Tigers & Devils (20 page)

“I HAVE to go to this bloody barbecue this weekend.”

“Will it be that bad?” Declan asked.

As usual, we were not together physically; we were connected only by cabling that ran beneath the sea and into our phone lines. I lay in bed with Maggie; Dec was in his own bed, which I could now picture, seeing as I had actually been in it. If we were in a movie they would have shown us on a split screen to give the illusion of togetherness. But in real life he couldn’t feel any further away.

“I’m considering throwing myself under a tram to get out of it.”

“Not a train?”

“No, I don’t want to
kill
myself. Just maim myself slightly.”

“Well, I don’t want you
killed
or even
maimed
. Just suck it up and go.”

“What, to see my brother’s latest squeeze pretending to be the last in a long line of squeezes? Hoping to be the Annette Bening to his Warren Beatty? And the rest of my family ignoring the fact that I’m queer so that they can pretend one day I’ll bring home a pretty girl?”

“I thought you said your mother was starting to come around to the idea of you eventually bringing home someone with a penis.”

I choked back my laughter. “Okay, maybe Mum. But Dad and Tim… never. Well, Tim only for the controversy.”

There was a big fat elephant in the room that we were avoiding. The fact that I
did
have a “squeeze”, and there was no way, given his profession, that he would ever be coming to a Murray family barbecue.

“Maybe you can take Roger and Fran along to help save your sanity,” Declan suggested.

“I’ve subjected them to enough Murray events,” I shuddered. “This one I’ll have to suffer on my own.”

“SO, you’re the gay one?”

I almost choked on my beer. Tim laughed, Dad stared at his feet, and Mum hovered over the table while looking suitably confused and harried at the same time.

“Yeah. Changed my name by deed poll and everything,” I told her.

“Huh?” She didn’t exactly get it.

Her name was Gabby Spencer, and I think deep down she really meant well. She knew it was politically correct to show the fag that she was really down and all with him… as long as he didn’t kiss another fag, hold his hand, or breathe in front of her. My brother, of course, was besotted with her. For now.

138 | SEAN KENNEDY

“Sausages?” my mother asked breezily.

I had to cough behind my napkin to stop from bursting into hysterical laughter. Tim wasn’t so subtle.

“So what do you do?” Gabby asked me, leaning in as if we were the best of friends about to disclose confidences.

“Do you mean sexually?” I whispered back.

“Oh, gross!” Tim announced.

“What’s gross?” Dad asked of Tim, not having heard me.

“Simon’s about to—”

“The weather report’s on, dear,” Mum told Dad, to avert a crisis. Dad’s eyes lit up, and he disappeared into the lounge to see the tail-end of the nightly news. Tim and I snickered together at this old habit you could set a watch by, a brief moment of camaraderie between us that would disappear soon enough. Tim murmured something into Gabby’s ear, and that was the last sentence she addressed to me personally for the rest of the night.

Once the food was devoured, Dad went in to watch the news channel, Tim and Gabby were lost in their own little world (which was verging on the inappropriate, at least for the dinner table), and of course nobody was helping Mum clear up so I had to take up the slack.

Mum’s lips pursed unhappily as she scrubbed away at the grill. The atmosphere in the room would have made a New Age-ist run for some cleansing crystals, but I had to stick it out.

“What’s wrong, Mum?”

“Nothing, Simon,” she lied through taut, grimaced lips. She was never good at lying; it was just that Dad and Tim were too oblivious to anyone’s feelings but their own, to ever pick up on it.

“I know something’s bothering you,” I said. I snuck a quick peek out the kitchen door to make sure that Tim and Gabby were still going at it in the dining room and Dad in the lounge. The enemy camps were still in their respective positions; Tim was copping a feel under Gabby’s sweater.

“Just leave it.”

I shrugged. “Okay.” And counted to five in my head.

Mum was just like Roger, although she wanted to have stuff wheedled out of her she would snap far quicker if you feigned nonchalance.

“It’s just that you sat here, a few weeks ago—”

“In the kitchen?”

“Don’t start! In the dining room,” she fumed. “And you told me that you weren’t seeing anyone.”

TIGERS AND DEVILS | 139

This
again? Was she trying for some Mother of the Year award? Had she been brainwashed by an Aussie chapter of PFLAG?

