The Great Gatenby (5 page)

First term was coming to the twilight of its career and would soon be heading for the retirement village. That's the way life was. One minute you're sitting on the supermarket shelf, full of lemonade, the next you're down at the recycling plant being turned into a car door. But before the ole term breathed its last, there were still a few little matters to attend to. The swimming carnivals, for one. Exams, and stuff like that. Some kind of hike through the mountains which the school thoughtfully organised for fourth formers every year — a crash course in becoming men. A guy oughta be more grateful.

This CCS carnival promised to be quite a cute little effort actually. There was some guy in my age-group called Phillip Savvas, from St Jude's, who was reputed to be the hottest thing this side of a Doors album. People told me that this turkey actually shaved his head before his race, to cut down on the water resistance; that he ate raw fish for weeks before the CCS; that he could swim all four legs of a relay by himself and still beat the other teams. I was looking forward to meeting this meatball in the water. I figured I still had a few revs left in the ole auxiliary engine. I wondered whether I could get Melanie to oil me down for an hour or two before the race, but thinking about it gave me goose bumps. I had to take a cold shower.

Anyway, before the CCS came the Linley Carnival, a day of festivity and rejoicing. The idea was that you swam for your own House, not the school for once, so I had to give my all for Crapp. The races didn't worry me too much. What did worry me was the deep and meaningful chat I could expect to have with my parents, seeing they would now have the letter from their pride and joy concerning the internal renovations to the Art Room. I didn't expect to find them in too good a mood.

We spent a day or two before the carnival cleaning up the buildings, the grounds, the boarding house, the dormitory, our minds and our lives. Seemed like the idea was to give the parents as unrealistic an idea as possible of the conditions we lived in. I was looking forward to the whole weekend in one way though. I was curious to see what Ringworm's parents looked like. He said they were coming and so were practically everybody's, including Melanie's. I wasn't so sure I was looking forward to that.

The day dawned, bright and sunny, as Enid Blyton would probably say, and it was a revelation to see the stuff that started rolling through the gates of Linley from ten o'clock onwards. Man, some of those cars represented a year's takings at Gatenby's Newsagency. ‘What are all these guys, drug runners?' I asked myself. ‘Is there an honest taxpayer among them?' Rob Hanley-White went off with this guy whose face I knew — the actor, Maurice White. Then it clicked! The guy was his father! White, Hanley-White. Wow, this was impressive stuff, even if I had always thought his father was a nerd when I saw him on TV. Steve ‘Punk' Nimmo turned out to belong to a Merc that was bigger than our living room at home. He came over to get me, to introduce me to his parents.

‘Jesus, I'll treat you with a lot more respect in future,' I told him. ‘When you're finished with that car, can we have it? It'd make a nice holiday house.'

James Kramer's father came in a battered old yellow ute that looked like custard with lots of raisins in it. Georgie Stenning got swept away in some wild sports car: her parents looked about twenty-five-years-old. Evan Simpson's parents came chugging along in a battered old Volkswagen; he was cool, and I loved him for it. Adam Marava didn't have any relatives coming, seeing as how they lived in Nauru and all, so he was going out with Clune. I hoped they were bringing a station-wagon. Or a small truck maybe. I couldn't see Adam fitting into no Volkswagen.

Well, when my parents finally got there it was lunchtime already. They were late as usual, though I guess with a Newsagency it's a bit tricky. They were in a tough spot. They couldn't be too mad at me, considering this was the big reunion and we hadn't seen each other in a few weeks — but they were pretty mad. Once the greetings were over my father got down to business.

‘What the hell have you been doing, remodelling the school? Wassamatter, you didn't like the Art Room the way it was? How much is all this going to cost? You know who'll be paying for it, don't you? You'll be spending all these holidays in the shop, I'll tell you now.'

‘In the shop?' I thought, ‘That's not so bad. I don't mind the shop. Better than paper rounds.' I let him have his say, and just stayed cool and patient till he'd finished. It's good for him to let off a little steam every now and then. When things go wrong in the shop, which is every other day, he wouldn't talk about it, just sit in front of the TV and brood. Very unhealthy. And besides, while he was talking I was checking out the food situation in the boot. It looked exceptionally good. So they couldn't be planning to put me in a basket and leave me on someone's doorstep for a while yet, it seemed.

