The Story of Danny Dunn (77 page)

‘I didn't say that.'

Bill Peach changed tack. ‘Your own swimmer, Samantha Dunn, some said at the time a certain gold medal winner at the Commonwealth Games in Jamaica two years ago, was omitted from the selection. Do you have anything to say about that?'

‘Only that she was bitterly disappointed but hopes to justify her inclusion in the Olympic team,' Forbes parried.

‘Do you have any qualms about the altitude affecting performances?' Bill Peach turned to camera again and explained. ‘Mexico City is more than 7000 feet above sea level.'

‘Of course, but I guess it's the same for all the competitors.'

‘Not quite.'

‘Oh?'

‘The Mexican swimmers, for a start . . .'

Forbes Carlile laughed. ‘Mexico isn't known for its swimmers.'

‘You mean, they need all the help they can get?'

‘I didn't say that.'

Bill Peach turned to the camera once more. ‘Well, there you have it: no Dawn Fraser for Mexico City; the same coaching arrangements as the Commonwealth Games; rarefied altitude, pollution and rumours of possible social unrest; but at least we have Samantha Dunn back where she belongs.' The camera cut to a shot of Sam on the winner's podium winning gold at the national championships. Then, to Forbes Carlile as an off-camera Bill Peach thanked him for coming onto the program. The camera cut back to Peach. ‘Tomorrow night we have Percy Cerutty, the controversial coach of Herb Elliott, who will talk about our athletics team's chances against the Americans and West Indians. I leave you with this Cerutty quote: “Most coaches want to see how fast you run; I want to see how much guts you have.” Goodnight.'

‘Phew! Forbes only just got away with that,' Danny said, watching at home with Gabby. ‘I wonder how poor Sam is going. She'll miss Forbes and Ursula.'

‘It's not fair, Dad. She isn't even allowed to call us!'

‘We'll see her in Mexico City, darling.'

‘If they allow us to!' Gabby cried.

‘Well, perhaps after she's swum her races and is free,' Danny said, silently agreeing with Gabby that everything was being done to discourage outside interference. He knew Sam would miss the support and reassurance of the people she knew, trusted and loved.

Sam was nearly seventeen, and this was the first time she had been parted from her family for more than a couple of nights for an interstate or country district swimming meet. Moral hygiene through sport – Olympic Chief Avery Brundage's philosophy – was eagerly adopted by the Amateur Swimming Union of Australia, even though it was as likely to hinder or upset young Australian athletes as it was to create a steely winning culture. Sam was a gregarious, outgoing young person and not accustomed to such isolation. Self-discipline was the last thing the swimmers lacked, having spent years rising at 4.30 a.m. and swimming three or four miles a day, while completing difficult and painful exercises, as well as coping with the normal exigencies of school and home life. Testosterone is not only present in males, and is enhanced by confidence, not denial.

However, Danny realised that not all swimming parents had the means to be present, and was therefore forced to conclude that Sam, like the others, would simply have to learn to manage on her own, though this should not have been necessary in the case of the coaches, who were prepared to raise the money to be with their swimmers. But all requests were denied by the Brundage cronies in the Amateur Swimming Union of Australia and the Olympic Swimming Association.

‘Gab, don't forget we'll have her with us when we visit Billy and Dallas in New Orleans. And remember to take your Stetson! Did Sam take hers?'

‘Mine looks pretty bad, but Sam's is worse,' Gabby laughed. ‘She wears it everywhere, even once on the Brokendown
catwalk. It got her on the cover of
Girl
!'

‘Billy or Dallas will probably buy you each a new one, and if they don't, then I will,' Danny offered.

‘You will not!' Gabby cried. ‘I'll never part with mine. I've even worn it on
Bandstand
. I told Mr Henderson that I wouldn't perform without it.'

‘You didn't!' Danny said, impressed. ‘What happened then?'

‘Well, he said that was the end of me appearing on
Bandstand
, so I started to walk off, but he called me back because the kids were all screaming at him and booing.'

