The Godson (17 page)

N
ORTON WOKE UP
just before ten with a hangover from the champagne that would have brought a water buffalo to its knees: his throat was burning and his mouth felt like someone had cut his tongue out and sewn one of B.O. Plenty's socks in it. Outside it didn't look like too bad a day but at that particular moment Norton didn't want any part of it. He stumbled to the bathroom, remembering they had to be out of their rooms by ten-thirty. After soaking up about a gallon of cold water straight from the sink he rang Peregrine. Peregrine was in even worse condition, but at least he was still asleep.

‘Urrnhhh?' he mumbled into the receiver.

‘Peregrine,' croaked the voice at the other end. ‘It's Les.'

‘Urrnhhh?'

‘We're supposed to be out of here in another half hour.'

‘They rang me before.'

‘What did you say?'

‘We'd stay another night.'

‘Righto. I'll ring you back about one.' He hung up.

That suited Les. If there was one thing he didn't feel like, it was packing his bags and driving for about five hours. He flopped back on the bed making a mental note to ring Eddie later and let him know where they were and what they were up to.

He did that when he finally surfaced around twelve-thirty. Eddie said that that was okay but best they got up to the farm by Thursday just to be on the safe side. Then Les rang the desk to see if there may have been a message from the Norwegian girl from Armidale. There wasn't. A car had called for them and they left just after eight o'clock. Sorry, Mr Norton, there was no forwarding address. Bummer, thought Les. He wouldn't have minded seeing Ingersoll again. She was more than all right. Oh well — you win some, you lose some.
C'est la vie
. Then he rang Peregrine again. This time the Englishman was awake. But only just.

‘So how are you feeling, Peregrine?'

‘Rather jaded, old chap. I can assure you of that.'

‘I'm stuffed myself. You had any breakfast?'

‘I've just ordered something to be sent to my room.'

‘I'm gonna do the same thing. How about I meet you down by the pool in an hour or so?'

‘Good idea. I'll see you then.'

After a steak sandwich, orange juice and freshly brewed coffee and apart from a rotten headache, Norton was in about as good a condition as he could be to face the day, so he threw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and headed for the pool. After a wallow in the spa and a swim he felt a little fresher so he propped in about the same position as the day before in amongst about the same number of guests. Peregrine arrived about twenty minutes later looking like Hercule Poirot in
Murder On The Nile
. He muttered a quick hello to Norton, dropped his things on the banana-chair next to him then plunged into the pool for another solid half lap in the same scintillating style that had amazed all the guests the day before. When
he stood next to Les, towelling himself off, Norton lowered his sunglasses for a closer look at something on the Englishman. There were four or five love bites on his neck, and what looked like about two hundred on his back.

‘Hey, Peregrine?' queried Les, ‘what the fuck did you get up to last night? Have you seen your back?'

Peregrine paled. ‘Oh dear. They're not on my back too, are they?' He shot a quick glance at the other guests then wrapped a towel around himself and lay back on his banana-chair. ‘Oh really. How embarrassing.'

‘Embarrassing,' snorted Norton. ‘Disgusting'd be more like it. Those two poor little girls were still going to school. They'd be lucky if they were twelve years old.'

‘They were more than jolly twelve,' retorted Peregrine. ‘They were seventeen and eighteen. And if they went to school, there must be a version of St. Trinians in Australia.'

Norton gave Peregrine a very heavy, and also a slightly envious once up and down. ‘So what happened?'

Peregrine thought for a moment. ‘I don't know that I care to tell you,' he hesitated. ‘However — if you insist…'

The Englishman gave Les what was almost a blow by blow description of the carryings on in the room the previous night, which had Norton more than a little envious and almost cracking up inside. When Peregrine had finished it was all Les could do to keep a straight face. He looked at Peregrine and shook his head.

‘That has to be one of the most disgusting stories I've ever heard in my life. You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.'

‘Ashamed?' sniffed Peregrine. ‘I'm abhorred. Those two little beasts took advantage of me in my drunken state and attacked me. Literally raped me.'

‘Ohh, yeah. Raped you, did they? I didn't hear you banging on my wall for help. Why didn't you call the hotel security if it was that bad?'

