Barracuda

  ‘Wow,’ I say to the Coach. ‘Wow, the city is so close.’

  Coach points to the back fence, to a bolted gate made of cast-off wood panelling, and he says, ‘You can walk through that door, Danny, and turn left into the alley, and if you follow it all the way then you are at the river.’

  ‘This place is amazing!’

  I didn’t think I’d said the words out loud, but Coach is beaming, Coach is nodding his head and beaming.

  We sit inside at the kitchen table and Coach slices some salami, putting it on crackers and handing them to me.

  ‘Wait till you have the pizzas tonight, wait till you boys taste them. Marika’s pizzas are not like that shit you eat, full of that cheap cheese and those bland vegetables.’ Coach clicks his fingers, he is almost swaying. ‘Marika’s pizzas are the best in the world. You’ll eat them, you’ll see—you’ll say, “Coach, these pizzas are the best in the world.”’

  There are just three of us from the squad going across to Adelaide: Taylor, Wilco and me. Coach will drive us there tomorrow. It is not the national championships, nothing as important as that—I can’t wait till I get a chance to shine at that event—but it is an under-sixteens meet and Coach wants us to compete. He says he wants Swimming Australia to sit up and take notice, he says he wants those stuck-up pricks to see what real talent is. It is under-sixteens, which is why there is no Fraser and no Scooter, and Wilco has just scraped in. If he’d been born a month earlier, it would have been just me and Taylor. How brilliant would that have been?

  Coach asks, ‘Are you hungry?’ and the three of us bellow, ‘Of course we are.’ He rings and he orders, and afterwards he clicks his fingers again and again, saying how Marika’s pizzas are the best in the world.

  When he’s driven off to get the food, Taylor says, ‘Can you believe how he’s going on about those fucking pizzas? And what’s with his being so cheerful? What’s got into him, what the fuck is going on?’

  I bite my lip. Coach is happy, can’t Martin see that? Coach is just happy.

  Wilco says, ‘He’s always like this when he’s got the squad over, always in an up mood. Fraser reckons it’s ’cause no one else ever visits, says he’s just a fat lonely bastard.’

  I can’t answer, I can’t look at him. I don’t dare open my mouth. If I did, I’d say, ‘Coach isn’t lonely, Coach has us.’ But that’s not what really gets me, that’s not what is causing the churning in my gut. It’s that Wilco has been here before, Wilco knows this house. Wilco has known it before me.

  Coach is right, it is the best pizza I have ever had. At first, the crust seems too thin, the toppings weird, there doesn’t seem to be any cheese. There is capsicum and pumpkin, there are thin slices of potato, eggplant, even mince on one of them. But as soon as I taste them, I can’t stop wolfing them down. I take a slice, I take two, I have to stop myself from having more than my share. Not that Taylor or Wilco would allow me to—they are also stuffing them in, they seem to be guzzling them down whole. When we’re finished we’ve got grease around our mouths. I burp, and Martin grins and says, ‘Good one, Dino,’ but I know now that it isn’t an insult, that he means nothing by it. I burp again and now I am the one grinning.

  ‘Coach,’ I say, ‘they are the best pizzas in the world.’

  Coach takes the boxes outside and as I wash the plates and Wilco dries, Taylor wipes down the kitchen table. Not one of us has said a word but it is clear that we have come to an unspoken agreement, that to show our gratitude to Coach we’re cleaning up for him. When we’re finished he herds us into the lounge room, reaches under the coffee table and pulls out a pack of cards.

  We play gin rummy, then Coach introduces Taylor and me to poker, teaching us about straights and royal flushes, about bluffing. He tells us that gambling is nothing like swimming, that it is about luck. We three boys steal looks at each other whenever Coach is dealing or shuffling the cards. None of us has ever seen him so talkative or so animated. I can’t believe how much he is talking. Of course, it’s all about swimming, and it’s all about the competition in Adelaide. But he’s enthusiastic and laughing, and I wonder whether I have ever heard Coach laugh before. He teases us, he scolds us, and then he teases us again. And when he wins a hand, he’s loud and gloating, like Theo gets when I let him win at Snap. It’s not like he’s the Coach—it’s like he’s one of us.

