Barracuda

by Christos Tsiolkas

  �Cath-ee, Cath-ee!�

  � Dan jumped back from the shop window, startled by the sudden return of sound. But it wasn�t coming from the televisions. He looked up; the light from a screen flicked silver and grey and white on the walls and windows of an apartment above the shop. She began her proud jog up an illuminated staircase of brilliant white, smoke wreathing and spilling like water down the pearl steps�Cath-ee! Cath-ee!�and he was sure now that it was not only from the apartment above that he could hear the chant; he thought it was an echo of the madness of an entire country, the whole of the world. �Go, Cathy,� Dan called softly through the bars. �Go, Cathy. You�re not one of those golden girls.�

  A shudder racked Dan�s body.

  The young athlete walked into the middle of a wide pool of water in front of a wall of water. She leaned over and touched the torch to the pool, and around her sprang up a circle of fire, which rose and started up an incline. There was a hesitation, a malfunction, and the machine stalled. From the apartment upstairs he heard a woman say despondently, �I knew we�d fuck it up.�

  �Please,� said Dan, �let it be a disaster.�

  The machine jerked and began to move again. The circle of flame rose and kissed the towering torch.

  The world burst into flame, into light. Music thundered from upstairs, so abruptly it was as if a CD had been taken off pause.

  Dan would never forget that moment. It was impossible to him just then to conceive of a way to mitigate such loss. He should have been there. He had been holding his future in his clasped hands. Dust. It was all dust.

  His first vodka, that was licorice. The bar was packed, a wall of sound, everyone crowded in front of a giant screen against the back wall. The replay of the opening ceremony had started. �This will go on for an eternity,� he whispered over the rim of his glass.

  But at least he could sit at the bar, there were empty stools there, and he could turn away from the screen. He drank his vodka and lime. All those years of training, when he�d been the other Danny, they had taught him to listen to his body. He�d only had vodka twice before, on the night of his eighteenth, and once out pub-crawling with Bennie and Omar and Herc. It was clean-tasting, fast, it cleared the head, it offered speed. Vodka would straighten him out, vodka was what he needed.

  He pulled his flip phone from his pocket and scrolled through the address book. He kept clicking onto Martin Taylor�s number, then pressing the back button. Finding Taylor�s number, returning to the home screen: he couldn�t stop going back and forth.

  Dan told himself that Martin was busy, studying law at uni, he�d just forgotten to tell Dan about the party. He rarely returned calls, he just didn�t have the time, he�d claimed: �It isn�t like school, Kelly�uni�s tough, you have to work hard. It�s not a piece of piss like working in a servo or a supermarket.� Martin could hardly bring himself to say the word, it was as if he had never had to say the word supermarket in his life.

  What are you going to do, Kelly? What are you doing with your life?

  �A white wine, thank you. A riesling if you have it.�

  His first wine, fruit juice left out too long in the sun.

  He looked up from his phone. The young woman asking for the drink was leaning on the bar next to him. She was short and slight and her skin was the citrine hue of olive oil. It would be such lovely soft skin to touch, thought Dan, and he had to stop himself reaching out to stroke it. He must be high, this was what getting high must be like. He could sense the alcohol coursing playfully through his body. Vodka made you high.

  The woman noticed him staring at her and offered up a confused, shy grin. Then, embarrassed, she looked away.

  Say something, dickhead. Martin would have had some witticism at hand, Bennie would have made a joke, Omar would have flexed a muscle and Herc would�ve asked for a light. Luke wouldn�t have had to say anything. The girls always approached Luke first these days.

  Say something. She was blonde, straw-yellow hair to her shoulders, silken and smooth as a sheet of pressed metal. He wanted his first time to be with a blonde. The most beautiful people he knew, Emma, Martin, they were all blond.

  Say something. The bartender had given the woman her glass of wine, she was searching for money in her bag.

  �Hi.� That was all he had, all he could think to say. But the young woman turned, smiled, and said hello in response. He didn�t know what to say next. But she had stayed at the bar.

