‘So, Marc –’ Hailey drags Travis by the arm, as if she has to force him every step of the way. ‘What are you going to do if Electra wins? Run a lap of honour?’
‘This other girl’s pretty good,’ I say, not sure if I’m more worried than nervous, or the other way round. ‘So, you know, who knows? I’ll just have to take it as it comes. She’s sure done the training.’
Hailey smiles. She could wear three pairs of glasses and still be nice. ‘She’ll win, Marc. You’ll bring her luck.’
‘I dunno about that.’ Trav hands out the free tickets his dad got from work. ‘But she’ll blitz the bitches. No contest.’
If only I could be so sure.
We sit in the grandstand, our seats close to the track. From here I will not miss one metre of Electra’s race. I can see the starting line over the other side of stadium, and the finish line’s only thirty metres away from where we are. I try and relax, checking out the inner area of the track that’s filled with people doing all sorts of athletic things under bright silver-purple lights. It looks like a kids’ all-night playground complete with mats, flying javelins, shotputs, and busy-looking officials with stopwatches and clipboards.
‘Which event’s Electra racing this other chick in?’ Trav puts his feet up on the seat in front. ‘Was it the one hundred or two hundred?’
‘The two hundred,’ I tell Trav. ‘That’s the one they’ve both set themselves for. So the story goes. But she’s also running the hundred. Although that’ll only be local runners, not these interstaters.’
Trav nods, crosses his arms, and relaxes. ‘Well, then. That’s not for twenty minutes. So why don’t you or Hailey go down and get us some chips?’
This is not a bad idea. Hot chips are good for a nervous stomach.
‘I will,’ I say. ‘But first I want to see if I can spot her. There’s like a million people out there.’
Slowly I scan the track and throwing field, my heart skipping a beat when I see Electra stretching in a warm-up area near the entrance where we came in. And as she does slow body rotations, hands up like a martial artist, wearing an old white tracksuit and new, bright blue-and-yellow spikes, only one word comes into my head.
Weapon.
‘There she is.’ I point. ‘Warming up.’
We watch her stretching, hair hanging, making tiny adjustments here and there as if she is fine-tuning every fibre in her search for speed. She’s trance-like, flowing from one movement to another, more liquid than human.
‘Marc,’ Hailey says, turning to me. ‘She is so lovely. And so goddamn athletic.’
All I can do is nod.
Electra wins the hundred metres, but as I know most of the other runners were not in full training, I don’t get too excited. It’s this Meagan Addison we’re on the look-out for. She’s competed internationally, holds Australian junior records, and last competed in Germany, so the program says.
‘Meagan!’ A big blonde lady in front of us yells. She waves, wearing a black and silver watch as big as a TV. ‘Meagan!’
I see a girl with short dark hair in a red tracksuit jogging, if you could call it jogging. She seems to bounce higher with each step, like a gazelle, her hands moving like machetes, she looks straight ahead. Meagan’s not about to wave to anyone.
‘She didn’t see me,’ the blonde woman says to another large blonde woman, settling back down like a hot air balloon landing. ‘She’s in the zone. She’s locked in. She didn’t say a word on the plane. All she did was read Harry Potter.’
Meagan is not as tall as Electra, but she’s more powerfully built, with the taut-bodied look of someone who is inhumanly fit. Now she’s walking in circles, slapping her hands together, talking to herself, and not saying very nice things by the look of it. I tap Hailey on the shoulder.
‘There’s the other one.’ I say this as quietly as I can, so as not to attract the attention of the ladies in front. ‘You know. From up there.’ I point to where I think Queensland is then draw a banana in midair. ‘North.’
‘Oh, the ho from Brisbane,’ Trav says loudly. ‘Oh yeah, I see her.’ Trav checks her out. ‘She looks a bit blokey to me. What’s the drug-testing like up there?’
‘She’s got big thighs,’ Hailey adds. ‘She could run through a brick wall.’
The bigger of the blonde ladies turns around. She wears make-up like war paint.
‘Meagan will win this race by the length of the straight,’ she says. ‘She’s one of the best under-age sprinters in the world.’
