Barracuda

by Christos Tsiolkas

  He had no sense of the city as they drove into it, his mother giving directions, but she ended up getting them lost, and they had to stop at a late-night service station to ask the way. At last they turned into a dark cul-de-sac and his mum told him to park outside a box-like dark-brick house with a tiny neat lawn. There was no fence; the yellowing grass came down to the footpath. Dan grabbed his backpack and his mother’s suitcase from the boot and they walked up the drive and rang the doorbell. As they waited he was conscious of his mother’s agitation, then there were footsteps approaching. The door was flung open by a plump young woman with lively, thickly lashed eyes, dyed-blonde hair and enormous gold-hooped earrings.

  The woman peered crossly at Dan and his mother and then her face softened. ‘Hello, Aunt Stephanie,’ she said warmly. The soft purr of her voice, the self-conscious way she ushered them in, the quick kisses she gave his mother reminded Dan of a shy pet. ‘Hello,’ she added, turning to him and kissing him on both cheeks. ‘You must be Daniel. I’m your cousin Joanna.’

  The first few minutes were a rush as he followed his mother and cousin through the house, all plush carpets and richly patterned rugs, showy furnishings and endless photos on the walls. An enormous television dominated the lounge room. Two young boys were sitting on a white leather sofa, fighting over a gaming console. They stopped struggling as the adults entered, and looked up sheepishly; the youngest tried to hide the console behind his back. On the white leather armchair across from them sat a man in a black t-shirt, AC/DC printed on it in synthetic white Gothic lettering. He was wearing grey trackpants, his feet were bare. He didn’t get up to greet them, didn’t meet their eyes.

  ‘This is my brother, your cousin Dennis,’ said Joanna, and then pointed to the boys. ‘My eldest, Michael, and my baby, Paul.’

  Dan couldn’t take in the names, forgot them as soon as he heard them. The two young boys couldn’t hide their openmouthed astonishment at being introduced to him. The intensity of their examination of him disturbed him; it felt as if he were an animal on display, as if he and his mum were strange and alien beasts. But his mother didn’t seem to notice or care as she swooped down on the boys, wrapped them in a tight embrace and kissed them. They turned anxious eyes to their mother, and Dan caught Joanna’s covert nod of permission. They returned their great-aunt’s embrace. Dan’s mother then turned to hug the large-framed man, who still hadn’t risen from the sofa or looked their way. This disrespect made Dan want to lift him up by his shirtfront, this big-muscled wog jerk, all balloon biceps and puffed-up jock chest. But his mother didn’t mind at all—she was affectionate with Dennis, caressing his face and messing his short spiky hair. The man relented a little, looking her way but not smiling, not really returning the hug.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ asked Dan’s mother. ‘Do you remember your thea Steph?’ Dan couldn’t fathom why she was talking to the man as she would to a child.

  They left the boys in the living room with Dennis, and went with Joanna into a small kitchen. The walls there were also plastered with photographs, but there were none of his mother, none of her as an adult or as a child, and none of Dan’s family. Joanna asked if they would like coffee, and Dan’s eyes didn’t waver from his mum. He could sense how nervous she was, how unsettled she seemed being back in Adelaide. He wouldn’t answer until she did. He had never felt such a strong urge to protect her. He stayed close to her, got her a chair to sit on, but stayed standing behind her, as though guarding her.

  A car door slammed outside and his mother froze. Then there was the sound of a key in a lock and Joanna looked nervously to the hallway.

  ‘Jo, the boys should be in bed.’ The voice was loud and throaty, so deep that for a moment Dan thought it was a man’s voice, but then a woman appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was dressed simply in an oversized Crows footy jumper and navy pants. Her hair was damp, her skin flushed, as though she had just showered.

  ‘Hello, Bettina, how are you?’

  The woman ignored his mother. She stepped into the doorway of the living room and called out to the two young boys. They rushed to their grandmother and hugged her, shyly waved goodnight to Dan and his mother, and went to get ready for bed.

  Her arms still crossed, Bettina came back into the kitchen and pointed to the digital clock on the wall. The bright scarlet letters read 10.43. ‘What kind of time is this to arrive?’

