‘I don’t think we should, man,’ said Dougie.
‘Why not? Don’t ya see?’ I said, pointing the rifle at the water. ‘The ocean is full of subterranean monsters, Lieutenant, and I wanna blow ’em all to hell!’ I was doing my best impression of an old-timey GI, which got a grin from Moose.
‘Dude, I dunno where the fucken bullets are. I gotta put that thing away.’
Reluctantly, I handed the rifle back over to Doug. I didn’t want to show him up too much in front of Moose, because if I went too hard his cowardice might get back to the club and I didn’t want him eating shit about it all season. He’d never forgive me. He took it inside.
We drank a few more rounds before it occurred to us to crack out the VHS tapes and chuck them on the telly. We were all stiff and still tired from training, but pretty soon the porno did its work. Very casually, though I think it was Moose who was first to go, our peckers appeared out of our pants, and we were all there thrumming away in the blue glow, sat back on the Jacketts’ sofa. The porno was pretty edgy stuff, too. Dougie nudged the tissue box in the centre of the coffee table, a little gesture that said, Help yourself. We took our leisure concurrently and were very polite about the distribution of tissues. When it was over, we stood about with balled-up wads in our hands, asked Doug where to dispense with them, then flushed them down the loo.
When the doorbell rang, Moose said, ‘That’s Ellie. See youse next week, yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ Dougie and I said at the same time.
Ellie, fuck. What on earth was Moose doing whacking off with us when he had Ellie?
We looked on as she greeted him at the front door. Seeing Doug and I behind her boyfriend in the corridor, she waved a friendly hand and we waved back.
‘Hey, Ford,’ she said, ‘heard you’re gunna play this season.’
‘Yeah. Looks like.’
‘Good luck then,’ she called out, before Moose shut the door behind them.
‘Ya better watch it with her, mate,’ said Doug. ‘Ya don’t want Moose catching on.’
I laughed. I thought he was kidding. ‘What, Ellie?’ I said. ‘No chance.’
Time Trial
When school started back up again, I really didn’t care. It was my final year, but I was far more preoccupied with the upcoming footy season – and with trying to figure out Will, who had been kind of sullen and unresponsive since the summer. I figured it had something to do with me not taking him out into the city for a drink. But after Christmas I’d gotten really distracted with Dougie and footy.
I’d send Will the occasional text, but he often didn’t reply, and this year we didn’t have any classes together. At lunch we would sit on a bench in the centre of the quadrangle and look up at the giant Australian flag that flapped in the wind, which made our school seem like a penal colony. For the first few weeks of the year, Will barely spoke, and we sat chewing cheese sandwiches and waiting to go back inside after the bell rang to get the last two periods over with and get the fuck home.
But after the bell went one day, I suggested we should try my fakie out in the CBD.
‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘I thought you weren’t keen.’
‘Nah, I am. Let’s do it. This Saturday, yeah? I have to be in the city to see my old man, anyway. We’ll hook up after. It’ll be sweet.’
‘Awesome,’ he said, beaming.
On Tuesday nights, my team had to do a timed run around the track at Princes Park, which was recorded by our coach.
When I got home from school, I changed into my shorts and runners and went out to wait for Moose and Steven on the nature strip. The best thing about these runs was being driven over to Carlton in Steven’s second-hand Nissan Skyline. I could hear the car when it was almost a block away from The Compound.
That Tuesday, Steven had kitted it out with an insane sound system and was blasting house tracks when he pulled up out front. ‘Hey, big man,’ he shouted at me across the passenger seat through the open window.
‘Hey, man, thanks for the lift.’
‘No worries.’
Moose had climbed out of the passenger seat and pitched it forward for me to climb in back.
‘What’re ya doing, Moose? Get in the back,’ said Steven. ‘Ford’s up front with me.’
‘What?’
‘Get in the fucken back, would ya?’
Moose shook his head before crawling into the cramped space behind the two front seats, his head touching the roof.
