Pants on Fire (31 page)

“Pinkus, Pinkus—there you are. Come and dance with me. I know I was a pain earlier, I have to admit I was jealous. Those middle-class boys make me feel like the peasant I am. Gets me every time. Do you forgive me?”

“Not entirely. But I'll consider it if you don't take any more coke tonight. It makes you aggressive.”

He saluted me smartly. “Yessir. Nosir. No more cocaine. Sir.”

“OK. At ease,” I said. “And please don't do that pervy dancing. It's embarrassing.”

My feelings about Jasper were rather confused. Part of me wanted to walk out and never see him again, but I wondered if that was overreacting. And anyway—it was a great party and I was determined to enjoy what was left of it. I danced with Trudy and Betty and their friends for a while, but when a slower track came on, Jasper sensed my weakness and pulled me into a clinch.

I looked over his shoulder and saw Rory doing the same with Red Suit. At that exact moment he glanced straight at me and I saw something—Surprise? Irritation?—flicker across his face. Probably the same thing that had just flickered across mine. I looked away immediately and surrendered myself to the music and Jasper's incorrigibly wiggling hips. Then he kissed me, one of his long, slow, dreamy kisses, and I forgot all about everyone else. He may have been more complicated than I'd thought, but Jasper was a blissful kisser.

After a couple more slow songs I was beginning to feel drowsy and Jasper picked up on it—he knew he'd been out of line earlier and was being his most tender and adorable.

“Want to go home, little Pinkie? Had enough excitement for one night?”

I nodded with my eyes closed like a sleepy puppy.

“OK, come on then, little girl.” I let him lead me towards the door.

As we left the room I saw Rory sitting on a sofa with Red Suit on his knee. They were smogging madly.

“Bye, Mr. Silvertail. Have fun,” said Jasper, quite unnecessarily, tapping him on the knee as we went by. I looked back and saw Rory open one eye. It opened a bit wider when he saw who had spoken and who was with him. Then it closed again. Tightly.

Chapter Eighteen

I was standing on a stool in Antony's workroom. He was kneeling at my feet with pins in his mouth, wearing the white coat he always wore to work in, like they do in the Paris couture houses.

“I don't want to get threads on my beautiful clothes any more than they do,” he said, when I suggested it was just a tiny tad pretentious. (Actually he said, “I on't ont oo et freds on y ootiful close any or an ay oo.”)

I pointed out that he was wearing white Levis and a white T-shirt, not a Saville Row suit—and that he'd never make it as a ventriloquist.

“Ay are ootiful oo e,” he said and told me to keep still. He was pinning the hem on an evening gown he'd insisted on making for me after hearing that I'd worn a polyester flamenco dress to Cordelia's party.

He sat back on his heels and took the pins out of his mouth.

“Whatever possessed you, Pussy? None of my girlfriends can go out looking trashy. I don't allow it. It reflects so badly on me. I made Cordelia's dress—did you like it? It was her wedding present. That beading cost me a fortune. Of course, I know why you wore it—it's the influence of that trashy Jasper O'Connor. He loves a bit of polyester. Mad for it. Probably has dark brown nylon sheets. I can't believe you're seeing him, after all I told you—and I can't believe you didn't tell me.”

“Oh, give it a rest, Antony,” I said crossly. I was still pissed off with Jasper for his behaviour at the party and I didn't feel like defending him. “I didn't tell you because I knew you'd go on and on about how unsuitable he is—like you are. Get over it. I've got no intention of marrying him and I'm not really seeing him anymore anyway. I just wanted some male company . . . no strings attached and no judgments from well-meaning friends. It can be a terrible strain going out with potential husbands and having to be fascinating all the time. Exhausting. I find non-potentials much more relaxing.”

“Oh, I see, you just wanted a root—or a ‘shag,' as I believe you English girls say. So, is he a good fuck?”

“Oh Dolly darling, you do have a way with words. Yes. He's a top root.”

“How does he compare with Nick Pollock and his pneumatic penis?”

