by Andrew Daddo
There was a catcall, which Ethan turned and waved to, making some of the girls laugh. One of them yelled, ‘Get over yerself, loser. You didn’t even run up the hill.’
‘Watching me, were ya?’ he said, walking backward away from them. ‘You know you were.’
‘Not you,’ said the same girl, stepping to the front of the group. ‘Definitely not you.’
‘Him? He’s gay!’ They laughed as Ethan pointed a thumb at me.
‘No, I’m not,’ I said, making them laugh louder.
‘Come on, mate,’ went Ethan in a loud voice. ‘We were going to run all the way up Anderson but you kept saying, “Nah, it’s too steep. Let’s walk.”’
‘Yeah right,’ said the girl who was doing the talking. ‘You’re the one puffing and he’s just fine.’ But she drew it out, so it came out, fiiiiiiiine.
‘Definitely not your type,’ said Ethan. He’d stopped now, so I did, too. They were about twenty metres down the hill.
‘Could be,’ she said. ‘I’m pretty persuasive.’
‘Not today you’re not,’ said Ethan. He turned, broke into a trot, and dragged me up the hill with him.
I kind of waved. It was half-hearted, cool even, but my heart rate was absolutely peaking. It’s not like she was hot, but she definitely had me going.
‘Why’d you say I was gay?’
Ethan laughed like I was an idiot. ‘She knows you’re not gay, mate.’
He took off, and I followed, looking back over my shoulder to see if the girls were still watching. They were, so I squared my shoulders and ran a little harder, making sure I stayed ahead of Ethan. Near the top of Anderson Street we both turned to have another look. The crest of the hill blocked most of the view, so all I could see was the tops of the tallest heads. Still jogging, I jumped to get a last look. They were still in a group, but walking back down the hill, away from us. One girl turned. I jumped again. It was the mouthy one, I was sure of it. She was half waving and I was looking and jumping and took no notice of where or what I was about to land on.
It was a tree root or a gap in the path; either way, it sent me sprawling.
The wind rushed out of me on impact, but I was up fast enough. She’d never notice.
‘You right, mate?’ went Ethan, laughing.
‘Yeah,’ I said, keeping an eye on the crest of Anderson Street while dusting myself off. ‘Two left feet.’
She’d have to come and have a look over the hill, I thought, to see which way we were going, whether we were still running or walking or whatever. For the most fantastic of moments I thought she was. The tops of two ponytailed heads were bobbing toward the top of the hill.
‘Holy shit, they’re coming,’ I said to Ethan.
Ethan was all over it. ‘I’ll have the one on the left. The hot one.’
‘Funny,’ I said. While they did have girlish ponytails, the one on the left was pushing a pram; the other was older, maybe fifty.
‘Mine’s alright but yours needs some work,’ he said. ‘You’ve done a good job on your knee, mate.’
I looked down at the blood running down my shin in a very straight, clean line. The actual wound, if you could call it that, was a dirt-filled welt, maybe the size of a fifty cent piece. My first thought wasn’t for my knee, but how Dad would react to it tonight. He’d probably spew, but it looked worse than it was. I’d have to lie to Dad. I wasn’t even meant to be running. I’d tell him it was from playing kick-to-kick at lunchtime.
‘So who were they?’ I asked.
‘Who?’ said Ethan.
‘Those girls. Do you know them?’
‘The Glammer girls? One of them, but not the one doing all the talking. Did you like her, mate?’ He gave me a nudge.
‘I’d like to like her.’ It was one of those things where your mouth says what’s in your head before your head works out your mouth should shut up.
‘Turn it up,’ he said. ‘You can do better than that.’
Can I, I thought, and would I want to? She was hot. Even though she was wearing school sports gear – daggy shorts, polo shirt – she looked awesome.
And, best of all, she’d noticed me.
Mum fished around in her purse for the parking ticket, eventually finding it in the back pocket of her jeans. She stuck it in the machine and shook her head.
‘Thirty-four dollars? Although, I’ll be honest, I don’t mind so much, today. You feeling good? You and your growth?’ She ran her hand over my head, letting it linger at the back of my neck where she pressed ever so gently.