While Steven and Moose both had strong reputations around our neighbourhood, they were nothing alike – except for being real good at footy, of course. Steven was at uni now, still selling a bit of weed or eccies here and there, but he was the good son. A future world-beater, we all thought. I knew that had I been older, I would’ve been a lot closer to Steven than I was Moose. But my relationship with the Mousali brothers was typical of those friendships that are determined by age and proximity.
Steven put the car in gear and we tore off down the hill on Barrow Street and cut across Harding, Steven directing the Skyline cautiously through the roundabout by the church. Being in the Skyline wasn’t so different from riding my bike with Dougie; I could feel every divot and crack in the road, almost every granule of the bitumen. Steven even avoided potholes in the same way we did on our bikes, navigating the tyres between the patches where the road had eroded.
‘So, what’s been happening with you, Ford? Moose says you’re at some posh school.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What’s that like?’
‘It’s awright … a bit of a wank, I guess.’
‘Yeah? Where is it?’
I laughed. ‘Over in Toorak.’
‘Toorak? For real?’
‘Yep. St Anthony’s. Across the river from Scotch.’
‘Lotta rich cunts over that way, huh?’
‘Pretty much. Yeah.’
‘Fuck, man. That’s good, though, ey. You get a good education, ya can be the boss of those rich cunts one day, man.’
I laughed.
‘I’m serious, bro. That’s what I’m gunna do. Get the fuck outta this place, that’s for sure.’
Riding low in the purring Nissan, Steven zipped round the corners in Coburg as the gearbox crunched and the chassis groaned, until we were down in Brunswick and the car slid out of the side streets and joined the line of traffic on Sydney Road, where I could smell fuel and oil and meat and nicotine through the open window.
‘I’m saving up, man,’ said Steven. ‘I’m gunna get into real estate. This city’s gunna be booming in the next few years, man. You see all these shopfronts —’ Steven indicated the lounge bars and grocers, and then the wedding shops as we cruised along the road’s famous Bridal Belt ‘— they won’t be shops for too much longer, not after the younger rellies get their hands on ’em. Wogs, man. Wogs always sell out. The grandkids don’t wanna live in the north no more, they don’t wanna work in no fucken carpet shop selling rugs to cunts.’
‘So, whaddaya think’ll happen?’
‘Dunno, man. But the population keeps increasing, and everyone wants their bit of culture and inner-city living. Pretty soon those rich cunts you go to school with will be coming over here.’ Stephen laughed. ‘Especially if the wogs move out.’
‘Gentrification,’ I said.
‘That’s exactly the fucken word. See, Ford, that’s what I’m talking about. You’ve got insight, mate. That’s a value. Insight. Not like this spastic back here.’ Steven looked into the rear-view at Moose.
‘Yeah, yeah, whatever. Talk it up, ya brainiacs. Fucken boring me to death the both of youse.’
It was an honour that Steven wanted me up front, but it made me uncomfortable having Moose in the back, especially because Steven and me apparently had some intellectual kinship out of his little brother’s grasp. I felt guilty, like I was cutting in line, taking Moose’s seat at the table, and as the Skyline rolled in off Royal Parade, into the carpark out front of the Blues’ old home ground, I knew I’d hav
e to run extra hard to make it up.
When the car stopped, Steven disconnected the expensive music console and locked it away in the glove box. There was something pedantic about his relationship with his car that didn’t gel with what I’d presumed to know of him.
Dougie, Dom, Vince, Ange and Gibbo were all waiting by the short fence that separated the running track from the lawn, all of them in jumpers and shorts, and pretending not to watch any of the women who jogged by in skin-tight spandex. Next to them was our coach, who was taking a scoresheet from his pocket and browsing our previous times. Moose, Steven and I walked over to the group and said hey. Nobody liked cardio sessions very much, which is why Steven came down on our coach’s request; he would run round with us young pups to inspire us for future victory.
