Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

Bettina’s house was a small weatherboard cottage, with an overgrown front yard and a sleek grey cat asleep on the porch. The cat opened one eye as the men walked past it, then stretched out on its back purring as Dennis tickled its belly.

The front part of the house was dark, the corridor tiny, but at the other end a renovation had opened up the kitchen to make room for a long dining table; large windows looked out to a small, immaculately neat courtyard. Dennis headed straight for the fridge and took out a bottle of Diet Coke and poured a glass for both of them. There were photographs everywhere of the family, of Dennis and his mother, of Dennis with his grandmother and grandfather, and Dan recognised a young, slim Joanna. As in Jo’s house, there were no photographs of Dan’s mother, nor any of their family. There also seemed to be none of Dennis’s father, whoever he might have been. There was so much Dan didn’t know about his cousin. Dennis was twisting his solid body on the revolving seat of a high stool, still grinning, still looking up, through the tiny skylight in the ceiling up to the sky. He suddenly stopped twirling.

‘ Do-do-do ya wanna wanna see. Do do ya wanna see ma ma rumm?’

Dan’s cousin slept on a single bed tucked into the far corner of his room. It looked like a gym: there were barbells and weights scattered around, an expensive-looking steel rowing machine, a lifting bench placed perpendicular to a full-length mirror. Posters of bodybuilders, male and female, adorned the wall. There were only two photographs, in simple black frames, both hanging above the bed. In one a teenage Dennis, dressed in a dark suit, had one arm around his mother and the other around his sister. In the second photograph, Dennis was older, wearing leathers and holding a helmet, standing next to a motorcycle. A young dark-skinned woman held his hand, and in the other she gripped a motorbike helmet. Dan manoeuvred himself carefully over the barbells to look more closely at the photograph of Dennis and the girl next to the motorcycle.

Dennis had sat himself on the rower, idly shifting his weight back and forth. ‘ Ma Ma Mama. She ha ha hate hates. Ha hates tha tha pho pho phot. To. Pho. To. Graph .’ Dennis was looking high up above himself, at the world beyond the ceiling, a grin on his face. His syllables still struggled to escape but he no longer seemed encumbered or frustrated by them. ‘ Tha tha that. That was me. Be be four. Be. Four that ha. Tha. Ax. Ax. Axi. Dent .’

’Dan turned back to the photograph, to the attractive young couple at the end of their teens.

‘Handsome, wasn’t I?’

Dan realised he was starting to hear between the spaces of his cousin’s words, that he could separate the sounds from the spit that pooled in Dennis’s mouth as he strained to enunciate.

‘You were alright,’ Dan teased, and pointed to the young woman in the photo. ‘But she’s the really pretty one. What’s her name?’

Dennis’s only response was to throw himself furiously into working the rowing machine. Dan sat on the bed and watched the man row. Within minutes Dennis was dripping with sweat; it ran down his brow and the back of his neck and plastered his hair to his skin. Dan waited for him to finish but Dennis kept pulling at the bar, pounding backwards and forwards, the gears of the rower clanking and spinning, the mechanism giving a low whistle with every stroke. Sweat had soaked through the t-shirt which clung to his powerful torso. And all the while Dennis looked up, as if urging his body to take flight, thought Dan, as if wishing it could burst through the plaster and beams and slate and break free into the sky. There was a clanking sound as Dennis’s foot slipped off the pedal.

‘Fucking bullshit!’

The wheel was still spinning manically. Dennis reached across and grabbed it, bringing it to a sudden halt.

‘Her name is Christine. She was my girlfriend.’ There was a spitting and rumbling, a battle in his larynx before Dennis could get the sentence out.

‘Did something happen to her in the accident?’

Dennis shuddered. ‘No, God no. She just left.’ And then he turned and faced his cousin. ‘I guess she got tired of hanging around a retard.’

Dan blinked, at the force of the word, the way Dennis spat it out. ‘Do you miss her?’

Dennis’s eyes were wandering again. ‘Not as much as I miss my fucking motorbike.’

A choking sound came from Dennis’s lips that at first alarmed Dan. He was choking and gurgling; there was a rivulet of dribble coming from one side of his mouth. But Dennis’s eyes were dancing. He was laughing.

Dan leapt to his feet, grabbed the car keys and flung them at Dennis, who caught them in a graceful swipe.

‘Come on, cuz,’ said Dan. ‘Let’s go for a drive.’

Cuz. He liked the sound of the word as it fell from his lips.

The two men were playing Mortal Kombat on the PlayStation when Bettina got home. Dan could see that she was unnerved to see the two men comfortably slouched on the sofa together, but she was also pleased. Dan handed his cousin the console and followed Bettina into the kitchen to give her the car keys.

‘We went for a drive. Dennis showed me West Beach.’

‘It’s his favourite place in Adelaide,’ she said. ‘He’s always loved the water.’ She was standing in front of the open pantry, examining rows of cans. She pulled out a can of tuna and a packet of dry pasta. ‘You want some lunch?’

‘No, thank you. I should eat with Mum.’

Bettina grunted. He couldn’t tell if she was disappointed or relieved by his response.

‘I let Dennis drive part of the way to the beach.’

She was scowling as she bore down on him and tossed the tin and pasta onto the bench. She’s frightening, thought Dan. No wonder his mum was so scared of her, she was ferocious.

‘What did I say to you? Do you know what could have happened? How dare you!’

Dan frantically searched for the words to explain that Dennis had only driven down a deserted dirt road behind the beach; that there were no other cars, that Dennis was a good driver. But the words eluded him, though he doubted they would have made any difference to this vengeful, angry woman. He was his mother’s son — he could tell from the rage sparking from her eyes that she was prepared to loathe him as much as she hated her own sister.

‘Mamá, I’m alright, it was safe. It was only for a few minutes on a quiet road. I had fun, I wanted to do it. Don’t blame Danny for any of it.’

In the time it took for Dennis to shape his words, both Dan’s fear and his aunt’s anger had dissipated. Dennis looked exhausted from the effort of making his speech.

His mother’s tone softened. ‘I’m going to drive Danny to Jo’s place. You want to come along for the drive?’

Dennis’s gaze didn’t shift from the ceiling. Dan had to fight the urge to look up.

‘You want to hang out tomorrow?’

Dan didn’t hesitate. ‘Yeah, yeah. That’d be good.’

Dennis cocked his head in his mother’s direction. ‘Nah, I’ll stay and play some more on the PlayStation.’

Dan patted his back pocket, took out his phone. ‘What’s your number, mate?’

Dennis began to recite the number. As Dan started punching in the digits, Bettina was repeating each numeral.

‘It’s OK, Mamá, Danny understands me.’

Bettina was silent as Dan saved his cousin’s number. He typed a quick text and sent it. A tinny treble of techno rang from Dennis’s pocket.

‘All good.’

All good.

Bettina didn’t say much until they were nearly at Joanna and Spiro’s house. It was then she blurted out, ‘Have you worked with disabled people, Danny?’