Tigers and Devils Read online

  “Or telling kids on Twitter that they need to spell properly.” Roger laughed.

  I would have given them both the finger if my hand wasn’t jammed so far into my pocket and it was too cold to pull it out.

  “That all sounds much better than going to a party where we apparently don’t even know what it’s for.”

  Roger and Fran ignored me, and the only sounds on the street were our shoes scraping on the bitumen of the road and the clanking of beer bottles in the plastic bag Roger carried. Gradually we could hear music from a distance away, guiding us in like a buoy on the ocean.

  “Okay, here’s the plan,” Roger said. “Synch up our watches, if we’re all bored shitless after an hour we sneak out.”

  That sounded like a good plan to me. I agreed happily. I set my watch a little fast because I already couldn’t wait to make a break for it.

  “Look at Simon, that’s the first time he’s smiled all night.” Fran sighed as she adjusted the clock on her mobile.

  “I can’t help it if you’re the only two people I like associating with on a regular basis. Or maybe that you’re the only two who will associate with me.”

  “Oh, boohoo,” Fran said dismissively. “Try to act a little suave at this party, and people might even talk to you this time.”

  Suave isn’t really me. I’m the doofus who normally will end up spilling drinks on somebody or inadvertently insulting the host’s partner. Then it’s time for a quick getaway and a renewal of vows to never go out again. Until, of course, the next time when Fran and Roger forget about whatever heinous social crime I committed before and force me out again.

  We paused before the front door. From the sounds of it, the party was in full swing.

  “Do we knock?” Fran asked.

  “They wouldn’t hear us,” I said.

  “Doorbell?” Roger suggested.

  I sighed and took the initiative. The door was unlocked, and I pushed it open.

  “Enter,” I told my friends.

  They took my lead. In the hallway we unwrapped our scarves and shucked out of our jackets, and threw them upon the bed we could see from our vantage point. It was obviously acting as a coat rack for the night.

  Fran and Roger were big fat liars. They instantly found people they knew, mutual friends who I had met only vaguely. From what I could remember we had all come away from the night still uninterested in one another’s existences. I circled nervously around the lounge room, the main congregating area. I groaned when I saw the first person I knew properly—Jasper Brunswick. He had worked for the Triple F a couple of years before, and he was a royal pain in the arse. I hadn’t been manager at the time, but I was being groomed for eventual takeover. Jasper was one of those know-it-alls who thought he could do everything better, but really didn’t want to do the work. I had burned my bridges with him when he drunkenly tried to seduce me one night, and my mouth had fired off before my brain had the opportunity to think of a kinder answer than “No way in hell!”

  A cold war began between us and was exacerbated when I had to do some admin work and discovered that his name wasn’t Jasper Brunswick at all, but Jon Brown. Yeah, I’m sure you’ve got him all figured out now.

  He was sitting in the centre of the lounge on a red couch that had seen better days. He drew everybody into a circle around him, regaling them with tales about himself and various celebrities he had schmoozed with. Jasper had made a name for himself recently for penning a gossip column for the local gay rag. His ego certainly had recovered nicely since I last saw him.

  I immediately slunk into the shadows lining the walls and made a beeline for the kitchen. I needed that beer now and had to find out where Roger had put them. As I did so, I looked at my watch. We had only been here for ninety seconds, and I was ready to do a runner. That had to be a record, even for me.

  Sure enough, Roger was in the kitchen. Anywhere there’s food and beer, that’s where you’re likely to find him.

  “Roger!” I hissed. “Beer! Now!”

  He grinned at me infuriatingly. “Did you see your best mate is in the lounge?”

  “Why do you think I need a beer so badly?”

  He took pity on me and handed me a bottle. I twisted the cap off savagely and downed half the beer in a few huge mouthfuls.

  “Pace yourself,” Roger warned.

  “We’re only going to be an hour, right?” I pleaded.

