Sidelines, page 4
‘Something like that.’
They’re striding fast now, puffing up the next steep hill. The momentum is therapeutic, but Honey decides she wants to stop and sniff a tree and then wee.
‘Can’t you keep that dog moving?’ Ben complains.
‘It’s her walk too,’ Jonica says. Funny how she feels the need to defend the dog the same way she defends the kids.
Waiting for Honey to be done, Ben roams up and down the footpath, just as he paced along the line this afternoon while the clipboard parents were doing their thing.
‘Thank God I was there,’ he says, when they get going again. ‘At least I got it sorted so Audrey had a chance.’
When he couldn’t bear it anymore, Ben had stalked onto the field and convinced Dominik to split the kids into two groups. This had certainly suited Audrey. As soon as the field was less congested, she’d shone: dribbling around the boys and out-manoeuvring them, controlling the ball and passing to players. It had been beautiful to watch; she was balanced and precise, her face luminous. She had emerged from the fog; surely the coaches hadn’t failed to notice her.
‘Those coaches!’ Jonica says. ‘You’d think they were selecting for the Olympics, not just a kids’ team.’
‘It’s not just a kids’ team, Jonica. It’s a pathway.’
‘Yes, I know. But do you think Dominik’s the right coach for Audrey? He doesn’t seem very interested in her.’
‘He’s been good for Alex. Maybe she has to work harder.’
‘Be a ball-hog, you mean. Like Katerina.’
‘That’s what you have to do at trials.’
‘But it doesn’t reflect a player’s true skills,’ Jonica says, exasperated. ‘It’s not only about dribbling and looking fancy. It’s also meant to be about teamwork.’
Ben shrugs. ‘The flashy stuff attracts the coaches’ attention.’
‘Well, it’s a useless process then, if that’s all they look for.’ Jonica can’t keep the frustration out of her voice. ‘I don’t understand why the coaches even do it. What’s in it for them? It’s such a huge time commitment.’
She recalls Miles telling her about coaching Noah’s team in Under 8s. How he’d taken it on because no one else wanted to do it, and training had been only once a week for an hour. But it had been a nightmare—all crowd control. The kids had hopped around like fleas and couldn’t focus for more than two minutes. He’d been relieved when the season was over.
‘They’re in love with the game,’ Ben says. ‘It’s their passion.’
‘Surely there’s something more than passion driving them,’ Jonica says. ‘I think they’re in love with being the centre of attention, and having all the parents and kids look up to them.’
‘It’s a selfless job,’ Ben says. ‘They don’t get paid much.’
‘Must be all about feeding their egos then,’ Jonica says.
She lurches off the path as Honey dives sideways to inspect a clump of grass.
‘Not again,’ Ben groans. ‘If her brain was bigger, she wouldn’t do that. It’s so annoying.’
‘She’s smarter than you think,’ Jonica says. ‘Don’t underestimate her.’
And she’s more tuned in to the kids than you are, she thinks. Or those biased, small-minded coaches.
On Saturday morning, Jonica plumps cushions in the lounge room and straightens the pile of magazines on the coffee table: Vanity Fair, The Monthly, The New Yorker, her favourite reading. It’s a nice room, a comfortable place to curl up on a couch with a coffee and contemplate life and the universe. Right now, the twins are in their rooms: Audrey on her phone, Alex gaming online with Noah. All soccer season, they moan about not having time to do things with friends on the weekend. Then, when their schedule finally opens up, they spend entire days in their rooms, staring at screens.
Jonica wishes they would do something more social. Like go to the movies. Or go for a walk. Or explore the bush reserve behind the back fence like they used to when they were little. She wouldn’t even mind if they hung out at the mall with their friends. But all they want to do is sit in their rooms on their phones and computers. She sinks onto the couch. The digital world makes her tired. She can’t see where it’s all heading.
She notices the tree ferns scratching at the windows and remembers they need watering. The windows need cleaning too—she’ll have to call someone next week. But now she’s stopped, she can’t move. She could read one of her magazines but hasn’t the energy. Is she depressed? She certainly feels sad and under-stimulated. If only Ben would let her go back to work. Why is he stopping her?
