Kelvin Templeton’s debut novel Collision was released last month. It’s the story of a talented, young, country footballer with a mysterious past who is recruited to play for Footscray in the VFL.

The following extracts ignites the sense of intrigue.

You might like to read Kelvin’s piece ‘On Writing Collision‘ before you launch into the extract.

 

Copies of Collision are available directly from Wilkinson Publishing, from the usual online sellers and some bookshops such as Readings (Melbourne), Gleebooks (Sydney) and Dillons (Adelaide).

 

 

 

PROLOGUE

 

A Friday night, The Mornington Peninsula, July 1957

 

When Lucy Shamrock finally arrived at the beach house, it was late in the afternoon. The boy, Joshua, sleepy from the long drive, clung to her chest as she walked along a gravel path to the open front door, where a tall, blond-haired man stood waiting. When Lucy reached him, she avoided his attempted embrace, with the boy wedged and protesting between them.

It had been three years since she had last seen Lukas, the boy’s father. So, after settling Joshua down on a couch in the lounge room upstairs, Lucy stood and surveyed him. She took satisfaction that he had aged. Heavier and paler, his blond hair was thinning.

When he showed her around the house, she enjoyed how nerves kept him talking.

‘It belongs to Jurgis,’ he’d explained. ‘It’s his holiday place. We came out on the same boat.’

Back in the kitchen, he spread his arms wide when she asked why he wanted to meet here.

‘It’s the weekend. There are plenty of rooms. I thought…. ‘You really thought I’d stay?’

The only reason she came at all was for him to see how lovely Joshua was, how healthy and well cared for, and to say the words she’d rehearsed in the car.

‘I know you wrote in your letters about how sorry you are.’ The shine of tears came to her eyes. ‘But all you did when you found out I was pregnant was send that horrible man over.’ She stopped to wipe her nose with a tissue. ‘It’s too late now, anyway. I don’t need you anymore. Joshua is all I care about. And I wouldn’t break up your family now anyway.’

She relished seeing how guilty he looked then, staring down at his toes. He pushed himself away from the dining table he was leaning against and tried to break the tension.

‘He’s a beautiful boy,’ he said. ‘I’ve got something for him. But first, sit down.’ He gripped her rigid shoulders and shepherded her to the dining table and eased her into a chair.

‘There, now that’s better. It’s in the suitcase.’

As he hurried downstairs to the main bedroom, Lucy glanced with concern out the window. The light was already receding, and it had started raining.

She and the boy were gone before he returned. Her car was heading down the driveway as he rushed outside, her tyres skidding on the wet grass. In her rearview mirror, her brake lights cast a red wash over him standing in the rain.

An hour later, she leant forward and squinted as rain pelted the windscreen, melting the road between each turn of the wipers. She hadn’t passed another vehicle and kept her lights on high beam.

Even with the map he’d sent her, she’d got lost twice on the narrow backroads. Now, with darkness falling and in a raging storm, she is lost again.

She gripped the wheel more determinedly as lightning flashed, whitening the sky. When thunder cracked like a gunshot, she heard her boy cry out and turned to soothe him. The next moment, she was fighting desperately to control the steering wheel and jamming her foot hard on the brakes…

 

 

 

PART ONE

Chapter 1

 

Melbourne, July 1975

 

Joshua ‘Clover’ Shamrock lay flat on his back on the worn green carpet that smelled of stale beer and sweat. A half-full can of beer rested on his chest, and a plastic bag bulging with ice wrapped his bruised left thigh. His knees were caked with black sticky mud, the skin below his knees stark white, the calf muscles hard, like marble.

At 20 years old, Joshua had just played the game of his life.

The change-rooms under the Western Oval grandstand were in uproar. Supporters who’d rushed in after the siren were slapping each other on the back and dragging others in for fresh rounds of handshakes. A trainer in a white T-shirt edged through the exuberant crowd, holding ice-packs high above his head, as if raising them to the sky. But Joshua was barely taking in the mayhem. He was in his own world; completely spent. Seven goals he’d booted from the half-forward flank; the last in the final quarter sealed the win.

