Conversation Time

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photo: phil hillyard

On Friday morning I popped in to see the two baristas. They’re working together on Fridays now, instead of Mondays, so we’ve changed our review to a pre. We’re on first name terms now; let’s call them J and D. J’s the Roos man, D the Swan. We exchanged the preparatory hello. North up and down. The loss Sydney had to have. The battle ahead of the Scotts. And then J cut straight to the chase; it was admiration tinged with bitterness. Hopefully my coffee wasn’t heading the same way.

            ‘It won’t be a blow out tonight, you know. Have you got a plan B if Buddy doesn’t bring his A game?’

‘Well,’ I offered after a moment. ‘There’s this guy, big, tall, what’s his name? Wears the number 8. And … oh yeah, there’s another guy, won a few awards, played a while, that number 37.’

J was smiling behind the chrome. ‘You going to the game?’

            ‘Yep! Oh and there’s that kid, shaved head, good mark, got a brother who plays for Collingwood. Number 20. Read or Reid or something.’

J was nodding now. But I had one more to go.

‘There’s a little one too. Midge. One of those gifts from Hawthorn. You know, the little one.  Number 21 on his back.’

‘I’m so impressed,’ J said.

It was quite a list. And– I kept it to myself – there were so many more. A pair of snappy captains. A brigade of greedy midfielders. Parker, Josh and Harry  – they all like a goal. And remember Hannebery?

            ‘I’m so impressed.’ J handed the coffee over the pass. ‘That you know their names and numbers. You’re bona fide, the true deal. Definitely pass the test.’

            I was quietly taken aback. I didn’t realise that, after more than half a season with the machine and banter between us, I was still being appraised.

He’s a serious footy nut, J. It’s couched behind his crafted barista calm. I guess much of the footy chat he gets comes from suspected pretenders. I’ve heard young folk talk the Friday Swans talk under the charms of his dark good looks. But they haven’t walked by Monday. This is Sydney. I showed the correct propensity for detail.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

The coffee was the perfect temperature, strong with a sweet caramel finish.

*

That night, I dropped the tired Cygnet to his grandparents – he opted (post recorder ensemble and the long school day and trapeze) for reverse cycled comfort, homemade chicken soup, a hot shower and the flat screen. I headed to the ground, walked down Moore Park Road alone, overheard a conversation about a virologist who accidentally outbid a banker at a charity auction to the tune of $18 000. He thought the prize was 2 not 20 thousand. The real story was the humiliation of conceding the mistake. I passed the bag check and was on my way to Gate E, when one of a trio of fifty something males expressed his bemusement, at the top of his voice, over an Instagram post of a Vespa that attracted him14 likes. When it was re-posted by a young female office worker, it attracted ten times that many. This is Paddington, Sydney.

The O’Reilly boys were there to shield me from a biting wind. And Gwen was there with her shortest shortbread, a (Captain) Luke Parker badge from the MCG and a handful of card packs for the Cygnet. Bless her! The Cob texted in from Edinburgh:

So if the Cygnet’s at Mum and Dad’s, who’s your date?

J, I tease. The Cob knows the stories.

Nice work. Say hi to him for me.

I haven’t told him about you yet.

Games are questions and answers. One side announces something. What has the other got? The chat with the Hawks last week was superb, a proper conversation. Sometimes there’s genuine, seamless repartee; you go and go until one side doesn’t have time or energy for a final answer and things are left over ‘til next time. Other times, one party can’t get a word in edgeways. Or just has nothing to say. And sometimes the exchange you can hear over your shoulder is more peculiar and telling than the one you’re in. I wasn’t sure what was on the agenda tonight with Essendon.

The Swans were loud early. Up and about and the home crowd with them. We were loving Rohan’s pace in the O’Reilly. Loving him off half back. We were loving the man in the fluoro yellow boots, Malceski, marking intelligently, kicking impeccably. Speculation swirled. Would he or wouldn’t he go? We were fearing him into a ménage à trois with Ross and Kirky in the west. Rohan looked like the right-footed apprentice.

