by Tom Lee
I was glad Morgan’s dad took to the loaf of bread with such gusto, since it permitted me a similar level of indiscretion with his cheese. We sat there for the most part in silence, gorging ourselves beneath the branches of the banksia bushes. I felt an immense privilege in being able to observe these two genetically related individuals at feeding time and wished Alex, her mother and perhaps her great aunt were there to complete the picture.
Nodding towards the two children at play, Graham said to Morgan, They remind me of you and Alex. The reference to her name made me feel uncomfortable and I immediately tried to steer the conversation away with a few pieces of trivia about Bronte: that it was my favourite beach due to its catering to different kinds of swimming, and that my usual practice was to picnic on the grassy slopes on either the south or the north side. Perhaps perplexed by this sudden, animated outburst, Graham added that he used to live in Randwick for a while but tended to frequent Coogee Beach most often. I asked him about willie wagtails, a topic I knew would be a reliable conversation starter with a birder, and he confirmed they were indeed in decline. He said that it was probably due to a combination of factors. The particular kind of urban environment now pervasive in Sydney tended to favour other species, he said, particularly the more aggressive noisy miners. I still see wagtails though, in places like the wild outer regions of Centennial Park, the Randwick Environment Park and the coastline stretching from Waverley Cemetery to Bondi. The trick, he said, is to find ways to include more dense, low-level shrubbery for shelter and sources of water.
I resisted sharing any stories about the bird murders I’d committed and instead told him that I would now begin to keep an eye out too. I would be grateful, I said, if you took me out sometime on one of your monitoring expeditions in the park. It’s playing an increasingly central role in my life. He seemed pleased by the idea and Morgan and I agreed that it would be hard to improve on the combination of intense physical exercise in the park, a morning walk looking for birds and a picnic on the soft grass under the shade of a tree.
Morgan and Graham said goodbye after lunch, kindly leaving me the last of the figs and salad. I lay back on the grass and observed the enduringly satisfying phenomenon of unity and differentiation expressed in the branches of the trees. I reflected on the work done by my body that day and recalled the line from Morgan’s diary about pretending to be crucified to the lawn. I fell asleep.
When I woke any previous hints of tiredness were eradicated, and I had an immediate feeling of liveliness and lucidity that persisted throughout the day. I decided this feeling was a gift from the trees under which I had slept.
The two children and the well-groomed man were gone but another family had set up their picnic things and a small vessel containing burning kindling. I decided this was the best spot at Bronte and ought to be my default for extended periods of horizontal relaxation. I looked at the scattered placement of banksias, stretching down the back of the hill and into the darker greens of the gully. They were outliers facing the great open stretch of the ocean, forms grown to embrace the wind. I imagined how the beach would have appeared before the intensive landscaping of white settlement and thought, perhaps fancifully, that the banksias and the undulating ground were enough to give some partial indication of what it might have been like.
Morgan’s Birthday
On Morgan’s birthday we again completed twenty magical soft sands down at Bronte in the first of the day’s light. The plan for afterwards was to wander up the hill a bit to a café for breakfast where we would meet two of his friends.
The light that morning was an uncommonly glamorous gold, and the air still hot and thick despite the onset of autumn. The atmosphere was one of great excitement, something that would be difficult to impart just by tallying up the different elements of the scene.
We were joined in our repetitions by two others runners, who trudged through the sand, kicking up flecks and nodding as they ran past. The ocean was bustling and sharp blue. Morgan and I talked at first about what we planned to eat for breakfast. I said that I’d already made up my mind and planned to have the blood sausage. The first few reps were an unbelievable punishment: rarely had I felt such pronounced lethargy in my legs, no doubt due in part to my long double runs on the weekend and poor sleep. But after five minutes or so I was off, a completely new body having developed out of the previously reluctant thing I had been dragging around.
