by Ros Reines
But Scarlet wasn’t going to be deterred. She’d decided that I was her new best friend—even if she couldn’t remember my name now—and she wasn’t going to be parted from me.
‘Shannon,’ she said, breaking free from his grasp, ‘I’m not finished talking to . . .’ (who was I again?) ‘. . . my friend,’ she finished.
‘Scarlet,’ her husband said slowly, shaking his head in a patronising way, as if she were a naughty child, ‘I’m sure you two have had a lot of fun, but right now, my dear, there is someone I need you to meet—someone who is very interested in your acting skills.’
This seemed to get her attention at last and she grudgingly followed her husband towards the garden where a lavish marquee had been set up against the perfect Sydney Harbour backdrop—the opera house, the bridge—it was as though the city’s icons had been obligingly placed in the couple’s backyard.
Phew. I walked up to the nearest waiter, snatched a glass of champagne from his tray, and drank it down without pausing for breath. It wasn’t till I’d emptied the glass that I noticed the man, who was standing in front of me patiently, clutching a small plastic pouch.
‘Excuse me, madam, but these are heel guards,’ he said, proffering the little bag. ‘Kindly place them over your heels to protect the parquetry floor.’
I looked at him quizzically.
‘High heels can actually damage the wood,’ he explained.
‘Really? Well, of course, I’d hate to do that.’
But how to affix the shoe guards without falling flat on my face? I have never been known for my agility, despite spending what seemed like an entire childhood at dancing lessons.
‘Please do take a seat over there,’ he said, kindly gesturing to what looked like some sort of antique stool. ‘And do let me know if I may be of further assistance.’
I had an instant flash of the waiter on his bended knees in front of me grappling with my shoe guard as Erica Hopewell passed by, her suspicion that I was nothing but a gauche upstart unequivocally confirmed.
‘No, I’m fine. Thank you,’ I said as graciously as possible, smothering a burp (that would teach me not to drink so fast). I perched on the stool and somehow managed to fit the little plastic caps onto the heels of my stilettos. I felt decidedly unsteady as I attempted to cross the floor.
The tricky part was getting down the grand stone staircase, which led to the front garden, where there was a crowd milling about on the lawn like the extras in The Great Gatsby. Of course, each time someone new appeared in the doorway everyone looked up to check them out. It was just human nature—I couldn’t wait to do the same thing when I had safely reached the lawn. If I made it down there without taking a tumble . . . I was feeling self-conscious enough, mincing along unsteadily on the plastic caps, when I spotted my editor with his neck craned towards me. Unfortunately, before I could retreat to the shadows, I heard his raised voice calling, ‘Savannah! Over here!’
Oh, yeah, great. I hobbled down the stairs and made my way across the grass. Were we supposed to take the heel guards off in the garden? This party was really turning out to be hard work.
‘Hi, Tim—I didn’t know that you were coming tonight,’ I said brightly, trying to sound pleased to see him while thinking, Damn! There’d definitely be no sneaking out early now. I’d planned to get home in time to sit by the phone and wait for Daniel’s call like a pathetic, love-struck teenager.
‘Oh, Shannon and I are old friends,’ Tim told me. ‘We were at school together. So tell me, Savannah, what’s going on? Who’s here? What’s news?’
I frantically looked around but couldn’t see any well-known faces in the dark. Got to think of something juicy for the boss.
‘Well, um, Scarlet seems to be having some kind of breakdown,’ I began. ‘Apparently she insisted on being rushed to emergency at St Vincent’s last night, and it turns out the only thing she was suffering from was a heavy period. And she’s just taken me on a tour of her dressing room and loaded me up with expensive perfume and accessories.’
‘Why?’ said Tim, looking at me keenly. He hadn’t made much of an effort for tonight’s soiree, I noticed. He was still wearing the black trousers he’d worn to the office, and his white shirt had a greyish tinge to it. His only concessions to the A-list party seemed to be that he had taken his tie off and cloaked his briefcase. ‘Don’t you think it’s odd that Scarlet would tell you about her personal health issues?’ He was frowning.