  But it looked as if I may have lost this battle. Roger wore an expression signifying he might be ready to settle in, and Fran could be seen lounging comfortably against the wall, her posture relaxed and her attitude sparkling as she chatted with a woman who had called me a communist at one of Fran’s work dos.

  I began to formulate whether I had enough money in my wallet for a taxi should the need arise, but the beer started to have an almost immediate effect on me. I’m a true Cadbury kid, needing only a glass and a half to get me going. In fact, even the Cadbury kid could drink me under the table.

  “Maybe you should sleep with him,” Roger said out of the blue as if he had pondered this for the past four minutes.

  My spit-take would have put most comedians to shame. “Are you high?”

  He giggled like he had already downed a six-pack and it was affecting him already. “I don’t know, maybe you should just get laid.”

  “Does your wife know you talk like this?” I polished off my beer and resolved to take the second one more slowly. I gestured for Roger to hand me another.

  “When single you are,” Roger said, imitating Yoda dispensing advice to Luke, “get laid you can. When married you get, make love you do.”

  “Oh, one of the magical gifts afforded to people who can actually get married,” I said, never one to miss the opportunity to climb up on my soapbox.

  “Well, if I had my way you could,” Roger said, draping a casual arm over my shoulder. “But you’d also have to find someone first.”

  I snorted as I opened my beer. “It’s not going to be Jasper Bloody Brunswick, that’s for sure.”

  Roger peered behind us to take in the decadent form of Mr. Brunswick draped over the couch with his small crowd of neophytes sitting before him, desperate for some tenuous connection to celebrity. “Yeah, I wouldn’t wish Jon Brown on anybody.”

  “Shut up!” I hissed. “He’ll hear you!” The last thing I needed was Jasper Brunswick hunting me down throughout this party because he heard his true name being spoken.

  “Do you think if you say it three times in front of a mirror, he appears and slits your throat?” Roger was obviously very amused with himself this evening.

  “Are you talking about Jon Brown?”

  It was Fran, suddenly appearing behind us and as usual up to speed on everything even though she hadn’t been a part of our earlier conversation.

  “Fran!” I protested weakly.

  She took Roger’s beer away from him and drank the remains. “Yes, please, babe, I’d love a drink.” As Roger dutifully trotted away to fetch her one, she leaned in teasingly to me and murmured, “Jon Brown, Jon Brown, Jon Brown.”

  “Simon Murray.”

  I knew it was Jasper Brunswick from Fran’s expression. “Three times and he appears! Watch your throat.” She grinned wickedly and slunk off to find her husband.

  I took a deep breath to contain myself and turned to face him. “Jasper Brunswick.”

  His face was flushed, and his pupils were dilated from whatever drugs he had consumed either before or at the party. He leered at me, and I grew uncomfortable under his gaze. “Been a while, Simon.”

  “Really?” It had seemed far too short to me.

  “Mind you, I’ve done very well for myself since leaving Triple F.”

  Triple F’s full name was actually the Furtive Film Festival but I found it a bit too twee and horrifically earnest, changing it as soon as I took over. Plus, it made the logo look less cluttered. “Why, what are you doing?” I asked innocently.

  “Don’t pretend to be thick,” Jaspe
r Brunswick said, his eyes narrowing as he tried to ready his best insult. “Although it is one of your more endearing traits. I’m sure you’ve seen my column.”

  “Column?” Thankfully at that moment Roger passed by and clandestinely pressed another beer into my hand. Three in about fifteen minutes. They would be peeling me off the floor soon enough.

  “In the Reach Out.”

  “I don’t read it.”

  “I find that hard to believe, Simon.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s hard enough to keep up with publications I have to read for work.”

  “Can I give you a piece of advice?”

  Oh, this would be good. I remained silent.

  Jasper Brunswick leaned in to me and rested his fingers upon my arm. I could feel them searing my flesh, leaving the permanent mark of the devil behind. “You might want to remain on good terms with the local press. Especially when you want to get coverage of your little festival.”