We admired Jetta on Friday night. Turn and he was there; Jetta the conjunction. We used to imagine them, Rohan and Jetta, in 2010 when they debuted together, we imagined them streaming down the wings in unison. The configuration looks different now but it looks good. And the defence, run by a Teddy, held by a Reg. And Rampe, contesting with the same short-groined intensity of the previous #24, down but back up like the bop bag Jude was too.

At the height of the first half poetry, I leaned into one of the O’Reilly boys and mentioned the hands. I’m so impressed with their hands. But it occurred to me that hands are only good if you’re in the right spot. They’re bona fide movers this year, these Swans, familiar with the arcs of the team conversation.

I relish going to the footy for the art of conversation, not only with the neighbours but with the game. Invariably the internal dialogue of a match talks to our own lives, where they stand, how they are proceeding, what views are in need of attention. The Swans on Friday night made a certain early assertion, a kind of pattern to which the opposition might formulate a response.

And then in the third, they just stopped talking.

A different conversation took over. Not one to over hear but one we couldn’t hear over. We’d been aware all evening of a traveling party in the row behind, a hangover from multicultural round perhaps, an Aussie fella and his friends – a solo male from the subcontinent donning a Dons scarf alongside a clean cut couple from Canada, firmly wrapped in red and white and looking for Mike Pyke. Rules had been dished out during the evening. And as the volume went down on the game, it rose in the student ranks.

Early in the third, with three consecutive Bomber goals, our sub-continental brother came to life. Each time an Essendon player received the ball – each and every time, no effective disposal required – he would yell, at top volume: Oh yes! Come on BomBers, with particular emphasis on the second B. And when the ball was turned over, he yelled at top panto volume, Oh, no! Stop them BomBers! Miss Canada, by the fourth, had consumed enough to be barracking with the same verve as a local. Heppell lined up for goal 7 minutes into the third. C’mon number 21, your hair looks stooopid. I’m afraid she’d learned it straight from O’Reilly Max who has taken a strong dislike to the Hurley/Shoenmaker samurai pony. For the hard chase and contested ground ball she cried, C’mon, let’s get this butterball. Intermittently she stopped, What’s happening? I don’t know what’s going on? Mike Pyke where are you? Beacon that he is. For the free awarded to Reid in the square, her diagnosis – Oh it was a chopping, tripping, falling kind of incident. And when the Swans scored against momentum, she cried Aoooorwl; she was all the wolves of Canada.

Miss Canada may not have had the dialect quite right, she may not have known any of the numbers, but I was impressed. I loved the inexpertness of her commentary. Life is part certainty, part chaos; part strong narrative line, part digression; part bold statement and part farce: part talking and mostly listening. The main characters don’t always have the best lines. Sometimes it’s the cameos that shine. No wonder football appeals to writers.

With minutes to the final siren, Miss Canada drew breath and came to a halt. What does Q B E stand for? As things were about to go off topic completely, that big guy, that #37 kicked from straight in front. And with minutes to go the human conjunction sent it long to the square, off Rohan’s hands and into the path of the little one, McSomething, the number 21. Full stop.

Tiger Diary 6.8.2014

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It could only be a Tigers fan that wears the title Tipster on Fire this week, in this 30 person tipping comp, having notched a paltry 4 correct tips this week. 

GO FIGURE.

The theory might be that if I wasn't named such I might have punched you all out. 

The stereotypical "redhead taunted in the playground and goes crazy" snapshot from the Giants game (which I skilfully tipped the outcome of correctly, O best beloved) last weekend saw Reece Conca taunted and tea-cosied with his own jersey - ridiculed beyond the brink - and in front of the interchange gates with almost nobody watching at all he stealthily ran 10 metres and jobbed the culprit in the back of the head.

He will be standing outside the headmaster's office now until long after recess methinks.

Tyrone will have a sparring partner. 

And if any of you start taunting us about finishing ninth again, look out!

And yes Rich - Yes - sure you can be Tipster on Fire again this week if you want.

Awesome.

It's the sigh of the Tiger.

Tiger Diary 20.6.2014

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This is the quietest tiger. 

In outer space nobody can hear you scream. 
Is that where I am Major Tom? That where we are? 
No. No. 
I think then that I'm reporting up from down in the underworld. 

The upside down River Yarra is the Styx. 

