Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

Heading towards me is a giant insect of a man, so thin that his hooded top and polyester trackpants flap against his spindly arms and legs. Walking next to him, trying to keep to his pace, is a young woman, short, as thin as he is but with enormous breasts, her long hair falling limply over her shoulders. She’s wearing an electric-blue tracksuit and is clutching what looks like a pink toy rabbit to her chest. As if she’s trying to hide her tits, as if by holding the toy close to her she can fool the world into thinking she’s a girl, not a woman. The couple are arguing, he’s calling her names and she keeps saying, ‘Just fucken shut up, it’s all your fault, just fucken shut up.’ As I near them, I ask if they know the address I am trying to find, and the man stops suddenly, as if I have clouted him. His head goes back and he says something in such a thick angry accent I’m not even sure it is English. The woman hasn’t stopped walking, and she turns around and looks at me as if I am dog shit she’s just stepped in. She doesn’t have to speak, the scowl and the disgust in her eyes are enough. I know to keep on walking.

Then I hear, ‘Aye, aye, aye,’ and I turn around, the man is running back to me, though it is hardly a normal run, he is cradling one hand in the other, as if the effort of it all hurts, as if it is killing him. ‘Aye aye aye,’ he keeps repeating when he stops in front of me, not able to say another word, bent over, fighting for breath. He has a big smile on his face, he winks and says, You’re an Aussie, eh, nah?’ and I nod but he’s already calling out to the young woman, who hasn’t moved, who is standing with her feet apart, the pink rabbit dangling from her left hand, her other hand a fist on her hip, and he’s calling out, ‘Aye, aye, aye, he’s an Aussie.’ She’s still scowling and doesn’t respond, and he turns to me and starts giving directions, asking do I want them to walk me over there, and I say no, but thanks, mate, I make sure to say mate over and over, thanks, mate , and he winks again and goes back to the woman. I can hear her berating him as I walk towards the grey towers and this time it is he who keeps interrupting her onslaught, with ‘Just shut the fuck up, will ya, just shut the fuck up.’

My great-aunt Rosemary lives on the ground floor, in the shadow of the towers. On her door is a heavy brass knocker in the shape of a terrier’s head. I bang it, once, twice, and I can hear a shuffle. A voice asks, solidly Glaswegian, ‘Is that you, Danny?’ and I answer yes and the door swings open. The smells of fried egg and locked-in bodies, confinement and home cooking, burnt toast and eau de cologne, all hit me at once. There, smiling up at me, a solid white-haired woman is holding out her arms, but I can’t move; for a moment I think time and space have played a trick on me, I think I am about to be hugged by my granddad Bill. Then she says, ‘Let me hold you, love, let me hold you,’ and Granddad Bill is gone and this stranger has wrapped her arms around me and I smell chips and cheap scent but the hug she gives me is warm and trusting.

There is no light in the front room, so we sit in the kitchen, out the back. There are two chairs for the small kitchen table; a clump of folded knitting lies next to a small porcelain statuette of the Virgin and next to Her is a framed black and white photograph of Great-Aunt Rosemary on her wedding day. Below that are framed photographs of my granddad as a kid, a photo of my mother and father, of Regan and Theo, and then there is the photograph of me; I am skinny and pale with a toothy grin, in my black swimmers, clutching a ribbon, smiling like an idiot, ecstatic at my win. On a white doily next to the kettle is a snow globe on a red plastic base, Flinders Street station in miniature.

‘Aye, Danny, aye, Danny,’ Great-Aunt Rosemary keeps repeating, ‘I can’t believe we have finally met. Tell me,’ she urges, ‘tell me everything. Tell me about Bill and Irene, tell me about Neal and Stephanie.’ She’s lived in this flat for over forty-five years, came here as a new bride. But her accent still carries the thick chopping call of Glasgow. ‘Tell me, Danny,’ she says. ‘Tell me everything.’

And I do: over another cup of tea, over the biscuits, over the ham and squishy cheese toasts she makes me as the sun moves across the sky and the kitchen begins to darken, I tell her all that I can. She gets up to switch on the light, saying, ‘Go on, love, go on, I want to hear it all.’

So I do, I bring Australia forth in words, and it seems that I must be convincingly tracing the outlines and filling in the shades and colours of home because the tiny room seems warmer. I take off my jumper as the sharp smell of burnt toast seems to retreat, as if my stories carry with them the scent of silver-gum forests, of fish and chips on a stinking hot day. All around me are reminders of my home town, the Mother of God and the photographs watching me as I talk. And Great-Aunt Rosemary smiles sadly and nods, and once, twice, takes hold of my hand, squeezes it, even with her arthritis, squeezes it tight and ignores the pain. And again it could be my granddad Bill who is here with me.

I feel as though I’ve talked for hours, more than I have since coming to Scotland. Suddenly I have no more words. She nods, and takes out a crumpled tissue from her sleeve, blows her nose and dabs at her eyes.

‘I wanted to come to Australia,’ she says quietly. ‘But then Jimmy got sick. So there you are.’ She is smiling again. ‘Another cup of tea, love?

It has started to rain again; the bits of sky visible between the towers appear heavy and sodden with black cloud. We sit in the quiet as the rain splatters against the window.

She pats my hand. ‘I’m glad Bill’s done so well, I am so glad. He did the right thing, leaving this cold hard place and going to Australia.’ She shakes her head, as if the word conjures up enchantment. 'It gave him opportunity. Ach, I know my brother has worked hard, I know it, but he's raised two wonderful sons, he and Irene are happy together and he has a home he loves.' She can't stop nodding, as if in prayer.

And then she surprises me. 'You know he wanted to study?'

'No,' I say, 'I didn't know that.'

'He was a marvel at languages. There was a friend of his, in our tenement, he was Russian, oh, I've forgotten the wee one's name, and he and Bill used to play together all the time. Bill would just go on and on in Russian, he picked it up so quickly. He used to tell us that he was going to learn languages, he wanted to speak five or six, he did.'

'I had no idea. I haven't heard him speak anything but English.'

I say that and her face drops.

'Aye, our dad couldn't bear hearing Bill talk Russian. He'd shout at him, 'Who do you think you are? What are you doing dreaming, lad? Our sort can't dream.”'

My great-aunt again dabs at her eyes. I am silent. 'Ach, can you imagine that, Danny, can you imagine saying that to a wee child, that you're not allowed to dream? That was our world then.' She looks out the window to the darkness outside. 'No wonder Bill wanted to leave, no wonder he wanted to go as far away from here as he could.'

She surprises me again as her smile returns. 'And I suppose he did, you cannot get further than Australia, can you, lad?' She smiles at me, nodding; I know she wants me to agree. 'Can you, Danny? It must be such a lovely, lovely place.'

In all my time here, she's the first one to say that Australia seems like a lovely place. All of Clyde's friends and family, even those few who have travelled that distance, they say, 'It's alright,' they say, 'Of course, there's beauty there,' but they hold back; you know they have seen or heard of the ugliness and the insularity there. They have experienced the farawayness of it. I have learned to keep silent, not to berate them for their disregard of the Brits' role in the colonial tragedy of my country. I bite my tongue and hide my frustration at their tedious obsession with Scottish independence, as if that would make a difference to life in Glasgow, let alone to a single soul anywhere else in the world. I have learned how to nod and pretend that I agree. I am a stranger. It is my duty to be polite.