“I’ll just give her a quick call,” said Antony. He put the phone straight down again. “Message bank.” Then he rang back and left a message.
“Beds, it’s me. Can you please ring me when you get in, it doesn’t matter what the time is. I want to hear what you got up to.”
Then he rang everyone he could think of who’d been at the ball to try to find out where she’d gone.
“Are you worried about her, Antony?” I asked him after the sixth call. “You’re always so cavalier about her shocking behavior—why are you going to these lengths tonight?”
He frowned. “Because normally I keep enough of my brain together to make sure she gets home. I didn’t do that last night—and I still feel bad about losing her at Mardi Gras.”
“I don’t mean to make you feel worse,” I said, “but I’m worried about her too. That time I saw the two of you after Mardi Gras there was a really horrible man with her. I’ve tried to convince myself I was wrong, but I think he injected her. He told me to fuck off when he saw me looking.”
“I did check her for track marks like I promised,” said Antony. “And I didn’t find anything, but I’ve a horrible feeling you might be right about that. I’ve been keeping an eye on her pupils.”
“Her pupils?”
“Yes. Junkies have pin-prick pupils. Debbie doesn’t have those, so I don’t think she’s using smack. But she has enormously dilated pupils a lot of the time now.”
He turned and looked at me. “I think she might be injecting cocaine. Or speed.”
I thought of Jenny. “We’ve got to find her, Antony.”
We established that she’d been seen after dinner at the Ball—having an argument with Prince Rainier, who she’d been calling a bore and a party pooper. After about five more calls we managed to track him down, which was good work, because we didn’t even know his real name.
The Sydney spider’s web has its uses sometimes, I thought. We got him at home.
“Hi Thierry, this is Antony Maybury—you had drinks at my house last night with Debbie Brent . . . What? Oh yes, thank you, we had a lovely time. I was wondering if you knew where Debbie was this evening? Oh, OK. When did you last see her?”
He put the phone down looking significantly more worried.
“They left the Ball not long after dinner. Debbie wanted to find more drugs and Thierry told her he didn’t think it was appropriate, so Debbie abused him, and they left.”
“Did he take her home?”
“No, this is the part that worries me. She jumped out of the limo in Oxford Street and disappeared into Nightshade.”
“Isn’t that a horrible nightclub?”
“It’s a really horrible nightclub. Full of really horrible drug dealers.”
“Oh God.” I felt sick.
“Pussy, I don’t want to be a drama queen—she’s probably just taken her phone off the hook, or she could be round at someone’s house watching movies like we are—but I just have a bad feeling.”
“Antony, so do I. And I made a promise to someone I’d look out for Debbie. Let’s go round to her place and see if she’s there.”
Antony was already out of bed, pulling on his trousers.
He held my hand in the taxi all the way there. When we arrived outside Debbie’s house our spirits lifted for a moment—all the lights were on—but when we knocked and rang, nobody came to the door. Luckily Antony knew where she hid the spare keys and we let ourselves in.
She was in the bedroom. She was blue.
Chapter Twenty-one
“Jenny, I’m so sorry. I should have said something sooner.”
It was late Monday afternoon, the day after we’d found her. We were at the hospital.
“Georgia, Georgia, don’t cry. You’re the best friend Debbie could have. If you and Antony hadn’t gone to check up on her she’d be dead now. You two saved her life, the ambulance man told you that. Another few minutes and it would have been too late.”
“But Jenny, I suspected months ago that she might be injecting, I just wasn’t sure enough . . . I thought I’d imagined it.”
She put her arm around me. “It doesn’t matter. You were there when it counted. And anyway, if she’d known you were on to her, she would have just got better at hiding it and you might not have saved her the way you did. Really, Johnny and I don’t know how we’ll ever thank you two.”
Antony was getting his reward at that very moment. He was sitting in the hospital cafeteria with Johnny Brent. Although I knew he was desperately upset about Debbie’s near-fatal cocktail of cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine and then more cocaine injected, I also knew he’d be storing up every second of Johnny’s company for future swooning.
