The Last Magician by Janette Turner Hospital Page A

cigarette and smokes it violently. “For one, I
can’t stand academics, especially the Sydney crowd. I can’t stand the …” She searches for a word. “They’re so tepid, I’d rather talk to
johns, that tells you something. And for two …” She laughs. “If I
was good at being good, I just happen to be even better at being bad. I should
get a medal. And for three …” She is searching carefully for a way to
express point three, but abandons it.
    â€œAnd for three?”
    â€œOh I dunno. Freedom. Choice of cages. I don’t have to … shut down so much in this one as in the others. And something to do with
choice of sides too. I dunno. I suppose I reckon if it’s
come to the Quarry versus Them, I’m not Them. I could never be Them.”
    He
nods. Same team, she thinks; him and me. “And what about you? Where’re you
from?”
    â€œI told you.
Brisbane.”
    She
waves this aside. “No, but before that. In the beginning, I mean.” Her gesture implies: you’ve got more exotic baggage than is bought on a weekday
in Brisbane. “Where were you born?”
    He
considers her for several silent seconds, for so long, in fact, that she looks
away, uncomfortable, and busies herself with lighting another cigarette. At
last he says: “One of the reasons I could breathe better in New York.
Nobody asked me where I came from.” She senses that she might have been
dropped from his team, that at the very least she has lost crucial marks on a
covert test. “Which answer would you like?” he asks politely.
“I’ve got an old Brisbane one. As a kid, I got into the habit of saying
Hong Kong. It simplified things.”
    â€œBut it isn’t true?”
    â€œI’ve
never set eyes on Hong Kong. I’m a true blue Aussie.” He smiles, certainly
not in anger, not even in sorrow, simply remembering. “I said that to a
teacher once, in Brisbane. I was born in North Queensland, Mr Brady. I’m a true blue Aussie.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œAnd he said, Because a man’s born in a stable, that doesn’t make him a horse.”
    â€œRude
jerk.” Conscious of clumsiness, but wanting nevertheless to make
reparations of some sort, she says: “Would you like a cuppa?
I’ve got teabags. Or beer, if you’d rather.”
    â€œThere
are compensations,” he says. “It’s like being a hooker or a
restaurant manager. You see without being seen.”
    She
opens a paint-chipped cabinet on the wall. “I’ve got Earl Grey or plain
old Bushells.”
    It interests her, the fastidious distaste
that wasn’t there in his photographer’s eye. He looks around the tacky room and
calculates something, running debits and credits. He is balancing the room and
the stink of other men against his interest in the girl, which is not a sexual
interest, she is clear about that and therefore engaged. Challenged, even.
Oddly excited. He is perhaps gauging the dangerous impact of that simple offer
of the making of tea. She herself feels at risk. It is personal, the making of
tea. It’s like kissing, it’s out of bounds. He is perhaps weighing the greater
aesthetic pleasure and tranquillity of his own
apartment, upstairs, against the invasion of privacy and who knows what breed
of future threat?
    Offhandedly,
inviting refusal, he says: “We could go upstairs, I suppose. If you really
want.” He begins to leave in a way that suggests dismissal. “I’ve
taken the top floor for myself.”
    â€œYeah.
We heard.” Her eyes gleam. “Okay, sure. Let’s go.” His immediate
regret is so obvious, so comic, that she breaks into a Cheshire cat smile.
“Shouldn’t have offered if you didn’t want to.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œFuck
off then.” She is affectionate almost, but exasperated with him, baring
her teeth and making claws with her