Pants on Fire

by Maggie Alderson

  “I think you had better come with me.”

  Now I really was going nuts—this voice sounded like it was right in my ear. It was. Antony Maybury looked into my face with a serious expression, raised his left eyebrow and gestured with his right for me to follow him. I did. There was something about Antony that made me trust him, even in my brain-fuddled state. Unlike my other new male friends, he didn’t grab my hand, but I followed easily in his slipstream along a corridor that ran past several rooms full of people, then round a corner and into another small room with nothing in it except big square cushions on the wooden floor. There were two picture windows framing a harbour view from a lower angle. Sparkly water. Yachts bobbing. Seagulls. The windows were open and a delicious breeze floated in. I pulled my pink feather hat off my head and practically fell onto the floor. I closed my eyes. The room went round and round. I groaned.

  “Stay there, don’t move,” said Antony and left the room.

  It was a great relief to be somewhere relatively quiet, and the breeze was heaven, but I still felt really awful. I kept having great flashes of insight, which would disappear as suddenly as they had come, leaving no trace. It was like trying to hold on to passing clouds and it had a strange effect on time. Each great thought seemed to last an aeon and then when they were gone, it was as if time had never existed. Most unsettling.

  After what could have been two minutes, or several ice ages, Antony came back holding a huge bottle of Coca Cola, a glass with a slice of lime in it, a silver ice bucket, a flannel and a large dinner plate. He laid the cold, wet flannel on my forehead as he filled the glass with ice, then Coke, and handed it to me.

  “You must drink this,” he said. “It’s the only thing that will make you feel better.”

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Supersonic hydroponic.”

  “What?”

  “Marijuana. Pot. Mary Jane. Hemp. Weed. Grass. Ganga. Spliff. Silly cigarettes. Whatever you like to call it. But more so. Did you, by any chance, have a little smoko with Jasper O’Connor?”

  “Well, yes, I did . . .” I was already on my second glass of Coke, which had suddenly become the most ambrosial drink the world had ever known. “I did have a few tiny tokes.”

  “Well, you’ve just had another Sydney lesson,” said Antony, sitting down behind my head. “That wasn’t a harmless little Portobello puff you just had. That was supersonic hydroponic Sydney weed, grown in water laced with all kinds of growth-promoting and mind-expanding chemicals. If you’re not used to it, hydro pot can snake you out like a bad tab of acid. It can be very unpleasant.”

  “You’re not kidding. I thought I was going bonkers. Do you know, while you were gone, I thought of the most amazing thing to tell you about this party, but I . . . can’t remember it . . .”

  Antony threw back his head and laughed a very loud pantomime laugh.

  “HA HA HA HA HA. Oh, that is classic hydro psychosis. You feel as though the meaning of the Rosetta Stone has been made clear to you, and only you, if you could just remember what it was. It’s like being all sentient and having Alzheimer’s simultaneously, isn’t it. You poor little thing.”

  “But Jasper smoked most of the joint, and it was the second one I’ve seen him have. If I’d had that much I’d be in hospital.”

  “Jasper O’Connor is a famous pothead. He smoked pot all day, every day. People say marijuana is non-addictive. Jasper O’Connor and his like are proof that’s total bullshit. He can’t get out of bed in the morning without having a joint, and ensuring he has a constant supply, the stronger the better, is the main purpose of his life. Which is a shame, because he is a very talented photographer. Or he was. Pot is also the reason he makes pathetic short films, like the one he was describing earlier, and thinks they make Fellini look creatively constrained. It’s also why he never meets the Tropfest deadline. He started out with a very good brain and he has fried it totally. I’d hate to see that happen to you.”

  Now on my third glass of Coke, I was starting to feel a little better and gradually became aware of a strange tapping noise just behind me. I turned around to see Antony leaning over the dinner plate, chopping up a small pile of white powder with a credit card. He made it into two neat lines, then got a fifty-dollar note out of his pocket, stuck it up his right nostril and lowered his nose to the plate.

  “What on earth are you doing?”

