Praise by Andrew McGahan

suppose, but to hell with it.’
    â€˜Why did the Brunswick like you?’
    â€˜They said I was the first well dressed applicant they’d had in months. They wanted me to start straight away.’
    â€˜Well dressed?’ I looked at her. She was wearing the standard long black skirt and white blouse.
    â€˜Better than most,’ she said.
    We did nothing all week. We slept long and late, watched TV, drank occasionally. We spent the afternoon planning the evening meals. It wasn’t much, but neither of us was an outdoor person. And it was hot. Brisbane that week was going through something of a heatwave.
    We fucked every night and every morning. Cynthia could’ve done it forever. She already
had
been doing it forever. I was struggling to keep up. Even after a few nights I was running out of stamina and ideas.
    â€˜You have to use your imagination,’ she said. ‘You can’t just get on top and thrust away all the time, it gets boring.’
    â€˜I don’t have an imagination.’
    â€˜Pretend you have. Tie me up. Get mean. You’re too nice.’
    â€˜Tie you up?’
    â€˜You’ve heard of it, haven’t you?’
    And I was coming too fast. Or not coming at all. Always at the wrong times. Cynthia didn’t mind so much. My body wasn’t going anywhere. She knew she could get whatever she wanted from it in time. But it bothered me. It was even harder to get imaginative with a prick that you couldn’t rely on.
    Sunday rolled around. It was time we got out. The flat was closing in on us and the old men were becoming cranky up and down the hall. Sunday afternoon was never a good time.
    â€˜I want food,’ Cynthia said. ‘I want
steak
.’
    We went to the Story Bridge Hotel, under the Story Bridge, in Kangaroo Point. It wasn’t far. New Farm was one side of the river, Kangaroo Point was on the other, the bridge crossed between. We drove over and parked in the car park. Inside we got ourselves drinks, ordered lunch at the counter, then found ourselves a table out in the beer garden. It was a good beer garden. There was no sun, only the bridge above us. You could hear the cars and trucks thumping over the concrete slabs.
    The meals came. Cynthia got her steak. It was big. She had a plate of fat fried chips with it. She wolfed it all down. She could eat. I was having fish. A delicate little fillet in light sauce. With salad. It was all the wrong way around. Cynthia was more of a man than I was.
    â€˜How did I ever find you?’ she said. ‘I always said I’d never meet the sort of man I wanted because the sort of man I want never goes out to meet people. He’s always at home in bed, or watching the football, or just doing nothing. Just like you. And I
found
you. How did that happen?’
    â€˜You didn’t ask me out for drinks, you asked me over to your place for drinks. That’s how it happened. The difference is significant.’
    â€˜It took me a long time to make that phone call.’
    â€˜I’m glad you did.’
    After lunch we settled down and drank. We talked. It became clear we weren’t going anywhere. The bar and the beer garden filled up as the afternoon progressed. The normal mix. It was a popular place. Around three a jazz band started playing. We didn’t like jazz, but we stayed on. We had a table and it was a warm afternoon and all the better places seemed a long way away.
    Cynthia asked, ‘You put the Scrabble set in the car, didn’t you?’
    â€˜I did.’
    I went out and brought it in. We set up, started playing. We played two games. We won one each. By then the score was seven games to five, in Cynthia’s favour. It was important business. People came over and watched us play. We dazzled them with seven, eight, nine letter words. We drank.
    At some stage someone called my name. A woman’s voice. I looked up and there was Rachel.
    Rachel.
    I’d seen her only three