Praise

by Andrew McGahan

  ‘Cynthia, you don’t want to know —’

  ‘I want to know!’ And then, quietly, ‘I have to know.’

  And I had to answer. I owed her that.

  ‘I do things to her, that’s all. She doesn’t touch me. It’s weird.’

  She started laughing. She sounded insane. ‘You do things to her? Fuck, Gordon, that makes me sick!’

  I said, ‘Look, it’s none of your business any more.’

  ‘Oh bullshit. Bullshit bullshit bullshit!’

  She slammed the phone down.

  I hung up my end.

  I thought about calling her back, I knew she wanted me to.

  The time passed.

  I didn’t call. The phone didn’t ring.

  FORTY-FIVE

  I bought a pack of condoms.

  Ultra Forms, economy pack.

  Thirty-six of the things.

  I went drinking with Frank again, in one of the Valley pubs.

  I said, ‘I’ve bought thirty-six condoms.’

  ‘That’s quite a few.’

  ‘I might need them.’

  ‘You and Rachel?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you think she wants to?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It’s not healthy, Frank.’

  We drank.

  Frank said, ‘It’s just sex, Gordon.’

  I went over to Rachel’s place a few nights later, on a Friday. We planned to spend the weekend together. I took the condoms with me. They disturbed me — nothing was clear — but they were necessary. Rachel met me at the door. She poured me a wine and we sat down on the couch. She talked about her week. There was nothing to say about mine. We held hands, got our legs tangled up, started kissing. It was good. This much was natural. I was Making It On The Couch With Rachel.

  ‘What’s this?’ she said, digging into the pocket of my shirt.

  ‘I’m not sure you want to know.’

  She took out the condoms. It was a big, big box. And there was a tube of K-Y as well. It didn’t look good.

  She examined it all.

  ‘Think you’re gonna get lucky, huh?’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with luck, Rachel.’

  ‘It won’t be tonight,’ she said, ‘I’ve got my period.’

  ‘Is that supposed to bother me or you?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Oh.’

  And it was gone again.

  She was untouchable.

  We drank for a few hours. The alcohol confused the issue. Probably it was our only hope. Certainly it was my only hope. I didn’t know what Rachel was. We started kissing again. It wasn’t the same. All my preoccupations about her came flooding up. We couldn’t just fuck. I wasn’t there for sex or love. I was there for adoration. Self-abasement. The impulses were all diseased, rooted in darkness.

  I got her shirt off and I’d tugged her bra down under her breasts, forcing them up and out. I got down on my knees on the floor, between her legs. I worked on the button to her jeans.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  The button was undone. I pulled down her jeans. Pulled down her panties. The string was there. I tugged the tampon out.

  ‘Gordon, don’t ...’

  I moved between her legs.

  Her cunt was there, where it always was. I could taste iron and sweat. I sucked it in, rolled my tongue against the clitoris. It hardened. My chin was dug into the couch. This was all I was, a mouth and a tongue. A slave. Whether she wanted it or not. I was the slave to her cunt. It was all wrong. This wasn’t the way to her soul, anyone could see that. Her soul was somewhere else, somewhere where I’d never find it. Another man would be the one for that. I didn’t care. I could live without her soul. All I wanted was this.

  And maybe she wanted me. Just a little. Some part of her responded. Not a good part, but it was still her. Her legs relaxed, spread. She lifted her hips. Her cunt molded around my mouth. I stroked and stroked. Then she was coming. I looked up. Her head was arched back. Her face was contorted. Noises were coming from her mouth. It was ugly. It was pain.

  Then it was over. She wouldn’t look at me. I stood up. I took her hand and led her into her bedroom. She lay down. We didn’t speak. I took off my clothes. I was erect. I walked back into the living room, got the condoms and the K-Y and went back. Rachel had rolled onto her side, facing the wall. I sat down beside her.

  I said, ‘Rachel, can you do this?’