Good wasn’t half of it. I felt like I’d won a prize and could take on the world. Without admitting it, I’d expected much worse news. I thought I was cactus. And the way Mum’d brightened once she’d stopped crying was amazing.
At the boom gate to the carpark, lit mainly by the light from outside, Mum faffed about with her credit card and the parking receipt. She mumbled something about needing a special part in her purse for all this stuff, then stopped and turned to face me. ‘I knew there wasn’t a big problem.’
‘It’s a problem, Mum.’ But I only said it so she could tell me there wasn’t. I wanted her to tell me it’d be fine, that we’d not only dodged a bullet, but a volley of them.
Mum was so happy. ‘There’s a problem, yes, but at least it’s not as bad as we thought. God. I was so scared it was cancer. I honestly don’t think I’ve felt like that before. Not ever. Why didn’t he just tell us when we walked in? What’s with these doctors? Why couldn’t he even have rung us as soon as he knew?’
‘They get pleasure out of it,’ I said. ‘“Well, we’ve done the tests and it looks like …” Then he smiles, he grins, he looks down the camera, and says, “We have to take a commercial break!”’
Mum and I whooped together. It was good to laugh.
‘So we’re staying,’ Mum said. ‘What do you reckon? Shit, I haven’t called your father. Dial for me, would you? You can tell him if you want.’
I put it on speaker, but the phone rang out and Dad’s droll message told us ‘what to do.’ We’d only been in the city five minutes and he already sounded like such a farmer; slow and measured and strong.
‘Call us back when you’re ready for the news,’ I said. ‘And be sitting down, it’s big!’
‘He’ll think it’s bad,’ said Mum.
‘He’ll get a good surprise, then,’ I laughed.
The phone rang. It was Astrid. The car erupted with screams of ‘Thank God, thank God!’ after we told her. We didn’t get to the whole story, she just wanted the big news: Was it good, or was it bad?
‘Good,’ we both said.
‘How good?’
‘Not cancer. It’s not cancer!’ We were still at the entrance to the carpark, and Mum literally bounced in her seat the way Siss used to in the McDonald’s Drive Thru. Her laughter turned to tears as Astrid’s voice flooded the car with a thousand I knew its and more Thank Gods and finally, Oh, honey, it’s going to be okay.
‘It is,’ Mum bawled. ‘It really is.’
We got tooted by the car behind, which was enough to get Mum going. We hung up with a promise of heading home soon. Mum sniffed and I wondered what was next.
I thought we’d go home, but was rapt when Mum took me to a super old, super posh hotel opposite Parliament House called The Windsor. The place was amazing. It was massive, but ornate and beautiful. The waiters wore waistcoats and bow ties, and called us ‘ladies’.
‘I came here once,’ Mum said. ‘Your nan brought me before my HSC exams. She said that if I went well – like, really well – I’d get to have tea in places like this forever. She said there’d be uni and big jobs and all that stuff. I just had to get through the exams.’
‘So, what happened?’ I asked Mum, giving her hand a squeeze.
She didn’t answer straightaway and I worried my simple question might have sounded like I thought things had turned out a bit average for her.
‘Life, I think,’ she said eventually. ‘A lot of life and lo
ve and maybe a little bit of you. But I’ll never forget when your nan brought me here. It was so great. She was on about new beginnings and how anything was possible. And guess what, she was right, and still is.’
Mum had me by the hand and I caught my breath as an impossible trolley of cakes was pushed to the table. ‘I know we said we wouldn’t, but today’s such a special day. We could have one, couldn’t we?’
‘And one for Dad and another for Siss.’
So that’s what we did. Mum had coffee, I had hot chocolate and we split four cakes.
‘To new beginnings,’ said Mum. ‘And a very long life. And to Nan.’
We clicked our water glasses and Mum got bleary-eyed. Again. Dr Harrington’s good news didn’t look like putting an end to the tears.
‘And to Melbourne, the world’s most liveable city, I think.’ I held a cake up, doing a cheers with it.
