Look to the water, that’s all that matters. Don’t think about the other boys.
Will you blow that whistle, will you please blow that whistle. The sound is screechy but thin. I am like a coiled spring. I don’t know how it is I am on the starting block. It’s like I moved through time. I am on the starting block, I am nearly there. I rein myself in. This is the moment I always have to watch it. In my second race, I slipped up and dived too early, and was disqualified. I didn’t want to get back in the pool for weeks, I was such a sook. I just couldn’t forget it, couldn’t get it out of my head or my sleep or my daydreams—how could I have been so stupid, how could I have been so hopeless? I’m never going to be that stupid again.
On your marks.
She’s called it. I put my right foot forward, I arch my arms. And then I stop thinking.
Don’t think, just listen.
She’s putting the whistle to her mouth, I can almost hear the slip of her spit over the metal. But it’s some other sense, it’s not hearing or seeing, I just know she’s about to blow the whistle. I have my arms out in front of me. The sound this time is strong, she’s blown with all the force of her lungs. And I’m ready. I leap and—just for a second, just a flash in time—I know that I am faster than the sound and I am entering the water before the sound has reached the other boys’ ears. I am in the water. I’m away.
It’s easy. Not that I’m not working for it, not that I can’t feel my muscles twisting and turning, turning and twisting, all up my arms, all down my legs. I can feel them working hard. But still it’s easy. What I don’t understand, what I can’t work out, is how it can all be still. Not that I’m not racing down the lane, not that my strokes aren’t splitting the water, not that my kicks aren’t thrashing the water. But it’s like I know the water doesn’t mind, that the water is guiding me and so I am swimming in stillness. I see it as a tunnel that the water makes for me, but a tunnel filled with bright blue and white light, a light so bright I can’t tell where the blue is white and where the white is blue. I sense, as though the water is explaining it to me, it is somehow whispering it to me without words, that other boys are not capable of calming the water, they don’t know how to do that. In the lane to my right the boy is punching hard, water churns and erupts around him but it is defeating him. I’m at the turn and he’s still struggling to reach it. I am away. All around me the water is in an agitated panic but where I am, there is the stillness.
It’s over too soon. I don’t want to stop but I slap the tile and I start to shiver. The cold has gone through me. I am trembling. I look up at the benches where they’re jumping up and down, making noises like wolves and dogs, sounding like the big birds in the aviary at the zoo. But I look for Demet’s face, I search for my father. Demet isn’t going spaz, she’s just got the biggest smile on her face and she’s swinging her Carlton scarf around and around. And next to her, Dad’s only half-smiling, only a little smile, but that’s all I need. He winks at me.
I’ve won.
I wish I could stop time, I wish I could make life a movie where you can stop time and be frozen forever. It feels so good, all the warmth in the world is coming from the centre of me, even though my teeth are chattering, even though I’m shivering. I nod, shake my head at all the other boys, at the boy who came second and the boy who came third, but I don’t even see them. I can’t stop time. I have to move. I have to get out of the water.
There’s a lady with a camera who grabs me after I’ve changed, says she’s from the local paper, says can she take my picture. I look to Dad, who nods. I hold up the trophy they’ve given me, I hold it up and beam at her. Demet and Dad, Boz and Sava, Mia, Shelley and Yianni, they’re all waiting for me, Sava is pulling dumb faces trying to make me laugh. But I just beam at the camera. I hold the trophy up high.
In the station wagon, heading home, Dad asks Yianni and Sava to keep low until he can drop them off. He doesn’t want to get in trouble with the police. Mia and Shelley are buckled up in the back seat; Boz, who is a shorty, is in the middle. Yianni and Sava are lying flat in the back, I can imagine them, trying to lie as flat as they can. Arms tight by their side, loving it, loving that my dad is letting them ride like this. That’s why everyone adores my mum and my dad, because of what Mum and Dad let them get away with. I am in the front seat, with Dad, and Demet is in the middle. Dad has his weird music on, old music from long ago, the music Dem calls skinny music, but she is swinging her legs in time to it, making up words and singing along. I am holding on to my trophy.
Dem turns to me. ‘Can I hold it?’