Anyway, once he'd done his routine, things settled down nicely. Although I couldn't have too big a lunch before the races, I still managed to put away a more interesting assortment than I'd enjoyed in many a long day. At 1.30 we went over to watch Melanie win her diving, which she did with ease. God, she was beautiful in the air. It was flight, you know what I mean? Like, when you see a bird flying, you don't think about the effort it's making to stay up there, and the way its wings are flapping to and fro. You take it for granted, 'cos you know that's where it belongs and it's doing what it's meant to do. It was the same with Melanie — she soared through the air like she was part of it, and any bird that happened along was going to have to make allowances for her.

I was jealous of all the people watching her there, who could see all her beauty and how wonderful she looked, but I was proud of her too, and wanted to share her with everyone. Bit of a contradiction, I guess. When it was all over she came straight over to us, while the spectators were still clapping. She was getting the water out of her ear with the corner of the towel — you know the way people do — and that was a contradiction too, because I felt good to have her back with me again, and proud that it was us that she came to; but it was a letdown because she had suddenly stopped being remote and graceful and was just a wet, laughing person again.

Then I got dragged over to meet her parents, and I thought it was funny that she hadn't gone straight to them when she'd finished diving, but I knew already from stuff she'd said that they didn't get on too well. It was obvious while she was with them anyway. In fact, she was more relaxed with my parents, whom she'd only met once before than she was with her own.

They were polite enough to me, but they didn't seem too keen. I could tell that they weren't going to be spending a lot of time discussing the fluctuations in their oil shares or the state of Mrs Tozer's arthritis with me. I mean, I'm only a peasant anyway, what would I know? They probably thought I was a bad influence on their daughter. I wondered what they'd picked up on the Art Room incident. Melanie said she hadn't put my name in her letter but hell, I still had plaster dust through my hair. Or at least I thought I did. Maybe it was dandruff.

My first race was at 2.40. The good ole Crapp House cheer squad was in full voice by then, since we were leading by fifteen or twenty points. We? What am I saying? I must have been there too long already. But I did feel good going down to the marshalling area — the way they cheered, you'd have thought they really liked me. Good ole Pop beamed away like it was all his own doing, but whether it was him or the cheer squad, something started to work, and I felt the adrenalin start to surge until even the aches from the Art Room were washed away in a flood of energy. When I hit the water I was already doing a hundred Ks, and I was actually at the other end and turning before I was even aware that the race had started. It was two laps, a hundred metres, and I didn't feel anything till the second lap. When I did, I just thought of Melanie and that gave me enough lift to hit the wall in 57.4. Holy M and Ms, even I was impressed. You ever see bruised water before? That's how hard I'd been swimming. There were guys still half-way down the pool when I'd finished. I had friction burns all down my front. Well, maybe not, but my body was tingling, I can tell you. The crowd was going berserk. ‘Cheer you bastards, cheer,' I said to myself. ‘You won't see a swim like that too often.' I'd broken the record by over four seconds. In fact, I was more than two seconds inside the Open record. Even Crewcut was giving out with a smart-arse grin. I suddenly realised that I'd smoked my last cigarette, and that was the first thing I told Melanie when I'd got done with the judges and found her.

‘OK, I'll give them up too,' she said, smiling like she didn't believe me.

‘I'm serious, you watch me.'

‘OK, so am I.'

We walked past the Crapp House contingent and got cheered again. I was ready to walk up and down in front of them all day. But we checked in with my parents, who were trying to be cool but were smirking away.

‘What time's the next one?' asked my mother.

‘Jesus, Mavis, give me a break, I'm still steaming from that one.' Then I realised they were sitting right next to Ringworm and his family.

‘Wow, hiya Ring . . . I mean, Jerry,' I said. ‘How're you doing?' I introduced them all. He had a million little brothers and sisters and a little poodle dog. They all looked normal, even the dog. In fact his mother looked really nice and really young. I wondered what it was like for them, having a kid like that. I mean I'm not just making this up. He was weird. But they were good to talk to, and the little kids were all dressed up in incredibly cute and trendy little kids' clothes, all white with a few bright colourful stripes — that kind of stuff.

An hour later was the two hundred metres and I knocked that off in 2.16.2, again making a mess of the record. The guy who won the Opens, a few minutes later, was twelve seconds outside my time. It seemed like it had all come together on the right day. I won the Breaststroke too, but that says more about the standard of Linley swimming than it does about my breaststroke talent. All I was hoping was that the results and times would filter through to St Jude's, so that this Phillip Savvas guy would start sweating a little, and get a bit twitchy every time he stepped up onto the blocks.

