by Miriam Sved
He snorted. ‘Great, can I go back to training?’
‘Luke, I’m not finished. You’re going to have an interview on Four Quarters on Thursday, I’ve arranged an exclusive with Ricko.’
He started to interrupt, to complain about having to do press before the big game on Saturday, but I cut him off. ‘It’s all arranged with Cob and Mackenzie. It’s settled. This is the only way forward for you.’ Trying to convey the gravity of the situation. ‘Now, Ricko will ask you about a rumour that’s doing the rounds.’ I sat forward, arranged my face the way I imagined the seasoned interviewer doing it: jocular, conspiratorial. ‘He’ll be like, Mate, just between us, what happened?’
I sat back. ‘Now listen, Luke. For the purposes of that interview, you don’t know where that rumour started, you did not do anything.’ As if on cue my phone vibrated in my breast pocket and I just knew it was another footy journo. The sooner we could drag ourselves to Thursday and put this thing to bed the better. ‘You met that woman in a bar, you and she had a conversation, then you went home. It shouldn’t be so hard since you don’t remember anything anyway.’
He cocked his head to one side and for a moment reminded me of a big, stupid labrador my family had when I was a kid, all drool and confusion. ‘But . . .?’
‘Listen, the cops won’t release the information, Ray won’t release the footage. We can contain this.’
‘But what about the prick-tease? I mean the . . . lady?’
I clenched my right hand, digging nails into the soft flesh of my palm. ‘Don’t worry about that.’
He smiled, and stopped looking like the family labrador. ‘Nice.’
‘Your job in the interview isn’t done. You tell Ricko, you say you didn’t do anything to that woman, but you’ve thought about it, and your attitude towards women in the past has been . . . disrespectful.’
A slight sneer curled his top lip but I ignored it.
‘This is very important. While we don’t want to add any momentum to the current story, your interview has to show everyone that you’re changing your tune. You recognise that in the past you’ve had some problems with women and you’re doing your best to clean up your act.’ I’d toyed with the idea of introducing some kind of therapy angle, but for that we might have to get him an actual therapist, and I didn’t think anyone was ready for Camperos’ subconscious to be unleashed on the world. Best keep the message simple. ‘Have you got it?’ Speaking slowly. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong on this occasion, but you know you’ve been disrespectful towards women in the past and you’re going to try to be better. A better man.’
I willed Camperos to show some conscience, but all he did was shift his big shanks in the chair and snort. ‘Whatever,’ he said. And then, when it was clear he wasn’t getting out of there so easily, ‘Sure, yes, a better man. Respect for women.’ He smiled at me, complicit. The fans, the fans.
‘Alright, Luke.’ I felt deflated, defeated. ‘I’ve arranged with Cob for you to come and see me again tomorrow and we’ll go through a mock interview.’
He looked for a moment like he might be about to argue with that, but the lure of immediate freedom was clearly too powerful and he stood up, knocking over the chair on his way out of my office.
I checked my phone – two more messages from the same network that had been on me since yesterday, and one from a different network: the director of news programming, asking me with the clipped annoyance of someone who never had to ask twice if I could return his call at the earliest opportunity. While I was looking at it the thing rang again; same number. I put it face down on my desk and let it buzz, suddenly afraid to hit decline. I wished I could just turn it off, but I needed to be reachable for Cob and Mackenzie. And Camperos. I was working for him too.
*
The next twenty-four hours oozed by agonisingly slowly. Wherever I went, I felt stalked. The emails kept coming – begging, haggling, threatening – and I kept ignoring them; my phone kept ringing and I kept dinking, until that night I woke at a surreal after-midnight hour to the demanding little burr and found myself staring at the phone, at a name so universally recognised and feared that it took physical compulsion not to respond – I clamped one hand over the other as I stared at the thing on my bedside table. Even before the appearance of this name, the phone had begun to generate in me a panic response like a hugely buzzing, poisonous insect. In my barely awake state I made a small, guttural sound and Viv rolled over behind me.
