He made his way below. One of the architectural achievements of the Lenin Stadium is that a capacity crowd can be dispersed within six minutes. This assumes that everyone is making for the nearest exit. Dryden wanted the press center under the west stand. He got there by degrees and brute stubbornness. It was a good thing he had left Melody upstairs; anyone as small as she would have found themselves outside and halfway to the metro station by now.
He confirmed with a photographer by the entrance that Goldine hadn’t yet arrived for the conference. Uncertain which direction she would approach from, he waited there till he spotted a face he knew among those streaming inside: Klugman, actually smiling.
In time, he remembered Klugman’s personal stake in this, and held out his hand to him. ‘Congratulations! Beautifully managed!’
‘Thanks.’ Klugman was pink with pride. ‘I’ll enjoy it myself when I see it on TV. She did everything right. But for the crosswind, she’d have taken the world record.’
‘The important thing was taking Ursula Krüll. Where is Goldine now?’
‘The doctor’s looking at her,’ said Klugman. He held up his hand. ‘No sweat, it’s routine. You’d like to see her? I can get you in.’
He led Dryden back along the covered area under the stand to where each team management had its individual office. There was a cluster of cameramen outside the U.S. office. Klugman spoke to the two men on the door and Dryden was allowed past.
He pushed open a second door. It looked unlike any office in his experience. There was a bed in the center and Goldine was lying on it, still in her tracksuit, except the shoes. At a table to the right a girl in a blue nylon coat was testing urine in a chemical flask. Two men in white jackets were by the bed, one making notes, the other holding a syringe containing blood. He turned as Dryden entered and asked, ‘Who the hell are you?’
‘It’s okay,’ said Goldine, glancing expressionlessly at Dryden. ‘Personal friend.’
The doctor wasn’t satisfied. ‘Look, this isn’t—’
‘Save it,’ snapped Goldine. ‘I said he was my friend. Well,’ she asked Dryden, ‘are you here to congratulate me, or not?’
Something in her tone stopped him. ‘It’ll keep,’ he said. ‘You’ll get plenty of that. There’s this press conference coming up. I want to speak to you about it. There’s a man called Esselstyn.’ Dryden described him briefly. ‘You haven’t met him already? Good. If he’s there, he could be difficult. Likes to put the knife in. He, er, has a theory that you trained a long time for this. He doesn’t believe the jogging story. If I were you, I wouldn’t mention it unless you have to. You follow me?’
‘You came here to tell me that?’ she said without showing if it had registered.
‘There’s something else,’ Dryden quickly added. ‘Did you know the TV people have brought your father to Moscow?’
‘Doc? He’s not my father. You know that.’
‘That’s a technicality so far as the media are concerned,’ said Dryden. ‘They may want to lay on some kind of meeting between the two of you.’
‘They can go jump,’ said Goldine. ‘I won’t go near him.’
He moved closer, trying to exclude the medical team from the conversation. This had got off to a bad start. She was edgy, and so was he. Damn it, it was like prison visiting. ‘I’m not suggesting you agree to meet him,’ he said in an undertone. ‘Just keep it on a low key. Tell them you need to rest, or train, or something. Remember what they’ve written about the adoption, your happy childhood... I know how you feel about this, but it’s important to be consistent, to come up to the Goldengirl image. If anyone mentions your father—’
She cut him short with an obscenity. ‘I just won a gold medal and all you can talk about is that megalomaniac.’ She turned to face the doctors. ‘This is a private conversation, okay? If anyone present — that includes you’ — she called to the girl — ‘repeats things I said in confidence I’d—’
‘You see what I’m driving at?’ said Dryden.
She ignored him and spoke to the doctor with the syringe. ‘Had you finished examining me?’
He nodded and made an effort to respond with clinical detachment. ‘You will have the glucose tablets with you in your tracksuit pocket, but you shouldn’t need one.’
‘Uhuh.’ She brushed that aside. ‘What time is it?’
‘Six-five.’
‘They can wait some. I’ll be worth it. Are you sweating, Jack?’
He didn’t answer. He could have said things all right: said this was no time to act the prima donna; after all he had done in lining up a fortune in endorsements, he had a right to expect she would cooperate. But who was he to take a moral line when he was asking her to lie to the press? What was at stake was the image, the revenue, his livelihood. She knew that.
‘Do you think you can depend on me?’ she asked. ‘Or are you just a little scared of what I’ll say? Tell you what. If you want to be sure, you must give some. I’ll do the devoted-daughter bit as a favor to you in return for something. You can kiss me, Jack.’
Idiot! He had been so taken up with the threat of Esselstyn that he had missed the importance of this moment. Goldine had won. The whole of America had its arms outstretched to her, but she was turning to him. She had wanted him to kiss her, and he had talked about Serafin! ‘But of course.’
He smiled warmly and moved close.
She pushed her hand in front of his face. ‘Not my lips, Jack. My feet. You can kiss each of my feet. You owe one hell of a lot to them.’
He was wrong. It wasn’t affection she wanted, but abasement. Goldengirl was demanding her tribute. It was absurd. Adolescent. It warranted turning her over and slapping her bottom, but he didn’t. He did as she commanded, bent and put his lips to her feet in the uncomprehending presence of the medical team.
The only thing he was thankful for was that Melody wasn’t there to watch.
Twenty One
The victory ceremony for the 100 metres opened the program in the Stadium next day. As Goldine took her place at the top of the rostrum there was generous applause. Her press conference had been seen in full on Soviet TV the evening before. The candor of her answers had made a good impression. She had said complimentary things about Moscow, the Russian people, Muratova, Ursula Krüll, but she was proud of her victory and admitted she had worked hard for it. There had been no questions about Dr. Serafin or the consortium. If Esselstyn was present, he had kept quiet.
She shed no sentimental tears as the Star-Spangled Banner was played and the Stars and Stripes edged up the center flagpole behind the Olympic flame. ‘She stood serenely in her white tracksuit as if she had always expected to be there,’ reported the New York Times. ‘And when the ceremony ended, she shook the hands of the other girls and left the arena. It was as if she didn’t need to maximize the moment, because she knew there would be more.’
This was to be the easiest of Goldine’s five days of competition, with just the 400-metre Quarter-Final to contest. She ran in Heat Two, allowing a Jamaican girl to scud away in the stretch for an easy win. Goldine’s time was 53.23 secs, making her one of the slowest to go through to the Semi-Final, which after her tactics in the 100 metres fooled nobody.
The sensation of the round happened in Heat Four, when Janie Canute clashed with Ursula Krüll. It had clearly been decided in the German camp that Krüll needed her confidence restored as soon as possible after the previous day’s defeat, and a respectable time in the 400 metres was prescribed. The talk in the Olympic Village that morning had been that she was ready to demonstrate that her strength would turn the tables on Goldine in the longer events. She had come to Moscow to collect two gold medals, and she would settle for the 200 and 400 metres.