Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

I’m shaking my head. ‘It’s alright, Dem,’ I lie. ‘It’s alright, it’s OK, the trophy is OK.’

‘So how’d you go?’ asks Mum.

Dad is standing behind me and he puts his hands on my shoulders. He kisses the top of my head and gently pushes me towards her. ‘Our son is the Under-Twelve Northern Region Freestyle Champion. How’s that? How bloody good is that?’

And then Theo is holding fast to my legs and Regan is giving me a high-five and Mum hugs me and Mrs Celikoglu kisses me and Mr Celikoglu lightly pinches my nose shut, his palm caresses my cheek. ‘You champion, Danny,’ he says kindly. ‘You champion.’

But it all goes, it goes too quickly. The fish and the chips, the potato cakes and the burgers, they’ve all gone and Dad has put a record on, he and Mr Celikoglu are discussing politics and Mum is back to doing Mrs Celikoglu’s hair and Theo is demanding Regan play with him. It always goes so quickly. I can’t bend and shape time the way I can water. I want to be back in that moment just after I won the race, just when I knew that there is something I can do so well that I might one day be the best in the world at it. I want that feeling back.

Demet and her mother are arguing. Her mother snaps, says something sharp in Turkish.

‘It’s OK, Dem,’ I say. ‘You’re just moving down the road. We’ll still be able to see each other all the time.’

‘And it is closer to your new school, for next year,’ Mr Celikoglu says. ‘It is just a short walk and you are at school. Danny can pick you up on the way.’

Dem and I glance quickly at one another. I am excited and I am scared. High school. We’ll be in high school next year and the Celikoglus are moving. Winning, the thrill of it, has all gone. I want to get back in the water.

‘I hate the new house.’ Dem has folded her arms and looks mutinously at her mother.

‘Oh, don’t be silly, child. It is much bigger — you and your brother can have your own rooms. You’ll like it very much.’

‘I won’t.’

‘You will.’

I hold my breath. Dem can lose it and when she does she screams and yells and says the worst things to her mother. But she doesn’t go off, instead she turns to me.

‘It’s OK, Danny is going to buy us a big big house and we’ll all live there together. There’ll be. . there’ll be heaps of rooms and. . and. .’ she’s scrunching up her eyes, trying to think of something that will shock and impress her mother, ‘. . there’ll be three bathrooms. And you’re not going to be allowed to live there.’ She grins, pleased with herself.

‘Ah,’ her father is grinning too, ‘and how is Danny going to pay for such a mansion? Do you think it is fair that only Danny pays? You must pay your half as well.’

‘Nah.’ Dem’s eyes are shining, she is looking at me and her eyes are sparkling like stars. ‘Danny is going to be a world champion swimmer. He’s going to win massive amounts of gold medals and he’s going to be really famous and really rich. Tell them, Danny, tell them!’ She’s looking at me, her eyes are stars in the night sky.

My father’s been lying on his back on the blanket, and he now gets up on one elbow. ‘That right, Danny? Is that what you want?’

I want to be back in the water, in that quietness that is only in the water. I’m angry that Dem has let out our secret and I’m scared because I don’t know what Dad is thinking behind his eyes. I know what Dem is thinking, and it’s obvious there’s delight in Mum’s eyes. But I can’t tell with Dad. It feels like a test and I don’t know why.

He lies back down and puts his hands behind his head for a cushion. ‘Son, you’ve got plenty of time. You’ve got plenty of time to work out what you want to do with your life.’

No, he’s wrong. I’ve started, I’m panicking because I realise that he doesn’t know I have started.

‘But I know already, Dad,’ I insist. ‘I’m going to be a champion swimmer. That’s what I’m going to be.’

It’s like my words have made the world stop. Except for the radio, the radio blaring out the scores at three-quarter time.

Mr Celikoglu breaks the silence. ‘Good, that’s good, son. You will be a champion and you will buy us all big big houses to live in.’ He gently kicks my dad’s leg. ‘You should be proud of your son, Neal, he’s a good boy.’

I hold my breath. There is a tap-tap-tapping in the pit of my stomach; the source of me is not my heart, it is something else, something even more important than my heart. It is what makes me know I am going to win. I am sure of it, that in everything I do I will win.

‘I am,’ answers my father, peering up at the blue sky, the golden sun, reading my future up there in that ocean of light. ‘I am very proud of him.’

I breathe out.

‘Not today, Victor, I’m not putting up with any nonsense today, you hear me?’

Victor wouldn’t take off his clothes. He was standing in the change rooms with his arms crossed, a rebellious scowl on his face.

‘Come on, mate.’ Dan tried one more time. ‘Get changed.’

Victor shook his head and sat down on the bench, his arms still folded.

‘Righto, then, you stay here. I’m going in.’

Dan quickly kicked off his shoes and stripped off his clothes. As he stepped into his boardshorts he noticed Victor slyly peeking across at him. Dan pushed his clothes into his backpack, slung it over his shoulder, his towel and goggles in his hand. ‘OK, mate, I’m going out to the pool. I’ll see you there.’

Victor’s response was to stamp his feet and start braying, his roars so outraged and desperate that the other man in the change room left with his shirt still unbuttoned, carrying his shoes and socks.

Dan didn’t turn around, he continued walking purposefully to the door.

‘Please, please!’ Dan was sure the whole pool could hear Victor. ‘Wait for me, wait for me!’

Dan went back and put his backpack on the bench, and put an arm around Victor, who had tears rolling down his face. ‘OK, mate, it’s OK, I’m here.’

Victor nodded, sniffing, and went to unbutton his shirt but his fingers kept slipping. He stopped, shrugged, and without a word let Dan do it for him.

‘Hands up,’ said Dan, and Victor obeyed, raising his arms like a child. Dan pulled off the heavy cotton shirt. Victor’s skin was chestnut-coloured, smooth, except for the wiry black briars under his arms and the trickle of flattened hair around his plump belly. Victor stood up and crossed his arms again.

Dan wanted to order him to take off his own bloody trackpants, to shout at him, Come on, mate, you can do this. But he didn’t want more tears or games. In one motion he pulled down both Victor’s trackpants and his navy Y-fronts. Victor’s shrivelled cock, the skin almost indigo there, flip-flopped and Dan caught a whiff of something mustardy, soiled. ‘Up,’ he ordered, and Victor lifted one foot and then the other. Dan whipped the pants and jocks from under him, then searched through Victor’s sports bag for his swimmers and almost threw them at him. ‘I’m not putting them on for you. You can do that yourself.’ Victor sniggered, as if suddenly aware of his nudity, and started carefully guiding one leg into the shorts. Dan pummelled Victor’s gear into the bag, then hoisted it and his own across his shoulder.

‘Finally,’ he muttered. ‘Finally we can get bloody started.’

It was Dan’s favourite time in the pool, not yet ten in the morning, the office workers had done their laps and gone, the school buses had not yet arrived. All the lanes were empty except the fast lane where a solitary swimmer, a lithe long-limbed woman, was swimming determined, measured laps.