Dog Handling Part 11

Liv arrived at the party and as she climbed the stairs to the roof terrace was longing for the Mardi Gras parade to begin. All up and down Oxford Street people were lining the route, standing on milk crates, wearing fabulous costumes: men in glitter hot pants, stray Chers, lots of moustachioed hard men in leather chaps, but also lots of children and teenagers and accents and real policemen mingling cheerfully with those with the b.u.t.tocks of their trousers cut out. The fun was infectious and everyone was waiting for eight o'clock and the start of the parade.

"c.o.c.ksucking Cowboy?" A voice next to Liv's ear asked as she leaned over the edge of the roof and watched the crowds and strobe lights sparkle below.

"Love one." She smiled at the Cruella De Vil waiter.

"Coming right up." Cruella winked and vanished.

"You don't call; you don't write; you don't phone. How am I supposed to know if you're dead or alive, eh?" another voice behind her said over her shoulder and kissed the back of her neck.

Liv swung round to be confronted by Ben Parker, for heaven's sake. "You?" She scowled as though s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her face would make him vanish like a mirage.

"Me. This is the hottest ticket in town-did you think me and my prestigious girlfriend would go anywhere else?" He smiled sweetly. "There's a crowd of us over there. Come join us?"

"Where?" Liv stood on tiptoes in her silver trainers and didn't have to look for very long before she spied Amelia and her reams of beauteous friends shimmering in slinky fabrics and dazzling the waiters with their sparkly eyelashes.

"You know what, I'm fine just where I am, thanks," Liv told Ben. Despite the little kiss he'd just bestowed on her neck (which may have been a trick of her disco-dazzled brain), she felt comfortable with him for the first time since she'd arrived. Clearly they'd dispelled any misleading s.e.xual tension by having a bit of a snog, she'd then set him straight about her intentions, and he hadn't called her. So no weirdness-just friends. "But it's sweet of you to offer. I'm so glad we can be friends, you know. I do think you're nice."

"Well, I'm glad. I think you're nice, too." He laughed and Cruella brought over Liv's drink. Just then the lights went down and the music began as the MC announced that the parade had just begun. "Well, I'd better be getting back over there or I'm likely to be missed. See ya later," Ben said, and patted Liv's arm in what could only be described as an avuncular way. Worst luck but definitely for the best, Liv thought as she craned her neck to see the d.y.k.es on Bikes on the street below roaring into gear with their b.o.o.bs wobbling proudly. And as the music struck up, as the lights flashed up from the street and from the ceiling above her, Liv began to experiment with her hips a bit. She jutted one in one direction. Then the other. She shifted her feet on the floor and shot a glance shyly around the room to see if anyone had noticed. If they had, then they seemed unfazed and not especially terrifed. The police may have been alerted, but she didn't think so. So Liv got a bit more flash with her moves. She jiggled her arm like she was pulling a fruit machine and then caught sight of herself in a nearby window. She was dancing. Not reinventing the boogie or anything but definitely dancing. Which set her off all over again. I can dance! I can dance! she cheered in her head as years of miserable school discos and sitting out the Scottish dancing at weddings melted into happy oblivion.

As the parade continued, as float after float of overt s.e.xiness was paraded before her, as she watched the guests on the dance floor behind her, the teenagers snogging in the street below, Liv began to feel a bit hot under the collar. She had exhausted her hips and was suddenly seeing the point of a dance partner. She shot a few glances over her shoulder and noticed Ben dancing-not wave-your-arms-in-the-air-and-let-rip stuff but just a bit of hip swaying, a foot here, a hand on someone's waist there. He was laughing and looked all ease. Alex was right: he was s.e.xier than any man had a right to be. So s.e.xy it was wrong. Especially tonight in his linen trousers and his trademark T-shirt and trainers. Amelia was really getting it together on the dance floor with her modelly mates, but he was unperturbed and seemed happy to just ease around the edges, one eye on the floats and music outside, one on the party. Liv was beginning to feel a bit left out, wishing it were last week again and she had Ben panting at her heels like a dog. I mean here she was totally ignoring him (apart from the sly staring) and she wasn't having a bit of luck. She looked forward to reminding Dave how wide of the mark he'd been on his dog-handling theories.

She took herself and her drink off to the loo so she could come back in five minutes and reinvent herself in another spot in the room-where n.o.body had seen her before and she would look like somebody who'd just stepped away from the fray to be alone for a second or two rather than a sad bint who'd been on her own all night. She was about to lock herself in a cubicle in the ladies' when she heard the door shut behind her.