  I watched her back.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  I put the condoms on the floor.

  ‘Why can’t you wait until I’ve sorted out what I feel?’ she said. She was crying. ‘Why can’t men ever wait?’

  I said, ‘Rachel, why did you choose tampons over pads?’

  She rolled over. Stared at me. What?’

  ‘I was just wondering ...’

  ‘What the fuck does it matter?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She rolled away again.

  I watched her for a while. I looked at the condoms and the K-Y. At the floor, the walls, the ceiling.

  My erection went down.

  FORTY-SIX

  We didn’t speak a great deal the next morning. Rachel was distant, moody. Around midday I packed it in, drove home and went back to bed.

  The phone woke me about seven that evening. It was Rachel. She said, ‘We have to talk, Gordon. I’m not sure about things any more. Can I come over?’

  ‘Sure. I’ll come and pick you up.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  I drove over, picked her up and drove back. We stopped along the way for a cask of rose. We sat down on the couch and drank a few glasses, but it wasn’t very good. Rachel was uncomfortable.

  She said, ‘I don’t think it’s going to work.’

  I was ready for it. I said, ‘I understand.’

  ‘I just don’t feel the same as you do, Gordon. It’s not going to change.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t apologise. I wanted to try things out as much as you did. I don’t know what I thought would happen, but obviously it’s not going to ...’

  ‘It’s okay, Rachel. I’m glad we got as far as we did. But if you don’t feel right about it, then we’ll stop. I can do it. My feelings towards you aren’t exactly healthy, but they’re not uncontrollable.’

  She looked at me. ‘That’s one of the problems. I don’t understand the way you feel about me. Not exactly healthy? What am I supposed to think you mean by that?’

  ‘I don’t really understand that myself ...’

  ‘It annoys me, Gordon. How can I sort things out with you when I don’t even know what you see in me? What do you see in me?’

  It was the question I’d been dreading. I stared at my drink. Nothing I could say was going to be right.

  I said, ‘You have presence.’

  Sure enough, she got angry. ‘That’s pathetic. It’s bullshit. Presence? What’s that supposed to mean? Is it my company you like? Is that what you mean? Is it what I say? Is it what I do with my life?’

  ‘No. Those things don’t seem to matter.’

  ‘Well, how do you think that makes me feel? If you don’t like me for my company, for what I am and what I do, then how can I feel that you’re attracted to me at all?’

  ‘But I am. At least, all the things you talk about and all the things you do become important to me because they’re yours.’

  ‘But otherwise they wouldn’t matter at all. You don’t agree with me, or share any interests with me, do you?’

  ‘I guess not ...’

  ‘Then what sort of understanding could we ever have? I mean, what’ve you really got to offer me in a relationship, Gordon?’

  I was sitting forward on the couch. I was staring at the floor. I’d been cornered, I knew it. Everything she was saying was right. She’d stripped
all the magic away.

  I said, ‘Nothing.’

  And it was true. I was empty-handed. I had no life to share. I had nothing to offer but endless spare time and a cruel, mindless devotion. Some women might’ve considered that, but not Rachel.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Great. That’s just great.’

  We didn’t say anything for a time. I finished my glass and poured another.

  Finally she said, ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Gordon, you’re important to me, but what are you doing with your life? You can’t develop a love with someone unless you know what you’re doing yourself. Do you know what you’re doing?’

  ‘No.’

  I was beaten, I was tired of questions. I did know what I was doing. The problem was that the knowledge was deeply unconscious, it was a premonition, it was a gut-level instinct. I knew I had to stick it out with this life for some reason, some important reason.

  ‘Is it the writing?’ Rachel asked. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  And that was true, too. Whatever it was, it wasn’t the writing. It wasn’t anything external at all. It was something profoundly internal. Something to do with simple survival. With existence. I wasn’t even close to knowing. But in some way, what I was doing — wandering around this way, month after month, wasting my time, my health, my money, going nowhere, seeing nothing — somehow it had a purpose. My life as a whole felt right, as much as all the individual pieces of it looked wrong.

