Emiliano Brembilla was called and moved to his block, looking relaxed. Danny noticed his strong long legs — Danny’s would be that strong one day. One day he too would stand on an Olympic block, not anxious, not strained. Brembilla could win it, he thought, he had been the best swimmer in the heats; Brembilla could steal it from Kowalski. He whispered to himself, Kowalski, Brembilla, Perkins. Kowalski, Brembilla, Perkins.
His eyes were on the screen but he didn’t see Masato Hirano from Japan. (Hirano can’t get it, Hirano can’t win it.) He could only see Kowalski and Brembilla. It was the cheers that forced him to make sense of the images in front of him. Theo and Regan were cheering, his mother was smiling; Perkins had his arms in the air and the Australians in the crowd were making a din. It sounded like the whole world was cheering. He thought of Kowalski: what must he be thinking? Was he not worthy of such adulation? The bad feeling grew in Danny’s gut. He had a smile on his face; he could have even said to Theo, Perkins can still get it, but that would be a lie. That wasn’t his prayer. His prayer was Kowalski, Brembilla, Perkins. Kowalski, Brembilla, Perkins. His prayer wasn’t answered. Perkins led at the one hundred, at the five hundred, at the one thousand; and even though by the twentieth lap Danny could see that Perkins had slowed, was showing fatigue, the others were not equal to his swim. It was only to be silver for Kowalski, but then Danny started fearing that the swimmer might have started too strongly. Kowalski had been chasing Perkins from the very beginning. It was Perkins and it was Kowalski and then Perkins and Kowalski and Brembilla and for a moment Danny thought, He’s got it in him, he’s gonna push through, but then it was Perkins and Hoffmann and Kowalski and then it was Smith who began to scare Danny, for it was Smith who didn’t tire, unlike Brembilla and — Danny knew it as well as if he was there in the pool, as if he himself had become the struggling swimmer — unlike Kowalski. The race was won long before it was over; Perkins was half a body length, then a body length, then two body lengths in front, and then he pulled away to a place where victory seemed to be propelling him forward, where victory seemed to be swimming alongside him, where every doubt and every injury and every failure had been vanquished. And it was half a body length and a body length and two body lengths before it was five metres and then ten metres and finally he was twenty metres in front, and it was the last one hundred metres and Danny’s heart was sinking though he was not showing it at all, he was screaming, just like his brother and sister were screaming, both of them jumping up and down on the bed, ‘Go, Kieren! Go, Kieren!’ just like the commentators were screaming, like the crowd in the stadium, like the whole world. It was the last one hundred metres and Smith was coming in second and Kowalski was trailing and Brembilla could not win, and then it was the final fifty metres and Kowalski’s turn was beautiful, it put him neck and neck with Smith, and Danny heard an announcer yell, ‘Fight for the silver, son!’ and he didn’t know why but he felt that he had to scream so loud that it would tear his throat, ‘Fight for the silver, Daniel, fight for the silver, son!’ It was twenty-five metres and Kowalski and Smith were neck and neck and it was ten metres, Perkins had gold and Kowalski and Smith were neck and neck. And it was the finish, and the first hand to touch the tiles was the hand of the swimmer in lane four and just as it did so the swimmer in lane five also slapped the tiles. It was Perkins, Kowalski, Smith. It was gold for Australia, it was silver for Australia. Theo was jumping so high his mother was calling for him to stop, fearful he might hit his head on the ceiling, Regan was crying, the whole world was shouting and screaming and crying. This was what it felt like, thought Danny, this was what it should feel like. But there was an emptiness at the centre of him.
No, there wasn’t. There couldn’t be.
It was the best result — Kieren Perkins had made history. But there was a hole in Danny’s stomach. No, no, there wasn’t. This was one of the great moments in sport.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he screamed. ‘We’ve got silver, we’ve got gold. What a hero. What a hero.’ He didn’t look at the screen, not yet, not yet, because he didn’t want to see Kowalski’s face.
‘Look,’ his mother announced, ‘look at Perkins going to shake Daniel’s hand. That’s the first thing he does, that gives you the measure of the man, doesn’t it?’
But Danny couldn’t look, couldn’t look at Kowalski’s face, at Brembilla’s face, at the face of the man who had come fourth — who wouldn’t stand on the dais, who wouldn’t hear any cheers. Only one man won. He could hear the Coach: Only one man comes first. Perkins won. But Kowalski and Smith, Brembilla, Neethling, Hirano, Hoffmann, Akatyev — they all lost. Only one man comes first. ‘Silver and gold,’ he screamed, hugging Theo, hugging Regan, hugging his mother, dancing. But it hadn’t been Kowalski, Brembilla, Perkins. He knew then that he had learned something, something about not letting it show. Not showing the strain of it, the anxiety of it nor the terror of it. He wouldn’t ever let it show. Only losers let it show.
Later, when they had seen Perkins and Kowalski and Smith be awarded their medals, after hearing ‘Advance Australia Fair’, his mother called him back to the bathroom. ‘We haven’t finished, Danny.’
She had filled the bottom of the bath with lukewarm water and this time she lathered his chest, spreading foam down his firm flat stomach to just above the line of his Speedos. Her hands were warm but he didn’t like that her hands were on him, didn’t want to think about how close they were to his bits. He could see a thin knot of black pubes escaping from the top of his costume and he wanted to push her away. He wanted her hands off him. He closed his eyes, screwing them shut so tight there were streaks of red and white light dancing in the blackness. But within the twists and the twirls of the light, he could see the face of Daniel Kowalski, he could see the tightness of his forced smile as he approached the block. Danny would not give in to fear and anxiety. He would learn from Kowalski; he would be as good a swimmer as Kowalski was, but a better competitor. Like Kowalski, he didn’t have the perfect skin, the perfect smile, the perfect pedigree. At the school meets, it was Taylor who got the loudest cheers, whose name was called, who got the other boys stomping their feet in the bleachers. It was Taylor they screamed for—Tazza! Tazza! Tazza! — not Danny. He would fight the envy, he would take it on and give it back to them. He would not swim for the adulation. He would swim to win.
He could feel the cold blade scraping down his sternum. It was only when he could feel that she had finished that he opened his eyes. He went to step out of the bath.
‘Hey, hey, hey,’ she chided softly. ‘We haven’t quite finished. Turn around.’
‘Why?’
‘There’s just some hair on your back—’
‘My back!’ He was furious at her. He hated her and he hated his dad. Who wouldn’t pay for the electrolysis. Who wouldn’t pay for fucking anything.
He saw that Theo was looking up, alarmed by his shout.
‘It’s OK.’ He knew his mother was stifling a laugh. He wanted to insult her, to call her something that would humiliate her. Bitch. You’re a bitch. ‘It’s normal, just some hair on the small of your back. It’s normal, Danny.’