Barracuda

by Christos Tsiolkas

  But the old woman didn’t ignore him. She brought her head in close to his, till he thought their foreheads would touch, and she whispered, ‘Listen to them.’

  He brought his heels to the floor.

  It was twittering and fluffery and gossiping and nonsense. The ladies were magpies and the men were crows and the children were farmyard animals, and even Emma, even Martin, they were all bleating like sheep. It was empty silly noise, about schools and lawyers and stocks and college and shopping. It was crap, it was shit. Across the table, Alex, who wasn’t prattling on, wasn’t jibbering and jabbering, winked and raised a near-empty wine glass. His mother laughed softly and raised her own glass. No one else had noticed, they were too busy chattering. Alex mimed having a cigarette and stood up, set down his napkin and left the table.

  The old woman sighed. ‘He is here under sufferance,’ she announced, not bothering to lower her voice; no one was listening. ‘His sisters and his brothers have outdone one another in their race to marry the biggest fool.’ She cocked her head, trying to make out some of the conversation. All Danny could hear was shopping blah markets blah house prices blah school fees blah shopping blah and more shopping blah and interest rates blah and then more shopping blah. The old woman whispered, ‘Come closer.’

  Danny lowered his head.

  ‘I’ve always admired the working class, my dear, always. Like us, you know exactly who you are. But look at them.’ She waved a hand dismissively at the others at the table. ‘They have no idea how abysmal they are. Lord, how I detest the middle class.’

  Danny looked into her bright shining eyes and knew he had just been given a gift, but he didn’t know how to unwrap it, could not figure out how to accept it. The old woman shrugged and rose from her chair, dropping her napkin onto the table.

  Mrs Taylor looked up. ‘Mother,’ she blurted out, ‘you musn’t smoke.’

  ‘Oh, fuck off, Samantha,’ the old woman replied as she followed her son out to the courtyard.

  The smile on Mrs Taylor’s face was stretching, a cartoonish elongation, as if her cheeks were attached to some invisible puppeteer who was pulling two sticks as far apart as they could go. She sat there with the smile spreading, a parasite taking over her whole face. She was a balloon about to burst; and if that were to happen, thought Danny, the table, the room, would be covered by her skin, and it would not be flesh and blood but plastic and rubber and glass.

  When one of the silent kitchen ladies started cleaning up and the other one brewed the coffee and the tea, everyone gathered in the lounge room to give the old lady her birthday gift. Everyone was polite and charming to Danny—Mrs Taylor would smile over at him, asking if he needed anything, and Martin’s cousins included him in their conversations—but he found that he had nothing to add. They didn’t talk about music or movies or politics—they didn’t talk about the world. It was all memories of holidays in Lorne, holidays in Sorrento, people they knew. Only when the subject turned to sport did Danny find the courage to say something, to mention their preparation

  for the championships in October. But even then, Vincent had to stifle a yawn, with Danny in excited mid-sentence. Vincent apologised, urged him to go on, but Danny knew he had bored him. The conversation moved on and he couldn’t find the space to finish what he’d been saying. I’m going to win, I’m going to master butterfly and I’m going to win. He hugged that thought close. And I’m going to prove to Coach that I can win in the freestyle. He would beat them all, and the next time he saw these people again, they would be asking him questions, they would want to know all about him.

  They were polite and charming but the whole time he felt as though there were secrets eluding him, that he was being excluded from something. It was as if they were looking over his shoulder even when they were looking straight at him. He knew that somehow everything about him had gone around the room, that everyone knew that he lived on the other side of the city, on the north side of the river, that he was on a scholarship to the college, that his father drove trucks and his mother cut hair. Somehow they all knew.

  Except for Virginia. She too was uncomfortable, her eyes darting from face to face as she tried to follow a conversation, but as soon as she started to join in, the talk always shifted, she was always a beat behind. ‘I’m studying law,’ she began, he could hear the pride in her voice, but already the talk had moved on from university. She slumped back onto the sofa and Danny wanted to tell her not to try so hard. How could she not know that?

