by Miriam Sved
I take Simon into the consultation room to administer the anaesthetic. The needle slides in smoothly. After I have performed a pin test on the injured digit (dulled to inhibit pain but not altogether remove feeling), I ask him to send Robert in. While the door between consultation and locker room is open I hear Cob talking to the players, his voice loud but controlled: ‘. . . define your playing careers,’ he is saying. ‘Maybe even define your lives. This is what it all comes down to, the next hour. I want you to leave nothing out there, nothing that you can look back on with regret.’
*
Watching the players jog out to the ground for the second half, I believe only a trained eye would be able to identify those not running at full strength. I am particularly concerned about Kevin’s knee and Russell’s heavily taped shoulder.
The siren sounds; Kevin’s knees once again crack bone against bone.
As exhausted as I know the players to be, their intensity at this stage is still high. One of our forwards, Ranga McPhee, makes a hard tackle just a few metres from where I sit at the monitor. The opposition player twists his body around and gets a knee into Ranga’s thigh, landing heavily with his weight on the limb; Ranga rolls away clutching his right leg. There was no knee impact and I am confident that the injury site is only soft tissue: a ‘corky’. He is able to rise to his feet and hobble off the ground without assistance. I intercept him at the boundary with an icepack and ease him onto a bench, press the icepack onto the mottled area of his thigh. Ranga is one of the older men on the field. Also, in my experience, one of the more stoical. His injury management needs to take both these factors into account.
‘How is the pain?’ I ask him. ‘One to ten.’
‘Two.’ He is visibly gritting his teeth.
Behind me I hear Tony say, ‘We haven’t got enough coverage down front.’ He is not talking to the player but easily within earshot.
I force Ranga to sit with the ice for another three minutes. When he runs back on (slight perceptible favouring of the right leg) the margin has stretched to sixteen points.
For the next ten minutes the intensity of the game seems to drop somewhat. Even if I couldn’t interpret the play I would know this from the decrease in impact injuries. Bradley Stephens has some leg cramping. Sean Wellard gets a knee to the groin and comes off for ice. Otherwise it is an uneventful period. Most of the game is being played in the opposition half, but they are struggling to kick goals. Ranga McPhee is awarded one free kick in our forward fifty, which he misses. Any residual soreness in his corked thigh would not have helped.
I am starting to think the game has perhaps done its worst when, in our defensive fifty, Cameron Buta jumps for a contested mark and takes an elbow directly to his temple. He goes down heavily at an awkward angle and does not put his hands out to break the fall; unconscious before he reaches the ground.
The loss of consciousness does not last long. I estimate ten seconds or less, as by the time I am on the field standing over him his eyes are open. He makes a clumsy move to rise. Dazed and unfocused; clearly concussed. One of the runners comes out and between us we help him to his feet and walk him off the ground.
When we get to the dugout I inform the runner that we will take him into the race to perform assessments, away from the noise of the crowd. I see Tony watching our slow progress into the race. He might follow us. Luckily the three-quarter-time siren rings out; Tony will be distracted during the break.
We find a quiet space a short way into the corridor and I begin to conduct the SCAT3 evaluation. It is largely superfluous: Cameron is not returning to play. He will probably need to be hospitalised.
‘What venue are we at today?’ I ask him.
Cameron looks around, somewhere between curious and scared. ‘Is this the new bit of the gym?’
‘What month is it, Cameron?’
‘Why you asking me, mate?’ Some of his natural bravado returning to cover the confusion. ‘Plenty of smarter blokes around. Go ask that doctor guy.’
I take him back out to the benches and ask the runner to procure him warm clothes.
‘He’s off,’ I say to the football manager.
Tony is nearby. He steps towards me and stands unnecessarily close. Then he turns to Cameron. ‘How you doin’, Butes?’
‘Yeah, good, mate, good.’
