Pants on Fire Read online

  I was certainly glad Antony had warned me not to tell her I’d met Billy and Rory, if this was the way she was reacting about Nick. I hoped it wouldn’t make life difficult at work. I chose a pair of knickers out of a large bag full of them and left wondering exactly what was on Debbie’s mind. Then I had another hot flush of memory from the night before and forgot all about her.

  I thought momentarily about going down to the company gym for a quick shower but decided to get on with some work instead. Actually, I didn’t want to be away from my phone that long. I quickened my pace into my office, half expecting the message light on my phone to be flashing already. It wasn’t. I ducked out again and asked Seraphima if there were any messages for me. She smiled knowingly and shook her head.

  I read the Pisces horoscope in four different magazines. Then I finally turned on my computer to do some work. The phone rang. My hand shot out, but I forced myself to wait four rings before picking it up. It was a contributor chasing a payment. I opened up a story I had to edit for the next issue, called “Ten Signs He’s the Man for You.” I’d completely forgotten that was the title of it. That was a bloody sign in itself.

  I started scrolling through the copy, which we’d bought from a US magazine, to see if there were any gross Americanisms I needed to remove and replace with Aussie alternatives. I tore through all the introductory blurb and the usual crapola—“says psychologist Dr. Deandra Dingdong” and “Harriet, twenty-six, knew Tod was the right man for her when . . .”—changed Tod to Brent, a few thrus to through, gray to grey and then got onto the good bit—the list.

  Ten Signs He’s the Man for You 1. You Enjoy Doing the Same Things No problem with that at all. Dancing, talking, eating, poetry, Shakespeare and . . . sure, we like the same things, I thought.

  2. He Talks About His Future—with You in It Well, we were going to his father’s exhibition together and then there was the moonless night at the pool and his father’s farm—that was the future, wasn’t it?

  3. He Looks You in the Eye When He Kisses You I was just trying to remember whether he did or not, when Seraphima appeared in the doorway grinning and holding a huge bouquet of red roses.

  “For me?” I asked.

  She nodded, put them on my desk and sat down. I looked at her pointedly. She stayed sitting.

  “So who are they from then?” she asked, cheeky little bugger.

  I could feel myself blushing hugely as I fumbled with the card. A very tasteful small white card that said: “Dear Georgia, Welcome to Sydney—from everyone at Revlon.”

  “Revlon,” I croaked, trying to force a smile. “Isn’t that lovely of them? So kind.”

  Seraphima grimaced and went back to her desk. My phone rang.

  “Hi Georgie, this is Nerilyn Keyes of Thunderstuck PR. How are you today?”

  I resisted the temptation to say “thunderstruck.” “Very well, thank you.”

  “That’s great. Now, I wanted to check if you’ve received our release about the new Bravington lawn trimmer? We thought it would make a perfect giveaway for your women’s page.”

  “This is Glow magazine, Nerilyn.”

  “Yes . . .”

  “All our pages are women’s pages.”

  “I’m sure it’s a product your readers would love to know about.”

  “Well, thank you very much for thinking of us, but unless it has a built-in vibrator and a bikini-waxing attachment, I don’t think they’d be interested at all. Once again, thank you. Goodbye.”

  Where was I . . .

  4. He Has a Good Relationship with His Mother Mmm. Nick had never mentioned his mother, but he’d talked about his father solidly for what would amount to several days, so that probably made up for it.

  The phone rang. Contributor. Where was her payment? I neither knew nor cared and it probably showed. Phone. PR. More press-release bollocks. Phone. Revlon. Did I get the flowers? Lovely, thank you. Ooh—call waiting. PR. Are you coming to our mascara launch? Yes. Can hardly wait. Phone. Mad reader. Why are all your models so thin? Because they don’t eat much? Ooh! Must go. Call waiting. Accounts department. We can’t pay invoices unless they’re attached to correct dockets. OK, will docket more assiduously in future. Phone. PR. Did you get our press release? Get fucked. Phone. Wrong number.

