Free The Best Thing by Margo Lanagan Page A

point, I could say, ‘What is wrong is,
he
…’ But she doesn’t. She’s chirpily preparing for our weekend away. She’s so happy and lively it seems like she knows everything and is putting on a monstrous pretence of not knowing.
    I haven’t even seen Dad in the two days since. Working late, the bastard. I hear him come in and shower, knowing the reason for all those showers now. Because nothing’s been said, I look back to Monday afternoon and wonder if it really did happen. Maybe I dreamed it, my brain hunting out someone else to blame for my troubles.
    Mum looks up from her list-making. ‘It’ll be a big shop, Thursday night.’
    ‘Oh, I can’t come. I promised Lees I’d go out with her.’
    ‘Oh, rats. I finally coaxed Dad into coming.’
    ‘Good, you won’t be on your own, then.’
    ‘I thought Lisa wasn’t allowed out week-nights either.’
    ‘They bent the rules, ‘cause I’m going to be away.’
    ‘Oh, well.’ She glances down her list. ‘Dad and I’ll just have to have an intimate candlelit dinner for two. Shucks, eh?’
    I manage a sickly smile.
    I’m at the Club. Oriana’s nails dig into my elbow, the crowd of mostly men and feral children stamps, claps and calls ‘Di-no! Di-no! Di-no!’ as his team escorts him down the aisle from the dressing room. Over the raised ring, small, bare, spotlit, hang two white cards:

    Magnum Poulos is already in the ring, shedding a long crimson satin robe and a white T-shirt. He’s big and dark and tough-looking, with a black frizz of hair bursting off the top of his head. ‘Oh God, I hate him already,’ says Oriana in my ear.
    Pug, robed in hot red, looks magnificent, a warrior king coming down through his battalions. He’s a different creature from the restless, speechless person in the dressing-room, needing us there but blind and deaf to everything but Jimmy’s reassurances. Now he seeks us out in the crowd before climbing up into the ring.
Right, on with the business
. I’m
appalled
at what’s about to happen (can this be the twentieth century?), at what I’ve got myself into, caring for someone who subjects himself to this. I glance at Mrs Magnini, who sits with her handbag on her lap, her eyes on the ring. It must be ten times worse for her. The others, Pug’sdad and Oriana and Luciano, are going mental like the rest of the crowd, cheering madly.
    You can see those extra five kilos on Magnum Poulos; he’s a bit bigger all over. Pug looks unperturbed, stripped down to hot red shorts, testing the surface of the ring. Can this be the same guy, mine, the man in the green-shadowed room in the long summer afternoons? He looks horribly alone up there, despite the whistles and the crowd calling out, despite his team and the officials encrusting the edges of the ring.
    Jimmy Riley ties a pair of bright red gloves onto him. The guy with the megaphone introduces them and the crowd cheers for Poulos and goes bananas for Pug. Then the ref has his little mutter to them (what does he say? A little prayer? ‘Follow Plan B tonight, lads—it’s Magnum’s turn to win’?), and they go to their corners and wait for the bell.
Oh God, I don’t want to see this. Is there a way to stop time?
Clanng!
No, there isn’t
.
    They go straight after each other like sworn enemies, no dancing, no hanging back. Pug is up against the ropes in a few seconds, but he slips out and around and traps Magnum in a corner. Then too much is going on for me to follow; they’re locked together and trying to punch upward between each other’s fists. This is so different from training; there’s no Jimmy calling the shots, there’s no imaginary opponent. Instead, a big angry body is trying to pound Pug into oblivion.
    I can’t believe the crowd. As soon as the fight starts the ones up the front are all shouting advice (‘Body-body-body, Dino!’, ‘Work ‘im, Magnum, work ’im! Don’t let ’im rest!’, ‘And again, Dino! Body again!’), which is loud enough, but when