I say, ‘For all we know he thinks he’s on vacation on the Gold Coast.’ This is facetiousness on my part and probably inappropriate. But Tony turns to the player and says, ‘You on the Gold Coast, mate?’
Cameron looks around, confusion deepening to panic. ‘Seems a bit cold?’
Tony laughs as though the player has made a joke. There is a persistent tremor in Cameron’s right leg. It might be nerves but there is something reflex about the action.
‘He needs to be hospitalised.’
Tony swears under his breath but does nothing to further impede me. I make the necessary arrangements for Cameron to be met by a paramedic team in the basement car park. For the fourth quarter we will have one less player on the interchange bench, putting more strain on the remaining men.
The siren sounds to end the break. We are down by eleven. Tony is pacing the dugout. He shouts at a player on the interchange bench to get on a bike and warm up.
*
As soon as the last quarter begins it is apparent that the intensity level is back up. Our players are tackling everywhere, desperately scrambling after the ball. Ben Gallo gets a knee to the abdomen but gets straight back up and keeps running. A similar contact on Corey Miller, elbow to the stomach. He plays on as well, not even a glance at the interchange. Tony and the football manager are shouting back and forth at each other about whom to pull off, whom to send on. We are still down by eleven. The players have to be chased by runners to make them leave the ground. None of them want to be out of the game for even a minute.
There is a high kick into the fifty and Ranga takes a mark in the goal square. It is an easy kick. Only five points down now. I am aware I should not be focusing on the score but the stakes of this game are starting to blur in my mind. The commitment I made to Gerard: do I want to honour it or not?
Keep focused on the monitor.
No sooner is the ball bounced in the centre square than there is another series of bruising tackles. Some head-high contact; one of the opposition players goes down. It looks like he will need a stretcher. He totters back to his feet, but if they have a competent physician that player will be off for the duration. They are down one man, the same as us. I check the clock. Maybe ten minutes to go. It is becoming hard to follow the progression of tackles: one bleeds into the next, difficult to get a clear view of the points of impact inside the scrum. Gerard says it is simple, that I have better things with which to occupy myself. Hands and thighs and boots and I can sense rather than see the crunch of a small joint deep within. Why do the umpires not break this up?
‘Down front, everyone get down front!’ Tony shouts. Two people are on the phone to the coaching box, they snatch the receiver and talk over each other.
It is just a job. I will tell them. I will tell Gerard I told them but not tell them. I must focus on the monitor.
The long, long tackle moves back into the centre square. There is not much time left. A scrum near the boundary with Kevin Walker somewhere inside it, staying upright. So many flying limbs near his vulnerable knees. He gets the ball and keeps it clear, keeps his hands clear and fights his way into space. He kicks the ball towards our goals. The noise of the crowd is unreal. It is in my head. There are four opposition players in our forward fifty, they have flooded their defence. Mick Reece is there, well positioned and moving backwards with the flight of the ball. Three tall backmen stampede towards him in the other direction. It is dangerous. I will tell them. Three adult bodies against one unsuspecting boy, moving backwards. I have stopped watching the monitor, I am watching the game. Everyo
ne is watching the game.
Ranga McPhee comes from the side and hurls himself towards the contest. I think he is going for the ball and he will spoil Mick’s mark; but he is not going for the ball. He propels himself into the shrinking space between Mick and the three defenders. Not so much a shepherd as a shield, he takes most of the force of their accelerating bodies. A brutal collision, and though I am not watching the monitor I easily spot it: the mechanism of the injury. His left leg planted on the ground, the impact pivoting his knee into hyperextension. I can see the expression on his face: acute pain and shock; too much shock to protect his head, which bounces off the turf with the hollow reverberation that is as bad as anything I saw in the ER.
Mick Reece has taken the mark.
‘Stretcher,’ I shout, starting out onto the ground.
‘No time,’ someone says.
I look up at the clock: thirty-one minutes. ‘Get him out of there.’