After ten reps I put some distance on Morgan and entered my own world. I could have been on a beach anywhere but for some reason the first candidate to lay claim to my anonymous reverie was the coastline of Cap Bon in Tunisia, which I’d familiarised myself with extensively on the internet after encountering the name on a distinctively branded tube of harissa paste, featuring a lighthouse perched on a blue ocean cliff, with a bright yellow background and a garland of red chillies like a beard at the bottom of the image.
On the coastline of Cap Bon I would tentatively make my way down through the rocks to the water’s edge and look out to a horizon that placed me at what I imagined to be the very edge of the world. There was no one else in sight, the only sign of human construction the dirt road I’d taken through the hills down to the water’s edge. I looked into the water at the great seething masses of seaweed, a throbbing baroque assemblage of forms shot through with occasional dusty-blue glimpses to the deeper waters below.
After twenty reps Morgan peeled off to have a quick dip before going to meet his friends up the hill at the café. When we passed each other for the last time I said I wanted to punch out a few more reps, maybe hit thirty. I’ll meet you at the café, I told him. As well as feeling full of beans, I wanted to inhabit these virtual scenes of deep replenishment for as long as possible.
As I was making my way along the mid-stretch of the beach, past the surf-lifesaving club, I noticed a figure with a broom sweeping the porch that surrounded the main building. She was conversing with the lifeguards occasionally and demonstrating a good deal of concern for her duty. The figure appeared to be Coach Fitz.
The haze of the early morning light and my imaginings may have led me astray, but with each repetition past the clubhouse I became more certain. I wondered whether she’d seen me – she must have seen me. I kept a close eye on her activities, not really sure whether I wanted her to see me or not. She finished her sweeping and went down to the beach for a swim. I kept track of our probable trajectories, hoping to anticipate a chance meeting before it took me by surprise. Our paths crossed just as she was about to take the stairs back up to the concrete esplanade. Coach, I yelled, tapping her on the shoulder as I ran past. How many are you doing? she yelled out. Thirty, I said. How many have you done? Twenty-six, I said. Come and say hi afterwards, I’ll be on the steps by the surf club.
I didn’t have much time after my run because I was already late for Morgan’s breakfast and I half wanted to sneak off up the hill, but some greater, mechanical urge pushed me to go and interrupt Coach Fitz, who was in conversation with one of the lifeguards. She broke off the conversation when she saw me and the guard hurried into the building with some flags. We talked about what we were up to and Coach said she was now working at a homeless shelter for boys, some of whom she’d regularly take to the beach for fitness sessions and swims. She said we ought to catch up and asked how things were going with my training and whether I was still living in my car. I told her of my plans to get into coaching and that I even had my first subject, who I was about to meet for breakfast up the hill. Anyway, I better go, I said, and she said, Yeah, I’ll send you a message, have you still got the same number?
I went for a quick dip and had partial success convincing myself I was in the waters off the edge of Cap Bon. Either way it was a stunning morning, and I took great pleasure briefly bending and stretching my body in the water in a manner I thought might resemble mosquito larvae. Just as I was about to exit the water I threw myself back in for another bit of floating, admiring the pink and green lichen fringes dusting the tops
of the rocks as I did.
Morgan was seated with his two friends at a table on the street outside the café. I didn’t bother to put a shirt on because I was still sweating and sat down to my seat draped in a ratty towel and board shorts. Morgan was conversing with them in a surprisingly animated fashion, deploying references to people and phenomena of which I could only make partial sense.
He introduced me as his coach to Sam and Judy, who both expressed what seemed a slightly antagonistic, hyperbolic disbelief at our activities – I can’t believe how much you run! – followed by mild admiration and plans of their own to initiate comparable lifestyle adjustments.
We ordered breakfast, everyone getting the same dish of blood sausage and scrambled eggs on toast, with small dishes of onion jam, yogurt and cucumber. They called him Browne, I noticed, Morgan’s last name.
