Pants on Fire

by Maggie Alderson

  I did.

  “Anyway, all of that makes you very wary of having sex with anyone once you get yourself straight. It doesn’t have many lovey-dovey romantic associations anymore. And Jasper knew that. He knew all that and he still thought I would be fine for a quick root, no strings attached.”

  “Ouch. I can see why you went round the bend.”

  “Thank you. It doesn’t justify how I behaved, but I hope you’ll think it explains it a bit.”

  I nodded. “And I’m sure you understand,” I said. “That if I’d known all that I would never have gone near Jasper O’Connor. You did try to warn me off, I know, but just like you said, after all that business with Plonker Pollock, I wanted a nice, easy little affair with someone charming—and Jasper really is charming, as you know.”

  “He’s bloody gorgeous . . .” said Liinda. “And he’s a top root too, isn’t he?”

  Which made us both laugh like Antony.

  “Sushi sisters!” I cried and we clinked our drinks.

  “Double sushi sisters,” said Liinda.

  “Oh my god,” I said. “So you were Plonkered and then Jaspered.”

  She nodded.

  “No wonder you went insane.”

  “I’m over it now, but tell me, George—who told you about me stalking him in the first place?”

  “A woman called Tania.”

  “Oh God, don’t tell me she’s still carrying a torch for him. Unbelievable. She’s been chasing Jasper for years. Well, trying to get him back, anyway.”

  “Get him back?”

  “It was worth telling you that to see your face,” she said. “They lived together for ten years. Jasper met her when he first went to art school. She was the Older Woman. She’s never got over him.”

  I had my head in my hands. It was all too much.

  “Don’t worry” said Liinda. “It’s just Sydney. I’m glad you had a good time with him for five minutes and I’m also glad it’s over. But don’t think too badly of Jasper.”

  “Really? Sounds like he was a total bastard to you.”

  “No. He’s just weak. We should both just remember the nice things about him and feel sorry for him that he keeps messing up his life by being so weak-willed. That’s what I’ve come to realise, and it’s all part of the big favour you’ve done me.”

  “Explain.”

  She took another long drag of her cigarette. “You’ve proved to me that I’m definitely over it. Like I said, I knew you and he had got together the moment it started and I was determined to handle it. I did. So this has been one of the most important proofs I’ve had that I’m truly well now.”

  “That’s great.”

  “And that’s not all. You know that press tip to Hawaii I went on? I met someone on it. Someone really nice.”

  “That’s fantastic . . .” I think my voice sounded a little unsure.

  “No, I’m not imagining it this time. I met him at an NA meeting in Honolulu. He’s great. A session drummer. A Buddhist. A really interesting guy. We clicked immediately and he came on the rest of the trip to the other islands with me. He’s a Cancerian. Scorpio rising too.”

  “That’s the best news I’ve heard for ages.”

  “And you haven’t heard it all yet. We’ve been emailing each other ever since and he’s coming over here to see me in two weeks.”

  “Liinda,” I said, grasping her hand. “You deserve this. I really hope it works out for you. What’s his name?”

  She laughed loudly again.

  “Jasper.”

  My mouth gaped open.

  “Honestly—his name is Jasper. But I’m going to make him change it to Jazzpa—the numerology is better.”

  Debbie was in hospital for a couple of weeks and then, on the expert advice of Maxine (who seemed to know an awful lot about it), she went into a long-term residential clinic for people overcoming drug and alcohol abuse.

  As Maxine’s army of specialists believed Debbie was likely to be in there for up to six months, Jenny had moved into the Brents’ CBD apartment and Johnny came down every weekend to see them both. Debbie was allowed very few visitors and I felt honoured when they called to tell me I was on the list. Antony wasn’t on it because he still used drugs, Jenny said, which was quite a reality shock for Mr. Party, although he pretended he was only pissed off because it cut down his opportunities of seeing Johnny.

  “Don’t you want to know who else is on the list?” Jenny asked, after I’d thanked her for including me.

