Dog Handling Part 12

"Please say yes or I'll have to slap myself so hard on the wrists."

"We didn't have s.e.x last night, Liv. Jeez, do you think I'd have taken advantage of you in that state? I mean I would have loved to, don't get me wrong, but call me old-fashioned-I just brought you home to bed."

"Oh," Liv said. "Okay, fine. Thanks. That was . . . sweet. See you tomorrow then."

Liv fell back to sleep again for another hour or so and woke up to Alex doing squat thrusts on her rug. She turned her head and groaned in pain. Clearly she'd still been pretty plastered when Ben was here. Now she was beginning to feel the ill effects of so much unprecedented immorality. "Well, now I know that It Girls are born and not made," Liv growled at Alex in her newfound s.e.xy voice, which had just appeared from nowhere. Actually, her voice was the only good thing about her right now and she was tempted to leave messages on the machines of everybody she'd ever met just so they'd hear how gravelly and seductive she was. Because it wasn't going to last. The reason being that Liv wasn't going to last. Ugh, this was awful. She thought perhaps she had about six hours to live. Six hours' countdown before the knocking in her head exploded into an ugly ma.s.s of self-loathing. Lots of stuff would come out of her ears. Mostly brain but perhaps a few internal organs, too, as they did feel as though they were swimming part of a triathlon in her bloodstream.

"I've just had some homemade muesli and freshly squeezed orange juice. And the body-sculpt cla.s.s is really making my arms firm. Squeeze," Alex taunted mercilessly as she sat on the end of Liv's bed and displayed a golden, toned arm. In just jeans and a T-shirt she'd come round to take Liv for lunch in Bondi.

"Too b.l.o.o.d.y perfect. Leave the room." Liv reached for a towel, which she wrapped around her face. "So you were out, right? You just got back?" Liv wondered if Alex had run into Ben, but no, she'd have said so. Liv saved it up to tell her later. Right now she didn't quite have the energy.

"You see, if you'd experimented with clubbing and dancing as a teenager like people are meant to, you wouldn't be in nearly so much pain. Your body's too old and broken down to deal with the onslaught," Alex said as she flipped through the Sunday newspapers.

"This is why people hate Cliff Richard. Being good is not attractive. Why don't you go and have lunch with another saint and leave me to explode in peace?" a m.u.f.fled Liv said from beneath the towel.

"You're kidding. I've got a table booked at Ravesi's for twelve-thirty. Shrimp ravioli's just what the doctor ordered."

"Get out of my life. I just hope your day of decadence in the Hunter Valley and subsequent evening in was worth me getting into this state. Because it is your fault. You should have been there to protect me," Liv whinged, fully expecting Alex to jump up and down on the bed and make her cry mercy, but she didn't. Liv lifted the towel to see if Alex was still there. She was, but she was looking very sheepish. If Liv had a brain she might have wondered why Alex was being so sympathetic instead of reminding Liv of the balance of pity that should be wasted on hungover Liv versus refugees in war-torn countries.

"Yeah, sorry, Livvy. Anyway, how about I run you a bath with some ginger and a pint of milk in it? It always works wonders with my hangovers. Also, you should stand on your head till it's done." And she vanished into the kitchen.

As Alex munched her way through the shrimp ravioli and ginger creme brulee Liv realised that though it seemed to have been at least seven years since Alex had bounded into her room this morning she still hadn't managed to tell her that she'd had s.e.x with Ben this morning. She thought maybe she'd wait until she'd had some coffee so that she could sustain a conversation that required more than three syllables. But Alex had clearly taken more vitamins than Liv that morning and was a little sharper.

"You are looking really well," Alex said as she scooped the froth off her cappuccino. "I mean apart from looking s.h.i.t-well, you know what I mean-you're kind of shining in spite of yourself. Is there something I should know about?"

"Are you completely mad, Alex? The waiter keeps trying to clear me away with the dirty napkins. I look rubbish." Liv dribbled some more Tabasco into her drink and then choked to death loudly.

"No, you've got it together. Dishabille. Natural, relaxed, beautiful. Sydney's agreeing with you. Or if Sydney isn't then something is," Alex said matter-of-factly.