  He wins another round and then he says, ‘That’s it, boys, it is a long drive tomorrow. Let’s get ready for bed.’

  And Wilco, of course Wilco has to say, ‘So who’s sleeping where?’

  I look at my cards, the red and black numbers, the sharp diagonals of the kings and queens. I hear Coach say, ‘I am sleeping here,’ and look up to see him pointing at the sofa. ‘Danny has the front room; you and Taylor are in the spare bedroom.’ And before Wilco can say anything, Coach adds, ‘It is fair. Danny got here first.’

  Wilco isn’t going to argue; even when he is in this odd lively mood, no one is going to argue with Coach.

  And then Martin says, ‘Anyway, Kelly deserves it because he’s the best—he’s the best swimmer of any of us.’

  Wilco sneers, ‘Says who?’

  There is a beat; then Coach orders, ‘Come on, off to bed!’

  But bloody Wilco isn’t going to let it go. He’s still sneering at Martin. ‘What’s going on between you and Kelly, Taylor? You bum pals—is that what’s going on?’

  ‘Nah,’ replies Martin coolly, and winks at me. ‘Nah, we’re just best friends.’

  I can’t think about Demet and I can’t think about Luke. I wink back at Taylor. ‘Yeah, we’re best friends.’

  After brushing my teeth and going to the toilet, I walk back through the lounge. Coach has a sheet folded over the sofa and is laying a blanket across it.

  ‘Thanks for tonight,’ I blurt out. ‘Thanks so much, Coach, it was fantastic.’

  ‘You had a good time?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ I keep saying. ‘Yeah, it was a brilliant night.’

  Coach is eyeing me keenly. He comes over and pats my chest. ‘You are strong here, Kelly, you can feel it, no?’

  I’m not sure what he means, I know my pectorals are getting more developed, more powerful. I can feel that.

  ‘Next competition, I want you to compete in the butterfly. I think you will do well at it.’

  I’m confused, I don’t know why he’s saying this. The butterfly is effort and skill and sheer bloody hard work. My body doesn’t know the butterfly, my body knows freestyle—my body knows that is my stroke.

  ‘Trust me,’ says Coach, as if he has read my thoughts, as if he is far ahead of me. ‘Listen to your body. I think the butterfly may be your stroke.’

  The sheets are flannelette and far too hot. But the mattress is firm and comfortable and I know sleep will come easily. It’s not like being in a strange room—it is like I have always slept here, it is as if I am home in this room. I’m not thinking about the trip to Adelaide, I’m not thinking about the competition, I’m not thinking about swimming, or my strokes. I’m not thinking about Demet or Luke. Martin said we are best friends. All I can think of is that Martin said we are best friends; and that it feels as if I’m home.

  Thursday 24 June 2010

  ‘Are you really sure you want to go home?’

  Luke had a smartphone in his hand and another device that Dan didn’t recognise clipped to his belt. They were sitting in the Qantas lounge of the Hong Kong International Airport, on their second beer each. Luke apologised every time he had to check his phone. Dan told him not to worry, waved his OK as Luke grimaced and said he had to take the call.

  Dan didn’t mind. He slowly sipped his beer, enjoying the thought of being in Asia, being one continent closer to home. He knew he wasn’t really in Asia, he was in the limbo of international transit. But the waiters and bar staff were all Chinese, and there were woody, spicy flavours coming from the Cantonese buffet. It wasn’t Scotland, it wasn’t Europe. It was one step closer to home.

 
He had been shocked by the tears stinging his eyes when the plane broke through the slate-coloured clouds and the islands of Hong Kong had appeared below. He had drawn in his breath: at the luminous sheen on the greens of the forest, the deep shadows of the water, the vivid clarity of the light. The European skies, seas and land were all muted beauty; these dazzling stepping-stone islands seemed of another world, one much closer to his home.

