THIRTEEN
Jordan was responsible for floating the not-so-outrageous idea– given the values at our sport-obsessed school – that he chose his girlfriends on the basis of how fast they could run. ‘If you can beat Tracy you can go out with me’ was how he ended the aspirations of one besotted girl who clung to him at an underage disco. Of course that girl would never beat Tracy in any kind of race, not even of the egg-and-spoon variety. She was a ‘slug’, which was slang in our school for dud runners like me. If you were a slug you could be sniggered at for presenting an excused-from-sport note to your teacher, or for playing cards in the lunch hour when you were expected to be outside exercising your lungs and limbs.
Not long after the Fourth Form baton-pinching charade on the oval, Jordan started to fob off flirting girls with his ‘if you can beat Tracy’ jest. Partly a compliment to Tracy, it was also the first sign of Jordan’s complacency towards his steady. By this time the pair had been going out for more than eighteen months, which in secondary school was a scarily long time.
We onlookers never dreamt that a rival would displace our class champion. But brags grow wings, and Jordan’s boast flew out of his control and up the bayside suburbs to Frankston High, where a sprint princess called Vera Pavlovska heard it and decided to mount a challenge for the coveted prize. The Frankston whiz-kid had seen Jordan at a running carnival and had fallen head-over-heels. To be closer to Jordan she had moved schools. Vera was a top netballer as well as a star runner, and her combined sporting talents helped her to secure a scholarship at Mornington Grammar.
Our principal thought he was being considerate by putting Vera in the same class as Tracy. He even came to our home room to introduce Vera to us in person.
‘What a school of champions, eh?’ remarked Mr Fellow-Smith, his hand on Vera’s shoulder. ‘Now, girls and boys, this young lady holds the state record for two hundred metres.’
We were politely impressed.
Mr Fellow-Smith remained at the front of the room for several minutes awaiting our tardy teacher. With nothing else to do, we stared at Vera. She was wearing casual clothes– an old-fashioned pinafore with a skivvy – but she seemed unbothered to be out of uniform. Straight away I absorbed the disarming confidence that made Vera seem older than us. (In actual fact she was a little older, for her birthday was in August and she was already sixteen.)
The deferential hand of our principal resting on her shoulder didn’t seem to bother her. Vera beamed. Her colour was high and she looked the picture of health. At a guess she’d run across the school playing fields this morning. Her spikes were tied together by the laces and slung over a shoulder. Clumps of fresh grass were stuck to the pins.
The chair behind me creaked as Judy leant forward and jabbed her ruler in the middle of my back. ‘Poached for the aths team,’ she whispered. I inclined sideways in my seat and stiffly nodded in agreement.
These days I still think of Vera in association with Tracy Breeze. Vera became one of the baton-changers the following year, in quite unusual circumstances, but that isn’t why. No, they are linked in my mind because of the dramatic showdown that happened two weeks after Vera’s arrival.
I can still see those girls as they were back then. Tracy was suddenly gawky because at long last she had begun to shoot up. Tracy’s growth spurt served to elongate her shape; she grew up and not out. Tracy had defined eyebrows, a small nose and mouth, and eyes as large and blue as Elizabeth Taylor’s. Even as a child Tracy’s eyes were captivating. She was really pretty, though no-one would ever call her beautiful because her features weren’t classical. Her hair, which was cut in a pageboy style, was thick and straight and sandy-brown. Tracy never tied it back. Eventually her fringe grew out and covered her eyes like a Shetland pony’s mane. Only then was her mother compelled to have a hairdresser cut it back so we could all see her daughter properly again.
Vera was womanly at five foot seven or thereabouts. She had long, lank hair, a sensual mouth and a sculptured Eastern European face. You would probably describe her as striking rather than attractive.
On that first day, I’m sure Tracy was thinking that Vera might be an asset for her relay team – that was why she volunteered to look after her. But Tracy’s impulsive good will expired in a matter of hours, and it became inconceivable that Vera would ever join the baton-change girls. I could only imagine that Vera had been transparent about her designs on Jordan.
