Praise

by Andrew McGahan

  Rachel, in any case, hadn’t felt the same way about me. But even if she had, she would’ve wanted to know why. It was the way she was. And she would’ve wanted to know why I didn’t know why. And I wouldn’t have known. And that would’ve been it. It would’ve killed things between us. And if I had worked it out, that would’ve killed it too.

  Because maybe it could be worked out.

  And what was life, after all, without the mystery ?

  The conversation rolled on. I lost interest. It was fine to know you were right, not worrying about what love meant, but it was no good being right and being alone. People insisted on expectations. Not that I was alone. I got up and went to the bar for another beer.

  I was drunk. I was worried. Seeing Rachel again was affecting me badly. It was all coming back. Stay away from Rachel, I told myself. It’d fuck me. It’d fuck her. And then there was Cynthia. Cynthia.

  I took my beer and wandered into the next room. I was getting depressed. It was no time for listening to the poets. The next room had a pool table, another bar, and a much bigger crowd. It was mostly men. No one was playing pool. They were all watching the TV that hung above the bar. I found a seat, sat down, and looked up.

  The TV wasn’t on a regular station. It was Sky TV and tonight there was a talent show called ‘Best Chest in the U.S.’. I picked up the format after a few minutes. There were six categories in which a woman could compete, based on the size of her breasts. The first heat was for the smaller women, then the categories went up by bra sizes, until up in the sixth it was for the 38Ds and above. Or something like that. I knew nothing about bra sizes. I only knew that the breasts got larger and larger as the show progressed. There were six entrants in each category. It was held before a live studio audience, with a panel of judges. Each contestant had about twenty seconds to get on stage, dance around, and rip off her top. Then the judges gave a score.

  The crowd in the bar loved it. They whooped and roared. They grew frantic as the tits got bigger. Every face was staring up. They were howling at the women.

  ‘I love you baby,’ they screamed, ‘I LOVE YOU!’

  EIGHTEEN

  My parents still lived on the family farm. It was nearly three hours west of Brisbane, ten miles from Dalby. I went out there for a few days every six weeks or so. The next time it came up, I asked Cynthia if she wanted to go. She said she didn’t. She was working seven days straight at the time. It was getting near Christmas, the pub was busy.

  ‘Okay, I’ll go myself.’

  ‘But I don’t want you to go.’

  ‘It’ll only be for a few days.’

  ‘I don’t want to be alone. What’ll I do?’

  ‘You’ll be working.’

  ‘I don’t want you to go!’

  ‘You’re not being reasonable, you won’t even notice I’m gone ...’

  ‘I’ll notice:

  I went.

  The Buchanan farm was six hundred and sixty acres of black soil cultivation. It was almost perfectly square, perfectly flat and perfectly treeless. No hills, no creeks, no scrub. Just dirt. All the other farms around were the same. I liked it. You walked out the back door and there was almost nothing to see, no matter which way you looked. Except for in the east. There was a range of high hills on the horizon. They were faded blue. Remote. I’d spent a long period of my life staring out at them. It was a hopeless thing. Rachel, and her parents’ farm, lay just on the other side.

  I lazed around the house for a couple of days. Twelve of us had lived there at one stage. Now there were just my parents and me. It was quiet. The food was good.

  I rang the flat a couple of times. There was no answer.

  I drove into Dalby and walked up and down the main street. I didn’t recognise anyone and no one recognised me. I hadn’t really lived there for seven or eight years. I had a beer in one of the pubs. I was the only one in the bar. The old woman behind the counter watched me drink. I left. I got back in the car and drove back to the farm.

  I rang Cynthia. This time she answered.

  ‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘I’ll be home tomorrow.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘How’s it been?’

  ‘What d’you care.’

  Then she hung up.

  I arrived back in Brisbane about two the next afternoon and went straight to the flat. Both the rooms were shut up and hot. Cynthia was lying in bed, face deep in the pillow. I sat down beside her.

  ‘Cynthia, I’m home.’