Something mysterious had happened out on the ground that afternoon. Joshua wasn’t the religious type, but it had felt like some kind of spiritual experience. It took all his willpower to stop himself from crying.

‘You fucking beauty!’ yelled Maurie Miller, the Bulldogs’ captain. ‘We really stuck it up ’em.’

Joshua limped over to join the other players. They formed a circle, steam rising from their damp jumpers, the air around them skunky with the smell of mud and liniment. Arms draped over shoulders, temples pressed together, they sang lustily, joined intimately in song. Teeth flashed, beer cans swung in time, heads down for the low notes, heads up, eyes closed for the high notes.

When the Club song finished, three cheers rocked the room. As the circle broke up, Maurie gripped Joshua’s shoulder. ‘You shat all over him, Clover,’ he said with a grin.

The coaching group stood apart. Head coach, Frank Williams, was pale with relief. He wiped the beer foam from his moustache with the arm of his fawn-coloured cardigan. With 14 games played and only two other wins this season, Williams hoped this one would give pause to the constant media speculation that he was about to be sacked.

‘Shamrock is a dead-set freak,’ he said to his assistant coach, ‘Bomber’ Bennett.

‘We wouldn’t have won without him,’ Bomber said. ‘But let’s not get carried away, Frank. He’s only a kid.’

Joshua was back sitting on the carpet in front of his locker, yanking his jumper from his shorts, his beer perched on the bench. Clarrie, the trainer, stood behind him, grasping the hem of the woollen jersey clamped tight to Joshua’s skin. It took three pulls, the final tug leaving the young man’s blond hair flying wildly.

‘Give us a smile, champ,’ said a photographer hovering nearby.

Joshua flicked back his locks to reveal a broad smile. He’d never considered himself much of a looker. But this year, as his star appeal grew, his face seemed to have come along for the ride. Perhaps he’d gained confidence, or maybe other people had started viewing him in a different light, projecting onto him other virtues. Whatever the reason, it was as if his features had rearranged themselves in a far more pleasing way.

‘Well done today,’ said the photographer, taking one last shot. ‘You really showed ’em.’

‘Just you wait, mate,’ Clarrie replied. ‘This kid’s only getting started.’

 

***

 

Earlier that day Joshua had arrived at the Western Oval before half-time in the reserves. He walked briskly past the vendors selling the Football Record and scribbled a wild approximation of his name in the autograph books thrust at him as he waited to pass through the creaking, rusted turnstiles. Climbing the gravelly terrace steps, Joshua had smelled the oval before he saw it. That first scent of freshly cut grass made his legs weak. As a boy, it had the same effect, though when he’d arrived at the Ironbark Oval in Forestville, dew usually covered the ground.

As always on seeing the Western Oval, he had been dazzled by its length, by how its surface curved down from the muddy centre to the boundary fence. As he watched the reserves running around, jumpers bold against the vast emerald surface, tension gripped his throat. He’d be out there soon enough. His dominant game the week before against Fitzroy now seemed as distant as a foreign continent. He knew he would have to prove himself again today; it was like the whole point of his life was once more up for grabs.

Inside the home-team change-rooms, double brick walls kept the place cool, even during the heat of summer. Exposed fluorescent tubes lit the room, and at the far end, a sheet of black mesh hung from the ceiling like a fishing net. On the wall between the showers and the small gymnasium was a large sign in red letters.

 

 

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH THE TOUGH GET GOING

 

There had been no hint before the game that an upset win was brewing. Players were stretched out on rubdown couches or sitting in front of their locker reading the Football Record. Mopsy Cleaver, the Bulldogs pocket sized champion rover, headed for the toilets. He needed to empty his guts with a retching chuck before he could go out and play a blinder.

They were individual pinpoints of light that almost never converged to make a pattern.