“I wasn’t,” I said feebly.

“Are you now?” she asked.

I couldn’t answer her. It would just lead to more questions. So now another woman was giving me
that
look, that she could read far more on my face than I would ever say out loud. She and Fran could start up a support group. And then maybe they could let me in on their little secrets that they shared about me, and if only I knew them I would be able to sort out my life once and for all.

“I would just like you to talk to me.”

That caused a long-smouldering ember within me to suddenly light up. “Like you did to me when I first came out?”

She turned her attention back to the grill. “I had to take time to digest it all.”

“Six years?” I asked incredulously.

“Well, I’m sorry I’m not perfect!”

Here it was, the guilt trip to make me feel bad because everybody else had caused me to feel like I was less than them. And it worked, I
did
feel bad. But I had to continue standing up for myself; nobody else in the family was going to take up my cause.

“I’m sorry, but
I’m
not perfect either.”

“Your
brother
talks to me.”

I thought of Tim groping his girlfriend at the dinner table. “That must make you so happy.”

“Yes, it does! He at least tells me who he’s seeing, what he does at work and on the weekends, and what he wants to do in the future. I have no idea what’s going on in your life!”

“Because none of you have ever shown any interest lately. So I don’t bother.”

It sounded harsher than I meant it, and I was horribly rewarded with the sound of a sob escaping from her. Here was one person in my family finally talking to me in a normal way, and I was tearing strips off her for it.

“You’re so hard to talk to,” she whispered. “I wish I could.”

“So do I,” I said truthfully.

“Why is Mum crying?”

Fucking Tim! I threw the tea-towel at him from where he lounged in the doorway.

“Get out of here!”

“Calm down, arsehole!” he yelled. “I just came to get beer.”

I yanked the fridge door opened and shoved two cans at him. “Here.”

“I need one for Dad too!”

I practically threw the third at him. “Get!”

140 | SEAN KENNEDY

Thankfully he did so.

“You should be nicer to him.” Mum sniffed.

“I should be a lot of things,” I fumed. “Maybe he should be nicer to me.”

“I saw Fran at the Plaza today,” Mum said suddenly, ignoring my last comment.
Fran?
What did she have to do with all this?

“Uh huh,” I said noncommittally, wondering if Fran was about to be the victim of a killing in her future.

“I asked her if you were seeing someone, and she fudged her way around it, but I could tell she was covering up for you.”

I sighed. “It’s complicated.”

“Everything always is with you,” Mum said tiredly. “Even when you were a kid. Nothing was ever simple.”

I wanted to rail against her for turning it all back to her and making it somehow why
she
should be pitied. Because obviously I was so hard to raise. But here was someone in my family trying to talk to me about my private life for the first time in years, and I felt a sudden rush of affection for her. Maybe it had taken her a while to come round naturally, or maybe she had finally realised that this wasn’t a phase or a choice I had made to continually make her life difficult. For the first time it felt like she was on my side.

“He’s in the closet,” I said. “And I have to respect his privacy.”

“Oh,” Mum said, giving up on the grill and letting it sink beneath the water in the sink. She turned her attentions to the kettle and switched it on. “I thought maybe you were too embarrassed to bring him over here.”

“No,” I lied, for her sake, while trying to imagine Declan here. It would be hard enough if he wasn’t
Declan Tyler
, to put up with my brother’s pointed digs and my father’s silences, but his celebrity would bring a whole new unwelcome angle to it all.

“Like I said, it’s for his privacy.”

“That’s a hard way to live,” she said, not knowing how astute her comment was. I said nothing, and I think for once Mum sensed that she should let the subject drop.

“Maybe we can talk some other time,” she suggested.

And it suddenly didn’t seem so bad to think about that happening. “Sure. Some other time.”

“IT’S good that your mum is starting to show some interest,” Declan said. “It gives me hope that maybe my mum will be fine if I tell her outright, rather than keeping her guessing.”

I couldn’t help but notice the
if
, not
when
, but I repressed it. I had called Dec as soon as I had gotten home. Abe and Lisa were over, but he had excused himself to take the call in his bedroom.

TIGERS AND DEVILS | 141

“You never know,” I replied. “Do you ever think about telling her?”

