Pants on Fire Read online

  “It’s great, thank you. So far I really love it. Everyone is being so friendly . . .”

  “That’s great. I’m sure you’ll fit in here. Have you met any nice men?”

  “One or two. I went to Danny Green’s hat party on Sunday, that was really fun.”

  “Oh, I normally go to that but I couldn’t be bothered this year. Had a big night on Saturday and I forgot to get Antony to make me a hat, so I had nothing to wear.”

  “I met your friend Antony. He’s really lovely.”

  “Well, don’t go falling for him, will you—he’s gay. A poofter. Useless.”

  “I meant he’s lovely as a friend. He’s so much fun.”

  “Oh yes, he makes beautiful frocks, but you don’t want to be seen hanging around with gay men in public too much. Puts real men off. So, did you meet anyone else?”

  “Jasper O’Connor.”

  “Yeauuch. So you’ve met a screaming queen and a pathetic failure—not doing very well are you? I know all you English girls come out here to get laid, so we’d better do something about it. Mind you, I don’t blame you. I spent a year in London after I finished school and those Pommy guys were hopeless in bed. One of them kept apologising.” She started laughing. “I’m so sorry,” she said in a good take-off of an English public-school voice. “I’m frightfully sorry, I’m afraid I just had a little orgasm. I do hope you don’t mind.” She laughed and laughed. “What a waste of time. So I can understand why you moved out here. I wonder if we know any people in common in London. I go there so much. Where did you go to school?”

  My obscure Scottish boarding school didn’t impress her, but when I told her my brother had been to Winchester she perked up.

  “Oh, do you know Freddie Swinton and Toby Ayres? They both went to Winchester. They’re both gorgeous. Toby’s mother is Italian . . .”

  It went on like this for quite a while and then she opened her diary and pulled out a big pile of invitations.

  “Now what do we have this week? What can I take you to that will be throbbing with Australian manhood . . . Mmm, an opening at the Glenmore Road Gallery—oh, that was last week; launch of a new Ralph Lauren fragrance tonight, which I’m going to, but there won’t be any men, just single beauty editors—although there will be free perfume, which makes it worthwhile. Someone’s launching a new mobile phone next week—that’ll be good for suits, we should go to that—but I want to take you to something this week, so you’ll realise that there are men in Sydney apart from queens and potheads. What else? Another gallery opening tonight, which I’ll call in at on my way to Ralph Lauren. Do you want to come to that?”

  “No, I’m too tired. And I look awful—I had a big night last night.”

  She looked at me over the top of her shades.

  “Yes, you do look a bit blotchy. Let’s see what else is here. The welcome party for some boring person at Opera Australia—give that a big miss, wall-to-wall poofters. Opening of a shoe shop in Mosman—over the bridge, forget it. Aha! This is perfect—tomorrow night’s the fashion parade at David Jones. It’s the preview of the new winter collections and it’s always a good party. Lots of men at that. OK? We’ll leave straight from here, no time for hair and make-up—I’ll get Marco to blow-dry my hair in the morning—but you’ll have to dress up a bit.”

  She looked me over like a horse she wasn’t at all sure about buying. I wondered if I should show her my teeth.

  “Yes. Wear a dress. Something skimpy. And you might try combing your hair. Do you ever go to the hairdresser?”

  “It has been known. Don’t worry, I’ll wash it. And thanks, Debbie. It’s really nice of you.” I sat on my hands so she couldn’t see my nails.

  “You’re most welcome.” She gave me one of her arc-light smiles, and once again I could see why the entire Stewart and Ryan families had been in love with her. “I’d hate you to get the wrong impression of Sydney. And you can introduce me to all your brothers’ friends next time I’m in London. So, you’ll tell Maxine that Kylie will organise her shoot—OK?”

  I nodded, aware that my audience with Her Highness was now over. Sure Debbie, I thought, as I went back to my own office, I’ll take all the flak for you not wanting to do a shoot specially requested by the editor, if you’ll introduce me to some men. What was I coming to?

