Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

‘It’s alright, Neal, I’ll take him in the morning.’

‘No!’ His father almost shouted the word. Theo dropped his book and Regan rushed to Danny’s side. ‘You and I are sleeping in tomorrow. If he needs to swim he can fucking walk there.’

I do need to swim, you dumbfuck arsehole, I have to swim. Danny wished that his father wasn’t there at all, that he was lost somewhere in the desert. Regan put her hand in the crook of his arm. The small tender gesture calmed him. Why couldn’t it be just him and Theo and Mum and Regan? Just them.

‘OK, OK, Mum can sleep in. I said I’ll take public transport.’ But he couldn’t resist it, he wanted to get one dig in, just one small dig. He said it quietly, not quite under his breath: ‘That cool with you, Mr Shitkicker Truck Driver?’

But his father heard, his father exploded. ‘Fuck you, you’re not going swimming at all. You’re going to stay here and we’re going to spend the day as a family.’

Danny wouldn’t look at his father. ‘I’ve got more important things to do.’

‘Like swanning around with your Portsea mates at their beach parties. That’s what you’d prefer to do, isn’t it?’

His father made it sound dirty, made them sound dirty, made Danny feel dirty. Couldn’t he be four thousand kilometres away, couldn’t he be forever and ever and ever away?

Danny couldn’t look at him, the contempt would choke him. Put it back on him, throw it back at him.

‘It wasn’t a frigging beach party. It was Martin’s grandmother’s birthday.’

She said I know myself, she said I’m not like the middle class. He wanted to find a way to express it to his father, to make it alright. His father also hated the middle class; he said it all the time, that the country was so bloody unrelentingly middle class. But Danny couldn’t connect the spaces between where he’d been with the old woman and where he was now with his father.

His father slammed his beer bottle down on the table. ‘Do you know the old dame whose birthday you were celebrating yesterday, Danny? Do you know anything about her? Do you know who she really is?’

She’s like you. I can’t explain it, but she is exactly like you.

‘Do you have a clue who her husband was?’

Danny could sense the danger, he knew he should just get out and go to his room. But his dad’s scornful eyes, his dad’s disdainful tone, they had trapped him, they wouldn’t let him go.

‘Her husband was one of the biggest donors to the Liberal Party, one of their key benefactors. His money was behind every strike they tried to break, his money put the bloody premier where he is now. His money helped make Howard prime minister!’ His father’s voice was shaking. ‘That’s the kind of filth you’re associating with, son. Do you really think that kind of shit doesn’t stick to you?’

Danny looked around the small kitchen, at the cramped cupboards, the cups with broken handles, the burnt pots, the stove with the one element that didn’t work. It was all too small, too mean here. There was no space at all.

‘So what? You’re just jealous.’

They were right, the boys at school were right when they said that people envied the rich. His old man envied him, couldn’t stand the idea that his son was going to be better than him. That was why he was punishing Danny. He had to throw it back at his father. Humiliate him .

‘Anyway, what do you know? All you do is drive from bloody Melbourne to bloody Perth and back again. One day they’ll train monkeys to do your job.’ Danny said it coldly, keeping the emotion out of his voice. He had learned that from Martin. You didn’t give your words any heat, you didn’t show yourself through them at all.

His father hung his head. Regan started silently to cry. Danny didn’t care, he couldn’t care. His mother’s outraged curse, in Greek so he didn’t understand, pounded in his ears as he went to his room. ‘Throw it back,’ he whispered to himself, ‘give it back to them so they are the ones who are hurt.’

In his room, he sat on the end of his bed, starting to shake. He thought if he got up he would faint. The shame was splitting him open, cracking him apart. No one could ever put him back together, there was no way to do that.

He took a deep breath, flexing his triceps, then moving his arms and shifting the energy to his biceps. He straightened his back — the strength there, the power there. He breathed out and looked up, across to the posters and photographs and medals above his desk. There was the photo torn from the Herald Sun , in colour, Perkins on the dais, kissing his medal, Kowalski in second place, looking straight ahead. Danny would be first, everything would be alright when he came first, all would be put back in place. When he thought of being the best, only then did he feel calm.

As soon as the race starts, he knows he is going to win. It is an open-air pool and the sun is brilliant and the sky is clear and all around the stadium the crowd is shouting out his name. What astounds him is how effortless it all is, he can’t feel his arms, he can’t feel his legs, not only is he in the water but he has become water. The strokes, the kicks, they are exactly like breathing. This is what it must feel like to be a bird, he is rushing through sky. He is in water but he can feel the sun, is reaching the sun. The race finishes and he is first, of course he is first. He has won. He narrows his eyes to slits. He can hardly see the other swimmers, they are trying to reach him but they are miles away, flecks in the far distance. He raises his arm, he salutes the crowd. He looks up and his father’s hand is reaching out to him, to hoist him out of the water. Danny shakes his head. No, he wants to stay here, he wants to stay in the sky and in the water. He looks around. The cheers have fallen silent, the benches are empty. Frightened, he turns back and now Martin and Emma are standing either side of his father. And they are laughing, laughing and pointing at him. Danny looks down. His Speedos have gone, he is naked, and he’s pissing. The stream is a vile acrylic blue, it clouds the water around him. ‘You’ve pissed yourself,’ Martin is laughing. Emma stuffs her hand in her mouth, shaking uncontrollably. And his father, his father too, he can’t stop laughing.

Danny jolted upright. His room was in darkness. He’d pissed his bed, he was sure of it, he’d pissed his bloody bed. His hands searched the sheets and he fell back in relief. His sheets were dry. He peered at the alarm clock: it was not yet two o’clock.

He needed desperately to piss.

The hall was illuminated, the lounge room lit; someone was still up in the kitchen. Trying to ignore the fullness in his bladder, he stood in the doorway. There were record sleeves strewn across the floor, an LP still spinning on the turntable, the needle clicking and crackling as it ran over and over the same soundless groove.

From the kitchen he heard his mother say, ‘I think that school is good for him.’

And he heard his father snort. ‘Yeah? By making him despise his father?’

‘He doesn’t despise you, Neal. He’s just angry. You and I can’t understand the focus he needs, the obsession he has with swimming.’

‘Jesus, Steph, the swimming isn’t the problem. His selfishness is the fucking problem.’

Danny heard a match strike, wrinkled his nose as the acrid smell of the cigarette hit. He was holding his breath, so they wouldn’t hear him, so he could hear his mother’s answer. Defend me, please defend me.

‘Going to that school is a huge opportunity, a really special opportunity, and I am not going to deny him that.’