Discord between the two starlets was evident during PE the next day. We sat on an incline beside the long-jump track waiting our turn. Vera sped along the grassy run-up and leapt with the spring and ease of a kangaroo, arms raised above her head, landing down the school record end of the sandpit. Most of us cheered, but the baton-changers turned their heads away reprovingly.
Vera wasted no time pursuing her objective.
‘Hey, you two in my class!’ she called across the yard.
‘Hi, Vera!’ Judy responded with a cordial wave.
‘Do you know Jordan Thingamajig?’ Vera asked, coming up close.
I pretended to be puzzled because I didn’t want her to know that I had been thinking about him too.
‘You mean Jordan Sinclair – the speedster boy?’ Judy asked helpfully.
Vera grinned. ‘Yeah, that’s the one. The extra speedy guy. Do you know where he is?’
‘Come over to the canteen and we’ll show you.’
Judy brought us so close to Jordan that I almost walked away. Imagine if he had turned around and seen Judy’s pointing finger. Vera disregarded queue etiquette and squeezed in right behind Jordan. While he was squirting sauce on his chips, she asked, ‘If I can beat Tracy, will you go out with me?’
Jordan looked up with wide eyes. Aware of his grinning mates watching on, he replied with doubtful chivalry, ‘Sure, why not?’
I assumed the goading of his friends Bill and Quentin made Jordan accept this risky venture. He believed Tracy was unbeatable, or at least unbeatable in terms of his affection for her being permanent. Obviously Jordan never considered the consequences of yielding to such tomfoolery.
According to Pen, he persuaded Tracy to take part in the ridiculous charade by promising the race would be run to her advantage, over the shorter distance of a hundred metres. He intended for Tracy to beat the rival upstart and end all speculation. It was a pre-emptive strike of sorts.
Knowing Tracy, I doubt she would have regarded a race against Vera as anything more than a degrading gimmick. She was idealistic about racing, and I knew she was already suspicious of Vera. As things unfolded, my hunch was pretty close to the mark.
On the designated afternoon, two weeks later, I saw Tracy come out of the change shed carrying her schoolbag. She was still in her school uniform and she looked out of sorts.
‘What’s up?’ said Pen, who had kept me company on our way to the sports field.
‘I don’t want to be part of this race,’ Tracy muttered. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’m going home.’
‘You can’t do that. It’s your chance to smash her to bits!’ I was surprised at the venom in my voice.
‘Come on,’ said Pen, slipping her arm through Tracy’s and tugging her back towards the sports field. ‘Jordan wants you to do this.’
‘I don’t want to smash anyone to bits,’ Tracy said.
In actual fact, I don’t think Vera felt any enmity towards Tracy. It was just that she madly wanted Jordan, and she didn’t care whose spikes she trod on to get him. But what would I know? I hardly knew Vera at all. None of us did.
‘Beth’s right,’ Penny persisted. ‘You have to go out there and show Vera what you’re worth.’
The race took place on a partially netted field currently reserved for the shot-putters and discus throwers. Jordan’s mates, now sixteen and bursting with testosterone, saw the event as a chance to gawk at some underdressed sheilas. Four other girls had signed up to have a crack at beating Tracy. After all, she was a school record holder, the highest honour on offer at Mornington Grammar. She’d beaten the other batonchangers, but they stayed faithful to her because she’d promised them greater rewards if they worked together as a team.
But the biggest drawcard was Jordan himself. Yep, this is the sort of rotten thing that happens when no girl can resist you. Jordan was standing near the finish line, the prize-inwaiting. He was getting ahead of himself, he really was.
We watched the competitors limbering up. They wore professional-looking singlet tops and panty-shorts, like their heroine Raelene Boyle.
‘Come on, Tracy. Everyone’s waiting!’ She was the last runner to step up to the line. Maybe she should have told Jordan what many of us were thinking: that betting on a relationship sucks.
‘Take your marks.’
