The Piper's Son

  Francesca notices the look and there’s a bit of panic in her expression.

  “What’s wrong with you guys?”

  Will shakes his head. “Nothing.”

  “You aren’t fighting, are you?”

  Will shakes his head again. “We were just talking about football.”

  “Are you coming Sunday, Tom?” she asks. “Both your teams are playing each other at Leichhardt oval.”

  Will is eyeing him. There’s a don’t even think about it look on his face.

  “I’d love to,” Tom says.

  They have a drink with Stani and Ned after Stani closes up and they’ve played Trombal a number in the back room.

  “The guitar is a turn-on,” Tom hears Will say quietly when they jump off the stage after playing one of their originals.

  “Thanks, Will,” Tom says.

  “But I like your voice best,” Will says, ignoring Tom, “and you didn’t need anything more than that.”

  Tom wants to stress to Will that when one is paying their girlfriend a compliment, one should put expression in the voice. It can be useful.

  Francesca takes Will’s hand and plays with it.

  “It was just that stupid guitarist, remember? In the band Justine and I were in when Tom split. And he’d say I was nothing but a good voice —”

  “And that you looked sexy in a sundress,” Tom says.

  “I didn’t say sexy,” she says, irritated. “Anyway, he’d make us play numbers where there’d be five minutes of him dueling with Justine and all I got to do was twirl my skirt, like June Carter.”

  “Beautiful woman, June Carter,” Stani says.

  “Remember how he used to stand up real close to me in the middle of a number?” Justine shudders. “And he had the worst breath and when I told him I wasn’t interested, he was . . . just a . . .”

  Francesca looks at Will. “What was he, babe?”

  Will explains to Tom and Stani and Ned what the guy was, using one syllable.

  Tom looks at him with disbelief. “You swear for her? Doesn’t that make you feel cheap?”

  “He said we were hard work,” Justine explains.

  “Who?” Tom asks.

  “The post-you guitarist,” she says.

  “If you’re comfortable being hard work, so be it,” Will says.

  Francesca looks at him. “So you think we are hard work?”

  Will’s shaking his head. “Is this one of those ‘Does my bum look big in this’ moments?”

  “So now you’re saying she’s got a big bum and is hard work?” Tom asks.

  He’s watching Will carefully because Wonder Boy is just about to walk into dangerous territory and Tom’s loving it.

  “It’s that you come with . . .”

  “Baggage?” Francesca asks.

  “Accessories,” Will corrects her. “A whole lot of them. And they are hard work.”

  “What he’s trying to say is that not everything has to be . . . solved . . . fixed . . . proven?” Tom says.

  “Not what I was trying to say at all,” Will says coldly.

  “It’s what they used to do in high school,” Tom continues, looking at Ned and Stani. “‘Let’s try to fix this and fix that’ and ‘Why can’t we do this and that?’ rather than just enjoying what was around them.”

  “Enjoying?” she says with disbelief. “What? The sexism? The lack of choices?”

  “Eva Rodriguez never complained once,” Tom argues. “Never. I was in homeroom with her in Year Twelve. Never once did she complain. ‘I’m in,’ she’d say. ‘Sound’s great.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Hell, yeah.’ ‘Let’s do it.’ ‘Yeah, baby!’”

  “He’s got a bit of a point there,” Will says. “She was very popular with my year when you girls first arrived.”

  Tom’s relieved that Francesca’s attention has shifted away from him.

  “Don’t give me that look, Frankie,” Will says. “You know my tongue was hanging out the moment you walked into that school.”

  “I know Eva,” Francesca says, ignoring the compliment. “Great girl. Smart as, and I can assure you, she has her boyfriend under her boot heels. The pointy ones. I could imagine the conversation. One year in Indonesia to work on a bridge with a bunch of guys? ‘Oh, sure, off you go, babe,’ I could imagine Eva saying. ‘Have fun. Yeah, baby.’”

  “She’d stop him from working overseas?” Tom asks.

  “Maybe, and if she couldn’t, she wouldn’t be sticking around.”