“Well, I have to admit that Nick could compete internationally—it's a spectacular display. But it rather loses its gloss when you find out that it's really just a matter of practice makes perfect. Jasper is much more sincere and you get the feeling the experience is spontaneous, rather than a well-rehearsed medal-winning routine, the way it is with Plonker.”

“HA HA HA . . . Plonker. I love that.”

Which meant the rest of Sydney would soon love it as well, I thought. Good.

“Oh well, if he's a good fuck, what the heck,” said Antony. “Enjoy yourself, but remember that he won't enhance your stock around town.”

“Am I in a cattle auction?”

“Pretty much.”

“Lovely. I suppose Betty and Trudy told you I was smooching with Jasper at the party.”

“That's right. I must say you've done very well to keep it quiet for so long.”

“Well, as I told you, it was never a relationship. It's my version of your anonymous sex.”

“Good. Keep it like that.”

“Yes, dearest,” I said meekly.

After he'd finished pinning and fussing we sat on the roof garden and Antony opened his customary bottle of Cristal.

“Actually, I've got some far more juicy gossip than you and that grubby photographer.”

“What?”

“You know your friend Billy Ryan?”

“Yes. I've bumped into him twice recently—once was at the Easter Show and the famous Lizzy Ryan was with him. Except he introduced her as Lizzy Stewart, which I thought was kind of interesting.”

“That's it exactly!” said Antony, clearly filing away this new detail and thrilled with it. “They've gone public. Can you imagine? Billy told his own brother that he was in love with his wife, that they'd been having an affair for a year and that she was leaving Tom to come and be with him. It happened the night of Cordelia's party.”

“That explains why I didn't see him there. So how come he was with her at the Show? That was a couple of weeks before.”

“Tom was in New York on business. Billy told him when he got back.”

“Poor old Tom. What did he do?”

“Punched his lights out. Billy had to have three stitches—in his eyebrow, of course, which will just make him look more handsome than ever. Isn't it heaven?” He clasped his hands together with delight. “Oh, I wish I could have been there. Imagine those two gorgeous Ryan boys fighting it out. But the best thing of all—Billy told him in the Four in Hand. Can you imagine, with all those rugby boys around? ‘Sorry, mate, I'm rooting your wife. And she's going to be mine.' Pow! Crash! Oh, Patrick White would have loved it. Primeval.” He paused and looked at me. “Of course, this lays it all open for you and Rory Stewart.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Billy doesn't have to pretend he's seeing other women anymore, so Rory can now hit on all the gals who were previously in Billy's harem of pretend girlfriends, without betraying his maaate. You were one of them, sweetie.”

“Oh, I think it's too late for that.”

“Why?”

“Well, I see Rory as a friend now. You know how that initial attraction fades if you don't act on it? He was at Cordelia's party, actually—last seen snogging a busty girl in a horrible suit. Looked very happy about it.”

Antony's left eyebrow shot up. He was looking at me with his evaluating face, exactly as he had when I first met him at the hat party. I looked back at him boldly and drained my glass.

“The attraction fades, does it, Georgia? Hmmm. I wonder who the chick was . . . Probably very rich if she was wearing nasty clothes. We'll have to find out. Ask Debs about it—then tell me. Does she ever come into the office these days?”

“Debbie? Oh yes, from time to time. Not like every day or anything and never before eleven a.m. and often in a filthy temper, but we do see her. How was the wedding in Melbourne?”

“Oh it was
fabulous
. We had the best time. We behaved really really badly. Debbie has been banned for life from the Australia Club.”

I must have looked blank.

“It's a very snooty club. The members are mainly senior lawyers, you have to wear a tie to breakfast and all that bollocks. Very establishment. Beautiful old building, billiard room, the works.”

“So what did Debbie do that got her banned for life?”

“She gave the best man a head job in the breakfast room—members were having breakfast at the time.”

I couldn't believe my ears. I just gaped at him, appalled.

“Isn't she hilarious?” he said.

“No. I think she's seriously deranged. She needs help and your attitude just encourages her. She could get arrested for doing something like that. I mean what does she have to do to get some attention? Was she totally off her face?”