‘’Course.’ I give her the trophy. She doesn’t even look at it, she just holds it clutched to her chest, smiling, banging her feet, making up words to a song she’s never heard.
We drop off the others, pick up burgers and fish and chips, and we’re heading home. But I’m so hungry that the smell of the food is making me dizzy. I rip open the bag containing the hamburger, and I stuff it in my mouth in four or five bites, the sauce dripping down onto my trackie daks, onto my shirt, I don’t care, it feels so good to eat. Dem is laughing at my appetite but when we get home, she scowls. There is a new sign up in front of her house, her house next door to ours. It reads: Auction. There’s going to be an auction in a month. She does something then she’s been doing since she and I were kids: she wraps her Carlton scarf tight around her hands, like she’s a prisoner. Except now my trophy is caught up in the middle of it; it kind of looks like she has three hands.
Everyone’s in our backyard. Regan is playing in the small blue sandpit and little Theo is pushing his Thomas the Tank Engine around on the grass. Mrs Celikoglu is sitting on a kitchen chair and Mum is behind her, scissors in one hand and a comb in the other, doing her hair. Mr Celikoglu is sitting on the steps to the kitchen, drinking a beer and listening glumly to the radio. Carlton must be losing.
I grab the trophy from Demet but it’s caught in her scarf and won’t come loose. I start tugging harder and she yells at me, ‘Stop it, Danny, that hurts.’
‘I want to show Mum!’ I don’t mean to but it sounds like I’m whining.
Demet jerks her hands apart and the trophy falls, clang, on the concrete. I rush to pick it up but there’s a scratch, a dull streak across the polished aluminium surface. Demet puts her hand up to her mouth, she’s going to start crying, I know it, and I have to stop her doing it. I can’t bear it when Demet cries. No one else’s crying hurts. Only hers. When she cries it’s like I want to cry too.
I’m shaking my head. ‘It’s alright, Dem,’ I lie. ‘It’s alright, it’s OK, the trophy is OK.’
‘So how’d you go?’ asks Mum.
Dad is standing behind me and he puts his hands on my shoulders. He kisses the top of my head and gently pushes me towards her. ‘Our son is the Under-Twelve Northern Region Freestyle Champion. How’s that? How bloody good is that?’
And then Theo is holding fast to my legs and Regan is giving me a high-five and Mum hugs me and Mrs Celikoglu kisses me and Mr Celikoglu lightly pinches my nose shut, his palm caresses my cheek. ‘You champion, Danny,’ he says kindly. ‘You champion.’
But it all goes, it goes too quickly. The fish and the chips, the potato cakes and the burgers, they’ve all gone and Dad has put a record on, he and Mr Celikoglu are discussing politics and Mum is back to doing Mrs Celikoglu’s hair and Theo is demanding Regan play with him. It always goes so quickly. I can’t bend and shape time the way I can water. I want to be back in that moment just after I won the race, just when I knew that there is something I can do so well that I might one day be the best in the world at it. I want that feeling back.
Demet and her mother are arguing. Her mother snaps, says something sharp in Turkish.
‘It’s OK, Dem,’ I say. ‘You’re just moving down the road. We’ll still be able to see each other all the time.’
‘And it is closer to your new school, for next year,’ Mr Celikoglu says. ‘It is just a short walk and you are at school. Danny can pick you
up on the way.’
Dem and I glance quickly at one another. I am excited and I am scared. High school. We’ll be in high school next year and the Celikoglus are moving. Winning, the thrill of it, has all gone. I want to get back in the water.
‘I hate the new house.’ Dem has folded her arms and looks mutinously at her mother.
‘Oh, don’t be silly, child. It is much bigger—you and your brother can have your own rooms. You’ll like it very much.’
‘I won’t.’
‘You will.’
I hold my breath. Dem can lose it and when she does she screams and yells and says the worst things to her mother. But she doesn’t go off, instead she turns to me.
‘It’s OK, Danny is going to buy us a big big house and we’ll all live there together. There’ll be . . . there’ll be heaps of rooms and . . . and . . .’ she’s scrunching up her eyes, trying to think of something that will shock and impress her mother, ‘. . . there’ll be three bathrooms. And you’re not going to be allowed to live there.’ She grins, pleased with herself.
