Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

Dan buckled, the pain in his bladder overwhelming, a flame torching at his heart, his lungs, as if some beast had landed on him, its weight crushing him. A son . To love, to raise and to teach. To fail.

In a fury, he twisted away from Clyde’s arm, pushing him away, clumsily rising and upsetting the table. He almost ran from the table, needing to piss, but also to get away from Clyde.

Inside the restaurant, he saw a group of people, an extended family, there were grandparents and there were children, a little girl had fallen asleep in her high chair.

He is at the head of the table, he is pudgy now, carrying a weight he never had at school, he is thick-bellied and his hair is thinning. And it is then he recognises him. He is calling out to a little boy at the end of the table, he is saying, ‘There’s ice-cream, Michael, you can have ice-cream,’ and it is Tsitsas, he recognises the boy’s voice in the man, and Dan spins on his heel, knowing he daren’t walk past them, and goes back to the table and takes his seat and Demet and Margarita are talking but their words make no sense. Clyde is examining him anxiously and saying, ‘You alright, pal? You OK?’ but his words fall like blows and Dan can’t breathe, he can’t manage his lungs, his lungs won’t work and he is going to turn blue and he thinks what a mistake it was to come here, to their world. He could never take a son here, he could never bring a child here because they know who he is and they know what he did and he can’t breathe, why can’t he fucking breathe, and now the others are frightened and Demet is half out of her chair and there it comes, it comes, the blessed relief. He hungrily devours the air, sucking it in in heaving gulps.

I’m sorry, he says quietly as the warm stinging fluid fills his crotch, slides down the back of his legs and starts a terrible slow drip drip onto the wooden decking of the jetty. All he can see is the soiled, screwed-up white napkin on the table, filthy and stained from their meal.

He bolts from the table, knocking his chair flying, off the deck and across the boat landing, through the adjoining grassland, his shoes pounding, staggering on the unstable sand, making for the waves, ignoring the puzzled looks and cries of the teenagers on the beach, lurching and splashing into the water until it has reached his waist, until the unexpectedly icy water has covered the humiliating warmth and wet and stink of his drenched trousers. This is me, he thinks, and the shame is almost comic, it reveals exactly what he is and who he is. A life lived in and only through shame, it clings to him, it rises like the sun within him every morning, and it is there waiting when he sleeps. He lives in the shame, he reeks of it. And then, the next thought: I am in water.

But the water doesn’t want him, the water is repelled by him. He hears his name called, can make out Demet’s urgent, frightened plea, the shock in Clyde’s voice. He turns from the unwelcoming sea to meet his friend, his lover, who are rushing to him. Margarita is hiding back in the shadows, fearful, disbelieving. He smiles weakly at her. She’s finally seen who he is.

‘Dan, what happened?’ It is Clyde who has spoken but it is Demet who has got to him first. She takes him in her arms, holding him, ignoring the wet, not caring that he is dripping the ocean on her. She smooths back his hair, she caresses his cheek. Without words; she knows to not use words.

‘Dan, what the fuck happened?’ Clyde snaps it out. He wants words, he wants explanations.

‘I’m sorry.’ Dan’s teeth begin to chatter. Even in the mild warmth of the summer night, all he feels is the cold. ‘I’m sorry, mate. I pissed myself.’

A young girl nearby on the beach begins to giggle, and one of the boys with her lets out a loud hoot.

Dan doesn’t care. That’s what I am.

They lead him back to the apartments, Demet on one arm and Clyde on the other, Margarita treading warily behind them. He is aware of people stopping, turning, couples and families sitting at the footpath tables, all turning to look. Back in the apartment, Clyde says briskly but gently — with fear, there’s fear in his voice now—‘You have to get in the shower, warm yourself up, babe.’ The whole time he’s in the shower, Clyde stays in the bathroom, won’t leave him alone.

He comes out in a robe and Demet doesn’t want to leave, she’s insisting that Dan wants her to stay and he is relieved that Margarita says firmly, ‘No, Dem, let’s leave the guys alone.’ And Demet is kissing him, on his brow, the top of his head, on cheeks, his lips, she keeps saying, ‘I love you, Danny, I love you, and I’m sorry we put you on the spot, you don’t have to make a decision, Danny, and whatever decision you make is the right one,’ and Clyde has his arms crossed and Margarita is pulling at her girlfriend, saying, ‘Dem, he knows that, let’s just go,’ and even at the door, even on leaving, Demet turns around and says, ‘I’m sorry, Danny,’ and then says, ‘I love you, Danny,’ and he just wants her to go, just go. Because he knows she loves him and it isn’t enough. There’s not enough love in the world to cleanse, to eradicate, to scour away the dishonour of who he is.

And you wanted me to father your child?

‘You know you can cry, Dan, there’s no shame in that.’

They were sitting next to each other on the sofa. Yes there is, he wanted to say, there is shame in that. And his body had lost the language of tears, it had been too long.

‘I think I need a drink.’

They had bought a bottle of whiskey at the local bottle-o and Clyde poured a long tumblerful for himself, and another for Dan.

Clyde took a long swig from his glass. ‘Why is it so hard for you to speak? Why can’t you have your say? What is it that stops you?’

Words. The words inside are not the words that come out into the world.

The men were sitting together but they were also sitting apart. Their skin was not touching.

‘I was watching you all night, mate, all night. You don’t want to offend Demet and you don’t want to offend me. You can’t live life like that — that’s not living.’ Clyde shoved him hard against the armrest of the sofa. He pointed a finger at Dan’s head, pointed it exactly as if it were a gun. ‘What’s in there, man? What’s going on?’

The waves were pounding in the world outside, there was a grunt of an ignition coughing to life; the beam of light from the car flashed through the window, and then was gone.

‘Are you going to fucken answer?’ His finger was still there, drilling into Dan’s head, like the barrel of a gun.

‘What do you want me to say?’

Clyde dropped his hand, gave an empty laugh. ‘Yeah, answer a question with a question. That’s your form, isn’t it, Dan Kelly, that’s exactly your fucken form.’ He gulped from his drink again. ‘I want you — I’ve made that clear. I want you: the man who knows how to sit in silence, who is not mean, who is like he is from another planet. I mean, you’ve never been to a dance party, you can’t tell bitchiness or cynicism when it is being aimed right at you, right fucken at you.’

Clyde was pointing that finger again, but not violently — almost indulgently this time. ‘I like you, Dan, I like that you are so into me that fucking with you is like having sex for the first time. Every. Time. I like you so much, Dan, that I am scared I’m falling in love with you. And why it is so terrifying, why I haven’t said the words before, is because I really don’t have a clue what you think, what you feel. I don’t have a fucking clue.’

Clyde’s breathing was heavy, measured; Dan could hear the faint wheeze in it, the whistle from a smoker’s lungs.