‘Doctor’s orders,’ said Mum. ‘Be good for a change. Don’t you think?’
I felt a bit guilty about not wanting to go back to Benalla, but excited, too. ‘What about Dad and Siss?’
‘They’re coming, anyway. That was always the plan, so what’s the point in changing it? And …’ Mum trailed off.
‘And what?’ She was leaving me hanging, my cake still up in the air.
‘It might be nice for a change.’
‘You said that already, Mum.’
‘For me,’ she whispered. ‘It might be a nice change for me.’
Ethan grabbed his gear from the locker room and jammed it into his schoolbag. He didn’t stretch or warm down, even after I told him he’d suffer tomorrow.
‘Thanks, coach,’ he laughed, then called me weird when I said I was going to stick around a bit longer to finish properly.
When he was gone I headed back to the Botanical Gardens, mainly to finish the Tan session properly, but also to take another look at the Anderson Street hill to see if anything was going on.
I focused on my breathing the whole way there. On lengthening my stride, using my arms for drive and keeping my shoulders and neck relaxed. I’m constantly amazed by the amount of nuffs nuffs I see running with their shoulders up around their ears. It’s impossible to get breath on board when you’re that wound up.
At the corner of Anderson Street and the Yarra River, I slowed to a walk. My head was awash with how my conversation with a girl I didn’t even know might run if I happened to see her again.
Despite telling Ethan I was going to warm down, I actually felt ready to stretch out and run properly. At best, the Grammar girls would still be around; at worst it’d be a decent hit-out. The Anderson Street hill wasn’t as bad as everyone made out. It wasn’t long, about 500 metres, but the gradient was intense enough to raise anyone’s heart rate.
Before taking off I reset my watch and dragged in some big breaths. I was careful to keep my form, to have the muscles working together, not against each other. Five strides in and I was charging. A bunch of schoolgirls were headed down the hill and split the way a school of fish might if something bigger swam into them. It wasn’t the girls from earlier, which was a shame.
It turned out to be a good session. Really hard, especially that last bolt up the hill because it had to be the fastest of all of them. At the top it was a relief to stop, and a struggle to get my breath back, so I got my arms up above my head to open the airways. The idea was to haul in as much oxygen as possible, to drag it in and start the business of repair. Eyes closed, mouth open and probably gurgling, I heard some giggling.
When I opened my eyes, there were six or seven girls walking past. They must have come around the corner from the Domain Road track, almost straight into me.
It was the girls from earlier.
‘You really need to work on your fitness,’ said the one who’d bantered with Ethan.
‘Oh, yeah. I know. I just …’ And I was fighting for breath and words and thoughts, all at the same time.
‘Is that the gay one, Steph?’ said a different girl. She was laughing, they all were.
‘I’m not,’ I started. ‘He was just –’
‘Yeah, sure,’ went the first girl. Steph. Stephanie. Hair in braids, tight to her head. She was blondish, I’d guess. Dark at the roots, but definitely light on the ends. A bit skinny, but who gets to be choosy?
Once they were past me, she turned and smiled over her shoulder like some girl in a soft drink commercial. She wasn’t skinny, she was fit. Strong legs, good calves, maybe great. She had a kind of ‘follow me’ look without actually saying it. But she did smile at me, her eyes creasing into upside-down crescent moons.
‘See ya,’ she said.
‘We do the Tan Tuesdays,’ said another girl. ‘Same time.’
‘Shuddup, weasel,’ said Steph. ‘Don’t tell him that. He’ll come back and stalk us.’
I finally got my hands off my head and used them to shrug. Some sharp comeback would’ve been great, but like a dick, I said nothing and shrugged again. I thought about another lap up the hill. Run past, get another look, then show them how unfit I wasn’t by charging up past them. But by the time that thought landed they were gone. Besides, I had what I’d come for.
‘You’re in late,’ said Dad. ‘Where you been?’
‘Library,’ I lied.
‘Wasn’t a detention, was it? You didn’t get a pinky, did you?’ He had that mocking ‘just messing with you’ tone. We both knew he was serious.
‘Remind me, what’s a pinky?’
