The Family Men (16 page)

Rosie understands all too well what he is getting at but she persists anyway, determinedly coaxing at his genitals like bashful stress toys, bent on eliciting a response. When she finally has him inside her she doesn't waste any time, flicking off the light and keeping quiet as she agitates her hips, giving him a chance to think of someone else.

The Rising Star trophy was surprisingly heavy – a bronze figurine taking a grab. Why were the manikins always arranged in the same pose? He lobbed the statuette on the table as he contemplated what remained of his meal while Jack said, “Get a look at that, Nipper.” And Eddy followed reflexively with: “What do you think about that?”

2006 Rising Star
*

His gravy had largely congealed on his plate. He picked up the cutlery then put it down again, the fatty lump of meat easily wider than his head. He cast his eyes about for his brother, but Matt was on the other side of the venue, seated almost as far from him as it was possible to be. He fingered his bow tie, wished he could take it off.

Keith Slattery and Richie Moore were on their table. Along with Jonathan Knight and Nick Hartigan from the forward line, heads tipped towards each other, engaged in their own conversation. Most of the boys were pissed as farts, drinking much more than they ate as Marty ran through another comedy routine, entertaining the crew with digs at the coaching staff and cheap swipes at the Club sponsors. Something about an American and a wombat had the room in stitches.

Not in his corner though. With Jack and Eddy downing shots on either side of him, theirs might as well have been a private party of three. The brothers, nicknamed “Dumb” and “Dumber” by the press, tag-teaming him with intimations about his sexual preferences and predilections, making suggestions about what he might like to do with the various performers, pressing him for details about his romantic experiences.

Harry squeezed his fists until they throbbed but he refused to answer their questions.

It is a habit he hasn't tried terribly hard to break, digging deep half-moons into the calloused skin whenever he forgets to trim his nails. The smell of Preen wafts up his nostrils, the comforting scent of Sunday nights in front of the telly at home as he gouges and jabs his palms while his mother works at the buttons on her tennis dress. “Are you really still thinking things over,” she asks, “or have you already made up your mind? I, for one, would like to know your plans.”

He realises he's been doing neither, no tossing around, no deciding. He is simply suspended upon a high wire in space, wavering on a wobbly leg, waiting for fate, the breeze, to tip him in one direction or another.

It is an approach that has stood him in good stead until now, following along, letting circumstances dictate his next move, the vicissitudes of prevailing conditions determining his course. And there has been no reason to do otherwise. The path has always been clear. Easy. One foot in front of the other and that is that. The precedent well and truly set. This time, however, precedent won't do. He has to make a decision. His hand is being forced. It is the first time he is aware of having to make such a choice, the first time he has been instrumental in establishing the conditions leading to that decision-making.

“They're not going to wait for you forever,” continues Diana. “I know they say to take your time, but they're just words, Harry. They'll say anything to buy themselves a bit of breathing room. Especially after your father's latest episode. Whatever they think you want to hear if that will put the ball back in their court. Bottom line though is they want an answer. You know that, don't you? They're not going to let you swan right through pre-season without turning up to training. ‘Family issues' are only going to get you so far.”

Harry closes his eyes, can see two bright round discs clearly reflected on the inside of his lids. “You sound like you're working for Laurie. Dad always said you had a thing for him. That he was a ladies' man.”

“That's funny, coming from your father.”

“Well why are you hassling me about it? A few more days isn't going to make any difference.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know. I don't want to see you forced into a position you don't like, though, because you've left things too late. You don't want to be swept along on someone else's timetable. It's important to be realistic, to take control. Have you written it all up, the pros and cons? Those human resources people always say you've got to do that, to make a list of your strengths and weaknesses.”

His father thinks it is fear that is holding him back, capping his ambition as surely as a botched knee reconstruction. Good old-fashioned apprehension. What if he is crippled after copping one in the shin, or fractures some vertebrae and does his back? But that is just the name of the game. Everyone goes out with a use-by date. You could break your neck, you could break your arm. Any round could be your last.

