father’s pugnacious critique of the game punctuated by the occasional ‘Yes!’ and the more frequent disbelieving demand, ‘Did you see that? I mean, come on!’ To which his mother would reply irritably, ‘What now, Bob? Can’t you see I’m reading?’ as she flicked through the pages of Woman’s Day .
Little changed over the years, except these days her lips pursed into a disapproving prune more frequently as features on new knitting patterns gave way to chatty, sycophantic articles about the Royals, and these were in turn superseded by celebrity scandals that pierced her consciousness in high-pitched, girlish, twenty-something exclamations. HOW PRINCESS ANNE ESCAPES THE LONELY NIGHTS! WOW! AMAZING DIET—NEW SLIM FERGIE DROPS 16KG! WOW! MADONNA’S UNCENSORED KINKY SEX ROMPS WITH LOTS OF SUPERSTARS! WOW! WOW! WOW!
‘You’re an English teacher. Don’t know how you can stand to read that garbage,’ Bob Gibson would grouch predictably, but Gillian noticed that he listened attentively enough to the short snippets of gossip she read out to him.
‘It’s a bloody disgrace,’ he pronounced, and she flicked him a look of annoyance because she was reading him gossip so that they would have something to talk about, not so that he could pass judgement on her and the whole world of celebrities. Then he raised his voice and said, ‘Just as it’s a dis- grace to this household that your son coops himself up in his room with a book on the weekends. Can’t get a bloody date and no wonder. Not even interested in the footy.’
His father’s voice had a stentorian quality that sent it pulsing down the short hallway to Gibbo’s bedroom at the front of the house. He slammed the bedroom door shut and willed himself to refuse the lash of hurt and the balm of self-pity, but they came anyway.
He had been four years old when his father started chucking all kinds of balls at him: footballs, cricket balls, volleyballs, tennis balls. ‘You’re a little tiger, aren’tcha,’ Bob insisted over the next ten years. He’d nodded, swallowed phlegm and sniffed back tears as an asteroid of a football punched into his chest; as his ear was smacked by the red blur of a cricket ball; as the volleyball cracked his brand-new wristwatch and hammered the metal strap into his flesh; as his father’s tennis ball stung his nose and bounced to the far corner of a rundown asphalt court. ‘Ace. Forty–love. Game, set and match.’
By the time he was fourteen, even Bob gave way to the inevitable. ‘Bloody girl,’ he snorted as he stored the sporting equipment away in the attic with forbidding finality. How was he going to get to know his son without the aid of a ball shuttling effortlessly between them, knitting them together in blokey camaraderie? Delete the language of scores, tries, wickets, LBWs, and run-outs, omit the lengthy debates about top five batsmen and top five spin or fast bowlers of all time and how were you going to lob serious man-to-man topics into the conversation? Without sport, how did you touch on subjects like sex, drugs and career choices? How could you paddle your way around these potentially emotional boulders without the smooth-flowing current of great sporting moments? You couldn’t. You were shipwrecked conversationally and then there was a whole lot of awkwardness between you and your son. Love him as much as you did, he didn’t seem a proper man, a real Aussie.
But manumission from Australian masculinity brought many rewards for Gibbo, disinterest from Bob and freedom from Friday night football being two of the most immediate effects. No longer did he have to sit on the sagging sofa, wedged between his growling father and purse-mouthed mother, staring miserably at the ascending flight of wooden ducks on the cork-lined wall above the TV as thick-necked players dodged and wove their tribal dance on the convex screen.
The unexpected restitution of his Friday nights was a wonderful gift while he was still in
Little changed over the years, except these days her lips pursed into a disapproving prune more frequently as features on new knitting patterns gave way to chatty, sycophantic articles about the Royals, and these were in turn superseded by celebrity scandals that pierced her consciousness in high-pitched, girlish, twenty-something exclamations. HOW PRINCESS ANNE ESCAPES THE LONELY NIGHTS! WOW! AMAZING DIET—NEW SLIM FERGIE DROPS 16KG! WOW! MADONNA’S UNCENSORED KINKY SEX ROMPS WITH LOTS OF SUPERSTARS! WOW! WOW! WOW!
‘You’re an English teacher. Don’t know how you can stand to read that garbage,’ Bob Gibson would grouch predictably, but Gillian noticed that he listened attentively enough to the short snippets of gossip she read out to him.
‘It’s a bloody disgrace,’ he pronounced, and she flicked him a look of annoyance because she was reading him gossip so that they would have something to talk about, not so that he could pass judgement on her and the whole world of celebrities. Then he raised his voice and said, ‘Just as it’s a dis- grace to this household that your son coops himself up in his room with a book on the weekends. Can’t get a bloody date and no wonder. Not even interested in the footy.’
His father’s voice had a stentorian quality that sent it pulsing down the short hallway to Gibbo’s bedroom at the front of the house. He slammed the bedroom door shut and willed himself to refuse the lash of hurt and the balm of self-pity, but they came anyway.
He had been four years old when his father started chucking all kinds of balls at him: footballs, cricket balls, volleyballs, tennis balls. ‘You’re a little tiger, aren’tcha,’ Bob insisted over the next ten years. He’d nodded, swallowed phlegm and sniffed back tears as an asteroid of a football punched into his chest; as his ear was smacked by the red blur of a cricket ball; as the volleyball cracked his brand-new wristwatch and hammered the metal strap into his flesh; as his father’s tennis ball stung his nose and bounced to the far corner of a rundown asphalt court. ‘Ace. Forty–love. Game, set and match.’
By the time he was fourteen, even Bob gave way to the inevitable. ‘Bloody girl,’ he snorted as he stored the sporting equipment away in the attic with forbidding finality. How was he going to get to know his son without the aid of a ball shuttling effortlessly between them, knitting them together in blokey camaraderie? Delete the language of scores, tries, wickets, LBWs, and run-outs, omit the lengthy debates about top five batsmen and top five spin or fast bowlers of all time and how were you going to lob serious man-to-man topics into the conversation? Without sport, how did you touch on subjects like sex, drugs and career choices? How could you paddle your way around these potentially emotional boulders without the smooth-flowing current of great sporting moments? You couldn’t. You were shipwrecked conversationally and then there was a whole lot of awkwardness between you and your son. Love him as much as you did, he didn’t seem a proper man, a real Aussie.
But manumission from Australian masculinity brought many rewards for Gibbo, disinterest from Bob and freedom from Friday night football being two of the most immediate effects. No longer did he have to sit on the sagging sofa, wedged between his growling father and purse-mouthed mother, staring miserably at the ascending flight of wooden ducks on the cork-lined wall above the TV as thick-necked players dodged and wove their tribal dance on the convex screen.
The unexpected restitution of his Friday nights was a wonderful gift while he was still in
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