Mad About the Boy

by Maggie Alderson

  Tom nodded and cuddled up to Percy.

  ‘Mind you, Antonia, lose any more weight, darling, and you’ll be the full Charlotte Rampling.’

  He sucked his cheeks in and made a pained face.

  ‘Who’s Charlotte Dumpling?’ asked Tom.

  Feeling trimmer was also a great confidence booster for the first dreaded ‘family’ dinner and when I walked into the restaurant I saw Greg’s eyes flicker over my body in surprise. I had dressed to show it off, of course, in a simple sleeveless shell top and tight bootleg pants – both black, both new.

  That’s something for you to tell your friend Nikki, I thought, before reminding myself I had to try to get on with Greg for Tom’s sake. But before I could think about it any more, Hugo had grabbed me by both hands and was loudly admiring my new figure.

  ‘Ant,’ he said, making me do a twirl in the middle of the restaurant. ‘No! You look marvellous. Oh it’s good to see you looking yourself again. What a babe. No wonder I married you. I could almost turn back for you.’

  Hugo’s careless ability to make the most inappropriate remark possible, helped to break the ice and I have to say that Greg was behaving like a different person.

  It was clearly the Percy effect. He could communicate with Greg in the international language of camp, in which they were both fluent, so he was an effective conduit to make Greg feel included in the party, even when Hugo – clearly happy to be back among his compatriots for an evening – started talking in his most arcane aristobabble, a kind of secret language only those close to the Heaveringhams could possibly understand.

  Nevertheless, I could see that whatever Percy had said to Greg about the big picture had sunk in, as he was making a serious effort to be civil to me. He even told me I looked nice. Amazing.

  But the main thing that made the evening bearable for me was that I could see that Greg was sincerely fond of Tom. Percy had artfully seated him between Greg and myself, and I was actually touched when my former deadly foe leaned over and cut my son’s steak up for him, in a very natural way.

  ‘You seem to be very at ease with children, Greg,’ I said to him. ‘Do you have younger siblings?’

  He smiled, the most natural expression I had yet seen on his perfectly tanned and tended face, which I was more used to seeing thin-lipped and huffy.

  ‘I’m the oldest of seven kids,’ he said. ‘I helped bring the little ’uns up. And now I have three nieces and two nephews, all under six, with two more on the way. I love kids. I wish I could have some myself.’

  There was a wistfulness in his eyes, as he said it, that really surprised me. Well, blow me down, I thought, maybe there was more heart to the blow-dry king than I had ever imagined.

  Who-would-a-thunk-it?

  11

  My trip to the Blue Mountains with Dee was a great success. She had suggested we took her car and driver, so we could relax in the back, but I insisted on going in my well-used four-wheel drive. I thought it was important for Dee to have a little taste of real life for once. I also told her to dress down as much as possible, or she’d send the prices rocketing.

  She did her best, in a pair of jeans, a white T-shirt and pink Superga sneakers, a chunky cotton knit around her shoulders, all of which she admitted had been purchased specially for the occasion. I made her tie back her too-perfect hair in an elastic band, which took some persuading, and I insisted she took the huge emerald studs out of her ears. She wouldn’t take off her engagement ring – another monster emerald flanked by two humongous diamonds – but she agreed to turn it round, so at least the stones weren’t visible.

  Satisfied she could pass as a fairly low-level dealer, like myself, we set off. She got more relaxed and skittish with every mile we drove west. By the time we got past Parramatta, I hardly knew her. She was singing along to the 80s tracks on Mix 106.5 – ‘Material Girl’ seemed particularly appropriate – and she insisted we stopped at a service station, so she could introduce me to the legendary sweets, or ‘lollies’ as she called them, of an Australian childhood. We headed up into the hills sucking on strange objects called milk bottles, freckles, bullets, jaffas and jubes – and some very alarming things called ‘teeth’.

  It was really nice to have some company and at our very first stop she proved herself to be a brilliant bargaining partner. It was rather a precious little shop in Springwood, from which I had never bought anything so far because the proprietor didn’t understand trade prices, but I always stopped anyway – it’s one of the first rules of what I do. You always have to check it out, because you never know. And boy, was I glad I had.

