Tom rages, so Ged and his friends try to teach him to open up and soften up.
–––
Summer’s coming apart at the seams, sticky heat alternating with unexpected rain. On one morning this week, eight millimetres fell in half an hour, the air so thick with water you couldn’t see across the street. I know this for a fact because that was one of the days I had to walk to work, trying to fix what happened at the weekend.
◊♦◊
It started on Saturday morning. There we were, out on the waves and I was having the best time in ages. The swell is back to a manageable height and I feel like the practice and the hypnosis are beginning to pay off. Nothing anyone else would notice, but I’m going down the front of waves I’d have bailed on a few weeks ago. There are just four of us out there (Lauchie at that stage of his relationship with Annia where getting out of bed is rarely a good idea) and we’re having fun, taking the mickey and elbowing each other off party waves. Then Tom paddles out with a sour look on his face.
‘Did you see that tosser?’ he says. ‘He bloody-well called me off the wave! Idiot, like he owns the ocean or something.’
The pain is beyond belief. Like someone has taken a drill to my lower back.
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Michael and Andrew stare towards the shore to see who he means, but I can see a tidy bump rolling in and I paddle for that instead. I think I’ve missed it, paddle harder still and yes, I’ve got it, it’s got me, life is sweet. I jump to my feet, crouching to get some speed up, then stand fully. The pain is beyond belief. Like someone has
taken a drill to my lower back. I yell in a higher octave than I care to admit, frozen and not knowing what to do. Then I collapse back onto the board and let the god of small mercies carry me almost all the way in.
◊♦◊
Next thing I know I’m on all fours in the shallow water. I tell myself to calm down, to breathe, I’ll be fine. But when I try to stand, my board straining at its leash in the foamy whitewash, the drill into my lumber starts up again. My knees buckle and I have to crawl up onto the beach. The others must have seen what happened because by the time I’ve got to dry sand, they’re standing around, Michael untying my board from my ankle, Andrew and Tom frowning down and dripping water on my face. I tell them it’s my back. Tell them I’ll be fine in a bit, go away, don’t make a scene. Two old guys, walking along the beach, come over to see what the fuss is about.
“Maybe he needs a cup of concrete” says one. “Toughen him up a bit.”
“Yeah” says his mate, not wanting to miss out. “He should take his balls back to the store, ask for his money back.”
They chuckle, then catch the look on my mates’ faces – or maybe the lack of blood in my own – then continue on with their walk. I try to sit up and think the pain might make me vomit.
“Take it easy” says Michael, squatting beside me. “There’s no rush.”
“It’ll be the water” says Andrew. “Too cold. You lift anything heavy yesterday?”
Andrew, the world-expert on everything, is right of course. Friday I did a yoga class and then, later, moved some furniture, catching a bed awkwardly at one point and thinking at the time “Wow, that could have hurt.” Lying on Bondi beach, slowly drawing a crowd, I don’t feel like sharing this.
“Is it a shark attack?” asks a little boy hopefully. “Will he die?”
“Dude, you alright? You want me to call someone?”
He’s a Bondi hipster, obviously about to cycle home and drink a green smoothie from a jam-jar.
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This is from a skinny guy with a neck-beard and a short, sharp board under his arm. He’s the original Bondi hipster, obviously about to cycle home and drink a green smoothie from a jam-jar.
“Here!” says Tom. “You’re that prick what shouted me off that wave.”
The hipster looks at him, looks around to judge how many friends are with him, then looks back down at me.
“Can I call someone for you, man? Do you want the lifeguards or an ambulance or something?”
“He’s alright” says Michael. “He’s with us.”
“Yeah” says Tom. “So now that you’ve finished with your own personal ocean, you can piss off.”
“Dude” says the hipster. “I understand that anger is your go-to emotion, but what you’re really feeling is embarrassment. I was on the wave before you.”
Andrew and Michael snort loudly at this and it’s not clear to me whether they’re laughing at the hipster’s hipsteriness or at the truth of his comment. Tom doesn’t wait to find out. He steps over me, all chin and chest and elbows, and fronts up to the other guy.
“You what?” he says. “You what?”
“Tom! For fuck’s sake!” This is me, my voice cracking with fury and pain and frustration. “Do you think we could once, just once, have a situation which isn’t about you losing your bloody temper? Stop being a prick and, if you’re not going to help me out here, just fuck off.”