  ‘Did you go to school with Emma?’ he asked, trying to be polite. ‘No,’ she answered sharply, not even offering a name for her school, and he guessed that meant she was ashamed of it. He had learned from his own time at school that it probably meant she hadn’t even attended a state school, she couldn’t claim that with bogan pride: it had to mean she had gone to a piddling private school, probably Catholic, somewhere out in the suburbs. He wanted to tell her that they didn’t like it when you tried so hard. He tried to make conversation, to put her at ease, and she nodded and smiled but he could tell she wasn’t listening. He remembered the old woman’s words. Virginia didn’t know who she was, and so she would always be a step behind. She wasn’t like him; she didn’t know how to win.

  When the old lady ripped the shiny red paper away from the canvas to reveal the painting, Virginia put her hand to her mouth, her eyes bright, as though the present were being given to her. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she gasped. The old lady looked up, showing them all the canvas. The thick black lines seemed furious to him then, and he thought that the woman’s face was as angry as it was sad.

  ‘What do you think, Danny?’ The old lady ignored Virginia. ‘Do you like it?’

  He shuffled through his words, discarded them, let them tumble back into his throat. ‘It’s b-beautiful,’ he finally stammered.

  ‘Oh Danny,’ she scolded, taking in the painting, ‘that’s so trite.’

  Emma spoke up. ‘It’s fierce,’ she said, and her grandmother nodded approvingly.

  ‘That’s right.’ She smiled at Emma. ‘That is absolutely right.’

  Danny wanted to say, That’s what I feel looking at it, that’s the word I wanted to use. He wanted to throw it back at her. If he could have cursed her he would have. He hated her more than anyone else in this room. He wanted to say to Virginia, coiled tight, humiliated beside him, Throw it back at her, give it back to her, tell the old bitch she can stuff her new canvas up her wrinkled old vag. He caught Martin’s eye and mouthed, ‘I’m going to bed.’ Martin looked coldly at him without responding.

  The old lady offered her cheeks for Danny to kiss. He didn’t let his lips touch them.

  In a sleeping bag on a mattress next to Martin’s bed he let out a series of sharp stinking farts, feeling sluggish, engorged by all the rich food. He wished he was at home, that he could set the alarm for four-thirty and that his mum would drive him to the pool. Swimming in the Taylors’ pool wasn’t enough, he felt caged in. First thing tomorrow he would go to the ocean and swim. He needed the space, the unrestrained power of it, the relief of being in surging, untamed water.

  He awoke when Martin came into the room. In the darkness he could hear the boy kicking off his shoes, unbuckling his belt, throwing off his shirt, peeling off his socks. He could smell the mint from the toothpaste that Martin had used. The sheet and the doona were being pulled back, he heard Martin settling into bed. There was his own breathing and there was Martin’s breathing. There were the knocks and shudders and rumblings of an unfamiliar house, the flush of a toilet somewhere down the hall, the groan of pipes. There was his breathing and there was Martin’s breathing, and behind that was something else, a vibration, a slow, steady pulse, getting faster. Martin’s breathing was no longer in sync with his, it was shallow, quickening, and Danny knew that on the bed above him, Martin was beating off, the faint putt-putt-putt of the bedhead knocking the wall, breaths escalating. Danny knew, as Martin must have known, that he shouldn’t be doing it, that it was waste
d energy; no one had told him that but he knew it because every time he had given in to the urge he had felt his strength and power drain away, spill from his body, felt that weakness at the end of the frenzied tugging, the slackened muscles, the spent, listless body. But sometimes he couldn’t help it, sometimes he lost the wrestle with himself, and this was one of those times, this once would be OK, and Martin doing it, them both doing it together, that hoarse and shallow breathing, the squeaking mattress, it had to happen. Danny’s hand reached down to his own erect cock and he pushed apart his legs and in the small cavity allowed by the sleeping bag rubbed up and down up and down on his shaft, and there was the putt-putt-putt of the bedhead knocking the wall and there was the whistling slide of his fist against the fabric of the sleeping bag and there was his breathing getting faster and there was Martin’s breathing getting faster and then Danny heard a constricted groan from above and he answered it by choking on his own relief, swallowing it back, as the warm globs of semen flowed all over his fist. He whimpered and then there was silence. He heard Martin’s breathing; he brought his own back in sync with that of his friend.