‘You’re up, Clover,’ called Clarrie the trainer, waving Joshua over to the rub-down table to have his long limbs shined with oil. Since Joshua’s hot streak of games began, back in round seven, Clarrie wouldn’t rub anyone else down until he finished Joshua.

When Joshua was done, and lacing his boots at his locker, the skipper Maurie Miller strode over. With grey eyes, a drooping moustache and a large, curved nose, he looked like a buccaneer. Maurie held out the two footballs the umpire had given him for today’s game: one made by Faulkner and the other by Sherrin.

Captain’s pick.

‘Here Clover, you choose,’ Maurie said, tossing the balls across. This hadn’t happened before.

Maurie Miller was loved and feared in equal measure. On the field, he carried an air of unpredictability and malice. In a pre-season practice match against Collingwood, for no apparent reason, Maurie knocked out an opponent behind the play before the game even started. It seemed more about boredom, the need to stir things up, than anything else. Maybe some kind of devil lurked inside Maurie Miller, but Joshua still knew he would follow his skipper anywhere.

He handled the Faulkner with care, but it was the Sherrin that shone in Joshua’s hands. The rich red reminded him of tomato soup; the black lettering so pristine he wondered if it came straight from the factory. When he dragged his thumbnail along a seam, it made a buzz like a hard nylon comb. He held the ball close and breathed the familiar smell, a mixture of dark chocolate, hide and cow dung. He lobbed it into the air to see it spinning, seams rotating. The ball hung there, rolled over, and tumbled down. Thwack. He caught it high above his head. The ball seemed to mould to his hands, as if shaped for that purpose. And the sound, like a well-struck high five, echoed off the brick walls. ‘This one,’ he said to Maurie.

When it was time, they stood shoulder to shoulder, ready to run out together onto the field. Clarrie was doing the rounds, attending to last-minute details. He smeared Joshua’s eyebrows with Vaseline to keep the sweat from his eyes, while Maurie addressed the team, his back to a rectangle of green grass framed by the concrete race. Blue veins stood out like cords on each side of the skipper’s neck and in knots in front of both shoulders.

‘If there’s a fight, it’s fucking all in today,’ Maurie told them. ‘We stick like shit.’

At the prospect of a brawl, Mopsy Cleaver flashed a tooth-gapped smile. He had taken out his bridgework and left it on the top shelf of his locker. As smelling salts were waved under his nose, Mopsy recoiled. Then he held one nostril shut and blew out the other and reversed and blew again.

Joshua followed the shuffled run of his teammates down the race, bursting into a sprint when his stops bit grass. He swung one arm in manic circles, repeated with the other, and sized up his Richmond opponents. He was on the half-forward flank against Wes James, a veteran in the final season of an illustrious 15-year career. James hadn’t played on Joshua the last time the teams met, but Joshua knew the older player liked to move in front of his opponent to block their lead. Knowing he might line up on James, Joshua spent time at training working on ways to use James’s tactic to his advantage. He would drift the defender up towards the wing, pretend to lead, then turn and run back into the gaping space behind. If this ruse worked, James would be left floundering. The one risk: being pole-axed by another Richmond defender charging out from the full-back line.

When Richmond kicked the first three goals of the game, without the ball crossing into the Footscray forward line, the home crowd steeled itself for another joyless Saturday afternoon. Then Maurie, running at full pace alongside his opponent, swung his right fist into the Richmond player’s jaw, dropping him cold. It was a well-known tactic to stall an opposition team’s momentum. Few people in the crowd saw it; the umpire didn’t. The ensuing brawl involved over twenty players and stopped the game for several minutes. The umpire finally broke it up but reported no-one. Afterwards, Richmond sank into the kind of collective funk that can strike even the best sports teams, while the Footscray boys emerged from the melee emboldened. The Bulldogs controlled the ruck, rover Mopsy Cleaver commandeered the midfield, while Maurie Miller charged around the ground urging them on.