"Why didn't you call me back?" She looked around and saw Ben standing there, his back against the door holding off the rest of the party. A tap dripped and Liv clutched her bag and took a hasty look around the loos to see if anyone else was there. They were alone.

"If you don't ring I can't call you back." Liv took a step or two back towards the cubicle. Subtly, but putting the distance between them nonetheless.

Ben was looking closely at her to discern whether she was telling the truth. "I called you on Sunday. I left a message on your machine."

"Oh. G.o.d, well, I'm sorry. I really had no idea."

"I can't stop thinking about you." He didn't move from behind the door, but she knew that he was about to get much closer than ever before. She could feel her resolve rinsing away, and though she tried to remember what her objections to kissing him were meant to be they, too, seemed to have evaporated. Ah yes. She knew.

"You have a girlfriend," she said. Almost firmly.

"You're very busy," he reminded her while looking at her lips.

"You're a player and only after one thing and when you've got it I won't see you for dust." She moved another pace away.

"You don't want a boyfriend right now." He moved a pace closer.

"My heart was broken and I don't want it to happen again."

"I want you, Liv."

"Of course you do, because you can't have me."

"Can't I?"

There was a tap on the door behind him and they both froze for a second. Liv opened the door of the loo behind her and motioned for him to go inside quickly. They could swap places.

"What's going on in there? Open the door," a woman's called out shrilly. Liv took over holding the door shut where he'd been standing. Before he moved into the cubicle he touched her cheek. Liv closed her eyes for a moment and then, after he was securely locked in the loo, she moved away from the door and let the woman outside in.

"What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l were you doing in here? I'm standing out there dying for a pee." A shimmery girl whom Liv recognised as one of Amelia's cosy posse burst through the door.

"Sorry. I was just hitching up my tights and didn't want anyone to come in." Liv grinned inanely.

"Yeah, well." The girl looked Liv up and down as though she were just a weirdo and then shut herself away in the next cubicle for a very long and loud pee like a horse. Liv tapped lightly on Ben's door and he opened it. She joined him and they smiled conspiratorially at each other and locked themselves in.

"Hey, you got any dunny roll in there?" The horse pee girl rapped on the door.

Liv leapt a foot in the air and Ben sent a roll sailing under the part.i.tion.

"Here you go." Liv giggled.

"Ta very much."

Liv and Ben were now only a foot apart with nowhere to step back to. Liv looked at her feet and then her handbag and Ben's feet and everywhere except his face. His trousers, she noticed, were made of a particularly lovely rough-hewn linen, probably Italian but then again, maybe Egyptian cotton. And beautifully hemmed.

Meanwhile there was a flush next door. A great deal of primping sounds and teasing of hair into place in front of the mirror and then the banging of the door and silence.

"Thank G.o.d for that. I thought she'd never go." Liv laughed.

"So where were we?" He put his hands on her arms and she did feel stupidly small and pathetically lacking in willpower.

"It was never going to happen," she said quietly.

"Exactly." Ben nodded and then leaned down to kiss her, his hands tightening around her arms and his body moving next to hers. "Let's go outside." He had been kissing her hard and she, this time, had not been resisting.

"Outside?"

"In the street. It's buzzing out there. And it's pretty rank in here." He took her hand and kissed her one more time for the road. "Come on."

Liv was glad she hadn't revealed to him that having s.e.x in a loo was actually one of the things on her list of Experiences I Must Have in Life. Along with dancing in public and Ben Parker. So she figured it didn't matter too much if she skipped just one of her things to tick off just for tonight. Didn't want him to think she enjoyed doing rank.

Ben laced his fingers through hers and led her out of the fire escape down some back stairs onto the street. They'd totally bypa.s.sed the party and Amelia and, thankfully, hadn't crashed into anyone on the way.

"Aren't you afraid we'll get caught?" Liv asked rather naively. The look he gave her told her that this might be precisely the thrill he was looking for. Instantly Liv knew that this was probably not the path marked "Love and Romance 134 miles." This was the hot, sticky, slippery slope to momentary thrills and feeling like s.h.i.t tomorrow. But whereas unbaked Liv would have hesitated on the street corner, thought of Dave's wise words, and said thanks, but no thanks, the half-baked version of herself felt the balmy evening envelop her, took one look at Ben's face, thought screw tomorrow, and followed him through the crowds.

The parade was in full swing and with each float that pa.s.sed another disco hit filled Liv's head. She was happy to be jostled by the crowd with their whistles and cans of beer and shrieks of excitement and she couldn't help but dance along as she and Ben stared upwards to see more camp than several hundred rows of tents grinding and pouting away. Every so often Ben would rest his hands on her waist as he stood behind her and she could feel his knee brushing the back of her legs. She was absolutely beginning to get the point of c.o.c.ksucking Cowboys by now. They fuelled her on her journey. Even if she didn't know her destination, as she was so tipsy. But just as she was getting into Barry White rasping "Hang On in There, Baby," Ben put an arm around her waist and led her away from the throng and onto a quieter street.

