It’s a windy, cloudy, sunny, cold day; the kind that autumn clothing catalogues love for whatever ridiculous shit – like scarves or trousers – that they think some guys might be dumb enough to wear. But, like, who ever would?
I have on jeans, sneakers, an orange T-shirt, a faded sleeveless top I found up a tree at the beach, and a grey-black zip jacket that makes my shoulders look wider. I hope. Of course, while waiting for Electra I don’t hang around Thomas the Tank Engine, I walk in the vicinity, and into the wind so as not to stuff up my hair.
Then I see her.
And she looks stunning, with a smoky blue-black skirt thing and a white surf top thing, and blue sneakers from a company that normally doesn’t make sneakers, meaning that probably only elite freaks get to wear them, and probably for free. Her hair flies around in the breeze like black silk on a washing line.
But it’s the way she walks that knocks me out.
She walks with the most perfect posture and she walks thoughtfully, leading me to hope that she might be thinking about me – although I doubt this, because I’m the one who knows my life best, and it’s quite plain there’s not a lot there. She can’t even replay the seven or eight games of footy I’ve absolutely starred in. Or know the great jokes I’ve told. Or seen the great dives I’ve performed off Trav’s pergola into the pool. And I wouldn’t think she’d be thinking about my face, either, beyond the fact she’s hoping to recognise me.
Anyway, hopefully, I wave.
And wonderfully, she waves back.
We follow the path that curves away under the gumtrees. Already I am trying to slow time down, hoping the afternoon might last forever.
‘You didn’t bring the dog?’ Electra’s face is golden in the low autumn sun. ‘I miss mine. Lally. She’s a Labrador. She chases fish.’
Snap!
‘So does Dotty,’ I say. ‘In ponds. And she doesn’t put them back. She also bites a bit. You know, like if you tell her to sit, she’ll nip.’ I shrug. ‘She picked it up at obedience school. So I thought it might be better to leave her at Trav’s.’
Electra smiles, looking away, as if she’s thinking about something other than dogs – before zeroing back in on me.
‘You’re quite good-looking, Marc.’ She talks slowly, as if she’s as surprised to find this out as I am to hear it. ‘But better than that, you’re, you know, nice to talk to.’ Gently she touches the front of my jacket. ‘And you’re funny. I’m very glad you came along.’
When someone says something nice to me, for some reason I always try and say something twice as nice back.
‘Well, you’re beautiful.’ This is at least twice as nice as good-looking. And true. ‘You should be a model. In catalogues. Of any sort.’ I don’t say which section of these catalogues as that might be a little incriminating – and while I’m at it, I’m also really annoyed that I might’ve missed some great opportunities in the past with shallow girls who possibly could’ve liked me just for my looks, if what Electra says is really true.
‘Yeah, right.’ Electra swings away from me, laughing, and I see her calf muscles, long, smooth and angular, like no other shape I’ve ever seen. ‘Well, I might need a career option. Although I doubt that’d be it. ’
‘Can I come and watch you run one day?’ I follow her down the track, the trees around us like sheltering friends. ‘You know, just to train. I wouldn’t get in the way.’
Electra looks down at the gravel track, and when she looks up her face has changed. The softness has gone, her cheekbones are angled and sharp, her eyes hold a distant, steely focus that reminds me of Dot, actually. Even her hands are different, like weapons no one but the owner is allowed to touch.
‘All right,’ she says warily. ‘But you mightn’t like what you see. It’s kind of an out-of-mind experience for me. Still, my coach can’t stop you, although he might try. But we won’t be allowed to talk until the session’s over. Right over.’
I get that. Coach Tindale doesn’t like people talking, either, but what he really hates is when you lie down.
‘Cool,’ I say. ‘When?’
Electra relaxes. ‘Wednesday, maybe. D’you know where the Eslake Athletic track is?’ She points towards the city, the buildings visible in the distance through the trees. ‘It’s about the only place in Melbourne I do know, apart from school.’ She smiles at me, and I smile at her to complete the equation.
‘Yeah, I know it,’ I say. ‘Trav’s dog pulled the tyre off someone’s bike there.’
We have a milkshake at this cool little shop that exists right in the middle of suburban wilderness. Trav and I come here sometimes, because we can tie Dot up outside, and see what develops.
‘Melbourne’s so cold,’ Electra says, and hugs herself, even though there’s a heater above us on the wall. ‘It’s like the air’s really thin and sharp. It gives me a shock. At home it just kind of surrounds you, like a cloud. Here is definitely not tropical.’
No, here is not tropical. I’ve been to the tropics. Well, I think Port Douglas is in the tropics. It has palm trees, anyway. Lots of Melbourne people go there, so they can show off their fake tans when they come back.
‘Yeah, it can get chilly.’ Not that it’s even close to cold today. ‘So what does your dad do in Broome? Much? Something? Nothing? Anything?’
Electra takes a breath that is like a sigh in reverse. I can’t help but look at the scar that loops across her cheek like a loose thread of silver. In a way it only makes her more lovely; focusing your eyes on hers. She hunches back into her jacket, as if the mention of Broome has reminded her how cold she is, or how far away it is.
‘He manages the gardens for a resort on Cable beach. And my mum sells pearls for a pearl company.’ She reaches into her top and brings out a silky, grey-blue pearl on a gold chain. ‘They gave me this when I came over. And I’ve got a little brother and sister. Antonia and Deanie. And you know about the dog.’
‘Are they fast, too? Your little brother and sister?’ I know that until I’ve actually seen Electra run, I won’t know how to deal with it, because freak ability puts you into freak territory, no matter how normal you are. And if she is a super freak, she might soon realise that she shouldn’t even be talking to such a dumb-arse as me.
‘Yeah, they’re pretty quick.’ Electra nods and I realise with dismay – there’s no other word for it – that her eyes have decided to cry while the rest of her is trying not to. ‘But they’re only little. Dad just lets them muck around down at the oval.’ And then she does cry, reluctantly, and silently, with her eyes wide open. ‘I’ll be all right in a sec.’ She takes a serviette from a silver steel holder that’s shaped like the skeleton of a sandwich. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I say, which even to me sounds quite useless, because obviously, she is worrying about it. ‘Being away from home must be hard. It’s a long way away.’
I never know what to do when girls cry. Often it turns out that they’re crying about something or someone I don’t even know, like that their brother’s in prison in Bali for possessing a bong when he thought it was a bamboo ant farm, or they’ve poked themselves in the eye doing their make-up. And if they are crying about me, I deal with it by just kind of mumbling until their tram comes, then they stop automatically because they have to get on and go, and that’s that.
‘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.