detour noun: an alternative route, one
used temporarily to avoid an
obstruction
‘The turn-off is on the left,’ he says. I don’t trust his sense of direction. It has never been good. We ran into a detour hours ago and have been trying ever since to find our way back to the main road.
‘Are you sure, Bill? When I looked at the map it was on the right.’
‘It’s definitely left. Then we head down Creighton Street and we’re near the soccer field. Why are we stopping?’
‘I want to look at the map.’
‘I told you where we have to turn off. You always do this.’
‘Do what? I always do what? Get the directions right?’ I pull the car over to the side of the road.
‘You always try to tell me what to do.’
‘When do I do that?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Here, check the map.’
‘I don’t want to check the map.’ I throw it onto the back seat. I want to know now. Somehow I think that knowing what he means by that comment will either ruin us completely or save us and I have to hear the answer. I decide that he will not get out of the car alive unless he tells me the truth. I tell him this and even as I do I know that I am proving his point. That’s when I see him again for the first time. Really see him. He is forty and tired and travelling everywhere with the books he loves so much piled in the back of his car.
‘I forgot about your bookshop,’ I say.
‘Baby, you and Gracie are more important to me than books or a shop,’ he answers, and I think two things: when I get back I will find a way to give him his dream, but more importantly for the moment, he called me baby.
I grab the map from the back seat. ‘Let’s find Gracie,’ I say.
Martin gets off the bus and sits on the seat in front of the hotel. This is the first game I can remember him spending on the bench. The thing about Martin is, everyone likes him. He’s a good player. He doesn’t always score the goal, but he’s usually the one who lines up the shot.
Martin helped me kick my first goal. He trusted me enough to pass the ball, even though it was only my second match as part of the team.
‘Martin, why won’t they kick to you?’ I don’t really want to hear his answer.
‘Because I’ll pass it to you, Faltrain, and they know it.’
‘I’m sorry, Martin.’ He doesn’t answer for a while. It feels like years and years of quiet are spreading out between us. I want to fill them with something, but I’m not sure what to say. ‘Martin?’
‘Faltrain, why do you play soccer?’
‘I guess I play because I’m good. And because when I’m out there it doesn’t matter so much that I’m not great at other things. Nothing exists at the centre of the game except the wind and the ball and the score and me. I don’t think about school or missing Dad. I just play.’
‘Do you think you’re the only one on the team who needs to feel like that?’
‘No.’
‘Then stop playing like you are. You didn’t start off as that sort of player.’
Martin’s right. When I watched my first soccer match I couldn’t move my eyes from the ground. Every player looked connected to the person beside him. The ball spun from one boot to the next. That’s what I loved. When did that change?
I’m having one of those moments when everything becomes clear and you realise what an awful person you’ve been. No wonder everyone hates me, except Martin, that is. He’s the one person who should be angrier than anyone. But he’s not.
‘I’ll fix it, Martin. I won’t play in the next game. I don’t want you to miss out because of me.’
‘You just don’t get it, do you, Faltrain?’ he says, looking at the passing cars. ‘I don’t want to play without you.’
I have this strange feeling looking at him. It’s like I’m about to get up in front of the class and give a speech. It’s just Martin though, Martin who yells at me and tells me what to do. Martin with his knees covered in dirt and his hair sticking up at the back. Martin who sits on the bench for me.
I wait. I’m not sure what for; I just know I don’t want to leave until it happens. I can feel his arm next to mine. I can hear him breathing. He smells of grass and sweat and toothpaste. I make the smallest move towards him.
Nick? Nick who?
I want to grab her hand but the air is like iron. I can’t move through it. I want to tell her that I like sitting next to her. She makes me feel as though I’m home again.
‘Faltrain. I’m not coming back with you after the Championships,’ I say instead. I want to take it back as soon as it hits the air but I know I can’t. To do that I’d have to go back and find a way to make Mum stay. I’d have to get Dad off the couch.
She just sits there biting her lip and looking like she’s going to cry again. I feel like bloody crying with her.