Barracuda

Demet groaned, then there was fury and pain in her voice. 'Fuck your swimming, I need you now.'

But he had to be in water, he needed to be in water. 'I'll come straight after training, promise.'

Silence. He waited. She would understand, she had to understand.

'Nine-thirty, you arsehole, and don't you dare be late.' She slammed down the phone.

It rang again and he grabbed the receiver. 'Dem?'

It was his mum. She had taken Regan and Theo to the pub for fish and chips; he could hear orders being called out in the background.

'I'm sorry, Danny,' she said over the noise. 'You know, about Kurt Cobain.'

'Yeah, I know.'

'We'll be home in an hour.'

'I have to train at Coburg tonight.'

'Why?'

He should have lied. But she would catch him out in a lie.

She always did.

'I got detention.'

She swore in Greek. 'You have to be more careful, Danny. There are rules you have to obey to stay on the scholarship.'

'It was nothing, I forgot about some maths homework I was meant to hand in.'

'What time will you be home? I was going to pick up some Chinese for you.'

'I'm going over to Dem's.'

'That's good, I'm sure Seda will feed you well.'

'OK.'

But his mum wouldn't hang up, his mum wouldn't let him go. 'Danny?'

'What?'

'I'm really sorry,' she said once more.

He was unsettled by how strange it felt to climb the concrete steps to the entrance of the Coburg pool. He had swum there for four years, knew all the staff, had won competitions in that pool. But he had not returned since that first day at Cunts College, and it felt like going back to school after the long summer holidays. The guy at the front counter was new and Danny was pathetically glad about that, didn't want to talk to anyone, just wanted to get in the water. The after-school training squads had finished and it was just him and the older, serious swimmers.

The first dive into the water made his heart leap. Stroke, kick, stroke, breathe, kick, stroke, kick, stroke, breathe, kick. He slammed down the pool, the water slipping past him, cradling him, holding him. Stroke, kick, stroke, breathe, kick. He touched the tiles and effortlessly propelled himself back down the lane. There was a man in front of him and Danny had to slow his pace. He needed a lane to himself. Stroke, kick, stroke, breathe, kick. There was a slight pull on his side every time he raised his left arm, a dull tension, and he guessed that one of Tsitsas's punches must have bruised his ribs. It wasn't painful but he couldn't shake his awareness of it; it kept pace with him and the water, and he wished he was at training, the Coach would know exactly what he should do. He lessened the force of his stroke, maintaining the power of his kick and slowing his breathing, and, minutely, reduced his pace. The man in front was resting against the tiles, allowing Danny to cut in front.

Giving the man a nod as he entered his turn, Danny kicked off, but in overcompensating for his injury he rolled to his right side and reeled clumsily, rising for breath off-kilter, all his weight on his left; stroke, kick, he balanced himself, felt the water holding him. Stroke, kick, stroke, breathe, kick. He slowed his pace, for one lap, for two, then turned and belted through the water, thrashing it, and he would not think about the soreness in his side, and then it came, the sense that he was no longer conscious of the individual parts of his body, not his arms or legs or the muscles on his left side, the muscles on his right, and there it was, that moment: it came, the stillness came, and he was the water. His thoughts were suspended, floating free, and then he was thinking of the musician's widow, seeing her face. One day he would be a famous swimmer and he would meet her at a party and he would tell her how much it meant to him, the music she wrote and the music she sang, her music and her husband's, the pain he sang. Stroke, kick, stroke, breathe, kick; the thoughts were no longer separate from the movements of his body. All denial. All denial. I've made my bed I'll lie in it, I've made my bed, I'll die in it. She would ask him to sit with her, tell him how she'd watched him win his gold medals at the Sydney Olympics, when all of Australia and all of the world was watching him and cheering him and he won the four hundred metre freestyle and then took the fifteen hundred metre freestyle and the cheering was so loud that it flooded the arena, flooded the country, flooded the world. And there would be a national holiday and he would ride through Melbourne with the prime minister and everyone would be cheering him, except Taylor and Scooter and Wilco and Morello and Fraser, except Tsitsas and Sullivan, they wouldn't be there, they wouldn't have dared show their faces, because they knew he was better and harder and stronger and braver and faster.

Danny's hand touched tile and he set down his feet, came to, looking over the water. There was no one else in the lane, there was only one other lonely swimmer in the pool, a woman whose dogged strokes hardly unsettled the surface. There was a tightness in Danny's belly, a hole there, a monstrous hunger that he needed to feed. He was red all over, his upper body free of the water; he was shaking uncontrollably, feverishly.

He looked up at the clock. It was eight-forty: he had not stopped for an hour and a half. Nine-thirty, you arsehole, and don't you dare be late. He jumped out of the pool, the cold now painful, grabbed his towel and rushed to the showers. He was the only one in there and allowed himself just enough water to rinse off the chlorine, enough soap to try to mask the smell of it. His skin was still damp as he pulled on his clothes and grabbed his bag and ran.

It was nearly nine o'clock. He pounded the hard cold ground, he needed to ride the air as he rode the water, and he braved the steady stream of traffic on Sydney Road, weaving through the cars, ignoring the horns. He was out of breath and in pain, now he could feel the ache where the punches had landed; tomorrow he would have to ask the Coach what to do about it. He tried not to hit the asphalt so hard; he couldn't trip, he couldn't twist or strain a muscle or tendon, but even more importantly he couldn't be late, he must not be late for Demet. The wind whipped around him and behind him but he was ahead of the wind, he had outrun the wind, and he pounded down Murray Street and he was at the Celikoglus' house and he was pressing the buzzer, and when Mr Celikoglu opened the door Danny couldn't even speak, the sweat was pouring off him, he was wet and in pain. But he was on time. The world was spinning but he was on time.

Mr Celikoglu said, 'Danny, are you alright?' but he couldn't answer, his breathing was rasping and it hurt but that didn't matter because he was there on time, and then Demet came out of her bedroom and she was rushing down the hall and almost knocked her father out of the way as she threw her arms around Danny, holding him so tight that now he really couldn't breathe, but it didn't matter, he was home. Demet's arms were around him, he was home.

'Excuse me,' he said, wincing.

'Listen to you,' Demet taunted. 'Excuse me.' She made it sound so prissy. She folded her arms and leaned back in her seat. 'Do you realise your voice is changing?'

'What are you talking about? Leave the boy alone.'

Demet ignored her father. The look she threw Danny was contemptuous. 'Your voice is so gay and polite since you started at that new school.'

Demet got up and grabbed his hand. 'Come on, come to my room.'

'Demet.' Mr Celikoglu's voice was quiet, he was tapping a cigarette on the table. 'Please, no more crying.'

'Fuck you!' It horrified Danny how much spite was contained in her words. He saw the flare of anger on the man's craggy thin face, and then it settled into weary disbelief.