Jenny and I were sitting at Debbie’s bedside—Maxine had told me not to come into work when she’d heard the news. Debbie was still unconscious but the doctors said she was going to be OK. Antony and I had stayed at the hospital until her parents made it down from Walton, and after two nights without sleep I was beginning to feel light-headed. I was very relieved when a glowing Antony came back from the canteen with Johnny and said he was taking me home.
He did take me home—his home. And it seemed the most natural thing in the world for us to get back into his bed and cling to each other all night.
I woke up late on Tuesday afternoon to the sound of Antony laughing.
“What? Uh? What is it?” I’m not at my best immediately on waking.
“HA HA HA. I’d forgotten you’d come home with me. I’ve just woken up to find a woman in my bed. Oh, this is hilarious. How do you feel, Pussy?”
I blinked a bit. “I don’t know yet. Terrible, I think.”
“Ecstasy Tuesday. I warned you. What we need is another steam bath. Sweat this expensive poison out of our pores.”
He went off to the bathroom to switch it all on. I could hear him singing show tunes. Well, I’m glad he’s happy, I thought, no doubt at the prospect of an imminent reunion with Johnny Brent. I was just feeling dazed and confused as I lay and reflected on the four men I’d been in bed with since I arrived in Australia nearly seven months before. Oh, five men, I suddenly realised, counting Michael. Impotent. Priapic. Deadbeat. Gay. Married. What a scorecard. If I’d thought my London love life was bad, this was baroque.
When the steam was ready I just sprawled naked on the bathroom floor. I couldn’t summon the energy to drape myself over the rocks, as Antony had. He was positively perky.
“Why don’t you feel as bad as I do?” I asked him.
“I have a constitution of steel. I can take anything. It will be the death of me.” He peered at me through the steam. “You’re not going to start crying, are you? I couldn’t bear it. That’s one of the reasons I’m gay. Less weeping.”
“No, I’m not going to start blubbing, but explain this to me, Antony—you know everything. Why is my life so weird? I mean you know all about Rick . . .”
“And now he’s in a gay monastery, even weirder.”
“Yeah, er . . . anyway, then there was Billy the Unerect Willy and then there was the Priapic Plonker and then the charming chippy Jasper and then I was a free-love lesbian swinger for a night and now I’ve taken to spending the night with you, my gay best friend. This isn’t normal. Why? Why do I attract such weirdos?”
“I guess underneath that Mary Poppins exterior you must be pretty weird yourself, Pussy. This might help.”
And he turned the cold shower on—full.
When we got back to the hospital that afternoon, Jenny told us that Debbie had regained consciousness while we’d been away, that she’d cried a lot and asked over and over again for Drew. Heartbreaking. The doctor had put her back to sleep and said it was best for her to rest, to let her body get stronger.
He’d also suggested that it would be good to organise a rota so that there was somebody familiar sitting with Debbie whenever she woke up. Antony and I immediately volunteered to do a daily shift each, so that Jenny and Johnny could get regular meals and sleep. Antony va
liantly said he’d take over straightaway and sent me home—my home—to get more rest.
After twelve hours’ solid sleep, I felt well enough to go to work the next morning. At six, I returned to the hospital and Johnny and Jenny went off to get some food. Debbie was sleeping peacefully. I sat and held her hand and talked to her, telling her how much people loved her, how she’d be able to get over Drew’s death if only she would grieve for him properly, and how sure I was that eventually she’d fall in love with someone else. Maybe he’d never quite measure up to Drew, I told her sleeping face, because if Rory was anything to go by, the Stewart brothers would be hard to match, but he would be wonderful in his own way.
Then the door opened and Rory Stewart walked in. I desperately hoped he hadn’t heard what I’d just been saying and did my usual impression of a recently cooked lobster. He was holding a beaten-up toy rabbit.