  Luke had suggested they meet in Hong Kong. I can change my flight, he had emailed. I don’t need to be in Seattle till Thursday morning. Dan had four hours to kill before his connecting flight to Melbourne. He had hardly dared hope that he could meet up with his old friend, but when he checked his mail at a computer terminal at Heathrow, Luke had confirmed that he’d managed to change his flight. We can get drunk in Honkers, Luke had written. I miss you, Kelly, I can’t wait to see you.

  But their first minutes together had been awkward. Dan was conscious that he smelled of the flight, and that his clothes were awful—a frayed mixed-blend hoodie and ugly baggy trackpants. Luke was dressed in a well-cut charcoal suit; he had the physique of a gym fanatic, and was sporting a neatly trimmed beard, which suited him and gave him gravity and solidity. Luke had wrapped Dan in a wrestler’s embrace, and feeling the silken beard against his cheek, and the strength of his friend’s muscular arms encircling him, Dan had marvelled at how they were no longer boys, that they were finally men.

  Luke returned from his call and fell back into the club chair opposite. It was then that he had asked, unable to disguise his incredulity, ‘Are you really sure you want to go home?’

  The question had brought back those last awful weeks in Glasgow; he could feel shame flame his cheeks. Clyde’s fury, all his regret and disappointment had been channelled in snide, bitter attacks on Australia. Go back to that fucken arse end of the world. Dan had worn the vitriol stoically and that had only enraged Clyde further. It had been a relief for Dan to get to London, to disappear into that vast, unknowable metropolis. He had rented a room at a hostel in Shepherds Bush, and apart from the most cursory of exchanges with his fellow plasterers and labourers on the cash-in-hand jobs he managed to find advertised on Gumtree or pub toilet walls he had not spoken a word to anyone. He’d had enough of words. No words had been able to appease Clyde.

  He didn’t know how to answer Luke. He was trying to form an explanation, not sure that he could convince his friend, but Luke had already launched into a torrent of conversation, and didn’t wait for Dan to answer—it was clear that he was also feeling the unfamiliar and unnerving distance between them. ‘Katie and I can’t imagine going back to Australia. China has spoiled us, mate, every time we go back to Melbourne it’s like we’ve stepped back in time. The complacency, the inwardness, the self-satisfaction, it gets on your nerves.’

  Dan nodded and feigned agreement; he had no defence and in the pit of his belly that familiar feeling of humiliation started to bite. He had no retort to Luke’s argument: the return had to be a retreat, the future was China and the EU and Luke’s world of trade and exchange and frequent flyer points. It was a cosmopolitan future that baulked at return, for return would always be a backward step. The future was change—how could Dan even admit his longing for things to stay the same?

  ‘I’m looking forward to the summer,’ he said, giving an embarrassed smile. But that was also the wrong thing to say.

  ‘What’s so great about an Australian summer?’ Luke countered. ‘I’m so sick of all the Aussie ex-pats banging on about how great our beaches are, how good our weather is. That’s what vacations are for, to get to a great beach, to experience the great weather. That’s not the real world,’ he ended accusingly.

  The word is holidays, Dan wanted to spit out, we say holidays, not vacation. But he kept sipping at his beer, wishing they would call his flight, wanting to be in the plane, next to a silent stranger.

  ‘Of course, I’m not sure how much longer we’re going to stay in Beijing—Katie really wants the kids educated in Europe or the States.’ Luke squinted out to the long horizon of planes outside the windows. And then it was all about how the school system was too rigid in China, it was all rote learning, with no space for imagination, how they should have been in London or DC by now, except for the damn economic crisis that had stuffed everything up. All the jobs were in China, it looked as though they were going to have to stay put in the Middle Kingdom for the moment, but he didn’t want to raise the kids there, where everyone called them bananas: yellow on the outside, white on the inside. They didn’t want the ex-pat life for their kids, it wasn’t the real world. If they ever returned to Australia, it would be for their kids’ education, but they’d prefer Europe or the States. How long could the frigging economic crisis last, anyway?