‘Well… there was no need to go that far,' shrugged Peregrine, a slight smile beginning to flicker around the corners of his eyes.

‘Fair dinkum, Peregrine. I don't know what to say. You're out here barely three days and you're head butting journalists in hotels, and having weird orgies with schoolgirls in the country. It doesn't sound very British to me.'

Peregrine looked away for a moment. ‘Anyway, what happened to you after I left? I suppose you're going to tell me
you and the au pair girl just sat there holding hands and listening to the best of George Gershwin? She was all over you like a cheap suit when I walked out the door.'

‘Yes. We sat there for a while,' conceded Norton. ‘Then we went back to my room for a cup of coffee and swapped recipes for strawberry jam.'

‘Oh yes, of course, old boy. Now pull this one — it plays “Rule Brittania”.'

‘Well,' chuckled Norton. ‘If you insist, old chap.'

Now it was Norton's turn to give a version of what happened in his room, including how it started by him spilling his drink down the front of Ingersoll's tracksuit. This had Peregrine laughing like a drain, both with amusement and relief at knowing he wasn't the only one who had been carrying on like a seasonedup hyena the night before.

‘And you didn't hear her when she departed either, Les?'

‘No.' Norton shook his head. ‘She just vanished without a trace. There one minute. Gone the next.'

‘Then I suppose one could say,' chuckled Peregrine, ‘there was quite a bit of coming and going in both our rooms last night.'

‘By Jove, one certainly could, couldn't one?'

They both howled with laughter at Peregrine's corny joke then flopped back on their banana-chairs, oblivious to the looks they were getting from the other guests. After a while they settled down a bit.

‘So what do you fancy doing for the rest of the day, Pezz old mate?'

‘Well. I'm not actually feeling one hundred percent.'

‘No, me either.'

‘So why don't we just take it easy, it's quite lovely out here in the sun. Relax. Have a swim. Have another superb meal in that restaurant again tonight. And maybe take a drive into town afterwards. What do you say?'

‘I reckon that sounds like a pretty good idea. But if we do have a meal, how about we go a bit easy on that French shampoo?'

‘We'll see what happens.'

And that was how they spent the afternoon. Taking it fairly easy. The odd swim now and again. A flop around in the spa-pool. Talking about this and that. Les went for a bit of a stroll along the beach, but mostly they were just laying around, half asleep, half awake, and dozing off every now and again. It was the kind of lazy afternoon Les liked. Towards the later
part of the day Norton took a sort of drowsy peek around him out of one eye, and noticed small groups of people come out of the resort, check out the pool, the spa and the gardens, gaze over the fence to the beach, gawk around in general for a while then go back inside. There were some men, but they were mainly women in their mid-twenties to early thirties with well-groomed, shiny hair. They were mostly dressed in designer jeans and all were wearing white sweat-shirts with some triangular motif on the front. Half-asleep, Les didn't take all that much notice, preferring to doze off. Before long it was four-thirty and the sun was starting to fade.

‘Well, what do you reckon, Peregrine?' said Norton. ‘The day's just about stuffed. We hit this on the head?'

Peregrine sat up and blinked his eyes a few times. ‘Yes all right, then. I'm starting to feel a little peckish actually. And kindly don't bother to tell me how hungry you are, will you?'

They left the pool and walked back inside the resort. The solarium wasn't exactly a hive of activity, but there were a number of blue-uniformed staff putting up lights and setting up tables and two men were hanging a mirror ball from the ceiling. In amongst the workers were clusters of the same people Norton had noticed outside in the white sweat-shirts; some were seated drinking coffee, other were standing around talking and all appeared to be carrying clipboards and biros. His curiosity aroused, Norton turned to a blue-uniformed man standing at the bottom of the ladder; around his waist was a leather holster full of various shaped screwdrivers and a tape measure and it looked like he was an electrician and possibly the foreman.

‘Hey, mate,' said Norton. ‘What's goin' on?'

‘We're setting up a disco,' was the reply.

‘A disco?'