Sensing the shift, Joshua edged James up near the grandstand wing. Mopsy Cleaver threw a blind-turn and charged from the half- back line with the ball. James half-turned towards the oncoming play to block Joshua’s lead. Seeing his chance, Joshua stopped, gave Mopsy the hand signal they’d practised at training, wheeled, and sprinted back towards the Dogs’ goal, pointing as he ran to the wide-open space on the half-forward flank. Completely fooled, James could only watch as Mopsy’s long searching kick fell into Joshua’s hands, one straight kick from goal. Joshua slotted the first of his seven.

By late in the first quarter, Joshua had begun to relax, to sink deeply into the game. As his self-awareness dissolved, the game slowed down. He started to see pictures in his mind of events before they occurred. He controlled the action. He had the power to make a teammate up the field turn to his left rather than his right. He saw the passage of the ball as if it was predestined, two kicks away, like a light beam streaking ahead of the play, bending and arcing towards him. With this special knowledge, all he had to do was intersect the light beam at the right moment. It was like the future lived inside him.

Deep into the last quarter, kicking to the Geelong Road end, Joshua marked the ball 50 metres out on a sharp angle near the boundary line. He’d kicked six. Did he dare go for a seventh? His mind flashed an image of a spiralling ball curving through the goals and the thought became the action as he dropped the ball onto his boot and an effortless spiral soared into the slipstream blowing hard down the ground towards Williamstown. The ball’s flight started out wide, and the crowd in the grandstand behind him groaned, but he knew its destiny. As it slanted in high over the goal umpire’s upturned face, a roar went up, and he pumped both fists in the air.

The clock ticked down. Seagulls huddled together on the wing in the grandstand’s chill shadow, swirling gusts of cold wind ruffling their feathers. Young fans leant over the fence with one foot hitched on the railing in readiness. As the siren sounded, a human wave broke over the boundary line. The fans were out to mob their heroes, the largest group surrounding young Joshua ‘Clover’ Shamrock.

 

***

 

In the changerooms, an icepack strapped around his bruised thigh, Joshua reached into his locker for a towel. On the floor behind him lay damp socks in soggy lumps. His boots, exhausted, laces splayed, waited for the boot-studder to shuffle along and collect them.

Shielded behind the metal door of his locker, Maurie Miller was sprinkling baby powder on his chest while Peter Duckovitch from the Sun interviewed him. Craig Slater, a young reporter from the Footscray Advertiser, stood behind Duckovitch, his young face open and earnest. Mopsy Cleaver, both knees scraped and bloody, headed for the showers with a towel over his shoulder.

‘Great game, Mopsy,’ offered Duckovitch.

Mopsy walked past with stony eyes. Maurie laughed and rubbed powder over his chest. He reached into his locker for a white singlet. ‘Don’t know why you even try, Ducko. He’s never going to forgive you.’ Maurie pulled the singlet over his head in a cloud of talc.

Earlier in the season, Duckovitch had written a story inferring that Mopsy was over the hill. Mopsy hadn’t spoken to Duckovitch since.

Mopsy’s view of journalists was well known. ‘Never trust the media,’ he’d advised Joshua. ‘When you’re playing well, like you are now, they’ll be all over you like a fly on shit. But the minute your form slips, you watch, they’ll stick a knife straight in your guts.’

‘You’ve had that on long enough,’ said Clarrie. He unstrapped the ice pack from Joshua’s thigh and carried it away. Even with icing, his leg had swelled, and pain stabbed whenever he tried to bend it.

As Joshua was tying a towel like a loincloth around his waist, the young reporter appeared in front of him.

‘Craig Slater from the Footscray Advertiser. Congratulations on your great game.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, shaking the young reporter’s hand.

Slater flipped over his notebook. ‘One quick question. What did it feel like out there?’

