Chapter 16
AND suddenly, September was upon us.
Only the most important month in the AFL calendar. The Brownlow Ceremony takes place the same week as the Grand Final, and the two teams competing in the final usually don’t attend because the coaches want them concentrating on the game at hand rather than falling prey to one of the biggest booze-ups of the year.
This meant that Declan was freed up; as the Devils were near the bottom of the ladder they were effectively out of the semifinals, and he could spend more time in Melbourne preparing for the ceremony and finalising the details of the surgery he would have just before Christmas.
Having him around more was a salve for me, as Roger and I hadn’t spoken since our confrontation on Swanston Street. Declan was disappointed that our estrangement was being taken this far, but he knew he couldn’t budge me to do anything about the issue. Likewise, Fran was experiencing the same thing on her end with Roger, and as she had foreseen in our lunch together just after that disastrous Saturday night, it was beginning to affect our friendship. Although we pretended otherwise, we just happened to become more and more busy at our respective workplaces, and our lunches became less frequent.
“You know, you don’t look so good,” Declan said one day.
“What?” I asked, distracted by a packet of coffee beans that refused to open.
“You look all pinched, as if you’ve just sucked a lemon.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’ve got to go and see your friends.”
“And you have got to sit there, shut up, and look pretty.”
“Don’t be an arsehole.” He threw the newspaper at me, and it went way off its mark, crashing uselessly to the floor.
“You better not go back on the field with a throw that wide.” I noticed his weapon of choice was the real estate section, with glaring red circles marked around listings of apartments with prices that were more than five times that of my own home.
“Good way to try and change the subject,” Declan grumped.
I finally managed to get some beans into the grinder and hit the button to pulverise them into oblivion. “What was that? Sorry, can’t hear you over this!”
He resorted to giving me the finger.
“Really mature,” I scoffed as he scrambled out of his chair to grab the newspaper again. He gave me a look which more than let me know who he thought the mature one out of the two of us was.
Work was becoming really busy, so I wasn’t exactly lying to Fran when I used it as an excuse to fob her off yet again. It was only a month until the Triple F began; Nyssa and I were scrambling with last-minute deals to grab sponsors, finalise dates and screenings, and deal with a change of one of the venues. Somehow I didn’t mind it as much, because I knew that most nights I was coming home to Declan. I was becoming domesticated. Normally that might have made me baulk at the thought, but scarily enough it just made me give a Cheshire Cat grin.
The Brownlow threatened to deflate my mood, but I tried not to give in to it. Only a few nights before the actual ceremony, Declan came over and told me something I wasn’t expecting to hear.
“Jess thinks the two of you should meet.”
I sank onto the couch. I think I would have been less shocked if he said the Pope was coming over for dinner. “What? Why?”
He shrugged laconically. “Maybe she wants to prove her gay status to you so you won’t feel that she’s trying to steal your man.”
“She didn’t say that!” I spluttered.
“Not in so many words, but it was what she implied. Although she did chuck a fit when I told her you thought she wanted to harvest my swimmers.”
I whacked him on the shoulder. “You didn’t!”
He couldn’t keep it up for much longer and burst out laughing. He clutched his shoulder, wincing slightly. “You have a mean right hook when you want to.”
“Yeah, ask Tim sometime.” Why did I keep saying these things? It wasn’t deliberate, but it hung in the air like a dying firework between us.
“So you’ll meet her?”
“Why does she want to meet up?”
“Because she’s my friend. And she just wants to clear the air between the two of you.”
“There’s no air to clear.”
“Well, it will make her feel better.”
I opened my mouth to say something, then thought better of it and quickly shut it.
Declan, of course, didn’t miss it. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Bull. What were you about to say?”
“Just….” I sighed. “Did she meet with your other partner when she went to the Brownlow with you before?”
“No,” Declan admitted. “But then, she didn’t have to.”
“Why?”
Declan coloured slightly. “Because he was already going to be at the ceremony.”
I’m pretty sure my mouth dropped open. “He was a footy player?”
“Yes. What, do you think I’m the only queer in all of AFL?”
