Tigers on the Way Read online

  “Obviously not,” I said dryly, “or else you wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “Do you think that’s funny?” Mum asked.

  I pinched my finger and thumb together. “A little bit?”

  “Don’t rile your mum,” Dec said.

  That didn’t do him any favours.

  “I told you not to butter me up!” she barked.

  That created an image both unnerving and amusing. A strangled yelp of laughter escaped me, and I could see Dec’s eyes pleading for me to stop.

  “Are you taking any of this seriously?” Gabby spoke up, and I was alarmed at the way she was tearing up. Tim said her crying always broke him down, and I could see why. Pound puppies had nothing on her in regards to sad eyes and trembling lips.

  “Believe it or not,” I told her, trying to keep the impatience out of my voice, “Dec and I are fully aware of how serious this is. Me especially, as it is happening to me.”

  I obviously didn’t disguise it that well, as Tim jumped out of his chair.

  “Don’t be such a snotty prick! We’re worried about you!”

  Gabby turned on him just as fast as he did me. “Don’t yell at your brother like that! He could have cancer!”

  As all of the Murray family get-togethers tended to go, this was rapidly becoming a farce as Tim and Gabby started arguing with each other, Mum had her head in her hands, Dad looked like he was fantasising about being in his dream place—which was probably the Essendon Football Club Museum—and Dec and I were exchanging looks of commiseration. And somehow, I was in the middle of the drama, as per usual.

  (Okay, I did accept, this time, I had caused the drama. But I wouldn’t swear to it in any court.)

  “We don’t know it’s cancer yet!” For fuck’s sake, they were already measuring my grave and booking the band for the wake.

  “Why wouldn’t you want us to know?” Mum asked. “Why don’t you want our support?”

  I rubbed my face in exasperation, and the truth tore out of me. I hated exposing my feelings to my family. It was all part of growing up in the closet. You got so used to safeguarding your own truth, it was actually injurious to your mental health if you began letting go. “Because I was fucking scared, okay! All I could think about was losing Dec, about losing everybody, if it happens to be malignant. And I thought, stupidly, that if I didn’t tell anybody, then I could fool myself into believing it wasn’t really happening!”

  They were all looking at me, shocked. I was known as a ranter in my family, but it was always about external things: politics, film, books. Nothing internal. I was a bottler of my feelings to them.

  Oh fuck. What if all those years of repression, which I had actually told myself was healthy, had a negative effect on my body? Were my snark and evasiveness the cause of my tumour?

  No, that was ridiculous.

  So the snark told me as it came flooding back. “Besides, I still feel I have a lot of time left on this earth in order to get back at people who have wronged me.”

  This was the Simon Murray they were used to. Dec was behind me, his hand on my back for support. I hadn’t even realised he had crept up on me, but I should have known that’s where he would be. He always was.

  “Oh, Simon,” Gabby said, jumping out of her seat and running over to squeeze the life out of me with one of her patented hugs. I relaxed into it, for she had a very maternal bosom and it was extremely comforting. Not to sound creepy about my sister-in-law, but she was the very model of maternity that I needed right now. Especially as my mum was still glaring at me from across the room.

  I could understand her perspective. I had done one of the worst things a child could do: not given her the opportunity to be my mother in my hour of need. I would have to make it up to her.

  But I was so tired. I needed to sit, and I didn’t ease myself down properly onto one of the couches and winced. This only brought on another chorus of questions.

  I put up my hand to silence them. It only kind of worked.

  “Is it that painful?” Tim asked. “Your poor balls.” At least he wasn’t angry with me now. He actually sounded sincere.

  “Please don’t talk about my balls,” I said. “Look, I didn’t even know there was anything wrong, really. The pain’s from the biopsy.”

  “You’ve already had the biopsy?” Dad asked. It was the first time he had spoken since he had entered the house. He’d even only nodded when Dec asked him if he wanted a tea or coffee, so Dec had just made the choice for him.

  “A few days ago,” Dec admitted.

  “Another thing we didn’t know,” Mum fumed.

  “Look, I can only apologise again for that,” I said, hoping to sound conciliatory enough for her to forgive me just a little. “This was why I didn’t want anyone to know just yet. We don’t have the results back, so we don’t know if there’s actually anything to worry about.”

  Mum fumbled in her handbag for a fresh tissue.

  “I would have told everybody as soon as we knew,” I added. “But I’m sorry you guys had to find out this way.”

  “I thought you were going back to your usual ways,” Mum sniffed. “Pushing us away again.”

  I had to fight myself from rolling my eyes—usually my default setting—and reminding her that I had stopped doing that since I got with Dec. Instead I went over and hugged her, sore balls be damned. She actually let me do so.

  “I love you,” I whispered into her ear.

  This only started her bawling again.

  “So have your balls gotten any bigger?” Tim asked. “You know, from the swelling and everything?”

  This was enough to even stop my mother short; we stared at Tim, not even able to voice how inappropriate the question was. Fortunately our security door buzzed, distracting us from the need for any answer. Dec was already springing over to answer the screen.

  “The gang’s all here,” he announced from the hall. “Fran and Roger.”