Before kids, legal work filled most of her time, and she and Ben often used to go out to dinner and the movies or the theatre. Now it seems there are too many hours in a day. What she wants, needs, is the intellectual stimulus of her old life before motherhood. A good complex corporate contract to draw up, perhaps. And, once she built up her client list, she could be out meeting with high-flying businessmen and women who value her advice. There might be dinners with community leaders who are interested in real issues. Wouldn’t that be good?
And yet, when she tries to imagine herself back in the office, a surge of discomfort flushes through her. It’s been a while since her solicitor days, competing for clients and contracts. Would she still be any good at it?
Maybe it wouldn’t be so easy going back. And perhaps there’s some truth in Ben’s mantra that she should be here for the twins. Everyone says teenagers need you as much as toddlers do, but in different ways.
If only she wasn’t so bored at home …
Dejected, she reaches for The New Yorker and flicks through the pages, but can’t find anything of interest. She tosses it back on the coffee table and listens to the sounds of the house. Electronic pings and music coming from Alex’s room, a stifled giggle from Audrey. The gravelly sound of men’s voices from the kitchen where Ben is chatting to Darren.
She can hear the two of them bleating on about football. Every second Saturday, this is what they do, even when the season is over. You’d think they’d get tired of it—Jonica certainly does. But it’s the same every time: they sit at the kitchen bench, drinking coffee, and go on and on about the English Premier League results, La Liga, whether it’s time for Ronaldo and Messi to retire. They get especially pumped when they talk about the kids: whose coach is better, which child can juggle the most or has scored the most goals, which child has the best chance of playing for Australia. It drives Jonica mad.
Listening to them, her lethargy transforms to impatience. She can’t stand their awful guffawing. She needs to get out of the house, away from all this time-wasting. Maybe she needs some of those endorphins Miles was talking about.
On a whim, she changes into shorts and a T-shirt, pulls on her sneakers, and downloads the Couch to 5K app on her phone, filling out her details. Age: 41. Weight: 56 kg. How far can you run today? Who knows, just a little? The first workout is a one-minute run and ninety second walk, six times over. Surely, she can manage that.
In the bathroom, she scrapes her hair into a high ponytail and inspects herself in the mirror: not bad for a mother of twins. Her complexion is still good, and her hair is passable, thanks to three-hour visits to the hairdresser every six weeks for foils and a touch up. But what about the finer details? She runs a finger across her forehead and down the number 11 crease between her eyebrows. Should she get Botox like some of the other mothers she knows? She pulls her brow tight and then sighs. Botox is only window-dressing. She ties her laces and heads to the kitchen for her sunglasses.
The men are elbow-propped at the benchtop, eating toast and drinking coffee, Darren with a scattering of crumbs in front of him—clearly, it’s too hard to contain himself to a plate. Jonica pities Claire, who is always cleaning up after him as if she has three kids, not two.
Darren is telling Ben about some bloke who used to play soccer with them when they were kids. The guy is in real estate now and has two boys in their late teens. One plays in the men’s State league and is a bit of a star. The dad’s so proud, he bankrolls everything: bought him a car, covers the rego and insurance, pays for his accommodation. The other son lives with the ex-wife, and the father has nothing to do with him. He didn’t make it in football. No car for him.
Ben shakes his head as if he doesn’t believe it, yet he’s the favourite son too. Doesn’t he see the irony? Now he takes over with a tale about a Serbian bloke who paid eight thousand dollars for his son to trial for a team in Spain.
‘Eight grand just to trial!’ Darren exclaims. ‘Imagine how much it’ll cost if he gets in! And he’s a marginal player. He won’t last over there. He’ll be home in less than four months. Waste of money, if you ask me.’
Ben nods, but Jonica knows he’d pay eight thousand dollars in a flash if it created an opportunity for one of the twins. She hunts for her sunglasses, finds them behind the loaf of bread.
