CHAPTER 28
Archie only has plain navy Bonds briefs. As expected, his tent doesn’t have a shower but there is a port-a-shower nearby and Archie magnanimously lets me use his towel. When I return, he’s waiting outside for me.
There is an awkward moment when I have to clamber into his tent wearing only a towel, and then pass him the towel through the fractionally opened zipper door so that he can have a shower too.
Throughout this whole interaction I am highly aware that I am naked, and surely he’s thinking about it too because as I pass him the towel he says, ‘Go through my bag and wear anything you want.’
It feels super weird to go through Archie’s stuff, especially with permission. I’d much prefer to furtively ransack his bag.
His toiletries case is full of manly stuff.
Toothpaste, deodorant, condoms. His clothes are just like the ones I remember him wearing at uni: white, grey and navy block colours.
I have never been so grateful he’s so basic.
The process of pulling on his briefs is only made bearable because I can convince myself it’s the underwear equivalent of sharing a pair of black Havaianas.
These undies are ubiquitous enough to be devoid of personality.
If he had silky cartoon-strip boxers I may have vomited.
I select a white T-shirt, a hoodie and a pair of grey trackies, then fold everything else I’ve pulled out from his bag into neat piles. The clothes are way too big for me but covered is better than not covered. The more layers, the better.
Archie comes back from his shower and I decamp to the tent verandah while he changes, trying not to imagine how clothed or unclothed he is.
When he announces he’s done, I slowly unzip the tent and climb in.
Impressively, we’ve managed to keep it mud-free.
Or maybe I just can’t see the mud; Archie’s torch is propped in the corner, casting everything in stark shadows.
‘Better?’ I ask.
He nods. ‘Better. But no regrets.’
‘No regrets,’ I agree, remembering the satisfying thwack of the mud hitting his cheek. I will cherish that memory for the rest of my life.
‘Do you want to go back?’ he asks.
‘Nah. I can’t be bothered to deal with the mud again. I’ve texted Jessie to tell me when they’re going back to the hotel. I’ll meet them on the bus when they’re ready.’
‘Great,’ says Archie. He rolls out his giant sleeping bag and puffs up his pillow before laying down on them. ‘It’ll be nice to have some company.’
He says it without affectation but I can’t help my eye-roll. His woe-is-me, I’m-so-lonely performance is so transparent. I bet that’s what he says to all his swipe-rights. It’s a pants-removing line.
‘What are we going to do?’ I ask, scanning the roof of the tent as if a drop-down TV might reveal itself. I’d sort my emails but my battery is running low and I need to save it to text Jessie later.
‘Do you need an agenda?’ asks Archie.
‘I’d prefer one.’
‘We could talk?’
‘About what?’
‘Anything.’
My forehead wrinkles. ‘That sounds risky.’
Archie shrugs. ‘Suit yourself.’ He pulls his phone from his pocket and the coloured light bounces over his face, scattering across his jaw, shining over the tiny scar at the end of his eyebrow.
From the way he slowly drags his finger down the screen I can tell he’s reading the news instead of checking social media.
If I had more battery, I would do the same.
Sitting on the other side of the tent, I fold my legs to my chest and wrap my arms around them. My hair is still wet from the shower. ‘I’m cold,’ I announce.
Archie glances up.
‘Archibald,’ I say in my most saccharine voice. ‘Could I perchance have a bit of the sleeping bag?’
‘Why of course, Millsy,’ Archie replies in his fake-posh voice. ‘It would be my pleasure.’
He unzips his sleeping bag and lays it out flat on the floor of the tent like a rug. I perch my bum on the corner and hug my knees to my chest again. I feel only marginally warmer. Archie goes back to scrolling.
‘Do you miss your dad?’ I ask abruptly.
Archie looks over, surprised, and lowers his phone.
‘I mean, I know you were a baby when he died,’ I say in a rush, ‘but do you still miss him?’
Archie rolls onto his side to face me, propping himself up on his elbow. His eyes trace mine as if searching for subtext, but there is none. I thought of the question, therefore I asked it.
Part of me flinches internally at my lack of self-control—I’ve always wanted to ask him about his dad but I didn’t necessarily intend to ask now.
It just came out. Still, a bigger part of me—the rational part—knows that despite all his fidgeting and leg-jiggling, Archie is careful.
He notices tiny details, assesses them and evaluates them.
He fills those dark lagoon-eyes with knowledge and information before he speaks.
If Archie answers, it will be because he wants to.