  First of all I tripped over a whole box of old linen curtains in my favourite Sanderson print – the lilac – all beautifully soft and faded from years of wash and wear. Raking through them in a desultory way, as though hoping to find something else, I counted that there were six huge pairs. Crackerjack.

  I’d just stopped myself from squealing with delight over them and was feigning my usual indifference, when I noticed a set of three blue-and-white Cornishware kitchen canisters – ‘flour’, ‘sugar’ and ‘raisins’. I was a bit over them myself, but I knew they were very ‘collected’. They’d be expensive, but I could still sell them for more in Woollahra. There were also three 1950s baskets of the kind that walked out of my shop after about five minutes in the window and some cute kindergarten chairs, which were another good seller.

  I was looking through some old teacups, when Dee came over and very subtly kicked my leg, gesturing with her head to one side of the shop. She’d left the lid open on an old wicker laundry hamper which seemed to be full of lovely old plaid blankets and plump paisley eiderdowns. It was all I could do not to whimper. It was exactly what I needed for my winter stock and these were things you didn’t find very often in quantity.

  The question was, how to proceed? I didn’t like the woman who owned this shop and she didn’t like me. I think she recognized me from the Vogue Living article and jacked her margins up accordingly. It was going to take some tactical manoeuvring to get the things I wanted at the right price – and it was my most golden business rule that I did walk away, even from something I loved, if I couldn’t get the right ratio between buy price and sell price in my notebook.

  ‘What’s your best price on the Cornishware?’ I asked her, going straight for the most obvious items.

  ‘$200,’ she said, without smiling. ‘They’re very rare and very collectable.’

  ‘Yes, they are,’ I said. ‘But the raisins one has a chip on it, so the best I can offer you is $100 for the three.’

  ‘$150 is my best offer,’ she said.

  I stroked them, trying to look as if I desperately wanted them, which I didn’t.

  ‘I’ll give you $130 for them,’ I finally said, as if I couldn’t help myself. ‘And $75 for those three baskets.’

  That gambit worked. The baskets were marked at $15 each and she thought I hadn’t noticed. I’d get $65 each for them at the shop and probably $250 for the Cornishware. The chip was microscopic and I knew how to patch it. It all worked out. And the canisters were only a tactic to get the stuff I really wanted anyway.

  ‘OK,’ she said, looking very pleased with herself. She thought she’d ripped me off. I hadn’t even begun.

  ‘I’ll just see if there’s anything else,’ I said, deliberately not looking at the blankets, or the curtains. And that was when Dee pulled her masterstroke.

  She started looking at her watch.

  ‘Ant,’ she said, impatiently. ‘We’ve got to get to Katoomba by eleven. That guy’s waiting for us and he’s brought all that stuff in specially. We really ought to get going and we can’t fill up the car with too much junk now because he told me he had loads. And he said he can’t hang around.’

  ‘Oh right, yes,’ I said, pretending to be flustered and getting a wad of cash out of my jeans pocket, deliberately letting some of it fall on the floor.

  ‘How about the little chairs?’ I asked the woman, whose eyes were f
ixated on the dollars. I knew women like her, the sight of cash mesmerized them. ‘$20 for the two?’

  ‘$60 for the two,’ she said.

  ‘Come on, Ant,’ said Dee, holding the door open. I could have kissed her.

  ‘Oh, OK,’ I said pretending to be really in a flap. ‘Um, how about I give you $100 all up, plus what we agreed for the Cornishware and baskets, and you throw in that box of stuff and that old hamper as well? I haven’t got time to look through it all, but I’ll risk it. There might be some pillowslips at the bottom. That’s $305, so shall we say a round $300?’

  I peeled off the $10 notes quickly – I always get them in small denominations, because it looks like more – and when I saw her lick her lips, I knew I had her.

  ‘OK,’ she said, reaching for the money and Dee was out of the door with that laundry hamper faster than an escaping bank robber. She had it and the box of curtains in the back of the car, before the dealer even realized what she’d sold.

