Dog Handling Part 3

Two hours and even more o.r.g.a.s.ms later, Liv was trying very hard to focus on Greta, but her eye had begun wandering in a spastic fashion to Dave and a member of the New Zealand Ballet Company, who were rhumbaing the early hours away on the bar.

"All over the world women are being slowly murdered by their lingerie," Greta whispered. "Too tight. Too constricting. Which is fine for a night like tonight. But for day wear? A woman needs comfort and support."

"You can say that again," said Liv, now downing her seventh o.r.g.a.s.m. "And not just from her bra."

But Greta wasn't in the mood to discuss emotional dalliances. Greta had business in mind. "Which is why Greta's Grundies are going to be headline news internationally. A bra that looks binding but fits like it's not there at all. Know what I'm saying?" He winked at Liv and she nodded seriously. She made a point of never laughing when paralytic. It was the only rule she could remember, but it stood her in good stead. It meant that she didn't offend anyone and therefore never got her nose broken. Unless, of course, she tumbled headlong into a bar stool or table.

"So if I pay, you promise me you'll do it?" Greta asked. What felt like minutes but must have been hours later, given that Liv now had no feeling in her left leg and the Rainforest Crunch was now just a cl.u.s.ter of nuts. Liv found herself staring into the heavy-lashed eyes of He-Greta and trying to remember what terrible thing she'd agreed to do.

"Sure. You've got my number. Just call me," she said, trying to cast her mind-well, what was left of it-back to a moment earlier in the evening when Greta had offered her money for something. Not old rope. Not her body, she didn't think. Though that was pretty old ropeish itself. G.o.d, she had to remember. Think, Liv. Think. What was the meaning of life and what on earth have you promised you'll do for this Greta Garbo with facial hair?

Chapter Six.

Liv Makes a Clean Breast of Things Liv had taken the precaution of closing the shutters so that a random Peeping Tom on his yacht on the ocean couldn't get a butchers at her through his telescope or on his radar or whatever. Then, recollecting a Blue Peter recipe, she mixed up some flour-and-water paste, took out a copy of yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald, and began to mould the papier-mache to her chest. What she had drunkenly agreed to do was be at work at their market stall on Sat.u.r.day mornings and be the sample size for Greta's Grundies lingerie. The boys had made some very pretty but, understandably, rather distorted underwear because it had been modelled on Dave, who had only foam b.o.o.bs and more round the front than round the back in the knickers department. They'd spotted Liv's very average girl shape at once and, dressed in business suits and city attire at lunch the day after the big night, had persuaded her to offer her body up for their services.

Though working in a market stall and flashing her t.i.ts wouldn't have been her career of choice, it was a lot more fun than spreadsheets. She gasped as she slapped the papier-mache on her skin, but the cold was quite soothing in the outrageous midday heat and so as not to crack the mould she lay down on the sofa. Every ten minutes she knocked on the newspaper, but it wasn't drying. Eventually she picked herself up and shuffled over to the bathroom and took the hair dryer to her chest. But just as it was setting, just as the newspaper and glue hardened over her bust, Laura walked in the door, trailing a ceiling-sc.r.a.pingly tall woman. Not wanting to seem rude, Liv reached out to shake her hand.

"I'm Liv Elliot. Nice to meet you," Liv said as though having Laura Train Wreck and her friends wander through the house as though it were an art gallery was the most normal thing in the world. Well, it was certainly a regular occurrence. And as she held out her hand the papier-mache chest fell to the floor, leaving Liv decorated only by a few columns of weather forecast and the cricketing news.

"I'm Suzanne. I'm a psychotherapist," the woman replied, and nodded sagely at Liv. A grimace formed on Laura's brow.

"Just helping a friend out," Liv twittered, plunging to the floor and reapplying the cast before it set. "Now if you'll excuse me, I just have to go and finish myself off." Liv closed the bathroom door behind her and splashed some water onto her mould to soften it.

When Liv turned the tap off she heard hushed and urgent tones filtering in from the living room.

"She's English," Laura whispered.