"A bit of peace and quiet at last," he sighed as they strolled past the darkened, silent houses in Paddington, smelling the jasmine and enjoying the warmth of the night until the noise of the crowds drifted away.

"Absolutely," Liv said. Though suddenly she missed the buzz. It had matched her mood, the energy that was still bristling through her. She was still high from earlier, and part of her wanted to keep dancing and moving. Still, here was Ben. All to herself. Couldn't really complain.

"I don't know what it is about you, Liv, but since you arrived I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. I mean truly, I have never been this distracted by anyone. There's something different about you. . . ." He stopped and turned to her, pushing her hair gently back from her face. She was looking slightly blankly at him. "Oh, I know that sounds like a line, but it's not. . . . It's like you're not even aware of how great you are and-"

"Ah, you see, I have a theory on this." Liv moved around to the other side of the tree and began to pull the leaves off it. Then the odd twig. Breaking it up into pieces. "Ha, look, I'm pulling apart this poor tree. Anyway, the thing is . . ." And she was away. Straight off the starting block her mouth was running the 100-metre sprint in Lycra shorts and very serious trainers. Fuelled by the booze with fluorescent go-faster stripes. Liv talked. And how. "What you have to understand, Ben, is that I was with my old boyfriend for years. I mean ages and aeons and practically generations-almost since Victorian times-and so I'm not exactly what you'd call experienced with men and I know that I'm not supposed to admit this, especially to you, but I think that what you like about me is this quality that-"

"It's a kind of innocence," Ben said as he watched her carve her name on the tree with her fingernail.

"Totally innocent. I mean really, how many people have you slept with in your life, Ben?" she asked as he rested against the tree and began to stroke her shoulders. "Actually, don't answer that, I don't even want to know, but the point is that I've slept with . . . well, not many, and if I were to tell you how many then actually you might-"

"You're talking complete rubbish." He was holding her hands and standing a breath away from her.

"I know; I'm sorry. I think maybe I'm a little high. Shall I shut up?" she asked through a haze of c.o.c.ktails and fresh air.

"Just give me a minute," said Ben as he moved in closer and began to kiss her bare, burned shoulder. "Or two." And he kissed her neck.

"Okay," she conceded, and closed her eyes just for a moment.

"Too much b.l.o.o.d.y Chardonnay, I reckon. I'll be fine. Just need a gulp of fresh air." Back on the roof terrace Amelia waved the horse-peeing friend away, and picked up her handbag before heading down into the street.

"Where do you reckon Ben's got to?" murmured one of the glossy posse when she was out of earshot.

"I saw that English girl in the dunny. You know, the one with the market stall." Horse pee raised her eyebrow and the glossy posse decided they wouldn't want to be the English girl with the market stall when Amelia got her hands on her.

"Oh, and this one, the one just below my shoulder blade. This one's from the time when I was seven and I fell off a dustbin." Liv and Ben had progressed to an intimate history of each other's scars.

"It's shaped like a boomerang." Ben smiled and ran his finger over the shiny white mark on Liv's back. "In fact, you are my boomerang. You've come back to me, haven't you?"

"Oh, that feels lovely." Liv shuddered. "Can you do that with your tongue?"

"I guess so," Ben said gamely, but he was beginning to worry that Liv looked a bit unstable on her feet. He'd seen her knocking back a few c.o.c.ktails and they were pretty ferocious. And now she was being unusually flirty with him. He had wondered for a moment if perhaps she wasn't better off tucked up at home in bed. Then he looked at her warm, soft shoulders, the smooth skin on her arms, and the curve of her elbow, which he particularly loved. And he carried on kissing her. After all, he went out with Amelia; he was used to manic, insane women who talked complete nonsense and never shut up. So he began to press his lips against Liv's scar. To kiss her shoulders. To ease the straps of her dress down and move his knee between hers.

Amelia stepped out into the street and pulled a packet of cigarettes from her Marc Jacobs bag. As she lit one and took a deep drag a small group of worse-for-wear revellers nearly crashed into her. One of the young women half smiled at Amelia, not sure if she knew her from her feng shui evening cla.s.s or if she'd seen her on the television but knowing that she knew her all the same. Amelia smiled back and stepped out onto Oxford Street with a tentative strappy sandalled foot. Last year a friend of hers had slipped on half a hamburger at Mardi Gras and broken her ankle. Then she'd put on loads of weight because, obviously, you can't exercise when your leg's in traction and you have to eat hundreds of poached eggs in hospital. Amelia was very cautious of foot.