  “I’m having a line of coke.” He sniffed loudly. And, putting his head back, sniffed again a few times. “Ooh, lovely. And another one, I think. Why not?” With a great snort he hoovered his way along the plate. Then he licked his forefinger, wiped it all around the plate and rubbed it along his gums.

  “You were just telling me how bad pot is for you and you’re doing that!”

  “Each to his own, sweetheart. You just keep sucking on that kind of Coke in the bottle and I’ll stick to this powdered version. Anyway, I didn’t say there was anything wrong with drugs—I’m mad about them myself.” And he roared with laughter again. “Now where did I hide that bottle of champagne I tucked away earlier?”

  He got up and started throwing cushions around until he found the bottle and plunged it into the ice bucket.

  I lay back on my cushion and closed my eyes. After four glasses of Coca Cola I was feeling much better. I could only just hear the thump thump of the music from the main studio and the occasional shriek. The harsh calls of unfamiliar birds and the arrhythmic clank of the halyards against steel masts on the yachts in Rushcutters Bay floated through the open window. I could feel the late afternoon sunlight warm across my face. . .

  “Oh my GOD! I must close the blinds! You’re getting sunlight on your face. UV hell.”

  It was Antony. He sprang up and let down the blinds with a crash. All the golden sunshine disappeared.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him. “It was so nice before.”

  “That’s another thing you don’t know about. Sydney sun. Ultraviolet rays. Merciless. No ozone layer. You’ll be a handbaghead within weeks if you put your dial anywhere near it. I never go to the beach and I wear Factor 30 every day on my face and hands. Even when it’s raining. Have a look at the skin on Australian girls ten years younger than you. They have foreheads like Issey Miyake trousers.” He shuddered.

  “You live in Sydney and you don’t go to the beach?” I shook my head. “No wonder you take drugs.”

  I had another glass of Coke. “This stuff really works. Thank you so much, Antony. It was good of you to come to my aid like that.”

  “It was my pleasure. You looked like you were about to vomit and it would have made such a mess of the dance floor. Have the great thoughts stopped?”

  “Yes, thank you. It must be terribly tiresome being a genius if that’s what it’s like.”

  “Oh, ghastly. All the people I most admire had the most hideous lives. I think it’s much better to be a cheerful underachiever than be a Great Person and live a life of misery and wretchedness. Think of Coco Chanel. Came from nothing, basically a whore. Nazi sympathiser. Died alone. Duchess of Windsor. Looked like a starved dog. Thought she was marrying the King and really married a closet queen. Died alone. Dorothy Parker. Misery. The bottle. Died alone. At least she had dogs. Frida Kahlo. Faithless husband. Knocked over by a bus. Died alone. Georgia O’Keefe. Never had children. Died alone.”

  “And she had the most appalling sun damage.”

  Now we both roared with laughter. The worst part of the hydroponic heebie-jeebies had worn off and I was just left feeling relaxed and happy. I suspected my eyelids were drooping. I hoped it looked seductive rather than retarded.

  “You are getting better,” Antony said approvingly. “Now I know what would fix you up nicely.”

  He got a tiny plastic bag out of his trouser pocket and tapped a small pile of the white powder onto the plate.

  “Oh Antony, I couldn’t,” I said. “I’ve never taken Class A drugs.”

  This prompted another of his laughing attacks. “Cl
ass A drugs. That is hilarious. Where on earth did you get that from?”

  “Isn’t that what they call them when they’re totally addictive and completely illegal? I don’t want to end up lying on the floor in a public lavatory. We had all those films about drugs at school and they always ended up in lavatories. It looked grisly.”

  “Darling, a little bit of hoochy coochy is not going to put you in a public lavatory—in fact a little tiny bit will make you feel ready to go dancing again. And you looked like you were having such a nice time with Billy Ryan before.” His left eyebrow shot up.

  I grinned at him. “You don’t miss anything, do you?”

  “I’ve always thought he was quite gorgeous in a National Socialist Party kind of way. Is he a good kisser?”

  “Gruesome, actually. But he is a divine dancer. Totally in control.”

