Dog Handling

by Clare Naylor

“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.

  “Bloody hell. 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 substitute 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. God, 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 Picasso 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 spaceship in the movie Cocoon. 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 bloody 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 pissing rain,” mumbled Liv. Which was exactly where she had spent last Saturday 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 bump 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 god 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 Canal, 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 sex 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. Bugger 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 nobody
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 bumped into Ben Parker or a similar candidate for fun and love to end all love. Someone to have sex 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 sexy. She pulled on her shorts and some great flip-flops decorated Carmen Miranda–style 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 cockroach 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 arseholed 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 pissed 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, dumbass 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 Pussy Whiplash par nuit.” He held out his Schiapperelli pink–nailed 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 Orgasms 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 Orgasms (the alcoholic variety, he had reassured 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 Pussy 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 Illustrated 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 passed 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 pronounced 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.

  Two hours and even more Orgasms 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.
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br />   “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 Orgasm. “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 cluster 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 rope–ish itself. God, 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-mâché to her chest. What she had drunkenly agreed to do was be at work at their market stall on Saturday 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 boobs 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.