Dog Handling Part 2

"I'm sorry. I'll work late every day for the next year. I'll sweep the workroom floors in my lunchtime. Only please don't fire me. I need this job. It's a distraction. G.o.d knows if I were at home right now I'd probably have drowned in my tears."

"You need this job like a hole in the head, Liv." Fay's stony-faced boss look was beginning to grate on Liv's nerves. What the h.e.l.l did she know about heartache with her randy husband and perfect kids?

"No. You can't fire me. Please." Liv saw only mornings at home when she'd be reduced to calling daytime television phone-ins with psychiatrists and cotton-wool-haired agony aunts.

"Liv, I have no intention of firing you. Listen, love, I think this is all a bit deeper than you think. And in a way a lot more exciting." Liv was beginning to doubt Fay's sanity now. On the scale of fun-stuff-to-do, how exciting was getting dumped? And she was cringing as she realised that Fay would now know what a sad loser she was and that Spandau Ballet's "Gold" was one of her all-time favourite songs and that she fantasised about wearing A-line skirts in a wartime bunker. Christ, she hadn't even confessed that to Tim and he was, as she now knew, the only man she would ever love in her entire life. "So I'm going to help you." Oh G.o.d, Liv just didn't want to be Fay's latest mission. She wasn't a Bosnian war child. She wasn't keeling over with chronic alcoholism. And she didn't think she needed recycling. Why couldn't Fay keep her North London worthiness for another cause?

Liv contemplated slinking away, but her boss was not to be thwarted in her crusade.

"You're in pain right now. Your ego's been bruised, and you feel betrayed. You don't think you'll ever get over it," continued Fay. A tremble a.s.saulted Liv's lower lip; this was almost as accurate as a telly shrink. "But the truth is that your relationship with Tim probably suffered because you were harbouring unfulfilled dreams of a life outside your relationship with him. You wanted out of the wedding as much as he did. Only now you're making yourself into the victim, which is fine for a moment or two, but then you have to tell yourself that this happened for a reason and the reason is that you have s.h.i.t to get out of your system, young lady."

"I do?" Liv asked. She felt a flash of strength. "I do!" she repeated. Then she realised that actually, she would never utter those words while gazing lovingly into Tim's eyes and went a bit floppy again.

"You do." Fay didn't notice the collapse of spirit. "Which is why I'm sending you on a sabbatical."

"You're firing me?" Liv squeaked.

"I've watched you practically crawl into work every day for the last week; you're wretched and pathetic" (Liv would have told Fay to go easy had she not caught sight of her stringy-haired, baggy-eyed reflection in Fay's computer screen) "and I know that if I don't persuade you to go somewhere, anywhere, then I won't be pa.s.sing on the benefit of my feminine wisdom. You need to get off your b.u.m, stop dreaming, and start living. Now blame it on the fact that I went to university in an era of ludicrous idealism and hope, or blame it on the fact that I still wonder what would have happened to me if I'd married Gus the cowboy I fell in love with in Arizona in '73. But please. For me, Liv, go. Go anywhere. Just for a while. You're a free woman."

"You want me to go away?" Liv was having trouble comprehending. Did sabbatical mean "b.u.g.g.e.r off" in Greek?

"How about France?" Fay was resting against the bookshelf now with her hand on Liv's shoulder.

"The French resistance thing was just because they all had great forties hairstyles and pretty noses." Liv felt a dash to the ladies' for the sob-bash-splash routine coming on but resisted.

"Anywhere, then. Do it for me. Go somewhere amazing; then come back and tell me all about it over a gla.s.s of wine, eh?" Fay pleaded.

"That's okay for you to say," Liv sniffed. "Your life's all sorted and you're amazing."

"But I never rode bareback with Gus." Fay smiled softly. Liv remembered what Alex had said about getting back in the saddle, and thought about Australia-it was the last place she wanted to be right now, but it was as far as she would ever, ever get from Tiny Tim (as he'd come to be known on account of his small-minded-not-able-to-love-Liv ways).

"Australia. I might be able to go there, you know. If you like." Liv wiped her snotty hand on her skirt and stopped crying for a moment.

