Jarvis 24

by David Metzenthen

  ‘Yes, I miss it. Sometimes. A lot.’ Electra looks at the street, with its bluestone roundabout and weedy, yellow flowers. ‘It’s so different here. Melbourne’s just so big and busy. In Broome it’s just the sky, the colours, the beach, the dust, and the scrub. And the running here’s different.’ She shrugs. ‘At home I kind of shared it with everyone, almost. Here I’m like in a cage. Just me, the coach, and the other runners.’

  ‘Well,’ I say, ‘you can share your running with me and Trav, my best mate.’ I give Electra a daring smile, wide and friendly. ‘Because we love girls like you. Girls that can really do something. I mean, you can rely on us all the time, any time. Although sometimes Trav’s pretty hard to get hold of because he’s got two mobiles. But not me. I’m pretty much always around.’

  And that is about the longest speech I’ve ever made, apart from Grade Three, but that was more of an apology for feeding Barry, the class tortoise – who was a tortoise and not a kid – an Art Gum rubber.

  I’m starting to get a bit of a feel for Broome now. On one side of the place, evidently, is the Indian Ocean with resorts, a cliff-top restaurant, camel rides, and a great beach. And on the other side is this really poky little town. But evidently everybody likes the poky side, too, as that’s where all the history is, like the open-air cinema, and where the pearling boats come in – although they don’t anymore because of the mangroves. And then they have these freak tides, in which case you have to look out for saltwater crocodiles and Tiger sharks. So it sounds nice.

  ‘Broome runs on Broome time.’ Electra and I are walking back through the park, in the dusk, under the trees, beside the oval. ‘It’s kind of a place that’s got a lot of patience. You are what you are. You do what you do. And if you don’t hurt anyone else, no worries. No one hurries in Broome.’

  ‘Except you,’ I say. ‘Because you’re a sprinter.’

  Electra nods slowly, her face darkening in the dark. ‘I guess I am.’

  ‘It must be great to really be able to run fast.’ I try to imagine it, taking off, accelerating, leaving everyone for dead. ‘I mean, I can run a bit. But not like you. It must be so cool. It must be like flying. But with no engine. Just deciding to go and then really going.’

  ‘It’s fantastic when it works.’ Electra stops walking. We’re close together, under trees that whisper overhead. ‘You feel like crap when it doesn’t. Just slow and heavy and useless. But when you’re fit and up, it’s good, yeah.’

  I can sense the distance Electra has come to run, and the importance of it in her life. There’s also something unknown about her because of her speed, where it might take her, and the effort she has to put into it. She’s not like anyone else I know; her life has swept her up and away, and she’s going with it – whereas for guys like me and Trav, we don’t have any direction at all. Or none that I’m aware of.

  ‘You’ve never seen me run, Marc.’ Electra says this from such close range I can hear her clothes, feel her breath, smell her skin. ‘I might be as slow as an old wet week. You know, hopeless.’

  There aren’t many things I know for sure. Well, there’s basic shit like, yeah, vodka will give you a hangover, and if you wear Speedos you should be locked up. But I also know Electra can run fast. Like really fast.

  ‘Oh, you can run,’ I say. ‘I can tell by the way you jog. It’s like watching a Ferrari in a traffic jam. Everything’s there. And none of it’s fake. Although, you know, hey, you look great as well. Absolutely. I noticed that even when you were standing still at the movies.’ And that is another great speech from me in a very demanding situation.

  ‘My uncle was a great runner.’ Electra speaks quietly, her face shadowed and close. ‘When I was five I broke my foot, and he made me these special little shoes from kangaroo skin because all my other shoes hurt. He said that they’d help me go fast. And I guess they did.’ She smiles and brings a fingertip to the scar on her cheek. ‘Because once I was running, and couldn’t stop, and ran straight into a barbed-wire fence.’

  ‘Well, there are no fences here,’ I say, and then we are kissing in the dark, in the after-rain park.

  As everyone knows, there’s kissing and there’s kissing; you don’t even have to have done very much of it to figure that out. Firstly, there’s the purely scientific, basically experimental sort that you get involved with just for the experience and practice – and to perhaps test out a few things you’ve either heard of, or thought up, for the future.

