Praise Read Free

masturbating by twelve as well, but I didn’t sleep with anyone till I was nineteen.
    I thought Cynthia’s childhood sounded more interesting.
    Finally the beer ran out. We were still thirsty, and it wasn’t closing time yet. We decided more drinks were in order.
    â€˜You want to drive?’ Cynthia said.
    I explained that I wasn’t comfortable about drink driving.
    â€˜Jesus,’ she said. ‘Okay, I’ll drive.’
    I wasn’t so uncomfortable about drink driving that I wouldn’t let someone else do it. We took my car, Cynthia behind the wheel, and drove to the nearest bottle shop. We pulled up and the boy came over. I felt for him. I know how hateful customers became after a while. They disturbed the peace.
    I said to the boy, ‘A dozen cans of Toohey’s Old.’
    He went away and came back with the beer. He did it slowly.
    â€˜It’s okay,’ I told him, ‘I used to work in a bottle shop too. In fact I only just quit.’
    â€˜Yeah?’ he said. Which one?’
    â€˜The Capital.’
    â€˜Never heard of it.’
    We paid up.
    â€˜Poor bastard,’ I said, as we pulled back out to the street.
    We returned to her place. She was a good driver. Confident and fast. We settled back into the couches. We talked on. About her life, about mine. Hers was definitely more interesting. Then I started losing it to drunkenness and the need for sleep. She explained that there were only two bedrooms in the house, her own and her parents’, and that she didn’t think it’d be a good idea for me to use her parents’. I went in and looked and saw what she meant. The room was immaculate. The bed was covered with a plastic dust sheet.
    â€˜Your parents are paranoid about dust?’
    â€˜My
mother
is paranoid about dust. Don’t worry. I’ve got a double bed, you can have half of that.’
    I agreed. Cynthia wandered off to the toilet. I lay on the bed. I kept my clothes on. She came back. I watched while she undressed on her side of the bed. Her body was big and white and her back was sprinkled with the same allergic rash as her face. She climbed in and we lay there, side by side.
    â€˜You can take your clothes off,’ she said. ‘I won’t rape you.’
    I took off my jeans. We moved a little closer. Then we slept.

T HREE
    Cynthia woke me late next morning.
    â€˜What’s wrong with your breathing? You sound like you’re about to suffocate.’
    I sat up and started coughing. The hangover moved in. ‘It’s asthma,’ I told her. I reached for my jeans and went through the pockets for the Ventolin inhaler. She watched me puff away on it, sucking in the drug.
    â€˜And you
smoke
?’
    I smoked. In fact I had only started smoking about a year before. I was living in the Northern Territory. It was the boredom that got to me. I started with Winfield Blues, two or three a day, then discovered menthols. Alpine Ultra Lights. I worked my way up to seven or eight packs a week. I struck problems. I was wheezing all the time, vomiting after only three or four drinks. I switched over to rolled tobacco and things got better. Not quite so many poisons. I got through one pouch maybe every three or four days. Any brand.
    I explained all this to her as I rolled a cigarette. ‘It helps in the morning, believe it or not.’
    The Ventolin was working. I could breathe. I lit the cigarette and inhaled. The lungs caught, coughed it up. I inhaled again. This time it held. It felt good. The asthma wasn’t a problem. Asthma could always be controlled.
    Cynthia found her own pack and we smoked in silence for a while. The pillows had rubbed most of the make-up off her face and her skin was livid red. It was bleeding in places.
    â€˜Does it hurt?’
    â€˜It itches. I scratch my face in my sleep. That’s why it bleeds.’
    â€˜Isn’t there anything you can do for it?’
    â€˜Not really. The only