There was a long pause. “All the time,” he said sadly. Trying to sound as light-hearted as possible, I said, “Well, mine sounds practically ready to adopt you, and she doesn’t even know who you are yet.”

This made him laugh. “It’s always good to have a fallback position. By the way, Abe and Lisa said hello.”

“Say hello back.”

“I will.”

“I suppose you have to get back to them.”

“I suppose so. So no chance of you flying down here for the rest of the weekend?”

I laughed, but it was nice to hear the longing in his voice. “Not enough frequent flyer points.”

“Just as well I’ll be up next weekend, then.”

“It’s the only thing helping me hold on,” I said as melodramatically as possible.

“Bastard,” he chuckled. “Oh, also, all the guys are coming over here tomorrow night, so probably best neither of us call.”

That took the wind out of my sails a bit, although the logical side of me understood the necessity of laying it all out on the table to avoid any awkward scenarios. “Uh, okay.”

He hesitated. “You’re not upset, are you?”

“Fuck no,” I said hurriedly. “I’ll speak to you Monday.”

“Okay. Have a good night’s sleep, babe.”

“You too, Dec,” I said, unable to return the term of endearment. It was lucky Fran wasn’t around to conk me with another bread roll.

As I tried to fall asleep I could hear my mother saying,
That’s a hard way to live
.

“Shut up, Mum,” I murmured, and finally slept.

“SATURDAY night?” Roger asked.

“That’s the plan, if it’s okay with you guys. He’s back in town this weekend for the game.”

“How did I get roped into cooking?” Fran demanded.

“Your husband,” I told her.

“Thanks, you dobber,” Roger groaned.

“Gee, she never would have guessed it,” I pointed out. I tried to make peace with Fran. “I’ll come over and help you, of course.”

“Thanks, Simon, that would be nice. But I’ll also make sure Roger does his fair share as well.”

I chuckled, and Roger threw a cushion at me. We had left the porch to come in and seek sanctuary at the fire. It was a typical winter Melbourne’s day; the Antarctic winds were in full force as they tore through your skin and bone to reside in your marrow.

“I wonder what I should make,” Fran mused.

“Whatever’s easy and good,” I told her.

“You do make the best pasta,” Roger agreed.

“Pasta?” Fran wrinkled her nose. “I can’t just make bog-ordinary pasta for Declan!”

“Sure you can.” I patted her hand gently. “He needs to be introduced to how good your pasta is.”

“But I should be cracking out the Jamie Oliver’s or Bill Grainger’s—”

“Who wants that, when they could have a Francesca Dayton original?”

She sighed. “Fine. But at some other time I
have
to try something new.”

“Okay.”

“Bloody pasta!” she muttered to herself. “…maybe lasagne.”

I grinned. It seemed this night was going to be okay after all.

TIGERS AND DEVILS | 143

THE rain never let up that weekend. Declan flew in on Friday morning for a game that night, and once again he was told he couldn’t play at the last minute. He spoke to me briefly on the phone, but was short and snappy and very un-Declan-like. He called me again two minutes later to apologise, but had to get off the phone straightaway to attend a press conference.

I hoped that after the game he might turn up on my doorstep, but he texted me after the Devils lost another match to say that he was tired and was going to crash at his parents’ and that he would see me at dinner the next night. So I was starting to get some nerves about dinner, but when I went around to help Fran prepare the food she managed to put me at ease by just being herself. She had decided to go with lasagne and had even made her own sheets, cranking them out by hand.

“You didn’t have to go to so much trouble,” I told her.

“It’s no trouble at all,” she smiled. “Make Roger go out and pick me some basil. I’d send you, but you’d come back with grass.”

“I’m not that bad,” I protested. “I know what basil smells like, so I’d be able to find it just through that.”

“After pulling up all my plants by the roots. On this one, I’m still going to trust Roger,” she laughed. “I’d go with you on anything else, hun.”

I shook my head, and when Roger next ambled through the kitchen he was quickly dispatched to cut basil. Fran and I worked industriously for the next couple of hours, making garlic loaves from scratch and struggling with the blender to create chilli, cashew, and parmesan dip for munchies before dinner. Roger managed to avoid most culinary activities, but was very good at getting us drinks. By the time we had everything prepared I was pleasantly sloshed and Fran acted as surly bartender with a heart of gold, suspending my drink privileges at least until Declan arrived.

