‘Out here.’
Emma, Martin’s sister, stepped over the window frame and almost fell on Danny, then steadied herself on the balcony rail. In the cramped space their bodies had to touch. Danny and Martin were shoulder to shoulder. Danny stepped back from the rail, anxious about getting too close to Emma. He was sure he reeked of chlorine. He thought Emma was the most dazzling creature he had ever seen. Her blonde hair was cut short, which made her blindingly blue eyes seem enormous. She was wearing a man’s oversized white shirt with the top two buttons undone. Her neck was pale, flawless; he tried to avoid looking there, near the second undone button where the plump swell of her breasts began. Emma was two years older than he was, had just started university. She was not only the most beautiful girl he had ever seen but also the smartest. The first time he’d visited the Taylors’ house, Martin had showed Danny her bedroom and he couldn’t believe how many books she owned — a whole wall of bookcases, books on the floor, a book lying open on the bed, a stack of books on her bureau, on her dressing-room table. It was like a library, her room: everywhere you looked there were books. ‘Emma reads all the time,’ Martin had said to him, and the way he said it made it sound shameful, like something wrong. Demet would have loved Emma’s room, as would Luke. Emma and Luke and Demet should meet, but the pieces just didn’t fit.
Emma smiled at him. ‘I’m really glad you’re coming with us, Danny.’
‘Me too,’ Danny blurted out, but it came out as an indecipherable grunt. It felt as though he had something stuck in his throat.
Martin smirked. ‘She likes you, Dan.’
Emma rolled her eyes and said, effortlessly cutting, ‘Marty, you’re so childish. I don’t know why you hang around with him, Danny.’ She sighed and looked out across the skyline of gabled rooftops and transplanted European trees. ‘God, I have to get out of Toorak. Living here is like private school continuing all your life.’
Martin glowered at her. ‘What’s wrong with Toorak?’
She turned to Danny, smiling. ‘Go on, tell him what’s wrong with Toorak.’
Danny didn’t know what to say, what was expected of him. Was it a trick question, a challenge, a plea, a joke? Toorak was the most expensive suburb in Melbourne: was that what she wanted him to say? But everyone knew that. The more confused he was around her, the more entranced with her he became. He wondered what her skin would be like to touch, what her breasts would feel like. He thought, I am an astronaut and she is another planet. He thought, Is that childish? Toorak was also another planet. He didn’t answer and Emma turned her back on him.
Somehow, he couldn’t exactly work it out, but from that dismissive turn, he knew he had failed her.
‘Are you packed? Mum wants to head off soon.’
‘Yeah, we’re packed.’
We’re packed. He liked that Martin included him straightaway, instinctively. Martin and Danny — it was now nearly always Martin and Danny. At school, in the pool, it was now all Kelly and Taylor. All the boys knew, assumed it. Kelly and Taylor, mates. They were going to the beach, to another Taylor house, to celebrate the seventy-fifth birthday of Emma and Martin’s grandmother. Martin could have invited Wilco or Fraser — his family had known theirs forever — but Danny was the one to be invited. Wilco hadn’t complained, Fraser hadn’t said a word. It was Martin and Danny, that was how it was.
Emma pulled a packet of cigarettes out of her jeans pocket. She was about to put one in her mouth when Martin shook his head. ‘You can’t smoke up here, the smoke will go into my room.’
‘I’ll shut the window.’
‘I don’t want your filthy cancerous smoke in my face.’
Emma licked a finger and raised it. ‘The wind’s coming from the north,’ she announced, and gently pushed Danny to one side so she could get to the other end of the balcony. ‘I’ll make sure not to exhale in your faces.’ She lit her cigarette and Martin shut his window with a bang.
‘You’re a cow.’
Emma blew smoke into his face.
She had perfect skin, thought Danny, they both had skin like the surface of milk. Martin’s skin would be rough and Emma’s skin would be soft. That would be the only difference.
He was in the back seat with Martin and they were joking around and gossiping about school and talking about swimming. Mostly they were talking about swimming. The Australian Championships were on in October in Brisbane, and he was convinced that both he and Taylor would be there. He wanted to go to the Pan Pacs, he wanted to prove himself there, but the Coach said that it wasn’t the year, that it wasn’t time yet. But he wanted to prove himself against the world, not just Australia. It had to be the world now, it had to be the world if he was to have a chance of getting to Kuala Lumpur next year, to Sydney two years after that. ‘Be patient,’ said Coach. ‘You’re not ready yet.’ How Danny resented that phrase, hated it. Danny didn’t think it was a matter of patience, he thought it was all about competition, that it was only in the pool itself, in his control of the water and of his breath, in the being in his body not in his head, that he would prove he was ready, that he could beat them all.
‘Be patient,’ said Coach. ‘This is not your time.’
He would prove him wrong. He knew he was ready. First the Australian Championships, then the Pan Pacific Games, then the Commonwealth Games, and then it would be the Sydney Olympics. He was certain of it, he had it all mapped out. He would be there.
Martin flicked him across the thigh.
‘What?’ said Danny. Mrs Taylor was looking at him in the rearview mirror.
‘Mum asked you a question.’
‘Sorry, Mrs Taylor.’ Danny leaned forward. Mrs Taylor’s skin was orange, a colour Danny had never seen on humans until he met Martin’s mother and Scooter’s mother and Fraser’s mother. It was a skin cured like smoked meat by the rays of the solarium, then lathered with lotions and oils and creams.
‘I was wondering if you had been to Portsea before, Danny?’
The house was actually in Sorrento, on the wrong side of Portsea — Emma had told him that. Martin had told her to be quiet. Danny knew from the boys at school that Portsea was better than Sorrento.
‘No, Mrs Taylor, I don’t think I have.’
‘But you’ve been to Rosebud, haven’t you, maaate?’
Danny punched Martin on the shoulder, just hard enough to remind him who had the bigger muscles. Martin’s attempt at a wog-boy accent was pathetic. Danny had been to Rosebud, and to Dromana and Rye, where all the wogs and bogans went for summer. He had loved Rye as a kid, loved that the water stayed shallow for so far that you could go out from shore until your mother and father and sister and brother had almost disappeared from view, become just dabs of colour on the yellow sand, shimmering reflections vanishing in the sun’s haze. Danny sat back in the car, ignoring Martin. His smile felt like it could crack his whole face open, that it could explode, like in a science-fiction movie. All that mattered was that he would swim better and faster and stronger than Martin. Better, faster, stronger.
Sorrento was the most beautiful place he had ever seen. It was nothing like Rosebud, nothing like Rye. It was the green of it, the streets shaded by tall, thick-limbed trees. It was the blue of it, on one side the placid waters of the bay, and then, as the car crested the ridge of the peninsula, the roiling ocean came into view. It was the gold of it, the bright sunshine of early autumn, the tanned shoulders and torsos and limbs of the people sitting outside the cafés and the bars and fish-and-chip shops.
The house was the most beautiful house he had ever seen. The length of the dwelling was hidden by ivy and shadowed by a giant red bottlebrush that towered over the front yard. Room after room after room came off the seemingly endless dark corridor and then suddenly they were in a cavernous open space; one entire wall was floor-to-ceiling glass that looked out to the sea, a black leather sofa ran along the length of the room. There was an expensive-looking stereo system, a large-screen television, shelves crammed with games and books and sports equipment, another sofa in front of the television, and four black leather armchairs spread haphazardly across the space. At the far end of the room, double doors opened onto a dining room and beyond was the kitchen. Danny walked up to the window and looked out to a gently sloping yard. There was a tennis lawn, an immaculately neat garden bed, and beyond that, ocean, miles and miles of ocean.