Head of the River (17 page)

Penny and I line up at a tap to fill our water bottles. She puts her ponytail in her mouth and chews on it, looking worried. Nobody will relax until the trials are done.

‘You interested in the US?' she asks me. ‘Wouldn't it be amazing to study overseas? You should go for it. You're the best rower in the firsts. Easily.'

‘Maybe,' I say. But in truth I hadn't even considered it. Everything in my life was so locked down already. My plan if I didn't get a scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport for rowing was to study medicine at Melbourne Uni. I'd row for Mercantile rowing club – that was my dad's club. Trial for the Under-19 Youth crews. Maybe even snag my way into the junior Aussie team. America was too far away, wasn't it?

Dad catches up with me en route to my trial. He's got grease smudged under one eye and his T-shirt is covered in it. I reach out and wipe the mark from his face.

‘You girls trialling now?'

‘Yeah,' I say. I've gone from anxious to sweaty panic. I feel exhausted and floppy. So much rests on a good result here.

‘Row it hard from start. Don't leave anything behind. You're tougher than other girls. The AIS, they look erg scores.'

The Australian Institute. They were looking for rowers too. Like I need any more pressure. I feel like my head's going to blow up thinking about it.

‘But Laura said to ease into it,' I say.

‘Nah, let them chase you. What's PB?'

‘Seven forty.'

‘Break seven minutes thirty today. Easy.'

‘I dunno, it's pretty hot,' I say. But Dad claps my shoulder and pushes me towards the ergos.

‘Go for it.'

I run to the toilet for a nervous wee before it begins. In the cubicle I use a black marker to write my dream time on both of my thighs. My hand shaking as I trace out the numbers.
7.20
.

Every time I take a stroke I'll be able to see that magic number. I'll be fulfilling a promise to myself.

Eight ergs are lined up in the gym, waiting quietly for their next victims. This is the worst part of rowing: the sheer, awful and undeniable pain from your toenails to your scalp. There are no shortcuts. You have to hurt if you want to do well. I sit down to stretch.

‘Ready girls? Let's go!' says Laura. I wish I were her. Standing next to the machines and not rowing them.

‘I
hate
erg trials,' Rachel mutters as we walk to the gallows.

‘Me too,' I agree.

We get on the machines and Laura clears each monitor, ready for a start. The ergo vents circulate hot air around the room. Every trial is 2000 metres long. Two hundred strokes. Two kilometres. We used to be tested over 1 kilometre, but we're senior squad now. The screws have been tightened. The whole painful ordeal takes just over seven and a half minutes.

Seven minutes might not seem like much. It's three tram stops, half a recess break, or the time it takes to cook and eat a packet of instant noodles. But seven minutes can change everything. You can have sex for the first time, jump out of a plane, step in front of a speeding train and die on impact or write a song or a piece of code that captures the world. In my case I could row an ergo score that could change the path of the rest of my life. It could determine where I end up next. University? The AIS? In an Aussie crew?

As I hold the handle and breathe up, the bad thoughts come.

You're tired, Leni. Your back is sore. It's hot, you don't feel good now; imagine how you'll feel at the 1000-metre mark?

Another voice chimes in. This one is my good fairy.

You're fine, Len. Relax, it's only a few minutes. Breathe. Suck it up. You can do this.

I want to feel unbeatable but I'm sapped of energy. I'm so tired I let out a huge yawn. I could crawl away and sleep for hours. I don't want to be here. I'd even rather be on the check-out. On Boxing Day.

Rachel is on the machine next to me. She lets out a sharp breath, looks at the ceiling and closes her eyes.

‘You ready?' I say, a little more aggressively than I expect.

She's lost her tummy over the summer and looks fit. Is she a dark horse?

‘Too bad if I'm not,' she says, managing a smile. ‘Good luck.'

‘You too.'

We sit forward on the machines and enjoy our final pain-free seconds.

‘Attention! Row!' shouts Laura.

I plan to follow Laura's advice and work my way into the trial, but then I hear Dad's voice behind my ergo after my first twenty strokes. He's speaking in Romanian. No one else can understand what he's saying, but I can.

