Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

It had felt good to wash his grandmother, it had somehow felt right. But when he kissed the papery skin for the last time he still felt nothing. For there was nothing there.

His phone buzzed as he and his mother were leaving the hospital. It was a message from Dennis. Drive safe. You know I MEAN IT! D . It made him smile.

In Dimboola they stopped for coffee and sandwiches. His mother ran across the road to the newsagent to get the paper. Dan could see that she was crying as she came out of the shop.

‘What is it?’ he asked, thinking it had to be something about Iraq, something to do with what the Yanks and the Poms had done in Iraq. But it wasn’t.

‘Nina Simone has died,’ his mother said shakily. ‘I know it’s silly, but I just burst out crying in the shop when I read it. You know how much I adore Nina Simone.’

Back in the car, his mother searched through the glove box, CDs and pens and paper tumbling out and around her feet. She found the CD, she turned the volume up loud. All the way to Melbourne they sang along to ‘Mississippi Goddam’, ‘Feeling Good’, ‘Obeah Woman’, ‘Put a Little Sugar in My Bowl’. They sang Nina Simone all the way to Melbourne.

He was aching to be alone in his flat, to sit on the sofa, to look out the window, to watch the world outside without seeing it. But when his mother asked to come in, he couldn’t say no.

‘It’s a nice place,’ his mum said. She opened the kitchen cupboards, looked into the fridge. ‘I’m getting you some pots and pans,’ she told him, and wouldn’t allow him to protest. ‘When I come back from up north, I’ll come over with your dad. We owe you a housewarming present.’

She looked around one last time. ‘The walls are too bare, Danny. You need something for these walls. There,’ she pointed above a makeshift bookshelf he had constructed from discarded red bricks and timber palings, ‘I’ve a poster of Irma Thomas that will be perfect there.’ She swung around. ‘And I have a Matisse print that will do very nicely over there.’

She hugged him for so long before leaving, held him so tight that he had to stoop, that his shoulders started to hurt. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, Danny,’ she said. Eventually she had to let him go.

He couldn’t help it: he sighed in relief when she had gone.

The sun was setting, the sky was slivers of indigo and gold, scarlet and blood. He sat, his back straight, his palms resting on his thighs, looking without seeing, listening to his breathing, as slowly the sounds of the other flats became distinct. The old woman turning on her taps, the children watching television. He sat for a long time, enjoying the bliss of being alone, until he was in darkness and he started to shiver from the cold. He grabbed a jumper from his bedroom and turned on the light. He listened again to his breathing, waiting to feel the warm rush, the salve that came from being alone.

He was breathing in, he was breathing out.

What was he going to do?

Dan picked up his phone. There were only a few numbers in his contact list — his granddad and nan, his parents, Leon the parole officer, the numbers for work. He found Dennis’s number and sent a message: Arrived safe . He hesitated, then quickly typed again. And mate, anytime you need you got a place to stay in Melbourne. My casa is your casa .

I SMASHED IT. I ABSOLUTELY KILLED IT. The others didn’t even come close, I was three, four, maybe even five lengths ahead of the guy behind me. Go Kelly, Taylor is hooting — I can hear his voice ringing clear above the cheers and the chants across the pool. The whole school is standing up on the benches, they are stamping their feet, I can’t see it but hearing it is better than seeing it, hearing makes me feel like I am seeing it from on high. I can look down and see all the other schools sitting down, they are silent and sullen, but my school, all of them, from the little pissers in Year Seven to the won’t-deign-to-look-at-you-scum Year Twelves, they have their hands out of their pockets, they are stomping their feet, banging the benches, singing our school song out at the top of their lungs. I have dominated the carnival, I have thrashed swimmers three years older than me. I have broken the Schools Swimming Competition record in two events.

I feel it at this moment, just as the cold tremors begin, just as the shivers start, as the slog of the last few minutes starts to bubble in my blood and in my gut, I feel it, I know it. I can be the best. I killed it. I can be the best .

I can hear Martin Taylor. He’s calling out, again and again and again, Go Kelly, Go. I hear his voice, it rises higher and higher to reach me. I am in the sun, I am higher, further — beyond the sun.

The acid is starting to eat at my body, starting to twist and strangle my muscles. I am back in the water, the cheers and the stomping are dying out. I push back into the water, I stretch my arms, push out, feel the muscles tighten; the cramps start pinching into my flesh and my teeth are chattering so hard I think they will shatter.

‘Warm down,’ orders Coach. He is at the side of the pool, his fat gut bulging but tight as skin stretched across a drum. He is unsmiling, his arms are crossed.

‘I did good, Coach.’ I can hardly get the words out, my teeth are shards of ice. I can hardly speak.

‘Kelly, warm down, now!’ He won’t smile, he won’t congratulate me, he won’t say well done. But he doesn’t have to, he knows how good I was. All he does, all he has to do, is wrap a towel around my shoulders as I get out of the water. My legs wobble, like they aren’t attached to my torso, aren’t connected to me. He wraps the towel around me, supports me, just for a second, just a hand placed at the small of my back.

That’s all he needs to do. He’s proud of me, he’s so fucking proud of me. But his only thought is to stop the acid that my body has just spewed out, that is filling my veins and my blood and my belly and my head, so it won’t make me sick.

‘Now, now,’ he insists, ‘straight to the warm-down pool. Now!’

It hurts, it is fever — the swim has put poison in my body. But it is also how I know how hard I have worked. This is how I know it is worth it.

On the bus back to school, I’m at the back, in between Taylor and Wilco. I don’t say much, I just look ahead; all the Year Sevens are turning their heads, looking at me, whispering about me. I am silently telling myself, Don’t look conceited, this will be what it is like when you win at the Commonwealth Games, when you get a medal at the Olympics in 2000. I’m going to be there, I know it now, I know it after today, I am going to be there . You don’t get overexcited, you keep it cool. Everyone will be whispering then, everyone will be looking at my picture in the paper, at my swim on the television, everyone, every single person in the country will be looking at me, talking about me. This is the future, I know it, I see it. It has been given to me.

A few seats in front of us two of the Year Eights are arguing. One of them, with a mop of maple-syrup hair that explodes from his head, is nudging the other one, smaller, blond and pale, who is holding on to the competition program and keeps turning back to look at us, then quickly looking away. I can hear him saying, ‘No, I can’t.’ Shaggy Mop elbows him. ‘Do it,’ I hear him say. ‘Do it.’

The small blond kid gets up from his seat and comes up to us, clutching the program, trying not to stumble from the sway and roll of the bus. He is blushing so hard that his face is all tints of pink and red. He’s so scared he squeaks: ‘Excuse me, Kelly, can you sign my program?’