“Hi, Georgia.” He smiled at me gently. “I’ve brought Bunny down from the country to keep Debs company.” He nodded Bunny’s head at me and waved his paw. Then he came over to the bed, kissed Debbie on the cheek and tucked the rabbit under the sheet next to her.
“Drew gave it to her. I thought it might help when she wakes up.”
He kissed my cheek, and I felt a small and completely irrational pang of jealousy that he’d kissed Debbie first.
“Did you drive all the way over to the Brents’ place to get that rabbit?” I asked him. “And then all the way down here to deliver it?”
He nodded. “But I’m staying down for a while to help you guys out with the roster. It’s the least I can do.”
We sat and looked at her sleeping peacefully. She was so pale and grey.
“Jenny told me you found her, Georgia. Said you saved her life.”
“I don’t feel like I deserve any credit—I wish I could have done something sooner, before this happened, but—”
“Come on, Georgia, we all know how impossible she was being. She was set to self-destruct—remember the rodeo? That wasn’t rational behaviour. All that counts is that you were there when she needed you most. You knew she was close enough to the edge to go and look for her. That’s what mattered.”
“Well, it wasn’t just me . . . Antony was there too.”
“Oh, yeah—who exactly is this Antony? Jenny mentioned him.”
“You met him at the races . . .”
Rory’s eyes widened.
“I know, I know, he was appalling,” I said quickly. “He’d had too much to drink—in fact, he vomited very shortly after you saw us.”
“So was that Debbie’s great friend the dressmaker—the one I’ve heard so much about?”
I nodded, smiling to myself at the thought of Antony hearing himself described as a dressmaker.
“I thought that guy was your boyfriend,” said Rory, smiling his most attractive smile, most of it in the eyes. “I was beginning to wonder about your taste in men, Georgia. Are you still seeing the guy I saw you with at Cordelia’s party?”
“No. It ended. No great drama. What about your love life? You looked very busy at the end of that party yourself . . . Has Fiona been up to the farm much?”
He looked uncomfortable. “Yes, she’s been a couple of times . . .”
But before I could pursue the issue, Johnny and Jenny came back, closely followed by Antony, who was just arriving for his shift. Why were my conversations with Rory always interrupted, I wondered, as he kissed Jenny and was introduced to Antony, who I noticed gave him a very thorough once-over. And why did we always have to wait to meet by chance?
There wasn’t really space for all of us in the room, so it was agreed Jenny and Rory should stay with Debbie, and Antony could go back to the canteen with Johnny. And I could go home. On my own. I know they weren’t intentionally leaving me out, but I couldn’t help feeling it. Antony practically dragged Johnny from the room so he could have him to himself. Then I went to kiss Jenny and Rory goodbye and as I was about to move away he held on to my arm and whispered: “You look very pretty when you blush, Georgia.”
Which made me do it all over again.
Chapter Twenty-two
There was a very strange atmosphere in the Glow office. Although she wasn’t in there much compared to the rest of us, there was a great gaping hole where Debbie should have been.
Everyone seemed to be talking in hushed voices, and every time I came out of my office there were huddles of people gathered round the photocopier, exchanging half-digested snippets of information about how they’d thought there was something wrong with Debbie, but they hadn’t liked to say anything. I suspected they were enjoying the drama and that they felt a bit of malicious pleasure at seeing the spoiled princess cut down to size so publicly.
Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I marched into Maxine’s office.
“Can you please do something about those whispering ghouls out there?” I said. “They’re behaving like people who slow down to look at a car crash—and more to the point, none of them are doing any work.” I knew that would make her sit up. Maxine was very keen on everyone doing as much work as possible.
“Good point, Georgie. I’d noticed a decline in productivity. SERA, COME IN HERE NOW—I WANT YOU TO ORGANISE A STAFF LUNCH . . . TODAY . . . EVERYONE . . . NO EXCUSES.”
