Praise

by Andrew McGahan

  I pumped back. ‘TWENTY-ONE! TWENTY-TWO!’

  ‘C’mon, fuck me, fuck me.’

  ‘TWENTY-THREE! TWENTY-FOUR!’

  ‘You’re losing it, I can feel it.’

  ‘Bullshit. You’re losing it. You’re gonna come first.’

  ‘No chance.’

  ‘You can’t help it. You can’t stop yourself. Thirty. Thirty-one. Thirty-two.’

  We ground away. I lifted her legs up around my neck. I leaned forward. I was driving straight down. Nudging her bowels. ‘Thirty-nine. Forty. Forty-one. Forty-two.’ I was in control. I had her. My prick was working for once.

  ‘FIFTY. FIFTY-ONE.’

  ‘You bastard, you bastard ...’

  ‘SIXTY!

  ‘SEVENTY!’

  ‘EIGHTY!’

  ‘NINETY!’

  Cynthia threw her head back on the linoleum. ‘Oh fuck you.’ She drove it in. She was coming. I slammed out the last ones.

  ‘ONE HUNDRED AND NINE! ONE HUNDRED AND TEN!’

  ‘Stop!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ve come! ‘I’ve finished!’

  ‘No. One hundred and eleven. One hundred and twelve.’

  ‘It hurts ...’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘Fuck. Fuck:

  ‘You’re gonna do it again, you’re gonna do it again before I do.’

  ‘Try it.’

  ‘I’m gonna make two hundred. I’m gonna make three hundred.’

  I ground and sweated and pumped. I could feel it building. Cynthia was past the pain, she was grinding back. Her teeth were bared. She was snarling at me. It built and built and built. And then it was there.

  ‘ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FUCKING FIVE!’

  TWENTY-ONE

  We sat in the Family Planning waiting room, holding hands. I was the only man there. The women looked at me. Looked at Cynthia. Back to me. The air was hostile. What’ve you done to her?

  Cynthia was called first. I sat there alone in enemy territory. Then I was called. The doctor ushered me in. She took down my name and particulars, then asked me what the problem was.

  ‘I’m coming too fast.’

  ‘I see. Exactly how fast do you mean? Before penetration?’

  ‘No, but not all that long afterwards.’

  ‘Could you say exactly how long?’

  ‘Well, we counted it yesterday. It wasn’t a very good indication. It went on for a hundred and eighty thrusts ... but I’d say usually it’s about half that. Or less than half, maybe a third.’

  Thrusts? What was I doing, talking about thrusts? This was ludicrous.

  She wrote it down. ‘A third, you say. And it’s usually like that?’

  ‘Well, often enough to be annoying. Sometimes it’s better the second or third time. And sometimes it’s not a problem at all. Especially if I’ve been drinking. That tends to slow things down.’

  ‘Mmm. So you drink, do you? How often would you say you drank?’

  ‘Oh, three or four nights a week.’

  ‘And you get drunk on these nights?’

  ‘It depends. Mostly, I suppose.’

  ‘Do you think you’d have more than forty-five drinks a week?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘You realise that’s considered heavy drinking?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Why do you drink?’

  ‘I enjoy it.’

  ‘Do you need it to socialise?’

  ‘I enjoy socialising more if I’m drinking.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘It’s just more fun. But like I said, I don’t come that fast when I’m drunk.’

  She nodded. ‘The level of your drinking could become a problem, you know. Does your partner drink as much as you do?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘Well, you both could have problems.’

  We looked at each other.

  ‘So what do you think I should do about coming?’

  She sighed. ‘Well, it doesn’t sound that severe, but if you want, you can enrol in a programme we have. We’ll teach you ways of developing control through manipulation of breathing, better understanding of your own reactions, cooperative movements from your partner and so forth. The course we run is for couples, so your partner would have to come along as well. You can sign on at the desk.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Cut down on the drinking.’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  I went back into the waiting room. Cynthia wasn’t there. I waited for a while then wandered out onto the street. I saw a newsagent up on the corner. I walked up and bought a paper. I browsed through the magazines. I saw Cynthia coming and went out.