  Dan’s mother’s voice was surprisingly calm. ‘I phoned Joanna and explained that we took off after lunch.’ She turned to smile at her niece. ‘I’m sorry, Jo, we didn’t mean to put you out.’

  Jo shook her head, busy tamping down ground coffee into the base of an espresso maker. ‘You’re not putting me out at all. It’s lovely to see you.’ Joanna turned to her mother. ‘Mum, don’t make a scene, alright?’

  Bettina said something in Greek and Dan could see that it had winded his mother, that her face had reddened and her hands were shaking. Dan wanted to punch the bitch, to feel his fist go through her teeth, through bone and meat. He wasn’t going to count down to ten, he didn’t want to let go of his rage.

  ‘Of course,’ Bettina continued in English, ‘what else do we expect from Stephanie? It’s always been about her. No one else matters to Stephanie.’

  ‘Don’t you fucking dare speak about my mother like that.’

  Joanna’s jaw dropped open, her eyes widened. Dan’s mother recoiled as though his words had stung her. But not Bettina. Her hands now were on her large hips and she was nodding.

  His mother said wearily, ‘Danny, please, be polite, this is your aunt Bettina.’

  The woman walked up to him, looked straight at him. He didn’t want to be polite but he couldn’t help respecting the fact that she didn’t try to kiss him, pretend affection or familial feeling. This was his mother’s oldest sister, only by a year or so, he remembered from his mother’s stories, but he was pleased to see that she looked so much older than his mother. She was overweight, her body shapeless and unattractive, her face hard and unforgiving.

  ‘Do you remember me?’

  He shook his head. He recalled little from his first visit to Adelaide, except for a vivid memory of the wrathful old man who’d made his mother cry and who’d told him, ‘You are no grandchild of mine.’ He knew there had been other people there that day, but they were shades, ghosts in his memory.

  ‘You look a bit like your cousin Dennis. You can tell you two are related.’

  It was the first softening in her, the first extension of warmth. But Dan would not budge, would not smile. He remained standing guard for his mother.

  Bettina turned to her daughter. ‘Are you just serving coffee? How about some food?’

  ‘Mum,’ grizzled Joanna, rolling her eyes, ‘I’ve got some food warming up in the oven, I’m on to it.’

  Bettina finally took a seat and Dan sat down as well, making sure he stayed next to his mother.

  The coffee came, and then the food. They’d only shared a packet of chips since Ararat, and he was hungry. Joanna’s lemon-flavoured potatoes and the grilled lamb straps marinated in rosemary and garlic were delicious. There was little conversation as Bettina and Joanna watched them eat, and Dan finished within minutes, wiping his plate clean with some pita bread.

  This occasioned another smile from his aunt. ‘You even eat like your cousin Dennis.’

  Once Dan’s mother had finished eating, Joanna asked after Dan’s father, after Regan and Theo. It shocked him how quickly the talk switched to another language; he marvelled at how easily Greek flowed from his mother’s lips. He excused himself and went into the lounge room.

  His cousin Dennis was still slouched in the leather armchair, watching the television, the volume low. Dennis didn’t take his eyes off the television, but he shifted his weight and straightened himself up.

  ‘What are you watching?’ asked Dan.

  He couldn’t quite make out his cousin’s reply. It was almost as if he were coughing out the words. They seemed disconnected from
one another, as if each syllable took an effort to articulate. Was he retarded? wondered Dan.

  ‘Big . . . Big . . . Broth . . . Brother is starting,’ Dennis finally managed to stutter.

  There was a sudden clamour of shouting from the kitchen. Bettina was yelling and Dan’s mother was screaming back at her. Dan leapt up from the sofa.

  His aunt stormed into the room, tears streaming down her face. ‘Get up, Dennis,’ she shouted to her son. ‘Get up! We’re going home.’

  The man’s head was turned away from her. He hadn’t budged.

  ‘Come on, Dennis,’ she roared. ‘We’re leaving!’

  The man slowly rose from the armchair, eyes down.

  Shaking, Bettina turned to Dan. Her eyes were red and she rubbed a hand across her nose. She tried to keep her voice steady but didn’t quite manage it as she said, ‘I’m sorry, Daniel, but you shouldn’t have come. Take your mother home, take her home tomorrow.’