  Debbie was right about the smorgasbord of suitable men at the David Jones fashion parade—I just wish I’d inspected the buffet a little more closely before filling my plate. Because the one I chose was Nick Pollock. Also known, by quite a large sector of Sydney’s female population, as P.O.F.—which stood for Pants On Fire. But I didn’t know it then.

  It was a great party, I must say. Lots of ladies in Chanel suits accompanied by their po-faced husbands, and a good smattering of Bright Young Things to make it look less like a plastic-surgery convention. I was an honorary BYT, tagging along with Debbie, who’d been to All the Right Schools and told me she knew All the Right People for me to meet. Because I had gone to an OK school in Scotland and my brother had gone to a very OK one in England, I was granted instant membership to her exclusive group of polo-playing, beach-house-owning, BMW-driving, bond-dealing, cocaine-snorting buddies.

  Fired up with all the excitement of a new city, a new country, a new job and a new life, I was ready to go along with anything. Especially if there were a few free glasses of champagne thrown in. But what really amazed me was that after a fashion show of stultifying frumpiness, they didn’t just turf us out into the night with a miniature scent sample, champagne halitosis and an incipient headache, as they would have done in London. Instead, they dimmed the lights and let the dancing begin. We had a full disco in the shoe department. It was marvellous getting down between the mules—and that’s where I met Mr. P.O.F. Pollock, shimmying his hips with great aplomb to “It’s Raining Men.”

  Clearly he was one of Debbie’s Right People, because she introduced us straight away.

  “Nick darling, this is Georgie Abbott. She’s just moved here from London. She went to St. Leonards. Her brother went to Winchester. She used to work for Pratler. She’s come to work on Glow. She knows lots of people on newspapers in London—you’ve probably got friends in common.”

  With a swish of her hair Debbie was off to dance with her broker of the week and left me to talk to a dark-haired fellow with boyishly pink cheeks who was smiling at me rather coyly. Dark hair, blue eyes . . . mmm . . . reminded me of Rick a little. First Jasper, now this guy. Was I seeing Rick in every man I met?

  “Let’s dance,” he said, grabbing my hand, spinning me round and pushing his groin into me from behind. I had never known anything like these Australian men for dancing. Maybe it was used as a substitute for contact sports in social situations.

  The Weather Girls were playing and Nick sang along jubilantly into my ear, grinding his hips in time, until suddenly he spun me round, stared into my eyes like a crazed ferret and yelled “ABSOLUTELY SOAKING WET!”

  I couldn’t help laughing, and seeing he had my full attention, he suddenly stopped dead and said, “What is this disco crap, anyway? Let’s go and have a drink.”

  With one hand still firmly holding mine he made for the bar and got us two glasses of champagne. Then he led me to a table right in the corner, where he sat with his back to the crowd and gazed into my eyes.

  “So, Georgie, is it?”

  “Georgia, actually. Georgiana, not Georgina, so it’s Georgia.”

  “Georgie. Georgie. I’ve got Georgie on my mind . . .” He seemed to enjoy singing. He was quite good at it, it was just a shame he couldn’t get the words right. “Georgie, Geooooooorgie . . . I’m on the midday train to Georgie boo boo bo boo bo bo bo boo boooo . . .”

  “Or you can just call me George, if you like—”

  “Boy George. Girl George. Georgie Girl. Girl Friday. Thank God it’s Friday . . . Forgive me, I go on a bit, sorry. It’s just that words are my thing. Words are my lifeblood, my life’s work, my work life, my word life. I word to live and
live to word—”

  “Are you in newspapers?” I asked him quickly, keen to stem his stream of consciousness. It didn’t work.

  “Yeah, I’m in newspapers. I’m on newspapers, I’m of newspapers, I am newspapers. I’m a senior writer at the Sydney Morning Herald, although I’m thinking of taking a gig back in your old town on the Sunday Times, or I might head for Washington. There’s some really interesting stuff over there I want to check out about corruption in the Pentagon.”

  “So what do you write about? Are you an investigative reporter?”

  “Sure, I do investigations. I do major arts profiles. I write about food. I do big sport round-ups when there’s something interesting going on. And I’m getting a weekly opinion column soon—you know, just thoughts and observations, politics, corruption, the big issues. I like to keep it all loose.”