"Have you got a guilty secret? Did you break my favourite bottle of perfume or something this morning and are working up to telling me?" Liv squinted.

"I was wondering the same about you," Alex said, peering at Liv over her spoon.

"I'm a grown-up now. I don't have guilty secrets," replied Liv, trying for the enigmatic response till she got her strength up.

"Last night?" grilled Alex.

"Last night was only a bit guilty and definitely not secret. I was just waiting for a caffeine hit before I told you." Liv wrote out a check for her three b.l.o.o.d.y Marys and put it next to Alex's, or rather Charlie's, platinum Amex card.

"Tell me now." Alex grinned in antic.i.p.ation.

"Okay." She took a deep breath. "I went to the party and Ben and Amelia were there and he followed me into the loo and-"

"Don't tell me you had s.e.x in the loo. That's so rank." Alex screwed up her face.

"He took me outside. We hung around by this frangipani tree and I was too f.u.c.ked up to know what I was doing, but anyway, when I was in the shower this morning he came in and I swear to G.o.d he is the best, most incredible lover in the whole world." Liv sank back into her chair and grinned goofily.

"Well, I'll take your word for that, but, Liv, that's so . . . that's fantastic. I told you, didn't I?" Alex said. "So what now?"

"Well, you know me-I need to be whacked over the head with a piece of wood before I really believe someone likes me-but I really think that this could be something. I mean at first I thought he was just making the most of having a naked girl in the bathroom before he'd had chance to get dressed properly, but well, I don't know. We had such a great time. You can't fake chemistry like that, can you?" Liv said with more emotion than was advisable given her current poor health. "We're having lunch tomorrow. I guess we'll talk about it all then." She sank back and smiled at the thought.

The future's so bright, I've got to wear shades, Liv decided with a smile as they emerged from the restaurant and out onto the Bondi beachfront.

"So now you have to tell me to get over it. He's a lying, cheating, scheming man just like all the others and I should steer well clear of him. And Dave's going to be furious with me because I gave away the goods. Especially as I thought I had but hadn't but then did anyway. But I think I was right to have some faith in him, don't you? I mean I've known him for years, really."

"Yeah, Liv, you're right to. There's something really romantic about you guys. Teenage sweethearts in a Provencal barn. I really think that this could work. I mean I've seen him with Amelia and I really don't think they're very well suited. She's so cool and he's so quiet and sweet."

"G.o.d, Al, is that you in there?" Liv tapped her friend playfully on the shoulder. "I thought you said he was a player and dangerous."

"I've watched him, and Rob really likes him, so I reckon he's probably all right."

"Can sunshine cause schizophrenia?"

"I've always been a romantic; it's just that I've never had much cause to believe before," Alex said, and smiled at the sky.

The girls walked along past the shopfronts and postcards and ordered large rock melon juices from a kiosk on the Parade. Alex thought for a moment before going on, "And I totally understand what you're saying. I know how s.e.xy it feels-all that illicit stuff. The fantastic feeling of knowing that when you're in a crowded room n.o.body but you two know that you can still smell him on your skin and that you know what it feels like when you run your finger along his cheekbone and that later you'll be wound around one another in some dark room, any room you can find, to h.e.l.l with whether it's a bathroom or a kitchen or a cloakroom." The girls had walked to the top of the cliffs, where they sat down on a bench and basked in the sun.

"Would you mind rewinding your conversation just a little bit there?" Liv turned abruptly to Alex.

"What do you mean?"

"The bit about crowded rooms and fingers on cheekbones and the smell on your skin and sneaking out to the kitchen. . . ." Liv paused and looked suspiciously at Alex. "Or how about we try the stables? And how about we make it the smell of saddle soap on his skin and hastily undoing the zip on his moleskins? Does he keep his riding boots on?" Liv's eyes were lit up now.

Blankness flashed across Alex's face for just one moment before she stood up and gathered her bag. "Better get back before we burn, hey?"

"How do you know what it feels like having an illicit affair, then?" Liv asked firmly.

"What do you mean? I imagine that's how you would feel . . . excited, charged, intoxicated. Isn't that right?" Alex said, not meeting Liv's eyes.

