Pants on Fire (26 page)

“Georgia,” she said, top marks for that. “I think you should know that Debbie hasn't been in all week and Maxine's just told me she wants to see her after lunch. So I rang her at home and she told me to tell Maxine to ‘get fucked because it's the week after Mardi Gras and how could anyone expect her to come in like it was a normal week . . .' ”

She paused for dramatic effect, then continued.

“Anyway, Maxine's already angry with her about missing that Lauder lunch on Monday, so I told her Debbie had rung in sick and I hadn't seen the message until just now, and then I asked Zoe to ring Ben—he's a doctor—to get him to write a sick note for her, and I've sent a courier over to collect it. OK?”

I just looked at her in amazement. Nineteen years old and such a smooth operator. I was in awe.

“Is that OK, Georgia?”

“That's very OK, Seraphima. You've definitely done the right thing—and thank you for letting me in on it. I won't tell Maxine.”

“That's alright,” she said. “I knew you'd be cool.” She returned to her desk.

I leaned back in my chair and pondered what she'd just told me. The way they all protected Debbie was extraordinary, but I was ready to go along with it until I found out exactly what had been going on in that lane on Sunday. I knew the only way to find out more about that was to swallow my pride and ring Antony. I was still furious with him, but he had given me an excellent excuse to call—that morning he'd sent me an enormous bouquet of pale mauve roses. The card had said:

 

It was impossible to resist—and they were the first flowers I'd had since Nick Pollock that weren't from a multinational corporation. I rang him.

“Is that the vile old degenerate?”

“Oh, Pussy. I hate myself. Did I really say those awful things to you? Well, I know I probably did because I've had other reports about my shocking behaviour. You weren't the only victim. I really didn't know it was you, you must believe me.”

“I forgive you. But if you didn't know it was me, why did you say ‘I don't give a fuck about Pussy?' It's your name for me, after all.”

“I probably thought you meant pussy as in female genitalia . . . Which I'm really not very interested in.”

I had to laugh.

“Antony, you are appalling, but I still love you. What on earth had you taken to get like that? Hemlock?”

“Quite a few eccies . . .”

“I thought they were meant to make you love all mankind.”

“. . . some cocaine, several lines of speed, and then the real killer—copious amounts of vodka.”

“What's wrong with vodka?”

“It turns me into Vlad the Impaler. On everything else I'm just various sorts of silly, but vodka turns me into a mass murderer. I shouldn't drink it. On champagne I'm quite delightful, as you know, wine makes me merry, tequila makes me take my clothes off—not a good look—beer makes me sleepy, whisky makes me droll, but vodka turns me into a sociopath.”

“That must be why they call it vodka.”

“Uh?”

“It stands for Vile Old Degenerate. V.O.D.—you're a Voddie.”

He shrieked. “That's it! I'm a voddie. A voddie and tonic. I'm so glad there's a reason. Anyway, I'm sorry you saw me that way.”

“Don't worry, I forgive you completely. We'll never mention it again.”

“So will you come over and play tonight? Just we two? A little dinner
à deux chez moi
?
À sept heures
?
”

“Au revoir.”
And he put the phone down in his usual peremptory fashion.

 

 

Dinner was quite a production—Antony must have been feeling really bad about what he'd said to me. There was a little round table out on the roof garden with candles, a starched white cloth to the ground and enormous napkins. It was set with beautiful silver (which I recognised as Tiffany & Co. pattern), fine crystal glasses (which Antony told me were Baccarat) and Limoges china (I looked). He met me at the door, wearing a frilly white apron and holding a bottle of Cristal.

“It's so hard to get
staff
these days,” he said.

The food was wonderful—a huge platter of prawns (with silver finger bowls to rinse our fingers), grilled barramundi with a lemon sauce and purple potatoes, which he said he'd bought as a joke, mashed and piped into little castles.

“Have you really got one of those piping bags?” I asked. “I haven't seen one for years.”

“I inherited all this from Lee. He loved cooking and had a very
Women's Weekly
circa 1972 style. I've got a fondue set too.”

After we'd enjoyed a nice peppery rocket salad, Antony produced a great mound of meringue, whipped cream, strawberries and kiwi fruit.

“Is that a pavlova?”

“Why have you started speaking in French, Dolores? I've never heard a worse accent.”

“I met a gorgeous French flight attendant at the party . . .”

And he proceeded to entertain me with a blow by blow—literally—story of his evening. His impersonations of Betty up on a go-go boy's dancing podium left me helpless with laughter, but I noticed his account didn't mention Debbie very much.

“Didn't Debbie go to the party with you?”

“Oh yes. She looked amazing. I made her that outfit I wanted you to wear and she walked all over town with her boobs on display—and they're much bigger than yours, let me tell you.”

I poked my tongue out at him. “Did she have a good time?”

“I couldn't tell you. We got ready together here before going to Trudy's house for a pre-party, then we watched the parade right at the end of the route and afterwards we went into the Showground, where we immediately lost each other.”

“Didn't you see her again all night?”

“Come off it, Pussy darling. There are twenty thousand people there, you know, most of them gorgeous-looking men. There was no way I was going to go trailing around looking for her, and I knew I'd see her at the recovery party anyway. She can look after herself.”

Can she? I wondered.

“I thought I saw her in that hideous alley where—” I started to say, but Antony interrupted.

“You said you'd never mention it!”

“OK. But I thought I saw her.”

“Probably. Like I say, we always meet there—it's a well-known recovery party.”

“She was down a side alley.”

“With a man, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

“Was she giving him a head job?”

“Antony! No, she wasn't. Don't be disgusting.”

He pulled a face.