  “Now let me see, who do you know on here?” she said playfully. “There’s Maxine, Liinda and Zoe, and a couple of very nice girls Debs went to school with, and my sister, Marie, oh yes—and someone called Rory Stewart. You know him, don’t you, Georgia?”

  What was that all about? I wondered as I put down the phone, but then I realised I was smiling at the thought of running into him. I shrugged it off. Rory was always charm personified when I saw him, but he’d never made any effort to get in touch with me apart from that, so sod him. And he was probably only coming down to Sydney to see that stupid Fiona Clarke anyway.

  The fact was that after hearing the last convoluted revelations of my not-so-private life from Liinda, I’d decided to give sex and romance a big miss for a while and had deliberately downscaled my social life. With Debbie on extended leave, I took on her workload and made the magazine the main focus of my existence. I’d finally found a life-drawing class to go to and I’d joined a benefactors’ programme at the Art Gallery. But although I met some nice people at both, Zoe was right, the spark of friendship just wasn’t there with them.

  I still saw a lot of Antony, but always in a relatively civilised context. I didn’t want to be tempted by any more of his pharmaceutical adventures. There was a happy outcome of our free-love ecstasy experience, however—Michael and Cordelia had become good friends and their house became my new haven, replacing Caledonia.

  I hadn’t spoken to Jasper since the night I’d confronted him, but as we lived so close to each other I kept expecting to run into him on the street in Elizabeth Bay. In the end, inspired by curiosity as much as anything, I went round to Caledonia to see if he was still there. So much for the boutique hotel. They’d bulldozed the place.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Far from being a boring duty, my Sunday afternoon visits to see Debbie quickly became one of the highlights of my week. The clinic was in an old house in a quiet suburb and if it was a nice day we’d walk around the gardens—which had beautiful harbour views—and talk.

  At first it was hard. Debbie hated being there, hated all the other people in the place and really hated having to share a bedroom with “a stupid whinging drug addict,” as she called her roommate. For a few weeks it seemed as though the whole experience was just making her more and more angry. Some afternoons when I visited she just sat in tight-lipped silence, while I told her jokey things that were going on with all her friends. But gradually, as the weeks passed, her attitude began to change, until she started to be excited about what she was doing there. She was even quite friendly to her roommate, Cheryl. There were still down days, but I could see steady progress to the point where Debbie was getting so much out of her therapy, she was starting to sound like Liinda.

  “I can’t believe I thought I was over Drew,” she said one afternoon, as we sat in the watery sunshine. “I really thought that getting off my face was having a good time, and that was my logic—if I was having a good time, I must be over him. How could I have been so dumb?”

  “You weren’t dumb, Debs. You were in shock.”

  “You’re right. Shock and denial.”

  I smiled to myself—that was one of Liinda’s favourite terms.

  “And do you know, Georgie, I really believed that no one would want to know me without him there. I thought it was Drew everyone loved being around—because I loved him so much, I suppose. I really believed I had to be the most beautiful and the most popular, or no one would want to know me. God, when I think of wh
at I did at the Australia Club that time . . .”

  She shuddered. I patted her arm.

  “Anyway, enough about me—I talk about myself all bloody week in here. I’m sick of hearing about Debbie Brent. Whoever she is.”

  It was so good to hear her laugh again—a real laugh, not the hysterical drunken shrieks of before.

  “Tell me about your life,” she said. “I want to live vicariously. Got any pork on your fork?”

  “No, I haven’t,” I said. “I don’t want any boy germs in my life for a while.”

  “That bad, is it?”

  “I just need a break from it. I’ve had such a run of dopes, I’m scared to risk anyone else.”

  “That’s a shame,” she said, looking mischievous. “I know someone who’ll be very disappointed to her that.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. Just a little rumour . . .”

  “Well, if the rumour’s got a penis attached, I’m not interested, OK?” I think my tone was harsher than I’d meant it to be.

  “OK, OK,” said Debbie, looking a bit hurt. “I’m sorry, I was only teasing.”

  I felt ashamed. The last thing Debbie needed was someone snapping at her. She leaned over the garden table and looked closely at me.