  ‘I’m not asleep.’

  She rolled over and sat up. She wouldn’t look at me. Her face was puffy and scratched. She looked ill. She’d been crying.

  ‘You okay?’ I said.

  She nodded and lit herself a cigarette. Then she folded her arms across her chest and stared at the foot of the bed. Really stared. It was something crazy people did.

  ‘So did you do anything?’ I asked, ‘How was work?’

  ‘I didn’t go.’

  ‘Cynthia, I’m sorry, but it was only three days.’

  She looked at me. ‘I don’t know anyone in Brisbane, Gordon. There’s nothing I can do if you’re not here. Three days is a long time to be alone. Work’s no good. There’s no one I can talk to at work.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘I lay here for two days,’ she went on, ‘listening for cars in the driveway, just in case you decided to come home early.’

  ‘I called ...’

  ‘I didn’t want to talk to you. I wanted you here.’

  She got up and went off for a shower. I opened all the windows and waited. When she came back she went back to bed. She started crying.

  I lay down beside her.

  ‘Cynthia ...’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be such a bitch.’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘It’s not just that. I lied. I did go to work one night.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I don’t want to tell you this.’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  She didn’t answer.

  I said, ‘Did you spend the night with someone?’

  She nodded. She was still crying.

  ‘Cynthia, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care about things like that.’

  She lifted her head and looked at me. ‘I was just so mad at you.’

  I kissed her. Her face was hot and wet. The little girl face.

  ‘So who was it?’

  ‘Just a guy from the pub. No one you know.’

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘It was okay. It was a fuck.’

  We lay there. I rolled myself a cigarette. ‘Are you gonna do this every time I go away?’

  ‘Don’t laugh at me.’

  ‘Look, Cynthia, you’re crazier about sex than anyone I’ve ever even heard of. I’d be a fool to expect you to limit yourself to me.’

  ‘It’s not that, it’s the reason I did it that gets to me. It’s so childish.’

  ‘Maybe. But don’t kill yourself over it.’

  We started kissing. It built up. I slid down to her cunt, parted the lips, and peered in. I thought, a lot of men have lost it in here. And the thought peered back, who had he been?

  And what did he have?

  Forget it, I told myself.

  In went my tongue.

  NINETEEN

  Next day we received a phone call from Leo. ‘I can get hold of some acid,’ he said. ‘You want some?’

  ‘What’s it cost?’

  ‘Twenty-five dollars a tab. You only need the one.’

  ‘Cynthia,’ I said, ‘Leo can get some acid. You interested?’

  She came running in. ‘Yes. Yes yes yes.’

  ‘She wants some,’ I told Leo, ‘so I guess we’ll need two.’

  He said he’d be over in about an hour.

  Cynthia was gleeful, moving round the flat. ‘I haven’t had a trip in years.’

  ‘He’s getting us one tab each. Is that enough?’

  ‘You’re sure it was tabs, not micro
dots?’

  ‘Tabs.’

  ‘Good. Dots are useless. One tab should be okay, as long as the stuff is good.’

  ‘What is a tab anyway?’

  ‘You really don’t know anything, do you. A tab is a little square of paper that’s been soaked in LSD. A microdot is a tiny little pill. Tabs are usually stronger.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said, ‘this time, we have to get some nitrous.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like Cynthia. This is the one and only drug I can introduce you to.’

  I got dressed and drove to the nearest K-mart. There it was. On special. Two ninety-nine per box. There were ten little bulbs in a box, ten little trips. I picked up four boxes and took them to the checkout. The checkout boy looked at the boxes.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘having a party?’

  ‘I’m whipping cream.’

  He laughed. ‘I’ve never seen anyone over thirty buy this stuff. Whipped cream my arse.’

  I paid the money.

  ‘Y’know what?’ he said, ‘you can get this stuff in big cylinders if you know where to go.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve got a brother who races stock cars. They use it in the pits, I’m not sure what for. But this guy in my brother’s team just goes along to the chemical companies and buys it by the ton.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll remember that.’