‘What’s wrong?’ she said groggily.
It had stopped buzzing but I was still hunched over the bedside table, staring at it.
Nothing, I said, nothing was wrong; I said she should go back to sleep, and then I lay for the next two hours in a state of suspended physical alertness, that name flashing across my retinas. A cold sweat pooled in the hollows of my back, and I resisted the urge to call him back, or to call Mackenzie or Cob; anyone who might take some of this responsibility away. I wished Camperos dead. Usually when I couldn’t sleep, when I was stressed about something at work, it calmed me down to go to Alison’s room and watch the peaceful abandonment of my daughter; but the thought of her lying beneath the full-sized, sweat-drenched image of Camperos made the blood pump thicker through my head. Damn him.
It was then, I suppose, some time during that two-hour panic jag, that the idea crept in. Not so much an idea as a fantasy: a way to slough off all the media buzzards with a sweep of my suddenly powerful hand. A way to regain a bit of self-respect. I managed to get to sleep on a gentle tide of speculation about the practicalities of it. It wouldn’t even have to be someone in the press – my old uni friend Dave would be perfect: hated our club and loved a scandal. I could just hit ‘send’ with the wrong name in the little address field on my phone – such tiny writing, an easy mistake. The rest would take care of itself, the footage would be on YouTube the next day linked to a random IP address, nothing to do with me. I fell asleep imagining the sweet release of conferring responsibility for Camperos onto the vengeful world: online forums, panels of experts and prime-time exposés. I’d have good reason to tell Alison to take that poster down. No role model for our kids, the expert panels would say. But when the burr of my phone woke me four hours later my sweet vengeful fantasy had evaporated and the claws of doubt were wrapped tight around my neck. Two more days until Four Quarters. I glanced at the phone to make sure it wasn’t Mackenzie or Cob before pressing decline.
*
That afternoon I made the mistake of watching the footage again before my coaching session with Camperos. The first time I’d watched the whole thing had been through a semi-squint, and the image was blurred in my mind into a kind of indeterminate act, something that might be interpreted in varying ways by forensic experts. But as soon as the actual footage was before me again, I knew it was as bad as it could be. The kind of thing you could almost pass off as a joke until you saw it happen. My hatred for Camperos turned darker, sticky, covering the world in filth. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt clean. Perhaps when I used to watch the games with Viv, when I was just a clueless, devoted fan.
At the coaching session I could barely bring myself to look at Camperos, and to avoid interacting with him I gabbled a lot of nonsense about interview comportment while I shuffled papers around on my desk. He was slumped in his chair chewing gum, but the more I prevaricated the more he seemed to become aware of my presence, until he actually suggested maybe we should run through some mock interview questions.
I pulled myself together (the fans, the fans), leaned forward confidentially and asked Camperos in my best Ricko-inspired drawl whether a certain rumour about his behaviour at a city night-spot had any truth in it.
‘Fuck off,’ he said. ‘Like I’d get into an ugly slag’s car in the first place.’
I let my head fall slowly onto my desk.
*
In the hands of the footy gods, I sat down with
Alison and Viv the next night to watch the show. The familiar theme song sounded somehow distorted, and the colours of the set looked garish, the props oversized and unconvincing. I’d had another almost sleepless night, staving off a full-blown panic attack and resisting the urge to phone Mackenzie and babble down the line. At least I’d made it clear to the president, after the last disastrous coaching session with Camperos, that the full-forward seemed determined not to take the situation seriously and there was very little I could do about that. Mackenzie assured me, with his even-voiced gravity that could slide so easily between ingratiation and threat, that Camperos would cooperate.
As soon as Camperos appeared before the cameras that night, sitting across from Ricko in a featureless room, I could tell that whatever Mackenzie had said or done to the big lug had worked. Camperos sat up straight and met Ricko’s eyes, and when the questions started coming he managed himself pretty well. Ricko, the seasoned interviewer, was on a charm offensive that just barely concealed his talons. His questions didn’t deviate from the content I’d approved the day before, but he managed to convey a prurient dismay when he asked about the exact nature of the incident that had led to some strange rumours we’d all been hearing for the last week.