But the dramatic atmosphere did have its positive side. Maxine had taken charge of organising Debbie’s rehab arrangements for the Brents (plenty of opportunities to talk to Johnny, I thought ungenerously) and it made me realise I had a duty to look after Liinda. She was wracked with guilt.
“I should have noticed the signs,” she kept saying, rocking back and forwards in her chair. “If anyone could have saved her it was me.” She was almost catatonic. “I had no idea she was injecting, George. I should have seen it coming . . .”
It was awful to see her like that, especially when she’d been so happy recently. As I had no intention of going to Maxine’s free lunch for the rubberneckers, I insisted Liinda come to BBQ King with me.
“You couldn’t have helped her,” I said, lighting a cigarette for her and putting it into her mouth as our meals arrived. “To use your own parlance, she had to ‘bottom out.’ She had—and the great thing is that now you can help her—better than anyone. When she comes out of rehab and comes back to work and starts going to fragrance launches and all that crap again, it’s going to be really hard for her not to drink, and you’ll know exactly how to support her.”
“I can take her to group,” she said, brightening.
The thought of Debbie at an NA meeting full of “ghastly, ugly, ordinary people,” as she would call them, was a bit hard to imagine, but I did have a strong feeling that now it was all out in the open, we were going to see a lot of big changes in Princess Debbie.
Liinda was already looking positively excited at the prospect of inducting another lost soul into the glories of the Twelve-Step programme. Now I had to take the first step towards my own little confession.
“Liinda, if you think you can take another small shock there’s something I have to tell you. It’s not easy. I feel bad about it.”
“It’s OK, Georgia,” she said, snapping open a can of Diet Coke. “I already know what it is.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. You’ve been seeing Jasper O’Connor since just before Easter.” She lifted her can to me and smiled. “Cheers.”
“You already know?”
“I’ve known since you went away with him.”
“But you didn’t say anything.”
“No, I thought I’d wait and see if you wanted to tell me.”
“Have I failed some kind of test?”
“Nope. In fact you’ve done me a huge favour.” She took a big drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke straight up into the air. She was enjoying herself.
“I have?”
“Yes. But you obviously have reason to believe it would bother me. So tell me what you know about me and Jasper—or rather, what you’ve been told.”
&nbs
p; What should I say? Everyone in Sydney thinks you are a raving psychopath? Or should I give her a sanitised version that wouldn’t really help either of us sort this out? I decided on the truth.
“Well, I’ve been told that you and Jasper were really good friends, until you slept with him once and then you turned into a raging psycho.”
Liinda laughed an Antony-style laugh, that turned into a spluttering cough.
“Oh George, that’s what I love about you. Total honesty. I’d love to hear you in a group therapy session—when someone was saying, ‘I think you might be transferring the anger you feel towards your mother onto me,’ you’d just say, ‘You’re a complete psycho—get back!’ ”
It was great to see her laughing again.
“And yes, that’s exactly what happened. I went stark-raving mad. But, of course, there is more to it than that.”
“I thought there might be.”
“You see, I really loved Jasper. You know what I mean by that—I really loved him. You know how gorgeous he can be, right?”
I nodded. I did. And I didn’t appreciate it at the time.
“Anyway, we were very close. We had one of those psychic friendships—he’d start singing a song that I had going round in my head, I’d always know when he was about to call, all that stuff. I really believed we’d get together eventually, but he was so tied up with the whole bullshit of fashion and models. A real woman like me just didn’t figure for him.”
She took another big drag and sighed.
“So when he slept with me I thought he’d taken a considered decision to move it on to the next stage. I never thought he’d just do it because he was drunk and horny and I was the only woman around. I didn’t believe he could do that to me because Jasper knew everything about me.” She looked at me. “Everything. All that stuff I told you—and a whole lot more, because you do some pretty stupid things to get your hands on drugs when you’re a junkie. You go places you shouldn’t go and do things you wish you hadn’t. You sleep with people to get drugs, get my drift?”
Pants on Fire Page 27