  “Oh god,” I said. “This is turning into my wake, and I’m not even dead yet.”

  Stunned silence, and a split second later everybody started yelling at me.

  I ran to answer the door, but if I was expecting a better reception, I knew from Fran’s face I wouldn’t be getting one.

  Again, no greeting. “I have never been so mad at you in my whole life, Simon Murray. You’re a fucking arsehole.”

  And she burst into tears. What was worse, Roger was stony-faced, and I could tell he had already been crying himself.

  I remained at the door as they walked through and gave everybody a subdued greeting. I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to find a concerned Dec.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  I wasn’t. I was mad. I could understand everybody being upset with me. I also knew they were coming from a place of love. But I felt like they were hijacking my pain. This was happening to me. I still hadn’t processed any of it, and I was being made to feel a shitload of guilt when I had enough emotion to deal with.

  They had made it all about them and were taking their own fears out in anger upon me.

  And irrational as it may be, part of the blame lay at my feet. I had tried to avoid my problems and most likely made them worse.

  “Just dandy,” I said, and closed the door.

  LATER, PUTTING some dishes in the sink, I glanced out the window and noticed Roger sitting on the retaining wall by the pool. His expression blank, he sipped at a beer that was almost empty.

  I grabbed two more out of the fridge and slipped away to join him.

  He looked up at my approach and drained the rest of the one he was holding.

  I took the empty bottle off him and put it on the table out of his reach so he couldn’t throw it at me. Which was moot, as I gave him a new one anyway.

  He took it, our fingers brushing. I could swear he let his linger for a moment, as if to prove that I was still flesh and blood. We stared at each other, unable to say anything. And
in fact, Roger hadn’t said a word the whole time he had been here.

  Actually, he hadn’t said a word to me. I’d seen him talking to Dec in the kitchen, but when I went to join them, he clammed up and walked away to join Fran in the lounge.

  “Can I sit down?” I asked.

  He shrugged but shifted over to give me some room on the retaining wall.

  “You not talking to me?” I clicked my beer against his, but he didn’t respond.

  Roger stared down and twisted the cap off his own.

  I mirrored his action and threw my cap onto the table. It skittered off, fell to the ground, and rolled away until it threw itself off the ledge of the pool and sank into the waters below.

  “You’re going to fuck up your filter,” Roger said. “Dec will kill you.”

  He looked stricken, realising what he just said.

  “Maybe he won’t have to.”

  It was the wrong thing to say, but hey, he started it.

  “Don’t,” Roger warned me.

  “There’s nothing to worry about, Rog.”

  “You don’t know that!” he cried. “So don’t tempt fate!”

  “I never took you to be so superstitious.”

  “In situations like this, it’s best to be. I have to knock on wood.”

  I grabbed his hand and rapped it against my skull. “There.”

  He ignored me, stood up, and crossed to the mini palm tree, knocking smartly upon its trunk.

  “Do you feel better now?” I asked.

  Roger shook his head and sat with me again. “I feel like shit.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  He downed half of his beer in two gulps. “I understand you didn’t want anyone to know until the results came in, but I’m meant to be your best friend.”

  “You are my best friend.” As if I had to reassure him of that!

  “We’ve been that way since we were eleven. Twenty-three years ago!”

  “I can count.”

  “Don’t be a shit,” he said tiredly. “You should have told me.”

  “I don’t want to start a war over one-upmanship,” I told him, “but you did the same to me when you and Fran were trying to conceive and you thought there was something wrong with your balls.”

  “That was different.” But he didn’t sound like he believed it.

  I ignored him. “Plus, that was going on for months before we found out. You only had to wait a few days.”

  “Yeah, and only found out because Dec’s mum can’t keep a secret.”

  “Never mind the filters, Dec will kill you if he heard that. Never diss someone’s mother, other than your own!”

  Roger quickly looked around us, but Dec was nowhere to be seen.

  I could have laughed, it was so cute. Never get between a boy and his love for their mother. “Anyway, seeing we’re speaking about balls, I might as well tell you now. Turns out the tumour made me sterile. I’m not going to be able to father any of our kids.”

  Roger turned to me, stricken. “Fuck, Simon—”

  “It’s okay. Dec will sire enough of them for us, I’m sure.”

  “Yeah, but not to get the opportunity—”

  “We’ll still get kids, so—” We were playing a game of interruptions and half-formed sentences, with neither of us appearing to be the winner.

  “It was me,” Roger said, and the conversation ground to a halt.

  My brow furrowed. “I think I’ve lost the thread here.”

  “I was the reason we had trouble having kids,” Roger said, starting to tear pieces of the label off the beer and letting them flutter down to the sandstone path beneath our feet. “And I was too scared to let anybody know. So I made Fran promise not to say anything, and of course most people assumed it was her. I’m a fucking arsehole.”

  What could I say, when someone had admitted to something so heartbreaking? “You’re not an arsehole. It’s just…. I don’t know, I guess.”

  I was always so coherent in highly emotional moments. But I knew what it was. Fucking fragile masculinity making things worse, as it always did. Like having a low sperm count meant you were less of a man and something to be ashamed of. And Fran, dear, bolshie Fran, keeping his secret because she loved him and didn’t want him to get hurt. I loved the both of them so much.