  But I couldn’t say any of this to Rachel.

  We sat in silence. We drank. We watched TV. The TV, at least, had a lot to say.

  About midnight Rachel said she was tired and was going home. I looked at her.

  ‘You can have half the bed, just to sleep.’

  ‘I should go.’

  ‘I can’t drive you, I’ve drunk too much. And you can’t walk now, it’s too late, and you can’t afford a taxi ...’

  ‘I know, I know ... Okay. I’ll stay.’

  She went in to bed. I had another drink, then followed her in. She was lying under the sheets, fully clothed. I undressed, climbed in. She wasn’t asleep.

  ‘You could take off your clothes,’ I said.

  She looked at me. She was unhappy. ‘What do you want me to do, Gordon?’

  ‘I don’t know. Sleep with me? Just for the sake of it? It’s good to have sex with someone.’

  ‘I could sleep with any number of men, if sex was what I wanted. Why should it be you?’

  And there was no answer.

  She was crying.

  I said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No. It’s okay. I don’t hate you, Gordon, I just don’t understand you.’

  I got up again, went back to the couch. I was tired. It was all over already. The grand obsession and fantasy had flared and died. And I was letting it go. I wasn’t screaming at Rachel, I wasn’t going to fight her over it, I was going to accept it gracefully. I didn’t have the sort of strength that Cynthia had. The effort would only depress me. I knew I would lose.

  So I drank until all the wine was gone. Then I went back to Rachel, and the bed.

  I woke to find her face resting against mine. I looked at it. It wasn’t a good face, up close, in the morning. There were the pimples and the gum in the eyes. But it was Rachel and it was the end of a lot of things. I kissed her. She stirred, opened her eyes, and kissed me back. Her breath was warm. Stale. Mine was worse. The kiss didn’t stop. It was happening one last time. We pulled off her clothes and I was down in the heat between her legs. It would always be there. For whatever reason. The flesh of Rachel’s cunt was the mystery incarnate. And it folded itself around my mouth, and it pulled, and it took everything I had to give ...

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘that time it was just for the sex.’

  ‘I know. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It’s the last time.’

  ‘I know that too.’

  We got up, dressed, and I drove her home.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  I went back to the poetry. I wrote about Cynthia. Love poems, sex poems, hate poems. There didn’t seem to be anything to say about Rachel. I put the poems into the letters to Cynthia, sent them off. On the phone I told her how things had turned out with Rachel.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘You deserve it, I hope it hurts.’

  But there wasn’t much real hatred left in Cynthia. The phone calls were getting better. She liked the letters, liked the poems. Some of them hurt her, some of them had nothing in them but disgust at what she was, but I sent them all. It was a matter of honesty. And she seemed to understand. But she didn’t write back. She said that would take time.

  I spent several very quiet weeks. I saw Rachel a few times. It was okay. I saw everyone. I went out for drinks, drank alone, but nothing much seemed to happen. Social Security sent me my money. The house was quiet. Vass was thinking of moving out. There was a woman who wanted him. A woman with long golden red hair and a pet dog and a house of her own.

  I told him he was lucky. I told him he was a fool if he didn’t go. I flicked through the porn mags and masturbated and dreamed of sex. I didn’t want to be alone.

  I received a phone call. It was from Sophie. She’d heard it was all over between me and Cynthia. She was having a party.

  I went. It was a Friday night. Sophie lived in a block of small brick flats. There were about twenty people crammed into her living room. Office workers, factory workers. A good crowd. Sophie took me in and introduced me round. I ended up talking to a woman called Susan. She lived in the flat next to Sophie’s.

  She said, ‘Sophie tells me you’re a writer. Is that true?’

  ‘No. Not really.’

  ‘Good.’