"I think that girl probably has some issues," Suzanne muttered. "Serious case of exhibitionism. It's a power thing, I think. In keeping with the lingerie fixation. The lingerie is about placing a veneer of unattainability between herself and the world outside."

"But did I tell you that I think she could be abusing substances, too? It stinks of glue in there. And that talk about finishing herself off. You don't really think she'll commit suicide, do you?" Laura asked grimly.

Needless to say, Liv couldn't imagine who Laura and the woman were discussing. She presumed that it must be an actress from Laura's theatre company. Though she couldn't think why they'd be surprised at an actress being a pathological exhibitionist. Just as long as they didn't bring her anywhere near the house; otherwise Liv's position as acting landlady would be severely compromised.

When Liv finally emerged from the bathroom wielding the perfect impression of her average b.r.e.a.s.t.s which James could use to make his bras, Laura and her shrink had gone, leaving Liv free to test-drive the leopard print G-string in comfort and privacy for the rest of the afternoon. Though it wasn't a comfortable experience at all. She realised at once that if these knickers were for women, the first thing to be done was to remove the sagging pouch of fabric from the front and add it to the back, where a woman was grateful for all the coverage and support she could get.

"So you've met Laura then?" Alex asked as she swept across the airport car park with a slick wheelie suitcase in tow, looking sickeningly tanned and relaxed after her trip away with Charlie.

"She's really sweet-all that therapy stuff's a bit much, though. What happened to her?" Liv asked.

"Dunno. Charlie hasn't said. But I guess we'll worm it out of her eventually. Have you hung out with her much?" Alex walked to the front of the taxi queue and jumped into a waiting car ahead of a dozen businessmen. This was a perk afforded only to those confident few who had never had to suffer the indignity of camel-toe when they tried on their jeans.

"Nah, she pops up occasionally like a piece of toast, but I haven't really seen anyone all week," explained Liv.

"Well, I'm here now." Alex gave Liv a huge hug. "Aren't you glad to see me? Bet you've been bored out of your brain," Alex said as the taxi sped away.

"Actually, I've sort of got a job. And I know I said I'd go sightseeing with you tomorrow, but I've got to work," Liv said, feeling guilty at getting Alex over here on emergency standby and then dumping her.

"Not tomorrow you haven't," said Alex, pulling a couple of badges out of her bag and waving them under Liv's nose. "I've got tickets for the gee-gees."

"Horseracing?" Liv took the bright orange badges and examined them. Judging by the gold trim and little safety pin on the back, they were the business. Royal enclosure. Undoubtedly sitting on the Queen's lap. Champagne, et cetera. Though she expected no less from Alex, Liv was actually quite looking forward to her first day of work.

"Well, I suppose I'd quite like to meet Charlie. But I reckon you'd have much more fun if you came to the stall with me," Liv said, slipping the tickets back into Alex's bag. "You're going to love the boys."

"What stall?" Alex pulled on her sungla.s.ses and took in the blue sky as the driver went haring down the road.

"I've become a muse." Liv tried to make her new job as a professional chest model sound glamorous. "This designer, James, wants me to be at the stall tomorrow to be the approachable face of high-fashion lingerie."

"Who's James?" Alex asked as they tore along the Pacific Highway.

"James is a designer. He's part of a they. James and Dave. A gay they. I just should be there. It starts at six in the morning."

"No way. We need our beauty sleep. It'll be so much fun at the races. Charlie can give us some money to put on the horses with cute names and we'll drink champagne until we fall over. That beats standing in the rain on some grotty market stall, doesn't it?"

"Correction: Charlie will give you the money. I haven't done anything to earn Charlie's money and I'm going to the stall to make some dollars to feed myself. Plus this is Sydney, not Leeds. It won't rain," Liv reminded her.

"So where is he now?" Liv asked.

"Oh, he's gone down to Royal Sydney for a round of golf. So have you heard from Tim?"

"Not a word."

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d probably thinks he's being kind. Well, only a couple of months to go till he's on his hands and knees grovelling in the gravel on our front path. I promise."