  There was a soft thud and something landed beside him on the carpet. It was a crumpled moist face washer. He unzipped his bag and wiped his hand, his groin, his cock. The wet cloth now smelled of him and it smelled of Martin. He rolled it back into a ball and kicked it to the end of the bag. ‘Thanks,’ he whispered, but there was no reply.

  In the morning he was the first up. He slid out of the bag, the stench of his sweat overpowering. He heard a yawn and saw that Martin was also awake.

  Embarrassed, Danny pointed guiltily at the face washer. ‘We should wash it.’

  For a moment, Martin looked confused; then he laughed.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, mate, the cleaners are coming right after we leave, they’ll do it. It’s their job.’

  They put on their Speedos and headed for the pool. Danny didn’t say anything to Martin about how much he wanted to be in the ocean, how much he needed to be in the turbulent wild sea.

  He didn’t want Mrs Taylor to drop him at home. She kept saying it was no problem, that she wanted to do it, but he insisted on being dropped off at Flinders Street. She seemed lighter on the drive back into town, as if relieved that the birthday weekend was over. ‘No, darling,’ she said once more, ‘I’m taking you home.’

  ‘Mum!’ Martin snapped. ‘He wants to be dropped off in the city. Just do it.’

  As Danny got out of the car, as he slung his sports bag over his shoulder, he said to Mrs Taylor, ‘Thank you so much, I had a lovely time.’

  The woman smiled sweetly. ‘Oh Danny,’ she said, ‘you are always welcome at our house, come over whenever you like. Remember that: you are always welcome.’

  The first thing his mother said to him when he walked through the door was, ‘Shh, your father’s sleeping.’

  His father had driven across the country, from Melbourne to Perth, then on to Sydney and all the way back to Melbourne, all within a week. Danny couldn’t imagine being cooped up for such long hours in that cabin that smelled of takeaway food, of stale sweat and cigarette smoke that clung to the surfaces, seeping into the vinyl of the dashboard, sticking to your clothes, seeping into you. His father wouldn’t let his mother come near him when he came back from one of those killer drives, not until he had washed off all the grime and perspiration, the rancid taint of sleeplessness, of greasy food, of too many cigarettes. Only when he’d had a shower, thrown his stinky TWU t-shirt in the wash, shaved off his coppery stubble, trimmed his sideburns, and put on his cowboy shirt with the silver-tipped collars, his clean black jeans, his silver-toed suede shoes, only then would his father grab his wife, grab his daughter, grab his youngest son, hold them and kiss them and vigorously rub his newly shaved and perfumed chin into Theo’s hair until he squealed. Just the way he used to do with Danny. His father would clutch Theo and Regan and their mother and sing, ‘No, I’m never gonna let you go, never ever ever ever.’ But he never did that with Danny anymore, he hadn’t done that with Danny for years.

  Danny lowered his voice. ‘I need to train, Mum. I have to go swimming.’

  ‘Can’t you wait till your dad’s up? I said I’d wake him at four.’

  He couldn’t wait. He needed to be in a proper pool, he needed to do serious training. The long weekend had seemed to stretch forever. He wished that Monday was already over, that it would be Tuesday tomorrow so he could go to training. Coach would be yelling at them not to be pussies, and Martin and Danny would be crushing the other boys. He had to be in the pool.

  ‘Mum, can you drive me in?’

  ‘No, Danny. I want to be here when your dad gets up.’ She didn’t get how important it was.

  ‘Fine. Tell Dad I’ll see him when I get home.’