‘That’s what we used to get. When you got a detention, the teacher’d give you a pink slip, which we had to take home and get signed. So, not only would you get a detention, you’d get a reaming from your parents.’
‘No. I didn’t get one of them. Why didn’t they just send your parents an email?’ I tried to match his mocking tone. ‘Oops, sorry. They didn’t have email back then, did they?’
‘Funny. So, where you been?’
I went past him to the kitchen for a glass of water and a chance to break the glare. ‘I was at the library. Studying. Mid-years are coming up.’
Dad was suss. I’m a terrible liar. I shouldn’t have had to lie, but it seemed easier than telling the truth about running with Ethan.
‘I should be happy,’ he said, ‘but why the library now? You’ve never been near one before.’
‘Exams, Dad. Like I said.’ I picked up my schoolbag and was thankful to have my running stuff inside it, not in my sports bag where it would normally be. He knows what day the sports stuff comes out, so that’d set off some real questions.
‘Well, that’s good, Drix. Great. Study is a good thing. Did you eat?’
‘Yeah, Dad. After school.’
‘Not processed shit, I hope. No chips.’
‘No, Dad,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘Course not.’
I had to get out of there, to break the seal on the pressure that was quickly building. Dad’s life was about order, and when there were changes he liked to know why.
He’s always been like that with everything, not just me. His shirts are in colour blocks in his wardrobe, light to dark. His pants hang from the cuff, not the knee. His shoes are clean; he shaves his face every day, his head every third.
When he showed me how to shave, I was about twelve. I don’t even think I had pubes or hair under my arms, but he had me in the bathroom and explained the process for the right shave. That the shaving strokes are down, never up. With the grain, not against it. To get access to the whiskers under your nose, you pull your top lip down hard over your teeth, things like that. Never dry shave, always use a sharp razor. Legs and face, the same thing, except legs, you do shave up. Once he’s given the information, that becomes the rule. Good luck if he finds you doing things any other way.
Finally, I got to my room and shut the door. It was enough shade to get the running stuff out of my bag without being seen.
After about a minute he sang out from the kitchen, ‘What were you studying?’
I didn’t answer. The ru
nning gear went into my cupboard and I thought if I used it the next morning for training it’d be fine. It’s not like I enjoyed lying to my father, but sometimes it’s just easier than telling the truth.
I looked at the photo of Mum and mimed a little Shhh. She would’ve understood. I could have asked her about that Stephanie girl.
I tried to picture Steph in my head. Brown hair or blonde? If she wore it out, would I recognise her? Was it straight or wavy or curly? I’d remember her legs if I saw her again with shorts on. And her eyes, the way they almost disappeared when she smiled.
I checked my phone but it was impossible to find her on Facebook because I didn’t really know who I was looking for. Stephanie, Merton Hall, Melbourne. Melbourne Grammar Stephanie. Steph, MGS.
I wasn’t even meant to be on Facebook. On the toilet, with the door locked, I lit up Instagram. There were literally thousands of Stephanies or variations on the name. I’d have to see her again, or ask someone who she was. It shouldn’t be that hard. This was Melbourne. Everyone knew someone who knew everyone.
Dad’s knock got me off the toilet.
I was starving because I hadn’t eaten. I’d run, worked out and hadn’t refueled. Dad didn’t ask about the studying again. Instead, we talked about Districts and his surprise that no good qualifying times had come in yet.
‘What a joke,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You should do Districts easy. Just don’t make it look too easy.’
I nodded. I wouldn’t stuff it up next time.
‘Ethan’s alright,’ I said. ‘We were talking today and he said he’s going to train a bit for Districts. I thought maybe we could do a bit together.’
‘Train? With Ethan? The spazwit runner who beat you? Why would ya?’
‘He’s alright,’ I said again, pushing food around my plate. ‘And you can’t really call people that, Dad.’
He put his fork down but used his knife as a pointer. ‘But he is. He’s a classic spazwit. Half spaz, full halfwit. He’s awful. His muscles are so big and bulky he can’t stretch them out properly.’ I shook my head. ‘Spazwit,’ said Dad, lisping the s’s.