Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

So Dan sat and listened while Clyde listed all the things he found perplexing and annoying about Australia. ‘You all think you’re so egalitarian, but you’re the most status-seeking people I’ve met. You call yourselves laid-back but you’re angry and resentful all the time. You say there is no class system here, but you’re terrified of the poor, and you say you’re anti-authoritarian but all there is here are rules, from the moment I fucken landed here, rules about doing this and not doing that, don’t climb there, don’t go here, don’t smoke and don’t drink here and don’t play there and don’t drink and drive and don’t go over the speed limit and don’t do anything fucken human. You’re all so scared of dying you can’t let yourselves live — fuck that: we’re human, we die, that’s part of life. That’s just life.’

And Demet was his chorus; Demet answered every insult, every jibe with her own litany of complaints that Dan knew off by heart — he could have recited it along with her. We are parochial and narrow-minded and we are racist and ungenerous and we occupy this land illegitimately and we’re toadies to the Poms and servile to the Yanks; it was an antiphony between Demet and Clyde.

The elderly couple at the next table had fallen silent and Dan wanted to say sorry to them, to explain that Demet and Clyde didn’t know they were insulting them, they just didn’t see them, and the young waitress wasn’t smiling anymore; she refilled their water glasses and brought out more drinks without glancing at any of them, she no longer found Clyde’s accent charming. As both of them finished with a flourish, Clyde saying, ‘It’s soulless here,’ and Demet instantly echoing him: ‘You’re right, mate, it is soulless here,’ Dan kept his mouth shut because he knew he could say to his lover that that was because it wasn’t home for him — that was what people meant when they said a place was soulless, it meant it wasn’t home to them and they didn’t know it — but what could he say to his friend? Where are you going to go? Where are you going to find peace? Where will you have to go to find soul? This is the only home we have.

It was just after the plates had been cleared away, after the waitress had asked if they wanted dessert. Margarita had smiled, shaken her head, and asked her to bring the bill. Dan was looking up at the moon straining to reach its full brilliance, and listening to the waves slapping against the posts of the jetty. The tables around them had been cleared and on the foreshore a group of teenagers were playing loud thumping dance music. That was when it all started to go wrong.

The bill arrived at the table and Demet leaned forward to say, ‘This is on us.’

‘No, you don’t have to do that,’ said Clyde, shaking his head in protest.

Margarita took Demet’s hand and held it to her chest, as if the two women were about to make a vow. ‘No, it’s our shout because we wanted this weekend together to ask you both a favour.’

Demet was nodding, encouraging Margarita to continue; and stumbling at first, then gaining courage, she blurted out the words: ‘Demet and I want to have a baby, we want to become parents, and we can’t think of two men we’d rather have as fathers to our child. Are you interested? Will you think about it?’

Dan barely had time to absorb the meaning of the words when Demet added, ‘Of course, it would be totally up to you how much or how little responsibility you want to have in rasing the child.’

That made the words break through and Dan thought, No, I want to know her, I want to know my daughter, because his very first thought was of Regan and how a child of his and Demet’s might look like Regan. His next thought was that Clyde, next to him, had stiffened. And that made Dan unable to answer. That made him unable to speak.

‘So, what do you think?’ Margarita was searching Dan’s face, clearly shaken and dismayed by Clyde’s resolute silence.

Clyde was also looking at him and Dan couldn’t speak or look in his direction. The moon was reflected brilliantly and solidly on the surface of the calm water. The spears of light were paths to a future. Demet and Margarita were offering him a future. But he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t bridge the in-between of Clyde and Demet.

Margarita turned to Clyde. ‘What do you think?’

Clyde cleared his throat. He no longer sounded drunk. ‘I don’t think that is for me to answer,’ he said, chillingly polite. ‘You’re not asking me to be the father, you’re asking Dan.’

And it was true. It was confirmed by the women’s shared awkward silence that it was Dan’s future being woven and crafted, his future.

Clyde turned to him. ‘Do you want to be a father, Dan?’

Demet confirmed it again by using his old name. She reached for his hand and said, ‘Danny, please say yes. We’d so love you to be the father.’

He could see her, his young daughter, he could conjure her up: Regan’s placid good nature, her desire to please. She would have Demet’s almond-shaped dark caramel eyes, with a sparkle in them that would come from Dan’s mother. But he couldn’t answer Clyde because he didn’t know what Clyde wanted and he couldn’t say anything if he didn’t know what Clyde wanted.

It was then Margarita said, ‘We’ve talked about it so much, we’re ready to be parents.’ She couldn’t mask her delight, her pride: she too was seeing their future, it was spread out in front of her, as vivid and clear and compelling as the moon above. He wanted to say yes. But there was Clyde, stiff and unbending and forbidding beside him.

There was the longest silence, behind which was thumping music from the shore, the breaking waves, the clanking of plates and cutlery being collected by the waiters, the good cheer and murmured conversation from the remaining customers: there was noise everywhere but over it was their cheerless silence. The three of them were waiting for Dan to speak.

Clyde finally clicked his tongue in exasperation. He refilled his glass and, deliberately avoiding Dan’s gaze, said, ‘I’m not sure I will even stay in Australia. I can’t be part of this.’

A convulsion snapped at Dan’s spine, a disquieting surge of dizziness flooded through him. Was it fear? Was it relief?

Margarita shook her head. ‘We don’t expect either of you to put any of your plans on hold. Please believe us, this won’t stop you and Dan heading off to Europe to live if that is what you want to do.’

The men couldn’t look at each other. Clyde unfolded his arms and dropped them to his sides. ‘I appreciate being asked, I really do, thank you, but being a father has never been part of my plans.’

Dan was looking down at the soiled tablecloth, at the streaks of lurid pink taramasalata smeared on the cloth. He sensed that Margarita had blanched at Clyde’s words; he looked up to see that Demet’s face had darkened. ‘That’s bullshit, Clyde. I don’t believe you’ve never thought of being a father.’

Clyde was tapping his pouch of tobacco. When he replied his tone was mockingly effete. ‘Aye, I did once, sweetheart, you’re right. It was back in 1999, peaking on a pill. I think it lasted all of ten minutes.’

Demet snapped, ‘That’s right, make a joke of everything. Why don’t you just say exactly what you mean? Why don’t you just be upfront and say that you’re not interested in having a baby with us ?’

‘Baby, please.’ Margarita placed a warning hand on her lover’s arm.

But Demet wouldn’t be pacified. This was the old Dem, thought Dan, the furious wild Demet from his past, the Demet who was convinced she was right about everything. He wished he could tell her that in this case she was wrong. Clyde had no fear of saying what he thought — Clyde had never talked to him about having children. It wasn’t Clyde’s future. But it could have been Dan’s, it could have been his .