The acid is starting to eat at my body, starting to twist and strangle my muscles. I am back in the water, the cheers and the stomping are dying out. I push back into the water, I stretch my arms, push out, feel the muscles tighten; the cramps start pinching into my flesh and my teeth are chattering so hard I think they will shatter.
‘Warm down,’ orders Coach. He is at the side of the pool, his fat gut bulging but tight as skin stretched across a drum. He is unsmiling, his arms are crossed.
‘I did good, Coach.’ I can hardly get the words out, my teeth are shards of ice. I can hardly speak.
‘Kelly, warm down, now!’ He won’t smile, he won’t congratulate me, he won’t say well done. But he doesn’t have to, he knows how good I was. All he does, all he has to do, is wrap a towel around my shoulders as I get out of the water. My legs wobble, like they aren’t attached to my torso, aren’t connected to me. He wraps the towel around me, supports me, just for a second, just a hand placed at the small of my back.
That’s all he needs to do. He’s proud of me, he’s so fucking proud of me. But his only thought is to stop the acid that my body has just spewed out, that is filling my veins and my blood and my belly and my head, so it won’t make me sick.
‘Now, now,’ he insists, ‘straight to the warm-down pool. Now!’
It hurts, it is fever — the swim has put poison in my body. But it is also how I know how hard I have worked. This is how I know it is worth it.
On the bus back to school, I’m at the back, in between Taylor and Wilco. I don’t say much, I just look ahead; all the Year Sevens are turning their heads, looking at me, whispering about me. I am silently telling myself, Don’t look conceited, this will be what it is like when you win at the Commonwealth Games, when you get a medal at the Olympics in 2000. I’m going to be there, I know it now, I know it after today, I am going to be there. You don’t get overexcited, you keep it cool. Everyone will be whispering then, everyone will be looking at my picture in the paper, at my swim on the television, everyone, every single person in the country will be looking at me, talking about me. This is the future, I know it, I see it. It has been given to me.
A few seats in front of us two of the Year Eights are arguing. One of them, with a mop of maple-syrup hair that explodes from his head, is nudging the other one, smaller, blond and pale, who is holding on to the competition program and keeps turning back to look at us, then quickly looking away. I can hear him saying, ‘No, I can’t.’ Shaggy Mop elbows him. ‘Do it,’ I hear him say. ‘Do it.’
The small blond kid gets up from his seat and comes up to us, clutching the program, trying not to stumble from the sway and roll of the bus. He is blushing so hard that his face is all tints of pink and red. He’s so scared he squeaks: ‘Excuse me, Kelly, can you sign my program?’
He’s so scared he’s shaking. The kids around us start to laugh. But not me, not Taylor or Wilco. The kid blushes even harder. He holds out his program and I take it.
‘Got a pen?’
He can’t even speak. He’s so in awe he can’t even speak to me. He just shakes his head stupidly, looking dazed, as if the question is too big for him, as if he can’t make sense of it.
‘I’ve got one,’ Shaggy Mop calls out, as though getting my autograph is the most important thing in the world.
They want my autograph, my autograph.
‘I’ve got one!’ he calls again and rushes up to his friend, just as the bus makes a hard right turn and sends him sprawling across the laps of two kids in the seat in front of us. He’s gone red too, and his mouth is like a fish’s, open shut open shut.
The skinny blond kid snatches the pen and hands it and the program to me.
‘What’s your name?’
His squeak is so high that I can’t make it out.
‘What?’
‘Byron!’ He yells it now.
And I write on the top of the program, To Byron, and then I hesitate and I think, How big do you make your signature? and I know that Taylor and Wilco are looking over my shoulder, waiting to see what I’m going to do. I’m thinking it can’t be too big because that will be showing off and it can’t be too small because that will look stupid, so I just scrawl across the page — and it is big, I can’t help it, it looks enormous — I sign it Daniel Kelly. That’s what I will be, how I am going to sign my name — that’s how they are going to know me. Not Danny, not Danny the Greek, not Dino. I am going to be Daniel, Daniel Kelly.
‘Give it here.’ Taylor grabs it out of my hands and I think, You can’t sign it, they don’t want yours, you came fourth, mate, a piddly fourth, but he doesn’t sign his name, he just writes in very neat capitals under where I have signed my surname: AKA BARRACUDA. Taylor hands the program back to the kid.
The kid’s face is still flushed but he is pleased, this is gold, my signature means something. He squeaks, ‘Thank you,’ and goes back to his seat but he and Shaggy Mop keep turning around and whispering.
Taylor leans into me, and whispers, ‘You’re a hero, Kelly.’
‘Shut up!’ I say, punching his arm. I can’t stop grinning.
That night Theo wants to ride on my shoulders as soon as I get home. I give him the ribbon and the trophy — he’s building a shelf of my trophies and ribbons in his room. I run through the house with my little brother on my shoulders and he’s chanting, ‘Danny’s a champion, Danny’s a champion.’
Mum says, ‘Congratulations, son,’ and hugs me, can’t stop hugging me. Regan chokes up and can’t speak, but the pride in her eyes is almost as good as a medal, as good as any trophy, her eyes are shining brighter than when sun strikes metal.
And even Dad, who has been home for three days, who hasn’t got out of his pyjamas in all that time he’s that tired, all he’s been doing is playing rock and roll and reading on the couch, he too says, ‘Good on you, Dan, I’m proud of you.’ He says it. He’s proud of me.
I’m a fucking champion.
Or I’m a fucking champion till dinner. I shovel in the food, can’t stop speaking, I’m telling them that Coach is having me and Taylor, Scooter and Wilco over for dinner at his place, we’re going to eat the best pizzas in the world and Coach will tell us all about what competitions are coming up next and who we have to beat and what Swimming Australia is doing and who is putting in the money and who we have to watch and who we have to impress. I have signed my first autograph and tomorrow night we’re going to be celebrating at Coach’s place for dinner. I’m so excited that I eat and talk at the same time, food sprays from my mouth as I rush the words out. And then I realise that no one is saying anything.
Dad pushes away his plate. ‘Tomorrow night is Theo’s birthday.’
It sinks in. I forgot: tomorrow is Theo’s birthday and we’re taking him bowling. He’s already organised the teams: Mum and Dad and Regan on one team, Theo and me on the other.
I look across at my little brother. He’s sliding his fork around the plate, not looking at me. I feel like shit but I know I’m not going. I know I am going to Coach’s house, I have to be at Coach’s house. I deserve to be there. Don’t spoil it for me, Theo, I am thinking, please don’t spoil it for me.
‘You’re coming with us.’ It isn’t even Dad, it’s Mum. I can’t believe it’s Mum.
‘I’m sorry,’ I begin. ‘I know I should have remembered—’