"Australia." Fay looked as though she'd just had a mouthful of especially delicious chocolate cake. "Perfect."

Chapter Five.

New Horizons Liv climbed out of the taxi in front of her new address. The first thing she learned about Sydney was never to trust a taxi driver to know the way. They'd already visited 34 Seinfeld, Suss.e.x, and Dillon Streets, taking in Sydney's harbour, North Sh.o.r.e, and red-light district. All of which were perfectly picturesque but proved not to be her new address. Finally they alighted on the leafy little street near the ocean in Bronte-an area that for all she knew could have been the Acton of Sydney. Liv tipped him the grand sum of seventeen dollars, which seemed extreme even for a dumb tourist, but she wanted to be sure that he wasn't going to come back and slit her throat at nightfall. After all, a foreign city is a foreign city, and until she knew the precise location of the nearest places to buy newspapers, tampons, and beer she wasn't taking any chances. As the taxi rattled away down the road she hoisted the suitcase onto the pavement and paused to look at her new home for a moment.

The address had sounded fairly ordinary when she'd copied it down from her mum's address book: Bronte Beach, New South Wales. But this was as far from Wales as it was possible to stray. For one thing, when she'd left, the other Wales was enduring the coldest October since records began and children were going to school in boats due to floods, et cetera. The usual stuff of British winters. Here on the flip side of the world it was the beginning of summer. Liv rolled up the sleeves on her fleece. The air smelled warm and sweet and the evening sky was a pale velvety blue. The cottage, though partly obscured by the most verdant jasmine tree imaginable, was painted pale b.u.t.tery yellow. There was a lace ironwork balcony upstairs and the windows had been shuttered against the sun earlier in the day. Cicadas murmured in the air as Liv hauled her luggage behind her.

Liv had been right and Alex had been loving Sydney more than she was letting on. So when Liv had called after her little chat to Fay and asked if the offer of getting her b.u.m out there still stood, Alex was delighted. Alex was going to be away in Melbourne with Charlie for a few days and wouldn't be there when Liv arrived, but she'd left the key to the cottage with the girl who squatted in the beach hut next door.

Apparently, Charlie had let the girl stay even though she didn't pay any rent because she was all brokenhearted and emotionally disturbed, having been dumped by a friend of his. Alex said it was a bit like having a cat. Occasionally she'd stroll in and use the bathroom, and she stored her milk in the fridge and stuff, but she was pretty quiet and did the odd bit of housework, so Alex was delighted to have her. Alex said that her name was Laura and though she was an emotional train wreck at the moment she was actually quite sweet really. Liv thought that a train wreck of a girl was exactly what she needed to take her mind off her own woes. She only hoped that Laura wasn't quite as glamorous as most of Alex's friends-just in case Tim should do the tail between the legs trick after three months and come and ring her doorbell in the night . . . only to decide that he preferred her neighbour instead.

But there was no sign of life at the window of the hut. Liv wondered what Laura Train Wreck might be up to on a Sat.u.r.day night in the sunniest city in the world. Sitting at home being disappointed in love and playing wrist-slitting music, perhaps. Liv took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell.

"Yeah?" a woman's voice breezed out of the hut, which was actually more of a barn painted cornflower blue. A light was filtering through a window and it looked pretty cosy.

"It's Liv Elliot. Alex's friend," Liv stammered back.

"Righty ho," the voice drifted down.

Liv waited for someone to come flying out at any moment. She a.s.sumed that the voice must be on her way to give a hand with the luggage, so she waited quietly, checking her hand for drug-induced shakes from the melatonin she'd scoffed on the plane. She could only hold her hand out for three seconds before it began to wobble dangerously. She wondered how she was going to cope when the time came for her to experiment with Ecstasy, as she'd invariably have to do in her new life as a girl who lived life and kissed cowboys. Or jackeroos or whatever the Australian equivalent was. Her liver would probably pack in. She antic.i.p.ated life ahead with a yellow tinge to her skin, which, oddly, wasn't nearly as terrifying to her as the idea that she might actually do something she'd regret on drugs. Flash her t.i.ts, fall into a trifle, be a terrible dancer. Still, wasn't that the whole point? It would be tough being a legend without doing anything legendary.

