There was a soft thud and something landed beside him on the carpet. It was a crumpled moist face washer. He unzipped his bag and wiped his hand, his groin, his cock. The wet cloth now smelled of him and it smelled of Martin. He rolled it back into a ball and kicked it to the end of the bag. ‘Thanks,’ he whispered, but there was no reply.
In the morning he was the first up. He slid out of the bag, the stench of his sweat overpowering. He heard a yawn and saw that Martin was also awake.
Embarrassed, Danny pointed guiltily at the face washer. ‘We should wash it.’
For a moment, Martin looked confused; then he laughed.
‘Don’t be stupid, mate, the cleaners are coming right after we leave, they’ll do it. It’s their job.’
They put on their Speedos and headed for the pool. Danny didn’t say anything to Martin about how much he wanted to be in the ocean, how much he needed to be in the turbulent wild sea.
He didn’t want Mrs Taylor to drop him at home. She kept saying it was no problem, that she wanted to do it, but he insisted on being dropped off at Flinders Street. She seemed lighter on the drive back into town, as if relieved that the birthday weekend was over. ‘No, darling,’ she said once more, ‘I’m taking you home.’
‘Mum!’ Martin snapped. ‘He wants to be dropped off in the city. Just do it.’
As Danny got out of the car, as he slung his sports bag over his shoulder, he said to Mrs Taylor, ‘Thank you so much, I had a lovely time.’
The woman smiled sweetly. ‘Oh Danny,’ she said, ‘you are always welcome at our house, come over whenever you like. Remember that: you are always welcome.’
The first thing his mother said to him when he walked through the door was, ‘Shh, your father’s sleeping.’
His father had driven across the country, from Melbourne to Perth, then on to Sydney and all the way back to Melbourne, all within a week. Danny couldn’t imagine being cooped up for such long hours in that cabin that smelled of takeaway food, of stale sweat and cigarette smoke that clung to the surfaces, seeping into the vinyl of the dashboard, sticking to your clothes, seeping into you. His father wouldn’t let his mother come near him when he came back from one of those killer drives, not until he had washed off all the grime and perspiration, the rancid taint of sleeplessness, of greasy food, of too many cigarettes. Only when he’d had a shower, thrown his stinky TWU t-shirt in the wash, shaved off his coppery stubble, trimmed his sideburns, and put on his cowboy shirt with the silver-tipped collars, his clean black jeans, his silver-toed suede shoes, only then would his father grab his wife, grab his daughter, grab his youngest son, hold them and kiss them and vigorously rub his newly shaved and perfumed chin into Theo’s hair until he squealed. Just the way he used to do with Danny. His father would clutch Theo and Regan and their mother and sing, ‘No, I’m never gonna let you go, never ever ever ever.’ But he never did that with Danny anymore, he hadn’t done that with Danny for years.
Danny lowered his voice. ‘I need to train, Mum. I have to go swimming.’
‘Can’t you wait till your dad’s up? I said I’d wake him at four.’
He couldn’t wait. He needed to be in a proper pool, he needed to do serious training. The long weekend had seemed to stretch forever. He wished that Monday was already over, that it would be Tuesday tomorrow so he could go to training. Coach would be yelling at them not to be pussies, and Martin and Danny would be crushing the other boys. He had to be in the pool.
‘Mum, can you drive me in?’
‘No, Danny. I want to be here when your dad gets up.’ She didn’t get how important it was.
‘Fine. Tell Dad I’ll see him when I get home.’
He dived into the water and all the pieces came together: everything was liquid and it was in being liquid that everything became clear. The water parted for him, the water caressed him, the water obeyed him. He swam, he propelled himself through the water; the muscles that moved as they should, the power of his limbs, his lungs and his heart which breathed and beat in a harmony that was clean and efficient. Only in the water were he and the world unsullied. He swam, far beyond mind, aware of only body; and then, coming up for air, he had left even his body behind, and though the exertion continued, though every muscle kept working as it should have, he was wondering if on those long drives through desert and plain, through morning and night, his father’s body didn’t also seamlessly forget pain and forget time — that the drive, like the swim, was the only constant, the heart beating and the lungs breathing, and whether the long desert roads were liquid as well, not heat and dust but clear and clean like water. Danny calculated the distance his father had just travelled. He knew that it was nine hundred kilometres to Sydney from Melbourne; he drew a map at the edge of his vision, a palimpsest over the solid black lines and the blue tiles, it was etched out on the floor of the pool. He hurtled across the continent, an Atlantis beneath his torpedo body. It had to be at least three times that distance from Melbourne to Perth, four times that from Perth to Sydney. Melbourne to Perth, he breathed, three thousand, Perth to Sydney, he breathed, four thousand, Sydney to Melbourne, he breathed, one thousand; eight thousand kilometres in just under a week. Danny’s body came back to him, he felt a strain in his right deltoid, not pain exactly, but a soreness, a twitch, a paper-thin faultline from favouring his right. That was why Coach said he had to change his stroke. He’d poked Danny in the chest, hard, so Danny had to stumble back: ‘You are lazy, you are not doing enough work, there, there.’ Coach punched the triceps on his left arm. ‘There, you must do work there.’ Danny let his left arm separate the water, and the water split and created a space for him, searching his body for other fissures and creases. He exhaled, he kicked, he brought his hand to the wall and touched the cool tile. His body shuddered from the pain, burning as it fed ravenously on itself, consuming the fluids released over the last two hours. He let his forehead touch the wall as he floated in the water, trembling, shuddering. Eight thousand kilometres. He could have swum that, Danny thought. He could have swum forever.