  ‘There you are,’ she said.

  ‘How’d it go? Are you pregnant?’

  ‘Nothing. The test was negative. But they’re not sure why my period is so late.’

  ‘But you’re definitely not pregnant?’

  ‘They said if it didn’t come within the next week to go back for another test. Sometimes pregnancy doesn’t show up on the first test.’

  ‘Well, we should celebrate.’

  We started walking back to the car. Cynthia said, ‘How did things go with you?’

  ‘I’m not sure. The doctor didn’t seem to care much about my ejaculations. She just wanted to know about my drinking.’

  ‘Your drinking?’

  ‘She said we were drinking too much.’

  ‘We don’t drink that much. We’re not professionals, that’s for sure. What did she say about fucking?’

  ‘She didn’t say anything, just that we could join a training programme if we wanted to. It’s for couples. You’d have to come along too.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Not interested?’

  ‘No. Fuck it. You’ll do.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  A week went by. It was now only a few days to Christmas. Cynthia was working almost every day at the Queen’s Arms. Christmas parties. She collected big tips. We drank them away.

  I was planning on spending most of Christmas Day with the family. I invited Cynthia along. She said no. She was working late on Christmas Eve and all day on Boxing Day. She planned to spend Christmas Day in bed. I went shopping and bought her a Christmas present. I got two books. Elias Canetti’s Auto da Fe, and Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker. I’d already read them, but I’d lost my own copies.

  Cynthia’s period did not arrive.

  ‘I can’t be pregnant,’ she said. ‘I’d know. I’d feel pregnant. Something must be wrong. I bet it’s cancer. Cervical cancer. All that fucking around when I was a kid.’

  ‘Which would you prefer? Pregnancy or cancer?’

  ‘Christ. What sort of question is that?’

  On the last working day before Christmas, we went back to Family Planning. This time Cynthia went in alone. I waited in the car.

  Half an hour went by. I got out of the car, walked up to the newsagent, bought a newspaper, went back to the car and read it through. Now it was an hour. I was parked beside a boarding house. I watched an old man walk back and forth along the verandah. He had a wet butterfly-shaped stain on the front of his pants.

  I thought about bowel cancer. There were three doctors in my family. I’d heard a lot about it. Then I remembered that during birth, a woman shits all over the place. Her anus could dilate to the size of a cricket ball. Not to mention what her cunt is going through. I thought about tearing. About the vagina and the anus ripping open into one huge crevasse. I rolled a cigarette. The time passed.

  Then Cynthia appeared. She was walking down towards me. I tried to read her expression. It didn’t seem bad, it didn’t seem good. I leaned over and unlocked the passenger door. She opened it.

  ‘How’d it go?’

  ‘Six weeks pregnant,’ she said. ‘I’m due in July.’

  She got in, closed the door. We drove home.

  We went to bed and fucked.

  Then we lay there, smoking.

  �
��So what’ll we do?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know. They gave me the number of Children by Choice, if I want an abortion.’

  Abortions, technically, were not available on demand in Queensland. The legislation was loose, though — if the mother was deemed to be in any physical or emotional danger from the baby, she could go ahead with a termination. I knew there was at least one abortion clinic in Brisbane, and another one down across the border in New South Wales.

  ‘What d’you think?’ Cynthia asked.

  ‘I don’t think I’d be any use to you with a kid.’

  ‘Would you leave me if I had the baby?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’d try not to, but in the long run, I couldn’t say. Look at my life, Cynthia. Where would a child fit in?’

  She was silent for a while.

  Then she said, ‘So I have to choose between you and the baby?’

  ‘I don’t know. Do you want it?’

  ‘In some ways, yes I do.’

  Silence.

  I was thinking about a poem I’d written when I was fifteen. It was about abortion. I was against it then. I considered abortion to be murder. Legalised murder. And my opinion hadn’t changed so much. I still thought that it was legalised murder. But now legalised murder didn’t seem so bad. Self-defence was legalised murder. And an abortion seemed like self-defence for Cynthia and me, there in the bed. The baby was innocent, perhaps, but it could still be a killer.

