The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

She felt sick to her core. The luscious sexual euphoria she had been quietly experiencing completely disappeared. She felt tired, old, her lungs hurt. She looked up to find that Rosie and Aish were nodding in agreement.
    ‘I hate that too.’ Aisha finally lit the cigarette. ‘I hate how everything is becoming the same.’
    ‘I’m part of it.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I mean I spent a year in Zagreb teaching Croatian writers and directors how to faithfully recreate a soap opera based on a suburban Melbourne family that was itself based on a concept that originally came from a failed German soapie. I don’t think I have any right to accuse anyone of being a whore.’
    ‘We are all whores. I get free trips for my family from drug companies who get me to give vaccinations to animals that I know they don’t really need. It’s the modern world, Anouk. We are all whores.’
    Rosie was silent.
    Anouk grinned evily at her. ‘Except you, of course. You’re a saint.’
    Rosie blushed. Anouk saw a glimpse of something like fury, something vicious flash across the woman’s piercing eyes but it vanished, disappeared back deep inside her where so much had gone since marrying Gary, since going straight.
    Rosie answered with an insincere smile. ‘I’m no saint, Anouk. I just think you don’t have to engage with all that is terrible about this world. You can separate yourself from it. That’s why Gary and I will only let Hugo watch DVDs and videos, absolutely no television but the children’s shows. We want Hugo to get a chance to develop his imagination independent from that vile world.’
    Rosie turned to Aisha. ‘I’ve caught up with Shamira a few times. I like her. That’s what her religion is, a way of protecting herself and her family from the shit in this world.’
    ‘Who the fuck’s Shamira?’
    ‘You know her,’ Aisha reminded Anouk. ‘Bilal’s wife.’
    Anouk nodded. The Aboriginal Muslim and his white Muslim wife. The odd couple. She had found that she had nothing to say to either of them at the barbecue. She could see why Rosie would like them. The three of them had all obviously shed their pasts and grown new, vastly different skins. She glanced over at Aish and she was suddenly convinced that her friend was thinking exactly the same thoughts. It was a shared moment in which they were both pitying and ridiculing the experiences of the three true authentic Australians. Aish and herself, they had real pasts, real histories. Jewish, Indian, migrant; it all meant something, they had no need to make things up, to assume disguises.
    ‘I had no idea you knew each other.’
    ‘We exchanged numbers at your party. She’s lovely. And she’s obviously been a good influence on Terry.’ Rosie quickly rectified her mistake. ‘Bilal, I mean.’
    ‘Yes, they seem happy.’ Aisha’s reply was curt, offering nothing.
    Rosie leaned across and almost whispered. ‘We can’t meet anywhere where they serve alcohol. That feels so odd.’
    That means you can meet without having to take your husband, doesn’t it? You don’t have to risk Gary getting drunk and embarrassing you. Their wine bottle was almost empty. ‘I’m going to the bar.’
    The pub was getting crowded, full of smoke and it was a wait before she could get served. Just as the bartender asked for her order, she felt a tap on her shoulder and she turned around. The man from the table next to them was grinning at her. His face was flushed, pink. His mouth was wide and his lips full.
    ‘Can I buy you this round?’
    ‘That’s very kind of you, but I’m getting a bottle for the table.’
    ‘That’s alright. I’m happy to shout all you ladies.’
    Anouk smiled ruefully and shook her head. ‘Afraid not.’ She had let go of the fantasy the second he began speaking. His voice was thin, reedy. Men should not have little boys’ voices. ‘I’m with someone.’
    ‘Lucky bastard.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    The bartender returned with her order and the