  But the funny thing was, as we drove away with the curtains and the quilts and the blankets and the baskets and the little chairs and the stupid Cornishware, giving each other high fives as we hit the highway, we were all happy.

  The dealer had made $300 on stuff she probably paid $50 for in house clearances, and by the time I sold it on, with the curtains made up into cushions and covering a couple of old armchairs from Wally’s, I’d be well up into four figures. On top of that my customers would be thrilled to have a beautiful old thing that none of their friends could get. One hundred per cent satisfaction all round. That was the beauty of junketeering.

  Dee proved to be an absolute natural at the whole thing. In all the shops we went to she spotted great stuff that I hadn’t noticed and always knew when to pull the ‘we’ve got to go’ stunt. She also came up with another great trick, of pretending not to like something and trying to persuade me not to buy it. There was nothing like seeing a sale disappearing before their eyes, to make dealers see sense on prices.

  By two o’clock, the car was full and we decided to head back to town, after tea at a pretty little place in Black-heath.

  ‘Dee,’ I said, raising my cup in a toast. ‘You’re a natural.’

  We clinked cups. She was absolutely glowing.

  ‘How on earth did you know how to pull those stunts?’ I asked her.

  She grinned. ‘I used to go shopping with my granny, in Tasmania. She was the most amazing bargain broker you can ever imagine. She was a softly spoken little Irish lady, but she could talk a donkey into giving her his tail, with his ears thrown in for good will, and I learned it all from her. Until today, I’d forgotten about it, but it was lurking inside me all along.’

  ‘Well, thank you, Granny,’ I said. ‘This is the best day’s junketering I’ve had since I opened the shop. It made such a difference having you with me. Will you come with me again sometime?’

  ‘You bet,’ said Dee, leaning across the table towards me. ‘This is the most fun I’ve had for about fifteen years.’

  Although Dee was still relatively reserved about her private life and never asked me about mine, it was really nice to have a woman friend again. I spoke to my sisters quite a bit and we e-mailed every day, but it meant a lot to me just to have a girlfriend to hang out with and twitter about things like pillowslips and mascara. Especially as Suzy Thorogood seemed to have gone cold on me.

  It had happened quite abruptly. After her party we’d carried on seeing each other at least once a week, and it was always a laugh. Then suddenly she froze me out. I was really surprised, as I had always thought her a superior being to the Nikkis and Carolines of this world, but I started to wonder when she didn’t return my calls after I’d left messages on her home and work numbers. I thought maybe she’d been away, but when I finally caught her on the mobile one afternoon in April, just innocently wanting to chat and make a date to meet, she was very distracted and offhand with me.

  ‘Sorry, Ant,’ she said, sounding like she was doing something else at the same time as talking to me, something she found much more interesting. ‘But I’ve got a huge work load on at the moment, there’s a big takeover bid in on one of my clients, and I’m just flat out. I’ll give you a call when things lighten up, OK?’

  And she’d just hung up. I was more surprised than hurt and after all I had been through I decided I just couldn’t worry about it. If Suzy, who I had liked so much and who had been so nice to me, wanted to weird out, that was up to her. I was in self-preservation mode.

  The only thing marring my new friendship with Dee was that Percy had taken against her. I was amazed. I always expect the people I love to adore each other, but Percy was basilisk-faced around Dee from the moment I first introduced them in the shop.

  ‘Oh, hi Perce,’ I had said, delighted, as he walked in one afternoon wearing a new pair of leather pants and a tight black T-shirt. ‘I’m so glad you’re here – this is Dee, who I’ve been telling you so much about.’

  Dee was ill at ease socially in general, but Percy’s cold manner rendered her mute.

  ‘Oh yes, lovely to see you,’ he said, with a curt nod and no sign of his famous charm and charisma. I’d never seen him like it before.

  ‘Just came in to tell you,’ he said to me, ignoring Dee. ‘We’re having a few folk over for supper tonight. That chap Maybury’s quite amusing, so I’ve asked him again and that nice gal pal of his from Inside magazine, what’s her name? Daisy. And that decorator chappie, Dominic. They’re each bringing someone neither of us has met yet, widening our circle. Tom’s going to Vita’s for the night. They’re coming at 7 p.m. I’m doing mussels and my rose petal sorbet. See you later.’

