Body Lengths

by Leisel Jones

  Whatever it is, it feels like a different place tonight. A new pool. A cool pool. I am ready to rock.

  Mum and Nanna are front and centre as usual, enjoying the best seats in the house. Mum is used to being in the nosebleed section, but thanks to VIP Nanna and her wheelchair, she’s enjoying an upgrade for the first time in her life.

  It’s an easy race in the end. I am smooth and relaxed. It is meant to be. Even so, I am surprised when I take it out in a time of 1:05.09. That’s a PB. A world record! It’s 0.62 seconds faster than the world record I set at trials last month and is ridiculously close to a 1.04, which has never been done in the history of the sport.

  When I see the scoreboard, I pump my fist in pure ecstasy.

  It’s not usually my style to celebrate this way. I’m not that person, not so confident. I’m always excited – don’t get me wrong – but I’m also usually shocked, unsure and busy squinting at the scoreboard to try to work out what the hell just happened. Where’s my name? Where’s my name? It’s confusing and frenzied after a race, and it always feels like it takes forever to find my name and position. Then, once I’ve figured out what’s going on, I’m often at a loss as to what to do next. Do I shake my competitor’s hand? Can I congratulate you, over there in the next lane? I am awkward, hesitant and terribly uncool.

  But not tonight. Tonight I’m fist-pumping like the best of them. I am totally in the moment, lapping it up. I have beaten Brooke Hanson and Tarnee White, the girls I have been pegged against for so long. Tonight, in a fraction over one minute and five seconds, I have silenced them for good. They simply aren’t in my league. They are not in the finishing frame. 1:05.09. Almost a 1:04 … I am body lengths ahead. This race has separated me from the other girls once and for all. I am the fastest in the world.

  Years later, I will find a newspaper clipping of that instant, that exact moment when I threw my fist in the air. The photo is also tucked away carefully in Nanna’s precious scrapbook, and it becomes one of my all-time favourite photos.

  Melbourne may not have started out as a great meet, but it sure ended up that way. I walk away from the Games with three individual gold, the 100-metre world record, and also a gold and a second world record for the medley relay. My Nanna had a ball. Mum is chuffed to bits. I even had a great time with my roommate, Brooke Hanson.

  In fact, Melbourne capped off a pretty awesome year for me. Aside from the Commonwealth Games, I set world records in the 100-metre and 200-metre events at trials in March. I broke the 100-metre short course world record at Nationals twice. I gained my seventh straight 200-metre title, seventh overall 100-metre crown and my maiden 50-metre win at the national swimming titles in Brisbane. I also won the Swimmer of the Year award in Brisbane.

  But the thing that means the most to me? That’s easy. On 10 December 2006, I win swimming’s People’s Choice Award, as voted by the Australian public.

  I didn’t realise it at the time, but my on-deck interview with Nicole Livingstone at the Commonwealth Games, just moments after I won the 200-metre event, was something of a career turning-point for me. It couldn’t have been less calculated or less scripted if I’d tried. I never intended to open up like that. And maybe that was the key. Maybe people could see I was being completely honest. Until then, I had always been very strategic and structured about what I said publicly. I had been closed.

  But in that short interview, I opened up; I just talked. I was brutally honest and I spoke from the heart. Athens in 2004 was such a bitterly hard time for me. It knocked me, just as many things in my life up until this point had knocked me. My dad leaving, our bankruptcy … these things had affected me much more than I realised.

  I was learning I was not as mentally tough as I’d thought I was.

  But to come out and say these things to the Australian people? I’d never meant to do that. These were off-the-cuff comments. There was no agenda. I’d been honest in the past, but the wrong sort of honest – the sort that shows disappointment at the end of a race and gets you in hot water.

  Now, though, I had a different message: it’s okay to not be okay. And the Australian people responded to that.

  I am touched, honoured and really surprised to become the first female swimmer to win the Telstra People’s Choice Award. I might be walking away from 2006 with a ton of gold, but the support of my country? That’s priceless.

  15

  Blast from the Past

  In the kitchen, I lean on the open fridge door, deliberating over what to put on my sandwich. Cheese, ham, tomato and lettuce. Avocado, that’s a given. But salami too? Can you have ham and salami? I have been training since 5 a.m. and, although the clock doesn’t quite say eleven, my stomach says lunchtime. My stomach says ham and salami is fine.