“Oh, you are boring sometimes, Pussy. She'd had a little cocaine possibly and maybe some eccies and rather a lot of champagne, but I wouldn't let something really bad happen to Deb—or Bed, as I now call her, HA HA HA.”

Was this bad enough for me to ring Jenny? I wondered. How would I tell her? Your daughter was caught giving oral relief to a man in the dining room of a major Australian establishment? I couldn't do it. And it's not like it was actually endangering her health, just her poor destroyed reputation.

 

 

Despite her recent disgrace Debbie (or Beddie, as I now couldn't help thinking of her) seemed to be in a better mood around the office and as Liinda was away for the week doing a travel story in Hawaii, I thought I'd grab the opportunity to talk to Debbie about the Jasper stalking incident.

“Shame you missed Cordelia's party,” I said to her casually, while we were going through photos of supermodels with spots for her next beauty story: “Bad Pore Days—Supermodels' Skin-Saving Secrets Revealed.”

“Yeah, I heard it was good,” she said. “And I heard you were smooching publicly with Jasper O'Connor. Yukko. You really have got the most appalling taste in men. Antony told me you just wanted a root, but really you can have meaningless sex with stockbrokers and rugby internationals, you know, you don't have to resort to penniless failed photographers.”

“Did Antony tell you about me and Jasper?” I wanted to understand the complete workings of Sydney's jungle drums.

“Antony and about fifty other people. Trudy told me. And Rory Stewart told my mum he'd seen you with—and this is a quote—“some kind of drug addict,” and now Jenny's really worried about you.”

“Bloody cheek. Fancy telling Jenny that. Tell her not to worry, it was just a fling. And Rory wasn't exactly behaving like the pope himself either. He was snogging someone like mad.”

“Oh yes, Mum told me all about that too. That was Fiona Clarke.” Debbie pulled a face. “Apparently he's really keen. She's going up to the Stewarts' farm this weekend. Mum's pleased he's got a girlfriend at last, because he hasn't had once since . . .” She sighed. “Since he had to move back up there.”

I gave her shoulder a squeeze.

“But you'd think he could have done better than her, for Christ's sake,” she said vehemently.

“Apart from the fact she was wearing a bad polyester suit, what's wrong with her?”

“Was she? That's typical. She's just so ordinary. A real wannabe. The kind of girl who goes to polo matches in a baseball cap and too much make-up, hoping to meet a rich husband. That's all she cares about—the rich bit. She's such a social climber. Can't stand her. She'll be so excited to think she has her hands on a Stewart too.”

I was used to Debbie's appalling snobbery and let it wash over me, while getting as many details about Fiona Clarke as I could.

“What does she do?”

“She does PR for a big property developer. The sort that is putting up all those Hong Kong slum buildings and calling them ‘lifestyle apartments.' She sends out invitations saying things like ‘Be a part of Sydney's new status address' and they're these hideous little poky units you couldn't stand up in wearing Manolos. Heinous.”

“She doesn't sound like Rory's type at all,” I said.

“Oh, he's just desperate to get laid, I reckon. Stuck up there on the farm. He was ripe for the picking.” She paused and leaned on the light box. “I have this theory that men ripen like fruit—when they're ready to fall off the tree it doesn't really matter who the woman is, he'll drop into her lap. It's all about timing.”

“Actually, she was all over
his
lap,” I said. “But that's a good theory. It explains why some of the most gorgeous men you meet are with the most ghastly women. I always thought it was something to do with their mothers. You know, at the risk of sounding like Liinda, we could do a story based on your theory. We'd get a great coverline out of it, although we'd have to come up with something better than ‘Why Men Are Like Fruit'—let's think about it. You should bring it up at the next ideas meeting.”

Debbie looked at me with a thoughtful expression. Yet again I noticed that she had the longest eyelashes I'd ever seen. A few cows at the Easter Show came close, but no other human.

“That's very nice of you, Georgie. Liinda would have just stolen the idea and I'd have forgotten about it until I heard her passing it off as her own at the next meeting.”