  “Are you OK, little George? Now that I’m a world expert on the subject, I’d say you were a bit depressed yourself.”

  I drove home wondering if she was right.

  The following week Jenny called me at the office, to invite me up to Walton for the weekend.

  “The doctors have said Debbie is well enough to have a weekend at home,” she said. “And we’d love it if you would come up on the plane with her. It would save us having to do two return journeys.”

  Jenny made it sound like I’d be doing them a great favour, but I had a sneaking feeling Debbie had told her I was a bit low and she knew a trip to the homestead would cheer me up. She was right—I couldn’t wait for some dog, horse and kangaroo therapy. Just the thing to put my head back on straight, because Debbie was right—I was miserable.

  The country around Walton was just as beautiful in early spring as it had been in late summer, with the first tips of green coming through the gold. It was so good to be out of the city. On the way from the airport Debbie and I stuck our heads out the windows of Johnny’s four-wheel drive and sucked in lungfuls of pure country air.

  That night we had a quiet supper in the kitchen, with only mineral water to drink, to show solidarity with Debbie, who’d given up alcohol and cigarettes as well as drugs. The next morning she and Johnny went out riding and Jenny and I went for a long walk with Choccie and one of the cattle dogs. In the afternoon Debbie slept and I helped Jenny make a cake.

  “We’re going out for dinner tonight,” Jenny told me as I weighed out the dried fruit and she sifted the flour. “The Stewarts have invited us over.”

  My heart did a high jump that would have impressed Scooby.

  “Rory doesn’t know you and Debbie are up here, so Margaret—that’s his mother—and I thought it would be a nice surprise for him.”

  A nice surprise for me too, I thought, and unless I was mistaken, I saw Jenny’s eyes twinkling.

  “Does Debbie know?” I asked her. “Won’t it stir things up rather a lot going over to their place?”

  “Well, that’s all part of the reason we’re going,” said Jenny, wiping her forehead on her arm. “We talked it through with her doctors and we reckon it’s all part of the process.”

  We set off for the Stewarts’ place at seven, as it took over half an hour to get there. I sat in the back with Debbie, who was looking a bit drawn. When we came to a pair of large gates with a sign saying “Welland Heights,” the name of their property, I squeezed her hand.

  “OK?” I asked her.

  She turned her head and nodded quickly, squeezing my hand back and holding on to it.

  When we got to the house—long and low like Bundaburra, with verandahs covered in purple wisteria—Mr. and Mrs. Stewart were waiting for us at the front door. Andrew, Rory’s father, looked better than I’d expected. He was leaning on a stick and, although he had the slightly lopsided face that a stroke can leave in its wake, he could walk slowly.

  Debbie sprang from the car before Johnny had finished parking it and ran over to them. They stood holding on to each other for a few moments, but far from being the tearful wreck I’d feared she would be, I could see that Debbie was excited.

  “Oh, it’s so good to see you,” she was saying. “You look great, Andrew. You’ll be back up on a horse any minute if you carry on getting better like that.”

  An old black Labrador padded round the corner and came straight up to Debbie.

  “Blackie,” she cried, falling to her knees and covering his grizzled head in kisses.

  “That’s Drew’s dog,” said Jenny, quietly. “He wasn’t very original with names, God love him.”

  We went inside, with Johnny staying behind to help Andrew negotiate the steps. Debbie was like a little girl, running around to see if everything was the same and, to her great satisfaction, it was. She looked sad for a moment when she saw Drew’s old polo boots on the back porch, but she just stroked them and sighed and gave Margaret another big hug.

  “It’s so good to see you,” she told her. “I can’t believe I’ve stayed away so long.”

  “That’s all right,” said Margaret Stewart, a silver-haired woman in her mid-sixties with a deeply lined, but very kind face. “You’ve come back at last, that’s all that matters.”

  Margaret had made a special non-alcoholic punch in Debbie’s honour and we went out onto the back verandah to drink it. The view was breathtaking, a much broader perspective than you got from Bundaburra. The vista looked strangely familiar to me and I suddenly realised where I’d seen it before—in Rory’s drawing in the Art Gallery.