Finally we had a date with the relay events. Melanie, who'd won the Butterfly and come third in the Freestyle, was in the Medley Relay. I was in the Freestyle and the Medley. Melanie's team came second by an eyelash; we won the Freestyle in a record time of 1.53.8, but in the Medley little Paul Watson somehow lost his lane in the backstroke leg and we got disqualified. It wasn't the end of the world 'cos Crapp House had taken out the title pretty easily anyway. Amid the general rejoicing I did some praying that Gilligan'd declare a general amnesty and all would be forgiven.

But no such luck. My parents, with me in tow, stopped to have a word with the man. He was gracious, shook my hand, told my parents I'd swum well and he was looking forward to the CCS.

‘I'm sorry he's been giving you some trouble in other areas,' my father said grimly, while I tried to look contrite.

‘Yes,' said Gilligan, turning serious in a moment. ‘His attitude hasn't been all that we would have liked. He's attracted too much unfavourable attention for a new student. He needs to think before he opens his mouth. And he certainly needs to stop smoking before he gets into any more trouble.'

‘I have stopped sir,' I said, giving my well-known impersonation of a golden-haired choir boy. They all looked gratified by this unexpected news.

‘Well, I certainly hope so,' said Gilligan, who wouldn't have believed in a bomb until it blew up in his face.

‘We were very proud of him today,' my mother said loyally, ‘and we're sure a school like this is just what he needs to settle him down a bit.'

Settle down! Hell! I was already more settled than a dining room table. These guys'd take a sunset and colour it grey. By the time they finished with me I was going to be boring!

‘I can't understand how you and James Kramer can be friends when one of you is dedicated to the good of the school, and the other seems dedicated to destroying it,' Gilligan said, leaning back in his chair and shaking his head with what was meant to be deep concern.

‘Which one of us is which, sir?' I asked, then wished I hadn't as Gilligan lit up like a fireworks display. It was three days after the Swimming Carnival. My career as hero of the House had been short indeed. This particular episode had arisen out of an amusing incident late the night before. Ringworm had decided he wanted to go and get his trumpet which he'd left in the Music Rooms. I'd generously offered to go with him to show him how to get in. When we got there Ringworm was full of initiative.

‘Here's the light, I think,' he said, heading for a big switch by the front door that was clearly marked ‘Fire Alarm'. I was suddenly seized by a moment of madness. I don't know what came over me, Officer.

‘Yes, that'll be it,' I said, backing off fast. God, the noise was unbelievable. I mean, even in daylight a fire alarm sounds loud, but at this time of night it was something else again. Ringworm stood there looking utterly foolish, as though he hadn't realised that there was any connection between his throwing of the switch and the noise that had now taken over the darkness. I turned to flee, took one step and found myself embracing the night watchman. I gave up without a fight.

I was saved — just — by the fact that it had been Ringworm whose hand actually fingered the switch and, luckily, he didn't mention the advice I'd given him. He still seemed dazed by the whole thing. I don't think he ever fully got over it. James Kramer and Punk, in the dorm, backed me up by insisting that our trip out of the House was for an innocent purpose, although we were outside after Lights Out. James even said that he was going to go but I'd gone instead, because my slippers were in better condition and my torch still had batteries that worked. All of which had some truth in it, and the circumstantial details sure impressed Gilligan. So all in all I came out of it with no damage that a good vet couldn't have fixed. Maybe they realised that Ringworm was a couple of strawberries short of a fruit salad.

I must have been dangerously high after getting off so lightly. I bounced into Maths and, seeing Dr Collins with his back to me, and feeling unnaturally friendly, I came up behind him and put my hands over his eyes.

‘Guess who this is?' I said. Like I say, I don't normally clown around with this kind of stuff, but this time I did. Without a moment of hesitation he answered, ‘I don't know but I can tell it's a smoker.'

You just can't win with these guys! I hadn't had a cigarette in three days, and neither had Melanie. It was no great problem. For one thing, we both needed to keep out of trouble for a while. Melanie had invited me to her place for the weekend. I was keen to go, and Gilligan had grudgingly given his permission. We had it all figured out — spread our last detention between Saturday morning and Sunday evening, go to the CCS meet Saturday afternoon — (it was at Pelham College, near where Mel lived) — then we'd have about twenty-four hours to ourselves. It was a cool prospect and it was actually quite decent of Gilligan to agree to our radical arrangements for the detentions. So after the little matter of the fire alarm I trod the straight and narrow as carefully as I could.