The Boatman approaches with his boat's sail tattered, barely managing a bulb-struck moth's erratic flutter, the shreds and threads of it flying like an ensign of permanent defeat, as Hemingway might have had it.
For this season, oh best beloved, the Tigers have had it. 

And the Old Man is dead. 

There shall be no great fish for us to defy the great famine with for now. 

What's left for now is only football. 

To cross the River can only lead you Beyond Blue with the Devil in Hawthorn. 
So we will not pay the Ferryman. 
But we can never never again look back.

Indigenous Round

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The bye is a wonderful time for catching up with other people’s teams. A warden against complete parochialism. It’s a chance to walk in other supporters’ shoes. An empathy check.

During the weekend the Swans didn’t play, I was looking forward to talking up the battle of the Scots with my North loving barista. But he’d gone AWOL. It’s not the same waiting at the machine for the Swans loving man, indulging in a hagiographical repeat of your own teams’ last win. I counselled my Hawthorn friends through their re-introduction to losing. I took the weekend to congratulate my Tiger friends on Jack’s day out. I wrapped a gift for a customer in the gallery, up in Sydney from Melbourne for an anniversary weekend. A Collingwood supporter – but I still did a nice job – he’d sacrificed his first child, a fifteen month old son, to his father-in-law and soccer. Now that’s taking it too far. If I’d known he was going to be a boy I wouldn’t have done it.

*

Last Thursday, footy was back. And last Thursday I accompanied the Cygnet’s fourth grade class to the Botanical Gardens and the Hyde Park Barracks – the kids are studying settlement. I am a serial excursion parent helper. Some things in life seem particularly susceptible to a kind of amnesia. My nostalgia for that blissful feeling of escaping into the adult world, hand in hand with a school mate and not a parent – wildlife released from captivity for the day – repeatedly overrides my knowledge that for the grown-ups, most primary excursions are in reality 90% shepherding of children into single or double file.

As the Cygnet and I left for school, I called out to the Cob to remember to tip. Swans all the way, I called. Are you sure? said the Cob. We play terribly after a bye.

The day was perfect, on/off sunny, crisp, the odd tiny sprinkle crossing the city like stardust. At the gardens, education officer Shirley parked us in front of the Cadi Jam Ora, the First Encounter Garden. On the left hand side was a garden planted to look as it would have some 230 years ago on Cadigal land – strong  limbed gums watching over grass trees, scrub, bracken ferns, golden banksia poking their heads up in varying stages of maturity, all of it copious and overlapping and effortless.

On the right hand side, a simulation of the first farm, a patch of all the things the settlers had brought to plant – guavas, figs, citrus, coffee, bananas, grains and cane, brought in hope from Europe and South America, unable to hold in the sandy soils of the cove, unable to fruit without the cold snaps of a northern winter. The plants sit now in an overattended bed, separate from each other, unincorporated. I felt the sense of effort of the settlers, misguided but brave, the disillusionment that must have threatened to swamp them so often. But far more keenly I felt the richness of that garden thriving on the left, the way the sun was shining off the spikes of the long grass trees, the resin within its leaves, yakka, something hard and enduring that can bind for a long long time. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Whenever I stand face to face with the wholistic patience of traditional aboriginal life and its careful relationship to the uniqueness of the land on which it expresses itself, I feel moved by the profundity of the lost opportunity for this country to have been something far far more extraordinary from the very moment of its cultural collision. 

An hour or so later we stood against the beautiful sandstone wall which tracks the harbour from Mrs Macquarie’s chair around to the Opera House. Brendan, our Indigenous education officer, told the kids that the land we were sitting on had in fact been sea, that it was reclaimed land, filled in and walled off. This never used to be Sydney Cove, he said simply. You know what this place was called? he asked them. Warrang. Can you all say Warrang? And the kids chorused after him, to which he cracked a broad grin and said, Deadly. You can all speak Aboriginal now!

*

Hot showered and feet up the Cygnet and I watched Thursday footy from the couch that night, while the Cob took off for the live game. We had TV dinner of posh pies and homemade chips in paper cups.

