Goldengirl

by Peter Lovesey

  Chapter 13

  Goldengirl came off the bend well clear, beginning the final phase of her run, hair fanned on the still air, limbs moving in parallel planes. Ninety meters to the finish. The muscles contracted on her neck as she gathered herself. The change from coast to maximum effort was smooth. Sixty meters out, she was still ahead, but not secure. The figure behind was cutting her down like a falcon. At thirty meters, there was space between them. At twenty, they were locked. From somewhere, she summoned the strength to raise her knees a fraction higher, stretch her stride by the margin necessary to meet the challenge. Then meters from the line she had powered herself centimeters ahead. As they crossed, she forced her torso forward, but she had got it wrong. The black runner beside her had dipped a microsecond earlier and stolen it.

  “So where do we go from here?” Klugman demanded of Goldine’s bowed, gasping form. “Back to forty-meter dashes, or what? We spend three weeks perfecting that dip. Three weeks. And for what? The first time we try it in a routine repetition session, you blow it. Okay, so we write that off to experience and try again. And again. And again. Harry takes you on the dip every goddamn time. If you got it right once, I wouldn’t mind, but how many two hundreds is that now? Four? Five? Half of them you dip too late; the rest, it could be Groucho Marx running the last ten meters. We’ll try it one more time.”

  Harry Makepeace straightened to his six foot three and shook his head. “Not with me, you won’t. That time I bust my hump catching her. Oh boy, I really must be getting old.”

  Klugman turned his contempt on Makepeace. “You mean you can’t give fifteen meters in two hundred to a dame?”

  “Four times, yes. I can lay back and leech off her, but that one hurt. It’s the altitude, Pete. Right now I have spaghetti legs. What did she clock? Man, she was burning the last fifty.”

  Klugman glanced at the stopwatch in his hand. “Inside twenty-four again. The time’s insignificant. We’re working on technique.”

  “Five runs inside twenty-four — that’s going some,” said Makepeace. “I tell you, Pete, I’m screwed.”

  “Okay,” conceded Klugman. “You take the gun. We’ll give Brannon a workout. He’d better start level with her. I don’t see him breaking twenty-four from fifteen meters back. Have him use lane one. We’ll put her in three.”

  “Go easy on her,” said Makepeace. “It’s not easy judging it from up front. In a dip finish, the runner from behind has the edge.”

  “You’re telling me nothing,” said Klugman acidly.

  He waited till Makepeace had started across the compound to give Brannon his orders, then told Goldine, “All right, Makepeace is no pushover. He learned his finishing on the boards, sixty-meter dashes with people like Williams and Borzov. We’ll work on this some more and you’ll take him. Elmer Brannon you can take right now. Treat it as a routine two hundred. Put him out of your mind till you’re in the stretch. You can ease a little up to one-fifty meters, if you like, then turn on your burner. He’ll come at you hard. Hold him level if you can. Make the dip just where you did this time, but make it like you mean it. Give it everything. Slam your boobs against your knees. Got it?”

  Goldine stood upright, straightened her hair, looked evenly at Klugman, and gave a nod.

  “You okay?” asked Klugman.

  “Sure.”

  “Want to tell me something?”

  She hesitated, unsure of him. “I’m putting plenty into this, Pete. It’s not like it was six months back, when everything was a drag. I sometimes think you read me all wrong. I’m not a quitter. I’m going for gold, and nothing, but nothing, will stop me. I could just use a little encouragement now and then. There isn’t much joy in training with guys and getting beat each time.”

  “You like to be a winner, you mean?”

  The way her eyes shone answered that question.

  “Like in San Diego?”

  She was beginning to smile.

  “That made you feel good, huh, queening it over a bunch of no-hopers? You’d like some more? Maybe I should tell Makepeace and Brannon to ease up a little, give Goldengirl another ego trip.”

  Her smile dissolved.