Morgan tilted his stool and leaned appreciatively against the outer wall of the café, staring towards the street. Judy was entering something into her phone and Sam was looking back down Bronte towards the beach. I found it hard to engage with them both and began to process the strange feelings that resulted from seeing Coach Fitz down at the beach. I was unsure whether it was these feelings that provoked my desire to turn away from my younger company, or whether the younger company provoked the turn away, back to my older mentor. I found it hard to enter into exchanges with them. Though I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time, I had clearly developed great hopes my relationship with Coach Fitz and had never adequately worked through the disappointment which followed our drunken embrace in the bathroom. While the romance of my initial encounters had vanished entirely, I was resolved to maintain some kind of connection, perhaps sharing my times and progress with her online or in a diary, consulting her when exploring a peculiar landscape at pace, composing some observation about the contradictory aesthetic evinced by some building, or even inviting her on one of my training runs with Morgan.
The cooler tendrils of autumn eventually began to colonise that elongated summer and the idea of getting Morgan in peak condition for the Six Foot Track took on a new importance. I decided I would write out a training program based on extensive internet searches into running routines, my own experience and all I had learnt from Coach Fitz. The program would focus on what should be the key aim of any runner: to keep running, with the corollary that the best way to do this is to stay injury-free and to enjoy the activity. I more or less bastardised Coach’s emphasis on sands and stairs at the early stages of the program. I retained many of the same formats for my sessions, incorporated a few new locations, and placed greater emphasis on continuous interval training, which I had read about on a number of blogs I favoured.
After my chance meeting with Coach Fitz at Bronte I started planning the fantasised event in a park in which I could bring the different important people from my life together. I would source my favourite produce from around the city. We would lay out a rug under a tree and everyone would congratulate me on the quality of the bread I’d discovered, at which point I would list my preferred bakeries in order. Perhaps I’d even catch Alex while she was on a trip back from London to see her family. Her dad would be there too, maybe her mum, along with my own parents who would bring a container of mixed leaf from the garden. Morgan and Coach would chat about running and I would feel comfortable enough to sit quietly, pleased that the atmosphere of intense amicability was able to continue in my absence.
When Morgan suggested that his dad might join us on a walk around Centennial Park to share his knowledge of birds, I immediately began to imagine this as a context where I could realise a partial coming together of the inspiring forces in my life. Morgan’s proposition was intoxicating enough for me to suggest he meet the mentor who was in part responsible for the practices that informed my own approach to training. In no position to refuse, Morgan agreed that this was a decent enough idea and, once I had confirmed the time and place, I sent Coach a text.
Birdwatching with Morgan and His Dad in Centennial Park
I knew as soon as I saw Coach Fitz waiting with Morgan and Graham in her yellow legionnaire’s cap, blue shorts and cotton shearer’s singlet that today might not go as smoothly as I’d imagined. She had a set of large binoculars around her neck and when we greeted each other she pulled me into that still familiar tight embrace, which left me in a state of speechlessness for the first part of our walk.
The sense of generosity and clarity that came after our chance encounter at Bronte Beach was quickly blurred by a sickening sense of antagonism, provoked by her ridiculous outfit, her animated gawking at birds, and, most significantly, the way she seemed to make a point of regularly whispering things in Morgan’s ear. I regretted not giving Morgan the background story about my relationship with Coach. I should have made things explicit so I could be assured that we would both interpret her antics with a shared sense of knowing and sympathy.
We began our walk at the kids’ cycle track in the area of the park known as Fearnley Grounds. Graham had a large scope on a tripod which during pauses in our walk he would invite us to look through. Stop and listen, he said, what sounds do you hear? Coach had her hand cupped against her ear as though the air was a wall. We agreed that one sound was particularly prominent. Morgan’s dad said this was the noisy miner, a native honeyeater with an aggressive disposition now dominant in many Sydney regions. What are its features? he asked. Its yellow beak. Its grey feathers. Its size: small but not too small.
