working-class mugs’. Milltown High can’t afford a motto, even one in Australian English, but if we could it would probably be, ‘Wassup?’

  Their students took up all the seating on one side of the pitch. We couldn’t afford seating all the way round so, being good hosts, we let them have what was available. This meant our lot had to stand in the mud on the touchline opposite the St Martin’s fans, tiniest students at the front and seniors towards the back. St Martin’s waved their little pennants and looked cheery, probably because they were going to make an effort this year and score forty goals. Our supporters had a haunted look. Offer them a forty–nil scoreline before we started and they would’ve taken it, if only so we could all go home.

  I went onto the pitch early because the rest of my teammates were getting changed. I’d been wearing my kit under my school uniform all day, which had been bloody hot. I tried to spot Destry Camberwick, but couldn’t. I saw Andrew, though. He gave me a huge thumbs-up. I would have preferred full body armour or, failing that, a large hole to swallow me up. Now the match was only minutes away, I was fighting to keep a panic attack at bay. I didn’t so much have butterflies in my stomach as wedge-tailed eagles.

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing.

  The players from both sides trooped out to join me and we lined up on the halfway line to sing the Australian anthem. Well, St Martin’s did. None of my team knew the words, apart from ‘let us rejoice’ and ‘girt by sea’, which only gets you so far and therefore involves a lot of mumbling. Then we shook hands.

  That’s the thing about St Martin’s. Maybe it’s the thing about all private schools. They give the impression of being civilised and decent and friendly, but up close the truth is revealed. These kids (and some of them looked as if they played prop-forward for the Kiwi National Rugby team in their spare time or had jobs as nightclub bouncers) tried to crush our hands when they shook them. They gazed deep into our eyes as if what they really wanted was to stick their hands down our throats and turn us inside out. Maybe that’s where the sports psychologist came in. After we’d shaken their hands I could tell our entire team felt terrified and defeated. On the sidelines, the St Martin’s students chanted the school song. Our lot looked as if they’d sooner be in maths class working on differential equations.

  We won the toss (the only thing we could win – we should have called it a day there and then) and elected to kick off. I think we did this so we could at least say we had the ball in their half once. I trotted back to my goal and jumped up and down on my toes. I still couldn’t see Destry, but I did spot Grandad. He’d asked the principal if he could watch the match and had been politely refused (as politely as a roar or bellow would allow). It was open only to students and staff, he’d been informed. Couldn’t let all parents and relatives come as there simply wasn’t room. So sorry. Hope you understand. Grandad certainly understood. It’s just that he didn’t care. As he expressed it to me later, ‘What are they gonna do? Taser me and drag me off school grounds, an eighty-year-old war veteran with a bad hip? That’ll look blankety great on the evening news.’ So he was there and, as far as I could tell, had avoided being tasered. I was really pleased to see him, which goes to show how desperate I was.

  The referee blew his whistle. Our centre-forward kicked it straight to the opposition and St Martin’s poured forward in attack.

  I was very busy for the next ninety minutes. I mean busy.

  So, what would happen to the world if everyone became vegetarian?

  The production of livestock for human consumption generates a third of all greenhouse emissions worldwide. A third!

  An average American family of four emits more greenhouse gases because of the meat they eat than from driving two cars. People talk about cutting back on car usage (and so they should), but no one talks about cutting down the number of steaks on the barbie. There are about one and a half billion cows on earth, and each cow produces between thirty and fifty gallons of methane a day. That is … I’m no good at maths, I’ve already told you … a lot of methane. It comes from their manure, their burps and their farts. Methane is a greenhouse gas. So, that steak you b
uy down at your local supermarket is making the planet warmer because of its history of poos, burps and farts.

  Livestock takes up a huge amount of space that could be used for other things. There are about twelve billion acres of agricultural land available in the world. Nearly seventy per cent of that is used for rearing livestock that we then eat. One third of the crops we do produce worldwide goes straight down the throats of those animals, to fatten them up. If that land was used for other crops, it could feed the hungry of the world. Nearly a billion people struggle with hunger every day. Each year over two and a half million children die from hunger-related causes. They die, in large part, because we in first world countries want to eat meat.