  “We wouldn’t even have had the kids if it weren’t for you and Dec,” Roger said. “And now you’re going through the same thing.”

  “Life’s a shit like that.”

  “Oh shit, you’re not even going through the same thing, because you’ve got cancer! I’m such a dick!”

  “Hold on, let’s not say the big ‘C’ word.”

  “You’re right, sorry.”

  “Stop apologising, you nuff nuff.” I put my arm around him. “You’re my best friend, and you always will be. I don’t know how I would have gotten through the last twenty-odd years without you.”

  “Same. So make sure you’re around for another twenty.”

  “I’ll be around for a lot more than that,” I said.

  “Promise.”

  I did. “Pinky swear.”

  He laughed and held his out. I hooked mine around his, and we hung on to each other.

  We were then surprised by somebody crying behind us. We turned to find Fran in tears, and Dec holding them back, as they hugged each other.

  “That was so beautiful,” Fran sobbed. “I love both of you stupid boys.”

  Roger went to console his wife, and they disappeared inside. Dec stood, staring at me. I finally made my way over to him and took him into my arms.

  And was alarmed when he let loose the flood.

  “Well, this is a fucking depressing evening,” I said.

  Declan laughed through his tears. “I don’t know which I like better, you being emotional or you being snarkily resilient.”

  “I’m aiming for a mixture of both. Did you, uh, hear the part about Roger?”

  Dec nodded.

  “Do you think the two of us were exposed to high levels of radiation at some point? The odds seem very high.”

  “Maybe you were abducted by aliens as you were walking home from school one day,” Dec suggested.

  I was ecstatic he was trying to find the humour in something. It would be the best way for us to get through this. “It’s like you read my mind.”

  He kissed me. “Let’s go back inside.”

  I shook my head. “Let’s stay out here a little longer. They won’t mind.”

  He nodded, and I wrapped my arms even tighter around him, thankful he had also come into my life, especially to be here for this moment and give me the reassurance and love I needed.

  Fran appeared at the doorway. “Abe and Lisa are here. They’re not happy.”

  I sighed and rested my head against Dec’s chest. Was this night ever going to end? Would there really be a morning, as Frances Fisher wrote in her seminal nuthouse autobiography about her lobotomy?

  An ice pick in the brain sounded good right about now. It was good enough for Trotsky, after all.

  Chapter Ten

  ABE AND Lisa had been quicker to forgive me than Roger (and even that had been pretty quick in the end). Like Dec, they seemed to be picking out my funeral suit already. Every time Lisa looked at me, a watery gleam was in her eye, and every time Abe passed me, he rested a hand on my shoulder in a manly heterosexual way of showing he loved me.

  That left really only one person to deal with, and I could tell when I walked into our new offices, he was pissed.

  Really pissed.

  Coby had been one of the few who didn’t congregate in our new home for a delightful dress rehearsal of the wake I would have somewhere off in the future. Dec had told me I should have called him, but quite frankly I was exhausted from the night’s events. The cold war still raged on between me and my mother, and Dec wasn’t exactly in the neutral zone this time no matter how much I shifted the blame back to me.

  “Morning—”

  I didn’
t even get to say his name. He went back to staring at his computer screen, munching on an apple and cinnamon muffin. “Heard there was quite the gathering last night.”

  I wondered who had spread the news along the Simon grapevine, which seemed to be in full swing now. If I had to lay bets, I would guess Roger. He had a soft spot for Coby, probably because all the rest of us seemed to have had issues with Coby’s partner—Jasper Brunswick—and Roger felt like he had to make up for it on all of our behalves.

  Not that Jasper was as bad as he used to be, but still. There’s a lot of bad blood between us, and he was lucky I wasn’t Taylor Swift.

  “It wasn’t a gathering,” I said, feeling like an idiot just standing there looking at him while he gave me the cold shoulder. “More like an intervention that I wasn’t ready to have but had it forced upon me anyway.”

  “Still, it sounded important.”

  “I’m sorry, Coby.”

  “For what?”

  “You know what,” I told him.

  “Do I? I wasn’t told anything. I mean, I thought, silly me, as your friend and work colleague, I might have been kept in the loop.”

  At this moment Will walked into our office, heard the tone of Coby’s voice, and walked out again.

  “Can you, like, turn around?” I asked Coby. “So I can talk to your face?”

  He swung around veeeeery slowly but stared at the ground rather than me.

  “Okay, half of your face, then. Look, I wasn’t trying to keep anybody out of the loop, Coby. I just didn’t want anybody to know until Dec and I knew something more definite.” How many times had I had this conversation? Dec was right, dammit. We should have just had everybody round and distributed them a laminated press release for them to read at their leisure.

  I couldn’t tell him he was right, though. He would never let me hear the end of it, and I was already telling myself that I was in the wrong too many times to count.

  Coby finally looked up at me, and sweet baby Jeebus in a manger, here were more tears. I almost felt numb at the sight of them. I had seen so many in the past couple of days that I couldn’t process any more. A part of me understood his hurt, and wanted to actually alleviate it, but there was part of me that also felt withered.