Ben raises his eyebrows at her. ‘Going somewhere?’
‘For a run.’
He laughs. ‘You don’t run.’
‘I do now, as from today.’
Darren’s chin concertinas like a piano-accordion. ‘Maybe you could take Claire with you. A run would be good for her.’
Might be good for you too, Jonica thinks. ‘You should have brought her with you instead of leaving her at home,’ she says. ‘You’re not making her do all the jobs, are you?’
He grins. ‘She doesn’t mind. I’ll do the lawns when I get home.’
Don’t overdo it, she thinks. You might pull a muscle.
Claire and Darren live forty minutes away in southwest Sydney, where real estate is cheaper by a couple of million and the blocks are smaller, without pools or tennis courts. Jonica doesn’t like the area, but she drives there once a week to meet up with Claire. They’re good friends, bonded by being married to brothers and the challenge of dealing with a difficult mother-in-law. It’s a relief to have someone to unload to, someone she trusts who won’t judge her. Jonica feels closer to Claire than to any of the school mums she catches up with. They have other things in common too—books and reading, kids, concerns about the men’s blind passion for football.
Out on the front porch, she pauses and takes a deep breath. The day is warm and bright, not too hot, a light breeze, good for running. She grabs the hose and sprays water over the ferns, notices the new fiddleheads growing and unfurling. Already she feels herself expanding and loosening, just like those fronds.
She dumps the hose, walks down the hill, crosses the busy road and strides onto the oval. The grass is damp after rain last night, spongy under her feet.
She sets off at a fast walk to warm up. The sun on her skin. The rich scent of lush grass. The breeze on her cheeks.
After walking for a couple of minutes, she starts her first one-minute jog. Not too fast—she doesn’t want to strain anything on the first day.
Halfway around the oval, she realises she feels better. Lighter. As if she’s shedding a skin. She thinks of Miles. Wonders if he’s out running too.
Trials end the same week that school finishes for the twins, and then it’s a case of waiting around until the team is announced. Jonica is pleased when they both receive glowing school reports—to her, school’s more important than getting into football teams. It amazes her that Alex never seems to do any work but still gets good marks, whereas Audrey studies hard for her results. Either way it will stand them in good stead for the future. Ben will be happy too—he likes them to be successful in everything.
After both of the school award nights are over, Jonica drags the twins out of bed and they hit the mall to do Christmas shopping before the public schools break up and everything goes manic. Then holiday inertia sets in. The twins stay up late and sleep in. They eat at irregular times. They lie around the swimming pool. They also avoid the chores Jonica asks them to do—like walking the dog or tidying their rooms or going through their cupboards or emptying the grass and muesli-bar wrappers out of their soccer bags.
If it wasn’t so annoying it would almost be laughable! All this lounging around is such a contrast to how they were when they were little. Everyone raved about how lucky she was to have a pigeon pair. Pink and blue. Girl and boy. And yet, when they were babies, they’d been nothing like pigeons. No gentle cooing and cuddling. Nothing so tame. Instead, it was thrown toys and food, rebellion and chaos. With Ben at work, it was as if Jonica was the sole fireman in a big city, careering from one emergency to the next, sirens blazing. She discovered she was crushable, and that love doesn’t carry you through. It’s there, deep beneath the surface, but sometimes you have to dive for it, and it’s hard to get there without oxygen.
That’s how she feels as she watches Audrey mooching around on the couch. She tries to draw her into the kitchen, but Audrey won’t be enticed, not even to make a gingerbread house or yo-yo biscuits for Christmas.
‘Why don’t you take Honey for a walk?’ she suggests.
‘It’s going to rain and I don’t want to get wet.’
‘Then have a friend over and watch a movie together or do some art and craft.’
Audrey barely looks up from her phone. ‘I don’t have any friends.’
‘That’s not true. What about your schoolfriends? You can have them all over here. They can come and swim in the pool.’
‘Like I said, it’s going to rain. And Georgia already has a pool anyway.’
‘Maybe you could meet them at the mall and go shopping.’