  He brushed past her into the kitchen where his mother was weeping, her body racked with sobs. Joanna was bent down behind her, rubbing her arms, her neck.

  ‘Is she ever going to forgive me, Jo? Is she ever going to let it all go?’ His mother forced out the words between her sobs and gulps for air.

  ‘Mum, what can I do? Do you want to go?’

  His mother looked up at the sound of Dan’s voice, grateful for his presence. She reached for his hand, and held it to her cheek, kissing it, and drenching it in her tears.

  ‘Oh Christ, mate,’ she said, ‘I need a drink.’

  ‘Shh.’ Joanna put a finger to her lips. But the front door slammed, they heard the sound of a car’s ignition. Bettina and Dennis had gone.

  ‘OK,’ said Joanna, no longer whispering, ‘now we can have a fucking drink.’

  His mother and cousin drank but Dan stayed sober. The peaty, heady aroma of the whiskey was enticing but he wanted his senses clear, he was tired from driving, from meeting these new people, he couldn’t trust himself to drink. His mother was on her second glass when Joanna’s husband, Spiro, arrived. He had round dimpled cheeks, an unkempt salt-and-pepper beard, gentle, shining eyes, and silver-streaked hair that fell around his collar. He and Dan’s mother embraced warmly.

  ‘How’s work?’ she asked him. ‘How is the restaurant doing?’

  ‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ Spiro answered nonchalantly, welcoming Dan with a tight, unembarrassed hug.

  Dan responded to him immediately, as he had done to his cousin Joanna, but he couldn’t wait for them to go to bed so it could be just him and his mother, just the two of them. He begrudged the man the whiskey he poured himself, the cigarette he rolled. Go to bed, go to fucking bed, repeated in Dan’s head like a mantra.

  ‘How was your mum tonight?’ Spiro asked Joanna.

  ‘She was Mum. She was everything you said she’d be.’

  Spiro winked. ‘Sorry, Steph, sorry, Dan. Was it awful?’

  ‘It was no worse than it has ever been.’ Crestfallen, his mother turned to Dan. ‘I’m sorry, mate, that you had to see all that.’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s alright.’ And it was. Now that Bettina had gone, his mother’s anxiety had disappeared.

  Spiro winked at him next. ‘Bloody Joeys, eh, Danny?’

  Dan hated that they thought that was an excuse. ‘I don’t get it,’ he snarled. ‘Why does she have to be so mean? What’s her problem with Mum being christened once?’

  The outburst of laughter that greeted his question surprised him. Joanna had to wipe the tears from her eyes. ‘Oh Danny,’ she finally managed to say, ‘don’t ever use that word around my mum. Jehovahs don’t get christened—that’s what filthy heathens do. Your mum got baptised, she didn’t get christened.’

  ‘Same difference, isn’t it? So she got baptised.’ He spat out the word as if it were an obscenity. ‘So fucking what?’

  The swearword worked. The laughter stopped.

  Spiro threw back the last of his whiskey. ‘Come on, you,’ he said to his wife. ‘It’s bedtime.’

  Then it was Dan and his mother alone. She poured herself another glass. This time Dan indicated that he wanted one as well.

  He sat patiently, every now and then taking sips from his glass. His mother was quiet for the longest time. He didn’t mind. He knew silence, he understood it. He waited, listening to the sounds of his cousin and her husband preparing for bed.

  His mother had knocked back her drink and poured herself another. She sighed and took his hand across the table. ‘I know it’s hard to understand all this, baby, but I kept it from the three of you because I wanted to protect my children from all this poisonous shit.’

  ‘I don’t get it. Isn’t Joanna a Jehovah’s Witness? Isn’t Spiro?’

  ‘Your cousin Joanna is no longer a Joey—she left it a long time ago. But she never got baptised. That was my sin, Danny:

  I accepted God and then I renounced Him. Your aunt Bettina is making a great sacrifice even talking to me—even being in the same house as me.’ His mother tilted back her head and swallowed the last of her whiskey. ‘I’m damned, mate. I broke my promise to God. She couldn’t forgive me even if she wanted to. For her, for my parents, I am exiled from them forever.’

  She indicated for him to refill her glass. He should have stopped her, he should have got her to bed. Her hand was still clasped tight around his, it was clammy, uncomfortable. He could feel her shame burning through her skin.

