Head of the River (6 page)

She looks at me intensely. ‘Do you think Adam is telling the truth about how this injury occurred? Because if he isn't, I'd have to follow that up through the proper channels.'

I shake my head, and decide to stick to my story and not reveal how Adam got hurt. ‘Of course.'

Breaking eye contact is the only way I can stop the story from escaping my lips. I feel a tug of loyalty in both directions. The pit of my stomach swirls with unease.

Cristian

We drop Adam off at home and Dad tries to act like it's not the biggest house he's ever seen.

‘Where's your father?' Dad asks. Or rather interrogates.

‘Hong Kong. Business. My stepmum Kitty is with him.'

Dad makes a clicking sound of disapproval. He has always loathed Mitch Langley. At regattas Mitch acts like he's head coach, despite the fact that he hasn't rowed since he was a schoolboy. Even then he was a cox. He likes to make crew suggestions. ‘That tiny, red man thinks he buys the boats, he picks rowers,' Dad's said, like a hundred times.

‘And your other mother?'

Adam's real mother left Mitch when Adam was fourteen.

‘She lives in Sydney. I'll call her tomorrow.'

‘Yes. Do. Family is important.'

‘Thanks, Mr Popescu,' Adam says, politely. ‘I'm sorry I woke you all up.'

‘Goodnight, Adam,' Dad says. But what he really means is,
I'm onto you.

We wait with the car engine running until Adam has gone inside the huge steel gates of his house. Then Dad looks hard at me.

‘Anything else you'd like to say about tonight?'

‘Sorry I broke the diet. I'll try harder.'

‘No, not that,' Dad says. ‘Why Adam is in our house? Middle of night? Bashed in head?'

‘I think you should probably ask Leni, he's her boyfriend,' I say. It's what I'm planning to do.

‘All right, I will. Why you sneak out for food, like hungry rat?'

‘I was hungry.'

‘You hungry, you lose weight.'

That's what I'm scared of. Food is a friend I turn to when I'm down. I'm not ready to give it up. ‘Okay. I'll do better. Promise.'

‘You're good boy,' Dad says and he puts his hand on the back of my neck. ‘Let's go home. This very strange night.'

Leni

I've had about three hours of sleep, and I feel jet-lagged. My movements are slow and my head is thick with fatigue. At least the river is in form. It's sheet glass, no wind. After the nightmare of last night, these are the conditions I dream of. The air smells like summer, too, perfumed with eucalyptus.

I'm standing to one side of the gym, quietly warming up. Swinging my right leg back and forth under me, holding onto the wall for balance. I'm thirsty and a headache bangs behind my eyes. Switching sides, I notice Rachel and Millie on yoga mats across the room. They're teasing each other about their morning hairdos. Millie messes up her short hair so it's Mohawk style. Rach pulls her wet ponytail across her top lip, like a moustache. They fall about laughing.

I'd join in, but my crew doesn't expect me to be silly. Somehow I've got a reputation for being 100 per cent serious, 100 per cent of the time.

Rachel lies down and lets Millie push her legs over her head in a stretch.

‘Stop!' Rachel shouts. ‘I'm not a circus freak.'

I sit on my own, pulling my head down to my knees. Pretending I'm not interested in the morning chatter and gossip of the other girls.

‘Girls, let's go!' says Laura, running into the room. ‘We have three timed thousands to do this morning. Chop, chop!'

Now I start to feel part of the group, filling up our water bottles, pulling on caps and arranging the blades neatly on the grass. I know how to do this. The stuff off the water is more confusing.

‘Hands on!' says Aiko as we file around the side of the boat and lift it off the racks.

We walk the boat down to the bank, expertly flipping the fibreglass shell off our shoulders and above our heads, rolling it down to sit on the water.

‘Blades in, let's get out there,' says Aiko.

I like the routine of rowing. Everything has a place to fit. I know my seat and what to do when I'm told.

Pretty much as soon as the warm-up starts, Rachel is in my ear about how tired she is.

‘Ugh. I need a coffee. Actually I need a bucket of coffee. Actually I need a slab of Red Bull.'

‘Shut up.'

‘What did you say?' Rachel bites back.