They do not appear to be stopping the clock to evacuate the injured man. I will complain about this afterwards, to somebody high up. Maybe Cob. It is unacceptable. He could be badly injured. My resignation will double as a protest.
Already, though, Ranga has regained composure and is trying to rise. He props himself on one leg and hobbles tentatively towards the benches. It is obvious that he cannot bear weight on the left knee.
Louis and I both go out to meet him and help him back to the dugout. Half carried between us, he seems mildly disoriented, but it could be the pain, or the situation. Behind us, beneath the wheeling gulls, all the players are frozen in place as Mick Reece prepares to take what will surely be the last kick of the season. As we move him along Ranga is able to answer my questions cogently enough. He says he did not lose consciousness. I don’t believe the head injury will prove serious. The knee is another matter.
We get him to the benches and I let him walk a couple of experimental steps. The joint wobbles and Ranga totters above it like some half-assembled toy. The anterior cruciate ligament is snapped, nothing binding the joint. He collapses onto the bench and I stand over him. I feel the need to protect him from Tony, even though in truth Tony is not interested. Nobody is interested. Everybody is staring out to the ground, where Mick Reece will take the final kick.
‘That was very brave,’ I say. ‘You saved that boy from a bad injury, I’m quite sure of it.’
This is unusual. When talking to the players I usually confine myself to the injury, the medicine.
Perhaps because of the shock, Ranga doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to what is happening in the last moments of the game; therefore I don’t pay any attention either, even though the noise of the stadium has reached a pitch that doesn’t seem related to any sound humans could make. The noise doesn’t matter and neither does the kick. All that matters in this moment is my patient. The knee is swelling before our eyes. Ranga has been around long enough to know the signs of an ACL rupture, and to know he won’t come back from it.
‘Very brave,’ I say again. He looks up and I am surprised to see that his eyes are filled with tears. And it doesn’t seem strange that suddenly men around us are crying too – out of the corner of my eye I see Tony O’Brien with his head in his hands; one of the other coaches in a semi-squat, his mouth hanging open. This sudden bubble of stillness and grief is a fitting tribute to Ranga, to his bravery and sacrifice. Even though it is not a tribute. It is the moment of despair after Mick Reece has taken the final kick, and missed.
The siren rings out over the grounds.
*
I stay with Ranga throughout the speeches and medal-conferring and all the ceremonials, and then walk him down to the rooms. While Cob speaks Ranga is able to sit against the wall in the locker room with all the other exhausted and defeated players, as though he is still a functioning part of the team.
I go around checking injuries, asking players whether they need painkillers, icepacks. Usually they would be stretching but today there is no reason to, no game next week to recover for. Later I will go around offering different medicine, something to help them sleep and find temporary release. I think too that Cob’s speech will help them with these things. I listen as best I can while I check Ben Gallo’s bruised abdomen and splint Simon Rooney’s finger.
‘I should tell you all to hold on to this pain,’ Cob says, ‘to nurture it and keep it with you so you can bring it back next year and use it to win. And I do want you to keep the pain close, don’t let go of it completely. But today, know that you were all amazing. You have my respect and admiration.’ It was the gentlest I’d ever heard the coach speak. Mick Reece was slumped in a corner; I don’t believe he had looked up from the ground since the siren sounded. ‘To have made it this far was a miracle,’ Cob says. ‘Based on everything, on luck and the draw and this shitty year and even based on talent, we should have been out weeks ago. I am proud of you all for making it this far.’
I do not look up from the pressure bandage I am applying to Jason Hayes’ calf.
‘Now,’ Cob says, ‘I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think I’m going to go and get drunk.’
*
In the outer rooms, the public space where many people with a stake in the club have come to gather and condole with the players and talk about next season, I am standing against the wall.
Ranga has been taken to hospital; all the players have had the necessary bandages applied and anti-inflammatories administered. There is nothing medical with which to occupy myself.
