The Fat Man in History and Other Stories by Peter Carey

different if I’d discovered she was a mystic or a follower of Hiwi Kaj.
    “Anyway,” I said, “you’ve got a beautiful body.”
    “Why did you say that?”
    I could have said that I’d spent enough of my life with her belovedLumpen Proletariat to hold them in no great esteem, that the very reason I was enjoying her company so much was because she was so unlike them. But I didn’t want to pursue it. I shrugged, grinned stupidly, and filled her glass with beer.
    Her eyes flashed at my shrug. I don’t know why people say “flashed,” but I swear there was red in her eyes. She looked hurt, stung, and ready to attack.
    She withdrew from me, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms. “What do you think is beautiful?”
    Before I could answer she was leaning back into the table, but this time her voice was louder.
    “What is more beautiful, a parrot or a crow?”
    “A parrot, if you mean a rosella. But I don’t know much about parrots.”
    “What’s wrong with a crow?”
    “A crow is black and awkward-looking. It’s heavy. Its cry is unattractive.”
    “What makes its cry unattractive?”
    I was sick of the game, and exhausted with such sudden mental exercise.
    “It sounds forlorn,” I offered.
    “Do you think that it is the crow’s intention, to sound forlorn? Perhaps you are merely ignorant and don’t know how to listen to a crow.”
    “Certainly, I’m ignorant.” It was true, of course, but the observation stung a little. I was very aware of my ignorance in those days. I felt it keenly.
    “If you could kill a parrot or a crow which would you kill?”
    “Why would I want to kill either of them?”
    “But if you had to, for whatever reason.”
    “The crow, I suppose. Or possibly the parrot. Whichever was the smallest.”
    Her eyes were alight and fierce. She rolled a cigarette without looking at it. Her face suddenly looked extraordinarily beautiful, her eyes glistening with emotion, the colour high in her cheeks, a peculiar half-smile on her wide mouth.
    “Which breasts are best?”
    I laughed. “I don’t know.”
    “Which legs?”
    “I don’t know. I like long legs.”
    “Like the film stars.”
    Like yours, I thought. “Yes.”
    “Is that really your idea of beautiful?”
    She was angry with me now, had decided to call me enemy. I did not feel enemy and didn’t want to be. My mind felt fat and flabby, unused, numb. I forgot my irritation with her ideas. I set all that aside. In the world of ideas I had no principles. An idea was of no worth to me, not worth fighting for. I would fight for a beer, a meal, a woman, but never an idea.
    “I like grevilleas,” I said greasily.
    She looked blank. I thought as much! “Which are they?” I had her at a loss.
    “They’re small bushes. They grow in clay, in the harshest situations. Around rocks, on dry hillsides. If you come fishing with me, I’ll show you. The leaves are more like spikes. They look dull and harsh. No one would think to look at them twice. But in November,” I smiled, “they have flowers like glorious red spiders. I think they’re beautiful.”
    “But in October?”
    “In October I know what they’ll be like in November.”
    She smiled. She must have wanted to like me. I was disgusted with my argument. It had been cloying and saccharine even to me. I hadn’t been quite sure what to say, but it seems I hit the nail on the head.
    “Does it hurt?” she asked suddenly.
    “What?”
    “The Chance. Is it painful, or is it like they say?”
    “It makes you vomit a lot, and feel ill, but it doesn’t hurt. It’s more a difficult time for your head.”
    She drained her beer and began to grin at me. “I was just thinking,” she said.
    “Thinking what?”
    “I was thinking that if you have anything more to do with me it’ll be a hard time for your head too.”
    I looked at her grinning face, disbelievingly.
    I found out later that she hadn’t been joking.
3.
    To cut a long and predictable story short, we got on