‘Yeah. There's eighty sales reps for Zinkoff Hair Products having a convention here for three days. The management's puttin' on a disco for them.'

‘Really?' said Peregrine.

‘Yeah. Wish I could go,' added the electrician with a chuckle. ‘Sixty of 'em are sheilas.'

Les and Peregrine turned to each other that quickly, their eyeballs almost clicked. ‘Did you hear that?' said Les.

‘I certainly did. And I don't think we shall bother going into Coffs Harbour tonight.'

‘No way. Thanks, mate,' said Les, turning to the electrician.

‘You're welcome.'

They shared the lift with, and nodded politely to, a couple of male sales representatives and Les got a closer look at the motif on the breast of their sweat-shirts. It said: ‘Zinkoff, Reaching For The Future'. When they got out two of the staff walked past carrying a large banner saying the same thing. It was obvious the company had brought them all up there for a rev up and to write off a bit of taxation. Peregrine suggested they have dinner about seven-thirty then see what the Zinkoff disco had to offer. Les said this sounded like another splendid idea on Peregrine's behalf and he'd call for him then.

When Les turned on the SKY channel in his room he was delighted to find they were running an hour and a half of highlights from the Thomas Hearn's and Sugar Ray Leonard fights. Before he knew it, it was seven-thirty and he was dressed in his Levis and a white Hawaiian shirt and knocking on Peregrine's door. The Englishman was ready this time, sporting some kind of Italian jeans covered in pockets and seams and a pink silk shirt with a matching cravat to hide his lovebites.

There were tables covered in drinks and splits and on a railing above, a disc jockey was setting up his stand and whispering ‘test — test' into the microphone when they walked into the solarium. The head waiter and the piano player in the restaurant recognised them from the previous night and there were polite smiles all round and they sat down in the same place as they had before. Around them were about the same number of diners, maybe a few more. This time Peregrine went for the smoked trout in horseradish sauce for an entree. Les had sweetbreads Calvados with apple brandy. For a main, Peregrine decided on the Veal Hongroise in cream, paprika and mushroom sauce. Les reckoned the Barramundi Breval with mushrooms and the chefs special sauce looked pretty good. Peregrine insisted on Dom Perignon again. Yeah, why not, agreed Les. The meal and the service was once again first class and so was the banana Coruba after. They drank two bottles of Dom, which immediately put a head on all the champagne they'd drunk the night before, so Les suggested they have a couple of coffees to settle them down a bit before they attacked the disco. The piano player was tinkling away sweetly in the background, but by now the steady bass from the disco was starting to pump in through the door. They finished their coffees, Peregrine settled the bill and they both decided it was time to get down and boogie.

The solarium was raging when they stepped inside. It had to finish by 11.45 and the Zinkoff reps were cramming every
thing into the three hours that were left. The mirror ball was spinning, music was pumping out of every corner and everybody was shukking and jiving, romping and stomping, twisting and shouting. Three of the resort staff were done up as astronauts serving free drinks and the reps were pouring it down their throats like they were expecting the world to end at midnight. The electrician was right about the odds: there would have been at least four women for every man and they were all shapes and sizes, mainly around thirty, carefully made-up and well-groomed in dresses of different colours, styles and lengths and all wearing the mandatory dark stockings. The men were about the same age with neat short hair, the odd moustache, conservative sports shirts and trousers. They were all out for a knees-up and a bit of hanky panky but even though they came from all over Australia, any stray tooling done in the firm would have to be kept very much on the discreet side. However, all the other guests had locked themselves in their rooms and there was an obvious man shortage which made Peregrine and Norton fresh meat for the table. Norton hadn't brushed up too bad in his Hawaiian shirt and from a distance Peregrine would have looked like a young David Bowie to the average thirty-year-old female sales rep with a few gin squashes under her belt. They weren't there long before they were getting plenty of once up and downs and even a few twice up and downs.

All the seats were gone but they managed to find a small table up against the wall where some potted palms were placed around the tiny indoor stream that ran towards the bistro. Peregrine had got into the waiter's ear as they left the restaurant and it wasn't long before he arrived with an ice-bucket, a bottle of Dom and four glasses.