Tigerland (27 page)

“Hard feelings against whom, Maxine?” I asked, using her name pointedly.

“Well, hard feelings against
you
, of course.”

“Why should there be hard feelings against me?” I asked, sweetly playing dumb.

Both Maxine and her photographer looked uncomfortable. “Uh, about you breaking up Dec and Greg.”

“Oh, yes.” I said. “
That
.”

“Hang on a minute—” Dec started, but was cut off by Heyward.

“All in the past, no need to bring it up.”

“Except in your book, I guess.” Sometimes I really couldn’t stop myself.

“Dec had the opportunity to bring out his own,” Heyward said.

Which was complete bullshit. For his own book to be published so soon, Heyward must have had his finished by the time he met up with Dec for their “friendly coffee.” Heyward never intended for Dec to co-author anything with him. It would have meant sharing the limelight, for one thing.

I turned to the journalist still glued to our sides. “Hey, Maxine, how would you like an exclusive? Our side of the story?”

Maxine looked as if she would like it very much. Pavlov off to the side with his bell couldn’t have elicited a more positive response from her.  It was an empty gesture, as I knew Dec would never agree to it, but I also knew it would scare Heyward, and that was the point.

“Just take the picture,” Heyward snapped, desperate to take back control.

Before Dec and I could even react, he jumped in the middle of us, and Maxine’s photographer dutifully snapped off a quick succession of shots, blinding us in the process with multiple flashes. All in all it would have taken about four seconds.

“Now, about that interview—” Maxine began.

“I have to talk with my friends for a moment,” Heyward said, pulling us away.

It was like being manhandled by security. Dec gritted his teeth, and I knew he didn’t want to cause a scene which would have tongues wagging even further. We were hustled into a small conference room, and before Heyward could shut the door behind us I wrested myself free.

“Don’t you
ever
put your fucking hands on me again, you prick!”

“Charming,” Heyward said, slamming the door shut with his foot.

We now stood frozen, and I realised he still had one hand on Dec’s arm.

“And you can take your fucking paws off him now!”

Heyward obeyed, but he was enjoying seeing me worked up. “You get feistier every time we meet.”

“Just wait till the day where I snap and feistily decapitate you with a waiter tray. Imagine the headlines then.”

“Simon,” Dec said, trying to calm me down.

I grimaced at him, not wanting to have to go through that
be the better person
bullshit again.

“They would never know the details,” Dec continued. “Because they would never find the body.”

My grimace turned to a grin, and now Heyward was getting to see the force of us united. It was even better than when all the Transformers combined to make SuperMegaDestructoThingy, or whatever the hell it was called.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Heyward said. “And just think how bad it’ll look for the both of you when I say you’ve started threatening me.”

Dec laughed. “Oh, that’s a good one. Jesus, Greg, you’re starting to sound really pathetic.”

“Starting to?” I asked. “I think that started back when he was on the cover of
That’s Life!
Surrounded by headlines like
I’m having my father’s baby!
and
Win a year’s worth of nappies and tea bag squeezers.
”

“So that would be
one
tea bag squeezer, would it?” Dec asked.

“Oh, I’m sure they’d send you a
second
one if you lost or broke it,” I replied.

“Are you two finished?” Heyward asked.

“Never, as long as you keep going on,” I fired back. “You know, when this all began, I actually thought you wanted Dec back.”

Heyward remained oddly impassive. Dec was chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“Probably for your own selfish reasons,” I continued, “not for actually loving him or anything like that. I thought you and I would have to eventually settle things with a sing-off to
The Boy is Mine.
”

Heyward looked at me blankly.

“Oh, come on,” I told him, both mockingly and a little sad for him. “You’re
gay
. You have to establish some snappy one-liners with sprinklings of pop culture references.”

Dec gave a soft laugh. “Learn from the master.”

It was affectionate, and I liked that it was his way of proving we were a united front.

“Didn’t you get the handbook when you officially came out? It’s part of the gay agenda.”

“I don’t follow anyone’s agenda but my own.”

Wow, the guy seriously couldn’t take a joke.

More rational than me, Dec spoke to him more calmly. “How long do you think you can keep this up, Greg? Sooner or later people will stop listening, as none of the lies will make sense or start contradicting each other. I mean, seriously… you say Simon was the cause of a breakup even though I didn’t start seeing him until over a year after you? And it doesn’t make sense anyway. Why would I end one long distance relationship just to take up another?”

Heyward didn’t even blink, and for a moment I wondered if this was going to be it: the turning point where he would finally give up and just let all the pretence and manipulations burn themselves out. Then he straightened, jammed his hands in his pockets, and sneered, “If I’m lying, like you say, call me on it. It won’t matter anyway.” Turning on his heel, he entered the crowded ballroom and left us alone again.

“That went well,” Dec said.

“At least he knows we’re not backing down. Right?”

Dec remained silent, and I hoped it was assent. At least, that’s what I took it for right then, as it was all I had at the moment.

H
AVE
you ever had déjà vu?

H
AVE
you ever had déjà vu?

Well, that was what life felt like for us over the next couple of weeks as the media proved themselves unrelenting in their quest to get the “truth” behind the “sexual Bermuda Triangle” between Dec, Heyward, and myself.

Sexual Bermuda Triangle
? Really? That was the level of journalism coming out of our finest national broadsheets?