Liv sat on her suitcase and a.s.sumed that Laura Train Wreck must be in the shower or something-or perhaps she was prising herself from a hammock and drifting heartbrokenly through the hut. But ten minutes later, by which time even Elizabeth I could have made her way through the hallways of Hampton Court in a difficult dress with a neck ruff, Liv decided to bang on the door again.

"Yup?" the voice answered.

"It's me, Liv. I just wondered if you could let me have the key to Alex's cottage!" Liv called out.

"Oh, right. You want me to let you in?"

"If that's all right."

"Coming," the voice signed off. And didn't materialise for another five minutes. Then, just as Liv was wondering how much of a brain cell deficit one person could exist on, the mosquito net flew open and a small red-haired girl with china-white skin and paint-splattered overalls stood before her.

"I'm Laura. Follow me. It's all a bit hectic at the moment." She led Liv to the cottage and through the front door. "Your room's over there. Do you think you can sort yourself out? I'm really late for an appointment with my shrink," she blurted out at breakneck speed before vanishing back to the hut and slamming a door. It was like an encounter with the white rabbit in Wonderland.

Liv sat on the floor on top of her suitcase and caught her breath. Which was when it all began to sink in. Here she was, on the other side of the world, boyfriendless, in fact altogether friendless, her mother, though a bit flaky and useless at the best of times, was now an impossible twenty-four hours away, and her new neighbour, and the only person she knew in the whole G.o.dd.a.m.n city, was unfriendly and had abandoned her for psychotherapy. Liv closed her eyes for a second and contemplated tears. But she was a bit bored of that whole crying scenario. Depression had taken over where tears left off. Alex told her that it was the next stage of grief, which was a good thing because now there was only Anger and Closure to look forward to. So in the face of encroaching black gloom and a month in an inst.i.tution Liv did the British thing and went to make herself a cup of tea.

The beach house was possibly the most beautiful place Liv had ever seen. And while Charlie stayed at his flat in Bondi so he could keep his infidelity options open, he'd let Alex move in here and stay as long as she wanted to. It had belonged to Charlie's mother, Jemima, in the midseventies when she was going through a sticky patch with her husband. He was spending too long at the office and flitting around in helicopters and she was sick of playing the corporate wife. So, much like Marie Antoinette, she reasoned, she moved into the beach house with just a few bikinis and kaftans and rediscovered herself via Germaine Greer and Erica Jong and with a little practical help from the nineteen-year-old lifeguard on Bronte Beach. The house was bohemian in the way that only billionaires can afford. Each room was an extension of the beach and the sea-driftwood, plaster walls encrusted with seash.e.l.ls, a sandpit for a garden surrounded by reeds and rushes. There was a small log fireplace and mementos of Jemima's Awakening littered the house: a white sheepskin rug before the hearth-undoubtedly well used-Frederick's of Hollywood lingerie in the beachwood drawers, some Leonard Cohen LPs and a Barry White 45 of "Hang On in There, Baby," and the telltale pair of yellow swimming trunks size XXLarge.

Liv had instant respect for Jemima, who until now she had only glimpsed in cream suits and clutch bags with a bouffant at some gala ball in the pages of h.e.l.lo! Yet here was the woman twenty-five years ago, reckless, disgraceful, and, if the black-and-white photo of her next to the water bed in Alex's room was anything to go by, plain rather than beautiful but cool and s.e.xy as h.e.l.l. Quietly Liv determined that she would try to live her time in Sydney with Jemima as her patron saint.

Just as Liv located the kettle there was a rap on the mosquito net and a blond girl dressed all in pink down to her handbag stood in the doorway.

"Hi. I'm Jo-Jo, Laura's girlfriend. You must be Alex's friend." She put out a pink-nailed hand and reached for Liv's trembling one. "I saw the light on and thought Laura might be in here."

"I'm Liv. I think Laura sort of went that way." Liv pointed, drinking in the pink and longing for some human company. "Cup of tea?" Liv offered as a bribe.