Statistically, of course he wouldn’t be. But it was also hard to imagine that there could be more, to reconcile against the stereotype we had all been conditioned to believe. And certainly the presence of gay players wasn’t exactly advertised, much less acknowledged.
“Don’t ask me who it is,” Declan said. “He’s extremely closeted. He would hate other people to know.”
“Is that why you broke up?”
Declan nodded and looked away.
“Is he also the one who cheated on you?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
Righteous indignation on his behalf burned through me. “That’s not very closeted of him, is it?”
“Well, it’s easy to fuck around on the sly,” Declan said bitterly. “It’s much harder to try and have a relationship.”
“Why did you stick around?”
“I really don’t like thinking about it.”
“You can talk to me. You should talk to me.”
“I don’t like thinking about it because it reminds me of what I put up with at the time,” Declan said, finally looking at me, and I didn’t like seeing the pain reflected in his eyes. “It doesn’t make me think very highly of myself.” He paused and dropped my hand. “Or what you might think of me.”
“Hey,” I said, grabbing his hand back, and with my free hand rubbing the back of his neck. “I think very highly of you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. We all do stuff we’re not proud of when we’re with other people.”
“I think at the time I didn’t know I could have anything better.”
Boy, had I been there. “You think I haven’t done that as well? Everybody does. It’s what human beings do in the fucked-up name of love.”
“I thought I loved him. Looking back, I know it wasn’t.”
I burrowed in closer to him. “He didn’t deserve your love.”
That moment would have been the perfect time for either of us to say those words to each other. I could tell he was thinking it as well, but the moment passed, and a new, nagging thought came to my mind.
“Dec, can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“It may make me sound like a dickhead.”
His gentle snort made me laugh. “That’s never stopped you before.”
“Yeah,” I admitted, “but I don’t like looking like a dickhead in front of you.”
“Really? Then you should stop being one.”
“Fuck off. And stop bringing up Fran and Roger.”
“I didn’t even mention them.”
“I know what you were getting at.”
He pulled me down so my head rested in his lap, now a therapist’s couch. “Come on, tell me what’s troubling you.”
Where to start? Besides the fact that he had reminded me, although I didn’t need reminding, of the Fran- and Roger-shaped hole in my existence.
“Why me?”
“I thought we’d already covered that?” Declan asked, confused.
“No, not in relation to Jess.”
“What, then?”
“What do you see in me?”
He sighed. “This is an old argument, and I hate repeating it.”
“Well, you keep spilling little secrets every now and again, and they throw me for a loop. When I think about the guys you’ve had, and what you can have, I have to wonder, what was it about me?”
Declan groaned and shook his fists in the air before taking a deep breath. “You seemed interesting. Different to everybody else I knew. Plus, you had a mouth on you. You weren’t shy about saying what was on your mind.”
“You mean I was a mouthy bastard.” Not exactly the basis for mutual attraction I’d hoped to hear.
“Yeah. But I like that about you. I told you before, I’m not used to getting that kind of honesty from people most of the time. Especially strangers. Usually it’s only my family, Abe, and Lisa.”
“I guess I can kind of understand that.”
Declan grinned and stroked the side of my cheek. “Plus, you’re hot.”
My face grew warm. I was embarrassed, because I really couldn’t believe that.
He pulled me up so that we were face to face. His breath was warm against my neck as he sucked on it lightly. “You look even hotter when you’re mortified.”
I made some strangled noise of disbelief, and he pulled away to look straight at me. “Hey, I find you irresistible and sexy. So shut up, and believe it.”
I didn’t want to play the self-esteem card again, so I let it slide. His hands rested upon my hips, and his right thumb coaxed its way under my shirt to stroke the skin beneath it. “And the more I got to know you, the more I liked. So if you’re making me do this, you have to tell me, what was it about me?”
“Where to start?” I leaned my forehead against his. “You were totally different to what I expected.”
“And that was good?”
“You defied my own prejudices.”
He laughed. “You sound like such a wanker.”
“I am a wanker, remember?” I paused. “Plus, you were hot.”
“Dickhead.”
