‘It goes deeper than that,’ said Dr. Dalton. ‘I’ve been with her a good deal over the last few days, remember. For much of the time she is perfectly rational, a sweet-natured girl, almost an innocent, to use an old-fashioned word. Then there are quite different phases of behavior, when she becomes aggressive, domineering and disturbingly irrational. For example, till Sunday she was sharing a room in the Village with two other girls, Janie Canute and Mary-Lou Devine. Sunday morning she accused Janie quite unjustly of having taken her gold medal from its case and tried it on around her neck. Both the others insisted nothing like that had happened. Goldine said Janie was trying to take away her power, something like that, quite weird. She insisted they should call her Goldengirl in the future.’
‘She came to see me,’ put in McCorquodale, ‘and told me this story, demanding that I move her into a single room, which is one reason why she’s now billeted here.’
‘She has also made complaints to the team manager that Dr. Nagel and I are not treating her with the respect due to a golden girl,’ said Dr. Dalton. ‘Apparently it offends her to be touched. At times she is highly abusive to us both, demanding a kind of servile approach.’
‘Which is what made me mention the incident with you,’ said Nagel.
‘Yet, as I say, on other occasions she’ll treat us normally, as if the hostile scenes had never happened,’ said Dalton. ‘Mr. Dryden, I’m no psychoanalyst, but I’m afraid this girl may be manifesting a split personality.’
‘Schizophrenia,’ said Nagel.
‘Which is why we venture to question her statements about the origin of her diabetes,’ said Dalton.
‘So you see why we want you to tell us some more about Goldine,’ said McCorquodale. ‘You’ve known her some time, I understand. We haven’t, and we have the responsibility of deciding what to do about tomorrow. She is determined to run, but we can’t put her in danger. What it comes down to is whether we can place any reliance on her statement that she has been diabetic for two years.’
So Dryden felt another clamp tighten. There was no escape from involvement in this nightmare. ‘May I ask you a question? Who suggested you should talk to me about this?’
Dr. Dalton glanced toward McCorquodale. ‘Shall I answer this? Mr. Dryden, I questioned Goldine pretty closely. She said you would verify it. She doesn’t know we’re also consulting you about her mental state.’
That was it, then. Goldine herself had put them on to him. The suggestion to mislead the doctors about the onset of the diabetes had come from him. She had returned the pass. ‘I don’t know that I can comment on her behavior. Certainly it was strange the other afternoon after the 100 metres, although the circumstances were exceptional.’ He flicked ash from the cigarette. ‘Goldine has been under tremendous pressure, with the kidnaping, all the interest of the media, the decision whether to compete. I was surprised, yes, but on reflection I can understand that the stress of that Final brought her to a mental crisis point. What you say is disturbing. I hope she can get over this. Looking at it as a non-specialist, I’d say the important thing now is not to interfere any more with her expectations.’
‘To let her run?’ said McCorquodale, beaming.
Dryden nodded.
Dalton said, ‘There’s still the question of her diabetes.’
McCorquodale turned to Dryden. ‘Well?’
‘I can’t say for sure when she contracted it, but it must have been established way back. If she says two years...’
‘That’s good enough for me,’ said McCorquodale firmly. ‘Gentlemen, Goldine runs tomorrow.’
They had put Serafin in a high-backed armchair like a throne. He was pale under the arc lamps, but there was no trace of nervousness in his expression. Behind him was a blowup of Goldine winning the 100 metres. Facing him, unobtrusively, on a low chair, his interviewer, clipboard in hand.
First they had asked him to talk through the videotape of the gold-medal performance as they ran it through in slow motion. He had done it confidently, commenting with technical know-how on the minutiae of the start, pickup and sprint.
Then the interviewer had taken him over the salient events in Goldine’s childhood: the accident on Huntington State Beach, her time in Tamarisk Lodge, the adoption. Clearly everything was on the clipboard. Stills were shown of Trudi in TWA uniform, Goldine at three, the Los Angeles Times report on the drowning.
The first indication that Serafin had his own ideas about the direction of the interview had come when the adoption was mentioned. He had insisted on outlining his research project. The interviewer had gone along with him for a short while, then put in a mild inquiry about the relevance of this to Goldine’s track career, but Serafin had refused to be sidetracked. He had gone on for another half minute. Then he had brought it around to Goldine: ‘The research involved tracing people, you see. Goldine’s mother was one of them. She had emigrated to California. When I tried to locate her, I learned about the accident. Out of compassion, my wife and I decided to adopt the child.’
‘Out of compassion,’ repeated the interviewer without emphasis.
‘That was what I said.’
‘She had this exceptional physique, you said.’
Serafin refused to be drawn. ‘That did not influence our decision.’
They moved on to Goldine’s upbringing.
‘She went to school?’
‘She was educated at home.’
‘Why was that, Dr. Serafin?’
‘I wanted to be sure her physical potential was not neglected.’
‘It had, er, come to your notice by then?’
‘As a physiologist, I recognised that she was exceptionally advanced in muscular and skeletal development.’
‘You figured she was a future sports star?’
‘I suspected she could be, with the right encouragement.’
‘The right encouragement. That meant home schooling. Anything else?’
‘Physical exercise. I fitted up a home gymnasium.’
‘Vaulting boxes, wall bars, weights — that kind of thing?’
‘That kind of thing,’ Serafin repeated with a slight hesitation, as if uncertain whether he was being led into a trap.
A pause.
‘Quite an outlay, I guess, Dr. Serafin — home tutors and all that apparatus?’
‘It was worth it to me. As an investment.’
The shot switched to the interviewer, his eyebrows lifted inquiringly. ‘You mean a profit-making venture?’
Serafin shifted in his chair. ‘No, no. I used the word in a figurative sense. By providing facilities I was investing in Goldine’s health, her physical development. At the time we are talking about, when I installed the home gym, the Olympics were twelve or thirteen years ahead. Surely you must see that all those years ago I could not have been thinking in terms of financial reward.’ Sensing that in avoiding one snare, he was stepping into another, Serafin drew back. Too obviously. ‘Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not suggesting athletes gain anything financially from winning the Olympics.’ Now the camera zoomed in to see how he was holding up. The sweat was beading on his forehead and his eyelids flickered as he stated, ‘Goldine is strictly an amateur. She runs for love of the sport.’
The interviewer let that hang in the air a moment.
‘Okay, let’s get back to the time when you first learned she could run fast. How exactly did you discover she had this superlative speed?’
‘Not merely speed. A superlative physique,’ said Serafin, riding that one smoothly. ‘That was obvious to me when she was a child.’
‘The running,’ gently pressed the interviewer. ‘When did the Olympic idea take root?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t single out the running as if that is the only manifestation of her ability,’ said Serafin, recouping some confidence. ‘She would excel in any sport involving agility, given time to acquire the necessary skill. On the Sheldon classification she rates as a mesomorph, despite her unusual height—’