‘To be quite honest, I think she has me confused with someone else,’ I said, keeping an eye on each new arrival at the top of the stairs, so that I could keep my editor informed of the action while demonstrating my superior knowledge of social Sydney. Honestly, since I took this job I’d had to jump through one hoop after the other—no wonder it was making me giddy.
Tim put his head back and roared with laughter as if Scarlet’s drama was one of the funniest things he’d ever heard. What the hell was he on anyway? ‘So she ends up spilling her guts to a gossip columnist. It’s almost good enough to write up,’ he guffawed. ‘What else is going on here?’
‘Good question,’ I said. ‘In fact, I’d better go and see what other stories I can hunt down. I’ll get back to you later.’
I started to move away, but Tim stayed by my side. I had the feeling he wanted to watch his gun gossip columnist in action. Gun? At the moment I felt as wishy-washy as a water pistol.
For a few minutes we lingered in companionable silence and watched the other guests mingling as waiters circled us offering champagne and canapés. Another glass would have gone down very well, but I was shy of drinking in front of my boss.
Finally, as if he’d only just become aware of the temptations on offer, he said, ‘Savannah, would you like something to drink?’
‘Thanks,’ I said, taking a glass of champagne and making a mental note to sip, not gulp. I had to lose Tim, I decided, or this was going to be a very dull, tense and unproductive sort of night.
‘Well, I’d better go and do my job,’ I said again.
I suddenly caught sight of Erica hovering close by, a stern look on her face. She was holding a glass of red wine and puffing away at a Sobranie. Very chic.
‘Oh my goodness, there’s Erica, Tim,’ I said, feigning surprise as if I had no idea she was here.
My editor spun around. ‘Erica!’ he called. ‘Erica—over here!’ He beckoned for her to join us.
Erica, who had been in conversation with a woman in a cocktail hat with a veil—Juno Pearce, the eccentric society milliner—glanced our way with a slightly irritated look before she suddenly recognised the editor, then excused herself and came bustling over. ‘What a fabulous party, Tim. Are you enjoying yourself?’ As usual, she totally ignored my existence.
‘Yes, yes, lovely party,’ Tim responded impatiently. ‘Now, from your point of view, are all the key movers and shakers here?’
‘Movers and shakers’—what the hell was this, a cheesy board game?
Erica seriously pondered Tim’s question, puffing away theatrically on her lilac Sobranie.
‘It’s still a little early in the evening, I think. Our key identities are more likely to arrive fashionably late.’
Why hadn’t I thought of that? This was excruciating; it was definitely time to take my leave. It was Erica’s turn to babysit the editor now. ‘Well, it’s great to see you both but I really must circulate now and try to find some stories. Erica, I don’t suppose you’ve seen Oliver around, have you? I’ve got to get some photos done.’
‘No, I haven’t,’ she said stiffly.
‘Okay, I’ll track him down. See you both later.’ I smiled warmly at the pair of them, then hurried away before Tim could object. Thank god—I was free at last.
I headed for a large group of people and almost collided with Wes Heart—the one whose lawyer, Dennis Quinn, had tried to paint me as a druggie. How I would have loved to confront him, but I’d sworn to Tim that I would never reveal I had been listening in to that phone call. Luc
kily, Wes didn’t seem to recognise me.
Looking over my shoulder, I could see that my boss, with the loyal Erica still by his side, had moved to the top of the stairs. Tim was peering into the crowd. Was he trying to track my movements while Erica whispered poisonous somethings about me in his ear?
Turning away, I spotted a little tent with the words Madame Violet painted on the side in a florid script. Scarlet had apparently thought that it would be quite fun to have a tarot card reader on hand to tell the guests their futures. She’d obviously found the clairvoyant from Central Casting, because the woman who was setting up inside the tent was wearing a scarf with a fringe of gold coins around her face and a flounced gypsy skirt. All she needed was a crystal ball and she would be set. Oh, wait—she was actually getting one out now and polishing it up.
