Head of the River (4 page)

I've come home from school early. I was bawling my eyes out in the guys' gym toilets with the door locked. I wasn't about to get caught doing that. I'd rather get suspended for wagging.

Mum's at work, Dad's at the boatsheds. I've got the house to myself.

I'm sitting in the lounge room in my boxers, eating a pie and a milkshake, hating myself. I eat when I feel like this, trying to fill the empty feelings with sugar and fat. It works for a bit, then more blackness comes in its place. Worse than before.

After Dad dropped me off at training, Westie gathered us in a circle. Eighteen of us were up for re-selection – the first and second crews shuffled like a pack of cards. Everyone was twitchy. There was a smell of fear in the air. We may row in the same school colours, but we're enemies when it comes to keeping our seats in the boat.

The room went so quiet all you could hear was the whir of a guy on the ergo and the patter of rain on the tin roof. The second's coach, Mr Patterson, aka Patto, got out an iPad. Numbers were going to be crunched today.

‘Boys, today we are racing in single sculls,' Westie said.

‘FFS. I hate sculls,' I muttered to Adam.

The scull is a single boat – light as a wafer and tricky to balance. They make me feel like a wrestler on a tightrope.

‘Yes!' Sam whispered loudly and pumped his fist like he'd won lotto.

Sam rocks the scull. He taps the boat along with hardly a splash and rockets along the water. There was something I didn't like about Sam. He may have fooled the girls with his cool, mysterious act, but there was something shifty about him. I didn't trust his yogi Buddhist bullshit as far as I could throw it.

‘Group weigh-in before we head out,' said Patto. He's not that much older than me – in his mid-twenties and already an Australian rep in the single scull. His ego hardly fits in the room.

‘Weigh-ins? What next, the guillotine?' I said.

‘Got a problem with that, Poppa?' asked Patto.

‘No problem, sir,' I said.

Most guys in my squad don't care about weigh-ins. They have no problems stripping down in the communal showers. I'm not one of those guys. I've never liked being weighed. It usually makes me feel bad.

Patto dragged out the scales and one by one we stood on them. Charley copped it for being too skinny.

‘Fifty-three point four kilos,' Patto said. ‘Aren't you a dainty thing?'

Adam got on the scales. ‘Sixty-seven point eight kilos,' Patto said. ‘A little light on for a six seat, Adam. Time to hit the weights room.'

Adam's dad won't be happy if he's not in the first eight in his final year of school. It's a family tradition. The Langley boys row in the firsts. End of story.

Sam bounded over to the scales and steps on.

‘Seventy-six point three. Perfect, Mr Camero,' said Patto.

It's my turn next. There's no escape hatch. No time-travel machine or teleporter to make this all disappear.

‘Cristian, let's see how much beef the meat seat is carrying,' Patto said. I glared back at him.

The squad hung around like it was a spectator sport. Any idle chatter petered off to hear my weight. I felt like a circus freak.

I prayed the number wasn't as big as I thought it might
be. I thought light thoughts. Patto let out a long, slow
whistle and my hopes burst.

‘One hundred and seventeen point two kilograms.'

I'd put on 7 kilos since the last weigh-in. The secret bingeing on chocolate bars and trips to the kebab shop weren't so secret anymore. The squad clapped and I took a silly little bow, as if I was actually pleased to be the heftiest man in the boat. My crew might have laughed in the sheds, but on the river, they were hauling my flab along.

Patto patted my tummy. ‘Ease off the pies, Poppa. We don't need an anchor in the boat, now do we?'

It took all my self-control not to pick up that iPad and clap him over the head with it.

With the horror of weigh-ins over, I carried my scull over my head down to the staging, flicked the light on the end of my bow and grabbed some oars from a stack on the bank. You'd think it would be quiet this early in the morning, but it was already a circus. Bikes, coaches shouting, street-cleaners beeping, trucks roaring towards the highway, cicadas chirping.

The sky was muddy, but I could see Penny screwing her oar into its gate with the rest of the girls' first eight. She glanced at me, then looked away, pulling her cap down over her eyes. But as she rowed past she smiled at me shyly.