  Klugman hadn’t finished. “Get this straight in your head, chick. You blew it in Diego in that hundred heat, remember? Whipped by some lousy club runner because you looked the wrong way. By rights, you should have missed the final. When you think about Diego, remember that one. In this game, you learn more from one defeat than ten straight wins — if you’ve got sense. We’re going to see you get it right in Eugene, understand? With the schedule you have, you could destroy yourself in the heats, no trouble. We have to play it cool, keep something back. That makes the last thirty meters crucial. You have to be sharp enough to read the race, inject a little speed if necessary, and dip for the line like there’s a Samurai swiping at your head. That’s what you could have learned in competition, what Makepeace picked up dashing sixties through six or seven indoor seasons. It doesn’t just happen. The doc insists we keep you under wraps. Great, but someway we have to teach you to take hold of a race. I don’t know what San Diego did for you, but it scared me out of my shoes. So we’ll try another finish, if it’s all the same to you, and keep the ego trips for sometime after Moscow.”

  Her cheeks had reddened. She faced him, studying his eyes, as if seeking some clue to the bitterness simmering there. “And if Elmer edges me this time? What will you do about that — kick my butt?”

  Quietly Klugman said, “Try me.”

  She turned and began walking to where the others were waiting. Klugman took a memo pad from his pocket, noted the time shown on his Accusplit and touched the button that returned the display to zero.

  When the gun fired, her quick reaction stole a meter from Brannon, starting behind on the stagger, but he was soon into a strong rhythm, holding her pace.

  They took the turn with five meters between them, Brannon clearly poised for the hairline finish this exercise was contrived to produce. As a sprinter, he was over the hill, but he could still get close to twenty-two seconds, fast enough to pass Goldine or any other girl. This was not a test of speed over the full distance, however. His instructions were to snatch the race by the narrowest margin, judging it on the run-in, as racing cyclists do.

  As they came off the bend, he drew closer, playing it less adventurously than the younger man had. Makepeace was a lean, resilient sprinter, capable of controlling a duel of this kind from the rear, striking in the final second. That wouldn’t work for Brannon, a one-gear man, used to holding on by sheer strength. Forty meters from the line, he drew level, his face a mask of resolution.

  Goldine held her form, resisting Brannon’s pressure, denying him any advantage in the run-in. When the moment came, and they dipped, her movement was so sharp that her hair stood momentarily on end. The judgment was exact, Brannon decisively beaten, in spite of ending face down on the track.

  Nothing was spoken between Goldine and Klugman. It had all been said on the track.

  After she had showered and changed, there was a session with Lee, listed “Assessment” on the schedule. It took place in a small room used by Lee as an office, and decorated to provide a relaxing setting for their conversations. The walls were ocher-colored, warm but unobtrusive. There was an olive-green carpet, suede-covered chairs, velvet curtains. The lighting was provided by an old-fashioned table lamp with a large red shade that gave both faces a pink glow.

  Between them Lee’s desk, the only thing on it a pack of Kleenex. Goldine was pressing one to her nose. Her eyes were moist at the lids.

  “Should I turn the heater up?” Lee inquired. “We don’t want you catching cold.” His use of English was unerring; the only indication that he was an Oriental was his inability to convey secondary meanings through stress. In an analyst, that could be an advantage.

  “I’m just fine, thanks.” She raised a smile and toyed with the ends of her hair, fine against the coarse fabric of the sweatsuit. She wore the black suit e
xclusively for late sessions. It was pure wool. Even in July there was a chill in the air before sundown.

  “You’re not disheartened by anything?” asked Lee. There was a comforting ritual between them that always prefaced the sessions. He could be as piercing in his questions as anyone, when he wanted. Never at the start.

  “Should I be?”

  He raised his shoulders a fraction. His smallest gestures were eloquent, he used them so sparingly. His unusual height had not impaired the command of the physique that dignifies the Chinese.

  “Perhaps I am,” she conceded.

  Lee waited.

  “I’m not hitting the targets set for me in training sessions. Not most times.”

  Lee asked, “And do you interpret that as a shortcoming on your part?”

