The Rules of Backyard Cricket (26 page)

As the weeks wear away, Wally and Louise gradually shift from bewilderment to insistence that Hannah will be found. A handful of the boldest journalists point out that the lack of a ransom demand, particularly in the case of someone as famous as Wally, is surely a bad sign. One openly suggests: ‘It is likely the police are investigating a homicide, despite the poignant refusal of Hannah's parents to accept that reality.'

The journalist in question is Amy Harris.

I've refused to take her calls throughout. I assume Wally has done the same. I know viscerally that she's right to hypothesise in this way, but I'm not going to assist her. Within hours she's being pilloried by other commentators, some bizarrely suggesting such speculation is ‘un-Australian'. Australians, of course, being known for their restraint when speculating.

Wally and Louise take to wearing purple wristbands (‘Hannah's
favourite colour') with ‘HOPEFORHANNAH' stamped in them. People buy them from a newspaper website out of…what, solidarity? I don't understand it. I feel guilty not wearing one.

If Honey was still part of my life, she'd be urging me daily to talk to her about it. She sends me discreet texts, warm and supportive. But I don't want anyone's sympathy. It's misdirected when applied to me, to the dead cavity within me. I can't backfill it with talk.

I have a persistent feeling Wally isn't talking to Louise about it, beyond the show of unity they contrive for the cameras. The rest of us, crippled and strangled by the horror of it, will also endure by staying silent.

The certainty settles over me, accumulating day after day like a blanket of ash. Hannah's not trapped or held, reaching out to us across some formless void, willing us to find her. Hannah's dead.

Among the countless offers of support, I start to find the beginnings of some career opportunities. I greet them with an enthusiasm that is cheap, cynical and also desperate. I'm using more and more coke to get through the days; find myself turning up to meetings with fingers all over my nose, twitching like a fallen bird.

A cable channel called Globe Sports offers the best terms—all they want from me is night-time commentary of some pretty inconsequential one-day cricket. Good money, no great effort from me, and the rest of my time is my own. The role is a perfect fit for both parties. I'm both the garrulous court jester and the wounded emissary of the Keefe clan. Only on television can these contradictory personas converge. When I offer my schtick, an eyebrow or a smirk, the panellists laugh twice as hard because…well,
you know
.

I stumble once or twice, but the weight of public sympathy is such that it's almost impossible to alienate myself. One morning I'm part of a live weather cross to a breakfast TV program—the foreshore barbecue launch of some health initiative, people in message T-shirts,
balloons, donation tins. I'm just about to go live with the weather guy when this pest appears out of nowhere and starts abusing me. I'm only catching some of the words over the various community-oriented noises around me, and fuck knows what his point is—some sort of conspiracy—but he uses the word
Hannah
.

Crystal clear and no mistaking it. I look directly at him—he's standing about twenty feet away, and I see him smirking, aware of the power of that word. For a few seconds I wait to see if I am mistaken, or if he's going to back down. I am not, and he doesn't.

So I charge him.

Just run headlong at the bastard and collect him around the middle. There's an audible
oof
as we collide, then we're both on the ground and I've got a forearm across his throat, choking the life out of him. He's going purple, his eyes bulging and—I imagine—gradually haemorrhaging into the dark recesses of his ugly head. I want the fucker to die, and I don't care that dozens of people are watching us and there's cameras everywhere. I want him to die by my hand, right here.

Eventually the crowd intervenes and I'm hauled off him, still trying to stomp his balls as we're being separated. He chokes and splutters, takes an eternity to get to his feet. They drag him one way and me the other. The live cross is cancelled, obviously.

But here's the illustration of my newfound identity. It's reported that night that I was approached and insulted by a renowned serial pest, and that I acted under extreme provocation. And the network, as rapacious and grubby as any other, ‘has elected not to broadcast the incident, which was captured on camera, out of respect for the Keefe family's privacy'.

The job with Globe is just about perfect, though perhaps not entirely fulfilling. They fly me to domestic games: eight or ten international one-dayers for the season, along with a handful of domestic fixtures, some exhibition games. Easy.

