Free As Far as You Can Go by Lesley Glaister

monotony.’
    ‘It’s
not
the actual being true?’ She gazes at him. ‘What’s the problem then?’
    ‘No
problem,’ he says. At this moment that seems true, too. Her irises are crazed with tawny flecks in this light, more grey, less green.
    She pushes her hair behind her ears.
‘So?
’ she says.
    ‘So, I will, from now on, be true,’ he says, finding that he likesthat word. That single simple syllable. Doesn’t
sound
as onerous as monogamy.
    ‘Not much chance of anything else here!’ she says. ‘Just so we can be clear, start off with a clean slate, will you tell me the last person you slept with?’
    ‘Will
you
?’
    ‘You
know
– it was Rod. And I didn’t really want to, it was only because of you. Only because you did. I never really wanted to. Though I have to admit –’ Her eyes go dreamy and he feels an unexpected kick of jealousy. She shakes her head. ‘Anyway, that was nearly a year ago. You –’
    The door of the shed opens and Mara comes out, Larry behind her. Graham breathes out gratefully. How true is true exactly? Mara’s hair is a fat plait over one bare shoulder. Wrapped tightly round her breasts and tucked in to make a kind of sarong, is a thin brown sheet.
    ‘Are we ready?’ Larry asks.
    ‘Yes,’ Cassie says. ‘I’ll just fetch –’
    ‘A bottle of wine?’ Larry suggests.
    ‘Oh Larry, yes!’ Mara claps her hands.
    ‘As a welcome, a celebration of sorts.’
    ‘Yesss.’
    ‘That would be nice.’ Cassie goes into the kitchen to fetch the grub. Graham smiles at her retreating back. She never drinks at lunchtime. He likes it when she does though. And later, he flexes his fingers, bed. He takes his tobacco out of his pocket.
    ‘What’s for lunch?’ Mara walks with some difficulty, because of the sheet tangling round her feet, up the veranda steps.
    ‘Something with tuna fish, I think.’ He can still taste the kiss. He pulls out a Rizla and rolls up.
    ‘I like tuna fish,’ Mara says. She sits down on the nearest chair and looks into Graham’s eyes. Hers are caramel brown, darkly shadowed underneath. ‘What is tuna but a fish?’ she says. ‘You don’t say sardine fish or trout fish.’
    Graham shrugs and speaks with the fag between his lips. ‘But you say dogfish.’
    ‘True,’ Mara says.
    ‘You have to.’ Cassie plonks the salad bowl on the table. ‘Otherwise it’s just a dog. Maybe you should smoke that
after
lunch?’
    ‘I, for one, would prefer it if you waited,’ Larry says. He pours red wine into the glasses Cassie meant for water.
    ‘Fair enough.’ Graham removes the cigarette from his mouth and puts it on the table beside his fork. He sniffs and sips his wine. Soft and peppery, the temperature of blood. ‘Excellent,’ he says. Even a small sip, even the
smell
of it goes right to his sun-baked brains.
    ‘You know about wine?’ Larry turns to him.
    ‘I’m no expert,’ he says, ‘but I do have some idea. My dad was into it in a big way.’
    ‘What do reckon to this – the grape?’
    Cassie flicks Graham an amused look. He sniffs again and frowns, having no clue at all, despite Dad and his famous cellar. ‘Cabernet Sauvignon?’ he tries.
    ‘Shiraz.’
    ‘Oh yeah.’
    ‘Do help yourselves,’ Cassie says. ‘It’s hard in someone else’s kitchen till you get used –’
    ‘Don’t think of it as someone else’s,’ Larry says. ‘Think of it as yours.’ He raises his glass to her.
    ‘Cheers,’ she says.
    ‘Well, cheers. Welcome.’
    ‘Welcome,’ Mara says.
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘Yeah. Cheers.’ Graham scratches his chin, not shaved for a couple of days and the stubble itches. He eyes the neat little tube of white by his plate, one ginger wisp of baccy trailing out.
    Mara eats with hungry delicacy, dabbing her mouth on the corner of her sheet. Larry has a white linen napkin in a bone ring. He fetches it himself and with some flourish pulls it out and tucks it into his shirt. The rest of them do without. Graham’s mother always had