Praise Page 7

  Then she was coming. I came with her. We jammed our fingers in as far as they would go. It was all cheap and low and satisfying. The toilet could be proud of it. Shitting was good but this was better ...

  Cynthia got off me.

  ‘Coming back to the tub?’

  ‘No. No, I think I’ll stay here a minute.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I sat on the seat.

  The shit was on its way.

  Afterwards we went back into the flat. We switched on the TV and got into bed. I had a small amount of leaf. We smoked it, propped up on the pillows.

  I made us some toast. We weren’t very hungry. We followed a prime-time movie through, smoking and sipping on cask wine. Then we moved against each other and started kissing. We did it for a long time without pressing it. Cynthia rolled on her stomach and asked me to scratch her back. Even with the heroin, the itching still bothered her. I sat across her hips and ran my fingers up and down between her shoulders. I did it very lightly. I didn’t want to draw blood. She told me that I had nice hands.

  ‘They’re not writer’s hands, though,’ I said. ‘Look at them. Short fingers, big fat palms. Creative geniuses are supposed to have long, thin, supple hands.’

  ‘So you’re not a creative genius. You don’t have to be a creative genius to be a writer.’

  ‘True.’

  We got more active, sucking and licking each other, and Cynthia went through her bag for the K-Y. She crouched over me and opened the tube and squeezed some of it onto her hand. She rubbed it over my erection. Then she squeezed out some more and reached down between her legs, slid her fingers in.

  Then she climbed on and I slid in. The lubricant certainly made a difference. There was no pain. We didn’t attack each other this time, we were tired, we did it slow. It took a little longer, but it worked.

  We curled up, looking at each other. This was good. Everything about Cynthia was good. Things were going to be a little sad for a while when she left. I thought about the long empty weeks stretching out. I wouldn’t be working, I wouldn’t be writing, I wouldn’t be doing anything ... how many more Cynthias were there out there? And where were they?

  Cynthia said, ‘We’d better not sleep here. Mum and Dad’ll be wondering where I am. We should get back to the hotel.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I don’t want to go, y’know. To Darwin.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’ She was quiet for a time, then she said, ‘I think I’ve fallen for you. I’m sorry. I swore it wouldn’t happen, and I swore I wouldn’t tell you about it. I can’t help it. I certainly didn’t need to fall in love again.’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I don’t know about love, Cynthia. But I don’t want you to go. It’d be very good if you stayed.’

  She smiled. ‘No, I don’t think you do know anything about love. But that doesn’t worry me. I don’t think you’d fuck me around or anything, or have other women ... I don’t think you even know how to do that.’

  ‘No. I don’t.’

  ‘I really could stay, I suppose. But Christ, if things went wrong ... Are you sure it isn’t just the smack talking? Do you really want me to stay?’

  ‘It isn’t just the smack. I mean it.’

  She was quiet for a while longer.

  ‘Okay then, I’ll stay.’

  I kissed her. The smack in fact had long since faded away. It wasn’t a magic kiss, but it still felt good. I wasn’t worried about her staying. I wasn’t worried about anything. I hadn’t known her long, but it’d been intense, there wasn’t much we hadn’t covered. Cynthia was right.

  The kiss stopped. Cynthia rolled onto her back, grabbed for a cigarette. ‘Jesus,’ she said, ‘why do I do these things to myself? The folks will freak. The plane goes in about twelve hours.’

  ‘How bad will it be?

  ‘Oh, bad. But I’ve done it to them before, they won’t be suprised, it won’t kill them.’

  ‘When will you tell them?’

  ‘Tonight maybe. Or in the morning. Christ, Christ, Christ. Be good to me, Gordon. I’m taking a big chance here. If it all fucks up I can still go up to Darwin I suppose, but if it comes to that ...’

  ‘All we can do is give it a try, Cynthia.’

  ‘I know. I know.’

  She drummed her fingers across her lips.

  ‘Should we go?’ I said.