  ‘A whole cylinder, man. Think of it.’

  ‘I will.’

  I drove home. On the way I stopped off to get a carton of VB cans. Leo arrived just as we were packing the carton away in the fridge.

  ‘You get it?’

  ‘I got it.’

  Molly was with him. Cynthia gave Leo fifty dollars and we all sat down at the table. Leo took out four small packages of foil, and handed us one each. ‘Now be careful,’ Cynthia said. ‘Don’t touch the tabs with your fingers.’

  We unwrapped the foil. Inside was a small square of paper. I watched Cynthia. She lifted the foil and tipped the paper onto her tongue.

  ‘Should I swallow it or suck it?’ I asked her.

  ‘I always suck it for a while, but some people say you should just swallow. I don’t think it really matters.’

  I tipped the tab onto my tongue and held it there long enough to see if there was any taste. There wasn’t. I swallowed it. Leo and Molly had already done the same.

  We sat there.

  ‘How long will it take?’

  ‘About half an hour,’ Cynthia said. ‘Drugs like this are great, y’know. No matter what you take, smack or acid or ecstasy, once you’ve actually taken it you don’t have to worry about the day any more. The drug’ll handle it for you. You don’t have to make any effort. It’s like handing your life over to someone else for a while.’

  ‘Sounds good to me. The less I have to do with this life, the better ...’

  We waited.

  We drank beer and turned on the TV. There was a one-day cricket match on. We watched it. We all liked the cricket. After about twenty minutes the tips of my fingers began to go numb. I looked at my fingers, flexed them, lifted my arm. It felt light, almost weightless. I watched the screen for a few more minutes. The conversation had stopped. The screen seemed brighter than before, the movements of the players more subtle, more profound. Then Cynthia started laughing.

  ‘Oh shit,’ she said.

  Things got blurred. We watched the cricket, talked, paced around the room, listened to music. My body felt invulnerable, easy and smooth and fast. I didn’t have my usual stutter. I talked with style. Real style.

  Then my vision was tunnelling. Whatever was directly in front of me was huge and intricate and I understood it completely, but on the peripherals, shadows loomed. It got worse. The room was getting bigger. Our voices echoed around it. The ceiling started moving down. I could hear it breathing. I could see it breathing. ‘Come outside,’ said Cynthia. I followed her out into the back yard. Trees were exploding from the ground.

  ‘Jesus,’ I said, ‘look at that.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The trees, the trees. And oh fuck, the sky.’

  We sat out there for an hour or so. Then Cynthia said, ‘Let’s go for a drive.’

  We went back inside to get some more beer. Leo and Molly were lying together on the couch. Molly’s top was mostly undone. It all looked much better than the last time I’d seen it.

  ‘We’re going driving. You wanna come?’

  ‘You kidding?’ said Leo.

  ‘Cynthia’s driving. It’ll be fine. She knows exactly what she’s doing.’

  Molly shook her head. Leo shrugged.

  Cynthia and I went out to the car. Cynthia got behind the wheel. ‘Where to?’

  ‘There’s a park, I’ll give you directions.’

  We drove.

  ‘We’ve gotta fuck on this, sooner or later,’ I said

  ‘There’s plenty of time.’

  My eyes roved. It was late afternoon. There was a huge sunset building in the west. From where I sat, it was looking dangerous. People were running away from it, ducking their heads, making for home.

  The park I was aiming for wasn’t far. We’d found it and piled out with our beer. A police car cruised past, checked us out, drove on. We climbed up the hill.

  And suddenly we were on top of the city. We were alone. On three sides the hill dropped away to nothing. We wandered from view to view, laughing at each other. A couple of kids. Hippie clichés. On the edge of the hill were some swings. The city and the warehouses and the river spread out below us. We started swinging, beers in hand. We got them right up high. The chains shrieked. It was terrifying and good. We swung into the sunset.

  ‘I love you!’ Cynthia screamed, way up in the air.

  Eventually we stopped swinging.