‘I miss the idea of him,’ he says eventually. ‘I was so young when he was around that I can’t remember him. That bums me out.’
I rest my chin on my knees as I crouch into myself for warmth. ‘I guess you can still read about him?’
‘I don’t know if that’s a good thing.’
‘What do you mean?’ Archie’s dad was a living legend. A three-time NRL grand final winner.
‘It’s just …’ he trails off and his eyes drift upwards. ‘I don’t care about how many tackles he made or how quickly he could scull a beer in the change room. I want to know about him. What he liked and disliked, what made him smile, what made him proud.’
‘Can’t you ask your mum?’
‘She doesn’t like to talk about him, so …
I dunno. It’s easy to leap to conclusions.
’ He starts pulling at his knuckles and sighs.
‘When I was around fifteen, I started noticing all this wink-wink-nudge-nudge chat around me, about how soon I’d have a girl in every town, just like my old man.
I mean, it could all have just been gossip, but … ’
I feel a compulsion to say something like ‘I’m sure your dad was great’, but Archie’s too smart to be reassured by platitudes, and we’ve both been in the media long enough to know that where there’s smoke, there’s often fire.
My mind drifts to Chappo. Giant, lumbering Chappo who famously couldn’t keep it in his pants but still got invited to every party by virtue of being a six-foot-six guy who could run through grown men while holding a ball.
A guy whose favourite joke was the one about wedding dresses needing to match the kitchen whitegoods.
A guy who landed a plum banking job straight after graduation despite resitting almost every exam, and who still gets invited to weddings and thirtieths because he’s part of the furniture and people are so used to saying, ‘Oh, don’t mind him.
’ In Archie’s dad’s era, Chappo would have been even more popular than he is now.
‘That must be hard, not having any memories of your dad,’ I say finally.
Archie shrugs, still pulling at the knuckles he’s already cracked. ‘I’ve got Mum,’ he says. ‘Sorry,’ he adds quickly, eyes darting to mine.
I wave away his concern. This isn’t about me.
After a moment, Archie continues. ‘I spent most of my childhood wishing I could be just like my dad. That’s why I always trained so hard.
And then when I started hearing all that stuff it was so confusing.
If I wanted to live up to the memory of my dad, did I have to have a girl in every town too?
’ He releases a long, tired breath, as though the words are too heavy to get out.
‘Eventually I worked out I had to do my own thing. I stopped doing what everyone expected and started focusing on what I wanted. Though it took me a while to get to that point.’
‘What changed?’ I ask, scrunching my fingers for warmth.
There’s a pause for a few seconds as Archie stares at the roof. At long last, he says, ‘I met someone.’
His change in tone sends a warning alert through my core. He’s preparing for take-off before he lands his one-liner.
‘Who?’ I ask dryly.
‘A chick who could eat hotdogs faster than any man on earth.’
I throw a jumper at his head. ‘Shut your face, Archibald.’
Archie lobs the jumper back to me and I catch it easily.
‘I’m serious,’ he says, rolling back onto his side, his eyes earnest and dark.
‘It crystallised something I’d been thinking for a while.
It proved to me that expectations don’t matter.
Everyone thought you wouldn’t be able to win and you won anyway. It was … cool.’
I smile, warmth spreading through me as though I’ve just gulped a flagon of mulled wine. ‘Archie Cohen thought I was cool,’ I crow. ‘I might get that tattooed on my forehead.’
‘Past tense,’ says Archie. ‘Thought you were cool.’
We both chuckle, and I nuzzle deeper into Archie’s hoodie.
‘Why didn’t you speak to me until you were about to leave for France?’ I ask.
Archie shrugs as something impenetrable passes across his face. ‘I went to an all-boys school and trained four nights a week. I didn’t know how to be friends with girls. It was intimidating.’
‘Is that why you were always so quiet?’ I ask.
‘Partly,’ he says. ‘But I was also labelled as a jock pretty quickly. Everyone assumed I didn’t have much to say.’
‘Ah,’ I nod, my smile falling as the guilt lands like a spray of gravel across my chest.
Archie shifts back to face the roof of the tent and I lay down on the sleeping bag, curling up in a ball opposite him.
‘If it makes you feel better, people judge me every day,’ I say. ‘They judge my clothes, my hair, my relationship with Boss. They think I’m a trophy hire.’
Archie glances over. ‘But you run his whole office.’
‘I know, but I also wear pencil skirts. People read into that.’ I snuggle my knees closer into my chest. ‘Did you like playing rugby?’