  “So why do you stick around?” Will asks.

  “Because I’m not frightened of hard work, Will,” Francesca says.

  “Did I say I was?” he asks.

  Tom thinks this is a good time to step in.

  “I have to be honest, I can understand Eva not wanting her boyfriend to work overseas,” Tom says. “Guys get carried away, regardless of whether they have girlfriends or not.”

  “Guys only?” Francesca asks. “What about that chick you slept with who had a boyfriend?”

  “I told you that in privacy,” he mutters, pissed off. “Anyway, it doesn’t mean she loves her boyfriend less,” he adds. “If you slept with someone else, would it mean you love Frankie less, Will? Like, if you picked up at one of those strip joints you go to over there?”

  “Thomas,” Justine warns.

  “It’s okay,” Tom says. “Will and Frankie have an open relationship —”

  “We do not have an open relationship,” Francesca says, furious.

  “I meant I tell her everything,” Will says, teeth almost clenched.

  “What I’m saying —” Tom begins.

  “Garbage,” Stani says, looking at him. “It needs to be taken out.”

  “It’s not —”

  “Now.”

  While he’s outside, banished to Garbage Land, he smokes a cigarette, vowing it’s the last time he’s going to indulge in hypotheticals with his new forced friend, Will. But a part of him feels guilty and he figures that he’ll do the right thing and help him out. Maybe give him advice on how to deal with an impending fight with Francesca. With only five days together, his best advice would be to pretend the conversation never happened. There’s nothing worse than Francesca wanting to “talk” or “flesh out” the core of the problem.

  He walks in and makes it as far as the bathroom, but steps back instantly behind the piled-up boxes of toilet paper, serviettes, and straws. Beyond the boxes, in the kitchen, Francesca sits on the bench. Opposite her, with a lot of space between them, and a lot of silence, Will leans on the preparation bench.

  “What do you always say about me?” Tom hears him ask.

  She’s not answering.

  “Frankie?”

  “That you use calculus to work out whether we should be together or not,” she says.

  “I mean when you’re trying to compliment me.”

  She hasn’t looked up yet and Trombal waits.

  “That you’re the smartest guy I know,” she says finally in a flat voice.

  “Which kind of means less to me these days when I think of the guys you hang out with,” Will says.

  Bastard.

  “Why would the smartest guy you know do something stupid and lose you?” he asks.

  She sighs. “Because smart guys have two brains, Will. One in their head and one in their pants.”

  “Yeah, well both my brains are connected and one is always reminding the other of you.”

  Francesca doesn’t react and even Tom wants her to talk. Or workshop. Or be Francesca in overload. Even he’s stressed by her silence.

  “I thought we weren’t going to drive each other crazy with this type of stuff, Frankie,” Will says, frustrated.

  “We aren’t,” she blurts out. “But it’s just been the longest year and most of the time I just think of something terrible happening to you over there, Will. But sometimes . . . when you’re speaking strip joints with Tom . . . what was that? Bonding?”

  “Yeah, like I’d really bond with that dick. Ha
sn’t anyone explained to him that there’s a big difference between Sumatra and Bangkok?”

  “And I’d appreciate if you changed your attitude about my friends.”

  “I don’t have a problem with your friends, except for one. Fuck, how do you think I feel, Frankie? You’re either up there onstage with him or in a room with other guys ogling you. You think that doesn’t go through my mind when I’m over there? That you might act on the chemistry you have with people who have everything in common with you in the way that I don’t? Like Mackee. How can I compete with that? While guys I’m working with are telling me their girlfriends back home are screwing around behind their backs?”

  “Okay,” she says, determined. “Let’s go back to the part where we aren’t going to drive each other crazy with this type of stuff.”

  Tom can see that Will’s still fired up.

  “Come here,” she says.

  “No, you come here.”

  “I said it first.”

  “Rock paper scissors.”

  “No. Because you’ll do nerdy calculations and work out what I chose the last six times and then you’ll win.”