“Sorry, I forgot I was having dinner with Mary Poppins for a moment. What was she doing?”

“She was sort of resting . . . Antony—do you think Debbie's OK?”

“No. She's completely out of control.”

“Are you serious?”

“As serious as I ever am.”

“What I mean is, do you think she might harm herself?”

“Well, all that alcohol certainly isn't doing her skin any good and her reputation is shot . . .”

“Do you think she might be injecting drugs?”

His eyebrows broke the land speed record.

“Whatever makes you think that?”

“Oh I don't know, just something I saw . . .”

He looked serious.

“Now that would be a bore. Injecting is so
déclassé.
I tell you what, I'm fitting her for a dress at the weekend, I'll check her over for track marks. Although I draw the line at looking between her toes. Will that keep you happy? I really don't think you need to fuss too much—she just likes to have a good time and, since that plane crash, I'm quite happy to go along with anything she wants to do that makes her smile. But don't worry, I won't let anything really bad happen to her—if I see a track mark I'll let you know immediately. Anyway, did I tell you what Trudy said when I told him about Jean-Luc? Well . . .”

And off he went.

Chapter Fifteen

On Friday morning, while I was in a planning meeting with Liinda and Maxine (who'd been totally mollified by Debbie's bogus doctor's note), Seraphima took a message from Jasper for me. He'd invited me over to Caledonia that night for what he called “a film show.”

It turned out to be an open-air showing of various short films made by Jasper, the animators, and their friends, projected onto a big sheet in the garden. There was the usual Caledonia crew of weird and interesting-looking people sitting on the grass, talking, drinking and smoking, while we waited for it to get dark enough to start the show. Jasper floated around being host, coming over regularly to check I had someone to talk to, a fresh drink and—most importantly—that I was having a good time. I was.

The films were pretty average, and the remarks shouted out by the crowd were far more entertaining. Two of the films were by Jasper and the awful thing was that I really couldn't see the point of them. I was dreading him coming to ask me what I thought. Luckily he made it easy for me.

“Well, that was a piece of shit wasn't it?” he said, sitting down on the grass next to me.

“Um, well, yes it was, really,” I said. “I have to say I didn't get the point, Jasper—I was hoping you would explain it to me.”

He roared with laughter and then leant over and gave me a big kiss on the lips.

“That's my Pinkie. No bullshit. That film isn't about anything. It's garbage. I'm going to set fire to it so I can't ever show it again by mistake. I'd been smoking this really heavy hydroponic weed for about two weeks and I was convinced I was the new Tarkovsky. What was I thinking? A two-minute static shot of an empty bus shelter. I thought it was a fantastic symbol of suburban ennui.”

“So is that why the next two minutes was a static shot of a man trying to start a four-wheel drive? Was he desperately trying to escape his ennui?”

He nodded and began to laugh silently, until he was shaking uncontrollably and tears were running down his cheeks. I couldn't help joining in and it just made him worse when I said, “And I couldn't see the Turkish bread in it either . . .”

“Aaah,” said Jasper, falling back onto the grass. “Oh, I'm such a pretentious git. I really must stop smoking dope. What total garbage. God, I'm a tosspot. Well, at least it didn't have any of my terrible dialogue in it.”

Then he sat up again and looked at me.

“Hey, you work on a magazine—you must be able to write. You could write a film with me.”

“Well, I do write things now and again, but I don't think I'm up to a film script.”

“Of course you are. I know—we can have a girl leafing through a copy of
Glow
and then we can cut to her trying to apply what she reads to her own life.”

“It might be classed as pornography in that case.”

“Good! Good! This could be really interesting . . .”

Fired with enthusiasm, he went off to find the animators to see if they'd do animated sex scenes for us so we wouldn't have to hire real porn stars. Then he decided I should play the
Glow
reader as well as write the script and so it went on. A load of harmless, entertaining nonsense.

About one in the morning I'd had enough and told Jasper I was off. Once again he insisted on walking me home.

“Well, here we are at your castle gate again, Princess Pinkie. Perhaps one day you will allow your suitor to accompany you up to your ivory tower.”

“Right now the Princess is about to turn into Sleeping Beauty. Good night, Jasper.”

 

 

Saturday morning, at five minutes to eight, my phone rang. Vidovic.

“Are you alone?”

“Believe me, Liinda, the morning I'm not alone, I'm going to leave my phone off the hook in anticipation of your wake-up call.”

“Thank God you're by yourself,” she rasped.

“Why? Are you coming over?”

“No, it's just that you were seen getting very chummy with Jasper O'Conner last night and I was worried that in your vulnerable state you might have fallen victim to his charms.”

“What? Where on earth did you get this from? And what vulnerable state?”

“Post Pollock. I thought you might need some uncomplicated validation of your attractiveness to men and accidentally fall into bed with Jasper.”

I couldn't believe this. “You didn't answer my first question—who told you I was ‘getting chummy' with Jasper O'Con-nor? And why did they think it was any of your business?”

“So you were!”

“Liinda, what are you playing at? Is this your way of warning me that Jasper is an even bigger bastard than Nick Pratface Pollock? Because if he is, just tell me. I don't want another sushi sister evening; this time I'd like to know in advance.”

“No, it's just that he's a big pothead flake like I told you and I don't think he's what you need in your life.”

“Liinda, I appreciate your solicitude,” I said with heavy sarcasm. “Although it makes it even more bizarre that you didn't warn me about the P. person. But this is really none of your business. And I'm not having a relationship with Jasper, he's just very friendly and I like all the nutty people who hang around that mad old house—apart from whichever creep came snitching to you. Who was it, anyway.”