"Wouldn't go down there, love. Never guess what we've just seen," one of the men laughed over his shoulder as Amelia made her way down a back street into Paddington.

Amelia took another lung-crushing drag on her cigarette and then tossed it to the ground and squeezed it underfoot. "I bet I would," she mumbled as they walked off. "I bet I b.l.o.o.d.y would." She forgot all about soggy hamburgers and marched, her bag clinging onto her shoulder for dear life, towards the scene of the crime.

Chapter Fourteen.

Pets Win Prizes Liv woke up and began to wallop herself around the face. She could feel a giant mosquito perched on her right cheekbone.

"Get off. Go away." She slapped away until it had to be dead, then lifted her hand from her cheek to witness the gore in a satisfied way. She looked at her hand. It wasn't a mozzie at all. It was a spiky, glittery false eyelash. Ugh. And she'd just completely given herself a headache by whacking her face like that. She leaned over to pull a pillow from the other side of the bed to hide from the glare of the Sydney weather. Instead her hand hit skin. Unmistakably skin. Human. She slowly turned her head, wondering if maybe she hadn't just got what she'd prayed for at her Tim altar all those months ago. To wake up and find that it had all been a dream, they were still engaged, and he was lying next to her in bed. But as she opened her eyes she realised that no, her prayers hadn't been answered. Well, not the Tim one, anyway. But maybe another one. Had she, she tried to recollect, ever prayed to see Ben Parker wearing reckless ruby lipstick with the sibling of her glittery eyelash stuck above his left eyebrow while lying buck naked in bed next to her? Not specifically, she thought. But maybe in one of her dirtier, more daring moments this scenario might have crossed her mind fleetingly. Anyway, the point was it had come true. Thank you, G.o.d, for answering my prayers.

She had had s.e.x with Ben Parker. She had died and gone to heaven. She was now a whole woman. Complete, fulfilled, extended, delighted, and satisfied by the man of her dreams. The only hitch being she couldn't remember a moment of it. Not a kiss. Not a lick. Or a squeal or a groan. Nothing. Nada. Rien. Naff All. She had somehow managed to have s.e.x with him and completely forget it. How could that be? Then she remembered the c.o.c.ksucking Cowboys. Of course. She could have cried-she had clearly been a miserable, philandering good-for-nothing male in a previous life to warrant this sort of bad luck right now.

Then just as she thought it couldn't get any worse she remembered dog handling. She'd slept with Ben Parker. She'd totally and utterly messed up her plans. How could one person be so breathtakingly stupid? There was now absolutely no way that she would ever get him in the sack again. He was as good as gone. In fact, if she closed her eyes and opened them again in six seconds he would probably take the opportunity to sneak out of her life and vanish. She had given away the goods. She was the cheap floozy. The scarlet other woman. She took a deep breath and wondered what the correct position to a.s.sume was when you were about to be kicked to the kerb. Maybe head between knees like aeroplane crash landings. Certainly she wanted to avoid eye contact when he did it. She decided to go and take a shower to give him a chance to leave without having to endure the whole embarra.s.sing thing about letting her down gently. She peeled her sheets back as slowly and quietly as possible and made her way to the bathroom.

Once the shower was pelting hot against her skin and torrents of water were vanishing down the plughole along with leaves and twigs and soapsuds her mind began to clear just a little bit. Fragments came to her. Dave and James waving down from their float. Lots of men in thongs. Ben locking the door of the loo and kissing her. But that was it. There was a moment when she'd shed her clothes, that much she knew, and judging by the small forest blocking up her drain she'd had something to do with a tree. But the recollection of the untold bliss stubbornly refused to show its face. Maybe someone had seen her, she suddenly thought. Maybe she could place an ad in the newspaper and ask anyone who had to come forward and jog her memory with vivid descriptions. Or maybe they'd only had s.e.x when they arrived back at her house. Perhaps Alex had seen or heard something. She'd ask her later. As she squeezed too much shower gel into her palms she offered up another prayer to G.o.d. Please, if I never ever imbibe vile alcohol again, will you let me remember The Bliss of last night? Just so I can rewind the memory and live it again in low, cat-feedingly lonely moments for the rest of my life.