‘Ah,’ her father is grinning too, ‘and how is Danny going to pay for such a mansion? Do you think it is fair that only Danny pays? You must pay your half as well.’
‘Nah.’ Dem’s eyes are shining, she is looking at me and her eyes are sparkling like stars. ‘Danny is going to be a world champion swimmer. He’s going to win massive amounts of gold medals and he’s going to be really famous and really rich. Tell them, Danny, tell them!’ She’s looking at me, her eyes are stars in the night sky.
My father’s been lying on his back on the blanket, and he now gets up on one elbow. ‘That right, Danny? Is that what you want?’
I want to be back in the water, in that quietness that is only in the water. I’m angry that Dem has let out our secret and I’m scared because I don’t know what Dad is thinking behind his eyes. I know what Dem is thinking, and it’s obvious there’s delight in Mum’s eyes. But I can’t tell with Dad. It feels like a test and I don’t know why.
He lies back down and puts his hands behind his head for a cushion. ‘Son, you’ve got plenty of time. You’ve got plenty of time to work out what you want to do with your life.’
No, he’s wrong. I’ve started, I’m panicking because I realise that he doesn’t know I have started.
‘But I know already, Dad,’ I insist. ‘I’m going to be a champion swimmer. That’s what I’m going to be.’
It’s like my words have made the world stop. Except for the radio, the radio blaring out the scores at three-quarter time.
Mr Celikoglu breaks the silence. ‘Good, that’s good, son. You will be a champion and you will buy us all big big houses to live in.’ He gently kicks my dad’s leg. ‘You should be proud of your son, Neal, he’s a good boy.’
I hold my breath. There is a tap-tap-tapping in the pit of my stomach; the source of me is not my heart, it is something else, something even more important than my heart. It is what makes me know I am going to win. I am sure of it, that in everything I do I will win.
‘I am,’ answers my father, peering up at the blue sky, the golden sun, reading my future up there in that ocean of light. ‘I am very proud of him.’
I breathe out.
Winter Solstice 2012
�Not today, Victor, I�m not putting up with any nonsense today, you hear me?�
Victor wouldn�t take off his clothes. He was standing in the change rooms with his arms crossed, a rebellious scowl on his face.
�Come on, mate.� Dan tried one more time. �Get changed.�
Victor shook his head and sat down on the bench, his arms still folded.
�Righto, then, you stay here. I�m going in.�
Dan quickly kicked off his shoes and stripped off his clothes. As he stepped into his boardshorts he noticed Victor slyly peeking across at him. Dan pushed his clothes into his backpack, slung it over his shoulder, his towel and goggles in his hand. �OK, mate, I�m going out to the pool. I�ll see you there.�
Victor�s response was to stamp his feet and start braying, his roars so outraged and desperate that the other man in the change room left with his shirt still unbuttoned, carrying his shoes and socks.
Dan didn�t turn around, he continued walking purposefully to the door.
�Please, please!� Dan was sure the whole pool could hear Victor. �Wait for me, wait for me!�
Dan went back and put his backpack on the bench, and put an arm around Victor, who had tears rolling down his face. �OK, mate, it�s OK, I�m here.�
Victor nodded, sniffing, and went to unbutton his shirt but his fingers kept slipping. He stopped, shrugged, and without a word let Dan do it for him.
�Hands up,� said Dan, and Victor obeyed, raising his arms like a child. Dan pulled off the heavy cotton shirt. Victor�s skin was chestnut-coloured, smooth, except for the wiry black briars under his arms and the trickle of flattened hair around his plump belly. Victor stood up and crossed his arms again.
Dan wanted to order him to take off his own bloody trackpants, to shout at him, Come on, mate, you can do this. But he didn�t want more tears or games. In one motion he pulled down both Victor�s trackpants and his navy Y-fronts. Victor�s shrivelled cock, the skin almost indigo there, flip-flopped and Dan caught a whiff of something mustardy, soiled. �Up,� he ordered, and Victor lifted one foot and then the other. Dan whipped the pants and jocks from under him, then searched through Victor�s sports bag for his swimmers and almost threw them at him. �I�m not putting them on for you. You can do that yourself.� Victor sniggered, as if suddenly aware of his nudity, and started carefully guiding one leg into the shorts. Dan pummelled Victor�s gear into the bag, then hoisted it and his own across his shoulder.