  At 11:25 loud pig-honking noises emanated from the front desk outside my door. It was Seraphima with another gadget, Glow’s answer to the dinner gong, inviting us to enter Maxine’s office for morning tea. I began to wonder how many more noise-making devices she had stashed under there. Perhaps an air-raid siren for when one of management approached, or a recording of the Red Army choir singing “The Red Flag” for those days when the entire staff started their period simultaneously.

  In Maxine’s office, everyone was gathered around the desk, where there was a baking tray filled with a steaming sticky toffee pudding, dotted with strawberries, with bits of card to use as plates and pieces of loo roll as napkins.

  Everybody had brought in their own tea and coffee and Seraphima made me one. Liinda drank only obscure South American herbal teas and was dunking her tea bag in her cup, which had the word “GET” on one side and “LOST” on the other. Her cigarette was behind her ear. Debbie was holding her usual Kylie-delivered skim-milk latte from a trendy café. Maxine had a large plunger of coffee on her desk beside a metal cup and saucer. Most of the other girls clutched mugs of tea. Zoe had a glass of water.

  It was my job to cut and distribute the cake. Zoe stood very close to me while I did it, making yum-yum comments about how she couldn’t wait for her piece.

  “So, who was the lucky guy?” said Maxine, licking her fingers, her feet up on her desk.

  “Oh, I’d . . . er . . . rather not say,” I said, longing to tell her, but remembering Liinda’s advice. “It’s all a bit new . . .”

  The phone in my office rang. I started to run for it, but Maxine waved a manicured hand and said, “Let it go to message bank, that’s what we have it for.”

  I felt a terrible rictus pass across my face and before I could hide it, I saw Liinda and Debbie exchange a look. What was going on?

  Several of the girls had seconds of cake, but I could hardly eat a mouthful, a fact that I thought should be the next point in my Ten signs list: “You Are Unable to Eat Whenever You Think of Him.”

  Zoe seemed to be in love too. She’d gone back to her office, leaving her hotly anticipated piece of cake completely untouched except for the strawberry. Maxine saw me notice it.

  “I see Zoe’s been pigging out again,” she said. “But don’t worry, she won’t go hungry—she’ll have eaten the whole strawberry. Even the stalk.”

  “She does seem to eat in very strange ways,” I said. “That business with the finger in the yoghurt. I can’t believe she’s worried about her weight.”

  “Zoe’s terrified that if she relaxes for a moment the fat girl lurking inside her will come out and take over. That’s why she’s in the gym every spare minute too. She looks gorgeous, but it gets really hard to be around. I’ve tried talking to her about it, but she gets very shitty and says it’s none of my business if she wants to be healthy.” She shrugged and reached for another piece of cake.

  Although she was what you would kindly call “strapping,” Maxine seemed totally confident about her appearance. She was very tall, with the kind of body that looks like it should be in hockey gear, and an equally strong-featured face. But the overall package was very attractive—particularly to men who liked to be dominated, or so Liinda had told me.

  “What shall I do with the rest of this cake?” I asked her. “There’s about half of it left. We can’t possibly finish it.”

  “Just put it in the kitchen,” said Maxine. “How are you going with those articles I gave you? We need all the copy for the April issue ready by next week for layouts.”

  “It’s going fine. I’m just reading through it all and then I’ll go over it with Liinda this afternoon. I think there are some articles that cold do with
some more boxes and lists.”

  Maxine nodded. “Sounds great. We love boxes and lists. There’s your phone again.”

  This time I ran. PR. There were three messages on my voicemail. Danny Green inviting me to go to a party with him. Another angry contributor—I really would have to get Seraphima to explain the docket system to me. And Antony asking me if I wanted to go to the same party Danny Green had invited me to. It was weird. Nick’s messages were usually waiting for me when I arrived at work and he’d rung me by lunchtime every day since the night I’d met him. I desperately wanted to ring him, but part of me wanted to see how long he would leave it before calling. The other part wanted to ring all the hospitals to see if anyone with the initials NP had been checked in with two broken arms.

