Head of the River Read online

  ‘Ewwww,’ I said. ‘If you ever mention our parents and condoms in the same sentence again I will puke.’

  They kept in contact by writing letters and talking by phone for hours. After the fall of communism in Romania in 1989 Dad was finally free to come to Australia, marry Mum and row for the Aussie team. You can see why Cristian and I pretty much came out of the womb with tiny oars in our hands.

  Dad looks at his watch. ‘Ooh. Cristian races now. Jodie, finish for me?’

  Dad sprints towards the car park to grab a lift back to the start. He hates to miss our races.

  Mum throws me a screwdriver. ‘Come on, Leni, we have work to do.’

  After I’ve helped Mum with the boats, I grab a sushi roll and a steak sandwich from the parents’ lavish picnic and head down to the bank with Penny. We sit on the grassy hill as the Harley boys second eight crew cruise over the line looking powerful.

  ‘Where are the firsts?’ I ask. Cristian’s crew should be in by now.

  The seconds are pumped as they pull their boat off the water. They’ve been training well. Buzz surrounds them.

  ‘Maybe the firsts got beaten by the seconds?’ says Penny. ‘People are talking about Sam Cam being the next big thing.’ On cue, Sam Camero carries his blades up the bank, his zootie pulled down past his hips.

  Penny follows my eyes to Sam’s lean torso.

  ‘Pretty gorgeous, isn’t he?’ she says.

  ‘I dunno, I guess.’

  I pick at a blade of grass and try to act uninterested. Sam mysteriously arrived at our school at the start of Year Eleven and took up rowing right away. Nine months later, he’s already in the seconds. Usually it takes years to learn how to row.

  ‘I heard he was some kind of mountain biking star,’ Penny says. ‘But he took up rowing instead. Even though he had sponsors.’

  ‘Man of mystery,’ I say.

  Secretly I’ve been collecting facts about Sam, like a bowerbird filling its nest with shiny things. So far I’ve managed to find out that:

  Sam used to live in Singapore. His parents bought a yoga retreat in Byron Bay and they moved back to Australia to run it.

  Sam went to an American school in Singapore and that’s why he has a twang in his accent.

  Sam lives alone in his parents’ Docklands apartment with a cook and a cleaner, but no supervision.

  Sam’s Buddhist. That’s why he refuses to go to chapel and instead goes to the library and reads.

  Sam can stand on his head. I saw him do it one day in the gym on a crash mat. For, like, ages. Then he calmly got up and walked away.

  I’m so busy thinking about my nest of Sam facts that I miss the boys’ first eight finishing.

  Penny grabs my arm.

  ‘Adam’s waving at you,’ she says.

  There he is. My boyfriend, Adam Langley. Cute, in a generic deodorant commercial kind of way, trying to get my attention. I’m happy to see him, but not thrilled. Lately being with Adam is another chore to add to my workload.

  ‘Aren’t you going to wave back?’ Penny asks.

  By the time I raise my hand, Adam is looking away, his hat pulled down over his eyes.

  ‘Your brother looks like he needs oxygen,’ says Penny.

  Cristian does look exhausted. He’s flushed and breathing hard. By the dark expression on his face, they didn’t have a good time out there.

  ‘Do you fancy Cristian?’ I prod. ‘I think he has a crush on you.’

  Cristian’s smitten with Penny’s quiet beauty.

  ‘Maybe,’ Penny says. ‘I’ve never been out with a boy before. I’m not sure what to do.’

  ‘Just be you, Pen.’

  It was good advice, even if I’d never, ever been myself with Adam.

  Cristian

  We’re at the start line for the Yarra Classic. I’m nervous because I’m not fit and my hands are shredded from training.

  ‘Ads, you got tape?’ I ask Adam Langley.

  Adam sits in front of me in the boat. I’m five seat. He’s six seat. We’re best mates, but it’s a strange pairing. He’s the third son of Mitch Langley, millionaire property developer. I’m the son of Vasile Popescu, boat caretaker. He lives in a massive Toorak mansion. I live in a falling-down rental in Fitzroy. We are from different sides of the river. Different sides of the planet. The only reason we’re sitting in the same boat is because of my sports scholarship to Harley. My sister Leni has one too.