I shivered – not because of the cold wind – but because Penny gives me full-on body tingles. Even from a distance. She's beautiful, graceful and has this way of twirling her hair around one finger and sort of spacing out when we have rowing meetings. What is she thinking about? About me? I doubted it. Leni said she ‘maybe' liked me. Was maybe enough to ask her out?

I tried to find my balance, wiggling around on my bum cheeks and taking a few strokes. It felt tippy.

Sam rowed around me. ‘We're first, Poppa!' he shouted. ‘You, me, Julian and Mal. You ready, fat boy?'

‘I was born ready, douche bag,' I said back, full of false confidence. Sam was one of the guys that liked to hang it on me for my weight. Another reason I didn't like him.

We rowed down to the start. The city buildings were dipped in fog and a flock of black birds swooped on my boat. Looking back, it was a bad sign.

Westie lined us up four in a row and shouted across the water. ‘Attention! Row!'

Sam got an early lead with a high stroke count. I tried to stay calm and stick to my race plan – long, strong and steady. Loose and confident. Push, drive.

Mal slipped back after the first 250. Julian hung in for a bit longer, but his technique fell apart and it became a two-man race. Me versus freaky Sam. It's what the coaches wanted to see, but I don't think anyone expected me to be sitting on Sam's wash.

At the 500 I took my first proper look over my shoulder to see where I was placed. I wasn't making up ground on Sam – I'd let him pull out to two lengths lead.

Of course that's when Dad started yelling at me.

‘Cristian, relax! Don't rush! Listen to the boat!'

I listened to the boat. It was making a clunking sound.
I was rushing into the front and my blades dragged along the water. I kept looking over my shoulder and saw Sam
was taking more water from me – three, maybe four
lengths.

‘Time to go, Cristian!' Dad shouted as we passed the 1000-metre marker. ‘Time to go now, son!'

I was going already. If I was driving a car my foot would have been on the floor in heavy boots.

I tried to spring from my toes, but I had nothing left. My catches were heavy. Instead of accepting defeat I went for one last effort in the final 500, taking my rating up a few clicks. That's when it happened.

The boat tipped to one side, so fast I couldn't correct it. One second I was dry and the next I was swimming up to my neck in freezing, murky Yarra water. It was so cold my balls shrunk to the size of grapes and I screamed like a girl when I felt something slimy brush past my leg. I tried to get back in the boat but the frame was so small and slippery it kept tipping me back out.

‘Come on!' I swore at the boat.

The other guys were racing down the course towards me. I didn't want to become that kid who was cut in half during a training session.

‘Cristian! Come to the bank!' Dad yelled. ‘Swim your boat across!'

Sam had spotted that I was in trouble and was tapping his boat over to play hero.

‘Are you okay, Cris?' he called.

That was all the motivation I needed. I grabbed my boat and with my free arm, dog paddled across the river to the bank and the slimy weeds.

I stood up and my calves slid knee deep into black river goop. Dad gave me his hands and winched me out. I stood there, shivering, my legs covered in sludge. Dad fussed around like an old lady, trying to cover my shoulders with his rain jacket. That's when Leni and the girls' first eight glided past. Close enough to witness my complete humiliation. Penny had a front row seat.

‘Girls! Eyes in the boat,' their coach Laura shouted. But none of them listened. It was good entertainment.

A former Head of the River champion fell out of a single scull and got whipped by a mountain biker who took up rowing five minutes ago. A guy in the
seconds
.

And then, goddamn. I started crying.

Leni

I'm heading to the gym to meet Adam for our lunchtime weights session. I'm worried about Cris. I hated seeing him upset this morning. I still can't reach him on his phone and I don't want to call my parents in case they worry.

I'm stinking and sweating from my warm-up run and I can't eat fast enough to squash my hunger, shoving a chicken sandwich into my mouth. I'm almost at the gym, when I hear the clop of footsteps and a hand reaches for my elbow. I turn around and there's Sam, in bike shorts, a tight cycling top and chunky cycling shoes. He's dripping.

‘You dropped these,' he says.