"Oh, come on, Alex, why don't you tell me what it's like?" Liv continued. "Because I have no idea if that's what you feel like when you sneak away to squeeze in a quickie with Rob." She waited for the denial.

"I think I'm having his baby," Alex said quietly, still not turning around.

Liv leapt up and promptly trod in some dog muck. "What?" she squealed, lifting her foot from the mush. "Whose baby?"

"Rob's." Alex turned around and instead of the pale face of a reluctantly pregnant woman who is haunted by visions of the workhouse and has fantasies about drinking too much gin and miscarrying, Alex wore a discreet smile. Her shoulders hunched slightly in a "I know; isn't it exciting?" kind of way that made Liv stare wide-eyed at her.

"How? What? I mean when?" Liv spluttered, wishing she'd had time to prepare questions earlier; it was the only way she'd be coherent.

"We've been having an affair since I arrived." She fiddled with the chain around her neck like a love-struck schoolgirl confiding details of her first fumble with the football captain in the year above.

"Why didn't you tell me?" asked Liv in horror.

"Because I wasn't sure. I mean I thought it was just a fling and I also know how bad you are at acting innocent because you feel guilty, and if Charlie had come round and you'd given the game away then neither you nor I would have had anywhere to live out here."

"You did it for me?"

"No, I'm sorry, sweetheart. I should have told you really, but . . . well, I'm telling you now."

"So how did it all happen?" Liv was too excited to know to care about Alex's secretive ways.

"I met him that first weekend. We were out at Charlie's place in the country at this barbecue and he opened his beer all over me. Completely ruined my pashmina." Alex was grinning from ear to ear now like a complete twit.

"You loved him for that?" Liv asked, thinking she'd have to make more of a point of borrowing Alex's pashminas if they were so dispensable.

"He took it to the kitchen sink and washed it for me. Said, 'Jeez, this must be worth a fortune, darlin',' and when I said it was he looked so concerned and dunked it in washing-up liquid and scrubbed away." Alex was raking her hand through her hair in the way Liv had only ever seen girls who were positively deranged with love do.

"Christ, didn't he ruin it?" Liv winced.

"Completely. But the point is that he didn't just say, 'Oh, I'll buy you another one when we get back to Sydney,' or, 'My cleaning lady will sort that out.' He cared about it, Livvy."

Liv kept her thoughts in and thought that maybe he'd rushed to the sink because he couldn't b.l.o.o.d.y well afford to buy her another one.

"I think there are quite a few men in the world who'd be interested in just how easy it is to make you fall in love with them. I mean if they knew they'd be queuing up." Liv smiled, still not taking in the pregnancy factor. She really did need secretarial minutes for this meeting.

"We want a boy. Don't you think it'll be gorgeous? Black hair and funny little black eyebrows and he'll definitely be tall but maybe not very academic, but we won't mind 'cause he'll be really good at sport. We'll teach him to ride on a teeny Shetland pony called Morty." She stopped for a minute and looked concerned. "But we don't mind if it's a girl of course. I mean we'll still be thrilled and everything and she'd be really cute and have roly-poly little baby legs. G.o.d, I can't wait," Alex said as the sun shone on her profile and picked out her pretty freckles.

"Does Rob know about this?" One horror was overtaking another in Liv's mind. It was a domino effect-what about Charlie? How did Alex know it was Rob's baby? Where were they going to live? What were they going to live on, because while it was all very nice dating men and getting Hermes leather goods in return, Alex wouldn't exactly be able to go back to work after the baby like mothers with office jobs or nice interior design careers could. What would she do? Ask for a Mothercare account card for her birthday or a year's supply of Pampers if she went with some banker for a week in Saint Bart's? Unless she knew some very kinky men who happened to have a thing for stretch marks and precarious pelvic flooring. But then what would Rob think?

"In fact, can we start again please? I got lost somewhere around the moment you fell in love with a penniless man who ruined your favourite item of clothing with fairy liquid."

When they finally arrived back at the cottage the crowds on the beach were packing up their ice boxes and rolling wet, sandy swimwear up in towels and heading home. On the kitchen table was a huge bunch of flowers, sunflowers, pink flowers, lilies, completely unarranged but big and so cheering.