  ‘I don’t have tape, Princess. Suck it up,’ Adam says. He’s joking, but there’s a tense edge to his voice. He’s as jittery as I am. The Yarra Classic is the first proper race of the season.

  I clench my fists and feel the skin tighten with the throb of infection. I should’ve taped them this morning. It’s too late now.

  Eights are piled up everywhere, coaches riding their bikes in packs. Organised chaos. Dad’s somehow gotten back to see my race. He’s riding a clapped-out women’s ten speed he got from Vinnie’s. I wish he’d get a new one. The pedal keeps falling off and he looks like a goose riding with one leg.

  We’ve got a slot a few seconds in front of Glenon Grammar, Westleigh and Stotts College. It’s a handicap regatta, so everyone goes at different times. You could end up rowing along with old masters guys or an elite women’s eight. It only makes sense when all the times are crunched at the end. The aim is not to be passed by anyone in your category and to overtake as many crews as you can.

  Of course, everyone’s checking each other out. I suck in my gut and try to look more of a threat than I am.

  ‘What are those Stotts guys eating with their Weet-Bix? They’re tanks,’ hisses Adam. Stotts are bulging with muscles and they look fit and untouchable in matching mirrored sunnies and red zooties.

  ‘Girly sunglasses won’t help them win the race,’ I say.

  If there’s one thing my parents have taught me, it’s that flash gear doesn’t count on the water. Technique matters. Dad taught me and Leni to row when we were nine and he drilled technique into us from our first wobbly strokes. I can usually out-row anyone my age. Usually. Lately I had the feeling I was getting caught.

  The starter gets us into position. It’s time for the hurting to begin.

  I sit up, breathing in deep. Last chance for air.

  ‘Bring it up a touch Harley Grammar!’ shouts the starter.

  ‘Okay, that’s a line. Sit forward! Attention! Row!’

  We get a decent start and for a few minutes it feels good. It feels like this is our race.

  But then it isn’t. It’s Stotts’s race. Stotts and their stupid sunglasses.

  Leni

  At home, after the regatta, I head straight for the shower and stand under the hot water. After months of wearing tights and shivering in the dark, I finally have rowing suntan marks on my thighs and shoulders. From this angle, it looks like I’m wearing a white skin zoot suit.

  Water rushes over the sharp angles of my body. I have no boobs and legs like a horse – all knees and bone. I pinch my stomach and wonder why I don’t get a sixpack like the boys do. I want one desperately. My arms are strong and I’m getting defined biceps. I flex one arm in the shower and test its hardness. Not bad.

  I resolve to do more sit-ups every day. A hundred at least. Maybe some push-ups, too. But for now, all I have the energy for is to change into tracksuit pants and lie on the couch, watching TV. Our family cat, Banjo, curls up on my feet. I love this tired feeling. My muscles worn out, all my strength left on the river. I put my arms behind my head. From this position, I’m staring at a row of painted trophy oars my parents have won, mounted on our living room wall.

  Each oar has a story. European Champs, worlds, nationals, Olympics. All the names of my parents’ crews are painted onto the spoon of the blade. When I was a kid Dad would lift me up and let me touch the raised gold lettering and show me the names, Jodie C
ummings and Vasile Popescu. Even then I knew I wanted my own painted oar one day. I hope that day is coming.

  I don’t even realise I’ve fallen asleep until I wake to my brother tickling my upper lip.

  ‘Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey,’ he says. His traditional morning greeting. Which is better than his other favourite, ‘wakey, wakey, hands off snakey’.

  We always sit in the same spots for dinner. Dad at one end, Mum at the other and Cristian and I facing each other on either side. Mum insists on family mealtimes if we are at home at the same time. Which is getting rarer. She says the dinner table is where families do their best talking. Tonight, though, the mood is murky.

  Cristian eats in virtual silence and refuses dessert.

  It’s papanasi, sweet cottage cheese dumplings with sour cream and jam. A family recipe. Mum learnt to cook all of Dad’s favourite Romanian dishes. It was her way of helping ease the homesickness that she says flattened him when he first moved to Australia.