‘Gabby, you didn't tell me this. Does your mother know?'

‘It wasn't a big deal, Dad. I'm a violinist, not a folk singer.
Bandstand
is only for fun.'

‘So what happened next?'

‘He said he was only kidding and to come back on, and then the kids booed him again for being such an idiot.'

‘This all happened on live TV?'

‘No, Dad, it's pre-recorded in the studio. They do three episodes at the same time.'

‘And no repercussions afterwards?'

‘Johnny O'Keefe came over and said, “Good on ya, kid.”'

‘And you've been invited back?'

‘Yes, last week, but I told them I was going to the Olympics. Anyway, I wouldn't go onto
Bandstand
again unless I wore my Stetson.'

Danny grinned. ‘Cheeky bugger! But you'd only worn it the once, and you've been on that show a fair bit – three or four times – haven't you?'

‘Yes, but there was a principle involved!'

Danny laughed. ‘Good one. You might start a trend.'

Gabby giggled. ‘I already have. It's become a kids' thing, only they're using their dads' Akubras.'

‘And what do you wear for concerts, now you're in the Conservatorium proper?'

‘Oh, a black cloak and a fedora with the brim pulled down on one side!' Gabby grinned.

‘With a flower?' Danny asked.

‘Oh yes, a yellow rose from our garden, in memory of Sammy Laidlaw.'

‘Bullnose would appreciate that. He said to me the other day, “Me arty-ritis is givin' me a bit a' stick, Danny. Yer'll have ter throw me in the compost heap when I can't prune them roses no more! Gabby'll go crook on me if she can't 'ave no yellow roses!”'

‘I'd never go crook at Bullnose,' Gabby said with a smile.

‘I'm not sure Sammy was much of a classical-music fan,' Danny went on, ‘but I've been led to believe by your grandmother that it's the only kind of music they play in heaven, so he's probably got used to it by now. He's probably watching your progress and smiling, in between growing yellow roses in his heavenly garden.'

‘Grandma loves the violin – or the fiddle, as she calls it. She says, “It's the sound of wild bush honey poured onto warm black rocks. That is, if
that
could be a sound, me darlin'.” I've written a song I've called “Wild Bush Honey/ Warm Black Rocks”. Wanna hear it?'

‘Yeah, but maybe not right now, eh?' Danny said, turning his attention back to the television.

After arriving in Los Angeles, Danny and Gabby took a Continental Airlines flight to Mexico City. Helen had pleaded pressure of work by way of excuse for not joining them, something Danny and Gabby had puzzled over many times on the long flight. Danny, as usual, had done his homework and had grave doubts about the wisdom of bringing Gabby to one of the most dangerous cities in the world. But Sam was Gabby's twin and her anxiety to be close to her at her moment of triumph in the pool, an outcome Gabby never for one moment doubted, could not be dismissed. At the time of the Olympics, or perhaps because of the Olympics, Mexico City was like a human Krakatau, a volcano plugged by a sclerotic ruling class with the pressure of ten million, mostly poor, Indians, descendants of the Aztecs, building to an almighty eruption.

The people were kept under control by a combination of the army and the police, both organisations venal and corrupt in the extreme. Only the poor were fined or punished; the rich simply paid bribes. There was a saying in Mexico: ‘It is easier to find a lone flea on an elephant than a rich man in jail.'

The poor inhabitants – you couldn't call them citizens because they had no rights – lived in shantytowns of flattened kerosene tins, canvas, plywood, corrugated iron, mud bricks and cardboard, without water or sanitation, while the rich, with their fortunes built on vast petroleum and oil resources, lived in unimaginable luxury, oblivious or uncaring. This was a city of private affluence and abject public squalor, where official buildings and private palaces stood in dirty streets and plazas crowded with beggars, the poor and the desperate.