"Charlie's going to be gutted, isn't he?" Liv said as she emptied the sand out of her shoes and onto the floor.

"I shouldn't think so. Half the time he can't remember my name!" Alex called back from the kitchen, where she was tracking down a packet of jammy dodgers.

"But he still sends you huge bunches of flowers." Liv leaned over and sniffed one of the lilies, managing to smear her nose with orange pollen, which would take a week to scrub off.

"What on earth are you talking about? Charlie wouldn't pick his nose for me . . . let alone flowers. Those are from Rob." Alex came back into the room proudly wielding the biscuits.

"Penniless Rob?" Liv wondered.

Alex shrugged. "It's love, I suppose."

Alex and Liv spent the rest of the evening watching bits of Fawlty Towers and dreaming up business schemes. Occasionally they'd have these nights, not quite of homesickness but more of homage to home. They'd put on Turnbull and a.s.ser pyjamas (Alex's, not Liv's, as hers were wincyette and tended to melt and stick to her skin in the heat). Liv would wear a particularly floral shower cap from Portobello Market and they'd eat marmite sandwiches and watch English movies. Alex would read the Spectator and Liv would flick through the Style section of the Sunday Times, which was invariably two weeks old and cost seven dollars, but it was worth it just to be glad that they didn't have to buy floor-length coats in whatever colour the new black was and could strip off and run approximately six feet onto the nearest beach instead. HomeSmug was probably the word. Though it did give Liv pangs for the times she'd read Sh.e.l.ley Von Strunkel's horoscopes out loud to Tim at breakfast. But he'd always be just a bit too engrossed in the sports pages to care, so sometimes she'd read out Johnny Depp's horoscope instead and wonder what this week would have in store if she and Johnny were breakfasting together. It was usually the same: travel, love, adventure, for which Liv read Viper Room, Cannes, unresolved feelings for Kate Moss, et cetera. Life with Johnny was not simple.

"So Dave needs our cheques for the final instalment for Greta's Grundies by Thursday. He's decided that he's going to buy this record company or something and needs the cash!" Liv yelled as she went through into the kitchen.

"Okay, I'll talk to my accountant tomorrow," Alex said casually, "though I'm going to have to make this Greta's Grundies business work now. No crawling to Charlie or any man with my dry-cleaning bills in the future."

"Christ, you're really giving it up? Can't you just keep seeing Rob slyly?" Liv asked.

"Oh yeah, and whoops, Charlie, here's a baby I had earlier with your mate."

"Well, I don't know, but you have to get by." Liv was concerned. "What about Luke's university fees?"

"I've got enough in stocks to pay for him for the next couple of years; then he'll start work. So where's the point anymore?" Alex said as she wrote a list of people as long as her legs.

"What's all that for?" Liv asked as she made herself a gla.s.s of Ribena, another constant craving that could only be indulged on homage nights.

"Our launch," Alex said. "What's Laura's girlfriend called again?"

"Jo-Jo," replied Liv. "Did you say launch?"

"I thought at the end of the month. If we're going to be Judith Krantz heroines with shoulder pads and our own empire we have to live like that and have a launch. You know, flamingos in fountains of champagne, cakes cut in the shape of G-strings, beluga caviar eaten out of diamond-encrusted Jimmy Choo shoes. That kind of thing," Alex said as she handed the list over to Liv for approval.

"You're kidding?" said Liv.

"No. I think we should definitely change our names to flowers. Liv and Alex are so pedestrian. I think I should be Amaryllis and you should be Primrose. And it's good that you're brunette and I'm a blonde; otherwise one of us would have to dye her hair. Shame that you're not secretly royal, though; that would be good for business. Princess Primrose. No chance your mum had a quickie with Prince Charles in 1971? He wasn't bad-looking then," Alex spurted on as Liv lamented her mother's lack of s.e.x with Prince Charles. Life as the love child of a royal must be great. Discreet holidays with Dad in heathery Balmoral and a storecard at Fortnum and Mason. Still the horses. She couldn't stand horses and their evil, knowing eyes. "Didn't you ever read Princess Daisy or Scents or any of those fabulous dynastic epics with strong yet frail, poor yet beautiful heroines?" she asked.