  ‘What now?’ I asked.

  ‘We drive.’

  We headed south along the freeway for a while, then swung off east into the suburbs and onwards along the bush roads towards the coast. It was dark by then. The headlights were on. Cynthia picked up speed. Eighty, a hundred, a hundred and twenty, a hundred and forty — it was as fast as the old Kingswood could go. We were on a road that rolled up and down the hills. We bounced along. I stuck my head out the window. Sucked in the air.

  Cynthia said, ‘Watch this.’

  We hit the top of a hill. I could see the road stretching down. Then Cynthia flicked off the lights. She floored the accelerator. We roared down in pitch darkness. I screamed. Cynthia screamed. The car bottomed out and started climbing. Cynthia flicked the lights back on. We were on the wrong side of the road, verging on gravel. Cynthia righted the car and we breasted the hill.

  She pounded the wheel. ‘This car has wings.’

  Down we went and out went the lights. This time the road, in the moment I’d seen it, hadn’t looked so straight. It curved. It curved ninety degrees.

  ‘Turn the fucking lights on!’ I screamed.

  Cynthia laughed, a banshee laugh. I looked at the speed. A hundred and fifty.

  ‘TURN THE FUCKING THINGS ON!’

  She did it. We were off the road, two wheels in dirt.

  ‘Shit!’ said Cynthia. She braked, swung the wheel. The back slid out. We were spinning. I felt the car tilt, knew it would roll. I clutched onto the door. We went round once, twice. We started round again and then it stopped. We were on the road, facing back the way we’d come, clouds of dust billowing past us.

  Cynthia was laughing, shrieking. ‘Did you see that, did you see that!’

  I let go of the door.

  ‘You crazy bitch. You crazy fucking bitch.’

  ‘Oh shut up, we’re all right.’

  ‘All right?!’

  She turned the ignition, hit the accelerator.

  By the time we got back to the flat the acid was running down. We went inside. Leo and Molly were smoking, drinking and watching TV. I went into the bedroom. The sheets were all over the place. ‘You guys have been fucking in here.’
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  ‘So hey ...’ said Leo, ‘where’ve you been?’

  ‘Driving,’ said Cynthia.

  We all looked at each other.

  The problem with going up was coming down.

  I remembered the nitrous.

  ‘I’ve got some nitrous,’ I said.

  Leo sat up. ‘You’ve got some nitrous?’

  ‘I do. I have some nitrous.’

  I brought out the four boxes. I put them on the table. Then I went and found the soda syphon.

  It gave us about ten minutes each, off the planet.

  TWENTY

  Cynthia’s period was late.

  She liked her periods. She liked the flow. It was smooth, it was deep. It turned her on. When she was a week overdue, she went to the Family Planning clinic in the Valley.

  She came back after about twenty minutes. ‘I couldn’t see anyone today. They made me an appointment for tomorrow. I made one for you too.’

  ‘For me?’

  She handed me a leaflet. And there it was, in big bold letters. PREMATURE EJACULATION. I looked at it.

  I said, ‘Do you think they could do anything?’

  ‘It couldn’t hurt.’

  ‘No. It couldn’t.’

  I read it through.

  ‘Right,’ I said, ‘get undressed.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Now.’

  We were on the floor. I was on top. I moved in.

  ‘One,’ I said. ‘Two. Three. Four.’

  ‘Gordon.’

  ‘Five. Six. Seven. Eight.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m counting the thrusts. The doctors will need some numbers. They can’t help me without information. Nine. Ten. Eleven.’

  ‘You can’t count! You can’t count and fuck. It’s evil.’

  ‘Sex is evil. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.’

  ‘You bastard. You won’t make it past fifty.’

  ‘Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.’

  ‘You won’t make it past forty!’

  ‘I’ll make to one hundred. I’ll make it to one hundred and twenty.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘Eighteen! Nineteen! Twenty!’

  She was pumping back. ‘You’re gonna come! You’re hopeless. You’re not even gonna make it to thirty!’