Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

That day and the day after that, and all the days following, Danny kept telling himself, It’ll make you a better swimmer . He was not welcomed, and he was not wanted, but he could already tell that the Coach was indeed making him a better swimmer. Teaching him how to recognise his muscles, explaining exactly how to breathe, how to think ahead of the water. And that most precious and unlikely piece of advice: Always give it back. The boys didn’t want him there, not just Taylor and the swimmers, but all the boys at that fucking school with their perfect smiles and their perfect skin, none of them wanted him there. But the Coach did. The Coach thought he was the best, and that was all that mattered.

That weekend he swam, he swam in the morning and in the evening, and he caught up with Boz and Sava, he spent every spare moment he could hanging out with Demet. On Sunday evening, as he was leaving her house, she asked, ‘Will you be alright at that school?’

‘Sure,’ he answered. ‘I’ll be fine.’ It will make me a better swimmer.

The next day, back in the heavy uniform, that tie pushing against his throat, he was aware of some of the boys whispering behind him. He ignored them through the morning assembly, but when he walked down the corridor towards his locker, he could sense the smirks and the titters following him. He saw it as soon as he opened his locker door; it was lying on top of his books: the glossiness of the paper, the flash of pink nipple, of pubes and folds. Danny’s breath stopped, his body tensed. He pulled out the folded papers and some pages fell to the ground.

He can’t bear the lascivious grin on the woman’s face, the way she stares up at him. And then there are the words crudely scrawled in texta: DANNY KELLY’S PORN STAR MOTHER. He notices the words last and he notices the words first, all that matters are those words.

Why did she have to come and pick me up? That was his first thought; his second: I hate her. I fucking hate her.

And the tears come, he is aware of them a second too late, how they sting his eyelids.

Taylor has placed a hand on his shoulder, is saying, ‘It’s alright, mate, It’s alright.’ Trying not to break out in laughter.

Danny knows that Taylor has arranged it all.

He knew he should have just turned and decked him. But the boys had formed a half-circle around Taylor, staring and smirking. They were watching Danny Kelly crying.

He wanted to slaughter them all. And he promised himself that if he ever cried in front of them again he would never forgive himself. He would never let himself feel such shame again.

The shame twisted his heart and emptied his lungs. Danny wiped his eyes, picked up the pages, and ripped the paper into pieces.

Give it back, he told himself, give it back to them all.

And he would.

But he didn’t say a word. He collected his books and headed off to the first class. One boy teased, ‘Your mum in the movies, Dino?’ Danny didn’t say a word.

All that day, teachers spoke and lectured but Danny didn’t hear a word. All that day, boys came up to him, behind him, around him; they whispered, they jeered, they catcalled. Danny didn’t say a word.

That afternoon, when he dived into the pool, that was when he finally spoke. He asked the water to lift him, to carry him, to avenge him. He made his muscles shape his fury, made every kick and stroke declare his hate. And the water obeyed; the water would give him his revenge. No one could beat him, not one of the pricks came close.

Regaining his breath and balance, he shivered at the end of the pool, listening to the Coach harangue the rest of the squad. Torma’s face was flushed red, he lashed them with his insults: ‘Not one of you is worth shit, the only one worth anything is Danny Kelly, the rest of you are born shit and will die shit, do you understand me?’

Danny made sure to look straight at each of them, at Scooter, at Wilco, at Morello and Fraser. He stared longest and hardest at Taylor. All the boys had to meet his gaze. I’m the strongest, I’m the fastest, I’m the best .

The boys skulked towards the change rooms. Danny walked in step with the Coach. He didn’t have to say a word.

And he knew that hate was what he would use, what he would remember, what would make him a better swimmer.

AFTER NEARLY TWO HOURS OF FRUITLESS searching through the department stores and boutiques off Buchanan Street, I buy my great-aunt Rosemary a scarf. I want to buy her something special as it has been eight months since I arrived in Glasgow and this is the first time I have visited her. But I don’t know her at all; all I know of her are my grandad Bill’s stories of when she was a little girl. It is only because I am running out of time that I grab the scarf, a royal-blue cashmere scarf. It could be from anywhere, and as I watch the shopgirl wrapping it, I am ashamed of what an ordinary, unimpressive gift it is. But walking out into the square, I tell myself scarves are always handy in Scotland.

Just as I have that thought, the parcel jammed under my arm, the rain pours down. There’s no shelter to be had anywhere and I head towards Queen Street station, the rain saturating my jacket and soaking through to my skin, cursing the fact that in this city where it rains two hundred and bloody thirty-nine days of the year, Clyde declaims it proudly, as if the number is a selling point, something to be proud of, there are no awnings. Not one. The shopkeepers, the councils, no one has thought of putting up shelter. They prefer it, I curse sourly, gives them one more bloody thing to moan about.

I dash into the station, cold and drenched and pissed off.

The man who sells me my ticket to Edinburgh is tight-lipped. He studiously avoids looking at me; the whole time he’s talking to the young woman at the terminal next to him. She too doesn’t glance my way, I might as well not be there. They are talking over each other, absent-mindedly checking paperwork; a queue is forming behind me and people are beginning to grumble.

I look at the man selling me the ticket and I see a stern, long-chinned Australian face.

I run to catch the train, slip through the turnstile past the elderly man checking the tickets; he too has a ruddy Australian face. I get on board, squeeze into my seat; a young man in a grey sweatshirt scowls at me over the lowered plastic table between us as he pulls in his feet to make room for mine. There are four schoolkids in the seats behind me, talking and giggling. The mother, the schoolkids: in them I see the Australian face. Getting off at Waverley station, climbing the ramp to the bridge, passing people looking up at the timetable screens, passing rail workers smoking in groups, crossing with the crowd at Princes Street, all around me, wherever I look, all I seem to see is the Australian face.

I am walking the long high road to Leith, I crest a rise and I can see the Firth of Forth, the water sparkling in the clear winter light. I walk past betting shops and Pakistani grocery stores, past walk-up gymnasiums and pubs, past frowning boys in hoods masking their faces in shadows. And everywhere, the Australian face.

Clyde had said to me the other day, ‘Pal, do you think you might be seeing the Australian face everywhere because you want to?’ He’s right, he caught me out.

Homesickness, I am discovering, is not a matter of climate or landscape; it does not descend on you from unfamiliar architecture. Homesickness hits hardest in the middle of a crowd in a large, alien city. Oh, how I miss the Australian face.

I get to the end of the walk and there is a sad collection of shopfronts with grimy windows, a group of young boys sitting on the dirty concrete rim of a dry fountain, an old woman in a red headscarf resolutely pushing a crammed trolley. I have no idea where to go. Excuse me , I say to the old woman, do you know . . but she won’t let me finish, she just shakes her head, I don’t know, I don’t know , so I let her pass and look across at the young boys, one of them standing, his jaw jutting out, his eyes fierce, looking as though he will growl, just like a dog, the group of them just like a pack of wild dogs. I keep walking, go through a dank concrete tunnel that stinks of urine and garbage, its walls black from the constant stream of water running down them. I am in a square surrounded on three sides by grey towers.