  “We already get plenty of coverage,” I said firmly, opening my beer so his grip on my arm was shaken off. “In fact, we got a four-page spread in the Reach Out last year.”

  “My column could be very important in helping spread the word further,” he insinuated, his breath hot and fetid upon my face. “A few pictures of the distinguished guests and the director of the festival. You can’t buy publicity like that.”

  I winced. “I’m sure you could think of a price.”

  He faltered slightly and crossed his arms defensively. “Still as cynical as ever, aren’t you? I’m surprised you’ve gotten where you are. No people skills, that’s your problem.”

  “I have people skills,” I countered. “Just not the kind of people skills you used to get where you are.”

  He grew even redder. I have no idea if he slept his way to the top, which is what I certainly sounded like I was implying, but to tell you the truth, I was talking more about his snaky schmooziness and brownnosing.

  And to my relief, Jasper Brunswick turned on his heel and stalked back over to the lounge room, where he would no doubt find people who would fall at his feet to worship and restore his comfortable sense of superiority.

  Roger and Fran appeared from where they had hidden in the pantry. “So he’s gone?” Roger asked, looking around like the man in question had the abilities of a chameleon and actually blended in with the ’70s-era tiling on the wall behind us.

  “He’s gone. Thanks for the support,” I said dryly.

  “I got you another beer, didn’t I?” Roger asked, affronted, as if it were equivalent to unsheathing his sword and standing beside me in battle.

  Reading my mind, Fran said, “That was Lancelot’s main role on the battlefield for Arthur, wasn’t it?”

  “No,” I replied, “it was screwing his wife while his back was turned. By the way, speaking of inappropriate trysts, did you know Roger tried to convince me to sleep with that dickhead?”

  “Lancelot?” Fran asked.

  “Funny.”

  “I took it back straightaway,” Roger mumbled.

  Fran rubbed his back affectionately. “Idiot. Please try to find better conquests for your mates.”

  “I’m not looking for a conquest,” I pointed out, shepherding them out into the backyard, where a small fire burned in an old oil drum.

  “Last I heard, you weren’t looking for anything,” Fran shrugged.

  “Is that a crime?”

  “It’s certainly not normal.”

  “And what’s normal? You guys?”

  “Shut up,” Fran said, without heat.

  “You love us.” Roger always got cheesy when he was drunk.

  I mumbled incoherently into my feet, an admission of returned love which they could understand without knowing exactly what I said.

  Fran hugged me and then pushed me off her. “Now, go away. I want to make out with my husband.”

  I laughed, not taking any offence, and went off to find a corner where I could hide.

  Luck scored me a garden swing in a dark corner that no couple had yet appropriated to mack upon. I settled in and slowly pushed myself, my beer nestled snugly in my hands.

  There was a small group standing off to my right, talking loudly. So it wasn’t like I was eavesdropping. I wish I knew who they were, because, really, I have them to thank for this whole story. Well, unless you want to give Fran and Roger the credit for dragging me to this party in the first place. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Again. I might as well go all the way back to thanking my parents for having a late-night snuggle one cold winter’s night almost twenty-eight years ago.

  “The Devils are gonna have another shit year, I’m telling you.”

  The voices were a garbled mess; beside the gender of each voice I couldn’t really separate them into distinct entities.

  “Nah, it’s about time for them to start crawling up the ladder again.”

  “You said that last year. There’s no way they’ll finish in the top eight.”

  “Yeah, no finals hopes at all. They’re wasted.”

  “They never should have allowed them to merge.”

  That had been the biggest controversy in the recent history of AFL. To truly make the game Australia-wide (although conveniently neglecting the Northern Territory, but as my father liked to argue, it was a territory, not a state. My reaction: “It’s a bloody big block of land at the top of Australia with people living in it! They deserve some sort of team!”) the AFL created a Tasmanian team. But in order to keep the numbers of teams even so that there wouldn’t be any hassle in arranging games, they had to sacrifice one of the Victorian teams so they could merge into one (Roger: “It’s like bloody Fitzroy all over again!”). We had to say good-bye to the Melbourne Demons, who moved down south and across the Bass Strait to become the Tasmanian Devils.