Coach and I both contributed. I withdrew as soon as our enthusiasms surged together. A competitive verbal stoush was on the cards unless great discipline could be exercised.
Graham shouldered the tripod and scope and we ambled up a small incline and into a more densely vegetated area I knew vaguely from my runs. We paused to look back towards the cycleway and Graham mentioned the difference between this landscape, which consisted only of mature trees and cut grass, and the diverse vegetation types of the outer wilds we were about to enter. I like to characterise the difference as between two-dimensional and three-dimensional landscapes, he said. Coach’s reticence at this point was somehow more unsettling than the contributions I had thought her likely to make. I knew these observations matched her own thoughts on landscape and habitat, and I regretted receiving Graham’s teaching as confirmations of Coach’s wisdom rather than fresh insights in their own right.
We followed a sand trail down to the edge of the pond at the southern perimeter of the park, stopping to observe a tiny striated pardalote and a New Holland honeyeater through the branches. Graham told us that the part of the trail which bordered the ponds was beginning to erode due to changes in rules and the behaviour of dog walkers. Previously it would only be walkers with one or two dogs, said Graham, but now you see people leading as many as seven. It might seem like a minor thing but all those extra feet put pressure on the structural integrity of the soil. When Graham spoke his voice quivered with a tension I speculated was the product of an ongoing internal argument about the contrasting needs of different beings, human and non-human. When I turned around to check on Morgan, I saw Coach was explaining some routine to him, gesturing with her hands as though unfolding something and making a fast, pitter-patter motion with her feet in the sand. I glared at Coach, who looked up and saw me, stopped her demonstration, and continued walking, as though she’d just been peddling illegal goods.
Graham pointed out an old acacia, fissured by small birds visible briefly on the outer branches before disappearing into the more obscure regions closer to the trunk. We passed through a cleared area where knee-high weeds and piles of woodchips gave the place the feel of a wasteland. Graham reanimated the area with impressively specific stories of now-vanished branches that for a while functioned as homes for birds. Coach had picked up a long, straight stick and trailed further behind with Morgan. She continued to talk and gesture, articulating what I imagined was a perverse ceremony involving self-punishment, enforced drinking rituals and fanciful speculations about architectural a
esthetics. I had to confront the nasty thought that my dialogues with Morgan would be forever coloured by his knowledge there was a direct association between my interests and those of Coach Fitz. I began frantically scanning through other possible topics and disciplines I could claim as peculiar to me, but didn’t get any further than bread and horseracing, neither of which seemed adequate. I even pondered appealing to shared masculine values that would exclude Coach from our conversation, but quickly realised, that even in the unlikely event that Morgan and Graham would show sympathy to such a pathetic tactic, as a woman who had no doubt been long involved in the lives of male sporting types, Coach would be well practised at disarming any attacks on this front. Perhaps I could begin a discussion about the perfect sandwich? I found the few comments Coach made on food far less convincing than her ideas about architecture and landscape. I found myself imagining opening up a restaurant that also offered personal training services. It would serve only one kind of meal, perhaps pasta, with subtle variations: with and without anchovies, fresh or tinned tomatoes, basil or parsley, an extra dollar for pine nuts, maybe a lasagne with fresh buffalo mozzarella. There would be free soda water and bread, and maybe some kind of unique, user-friendly, genuinely beneficial rewards scheme involving discounted exercise sessions or discounted meals. I’d invite Morgan, Graham, Alex and my flatmates to the opening. Not Coach.
I let these speculations carry me away from my immediate feelings of resentment. We stopped at the sheltered tables and chairs to look at some maps Graham had put together showing the distribution of small bird species in the park. My growing irritation at Coach’s faux politeness and my restaurant dreams made it hard to listen actively. I started to imagine two alternative futures, one in which I would sever ties with both Coach and Morgan immediately, another where I would explain things to him truthfully, recounting the bathroom embrace in Annandale and her battles with alcoholism.