Vera ran off before the gun, and Bill, the boy marshal, fired three more shots, like a sheriff in a western, to bring her back. Bill was wearing one of those holsters that little kids wear to play cowboys. What a clown.
The runners lined up again and the starter’s pistol fired. Vera powered to the lead and stayed there for the entire race. Tracy stutter-started and immediately fell behind. It wasn’t in her nature to win for an ugly purpose. That’s the only explanation I can think of now for how Vera came to win so easily. At the finish line Jordan embraced the triumphant Vera, lifting her off the ground. Actually it was more of a shake than a hug; I can vouch for that. He then released Vera and walked over to where Tracy stood sullenly on the turf, her arms limp. Some inaudible words were exchanged, and then Tracy walked off as fast as she could. Jordan rejoined Vera, and they jostled and joked around as though nothing reprehensible had taken place.
‘What a creep,’ said Judy, as we hurried off to swimming club. ‘Jordan can’t be for real. He doesn’t even know what Vera’s like.’
We put our heads together and invented ways for Tracy to prise Jordan back. We could give Vera the silent treatment, maybe even drive her out of the school through flagrant neglect. (No-one spoke to her for a whole term!) We could write ‘scumbag’ or ‘dickhead’ on a piece of paper and squeeze it inside Jordan’s locker. That might stun him. He’d know he was way out of line at the very least.
But as most junior school relationships had about as much longevity to burn in them as a candle, it was foolish of us to have assumed that Jordan and Tracy were going to stay together for very long at all.
Our friend Lynne had proudly set the record for the shortest relationship ever. She went out with Toby for half a day. ‘I’ve been dropped,’ she announced to the whole class. ‘I was with Toby for three hours and seven minutes. How’s that, everyone? Can you believe he dropped me for talking too much?’
Entering the aquatic centre I began to prepare myself for a lengthy sojourn in the pool. Judy and I were part of a vast fleet of Australian children who were at the same hour all becoming after-school fish. Our generation learned to swim before we could read and write. For the next two hours I would thrash my arms and flap my feet in the cadence that Gazza, our coach, had drilled into us. There was a break every half-hour but it was never long enough for me. I missed being twelve or thirteen, when we were allowed to go home earlier.
Judy called the indoor pool the ‘aquarium’ because one side was made of glass. This meant that if you were walking along the lower corridors to the change rooms you could watch people swimming like the seals in the glass enclosure at the zoo. None of us liked to swim in the number one lane. Occasionally Gazza made us swim there so he could stand with his nose pressed against the glass, observing what we were doing wrong with our submerged arms and legs. We loathed him doing this, but even worse was when he got in the pool and swam alongside us. We’d hear a moan of displeasure and sometimes he’d grab a swimmer by an arm or a leg. We would stop swimming and stand up in our lane so Gaz could demonstrate the correct execution of the stroke.
Judy and I got changed in the toilet cubicles – that old saying ‘We’re all girls here’ didn’t fool us into stripping off naked in front of everyone in the change room. Emerging in our Speedos, we carefully poked our hair inside our stretchy caps, checked our figures in the mirror with a mixture of satisfaction and despair, then headed upstairs to the smell of chlorine and the fountain sounds of the filtration pumps.
‘I just remembered …’ Judy said.
‘Yeah, what?’
‘Gaz said he wouldn’t be here this arvo.’
No coach. No jibes from Gazza. My mood lightened.
Members of our squad were already in feverish pursuit of one another down the length of the fifty-metre pool. I hopped into the water and, finding a gap between lap swimmers, burst into action. Swimming flat-out to avoid being toe-tagged by the boy behind me meant I almost threw up my afternoon tea.
After thirty minutes I paused for a breather. Spotting an empty lane on the other side of the pool, I ducked down below the plastic lane ropes to reach it.
‘Okay if I swim here?’