But Liv was gone. Until now she'd not really had anything to remind her of Tim. Except of course for the collage of photos she'd pinned of him next to her bed and the Tiffany bean necklace he'd bought for her birthday, which she wore every day, and the fact that she could smell him on the T-shirt she wore at night that she deliberately hadn't washed yet, though it was beginning to rot just a bit under the arms. Liv wanted to ask Alex if she'd heard any news of him from her network of globe-trotting friends, whether he'd been spied in any Notting Hill watering holes with unidentified blondes. Been seen in tears at the wheel of his car as he waited at traffic lights listening to "Can't live if living is without you. . . ." But she couldn't bring herself to ask. She had specifically instructed Alex not to tell her if she did have news of Tiny Tim, so unless she brought up the subject herself she'd never know.

She bit her lip and wondered if he was wondering what she was up to. Wondered whether he was jealous of the men she was meeting in Sydney (well, he didn't know, did he, that he needn't be jealous of James and Dave et al.?), whether he was having piercing pangs of regret at four in the morning, hating being single and devising ways he could win her back. Flowers, chocolates, stalking the aisles in Van Cleef and Arpels looking for just the gem to secure her heart. Yeah, right, she thought miserably. And when exactly was the last time a leopard changed his spots? The guy used to split dinner with her and bought her soap for Christmas. She was lucky to get a beer, let alone De Beers.

Later the girls ordered a takeaway from Arthur's, absolutely the best pizza in the Southern Hemisphere, and while Liv looked at glossy perfume ads featuring stunning couples for whom life could not involve more togetherness if they were sewn to each other, Alex leafed through Cleo magazine's list of eligible bachelors, putting rings around the most promising for Liv before she realised that it was a 1992 issue so most were either married or sagging horribly by now.

"I don't fancy anyone else. It just wouldn't work," Liv dismissed the bachelors that Alex was waving under her nose.

"I know, but it's hypothetical. If you had to have dinner with someone else. Suppose Tim came back to you and you discovered that you didn't want him back. . . ." Alex ignored Liv's oh-come-on-get-real look and persisted, "Then who would it be?"

"There is no one else." Liv was defiant. Not only was it bad enough that she was in pieces inside, but she was suddenly being deemed single and therefore suitable fodder for all and sundry to fix up with life's leftovers. All those blokes who had a "nice personality" or were "perfectly good-looking" were going to be offered up on a plate for Liv to sample. Sadly, the platter was not made up of Tiny Tims or even Wayward Williams or s.e.xy Simons. Dreg city from here on in, Liv imagined. So best embrace spinsterhood here and now.

"Okay, then the last person who you fancied before you met Tim. Though you'll notice that I'm very sweetly overlooking the fact that you've had about sixty thousand crushes over the last five years while you were deeply in love with him, which must tell you something."

"That was because I didn't know what I had until it'd gone." Liv took a sip of her VB and churned with regret and guilt. Surely Tim chucking her was just bad karma for the time she'd imagined what it would be like to have Jude Law lick the inside of her thigh.

"So before you met Tim," Alex demanded.

Liv cast her mind back over the years of bliss and happiness. Unconsciously leaving out the afternoons she'd been bored senseless while Tim played golf, the evenings she'd wanted to go on from dinner to some party and he'd preferred to go home to bed (not that sort of bed, either), the fact that he hadn't bought her a bunch of flowers for about three years and picked his nose in front of her in a way that suggested he'd begun to take her love and adoration very much for granted. That kind of stuff she edited as she skimmed over the love story to end all love stories.

"Okay, but I was a baby. It wasn't really love like Tim and I had," Liv insisted.

"Don't care. Tell me all about it," demanded Alex as she lay back and listened.

"He was called Ben Parker. It was sweet. I mean we were really young so it was all kind of puppy love, but . . . ," Liv protested.

"From the moment you met him. Just tell me."