  And then, coyly, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was doing it, he slid the phone across to Dan to show him a slideshow of photographs: Luke in a short-sleeved shirt, a toddler on one knee, a little girl in a smock beaming at the camera (that’s Costa, that’s Lissa); an unsmiling Katie clutching a giggling Lissa, a craggy hillock of rock jutting out of a jade sea behind them (we went to Vietnam last Christmas); Lissa standing in front of a thin grey-haired man, a petite harried woman holding the little boy (that’s Mum and Dad, back on Samos—we took them there for their thirtieth anniversary). The final image was of an elderly Asian woman, much older than Luke’s mother, unsmiling, looking straight at the camera. Lissa had her arms wrapped tight around the woman, Costa was hugging her neck—that was their nanny, that was the apartment at home.

  ‘They’re gorgeous,’ said Dan. ‘What beautiful kids.’

  And suddenly it was as though no years had past and sculpted and changed them, and Luke’s grateful smile was that of the little boy who’d always looked up to Danny Kelly. The awkwardness started to dissipate. Luke reached out and softly grazed knuckles with Dan. ‘It’s so good to see you, mate.’ He slumped back in his seat. ‘They are gorgeous kids, Katie and I are really proud of them. And I’m glad we raised them here—I’m glad we can offer them the world.’

  And that was when Dan realised that Luke wasn’t really challenging Dan about going home—that he wasn’t thinking about his friend but was justifying his own actions, to himself, convincing himself that he and Katie were doing the right thing. Changing or retreating, both were futures taken on trust.

  Dan now knew how to answer his friend, he knew exactly what he had to say. ‘I have to go home. I miss my family, I want to return to them. I want to see my new niece.’

  It was the right answer. Luke’s quietness and warm smile said that he understood.

  Dan talked about Scotland, Luke explained China. They had another beer each and then delicately, ever so carefully, Luke asked about the break-up with Clyde. Dan thought Clyde would have emailed Katie, maybe even spoken to her about it. How much did Luke know? The digital departure screen clock above them was counting down and there wasn’t time enough for that conversation. Dan did want to tell Luke about Clyde, and maybe one day he would. But he and Luke needed more time, they had to draw maps for each other, to mark the borders of their experiences, to show the roads they had travelled, to shade in the frontiers they had reached, and to plot their cities of work and love and desire. A terrible sadness overwhelmed him, at how far they had travelled from one another, how much time it would take to sift and reconcile their shared past to their individual presents. He wished there was time to explore the kingdom his friend had created.

  He would make sure there would be.

  Luke walked him to the departure gate. His hug was crushing. Dan couldn’t believe the strength in his friend’s arms, the power of the embrace. The man and their history was in that embrace.

  ‘I was going to visit you in Scotland, mate, I really was. It’s just that time got away from me. I’m sorry.’

  Theo and Dan were in the backyard of their parents’ house. Theo was rolling a joint; even though the night was cool, he was wearing a blue cotton singlet. It was almost scandalo
us how Dan couldn’t stop looking at his brother. The younger man’s body was slim, athletic, his skin was tanned and burnished from his days working in the sun. Theo had allowed his hair to grow long; his curls fell to his shoulders, and he had to keep brushing them away from his eyes. He held the joint out to his brother but Dan declined.

  ‘Still saying no to drugs, eh?’

  ‘It’s not a moral issue,’ Dan said. ‘They just don’t do me any good. They make me feel like I’m drowning.’

  Theo sucked hard on the spliff, then expelled the smoke in one long thick plume. ‘Bro, it’s the only thing keeping me together at the moment.’

  Their parents had finally gone to bed. His mother hadn’t been able to stop hugging and kissing Dan from the moment he’d stepped through the security doors at Melbourne Airport. His father’s reaction was more reserved, but he too grabbed hold of his son, brought him close and said how good it was to have him back.

  No one asked about Clyde, and Dan was relieved. Instead they listened as he talked about Scotland, about Glasgow and Partick, about the southside and the westside, described the uncanny colours of the Argyle coast and forests and bens; blues and greens he’d never seen before, a softness to the light that he’d never known in Australia.

  Then he’d asked them about Regan and his father said, ‘I just want her here, son, she should be home.’ His mother was crying, and Scotland and Europe and that world was stripped from him and soon forgotten. He was back home.

  Now, for the first time in years it was just him and Theo alone together and talking.