‘Well, it was sort of like…’ Joshua hesitated. Something about his performance that day felt like it came from outside of him, as if it were a gift bestowed. But how could he find the right words to express that without sounding ridiculous? He decided it was all too mysterious a feeling to describe in words and felt embarrassed even trying.

Slater, pen poised, was looking at him curiously.

Joshua re-tightened the towel around his waist and started walking away.

‘I was just lucky. Mopsy kept winning the ball and putting it just where I wanted it,’ he said over his shoulder.

‘But what did it….?’

As Joshua limped towards the showers, men turned their heads to look at him, nudging others to glance his way. He felt a flush of pride but acted in a manner appropriate for a young star, dropping his head and avoiding eager eyes, suggesting he had a natural aversion to all the attention. He bypassed the communal bath, where Mopsy was slumped in a corner, red raw knees exposed, the water around him black and greasy. Finishing his beer, the banged-up rover burped loudly and crushed the can in his fist.

Under the showers, Joshua heard muffled shouts. He was elated as the water coursed over his face and down his body. He felt whole, like he’d been reconstructed into a more perfect form, into the person he’d always dreamt of being. It was as if the real Joshua had finally emerged from the shadows into the light. As he rubbed a rough towel across his back, he couldn’t imagine any amount of money or luxury he would swap for the exhilaration he now felt.

 

 

Chapter 2

Melbourne, January 1973

 

Two years before, Joshua had joined his young Bulldog teammate Terry ‘Tessa’ Wilson in the Footscray Mall to sign autographs at a Fletcher Jones ‘Summer Season’ lunchtime promotion. There were trestle tables stacked with samples in plastic wrapping, and two store dummies in cheap straw-coloured wigs and short-sleeved shirts, each with one arm raised in welcome. It was a warm, bright day, with a gentle breeze making the trees glitter. Joshua watched a pretty young woman crossing the mall towards them. Drenched in sunlight, her long brown hair shone. Small and slim, she wore a white summer dress. Faye was her name. She smiled and handed him an autograph book.

‘Can you please sign it for my brother, Ben?’ You’re his favourite player.’

She stroked her hair with her fingertips as Joshua wrote a friendly message. He tried to think of something to say to her, but instead, he merely handed the book back. Afterwards, he noticed her lingering nearby under a shop awning. Tessa elbowed him in the ribs. ‘Go on mate. Go and talk to her.’

‘Maybe in a minute.’

‘Mate, you’re hopeless. If you don’t go, I will.’

When Joshua still couldn’t bring himself to budge, Tessa walked over to Faye with his big smile all lit up. She smiled too. Tessa will have Faye’s phone number in a flash, he thought. But no. Tessa was motioning for Joshua to come over.

‘She won’t bite,’ Tessa joked. Then, with a hand on Joshua’s shoulder, he whispered, ‘Mate, you’re a shoo-in.’

During a stumbling conversation, Joshua learnt Faye worked as a receptionist in a solicitor’s office in Hopkins Street. She gave him a card with the name of the firm and her phone number printed on it. He managed to tell her his day job involved repairing furniture at Barry’s second-hand furniture shop in Windsor. When she left, he pulled her card out with a flourish and held it up for Tessa to see.

‘Mate, you’ve got me to thank,’ Tessa said. ‘She’s gorgeous,’ Joshua gushed.

Tessa looked surprised. ‘I wouldn’t get too carried away.’ The following week, Joshua took Faye to see Love Story at Footscray’s Grand Cinema. Six weeks later, he said yes when Faye asked if they were a couple.

 

***

 

Four months later, Joshua paced the living room of the house he shared in Yarraville. It was Easter Saturday, but there was no footy game until Easter Monday. Without a game to play, and still unsure of his place in the senior team, he was a knotted ball of nerves. He thought of calling Faye, but he didn’t want to look desperate. He wished it were a regular Saturday game, but it wasn’t. He hated this waiting; it did his head in. Too much time for doubts to intrude, get a firm grip and chew up energy, leaving him feeling like a washed-out rag come Monday.