“I think you must have really nice parents,” I said, out of the blue. It was a surprising statement, even to me, and I was the one who said it.
He gave me a strange look. “What makes you say that?”
I shrugged. “Because you’re such a good guy. Face it, Dec, you’re in a sport where if you’re good you get treated like a god. And there are a lot of guys that let it get to them, and they believe it. Your parents must really keep you grounded.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I guess they do.”
Wow, another awkward silence. Because I suddenly realised that I would really like to meet his parents and see who had brought Declan into the world and made him the person that he was. And I think he would have liked them to meet me.
But it wasn’t possible, blah blah blah.
“So,” I said, desperate to break the silence. “Jess, huh? When?”
WHEN turned out to be the actual night of the Brownlow.
Do you want to know what one definition of bizarre might be? Driving to your closeted boyfriend’s pretend-girlfriend’s house to watch them prepare for a faux date. This was a time when I really needed my friends to help me. I tried calling Fran’s mobile, but it was switched off. They were probably at a movie. Or maybe they had found a new best friend already. Nothing would surprise me anymore.
I wanted to speak to Roger so badly, but seeing as this whole Brownlow controversy was the reason why we weren’t talking any more to begin with, I didn’t expect I would find a sympathetic ear in him. That only left Nyssa, and she didn’t even know for certain I was dating somebody so there would be too many land mines to navigate before she would be able to focus on the problem at hand.
So that found me on a stranger’s doorstep, still wondering whether I should just turn around, go home, and hide under the bed.
Unfortunately, the decision was made for me. Somebody must have heard my car in the driveway and was opening the door as I stood there equivocating.
The woman who answered the door was my age, relatively short, with blonde bobbed hair that suggested she should be posing against Art Deco furniture and doing the Charleston with a long cigarette holder dangling from her artfully drawn lips.
“Simon?”
“That’s the name on my birth certificate,” I said perkily.
She opened the screen door to allow me in. “I think you need a drink.”
“That would be great.” And that was perhaps the finest introduction I had ever been part of in my life.
She ushered me into the lounge. “Oh, I’m Jess, by the way.”
I shook her hand. “I kind of figured.” No need to say I had Googled her the day before and felt my gut drop at the pictures of her with Declan over the years. They made a lovely couple, and a few pictures had captured them looking at each other with a familiarity which probably argued a long-term relationship to those not in the know.
“Dec’s still getting ready.”
Oh shit, compliment time. “You look great, by the way.”
And she did. She was practically sewn into a dark green dress that accentuated all her curves. She looked sexy, but not slutty. That probably couldn’t be said for some of the girls attending tonight.
“Thanks,” Jess said, sounding pleased. “I find it fun, kind of like playing dress-ups. But only for one night! I’m much more comfortable in a hippie skirt or jeans.”
Damn it, she was nice. So the irrational part of me couldn’t blame her for what we were being subjected to even though I really, really wanted to. “I have to admit I would hate getting all tuxed up.”
“I know,” she replied, with a twinkle in her eye. “I’ve seen the photos of the way you dress when I Googled your arse.”
“Why would you Google me?”
She pulled a vodka bottle out of the freezer. “To see who it was that Declan can’t shut up about.”
I froze in place, not knowing how to reply.
Jess giggled mischievously as she started preparing glasses with garnish. “Why don’t you go and check up on him while I finish these? Third door down the hall.”
I fled before I could get any more embarrassed.
As I opened the door to the spare room, I found Declan struggling with a bow tie.
He smiled when he caught sight of me in the mirror. “I thought I heard you. What do you think of Jess?”
“I like her,” I admitted.
He laughed. “Did it hurt to say that?”
“Shut up! You need help?”
He immediately surrendered. “Yes. I hate these damn things. How do you know how to do them?”
“Just one of my many unexpected talents.” I moved over to him, and started expertly folding the material until I had one perfect bow tie against his neck. Just as I straightened it, he kissed me and I willingly let myself be caught up in it. I had one fleeting thought of how cruel it was to see him looking so good when he would be doing so on someone else’s arm, but I let it be washed away.