"No thanks. We should go-you know shrinks; they get all agitated if you're late and start saying it's Freudian." Jo-Jo turned and yelled with unexpected volume for someone so pink, "Laura, you ready?"

"Here." Laura reappeared, kissed Jo-Jo on the lips, and they left. Liv was alone once again but felt slightly more encouraged. Did pebbles on the beach necessarily have to be male pebbles? she wondered. Shame she didn't even slightly fancy Alex, for then life would be sorted: Alex was pretty and cleaned her teeth more frequently than most men. They got on brilliantly and Liv's parents adored Alex. Except, sadly, Liv wasn't rich enough for Alex and they both liked s.e.x with men too much. Double shame. Liv downed her tea and plodded off to fall asleep on the nearest bed, dreaming of the day when Tim couldn't help himself from calling her and hanging up just to hear her voice on the machine.

When Liv woke up, her throat hurt and her eyes seemed to be clamped shut. There was someone moving in the shadows of her room. She opened her mouth to ask who it was, but nothing came out. Eventually she raised a limb and then heaved open one eyelid.

"Eepppp," she slurred, wanting to make her presence felt.

"Oh, well done. I was wondering whether to give you a bit of a shove or not. If you'd slept any longer your sleep pattern would've been b.u.g.g.e.red up for days." The quiet Australian voice seemed to be moving around in the cool darkness of the room. "Suzanne, my therapist, suggested that helping others was a good way of deflecting my own pain and anguish, so I've unpacked your stuff and put a white wash in. Do you fancy a boiled egg and toast?"

"Breakfast?" Liv squeaked, marvelling at her ability to adjust her bodyclock so cleverly through what must be at least seven international time zones.

"Actually, it's teatime. We can have some toast soldiers, too, if you like."

"Sounds lovely." Liv shifted her body to ascertain which limb was which beneath the somnolence. Also, she was a bit peeved, because if Laura was going to help Liv, then who was Liv going to help to forget her worries?

"Sorry about last night, but I still get nervous about the counselling sessions. Even though Suzanne's lovely and I've got Jo-Jo to come with me now," Laura said, pulling back the curtains and drenching the room in bright blue. Sea. Cloudless sky and a glare that sent Liv back under her bedclothes.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. What was that?" asked Liv. "Some kind of alien invasion?"

"A cracking Sydney afternoon," said the voice, which, in the light, indeed belonged to the same Laura as last night, though it was hard to see anything much given the green stripes of paint across her temples.

"So the counselling?" Liv tried diplomatically to find out whether Laura Train Wreck was clinically insane or merely brokenheartedly insane like herself. She noticed that Laura was folding Liv's oldest knickers into a careful pile in a chest of drawers.

"Yeah. Therapy's getting me through. Only three nights a week now, though, and once on the weekend. And there's a great telephone hot line that's stopped me doing something stupid quite a few times," Laura announced proudly.

"Actually, I've just split up with my boyfriend and I'm feeling a bit wobbly myself," Liv confided. "Which is why I'm here really. Trying to forget about him and find myself or something mad like that. I thought I'd try to work it through myself rather than going to see a therapist, though." In the blackest moments of the last couple of months it really had occurred to Liv to seek professional advice, but shrinks were surprisingly expensive and when it came to a toss-up between therapy and a pale blue cashmere cardigan it somehow hadn't been such a hard decision to make. Which had led her to feel, with a surge of triumph, that she just might be on the mend.

"Oh, counselling's great, but it's no subst.i.tute for self-help," Laura recited in fluent recovering victim speak, a language Liv realised she was going to become very familiar with. Soon she'd know her Issues from her codependencies, and she'd be able to verbalise her guilt in no time. See, she'd already learned something and she'd only been in Sydney a day. Or night. Or whatever. G.o.d, five minutes with Laura and she'd be all cured. "I'll tell you all about it over tea." And with that she was gone, leaving Liv basking in the startling afternoon sunshine.

Liv's room was a beautiful cream-walled haven filled mostly with the enormous white bed that she was lying in. Next to the bed was a table of candles: jasmine-scented, raspberry-coloured garden candles in terra-cotta pots, and beside that a bookcase filled with film star biographies, a chest of drawers in perfectly distressed blue nestled in the corner, and an antique Indian rug embroidered with giant peonies lay over the uneven white floorboards. All a far cry from her fraying carpets and Pica.s.so posters at home in London.