  And off he went. I was speechless. I had never known Percy take so little interest in a human being who was new to him. Normally he was like a dog, delighted to have someone new to sniff and wag his tail at. He hadn’t given Dee a chance and – even more amazing – he’d broken one of his own rules of polite conduct, he’d talked about a social event she wasn’t invited to in front of her. Normally he would have kept quiet and rung me later to tell me about the dinner or, more likely, he would have invited her too. I just couldn’t understand it.

  It was quite clear that Dee knew she had been snubbed, but she didn’t seem particularly surprised and soon made her excuses to leave. I felt desperately embarrassed and hoped she wouldn’t hold it against me.

  I rounded on Percy the minute I got home. He was stirring the mussels, wearing one of his old kaftans, now dyed black and studded round the neckline with steel rivets.

  ‘Percy?’ I said in a questioning tone. ‘What was with you today? I’ve never seen you like that.’

  ‘Like what?’ he said coldly, one hand on his hip, the other holding the wooden spoon in mid air, as though it were a fan.

  ‘So unfriendly – to Dee. What was that all about?’

  ‘I didn’t really care for Dee,’ he said, sniffing and giving the pot another stir.

  ‘But you’ve never met her before,’ I said, mystified.

  ‘Didn’t need to. Don’t like the cut of her jib, that’s all. I make up my mind very quickly about people, Antonia, as you may remember from our first meeting, and she is not one for me. I’m not sure she’s one for you either, but that’s up to you.’

  And, as he turned resolutely back to the stove, I knew that was that. Just one slightly less attractive side of Percy’s eccentric personality.

  Despite our earlier little spat, the evening was a great success and the new people Antony, Dominic and Daisy had brought with them were all single men – and apparently heterosexual. I had the strong feeling I was being set up and I didn’t mind.

  Actually it was incredibly nice to have someone male and hairy to flirt with, who didn’t have better nails than I did, and they seemed nice enough chaps. Nick, Michael and John were all there to amuse me and I was quite happy to go along with it, although it did cross my mind that it was odd that three attractive men in their mid-thirties, with good jobs and excellen
t manners, should be single. They were classic ‘spare men’ as Hugo’s mother would have called them. But what the heck – I was happy to have some attention.

  As we were finishing the champagne Percy had served with his rose petal sorbet, he announced he was going to introduce our new friends to one of his favourite after-dinner games.

  ‘Shoot, shag, or marry?’ he said to Antony Maybury, who looked somewhat surprised at the suggestion.

  ‘Shoot, shag, or marry …’ continued Percy, twinkling his most mischievous smile around at everybody, but returning to Antony, whom he really enjoyed teasing. ‘Cliff Richard, Clive James, Elton John?’

  ‘Can I shoot myself?’ said Antony.

  ‘But that’s no fun,’ said Percy, prodding him on the arm with the mouth end of his cigarette holder. ‘You have to choose. I’ll give you an example. If you said that to me, I would say: shoot Clive James, he’s way too smug, shag Cliff Richard – video it and sell the tape to the News of the World – and marry Sir Elton, just for the title, of course. Get it?’

  It was clear by his snorts of laughter that Antony did. Percy looked delighted.

  ‘OK, Antony,’ he said. ‘Now it’s your go. Shoot, shag or marry: Andrew Lloyd Webber, George W. Bush, Ian Botham?’

  Antony mulled it over, while the rest of us looked at him expectantly. He had really funny thick black eyebrows that moved up and down independently of each other. They seemed to be giving the answer in semaphore signals as he pondered.

  ‘Shoot Lloyd Webber, shag Botham, marry Dubya,’ he said at last.

  Percy raised one of his own newly black brows in response.

  ‘Very good, but may we know why, Mr Maybury?’ he said.

  ‘OK. Shoot Lloyd Webber,’ said Antony, starting to enjoy himself. ‘Obviously you’d be doing the world a service, no more of those ghastly muscials. Shag Botham – he’d either be a dirty fuck or fall asleep on the job – and marry Dubya, because I would, of course, love to be First Lady.’