�Finally,� he muttered. �Finally we can get bloody started.�
It was Dan�s favourite time in the pool, not yet ten in the morning, the office workers had done their laps and gone, the school buses had not yet arrived. All the lanes were empty except the fast lane where a solitary swimmer, a lithe long-limbed woman, was swimming determined, measured laps.
Dan walked behind Victor as the young man shuffled around the pool to the shallow end. Dan got in front of him and jumped into the water, then held out his hand. Victor was shaking from cold, even though the air in the pool area was humid and lines of condensation were seeping down the windows. Victor leaned over and warily took Dan�s hand, then crouched and half fell into the water. Dan pulled him up, and Victor emerged, spluttering, and made straight for the steps out of the pool.
�No, no, mate,� Dan whispered encouragingly, wrapping his arms tight around Victor�s belly, saying shhh into his ear until he relaxed and his hands stopped thrashing. �It�s OK, Victor,� he said calmly. �You just slipped, but we�re in the shallow end. There�s nothing to worry about.� Victor fell back onto Dan, no longer struggling.
Dan was teaching Victor how to swim again, reminding him how to breathe, when to hold his breath and when to expel it, showing him how to coordinate his arms and his legs, when to push back in the water, when to move forward, how to balance and feel safe in the water. Every time Victor forgot one of the instructions�and it happened often in the hour they had together: forgetting when to fill his lungs with air, misjudging when to kick and sinking under the water�Dan was there, to hold him, to reassure him, to repeat the instructions.
�One day,� he�d insist, �one day, you�re going to get into this pool and you won�t have to think about any of this, you�ll just jump in the water and it will be like walking, like breathing. It will all come naturally.�
Except he knew that for Victor none of it could come naturally. He�d even had to learn how to walk again, had to be taught how to breathe properly. But Dan kept saying that to Victor because he knew that Victor understood that everything could be relearned�how to feel his muscles in his mind and get them to work again, how to remember to inhale and exhale without the assistance of a machine�it could be
taught and it could be learned, how to navigate the world again. What had once been so natural to him that he had not had to think about it since he was an infant, all those instincts had had to be relearned after the night he�d picked up two drunk teenagers in his taxi in the city and drove them to Keilor Park. When he�d asked them to pay the fare the one in the back punched him in the head and the one in the front pulled him out of the cab and into a dark suburban street, where they kicked and kicked and kicked at Victor�s head and chest and balls and cock and back and neck and left him for dead. After that, Victor had had to learn how to breathe and move and walk again.
And to swim again.
�He would swim all the time,� Prasangi had told Dan the first time he�d gone to their place to take Victor for a swim. She�d explained that near their village in the north of Sri Lanka, the sea was warm and gentle, and they�d loved swimming. Victor�s wife spoke shyly, so quietly that Dan had to lean close to hear her. She�d told him how Victor had chosen his English name even before they had emigrated to Australia, even before he�d saved for years to get them there. �You will teach him to swim again, yes?� she had enquired. Dan had wanted to tell her that he knew what it was to have to start over. �Yes,� he had replied instead, �I will teach him to swim again.�
It was the shortest day of the year and the wind was merciless, the rain falling in diagonal slivers and blades. Dan ducked into Box Hill Plaza, past the Vietnamese shops displaying their synthetic-looking pink and scarlet slabs of pork belly, ribs and chops, past the Chinese grocers, the Greek delis, the Asian bakeries and the food court, and out onto the street, flipping up the collar of his windbreaker to his chin, and in the open-air mall he slipped into Russell�s coffee shop.
Russell was slouched behind the coffee machine, speaking Mandarin to the new young waiter in his white shirt and black pants. His face broke into a grin on seeing Dan. �How are you doing, man?� he chortled. �How is Danny the Greek?� He unleashed a rush of words and the young waiter rushed to the coffee machine.
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