I get the sinking feeling that this lady is Meagan’s mother, or some close relative, or violent neighbour. She has the same kind of intensity as Meagan, matched with a power-lifter attitude, and enough rings for three knuckledusters.
‘You could be right,’ says Trav diplomatically, and the lady turns away. ‘Then again, Electra will probably smash her.’
While Trav’s been making friends with Meagan’s crew, the runners for the two hundred have been called to the marshalling area behind the starting line. I watch Electra slowly jogging over before she throws in a few quick, high steps, hands flashing, a sense of power around her like lightning. I can imagine her eyes, blue, black, and fiery.
‘One minute to take-off,’ Trav says. ‘Boy, I am looking forward to this.’
Electra seems calm. She drifts coolly amongst the other girls who look ultra-fit and fast, like a herd of racehorses, all gorgeous in their own way, which has me thinking that maybe I should’ve tried harder and stayed longer at Little Athletics.
‘She’s got nicer legs than you, Jarv,’ Trav says. ‘Man, she’s speed. She’s ultra. Want a chip?’
I take one, hoping the salt might soak up some of the Coke I’ve been drinking, and calm me down a bit.
‘She looks fantastic.’ Hailey lets out a sigh, as if she can see, like me, that Electra is from somewhere not yet available on Google Earth. ‘Yep, boy, if I had legs like that I’d wear shorts three hundred and sixty-six days of the year.’
That figure doesn’t sound right, but now that the runners have been called to their blocks, moving through that steely light, I let it go.
‘Take your marks.’ The starter’s voice is blunt and bossy.
The girls kneel, flexing and stretching, fitting spikes into blocks, ponytails swinging, jewellery glinting, a line of super girls who I haven’t even once – well, maybe once, twice at the most – thought of as sex objects, as this is not a moment for that, and in a way they seem too athletic, although I’m sure they’re not. Or not all of them.
‘Get set.’
The girls rise in a line, eight runners poised like statues on a cliff.
Buh-ang!
And away they go in a flurry of colours and limbs that in less than ten metres sorts itself into a fast-moving order, a line of sprinters sprinting towards a bend that is shaped like a banked, white-striped highway. Already Electra and Meagan have formed the point of a flying arrow, the two of them striding with such faultlessly synchronised speed it’s like watching jets formation flying.
‘Close.’ Hailey holds tightly onto Trav’s arm. ‘Just about even.’
‘Not now,’ says Trav, and in that single second, Electra has moved ahead, not in a blur but in a crystal-clear application of acceleration as the runners fly into the bend. ‘She’s lifted. Man, check her out.’
Electra has lifted, or time has slowed, and she’s run straight through it. And never have I seen her, in real life or dreams, run as smoothly; her head is as still as if she was watching the sun rise, yet her hands reach up higher and faster, and her sky-blue spikes reach out further than surely can be humanly possible.
‘Go, Meagan!’ the women in front of us yell, swiping at the air. ‘Go! Go! Go!’
And Meagan is going, like an express train accelerating, fighting back, finding speed, coming at Electra, drawing even, the two of them racing shoulder to shoulder through the bend – and it’s clear that Meagan has the momentum, yet I know that I have never seen Electra’s fighting
spirit let loose; that this is what she protects more fiercely than anything else, and so I’m prepared for anything.
‘Run, Electra!’ Hailey smacks a fist into a hand. ‘Run!’
Electra kicks again, blasting out of the bend, never faltering, her front foot no sooner landing than it is gone, whipped away, and she is into her next stride, metres of ground disappearing as if removed from the face of the earth.
‘Go, Electra!’ Hailey shouts. ‘You go, go, go girl!’
I can’t shout, I can’t talk; all I can do is watch Electra running, like a blade cutting loose anything that might slow her down, or hold her back, now running into empty space, the distance between her and Meagan widening.
‘Man,’ says Trav, nodding with the satisfaction he reserves for things that meet his impossibly high expectations. ‘She’s freakin’ flying.’
With forty metres left to run Electra is a metre in front of Meagan, her face so closed she no longer looks like the girl I know but an ultimate expression of the distant, racing Electra, who sees herself only in terms of speed and movement.
‘Go, Meagan, go!’ the ladies yell. ‘Go!’
