Goldengirl

Goldine didn’t look up from the bench where she was sitting, slumped forward with her hair draped over her knees. ‘I’ll be okay. Would you please ask the photographers to let me alone?’

‘You should put your sweatsuit on. It’s getting cool out here.’

‘You want your coach?’ asked Shelley Wilson. ‘They won’t let him into the park, but we could walk you over there, keep the press off.’

‘I just want to sit here for a while. I don’t need anybody.’

‘Please yourself, honey.’ Debbie Jackson draped the sweatsuit top around Goldine’s shoulders, then turned to the cameramen. ‘Okay, fellows, you got your pictures. Now let the chick alone, will you? She has another final in twenty minutes, and she needs to psych up.’

Serafin jammed his Zeiss binoculars against his eyes again and brought the group of girls into focus. ‘Why doesn’t she get up?’ he said. ‘She ought to be loosening up for the four hundred. Where’s Klugman? He should be with her.’

‘Coaches aren’t allowed in the center,’ said Lee. ‘That’s one of the meet regulations. It’s printed in the program.’

‘To hell with the program. We hired the man to do a job. She needs him at this time.’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Lee. ‘She knows what she has to do. There’s no way Klugman or any of us can help her at this stage. It’s a question of whether she has the inner resources to produce another all-out effort. We always knew this afternoon would be the crunch.’

‘I don’t understand why she made such heavy weather of winning the two hundred.’

‘We must teach her to phase her effort more economically over several days,’ said Lee. ‘It’s no use breaking records in the heats if you have nothing left for the finals. Look, she’s on her feet now.’

‘Hi, Goldine.’ Janie Canute’s greeting was as friendly as before; the note of strain in the voice had to be nerves. She pulled off her tracksuit top, revealing the incredibly narrow span of her shoulders. Where she got the strength from was anyone’s guess. ‘You all set?’

‘I wouldn’t say so.’ Goldine mustered a smile. ‘How about you, Janie?’

‘I always get the shakes. Watch the two girls in lanes five and six. Speedburners. They move off fast. Nearly threw me in my Semi.’

‘Thanks.’

Janie had shut her eyes. When she opened them, she crossed herself. Then she went to her mark in lane 1. She was wearing knee-length striped black-and-white socks.

‘Good luck, Janie.’

‘God bless, Goldine.’

Dryden had left his seat and walked around the track perimeter, away from the finish where the crowds were, to watch the race from a point on the last bend. When the girls reached there, the discrepancies of the staggered start would be neutralised. They would know what real position they held, what remained to be done in the seventy metres or so to the finish. A shout of encouragement there might be timely.

They were down in their blocks at the opposite end. Goldine was in lane 2, the girl Canute on her inside. The shot that started them cracked across the stadium with an echo Dryden took for a recall shot. But all the girls were striding out. So far as he could judge, Goldine was maintaining the gap between Canute and herself, but the two girls in 5 and 6 were pouring it on, stretching away from the rest.

In the back straight the eight finalists chased their elongated shadows on the ocher-coloured track. The crowd was muted, reserving its support for the home stretch. Now he could hear spikes pounding the surface.

Going into the last bend, against all expectation, the two on the outside had held their lead. It looked awesome. Canute was moving up on Goldine, who seemed unable to find much more.

The leaders hurtled by, ten or twelve metres clear. Dryden heard their breath, they passed so close. Canute in her striped socks was level with Goldine, but it was obvious neither could catch the leaders. This was a battle for third, for the only place left.

There was an instant when the curve of the track brought Goldine’s eyes square with his. He didn’t expect her to spot him, nor did she. Instead, he glimpsed a look compounded of agony and near-despair. He had seen it once before. La Jolla Beach. Am I so grotesque?

He leaned over the barrier like a kid at a football game, and yelled, ‘You can do it, Dean!’ And then he was watching the two girls’ backs as they forced themselves up the long stretch to the finish. The crowd, spotting the real issue of the race, had come to life.

From where he was, it was impossible to tell the outcome. He drew back from the barrier and looked at his hands. They were shaking. He wanted a cigarette, but he knew he would either crush it or drop it.

‘Martinez wins,’ called the announcer. ‘Jones, second. We’ll have to wait for the photo for third.’

People were kneeling at Goldine’s side where she had flopped on the turf. Someone was warding off a TV camera. A physician asked if she was okay.

She sat up. ‘Tell me who got third.’

‘We don’t know yet. Won’t be long.’

A short way away there was another group around a lolling figure.