  “Pete does.”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  She creased her brow slightly. “If I’m not satisfying my coach, I figure I’m failing.”

  “So you measure your progress by the degree of satisfaction your performances produce in Peter Klugman.” A flat statement. If there was irony intended, she had to extract it for herself. In all their sessions, Lee had never said a word in derogation of Klugman.

  “He is an Olympic coach,” she said in defense of her statement. “I’m bound to be influenced by his estimations of how I’m doing.”

  “Naturally,” said Lee. “He is qualified to judge.”

  “And as he sets the targets,” Goldine went on, “he must believe I’m capable of reaching them if I work at it.”

  “If that is the purpose of the targets, yes,” said Lee. “Would you feel better if you achieved them?”

  “I’d feel better if Pete treated me like I was a member of the human race. He used to, you know.”

  “I remember. You often spoke highly of him.”

  “He bought a lot of mileage with me then. He’s a fabulous coach, and he’s taught me everything I know about track, but lately he hasn’t related to me at all. One day he slaps me down, the next he just clams up, and gives me a look like I’d be better off baton-twirling.”

  Lee listened, but made no comment.

  She gave an illustration. “This afternoon, I ran six repetitions on the two-hundred strip. The idea was to go through my regular routine and sharpen up on finishing as well. We’ve put in a lot of work on my finish since San Diego. He had Harry Makepeace chase me and try beating me on the dip. He did — five times in a row.”

  “And the sixth?”

  “He switched to Elmer Brannon. If Elmer nipped me, I’d give up. He’s an old man.”

  Lee let that pass.

  “Yesterday I was on hundreds,” Goldine continued. “Eight altogether. The first six were around eleven-three, the others one tenth slower. That’s slow running, Sammy, but I was bucking a headwind all the way. The other direction I could have made inside eleven each time. Pete knew it. We both knew it. Sometimes I run the other direction, but he wasn’t having that. After four eleven-threes, the look on his face was unbelievable. I suggested we reverse for the other runs on account of the wind. You know what he said? Maybe I should ask the consortium to provide me with an astrodome, where the temperature is constant and the wind never blows and there’s no rain. I thought that was mean. I sometimes think he wants to deprive me of any sense of achievement in my training. It makes me burn inside.”

  “And when you burn inside, do you perform better?” asked Lee.

  She reflected on that. From the quick movements of her eyes, the question raised a conflict in her mind. “You could be right,” she finally admitted.

  “You said you beat Brannon in the final run this afternoon.”

  “Sure.”

  “Could injured pride have had some influence on that?”

  “You mean I was sore at Harry beating me?”

  “Or that you were denied the chance of beating him,” said Lee. “Why didn’t he make the sixth run?”

  “He was used up,” she answered matter-of-factly. “They’re not so fit as me.”

  “So if Peter Klugman had insisted Makepeace make the sixth run, you might have beaten him. You weren’t given the chance. It made you angry, and you translated your frustration into action by defeating Brannon.”

  “Elmer’s not much of a scalp,” said Goldine with a grudging smile.

  Lee developed his thesis. “It may not be a bad thing for you to feel things are being made difficult for you. If frustration produces a positive response, makes you angry, stimulates you to greater efforts, that is a valuable discovery to have made about yourself. It is quite inevitable, isn’t it, that over the course of five days of competition in Oregon, and again in Moscow, you will encounter setbacks and frustrations? An official penalizes you for a faulty start, or fails to penalize another girl. You draw an unfavorable lane three times in succession. Someone makes a personal remark while you are warming up for a race. These things are unpredictable; the only thing you can bet on is that something will occur that could upset you. The way you respond is vital to your success.”

  Her eyes widened. “Is that why Pete is bugging me?”

  Lee drew back from that. “I couldn’t say. I’m simply making the point that it is not a bad thing for you to know what it is to battle against odds. Most of the great champions had to learn that. Babe Didrikson tore a cartilage in her first event in the 1932 Olympics and still beat world records in other events. Fanny Blankers-Koen had to wait till she was thirty and the Second World War was over before she became an Olympic champion. People had written her off. A calculated taunt from her husband that she was too old gave her the determination to dominate the London Olympics. Wilma Rudolph lost the use of her left leg when she was four, and couldn’t walk till she was seven, but she got to be the golden girl of 1960.”