“It should be you,” Declan whispered, reading my mind.
“I don’t think I could outrun a whole auditorium of footy players if I went as your date,” I said. “You would have to leave me behind in order to save yourself.”
He shook his head. “You’re so noble.”
“You’re lucky I am. Because you look so fucking good tonight I want to tackle you and tear you right out of that tux.”
He groaned. “Don’t start. I don’t need another reason not to go.”
“I bet you dominate the first few rounds of voting.”
“That’ll be all I’ll dominate,” he grumbled.
“Then you concentrate on the free drinks,” I replied, remembering that his latest spate of injuries had happened in the fourth round. It was going to be a long night for him.
“Good idea, look for the silver lining,” Dec said, giving me a tired smile. “Let’s get back out to Jess.”
I nodded and followed him back to the lounge. Jess had poured the drinks and handed them to us. We toasted together to the eventual winner of the night and drank hurriedly.
“The chauffeur just rang,” Jess said easily, the word rolling out of her like she was used to dealing with one every day. “He’ll be here in about twenty minutes. Time for another round, I say.”
I agreed, perhaps a bit too quickly. I caught Declan looking at me and said, “Don’t worry, Officer. It’ll be my last until I get home.”
Jess grinned. “Good to see one footy player takes the ‘drink responsibly’ sponsorship of the game seriously.”
“Hey,” Declan warned; an empty threat.
“So what are you doing tonight, Simon?” Jess asked as she started pouring various spirits into the shaker.
“Well, I’ll check out you guys on the blue carpet special, and then I should probably do some paperwork I neglected over the weekend.”
“I have a full ticket to the Triple F, you know,” she said.
“You do?” I asked, surprised.
“Yeah, I had one last year as well.”
I was impressed. “A regular? I feel bad I didn’t recognise you, we have so few.”
She laughed and began shaking the mix. “I didn’t go to any of the premieres, just the regular screenings. With my partner Robyn.”
This, of course, piqued my interest. “So Robyn didn’t want to see you glammed up tonight?”
Declan gave a warning cough, and Jess threw a tea towel at him.
“Sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Jess said, pouring the drinks. “Robyn’s gone out drinking with her friends. She always gets upset this time of year because she has this irrational fear Declan and I will get really drunk, accidental penetration will occur, and his magical penis will instantly cure me of my lesbian ways.”
Even I wasn’t that paranoid. Was I? “Wow, are you sure she’s a lesbian, if she thinks you can be cured by dick?”
Declan gave another warning cough.
“Dec, stop doing that!” Jess cried, handing me one of the glasses and giving Dec one with a complimentary side order look of admonition. “Robyn obviously just isn’t as capable of coping as Simon is.”
“I think he just hides it better,” Declan said.
“He is in the room,” I reminded him.
“Do you just hide it better, Simon?” Jess asked, sipping gingerly at her drink.
Emboldened by the alcohol, I nodded. “Probably.”
“So you are jealous?”
“Jealous isn’t the right word. It’s not that strong a feeling.”
“What is the feeling, then?” Declan asked.
I felt like I was on the witness stand. “Bittersweet disappointment.”
Jess clinked my glass with her own. “Can’t tell you’re an Arts grad.”
We laughed, and it seemed to settle the mild tension in the air.
“By the way,” Jess said confidentially, leaning in to me a little. “I don’t see Dec as a potential sperm donor, despite his obvious genetic pedigree.”
It was now my turn to look at Dec.
He refused to meet my eyes, looking instead into his glass.
“Don’t kill him,” Jess giggled. “He’s too much like a brother to me.”
“You are dead,” I warned him.
“He would be the perfect sample though,” Jess mused. “I mean, he’s good looking, athletic, smart, and has all those nice-guy characteristics… if he was a woman… well, I don’t know, Simon, maybe you would have competition from me.”
“If he was a woman, you could have him,” I said.
Declan was colouring visibly over his drink, but was mercifully saved by the honking of a car from outside. Jess ran to the window and peered out. “Shit, it’s the car! He’s early!”
We all downed our drinks and congregated by the door.