I’d run well the first week, going out full bore from start to finish, but since then I hadn’t done as well. Something had got inside my head: I’d always be measuring the distances, breaking the circular, tree-lined running path into segments, assigning places to ease off to catch my breath and other portions of the track along which to sprint. These head games fucked me over. Moose and Steven just ran flat chat every week and barely ever came in too long over thirteen minutes. I didn’t know how they did it, how anyone could be consistent. Once I got thinking about a task, about anything, there’d soon be all this mounting pressure and anxiety, and I’d fall to pieces stressing over the outcomes.
After a quick stretch I took my position in the group, then our coach gave a little countdown and we set off when he pressed his stopwatch.
There were a lot of people out at the park, running and walking their dogs beneath the canopy of the plane trees. On the ovals people were playing soccer and rugby after work – a lot of yelling to one another over nothing – and I thought how all sports are pretty ridiculous. All that energy being expended, and what for? Winning, of course. Winning is essential to life. How could anyone not care about needing to win?
I edged close to the front of the pack, right behind Moose and Steven, who seemed to be really duking it out a few paces ahead already, as we came into the first curve at the south-west corner of the park. I wanted to keep pace, but the way they were going I’d burst into flames before too long. We rounded the next corner then shot straight up the eastern side of the park, past the cemetery and the tennis courts and the footy ground, and up to the pond, where we started to loop back 300 metres from where we’d started.
‘Come on, Moose! Keep up!’ Somehow Steven had a reserve of energy to hang shit on his little brother.
When I noticed Moose might be flagging for once, I turned on the afterburners and went chasing Steven down to the finish line. Moose caught sight of me hauling arse after him and his brother, and dug in his heels. My lungs were burning; it felt like they were collapsing. And my legs were scorched.
Our coach was waving at us, his mad barking like the sound of a tumble drier in my adrenaline-flooded ears. ‘Come on, Ford! Come on!’
I was level with Steven, having outpaced Moose in the last thirty metres. Steven was giving me real shit, too, and I liked it. I wanted him to call me a cunt or something. I wanted to call him a cunt.
We drew past our coach dead level, but if there’d been video footage I’d guess Steven likely edged me out by a step.
I was heaving on the lawn, bent double and trying not to puke as everyone else came through over the next couple minutes. I couldn’t figure out what had gotten into me.
Steven patted my back and said, ‘Good effort, mate. Ya ran that one hard.’
There it was again – hard.
Turning to Moose, he said, ‘What happened to you, slow poke?’
‘Fuck off.’
Moose was shaking his head. He looked genuinely pissed off and embarrassed. If I felt guilty before, beating him out on the run hadn’t helped a bit.
This Bruschetta Bullshit
One of the benefits of playing footy was that I mostly got to keep my weekends to myself again. Dad and I struck a deal that while the season was going, it would be alright if I only came round for dinner on Saturday night and that staying the night was optional. I’d never stay, of course – I always had some excuse lined up. That week, I could meet up with Will in the city when I was finished having dinner.
After Dad had left Seymour and Ken Mears, he’d found himself in a relationship with Craig Downing, and they now lived in a cushy Southbank apartment thanks to the McCullen peach orchards. Craig was a workaholic who loved his job arranging funerals. He had an ex-wife and three sons, but he related a lot better to the dead than the living. The dead, after all, didn’t ask tough questions, and he could fall in step with their comfortable, gloriously prolonged silences. Death was more than a great equaliser, it was a great elevator; it contained a person to the best aspects of their eulogised self.
I knew just how much Craig liked the dead, because when I was ten or so, when he and Dad had gotten together after Seymour and Ken and the nonsense, Craig had been good enough to show me a roomful of made-up corpses out the back of a St Kilda funeral home. Perhaps he was proud of his make-up jobs, and I made a captive audience. I remembered this one old lady still – she had blue hair and a big nose, and she didn’t look old-old. I wondered what had done her in.
With Craig, my father was a little different to how he’d been with Ken in Seymour. It wasn’t anything so noticeable, but I actually thought he had more vitality living with Ken, as chaotic as it was. Dad and Craig had fallen into a kind of relaxed monotony: they didn’t talk sports, politics or social issues; there was no hand-holding or rainbow banner-bearing; they lived in separate quarters, with separate rooms and separate beds; they didn’t kiss, not in front of me anyway. Their social network comprised a collection of friends who were either able to comprehend or ignore the idiosyncrasies of their existences, including their past lives, embodied by the oft-bedraggled sons who bobbed up from time to time between the cracks of the wreckage each man had left in his wake.