The pool attendant nodded benignly and put a Squad training board on top of the block. This is the life, I thought, as I gazed at the smooth expanse of light-dappled water. Not a splash in sight. I swam at my own relaxed pace, happily insulated from the rest of the world. Lying on my tummy, twisting my spine to and fro, and breathing in and out like a yogi while cautiously measuring my distance from the T-stripe at the end of the pool were actions soothing in themselves. It was automatic for me to tumble-turn at either end of the pool. For this skill I had Judy to thank. She taught me in the diving pool way back in First Form. When I made my first tumble turn, I had metres of water beneath me and no fear of banging my head on the concrete surrounds. The trick was to imagine I was doing a somersault on the rubber mat in primary school.
In spite of my slower pace, I still experienced the second hour of swimming as an imposition. My body was a rag doll sloshing around in a washing machine. I gasped for air as water sprayed up my nose. My chest was burning and my upper arms throbbed as if they had received a dozen injections. My feet trailed behind me like two dead fish. Usually I would stop of my own accord at the end of the lane, and not even barking Gazza could make me keep going. That was probably why he never picked me for the inter-club events. It was never said, but I’m sure he saw me as a shirker and I was only ever selected as a replacement sub.
Later Judy and I left the aquatic centre together. Both of us looked ring-eyed and drowned-rattish.
‘Thought you’d gone home already,’ Judy said.
‘Got a lane to myself.’
‘Talk about slacking off.’
Judy’s mum dropped me off in the town centre and I boarded the six-thirty bus. Leaning back against the cushioned upholstery, my body felt loose and spent. My cheeks were glowing, my hands red and wrinkled like a newborn’s. My ears remained waterlogged from the swim. When I was born, I would have looked and felt a bit like this, I thought. Every swim was a baptism and a fresh start.
At the dinner hour I was the only schoolkid on the bus. Tracy and Jordan and the droves of high-schoolers would have made their way home an hour or two ago. Dusk was approaching and the crows and honeyeaters were making a racket in the trees alongside the road. Through the spattered coach windows I saw the streetlights flick on, all in a row, one after another. Capturing the exact moment was a little game I played. The twilight world was mysterious yet well coordinated. Drivers were flashing their headlights, reminding others to follow suit. Soon there was nothing to see apart from dazzling lights merging and diverging in the darkness.
I finished six peanut-buttered Saladas, then put my head down and did my homework. I didn’t notice Tracy geting on the bus in Rosebud with some Friday night shoppers but I heard the seat compress beside me.
‘Pong! Chlorine Beth,’ she said in greeting.
‘Sorry, can’t help it.’ I shrugged with an embarrassed smile.
‘So how are the tumble-turners going?’ Tracy asked, looking straight ahead.
‘Going great guns. Just swam fifty laps,’ I said, exaggerating. It had been months since we had sat together on the bus.
‘That’s a long way. Doesn’t it hurt afterwards?’ She glanced at me, then looked away again.
‘No! I just feel dreamy and zonked.’
Tracy nodded as though she understood. She took off one of her Bata Ponytail shoes and peeled back a soiled sock. Her big toe mound was mashed up something awful.
‘Yuck! What happened?’
‘Blood blister burst.’
‘You’ll get a rest from training then?’
‘Not from relay training.’
Nothing, I suspected, would keep Tracy from relay training.
‘Why do you like the relay best?’ I asked. In the past Tracy had told me that winning a relay was better than winning an individual event, because you never felt even slightly ashamed for doing well. I asked the question because I knew she would enjoy answering it.
‘The baton changes. Getting them right. You can win a race if you get the baton changes just right,’ she replied.
‘But what if someone drops the baton?’
‘As long as it’s not ours,’ she said, bending over, her messy hair dangling. Tracy unzipped her medical kit, removing a jumbo-sized bandaid. She opened the wrapper, pulled off the white papers and stuck the flesh-coloured square on her toe. Then she crossed two finger-size bandaids over the square to hold it in place.
She handed me a Katies store bag for a squiz. I extracted a charcoal-coloured cardigan and noticed the tags. Size XXS. Reduced from eight dollars to three dollars.
‘Good buy, Tracy.’
When I mentioned the after-school race I honestly wasn’t rubbing it in. Her defeat was sitting between us like a third person who had to be acknowledged.