  I haven’t even mentioned animal cruelty yet. But I will. You can trust me on that.

  I learned all of this in ten minutes.

  I Goggled it on my iPatch.

  Listen. The members of our soccer team are all fine, upstanding kids with a wide range of talents (small confession: I’m making assumptions here since I don’t know any of them well), but with the exception of me, they’re all conscripts. Not one wanted to be in a physical contest with individuals from the St Martin’s team who, as I have observed before, were built like the proverbial public toilets constructed entirely from brick.

  How did I know this? Firstly, by the terrified expressions on my teammates’ faces. They wore the look of escaped convicts toiling through a swamp and hearing the baying of guard dogs in the distance. Secondly, they avoided any kind of physical contact throughout the first half. They weren’t even keen on being close to a St Martin’s player. If there had been tables on the pitch they would have jumped on them and shrieked. As it was, they simply parted before the first St Martin’s attack. There were muttered cries of, ‘Sorry, am I in your way?’ and one of my defenders even produced a red carpet for the opposition to pound along. I exaggerate only slightly. In consequence, I found four St Martin’s attackers bearing down on me. Think of a herd of elephants charging a mouse and you’ll get the idea.

  Now I don’t want to give the impression I was brave and my teammates were sooks. But I had one huge advantage over them. Motivation. I channelled Andrew’s words. Destry Camberwick was standing behind me in the goal: pure, innocent and beautiful. They were going to kick the ball into her face. I am the keeper of her face, I said to myself. She will not suffer. I WILL NOT LET HER SUFFER. It’s possible I gave a banshee scream. I rushed off my line and flung myself at the ball, gathering it from the toe of the forward and into my stomach, holding on for dear life. The forward tripped over my body, raking his studs along the side of my face as he did so, and crashed into the goal post.

  The post was fine, the forward not quite so. He had to be carried off and they almost needed a crane. Thirty seconds gone and I’d already got rid of one of them. Even though I’m not very good at maths, I was able to calculate that I could reduce their team to zero in about five minutes if I kept this up. This would result in my team having eleven players against none. Even Milltown could score one goal against no opposition in eighty-five minutes.

  Couldn’t it?

  Unfortunately, I hadn’t known about substitutions. We didn’t have substitutes. St Martin’s had ten lined up, all of whom looked like they’d sacrifice their own mothers to get onto the pitch. One promptly took off his tracksuit (a tracksuit!) and warmed up along the touchline. Luckily, no sacrifices took place, as far as I could tell.

  I tipped the ball over the bar, around the posts, I flung myself hither and yon. I saved a penalty. Andrew later said that for large parts of the first half, many in my team sat down and left me to it. A few checked their phones and caught up on Facebook and Twitter.

  We almost reached half-time without conceding a goal, but a few minutes before the break, St Martin’s got a corner. Their winger swung the ball in towards the penalty spot and I came to collect it. I timed my jump well and the ball was nearly in my grasp when all the lights went out. When I came to, I was flat on my back and the ball was in the net. Mr Broadbent’s face loomed above me, which was kinda scary because I wasn’t expecting it. To be honest it’s a bit scary at the best of times.

  ‘You all right, Rob?’ he said. I grunted and he stuck an ice-cold sponge into my face which I also wasn’t expecting. ‘That was a clear foul,’ he muttered. ‘That kid led with his elbow and caught you a real cracker in the face. Should’ve been sent off. Instead we’re one goal down. Can you get to your feet?’

  I did, but only because he brandished the ice-cold sponge in his right hand like a man prepared to use it. I staggered a little, but luckily the referee blew his whistle for half-time, so I sat down again. The rest of the team joined me. From what I could see through my one good eye (the other was closing rapidly), they were remarkably fresh and clean. I resembled a small mudslide.

  Mr Broadbent cleared his throat for his half-time motivational speech.

  ‘You’re all useless dropkicks,’ he said.

  Not the most motivational of starts, in my humble opinion.