She shoved back the covers and made her way towards the window, feeling a bit like the old people going towards the s.p.a.ceship in the movie Coc.o.o.n. The window was at least the length of Liv's entire flat in London and opened out onto a little terrace littered with pots of geraniums and lilies. Liv held her breath as she took in the view. A cityscape straight off a postcard: Centrepoint Tower rose high above the mirrored buildings and office blocks; then if she turned her head farther to the right she could see the water bounce diamonds of light back at her. After a few minutes of drinking in the brilliance of the view she pulled an old sundress out of the wardrobe and over her head and made her way into the other room.

"So how do you know Charlie?" Liv asked as she cracked open the top of her perfectly runny soft-boiled egg.

"I was going out with a friend of his. Then we had the most traumatic breakup. I don't really like to talk about it, but it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Complete b.l.o.o.d.y carnage. Well, I guess you'd understand. Anyways, Charlie offered me the flat. He's been fantastic. Even introduced me to Jo-Jo."

"So do you and Jo-Jo go out together?" Liv asked.

"Yeah, it was pretty much love at first sight. If it weren't for the fact that you should never rely on another person to make you happy and that it has to come from within, I'd say that Jo-Jo makes me really happy," Laura related. Liv totted up the money she was going to save on self-help books just by living next door to Laura.

"Have you always lived in Sydney?" Liv asked, bursting to ask about the horrible witch who had dumped her but trying not to sound too much like an ambulance chaser. Certainly the way Laura was talking and based on the few horrific details Alex had shared with her it sounded like the roughest breakup since Romeo and Juliet. In fact, before Liv had even met Laura she had sometimes drifted off to sleep chanting, "At least I'm not Laura Train Wreck."

"It's all right, isn't it, this place?" said Laura, giving Liv her first taste of the Australian knack of playing things down. Elle Macpherson? Yeah, she's an okay-looking chick. The ninety-degree cloudless weather? Not bad going today. A spider the size of a Shetland pony? He's a big bloke. Liv would get used to it in time.

"Yeah. At least it's not Golborne Road in the p.i.s.sing rain," mumbled Liv. Which was exactly where she had spent last Sat.u.r.day night. Walking backwards and forwards in her only item of designer clothing. Which happened to be a Chloe corset designed more for seducing rock stars than prowling up and down wet streets hoping to b.u.mp into your ex-boyfriend on his way out to buy a pint of milk and convince him that you were completely over him and now had a full and active social life full of seducible rock stars whom you were on your way to meet at Woody's. Thank G.o.d for Alex and Sydney, was all Liv could think as she looked back on perhaps the worst way she'd ever spent four hours. In fact, looking back made her realise how far she'd come. And not just the gazillion or so miles. She was only thinking of Tim every hour or so now and not every ten minutes. Maybe things were looking up.

"I'm dying to explore," Liv said, suddenly curious about the city that, until five minutes ago, had existed in her mind as a faded postcard of an odd-shaped opera house and a whole load of men with sunburn and stringy long blond hair. Judging by her view, she was going to have a hard time keeping the promise she'd made to Alex not to explore the best bits before she and Charlie came home next week.

"Well, I'd love to give you the tour, but I'm in the middle of painting Venice, I'm afraid. Maybe tomorrow?"

"Venice?" Liv asked.

"Sure, come and have a look." She put down her spoon and led Liv into the hut. Propped against a wall was the Grand Ca.n.a.l, Harry's Bar in the distance, and the unmistakable brickwork of Venice. A floor-to-ceiling city, stretching across the entire room. The bed had been shoved into a tight corner and the floor was strewn with open paint pots and a chaos of brushes. "I'm a set decorator," Laura said, grabbing a paintbrush and touching up a gondolier.

"This is amazing. What's the play?" asked Liv.

"Death in Venice. . . . It opens at the opera house tomorrow night, so I have to push on." Laura was unable to resist getting back to work. Within moments all talk had ground to a halt and she hummed away to herself as she mixed some more brick colour. Liv tiptoed back to the cottage.