  There’s a knock at the door.

  Weird, I think. Maybe it’s a delivery? But I don’t remember ordering anything. I pad down the hallway, barefoot and still in the daggy t-shirt and shorts I threw on at the pool. I answer the door to a blonde woman I don’t recognise. She is shorter than me, even in spiky black heels, and she’s heavily made up, with red lips and kohl-rimmed eyes. She is holding a sheet of blank paper in one hand and something small and silver in the other. A phone? An iPod? I can’t quite make it out. I squint into the sunshine.

  ‘Hello?’ I say tentatively.

  ‘Leisel Jones,’ she says, as if it’s her name not mine. She is confident and loud, and something makes me wish I were back in the kitchen with my sandwich.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m from the Mail.’ She pauses for a moment to let this sink in. The Mail? Does she mean the Courier-Mail? I wonder what business a reporter has with me.

  ‘Your dad has approached us about doing a story. He wants you to get back in touch with him. The story will be front-page this Sunday, so I’m here to see if you would like to comment.’

  I’m floored.

  ‘Would you like to comment?’ she asks.

  I collapse against the doorframe and stare at this woman. A reporter. At my house. The front page.

  I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out.

  ‘Leisel, would you like to comment?’ she asks again, and this time she thrusts the silver thing – a dictaphone – in front of my face.

  I just stare. Even if I wanted to, the words won’t come out. I don’t even know where to begin. My dad wants to get in touch. So he’s contacted the paper?

  ‘Uh, no. No, I’m not commenting,’ I say, finally. And I step back and start to close the front door.

  But this woman won’t let me be. ‘Really?’ she says to me. ‘And how do you think that will look? Your father is reaching out to you and all you say is “No comment”? Because the paper will run that as your response, you know.’

  ‘Excuse me? Who do you think you are?’ I say. I am mad now. Mad at her, at my dad, and at the position I am in. ‘No, I’m not commenting! No, it’s not any of your business. And if my father has anything to say to me, he can come to me directly and not go through a newspaper.’

  I try to close the door again, but before I can, she flips out a sheet of paper.

  ‘Look at him, Leisel.’ She holds up a photo of my dad, like that will tug at my heartstrings. Listen, lady, I want to say. See that photo? That’s the closest I’ve been to my dad in years! That photo’s paid me more visits than my dad ever has! I haven’t spoken to my dad in years, and that’s not because he’s forgotten my number.

  Instead, I say, ‘This is an intrusion of my privacy. How did you get this address?’

  Then it dawns on me. ‘Did you follow me home from training? You did! You followed me home!’

  For a moment, the reporter has the decency to look almost sheepish. Then she’s asking again for me to make a comment.

  ‘No!’ I say, my voice rising in distress. ‘No. This is none of your business and I won’t make a comment. If my dad has anything to say then he can try talking to me! Like a normal person would!’

  I slam the door and stand i
nside shaking. I have never felt so invaded in my life. She is still outside and is not going anywhere, so I run down the hallway and phone my manager, Dave Flaskas.

  ‘She’s already got the story ready to go,’ I tell him. ‘Dad’s given her quotes and photos and everything.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. You leave it with me,’ Dave assures me. ‘Just lock the door and get yourself feeling safe and leave it up to me to sort out.’

  This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened. When I qualified for my first Olympic Games in Sydney back in 2000, my dad started phoning up local radio stations and doing interviews about me and my swimming career. He was out there seeking credit in the media for his supposed part in it. But not once had he ever driven me to training. Not once did he come and watch me compete. Hell, I didn’t even know he’d noticed I could swim. I’d always felt like my dad had never showed any interest in me, never cared about me, never provided a thing. Even when he lived with us, I felt like I barely saw him, and then he walked out and left me and Mum stony broke.

  In 2008, I learn that my father is sick. Very sick. In fact, he’s dying of cancer. Again, I learn this through the media. An article comes out saying that my dad has been diagnosed with cancer – lymphoma – and I guess it must be true. To be honest, I find it hard to care. He discarded our relationship many years ago and this public performance is no way to try to reach out.