Well, at least I’d be safe from watching eyes in here. I barged into the tent and closed the flap behind me. Let my editor and his haute fashion sidekick try to find me now. Hopefully, they’d have moved on to some other form of entertainment by the time the reading was over.
‘I’m still just setting up, dear.’ Madame Violet looked faintly stunned that I had not only walked in so boldly, but appeared to be about to make myself at home there. Well, she should have seen it coming.
‘I’ll be about ten minutes, dear. Why don’t you come back then?’ she suggested.
‘Thank you, but do you mind if I wait here, Madame Violet? There’s someone out there who I’m trying hard to shake off, if you know what I mean.’ I tried to get just the right ominous note in my voice.
Up close, Madame Violet looked to be in her early forties, with fair skin and a faint overlay of wrinkles that looked like sun damage. She did indeed have violet eyes, but maybe it was because of the half a ton of purple eye shadow she had ladled around them, I thought cynically.
She just shrugged her shoulders. ‘All right, dear, you can just take a seat there.’ She pointed to a small stool near the door. ‘I’ll call you over when I’m ready. In the meantime, would you mind hanging this sign on the hook outside?’
She handed over a professional-looking placard, which read Reading In Progress. I took it from her gratefully and, being careful to extend only my arm from the shelter afforded by the tent flap in case Tim and Erica spotted me, hung the sign from the hook.
‘I’m ready for you now, dear,’ she said.
‘Okay. Thank you.’
I sat down at a table covered in a red velvet cloth. A pack of tarot cards was placed next to the crystal ball.
‘We’re going to do a very simple reading tonight,’ Madame Violet informed me. ‘Give me a piece of your jewellery. Something that only you have worn.’
I passed across my Bulova watch.
The clairvoyant put it in the palm of her own hands, closed her eyes and bowed her head. When she looked up again a minute or so later, she seemed to be staring over my shoulder.
‘You are at a crossroads in your life right now and it involves a man. I see a youngish man who doesn’t wear the wardrobe of the corporate world. He will want you to be with him but something is holding you back.’
The hairs on the back of my neck—no doubt those tricky ones that are resistant to a blow dryer—started to rise. She was describing Daniel! The cynic inside of me was momentarily silenced as I blurted out: ‘Do you see anything else?’
‘The work you are doing around the printed word in a newspaper has more of an impact than you know, and you must be cautious at all times,’ she warned. ‘I see lots of daggers in your back.’
‘Do you see a dark-haired woman in designer clothes with lots of pearls around her neck throwing those knives, Madame Violet?’
The clairvoyant’s brow furrowed—there appeared to be some interference on the line to The Other Side. ‘I am not being told the identity of this person because there are several people out to get you.’
Oh, joy: welcome to the fun-filled world of the Sydney gossip columnist who needed to have the skin of a rhino. Well, it looked like now I really was an endangered species. Despite myself, I was impressed with Madam Violet’s powers. I also wanted to enquire about Scarlet’s sanity because it felt as though she was on the edge of a nervous breakdown (and I didn’t want to be the catalyst for that), but the seer had handed back my watch and was looking at her own in a rather pointed way. She was only doing abridged readings, I remembered.
‘If you thought that my reading was accurate, you can leave a donation in the bowl,’ she told me. ‘And please take one of my business cards and give it to your friends; I am always available to do group readings.’
I repressed a smile. There was always a business pitch in Sydney; it didn’t seem to matter which spiritual plane you were on. Leaving a ten-dollar note and putting a business card into my bag, I headed for the opening of the tent and discovered a line of very impatient guests waiting to have their futures read.
‘What was she like, Savannah?’ asked a woman in peach tulle whom I only vaguely recognised.
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘she was brilliant—I was blown away.’
‘Did she tell you which socialites are having affairs around here?’ brayed a voice that sounded suspiciously like that of celebrity gardener Dickie Watts.
‘Of course,’ I said lightly. ‘I’m all over it—and all I can say is that, Dickie, I’m shocked!’
‘What do you mean?’ gasped the high camp curator of the compost.