  ‘Fight, guys. Fight,’ he continued. ‘Take a leaf from Rob’s book. Some of you haven’t broken sweat and look at Rob’s face. Look at it. It’s shocking. It’s disgustingly bloody and battered …’

  I didn’t like the sound of that. I almost asked him to keep quiet and hit me with the sponge again. But his words faded away. I was tired. I was so, so tired.

  It’s probably wise to draw a veil over the second half. We lost four–nil, even though the rest of the team did actually start to fight. Maybe Mr Broadbent knew something about motivation after all. The trouble was, the St Martin’s players were fit and we weren’t. We ran out of the little steam we owned and were no more than walking wounded in the last ten minutes of the match – the ten minutes when they added those extra three goals.

  St Martin’s was thrilled. For large parts of the game they weren’t much better than us lowly Milltownians, at least as far as the scoreline was concerned. So once they beat us, all was right with the world again. They went back to their Olympic swimming pool, their sports stadia and their digital entertainment centre knowing the social order was reassuringly intact.

  But we’d experienced pride. We’d given it our best, and losing only four–nil felt … well, to be honest, it felt like victory.

  It was just a pity Destry Camberwick wasn’t there to share it. She got sick ten minutes before kick-off and apparently her mother came and took her home. I would’ve laughed, but my face was too battered and bruised and painful.

  A week after the game against St Martin’s, I received another anonymous text message.

  Rob, you were brilliant in the soccer match. But, even now, you don’t fully understand how talented you are and how everyone will love you, given the chance. Confidence is the key to defeating your shyness.

  I have a series of challenges. One at a time. What do you say? Are you willing to prove yourself worthy of Destry Camberwick? More importantly, are you willing, finally, to like and value yourself? Text me Y or N.

  I called the number but it rang out, not even going to voicemail. I texted again. Who are you? Nothing.

  I’m imaginative. I believe this has already been touched on. So the first thing I thought about was the possibility of a stalker – someone who followed me home, maybe in a dark overcoat and a four-wheel drive with tinted windows. But I’m also logical. Surely I’d have noticed someone following me and, besides, a stalker couldn’t realistically have access to information like my phone number. No. This was someone who knew me well; they were aware of my obsession with Destry Camberwick and they also knew about the soccer game. In fact, the implication was they’d been among the spectators.

  Call me Sherlock if you will, but it took little time to draw up a list of suspects and the evidence for and against each of them.

  Andrew. Evidence for: has my number (obviously) and is completely up-to-date with the state of my heart. Was definitely at the game. Evidence against: entirely unlike him. He has n
o problem telling me stuff to my face – cloak and dagger routines are not his style. Plus, the language used in the text is nothing like his normal way of writing or talking. Plus-plus, the text is an imaginative form of engagement and he is not very imaginative. Chance of mysterious communicator therefore being him? Six out of ten, tops.

  Grandad. Evidence for: also knows all about the game (was there) and my love interest. Can be sneaky and surprising. He was the one who suggested the soccer game, so he has a prior conviction for interference. Evidence against: has as much chance of working a mobile phone as winning gold in the hundred metres hurdles at the next Olympics. Unless he has an accomplice? (The phone, I mean. Not the Olympics – that makes no sense at all.) The clincher: not one swear word in the entire message. Pop swears like other people breathe. Chance of mysterious communicator therefore being him? Two out of ten.

  Mum and Dad (let’s lump them together; according to Dad they’re basically one person anyway). Evidence for: again, they know all about me. Weren’t at the game but got full report from me and Grandad. Both know my phone number. Mum is sneaky. (I still have this feeling she tricked me into playing the soccer match while appearing to be totally against it. Mothers can never be trusted. If I could afford it, I’d have that inscribed on a sign and hang it on my bedroom door.) Evidence against: a strange way for parents to behave (though, to be fair, parents have a habit of being consistently weird); would require them buying another phone, which seems nuts (applies to Andrew too). Not one mention of golf, which rules Dad out (see above re: Grandad and swearing). Chance of mysterious communicator therefore being them? Mum, six out of ten, Dad zero out of ten.

  Everyone else: not a chance, on the grounds that no one knows me because I’m painfully shy. It has to be one of the above. Trouble is, which one? Unless …

  I had another suspect.