Danny Kelly could be the best in the world. He knew he could conquer both strokes, it was inside him, it was a revelation written inside him, inked over his muscles, imprinted in his brain, etched into his soul. The butterfly was a given; the freestyle had always been his stroke. The thought brought a shot of guilt, a shock of illicit danger: the best coach would have known this, a better coach would have made it happen.
He shut his eyes. He was flying and he was swimming and it felt as one. He was swimming and he was flying into his future.
~ ~ ~
‘I AM SO SORRY. I JUST CAN’T forgive myself for not coming to see you.’
She has no idea how relieved I am to hear her say those words. We are in the courtyard of a bar off Lygon Street, it is a dark winter evening and she is shivering, but she wants to sit outside to smoke. It is the kind of place where there isn’t a house wine and the beer is all imported. I am warming my hands between my thighs. The wind bites, the cold is close to painful, but I don’t mind. It is the smoking that reminds me of the old Demet; it is the tight scissor grip that she has on her cigarette, the fierceness with which she drags on it, the way her fingers play with the packet between each smoke that brings her back to me.
‘I don’t care,’ I reply, smiling. ‘It doesn’t matter. In that place visitors make you feel your isolation more keenly. I always felt worse when Mum came, I always felt like shit afterwards.’
My words tumble into each other in my rush to convince her that there is no hurt, that I bear no grudge. That’s what I learned in there, that was the most important lesson: that I did something wrong and that I had to pay for what I did. You construct a ladder and you climb that ladder, out of the hell you have created for yourself and back into the real world. That is atonement, a word I discovered in there; it is in such places that the word resides and makes sense. And I am not there yet, Dem, I want to tell her, I haven’t got there yet. I have enough of my own guilt, I still have nights when sleep won’t come because I am reliving the piercing shame. I have enough guilt. I don’t need hers. I don’t want hers.
She takes out another cigarette, lights it, looking at me out of the corner of one eye. I want her to be sarcastic, to be sneering and opinionated and strong. I want the old Dem, I don’t want this polite stranger.
‘Luke visited, didn’t he?’
That’s more like it. There’s the old rivalry. He’s your best friend, she’d always say, but we’re soul mates.
‘Yeah, Luke visited.’
The first change I noticed is that she’s lost weight. She’s something I never thought she’d be: she’s fit. I’d place a bet that she’s working out, going to the gym. And that makes me want to laugh, that’s something I could never have imagined, after all the shit she used to give me about my training.
‘You’re working out, aren’t you?’
A resonant laugh comes from deep in her gut. It is so good to hear.
‘Yeah, I’m working out.’ She ruefully eyes the cigarette in her fingers. ‘But I’m still fucking fagging.’
I have to restrain myself from saying, Don’t stop, it is part of you — that fervent passion she has for the cigarette. It is a mark of her character and of her personality. I can’t imagine Demet without the fags. Something would be missing. The smoking centres her.
She’s cut her hair. It is a buzz cut, so short you can see her scalp. The explosion of raven curls, the mad mop, have all gone. The new cut suits her. Demet will never be pretty; now that’s an inadequate word for how she looks. The new hairstyle accentuates the blockish severity of her face, the strong ridge of her brow, the heavy hooded eyes, the sharp line of her nose, the prominent mouth, that mouth that dominates when you look at her. I haven’t seen her for years and I am struck by how none of the components of her face should fit together: everything — eyes, brow, cheeks, nose, mouth — seems oversized, too much. But that’s Dem, she is too much. And that’s what I love about her.
It feels good, I let that thought sink in, and I take hold of her free hand. ‘It’s really good to see you. I’ve missed you.’
I’m the one who should be apologising. For not once getting up the courage to call her to find out where she had moved to, for not once writing a letter to tell her that I hadn’t disappeared, that she hadn’t vanished from my thoughts. But I didn’t know if she ever wanted to see me again. No, that’s not true. I believed that there was no way she would ever want to see me again.
She squeezes my hand. ‘Missed you too, fucker.’
The third thing I noticed is how finely cut her clothes are, how fashionable she is. Not that Dem didn’t always have style: she always stood out in high school. But back then her fashion was a jumble of shapeless long op-shop coats, Che Guevara badges and thick-soled workman’s boots. Her appearance is still masculine — it’s there in the severity of her haircut, in the pragmatic cut of her long pants, the flat-heeled shoes — but the red coat she has buttoned up to her neck is made of a thin fine textured leather; the fabric of the shirt that peeks from under the cuffs of her coat is delicate, her trousers tailored and stylish.
She lets go of my hand and sips her wine. ‘Have you heard from Luke?’
I shake my head. ‘Not lately. I got a card from Beijing a few months ago, but nothing since. I imagine he’s busy.’
‘I think he’s riding the Asian tiger for all it’s worth. I guess that’s our future. I got an email the other day from him, a group one, telling us all about the money to be made in totalitarian capitalist China. Blah blah blah. You sure you didn’t get it?’
‘I’m not on email.’
‘What?’ She is incredulous. I’m used to that response. Not having a computer places me outside the world, renders me invisible. But I also know my time of concealment is coming to an end.
‘I do have to get a computer. I’m starting a course next year and as much as I can’t stand the bloody things I’m going to need to be on email.’
‘What’s the course?’
‘Human services. Or “community services”, they’re calling it. It’s a certificate course, nothing fancy. I’m working as a volunteer at the moment, working with adults who have acquired brain damage — you know, through injury or accident. I thought doing the course might make it easier to get a job.’
I find that I am blushing, that in revealing something of myself to another person I am awkward and embarrassed; I almost fear that I don’t know how to stop. I haven’t talked intimately with someone for a long time. It strikes me, speaking to Demet beneath the gaunt naked elm trees in this freezing courtyard, that I have almost forgotten what it is to reveal oneself to another.
‘Anyway,’ I mumble to a close, ‘that’s the plan.’
She is looking at me intently, squarely in the eyes. It is disconcerting. ‘Good for you, Danny. I am so proud of you.’
Because I am not fucking up? Because I am not embarrassing you? Because I am not a loser?
I had literally crashed into her in Lygon Street. I’d been rushing to catch a movie, something I had been doing for a few months, catching a film, any film, on half-price Monday. Attending weekly gave me both the pleasure of routine — and routine is still everything to me — and at the same time forced me into the world. I only saw movies on my own, and conversation was limited to the dry transaction with the cinema staff over tickets. But it was still a forward step into the world. I was running late because when I got home from the night shift at the supermarket I’d started reading Philip Roth’s The Human Stain and found myself still engrossed in it by mid-morning: here was shame, here was rage, here was indignity, and here was retiring from the world. I’d set the alarm but slept through it and had only forty-five minutes from waking to get to Carlton. I’d jumped off the tram in Swanston Street, had run blindly down Cardigan Street, frantically weaving through the crowds of students, and as I was careering down Lygon Street I bumped the shoulder of a woman coming out of Readings. Hey, she had complained, and I, puffing, was drawing in my breath to prepare an apology when I noticed — no longer overweight, her hair short, her clothes stylish — that it was Demet. Her face turned from a scowl into shocked recognition. Danny? Yeah, I answered, Yeah, it’s me.