  By one p.m. I was starting to feel hysterical. I decided to go to the gym and have that shower. A workout wouldn’t do me any harm either; it would take my mind off things. I had my swimsuit with me, so I went to look for Zoe to see if she’d take me. She wasn’t in the fashion office and I asked Seraphima if she’d seen her leave. She looked at her watch, fixed me with her innocent look and suggested that I should look in the loo. Sure enough, one minute later Zoe emerged from the Ladies. With fresh lipstick on.

  “Are you going down to the gym?” I asked her.

  “Yes—now. Do you want to come?”

  So we went to the gym and I swam up and down the pool thinking about Nick, while Zoe ran about a hundred miles on the treadmill. She ran without a break for an hour. It was funny, she looked really great in her clothes, but seeing her in a tiny Lycra bra top and little boy-leg shorts, she just looked thin. Her face was locked in a grimace and sweat was pouring off her. She was still running when I emerged from the changing rooms, dressed, hair dried and ready to go. I told her I’d see her upstairs.

  There was still no message from Nick. Maybe a really big story had broken at the paper and they’d sent him off to Papua New Guinea to cover it. I decided to risk ringing his work number in case he’d left a special message on his voicemail, but it was just the usual one:

  “Hi. You’ve reached Nick Pollock, senior writer and essayist, Sydney Morning Herald. I’m either on another call, or away from my desk breaking a major story, so leave a message and I’ll catch you later. Ciao.”

  I didn’t leave a message. By four I was really feeling the effects of a night without sleep and thought I’d have another little piece of the sticky toffee pudding to give myself a sugar hit. But when I got to the kitchen the baking tray was empty. Washed and dried. Nobody knew what had happened to it. I even looked in the bin to see if some busybody had thrown it away. Not a crumb. It was weird. On the way back to my office I asked Seraphima if she knew what had happened to it.

  “You could ask Zoe,” she said. “But I wouldn’t.”

  “Zoe? Zoe didn’t have any. And she hasn’t thrown it in the bin—I looked.”

  “Zoe didn’t have any while you were looking, Georgia. And she might have thrown it somewhere—but not in the bin.” She nodded her head towards the loo.

  I stood there dumbly absorbing what she’d just said. “You mean she ate the whole thing and threw it up in there? Is that why she was in the loo?”

  Seraphima shrugged. “Could be. I saw her eat a couple of carrots before morning tea. That’s always a sign.”

  “A sign of what?”

  “A sign that a bulimic is planning a binge. The carrot acts as a marker—when the carrot comes up you know you’ve got it all up.”

  I stared at her horrified. “Oh god. That’s hideous. Are you sure?”

  “No—but I saw the carrot and I saw her go into the loo and I saw her come out a long time after and then I saw her go to the gym.”

  I remembered Zoe’s desperate little monkey face on the treadmill.

  “How did you figure all that out? Especially the carrots. That’s so awful it’s quite brilliant. I never would have thought of that.”

  “My sister used to be bulimic. You can spot the signs.”

  I went back to my desk. Antony had called again. Nick had not. I rang Antony back and told him I was too tired to go anywhere, but that I’d love to see him another time. I rang Danny Green and told him the same thing. In truth, though, I didn’t want to be out when Nick rang.

  But he didn’t ring. He didn’t ring me that night. And he didn’t ring over the entire weekend. I spent the time veering wildly between thinking Fuck You, Nick Pollock, I Never Want to Speak to You Again Anyway, and desperate weeping. Then I’d get all fired up with confidence and think, damn it, I’ll just bloody well ring him. We’re both grown-ups. I’ll just leave a casual message saying “Hi, How are you? Can you call me please?” But I knew I couldn’t trust myself to be casual. I knew it would sound forced and hysterical. And what if he answered?

  I’m ashamed to say that on Saturday night I had a bottle of wine on my own and rang his home number. The machine was on. It was on all day Sunday as well.

  On Monday I rang his work number and got the voicemail again.

  Tuesday—still no call. I had my mobile permanently turned on and I rang my home message machine every hour. If it hadn’t been so bloody upsetting it would have been bizarre. I think the girls in the office knew something was up. Debbie and Liinda were avoiding me and when I walked into the beauty room to ask Debbie something, they broke off their conversation suddenly.