“Drunk is not going to look good on you when he turns up,” she said wisely. A quick shower and a change of clothes helped sober me up, and the elation of alcohol turned back into the frayed nerves I had been feeling beforehand. I hid in Fran and Roger’s spare bedroom for a while, until Fran knocked at the door.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine, yeah.”

She frowned. “You sure sound it. Are you that scared we’re going to fuck it up?”

I glared at her. “Please.”

“
That
sounds more like you.”

“It’s always nerve-wracking to introduce the friends, you know that.”

She sat next to me on the bed. “I hardly know, you always try to get out of it for as long as possible. Usually until they’re out of the picture, and there’s no point anymore.”

“It’s not because of you guys.”

“Is it because of them?”

144 | SEAN KENNEDY

I sighed. “Partly. But mostly because of me.”

“What about you?” Then it struck her. “Oh,
that
again.”

“
What
again?”

“Showing anyone your feelings about them. We’ve seen you cry at Disney films or RSPCA commercials, but if there’s an actual human involved you may as well be a robot.”

“I’m not
that
bad.”

“Okay,
slight
exaggeration, but pretty damn close.”

We sat in silence for a moment, and Fran suddenly nudged me. “Is it Roger?”

I didn’t want to admit it. “He’s been acting a bit funny lately. Only a bit.”

“He’s jealous,” Fran admitted.

I turned to look at her properly, shock obviously evident on my face.

“Oh,
come on
,” Fran said, exasperated. “He’s never really had to put up with you going loopy over someone before. He’s always been the alpha male in your life, and all of a sudden Declan Tyler has made you change your mind about everything.”

“You make it sound like I’ve become a mindless drone.”

“No, just that you’ve become part of a couple. Although
you
probably still think that’s all about being a mindless drone, when all it means is that someone is now extremely important to you, someone equal to your friends, if not on a different level altogether.”

I’ve always hated that distinction being made between how much you care for people, but you do fall victim to that mentality. “I’ve always known that you two are more important to each other than I am to you, so why can’t he accept that?”

She took my hand. “Not more important. Just different. It’s like there are two separate ranking systems. You’re number one on the other system. It’s not about Sophie’s bloody Choice.”

I leaned over and whispered into her ear, “I’d choose you.”

Fran laughed and pushed me away. “You are such a liar.”

I grabbed her hand back, and kissed her knuckles. “Thank you.”

She shook her head, smiling. “Just go easy on Roger. You can both be stubborn shits, but this is just as new for him as it is for you.”

“Why isn’t it for you?”

Fran looked at me as if the answer wasn’t already obvious. “Because I’m a woman. We’re smarter about these things.”

Rather than try to defend my sex, I just accepted it as truth. She pulled me up, and we made our way back to the kitchen.

TIGERS AND DEVILS | 145

WHEN there was a knock at the door, Fran pushed me out of the kitchen. “You answer it. It’ll give you time to make out a little before you bring him in.”

I could hear Roger snort behind me as I made some sort of protestation. Finding myself now alone in the hallway, I covered the short distance to the front door and pulled it open.

Declan was dressed in black jeans and a dark purple shirt that managed to cling in exactly the right places. I wondered if my tongue was hanging out like a character in a Loony Tunes cartoon.

“Hey,” he said, moving in to kiss me. He tried to hug me at the same time, but it was awkward as his hands were full with beer and other things I couldn’t exactly make out in the dark. I tried to compensate with grabbing him by the hips and pressing him against me. The beer bottles clanged together with enough noise to alert the neighbourhood to our presence, but we ignored it.

“How were your folks?” I asked politely as I closed the door behind him. He looked a bit surprised that I asked, but he nodded. “Good. They were glad I was staying with them, I usually tend to sleep around—”

I burst into laughter, and he looked mortified.

“Not in that way, doofus! I meant around other friends’ houses.”

I pushed him against the hallway wall and penned him in with my body. “I hope not other ‘friends’ like me.”

He went to kiss me, and I teasingly ducked my head so it blocked him. “Not like you. But I always like it when I stay at your house the best.”

