Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

The truth. He hears Martin tell the world the truth.

And Martin is now pushing at him, saying coldly, repeating, ‘Get out, get out of my house,’ and Dan shoves back, so hard that Martin slams against the glass door, it trembles, it bends, there is a loud crack, and Martin scrambles to his feet, he comes rushing at him, and Emma is between them and Dan can hear Mrs Taylor’s outraged voice screaming from somewhere and everyone is running up the lawn towards the kitchen and Lauren is still crying and Martin is pushing him back and the music is screaming out that one word, loser, again and again, all denial, loser, again and again and Dan’s hand tightens around the empty glass in his hand and he thinks I can crush it, it will shatter into a million pieces and it will cut my hand and then Martin pushes him again and Mrs Taylor is screaming and Emma is crying but he doesn’t care, she’s one of them , he remembers the discarded plate, his forsaken gift. All of them are the same, just pity and mockery, how they must have laughed at him through the years, how they must have made jokes about what a clumsy, awkward, ugly, ill-mannered buffoon he was; so Emma is crying, let her cry, and Lauren is howling, let her howl, and to make it all stop to make it all go away to make himself disappear he raises his arm and as he lifts it he thinks for a moment that he has been lifted himself, that he is towering over the bodies coming to claim him and he can see straight over their heads through the windows to the night outside except that it is not night but a screen and in the screen he can see that a woman with white skin is relinquishing the torch to a woman with black skin and he thinks I’m somewhere there in between, I am in the in-between of my father’s paleness and my mother’s darkness, and as the woman holds the Olympic torch aloft ready to light the flame and as Martin is pushing him back and those behind Martin are grabbing at him, reaching for him, he knows that they are both there, he and Martin, that they are both there in the stadium that had been bronze with desert and silver with sea and gold with dreaming and that the glass in his hand is the torch in her hand and as he brings it down on Martin’s face he hears the veil of the screen rip and through that tear the same woman’s voice is now pleading and they fight and struggle as if the woman is guiding Dan’s hand, she is guiding his fate, and the blood falls like hot rain on his cheeks and as he slices the man’s face Dan raises the glass again and again and brings it down again and again and as his punches fall across the man’s head and face and neck and throat and chest and belly and arms and legs and the man doubles over and falls, Dan sighs with relief because he has fallen with him through the crack of the sliding door and through the crack of the house and through the crack of the city into the nothingness in which he belongs. Martin Taylor’s blood is on his lips, he can taste him. He falls into the darkness, and just before a boot crashes into his skull, he savours the moment in which his and Martin’s blood and sweat are joined together: he and Martin, once again together, they are as one.

I HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO breathe again.

I am standing under the towering pin oak that shadows Frank Torma’s house. I force my body to banish fear. The stone on my palm is as smooth as glass. My grip on it is strong. It is as smooth as glass but ancient and indestructible.

I have to learn how to breathe again because Frank watches me, I know he is watching me all the time. He watches me as I swim, but he also watches the way I walk towards the change rooms, how I undress, how I carry my sports bag over my shoulder. He takes note of everything I do, and everything I do, I do wrong.

‘Stop slouching,’ he bellows, coming up behind me, resting one hand at the bottom of my spine, the other pushing my stomach so my back straightens. ‘When did you start slouching?’ he roars. ‘When, tell me when?’

I don’t answer. He must know, he must know the burden I carry. I push back my shoulders, I force one foot in front of the other. I inhale, try not to be conscious of the workings of my lungs, the forward thrust of my body. But I breathe too soon, I lose rhythm. Even something as simple as walking causes me fear. I don’t trust the machine that is my body.

I have to learn how to breathe again.

There is a fog floating on the river, the city over the ridge is ghostly through the blue and grey mist. Through the glass doors I can see the staff at the front desk, a cleaner carrying a bucket and a mop. I am the first at the pool, I am outside, hopping on one foot, then the other, blowing into my hands, rubbing them together to keep warm. One of the women inside takes pity on me and though it is not yet six o’clock she comes over and releases a switch. The doors slide open.

‘Thanks, Sonia.’

She nods curtly, makes sure I’ve noticed that she’s annoyed, but then she relents, and calls over her shoulder, ‘The heating has just gone on in the change rooms, mate. It’s freezing in there.’

It is, it’s like walking into an icy vapour straight off the South Pole. But I strip, slip on my Speedos, wrap my goggles around my neck and run to the pool. I dive into the water.

That’s not quite true: there is a moment, a pause. I hesitate, and then dive into the water.

That hesitation is constant, it is the load on my back. It stays with me as I complete one lap, and then another. The water senses it and does not yield for me. I have worked my muscles, I have sculpted them, they are supple and they are strong. Everything is in order, everything is in shape. But the water does not bend, the water resists me, pushes against me. I complete one hundred metres and I have to gulp for breath.

When the rest of the squad arrives, Wilco among them, I am treading water at the east end of the pool. They don’t glance my way, don’t greet me. Only Coach nods, then calls me over. I swim the length, I swim the fifty metres and there is the load on my back. It is the weight of all their eyes on me, it is their clocking of my pace, my time, my stroke. I break the surface of the water and there is a din in my head. I can hear their thoughts: That used to be Barracuda.

I look up. The squad are not paying me any attention. They are doing stretches, waiting for a signal from Coach. A squad from another of the private schools marches into the pool area, and we all warily eye those boys. I have raced against some of them, I have beaten, thrashed, some of those boys. The Australian Championships are in a fortnight, and I must smash those boys again. I slip under the surface of the water to cool my cheeks, my face. I must beat those boys again.

When I resurface, Coach is beckoning me and I hoist myself onto the pool deck.

Wilco says, finally, ‘Hi, Kelly,’ and I am pathetically grateful for his acknowledgement. I breathe in.

Wilco and I are the seniors in the squad now. There is no Taylor, no Fraser, no Scooter. Sullivan has gone and Morello dropped out long ago. The younger ones keep their distance from me, as if I could contaminate them. One of them, Lensman, is old enough to have seen me win. The others, they only know about my failure. I stand at the side as Coach speaks, I am at the edge of the half-circle formed around him. Coach pairs us off; I am matched with a Year Eight, Costello. I see the glance he exchanges with Lensman, a smirk at the corner of his mouth.

I dive cleanly, I do not hesitate. I plough through the water like a threshing machine, I do not think of my breathing, my kick, my stroke. And as if repaying my loyalty, the water carries me and the water bends and shifts for me. I am not consciousness, I am drive and I am body and I am force. My arms hammer down on the water, and effortlessly separate the water. I have no thoughts but I dare myself, the words are inseparable from the water and my body, they are one: I am the strongest, the fastest, the best. I am the strongest, the fastest, the best.