The Swans arrived so fiercely, it felt almost alarming. They were tuned, accurate, skilful in a way I had not yet fully come to notice this year. Watching felt like that state when you wake in the night and trundle through a dark house, put the hallway light on at some point, unable to open your eyes at first and then as you do, finding yourself dazzled by everything that comes into slow focus, even though you know it in the daylight as relatively normal. The Swans’ skill set was shining so incredibly brightly.

The in-tight handballs were perfectly aimed darts, so fast Geelong were spinning for looking and then the ball was gone. To size and strength and uncanny movement from the big men. Bird showed just how well that number 14 jersey is now fitting him. It was one of those nights; the tackles stuck, the kicks found their targets; the right place was the right time. And they didn’t seem to be trying at all. I could taste tears when Goodes kicked his first goal and his own wide smile cracked open the Aboriginal flag. He wasn’t done yet. Malceski looked like the pre-knee 22 year old, sweeping up all night exquisitely from half back. Was it premeditated that he managed to round up 37 touches on the night of blackfella shine? 37 years too since Geelong posted a smaller half time score.

The exciting thing for Bloods fans was that it looked like they could and would sustain it all night long. There was never that moment in the game when I need to walk away, stack the dishwasher, resume the knitting, clean the taps. Like the layers in that bush, each player seemed to have a perfect place to be, a perfect role to play and a keen understanding of how to maintain the whole. And the result was something vivid and bright, a powerful thing to watch.

There was beautiful Indigenous juju all over this match – 3 for Goodesy, 4 for Lance and Jetta’s boot on the end of that last contested score. John Longmire may have cautiously mentioned the word utopia in his press conference. But he stressed that the match came close, not because of any one player’s numerical cues, but because of the complete team effort. It may be a tool often touted by football teams and their spokespeople –look after your role, play for each other and the result will look after itself. Evidently there is truly something in it and the resonance rang deep in Indigenous round. Shirley had pointed to the Cadigal garden that morning and asked the kids if they knew what sustainable living meant and the Cygnet had answered: it’s when you keep something going so that it will keep going for you.

*

I went to bed that night and lay in my suburban darkness. The contract on our house is almost exchanged. I wondered what would have grown over the almost 300 squared metres of land which will somehow ‘belong’ to us. Cook’s River country is Black She Oak country, Hairpin Banksia, Kangaroo Grass … I imagined composting the agapanthus and the clivia and the green goddess lilies that run the side path of the house, and in their place planting back in the Warrabirra, the Pokulbi, the Kurwan.

Bulletin - Round 8

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photo: mark metcalfe/getty images

On the first morning we woke in the rental house we still live in, the Cygnet toddled to the back door. He was two and a half. He stood in the frame looking out over the grass of the yard and the lane that extends away beside the house and without turning back to me said, Can we go home now?

His words dipped into my own uncertainty. I’d never lived in this part of town. I didn’t know the roads, the direction of the corner store. I didn’t know the noiselessness of suburban back streets. I wasn’t even sure yet of the route to get back to the coast I grew up on.

Seven years later, we know every vessel of the place. So when we received the ‘vacant possession please’ notice a few weeks ago, the same sense of pathlessness overtook me. And this time there was school to think about and friends’ houses and the well mapped routes to workplaces - a whole system of positioning ourselves in the world would have to be unpicked and stitched in somewhere else. Despite my reassurances, the Cygnet laid his head in my lap and wept when we told him: There’ll never be a home as good as this one.

Saturday mornings came around and I headed out to look at properties to rent … or buy. Please can we reinvigorate the Sydney cost-of-living allowance? For everyone? I stood in the wide window of a sixties gem by the Cook’s River, the escarpment staring heavily over my shoulder, a motley carpet underfoot and tried to imagine myself waking there. I walked the ashen blue tiles of an unfamiliar kitchen wondering if our breakfast banter could exist in that space. I stared at an entire wall of men’s trainers which dressed a soundproofed spare room and wondered whose shoes I would be fitting into. David Lynch came to mind. In all those new spaces I was looking for much more than a floorplan.

*

I am sure that during the summer, Lance had a few of those moments. He said it himself - leaving Hawthorn was the hardest thing he’s ever had to do. And as he strutted through a lakeside preseason and kicked back in the Entertainment Quarter with yesterday’s papers, I’m sure he caught the odd glimpse of himself in the red and white and took a second look. He’d been poo and wee since seventeen!