With the world's eyes on Mexico, there was a chance to publicise the misery of most of the ten million inhabitants of the city. But the haves reacted to the riots as they'd always done and sent in the army and the police, who killed hundreds of students and rioters while the world and the Olympic organisers looked on and did nothing other than to have Brundage appear on the world's TV screens to assure everyone that the Mexican authorities had everything under control and that the glory of the Olympic tradition would continue.

Gabby and Danny arrived in the early evening, and by the time they had reached their hotel, Gabby was in tears at the poverty she had witnessed through the taxi window. They were welcomed by what seemed like a legion of spotlessly uniformed hotel staff, each more unctuous and fawning than the last, no doubt conscious of the privilege of holding down a regular job.

Danny had booked a small suite in the Hotel Majestic, an old and comfortable hotel with every amenity, close to the Zócalo, the plaza in the centre of the city. After the poverty they had witnessed coming in from the airport, it seemed an obscene extravagance.

The suite, despite being described as small, was spacious and deliciously old-fashioned, with high, dark wooden ceilings and several ornate silver-framed mirrors. The bathroom was large enough to throw an echo and contained an enormous four-legged bath and gleaming brass fixtures redolent of an advertisement in a Victorian almanac. But the water was steaming and plentiful, the beds commodious and well sprung, and the air-conditioning, while somewhat noisy, worked.

The Olympic Village, set in almost one hundred acres of lawns and wooded parkland in Pedregal de San Angel on the southern edge of the city, was just five minutes by car from the main stadia. It was designed as a new suburb with every amenity, so that the 7000 athletes and 800 officials had no reason, other than curiosity, to leave the village and enter the perilous city. To ensure that the athletes understood this, the entire area was surrounded by a high wire perimeter fence, patrolled by armed guards at the various entry points.

Sam lay on her bed in the small bedroom she shared with Judith Playfair. ‘My legs feel heavy. Are yours okay?' she asked Judith.

‘It's probably jet lag,' Judith said. ‘Mine are fine.'

‘Jet lag? We've already been here a week. Shouldn't it be over by now?' Sam asked.

‘Perhaps it's the altitude, the two things combined. Maybe try a massage. I had one today; it was good,' Judith said.

‘Me too, but I miss Ursula. It wasn't the same.'

‘You're spoilt, Sam,' Judith said with a laugh.

‘I know, but I miss my coach, don't you? I don't like what Don Talbot's assistant is making me do. It's different, the routines are different.' Sam turned on her elbow to face her fellow competitor. ‘Judy, I'm scared.'

‘Don't worry, we all are. We got accustomed to the change in coaches in Jamaica. There's not much you can do about it,' Judith advised. ‘We all miss our coaches, Sam, but we don't have any say – you know that!'

‘But everyone knows you guys didn't live up to your potential in Jamaica! Don't they realise that?'

‘Grow up, Sam. It's not about us, it's about power! The little Hitlers. You have to tell yourself to forget what's giving you the shits and go for it – this may be your only Olympics.'

‘Yeah, I suppose, but I'm not making it up about my legs.'

Six days later an excited Danny and Gabby sat in the swimming complex to watch Sam swim in her first heat for the 100-metres freestyle. Sam managed to spot them in the crowd and waved, while Gabby blew kisses down at her twin and Danny held both thumbs in the air.

‘I'm so nervous, Dad, I think I'm going to be sick,' Gabby said.

‘I'm carrying the other half of the butterfly colony, darling. She's done the work, now we can only hope it's enough.'

To their joy, Sam won her heat, but was well behind her best time. Hers was the fourth heat and the slowest up to that time, with three more to swim. Danny and Gabby waited anxiously to see if her time qualified her for the finals. ‘Dad, she's four seconds behind her best time. Will it be enough?' Gabby cried, close to tears.

‘If it is, then she's being very smart, sweetheart. Sam is saving herself for the finals.' But he knew his girl – Sam swam every race as if her life depended on it. Hers was an all-or-nothing personality; she put it on the line every time. He knew there was something wrong.