Praise by Andrew McGahan Page A

or four times in the last couple of years. Lately I hadn’t even thought about her. But from the ages of about thirteen to twenty-one, she was more or less all I
had
thought about. She was my past. More or less my only past.
    â€˜Rachel,’ I said.
    â€˜Hello Gordon.’
    She was smiling. She looked pretty much the same. Tall. Short cropped hair, blonde, a little more blonde than I remembered it. Square face, big-jawed. She had a few large pimples on her chin. Rachel didn’t pick at her pimples. She let them grow till they burst.
    â€˜So how’s it going?’ she said.
    â€˜Fine. Good. Rachel, this is Cynthia.’
    â€˜Hello Cynthia.’
    â€˜Cynthia has just moved in with me.’
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜You’re still in New Farm? I heard you moved.’
    â€˜I did, but I’m still in New Farm.’
    â€˜And what’ve you been doing?’
    â€˜I quit work not long ago. That’s about it. I’m on the dole now. What about you?’
    â€˜Not much. Study.’
    Rachel was studying Administrative Sciences at Q.I.T. It was her second attempt at a degree. Originally it was Psychology at Queensland Uni, but she abandoned that around the same time that my own studies were faltering. Then we lost track of each other. I was working here and there around the country and she was unemployed and neurotic and living on Social Security in Brisbane. There was a man. She was in love with him. Hopelessly. She wanted his child. He didn’t love her. For that, at least, I thought he was a fool. Meanwhile Rachel and I still met from time to time, but it was never very good between us. I wasn’t the one she wanted around anymore, and we both knew it. She was depressed, tearful, wildly irrational, walking the streets at night, alone and drunk. I had my own problems. I stayed away. Later she pulled herself out of it and enrolled at Q.I.T. I heard about it from friends. I didn’t know what it meant.
    â€˜How
is
the study?’
    Terrible. Nothing new there.’
    â€˜Do you want a seat? Are you here with anyone?’
    It turned out she was there with a lot of people. Uni friends. But she sat down and we organised more drinks. Beer. We all drank beer.
    It took Rachel and me about half an hour to catch up. Cynthia sat mostly silent, drinking. Then Rachel got up and said she was going back to her friends. After she was gone, Cynthia turned on me.
    â€˜She wants to fuck you.’
    â€˜Rachel? C’mon, she’s had the chance to do that for years. I don’t think she’s changed her mind just tonight.’
    â€˜Who is she?’
    â€˜I told you about her. She’s the one I went to school with, back in Dalby. The one I was obsessed with. The one I only ever held hands with. The one I never kissed.’
    â€˜
Her?
    â€˜Her.’
    â€˜But she’s
ugly
.’
    â€˜Cynthia, everyone I know is ugly.’
    â€˜Well, she’s still in love with you.’
    â€˜She isn’t. She never has been.’
    â€˜You wouldn’t know. You never look at people. She’s jealous. She hates me.’
    â€˜That’s crap, Cynthia. We haven’t even talked in months. Besides, even if she had changed her mind about me, I’d say no.’
    â€˜Would you?’
    â€˜Of course I would.’
    It was true. Rachel wasn’t for me, life had taught me that much. We’d met each other in the first year of high school. She didn’t live in Dalby, she was from a farm in the mountains, about an hour’s drive away. She boarded in town during the week, for school. Her parents wanted to give her a Catholic education. On weekends she went home again. I was in love with her. I wasn’t sure why. She was a serious girl, there was something incorruptibly sensible about her. No one else at school had it. Throughout the three years that we were at the same school I begged her to stay in town for just the one