  Then there’s the other type of kissing, which is part of a much bigger picture that is as worrying as it is wonderful; because you’re like a solo explorer finding the mystery trail that you’ve dreamed of finding for years, yet you also know if you take this trail, you will be a very different person at the end than you were at the start.

  So this kissing, with a beautiful girl who has come all the way across the country to run, is obviously of the second kind. And I’m happy about that.

  27

  Electra has to be at a school function by seven o’clock, so we catch the tram back to her coach’s pointy-roofed little brick house, to give her plenty of time to get ready. These public appearances are an elite freak duty; other duties include winning everything you compete in, giving the school all the credit without mentioning money, and not getting any tattoos, or becoming involved with pregnancy at any level.

  So we say goodbye at Coach Gerraghty’s pointy front gate, and I wander off into Saturday night, stopping at a street light to text Trav. In one way I need to talk about me and Electra, but I also need time to think about her alone, because something beyond your control happens when you meet that certain girl. So I keep the text to Trav short and work on calming myself down.

  Meeting a great girl can make you dangerously sunny, which might have something to do with The Science Of Human Attraction. This was a doco I watched on Fox in the hope of unlocking some powerful secrets that would work on all girls everywhere; even those who didn’t speak English, in case I decide to go to France on the school trip, where evidently our guys have quite a bad name, in both languages. Unfortunately this show didn’t deliver, because apparently part of the whole falling-in-love deal is that you are subliminally attracted to the other person’s smell.

  This I find hard to believe, because if their smell is subliminal, you wouldn’t have a clue what you were smelling anyway. Or you might end up being fooled by some awful girl’s sports bag, or some murderous chick who just happens to smell like a bag of jam doughnuts.

  The science guy also went on to say that you are attracted to people because they look like you; which has to be rubbish, because I don’t know what I look like, so how could I ever figure out that Electra looked like me? I couldn’t. So, obviously it’s all crap, except for one indisputable fact: I have met a girl that I have always wanted to meet, and she, it seems, was quite pleased to meet me.

  And that truly is a breakthrough.

  Trav is home by the time I get to his place. The Bradburys went out together and, unusually for a family dinner, it didn’t end in chaos. So they quit while they were ahead and came home early.

  ‘Check this.’ Trav kicks back on his double bed with the remote, bringing up a long line of girls in bathing suits. ‘Miss Universe. So how’d you go with what’s-her-name? You know. The freak. The Electrical superstorm.’

  ‘Yeah, good,’ I say. ‘It’s goin’ well.’ I can’t stop my eyebrows from going up. ‘Surprisingly.’ How can it be that someone else can completely change the way you feel, even when they’re not in the room? Now, I just want to be with Electra, no offence to Trav. I want to hold her hand, kiss her, feel her breath, talk to her, and find out about her. ‘She’s a great girl.’

  Trav checks me out, knowing that some guys, total tools, do flick their best mates over chicks. But I’m not, and never will be, that kind of a guy.

  ‘You still up for some painting at Mikey’s place tomorrow?’ I ask Trav to see how he’s handling things. ‘Just for an hour so so. I’m gunna take
one of the old man’s ladders and some brushes.’

  Trav studies a brunette Miss Universe girl in yellow bathers who’s wearing a tiara and carrying a jewelled stick. She looks like a scale model of the Statue of Liberty, only better.

  ‘I’d prefer to go out with Miss Trinidad and Tobago,’ he says. ‘But if we must, we must. What time?’ He rewinds to when Miss Trinidad and Tobago kisses Miss Texas and their bosoms meet. ‘Is Electra coming along?’

  ‘Nah. She’s gotta run then go to the gym.’ Evidently she does about nine or ten sessions a week, which is about seven or eight more than I do for footy.

  ‘She’s a freak, all right.’ Trav is watching Miss Trinidad and Tobago kiss Miss Finland, with the same result as when she kissed Miss Texas. ‘Soon you’ll have to line up for her autograph. Boy, it’s nice all these girls get on so well. I could watch this for hours.’

