The Best Thing Read online

  ‘What’s she doing?’ I ask Oriana. Neither fighter takes a scrap of notice of her.

  She stands up and smirks her way around the ring, holding up the round number written on a little card. The feral kids whistle and clap. Some man in the crowd yells encouragement, and she pauses and lifts her skirt so he can see her sequined knickers—she gets lots of applause for this.

  What the—‘Does that happen every round?’

  ‘Different bird every time,’ says Oriana. ‘It’s off, isn’t it?’

  But the bell’s gone and everyone’s melted off the ring except for Pug and Magnum and the referee.

  They’re a perfect match; for every good blow he puts in, Pug gets one in return. He takes a couple of smacking body blows and the crowd howls, echoing the little howl of fear in my innards. But he pushes forward straight away, and lands a really solid blow to the side of Magnum’s head. Magnum doesn’t even stagger; his head pops up and he comes in close and locks it into Pug’s shoulder. It looks weird, almost affectionate.

  The referee has to tell them to break quite a few times this round, and the boxing seems messy, with Pug basically fending off the other guy and not getting any openings. When the bell goes he swings away to his corner. Both guys are glossy and beginning to drip, with red patches where they’ve been hit, and Magnum’s black frizz is draggling onto his shiny forehead. He still looks massive, and angry now, dangerous.

  The Round 3 girl, in a gold-beaded bikini, trips past him, delicate as an insect, cheerfully flashing a breast at one of her supporters. ‘Oh, gross,’ says Oriana, turning away. Beside her Luciano is watching the girl and grinning.

  ‘Onyer, Dino! Don’t wait for ’im!’ someone yells when the bell goes for the third round. Magnum locks Pug into that embrace again and forces him back towards his corner. Pug shakes himself free. He steps back and sideways and puts four neat, hard blows into Magnum’s ear and jaw. Half the crowd hollers with outrage and the other half hollers with joy. Oriana and Lu are jumping in their places. Magnum turns and tries to push in on Pug again, but through his elbows Pug slips a blow to his chest. He gets hit on the forehead for that, but comes back so quickly that Magnum’s up against the corner pad, taking a bunch of blows full in his face before he butts his way out. Pug’s face over Magnum’s charging back has no emotion on it at all; then it disappears; it reappears red where their foreheads have connected and the brow-bones have squashed the flesh apart, and there’s still no emotion—no shock, no pain, nothing. The crowd is no longer voices, but a surging sea of noises, Oriana’s screams lost in it. Mrs Magnini leans against me, craning for a view, hanging onto my arm. Pug’s dad is on his feet and yelling with the rest. Pug ducks a swipe before the referee stops the fight and makes him check with the doctor.

  He’s allowed to continue. The next time they come together Magnum falls to one knee on the canvas and is counted out to three. He stands up and goes forward. Pug pushes him back onto the ropes and gives him three big, meaty punches in the head, right-left-right, yanking three great big roars out of the crowd. I go into shock. This is a person’s head, not a sawdust-stuffed bag. So this is what is meant by ‘a decisive victory’ in boxing.

  Magnum’s fists sag away from his face. The referee stops the fight again, has a very short exchange with Magnum, then turns and gives the match to Pug.

  ‘That’s it?’ I say to Oriana.

  ‘Yes, yes!’ She flings an arm around me and jumps about cheering wildly.

  Pug’s mum squeezes my hand, then lets go to hunt for a hankie in her bag.

  The two fighters look as if they’ve been shovelling coal in a furnace all day: the sweat splashes off them, their fancy shorts are dull and soaked. Pug lifts his arms like a bear, and then seems to notice the crowd for the first time as it roars all round him.

  He turns full circle to acknowledge all the applause. He doesn’t smile at all, as if he’s just taking what’s due to him, no big deal. And then he’s looking at me, standing still and meeting my eyes down a tunnel in the most incredible, inhuman racket. Buildings fall, mountains crumble all around, but inside the tunnel is absolute silence. He could whisper and I would hear every word, I swear. His eyes snap wide awake then, and there’s a half-smile on his mouth, a really ironic one, when I just didn’t think Pug was an ironic type of person, didn’t think he had that level of thinking in him. It’s as if he knows everything I’ve been thinking about this crazy sport, and he thinks it all too, but then there’s this on top of it, the winning. He can still put himself up there, risk his face and his brain, for this. It means something. Can you see what it means to me, Mel? No, I can’t. I can see that it does matter, but I don’t think I’ll ever know why.