But I just beamed at him with an exaggerated wink. And with that I made my way back into the party, which had suddenly become very noisy. The sound of Lady V’s orgasmic laugh seemed to be everywhere—along with many more outbursts of equally raucous screams. There was also music wafting across the garden from the mobile discotheque.
The next person I ran into was Oliver Orlan—a sight to behold tonight in a red velvet hunting jacket and cream silk jodhpurs. At least here was someone who was semi-friendly, although mostly Oliver acted as though he could only just tolerate me.
‘Hello, Oli. Who have you got so far?’
He sighed heavily. ‘Please do not shorten my name, Savannah. You make it sound so common.’
‘Sorry, Oliver. Do you have many shots so far?’
‘Scarlet and Shannon,’ he recited. ‘Peter and Gertie Lovejoy, as well as Chloe and that footballer she is marrying.’ It was clear that Oliver did not approve of Troy—or maybe his crime was just his chosen career which Oliver felt was not socially acceptable.
‘Fantastic! Where are they?’
‘I saw them in the garden about twenty minutes ago,’ he said. ‘Oh, and Alex Evans is here with his wife Jacqueline, but only Jacqueline would allow me to take her photo. That Alex Evans might be a handsome man but he is so dull,’ Oliver sighed.
My heart skipped a beat—if the Evanses were here, maybe Daniel was too?
‘Was anyone else with them?’ I asked hopefully.
‘No, just Scarlet and Shannon. They all went into one of the drawing rooms together. Now can you just go and do your own scouting and leave me to take some pictures?’
It was clear Oliver was bored with our conversation and would not be detained any longer. I watched as he sashayed back into the throng of guests, many of whom immediately began to fawn over him. He was in his element.
The best way to approach the situation, I decided, was to systematically work my way through every room. Hopefully, I would find the Evanses and maybe even Daniel. If scatterbrain Scarlet introduced me to the enigmatic couple, at least then I would have something to report back to my boss.
Somewhere in the distance I could hear a band setting up on the front lawn and thought that, since he loved music, Daniel would eventually gravitate there if he had turned up to the party. I’d head over there after I’d found the Evanses, I decided.
‘Savannah! It’s good to see you; I was going to call you today to see whether you had thought any further about my offer.’
Oh, no. Walking towards me was Lahar Kapoor in a royal blue sui
t and bright orange tie. A matching orange silk hankie exploded from his jacket like a fireball. It was too late to avoid him, so I reluctantly joined him on the terrace. Glued to his side was a blonde woman who was almost wearing a little black dress. I stood as close to him as you would to someone with a communicable disease but it didn’t matter because Lahar leaned in to kiss me sloppily on both cheeks. I became aware that some of the people around us had halted their conversations to give our little exchange their undivided attention.
‘Savannah, meet Madonna,’ said the jeweller, urging the tiny girl forward. She extended a limp hand lit up by several diamond rings. Were they on loan from Lahar’s shop or hers to keep? ‘Madonna,’ he declared grandly, ‘is the love of my life.’
‘Really? You must tell me how you met some time.’
Madonna, who was chewing gum, looked like some kind of hooker. He’d probably met her at the door of a high-class escort agency.
The jeweller clearly wasn’t going to let me escape until I’d responded to his question about the fifty-thousand bucks he wanted to gift me in exchange for a double invite to the wedding of the year. I thought I’d already made it clear this was not possible but clearly the message had not got through.
‘You know, Lahar, it was a very generous offer, but I’m just not interested in accepting it,’ I said firmly. There: I didn’t see how I could make myself any clearer. I wondered whether he knew the Lovejoys were here; if he did, he would no doubt start to pester them. Best to say nothing, but I hoped for Chloe and Troy’s sakes they kept right out of his way. ‘Now please do excuse me,’ I said sweetly. ‘I was just trying to find my photographer.’
I glanced at the bored young woman by Lahar’s side. ‘It was lovely to meet you,’ I told her. ‘You two look like you were made for each other.’
‘We will discuss the offer later but right now we would love a photograph together,’ Lahar said boldly, putting an arm around his date and drawing her in close to him.