Tom turns and glares down at me, the sky dull and hot behind him. I think for a minute he’s going to kick me in the ribs and maybe he is, because Andrew walks round, puts his arm around him and drags him away. The hipster sees his opportunity and disappears, leaving it to Michael to get me to my feet and back to the carpark. I admit, there are tears in my eyes by the time we’re halfway there.
◊♦◊
It’s Tuesday evening before I hear from Tom again. The current Mr Gillmore and I are watching TV when the doorbell rings. Mr Gillmore glowers at me, this is bound to be my fault, but then he remembers I can hardly walk and goes to pick up the intercom. A new glower, he was right.
“Hello mate” Tom’s voice crackles from four storeys below. “I was just passing. Fancy a beer?”
What? Like leave the house after six p.m. midweek? No-one does that anymore.
“I was just watching House of Cards” I tell him.
“More like Downton Abbey!”
This is Andrew’s voice and I can just picture him, elbowing Tom out of the way to shout into the grating. I sigh and tell them I’ll be down in five minutes. I don’t mind missing the odd episode of Marple.
◊♦◊
“He’s come to apologise” Andrew tells me, when Tom goes off to buy the beers. “Make it easy for him. What did Dr Fix It say?”
Andrew and I see the same osteopath, the man is a miracle-worker.
“He says I can’t sit down for too long. I have to walk as much as possible. To work, in the rain, for instance.”
Tom comes up as I’m explaining this. Ha, he says, bet that goes down well at work and I have to laugh and agree. When a gay man tells his colleagues he can’t sit down for a few days, they just assume he’s had a good Friday night. We joke about this and other such rubbish until Andrew coughs and nudges Tom to the point. Tom takes a swig of VB and gives it a go.
“Yeah, I’m sorry” he says, and I can tell he’s rehearsed it. “Not just for Saturday but, well, for all the other times too.” A look from Andrew reminds him there’s more. “I’ve started seeing this bloke about anger-management. Therapist, I suppose. He’s a prick, winds me right up, but I’m learning to, you know, untangle things.”
“To talk about your feelings” says Andrew.
Tom swears, blushes and takes another swig of beer. I remember I’ve agreed to make it easy on him.
“It’s not just you” I say. “We all struggle with talking about how we feel. Mr Gillmore’s always telling me off for bottling stuff up and then exploding later at the slightest thing. He does it too, mind. It’s blokes, we’re taught not to talk about our feelings.”
“That’s so true” says Andrew. “I make the same mistake with my boys, tell them to suck it up and get on with life. Which is so dumb, seeing as I want us to have an honest open relationship, like I never had with my dad.”
Tom laughs bitterly.
The whole point of our dads’ generation was to fuck us up then go to their graves denying they did it.
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“We’re men in our forties” he says. “None of us had honest open relationships with our fathers. The whole point of
our dads’ generation was to fuck us up, then go to their graves denying they ever did it. Just like their dads did to them.”
I lean awkwardly against the table, trying to get my back more comfortable, spilling all of our beers and swearing viciously. Tom tells me he understands anger is my go-to emotion but what I’m really feeling is embarrassment. I laugh and tell him to sod off.
“But it’s true” he says glumly. “That’s what I’m learning. Almost every time I get wound up it’s because I’m really feeling something else. Like I’m scared of looking stupid, or worrying about failing or something.”
“Or embarrassed because you’re lying on the beach in pain.”
“Road rage” says Andrew. “Police tasering a man already on the ground. Abu Ghraib. Pub fights. Domestic violence. It’s all fear and anger and frustration. I reckon you put women in charge of half those situations they’d talk it out before it got too nasty.”
“Maybe we should all just behave like women” says Tom. “Bring boys up to behave like girls.”
“Not like girls, like blokes who know how to talk about their emotions. Not do what our dads did to us.”
Let’s learn to say “I’m frightened” or “I feel stupid”.
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”Sod the kids” I say. “Let’s do it to ourselves first. Let’s learn to say ‘I’m frightened’ or ‘I’m worried’ or ‘I
feel stupid’. Not just to our partners – we do that already – but to other blokes, our mates and even strangers in the ocean. It’s probably the number one thing we could do to make it ourselves happier.”
Tom and Andrew nod despondently. We know it’s not going to be easy.
—
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