We had light training during the week, which was about all I could have handled. We even did some fun stuff, like a game of basketball. I hate to admit it, but Crewcut knew what he was doing when it came to coaching. I've had a few swimming coaches in my time, including Mr Ho and Toy Canavan, the Man himself, who took me for twelve months when I was in the Junior Talent Squad, and who I thought was just a big wanker. But Crewcut was sharp. Linley was lucky to have him. What am I saying? They were lucky to have me but I was still waiting for the cigars. Meanwhile Crewcut and I were almost starting to get on. Wednesday afternoon I was standing near him at the edge of the pool while he was talking to Robyn Jerrick, who was in the water. Just as he finished talking Robyn let off this enormous fart. The water boiled and bubbled like the sea floor was shifting position. I was impressed. It was the first I knew that girls farted.

‘Robyn!' said Crewcut. ‘If you want a cheap spa, go down to the City Baths.' I laughed — quite a lot. I thought it was a funny line. Crewcut looked at me and grinned. ‘We ought to fill you with baked beans before your next race. Give you a lot of power.'

We worked pretty hard that afternoon. I mean, not physical work, mainly practising starts. I was toey; about two out of every three were false for a while. But we got it right.

‘Your father told me on Saturday that you'd practically dropped out of swimming the last couple of years?' Crewcut — whose real name, by the way, was Scott — said to me.

‘Yeah, I guess.'

‘Why?'

‘I dunno, the usual reasons, too much training, too many other things to do.'

‘Have you thought any more about going to the Federal Swimming Institute?'

‘Yeah, a little. I don't want to rush into it. I was sort of waiting to see how I go on Saturday. This Savvas guy from St Jude's, the one all the kids are talking about — what's he like?'

‘No guts. You hit the water hard, use your strength, get well ahead. He doesn't have the spirit to close a gap when it opens up. He likes to lead.'

‘Maybe I don't have the guts.' I don't know if I was fishing for compliments or what. I think I really was unsure, but Crewcut shocked me.

‘You have more determination in the water than any swimmer I've coached. The way you swam in that Open team at the District meet showed that. Win, lose or draw Saturday, you've done well.'

I was standing on a block while he was saying all this. As he finished I closed my eyes and with my hands held stiffly at my sides did a mock faint into the water. Always the joker, folks, that's me.

There were no girls' events at the CCS; it was a pompous old collection of schools for boys, all founded in the days when girls had to send their servants out to do their swimming for them. But a week after the CCS Melanie had the Metropolitan diving titles to go for, so she was putting in the hours, mostly in the gym on trampolines. It was lucky we had so many dets together — it was getting to be the only time we saw each other. We did three hours on Saturday morning. As soon as we finished, it was time to get our stuff and make for the big one.

‘Good luck,' said Mel, ‘I've got my fingers crossed.' Fingers, hell. I had my toes, knees, teeth and eyes crossed.

The school ran a bus to Pelham that would get us there in plenty of time.

‘God, I'm dying for a smoke,' I said, as we rode along.

‘Just what I was thinking,' said Melanie.

‘I've got stacks,' said the ever helpful Georgie Stenning, who was with us.

‘Shut up Stenning,' we both yelled, beating her savagely about the head with bags, towels and a year seven kid. The bus driver started pulling into the kerb to abuse us so we had to quit before Stenning really got her just deserts. Then she lit up in the back seat, which didn't help. When we got to Pelham College we had this amazing scene while the bus driver checked through the vehicle to make sure we hadn't stolen the ashtrays and curtains. But we hadn't, so finally we were allowed to get off. The first person I saw was the dreaded Phillip Savvas from St Jude's. Hell, I knew him. I remembered him from the Talent Squad days. He was nothing, no problem. And he didn't have a shaved head. God, he was ugly though. Talk about the Mean Machine — this guy was the Limp Wimp.

The early events had already started. It was pretty evident that this was the big league compared to the other carnivals we'd had. The crowd was enormous. There was a big grandstand that was full, and it was standing room only on all four banks. There were banners and cheer squads and war-cries. I mean, it was a whole big scene there. I saw a guy I knew called Andrew Paltos, from Gleeson, who was a boarder at Pelham, but Melanie and I found a quiet corner near the hot dog stand and settled in there. You could hardly see the pool, but that was no concern.

It was amazing, though. I mean, these were the rah-rah boys, the upper crust, and I was expecting them to sit there fanning themselves and uttering occasional cries of ‘Well done' or ‘Jolly good' or words to that effect. But they were animals. They didn't seem to care what was good swimming, they just wanted to see their school get the points, no matter what. It was sick stuff. Actually, the Linley kids had a pretty good attitude, but the boys from St Jude's and from Pelham College were frothing at the mouth. When a little Pelham kid ripped a muscle or got a cramp or something and had to be lifted from the pool in the middle of his race the St Jude's kids went wild with joy. When a St Jude's guy set a backstroke record the Pelham guys all started chanting: ‘Blood test! Blood test!'