  Dan quickly slipped off his stool and offered it to the woman. �Would you like to sit down?�

  She hesitated, looked around, blushing, then took the seat. �Thanks.�

  �My name is Dan.�

  �I�m Mila.�

  Mila sounded exactly right, a sweet word. He silently repeated the name to himself; and then came a flash of memory.

  �Mila means apples in Greek.�

  The girl, sipping her wine, looked confused.

  �Mila,� he continued, embarrassed now. �The word means apples in Greek.�

  �Are you Greek?�

  �No. Well, my mum is, but I�m not.�

  She didn�t respond to that, kept sipping at her drink, looking up at him from time to time�her mien now cautious but confident, as she sized him up�but mostly she was glancing over his shoulder, to the screen where the eternal now of the opening ceremony was unfolding. He wouldn�t look.

  Mila motioned to the screen. �Wasn�t it fantastic? I didn�t expect it.� She was flushed, searching for words. �I guess I was so proud,� she finally gushed.

  �I didn�t watch it.�

  She had no response to that. There was chatter and music and shouting in the bar, a tram rumbling down Smith Street, but between Mila and himself, thought Dan, the air was lifeless.

  �Are you meeting friends here, Dan?�

  He shook his head.

  �Oh.� Mila seemed suspicious of his answer.

  �Are you?�

  �Yes, I�m meeting a couple of girlfriends here.�

  He had to stop himself from saying, �Can I stay with you, can I just hang out with you? I don�t want to go home. Can I please stay with you?� He didn�t dare say that.

  �Are you a student?�

  He was going to lie. He wasn�t going to tell her what he did; she looked smart and poised. He nodded.

  �Me too. Whereabouts?�

  �La Trobe Uni,� he lied.

  �Oh really? Me too.� She was excited, but then her eyes narrowed. He didn�t like that, it reminded him of a mouse.

  �I haven�t seen you there.�

  And her teeth were too big, Dan thought, she had to know it because she kept her mouth closed when she wasn�t speaking. Her teeth were too big for her small round face.

  �I haven�t seen you around either.� He liked how easy it was to lie. He could be anything he wanted to be with her. He remembered what Demet had told him about her classes.

  �I�m doing sociology,� he said, �and also cinema and gender studies.� He finished his vodka and lime, tried to catch the bartender�s eye. The vodka made lying easy, the vodka was telling the story. �Would you like another?�

  Her glass was still nearly full and she shook her head.

  He tried to check his money without her noticing. When his drink arrived, she raised her glass and clinked it with his.

  �Happy Sydney Olympics,� she said.

  Dan smiled but said nothing.

  �I�m doing health sciences,� Mila continued. �I�m in second year.�

  �Same here.�

  Then Mila mentioned some people she thought he might know, and he had to keep saying sorry, he didn�t know them. Her eyes narrowed. She looked like a mouse again.

  The air had gone dead between them once more. Mila�s skirt, ruby red, was riding up her thigh and her skin there was pale. Would Bennie touch her now, would Omar? Dan dropped his hand and the back of it slid off her leg.

  It was the wrong t
hing to do. She was startled and shifted her body away from him, her eyes not leaving the screen.

  Someone called her name and Dan could sense her relief. She jumped off the stool, turned to him hurriedly and said, �Thanks, Dan, my friends are here now.� And like that, she was gone.

  Dan wouldn�t turn around, he wouldn�t look at her greeting her friends, at them whispering about him, laughing at him. The loser. The freak. He finished his vodka and lime, the full glass, it burned his throat as it went down. He put it on the counter and walked calmly out of the bar and into the street. He wouldn�t look back to where they were laughing at him.

  He told himself that he didn�t know what he was doing, that he had not yet made up his mind where he was going as he stood there in the street, his hand outstretched, hailing the taxi. He told himself that he was heading into the night by chance, that he had no destination in mind, even as he told the driver that he wanted to head to Toorak, across the river, where he hadn�t been since school. It wasn�t choice, it was fate. All he knew, he told himself, was that it was too early to go home, that he couldn�t bear facing Theo, who would still be up waiting for him, ready to discuss every moment of it with him, even though they would be watching it together tomorrow. No, he couldn�t bear that�better to just jump in a cab and take off into the night. So convinced was Dan that he had made no decision about where he was going that it came as a shock when the driver stopped outside the Taylors� house. The street was dark, the brooding, massive elm trees denuded of foliage. He handed the driver the fare and got out of the cab.

