Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

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?’

Taylor bristled at the insult. Good, fetch me another, dog.

Then Martin’s face settled back into a smile. He took the empty glass. ‘Yeah, mate. I guess if I were you I’d be feeling the need to get smashed tonight too.’

Dan was buried, he had sunk wingless into the earth. Taylor had won and he had lost.

So Dan drinks. He finishes one rum and Coke and then another. Dan drinks and he dances, savage ugly movements, his arms rip through the air, he makes up words to the loud booming techno that pounds through the backyard. And he doesn’t just dance, he leaps and jumps, banging down on the lawn with the soles of his shoes. Sweat flies off him, people move away from him, but he doesn’t care. He dances wildly, twisting and flailing and breaking the night. Your name I remember, like a fever or a flame . He calls out the words again and again, screaming them now so a young woman dancing beside him moves away, her face puckers in disgust. He doesn’t care, he loves the song, bellows out those words: Your name I remember, like a fever or a flame. And as the song fades, a kinetic stuttering beat rushes up from behind it, overwhelming and drowning the song, the song that he believes will be forever his song. He stops abruptly, focuses, his throat parched, all these strangers looking at him. Looking at him as if he is filth, as if he is shit, as if he doesn’t belong.

It is his first day at Cunts College and he doesn’t belong.

He stands still. Couples around him dancing with a polite shuffle of feet, blonde girls with handbags hanging over their shoulders, sandy-haired boys gyrating carefully next to them. Neatness and cleanliness, order and beauty. Dan can smell his own stink, he is lathered in sweat. Slowly, deliberately, he unbuttons his shirt, then tears it off, wipes under his arms with it, dabs his face, his neck, his shoulders. Let them see the full hairy ugliness of who he is, the paunch of his belly, the thick coarse hair matted and wet against his skin. Let them look at him, let them take him in. One of the women giggles, one of the men calls out sarcastically, ‘Strip, strip, strip,’ and someone starts a slow clap. Dan thinks, Why not, I’ll strip, I’ll strip, and I’ll piss all over this lawn, I’ll strip and piss and maybe even take a dump right in the middle of their fucking lawn, that’s what they expect from me. Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi .

A hand is on his shoulder, a quiet voice says, ‘Danny, come with me.’

Dazed, he lets Emma lead him out of the marquee, past the faces turning away from him, past the whispers and the jeers. She takes him into the kitchen, she is holding his hand, tight, as she walks him up the stairs and into a bedroom. She gently pushes him onto the mattress and leaves him sitting there while she goes out and closes the door behind her.

Is he meant to stay here? Does she mean him to be locked in here? He looks around the room; it is exactly as he remembers it, the Wilderness Society posters, the school photographs, the chunky mahogany desk, the three walls of bookcases, except that now most of the books that filled those shelves have gone, only a handful of children’s books and school textbooks remain.

Emma comes back and tosses a t-shirt at him. ‘It’s one of Martin’s old ones,’ she explains. ‘I think it will fit.’

Dan puts on the shirt, sniffs at it. He can’t smell Martin, only detergent and fabric softener.

Emma sits down next to him. She looks around her old bedroom. ‘Jesus,’ she says, shaking her head, ‘how I hate this room. It reminds me of a poor little rich girl’s room.’ She groans. ‘I wish they’d change it, I wish they would make it a spare room, anything as long as it doesn’t remind me of once living here.’

Unlike the other women at the party, Emma is not in evening wear. She wears a rainbow-coloured smock, which hangs limply over her shoulders. Her skin is as dark and honeyed as the wood of the desk. Without thinking, Dan reaches out and touches the small bump on her shoulder. ‘You’re very tanned.’ Everything he says, everything he does in this house, it seems idiotic.

Emma wears no make-up, her hair is cut short, he can smell cigarettes on her breath. ‘I’ve been working in Asia for a year, Danny. Didn’t Martin tell you?’

Dan shakes his head.

Emma snorts loudly. ‘No surprises there.’

The collar of the smock hangs loose around her breasts, the skin is tanned dark there as well. Dan’s finger slowly traces a line from the bump on her shoulder, across the smooth skin of her neck, down to the cleft of her breasts. He can sense her breath underneath his touch. But gently, Emma moves his hand away. It falls, dead, hitting the mattress with a thud.

Her next words shock him. ‘I know he’s my brother, Danny, but he’s not worth it. Martin Taylor is a shit. He’s a shit from a long, long line of shits.’

He doesn’t understand why she is telling him this, he is suspicious of her words. He peeks at a necklace that sits skewed on the plump rise of her left breast.

Emma notices, holds up the pendant for him to look at. It is a swirl of fine silver lines. ‘This is from Laos, it’s the symbol for charity.’ She drops the pendant. ‘I got it in a hospice where I was working, helping children whose parents had died from AIDS.’ She has dropped the pendant but her finger is tracing the swirls. ‘I used to be sceptical of the word charity, I thought it was some middle-class Christian hang-up. But I’ve learned that it’s a universal quality. I’ve learned to appreciate it.’

He is conscious of how sad she is. He tries to form words in his head, words that will banish the melancholy. Every word this beautiful woman utters, every word floats on sadness.

‘I wish there was more charity here,’ she says bitterly. ‘In this house, in this city, in this country.’

Dan blurts out, ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi.’

And that makes her laugh, that chases away the sadness. ‘Absolutely right, Danny. You’re absolutely right.’ She starts shouting. ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie, Fucking Oi Oi Oi!’