Did other players struggle with this waiting game, he wondered.

He thought of his captain, Maurie Miller. He showed no nerves before the game. If someone familiar came into the change rooms, Maurie strolled over and chatted amiably, as if they were meeting on the street. Then there were others who probably didn’t care enough to worry; players who, unlike Joshua, didn’t consider their next game as something akin to a matter of life and death. Whatever the case, he had to learn to overcome these runaway jitters.

When the phone rang, Joshua launched himself at it, keen for distraction. It was Faye, saying she wanted to go for a Sunday drive.

‘I’d like to go to Hanging Rock,’ she told him. ‘I’ve never been. I’ll pack a picnic lunch.’

He was pleasantly surprised that Faye had planned a day out, because it was usually left up to him to decide where they’d go when they went for a drive. And a trip to the country might take his mind off the game. He said his only proviso was that they get away early. ‘I don’t want a late night,’ he said.

When he arrived punctually at Faye’s place in Altona the next morning, she opened the door with a sheepish smile, beckoning him inside. It turned out her aunt Gwen from Mallacoota had dropped by unexpectedly, and Faye’s mum, Beryl, was clearly keen to show Joshua off.

‘Joshua won’t mind,’ Beryl called out from inside. ‘You’re all packed and ready, so it won’t hurt him to stay for a minute or two.’

He trailed Faye into the sunroom. Tight-faced, he sat in a rattan chair. Faye sat on the bamboo couch between Beryl and Aunty Gwen. The two older women arranged themselves side-on, so their knees touched Faye’s. The three of them talked animatedly about family members and events that Joshua didn’t know or care about. As the morning light drained from the room, he kept pointing at his watch, trying to catch Faye’s eye. Eventually, she looked at him and mouthed ‘Soon,’ only to be drawn back into the conversation.

It was only now that he was trapped like this that he could imagine the many more relaxing things he could be doing. That morning, he could have wandered leisurely around the local main street, doing his shopping. And this afternoon, be stretched comfortably on the couch watching Dandenong play Port Melbourne in the VFA game of the day. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of this. But he couldn’t change plans now. He would have to suffer through it.

‘Why are you so angry? We’ll still be there before two o’clock,’ Faye said as they drove away.

‘I don’t want to be home late. I told you that yesterday.’

‘It’s not my fault. I had no idea Aunty Gwen would call in. Joshua, please don’t spoil the day.’

‘It’s not me spoiling things. If we agree on something, we should stick to it.’

‘Why are you so uptight?’ ‘I’m not.’

‘You’ve been in a strange mood ever since you arrived at my place.’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘There must be something. You’re not worried about tomorrow’s game, are you?’

‘Of course not,’ he snapped.

Faye gave a thin smile, then turned away, crossed her arms, and stared out the window.

He knew his lie had been unconvincing. Faye had seen the change that came over him before a big match. He turned inward. He’d even stopped going out with her on Friday nights because he needed to be alone. If she phoned him the night before a game, he wouldn’t answer or, if he did, sound so annoyed that the conversation quickly ended. It was because football meant everything to him. It was how he was going to leave his mark on the world. And so, the night before a game, he was weighed down by the gravity of the next day’s match. But how could he explain all that to Faye, without hurting her, because she would surely realise the game coming up was more important to him than anything else. It was for this reason that he thought it better to leave his pre-game behaviour unexplained.

Joshua parked among the many other cars at the edge of a grassed oval, and they joined the throng heading up towards the kiosk: families, couples holding hands and groups of elderly people, even a few with walking frames who would go no further than the kiosk, where the track to the summit commenced. The sky shone bright and blue between the clouds.

‘Let’s walk up to the top and come straight back down,’ he said. He wanted to get away well before the crowd.

‘Why can’t we stay and have a proper look around like everyone else?’ Faye demanded.

They continued up the path, passing slower walkers and a large group carrying cameras and tripods.

‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ Faye said, gazing upward.