Cob is standing nearby speaking to important-looking people in suits. Other important-looking people in suits are hovering, waiting to speak to him, so when he catches me looking at him I am surprised that he leaves his group to approach me. Normally I would report to him about the injury tally at a meeting later in the week. I assume he must have some particular player he wants to ask me about.
Instead he holds out his hand. ‘Thanks, doc. That was an intense one. Thanks for your work.’
I shake his hand and smile. I don’t know what to say.
‘Will you come out with the team and celebrate? All these years, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you outside work.’ He leans in and says in a conspiratorial tone, ‘I’ll make sure you’re not seated too close to bloody O’Brien.’
I can see his wife and daughter behind him, chatting to some players. Many of the other coaches’ families are there too, and the players’ families and friends.
I have better things with which to occupy myself, but none today.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I will. I was hoping I might get a chance to introduce everyone to my partner. He’s never liked the game but I’m hoping to convince him otherwise.’
I get my phone out to call Gerard.
Belonging
After the season
‘Yes,’ she says into the receiver, ‘he’s doing well. Very well. Dan and I are both very proud of him.’
The phone is pinned between Kate’s shoulder and ear while she stirs a large pot of soup. Chicken and vegetable. These are the last days of soup weather before summer invades the house. The wooden spoon revolves around the pot once, twice, before Dawn McCready replies, and in those two seconds of silence Kate hears exactly what Dawn thinks of Mick, of how Mick is likely doing.
Dawn says in a voice oily with concern, ‘Don’t you worry about him, Kate, he’ll get back up from this. No matter what happened in that one game, he had an amazing season.’
As if this is not bad enough, she goes on, ‘Jake too. Working so hard to come back from his injury. Those boys are fighters. You and Moira Lee can both be proud of your boys.’
It has been just over a week since the grand final. A week of condolences. Kate feels a ripple of hopelessness, and for a moment lets her mental guard drop and glances up, away from the domestic comfort of the soup, out the kitchen window to the brown-green paddock behind the house. She avoids noticing
the paddock whenever she can, going out the front door to get down the side to the car port and the washing line. It is impossible to see the patch of grass without imagining two little boys kicking a ball back and forth.
‘Thanks,’ she says to Dawn. ‘Thanks a lot for calling. I think I hear Mick waking up in his room, better get his lunch ready.’
Dawn chuckles, benign and knowing. ‘The trials of a footy mum, hey?’
*
Kate does not hear Mick in his room. She rarely hears anything from that dank cave and, since encountering his explosive anger, she has felt a liquid dread of coming unexpectedly into his presence. So it is a relief as well as a terrible worry: the long hours of silence from his room, his night-time guerrilla scavenging for food.
‘Is it worth it, Mum?’ he shouted at her on the first night he came home, when all she’d asked was when he would start training for next season. ‘Is it all fucking worth it?’
Kate’s brain went straight to Moira, a pulse of desolation, and she wanted to reply, ‘No. None of it is worth it.’ But her mouth clamped itself shut in a tight defensive line, behind which the wobbly threat of spit and tears rose up, and she caught herself thinking, He doesn’t even know what I gave up. Another instance of her own selfishness.
That night, after the shouting, she had one of her very vivid dreams about the time before. In the dreams she is always with Moira, the two of them together in some subtly surreal version of Kate’s kitchen (in one the clock above the radio had transformed into a curled-up snake), and Kate tells Moira terrible things, outrageous things she has thought or said or done. Moira just laughs, or says something kind and dismissive, and Kate feels a great elevating relief and laughs along with her friend.
She doesn’t see Mick or Jake in these dreams but she knows that if she went out the kitchen door to the field behind the house she would find them as little boys, skinny and loose-jointed, kicking a ball back and forth. The time before football changed everything, although not before football itself, which was there from the beginning. From the second week of prep when Mick came home with a puffy black eye and a small Aboriginal boy, both of which were a shock to Kate.
