Page 1 of Just Say (Hell) No
You had to understand one thing about Marko Sendoa. What you saw on the paddock wasn’t what you saw off it. He didn’t lose his temper, however it looked to the fans. During a rugby match, at home, or anywhere else.
Right. That was two things. He also didn’t stay out too late, drink too much, or party too hard. Not anymore. Twenty-year-olds could afford that. Thirty-two-year-olds, not so much. Which was why he didn’t do it.
That was three… four… five things. All of the above.
So why, instead of lying up with a few Panadol and a cold pack, nursing his aching ribs after a brutal loss to the Highlanders, was he bashing Tom Koru-Mansworth with a knitting bag in a Dunedin bar at two o’clock in the morning? Not to mention seeing the flashes of a dozen camera phones exploding like starbursts around him?
Some match days were brilliant. Other days, you couldn’t catch a win with both hands and all your teeth. And this day? This day was going to end up in a class all by itself.
Morning came too early. A bare couple hours of sleep later, and he was following the dark-blue tracksuit in front of him onto the plane and stowing his backpack in the overhead bin of the commuter jet for the two-hour journey to Auckland, his new team’s home base. He ducked into the seat, ignoring the protest from his ribs, slewed his legs around to create some semblance of “fitting,” pulled out his phone, and considered whether he actually wanted to look at it.
Did Tom, saved from a public relations nightmare, sit down beside him to say, “Thanks for your help, mate?” He did not. He was sprawled across two front seats with a cold pack on his head and didn’t look like he’d be getting up anytime soon.
How about a “well done” from Hugh Latimer, Marko’s new skipper and third-row scrum partner? That wasn’t happening, either. Instead, Aleke Fiso, the human fireplug who was the Blues’ head coach, was easing his considerable bulk into the aisle seat next to Marko.
Brilliant. Trapped.
A hundred watts of Samoan stare. A pregnant pause. Then Fizzo’s deep baritone. “Suppose you tell me about it.”
Marko considered saying, “Tell you about what?” But judging by the phone Fizzo was holding in his oversized mitt, a phone that undoubtedly contained some choice shots of a disrupted pub interior, some rugby players in various states of unkempt abandon, and nothing like “conduct becoming a senior player,” resistance was futile.
Marko carefully didn’t sigh. Instead, he said, “It didn’t turn out exactly the way I planned. I needed to do something to get them out of there, though, and Kors wasn’t going quietly. It was a situation.”
“So you’re saying,” Fizzo said, “that it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Better than actually going in with my fists,” Marko pointed out. “Or possibly a chair, for less damage but more spectacle. It occurred to me.”
Fizzo wasn’t smiling. The last thing from it. But he’d had a bit of a reputation himself back in the day. That was how he’d earned his excitable nickname, along with the most spectacular cauliflower ear known to rugby and a nose flattened beyond recognition. A hooker wasn’t always a brawler. Just usually. He said, “Your fists would have been a very bad idea. And yet you bruised the hell out of his jaw all the same.” He held out his phone. Marko didn’t look at it. “Somebody got a good snap of him falling across a table. Maybe you should’ve used the chair. How did that happen?”
“I was going for the element of surprise with the knitting bag,” Marko said. “Humor, maybe. Shock him out of it when he was batting away knitting wool, with something pink and lacy draped over his ugly head. How was I to know she had two full-sized pairs of sewing scissors in there? The bag looked soft. It wasflowered. That was why I chose it. And what the hell was somebody’s mum doing knitting in the pub at two in the morning, anyway? When I was twenty-one and out on the razzle, I don’t remember there being any knitters in the picture. What are women coming to?”
“Careful,” Fizzo said. “My wife knits.”
“So does my mum,” Marko said. He preferred this topic to a discussion of his reckless nature. “She knits in the pub, now I think about it. But she isn’t there at two in the morning. And she isn’t armed with enormous steel scissors. I call that unfair. And yes, I apologized for borrowing the lady’s bag. Checked whether I’d broken the scissors and picked up the spilt wool. Gentlemanly, that was me. Betthatwon’t make the papers.”
“I hear that you turned up in your jandals and a possible pair of PJ trousers,” Fizzo said, changing the subject. “After a call from the pub to your hotel, maybe, as you were rooming with Kors, meant to be looking after him. Riding to the rescue, were you?”
“They knew I’d be sober. And in bed. I was glad they rang me. Still am.”
“Thought you’d get Kors out of there discreetly, I reckon,” Fizzo said. “Pity it didn’t work out that way. How bad was he?”
“Pretty bad.”
“Going after somebody’s girlfriend,” Fizzo said. “Ready to fight the boyfriend. Or so I hear. Backs, eh. Think they’re hard men.”
“If you know,” Marko said, “I’m surprised you’re asking me.” Too narky for your head coach, but it was barely seven in the morning, he’d spent half an hour last night talking to the police after somebody had got much too excited and rung them, and he’d had his photo taken too many times, for all the wrong reasons, on his former home ground. The Blues had lost the match with his family in the stands, he’d be splashed across theOtago Daily Times,if it hadn’t already happened, bashing his teammate in the face with a knitting bag, and he was tired. And most importantly, if he hadn’t done it, scissors and all—what then?
Fizzo seemed to agree, because he said, “It’s going to end up in the papers, and you’ll come off worst. All about perception, eh. The ref always goes after the second bloke in a fight, and you know it. Expect to do some rehab on your reputation.”
“Fine,” Marko said with relief. Not as bad as it could’ve been, then. “Visiting kids in hospital, maybe. I can do that.”
“We’ll see,” Fizzo said, heaving his bulk out of the seat. “Stop and see Brenda in PR after training tomorrow. She’ll think up something good. Her job, isn’t it.”
As long as he still got to play, nothing else mattered. The plane was in the air now. No WiFi to check what exactly was out there this morning, but he’d know soon enough.
Hugh Latimer came forward and took the seat Fizzo had vacated. “Mate,” the skipper said on a sigh.
“Yeh,” Marko said. “Tell them to ring you next time.” He held out his phone for Hugh to see. “Text from my mum.”
