'He won't be my first,' said Coach, and there was a growl in his voice; Danny could sense the anger there. Coach pointed at him and Wilco. 'One of these boys will be my first.' He was gesturing at the two of them but he was looking straight at Danny.
Ben's laugh was cynical. He said goodbye without looking at Wilco or Danny.
Danny wanted the Coach to give it back. He didn't know exactly how but he sensed that Frank Torma had been slighted. Give it back, he said under his breath, Give it back.
But Frank Torma said nothing at all.
There was a dinner and a small procession through the stadium adjacent to the swimming complex. There were photographers and television cameras and a speech by the Queensland Minister for Sport and another speech by the CEO of the main sponsor and another by another CEO and then a final speech by someone from Swimming Australia. There were many more handsome boys in much better suits, and the ones who were the handsomest were the golden boys, and they were the ones the photographers were crowding around and they were the ones being asked questions by the reporters and being introduced to the CEOs and the Minister for Sport. When the group photograph was taken, with Danny somewhere in the second row, Wilco in the fourth, Danny knew that he would look small, insignificant.
The next time he was here, he told himself, after he had won his races, he would be a golden boy.
All of that was gone as soon as he dived into the pool the following morning. It was the best feeling in the world. The water took his burdens away from him.
But when he was returning to the change rooms, a young official ran up to him and blocked his way. Danny was about to protest but the man hissed, 'Shh, you're in the frame. There's an interview going on!'
One of the golden boys was being interviewed on camera. There were wires and cables and men holding microphone booms. Danny tugged his hand free and made his escape.
He hated them, he absolutely hated them, the golden boys. He hated their blondness, their insincere smiles, their designer sunglasses, their designer swimmers and their designer sports gear. They made him feel dark and short and dirty. He detested them and he couldn't wait till he was wearing those sunglasses, till he had those brand names across his sweatshirt, impatient for when those microphones and those cameras were going to be in his face.
He found Wilco and they headed back to the bus that would return them to the dorms. The humidity made it feel as though they were walking through steam. Danny had made sure not to exert himself too much in the day's training; he knew that he had to learn to manage the air, the humid damp screen that clung to his face, to his skin, that seeped in under his armpits, slipped into the creases between his legs. He told himself that it was not making him itch, he forced his hands to be still. He and Wilco found a seat together in the middle of the bus. The golden boys were all sitting up the back. Danny could smell the chlorine and the bland floury tang of the locker-room soap. He could smell Wilco's sweat, the pong of rotting fruit, they all smelled of it. They all stank of chlorine and rotting fruit and floury soap. The official ticked off the list and the bus rumbled and began to move. Danny's body was bathed in perspiration, his shirt was sticking to the seat. He shifted, he breathed, he told himself that he knew that air, that he did not feel the heat, that there was no itch. He sat still, staring straight ahead. Wilco was saying something and Danny was nodding, but not listening, trying not to think of anyone or anything. He was concentrating on breathing, on the air coming in and the air going out. He was hearing but not listening. There was nothing, no heat, no humidity, no itch, no golden boys, no golden girls, no bodies, no flesh. It was just him. There was no one else but Danny Kelly.
When they filed off the bus, Coach was standing there. He wanted Danny to wait. Wilco kept looking back, wondering what Torma had to tell Danny. He was jealous, Danny was sure of it. The last people got off the bus just as the women's coach rumbled to a stop. Coach stayed silent while the girls left the bus, talking and swinging their sports bags over their shoulders. Danny had his head lowered while they walked past. He could look at them clinically, critically, when they were in or around the pool, when they were stripped to their togs, being swimmers. But he wasn't sure how to be around them when they were away from the pool, when they were in their civvies. There was no breeze, the air was heavy as a curtain, his shirt was plastered to his back and under his arms, he could feel sweat trickling down his arse crack. He breathed in, transformed it into air that he could control.
The Coach held out his hand and touched Danny's chest, as though he was testing his breathing, reading his heart rate.
The Coach dropped his hand. 'Are you ready?'
The words took the boy by surprise. He wanted to snap back, 'Of course I am,' but something in the Coach's earnest enquiry stopped him. The man was not suited to the Queensland climate. His face was flushed, his shirt drenched, there was sweat on his brow, on the ridge of his chin, under his eyes. There was a small wet patch on Danny's t-shirt, where the Coach's hand had made contact.
'Of course,' Danny said quietly.
?You are a young man, Kelly,? Coach said.?Still a boy, but you are strong.?
Danny had followed all the Coach's instructions, he had worked at the gym, strengthening the muscles in his chest, his back, his arms, his legs. He had strength and power.
'The other competitors will be older boys, but you have the strength to qualify tomorrow afternoon.' The Coach clipped and rolled the final word, making it two distinct words: aftAH noorn.
And the morning? Danny wanted the Coach to say something about the morning's heat, the one hundred metre freestyle. There wasn't really any advice to be given now, it was all up to him. Still, he wanted to hear something, some encouragement. But the man had already started walking away; he turned in surprise that the boy wasn't following.
Danny didn't know how to ask the question. He thought it was unfair that he had to find the words for it. His mouth drooped, in a sulk.
'Use your strength,' the Coach said, turning back again. 'Use it in the morning and use it in the afternoon.'
Danny could smile then; he wanted to run after the Coach and hug him. He wanted to hear him say those words again and again. Use your strength. He was the strongest. He could use his strength for both races. He knew the Coach only wanted him to work at the butterfly, wanted Danny to concentrate on the new stroke. He'd been doing that, he'd been mastering it. But he could do both, he knew he could. He wasn't going to fuck it up, he'd show the Coach that he could do it. The freestyle was Danny's stroke, it belonged to him.
Danny was shaking, his body was folding in on itself. He felt as though someone had reached into his gut and squeezed out his entrails, that there was nothing left inside him. He was quivering and hollow, his teeth chattering, his balls had shrivelled and been punched up to his gut and he cradled his shaking frame, telling himself not to throw up, not to shit, not to piss, not to vomit as he limped from the pool. But the air was fighting him and he panicked, struggling for breath, so he forced his lungs to work, commanded his body to work, and he expelled a breath and water streamed down from his nose, spilled from his mouth, he was all snot and all water, a creature more marine than human. But at last he was breathing and he could force his muscles to work and his limbs to move and he was walking and breathing, slowly coming back to himself. As he walked past the tiers of seats he was aware that there were lights flashing and people rushing and that photographs were being taken and swimmers were coming out into the pool area and then he was in the shower and the cold water was raining down on his head and shoulders and he was no longer trembling, no longer thinking that his belly would split, that his bowels would explode. He could think again, he could think and see and hear. A low roar rumbled around the auditorium and all he could think of was that he was third, that he had not qualified in the heat, that the stroke no longer belonged to him, that he wasn't good enough or strong enough. There were two swimmers better than him, a golden boy, a golden boy of course, but also a young swimmer, a swimmer even younger than he was, with a lanky clumsy frame and massive feet and hands, and that boy had come first and the golden boy had come second and he had come third.