Melanie and I just looked at each other. This definitely wasn't our scene. There was still a bit of time before I needed to start warming up, so we went for a walk.

‘How come,' I asked her, ‘we keep getting into green slime with teachers and being told that we're the boils on the backside of life, when those guys can act like that and win prizes for being so brave and honest? Something's wrong. When I dial it on the telephone I keep getting wrong numbers.'

‘Well,' said Melanie after quite a silence, ‘I dunno.' She was good like that.

My first event was once again the hundred metres. I went into it feeling cold somehow, not physically but mentally. To tell you the truth I didn't care much about getting points for Linley or winning it for the ole school, or even winning it for myself. I don't know what I was feeling. I wanted to win it, just to get it over and done with, and I also wanted to have these other guys eating my dust all the way down the pool and all the way back to the finish. Well, not dust. I wanted them to swallow so much water that they'd be dragged out by the hair and carried away on stretchers. Savvas was in the lane next to me. We had a moment's conversation in the marshalling area and agreed that we remembered each other from the Juniors, but that was the end of that.

I swam the race in a cold fury, I don't even know why, or what I was angry about, but when, as usual, I looked for something at the turn to bring me home, it was teachers like Swenson and Gilligan who came to mind. I got mad enough about them to come down the pool like a flying avalanche. Somewhere on my way back I passed Savvas who was ploughing grimly towards the wall, but that was the only time I was conscious of him. He came third, in well over a minute. I clocked 56.8, CCS record and personal best. The crowd on the hill was pretty quiet, except for the Linley year sevens, who were screaming around the place like idiots. If I'd heard anyone yell ‘Blood test!' I swear to God I would have been up that hill to rearrange his dental work in a lot less than 56.8.

That was like the climax of the meet for me I guess, even though I still had three events to go. They came and went with me swimming kind of mechanically, but still doing the job I was meant to do. I wasn't going to pull any stunts like that kid in the baseball film who deliberately puts his hands behind his back and refuses to take the all-important catch when the batter hits a fly-ball right to him. I wanted to win too badly for that. But I felt like I'd gotten a lot out of my system in that hundred. I scored in the two hundred with 2.16.4, about the same as at Linley, and we won both relays, which was nice. At one point it looked as if we could take out the whole meet if we did well in the Relays, and we did do well, but whenever we won one, St Jude's, who were a mile in front on the point score, came second or third. So we never had them in a state of terror or anything like that. Still, everyone said that was the best Linley had done since the Napoleonic Wars, and Crewcut was looking like he had Park Lane and Mayfair with hotels on each.

What really counted for me though was the next twenty-four hours. Melanie and I had a weekend together with no teachers, no prefects, no swimming — this was called freedom and I can't tell you how good it tasted. We didn't hang around for the presentations and stuff; we grabbed our bags and moved on out. Melanie's place was within walking distance so we cruised along, talking and fooling around and playing dumb games, hiding behind trees and offering gum to people we passed on the street. It was a brain-blowing feeling. We were so light we could have floated away.

Melanie's place was the biggest shock of my day, my life. I didn't know that all this year I'd been going with the biggest capo in the south. I mean, when her parents turned up for the Linley swimming meet they were in a little Toyota runabout. We got to these huge gates and Melanie, to my horror, turned into them.

‘Jesus, come out of there, don't play games,' I said, ‘those kind of places always have Dobermanns and Rambos and stuff.'

‘No, we live here,' she said, more embarrassed than I'd ever seen her, but kind of tickled as well.

‘What, is your father the butler?' I asked as we started up the drive, but I knew that wasn't the way it was going to be. I should have guessed. I mean, living in Pelham took a cool million or so for a start. And she had occasionally dropped the odd hint. I knew she'd been overseas a couple of times, plus she did a lot of skiing. You don't pay for that kind of stuff by collecting aluminium cans.

What got me was that here we were in the middle of a city, and we could have been on a country estate. To get from the gates to the house you needed to take a cut lunch. I was exhausted before we were even in sight of the house.

‘Can't we stop for the night and rest, and go on in the morning?' I asked her, but she was still too embarrassed to laugh much. The gardens stretched away from us on all sides and it was a different design in each direction. There were terraces and stuff like that. But not a garden gnome in sight. Well, guess they couldn't have everything. Maybe they couldn't afford them. I was going to ask her about that but she was still looking a little sensitive, so I held off.