  Dan pressed the buzzer at the gate and after a few moments, a voice answered. �Yes, who is it?�

  He recognised the brusque tone of Mrs Taylor. She repeated the question, now impatiently.

  He was so shaken at finding himself at the gate that he didn�t even say the right name. He�d become the other Danny again.

  �It�s Danny, Danny Kelly.�

  The wind was chopping through the naked branches and he realised he was cold. For a moment he knew that she wouldn�t let him in, that she would tell him that he couldn�t turn up uninvited, that you just didn�t do such things.

  But there was a buzz, a whirr of machinery, and the gates slowly pulled apart.

  Dazed, still not quite believing it, it had to be the high of vodka, that had to be it, Dan found himself walking up the long driveway of Martin Taylor�s home.

  His first rum, all he could taste was the Coke in it.

  It was Mrs Taylor who offered him the drink, who said that it was so lovely to see him, but she didn�t ask what he was doing, where he was working, how his family were. Her lips on both his cheeks felt cold.

  She said, �I�m having a rum and Coke. Would you like one?�

  He nodded.

  He remembered the long hallway with the tiled floor, the square canvas with the bulky gold-leaf frame on one wall, a portrait of Mrs Taylor in swirls of thick oil pastel; and on the other wall a huge photograph of the family, Emma and her mother sitting on a couch, the daughter in a ballooning saffron-coloured dress and the mother in cream satin, the men standing behind them, Mr Taylor in a suit, and Martin, grim-faced, in his school uniform. He recalled that there were steps off the corridor that led down into a sunken den. He could see Mr Taylor�s bald pate down there; he was sitting on a white leather couch. Mr Taylor didn�t turn around to say hello.

  Mrs Taylor ushered Dan through to the kitchen, fixed him the drink and almost pushed him out to the backyard where a marquee had been set up, white sheets of gossamer material that curved and billowed with the wind.

  �Martin,� Mrs Taylor called out, and the young men and women chatting on the lawn turned to stare. Some of the faces of the men were familiar. One of them, a tall young man in a blue-and-white-striped shirt, was walking towards him, his hand outstretched.

  �My God, Kelly,� he exclaimed. �Is that you?�

  Mrs Taylor pushed Dan gently out into the night. �Have a good time, Danny,� she said, and then she slid shut the kitchen door.

  It was like his first day at school.

  It was Sullivan who�d recognised him, it was Sullivan, with a trim goatee, who�d come up to him and slapped him on the back, introducing him to this man and this woman, �We�re at uni together,� �This is Danny Kelly, we were at school together,� �What are you doing, Danny?�, but he didn�t have time to answer, he was being introduced to Verena and Scott, to Marcus and Benjamin, Callista and Chloe, names he would forget, faces he wouldn�t recall in the morning. A good-looking strong-jawed waiter brought over a tray of pies, but he didn�t have time to reach out for one because there were more people to meet, a Seb and a Cameron, a Jacinta and a Melinda, and �What do you do, Danny?� and �Oh, you are a friend of Martin�s, are you, Danny?� and �Wasn�t the opening ceremony wonderful, Danny? Aren�t you proud, Danny? I�m so proud of Australia tonight, aren�t you, Danny?�

  He was nodding, like a good dog, and found himself saying, �Yes, wasn�t it wonderful?� and he had to stop himself barking out, Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi, like a good dog. He nodded his head and it felt as though he was wagging his tail.

  And then a familiar voice cut through the noise under the marquee, it called out to him, straight to him, only to him: �Danny Kelly, what are you doing here?�

  Martin Taylor was coming towards him, wearing a white dress shirt and loose black trousers sitting on his hips, his hand extended. Dan grabbed it, held it, the palm cool and dry, and they shook until Martin pulled away. He had not put on weight; he was, if it were possible, even more handsome now. Dan sucked in his gut, straightened his shoulders. They did not embrace. Unsmiling, their eyes dared one another.

