‘Danny has to go to pizza with Coach, he has to.’ It is Theo who’s blurted it out, Theo who is glaring at Mum and Dad.
‘No, Theo, he’s going bowling and then to dinner with us for your birthday.’
‘No!’ Theo bawls it out so loud that we are all shocked. Theo’s never been a brat, he never loses it. But now he’s smashing his fist on the table; plates jump, his water spills. ‘I don’t want to go fucking bowling, I don’t want to.’ And my little brother is crying, real weeping, the kind that makes you think his insides are tearing. It is a storm that wraps all of us inside of it: the kind of crying that hurts to listen to. Mum has rushed over to him, she’s trying to hold him and he won’t be held, he won’t stop. ‘I don’t want to go, I won’t go!’
‘Theo,’ says Dad sharply. ‘Theo, stop. We’ll go Sunday night — how’s that? Dan can go to pizza tomorrow night and we’ll go bowling on Sunday. As a family.’ Those last three words are for me, they slam into me as hard as a thumping.
Theo tries but he can’t stop his sobbing, he can’t stop it now that he’s started, but he lets Mum hold him and he is nodding, snot running down his face.
And I think, My first gold medal will be his, I promise, the first gold medal is Theo’s.
‘Don’t you have to do a drive to Sydney on Monday morning?’ Mum cautions Dad.
He shrugs. ‘I’ll be OK.’
‘OK, then that’s settled,’ says Mum. ‘We’ll all go Sunday.’
That night I look into Theo’s room before going to bed. His bedside light is on but he is asleep, holding something tight in his left hand. It’s the ribbon, it’s my championship ribbon.
‘I promise you, mate,’ I whisper to him, ‘that first gold medal is yours.’ It feels good to make that vow. ‘Theo,’ I repeat softly, ‘that first gold medal is yours.’
Australia Day, 2006
It had been a mistake to go to the beach, to go away with Demet and Margarita. Dan stepped out of the shower, grabbed the clammy towel and rubbed his body vigorously, as if the scalding under the hot shower hadn’t been enough to rid his skin of the sand that had got in between his toes, stuck in leg hair, in his arse crack. He dried himself off, put on his underwear and shook his t-shirt; fine grains of sand fell from the fabric onto the wet tiles. Fucking sand, fucking sand everywhere. Dan breathed in and held his breath.
Clyde was smoking a cigarette on the balcony. He didn’t look up as Dan slid open the glass door and took a seat next to him. The sun was a fireball of flaring light melting into the inky dark water.
‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’
Dan released his breath. He could hear the concession in Clyde’s words.
‘Yeah, it’s beautiful.’
‘When I’m by the ocean I know why I’m living in this country.’ Clyde stubbed out the cigarette and smiled at Dan. ‘Just a pity the place is full of fucken Australians.’
Should he laugh? He should laugh.
But Clyde was solemn, his eyes were searching. Dan had to look away.
‘Mate, I don’t understand. Why can’t you swim?’
They had awoken to a glorious day. The sun’s rays through the slatted blinds were tassels of light gently breaking into their slumber. Dan had risen first. Clyde stirred, then rolled over and went back to sleep. The night before had been chilly, but the morning had banished the cold. It was not yet eight o’clock but a soft warmth already bathed the apartment. Dan had just poured the boiling water into the coffee plunger when Clyde stumbled out of the bedroom, yawning. The russet spray of hair over his torso, the thick thatch of copper bush wreathing his cock and balls, brushed gold by the light. Lust, as fierce and insistent as hunger, made Dan shudder.
It was what bound him to this man. The brewed coffee went cold as Clyde fucked him, his body splayed over Dan’s as they screwed savagely, relentlessly, on the floor. Afterwards, as Dan came back from the toilet, he could see Clyde, still naked, standing out on the balcony, looking down over the ocean and the township of Lorne. Dan resisted the instinct to scold, to tell Clyde to put on some bloody pants. Instead he threw the plunger of cold coffee into the sink, and refilled the kettle. He heard Clyde greeting Margarita or Demet, one of them was on the balcony next door. And then he heard: ‘Put some fucking pants on, will ya.’ It was Demet. Through clenched teeth Dan whispered, ‘Thank you.’
‘Come on, pal. Come into the water.’
He had been reading his book, looking up occasionally to watch his lover and his friends swimming. They had driven out of town and found a cove that could only be accessed by a steep descent down a narrow cliff path that cut through a gully. People had already staked claim to the beach on the other side of the rocks, at an estuary. But the hidden cove was blessedly theirs. Dan had given himself over to the glory of the day, the sun beating down on his skin, the words in the book rolling in and out of consciousness. It was Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, and the halcyon ease of the morning meant that the language of partition and exile and displacement had trouble penetrating, and he had to reread sentences and paragraphs. The lazy hedonistic joy of being on an Australian beach in summer negated the words. So the book had been laid over his face, shielding his eyes from the fierce sun, when Clyde’s shadow fell on him.
‘Come on, mate, come into the water.’
Dan peeked, squinted, from under his book.
‘Nah, I’m enjoying myself. I’m happy just sitting here.’
‘Don’t be a dick, man, it’s fantastic out there, come on.’ Clyde was holding out his hand, waiting.
‘Nah, I’m fine.’
‘Come on.’ The pleading in Clyde’s voice had been replaced by irritation.
‘I said I’m fine.’
‘Come. On.’
‘I. Don’t. Fucking. Want. To.’
‘Just leave him, Clyde. You know he doesn’t like to swim.’
Even with the sun in his eyes Dan could see Clyde’s face change, see how his body stiffened at Demet’s words. It had been the wrong thing for her to say — it claimed an ownership that Clyde would not be able to forgive. They’d been the wrong words, but then any words of Demet’s would have been the wrong words for Clyde.
Clyde walked back into the surf.
Demet spread her towel next to Dan and plonked herself down on it. ‘You OK?’ she asked, teasingly flicking water on his bare arm.
‘Yeah, ’course I am.’
‘Things alright between you and Clyde?’ She asked it lazily but he was immediately wary. He was cautious when talking about Clyde to Demet, and also when Clyde asked him about her. ‘I’m OK, Clyde and I are OK.’ He picked up his book and started reading over the same damn paragraph, the words refusing to settle.
‘Cool.’ Demet was looking out to the water, where Margarita and Clyde were splashing and dunking each other. ‘She’s having such a good time. She really likes Clyde — they have fun together.’
There was affection and warmth in the way Demet spoke of her girlfriend. That lightness wasn’t there between him and Clyde, only the ferocious rush of desire. The lightness and warmth only came to them just after their bodies were spent, the glow of their orgasms depleted. Only then, maybe, was there light between them.
Dan told himself to be kind. He’d promised himself that he would be kind that weekend, that he would be tender with Clyde.
That afternoon, at the café on the esplanade, Clyde had laughed and joked and camped it up with Margarita, and was even teasing and gentle with Demet. The surly adolescent waitress with the nose ring and pink streaks in her hair brightened visibly on hearing Clyde’s accent; afterwards, when Clyde went up to pay, Dan looked through to where his lover was charming the cashier. But to Dan, from that moment back on the beach, Clyde hadn’t spoken a word.