Tigerland (28 page)

“I think I’m contagious,” I told him as he blinked sleepily at me. “You may want to save yourself.”

He felt my forehead tenderly and winced. “You’re hot.”

“I know I am, but not now, darling, I have a headache. And a sore throat, and muscle pain—”

He moaned at my bad joke. “Oh no, Simon has the man flu. The world must stop and attend to him.”

“I have to go to work.”

“Not like that you don’t.”

“I’ve already missed enough days. I have to go in.”

“You’re stupid.”

I laughed, and it turned into a coughing fit. When I had my breath back, I laced my fingers through his. “That was never in doubt.”

“At least it explains why you were out of sorts last night. Your body knew before you did that you were coming down with something.”

It actually didn’t explain my mood last night, but I was happy to let him think it did.

I went to work, against Dec’s better judgement, and while emptying my nose into an increasingly deteriorating wad of tissue I was almost bowled over by an enthusiastic Coby.

“My film’s been accepted!” He danced around with me on the spot. Well, he danced; I was just pulled around like a possessed marionette. “I’m going to be the next Baz Lurhman!”

I would have said that one was enough, but I’m a sucker for
Strictly Ballroom
so I have to forgive him for the travesty that was
Australia
.

But before I could say anything, I was given two resounding kisses on each cheek.

“Hey! Boundaries!” I cried, which only caused me to start hacking up a lung.

Coby flung himself back like I had Tasered him. “You’re sick!”

I nodded and wiped off a few shreds of tissue from my fingers.

“Why didn’t you warn me? I can’t get sick before Friday! Goddammit, Simon!” He ran off in the direction of the bathroom, presumably to disinfect himself.

“Congratulations!” I yelled after him.

For the rest of the day Coby tried to keep as much distance between us as possible, and I humoured him. At least until I pretended a dollop of hand sanitiser that I had hidden in my palm was snot and smeared it across one of his files. I think they heard him screaming in Geelong until I made him smell it, and the overpowering chemical fragrance convinced him that the liquid hadn’t come from my nose.

So when he brought in the press release I thought it was a, rather cruel admittedly, way to get me back.

GREG HEYWARD REVEALS ALL!

We tag along with recently retired and newly outed Greg Heyward as he does a rather revealing shoot for DNA Magazine, and also present an exclusive excerpt from his upcoming book, which deals with some of the fallout from his breakup with fellow AFL star Declan Tyler. What exactly happened, and how does Heyward now feel about his ex and his new partner?

Make sure you grab your copy of WHO tomorrow when it goes on sale across the country!

But I knew from the expression on Coby’s face that it wasn’t a joke, as much as I would have liked it to be.

“It’s a bit rough calling you the
new
partner, isn’t it?” Coby asked. “You’ve been together for years!”

“Well, Heyward has a very good PR manager, coaching him in the right terminology to use so he looks like the perpetual victim while maximising the amount of empathy he can get from the public,” I said in an increasingly croaky voice.

“You know, you get very clinical whenever you talk about him.”

“Thanks, Freud. I know, purposefully distancing, blah blah blah. If you want to be nice to me, get me a pineapple donut and a coffee.”

Coby nodded and disappeared with a sense of relief to get out of there.

I wasn’t that serious about the pineapple donut, but I was grateful when it appeared on a serviette already stained yellow with that heavenly, oily glaze. “Thanks, Coby.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Don’t worry. I’m still going to come on Friday.”

Coby tried not to look too hopeful. “I wasn’t expecting you to, not after that. I mean, Greg Heyward’s going to be there. He’s the Midsumma King and all.”

“He’s no king. If I have to rip that crown off his head with his scalp attached, I will.”

“Ooookay.” Coby slowly backed out.

The donut was demolished in two bites. I washed it down with the coffee, pulled out my mobile, and called Dec.

“Are you feeling any better?” he asked after the usual hellos.

“Feeling about a hundred times worse.”

“I told you you shouldn’t have gone to work. Please tell me you’re going home.”

“No, I’m seeing the day out. But I guess you haven’t seen it yet.”