Camperos took a moment to answer but didn’t look flustered or hostile. He looked . . . thoughtful. And I was sure someone had plucked his eyebrows. ‘I dunno where some of the talk that gets around comes from,’ he said, with a little shake of his head. ‘Nothing happened last weekend, I just had a couple of drinks. Although if I’m honest,’ sitting forward, addressing Ricko but glancing at the camera, connecting with his audience as I’d implored him to do while he sat like a lump of clag in my office, ‘if I’m honest, I think some of the stuff that gets around about me might be sort of my fault.’
Ricko leaned towards him, radiating predatory interest.
‘Not that I did anything,’ Camperos went on, ‘but I know sometimes my behaviour’s been a bit stupid. And, well, disrespectful. Especially towards women.’ Ricko nodded sympathetically. ‘But I’m working on that. I owe it to my girlfriend Lauren,’ beaming for a moment off-camera, though I seriously doubted his girlfriend was anywhere nearby, then addressing the camera, us, directly, ‘and I owe it to my fans.’
Beside me on the couch, Alison clutched a pillow to her middle and made a little sighing noise.
Ricko got Camperos to reiterate this stuff in a few different formulations, and then segued into lighter terrain about the team’s chances for the finals and the game on Saturday, about how Camperos would celebrate if they won a spot in the top four (‘I hope things don’t get messy, if you know what I mean,’ the interviewer said, and Camperos laughed, and I thought, Are we joking about it? Already?), but by then I was only giving half my attention to the interview while I assessed the situation. Camperos had done well, was still doing well, playing his role with unexpected aplomb. I checked my phone – the last hectoring phone calls and emails were from before Four Quarters went to air. It was too early to call, but I was prepared to bet this interview had done its work, allowing us to wriggle through a chink in the story and out into clean air.
I didn’t feel clean. Beside me Alison sighed again and said, ‘He’s so cute.’ Viv gave me an eye-rolling smile. A tight band was constricting my chest – the same constriction I’d been fighting throughout the nights. I’d thought it would be gone after the interview, if Camperos did well.
‘Maybe you should get ready for bed,’ I said to Alison.
Without looking away from the telly, she said, ‘Nah, I wanna see the rest of the interview.’ Then, ‘If you go to work on the weekend can we come down to the club with you? I might get to see Luke.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ I tried to nudge her off the sofa, and when that didn’t work I took her by the arm and forcibly dislodged her, and began to haul her towards her bedroom and away from Luke Camperos; and then I remembered that she slept beneath a life-sized poster of him. A laugh bubbled up through my tight throat. It might have sounded a bit crazy.
‘Dad,’ Alison whined, pulling down against me.
‘Ian?’ Viv was looking at me quizzically. ‘I think she can stay up to watch the rest of the interview.’
‘See, Dad.’ Al yanked out of my grasp and went back to her seat on the sofa, rubbing her arm where I’d held her and giving me a reproachful look before she turned her attention back to the telly.
‘Sorry,’ I said, to no-one or both of them. Camperos was still on, the mood of the interview light now: he and Ricko having a laugh, trading stories about crazy fans; Ricko saying a woman once asked him to autograph her bum. I wondered, maybe for the first time, about the girl. Her name was Willow. I didn’t know what had happened, whether she was being bribed or threatened – probably both. Either way, Mackenzie seemed confident that she would withdraw the complaint. Only a handful of people had seen the footage and they were all contained. It would be buried. I wondered if she really had been a third-generation fan, and if she still was.
The interview was wrapping up, Viv and Alison chatting on the sofa – Alison had already forgotten about Camperos and was talking about an assignment she had for school, something to do with India; Viv got the laptop from the sideboard and they Googled something together, laughing, Four Quarters rabbiting on in the background. I seemed to be having trouble getting enough oxygen. I sat very still on the sofa and took shallow breaths. Viv turned and said something to me but I couldn’t make sense of her words.