But the race is over, the field spread out like a fast-finishing posse that knows now it will never catch whoever it was chasing, Electra drawing away, crossing the line five metres clear, running on, hands flying wide as she slows down, spikes digging in as she eventually comes back to earth, to run, to jog, to slow jog, to walk, hands on hips, staring up into the lights as if she’s not ready to re-enter the normal world.
‘My God, Marc.’ Hailey’s hands are pressed so tightly together they’ve gone white. ‘That girl can run.’
Later, an hour after Electra’s warmed down, and Coach Tom Geraghty’s finished his post-race lecture, and Gary Bianco has congratulated her, Electra’s ready to come home with us. Walking out of Olympic Park, I feel like we’ve kidnapped the star of a film. To have her with us seems wrong. She should be going home by limo. She should be somewhere else being famous. She should be on the news. She should be surrounded by cameras. But she’s not.
She’s walking with us into the dead light of Richmond railway station, all of us a little shy, not knowing quite what to say or do. I keep looking at her, when she’s not looking at me, expecting her to disappear.
‘Kiss her, Marc,’ Hailey suggests, when we are sitting on our silver homeward-bound train. ‘And then you can tell us if she truly is real.’
I kiss Electra on the cheek, in the plainest of light in the emptiest of carriages, discovering that she is real, and smells like a salty, soapy rose.
‘Congratulations,’ I say, again, not sure if this is the Electra I know, or the racing Electra. She still seems a little spaced-out, but her eyes are cool and mild, and underlined with bruised circles. ‘You were fantastic.’
She smiles quickly, arms folded, her reflection by her side in the window like a shadowy, mysterious twin.
‘Thanks. It kind of all came together.’ She untucks her hands and puts her feet up on the seat opposite. Everything about her seems specialised and valuable. ‘I went out hard.’ She looks out past her reflection where black buildings have their backs turned to the train. ‘I really tried. I ache all over.’ She looks at us. ‘Thanks for coming.’
Words fade and we sit in silence, tired by her efforts, aware of her future and past, all of us knowing that no matter what she says, she’s different from us. But when we get off the train, and are walking through the gloomy-doomy subway, I sense a change in her, as if she’s coming nearer to me, to earth, a descending star. She grabs my arm, moving in close.
‘So when can I come back to your house with you?’ she asks. ‘You know. Properly.’
I don’t quite know what she means by this, even if it sounds like a simple-enough question, but to be on the safe side, I give what I think is a simple-enough answer.
‘Any time you like,’ I say. ‘Whenever.’
And she says, as we walk out of the station, ‘Whenever it’s empty. Apart from us.’
Or that’s what I think she said, as a black Subaru WRX goes screaming past, changing gear. And when I ask her to say what she said again, she won’t. But she does smile, as if it’s up to me to finish putting the pieces together.
‘You figure it out.’
God! I hate it when people do that.
So I say, ‘I have.’ Although I haven’t. ‘For sure.’
Electra gives my ribs a tweak. ‘Nothing’s ever for sure, Marc. That’s what Coach Tom Geraghty says.’
This is when I strike gold. This is when I see such an obvious winner not even I can miss; I am like Roger Federer versing Marc Jarvis, the result obvious.
‘Then Coach Tom Geraghty is wrong, because I’m sure you’re the most fantastic girl I’ve ever met.’
Boy, sometimes I do feel I’m making progress, I really do.
We spend a bit of time at Trav’s place with the idea that Electra and I will catch the last tram home, but at eleven-thirty, Trav’s mum says that she will drive us.
‘Come on.’ She rattles car keys. ‘It’s too late for the tram. I can’t have either of you kidnapped. The car’s in the drive. Let’s go.’
Strangely enough, I don’t mind this arrangement, as Trav’s mum is not my mum, and somehow she understands as much, if not more, about me than I do myself; perhaps it’s because she deals with twenty kids twenty times as wild as I am on a daily basis at the re-hab centre. And so Electra and I go home in the back seat of a blue BMW, Coach Tom Geraghty’s pointy little house appearing out of the night like something out of a real estate magazine fairytale.