  Cynthia got up and went into the next room. I heard her pick up the phone, dial, talk, then hang up. She came back.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘I called Children by Choice.’

  She climbed back into bed. We lay side by side. Our hips and shoulders were touching.

  ‘If I have to choose,’ she said, ‘I’ll take you.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  On Christmas morning I gave Cynthia the books. She gave me a black shirt and three pairs of red underpants.

  ‘Cynthia, I can’t wear these.’

  ‘But you’d look so cute. I hate those things you wear.’

  All the underpants I owned were dark blue. I didn’t bother with wearing them much anyway.

  ‘I like the shirt, but I am not going to wear these things.’

  She sighed. ‘I’ll wear them. You’re no fun at all.’

  ‘Look, would you wear a garter belt and stockings if I bought them for you?’

  ‘Of course I would.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘You never would buy me garter belts and stockings.’

  ‘No, that’s very true.’

  She looked at me. ‘It would’ve been a nice kid, you know, between you and me. It would’ve had your skin.’

  ‘Somehow I think your genes would’ve dominated.’

  ‘It would’ve been nice, all the same.’

  ‘You can still have it, y’know.’

  ‘No. It’s funny, though. I was so sure I’d be infertile. It’s good to know I can at least have kids when I want them.’

  We ate breakfast. Then I went off to be with the family. Cynthia went back to bed.

  The family was gathering at the house of one of my brothers and his wife. Everyone was there. My parents, the ten original children, the six in-laws, the two prospective in-laws, and the sixteen grandchildren. Presents were exchanged. Unwrapped. Then it was into the champagne and beer. It was good. Everyone got along. We’d done pretty well to manage that, considering.

  And then, after a long lunch, we removed ourselves to a nearby park to play cricket. Cricket was always a serious thing with the family. The teams went along hereditary lines. The ten Buchanan children formed a team called the Originals. The eight in-laws formed a team called the Outlaws. And the four grandchildren who were old enough to hold a bat formed a mercenary squad called the Byproducts. Three of them served with the Outlaws. The fourth partnered with the Originals to make up the eleven.

  The Originals won the toss and elected to bowl. I wandered out to deep mid-off and found a tree to sit under. I had beer, and my pouch of tobacco. I sat down. I looked at the sun and waited.

  ‘Gordon, are you ready out there?’

  ‘I’m ready! I’m keen!’

  Not that it mattered. Nothing came my way all afternoon. I bowled a few overs. Drank beer. Watched the wickets tumble. The Outlaws were all out for seventy-nine. Then it was our turn.

  We started badly. By the time I fronted up we were four for twenty-seven. The light was in decline. My partner and I conferred mid-wicket. It was my younger brother Michael. Our last recognised batsman. He actually played club cricket occasionally, but only in the lower grades, and even then as a bowler. And not a very good bowler. Still, he was all we had left.

  ‘Farm the strike,’ he told me.

  I faced up. I was drunk. Everyone was. At least one of the milder in-laws was bowling. His first ball to me was gentle. I danced up. I swung. I missed. The keeper missed. The ball trickled away.

  ‘Run!’ Michael screamed.

  We swerved down the pitch. One of the slips fielded. Threw. Missed. The ball scooted away to the boundary. Four overthrows. Five runs. I picked up my beer from behind the stumps. Not so bad, I thought, for a number six.

  We conferred mid-wicket.

  Michael looked at me closely. ‘That was pathetic.’

  ‘I know.’ I drank from my beer. ‘So now what?’

  ‘Okay. Here’s the plan. We don’t take singles. Just run when I tell you.’

  ‘That sounds fine.’

  We returned to our respective ends.

  Of the next thirty runs scored, I was responsible for four. Then Michael edged one to second slip and it was five for sixty-two. The next man in was Louise. The pathologist.

  We conferred mid-wicket.

  ‘Farm the strike,’ I told her.

  We were all out for sixty-seven.

  An hour later I called Cynthia.