  Where was Rory? I wondered.

  “Rory will be along in a minute,” said Andrew, in his slightly slurred voice, as though he’d heard my thoughts. “He’s gone to pick his friend up at the airport.”

  What friend? I wondered and saw Jenny and Debbie exchange a quick glance.

  Rory didn’t appear until we were all seated at the long, shiny table in the dining room. He did a cartoon double-take when he saw Debbie and rushed over to kiss her.

  “Debs!” he said. “How great to see you back at Welland. You look fantastic. Welcome back.”

  He did another double-take when he saw me, but didn’t look quite so thrilled.

  “Georgia!” he said, weakly. “You’re here too. That’s great. What a lovely surprise.”

  He was saying all the right things, but it didn’t ring true, and I saw him glance nervously over my shoulder at the door. I turned round to see Fiona Clarke standing there.

  “Hello everyone,” she said, bustling over to give Andrew and Margaret showy kisses.

  “Hello Fiona, dear,” said Margaret. “Now, do you know all these people? This is Jenny Brent and her daughter, Debbie. You know Debbie, don’t you, and do you know Geor—”

  “Oh yes,” said Fiona, brightly, not looking at me. “Hi Debs, great to see you. Are you out of hospital?”

  Debbie looked at her as if she were a large pile of excrement and didn’t even bother to reply.

  “Hi, Jenny,” continued Fiona, unabashed. “I’ve heard so much about you from Rory . . . and you . . .” she said, mincing around the table in her high heels and sticking out her hand, “must be the famous Johnny Brent. Very pleased to meet you.”

  I could see Debbie mouthing “very pleased to meet you” at her plate with her eyes crossed. Jenny nudged her hard. Rory came down and sat next to me, looking extremely uncomfortable, while Fiona wriggled in next to Johnny.

  “Isn’t this nice?” I could hear her saying. Not really, I thought. Not very nice at all. But at least Andrew and Margaret didn’t seem to notice that Debbie was completely ignoring Rory and Fiona, or that Fiona was ignoring me and that Jo
hnny Brent was clearly feeling no pain. Fiona had him enraptured as she prattled on, shrugging off her jacket to reveal the full magnificence of her mighty breasts beneath a tight white T-shirt.

  As Fiona’s giggles increased in volume, I saw Jenny starting to look a bit tense as she made determined conversation with the Stewarts. Eventually Debbie got up and whispered something to Margaret and left the room. I turned to Rory with the brightest smile I could muster.

  “Sorry to spring myself upon you,” I said. “I didn’t know we were coming over here until this afternoon.”

  “No, yes, no,” he said, his eyes glancing nervously from me to Fiona Clarke, who was now leaning with one elbow on the table, gazing up into Johnny Brent’s eyes.

  I wondered if it was jealousy or embarrassment that was making Rory behave so oddly and whether he knew that his girlfriend had been seen leaving the Cointreau Ball with Nick Pollock.

  “The country here looks gorgeous at this time of year,” I said, wanting to give him a break. He looked wretched. “It reminds me of a really beautiful pastel drawing I saw last time I was in the Art Gallery in New South Wales.”

  He looked surprised.

  “Your drawing, Rory. You’re so modest. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it hanging there. I’d be handing out leaflets in George Street if I had a picture in the Gallery.”

  “Oh well, you know, I wouldn’t want to big-note myself. Did you really like it?”

  “I loved it—even before I saw your name on the plaque. It totally captures what’s out there.” I nodded to the back of the house.

  Margaret and Jenny were clearing away the dessert plates and I sprang up to help. Jenny practically pushed me back into my seat.

  “We’ll do this,” she said. “You carry on talking. Margaret is serving coffee on the verandah, when you’re ready.”

  Fiona and Johnny were still locked in conversation—or rather he was talking, telling all his old polo stories that everyone else had heard a million times, while Fiona gazed at him adoringly. Rory glanced at them and then back at me.