‘Go, Leni. Don't be timid. You're cruising. Bring up the rating. Go now. Harder.'

I change my race plan and push my legs down with force, spinning the handle quicker round the back turn. Rachel seems to be sticking to Laura's advice, her strokes are smooth and controlled.

Smooth and controlled won't get me back the stroke seat,
I think, going for an effort for ten.
Smooth and controlled won't get me a scholarship to the AIS.
Each stroke feels heavy and doubt creeps back in.

You're exhausted now. How are you ever going to make 2 ks, Leni? You've got so far to go. You've stuffed it. You should've listened to Laura. It's too late now.

My breathing is raggedy and out of control. A stitch gathers in my shoulder and stabs between my right collarbone. I focus on the readout in front of me, willing for the numbers not to creep up.

Vooum, vooum, vooum go the machines as we pull on the chains. The 750-metre mark slips by. Still so far to go.

You can't keep this up. Take a light stroke, just one, then get back into it.

Usually I can block out the negative and push through the pain, but today I'm hanging on by my finger tips. I sneak a look at Rachel's readout and panic. She's a few seconds under my time and in control. When I turn my head back, I've taken a couple of light strokes without realising. I speed up to make up ground. My stroke rate pops up to thirty-two. I'm taking one and a half strokes for Rachel's one. She looks amazing. So strong.

Focus on your own bloody erg!
I berate myself.

Laura comes up next to me. ‘Breathe up. Over halfway now. You're doing great.'

Laura means to be inspiring, but her words sink my hopes. If I feel this terrible now, I'm in for a world of hurt in the second act. I make an involuntary grunting sound. My lungs are stretched so thin they feel like burning paper. My legs are screaming with lactate and saliva pools in my mouth. It tastes metallic. I swallow it and close my eyes, counting out another five strokes.

When I look up, the room is spinning. It's so hot in here, the only air circulated by the wheels of the machines. My leg muscles shake and I'm desperate to stop. Even for a few seconds. My heart pounds in my forearms, neck and throat. The beat jumps around like a loose frog.

I look at the screen. It says 1250 metres. I have another 750 to go.

You're not going to make it,
the voice says coldly.
It hurts too much. Stop. No one will mind. You can say you felt sick. Take the erg another time.

‘Water!' I croak.

I want to drop my handle and quit. It's all I can think about. That, and not vomiting. My lunch repeats in my mouth.
Don't vomit. Don't vomit. Don't vomit
I pray with each stroke. The resistance on the end of my handle is like pulling an anchor through wet sand.

Dad picks up my water bottle and dumps cool liquid on my neck and head.

‘Nearly there, Leni,' he says, and I hate him for being able to stand there feeling no pain, just observing mine. ‘Crank it up now. All legs, all heart. What you got left?'

The water helps and I can see The End. Taste the sweet Gatorade swishing in my pasty mouth, feel my heart rate thudding back to a slow, steady beat as I lie spreadeagled on a mat. Hear the conversation I'll have post ergo. ‘Seven-twenty. Thanks I'm pleased. What did you get?' Everyone will want to know my score and I'll act modest, like it was no big deal.

Fifty more strokes. I start to count them.

One. Two. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Four. Or was that five? Oh my God. This hurts so bad. I can't do this.
Seven. Ouch!

Dad starts yelling behind me. His voice irritates me so much I want to turn around in my seat and scream SHUT UP! GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!

‘Go! Go! You break 7.30, Leni. Five hundred to go! Lift!'

Next to me Rachel is lifting too, and Laura is pushing her to the end. She'll beat me, I know it. My mind goes blank and black.

‘I can't! I can't!' I shout. There's no more rev in me. My time starts to drop away. I'm fading.

‘You can do this, Leni!' says Laura, seeing me fall apart. ‘Bring back the power.'

I don't know why I stop rowing. One minute I'm about to break my PB and the next I've got my head between my knees, my time slipping away. Rachel forging ahead with her slow, hard strokes.

‘Come on, Leni!' Dad yells. ‘Keep going! You nearly at end!'

Maybe if I pick up my handle I could scrape a respectable time. In the top four to five in the firsts. But not the best. Not 7.20. Everything is ruined. I've failed.