  ‘Okay. Let’s get moving. I just can’t believe I’m doing this again. I’m gonna kill myself this way. And your name is Gordon. It’s fucking Gordon.’

  ‘Well, I can’t help that.’

  I got her out of bed, into the car.

  ELEVEN

  We got back to the hotel. Cynthia was opening her door. The door opposite, her parents’ door, popped open. It was her mother. ‘Cynthia, you’re here. Quick, I think you father’s been concussed.’

  ‘Christ,’ said Cynthia. ‘How?’

  We went in. Her parents’ room was much smaller than ours, only one double bed and no couches. Her father was sitting on the bed, holding a hand to the back of his head. He was wearing shorts.

  ‘Mum, Dad, this is Gordon Buchanan.’

  Mrs Lamonde looked me over. She was much taller than Cynthia, and thinner, but she had the same instant grace. ‘Hello, Gordon,’ she said.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Lamonde. Mr Lamonde.’

  He squinted up at me. He looked very much like an army major. Big, solid and hairy.

  ‘How’d you do it?’ Cynthia asked him.

  ‘I was soaping my toes in the shower. I slipped.’

  ‘I heard this huge bang,’ added Mrs Lamonde.

  We discussed concussion. No one was sure how you could tell if someone had it or not.

  ‘Can you remember your birthday?’ Mrs Lamonde asked.

  ‘Of course I can remember my birthday.’

  ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ Cynthia asked him, holding up all four.

  ‘Will you stop it, I’m not concussed.’

  Mrs Lamonde wasn’t convinced. ‘Do you feel dizzy?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ He stood up, swayed, and sat down again. ‘All right, just a little dizzy.’

  ‘I really think you should go to hospital.’

  ‘I’m not going to hospital.’

  But Mrs Lamonde kept at him. Eventually he agreed. ‘I’m only doing this for you,’ he told her. ‘I know I’m fine.’

  We decided that Cynthia and I would take him, in my car. We drove to the casualty ward of the Royal Brisbane. The nurse took him away. Cynthia and I sat down to wait.

  ‘Your mother seemed very nice,’ I said.

  ‘She is. They both are. Not that we get along any better for it.’

  ‘You would’ve been a hard sort of daughter.’

  ‘Maybe. They’re a strange couple. I never would’ve thought the army life would suit Mum. And Dad, what’s he still doing in the army? He could do better, they both could.’

  ‘People have to settle somewhere, Cynthia.’

  She was looking away towards the examination rooms.

  ‘I don’t want them to die, though,’ she said. ‘It’d kill me if they died.’

  The casualty ward was busy and we waited about an hour without any news. It was a long hour. We both needed sleep. We’d only had a few hours in the last two days. We took turns at going outside for a smoke. Finally Cynthia went and asked at the desk, then came back.

  ‘He’s not concussed. They were just keeping him around for a while to make sure. They didn’t realise anyone was waiting.’

  Her father came out a few minutes later. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought they were keeping me in there for a reason. I told you it was nothing.’

  We drove home. Cynthia was in the back seat. The major was up front with me. He was the highest ranking officer of the Australian Army I’d ever had in the front seat of my car.

  ‘So what do you do with yourself, Gordon?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing at t
he moment. Normally, though, I work in pubs. That’s how I know Cynthia.’

  ‘He writes poetry,’ added Cynthia, for which I wasn’t grateful.

  ‘Poetry? What sort of poetry?’

  ‘Not very poetic poetry. It’s very bland poetry. It doesn’t rhyme.’

  ‘Any of it published?’

  ‘No.’

  He laughed. That was good. ‘Ever thought of joining the Army?’

  ‘I don’t think I’m the type.’

  ‘Why not? When I was young everyone thought they were the right type for the Army.’

  ‘I don’t think young people think that way any more.’

  ‘No, they don’t. You’re right about that.’

