Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

He’s so scared he’s shaking. The kids around us start to laugh. But not me, not Taylor or Wilco. The kid blushes even harder. He holds out his program and I take it.

‘Got a pen?’

He can’t even speak. He’s so in awe he can’t even speak to me. He just shakes his head stupidly, looking dazed, as if the question is too big for him, as if he can’t make sense of it.

‘I’ve got one,’ Shaggy Mop calls out, as though getting my autograph is the most important thing in the world.

They want my autograph, my autograph.

‘I’ve got one!’ he calls again and rushes up to his friend, just as the bus makes a hard right turn and sends him sprawling across the laps of two kids in the seat in front of us. He’s gone red too, and his mouth is like a fish’s, open shut open shut.

The skinny blond kid snatches the pen and hands it and the program to me.

‘What’s your name?’

His squeak is so high that I can’t make it out.

‘What?’

‘Byron!’ He yells it now.

And I write on the top of the program, To Byron, and then I hesitate and I think, How big do you make your signature? and I know that Taylor and Wilco are looking over my shoulder, waiting to see what I’m going to do. I’m thinking it can’t be too big because that will be showing off and it can’t be too small because that will look stupid, so I just scrawl across the page — and it is big, I can’t help it, it looks enormous — I sign it Daniel Kelly . That’s what I will be, how I am going to sign my name — that’s how they are going to know me. Not Danny, not Danny the Greek, not Dino. I am going to be Daniel, Daniel Kelly.

‘Give it here.’ Taylor grabs it out of my hands and I think, You can’t sign it, they don’t want yours, you came fourth, mate, a piddly fourth, but he doesn’t sign his name, he just writes in very neat capitals under where I have signed my surname: AKA BARRACUDA . Taylor hands the program back to the kid.

The kid’s face is still flushed but he is pleased, this is gold, my signature means something. He squeaks, ‘Thank you,’ and goes back to his seat but he and Shaggy Mop keep turning around and whispering.

Taylor leans into me, and whispers, ‘You’re a hero, Kelly.’

‘Shut up!’ I say, punching his arm. I can’t stop grinning.

That night Theo wants to ride on my shoulders as soon as I get home. I give him the ribbon and the trophy — he’s building a shelf of my trophies and ribbons in his room. I run through the house with my little brother on my shoulders and he’s chanting, ‘Danny’s a champion, Danny’s a champion.’

Mum says, ‘Congratulations, son,’ and hugs me, can’t stop hugging me. Regan chokes up and can’t speak, but the pride in her eyes is almost as good as a medal, as good as any trophy, her eyes are shining brighter than when sun strikes metal.

And even Dad, who has been home for three days, who hasn’t got out of his pyjamas in all that time he’s that tired, all he’s been doing is playing rock and roll and reading on the couch, he too says, ‘Good on you, Dan, I’m proud of you.’ He says it. He’s proud of me.

I’m a fucking champion.

Or I’m a fucking champion till dinner. I shovel in the food, can’t stop speaking, I’m telling them that Coach is having me and Taylor, Scooter and Wilco over for dinner at his place, we’re going to eat the best pizzas in the world and Coach will tell us all about what competitions are coming up next and who we have to beat and what Swimming Australia is doing and who is putting in the money and who we have to watch and who we have to impress. I have signed my first autograph and tomorrow night we’re going to be celebrating at Coach’s place for dinner. I’m so excited that I eat and talk at the same time, food sprays from my mouth as I rush the words out. And then I realise that no one is saying anything.

Dad pushes away his plate. ‘Tomorrow night is Theo’s birthday.’

It sinks in. I forgot: tomorrow is Theo’s birthday and we’re taking him bowling. He’s already organised the teams: Mum and Dad and Regan on one team, Theo and me on the other.

I look across at my little brother. He’s sliding his fork around the plate, not looking at me. I feel like shit but I know I’m not going. I know I am going to Coach’s house, I have to be at Coach’s house. I deserve to be there. Don’t spoil it for me, Theo, I am thinking, please don’t spoil it for me.

‘You’re coming with us.’ It isn’t even Dad, it’s Mum. I can’t believe it’s Mum .

‘I’m sorry,’ I begin. ‘I know I should have remembered—’

‘Danny has to go to pizza with Coach, he has to.’ It is Theo who’s blurted it out, Theo who is glaring at Mum and Dad.

‘No, Theo, he’s going bowling and then to dinner with us for your birthday.’

‘No!’ Theo bawls it out so loud that we are all shocked. Theo’s never been a brat, he never loses it. But now he’s smashing his fist on the table; plates jump, his water spills. ‘I don’t want to go fucking bowling, I don’t want to.’ And my little brother is crying, real weeping, the kind that makes you think his insides are tearing. It is a storm that wraps all of us inside of it: the kind of crying that hurts to listen to. Mum has rushed over to him, she’s trying to hold him and he won’t be held, he won’t stop. ‘I don’t want to go, I won’t go!’

‘Theo,’ says Dad sharply. ‘Theo, stop. We’ll go Sunday night — how’s that? Dan can go to pizza tomorrow night and we’ll go bowling on Sunday. As a family.’ Those last three words are for me, they slam into me as hard as a thumping.

Theo tries but he can’t stop his sobbing, he can’t stop it now that he’s started, but he lets Mum hold him and he is nodding, snot running down his face.

And I think, My first gold medal will be his, I promise, the first gold medal is Theo’s.

‘Don’t you have to do a drive to Sydney on Monday morning?’ Mum cautions Dad.

He shrugs. ‘I’ll be OK.’

‘OK, then that’s settled,’ says Mum. ‘We’ll all go Sunday.’

That night I look into Theo’s room before going to bed. His bedside light is on but he is asleep, holding something tight in his left hand. It’s the ribbon, it’s my championship ribbon.

‘I promise you, mate,’ I whisper to him, ‘that first gold medal is yours.’ It feels good to make that vow. ‘Theo,’ I repeat softly, ‘that first gold medal is yours.’

It had been a mistake to go to the beach, to go away with Demet and Margarita. Dan stepped out of the shower, grabbed the clammy towel and rubbed his body vigorously, as if the scalding under the hot shower hadn’t been enough to rid his skin of the sand that had got in between his toes, stuck in leg hair, in his arse crack. He dried himself off, put on his underwear and shook his t-shirt; fine grains of sand fell from the fabric onto the wet tiles. Fucking sand, fucking sand everywhere. Dan breathed in and held his breath.

Clyde was smoking a cigarette on the balcony. He didn’t look up as Dan slid open the glass door and took a seat next to him. The sun was a fireball of flaring light melting into the inky dark water.

‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’

Dan released his breath. He could hear the concession in Clyde’s words.

‘Yeah, it’s beautiful.’

‘When I’m by the ocean I know why I’m living in this country.’ Clyde stubbed out the cigarette and smiled at Dan. ‘Just a pity the place is full of fucken Australians.’