  Dan answered, �I heard some faggot was throwing a party.�

  And Martin was laughing and pumping his hand, and sliding an arm across Dan�s shoulders, and Martin was saying, �Have you eaten? There�s plenty of food left. Do you need another drink? What are you drinking, we�ll get you another rum,� but all Dan could think of was that Martin�s initial question hadn�t been a query and there had been no delight in it. There had been ice in that question, the same chill that Dan had heard in Mrs Taylor�s voice.

  Danny Kelly, what are you doing here?

  A young woman had come up to stand at Martin�s side. She was petite, with fine, white wispy hair that gave her an almost ethereal appearance; it was hair that belonged to the very old or to creatures from other worlds. Her strapless blue dress, of fine silk, evoked a timeless classical past: Dan�s mother would have approved of such an elegant garment. The woman was touching Martin�s elbow, not holding it, just touching it, just the glance of her fingertip against Taylor�s elbow, but it was proprietorial, confident. Dan was astonished by the stab of jealousy that he felt; he was bloated with that emotion, it threatened to choke him. Taylor had had girlfriends before, Taylor had been with women. But none of them had claimed him with the authority and entitlement of that simple touch.

  �Lauren, let me introduce you,� Taylor said, now loosening his arm from around Dan, pulling in the woman and holding her close. �This is an old friend of mine, this is Danny.�

  The woman held out her small hand, a slender gold bracelet clasped tight around her wrist. �Hello, Danny, it is very nice to meet you.�

  And he knew, from the question lurking just beneath her polite greeting, that she hadn�t a clue who he was, that she had never heard his name before.

  Martin leaned down and kissed Lauren on the lips. They lingered on the kiss. Then Martin pulled away, laughing, and said proudly, �We�ve just announced our engagement.�

  Martin�s grey eyes, his long blond lashes, his fine smooth cheeks. Dan wanted to reach out and stroke his friend�s cheek. No, Dan wanted to rip the lips off Martin Taylor�s face. Instead he told himself, Keep your voice steady. Instead, he said, �Mate, I�m so happy for you.� And Martin had stepped forward, to accept a hug, to embrace Dan, but Dan stepped back and i
nstead extended his right hand. The two men shook, Dan kissed the woman on both cheeks. �I�m so very happy for you.� He couldn�t hug Taylor. If he hugged Taylor he�d squeeze the life out of him.

  Lauren was holding Martin�s hand. �Did you see the opening ceremony, Danny?� she gushed. �Wasn�t it wonderful? We weren�t going to tell anyone yet but it just seemed the perfect night to announce it to the world.�

  He hadn�t answered.

  �Did you see it?�

  Dan wouldn�t look at Martin, he kept his eyes on Lauren. �No,� he answered, �I didn�t see it. I couldn�t be bothered.�

  Lauren�s face fell; it was exactly that: her eyes drooped, her jaw slackened. As if he�d assaulted her, as if his answer was an affront. �Why ever not?� As if she couldn�t understand why anyone would deny themselves such pleasure, as if she couldn�t see why anyone wouldn�t want to be part of that mindless celebration. Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi.

  Dan glanced around the marquee, over the top of Lauren�s head, everywhere, anywhere, except at Martin. He couldn�t bring himself to look at Martin. �I�m not interested in the Olympics,� he said finally. �I don�t care much for sport.�

  Taylor stooped down, his chin almost resting on Lauren�s naked shoulder, he was whispering something to her. And then it happened. Her countenance softened. Her eyes were moist and kind when she turned to him again, he could see the pity there.

  He wanted to reach out and grab her pretty face, reach out and rip her skin off. He hated her that much. Dan drained the last of the rum, crunching loudly on the ice, then held the empty glass up to Martin. �Fetch, Taylor,� he said brightly. �You�ll get me another, won�t you?