There was a hurt look in his eyes that belied his light humorous tone. Frances decided his ex-wife was a witch.
‘Also, I wasn’t ready to finish up. I thought I had one season left in me, but my right knee thought otherwise.’ He pulled up one leg and pointed at the offending knee.
‘Stupid right knee,’ said Frances.
‘Yeah, I was pissed off with it.’ Tony massaged his knee. ‘A sports doctor friend told me that retiring is like coming off cocaine; your body is used to all those feel-good chemicals: serotonin, dopamine, and – bam – suddenly they’re gone and your body has to readjust.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever experienced those feel-good chemicals doing exercise,’ admitted Frances. She picked up the candle he’d discarded and dug her thumbnail into the soft wax near the wick.
‘You probably have,’ said Tony. ‘Doing certain types of exercise.’ He paused.
She blinked. Wait. Was that innuendo?
He continued talking. Maybe she’d got it wrong.
‘You probably find this laughable but there were some games where we were all where we were meant to be and we all did what we were meant to do, and it all just came together, like a piece of music or poetry or . . . I don’t know . . .’ He met her eyes and winced, as if preparing himself for derision. ‘Sometimes it felt transcendent. Like drugs. It really did.’
‘That’s not laughable,’ said Frances. ‘That makes me want to take up AFL.’
He gave a deep appreciative chuckle.
‘My ex-wife used to say that all I ever thought about was the game. It probably wasn’t much fun being married to me.’
‘Oh, I’m sure it was,’ said Frances without thinking, and caught herself staring at his massive shoulders. She changed the subject hurriedly. ‘So what did you do after you stopped playing? How did you re-create yourself?’
‘I set up a sports marketing consultancy,’ said Tony. ‘It’s done well – you know, for a business run by an amateur human being. I thought I was doing better than a lot of my teammates. Some of them really fucked up – I mean . . . stuffed up their lives.’
‘I feel like fucked up is the correct phrase to use there,’ said Frances.
He gave her his full ‘Smiley’ grin. It really was the funniest smile.
‘You’re kind of annihilating that candle,’ he said.
She looked guiltily at the mess of wax in her lap. ‘You started it.’ She brushed the wax onto the floor. ‘Go on. So you set up this consultancy.’
‘I had one friend who said to me, “Don’t you hate the way that everyone only wants to talk about who you used to be?” but I honestly never minded that. I liked it when people recognised me; I never mind talking about the man I used to be. But anyway . . . late last year I started to get these symptoms, this incredible fatigue, I just felt something was wrong, even before I got on Dr Google.’
Frances felt herself go cold. She was at an age where people in her circle didn’t imagine serious illnesses, they got them. ‘And . . .?’
‘So, I took myself off to my GP, and he ran a lot of tests, and I could tell he was taking it seriously, and I said, “Are you thinking pancreatic cancer?” Because that’s what I was thinking – that’s how I lost my dad, and I know it runs in families. And the GP just gave me this look – I’ve known him for years – and he said, “I’m covering all bases.”’
Oh, damn it to hell.
‘It was just before Christmas, and he called me in to give me the results. He pulled out the file and, afterwards, I realised I had these words in my head, and I was saying them to myself, and it just . . . shocked the life out of me that I would think that.’
‘What words?’ asked Frances.
‘I was thinking, Let it be terminal.’
Frances blanched. ‘And . . . but . . . is it?’
‘Oh, I’m fine,’ said Tony. ‘Nothing wrong with me, except that I obviously don’t have a healthy lifestyle.’
Frances exhaled. She hoped not excessively. ‘Well, thank goodness.’
‘But it shook me up – that I would think that, that I would hope for a terminal diagnosis. I thought, Mate, how fucked up is your head?’
‘Yeah, that’s bad,’ said Frances. She felt energised in that bossy female way that she knew drove men crazy, but there was really nothing you could do about it once you felt that sense of righteousness surge through you, because they were such idiots. ‘So, right, you’ve got to get this fixed. You need –’