When Alan started out there was none of this whining about personal safety; you ran out there and gave it your all, your attention monopolised by the ball. “Tough it out,” the coaches would say after a nasty tackle. “Push through the pain.” Stiff upper lips were the order of the day. You had to be strong. Shake it off. No one cared if you copped an elbow in the jaw, lost all your teeth. Anyone worth their salt would soldier on. You'd have to have been knocked unconscious to get off the field. And that didn't always work. The only thing that mattered was the game. You kept on going until the final siren call.

“So when are you seeing that psychologist lady again?” his father queries, venturing a jolly tone as though he has no problem with them at all, the medical fraternity, magnanimously setting aside his pronounced scepticism (“Never done me any bloody good, not then, not now”) in exchange for supportive counselling for his son.

“What difference does it make?” asks Harry. “It's all crap. You can go and talk to her if you like.”

“Not bloody likely.”

Senior adds twenty kilos to the bench press and eases himself down, Harry peering up his father's nose as Alan tilts his head back to check his position, wondering if his father is as well acquainted with the interior of his (Harry's) nasal cavity.

He hasn't heard anything from the Club in nearly a week, but he knows time is running out. That's just the way it is. Sooner or later someone will come asking, a deadline will be laid down. But can't it wait? The season is months away. What is the hurry?

Sanding floorboards for Dean, seeing the way the materials change under his manipulations, the rough knots and blemishes gently pressured into giving way to the freshly hewn veneers, caressing the points again and again until the surfaces seem almost new. “Harry, can you do the lunch run?” asks his friend, holding out the keys to the ute.

Harry leaves the sander where it stands and takes orders for the shops. As he tallies the items in his head – two burgers, fries, etc. – he thinks to himself, this is how it goes, this is an option, another way to be, if he walks away, another road to tread; allowing the possibility for a moment, him and Dean going into business together, both their names on the company letterhead.

Dean wants to go to the pub, Parma and Pot special, but Harry can't face it tonight, the smell bound up with his last image of Eddy, at Sportsman's Night, retching all over the bathroom floor. Proudly regaling Harry with the details, his putrid breath right in Harry's face. And then Marty stepping back onto the stage, this time wearing a top hat and carrying a magician's cane, and on it went. “Abracadabra, gentlemen,” he'd said, waving it around, the unfurled ribbon of hair banging him in the eye. “As you know, this is traditionally the business end of the evening, so I have one question for you: are you ready?” Harry didn't know what he was talking about but then Marty posed the question again. “Well are you?” And that is all it took.
Blood oath
. There was a whoop from one of the other tables (Matt?) and then wholesale pandemonium. Foot stamping, whistling, a tuneless rendition of the Club song. More grunting than melody as the room united behind the anthem. Red-faced Eddy grinning from ear to ear, banging his palm against the table as the lights went down and the music started up again –
Loosen up my buttons, baby
– and the dancers were back, sparkling in the footlights, all sequins and tassels.

The music seemed faster now but the dancers' movements appeared slower, almost measured, the caution of someone previously wrong-footed trying to avoid the same mistake (though wasn't the quickest way down a flight of stairs to monitor each careful step?). He thought of those pink Energizer Bunnies. Imagined some air had been let out of their tyres. Knew it was a mixed metaphor, that it didn't make sense. Editing his thoughts as he went along, leaping from one unrelated image to the next, until he ended up home again, peering into his mother's fish tank, thinking it was like the women were dancing underwater.

If you could call what they were doing dancing. A form of erotic line-dancing, perhaps. Part Madison, part Can Can. In boots and custom babydolls, opaque panels suggesting so much more than if they had been completely sheer.