Dec continued to keep up a stony-faced visage, even in press photographs. I, unfortunately, was not so lucky. The day after the
GetOut
event, the picture of the three of us caused quite a stir across the news and the net. Even though Dec had been obviously unhappy at the time, he still managed to look at ease, while Heyward came across as if he felt all three of us were the best of friends and had just happened to run into each other at some shindig. And then there was good old Simon, looking clearly uncomfortable in the situation, or as Jasper Brunswick wrote in his column that day, “
ready to shove Greg Heyward out of the picture, much like the infamous YouTube video of a live ABBA performance where Frida catches Agnetha flirting with Benny.
”

Yes, Jasper Brunswick. He had emerged fully out of the shadows, dragging his Voldemort-ian cloak behind him—although, really, comparing him to Voldemort was a bit of a stretch. I think even Harry Potter would have dragged me aside and whispered confidentially, “Dude, your nemesis is
annoying
!”

It also made me extra grumpy when, for the next couple of days, Roger thought it was hilarious to call me Frida.

Our escape to the country already felt like months before when Dec and I returned to work. Coby had been running the fort admirably well, despite stressing over finishing his short film in time for consideration to be played at the Midsumma Festival and the threat of a coup d’état by Emcee Gee. “It actually
was
Emcee Gee,” he told me. “Filip Carver himself never said a bad word against me. It was all
her
doing.”

Possibly mentally unbalanced talent aside, I stepped back into my role with minor setbacks from my absence, although the higher-ups were wanting to see if they could get Heyward or Declan back on
QueerSports
.

I doubted it. Heyward had only wanted to be on our show for one reason and one reason only—to fuck us over. He had bigger fish to fry now. Even if he wanted to unsettle Dec and I further, there was much bigger media to achieve that through.

I politely declined on Dec’s behalf. I didn’t think he would be that bothered.

As a reward for fobbing off media all day, Coby would keep pestering me about his film. He was using CTV equipment for free, as I turned a blind eye to his practically moving into the building for the past two weeks to work on postproduction and avoiding security guards, but that wasn’t enough. “You have to come and support me,” he wheedled. “I need all the fans there I can get.”

“I’m your fan?”

“Yes, one of those bizarre fancy ones without blades.
Please
.”

I wanted to, and I would have gone without protest, except for one little fact. “Heyward is the king of the festival this year.”

“I know that. And I know you don’t want to go. But like I said:
please
.”

With his annoyingly floppy blonde hair and sad puppy dog eyes, he was like the evil twink surfie younger brother I never had. “Fine.”

He probably would have jumped up and down on the spot if I wasn’t already restraining him by hanging onto his shoulders. “Really? Even if Dec doesn’t go?”

“We’re not Siamese twins. We do leave the house separately sometimes.” That being said, however, I really would have preferred him to go with me.

Coby gave me a suspicious look. “I thought that wasn’t possible in Happy Happy Couple Land?”

“If you hadn’t noticed, we’re not exactly in Happy Happy Couple Land at the moment.”

Coby looked stricken. “What?”

“Oh, nothing like
that
,” I said quickly. “Just everything around us isn’t that Happy Happy.
We’re
fine.”

“Good. You two are like my role models for a stable gay relationship to aspire to.”

I suddenly felt old. I was thirty, for fuck’s sake, not ready to pick out a plot with a nice view. “Good luck, kid.”

Fricking floppy-haired twink surfie younger brother I never had.

“Wait!” Coby called after me as I headed back to my office. “Did I just piss you off?”

I swung my hand around my back and raised the middle finger. And laughed when I closed the door to my office behind me.

If only I could do that to the rest of the Melbourne media.

D
EC
jumped off the couch as I entered our apartment. “I tried calling you earlier. You didn’t pick up.”

“I was on the tram. I was already attracting enough attention, so I didn’t want to try and have a conversation with anybody.”

“Oh.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I also ignored Lisa, Roger, and my mother.”

He kissed me. “Somewhat better. People were staring at you?”

“Someone even made the point of… well, pointing to that picture.”

“Aah, you saw it then.”

“Loads of times. On the net, on the telly, on the tram….”

“What did you say to him?”

“Who?”

“Whoever pointed to it.”

“Nothing. I just kept listening to my iPod and stared blankly out the window like half the people on the tram normally do.”

“That’s remarkable restraint.”

“What can I say? I was tired.” This time I kissed him and sagged into his warm body.

“Are you hungry?”

“Fuck yes,” I mumbled against his shirt.

“
Y
OU
’
RE
quiet tonight,” Dec said as he poured me another wine.

I played with the spaghetti on my plate and gratefully took the wine instead. “Like I said, I’m tired.”

“You normally yack my ear off anyway. It’s a remarkable talent you have, no matter how tired you are.”

“Well, not tonight.”

He hesitated, but then reached across to take my hand. “Simon, what’s up? You’re not even eating.”

“Nothing.” I took a bite of spaghetti to placate him. It might as well have been dry Weet-Bix, it was so difficult to swallow. A mouthful of wine was needed to make sure it pushed its way down my throat.

“Is that your non-subtle way of telling me to drop it?”

The wine was gone, and my throat was still dry. “It’s my non-subtle way of telling you ‘nothing’.” I reached for the water sitting between us and didn’t even wait to pour it, drinking straight from the bottle.

“Okay.” Dec folded his hands before him and stared down at his plate.

I knew I was being difficult, but the truth was that I really was tired. I helped him clean up and was in bed by eight. I must have been dead to the world by the time Dec joined me, as I never even heard or felt him climb into bed.

When I woke up my bladder was ready to burst, but I felt so weighted down I knew it was the beginning of a cold. I rolled out from under Dec’s arm and made it to the loo before I pissed myself. Flushing the toilet brought on a dizzy spell, and after washing my hands and looking at my even-more-than-usual pallid complexion I poked Dec in the chest before retreating back under the covers.