  Later on, Seraphima came into my office and told me, “Estee Lauder have sent you some flowers. I looked at the card first, because I know how disappointing it is.”

  I thanked her sincerely and told her she could have them. Somehow life went on. Zoe came and collected me for the gym at lunchtime. Even Maxine was being particularly nice to me. She came in a couple of times and asked me if I was happy in Sydney, and invited me to her house for a drink after work. What was going on?

  There was no word by Wednesday—it was nearly our one-week anniversary and I still hadn’t heard from him. So I hatched the marvellous idea of sending him a note instead. Just a bright and breezy little note, which I convinced myself could be passed off as a thank-you card for a lovely dinner.

  This breezy little note took me the whole afternoon to write, composing various versions on my computer.

  Nick—I’m a bit surprised you haven’t. . .

  Nick—How about giving me a call?

  Nick—I believe tonight is a moonless night. Coogee awaits us.

  Georgia xxx

  Nick—Are you dead? Give me a call. Georgia.

  Nick—It was really fun seeing you last week. Let’s do it

  again soon (and dinner). G.

  Nick—Thanks for a great dinner. Shall we do it again? Give

  me a call. Georgia.

  That was it. The last one. That’s what I sent. On a postcard that featured a Victorian picture of a vicar skating from the Scottish National Gallery. We’d talked about that picture. We both loved it. I felt sick as I put the card into the mailbox, but at least I’d done something.

  Oh, it’s no good, I can’t lie. I wish it had been that one. Actually, I sent him the Coogee one. And the postcard was that Brassai photo of the couple kissing in Paris. AAAGH. What was I thinking? How could I do it to myself? But I did.

  And still there was no call. By the Sunday morning—a week and a half, including two weekends, after we had sex—I knew he was never going to call. And I knew he wasn’t in Papua New Guinea, because there’d been pictures of him in the social pages of the Sunday papers. Pictures of him at the opening of his father’s exhibition at the State Library. The one he had promised to take me to. Pictures of him with a girl who looked not hugely unlike me, except she was wearing a much shorter dress than I’d ever wear. And she had rings on her forefingers.

  “Wordsmith Nick Pollock with fiancée Phoebe Trill, back from two months in Europe,” said the caption. Fiancée. Yes. And from what I could see in the photograph Phoebe had very nice skin, which explained Nick’s well-stocked bathroom.

  I cried
for an hour. I ranted and raved and threw things around the flat. I couldn’t believe it. I rang his work voicemail intending to leave a coruscating message for him, but chickened out at the last minute. Too humiliating. I cried a bit more and then I rang his home phone. He’d changed the message. It now said: “Phoebe and Nick can’t take your call right now . . .”

  I cried some more because I couldn’t ring any of my friends in London and tell them what had happened. It was three in the morning over there. So I rang the only person I could think of—Liinda Vidovic. She was in.

  “Hello?” The usual Marlboro-man rasp. I just sobbed into the phone.

  “Li-ii-ii-ii-nda . . . It’s Georgia. I’m really sorry—sniff—to call you like this, but I don’t know who else to turn to.”

  “What’s happened? Is it Nick Pollock by any chance?”

  “Yeee-eeee-es,” and I was off wailing and sobbing, which of course, Liinda adored. “He’s in the paa-aa-per,” I wailed. “With his fi-ia-aa-ncée.”

  I could hear her lighting up a cigarette. “Oh no. I thought this would happen. I should have told you, but I just couldn’t. You remember that morning when you were the dirty stopout and had to buy us morning tea and I warned you not to tell anyone it was him? That was why—I wanted to protect you. But when you didn’t mention him again, I thought maybe it would be alright. Had you met him the night before?”

  “No. I’d met him over a week before and I’d seen him practically every night since. I wasn’t sure at first, but then he was so lovely to me. He sent me flowers. He called me five times a day. I didn’t sleep with him for a week. We had a wonderful dinner together and by that point I felt I knew him. I thought I could tru-u-ust him.” That set me off again. “But Liinda, why didn’t you tell me he was engaged?”

  “I didn’t know he was until I saw this morning’s paper. I knew he’d been seeing Phoebe Trill but—”