As she was contemplating her future as a spinster with cats, not men, she heard some creaking and footsteps in the other room. He was getting up and grovelling about for his shoes, no doubt. Which he wouldn't put on until he was out the door in order not to be heard so he could make his getaway without being disturbed. She heard a low cough and a bit more creaking. In order to block out the scene she soaped her hair up into a foaming Mohican and began to whistle to herself. Soon he'd be gone and she could crawl around the cottage on her knees in misery, cursing her life and luck and parentage, which hadn't made her Amelia, and sobbing at the thought of what could have been. But right now she was focusing with all the intensity of a certified whacko on the tune to "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."

"Liv, listen, I think I have to go, but I just wanted to say thanks so much. I had great fun and-"

"Arggghhh." Ben was standing in the doorway of the bathroom. Liv pulled the shower curtain round her. Futile, perhaps, after she'd bared her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to him last night, but she didn't really remember that and well . . . she was shy. "What do you want?"

"I'm sorry. Here, do you want this?" He pa.s.sed her a towel, which she dived behind gratefully. "I just popped in to say thanks. I had fun and well-"

"Well, you're in love with your girlfriend. Of course you are. Why wouldn't you be? I practically fancy her and I'm totally off blondes at the moment." Ben looked at Liv as though she had shampoo for brains. "I'm off blondes because my ex was a blond. It's a reaction thing. Well, I'll be seeing you around then." Liv clambered from the shower still covered in soapsuds and a wilting Mohican.

"Bye then." Ben's shirt was still unb.u.t.toned and he hadn't got around to putting on his socks yet. He had clearly not got his quick getaway down to a fine art.

"Yeah, bye," Liv said breezily.

But instead of turning on his heels and being grateful for being let off for his caddish laddish baddish behaviour, Ben was shifting his weight from foot to foot, smiling, and looking a bit awkwardly at Liv. "Bye," he said.

"See ya." Liv shrugged. Go on. Out, out, d.a.m.ned boy. And then he leaned in to kiss her. She shoved her cheeks at him in a dinner party greeting way. But he was going for her lips. Honestly, the things men feel compelled to do out of guilt, Liv thought. Then, when he put his hands around her waist and began to search out her tongue with his she thought that rather than guilt this was simply a case of blatant opportunism. Here she was looking for all her life like a packet of Just Add Water and s.h.a.g and he was a boy. What else had she thought might happen?

"G.o.d, you're even more lovely in the daylight." He moaned gently as he eased his shirt from his shoulders.

Beautiful in daylight was a barefaced lie. Well, at least she knew where she stood. Scarlet Other Woman that she was and since she'd missed out on last night's festivities and activities and she had already signed away her right to be treated well by having s.e.x with him once, she might as well just tuck in now. He was never going to call again, so in for a penny, eh? "Hmmm, that's nice," she threw out as a sign of consent, and helped him with his belt buckle.

He dipped kisses over her neck and along her shoulder. This felt so good. She closed her eyes and felt his lips. She ran her hand down his back and traced lines on his smooth, firm b.u.t.tocks. G.o.d, she felt as though she'd been Sleeping Beauty for the last five years and had just woken up to smell the coffee and taste the toast and honey, or something. This was what it was all about. This was the kind of l.u.s.t that made grown women weep and men leave families and lives behind. Quite simply, it was the best.

"That was lovely, thanks," Liv said instead of letting him in on the secrets of her epiphany.

"Are you sure?" He brushed her hair back from his face and she could see tiny beads of sweat glistening on his top lip.

"Positive," she whispered as he carried on kissing her.

"Good." He began to push himself against her. All over again.

And an hour later, long after he was meant to have done the kerb kicking, Ben was sitting on the edge of her bed as he handed her a can of Tizer. She took a sip and, though she hated Tizer, it suddenly felt like the s.e.xiest, most elixirish drink in the world.

"We could have lunch on Monday. Please. You can't turn me down again," Ben said.

"I'd love to. You have my number, right?" said Liv, abandoning all pretence of unavailability. Actually, she had a meeting with her suppliers in the garment district, but what the h.e.l.l.

"Great," Ben said. "Now gorgeous as this is and much as I'd love to sit here all day and bask in the sun and have you by my side, I really have to go. But I'll call you. We'll go somewhere lovely. Maybe a picnic?"

"Sounds great. I know this place called Parsley Bay. We could swim and I'll make some Scotch eggs or something." She laughed.

"I'll bring jam tarts and squashed sandwiches and flat lemonade and we're away."

"I'll look forward to it," Liv said as she leaned over and kissed him good-bye one more time. "Oh, and I know this is not exactly a romantic thing to ask, but did we have safe s.e.x last night? I mean I know you were careful just now, but we were pretty f.u.c.ked up last night and I just wondered whether-"

"Last night?"