  He was leaning forward over the table, playing with the stem of his glass suggestively.

  “You must be terribly busy . . .” I said.

  “Yes, and I’ve got a couple of book projects on the go too. A biography of Paul Keating and a history of the Wallabies—the rugby team, not the marsupials. Just a few little things to keep me interested.”

  “So what would I have read by you in the Herald in the past few weeks?”

  “The past few weeks?” He looked shifty and took a big gulp of his champagne.

  “Yes. I’ve lived in Sydney for nearly three weeks, I read the paper every day, what would I have seen of yours?”

  “Oh, I don’t write every week. Only when there’s something really worth saying. I’m more of an essayist, although I might throw a couple of scraps to the back page. You know, ‘Stay In Touch’?”

  “Oh yes, I think so. Sort of gossip around town. Do you work on that?”

  He shrugged and drained my glass.

  “Well, I just help them out with a few tips. My contact book, you know. So what do you do on Glow? Orgasm Editor? Special Correspondent, Fellatio?”

  I was beginning to find this arrogant smart arse really annoying, but something about him kept me at the table.

  “I’m the deputy editor, actually. I’m involved with every aspect of the magazine. I write as well. I really enjoy it. In fact I won an award for it last year . . . I wrote a piece about Harley Street doctors who perform clitoridectomies on Arab princesses . . .”

  But he didn’t seem very interested in hearing about my award and that’s when he analysed my handwriting, showing me how like his own it was. Then he asked me what my favourite books were and we seemed to like all the same ones. The Tempest was his favourite Shakespeare play too, and he said if he ever had a daughter he was going to call her Miranda. We both agreed on Benedick for a boy.

  The next thing I knew we were leaving the party. I snapped myself back to reality long enough to run and tell Debbie I was leaving. When she saw who I was leaving with, a look of amusement crossed her face but she didn’t make any comment beyond, “Have fun. See you tomorrow.”

  Nick rode down in the lift with me, gazing into my eyes all the way. It was a bit much, actually. I was glad when he came back to earth. I still wasn’t sure whether I liked him or not, but there was something fascinating about his awfulness.

  “Let’s go eat something,” he said when we got outside and I couldn’t think of a good reason not to. After a ten-minute ride in his red open-top MG, we arrived at a cosily lit bistro. I had no idea where we were, but all the staff knew him and greeted him warmly, apart from one of the waitresses who looked at him rather stonily, I noticed.

  Although the restaurant was packed, they immediately found a table for us in a small courtyard out the back. The air was fragrant with frangipani flowers, which periodically fell off the trees and landed on us. Nick tucked one behind my ear and leaned over to sniff it, nuzzling my neck at the same time, which I thought was a bit familiar. A bottle of rosé appeared immediately and Nick only broke my gaze long enough to shoo away the menu and ask the waiter to bring us a dozen oysters and two rocket salads. I hate oysters, but—like the neck-nuzzling—it seemed rather rude to mention it. I’m British. I can’t help myself.

  “Tell me everything,” he said.

  “Everything what?”

  “Who you are, where you come from, why a beautiful woman like you has moved to our tiny little city from the great metropolis. What you love, who you hate and why you aren’t married . . .”

  “How long have you got?”

  “As long as it takes. But start with where you were born and why you’ve moved to Sydney.” He put his head in his hands and gazed at me with a fascinated expression.

  “Well, I grew up in Wiltshire, but I went to school in Scotland—”

  “Oh, I love Scotland,” said Nick, sitting up and brightening visibly. “I went there with my father when I was a kid. He had a year as a writer-in-residence at Edinburgh University.”

  “That’s where I went. I did French and English literature—”

  “Oh, you’ll be familiar with my father’s work then. James Pollock.” He looked at me confidently. The name rang a small bell. A very small bell, somewhere in another part of the house.

  “You’ve probably read Dingo Man Donger or Hard-Belly Blowflies,” he continued, as the surly-looking waitress brought our food over and plonked it on the table. “I’ve always felt that Dust Dancers was his best, although they wrecked it in the movie when they put Paul Hogan in the part of Slingo. It should have been Bryan Brown. Hogan didn’t have the gravitas.”