"Sure. But only the dirty bits," Liv admitted as she remembered sitting around behind the gym at school as the owner of the book read aloud and ten girls gasped at the notion of golden showers and the word c.o.c.k in print. Perhaps that had been the start of all Liv's problems. Those women were forever having their g-spots teased or s.e.x in Jacuzzis. The only thing Liv had ever got in a Jacuzzi was a mouthful of water with a toenail in it.

"I thought we'd invite your old boss, Fay. And Luke really wants to come over; he's got this girlfriend in Adelaide," Alex said.

"Aren't you getting a bit carried away? I mean this is Greta's Grundies, not the launch of the new Elizabeth Taylor fragrance in Harrods."

"G.o.d, and what better press could there be? 'Former market stall owners Alex Burton and Liv Elliot took off their money belts and gave their voices a rest from caterwauling today at the international launch of their exclusive range of designer lingerie.' " Alex laughed, "Today Paddo Market, tomorrow Saks Fifth Avenue. Good, eh? And I've always fancied being a dot com millionaire, too." The fact that Alex had never once arrived at the market stall before lunchtime on a Sat.u.r.day and would rather wear a noose around her neck than put on a money belt caused Liv to want to put up her hand and object.

"I'm an accountant, Alex. It doesn't work like that," Liv said as she scanned the list and noted with relief that her own parents hadn't been added yet. Her mother would die of pride and have to be resuscitated and Lenny would inform the a.s.sembled partygoers about the Marxian oligarchy that made all such ventures inherently flawed. Though of course he'd mean well.

"Rubbish. You've got to think big. Trust me. Now first of all we have to get the invitations done. I'll take care of that tomorrow. You just get the stock in order and make sure we have enough samples to send out to, let's think . . . about five hundred journalists and stylists and personalities. That should cover it."

"Samples of what?" Liv asked. She'd had her daydreams about Greta's Grundies being worn by movie stars, but she'd never really believed it. Which seemed, she realised, to be the story of her life. Oh well, if Alex could help her make one of her fantasies see the light of day then she'd be thrilled.

"I think a G-string each would be really nice. Just that sheer but not obscene fabric. Leopard print. s.l.u.tty but a little more Fifth Avenue than Frederick's of Hollywood." Alex drew a sketch of the G-string she had in mind.

"Fine," Liv said, biting back her financial reservations. "I'll do a costing and we'll find a way of buying the fabric."

"Good." Alex clapped her hands together and lay back on the sofa. "Now what are we going to wear?"

"Well, you'll probably have to make do with a tent," Liv said, and gave Alex a big hug. "So I think I'll wear your favourite little red Prada suit, if that's okay?"

Chapter Fifteen.

The Nature of the Beast As Liv lay in bed that night she tried to fathom out how she ever got to be so hopeless. That her best friend could be conducting an illicit affair under her nose with Rob of the Eyebrows and actually be heavy with child (well, not quite heavy-Liv hadn't even noticed an early-morning dash to the bathroom to throw up or a sudden interest in stories about curious places for your water to break yet) had left her speechless. As she looked through the window at the moon high above the city, the Southern Cross just discernible behind the drifting clouds, Liv had to fight with her new, liberated, experimental side not to wish she were lying here now with Ben. And maybe even a little Ben between them. How amazing to have such a dazzling man for a husband and father. Other women would fall in love with him, he'd flirt outrageously as he played doubles tennis with friends' wives, but he'd always be hers.

Then as the clouds blacked out the moon and darkness covered the sea, Liv remembered that this was Amelia's story. And yet didn't she feel sorry for Amelia, being humiliated while Ben flirted and slept his way into Liv's affections? Didn't she remember what Alex had told her so often, what she had told so many of her friends over the years from the vantage point of Going Out with Mr. Perfect? That if you acquired a man via his being unfaithful to somebody else there were no guarantees? In fact, the only guarantee was that he'd be very capable of doing the same to you? In an ideal Spice World of tough talking and girl power Liv would just have the s.e.x and shoot through. Still, Ben was different. There really was some connection there, Liv told herself. It was just in the eyes, the way they looked at each other.

"Oh, Liv, you're home. I've been waiting for you." Laura emerged from her studio with a remarkably realistic blood colour smeared across her face.