I have no idea then why the public relations or sports psychology departments of football clubs tote the ‘just another game’ line when a significant player is coming up against their old team for the first time, why they feed it through the player’s mouth when other players, current and past, when supporters, commentators – humans generally – and history are humming the familiar tune of feeling. Must be the parent-style veneer of ‘it’ll all be ok.’ Isaac Smith called it like it was: I’d say it’s the most anticipated game of the year. Bet the big fella would love to kick ten on us.

Despite an 8am start for recorder ensemble, a full day of school and an hour and a half of trapeze, the Cygnet accompanied me to Homebush. Please can be get rid of the stadium deal? For everyone? The mood was up, a buzz spreading for the tall forward line we all wanted to acquaint ourselves with. We sniggered at the roster: Franklin off, Reid, Goodes and Tippett on. Reid off, Goodes, Tippett and Franklin on. Goodes off, Tippett and Franklin and Reid on. The Cygnet and I met O’Reilly Boy Max in the stands (our Cob was in Melbourne for work). Connie was there in front, her husband at home with a bad back, her sister in his seat. Nigel was there with Gwen, mother to us all.

I’m always grateful when the Swans start fast; it still feels like a luxury. They looked sharp. Hannebery was playing mine mine mine from the start, he and Kennedy bullying Hawthorn in the middle. Reid had his marking mittens on. Tippett just looked strong. Lance was still finding the posts. There was plenty of appetite and some good movement. Really it’s a game of appetite and movement. And gee I like that Swan Bird.

Having polished off his pie and chips, the Cygnet took to his book in the second, a tale about a Nanny Pig leading kids astray in a fictional town. Lance led his kicks the same way. I couldn’t work out whether either of them were genuinely un-phased by Hawthorn’s building system and run. The margin narrowed as the behind tally rose and took our collective systolic pressure with it.

Gwen brought out her Mother’s Day treat at half time - a Tupperware of chocolate delight, topped with a crumble of Peppermint Crisp. With the first bite, I suggested she might like to get it down to the dressing room.

It’s not only the players who have to find themselves at home in their new team. We too inhabit our team like a home. We know its solid structures, its foundations, pillars and walls. We are aware of the loose swinging doors that need work. We imagine renovations that need to happen and regret some that have. It took me a while to see Teddy without the sash. It took some weeks to adjust to Mummy in the red hooped socks and is odd to see him in grey.

We need to find a place each new season for the expensive decorative elements we buy, the best place to show them off to guests. We need to walk past them many times in the corridor until we feel they’re truly part of the scenery. Sydney supporters don’t seem sure yet whether Lance really is the centrepiece he’s been sold to us as. The jury still seems hung – half hubristic for the snare and potential, half cynical about the cost. And perhaps he feels the same way. The apology to Birchall said it all. And frankly I kind of like the moments of doubt.

Our heads were so deep in our own back yards in the third that we didn’t notice Rioli’s early exit. The Swans’ hands and pressure were largely sound, but when the Hawks took, and immediately added to, the lead, there was a feeling that they could really run away with it. We know the neighbours. We remember the battles we’ve had from year to year. We know which ones we can get along with and which drive us totally mad. Parker stalked Shoenmakers like an alley cat and minutes later with his best buddy Gibson on the mark, Lance avoided another shot on goal. Connie turned with urgency: We just need Buddy to kick a goal and then the flood gates can open. The Cygnet finished his book and was ready to barrack.

Lance kicked a goal five minutes into the last quarter. Swung it accurately from just inside 50. The smile enormous. And moments later, from a hunched position that looked like heavy fatigue, suddenly he’s on the ground and on the end of Jetta magic, prone and poking his toe at a 10 point lead. O’Reilly Max had only one word: le déluge. It was a flood of pressure and belief built on the apparent subconscious permission from one centre half forward to his new team.

*

The Cygnet and I drove back down Parramatta Rd. It was just past 11pm. Can we talk about those words which are hard to define without using the word itself? he piped. Sure, why not? I was to find them and he would make an attempt. Tradition. Conscience. Attribute. Word. I was thinking of home.