  It embarrasses and distresses me and – as previously – I decline to comment publicly.

  There is Dad on the front page of the paper. ‘Talk to me,’ he pleads, and I have to assume he’s talking to me, although his message goes out to 700,000-odd readers across Queensland, so who can be sure?

  I know plenty of people have issues with their fathers. I understand that. But not many of them have their relationship smeared across the front page like this. It’s humiliating. It’s disgusting. The way he’s acting is shameful.

  ‘I would love to give her away when she gets married,’ he tells the paper. And I roll my eyes and think: You gave me away years ago, Dad. I’m not gullible enough to believe that he suddenly cares. I know he’s only reappearing because I’ve done something with my life. Why else would he go about it this way? He didn’t love me when he walked out, and he doesn’t love me now. My dad didn’t want to know me when I was twelve, when I was just an ordinary kid.

  But that’s not the thing that gets to me the most. You want to know what does? The thing that makes hot tears burn in my eyes at 3 a.m. in the morning? It’s that after all these years, my dad is still hurting my mum. It’s not just me he left high and dry when he walked out all those years ago. He deserted Mum too, and now he’s hurting her all over again by embarrassing her in such a public way.

  Mum is fiercely private. Obsessively so. She never gives interviews; she won’t pose for photos. She is shy and reserved and doesn’t like being seen. It’s almost funny the way my parents are so different. Their attitudes to the media – much like their approaches to parenting – couldn’t be more opposite. And now Dad is roping her into a public spat, and I will not forgive him for being so cruel.

  The article says that Dad wants to talk. Maybe so. But I am not ready to listen.

  16

  Matters of the Heart

  It is the lead-up to the World Aquatic Championships in Melbourne in 2007, part of my long-standing redemption campaign after Athens. And of course I go and do the worst thing a self-respecting athlete could do ahead of a World Championships: I fall in love.

  It begins with a phone call from my friend Louise Tomlinson. Louise is my training partner with Stephan, and we have been friends for a very long time. At the time, I don’t see what’s coming my way . How could I? Because it’s Louise who’s head-over-heels in crush.

  Louise: So, LJ, I have the hots for this guy called Marty.

  Me: Marty. Cute. Talk me through it.

  Louise: So he’s twenty-one.

  Me: Tick.

  Louise: And he’s tall, dark and handsome.

  Me: Tick, tick, tick.

  Louise: And he plays AFL for the Brisbane Lions …

  Me: Whoa, stop! Back up the truck. He plays AFL? Bah-bow! Red light! Do not get involved.

  Louise: No, this guy is different—

  Me: No, no he’s not. He’s an AFL player. Read my lips: stay away from AFL players. From footy players, full stop. They are bad news.

  Louise: But I didn’t even know he was an AFL player when I met him! I met him at work and he’s such a nice guy …

  Me: Again, no, he’s not. He’s not a nice guy, Louie. He’s an AFL player. Trust me, you need to stay away.

  Advice administered, I think nothing more of it until about a month later, when Louise mentions Marty again. She’s been giving it some thought.

  ‘Good,’ I say. ‘So you’ve decided he’s not right for you?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ she admits. ‘I’ve decided he’s right for you.’

  For me? Huh? But I thought Louise liked him? Why would she try and fob him off to me? Was it my low opinion of footy players, my derision before I’d even met the guy, that gave me away? Is that why she thought we might hit it off?

  Louise laughs. She isn’t trying to fob him off to anyone, she assures me. It’s just that she’s gotten to know him a little better and she can’t help thinking that he and I might be really good together.

  Coming from anyone else, I might be sceptical, but not from Louise. She is the sort of person who would pass on a guy she really fancied if she thought her friend might be happier with him. That’s the sort of person she is: mates before dates and all that.

  But still, it’s not that simple.

  ‘Rightio.’ I say. ‘So you want me to go out with this guy, even though a) you like him, and b) I already have a boyfriend.’

  Oh yeah, that’s the other thing: I already have a boyfriend.