The dramatic sight arrested his dark mood. Through a screen of tall trees, massive vertical slabs of rock breached skywards, and round boulders covered in lichen sprouted tree ferns. As they climbed higher, Joshua saw faces in the rocks around him, like he often did in clouds: the faces here were all male, forbidding and far-seeing. He was about to point one out to Faye, but didn’t, thinking it would sound stupid. He was always embarrassed trying to explain things like that.

Cloud-borne shadows prowled over the rocks. Near the summit, Faye strayed from the path to smell the flowers of a musk bush. He followed her through a gap between two large boulders. He would have preferred to stay on the marked route, but Faye continued further in, clambering over rocks, searching for a view over the flat plains and farmland far below, the thickly wooded Macedon Ranges in the distance. She had taken off her jumper and tied it around her waist, and her ponytail swung from side to side as she climbed. He lagged behind. With the game looming, he wondered whether he should be doing this at all. He came to a clearing and couldn’t see her. He leant on a rock about his height, covered in black lichen. Nearby, a group of primary schoolboys in red shirts sat on the ground, or on boulders, writing in their notebooks. He looked around him. Faye could have taken any one of four paths. How could he possibly know which one?

Forty minutes later, he saw her walking towards him across the oval, shoulders slumped, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her white shorts. He had taken a football from the boot of the car and started tapping the ball in the air, like a soccer player. A small benefit might come from helping his foot shape better for the ball. His best, 16. He didn’t know what it implied but thought it might mean something important to reach 20.

‘Why did you leave me up there alone?’ she asked, tears welling in her eyes.

He looked away from her and tossed the ball into the air, catching it with both hands.

‘I didn’t. You climbed ahead so fast I lost sight of you.’

‘But I came back and looked everywhere.’

He tossed the ball towards Faye and caught it close to her face, making her lean away.

‘Maybe you looked in the wrong spot,’ he said.

Faye asked for the car keys and, when he took them from his pocket, she snatched them and marched off to get the picnic hamper. He returned to tapping the ball with his foot, trying to better his score. But in striving, sometimes he made desperate sprints sideways when the ball went up crooked. After doing this a couple of times he stopped, thinking it was no better an idea than clambering over rocks.

On a grassy rise between two gum trees, Faye laid out the tartan rug and unpacked the picnic basket, taking out a quiche she’d baked the day before, along with coleslaw, fresh bread, and home-made lamingtons, Joshua’s favourite. After they’d eaten for a while in silence, she asked, ‘Joshua, what’s the matter?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ve hardly talked all day.’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘If something’s wrong, tell me.’

He studied a patch of grass near him and picked up a green leaf, rubbing it into a ball between his palms before throwing it away.

‘Really, it’s nothing,’ he said.

‘I guess you wouldn’t say anyway. You never tell me about your feelings.’

He sat up straighter. ‘I tell you things,’ he protested.

‘Maybe you did when we first started going out. She reached over and tapped him twice in the middle of the chest ‘But now you never let me get inside here. There’s still so much more I want to understand.’

It was a common complaint of Faye’s. She had always been particularly fascinated by his early years, wanting to know what it was like being brought up by foster parents in his mother’s hometown of Forestville. Faye had often asked about his schooling and whether he’d felt different from other kids. He had felt different to the other kids in primary school, but he couldn’t see how revealing those dark memories would make him more appealing in Faye’s eyes. He’d decided years ago it was better to shield the missing parts of his background. He’d learned to do this so well that he rarely thought about that part of his life anymore, other than on the rare occasions he needed to produce his birth certificate or answer questions about his family’s medical history. Apart from that, he preferred to keep this part of his life barricaded. And now that he had achieved his dream of playing football at the highest level, it seemed more important than ever to keep his eyes firmly on his future, not his past.

After a time, when he hadn’t said anything in response, Faye sighed and slowly started putting things back in the basket. And when she said, ‘I guess we should think about going soon,’ he jumped straight to his feet.