  Then the tunnel blinks out, and the racket makes me jump, like a bang of thunder. He turns away to accept a hug from Magnum and Jimmy and his team. A shining rain begins to fall; people are throwing handfuls of coins. The money rings in the air overhead and splashes onto the canvas.

  Pug is whisked away, a thick knot of people hugging him and shaking his hand and slapping his back as Jimmy leads him up the aisle.

  I feel as if I haven’t breathed since the match started. Dazed, I follow the Magninis through to the change-room, grateful for the crowd that slows us, holds me upright, gives me a chance to recover.

  I trail in with the family, stand by while they all embrace and congratulate and cry on him. It feels as if hardly a minute’s passed since we were all in here watching Pug psych himself up. Now we’re all different people. He won, and we saw him do it.

  Over his dad’s shoulder he sees me. Come on over, he gestures with his head, his taped hand. I wangle my way through, feeling awestruck, tiny as a round-card girl.

  ‘Outa me way, Dad,’ he says, pretending to push him aside. And here is my Pug—non-ironic, bloodied and beautiful, kissing me with a grunt of emphasis, grinning a sparkling grin at me under the split eyebrow, lifting me off my feet and swinging me round. I bury my face in his neck, in that ridiculous red robe, so no-one will see my tears.

  ‘So, what d’you think of me new job?’ he says, putting me down.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say shakily. ‘I think I hate it.’

  He laughs, and Magninis laugh around me. Someone pats me on the back, as if to say, You’ll come round to it.

  But I don’t believe I ever can, ever will, be anything but puzzled. Puzzled, and frightened.

  ‘Siddown, Dino, and let me finish with that cut,’ says Jimmy.

  We all sit around while Jimmy swabs and Oriana, Lu and Mr Magnini do a post-mortem of the fight. Mrs Magnini sits beaming, dabbing at her eyes now and then. And every now and again you look at me, you pug, you Pug, and I have to stop myself saying it, out loud and in front of everyone (God, wouldn’t we all be embarrassed!), because of your green eyes, your hand trailing tape, your damp-patched T-shirt and the black hair curling along your legs, because of the mist of victory-glamour between us, and your same old rusty voice assenting, describing, enthusing in Italian. But as far as I know how to love anybody I love you, whatever it means. I don’t know how someone like you can be a fighter for a living, or how such fighting can be fair, within the rules, but I’ll claim the privilege, I’ll sit in the post-victory dressing-room with you, any time!

  And of course, . Feels like a star-fuck, except that he seems to think I’m the star.

  ‘Felt so good when I saw you come in, up the Club,’ he says afterwards. ‘Knew I’d win then. Couldn’t let you see me lose, first fight you ever seen, eh.’

  ‘Would’ve put me right off.’

  ‘Me too. You wanna get to the top without losing at all, if you can. You know, “undefeated in 32 matches, 24 by knockout”. You read about it in The Fist like that all the time.’

  I let my jaw drop.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I didn’t realise you could read!’

  He looks taken aback. ‘Course I can bloody read! What d’you reckon I do with all these?’ He waves his arm around, obviou
sly meaning the magazines rather than the socks.

  I can’t stop myself cracking up. ‘I thought you just looked at the p-pictures!’ But he’s caught on—he’s gripping me tight in his arms and legs. ‘Aagh, aagh! Help! I’m being suffoca—’ I run out of breath from laughing.

  His nose is in my ear. At the edge of my sight I can see the tiny bandaids holding his eyebrow together. ‘Sometimes,’ he says, half-serious, half-laughing, ‘You’re a bitch and a cow. You know that?’

  He keeps giving me, hard, suffocating squeezes. ‘I kno-ho. A ba-hitch anna ca-how.’ Splutter, splutter. ‘But not all the ti-hime!’ I rush in before the next squeeze.

  ‘Nah, not all the time,’ he agrees, relaxing a bit but still holding pretty tight. ‘Hardly ever. You’re all right.’

  I’ll do, will I?’ I try to turn and look at him but his head’s in the way.

  He puts his hand up to my other cheek and holds on. ‘Yeah,’ he growls.

  And, of course, again.

  Well, here we are at the cottage, all together as a family. Isn’t that sweet? Isn’t that lovely? Except every time I see you diving into a wave, Dad, I can’t help remembering you diving into old Rick.