  ‘So yum,’ I tell Mum, hoeing in.

  ‘Are you sick?’ Mum asks Cristian.

  To my knowledge he has never turned down papanasi before.

  ‘I’m not sick. I don’t want to eat stupid Romanian food all the time. It’s making me fat.’

  ‘Don’t call your mother’s food stupid,’ Dad says. ‘She work hard. She cook for you. Apologise.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Cristian mutters.

  ‘You are a healthy growing boy. You need plenty of energy,’ Mum says. ‘You’re not fat. You’re a big boy.’

  I caught Cristian looking at himself in the bathroom mirror last week, grabbing a chunk of his tummy. He gets plenty of flack at the river for his size. Always has. Usually it doesn’t bother him. But he was flogged badly today.

  ‘Big is the same as fat!’ Cristian says.

  He pushes his chair roughly away from the table and walks out.

  Mum jumps up to follow him.

  ‘Leave him, Jodie,’ says Dad, putting his hands on her shoulders. ‘He is beaten today. Beaten men do not have celebration.’

  Mum nods and we sit down and pick at our dessert in silence. As soon as I can, I leave the table to find out if he’s okay. I knock on Cristian’s door. Our knock. Three short raps.

  ‘You in there?’ I call through the wood.

  I hate seeing Cristian upset. It makes me jumpy and unsettled. We’ve always been close. Twins usually are.

  He opens the door a crack and I see he’s been crying.

  ‘I’m fine, Leni, go to bed.’

  ‘It’s months until the Head of the River,’ I say. ‘You’ll come good.’

  ‘I’ve got to get fit again, like last year.’

  ‘We’ll go for more runs together. Don’t worry, there’s still heaps of time. You’ve got a good base.’

  ‘I’m tired, Leni. I might just go to sleep.’ He closes the door and I can’t help feeling down. When one of us loses, we all lose.

  I crawl into bed too, even though it’s not even nine. I’m nearly asleep when my phone beeps with a text.

  Hey pretty girl, congrats on your race. We sucked tho! Wish we were together tonite. Love u. Adam xxx

  He’s attached a topless selfie. I send a text back telling him not to worry about the race. But I don’t attach myself topless because I don’t want to end up on some dodgy website or Adam’s Facebook page. I’m not that dumb.

  The photo of Adam is hot. But I’m still not sure. Us. Adam and Me. Me and Adam. Six months ago I started to get the feeling Adam was into me. He’d look my way during training. He even got in trouble for it a few times. Eyes in the boat, Langley. I was flattered. Adam’s popular and good-looking in a wiry, freckled way. He has beautiful eyes that are distractingly light blue with dark edges, a drop-off to deeper water. Word filtered down. Adam Langley likes Leni Popescu. I’d never had a boyfriend before so I froze. What next?

  Adam texted me one night and I opened it like a present.

  Hi. It’s Adam. Are you awake?

  I was little-girl-on-a-pony excited. We texted until after midnight and I fell asleep, my phone pressed against my cheek.

  At school the next day he asked me to sit with his group. I usually sat with my friend Audrey and her knitting circle, but she pushed me to meet Adam instead. Something about it being my Sixteen Candles moment. When the popular guy falls for the quiet girl. Perhaps if she’d known a simple seat change would alter our friendship forever, she wouldn’t have been so keen.

  Adam and I ate lunch together with the whole of Year Eleven watching on. ‘See you at rowing?’ he said. ‘Drink after?’ I realised it was probably a date.

  After rowing he took me for coffee, bought me a little square of caramel slice and asked me to a party that weekend. I said yes, with the taste of chocolate melting on my tongue. He held my hand across the table and, even though he acted confident and sure of himself, his palm was sweaty and shaking.

  At the party we kissed in a dark corner of the garden. Then he held my hand again – this time in front of everyone and when he dropped me home he asked me to be his girlfriend. I said ‘yeah, okay’. Even though I didn’t know him at all. Because that’s what you say when a good-looking, popular guy asks you to go out. Don’t you? Especially if you’ve been plucked from the wall like a creeping vine. The imprint of your body left behind on the bricks.