  He seemed all right. He knew I’d been fucking his daughter and that I was nowhere near the first. He’d fought in Borneo and Vietnam and he’d survived, somewhere near sane. Then he’d stuck it out with life in an army that no one gave a damn about any more, drank too much maybe, and got himself stalled for years at the rank of major. Who knew why. Maybe he could do better, maybe he didn’t care.

  He had as much right as anyone to laugh at poetry.

  We got back to the hotel. One the way upstairs the major told us that the doctor had told him how to diagnose true concussion. You looked at the patient’s eyes and if the pupils were dilated and didn’t contract in bright light then it meant there was trouble.

  I wondered about my pupils, about Cynthia’s. How constricted were they now, nine to ten hours after shooting up? And was there a connection? Between injecting heroin and slamming your head against a bathtub? No doubt they both brought peace of mind ...

  We handed him over to Mrs Lamonde. Cynthia told me to go and wait in her room. She came in herself about twenty minutes later. ‘I told them,’ she said.

  ‘How’d they take it?’

  ‘Not so well. They’ll get over it, I suppose.’

  ‘Did you tell them about me?’

  ‘I said you had something to do with it.’

  ‘Do they like me?’

  ‘They didn’t say. They asked me where I was going to live.’

  ‘Where are you going to live? With me? Or somewhere else?’

  ‘I’ll stay with you.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I could just see it on their faces, though. Cynthia’s got another man. Cynthia’s fucked it up just like the last time, just like the time before that.’

  ‘How many times has it been? How many men have there been?’

  She thought about that. She started counting them up on her fingers. One hand, the other hand, back to the first hand. She gave up. ‘I can’t really remember. Lots. Too many.’

  I shook my head.

  If I ever was going to fall for someone again, it was going to be her.

  TWELVE

  Cynthia’s parents flew out mid-morning. Cynthia took the car to see them off. She dropped me at the flat. I had to prepare for my next rendezvous with Social Security. Money was becoming a serious concern. I’d been spending up big. A hundred and fifty in the last three days.

  And there wouldn’t be much coming in for a while. According to the forms, once my application for benefits was finally accepted there would be a period of one week before my first payment. That would be one hundred and thirty-six dollars. Every two weeks after that I would receive payments of two hundred and seventy-two. In other words, all I could expect from Social Security for the next three weeks was a hundred and thirty-six dollars. I added this to the money I had left. Then I took away what I owed for the rent, which was already due and which would be due again in two weeks time. And then there were bills. The quarterly phone, gas and electricity.

  After subtracting them all, I had ten dollars left. Ten dollars to feed and amuse myself for three weeks.

  That was it then. It was time to talk Special Benefits.

  Of course Cynthia had money. And she would be sharing the rent as well. But Social Security didn’t know that. I had the bills, I had documents. I had proof. I filled out the Special Benefits form, collected it all and walked down to the Social Security office.

  Nothing had changed. The smokers outside may have been different people, but they looked the same. They stared at me. I stared back. I was feeling confident this time. I was beginning to understand the way things worked. I joined one of the queues and made it to the counter. It was the same woman as before. There was no chance of her remembering me. I’d read somewhere that this particular office was one of the busiest in the state.

  ‘I have an appointment,’ I said, handing over the card.

  She looked at it. ‘You’ve got the forms?’

  I handed them over, along with the bills and the three identifications. She didn’t look at them.

  ‘Okay, I’ll pass these on. Take a seat and we’ll call you.’

  I found a seat. Smooth enough so far. I looked at the TV. I hadn’t brought anything to read. I’d been vaguely expecting that having an appointment card meant you wouldn’t have to wait. There was a clock on the wall. It rolled round twice while I sat there.

  I watched the crowd. Most of them were young — seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. They moved around. They fought, laughed, yelled. I picked up New Zealand and British accents. We had an internationally famous social security system. Anyone could get it. Three forms of ID was all it took.

