The Year I Went Pear-Shaped (12 page)

Chapter 21: In the Mail

“Hey Darl, I think someone’s been tampering with our mail.” Anita said, walking into the lounge where I was watching Rove Live, with a pile of letters in her hand.

“Whaddayamean?” I said, looking up at her.

“Look at the seals on these envelopes, they’ve been opened, I’m sure of it. I first noticed it about two weeks ago but thought it was my imagination. I’m convinced someone’s reading our mail, not everything though, only the personal stuff. Like this letter I just got from my Gran.”

“Well, the mystery letter reader isn’t going to get much titillation from your Gran’s letters, Nita...but look,” I continued quickly, noting her very pissed off expression at my not taking her seriously.

“...lets just get a padlock for the letter box and that should sort it out.”

She thought for a moment. “Yeah, ok that’ll stop it but it doesn’t explain why the hell someone’s so interested in our lives.”

“Honey, it’s probably just some nutter who’s going around all the letterboxes in the street reading people’s mail. Maybe it’s a variation on the guy who goes around stealing women’s undies from the clotheslines.”

“Ok, ok. I’ll buy a padlock tomorrow and forget about it. By the way, I’m off to stay with my Gran for a week after she comes out of hospital, that’s what she was writing about...hey, who’s Rove interviewing,” she said, distracted by the TV.

“Some guy who just got evicted from the Big Brother house, he’s the freakazoid who kept doing handstands in nude and couldn’t understand why it bothered anyone.”

“Gross! He’s not even that cute.”

“Hmm, I know.”

Chapter 22: Invite

‘Hi, you’ve called Darla’s mobile. I can’t take your call right now. Please leave me your name, number and a short message and I’ll get right back to you.’

“Hi Darla, it’s Gordon. Look sorry for bailing on you the other night but listen, I’ve just been talking to Sonya and she wants you and I to come round for dinner this Friday. Apparently she had her first session with Tobsha today and thinks that she’s amazing. Anyway, can you make it on Friday? Give me a call on the mobile. See ya.”

Chapter 23: Waccy Baccy Dreamin’

“Dinner round at Sonya Rider’s house? With Gordon? Bloody hell, very cosy. You are moving in new celeb social circles aren’t you? Will you soon be popping off to meet Russ and Danni for herbal tea down on Finger Wharf as well?”

As usual, we were sitting on the floor in the lounge putting the world to rights over a cup of tea. Anita was taking the piss out of me, which was fine because I would’ve too if I were her.

“Listen to you!” I said, deciding the best defence was a strong counterattack. “You weren’t so bloody cool and above it all the other night! Queen Starfucker herself! What was it you said to the guy from Blue Heelers? Something like, ‘now that I’ve met you, I can die!’”

“Aaaaaagggghhhhhhh!” screamed Anita, rolling back onto the carpet, curling up into foetal position and covering her face.

Round one to me.

“Damn you, you promised not to tease me about it!”

In the cold light of day and sobriety following the Greek party, Anita was torturing herself with endless cringeful flashbacks of her alcohol-fuelled antics. She’d been woken up the morning after by council workers digging up the pavement outside with several pneumatic drills only to realise there was no work going on outside, the drills were in her head and set to full power. Then she had rolled over and come face-to-sole with a pair of very large feet. ‘Just one pair though, thank God,’ she thought before a tsunami of horrific memories from the previous night, triggered by the mystery feet, flooded her mind’s eye.

Taking a deep breath, she lifted the sheets to see who at the other end of the feet. She found a very large, rather beautiful, naked man and recalled that his name was Adonis. His toga lay in a crumpled heap on the floor.

Three cups of coffee later and some toast later, she knew that Adonis’s real name was Terry and he was supposed to be on set that morning at Channel Five pretending to build a three-storey tree house in just an hour. In reality it had taken him an hour just to find his toga and get it to stay on. After breakfast, Anita had called him a cab and shoved him out the door before retiring to the sofa with an ice-pack and Bert Newton after chucking back four Nurofen. She was just starting to feel better when I turned up an hour later with the newspaper and showed her several photos of herself in the social pages, clearly plastered and draped over everyone from Thorpie to John Farnham. One caption even suggested she was the ‘bit of rough’ mistress of some veteran actor from the North Shore. There was also a couple of Gordon and me, he had his arm around my shoulders and we looked great together, if I do say so myself.