  Will pushes away from the table and his hand snakes out and he pulls her toward him and Tom figures that Will was always going to go to her first. And here he is. Stuck behind boxes of toilet paper, where he’s going to have to sneak back outside and make a song and dance about walking in. Or he can go into the bathroom and flush the toilet and let them know he’s there. Especially if he sees skin. It’s pervy if he sees skin, although he can see skin now because Will’s hand goes up her skirt and it’s bunched up around her thighs. So Tom makes the decision to look away the moment, the very moment, he sees anything more than that. The moment he sees a glimpse of underwear, he will be officially in Sicko Land and he will be forced to make some kind of noise. Flushing, coughing, heavy footsteps. Talk to himself out loud. The moment he sees anything that in anyway will be considered a sexual act between . . .

  “Stani, the bins are done!” he yells out.

  “What was all that yelling about? The bins are done. The bins are done,” Ned says as Stani locks up. The others are already halfway up the street.

  Tom doesn’t respond. He’s over the Frankie-and-Will show and it’s only day one.

  “Were they making out in our kitchen?” Ned hisses.

  “Yes,” Tom said with gritted teeth. The kitchen he keeps spotless. Now he’s really angry.

  Francesca, Will, and Justine stop at the lights.

  “We’re going down to the Hopetoun to see the Jezebels,” Francesca calls out. “Are you guys coming?”

  “No,” they both snap at the same time.

  He doesn’t quite promise Francesca that he’ll be kind and hospitable to Will Trombal, but he’s already committed to going to the football match with them. Another reason to hate Trombal is for his choice of football teams. The Dragons are an aberration to anyone Tom has ever known, and sitting next to a supporter almost makes him feel like speaking to his father. His father and Tom still do football. Just like they do the AA meetings together. Just like they work in silence in Georgie’s backyard on the cradle Tom’s making and the rocking chair his father’s restoring.

  The irony of Francesca coming to a game she has no interest in is that she knows half the people here and spends the whole time socializing instead of getting to know the rules. Tom tries to explain them to her at one stage, but both Francesca and Trombal stare at him, the latter with hostility.

  “Don’t even try,” Francesca says. “Not interested. Only here because my beloved is leaving tomorrow and this is the best I can get. Baby, this is settling.”

  She’s enjoying herself at Trombal’s expense, but it’s at Tom that Trombal is directing his hostility.

  When she waves at yet another person and jumps out of her seat to say, “Oh, my God, what are you doing here?” he feels Trombal’s intense stare again.

  “What makes you think I haven’t tried explaining the rules to her?” Will says.

  Trombal has already had a whinge about Leichhardt Oval and what a dump it is and how it doesn’t have a screen or even a proper scoreboard. Tom resorts to drinking through the first half, relieved when it’s his shout again.

  “Do you want a beer?” he asks his father out of instinct, wanting to tear out his tongue the moment he finishes speaking.

  “I’d love one, but might just have a Coke instead,” his father says, not missing a beat.

  And Tom actually thinks his father is having fun at his expense. Join the Trombal club, Dominic.

  He makes his way to the kiosk bar, where Francesca is finishing up a conversation with a girl in a Tigers jersey.

  “I’m making her wedding dress,” she says as if Tom is interested.

  “Wonderful,” he says.

  “Thomas, talk to Will,” she says. “Just about life and the stuff you won’t talk to us about. He is the best listener in the world.” When she says the word best, she shakes her head and grimaces with emphasis. “You need to get things off your chest and I reckon talking to him would be so helpful.”

  While she’s speaking, he’s staring at the line in front of him. He can’t believe it. Mohsin the Ignorer is here. Tom waves Francesca away and stands behind him in the line, drilling holes in his head with his eyes and it’s as if Mohsin the Ignorer feels the impact because he turns around.

  For a moment there is a look of surprise on his face and almost a smile and hello, but Tom’s not interested and looks the other way. But after a moment it really begins to get to him and it’s the beers he’s consumed and having had to sit next to Will Trombal and his father that pushes him over the edge. He leans forward and taps Mohsin on the shoulder.