  It was only later that I thought about the kiss.

  First kisses should be lingering and exciting. Ours was rushed and awkward. He smelt and tasted all wrong. He kept poking his tongue into my mouth like he’d lost something in there and was trying to find it. It was like he was a piece of Duplo and I was a piece of Lego. Right from the start, Adam didn’t feel like the right fit.

  I should break up with him, but I don’t even know how. Adam’s the only boyfriend I’ve ever had. How do I tell him he’s not the one?

  Lying on my side I look at my inspiration board – always the last thing I do before sleep. It’s a corkboard full of photos, quotes and inspiring things. It keeps me going when my body and head ache and everything feels too hard. When motivation hides from me.

  In the middle is a cut-out of the Head of the River cup, which I’ve coloured in with gold pen. I want it so badly it hurts. I like to touch the cup with my hand and imagine my bow girl going over the line first, thousands of people screaming on the banks of the Barwon River. Thinking about it gives me goose bumps. There’s a quote posted up that I think about during training: ‘Pain is just weakness, leaving the body’. To the left of that is an old newspaper story I found online and printed out.

  Pocket Rockets win Gold!

  Aussie double scullers Peter Antonie and Stephen Hawkins were 15 kilos lighter on average than every other crew when they lined up to race for Olympic gold in Barcelona in 1992. Everyone thought they were too puny to take out the race. But they led early, ahead of Austria and Holland and went on to win Australia’s first gold rowing medal in 44 years.

  Peter and Stephen shouldn’t have won, but they did. They stood up to crews that were bigger and stronger than them and took victory. Because they wanted it more.

  I smile, flick the light off and crash.

  I want it the most, too.

  Cristian

  Mum comes in after dinner and sits on the edge of my bed, shoving a pile of dirty washing off the end. She doesn’t have much time for housework and Leni and I are supposed to hold our own. Leni does a better job than I do. In housework and all things, really.

  ‘Okay kid?’ she asks.

  Mum has a way of looking into my soul and seeing the black spots in it.

  ‘I’m not fit enough,’ I admit, feeling ashamed. I wasted my pre-season dodging training and playing computer games. Eating. ‘We shouldn’t have lost today. It was a shambles out there.’

  ‘It won’t be the last time you screw up,’ she says. ‘Dad and
I lost plenty of races.’

  ‘But you won plenty, too.’

  ‘Sure. But in rowing, you’ve got to learn to take the rough water with the glassy pond. Otherwise it will break your heart. Now show me your hands.’

  I hide my blistered hands under the covers and she pulls them back out gently.

  ‘Let me do a little nursing. I like to take care of my babies.’

  ‘I’m 6 feet 4. I’m not your baby anymore,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t care if you grow to be 8 feet. You’ll always be my baby boy. Now come out to my operating table.’

  Under a light at the kitchen table she holds my wrists firmly, like I’m three years old and might squirm away. A pale yellow infection has crept in with the dirty river water.

  ‘We need to dry out this infection,’ she says. She goes to her heaving medical cabinet and fetches methylated spirits, opening the bottle. The smell of alcohol clears my nostrils.

  ‘I used to look after your father’s hands when he was younger. Terrible blisters. He was holding the oar too tight. His teammates called him Jack the Gripper.’

  I can see my dad holding the oar too tightly. He’s intense sometimes.

  Mum dabs the sharp liquid on my hands. It stings the raw skin like the kiss of a dozen bull ants. I draw a breath back through my teeth.

  ‘It’s primitive, but it’s the only thing that works,’ she says. She blows cool air on my burning skin.

  Mum’s hands are soft now; she prefers walking and yoga studios to rowing. Dad tries to get her back on the water. ‘Jodie, you need to get your heels wet again,’ he announces. As if she’s a sea creature who’s drying out on land.

  Dad’s been relegated to masters crews after a kid not much older than I am now snatched his seat in the Australian eight. He’s still strong as an ox, even with two surgeries on his shoulder and one on his knee. His hands are tough and leathery with blister over blister over blister. Like bark rings on a tree.

  Mum bandages up my sores with a dab of Friars’ Balsam and sticking plaster.