“Y’know what Darl,” Anita said from behind her fingers. “I think my drinks must’ve been spiked because I have never, ever, been that drunk and out of control ever in my whole life.”

We both knew this was so not true. Anita’s legendary drunken escapades were the stuff of legend.

“Bollocks,” I said. “You were drunk as a bloody skunk on a free, bottomless supply of apple martinis. Stop beating yourself up! The hard thing under those circumstances is NOT getting completely and utterly trolleyed. Anyway, the beauty about shindigs like that is that everyone gets plastered so no-one cares what anyone else got up to because they’re too busy freaking out about whether it’s going to be them that ends up as some salacious, marriage-wrecking bit of gossip in the ‘Guess Who Don’t Sue’ column of the weekend paper.”

Anita sat up again, crossed her legs and picked her cigarette out of the ashtray.

“Hmm, I guess. Hell, at least I wasn’t the one shagging that fashion designer guy behind the bushes outside in front of all and sundry. Did you see them?” I shook my head. “It was outrageous. Her skirt was hiked up around her neck and he was thrusting into her as though his dick was an oil pump and he was trying to get through to China. I swear I couldn’t take my eyes off them. I think that’s why I dragged Adonis home, it actually made me really horny!”

“Well, at least one of us got a shag. Bloody had to be you though didn’t it,” I said bitterly and took my second Tim Tam in 10 minutes from the packet that sat between us. I was alternating Tim Tams and cigarettes. Hello heart disease!

“If it makes you feel any better, I can hardly remember a thing. I suspect I’d even passed out before his horse crossed the finish line. And I definitely wouldn’t class it as one of my more memorable and intimate sexual experiences. Still, all part of life’s glorious tapestry eh Darl! Anyway, what about you? Any closer to hanging Gordon’s head on your wall of trophies?”

I swallowed a lump of Tim Tam. “Well, yes, that’s still the plan and I think I’m still in with a chance. I’m hoping that shagging him might lay some of my ghosts from high school to bed. But I dunno if it’s going to be as straightforward as all that.”

Anita looked at me like I was crazy. Again. It was a look that invariably got thrown my way when the subject of conversation turned to Gordon Worsley.

“I still don’t get it Darl. How the hell is getting him in the sack just once going to change anything? It’s insane! And lets not forget that you’re treating him like he’s disposable, what about his feelings in all this?”

“Oh please Anita, men don’t get screwed up by casual sex like women do. Gordon could happily sleep with me then never give me a second thought. That’s what men do. They screw you and they leave. So it’s best if you get in and do it to them first.”

Jeezus, did I really just say that? Am I really that cynical and bitter? What about all the fabulous, warm, brilliant, caring men that I knew? All my male friends who were sweet, loving and generous.

“Oh get a grip Darla, I know that you don’t really believe that shit...” retorted Anita but before she could go on, there was a knock at the door. Anita had her thumb on her forehead before I’d even thought about it.

“Ok, ok, I’m going,” I said, dragging myself up off the floor and heading to the door. It was Margot, standing on the doorstep with a basket of scones on her arm covered by a red chequered tea towel. They were so fresh that the steam was still rising off them and I knew she would"ve just pulled them out of the oven and come straight round.

“Hello Darla Love, are you girls busy? Have I come at a bad time? I’d hoped you might have time for a scone and a chat.”

“We’d love nothing more Margot!” I said, honestly delighted to see her. "It’s great to see you. And those scones smell unbelievable. Come on in, I’ll boil the kettle again. Anita and I were just chatting about nothing much in the lounge.”

“Hiii Margot!” Anita shouted through, “come in here and join me!”