“Are you all right to drive home?” Declan asked me.
I nodded. “Scout’s honour.”
He frowned, looked me over, and obviously decided I passed muster. “Okay. Drive safe.” He leaned in and kissed me.
“Aww,” Jess said mockingly. “That’s so cute.”
“Shut up,” Declan winced as he pulled away from me.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him,” Jess declared as she opened the door and threw her keys into her bag.
I followed them out, shutting the door behind me. As I turned back to say good-bye, they were already walking down the porch steps, arm in arm, like the king and queen of the school ball heading to their limo. Fucking picture perfect.
As the chauffeur opened the back door of the car for them, Jess turned back and waved. I gave a halfhearted one back. Declan then turned and gave a subtle two fingered salute. I nodded and watched the chauffeur jump back into the front and the car glide away.
I sat on the steps for a few minutes, before the cold drove me back into my car, and I headed home.
WITH Maggie on my lap and a beer in my hands, I tortured myself by watching the blue carpet special before the ceremony itself. I knew that I didn’t have anything to worry about with Jess, now I’d met her, but I could still haunt myself with the what-ifs as I watched my boyfriend take a date other than myself out for the night. And I’d get to watch it all on high-definition television, with a running commentary from the vacuous himbo and bimbo combination they hired every year to do the preshow fashion spiel.
I let the parade of the who’s who of footballers and their girlfriends and wives unfold before me. I couldn’t help but grin with a sense of affection as Abe and Lisa appeared on camera. Abe looked suave and confident in his black priest-collar tux while Lisa matched him in a gown that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a Hollywood premiere in the 1940s. They stood out among the previous interviewees, who had made some stunningly bad choices, including someone from the Dockers who had obviously been trying to bring the parachute pant back into vogue.
Roger popped into my head yet again as I remembered the very first time we had gone down to the Crown complex to be part of the crowd watching the entrance to the ceremony. We were only sixteen and had snuck into the city by telling our parents that we were staying over at each other’s houses. Surprisingly enough, despite being surrounded by about six cameras stationed to catch all the action on the carpet, we never once wound up as part of the broadcast. Our parents, watching at home, were totally oblivious to our being there.
I wanted to pick up the phone and call him, as I had been wanting every day for the past fortnight. Like I had only scant hours before, but this still wasn’t the right time.
And suddenly there he was. Declan Tyler, on screen. With perfect girlfriend Jess.
“Are you disappointed coming here, knowing that there is no way you can be in the running for the medal?” the himbo was asking rather insensitively as I turned up the volume.
Declan took a second to compose himself by licking his lips slightly, a move I now recognised instantly as being one of either nervousness or restraint from saying what he really felt. “No, not at all. It’s a night to come here with all the guys, putting aside rivalries, and celebrating the mateship in the sport instead.”
Wow. What a perfect sound bite.
“Do you think you’ll be in the running next year?” Himbo asked.
“Who knows?” Declan replied as the camera swayed over his right side to take in Jess. She stood there, arm in arm with him, looking every inch the supportive girlfriend. “I hope to be playing enough to be in contention, that’s for sure.”
“And what do you think, Jess?” Bimbo asked. “Do you think he’ll be able to do it?”
“Of course,” Jess said smoothly. “I have every faith in him. Next year we’ll see Dec on the field, and with his usual form.”
Man, they could have even fooled me. And I was the one who had Declan in my bed every time he was in town.
“And what are you wearing tonight, Jess?” Bimbo asked.
Jess flared out her gown slightly, so that it shimmered on camera. “A local designer, Heather Marlson.”
“And you, Declan?” Himbo asked, in a tone that suggested that Declan, like any real man, would probably have no idea.
Which of course, Jess helped perpetuate by stepping in. “He would probably just tell you it’s a tux, but it is by the same designer.”
Declan gave a self-deprecating shrug of the shoulders, and all four on the carpet laughed as if they were at the end of a Scooby-Doo episode.
Maggie suddenly gave a little sneer from my lap, and I rubbed behind her ear proudly. “Good girl.”