In his hands is a small mound of tampons. Oh no. You know those movies where the boy meets the girl and they bump into each other buying the same flavour of ice-cream, or their puppy dogs' leashes wrap around each other or they get assigned to the same weekend detention? I don't think I've ever seen a movie where the girl drops a breadcrumb trail of tampons for the boy she's crushing on.

‘Thanks. How embarrassing,' I say.

I shove the tampons into my backpack, discovering that I left one of the pockets open. Another tampon escapes and bounces on the ground. I pick it up and say bad words in my head.

There's no way to recover from a moment like this.

Sam doesn't seem to care. He's holding back a smile.

‘I have older sisters, nothing I haven't seen before. Actually, I'm glad I bumped into you.'

He plops down on a grassy patch next to the gym, crossing his legs.

‘Sit down.'

It's more of an order than a request. I'm late for Adam and I don't want him to catch me with Sam, the guy most likely to have stolen Cristian's seat, but I find myself on the ground next to him.

‘How's Cristian?' Sam says.

‘I don't know where he is. He hasn't replied to any of my texts. He'd be pretty gutted about getting kicked out of the firsts.'

‘Westie offered me his seat.'

‘Are you going to take it?'

‘Dunno. Maybe. I'm happy in the seconds.'

Sam pulls his arms up in the air and stretches. All of a sudden I'm staring at the hair under his armpits. I've never seen a guy so flexible.

‘What about all those extra ergos you do? Aren't you trying to impress the coaches? Get a seat in the firsts?'

Sam gives me a puzzled look.

‘I'm not trying to impress anyone. I do the ergs because they make me feel good.'

He pushes up on his arms, does a perfectly balanced handstand and then jumps to his feet.

‘Tell Cris I hope he's not feeling too down. It's a long season. Plenty of seat changes still to come.'

He holds out a hand and pulls me to my feet. Feeling his skin against mine zings something deep in my groin.

‘See you at the river,' Sam says.

By the time I've said a weak goodbye, Sam is heading for the gym, taking his shoes and shirt off as he goes.

I meet up with Adam in the weights room and he's started his program. He's doing chin-ups on a raised bar. He's so light and wiry he makes it look easy.

‘Where you been?' he says, dropping like a cat to the ground.

‘Longer run,' I lie.

I pull up my strength program on my phone and start with squats, threading a leather belt around my middle. Adam helps me lift the heavy plates onto the ends of the bar. I stand with both feet apart, keeping my back straight. My legs shake as I take the weight off and bend my knees, letting my muscles take the load. I do a few more reps than I would normally, thinking about Sam and our conversation.

‘Are you okay, Leni? You're so quiet today,' Adam says as I shake out my thighs.

‘I'm worried about Cris,' I say.

Adam touches my cheek and looks at me with a tenderness that makes me uncomfortable.

‘He'll be okay.'

How could I tell him I was going over my conversation with Sam in my head. Wishing it had gone another direction. Imagining I had said something different than the stupid comment about impressing the coaches. I could have said: ‘Why do you do all those ergos? Because you
can't not do them? Because something inside you says
you have to? That not doing them makes you feel like you're missing a piece?'

And he would have nodded and said, ‘That's exactly it. You really get me.'

Cristian

Leni barges into my room after her afternoon row, peppering me with questions. I've called in sick to Patto. He had a go at me and told me to pull my head in and get back down to the river. ‘No time for sulking in rowing. I've been dropped from more crews than I can count. We'll do land training tonight but I'll expect to see you tomorrow morning, otherwise you're wasting everyone's time.'

‘Yes, sir,' I said in a dead voice, hanging up my phone.

I've done nothing but sit around, eat, watch TV and sleep. I feel sluggish and bloated. The only high point was getting a text from Penny saying she was thinking of me. I keep opening it and looking at it. It has a heart emoticon.

‘What's going on? Why is Sam Cam rowing in your seat?' asks Leni.

I put my hands up in surrender. ‘Relax, take a load off.'

Leni flops into a beanbag, breathless.

‘Until I drop the weight and improve my fitness I'm rowing in the seconds.'

‘What are they thinking? You're the best rower in the squad.'