  At the time I remember being horrified at the possibility they might make Richmond merge so that they could be the Tasmanian Tigers, after one of the most famous extinct (supposedly) animals in the world, but we were safe.

  So the Devils weren’t exactly popular in Victoria, like the Brisbane Lions before them, because they had committed the cardinal sin of taking one of our teams away from us. Problems besieged the Devils from the very start, with two of their key players being injured in their very first season, and although one had gone on to recover, Declan Tyler seemed plagued with injury ever since. It was a favourite source of discussion on both sides of the Bass Strait; we thought it was an act of the gods showing us the merge should never have happened, while the Tasmanians bemoaned the fact one of the best players in the league was doing nothing for them but to sit on the bench and occasionally run out to get injured.

  I knew Tyler would come up sooner or later, and it was sooner.

  “They’ve taken Tyler away from us, and look what they did to him.”

  “I don’t think it was their fault.”

  “What are you, a Devils supporter?”

  Howls of derision floated over to where I was sitting.

  “No, I’m not! Just I don’t think they’re going to take someone like Tyler and then intentionally injure him so they can’t use him at all!”

  “They should do something with him. All he does is sit on that bench and gather dust. And lard.”

  “He does not. He’s hot.”

  He was, actually. But that’s not important.

  “Typical bloody woman. Just watching the game to perve at the guys in their shorts.”

  There was another frenzied protest at such an accusation. I sighed to myself as well. Women and gay guys always get stuck with that image, that they couldn’t possibly be interested in the game itself—it had to be the guys. I mean, sure, it’s a fringe benefit, but when the game is on the last thing you’re thinking about is the bodies of the men. You’re concentrating on that red leather oval ball and if it will make it between the triad of poles signifying either glory or failure. Not to mention some of the women I’ve met over the years at games or supporter functions have been the mo
st vocal and knowledgeable proponents of the game.

  Those very points were raised between the arguers. I laughed to myself and swore I wasn’t going to get involved. But then someone made a comment so wrong I had to butt in.

  “It’s not even like he was that great a player to begin with, anyway.”

  “Not a great player?” I made some of them jump when I emerged from the shadows.

  I could now make out three men and two women arguing over the oil drum. “You are talking about Declan Tyler, right? Winner of the Best and Fairest for the Devils two years consecutively, a Brownlow Medallist, and winner of the Norm Smith medal and the Leigh Matthews Trophy? Yeah, he really sucks as a football player.”

  “How many Devils fans are there at this party?” one of the men asked.

  “I’m not a Devils supporter,” I said, the disgust plain on my face. “I go for Richmond.”

  All five of them burst out laughing.

  “Hey!” I protested. “We’re about due for a final.”

  “You’ve been due for over fifty years, mate,” the woman closest to me said.

  I could feel someone approaching us from behind me and just assumed it was someone else interested in the conversation or a friend of one of the group. “Look, I know Tyler comes across like a bit of an arrogant prick, but you can’t say he’s not a great player. When he’s not injured, of course.”

  For some reason, everybody’s eyes went wide at this point. Puzzled, I raised my hands for any kind of response.

  There was the sound of somebody clearing their throat behind me. “Well, thanks for defending my honour.”

  No way! No way this was possibly happening. I turned, hoping it was just Roger being a dickhead, but I could already tell by the expressions of the rest of the group that it wasn’t. Although I had never heard that voice in person, I had often enough on television, usually in news bites or postgame interviews.

  Behind me was the man himself, Declan Tyler. And you know how supposedly most people are shocked when they see a celebrity in real life and think they’re tiny? Declan Tyler was even taller than I imagined, and had at least a head on me. And I don’t think I’m that short, either.