Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

They left the boys in the living room with Dennis, and went with Joanna into a small kitchen. The walls there were also plastered with photographs, but there were none of his mother, none of her as an adult or as a child, and none of Dan’s family. Joanna asked if they would like coffee, and Dan’s eyes didn’t waver from his mum. He could sense how nervous she was, how unsettled she seemed being back in Adelaide. He wouldn’t answer until she did. He had never felt such a strong urge to protect her. He stayed close to her, got her a chair to sit on, but stayed standing behind her, as though guarding her.

A car door slammed outside and his mother froze. Then there was the sound of a key in a lock and Joanna looked nervously to the hallway.

‘Jo, the boys should be in bed.’ The voice was loud and throaty, so deep that for a moment Dan thought it was a man’s voice, but then a woman appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was dressed simply in an oversized Crows footy jumper and navy pants. Her hair was damp, her skin flushed, as though she had just showered.

‘Hello, Bettina, how are you?’

The woman ignored his mother. She stepped into the doorway of the living room and called out to the two young boys. They rushed to their grandmother and hugged her, shyly waved goodnight to Dan and his mother, and went to get ready for bed.

Her arms still crossed, Bettina came back into the kitchen and pointed to the digital clock on the wall. The bright scarlet letters read 10.43. ‘What kind of time is this to arrive?’

Dan’s mother’s voice was surprisingly calm. ‘I phoned Joanna and explained that we took off after lunch.’ She turned to smile at her niece. ‘I’m sorry, Jo, we didn’t mean to put you out.’

Jo shook her head, busy tamping down ground coffee into the base of an espresso maker. ‘You’re not putting me out at all. It’s lovely to see you.’ Joanna turned to her mother. ‘Mum, don’t make a scene, alright?’

Bettina said something in Greek and Dan could see that it had winded his mother, that her face had reddened and her hands were shaking. Dan wanted to punch the bitch, to feel his fist go through her teeth, through bone and meat. He wasn’t going to count down to ten, he didn’t want to let go of his rage.

‘Of course,’ Bettina continued in English, ‘what else do we expect from Stephanie? It’s always been about her. No one else matters to Stephanie.’

‘Don’t you fucking dare speak about my mother like that.’

Joanna’s jaw dropped open, her eyes widened. Dan’s mother recoiled as though his words had stung her. But not Bettina. Her hands now were on her large hips and she was nodding.

His mother said wearily, ‘Danny, please, be polite, this is your aunt Bettina.’

The woman walked up to him, looked straight at him. He didn’t want to be polite but he couldn’t help respecting the fact that she didn’t try to kiss him, pretend affection or familial feeling. This was his mother’s oldest sister, only by a year or so, he remembered from his mother’s stories, but he was pleased to see that she looked so much older than his mother. She was overweight, her body shapeless and unattractive, her face hard and unforgiving.

‘Do you remember me?’

He shook his head. He recalled little from his first visit to Adelaide, except for a vivid memory of the wrathful old man who’d made his mother cry and who’d told him, ‘You are no grandchild of mine.’ He knew there had been other people there that day, but they were shades, ghosts in his memory.

‘You look a bit like your cousin Dennis. You can tell you two are related.’

It was the first softening in her, the first extension of warmth. But Dan would not budge, would not smile. He remained standing guard for his mother.

Bettina turned to her daughter. ‘Are you just serving coffee? How about some food?’

‘Mum,’ grizzled Joanna, rolling her eyes, ‘I’ve got some food warming up in the oven, I’m on to it.’

Bettina finally took a seat and Dan sat down as well, making sure he stayed next to his mother.

The coffee came, and then the food. They’d only shared a packet of chips since Ararat, and he was hungry. Joanna’s lemon-flavoured potatoes and the grilled lamb straps marinated in rosemary and garlic were delicious. There was little conversation as Bettina and Joanna watched them eat, and Dan finished within minutes, wiping his plate clean with some pita bread.

This occasioned another smile from his aunt. ‘You even eat like your cousin Dennis.’

Once Dan’s mother had finished eating, Joanna asked after Dan’s father, after Regan and Theo. It shocked him how quickly the talk switched to another language; he marvelled at how easily Greek flowed from his mother’s lips. He excused himself and went into the lounge room.

His cousin Dennis was still slouched in the leather armchair, watching the television, the volume low. Dennis didn’t take his eyes off the television, but he shifted his weight and straightened himself up.

‘What are you watching?’ asked Dan.

He couldn’t quite make out his cousin’s reply. It was almost as if he were coughing out the words. They seemed disconnected from one another, as if each syllable took an effort to articulate. Was he retarded? wondered Dan.

‘ Big. . Big. . Broth . . Brother is starting,’ Dennis finally managed to stutter.

There was a sudden clamour of shouting from the kitchen. Bettina was yelling and Dan’s mother was screaming back at her. Dan leapt up from the sofa.

His aunt stormed into the room, tears streaming down her face. ‘Get up, Dennis,’ she shouted to her son. ‘Get up! We’re going home.’

The man’s head was turned away from her. He hadn’t budged.

‘Come on, Dennis,’ she roared. ‘We’re leaving!’

The man slowly rose from the armchair, eyes down.

Shaking, Bettina turned to Dan. Her eyes were red and she rubbed a hand across her nose. She tried to keep her voice steady but didn’t quite manage it as she said, ‘I’m sorry, Daniel, but you shouldn’t have come. Take your mother home, take her home tomorrow.’

He brushed past her into the kitchen where his mother was weeping, her body racked with sobs. Joanna was bent down behind her, rubbing her arms, her neck.

‘Is she ever going to forgive me, Jo? Is she ever going to let it all go?’ His mother forced out the words between her sobs and gulps for air.

‘Mum, what can I do? Do you want to go?’

His mother looked up at the sound of Dan’s voice, grateful for his presence. She reached for his hand, and held it to her cheek, kissing it, and drenching it in her tears.

‘Oh Christ, mate,’ she said, ‘I need a drink.’

‘Shh.’ Joanna put a finger to her lips. But the front door slammed, they heard the sound of a car’s ignition. Bettina and Dennis had gone.

‘OK,’ said Joanna, no longer whispering, ‘now we can have a fucking drink.’

His mother and cousin drank but Dan stayed sober. The peaty, heady aroma of the whiskey was enticing but he wanted his senses clear, he was tired from driving, from meeting these new people, he couldn’t trust himself to drink. His mother was on her second glass when Joanna’s husband, Spiro, arrived. He had round dimpled cheeks, an unkempt salt-and-pepper beard, gentle, shining eyes, and silver-streaked hair that fell around his collar. He and Dan’s mother embraced warmly.

‘How’s work?’ she asked him. ‘How is the restaurant doing?’

‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ Spiro answered nonchalantly, welcoming Dan with a tight, unembarrassed hug.

Dan responded to him immediately, as he had done to his cousin Joanna, but he couldn’t wait for them to go to bed so it could be just him and his mother, just the two of them. He begrudged the man the whiskey he poured himself, the cigarette he rolled. Go to bed, go to fucking bed, repeated in Dan’s head like a mantra.