“You go through Margot, I’ll go sort out the tea,” I said, she smiled and headed off in the direction of Anita's shrill call, while I took the basket of hot scones through to the kitchen to put them on a plate with some strawberry jam and butter curls. I was good at making butter curls, it was about the only thing I remembered from cooking classes at high school -- or domestic science, as we were told we had to call it by well-meaning teachers trying to show that they knew what a valuable and skilled role working in the home was. And how to demonstrate this importance? By making it sound like a man might consider doing it. Just tack a male word like 'science" onto a female word like "domestic" and immediately it seems to have more weight and importance. God, there I go being angry again. How did I get into an internal debate on gender politics via butter curls? Did other people have these kind of thoughts go through their head?

At boiling point, the click of the kettle switching itself off brought me back to the present and I poured three mugs of tea. Then I placed them alongside a jug of milk, sugar, jam, scones, and the controversial butter curls, on a big tray and carefully carried them through to where Margot and Anita were talking about the latest Big Brother eviction.

"Haaaa ha!" laughed Anita, "that Gretel kills me!...aw thanks Darl," she said as I placed the tray on the coffee table in front of them. "A cup of tea and one of Margot's fabulous scones, heaven!"

We all went quiet for a moment as serious scone eating took place. I ripped mine in half with my fingers and a cloud of steam rose out of the middle, they were still so moist and warm that the butter curls melted straight into them.

"God Margot, these are fabulous, thanks so much." I said through a mouthful of dough, butter and jam.

"My pleasure. To be honest with you though, this isn’t just a casual visit. I’ve had this strong urge to come round because I've been having strange dreams about you both, especially you Darla."

I steeled myself to quash my cynical side and hear her out. I had no doubt that Margot was genuinely psychic but I also wondered if she wasn't a tiny bit batty with it. Surely it was possible to be both? Anyway, she'd had some bizarre, meaningless dreams about us in the past that had come to nothing and I figured this was just another one. Once she'd told Anita that she was going to meet her sole mate amongst the ancient ruins of a foreign civilisation. As Anita was about to go on a trip to Borobodur, Indonesia, she was convinced that Mr Right would be some gorgeous Swedish backpacker with a visa to live in Australia, who’d be on the same tour bus as her or something. Needless to say she came back alone, with nothing more than a two-day fling with an English hippy traveller to report, and she doesn't have plans for any trips to ancient civilisations any time soon.

"You've been dreaming about us again?" I said. "Are you sure you haven't been having too much of your ‘special’ herbal tea before bed again Margs?"

The good thing about Margot is that she didn't mind Anita and I teasing her. She'd just giggle, give us this smug, knowing smile and say, "you just wait my dear! I'm not as batty as you think".

"Oh Darla, why are you such a cynic,” she sighed. “Yes, I've been dreaming about you but these aren't the usual dreams, there's a darker feeling to these ones and I wake up in a panic. It's really not very nice. And I keep seeing all these dead animals. There's a girl there too and she's not very nice. She scares me to be honest Darla; she seems to have it in for you. Have you met any new women lately?"

Thinking about it for a moment, I realised I'd met two new women in the last couple of days. Sonya Rider and Talia, Gordon's ex-witch. If Margot was dreaming about hateful women in my life, my money was on it being Talia. Still, how much harm could she do me? What was she going to do, hair flick me to death? Batter me with her false eyelashes?

"I met a couple of women the other night, yes, but I don't think either of them are too much of a threat. Although I'm going to one of them's house for dinner on Friday, she's off the telly, you know Sonya Rider? She reads the news on Channel Five?"

Margot concentrated for a minute. "Well, I’m not sure who it is to be honest Darla, I just want you to take care of yourself and just be extra vigilant for a while.”

As much as I thought she was talking nonsense, I felt a little shiver.

“Sure thing Margot, I’ll be careful. Don’t forget though, I live with a karate kicking superwoman, she’s my own personal bodyguard,” I said, nodding in Anita’s direction. “Just as long as the nasty woman doesn’t try to get me when Sex and the City is on, Neets will look after me.”

After that the conversation moved onto other things but it took me a while to shake the chill that Margot’s warning had left with me.