  It’s amazing how hard it is to believe it happened now. The way Dad’s acting you’d think everything was fine. I’ve kept away from situations where I might be left alone with him, just in case he starts talking about it. No, thanks; no explanations, please! ‘Your mother doesn’t understand me, Mel’ or, ‘A man’s got to feel he’s attractive, Mel’ or, ‘You mustn’t be too hard on Ricky, Mel. She’s a lonely woman.’ Or some other crap.

  And Mum’s quite normal, of course, even though half the time I’m screaming at her (in my brain) about what I saw and what a bastard Dad is. She’s in holiday mode—so peaceful, so determined to see the bright side of things. Maybe Dad’s been porking everything that moves, with her consent, for years, while she refuses to make a fuss to hold the family together. Maybe she knows all about Ricky—but if she doesn’t, I can’t exactly go up to her and say ‘Do you know Dad’s having it off with one of your best friends?’, can I?

  Do you know, Mum?

  If I don’t stop the thoughts they build and build until they gridlock in my brain and I’m shaking with rage and powerlessness. Thoughts of Mum and Ricky, laughing and laughing—Ricky on that couch and Mum on the floor, unable to stop. Ricky. Ricky being everywhere we looked, the last few months. At home with Dad a couple of times when we got back after the shopping. (Well, no wonder he didn’t want to come with us—he’d miss his regular Thursday-night gig with Rick, wouldn’t he?) Dropping by. Borrowing things so she’d have an excuse to bring them back. Still doing all the things they usually do—tennis Wednesdays, all four of them; Sunday morning coffee just her and Mum, over at Leichhardt. Ricky standing at our kitchen door, all legs and nipples. ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ she says to Dad. And him all rumpled, busily getting out glasses! Busily covering up!

  Ambra, glaring. Joshua, spitting. I go cold. How long’s it been going on? Have Josh and Ambra seen what I’ve seen? Worse? What are we all going to do?

  Sitting here in my room in the beach house with Mum and Dad out on the deck reading the newspapers, oh so civilised, is sending me mad, not knowing what to think or do. When my brain wears itself out playing the Dad-and-Ricky video and the fight video, I go out and exercise my legs instead, walk the bay beach to the rocks and watch the grey water going wild, stride the never-ending surf beach with the sea-thunder coming up through the sand, rinse my head out with wind and water and space until there’s not a single thought-scrap left. I’m trying to give Mum and Dad time to get back together properly—you know, you guys,! Do it! ‘Rediscover each other’, like the magazines suggest, revive your jaded marriage! Isn’t that kind of me? I’m so considerate! When I’m there watching the way they’re together-without-being-together it seems crazy to hope, but who knows what goes on when I leave? One look from Dad to Mum, one recognition (‘How could I do this to her?’ or, ‘She’s still the Jan I married, really—why didn’t I see that?’) and the situation—his, mine, Ricky’s, this terrible hovering—might begin to fix itself up.

  Went shopping with Mum this morning, for a few last things for the party. Ooh boy, am I looking forward to this party! Aren’t you, Dad? Aren’t you itching to sit at the dinner table and look around at the happy, birthday-candle-lit faces of your loving family, Mum so innocent, me so knowing?! Don’t be scared, Dad, I won’t say anything—not yet, anyway. I mean, I could do a Lisa and use that knowing to get myself a car for my seventeenth, or an all-expenses-paid trip overseas or something. But things are bad enough already. This whole weekend feels like a sick joke I’m playing, a joke on myself as much as on those two. I got to see the fight, but now I face the payoff, exile with my estranged parents.

  You’ve obviously settled on keeping your head down, Dad, hoping it’ll all go away. I’ve read that that’s what unfaithful men do. I mean, Ricky’s probably been pleading with you to leave us (though I don’t think her kids are all that impressed with you) and you’ve probably promised her you will ‘when the time’s right’—and the time’ll never be right, right? It’s just too comfortable where you are, and too interesting and exciting stringing two women along. Yours and Mum’s sex life is probably sparking up nicely, you being all sexed up from your affair—like, if I whipped home now I might find you and her, similar scenario but a different pair of legs wrapped round you, you with your eyes shut tight imagining the other one.

  Aagh, it’s disgusting, and you know it is, Dad, and I’d like to see you admitting it. You’ll have to at some stage, I know that much—you aren’t going to just cruise through this and tell me on your death-bed, ‘Well, we had our ups and downs, Mel, but you know I always loved your mother and at least we kept the family together.’ And that’s such an achievement, isn’t it? Physical proximity is all you’d be talking about. Sure, we were a close family, always in each other’s pockets. We never talked, never knew what was on each other’s minds, but heck, there we were, all together, no-one could deny it.