As Liv finished off her tea, leaning over the balcony, she was beginning to remember all those stirrings she'd had: Roger, Ben Parker, any old random bloke on the tube. Yes, the sap was definitely rising. I mean was she just going to abandon all those dreams she'd had of wearing no underwear to lunch and having s.e.x in the afternoon just because Tim didn't want her? Absolutely not. No, the time had come to boot the accountant from her soul and get kicked out of nightclubs for raucous behaviour. b.u.g.g.e.r Tim. Liv's life was about to take off so dramatically that she'd turn into one of those women who never seemed to have a pair of clean knickers so she had to turn yesterday's inside out. Well, she didn't literally hope for this because it might be a bit foul, but theoretically she dreamed that she'd be so busy being socially indispensable that knickers would be the last thing on her mind.

The only problem was she didn't really know how to kick-start this knickerless social whirl. Given that she knew n.o.body in the city save a linguistically impaired cabby and Laura Train Wreck. There was always the option that she could just leave it up to fate. Perhaps she should be Zen and take to the streets and see if she b.u.mped into Ben Parker or a similar candidate for fun and love to end all love. Someone to have s.e.x with on sheepskin rugs while eating pomegranates. Not that there was anyone similar to Ben Parker. She slid into a reverie and wondered what he was doing now. Maybe he really was in Sydney. Certainly his parents had lived here. And let's face it, who in their right mind would want to leave? And if he did live here and was, let's just say, girlfriendless, then he, too, might be wandering the streets in a similarly Zen-like manner. Though in her experience men with spare time on their hands tended to make plans involving beer, not destiny. So what did one do in a strange city without a car, map, or friend? She would get dressed first. Something fun and s.e.xy. She pulled on her shorts and some great flip-flops decorated Carmen Mirandastyle with fake cherries that Tim happened to think hideously tacky and set out in search of Sydney and herself. Well, she had to start somewhere.

Actually, the only place she could think of to go was to the local shop for a pint of milk. Until Alex arrived, that might actually be the sum total of her social life. But it was definitely a start. Liv walked out onto the street and stopped to pick a flower of jasmine from the tree in a jaunty fashion. Had she been in New York or Paris she'd have simply walked in the same direction as the best-dressed person and followed the neon lights. But there were only lots of frangipani trees, a man walking a dog, and some temperamental streetlights. She just went the opposite way to the man with the dog, knowing that wherever he was she didn't want to be and also that if she followed him either he'd accuse her of being a stalker or she'd step in his dog's poo with her flip-flops on. So she walked up the hill past a street of beach houses all similar to her own, some done to fabulously rich banker standards, others more dilapidated and run-down, but all variations on a theme and most painted all ochres and umbres and sandstone colours, with the odd pink or cobalt blue thrown in. There were a few cars parked on the streets and the occasional c.o.c.kroach scuttled underfoot, but otherwise there was no sign of life.

The uphill became a downhill and the road wound until Liv found a buzzing intersection and a fluorescent-lit supermarket glaring out at her. She wandered in and found the fridge, thinking she may liven up her night in by buying a pint of Ben & Jerry's, too. She had hoped that she might inadvertently wind up on some beachfront bar sipping a pina colada that matched her flip-flops, chatting to an eclectic bunch of locals-maybe a shark catcher with leathered skin. Most definitely there'd be a lifeguard and a bikini-clad waitress who'd tell her the best place to get your tarot cards read and the hippest beach to spread your towel on. But Rainforest Crunch was the next best thing.

"Just gorgeous. Where did you find them?" Liv looked up and saw a six-foot man smiling down on her. Wearing a polka-dot dress and a black wig. He was pointing, with a nail that put even Alex's French manicures to shame, at Liv's foot.

"My flip-flops?" She smiled. "Little shop in London."

"Well, they're very special," he commented, and eased his corseted waist and pneumatic bosom up to reach the top shelf for a bottle of wine.

"Going to a party?" Liv asked.

"Just a club night in Oh so low," he replied.

"Oh so low? What's that?"