Despite their proximity to a bevy of cultural events in the heart of the city, Dad and Craig didn’t attend plays or theatre performances or opera or ballet. Craig, who’d grown up on a dairy farm outside Warrnambool, derided highbrow culture, which seemed both to fascinate and horrify him. Out to lunch at a nicer-than-usual restaurant for his birthday one year, he’d had a full-blown ‘class attack’ that left him sweating and trembling and swearing about the hideous wealthy people in the bistro until my father managed to calm him down. It was the only time I ever witnessed him break from his affable and calm demeanour. If I’d learned anything in my lifetime other than terror and guilt, it was that money fucked people up the closer or further away from it they got.
On Saturday evening I took the tram into the city, across the St Kilda Road Bridge and up to the National Gallery, then got off and walked the blocks south-east to my father’s building, tucked behind the Arts Centre with its spire flashing multiple colours in the sky.
I passed the stables where the metropolitan police kept their horses, then the Yellow Peril sculpture, before arriving outside Dad’s building. It was strange, perhaps, but I could never remember his number – 72 or 79 or 75 – even though I’d been there a million times. I didn’t even know what street he lived on, only that if I ended up outside the Malthouse Theatre I’d walked too far. It might’ve been because the buildings all looked the same or that I was a teenager, but neither explanation rang true. My mind contained a map of the city; I always knew where I was going, and I could always find my way back to the most obscure places. But with Dad, I blocked everything out. I didn’t even keep his phone number in my mobile. Adults always said phones might be needed for emergencies, but I couldn’t imagine the kind of emergency that would require me to reach out to him.
I pressed all the buzzers – 72 and 75 and 79 – until eventually Craig’s voice was coming through the speaker.
‘Hey, it’s me,’ I said.
‘Rascal. Come on up.’
The
door made a little screech, and I went through into the foyer – a lot of smooth silver surfaces, mirrors and dramatic flower arrangements – and then up in the lift. When I reached their door, I knocked. A moment later, Craig Downing, blandly handsome, wearing a wool cardigan and with a Scotch-and-dry in his hand, pulled open the heavy, fire-retardant entrance. ‘Rascal,’ he said. ‘Ya made it.’
‘Hey. Yep,’ I said, stepping inside.
The northern and western walls were mostly glass, a wraparound balcony beyond them. From the living room – kitted out with a plush Winchester lounge set, and a heavy glass coffee table beneath an even heavier-looking glass chess set – you could look out across Southbank and the Arts Centre to an unimpeded view of the city skyline.
On the balcony, my father and Joel, Craig’s youngest, were smoking cigarettes and laughing raucously about something obscured by the double-glazed sliding doors.
‘Whisky?’ Craig offered, moving into the kitchen.
I shrugged. ‘Sure. Why not?’
‘Irish? Or Scotch?’
On the marble counter, beside a crystal ramekin filled with a spiral of Pringles, there were three bottles of whisky suspended upside-down from a little stand, each with a filter at the open end of the neck.
‘Scotch,’ I said.
Craig held a glass beneath the Johnnie Walker and pressed the rim upward against the filter. A shot poured in. His hand lingered a moment longer. ‘Double pour?’
‘Naturally,’ I simpered.
He repeated the motion, and the amber liquid came up to the virtually imperceptible indentation in a ring around the glass. You could slide your index finger back and forth along its smooth edge. I’d done that before. A lot.
‘Diet Coke? Ice?’ Craig turned to open the fridge.
‘Um, Coke is good. Some ice, too.’
I was jonesing for a smoke, but Dad and Joel hadn’t noticed my arrival and I was happy to delay it another half-minute while Craig poured me the drink. I was meeting Will at eight-thirty, and it was only five o’clock.
Everything in its right place Page 10