‘They like fast fashion and I only like football clothes.’
‘Buy a jersey then.’ Jonica’s exasperation builds like the storm brewing outside.
‘They won’t come to Rebel Sport. They only like Sportsgirl and H&M.’
‘What about a movie?’
‘There’s nothing on.’
Jonica’s head aches. Why does Audrey have to make things so difficult?
Fed up, she changes into her running clothes. Lately, she’s been rising early to run before the weather heats up. She comes home looser, happier, better able to cope with Alex’s inaction and Audrey’s moods. She’s been feeling more confident too. Even started looking to see what sort of jobs are around.
Those endorphins Miles promised are certainly working. She should thank him for it.
She grabs the lead and calls the dog—at least one family member is willing to get off the couch and run a few laps with her.
Christmas Eve, Jonica scurries through last-minute preparations for the traditional family dinner, which is always held at their house. Tomorrow they’ll be packing up to go to the beach. She’s looking forward to getting away, but she can’t think about it yet because she has a million things to do before the guests arrive.
She checks the meat in the oven—a sizzling leg of lamb spiked with garlic and rosemary. She recruits the twins to assist, but it’s hardly worth the angst. They argue while peeling vegies, dropping shreds on the floor. They snipe at each other while setting the table. They even clash while wrapping presents for their cousins, bickering over whose turn it is for the scissors and sticky tape.
Usually they get along fairly well, but lately they’ve been constantly at each other. Jonica would like to attribute this to adolescence, but has to admit that most of the friction is coming from Audrey. She’s uptight about the team. Waiting for the announcement is driving Jonica mad too. How long can it take those coaches to make a decision?
When she’s run out of jobs, she sends the twins to change into their Christmas clothes, and at last the kitchen is quiet. She sinks into blissful silence and gets on with the rest of her tasks: removing the prawns from the fridge and arranging them on a plate, whipping up dipping sauces, uncovering the antipasto platter and adding a few sprigs of basil, extracting the champagne flutes from the cupboard and setting them on the bench.
She’s gone over the top this year, given that it’s only Darren’s family tonight. Ben’s parents are visiting relatives in England, and she never sees her own family at Christmas—it’s too stressful. She’s not very close to her mother—too much criticism and too many instructions. She’s determined not to have a relationship like that with her own children.
Oh well, she thinks, pouring a glass of wine. Cold lamb will be fine for a few days—it goes well in sandwiches, and the dog will certainly appreciate it.
She’s just strapped on her stilettos to match her clingy red Christmas dress when Ben strolls in with a smile on his face and an armful of bags from late Christmas shopping. It’s good to see him winding down at last. Lately he’s been busy tying things up before the District Court enters summer recess. It’s always the same at this time of year. He’s been snappy with her. Impatient with the kids. Withdrawn and preoccupied.
Just then a notification comes through on her phone. An email from Dominik. Surely not!
‘What’s up?’ Ben asks.
‘Looks like the list’s out.’ She scrolls through the email. Alex, Viktor, Braedon, Noah, Katerina. But not Audrey. Miles will be pleased and Carmen will be gloating.
Ben peers over her shoulder. ‘Is she there?’
‘No. She’s missed out.’ Jonica drops her phone on the bench and reaches for her wine with a trembling hand. She knew it was a bad idea for Audrey to try out for this team.
‘Let me look,’ Ben says, checking his phone. ‘There she is. She’s listed as a train-on player, so they’re still considering her for the team.’
Jonica knows that’s no consolation. She swallows wine and pours more, missing her glass and spilling some on the bench.
‘I reckon she’ll get in,’ Ben says. ‘There are always drop-outs or injuries. And kids often switch clubs at the last minute. I’ve seen it happen before.’
Jonica can sense that old familiar sinking feeling coming on—the one that swamps her whenever she suffers a major disappointment. Like the time she lost her first legal placement to her best friend, and then lost the friendship. And when she was overlooked for promotion in favour of a younger man. And the fact she’s never had a chance to go for partnership because Ben won’t let her go back to work.