  Trav’s cool. He knows I’m not the sort of guy who’ll vanish for however long a relationship lasts. Or that I’ll suddenly be seen helping Electra’s mother carry the shopping, which would be unlikely anyway, or start sticking up for Robbie Williams. Trav knows where I stand, and where I stand is this:

  One. I love girls, which Trav also does, so there’s no problem there.

  Two. Travis is my best mate, and that’s not going to change.

  Three. I like Electra more than any other girl I’ve ever met so far.

  Four. Amelia-Anne will always be a part of me, and that’s not negotiable.

  And Five. I am that hungry, Trav either gets me food or I go home.

  ‘Food, dude,’ I say. ‘I haven’t eaten for days.’

  Trav swings his feet off his bed as Miss Trinidad and Tobago, now wearing a long white dress, talks about her goal of achieving world peace; which is a good idea, although I’m not sure how she’ll go with it, as I don’t think Trinidad and Tobago even has an army.

  ‘Yes,’ Trav says. ‘I could do with something pretty solid myself. Pizzas just don’t seem to go the distance these days.’

  That’s the great thing about Trav; if you’re hungry, or in a fight, or out swimming where you shouldn’t be, so is he. And if you have a real and proper girlfriend, he’s fine about that, too. He even went with me to visit AA’s grave and bought his own flowers.

  That’s Travis.

  And you will not find another – which might be a good thing, unless you’re six goals down late in the third quarter, and you need firepower. Then you’d need two.

  And they’d get the job done.

  I feel as if I’m gliding all the way home, and run a hand through a hedge like Kelly Slater high-fiving a barrel at Pipeline, the leaves tickling, the night black and softly creeping, allowing me to feel everything I want to feel, and think everything I want to think about Electra, without anyone knowing.

  Electra is a quiet and shy girl; my theory being that quiet, shy girls have lives, which is why most of them are kind of cool, if you can ever get one to talk to you. But Electra isn’t quiet and shy because she isn’t confident, good at things, gorgeous, and mentally one hundred per cent; she’s quiet and shy because that’s just the way she is.

  Electra’s also a real girl, rare and precious, and the faster she runs, the rarer and more precious many people will think she is; but not me, so much. I think that Electra is a rare and precious Broome pearl of a girl regardless, and if she was to go slow tomorrow, I’d like her just as much as I do today. Because liking, or … take a big breath, loving someone, isn’t about how fast they can run.

  I mean, really, that’s not rocket science, is it?

  In fact, it’s not any sort of science at all.

  Which is how I like it.

  28

  Today, being Sunday, my dad has decided to go to the golf driving range, and is not available to help me and Trav take the ladder to Mikey’s. So we’re carrying it to the train. Or I am.

  ‘You look like an idiot, Jarvy.’ Trav’s hanging back so as to distance himself from the whole ridiculous scene. ‘And I feel like an idiot just because I’m with you.’

  I turn to answer, the end of the ladder banging a steel pole, sending a shockwave right through my head.

  ‘Jesus!’ I say. ‘You’re a big help, mate.’

  ‘Be careful, Marc.’ Trav nods to an old lady wearing a bright red beret who has stopped to let me pass. ‘You could hurt someone. Or damage property. What you’re doing is certainly inappropriate. Isn’t it, Madam?’ Trav puts on his serious face. ‘And if you’d like to report him to the police, Madam, his name’s Marc Jarvis, he lives at number 16 Bemboka Grove, 3120. And I can tell you that he has spent some time in various institutions and escaped from three. That’s why he’s got the ladder.’

  I ignore Trav and turn right, making it up onto the city-bound platform, where I lean the ladder against the wall. For some reason, seeing it there makes me laugh so much I can’t stop.

  ‘This isn’t funny, Marc,’ Trav says loudly, for the benefit of three girls who are also waiting for the train. ‘Your ladder could greatly inconvenience other people. Especially some of these lovely young ladies, who, I’m sure, did not expect to travel towards Flinders Street railway station, via the city loop, with an aluminium ladder. Did you, girls?’

  The girls look at us as if we are tools, and no wonder. But, because staff don’t work at stations these days, and adults never get involved with teenagers doing the wrong thing on public transport, you can do whatever you like, as long as you validate your ticket.

