Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

This time his granddad spoke. ‘And whose fault is that?’

His nan looked worn and weary. ‘Oh, Bill, don’t I know it? That old bitch has three wonderful grandchildren she doesn’t even know, wouldn’t recognise them if they were right in front of her. But she’s our Stephanie’s mother, and Stephanie wants to see her before she dies.’ She clasped her hand tightly over Dan’s wrist. ‘You have to go with her, dearie.’

‘But I’ve got to work.’

‘This weekend is Easter — surely you can get some time off?’

Dan knew he probably could. He hadn’t had a day off since he started at the supermarket after prison, he hadn’t asked for one and hadn’t needed one. A day off was a break in the routine — it was no good to him. His grandmother was still holding on to him, her fingers pressing into his flesh.

‘OK, Nan, OK. I’ll ring her. I promise.’

She patted his arm gently and his granddad gave a relieved sigh.

The railway station was at the end of his grandparents’ street, but Dan went past it, walking so fast his backpack was thumping and slapping his shoulder blades. He dashed down the street, as if by rushing he could lift the burden of the promise he had made to his grandparents — as if he could outrun it, shrug it off. He crossed the railway line, walked parallel to it until he reached the next station, but then decided to keep moving, to make his way to the next one along. A city-bound train cannoned past and he wondered if he could walk all the way into town.

The sun was just dropping into the west and its blinding rays were in his eyes. He came to a small park and sat on a bench under a giant maple, whose golden leaves were just about to fall. He sat down on the bench and took out his phone, scrolling down to mum & dad , his finger poised over the call button. He didn’t press it.

School was out and two girls were walking across the park, swinging their bags, giggling as they passed him. A little further behind them a boy was coming up the path, slouching, walking slowly, his overloaded schoolbag hanging precariously from his shoulder. The boy was tall, lanky, his shirt untucked, the white flaps falling from beneath his grey school jumper. He had a mess of oily black hair, a down of black hair on his top lip and his cheeks were crimson, spotty. Dan watched him shuffle past, keeping a measured distance behind the girls, who were still giggling. One of them let out a peal of laughter. The schoolboy slowed his gait even more. Dan knew exactly what he would be thinking, he would be thinking that they were laughing at him, that they thought he was ugly, a loser.

Dan wanted to run up to the boy, to tell him, You’re wrong, you don’t know how beautiful you are. He forced himself to stop looking at the boy. He turned to look back at his phone, slid his fingers against the numbered buttons and the light came back on the screen: mum & dad.

Dan had an erection; his cock was thick and straining against the tight cotton of his jocks. Two young mothers wheeling prams were coming up the path. Resentfully, almost savagely, he picked up his bag and set it on his lap. The two women were in the middle of an animated conversation but one of them, blonde, her hair swept back over one shoulder, looked across at him as they walked past and offered the faintest glimmer of a smile. He smiled back, thinking, You don’t know what I am, you would be disgusted if you knew that I am sitting here, thinking what it would feel like to have that schoolboy’s cock up my arse.

His erection had gone. The sun had disappeared completely behind white cloud. The wind was blowing stronger and it was cold in the shade. He stretched his arms and hooked them over the back of the bench. He looked down at mum & dad , and made the call.

His mother answered immediately, as if she had been waiting for it, as if she knew he’d be ringing. He could hear women’s voices in the background and beneath them the numb monotone beats of a commercial radio station, the music his mother hated.

He didn’t offer excuses about why he hadn’t rung, he didn’t apologise or ask how she was, if they’d heard from Regan; he didn’t ask after his dad or Theo. He just said, ‘Nan told me giagia is sick. I’ll come with you to Adelaide.’

His mother was crying as they organised to leave on the Saturday morning, she was still crying when he said goodbye. Her weeping, her repeated thank you thank you thank you , were the last things he heard as he clicked shut his phone.

There was no television in Dan’s flat, no radio, no stereo. He walked through the door and fell back onto the sofa, his palms flat on each thigh, staring straight ahead, through the window where the view dropped down to the railway bridge, the expanse of train tracks and the curved black arcs of the telephone wires, to the ashen cloud-filled sky. He was watching without seeing, wasn’t even conscious of the trains roaring in and out of Footscray station.

He was listening without hearing; to his breathing, calm now that he was home, now that he was still.

He didn’t want a television, he had no need of a radio. He didn’t want the world to come in. He detested the news, couldn’t believe it: the bombs and the terror and the wailing boatpeople; the oil and the money and the price of land and real estate. He couldn’t stand the false hysteria of soap operas, the forced hilarity of sitcoms, the feigned outrage of commentators and the hosts of current-affairs shows. He didn’t own a computer. He didn’t need its temptations. He preferred the silence, the loneliness that was comfort; he didn’t want uproar and infinite noise. Only books, books were all he wanted, and they were strewn across his flat. Books from the local library, books scavenged from boxes and crates at the Sunday markets. In reading he found solitude. In reading he could dispel the blare of the world.

Dan sat on his sofa looking out of the window to where leaden cumulus clouds slowly passed over the telephone lines. He could see the railway bridge, and a train shuffling out of the station. He was looking at the low dark clouds, listening to his breath going in and out of his lungs. Slowly a symphony began. He could hear the old woman next door turning on a tap; the sound of a clunking washing machine from the laundry below. He could hear the rapid footsteps of the student next door, the sound of his key in the lock; there was the faint sizzling from the kitchen downstairs, where the woman came home and immediately started opening cupboards and cooking, always the sting of garlic, the sour rich smells of her Tamil cooking; the faint hum of the television in the background. All the sounds converged, melting into his breathing, forming shape; and from shape they formed music and from music they returned to tranquillity, and thus receded. All that was left was the in and the out of his breathing. Lost to the world around him, he was still watching the heavy rolling clouds as the horizon darkened and night fell. Dan jolted back; he had almost fallen asleep. He realised he was happy.

He read two chapters of Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter , and had to force himself to put the book down. He’d discovered Greene inside and had read him hungrily, and continued to do so on his release. He understood the writer’s characters, sympathised with their weakness and cowardice, responded most to their refusal to find excuses for their failures. Alec, the earnest volunteer who worked in the prison library, would always say, ‘Dan, my man, don’t you wanna read some modern stuff? Why are you always buried in those old farts?’ Dan would accept the teasing good-naturedly for he knew it was apt. Contemporary writers annoyed him, he found their worlds insular, their style too self-conscious and ironic. Theirs was not a literature that belonged to him.