I can carry out the role with all manner of intoxicants on board. The best combination is a couple of lines and some champagne. Yes, I'm looked at askance in various stadium bars, ordering the bubbles while I fuck around with my feral beak. But I tell you, it works: getting loaded makes life less of a chore. Management know I'm doing it, but they also know they'd be running on four flat tyres if I didn't.

The arrangement works fine for about two years. I get my teeth done, on the producer's advice. Little place in South Yarra, espresso while you wait in their renovated terrace-house lounge room. Espresso is probably what turned my teeth beige, but I'm not complaining. By the time they're done, my smile flashes in the blue shades of a glacier.

I even do some footy, boundary-line stuff, for Globe in the winter. For the live crosses I team a scarf with a pair of designer glasses I don't need. I'm putting a light blond rinse through my hair. Nothing radical, just a shade or so. Meanwhile, I owe a few people some money here and there—bets that went down, cars I've leased, things like that. But overall the living is surprisingly stable.

Then comes the night when it all gets upended again.

Rhapsody

The face again.

I just know this can work. It needs to work—it's literally life and death. I get the irony—‘life' probably only amounts to an extra twenty minutes or so. But the instinct to prolong and preserve it is stronger than I realised.

Where I think I went wrong with the gaffer tape was in the pressing on and ripping off, because I only had to get the angle of rip away slightly wrong and the tape would tear laterally. It's not very good quality stuff.

So I've come up with a new approach, scuffing my face across the carpet so the exposed edge of the tape catches and pulls.

It's soon apparent that this technique works better, but is a lot more painful. You'd think I had bigger fish to fry, pain-wise. But the small agonies, like the small indignities, are cumulative.

Scuffing away, the skin on my cheek rubs off and melts into a sticky, raw wound. The tape has indeed caught and is pulling away by the centimetre now. I can sip tiny gulps
of air through that side of my mouth. I imagine I look like Groucho Marx working a cigar, and that makes me laugh unexpectedly, wheezing in and out through the tiny aperture I've made.

The bag of cricket gear's at my feet. I've had to explain it several times since I came into the stadium—just felt like a net session, gonna give it away to some kids, it's a charity thing…I really would've preferred to do this somewhere more private.

To my left, his earphones resembling two giant novelty mouse ears, is Christopher Wilkington, former captain of England, Oxford double blue and fantastically boring human being. Had a terrific Test average, built entirely on flat tracks and selfish not-outs. To my right, some drone from Globe. Mike or Mick or Nick or something. He seems bearable.

It's a night game at the SCG between two celebrity teams, for a charity called Shine a Light or, no that was a Stones song…Shining Path? Shiny something. It's grinding its way into the thirty-third over of the first innings. There's a plastic biro lying on my notes and I'm feeling the urge to stab it into Wilkington's left eye. I want to watch him scream and lurch back in the chair and pull it out with gelatinous eye-goo dripping off the end.

There's a push to cover and someone ambles in to field, heaving a lazy throw into the night sky. The backdrop to the arc of the ball is hundreds of empty seats. No one's said anything for a while, when there's a tapping sound on the rear glass wall of the booth: looking around I see Craigo grinning like a croc, beckoning.

Craig's been away for months, one of his mysterious disappearances. The first time he went, Wally and I thought he'd just moved on from our lives. Then he reappeared, and no amount of questioning
could elicit an explanation. ‘Just stuff,' he said. Another time: ‘Checkin some opportunities.'

After further disappearances passed without explanation, we gave up asking. Some of it, I figure, was his ‘Wattle It Be' tours, but they've mostly been outsourced to bomber-jacketed minions by now. Anyway, here he is, back from wherever he's been.

‘How the fuck did you get in here?' I ask him.

He looks a little beery. ‘Dun matter mate. Doworry. Hey, you wanna get in on some action?'

He's got moleskins on, tweed jacket and a straining chambray shirt. He's dressed, in other words, to fool someone that he's an Old Boy.

‘What is it?'

‘Little spot wager. The ol' guy, the CEO of the charity, whatever it is. To score more'n forty. Hundred to one.'