  The older people — the long-term unemployed, the invalid pensioners — sat quietly and watched the action with weary expressions. They had no time for youth. What did the young know? The young were the competition, the young were the enemy. They flowed out of school by the millions and got in the way.

  Finally I was called up to a booth. It was the same woman again. She had my pile of documents.

  ‘This I D is lousy.’

  ‘Honestly, it’s all I could find.’

  She began stamping the forms. ‘Well, it’ll have to do.’ I waited. She finished stamping. ‘Now, we’ve approved you for the standard Unemployment Benefits, but I see you want the Emergency Benefits too. I have to tell you I don’t think you’re really eligible for it. These bills of yours aren’t extraordinary.’

  I was ready for this. I said, ‘But they still have to be paid. That’s not even counting the rent and just general survival. The money has to come from somewhere.’

  ‘Well ... it’s not up to me. I’ll pass your application on and we’ll get back to you. I’ll give you an appointment for tomorrow.’

  ‘Today’s okay. I can wait.’

  ‘But it could take hours.’

  ‘That’s fine. I really need the money today. All those bills are overdue.’

  She resigned herself. ‘Fair enough. Look, in the meantime, here’s your standard fortnightly application. Fill it out and bring it in before eleven tomorrow. We’ll mail you the next one with your first payment, and then every second Tuesday after that you’ll have to bring it in, in person. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  I went and sat down again.

  This wasn’t so bad. All you needed was patience. I waited another hour, then I was called up again. I drew a man this time. He looked about my age. He was well dressed. He looked cool, together. He had all my forms. The pile was getting bigger.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘we’ve decided you’re entitled to Emergency Benefits to the sum of eighty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents.’

  ‘Thank you. That’ll help.’

  ‘Don’t thank me ...’

  He stamped another form. I signed it. Then it happened. He wrote out the cheque. Eighty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents.

  He handed it over. I put it in my wallet. There was still a couple of hundred dollars in there. He saw the bills, fifties and twenties. Money. I put the wallet away. Made for the door. I was in, the monster had welcomed me home. I was being taken care of.

  I walked to the nearest bank and cashed the cheque, then headed for home. A bit further on I passed a TAB. I thought about it. Eighty-seven dollars, twenty to one, an each way bet
, no, to win. It all seemed too simple. You couldn’t take this sort of money seriously. It was the right thing to do, the spirited thing to do.

  I went inside. I looked at the cards. Looked at the punters lining the walls, watching the TV screens. It was Social Security all over again.

  I walked out.

  I was never going to make it anyway.

  Cynthia was waiting in the flat.

  ‘How’d you go?’ I asked.

  ‘Not too bad. Dad was still pissed off. I talked to Mum mostly. I told her more about you and me, she seemed to understand ... how about you?’

  ‘I got cash. Special Benefits. Eighty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents.’

  ‘Is that all? They ripped you off. The first time I went for Special Benefits I got over a hundred and I didn’t even have any documentation. I just told them I had nowhere to stay. Eighty bucks is nothing. You just have to stand there and scream till they give you more.’

  ‘No. I have a conscience. Social Security are my friends. They’re good to me. Anyway, what’re you going to do for money?’

  ‘I think I’ll get another job.’

  ‘Not the dole?’

  ‘No ... I’ve done that enough. I’m sick of the poverty. Besides, if we both go on the dole Social Security will work out that we’re living together. We’d get even less then. If I get a job I can give a false address, my old address, and it won’t be a problem. You can’t give false addresses to Social Security.’

  ‘What’ll it be? Bar work?’

  ‘I guess so. It’s all I can do.’

  She unpacked. She didn’t have much, just two suitcases and a few books and a pile of records and tapes. There was plenty of space. The flat had come furnished with two big wardrobes, and they were empty. I kept my clothes in laundry baskets.

  The flat itself consisted of two big rooms. One had been partitioned into two segments, the bedroom and the kitchen. The other held a couple of couches, a desk, the TV and a table. The floor was linoleum.