  So what do you say, Dad? Will I tell Mum right there over the roast lamb and spuds tomorrow night—your favourite meal, forever tainted by the memory? I could just drink a little bit too much champagne, and the words I’ve been bottling up for six days would come tumbling out while Mum looked at me and then at you, her eyes getting wider and wider, that contented smile draining away from her face.

  What would she do? Spit on you? Scream? Run down the hill and plunge into the freezing surf? She’d probably do something really boring like go to the bedroom and close the door. Then I’d go for a walk and when I came back you’d have sorted it all out, told her a bunch of lies to keep her calm, and things would go back to normal. Nice for you—I couldn’t hack it though, Dad. When your brain’s been stretched with a new idea, they reckon, it can never go back to the size it was. Now that I’ve seen you adulter-ing I can hardly see any of you that isn’t the adulterer. A big question mark hovers over all the rest—how could you have been a loving father or a loyal husband one day, and a bastard the next? There must have been the seeds of bastardry there all the time.

  Having seen what I saw … The impossibility of undoing events, the fact that I can’t perform a fast-reverse—-just a few seconds would be enough—so I didn’t hear that room with its cross-currents of panting, didn’t see … that. Detail after undignified detail, clear as clear. I blush for you and Ricky, Dad, it feels like all the time. I think it’s really strange—it makes it worse, somehow—that you can continue to walk upright, pretend nothing’s happened. You’re so good at it—so practised?, I can’t help thinking. I flip through our family life like a secret photo album, dreadful new pictures popping up on each page.

  My only comfort is Pug. I feel as if he’s saved my life. Not just before, putting his protective layers between me and school, between me and my ‘friends’, but now, even in this dire place, giving me a whole other area of life to es
cape to. I can imagine really clearly what he’d be doing now, absorbed in training, and then coming home, showering, throwing on crumpled clothes and leaving for his parents’ place to ‘sort ’em out’, or up to King Street to hang out with his mates. He’d be missing me but he’d never say anything to anyone about it—just like me. Private. Keep Out.

  ‘I appreciate you being discreet about this, Mel,’ you say in the two accidental seconds we get together in the car. Our eyes meet in the mirror.

  ‘Covering for you, do you mean?’ I sneer. ‘Is that what you think I’m doing?’

  ‘Whatever you’re doing’—you can see Mum heading back to the car—‘it’s right not to hart Mum.’

  I could strangle you, you horrible blackmailing philanderer. If Mum wasn’t coming back I’d scream at you, but instead I say sweetly, ‘Oh, you’re so right. After all, it’s nothing to do with her, is it?’

  Mum’s bum hits the passenger seat. ‘To do with whom?’

  ‘Lisa.’ I glance away from Dad’s eyes in the mirror. ‘I hate her.’

  ‘I thought you were best friends. What’s she done now?’

  So I have to make up a ridiculous story about this tiff Lisa and I are having—not a serious enough one for us to split permanently, because she’s such a useful ‘best friend’ to have—how would I ever get to see Pug without my ‘dates’ with Lisa?

  So anyway, you’re off the hook—for the moment, Dad, for the moment only, so don’t get too comfortable. Being discreet—gee, you make me sick! ‘It’s right not to hurt Mum’—you were thinking of Mum’s happiness all the time Ricky was raping you, right? You were weeping with sympathy for Mum. Calling her ‘Mum’ was a good ploy. Remember, Mel, you have a duty not to hurt your mum, after all she’s done for you. Well, you can keep your Rickysticky paws off Mum and me; it’s your leg of the tripod that’s looking shaky. Just because I’m keeping quiet now doesn’t mean I’ll be quiet for ever. Sometime when I can’t stand all the pretending any longer I’m going to tell her—I am! I’m not going to be discreet about it, either—I’m going to shout it out good and loud, possibly even up and down our street: ‘David Dow screws around! I know! I saw him screwing Ricky Lewis in our front room! Third of April, one-thirty p.m.!’ And old Mr Close’ll lean over his balcony railing and sing out, ‘Think we don’t know, young Melanie? Think we haven’t sat here all day and seen him popping in and out with every woman in the neighbourhood?’ Well, Dad, how do I know you haven’t, now that I know you could?