"It was at the farmer's market in Aix-en-Provence. I was on holiday with Mum and this troop of Mum's friends. A few of the families staying at our cottage had piled into a convoy of Volvos and hired Renaults and driven into town. When we got there, all the Sloaney parents wandered off to buy local art at a little gallery and Mum and Lenny got p.i.s.sed and played boules with these tobacco-stained seventy-year-olds in the square. So all us kids went off to some American bar that had MTV and we were ordering Diet c.o.kes and trying to score Es from Pascal the waiter. I was feeling pretty ropy after a night on the cognac, so I went for a wander around the market to practise my Franglais. I looked around a few of the stalls and asked the woman who owned one of them if I could have a pomme de terre. But what I really wanted was an apple. Anyway, she stuffed a mucky potato into a bag and just grunted at me. I wandered off not realising and was perfectly happy thinking that I was Emmanuel Beart in Manon des Sources. I remember feeling really sorry for the c.o.c.kerels in pens and wondered whether Lenny and Mum would agree to take a beige baby goat back home with them if I spiked their vin rouge with Ecstasy.

"Then I saw this guy buying this huge Brie. He had a perfect French accent and was so tall and beautiful that I almost took a bite of the potato. Anyway, after haggling and swearing he walked away from the stall with his cheese under his arm. I followed him for a bit around the stalls. He had this body that no English boy could ever compete with. Really strong tanned arms and these beautiful long, almost hairless legs. Anyway, I decided that he had to be called Serge and he must be home from the Sorbonne for the summer with his famille. I just knew that he lived in a cigarette b.u.t.tfilled garret near the Seine. I imagined living there with him. Sometimes in the dream he'd get irritated because my French vocab was wrong, but it was a s.e.xy irritation; he'd just toss back his hair and then give me a patronising French snog.

"Anyway, by the time I'd followed him to the square it was so hot that my sundress was sticking to me and my feet were killing. I'd managed not to make him notice me when my mum yelled out, 'Liv, darling. We're over here. Come and meet Florence.' She was so loud that I dropped my pomme de terre in shock. G.o.d, it was so embarra.s.sing. She might as well have yelled, 'Put out more flags! The British are coming!' Everyone stopped and stared. So I was rooted to the spot and when I looked down there he was, Serge, kneeling in front of me, and he picked up my brown paper bag. He lifted it up, looked inside, said, 'What did you want to go and buy one potato for? Couldn't you afford a pound?' And I swear to G.o.d he sounded like Brad from Neighbours. He was about as French as Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. I thought how can he make French love to me in a contemptuous way if he isn't French? So it turns out he was born in Woolloomoolloo. And he was holding out my pomme de terre in its bag with this hand that was so tanned and so breathtakingly gorgeous that I nearly fainted.

"Anyway, we went off to have an Orangina and it turned out that he was in the final year of his degree course studying Russian and I forgave him for not being French because he said merde like a native and smoked Gauloise Blonds. His name was Ben Parker and his lovely hands weren't even the best thing about him. He was staying at this place just next to our place, so we agreed to meet up. And when he came round he had this bag of red apples that made me keel over with love.

"And the rest is pretty much just teen angst. A few walks along Provencal riverbanks, a couple of nights in Saint-Tropez with the others, where we could only afford a gla.s.s of house wine between three of us, the fooling around in a barn, and in an abandoned tree house we found on the grounds of this chateau and then in the back of the hired Renault parked in the drive outside the cottage. And then the summer was over and I thought about him for the whole of my first year of university. Until I met Tim." Liv pulled her beer bottle from the table and took a swig. Slightly flushed at the memories she thought she'd forgotten.

"Wow." Alex rubbed her eyes and looked at Liv. "You were really into him."

"In an eighteen-year-old sort of way, yeah, I suppose that I was." Liv stretched her legs out in front of her.

"So you never heard from him again?"

"Nah," said Liv.

"But he's from Woolloomoolloo?"

"No, actually, he was from Sydney. He was only born in Woolloomoollo because his mother's car broke down and her water burst there."

"Liv!" Alex cast off her jet lag and leaned forward. "Ben Parker lives in Sydney and you didn't tell me?"