  Antony looked at me thoughtfully while his eyebrows did their thing. “Mmm. I bet he has strong hands from all the riding. And counting all that money.”

  “Oh,” I said, raising one of my eyebrows in reply. “Does he ride?”

  This set us both off laughing again and then, before I knew what was happening he’d put his finger in my mouth and was rubbing it along my gums. My mouth was filled with a very bitter taste. I swallowed.

  “Yuk. Was that what I think it was?”

  “Just a little something to get you back on the dance floor in the arms of your equestrian friend.”

  “Antony, really. You Class A-ed me when I wasn’t expecting it and we haven’t even been properly introduced. What appalling behaviour.”

  But I was smiling. My gums and the tip of my tongue had started to tingle and there was a strange fluttery feeling in my tummy. I could see Antony looking at me with increased eyebrow activity.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  He picked up his champagne bottle and kicked the plate into a corner, while I took out my lipgloss, which I’d concealed in the band of my hat, and re-applied it in the reflective surface of the ice bucket. My face looked more interesting than usual and I had the most terrible case of hat hair, which was suddenly quite fascinating.

  “Come on,” said Antony, handing me my hat. “You’ll have plenty of time to look at yourself later. Like all night after you get home from this party. How do you feel?”

  “Well, I feel great actually. Thanks again for looking after me, Antony.”

  “Quite alright. Stop going on about it. Interesting place to keep a lipstick, incidentally. How come you aren’t using one of your famous handbags?”

  “How on earth do you know about that?”

  “I told you you were famous. I saw your apartment in ELLE Decoration last year. You had a divine little cupboard to keep your handbag collection in, and the special ones were displayed on the wall like works of art. You were living with some kind of genius art director, weren’t you? What happened to him?”

  “I’m surprised you don’t already know,” I said. “You seem to know everything else about me. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you sometime, if you don’t find out on your own. And I very rarely take my handbags out with me. They’re too special. I would have spent this whole party worrying about it, so wherever possible I travel hands free.”

  He stopped and looked at me and once again I had the feeling of being seriously appraised. Then he smiled sweetly and chucked my cheek.

  “You’re nuts,” he said. “And you’re going to love living in Sydney. Let’s go and sock it to them.”

  Chapter Two

  I put my hat back on and we swaggered along the corridor, looking into each room, while Antony gave me a very loud running commentary on all the people who looked out at us with startled eyes.

  “Now, what do we have here? Two bankrupts, a plagiarist and three men I’ve slept with. Next. Ugh, too hideous, a room full of actors, trip away trip away . . . Now who’s in here? One quite amusing artist—hello Tracey darling, loved your show—and one of your colleagues in the fourth estate, Mr. Nick Pollock surrounded, as usual, by women. Let us move on. And here we have the Persian room, as previously announced, and someone I think you already know . . .”

  Antony and his eyebrows turned and looked at me enquiringly as I peered in and saw, amid a circle of sleepy-looking people, Jasper O’Connor, slouched on an old armchair with a very young, very thin, very beautiful Asian-looking girl on his knee. She was wearing a big bright red satin bow in her very long, inky-black hair. Her lips were painted as red as the ribbon. She made me feel like a potato. Antony continued his voice-over.

  “Jasper’s latest honey, Lin Lee Smith. Seventeen. Just moved here from Broome to be a model. Still thinks he’s a famous fashion photographer. Someone will tell her the truth sooner or later and he won’t see her for dust. Part of a continuing saga . . .”

  I pulled my head in quickly. For some reason I didn’t want Jasper to know I’d seen him with her—and I was hard to miss in that hat.

  Antony was still wittering. “And finally—ah, this is more like it—a room full of my adorable friends. Old queens, fag hags, drunks, functioning drug addicts, millionaires, paupers, liars, neurotics, egomaniacs—and very amusing, quite brilliant, creative types all of them.”

  So Antony introduced me to a roomful of people, who appeared to hang on his every word while I stood next to him smiling like a goon.