‘You weren’t running properly in that race, were you, Trace?’
I might as well have jabbed my erstwhile friend with a needle. Tears flowed with primary school abundance. In my bag I found a packet of tissues, which Tracy accepted without hesitation. She blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and unfolded another clean tissue and covered her face with it. Only her hair and her chin remained visible. She stayed that way, face turned towards the aisle, feigning sleep for the rest of the journey. Obviously she didn’t want to talk about it. And when she was ready, I suspected it wouldn’t be me she would open up to. I would have liked her to confide in me, but I knew we’d grown too far apart. I was rational about it, but deep down I was disappointed.
Back when I’d first resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t stimulating or sporty enough to be Tracy’s number one friend, a pattern of self-doubt had begun. After that thwarted childhood intimacy, I made friends with girls I liked but didn’t love. Everything was easier when I let people choose me. It was much the same when I was older with love affairs. If a strong attraction came upon me, I was sure to feel unworthy, and my fear of rejection would ruin things from the start.
Things had progressed so well with Jordan this year because I’d learned to keep a good deal of myself guarded, while adopting a guise of adroit independence. Jordan had chosen me but I sometimes pretended to be blasé about him. Sure, I’ll see you whenever, Jordan. It took a lot of willpower to do this as I was hanging out for the weekends we spent together. I pretended not to care, and Jordan pretended to care. That kind of made us even. I had no right to be upset about losing someone that I never had in the first place. If I’d loved Jordan all along and he had never loved me, then I couldn’t come close to being hurt by him, could I? In my previous experiences you could only be really hurt if you had someone’s unconditional love, like a father’s love for instance, before losing it forever.
If Jordan and I had been playing maimed games with each other before the wedding, then there would be no stable house to live in afterwards. Or villa unit to live in, I should say, as Jordan was planning to move in with me. I would be entering into the same mutually unsatisfying contract that Cherie had blundered into with Rodney when she was twenty-three. Exactly the same age I was when I met Jordan at the crèche. Was it any wonder? We were both poor choosers, Cherie and I.
Cancelling made a degree of sense, but I had left it too late to do that without risking permanent damage to myself and possibly to Jordan (though I admit my fiancé’s welfare was not my primary concern). I should have battled it out with him in person while I was still up in the city. When I’d clambered into my car at nine o’clock this morning, I was thinking, Hey, Beth, which one of you is going to get the upper hand today? It was customary for me to cross the train line and turn right because that was the way I went to the teachers’ college, to see Jordan, or to visit my mother in Beaumaris. But when I got to the end of my street my hand pushed the blinker up, and when I saw a break in the traffic I turned left onto Point Nepean Road and headed south. It was easier for me to go this way, I said to myself, so the wedding must still be on.
Actually, it was the crunch logic of a split mind urgently wanting to make itself feel whole again that propelled me down the bay to Portsea beach. More of me chose a wedding, in spite of the voices in me that were arguing against it. That’s why I took Highway 3 as far as it goes to the very tip of the peninsula, where you find me now. Sixty per cent of me had acted on my entire self’s behalf. And once the decision was made, the other forty per cent – the mortified, anxious, furious me that didn’t want to marry Jordan – kicked up a fuss because its needs were being ignored. That which was denied in me summoned some preternatural support and the black cloud descended. A cloud so virulently black that it could only have been infested by soot or cancer.
Swing one way, indecisive Beth … Then let the pendulum swing the other way. If I’d gone directly to Jordan’s this morning he might have caught my raised fists in his hands and assured me of his love. At this very moment we might have been driving down the highway in my buttercup-yellow Corolla, all clouds dispersed, me with sunglasses perched on the brim of my nose, singing along to the radio, a bride-to-be not caring a fig about Tracy and her screwball letter. ‘Nothing’s going to stop us, nothing’s going to stop us now.’ Yep, that catchy Starship song has been on the radio nonstop this summer.
A simple solution to a simple misdemeanour? Why oh why, Beth, do you have to make things so complicated for yourself?