“Seen what?” he replied, which was pretty self-explanatory.

“Hang on.” I went into my e-mail folders, where I knew Coby cc’d me all digital copies of press releases anyway, and sent it on to Dec. “Check your e-mail.”

I don’t think he knew he was humming to himself as he tapped away on his keyboard, and that small private moment in which he was caught unaware made me smile and wish I was there to see it. The snatch of tune stopped in midbreath as he sighed heavily.

“We knew this was coming.”

“I know,” I said. “I was just hoping it would be later. You know me. I love to procrastinate.”

“Yeah, well Greg never did.”

I didn’t even like casual references to their past life together. I tried to tell the acidic green giant within me that it was just Heyward and what he was doing to us that made me react in such a way. Had it been a genuinely nice guy who Dec had gone out with once upon a time, I’m sure I wouldn’t be going around saying things like how I planned to decapitate him.

I think I must have paused too long, because Dec said my name.

“Huh?”

“You’re being quiet again.”

“That really worries you, doesn’t it?”

“It can at times. Look, I’m going to pick you up from work tonight, and we’re going to go out like normal people and have fun.”

“I hate to break it to you, Dec, but after work most normal people go home and crash so they have enough energy to go back to the drudgery of work the next day. Life’s kind of like a depressing Ken Loach film in that way.”

“I’m going to pretend I know what you meant then, and tell you that I’ll pick you up at six.”

“Fine. But don’t expect me to be good company.”

“Wow, you must be tired,” Dec said. “You just handed that one to me on a silver platter.”

“Ha ha,” I told him. “See you at six.”

T
HE
warm light that spilled out from the windows and the open door of the Napier couldn’t help but cheer me as we found a parking spot only a few doors down.

“Good choice,” I told Dec, and he was glad to see me relatively happier.

The road was practically deserted as the pub was situated on a residential street, and Declan must have thought it pretty safe as his hand wormed its way into mine. I wished we had parked a little further away so we could prolong the walk, because I knew as soon as we reached the door we would have to separate. It was an unspoken safety rule. Sometimes even Dec’s fame couldn’t protect us.

Stepping into the yellow light, Declan’s hand dropped away from mine, and we entered the warmth of the pub. I immediately headed for our usual corner in the back of the room with the mosaic walls. I stopped short when I saw Abe, Lisa, Fran, and Roger at our table.

“Thought you could use some cheering up,” Dec whispered in my ear as he moved around me to say hello to everybody.

I really wished he hadn’t. It was hard enough to pretend to be “up” with just Declan. Being under the possible attention of four more people meant more energy would have to be invested, which I wasn’t up for at the moment.

But I plastered on my smile and followed Dec around the table, bestowing hugs and kisses like I was the Queen meeting the talent at the Royal Variety performance. But as the night went on I began to flag, especially when the elephant in the room was brought up by Abe: the excerpt of Heyward’s book in the next day’s
Who
.

“Are you planning a response?” Abe asked Dec.

“Nope,” Dec said with forced cheer.

“Do you think that’s the right thing to do?” Roger asked.

“I guess,” Dec replied in the same singsongy tone.

“What do you think?” Roger asked me, obviously hoping for a more verbose response.

“I think I need another beer,” I said and got up from the table.

The bartender, who knew us as regulars, was chatty as he took my order. When I felt someone stand beside me I assumed it was Declan checking up on me, but I turned to see Roger.

“Do you want another?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“You’re turning down a beer? You okay?”

“I’m here to ask you the same question.”

I moaned and rested my head upon the counter. Then I lifted it straightaway, as it was sticky and smelled of old beer. I wondered if I would look too anal if I used the small bottle of hand sanitiser hidden in my messenger bag when I got back to our table.

“I’m fine.” I gave him my big fake smile and slid a ten dollar note over to him. “Can you take my beer back for me? I need to go to the loo.”