I tumble off the machine.

‘This is your fault! Can't you just be my dad? I already have a coach!'

He couldn't look more shocked if I'd slapped him across the face. I burst into tears and Laura comes towards me, like she's going to try to hug me.

‘No! Leave me alone.'

I use my last remaining modicum of energy to get the hell away from them and their sympathetic faces.

Cristian

It's thirty-five degrees in the shade and I'm wearing stupid red socks. As if having them on my feet makes me any better than the guys in the seconds. I roll them off my sweaty feet and dump them in the bottom of the boat. Sitting in the firsts again isn't nearly as satisfying as I'd thought it would. I've risked everything to get here. Put my body through hell and it feels like any other row.

‘Where's Sam?' asks Damo behind me. ‘Anyone heard from him?'

I shrug and there's a silence down the boat. Sam has disappeared into thin air. Nobody has seen or heard from him for weeks.

‘Our captain's done a runner,' says Damo. ‘That's bloody fantastic.'

‘Just focus, guys,' says Charley into his headset.

That's the problem. There's nothing to distract us out here in the sticks. Flat brown water, overhanging trees and endless paddocks. The girls are off doing their ergs, so there's not even the hint of a bare leg or a pair of tits to help break the boredom. I chug back on some water, pull down my hat and anticipate a long, tedious outing.

‘Forget about what Sam is doing. We've got our meat seat Cristian back,' says Charley. ‘Although he has much less, er, meat these days.'

Westie zooms up on his tinny, ready to break us.

‘Stop dicking about and row,' he shouts into his megaphone. I can't stop thinking about Westie having daughters and a grandkid. Which means someone actually loved him enough to have kids with him. Was it possible he did have a human heart and not a lump of stone?

We sit forward and it's like I never left. All the same bodies. All the same issues. When we break out of warm-up into full crew work, it's creaky and slow. Westie is back in my face, shouting out picky technique calls and generally making a pain of himself, when what we need is a bit of quiet to feel the stillness of this place. To find our rhythm again.

‘Come on!' he shouts. ‘This isn't the Portsea front beach! Sloppy technique! Let's go through those balance drills again.'

Just as I'm losing hope that I can survive the rest of the season, even if I am in the top boat, I feel a hand on my back.

‘Nice to have you back man,' Julian says from the four seat. ‘Wasn't the same without you.'

There's a click of realisation. I didn't miss the boat or the racing or the endless drills. I missed the guys.

Dad stops me as I go into erg trials later in the day. ‘Your sister blew up her erg.'

‘Leni blew up? What happened?'

‘I don't know.' Dad looks worried, a frown creases his brow.

‘No words of wisdom for me?' I say, expecting a full wind up. Dad's always full-on before trials.

‘Row your own erg. I meddle too much already.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes. Do your best.'

Adam and I suck down a foul-tasting protein shake. The pact we made months ago is about to come to fruition. It occurs to me that maybe we should do well on our trials, but not too well. But it's too late for that conversation now.

‘Boys. Time to jump on the machines,' says Westie.

As I pull my zootie over my leaner body I hear a hard, determined voice inside myself say,
bring it.
It's a voice I haven't heard in a long time.

I'm waiting for my turn, listening to eight machines whoosh, and the grunts and moans of the Year Eleven guys before us in complete, utter agony. As they finish up they stagger from the machines and roll on the floor, groaning, heaving for air and writhing in pain. One of them vomits into his hands, the rest crawl towards the showers and water.

Adam wipes down a machine dripping in the last guy's sweat, blood and tears. He means business today. There's a score to settle. I sit down next to him.

‘The firsts,' I say to him and we bump fists.

He sits forward on the slide and grasps the handle, readying his body for the impact.

‘Attention! Row!' shouts Westie.

Adam comes out of the blocks like a greyhound snapping for a rabbit. I steady myself, using relaxed powerful strokes to cruise along beside him. The other guys drop away from us in the second 500. We're so far ahead, I consider backing off, but my body doesn't want to. I'm so pumped, so primed, that I can't do anything
but
smash it. How far can I take it?