Cosgrave sighed impatiently and pointed across the lawn to steps leading to the main building. ‘March.’
Danny was conscious of Cosgrave in step behind him. He felt like he was in a war movie, that he was a new recruit. He was Private Daniel Kelly, Blue House.
All that first day it was as if he was slipping away from himself and becoming the uniform. He didn’t know how to sit still behind the solid, freshly varnished wooden desks in the classroom, he didn’t know what to do, what to say, when to look up, when to speak, when not to speak. He didn’t trust himself in the large airy classrooms filled with equipment that all seemed to be new, books that seemed to have been opened for the first time, teachers who assumed they would be listened to and not interrupted. And it all smelled different: full of air, full of light, but also of locker rooms, the nitrous nutty smell of boys, mixed with the fetid whiff of sweat and the acrid stink of deodorant. There was no scent of perfume, of hand cream, none of the sweetness and floral odours of girls. There was no sign of girls anywhere in this world.
With his tie so tight, the flat of a knife pressed against his throat so he couldn’t breathe freely in those large and airy rooms, Danny was vanishing and all that was left behind was a uniform, an outline to be coloured in. He was becoming Kelly.
Kelly, are you following this?
Kelly, are you familiar with this?
Kelly, pay attention!
The day crawled slowly forward, the flat of a knife against his throat, and he feared he was to be trapped in that day forever, that it would be repeated endlessly and there would be no chance of ever finding the real Danny again. He wanted to be back with his old friends, to be with Boz and Shelley and Mia and Yianni and especially Demet; he ached for the chipped desks and mission-brown plastic seats of his old school. He missed the girls gossiping, the boys flicking paper pellets; he missed the noise, the jokes, the insults, the teasing. The day crept. He had disappeared into the day. He had vanished.
‘Kelly!’
His name had been called, it had been repeated. He struggled to recognise it. A fat man was at the classroom door, pointing to him, a man in grey trackpants, a white shirt too small for his bulging belly, his brick-like chest. All the boys had turned around and were looking at Danny. The teacher was telling him to go.
‘Come on!’ The fat man was impatient. He had an accent that made syrup of every word. Danny followed him out to the corridor.
‘I’m Frank Torma. I’m your swimming coach.’
Now he realised this was the man who had seen him swim at the meet in Bendigo, who had said to his mother, Your son has talent. This was the man who had said, I can make your boy a champion.
The swim centre perched on a rise from which there was a sweeping view of the whole city. The other boys, all chatting to each other, grabbed their bags and piled out of the van. As Danny walked behind them through the front doors of this new pool, he felt the waft of warm moist air, the sting of chlorine, and the day suddenly heaved off its sluggishness. The day began to move again. In the cold locker room Danny kicked off his shoes, stripped off the heavy jacket, the silken tie, the stiff new shirt, the itchy trousers, peeled off his underpants and socks. Naked, it felt as if his body could suddenly breathe again, and he was so eager to put on his bathers he almost fell over.
Torma was talking, he was pointing at various boys, but all Danny could see was the unreal blue of the pool, and he knew that any moment now he would be immersed in water, held and buoyed and merged with water.
In the water the day splintered and coursed, and he stroked, kicked, breathed to outrun it, to be faster than the day roaring to its conclusion, but the day won. The day always won. He couldn’t believe that two hours were up, that he had to get out of the pool, that he had to go back with the others to the cold locker room and put on his clothes.
‘How’d I do, Coach?’ It was the tall, lean boy, the one whose skin was so white it was almost translucent: you could see the blue of the veins showing through.
‘You did well, Taylor.’
The boy grinned and raised his arms into a triumphant boxer’s stance.
Then Frank Torma pointed to Danny. ‘But Kelly was faster.’
Taylor’s arms dropped as if Danny or the Coach had just punched him.
As the boys filed out of the change rooms, showered and dressed, Danny heard his name being called. His mother had been on the benches, watching him. She almost tripped as she ran down the steps, and was out of breath when she got to him. Danny was mortified that she was there. He couldn’t bear to look at her. He knew that all the boys were staring, of course they were: at her scalloped jet-black hair in a sixties style; at the beauty spot she accentuated with a black pencil every morning; at her tight low-necked scarlet dress; at the black pumps with the silver buckles. ‘My wog Marilyn Monroe,’ his dad called her, as he serenaded her with Hank Williams or Sam Cooke, as he danced with her in their tiny kitchen. It always made Danny and Regan and Theo laugh. But not today. He didn’t want her here today, his mother who looked like some vintage movie star. He knew that Taylor’s mother would look nothing like her. Scooter’s mum wouldn’t, nor would Wilkinson. Their mums would look normal.
The Coach was the first to speak and he introduced her to the other boys. Danny still couldn’t look at her. But he knew the boys would be leering. Why wouldn’t they, at her fat tits on display like that? He walked away and she had to almost run to catch up with him. He’d been embarrassed by her before, of course he had, who wanted his mum or his dad around, who wasn’t embarrassed by their mother or their old man? But he’d never been ashamed, he’d never wanted her to fuck off before.
He barely said a word to her all the way home. But she didn’t notice; she kept banging on about how nice the boys seemed, how polite they were. ‘They’re real gentlemen, Danny,’ she said, and he knew she was trying to convince herself as much as reassure him. He couldn’t look at her, didn’t turn away from the world outside the window. You’re so transparent, he wanted to scream at her, You’re so transparent and you were trying too hard, they could all see that.
Once he was in his room, he almost tore the uniform from his body. He pulled on a t-shirt and a pair of trackpants and stretched out on his bed. He wanted to stay in his room, to be safe in the room he knew, with the shelf of medals, the glow-in-the-dark poster of the solar system, the pictures of Michael Jordan and Kieren Perkins, the model of the Brontosaurus he had built in primary school, the boxed set of the Back to the Future trilogy that Demet and Boz had given him last year for his thirteenth birthday. He didn’t want to leave the room, it belonged to Danny, not to Kelly. But his mother was frying meatballs, and as the smell drifted down the hallway his stomach lurched. He was famished, he could have eaten it all, left nothing for his brother and sister, nothing for his mum and dad.
He ate dinner in silence.
It’ll make you a better swimmer.
He spoke to Demet for an hour on the phone. How was it? I fucking hate it.
It’ll make you a better swimmer.
He was so exhausted that he didn’t even bother to brush his teeth. He fell asleep still in his t-shirt and trackpants.
Taylor came up to him at the lockers, just as the bell sounded for first period. ‘Is your mum on TV?’