I SAT through the whole three-hour ceremony with more gusto than past years, mainly because I perked up every time Declan appeared on screen. He dominated the voting in the first three rounds, with the most votes for each. Of course, everybody knew that wouldn’t last. The fourth round was when he got injured, and after that his name didn’t show up on the scoreboard again. Abe made quite a good showing, being the highest-ranked Devil player, but he wasn’t in serious contention for the medal either.
If you’ve never seen a Brownlow ceremony it can be like watching paint dry, even if you’re the most passionate football fan in existence. Players are awarded points per game and per round by the umpires, based upon their decision of who has been the best and fairest of the game. Take into account that there are eight games per round, with sixteen teams, and twenty-two rounds per season… that’s a lot of counting you have to sit through. It’s kind of like listening to a really long Bingo game. But I watched until the credits rolled and got to see Declan one last time as he solicitously helped Jess out of her seat and they walked over to Abe and Lisa. I felt one last little stab of jealousy. Hey, they’re meant to be my friends now as well!
I shook it off.
“That’s that, then,” I said to Maggie. She opened her eyes and looked up at me languidly, probably thinking for the millionth time that her human was completely stupid. “Time for bed.”
She followed me into the bedroom, knowing she would be able to sucker me into giving her one of the kitty treats kept on the bedside table. Of course I acquiesced and could hear her crunching it in the dark as I drifted off to sleep.
I WAS woken abruptly by someone climbing in to bed with me.
Groggily, I flailed about, on the verge of panic until I heard a familiar voice say my name.
It was Declan.
“Fuck, you scared me.” I leaned over and switched on the bankers’ lamp. He was sitting on what had become his side of my bed, still struggling to pull off the white shirt that had come with his tux. I had no idea how he’d managed to get his pants off without me hearing him.
“Sorry,” he slurred.
I had given him a key ages ago, but he had never had cause to use it like this, at this hour of the morning. I wasn’t used to someone letting themselves into my house when I was asleep. My heart was still pounding furiously; I could hear its thud in my ears.
“Let me help you with that,” I said, and I managed to deftly pull off the shirt and the singlet beneath it in one move.
“You’re good at that,” he said rakishly.
“Wow, you really got into the free booze, huh?” I asked, amused as I had never really seen him this plastered before.
“It was there,” he said, his eyes at half-mast. “And I was thirsty.”
He fell back into bed with a heavy sigh and tried to cover himself with the doona. It twisted around his legs, and I had to get them sorted.
“I thought you were going to crash at Jess’s tonight?”
“Turn off the light,” he moaned. “It’s too bright.”
I did so, and as I settled back upon my pillow he rolled over to use me as one. His breath reeked, and I knew he would feel the pains of a major hangover in the morning.
“How did you get here?” I asked.
“Robyn drove me,” he murmured. “Only too glad to get rid of me. She hates me.”
“Who could hate you?” I teased. I felt Maggie jump up upon the bed and snuggle between our feet.
“Robyn. Because of my magical lesbian-curing dick.”
I laughed so hard, his head almost rolled off my chest. “I don’t think it’s done too good a job of curing Jess so far.”
“Only ’cos we haven’t done it.”
All I could do was laugh again. “You’ve got tickets on yourself.”
“It cured you, didn’t it?”
“Well, I’m not a lesbian, so I guess it must have.”
“There you go,” he said, sounding very satisfied with himself.
“I wish I was recording this,” I told him. “You would be so embarrassed in the morning if you heard it.”
“As long as I’m here in the morning,” he yawned. “This was where I wanted to be all night, so that’s why I came here.”
There was a deliciously gooey feeling in my belly, damn it. “I’m flattered.”
“I love you,” he whispered.
I was stunned, unable to breathe or think.
“Did you hear me?” he asked, suddenly sounding not quite so drunk.
I couldn’t say anything. All I could think was that this wasn’t the time—as I had told Fran what seemed like years ago now, first declarations of love should not be spoken lightly. And definitely not while drunk. I wondered how I could say all that without hurting his feelings when I realised he had fallen asleep.
I lay there for ages, his breath warm against my chest, thinking that I had fucked up again.