They strutted through the rest of the song and then the music changed and the group dissolved, dividing off into traditional pairings for a waltz; the titillation of semi-naked women in intimate proximity one step nearer to that fantasy realised, then one of the ladies broke formation, veered into the centre – hands on hips, spreading her legs in an unabashed proposal, inviting her partner to kneel before her, face planted in her crotch – while the other women continued their sexless box steps.

He was drunk enough that he could watch without flinching. Though not so drunk that his cock didn't stiffen in his pants. It was the idea more than the reality. Wouldn't know what to do with them if he could take them home. Witnessing without really seeing. Coveting without actually wanting. He stared and stared until their features effectively disappeared. Like repeating a word until it stopped making any sense. What did they look like, he might have asked himself later? How exactly did it go?

Jack elbowed him. “Look at her, Squeaker. That one. Wouldn't mind taking her for a spin around the track.”

Blinking, trying to focus. His eyes awash with the flash of silver lamé and gold.

He thought he'd made his position clear to Rosie – it was over, they were done – but she wants to talk to him nonetheless. “I think I'm pregnant,” she says, when she finally gets him on the telephone, dropping a bombshell into the middle of his morning tea.

“A baby? You think or you know?”

“I'm pretty sure,” she says. “I'm late. I've done two tests.”

He casts his mind back, tries to remember, the timing, when they were last together, or the time before that, if he used a condom, the implications rushing at him like flood-borne leaves converging on a stormwater drain. And just when he thought he was clear of her. Free of that monkey on his back. One less complication. If only it was someone else's. He wonders if she is really sure. She must have had other boyfriends.

“You do know it's yours, this child, the little one,” says Rosie, as though she can read his thoughts, standing in the phone box quietly rubbing her abdomen as she listens to the silence on the other end of the line. “This baby, your responsibility, your kid.”

His mind flashes to his father all those years ago, to that poor, stupid girl on that dark, lonely street.

Only sixteen, the little one.

You do know it's yours.

He agrees to meet with her to discuss their options, so flummoxed by the implications that he has trouble breaking it down, the details. How far along is she? What does she want to do? Unable to form an image in his mind's eye of what the baby might look like, if it would be better or worse if it looked more or less like him. “Do you reckon it's true that babies look like their dads?” he says to Dean as they dry off next to his ute.

His friend laughs. “I don't know. It's a fair bet. Why? Don't tell me Kate's been moonlighting with the younger brother?” He says this as a joke, to be funny, because there is no way in hell Kate's been playing the field. Dean reckons she's so straight-laced she doesn't even take her clothes off in the shower, has probably never even seen herself naked.

“Oh no, she's seen herself naked,” Harry reassures him, allowing himself the memory of Kate sunbathing topless on his brother's balcony, her toned lotioned back glistening in the heat.

“You should give her one. That's what she needs. Next time Matt's away. Loosen her up a bit. He might even thank you.”

Harry ignores him.

“So what's white and hangs from the clouds?” says Dean.

“What?”

“The coming of the Lord.”

“You've got a problem, mate.”

Rosie sits up the back of the cafe in her chemist assistant's uniform (or he thinks it is her uniform) drinking a Coke. He's chosen the least conspicuous place he can think of, the coffee shop next to the florist, but he sees her before he's fully stepped inside, the white of her dress outlining her form against the varnished pine chairs and plastic floral tablecloths as distinctly as Joffa's gold jacket against a flock of Magpie guernseys. She has a huge pimple on her chin but she doesn't look any fatter than usual, not particularly pregnant. She raises her hand at him in greeting. “When did you find out?” he asks, in lieu of hello.

“The other day,” she says. She's seen a doctor. “I figured as much, but he confirmed it.”

It is exactly the situation he's been warned about. Every athlete's worst nightmare. No, he knows about worse nightmares. But it is up there. And so obvious it is almost comical. Except that it is happening to him.

“What do you want to do?” he asks, knowing what she is going to say, his mind scrambling nevertheless (are abortions performed around here, does he know anyone who's organised one?) as she mutters the words “Catholic” and “devout”.