"Well, as you'd never heard of him until three minutes ago there didn't really seem to be much point. Anyway, I don't know that he lives here. I mean he could have emigrated to Utah or anything."

"Once a Sydney-sider always a Sydney-sider, so they say," Alex said enigmatically. "And all the years you were going out with Tim did you ever think about him?"

"Sometimes. I mean occasionally I would have a dream about him and I'd get the photos out the next day and have a look. Just for old times' sake. He was the first guy I ever slept with."

"G.o.d, that is so romantic I want to cry." Alex sank her teeth into a slice of pizza and looked wistful. "We absolutely have to find him."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, the thought hadn't occurred to me." Liv flicked her hand nonchalantly in a way that meant of course she'd thought about it; she was just too shy / nervous / didn't know how to go about tracking him down, and anyway, if she did and he was married with three kids, then her only pipe dream, the only man she had dared hope she might be able to love as much as she'd loved Tim, would be shattered and she'd have to kill herself.

"Listen, Livvy, you are a beautiful girl. I've watched you so sad these past few months that at times I didn't think I could bear it anymore. Now here we are and the sun is shining and you've made nice friends and you're starting to smile again. I want to see you have fun. You came here for adventure, not to dwell on some hokey t.o.s.s.e.r who just may or may not get his act together. One day."

"Hmmmm." Liv shrugged meekly. But she had to admit that feeling the sun on her face and laughing with the boys had made her feel just an inch or so better.

"You know what? You deserve to have your rocket fired, for Christ's sake. You've been a dutiful daughter, a high-earning accountant, never been fat, addicted to drugs, or promiscuous in your life. You're halfway round the world now and I think you should give it a go." Alex was now sitting on the back of the sofa looking fired up and excited. It was like watching footage of Eva Peron.

"Actually, I'll give fat a miss, Alex." Liv smiled, secretly wondering whether Ben still had those legs that she'd fantasised about through many an applied maths lecture or whether . . . ? Well, she supposed he did still have his legs. At least, she hoped so.

Chapter Seven.

The Stripper Wax When she woke up in the cottage on the beach the next morning it was all Liv could do to stop herself from galloping into the ocean in her nightie as Alex lay flat out on the water bed. It looked so cool and inviting as the sun rose and a huge tractor trailed across the sand preparing the beach for the hordes who'd descend on it later with their factor 25 and bottles of Volvic. Liv managed to restrain herself for the poor tractor driver's sake and put on a swimsuit first. She pulled an ancient Missoni one from the back of the laundry cupboard in the bathroom and squeezed into the string bottom and crocheted top. In fact, she might have to borrow this for the boys to copy as a Greta's Grundies prototype; there was no reason on earth why they couldn't launch a swimwear collection, too. They'd be on the market stall now without her, she thought guiltily, then remembered that according to Fay and Alex she was meant to be one of life's doers rather than an observer, so banished the regret and ran across the sand hiding her bottom with her hands.

The water was fantastically cold and, apart from a cl.u.s.ter of surfers farther out, there was n.o.body else to be seen. The air was milky and warm and Liv just lay on her back and let the waves bob her up and down, her hair plastered wet to her shoulders and her toes peeping up out of the water. Last night she'd gone to sleep thinking that she would never be able to lean over and run her fingers through Tim's blond hair again. But this morning she knew there was absolutely nowhere else in the world she should be right now. She even took time to remember how full Ben Parker's lips were.

"You might think that looking at the sky is a bit soft, Alex, but I tell you it was awesome." Liv shovelled her hips into a cerise shift dress that Alex had demanded she wear.

"It sounds great. Now we have to work out how we're going to get Ben Parker's phone number," Alex said as she cast off her bathrobe and stepped into her linen dress.

"Like I said, he's probably married." Liv didn't want to get her hopes up just yet. "And I'm not really over Tim. The last thing I need is some rebound fling." She poured herself a gla.s.s of mango juice from the fridge and felt the warm sun trapped under her skin and realised that even though she'd only been on the beach an hour she'd managed to burn slightly. But right now she didn't care. Worrying about an ageing neck and wrinkles was not her bag today, she decided, and reached into the fridge for a bite of cold pizza.