We made an offer to our landlord last week and found out that he’s accepting it. It looks like we might be staying after all. Of course Nic Nat will tell you that nothing is certain until you have a contract in your hand. But it looks like we‘ll be kicking on in our own back yard, arcing the Sherrin around the hills hoist, using the telegraph pole in the lane to shade the eyes against the winter twilight, standing in the door frame looking west as the sun sets.

Tiger Diary - 8.5.2104

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Been disappointing times for us Tiges, battling on with both injuries and a hostile draw against us.

None of us thought we'd be sitting 2-5 after Round 7, did we? What a great time for a bye though.....

This present season... you can see us with a mope,

hanging from a rope

if we're behind then we don't mind 

we'll fight and fight and........ hope.......

So where to from here?

Where is our mythically powerful team?

Who are the characters - The Captain Bloods, The Rolls Royce King of Harts' ? The Winners?

Who can pull the sword from this terrible stone?

Where are the merry men to lead us out of this dark forest, and who in turn shall lead them?

We need a man who has shed blood on the battlefield. Shows loyalty, follows orders, and leads only by example.

He wears the handsome, scarring near-death glory of a shuddering jousting head clash.

He risks head and skin and draws swoon and envy and respect and admiration at every turn.

Who is this Ace in our deck?

ARISE SIR RANCELOT !

and with him rise the cast of this fabled fairytale forward. 

Sir Ivan of Mullet, David of Astbury, The Jack of Riewolts, The Bacchus of Houli and arise too The Chaplin of Troy.

Arise Edwards The First

Arise Edwards The Second.

Arise the 2 Blond Bombshells, Morris and Ellis,  the 3 Scarlet Pimpernels, Jackson, Vlastuin and Conca, the 3 Scotch Guards, McDonough, McBean and McIntosh and Nathan@39Gordon and Nathan @42Foley.

Arise The Cotchin of Trent, Sir Tyrone, Shaun of the Grigg, The Noble Batchelor, Doubtless Thomas, Grimes, Big Ben, Biggles, Lucky Pets, T42with SamLloyd, Chris the Elder, Flip Delidio, Service Hampson,  The Martin Lad.

Intoducing Ben-John Lennon, Todd Elton-John, Bro'Hanlon, The Bigger O and the Matts Dea and Arnot.

Arise (please) Chris The Knight of Knights Knee.

But arise and go quickly good men of Richmond, 

for constant and confusing dangers are alurk.

Awrys things may go, you know, when the Jester is the Jake is the King.

Tiger Diary 17.4.14

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Tonight's game seems to have a theme from 1981 

...............been in the back of my head all week:

The African Lion Safari

Lions and Tigers and Bears

The African Lion Safari

It's Scary but Nobody Cares

Repeat - scary, but nobody cares.

Between Remembering and Forgetting

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Photo: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

Last Saturday morning, the Cob, the Cygnet and I were discussing the state of affairs, in particular the method by which Collingwood slaughtered the Tigers the night before.

            ‘They were so neat,’ I proffered. ‘I’m very attracted to tidy football this year. They were so tidy.’

            ‘A lot like their coach,’ added the Cob.

            ‘What?’ piped the Cygnet.

            ‘Their coach, what’s his name Buckley. He was a very meticulous player in his time.’

            ‘Nathan,’ I finished.

            ‘You know,’ confessed the Cygnet. ‘I was having trouble remembering his name the other day too. I had the Buckley bit, but not the Nathan bit.’

I imagined the most unlikely scenario of the Cygnet, prone before sleep in the dark of his bedroom, trawling for the pit bull’s name.

            ‘You know …’ offered the Cob. ‘You know what you have to do to remember something.’ He followed it with the perfect pause, long enough for a moment’s thought, but not for any kind of answer.

‘You have to forget.’

*

When the Swans lost on Sunday I was at work. Not privy to the apparent mess they were making out on the field. I had an eye on the score. Down at the quarter, down at the half, but by just a single kick. And then it unravelled. Heath Grundy kicked a goal! Richards a behind?! And then more and more numbers on the other side of the margin. We only kicked seven for the game??