  Mitch Spencer and I have been going out – on and off – for two years now, although at times it feels much more off than on. Mitch and I met at a post-match function for the Brisbane Broncos, where his dad was the team trainer, but things have been rocky between us for a while. Real rocky, in fact. And lately he’s taken to emotional blackmail, saying things like: ‘I’ll tell everyone it was your fault if we ever break up’ and ‘If you break up with me, I’ll put a framed photo of you on the road and run over it with my car.’ Nice. Real nice. Someone needs to tell Mitch that if he wants to keep a girl, this is not the way to go about it.

  So while Mitch and I are doing the break-up dance, Louise suggests that she and I have a girls’ night out. ‘Have a few laughs, have a few drinks,’ she says. ‘Oh, and Marty will be there too.’

  I find this strange. And not just because it was meant to be a girls’ night out. No, it’s odd because I know Louise really likes Marty and yet she’s still trying to set us up.

  ‘Just meet him,’ she assures me. ‘It’ll be fun.’

  In the end, I relent and the three of us go for drinks at the Bavarian Bier Café, and what I discover is: Louise is right. Marty and I hit it off from the start.

  Marty is such a nice guy. He’s warm and friendly, charming and sweet. He’s just about the funniest person I’ve ever met. Plus, he’s Maltese, so he’s as tall, dark and handsome as Louise described. Marty and I have a ball that night – so much so that a few weeks later we arrange to see each other again.

  This time we meet at Friday’s, a nightclub in the heart of Bris Vegas.

  ‘I must really like you,’ I say to Marty. ‘And not just because I’ve come here.’ I gesture towards the dingy décor. ‘But because this is way past my bedtime!’

  It’s Saturday night and I don’t have training in the morning. But even so, I am always so exhausted after my week of training that I am in bed by 10 p.m., even on the weekend. But now it is fast approaching midnight, and Marty and I are still on the dance floor.

  ‘Should I be worried? Will you turn into a pumpkin?’ Marty jokes.

  ‘Are
you saying you don’t like my fake tan?’ I joke back.

  We dance for ages, until well past twelve o’clock. And over the noise of the music, I don’t hear my mobile when Mitch rings thirteen, fourteen, fifteen times. Even if I had, I wouldn’t have answered it. Tonight I am happy and having fun. I stay out late, and kiss Marty goodnight. I am done with Mitch and feeling miserable all the time.

  He and I will have to break up …

  The next morning, I am sitting on the couch with Mitch, reading the Sunday papers, when I turn the page to find myself staring at a double-page spread of—

  Marty!

  He’s being interviewed about his latest try, or score, or whatever it is they do in AFL. (I don’t know! I’m from Queensland, where real men play Rugby League and AFL is for Victorians.) There’s Marty, splashed across the sports pages and looking even more amazing and ripped than when I left him last night. I blush and turn the page so fast it almost rips in two.

  What a bitch I am! I think. Here I am, snuggled up on the couch with my boyfriend, eating eggs and toast and reading about the guy I have a crush on. This is so out of character for me. I feel dreadful. Two-timing – even thinking about two-timing – is not something I’ve ever done before.

  But I can’t help it. I can’t think straight. I’m so wrapped up in Marty.

  To put us all out of this misery, I break up with Mitch.

  And I move seamlessly into a relationship with Marty straightaway. At my twenty-first birthday in August, I had Mitch on my arm, but by the time New Year’s Eve rolls around I’m watching the fireworks with Marty. It’s fast and strange, and it’s not how I would have scripted it. Yet I couldn’t be happier. Marty and I have so much fun, and soon we find we are deeply in love. Embarrassing-nicknames-in-public in love. (For the record, I am ‘Bubba’.) We have a great time.

  We are always together: inseparable from the start. This is not easy given that we both live at home with our mums, but somehow we find a way to make it work. At my place, Mum lives quite independently. She has the upstairs bedroom, I have the down. But at Marty’s, things are a little more cosy. Marty is a typical Maltese boy and he’s very close to his mum. They live together in a teeny-tiny apartment, in adjoining bedrooms with paper-thin walls, and I blush when I think about what she must hear. Neither of our living situations is ideal. We can never seem to find as much privacy as we’d like. But we’re having too much fun to mind too much. As long as we’re together, we really don’t care.