The following weekend, Dan went to his parents’ place to pick up Dennis. His cousin had been staying there, in Regan’s old room, since he’d moved to Melbourne in the summer. Dennis was working with Dan’s father. Neal Kelly had kept his promise to his wife and given up long-haul driving when Theo had left school, starting a small business as a removalist.
Dan knew that his father respected Dennis, respected his strength and determination. He admired that the man knew work. Watching his cousin getting ready to go out, the bulge of his muscles but also the slight limp that would only worsen with years of heavy lifting, Dan understood why he had not been able to express himself in words at that disastrous Australia Day dinner. Being working class wasn’t about words, it could only be expressed through the body.
They had lunch at a pub on Sydney Road and then, wobbly from three pots of beer, they strolled into Brunswick. Dan popped into a bookshop, Dennis following him.
‘I won’t be a moment, mate,’ Dan said, searching the shelves for that book, that title that would excite his curiosity and draw him in. Dennis just stood there as the customers walked carefully around him; as always he was looking up to that canvas that only he could see painted across the sky. Dan stopped in front of the travel section, a part of the bookshop he’d never been interested in before. A young woman wearing a loose black singlet and a red embroidered bra was apologising for bumping into Dennis. He responded, ‘It’s OK. It’s my fault, I’m too big,’ and the way he spoke didn’t intimidate her — she asked him to repeat his words, and listened and understood. Her back was facing Dan; he looked straight down the aisle to Dennis and raised his thumb in encouragement before going back to the books.
His finger traced the spines, and landed on the word Scotland. He opened the book. The photographs showed water everywhere: islands and rivers and lakes. He searched for the section on Glasgow and began to read: Over the last thirty years Glasgow has enjoyed a remarkable renaissance, thanks to some serious investment in cultural venues and blue ribbon events. Dan couldn’t help chuckling. How Clyde would hate that.
‘What are you reading?’
‘A book about Scotland.’
Dennis was looking over Dan’s shoulder, examining photos of bird’s-eye views of a city: red-brick terraces, the smoky grey spires and domes of cathedrals, a few lean lonely office towers in the distance, dwarfed by masses of white and violet clouds.
‘It looks a lot like Melbourne.’
‘It does, doesn’t it? But it’s not Melbourne, it’s Glasgow and I’m going there.’
The flat planes of Dennis’s broad dark face creased in suspicion, and his brow furrowed. ‘When are you going?’
‘Not now. One day, I’ll be there one day.’
‘That’s alright.’ Dennis’s features relaxed. He let out a loud contented burp.
‘Charming.’
My cousin is a lot like me, thought Dan. Not now is enough, not now is all he needs. One day at a time.
He snapped the book shut. ‘Come on,’ he said, playfully shoving Dennis down the aisle. ‘It’s time to go home.’
~ ~ ~
MUM IS NATTERING AWAY AS WE cross the bridge over the river. She’s pointing out the Skipping Girl, the neon outline of the young girl with the skipping rope, and she’s reminiscing about how when she first moved to Melbourne, when she first got with Dad, he would take her down to the Yarra, past the Skipping Girl, past the firefighters’ training centre, and they’d walk hand in hand over the suspension bridge and into the woodlands and she thought it was the most romantic place she had ever seen.
‘All that parkland in the middle of the city,’ she’s saying. ‘Adelaide has parkland, but it isn’t such a gorgeous green. And back there!’
She turns to point behind us, and I panic, reach for the dashboard, yell, ‘Mum, watch where you’re going!’ but she is still blathering on about a little pub, back there, behind the factories in Burnley Street, where they would go dancing every Thursday night.
‘They played the best soul music, Danny, old rock and roll and rhythm and blues — I thought it was so wonderful. We’d get there on the dot of eight and we’d still be dancing when the lights were turned on at one a.m. Oh,’ she shivers, grabbing my knee, squeezing it tight, ‘I just danced and danced, and Adelaide and the Jehovahs and all that, I just imagined I was dancing away from it all. And I was!’
‘Uh-huh,’ I sigh. She’s told me this story so many times. About falling in love, with Dad, with Melbourne, with old R&B and soul. I look out the window, grab my sports bag. It’s got all my swimming gear in there and my toiletries and three changes of jocks and socks.
A few hundred metres past the bridge, we turn right and now the streets are wider and lined with huge trees. Their branches stretch out over the road, as though the branches are fingers reaching out to touch each other. The grey and the concrete and the towers of the city have disappeared, and as Mum negotiates a bend I can see the muddy river; beyond that, the office buildings and the skyscrapers look like toy models from here.
‘This is a pretty part of town,’ Mum says. She slows the car down, peering at the house numbers until she says, ‘That must be Mr Torma’s place.’
It seems weird to think of Coach having a life outside school, outside of us, the squad and our training. Until now I haven’t really considered that he would need a place to sleep, somewhere to live. I haven’t thought about him having a family or friends. I don’t reckon any of us have given a thought to him having a life outside the school, the pool, outside us.
It is a single-fronted red-brick terrace house, with green gables, a white picket gate with peeling paint and one missing slat. Concrete steps lead up to a solid door painted a metallic blue, and the paint there has also weathered; streaks of undercoat show through. There are a couple of rose bushes along the fence, wilted and untended, and a large crack that zigzags down the front of the house to the top of a large bay window. It’s not a grand house, but I like it immediately — it’s got old-fashioned elegance, and looks solid and permanent.
I go to kiss Mum quickly on the cheek.
‘Do you want me to come in, Danny?’ she asks.
I don’t want her to come in. I want to get into the house, to be with Coach and the boys, to focus on the competition in two days’ time. ‘Nah, Mum, I’ll be fine.’ I have one foot on the footpath, the other is still in the car. I am eager to get going.
But she’s clutching my hand. ‘Mate, I should be taking you to Adelaide, but you know it’s hard for me to go there?’
She holds my chin in her other hand, forcing me to look at her. I’m so impatient that I could just jerk my hand away from hers and wrench my head aside, but her eyes are so sad that I have to make myself not look away. I bring my foot back into the car and close my door.