  “You’re a rude bastard,” he says.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Too late to be sorry, my friend. But just some advice. Next time someone wants to make your life a little bit easier and befriend you, try actually responding to their hello or to the questions they ask.”

  The bartender calls out a “Next” and Mohsin has no choice but to be served. As he walks away with his drink and hot dog, he looks at Tom as if he’s a lunatic.

  Back in the stands, Francesca is still speaking to the whole of Leichhardt and Tom is stuck with Trombal and his dad again. Worse still, the Tigers are getting slaughtered.

  “You know I’m not interested in her.”

  It’s the type of confession you make at the footy after a plethora of beers and your team is losing. Will Trombal does not want to talk to him and gives him a look that says he especially doesn’t want to talk to him about Francesca.

  “I just get the sense that you think I’m going to poach her,” Tom continues.

  “Like an egg?” Will asks.

  “No. Like taking something you want that belongs to someone else.”

  There is a part of him that’s buzzing with excitement because Trombal has a fist clenched and all this emotion bunched on his face. Best-case scenario, Tom suspects, is a punch-up with this prick.

  “But as I said, I don’t want to do that.”

  He’s been hanging out with Francesca for too long and her need to explain every statement has caught on.

  “It’s just that sometimes I want to cuddle up against her and just let her take over, you know. So she can look after everything around me, but when I picture it, I’m never the one doing the holding. It’s always her.”

  This time Trombal does react. “Fuck. Off,” he says in a pissed-off, flat tone.

  “That didn’t come out right. It’s the same with Justine. Those chicks are such huggers and every time their arms are out, I’m there.”

  He leans closer to Trombal because he doesn’t want his father or anyone to hear.

  “But when I think of Tara, I’m doing the holding. I’m in charge. I’m the he-man. Alpha man. I’m beating my chest. My arms are out and she’s there.”

  Something different registers on Will Trombal’s face. Disbelief.
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  “Tara? Tara Finke?” he says. “Dude, you broke her heart.”

  “Is that what you and Frankie talk about when you’re together?” Tom snaps.

  Another sound of disbelief. “Frankie and I have better things to do when we’re together.”

  Trombal looks satisfied. Tom doesn’t know whether it’s because the smart-arse is thinking about what he gets up to with Francesca or because the Dragons have possession of the ball. But then he’s looking at Tom again. “Tara told me. When I was in Timor. Her exact words were, ‘He broke my heart and I’m not letting him anywhere near it again, Will.’”

  Hearing those words, Tom’s own heart feels like it’s disappeared in a puff of smoke. “Well, that’s that, then,” he mutters.

  Will makes a sound. A hmphing sound. Plus he’s shaking his head.

  “What?” Tom asks. Behind them, someone’s yelling hoarsely and thumping Tom’s seat.

  “Nothing. It’s nothing,” Will says, shouting above the noise. “You and I? We’re just different.”

  “How different?” Tom is desperate for anything. Even from Will Trombal. “What would you do?”

  Will goes back to the game, but even when the Dragons score, he doesn’t react. After a couple of moments, he turns back to Tom.

  “If I did something to hurt Frankie and she said that I was never getting near her heart again, I’d spent the rest of my life trying anyway. That’s the difference between you and me, Tom. I’d go back to the moment it all fell apart and I’d start there.”

  The one-and-a-half-night stand.

  “You know why?” Trombal’s on a roll. He’s not shutting up. “Because women are elephants and watch the way you say that in front of them because they’ll think you’re calling them fat and there’s no coming back from that moment. But they hoard. They say they don’t, but they do. We think that if something’s not spoken about again, it goes away. It doesn’t. Nothing goes away just like that, Mackee.”

  Francesca comes back and sits between them, an arm over each shoulder, pushing Tom against his father.

  “Missed me?”

  Will Trombal doesn’t respond. Tom figures he’s not into cutesy conversation.

  Francesca shivers from the cold and Will takes her hand and tucks it in his jacket pocket and for a moment Tom feels an ache of loneliness for whatever these two have that works for them. He wants to sigh, but he holds back.