  ‘No one’s listening, Trav,’ I say. ‘Why don’t you just sit down and shut up?’

  ‘All right. I will.’ Trav stands up, opens the ladder, moves it, climbs it, and sits, his trucker cap just under the screen that tells us which train is going where. ‘So, Marc Jarvis,’ he announces, ‘of Number 16 Bemboka Grove, Glenferrie, 3–0-something or other, what are the names of these lesbians who we will be helping to do the painting?’

  We make it to Mikey’s place, which is a fantastic old two-storey house, white and rectangular, with a wrought-iron balcony. It has chimneys, outside stairs at the back, and sits at the end of a tiny, old, shopping centre that features nothing but a milkbar, a shop that sells magnets, and a hairdresser you’d have to be mental to even consider trying.

  Now, with twenty metres to go, Trav decides he will carry the ladder all the way to the front door. This he does, sweeping it like a scythe as he turns up the garden path, cracking me right on the point of the elbow.

  ‘Fuck, Travis!’ I say. ‘Watch that bloody thing, will ya?’

  ‘Get over it, dude.’ Trav goes up the steps, ignoring me like he ignores everyone he’s ever hurt – apart from a girl on rollerblades he flattened on his skateboard; and he couldn’t ignore her because she was knocked out in the middle of his driveway. And even then he tried to blame it on Dot, who was inside.

  ‘Jarvy,’ Trav says, head tilted, listening carefully at the massive front door that’s wide open, ‘is that lesbian music, d’you think?’

  We walk into what might’ve been the old lounge room. The floor’s covered with sheets, and a couple of windows are propped open with wooden spoons. I see Immy from the gym, wearing jeans and a black singlet, standing on a milk crate painting a wall, and another girl with a blonde crewcut painting a window frame. Mikey, holding a silver kettle, waves from a doorway, then turns down the music.

  ‘Guys! Hey!’ He comes over, grinning, reminding me of this young undercover cop who came to school to talk about drugs, but never got started as apparently the Principal had issues about carrying concealed weapons on school property. ‘I really appreciate this.’ And he puts his arms around us so quickly we don’t even have a chance to do anything politically incorrect.

  ‘I wouldn’t.’ Trav looks around at the high walls and tricky-looking window frames, his sunglasses reflecting planets of white light from two bare globes hanging from the ceiling. ‘You haven’t seen us paint.’

  It’s true that Trav and I are not good painters. Once we
had to do a gumtree for the Middle School musical, but it was banned by the school that provided the chicks for being too suggestive. Eventually, after losing the fork, one bunch of leaves, and two fat kookaburras sitting side by side, it was given the all-clear; although when it was back-lit, you could see how it was originally – but, strangely, it turned out to be one of the highlights of the evening.

  We paint like hell, and because everything we paint is white, we don’t have too many problems. Trav’s doing the ceiling, the rest of us work on the walls, window frames, and skirting boards. It’s funny; at home I hate painting, but here with everyone else, it’s quite good fun. And best of all, Mikey’s going to chuck the rollers away at the end of the day, so none of us have to clean the bloody things.

  Immy’s girlfriend, Jodie, is wearing green bib-and-brace overalls, allowing me to see a tattoo of a fat angel, armed with a bow and arrow, kicking back on a cloud. It suits her, I think, as she reminds me of an angel, with her bright blue eyes and the smooth, clear skin of a baby.

  ‘This’ll be great when it’s finished,’ she says, ‘and wall to wall with paintings. Mikey’s brilliant. It’s nice of you guys to help.’ She puts her roller down on the paint tray. ‘So how about we stop for a cup of tea? We could go outside and have a picnic.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say, and I dump my roller next to hers. ‘That’d be great.’

  So we do, trooping outside to sit on the weedy lawn and drink tea, me thinking that somehow the world seems much bigger, and a lot more interesting than it did two hours ago.

  I think about Electra as I watch people walk past who look like they might even visit an art gallery, if one was put right in front of them. Her life is full-on; she has to get through all her training and racing, then do her homework at impossible hours, and to live with your coach has to be downright weird. I freak out just thinking about me and Coach Tindale sharing our thoughts after dinner, let alone a bathroom.