He raises his eyebrows foggily. ‘It's good, mate. Good odds.'

I sigh and try to think for a moment with a hand in my hair. ‘I'm sure that's because he's shithouse.'

‘Heeeey…' It's his look. The one that says
trust me
.

‘Okay. Gimme half an hour.'

‘How much you want on it? I can do you credit.'

Craigo's bloody credit. Last thing I need.

‘Just wait will you, mate? I'll have five hundred. I need to see a guy.'

He shrugs and ambles off. I duck back into the commentary box for the bag. Producer's flapping his arms now and urging me to get back in the chair. He'll be right. I'm headed the other way, down the office-lined corridors of the media centre and out, into the cool stale tobacco of the members'-stand bar.

First things first. I swing left into the gents and get myself a cubicle, chop up a line and snort it home. As I come out, a thousand
angels sounding triumphant bells in my ears, a kid wanders towards the urinal, fumbling for his fly. He sees me—
sees
me for the darting, twitching middle-aged caricature that I am. Hope, disappointment and resignation, combined in three seconds of a twelve-year-old's face. How cynical he must be for a young fella. I throw him a gedday champ and he smiles uncertainly.

Out into the boozy light of the bar, and there's the guy. Reefer jacket, hand around a beer. I plonk the bag down, sniff my happy nose back and shake the wet hand. Derek. He looks through the bag: two bats, one used and covered in red cherries, the other brand new. Pads, gloves, sweaty old thighpad. Lastly—and I arranged the bag so the theatre would unfold this way—out comes the Australian jumper. He holds it up to his chest as if to check the size, but actually, pathetically, imagining himself. The crest is facing towards me, and inside the neck I can see the name written neatly in finepoint texta on the label, the way he's always done:
Wally Keefe
.

‘How much do you want for it?'

‘It's taking up room. I'll take eight hundred,' I say, feigning disinterest.

He looks troubled for a moment. We both know what's going on here.

‘I mean Darren, I'm very grateful. You've lugged it all the way in here and my son, he's a good kid, but it'll take him forever to repay me that much…'

He looks hopefully into my eyes. ‘I don't want to let him down.'

‘Okay,' I sigh. ‘Seven-fifty.'

‘I could do six hundred?' He proffers the notes.

‘Fine.'

I take his money, another quick handshake and I'm off, his request to say thanks to Wally ringing in my ears. Like, right.

Minutes later, I'm back on my arse in the commentary box,
bouncing off the vapid Yorkshireman. Right on the thirty-minute mark, Craigo reappears, tapping the bloody window again. I pass him the six hundred: he counts it, winks at me and disappears.

The wickets fall rapidly. There's two overs left, they need forty-eight to win. And onto the ground waltzes the CEO.

The ground PA greets him: ‘Please make welcome the Chief Executive Officer of Shine for Kids, and former captain of the Danish World Cup team, Ole Terjessen!'

Oh captain, my captain. Craigo didn't mention he had form.

This could be interesting. Big man, thick moustache, swinging the bat around in circles as he adjusts his eyes to the lights. He looks thoroughly at home.

First one he watches through outside off. Second one he deposits halfway up the sightscreen with a loud bang. It seems Ole has a straight drive, and it's a monster. Third and fourth clear the rope at mid-on and backward square respectively. Fifth is a classical late cut through backward point for four. He closes out the over with a single to third man so he retains the strike. Been around the block, this fella. He's already on twenty-three.

The other mob have saved their opening bowler for the final over, but he looks tired. He trundles in and lets go a straight one, which big Ole slams directly back, nearly taking out the umpire at waist height. Two bounces into the fence and the thin scatter of spectators have come to life. I've even got some repartee going with Wilkington, whose version of exuberance is, ‘Well by golly, he's hit that.'

Next ball, another pull shot. Four more. A glance to fine leg brings another four, and everyone, including me, is now on their feet. The Dane seems composed, unhurried. Next ball he drops to one knee, looking to hoik it over square, but only succeeds in getting the toe of the bat on it. It smacks into his front pad off the edge and squirts out to point as he ducks through for a single.