‘Out you get, Marc.’ Trav’s mum looks back at us. ‘And escort this lovely girl to her front door. And remember, Electra, you’re welcome in our house any time.’ Mrs Bradbury taps Electra on the hand. ‘I mean that. With or without Marc, whatever, whenever. Day or night. I know you’re over here away from your family.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ Electra says, about to leave, saggy sports bag on her lap. ‘Thank you. That’s very nice.’ She gets out of the car and the two of us walk up the curved path.
‘You were sensational,’ I whisper on the doorstep, caught in the arc of twenty sensor lights, hoping no listening devices have been added. ‘Absolutely and utterly.’
‘I don’t know.’ Electra pushes hair away from her face. ‘Except that I’m so exhausted I can hardly think. I ache all over. I just have to have a shower and go to bed.’
I nod, feeling that we’ve arrived at some point that is the end of the beginning, as Mikey or Travis said, or perhaps the start of something else. It certainly isn’t the beginning or middle, I know that. Electra looks at me.
‘I’ll see you soon.’ She puts her hands on my hands. ‘I just have to sleep now.’
I can see that she’s given everything she has, and to recover she needs peace and quiet, and a closed door. It’s not rocket science. Well, I suppose in some ways it is.
‘Yeah. You went out there. No wonder you’re tired.’
She smiles. She can hardly hold her bag. ‘That’s what it takes, I guess. It goes with the territory.’
It does.
42
Next Saturday’s match is at home against a team, the only team, that Trav and I hate. These guys constantly talk themselves up; they talk themselves up when they turn up, they talk themselves up as they warm-up, and then they talk themselves up so much during the game it drives me mental.
And if they win, they don’t ever shut up. And if they lose they whine endlessly about that as well. But perhaps worst of all, they wear their school shit all weekend so that people will know which wanker school they go to, which is just too mindless to even think about.
Consequently, the first thing Trav does at the centre bounce is run straight through their idiot captain, who was so busy yapping he didn’t have his mouthguard in, and is now off to visit the dentist. Plus we get the free kick, which is the greatest umpiring decision I’ve seen in my life. Then I bump a guy late a
nd so hard he can’t get up, which I do feel a bit guilty about, as he actually seemed a reasonable guy when we shook hands at the start. Nevertheless, my friend, as Ms Inglis says, bad freakin’ luck.
Trav and I run our guts out, we hit the packs as hard as we can, and we talk our guys up even more than the other wankers are talking theirs up, so that by quarter time our team is like some feral dog pack that Coach Tindale seems to have some trouble recognising, let alone controlling.
‘Jesus, boys.’ He calls us in close so that only the keenest of parents will hear. ‘What’s got into yers? Yeah, I like the spirit. And yeah, I like the flag flying. And yeah, this other school is crap. But the downside is that you’re playing like absolute rabble. So from now on it’s the ball I want you to get. Yes, that red thing. Ask the umpire if you’re not sure. And when you do get it, kick some effing goals with it. Because that’s what this bloody game is all about.’
‘Oh,’ says Carlo, pulling up his socks, as he likes to look neat no matter what kind of shit’s going down. ‘That’s not what Travis said.’ And he laughs because Carlo doesn’t care about anything except – no, he doesn’t care. ‘But,’ he adds, ‘we’ll kick some goals. It would be better if we did.’
‘Yes, it would, Carlo. That’s what your parents pay for.’ Coach Tindale straightens up slowly. His back is full of titanium screws after his career in the army, where he did time in the brig, or so the rumour goes, which is why we like him.
So we go back out, play the ball for the second and third quarters, and get so far ahead we’ve forgotten why we were angry in the first place. Then the kid who I hammered tells me he was actually pretty pleased their captain got smashed, as that kid’s father tried to sue this kid’s father, because this kid’s older brother broke the other kid’s older brother’s nose in a fight over some postage stamps.
‘And they’ve got no private health care cover, either,’ the kid tells me. ‘Because their mother lost all their money at the casino and is on cocaine. That’s her over there.’ He points out a lady in an orange tracksuit leaning against a yellow Mercedes with a big ding in it. ‘She’s not allowed to drive, either. She lost her licence for crashing into a plant nursery. So they can all go and screw themselves, as far as I’m concerned.’
Jarvis 24 Page 17