I'm trying to push aside my lack of sleep and focus on the row. But I feel murderously cranky.

‘I don't need you in my ear complaining, okay. Back me up.'

‘I always back you up.'

‘Do you?'

‘I don't like your tone of voice, young lady,' Rachel says, trying to lighten it up.

I sit forward, wishing that today of all days I didn't have to sit 20 centimetres from Rachel for two hours. She reluctantly joins me with her blade ready to start.

We are rowing out by the docks, closer to the ocean. The air has a salty tang and the river widens up. There's room to breathe. On either side of us are old docks and numbered shipping yards.

‘We will row from dock number three to nineteen,' says Laura as she zooms up on her tinny. She holds up her stopwatch.

‘It's roughly a thousand. You're on the clock, so I expect hard strokes all the way.'

We take off and the balance is tipping to stroke side. I struggle to get my blade off the water. I lift my hands up violently and try to right the boat. It only makes it worse.

‘Relax Leni,' says Rachel. ‘The balance will come.'

I grunt in frustration as the boat slides back onto stroke side, trapping my fingers painfully between the side of the boat and my oar handle.

‘Come on!' I yell, my finger throbbing in pain. ‘Sit the boat up!'

It's not only the boat that's feeling wonky. I'm rushing the slide and slow around the back turn. I'm not setting up a nice, easy pace for the girls to follow. I feel breathless and queasy.

‘Find the rhythm, Leni,' says Aiko. ‘Everyone else, relax and let the boat run!'

We find twenty decent strokes and then Aiko calls the finish.

‘Well that was utter garbage,' says Rachel behind me as we check the run off the boat.

‘Rachel, can you for once be positive? We had twenty good strokes, let's focus on those,' says Penny. I silently thank her. She doesn't speak up much, but when she does it makes perfect sense.

‘The good news is, kids, we have two more of those to go,' says Aiko into her microphone.

There's a groan from the seven bodies behind me. Laura idles nearby in her boat, looking disappointed.

‘What. Was. That?'
she says, looking down at her stopwatch. ‘Let's not row like that again, ladies. I thought I was back coaching the Year Eight sevenths. Leni, mate, settle down the rating and let's get some rhythm going. It's all over the shop.'

Dad skids his bike into the sheds. He's back from coach­ing the thirds and looks like he's about to blow up.

‘Uh-oh,' I say to Penny as we tinker with a few minor changes to our seats, the boat out on slings. ‘Watch this.'

‘You take strongest rowers out of boat and replace them with novice?' says Dad to Westie, who is looking at crew footage on his iPad as his crew washes down their boat.

‘Good morning to you too, Vasile.'

Dad points at Sam, who's quietly circling the boat with a big yellow sponge.

‘This boy fit, yes. He has talent, yes. But technique? Not as good as Cristian or Adam. He needs more time in second boat. Is too early for him.'

Sam looks embarrassed. He stops cleaning and listens in.

‘It's not about technique, Vas. It's about potential.'

‘My son has potential. Why else would he be on scholarship?'

‘He's also unfit, unmotivated and overweight.'

‘We see. He show you.'

‘In case you hadn't noticed, I'm the coach of the firsts. It's my decision who's in and who's out. And this boy,' says Westie, motioning to Sam, ‘has the potential to go all the way to Olympic gold medals. Don't tell me you don't see that too.'

‘I see he's not ready,' says Dad.

‘I see a parent who needs to take a step back,' says Westie.

The two of them eye each other in cold silence. Dad puts his hands up and takes an exaggerated step backwards.

‘Fine. Don't come crying to me when you lose Head of River.'

The seconds come in and I wait for Adam to get ready for school so we can go in together. I need to see he's all right. As he walks over to me I notice he's not wearing red socks anymore. He's already been stripped of that first crew honour.

‘Hi Leni,' he says. As if this is any morning. Not the morning after last night.

‘How are you?'

‘Fine,' he says with a tight smile. ‘A bit tired.'

‘Really? Are you okay to row?'

He's wearing the dorky straw hat that's part of our school uniform. Tipped at an angle, it hides his injury perfectly. I want to tell him not to pretend there's nothing wrong.

‘Yeah. No worries.'