  He dived into the water and all the pieces came together: everything was liquid and it was in being liquid that everything became clear. The water parted for him, the water caressed him, the water obeyed him. He swam, he propelled himself through the water; the muscles that moved as they should, the power of his limbs, his lungs and his heart which breathed and beat in a harmony that was clean and efficient. Only in the water were he and the world unsullied. He swam, far beyond mind, aware of only body; and then, coming up for air, he had left even his body behind, and though the exertion continued, though every muscle kept working as it should have, he was wondering if on those long drives through desert and plain, through morning and night, his father’s body didn’t also seamlessly forget pain and forget time—that the drive, like the swim, was the only constant, the heart beating and the lungs breathing, and whether the long desert roads were liquid as well, not heat and dust but clear and clean like water. Danny calculated the distance his father had just travelled. He knew that it was nine hundred kilometres to Sydney from Melbourne; he drew a map at the edge of his vision, a palimpsest over the solid black lines and the blue tiles, it was etched out on the floor of the pool. He hurtled across the continent, an Atlantis beneath his torpedo body. It had to be at least three times that distance from Melbourne to Perth, four times that from Perth to Sydney. Melbourne to Perth, he breathed, three thousand, Perth to Sydney, he breathed, four thousand, Sydney to Melbourne, he breathed, one thousand; eight thousand kilometres in just under a week. Danny’s body came back to him, he felt a strain in his right deltoid, not pain exactly, but a soreness, a twitch, a paper-thin faultline from favouring his right. That was why Coach said he had to change his stroke. He’d poked Danny in the chest, hard, so Danny had to stumble back: ‘You are lazy, you are not doing enough work, there, there.’ Coach punched the triceps on his left arm. ‘There, you must do work there.’ Danny let his left arm separate the water, and the water split and created a space for him, searching his body for other fissures and creases. He exhaled, he kicked, he brought his hand to the wall and touched the cool tile. His body shuddered from the pain, burning as it fed ravenously on itself, consuming the fluids released over the last two hours. He let his forehead touch the wall as he floated in the water, trembling, shuddering. Eight thousand kilometres. He could have swum that, Danny thought. He could have swum forever.

  When he got back his father was in the kitchen, Theo on his knee, and he was listening to the boy read. They both looked up when Danny entered and his father said, ‘How was it?’

  ‘How was what?’

  ‘The beach party.’

  ‘It wasn’t a beach party.’

  It was as though they couldn’t be in the same room; they had to circle around each other, there was no topic or words or action that was safe.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ Danny opened the fridge, took out a Tim Tam and wolfed it down. Theo was looking eagerly at him and the Tim Tam.

  ‘She’s just gone down to the supermarket for a minute.’

  ‘Is there food?’

  ‘In the stove.’

  Danny dangled a Tim Tam in front of Theo then pulled it away as the little boy tried to grab it. As Theo clamoure
d to get off his father’s lap, the man swiped the Tim Tam from Danny and gave it to Theo, who poked his tongue out at his brother before stuffing the chocolate biscuit into his mouth.

  There was half a vegetarian lasagne under foil. He tossed all of it on a plate and hungrily attacked it, spoonful after spoonful, the sweetness of the peppers, onions and tomatoes, the tartness of the olive oil and the heaviness of the pasta sheets, the slight bitterness of the zucchini. He finished it all, listening as Theo continued reading from The Happy Prince.

  Once Danny had read this story out loud to his father, and so had Regan. Oscar Wilde was one of the great heroes of Ireland, his father had told him when he first gave Danny the book, and a great injustice had been done to him. Danny had only very recently discovered exactly what they had done to him, and why they had done it to him, in English class, accompanied by a chorus of barking and laughter that kept erupting from the boys. Danny couldn’t bear to hear the story of the happy prince anymore—the loneliness of it overwhelmed him. It would make Theo cry, he knew it would, as it made him cry when the sparrow fell dead at the statue’s feet, when the statue was melted down to molten lead. He tightened his hands into fists, he swallowed. He was glad to hear a car pulling up outside, his mother’s footsteps coming up the path.