"It's what we call Soho, honey. Real dive, but I've been at the office all day so needed a little deeee-stress." He smiled. "I intend to get totally a.r.s.eholed tonight. So you're new in town?" he asked.

"How can you tell?" Liv picked up the ice cream and grabbed a packet of Oreos, too, as they headed for the checkout together.

"Your skin's blue. Clearly not a native." He examined her shopping closely. "Night in alone, eh?" he asked sympathetically.

"Yeah." Liv confided, "Had quite a few of those lately. I was p.i.s.sed on from a great height by the man I was supposed to marry."

"Never? But you're gorgeous, darling. What was he thinking?" He pouted as Liv loaded her shopping into a plastic bag. This was exactly the kind of response she loved. Yeah, dumba.s.s Tim.

"That he could do better. Clearly. You know, I haven't so much as kissed another man for five years." Liv was beginning to know how people felt on Springer. Once you got into the habit of confessing the stuff of your soul to total strangers it was hard to stop.

"You are kidding me?" He stopped dead in his tracks and his eyes lit up. "Well, fate could not have been kinder to you tonight, sweetness. We are going to a party." He took Liv by the arm and led her out of the shop. "I'm Dave, by the way. Venture capitalist by day. Miss p.u.s.s.y Whiplash par nuit." He held out his Schiapperelli pinknailed hand, Liv wasn't sure if she was meant to shake it or kiss it.

It wasn't until several hours later that Liv realised that the sticky mess at her feet signalled the sad demise of her Rainforest Crunch. And as it was by now one in the morning and she'd been on the o.r.g.a.s.ms for the last few hours, neither did she care. She was perched on a bar stool in a sweaty room surrounded by drag queens and the cutest taut-chested, high-bottomed men she had ever seen. And bar a few females who looked like they could be the bouncers, she was the only woman in the place. Not that this improved her chances of anything other than being able to shamelessly ogle the talent. Some men were dressed as devils, others glittered as angels, and one was Monica Lewinsky with attendant cigar and large hair. The floor show was about to begin and the lights dimmed in preparation for Dave's entree.

For Dave just happened to be the most spectacular live act this side of the opera house, and, having introduced Liv to all his friends and plied her with innumerable o.r.g.a.s.ms (the alcoholic variety, he had rea.s.sured her when he offered her one and she looked dubiously at his frock), was now about to entertain her. Along with about five hundred gay men.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Miss p.u.s.s.y Whiplash. Please give her a warm hand." The compere pouted as the strains of Cher's "Life after Love" began. Dave exploded into the room and began to belt out his number. With sucked-in cheekbones he mimed his way through the song, and Liv couldn't help thinking that if Cher were there she might be very flattered. Dave had the best set of legs this side of a Sports Ill.u.s.trated calendar and all the men, and even the bouncer-women, were enthralled. As the audience whistled, Dave leaned across the bar and flicked one fake-eyelashed eye at the man standing next to Liv. Liv had already deduced this was Dave's boyfriend, James.

"Lucky you," laughed Liv, and waved her hands in the air in what pa.s.sed for a dance to the untrained eye. The last time Liv had moved to music with such abandon had been to "The Land of Make-Believe" by Bucks Fizz when she was eleven.

"Ooh, baby, he was great. So, James, how long have you guys been together?" Liv asked as the lights went up again and Dave, alias Cher, clicked his heels backstage to disrobe, or whatever one does after a bout of Cher-ness.

"Call me Greta, darling. I'm only James when the sun's above the yardarm." James smiled. He had arched eyebrows and a cigarette in a holder. "About eight years, which doesn't seem to have been even slightly impaired by the fact that we work for rival city firms."

"Two investment bankers in one night." Liv pondered. "So it is possible to work in finance and be interesting. Must just be me who isn't."

"Oh, for sure." James-sorry, Greta-smiled. Actually, James p.r.o.nounced it "Greeter" with a heavy Aussie accent and it was a reference to his Greta Garbo apparel, which was disturbingly convincing. Except for the fact that Greta was beginning to sport a two-in-the-morning shadow-but Liv figured that just added to his moody Swedish allure.