  He wanted to tell her so much. About Carlo and prison, about what he knew of disgrace and shame, about what it took to emerge from out of the earth and be able to look up to the sky again. There was so much he wanted to tell her, but he was scared that he did not yet know how to. He needed the silence, he needed to learn how to use words, how to have faith in words again, so he could tell his truth without fumbling and without failing. But he couldn’t, not yet. He had to trust the silence between them and trust her patience.

  ‘I forgave my father,’ she said flatly, her face half in shadow, her profile severe and stark and old in the lamplight. ‘I forgave him before he died. But I can’t find it in me to forgive my mother. I can’t forgive her for staying silent, for never defending me, for being weak, for being so fucking weak. For never stopping him.’

  So Dan was not the first to fail her, to betray her.

  ‘Don’t ever trust the righteous, Dan, no matter how convincing their words may seem. You’ll never be good enough, no matter how much you try. You’ll never be perfect and they’ll never forgive you for that.’

  She was looking down the well of her glass, then she took another long draw from it, spilling some liquid down her chin, onto her white top. Her next words were lost, she spoke them into the whiskey, the sounds unintelligible.

  ‘What did you say, Mum?’

  She held the glass away from her lip, and whispered like a child, ‘He scares me. Sometimes he scares me.’

  ‘Who?’

  Her eyes were searching his. ‘Neal. Your father can be righteous—he frightens me when he’s like that.’ She dropped his hand, put her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh, Danny, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  He rubbed his cold hand on his trouser leg, stretching his fingers to get the blood flowing again. He took the glass from her, ignoring the reproach in her eyes. ‘No more, Mum, you’re exhausted and upset. You need to get some sleep.’

  She had closed her eyes. Had she fallen asleep?

  He first mouthed, then whispered the words: ‘I understand.’

  Her eyes flashed open. The look she gave him was pure gratitude.

  He put his mother to bed, then located the room in which he was to sleep. There was a Finding Nemo mobile hanging from the ceiling, there were posters of Port Adelaide footballers on the wall. He stripped off and slid into the single bed. For a long time he lay there, his ears straining, trying to decipher the sounds of the unfamiliar house. There was a low rumble of traffic somewhere beyond the suburb, the scratching of branches against windows an
d beams. The house didn’t breathe, it didn’t welcome him—it evaded him. He switched on the bedside light, a toy model of Hogwarts, and grabbed the Graham Greene from his backpack. The first light was peeking through the slats of the blinds when he finished the novel, the first light touched his face as he fell asleep.

  Spiro drove them to the hospital. Dan sat in the front passenger seat, the window slightly lowered. The air was crisp; the colours of Adelaide were the cyan of the clear sky, the steely bark on the eucalyptus trees, the weathered sandstone of the buildings. He had no memory of the city, yet the suburbs all seemed familiar, as did the roads, the parks, the office buildings, they all reminded him of the estates and neighbourhoods and malls of Melbourne. Maybe all cities were kin, he mused, maybe all cities shared the same DNA.

  They parked and Spiro led them through reception, to the lifts and up to the second floor where they walked past a common room, the blinds raised to let in the sunlight. In the room there sat a circle of old people, a few of them in wheelchairs, a few slumped over in their seats. Past the nurses’ station, they walked through an empty dining room in which a small radio innocuously bleated out olden days cheap disco music. They turned down a corridor and Joanna knocked on the door numbered eighteen.

  ‘Yes?’ It was Bettina’s voice, gravelly, commanding.

  Spiro opened the door and the family filed in. Dan and his mother were the last to enter, his hand on her shoulder.

  Bettina was sitting by the head of the old woman’s bed; she didn’t acknowledge any of them, not even her daughter. His giagia was lying there, her mouth and eyes open in her skull-like head, but her eyes were unseeing—she was close to being a corpse. It nauseated him to look at her.

  Two men in the room were introduced to him as his uncles; their wives were visiting as well. They were his mother’s brothers, his mother’s sisters-in-law, but they would not look at her. They nodded to Dan, said hello, but he made no attempt to be friendly. He shook the men’s hands because he knew that to do otherwise would have distressed his mother, but he held each hand limply, as they did his.