  I liked her. She was short and wide, with bobbed blonde hair. Huge eyes. We talked and the party went on around us. Sophie joined us from time to time. In the end it was just the three of us, sitting around the table, drinking. It got later and later. Susan grew quiet. Sophie talked and talked. I could see what was going to happen. Finally Susan said she was going to bed. We all said goodnight. Susan left. Sophie went off to the toilet. I ran into the hall and knocked on Susan’s door. She opened it.

  I said, ‘Can I call you tomorrow?’

  ‘Sure.’

  I ran back to Sophie’s flat, sat down again. Sophie came out. We talked for a while longer. Then she took me into her bedroom.

  We lay down, started kissing. It felt good, there was plenty to like about Sophie, but my heart wasn’t there. I was thinking about the warts. About other things. We stopped.

  Sophie said, ‘You certainly spent a lot of time with Sue tonight. I thought something was going on.’

  ‘It was. I should warn you, I like her. I’m going to call her tomorrow.’

  ‘What? Christ, why do you always say things like that?’

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t want to lie about it ...’

  ‘Well, why don’t you go next door now?’

  ‘Because I’m with you.’

  ‘Well, why are you with me? Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Forget it, just forget it.’

  The mood was broken. There was no getting back to it. I didn’t know why I was there. But Susan didn’t seem any better as a solution. The question itself was too vast. In the end I slept. Alone, on my side of the bed.

  When I woke up it was late and Sophie was gone. I dressed and then knocked on Susan’s door. There was no answer. I walked back to my car and drove home.

  I called Susan that night.

  I said, ‘How about drinks?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Gordon. I’ve been talking to Sophie. She’s really pissed off. You hurt her last night. She’s not as tough as you think.’

  ‘Yes ... I know that.’

  ‘Anyway, she’s a good friend of mine, and I don’t think it’d be worth all the hassle.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Maybe later.’

  ‘Sure.’<
br />
  ‘I’ll see you round, Gordon.’

  We hung up.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  I fell ill.

  It was the weather maybe. It’d been cold and wet for about a week, and I’d been walking in the rain, sitting around in soaked clothes.

  It was a mixture of things — asthma, the flu, a chest infection. My respiratory system was a mess. The only things that helped were nicotine and alcohol. I spent several days in the flat, drinking the occasional glass of wine and smoking and coughing up mucus. I seemed to have it under control. At least it didn’t get any worse.

  Another invitation came through. This time it was for a party with all the old staff members from the Capital hotel. It was Morris who rang me. He was still bumming around, living on the dole. He’d broken up with his sixteen-year-old. I told him that for me, too, the good life was long gone.

  The party was at Carla’s place. Thursday night. Carla wasn’t a barmaid any more. She was running deliveries around town for a courier company.

  I went along. I wasn’t feeling well. I needed it.

  It was a cocktail party. The idea was for everyone to bring along a different bottle of spirits. I dropped into a liqour barn along the way and picked up the cheapest bottle of gin I could find. Eleven dollars ninety-nine. Off-loaded subsidised surplus from Hungary.

  Carla had a nice house. She shared it with her brother and her fourteen-year-old daughter. There were maybe thirty people there. Thirty bottles of assorted spirits. My gin was bottom of the range. There were a few good bourbons, a few good liqueurs. Carla’s brother had plenty of dope to smoke. And in the living room there were four people crouched around something I’d only ever dreamed about seeing. An industrial-sized cylinder of nitrous oxide. It was all going to be okay. I liked the company. They’d been good people to work with and they were very good people to drink with. No one was going anywhere. They had no money, no plans, no ambitions.

  I drank down a few cocktails. The decent stuff was going first — Benedictine, Cointreau, Tia Maria, Wild Turkey, Midori, in assorted combinations. I started feeling better. My breathing lightened up. I had a few puffs on one of the joints going round. I sat down at the nitrous cylinder and waited my turn.