A topsy-turvy feeling overtook my afternoon and as I climbed on my homebound bus in the new early dark of daylight spendings, I thought of the Cob and the Cygnet heading home from the ground together and hoped that a similar sweet philosophy was being passed back and forth between them, something to save our souls.

‘You know what you have to do,’ the Cob would assure the Cygnet. ‘If you want to win, you’ve got to lose. Only when you start losing again, can you go on and play better and win.’

To hell and high water with consistent Geelong and ruthless Hawthorn. To hell with North Melbourne’s pre-game huddle, which must have gone something along the lines of … if you want to score, you have to defend first. Would the Cygnet buy it? I had my wallet out and the change in my hand.

And then, could this infinity loop of an equation be expanded a bit more? Now that the boys remembered what it was like to lose, could they forget and get on and win. And when they remembered what it was to win again, could we be done with all this losing. But the demonic opposite of all this lurks. Are we supporters embarking on a process of forgetting the wins in order to remember them again one day? Is it just a long losing streak ahead? Janus-faced all of us, glancing between backwards and forwards and Round 4 remembered as the threshold?

Monday came. Lunchtime came. I thought of heading in the opposite direction to ‘the Baristas’. There’s a guy at a place in the bottom of a corporate tower, brews a superb single origin bean from a new developing nation each day, looks like Marty Mattner and is just about as reliable. But if I want to win with pride, I’d better lose with grace. I headed to the Pâtisserie. Standing in line, Barista #1 - North Melbourne supporter - appeared at the top of the stairs. He pointed a double barrel salute my way and mouthed, ‘I was hoping you’d come in today.’ I paid. ‘Come on up,’ he motioned. We’re on first name terms since then. And I climbed the couple of stairs to the back of the place and the bar in front of the machine. We picked it apart with the usual tools. He with his grace, me with mine. He with his diagnosis. Me and mine. Me with my pre-emptive comments about our very expensive forward line. He with his about midfielders kicking goals. Me with my flattery of his boys. He with his encouragement for mine. Those North supporters they know about loss. They are finding out about winning.  

*

We headed down the coast on Tuesday for an early Easter with the olds. A most divine bucolic setting: vulgar green hills spotted with Fresian cows; an Edo mist falling off the escarpment and down the rainforest to the back courtyard; the Frenchman and his excellent pinot and cheese; my mother’s roast chook.

We still have her mother – my grandmother – 95 years old and going strong. Despite her increased physical incapacity – the Frenchman drives her illegally on the seat of her walker as soon as they are out of view of the nursing home staff – we pride her on her razor sharp mind. The Frenchman collects her for weekly lunch and rolls her in for a G & T, some iPad Solitaire and a good feed. I sat with her today, tucked up tight so she could hear me. And after some discussion about Barry O’Farrell’s shock resignation and my sister’s new baby in Berlin, she turned to me and asked under her breath, ‘Darling, tell me. I can’t recall for the life of me, I’ve been wracking my brain and I simply cannot remember.’ I was all ears. ‘What on earth is it that we celebrate at Easter?’

I am the most ill equipped person for the job, but I didn’t dare laugh and I didn’t dare defer and break our code. ‘Well, on the Friday, Jesus was killed … on the cross. Crucified. And then …’ I would take the purely chronological route. ‘Saturday he lay in the tomb and then on Sunday, when Mary Magdalene came to the tomb, the stone had been removed from the door and he had resurrected.’ I waited to see if any penny was dropping.

            ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she giggled as she slapped my knee.

            My mother had overheard my description of the Passion and was suddenly enquiring of us as she shoved the lemon and tarragon up the bird. My grandmother was laughing now and with her full public confession came all the mirth and warmth of the family.

‘I couldn’t for the life of me remember,’ she said. ‘And for days I’ve been trying to think who I could call who wouldn’t think I was round the corner.’

She may have meant ‘the bend.’

And with that, the Champagne was popped, the eggs were hidden in the wilds of the outside world, the Cygnet was off and the chook was cooked. And now that we had remembered what she had forgotten, we could get on with forgetting it and simply serving up Wednesday lunch. Oh Lord, let the Swans please serve up Saturday supper.