  I’d seen that film. On a plane. It was so awful I went and flicked through the book in a bookshop afterwards. Some terrible tripe about Real Men finding themselves in the Outback and Finding Themselves. Absolutely the worst kind of macho bullshit served up as serious literature, although I had to admit James Pollock was a pretty good writer. It was just his attitude to women I found so offensive. They only appeared in the book when Dingo or Slingo or Pingo or one of his neanderthal hard men needed a quick shag. But Nick was still going on about him, in between helping himself to oysters. I should have seen the warning signs then, but something about his undintable self-confidence kept me interested.

  “Yeah, they’re having a exhibition on him at the State Library next month, where they’re displaying his manuscripts—he always writes them by hand with a fountain pen and never rewrites a line, you know. I wanted to use pen and ink at the Herald instead of those computers that just confine your creativity into a square box, but they couldn’t understand what I was trying to do.”

  Neither could I, but I didn’t get a chance to say so. Nick was still droning on, with a rather beautific smile on his broad-cheeked face.

  “Yeah, so they’ll have the manuscripts and photographs of the parts of the bush where Dad finds his inspiration and on the opening night they’re going to have performances by some elders of the tribe he was initiated into in Far North Queensland. You’ll have to come as my date,” he said, squeezing my hand.

  Even though I still wasn’t sure if I hated him or not, that was an attractive prospect. I always like a man who uses the future tense and me in the same sentence.

  “Dad will love you,” he said. “He loves other writers. That’s why he’s so happy I’m a writer now. I’ll take you out to the property to meet him one weekend, although he’ll give you a hard time about being a Pom. Hates bloody Poms. But he’s always wanted to see me with another writer. ‘Nick,’ he says, ‘what you need is the right woman to knock some sense into that thick head of yours. Preferably one who can read and write.’ The old bastard. He’s always carrying on like that.”

  Nick smiled to himself and shook his head, stuffing in a few more oysters at the same time. The platter was empty and I’d only eaten one (forced myself, revolting), and when I was a bit slow with my rocket salad (too concerned about bits of it getting stuck in my teeth) he hoed in and helped me. Then he asked a passing waiter to bring us two double espressos, which I thought was a bit much at that time of night.

  And on
he went, telling me more about his father and all the wonderful books he, Pollock Revisited, was going to write when he could persuade the Sydney Morning Herald to let him go. They found his unique voice just impossible to replace, apparently. He knocked off his coffee in one go and when I’d only taken a couple of cautious sips of mine, he finished that too. And all four of the complimentary chocolates.

  Without even waiting for the bill, he tossed a couple of $50 notes on the table and stood up. “Shall we?” he said, smiling down at me, one lock of very black hair falling onto his forehead. It was all very fetching. After scooping up the last bit of bread to eat on the way, he escorted me to the door, waving to all his waiter chums and only frowning slightly when the chilly waitress said sarcastically, “Bye, Mr. and Mrs. Pollock. Sleep well.”

  At the time I thought it was a very peculiar thing to say. Now I realise she was just another member of the handwriting-analysed sorority, who had truly believed for a few sweet hours that she was possibly going to be the next Mrs. Pollock. At that time I was just another innocent lamb headed for the barbie.

  Nick didn’t even ask me if I wanted to go home with him. He just took me. And of course he was absolutely right in his assumption that I found him sexually attractive. It might sound odd, that a man who talked about himself and his stupid father for most of the evening could have any appeal, but it was the way he talked that was so bewitching. He made you feel as though you were the one woman he had ever met who it was even worth telling these things to. And, as I say, I’ve always had a thing for men with black hair and blue eyes. It’s so Celtic.

  While Nick was banging on about his bewildering childhood—being whisked around the world while Daddy P. took up writer-in-freebie-residence at a succession of major universities—he gazed at you slightly sadly and vulnerably, as if pleading with you to understand that being the son of a genius wasn’t easy at all. Meanwhile, he was rubbing your thigh under the table, and popping his fingers into his mouth to lick off the oyster juices. And letting that shiny black curl flop into his eyes.