I looked up. “Yeah, my sleepovers
rock
.” Before he could answer, I kissed him again. The beer bottles slipped out of his grip, and we fumbled between us so they wouldn’t fall.

“We better get these inside,” he murmured.

We composed ourselves, and entered the lion’s den.

Fran and Roger tried to look like they weren’t waiting for us to enter, but they didn’t pull it off in the slightest. As I entered the kitchen, they practically ran up to me to be the first in line to meet Declan Tyler™.

Declan seemed to be wearing his best
face the scrum
expression, not surprising seeing their first meeting had been less than auspicious.

“Fran, Roger, this is—”

“Declan, Declan Tyler,” Roger said, grabbing Declan’s hand and pumping it furiously.

“Hi, Roger,” Declan said, amused.

“Roger, Roger Dayton,” Roger replied, not hearing his name already being mentioned and feeling he had to introduce himself.

146 | SEAN KENNEDY

Fran pushed him aside and managed a handshake, although she found it difficult to pull her husband’s paw out of Declan’s. “Hi, Declan. I know we’ve already met, but it’s nice to see you again.”

I could see Declan falling prey to her charms immediately. “You too, Fran. Whatever you’re making, it smells delicious.”

Fran giggled. “Simon helped. A little bit.”

“Hey!” I protested.

She ignored me, of course. “Now, Simon mentioned something about you owing me a kiss—”

Declan laughed, Roger perked up, and I groaned inwardly. My boyfriend scratched at the back of his head bemusedly. “I guess I did say that.”

Fran was starting to look a little bit like Miss Piggy eyeing Kermit. Then she laughed and pulled back. “The sentiment’s enough. I see you brought beer. That’ll do.”

I swear for almost a second Dec looked disappointed. So much for trying to avoid the footballer slut image, but I was amused. He handed over the beer to Roger, who also looked relieved, although I would swear he was slightly disappointed that his wife hadn’t been kissed by Declan Tyler as well.

“I knew you’d have coffee,” Declan said, “but I also brought you a special Tasmanian blend to try,” and he fished out a large silver bag that I had seen him buy at Salamanca but had thought nothing of it at the time, especially seeing as Abe’s addiction for caffeine was almost as bad as mine.

“That’s really lovely of you,” Fran said, touched.

Roger was more pleased with the beer, of course. I could see him itching to ask Declan a million questions about the AFL, but he was really trying to be on his best behaviour and treat Dec as the normal human being he was meant to be. Once the dip had been consumed, Roger became more like his usual self. He started to ask everything he wanted to know, and Declan humoured him. Fran was up to her old tricks of making sure everything was running smoothly. She pulled me out into the hallway and asked how I thought it was all going.

“Fine, don’t you think so?”

She held up a finger as she cocked her head and then yelled into the kitchen,

“Roger, don’t ask that!”

“You are such a multitasker,” I said admiringly.

“I know,” she grinned. “And for the record, yes, it’s going well. You two are disgustingly cute together.”

I gave her a quick kiss. “Gross. But thank you.”

No sooner had we stepped back in, Fran managed to get Roger away from the table by claiming they needed to grab more firewood, and Declan and I were left alone for the first time since he first walked in the door.

TIGERS AND DEVILS | 147

“Okay, is it unbearable?” I asked.

Declan took a swig of his beer. “Roger? Nah. I’ve met worse. I bet you once this night is over, he’ll get past the glamour of it all and see me as just another schmo.”

“Man, I hope so,” I said.

He gave my hand a brief squeeze. “You’ll see.”

“Fran’s probably reading him the riot act right now.”

“I like them both. They’re like a crazier Abe and Lisa.”

I laughed. “You got that right.” I thought of my friends with great affection and how
easy
it could be to get used to this. As Declan stood to clear some of the debris on the table, I came up behind him and hugged him close. His hands closed over mine and he leaned back to take my kiss. I cheekily arched a finger and teased his nipple through the fabric of his shirt, and he breathed heavily into my mouth.

“God, not here—”

I let him go, and he sat down quickly, his face red. “You are such a bastard,” he said shakily.

I bent down and kissed him again. “You
are
staying over tonight, yeah?”

“I think you’re definitely going to have to put out, yes.”