  ‘I’m drunk,’ I said. ‘Do you wanna get a cab over here?’

  ‘You said you wouldn’t drink too much.’

  ‘But we played cricket.’

  ‘Okay. I understand. I’ll be over.’

  She was there not long afterwards. She had a couple of beers, played with some of the younger grandchildren, then looked at me.

  ‘We should go.’

  ‘Okay.’

  On the way home she started crying.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘You’re so fucking lucky, having a family like that.’

  ‘I know. It can be a bit much sometimes, but still, I know.’

  ‘I wish I was in Darwin. I rang Mum and Dad before. They were having lunch with some friends. They were happy.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I really am.’

  She drove in silence for a while.

  Then she said, ‘Has anyone in your family had an abortion?’

  ‘I don’t know. Someone might have. I wouldn’t necessarily be told about it.’

  ‘Are you going to tell them about ours?’

  ‘No. What about you and your parents?’

  ‘Christ, no.’

  We got home, cooked spaghetti for dinner, and watched TV.

  Cynthia said, ‘I didn’t get any sleep today. I started reading Auto da Fe and couldn’t stop. He does terrible things to the reader.’

  ‘Wait until you get to the end.’

  ‘I don’t think I want to. I’ve cried enough already.’

  I couldn’t stay awake. The day’s drinking was catching up. I went to bed.

  Cynthia came in some time later and woke me up. I looked at the clock. Three hours had gone by.

  ‘What’ve you been doing?’

  ‘Watching TV,’ she said, ‘I’ve been watching the Christmas specials.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  We were lying in bed. It was late afternoon.

  Cynthia had visited Children by Choice. The abortion was booked for the first working day after New Year’s. The Tweed Heads Clinic. In the morning, ten thirty. We’d have to be on
the road by nine to make it.

  We were reading the leaflets CBC had given her. She would be having a general anaesthetic. It would be her first time.

  ‘What if I die?’

  ‘You won’t die.’

  ‘But people do, all the time.’

  ‘You’ll be okay ...’

  ‘And look, I can’t eat the night before. I can’t even smoke. How the fuck can I not smoke?’

  ‘It’ll be bad, Cynthia, I understand that.’

  ‘And no sex for two weeks afterwards!’

  ‘You’ll hardly feel like it, surely.’

  She looked down at me.

  ‘Well,’ I said.

  I was lying with my head on her stomach. There was a foetus just inches away from my ear.

  It’s tough, I thought.

  Cynthia was still looking down. ‘Oh God ... they’re gonna scrape the poor little bastard out.’

  She gripped my head and forced it down into her belly.

  I was trying not to think about it.

  The phone rang. Cynthia got it. ‘It’s someone called Maree,’ she told me.

  I looked at her. She was holding the phone to her naked, pregnant belly. I got up and took it.

  ‘Maree?’

  ‘Hello, Gordon. How’ve you been?’

  ‘Good. Good. What’s up?’

  ‘What’re you doing for New Year’s?’

  ‘Nothing yet. Why?’

  ‘We’re having a party at the beachhouse, New Year’s Eve, if you’re interested. Cynthia too. Was that her who answered?’

  ‘That was her.’

  ‘I’d like to meet her. You can sleep over if you want. There’s plenty of beds.’

  ‘You feel like a New Year’s Eve party?’ I said to Cynthia.

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Maree and Frank’s. Friends of mine. It’s at the coast. Down at Broadbeach.’

  ‘That sounds okay.’

  ‘Okay,’ I told Maree, ‘we’ll be there.’

  She gave me the details.

  I climbed back into bed with Cynthia. ‘You sure you’re okay to go to something like this?’

  ‘Yeah. I mean, what the fuck. It doesn’t matter what I do, if I’m getting rid of it anyway.’

  I nodded.

  She said, ‘So who are Frank and Maree?’

  ‘I knew them at uni. Those two and Leo and Rachel and me, we all hung round together. I had a thing with Maree for a while. She was a lot older than the rest of us, about ten years older. I was very impressed. We slept together a few times. But then she was in love with Frank and Frank was a friend of mine ...’