The Fat Man in History and Other Stories by Peter Carey Page B

the sink, smoking her perfumed cigarette.
    “Look at you, puddling around with stinking meat like a child playing with shit. You would rather play with shit than act like a responsible adult. When the adults come you will slink off and kill fish.” She gave a grunt. “Poor Carla.”
    “Poor Carla.” She made me laugh. “You try and fuck me and then you say ‘poor Carla’!”
    “You are not only ugly,” she said, “you are also stupid. I did that for Carla. Do you imagine I like your stupid body or your silly mind? It was to make her feel better. It was arranged. It was her idea, my friend, not mine. Possibly a silly idea, but she is desperate and unhappy and what else is there to do? But,” she smiled thinly, “I will report a great success, a great rapture. I’m sure you won’t be silly enough to contradict me. The lie will make her happy for a little while at least.”
    I had known it. I had suspected it. Or if I hadn’t known it, was trying a similar grotesque test myself. Oh, the lunacy of the times!
    “Now take your nasty bait and go and kill fish. The others will be here soon and I don’t want them to see your miserable face.”
    I picked up the rod and a plastic bucket.
    She called to me from the kitchen. “And put your worm back in your pants. It is singularly unattractive bait.”
    I said nothing and walked out the door with my cock sticking out of my fly. I found the dwarf standing on the landing. It gave him a laugh, at least.
8.
    I told her the truth about my encounter with the famous Jane Larange. I was a fool. I had made a worm to gnaw at her with fear and doubt. It burrowed into the space behind her eyes and secreted a filmy curtain of uncertainty and pain.
    She became subject to moods which I found impossible to predict.
    “Let me take your photograph,” she said.
    “Alright.”
    “Stand over there. No come down to the pier.”
    We went down to the pier.
    “Alright.”
    “Now, take one of me.”
    “Where’s the button?”
    “On the top.”
    I found the button and took her photograph.
    “Do you love me? Now?”
    “Yes damn you, of course I do.”
    She stared at me hard, tears in her eyes, then she wrenched the camera from my hand and hurled it into the water.
    I watched it sink, thinking how beautifully clear the water was that day.
    Carla ran up the steps to the house. I wasn’t stupid enough to ask her what the matter was.
9.
    She had woken in one more mood, her eyes pale and staring and there was nothing I could do to reach her. There were only five days to go and these moods were thieving our precious time, arriving with greater frequency and lasting for longer periods.
    I made the breakfast, frying bread in the bacon fat in a childish attempt to cheer her up. I detested these malignant withdrawals. They made her as blind and selfish as a baby.
    She sat at the table, staring out the window at the water. I washedthe dishes. Then I swept the floor. I was angry. I polished the floor and still she didn’t move. I made the bed and cleaned down the walls in the bedroom. I took out all the books and put them in alphabetical order according to author.
    By lunchtime I was beside myself with rage.
    She sat at the table.
    I played a number of videotapes I knew she liked. She sat before the viewer like a blind deaf-mute. I took out a recipe book and began to prepare beef bourguignon with murder in my heart.
    Then, some time about half-past two in the afternoon, she turned and said “Hello.”
    The cloud had passed. She stood and stretched and came and held me from behind as I cooked the beef.
    “I love you,” she said.
    “I love you,” I said.
    She kissed me on the ear.
    “What’s the matter?” My rage had evaporated, but I still had to ask the stupid question.
    “You know,” she turned away from me and went to open the doors over the harbour. “Let’s not talk about it.”
    “Well,” I said, “maybe we should.”
    “Why?” she said. “I’m going to do it so there’s