Mark's day

Mark swims the bay at St Kilda at six-fifteen, the water grey, the catch clean, the arm following slowly, the shoulder clicking once on the fourth stroke and not separating. At Apex he holds pads for Rob and a new fighter named Tessa, twenty-three, who has just moved up from Geelong and is sharp but soft on the back foot. Mark gives her three rounds of notes and she listens. In the afternoon he sits at the kitchen counter on Lygon Street and looks at the granite where the phone sat on Thursday. He opens the drawer and looks at the Manila envelope and does not pick it up, and he closes the drawer. The list runs into autumn and he does not have a date, and he will have a date when Dr Reyes's office rings him.