‘I'm worried,' I say.

I reach for his arm and he lets me look him in the eye for precisely three seconds, all the hurt and pain from last night bubbling up. Then he puts the fake smile back on.

‘I have a plan to get Cris and I back into the firsts. You'll see. It won't be long. Come on. I'll treat you to an egg and bacon roll from the deli. To say thanks for last night.'

Just like that, Adam is back in control. All the frayed bits pulled together with his pressed blazer and perfectly aligned tie. He holds my hand and laces our fingers so tightly it's uncomfortable. I wiggle my fingers free and put my arm around his waist.

‘Egg and bacon roll
and
a chai latte.'

‘Deal,' he says, leaning in and kissing my neck lightly.

Cristian

Adam's waiting for me in the common room at recess. Both of us are still stinging from our training row with the seconds. The crew might have been hot stuff last week, but with two new rowers in the middle of the boat, everyone has to find their feet again. We were out of sync and didn't get their in-jokes.

‘Let's walk, Poppa.'

Adam steers me out the school gates to the street.

‘Hey man, is your head feeling okay?' I ask.

Adam has hidden his wound under his school hat, but I still know it's there. Underneath all the school-prefect, straight-A front, he seems unhappy. Stressed.

‘I don't want to talk about that.'

‘Sure?'

‘Positive.'

This is how it was with Adam. He was the leader and I was the puppy dog.

‘The seconds are okay, but they're not our crew,' says Adam flatly. ‘We belong back in the firsts. You know what the other schools are saying?'

‘No, what?'

‘There's trouble brewing at Harley. Westie is chucking out star rowers for novices.'

‘What are we supposed to do about it? This isn't musical chairs.'

‘I know someone who can help us.'

‘Who? Jenny Craig?'

‘Guy at my gym. The one I go to with my brothers and Dad.'

Adam works out at a private club on his side of the river. Shiny, brand-spanking new equipment and wall-to-wall pumped-up AFL players and gay guys. Lots of fluffy white towels and personal trainers pushing an agenda.

Adam took me there once and I couldn't wait to leave. It was the antithesis of the shabby, zen yoga studios around my area. Everyone was watching me lift, then watching themselves in the mirrors.

‘He can get us some stuff,' says Adam.

‘Stuff? Like protein powders? Aminos?'

‘Nah, like real gear.'

I know what gear is. Also known as juice, sauce, slop, product. Gear is steroids. And it's not the first time I'd been offered a taste. A team from South Africa came out on a school rugby tour last year and a few of the blokes were into it. Told us it was the best way to get bulk. I ignored them, but maybe Adam was listening.

‘I gotta get back in the firsts, Cris. This is the only thing I can think of. I've talked to this guy. He gets it for the footy players. Anything we like. Good gear.'

‘Where am I going to get money for that?'

‘I can pay for it.'

I feel uncomfortable. Our family isn't well-off but I don't like my cashed-up mates paying my way, either. If I pulled a few extra shifts at Bunnings, would it be enough?

‘I dunno, Adam. Don't they, like, shrink your balls or something? Make you Incredible Hulk aggro?'

‘Nah. This guy has good product. That weight you have to lose, will be gone in like, a month. I can get big. I'm too skinny. The more I lift, the skinnier I get. The protein shakes can only do so much. I need this. We can stop, way before the Head of the River. There's no testing, right? So no one has to know. Everyone does it now anyway.'

‘Isn't it cheating?'

‘Clean sport is a myth, my friend. You either get smart or you get beaten.'

We walk in silence, each of us weighing up the risk. It's minimal, our school doesn't drug test for performance-enhancing drugs, and it would be so easy to say yes. Rowing had gotten too hard. There was too much at stake now. We'd worked our way to the senior crews, but now we both needed a shortcut. The quickest point from A to B.

‘Will you do the talking?' I ask.

Adam smiles and slaps me across the shoulders conspiratorially. He doesn't like to do things on his own. It wasn't just about helping out a friend, he wanted a partner in crime.

‘We'll go see this guy after school. He'll hook us up. So, you'll come?'

‘Only to talk to him? I'm still not sure I want to do this.'

‘No-obligation, free quote,' says Adam.