‘Bed,’ I said. ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’
Viv and Alison both looked at me with concerned, curious faces, heads cocked at identical angles. It was 9.30. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so tired.
*
That night when I still couldn’t sleep, after I’d waited for Viv to come to bed and then instead of talking to her, unburdening myself as I’d planned to, I lay plank-stiff and silent and listened to her go through the heartbreakingly short progression towards sleep; when at 2.15, three hours later, I still couldn’t sleep, I got up and went to Alison’s room and forced myself to open the door. A tempestuous sleeper, Al was diagonal in the bed, blowing air out her nose in angry little gusts, blankets in a knot on top of her. I went into the room and straightened her covers, and then straightened up to face him. Luke Camperos. He’d been photographed in a run of play, holding the ball, his body a semi-crouch as he lined up a hand-ball and gazed with fixed intensity at his target.
Over the sleeping form of my daughter I challenged him.
What makes you so fucking special? Why should you be the one who gets away with it? Luke Camperos didn’t cure cancer or explore distant galaxies or feed the hungry. He ran around a field chasing a ball. Who do you think you are?
Even though the night was frigid I felt sticky with sweat. I realised I’d always known what I had to do. The phone was in the chest pocket of my pyjamas – long years of round-the-clock readiness for an emergency call from Mackenzie. I got it out and, still facing off with Camperos over Alison, brought up the folder with the footage in it. I could send it with two clicks. The ease of it made me feel dizzy.
I looked back up at Camperos and silently I told him, one more game. I would wait until after the game on Saturday, let the boys settle into their top-four finals position before taking Camperos out. Once we had that shored up, losing the full-forward wouldn’t be such a blow to the club, and I still had the fans, the fans to think about. I leaned down and gave Al a kiss on her chilly forehead. Then I went back to bed and, for the first time in what felt like weeks, I slept.
Maggot
Round twenty-two
Martin is not sure when they started to hate him, or why, or when it became a big joke for everyone else.
‘Anti-Martin brigade out in force, yeah,’ Rick Mooney says as the camera pans over a clot of fans, hands thrown up in outrage at the last decision. One guy is leaning so far over the boundary he l
ooks likely to fall all the way onto the ground. You can see the spit fly from his mouth, and the veins stand up on his neck. You can see him mouth the words ‘fucking maggot’. The camera pans back onto the ground and Martin is there, on-screen, leading the man to his new mark.
‘Fair.’ Rob, the umping coach, anoints the decision with his remote control.
‘Cameron Buta had been overrunning the mark all bloody day,’ Martin says.
‘I said fair.’ Rob waves the remote in his direction. ‘But we’re coming to the problem.’
Martin knows the problem. He knows that everyone else in the room knows the problem. He knew it as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and he got confirmation in his running sheet on Monday. Is this really necessary?
On-screen he and the man with the ball jog across the ground, followed by the small, ranting figure of Cameron Buta.
‘Here it is.’ Rob points with the remote to the patch of ground where Martin is designating the new mark and Buta is still remonstrating with him. ‘Now you’re copping some pretty heavy fire here and no-one understands that better than me,’ says Rob, who umped four hundred and twenty games in the AFL, which, as he finds a way to point out every week, was a record at the time. ‘Here it is.’ He turns the sound up as Martin swings around on-screen to face Buta.
Buta is becoming wheedling, saying, ‘I wasn’t over the mark, I wasn’t anywhere near the mark, I had the mark marked with my foot. Didn’t you see me fucken draw it in the ground? I always do that.’
Martin, with his head down and hand held up to block further protest, says, ‘You were over the mark. Step back, please.’
(‘Fine,’ Rob says, ‘fine.’)
Buta stage-whispers without moving, ‘This is fucked.’
‘Please step back off the mark or you’ll give away another fifty.’
‘Yeah but you wouldn’t even see, would you? If I was behind the mark, you wouldn’t fucken see that.’