"It's ten o'clock, by the way. What time were we meant to be at the racecourse?"

"Oh, not for ages. Which is perfect, because I've got a bit of a treat lined up for you," Alex said as she picked up her handbag. "Come on; let's go."

"No way. Nope. Nope. Not on your life," Liv hissed under her breath as Alex took her seat in the waiting room of the beauty salon.

"It's the most wonderful thing you'll ever do to your body. Once you've had one you'll be hooked; I swear," Alex said as she shoved Liv towards a woman in a white coat who was wielding a little display card with pretty pictures on it. Until Liv looked closer.

"Choose one of these for me, darlink." The woman handed Liv the laminated card. On it were six different pictures, which were not pretty . . . six bikini lines in various states of undress, the Mohicana, alias the Stripper Wax, and a mult.i.tude of others that Liv was just too prudish to spend more than a second studying, but one was undoubtedly called the j.a.panese p.o.r.n Star and would have made for a very chilly time inside anyone's knickers. Blimey.

"Erm, that one please." Liv lay back on the couch and kissed good-bye to her curls as she pointed to the one that looked most au naturel.

"Okay, darlink. Here we go." And there followed a good twenty minutes of snipping and yanking and yogic-type positions and gynaecological scrutiny that left Liv pink-faced and full of hatred for her b.l.o.o.d.y friend who was probably sitting in reception flicking her way through In Style magazine without a care in the world save whether she should go to a new aerobics cla.s.s designed to give her the buns, but not the bank account, of Jennifer Lopez or just carry on with her Sports f.u.c.king and hope it left her with an equally toned b.u.m. Sports f.u.c.king was actually Alex's preferred choice of exercise at the moment and, like all the best crazes, originated in LA. All you had to do was be especially energetic during s.e.x, incorporate a few press-ups as part of the usual b.u.mp and grind, and try to keep it up for at least twenty minutes for maximum aerobic impact.

"Don't you think it's really erotic, though?" Alex asked as the girls climbed the steps of the main pavilion of Randwick Racecourse.

"What? Sore pink skin that makes me look like a bald eagle? No, I don't think that's particularly erotic and neither do I find it amusing going to the loo and not recognise myself anymore," Liv snapped as she tried to walk normally. To put it bluntly, she'd been scalped. "In fact, I'm b.l.o.o.d.y glad I haven't got a boyfriend, because I'd be really embarra.s.sed."

"Trust me. By Monday you'll be thanking me. It's all smooth and s.e.xy. Men will be transfixed by it." Alex steered Liv towards the members enclosure flashing the stewards with badges and smiles on the way.

"Which ones exactly?" Liv wondered, failing to spot the queue of admirers forming behind her.

"We've been waiting for you," Charlie said rather soppily when Alex sauntered into the upstairs lounge. "I put a few bets on for you." He handed over some tickets to Alex, who kissed his cheek tenderly. Charlie actually wasn't anywhere near as Rumplestiltskin-like as Liv had imagined he would be. And he reached out and shook her hand perfectly politely and without staring either scornfully or l.u.s.tily at her. This made a huge change from all Alex's other men, who generally spent any conversation they deigned to have with her looking over her shoulder at the new arrivals or cornered her on her way to the loo and put their hands on her b.o.o.bs.

"So, Liv, can I get you a drink?" Charlie asked.

"Champagne would be lovely." Liv nodded, thinking that even though she was wearing cerise and looked like a boiled sweet, she might stand a chance of getting to know and maybe even like Charlie. And as she looked around she thought she might even get to know and like one of his friends. She knew Alex condemned them one and all as s.h.i.ts with money, but they were definitely better-dressed than most of the men Liv came across and if, just if, she were ever in the market for a nameless, blameless fling to make Tim jealous then at least she'd be able to identify him by the designer name in his underpants. She downed the chilly champagne until her ears popped like those of a deep-sea diver.