I didn’t give him time to respond. I threaded my way through the crowd of people lining for drinks and breathed easier when it sparsed out further into the bar. I threw myself into the loos and stared at myself in the mirror for a moment. The warped perspective and blue light that supposedly stopped junkies from finding veins to shoot up into only made me look worse than I already felt.

“You sexy thing,” my mirrored self said mockingly.

“Shut up. What do you know?” I asked him.

Talking to yourself, Simon. Soon you’ll have a one way ticket to the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital if you don’t sort this out
.

I could only imagine the spin Heyward would put on it. The next cover of
Who
would likely proclaim
There for Declan: Greg Heyward comforts his ex-lover through his recent romantic trials.
Or maybe not. I may have claimed his scalp by then and be in Barwon Prison, where I would probably be the only inmate who didn’t have a series of
Underbelly
based on his exploits.

I lathered my hands with the gross liquid soap provided and scrubbed at my face. I don’t know if it was actually making my face feel better, because instead of the pungent smell of stale beer, the overpowering fragrance of the soap was making my stomach turn.

The door swung open, and Roger came to a stop behind me.

“Hey, what about my beer?” I protested.

“I took it back to the table.”

“Well, what are you doing here? I thought it was only women who went to the loo in numbers.”

“Like I said, I wanted to know you were fine.”

“Peachy, now can I piss in peace?”

“You’re not pissing,” Roger said. “You’re… washing your face for some reason. Have you been crying?”

“For fuck’s sake, no! And I was going to have a piss afterwards!”

Roger’s expression was one that would have put Sherlock’s to shame. “Kind of a roundabout way of doing it, isn’t it?”

“Huh?”

“Well, it means you’ve washed your hands and then you’ll piss and have to wash them again.”

“Is it a sin to use two drops of liquid soap within five minutes?”

“It’s just weird, that’s all.”

“Fine. Now go away and let me go to the loo.”

He stood there obstinately. “I don’t think you really need to go.”

“Roger!”

“Look, it’s not like it’s easy here for me, either. I’m pretty uncomfortable trying to have a deep and meaningful in a public bog.”

“Don’t worry, Rog. If anybody saw you follow me in here, they probably just assume you’re coming in here for sex.”

“You wish!”

“No,
you
wish!”

We both laughed, and I pulled some paper towelling free from the dispenser to dry my hands. “I’m fine. A bit stressed, I admit. I just wonder how long Heyward is going to keep this up for. I mean, how much attention does he need?”

“It has to stop sometime,” Roger said. “But….” he trailed off.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Just spill it, Rog.”

“Don’t you think that maybe it would end a bit quicker if Dec responded to it and told the true side of the story?”

I shrugged. “Who knows what would happen? It could just make it worse.”

“Yeah, but at least he’d be saying something.”

“You know that, and I know that, but ultimately it’s his decision.”

“Do you want him to do it?”

I sighed and threw the wadded towel into the bin. “Honestly? I have no fucking idea.”

We stood in silence for a moment, staring at the ground.

“So, are we done?” I asked.

“I guess.”

“Okay, quick update on you and Fran: any decision made about IVF yet?”

“We’re still trying to figure that out.”

“Oh.”

“Any official word on Abe and Lisa yet?”

“Nope.”

“They look pretty much like a couple, though.”

“That they do.”

Another short silence.

“I guess that’s all the gossip covered, then,” I said.

“Yep.”

“So, should we go back out and join the others?”

He shuffled from one foot to another. “I really have to pee.”

“Then go.”

“Get out of here! I can’t piss with an audience!”

I shoved the door open with my butt and saluted him on the way out. “Great catching up with you, Rog.”

But all I heard from him as the door swung shut again was “Oh my fucking God, I’m going to burst!”

“
D
ID
you have fun tonight?” Dec asked as we drove home.

“Yeah,” I admitted, resting my hand upon his thigh. “I didn’t think I would when I first got there, because I just wasn’t in the mood for dealing with anyone. But it was good to see them all.”

“I just realised today that, as tempting as it is to shut out the world, we shouldn’t. At least not the part of the world we like, anyway.”

“True. But there’s something to be said for locking the world out sometimes too.”