  “This is my new best friend Georgiana Abbott,” he announced. “She’s just moved here from London and you must all be charming to her, because I like her. You can call her Georgia for short. Georgia, mind, not Georgie. She’s come here to work at Glow (God knows why—she used to work on Pratler, my favorite magazine, as well as Kitty, which I suppose explains it). As you all know what darling Debbie and Maxine and Liinda are capable of, I’m sure you will all be very kind to her—she’ll need it.”

  And they greeted me with a big cheer. Hip hip hooray. I couldn’t believe it. Then it was a blur of smiling faces and hand-shakes, kisses and invitations to dinner, from these total strangers. I couldn’t help comparing my reception from this crowd with what any of them could have expected from my friends had they arrived in London. A row of blank uninterested faces, with a brisk “Hellohowareyou?” if they were lucky.

  The introductions over (and all names instantly forgotten by me), Antony and I sat down and were pulled into the conversation, which was very funny even though I didn’t have the slightest idea who any of them were talking about.

  “Do you think it was fair that I was suspended for having a little sleep at work?” a kind-faced man with messy blond hair asked us. “It was Wednesday and everyone knows all the gallery openings are on Tuesday night, so of course I’m going to be a little bit hung-over . . . Mind you, I suppose it was a bit cheeky to use the managing director’s office.”

  “I love being suspended,” said another fellow with a shaved head and a large stud through his lower lip, and everyone laughed.

  Amid all the fun, another of Antony’s plates appeared and came round to me. It was like playing pass the parcel, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to wet the end of my forefinger, dab it in the powder and rub it on my gums. It tasted really nasty, but soon after I got that tickly feeling again and everything seemed funnier than ever. The effect of the pot had completely gone and Antony passed me glass after glass of champagne, which I swilled happily.

  This cheerful little group, ensconced on silver bean bags and cushions in what I realised was a dressing room for the photographic studio, never stopped talking and laughing. The faces changed constantly as people came and went, with new arrivals greeted like they’d just returned from an Antarctic expedition. Eventually I realised that Antony had disappeared, but I was having such a good time with all my fabulous new friends I didn’t mind. And the champagne and the plate just kept coming round and round.

  Eventually a familiar face appeared. It was Billy Ryan.

  “Billy darling!” I cried out, forgetting that I’d been offended by his behaviour, because I was so thri
lled to be able to greet someone myself. Especially someone so ridiculously good looking. “Come and sit with me,” I said, patting the bean bag next to me.

  He looked a bit surprised at the warmth of my welcome, but came over anyway.

  “Having fun?” I asked, beaming at him.

  “Not bad at all, er, Jodie . . .”

  “Georgia. Georgia Abbott. But you can call me Georgie.” I thought this was very funny and for some reason I’d started laughing like Antony. HA HA HA HA HA.

  “So tell me, Georgie,” said Billy. “How do you come to be at this party and how come I’ve never met you in Sydney before?” He looked around the room. “We seem to know a lot of the same people.”

  “Actually, I don’t know any of these people. I don’t even know you. HA HA HA. I’ve only lived in Sydney for two weeks. I came out here to work on Glow magazine.”

  “Ah, Glow.” He nodded. “Do you know the beauty editor there, Debbie Brent? She’s my cousin. My mother is her father’s sister.”

  “No! But that’s amazing. Of course I know her. She’s gorgeous. I mean she’s a lovely person. I really like Debbie. Yes, I really like her. Is your mother very beautiful? Debbie is unbelievably beautiful. She looks so beautiful every day, you never know what she’s going to turn up in and she always looks gorgeous. I’ve heard her father is gorgeous too. Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous, all those Brents, I’ve heard, and you’re half Brent so you must be half gorgeous, HA HA HA.”

  Oh, I thought I was hilarious. Billy didn’t seem to mind—he was smiling indulgently. He shook his head as the plate came round and I took just another little dip—oops, on it goes—and passed it round. Billy seemed a bit distracted.

  “Rory!” he suddenly shouted, “Roar!” and did one of those piercing whistles through his teeth that only Real Men can do. The tall fellow I’d seen him with earlier popped his head round the door.