  “Okay,” said Goldine, unimpressed. “We’ve been over this. It’s all in the positive mental attitude. I have some fight in me, Sammy. I may seem like a spoiled kid up here with all these facilities, but I know what it is to have things tough. Pete doesn’t need to knock me to teach me that. I don’t expect training to be a pushover, but there could be a little joy in it, couldn’t there?”

  “The joy comes later,” said Lee.

  “I know, but —”

  “Have you tried to understand the training sessions from Peter Klugman’s angle?”

  She sighed. “I wish I could. I don’t know whether he hates me, or what.”

  “The relationship between a coach and an athlete has overtones neither may completely understand.”

  “Meaning he drives me hard because he wants me to succeed where he failed?” said Goldine, casually slotting Dryden’s theory into the discussion.

  Lee gave her a longer look before replying, “Certainly that could influence his attitude. A coach might sublimate disappointments in his own achievements by transferring his ambitions to athletes he helps, yes. But there can be a conflict, too. In passing on his knowledge and experience he can feel something being drained from him. Your acquisition of technique is his loss.”

  “That I don’t understand.”

  “When you mount the victory rostrum in Moscow, the glory will be yours. Little, if any, will reflect on anyone else. The pride Peter Klugman, or any of us, will take in your success will be personal. We shall have the satisfaction of a job well done, a contract completed. But a coach may not see it so dispassionately. It is difficult to be dispassionate about an ambition that has dominated your hopes and efforts since high school, and become the mainspring of your life. On that day in Moscow, Peter could be forgiven for thinking some of your success might have been his, even for feeling some resentment toward you.”

  “I get your drift,” said Goldine. “I can understand that. I have a strong sense of self, too. You need that to be a champion. But, Sammy, I’m still kind of perplexed why he must cut me up now, when it’s all in front of me.”

  Lee’s eyes focused on the ceiling. “Isn’t it possibly an indication that yo
ur progress in training shows you are certain to win in Moscow?”

  She put her hand to her face as a smile dawned there. “I never thought of it that way! Sammy, you’re a genius!”

  “We were speaking in hypothetical terms,” Lee discreetly added. “But as I was starting to say just now, the human mind can actually be stimulated by frustration and discomfort. When things go well, without checks, there is a danger of overconfidence, of satisfaction with a less than sufficient level of performance. I remember a nice phrase I read once in a piece about the qualities needed in a champion: the ability to “function in disaster and finish in style.” That’s worth cultivating, Goldengirl. And it must come from within. It’s right that Peter Klugman should treat you with detachment. Your motivation should be mainly intrinsic in these last weeks.”

  She nodded. “In the Lenin Stadium, I’ll be on my own. Surrounded by a hundred thousand people, but really alone.”

  Lee took off his glasses and wiped them methodically. “Are you easier in your mind now?”

  There was a slight hesitation before she replied, “I guess I am.”

  “There’s still something?”

  “Maybe.”

  “‘Maybe’ usually means yes.”

  “Okay, there is,” she admitted. “Last night, I lay awake trying to analyze what was wrong in my life. I decided it was Pete and the way he treats me now. I feel better about that, now you’ve explained it, but I’m still hung up, to a degree.”

  Lee replaced the glasses on his face.

  “You know what I most miss up here?” she went on. “Affection. I don’t mean dating. That can wait. I want somebody to care for me. Don’t take that unkindly, Sammy. You’re a terrific help to me, and I couldn’t function properly without you, but you know how it is — you’re my shrink. You have to be detached, like you say Pete must be. Two or three months back, I didn’t feel this way, and I guess that was because Pete was relating to me. He can be so considerate when he cares to.” She sighed. “It seems you get cooled out by everyone if you’re achievement-oriented.”