Dog Handling

by Clare Naylor

  “We stopped over in Hong Kong for a week before we came,” Tim said. “You should go. You’d love it. The food’s amazing. And the markets. Right up your street.” Hong Kong. Hence the tan.

  “We?” she asked, preparing herself for the body blow of full disclosure.

  “A friend from Freuds,” he said mysteriously. Liv racked through all the girls he’d worked with at Freuds and saw only the Glamazons, not the mousy ones. Who was it? Who was he seeing, the elusive bastard? The waitress brought her legs over to the table to distract Tim and placed two bags of sharp vinegar-scented fish and chips in front of them. Well, she sort of threw them at Liv’s foot because she wasn’t looking at Liv; she was scribbling her phone number on the bill.

  “Here. There’s a trance party tomorrow night in Avalon. I’m Martha, by the way.” She flicked her long blond ponytail in Liv’s face and made her sneeze seven times. She was clearly a witch.

  As they walked along the beach Liv was grateful for the huge amount of chips she had to carry (Martha the Witch Waitress had given Liv a double helping of lard to improve her own chances in the Race against Tim) because it meant that her puzzled hands were occupied and didn’t keep wandering out of habit to his back trouser pocket or tucking themselves through his elbow. Postengagement etiquette was a bit of a problem if you’d never actually made it as far as the altar.

  “So I sprained my ankle in Vail; it’s still a bit dodgy. Do you think I walk like an old man?” Tim limped ahead of Liv on the beach and made her watch him. She looked at his legs and realised with a huge sense of relief that though he may have set the waitress alight with his very Merchant-Ivory brand of good looks, his legs just weren’t her type anymore. Whereas once they’d seemed impossibly elegant, now they only looked spindly. Now she preferred a more . . . Australian . . . leg. She marvelled at how clever the subconscious is to completely protect you from yourself. If she’d still found Tim attractive, the fact that he was here with the Freuds Glamazon whom he’d clearly fancied all the time he’d been going out with Liv would have been fatal. As it was, it was just irritating and made her curious. So Vail? Excusez-moi? Since when did Tim go to glammy American ski resorts with hot tubs and ankle-spraining activities? How dare he have had a soul-searching journey of his own?

  “Looks fine to me,” Liv said, “but then maybe your left one’s bit wonky. Is that the one you sprained?” Liv averted her gaze to the harbour. “Sydney’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?” she said as she sat down on the damp sand and watched the waves lap a few feet away.

  “I knew you loved it here. I could tell,” Tim said, crashing to the ground next to her and taking off his shoes.

  “How?”

  “The silence had something to do with it. I figured either you really loved it here or you really hated me.” He laughed.

  “Actually, it was both. I did hate you.”

  “You did?”

  “Oh course I did, you fucker; you broke my heart and ripped my world apart. I mean I’m fine now and would . . .” She was about to say “no more want you back than put a knitting needle,” et cetera, but thought it a bit harsh. “Well, I think we did the right thing by having space and experiencing life and learning about ourselves. It was right for me anyway.” She looked at him and recognised the person she’d once known as he turned the sand over with his shoes like a schoolboy. Suddenly she wanted to tell him all the funny things that had happened. She wanted to ask him if he had gone through a phase where he was only attracted to women who were her complete antithesis—like Will had been Tim’s antithesis with his sausage legs and black hair. She wanted to tell him how great it was to own her own business and not be an accountant anymore. She wanted to show him Sydney and her amazing new life.

  “You hated me?” He looked shocked. “Liv, I thought we were in agreement. I thought that what we did was right for both of us.”

  “Yeah, it was, but you were still an unfeeling arsehole. So out of the blue and then just never calling me. We were engaged, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I just thought that I should give you space.”

  “And you did. Listen, Tim, I thought this might be weird, but actually it’s not. Looking at you now, I know that I don’t fancy you anymore. And if I’m truthful, I hadn’t been in love with you for a while. So really it was for the best. I’m glad I’ve seen you because now I know it’s really over.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. We’ve both moved on. Life’s good and I think we can be friends. I’m glad you came.”

  “You think we should just be friends?”

  “Yeah. Now why don’t we have dinner one night, you, me, and your”—Liv balked at saying “new girlfriend”; she wasn’t that sorted—“person that you’re here with.”

  “Okay. That sounds great. I just want to have a chance to see you properly and stuff.”

  “Sure.” Liv smiled at him and felt remarkably grown-up and free. And she’d never noticed before how little she liked the way he sniffed all the time. Had he done that for five whole years and she’d never noticed or was it a new sniff?

  “So have you met anyone?” he asked quietly.

  “Not really.” Liv shrugged. To tell or not to tell about Ben? she wondered. “But I do have a business empire. Well, more of an empire-ette. In fact, you’re just the person I need to talk to,” Liv said matter-of-factly. So she picked his brain about marketing initiatives. They talked business; their hands were waving around, drawing graphs in the sand, emphasising how important it was to have the right advertising budget. And as they walked along the small beach at Watson’s Bay, up the hill towards South Head, Liv gleaned so much invaluable advice from Tim on the marketing strategy for the first six months of Greta’s Grundies that she was beginning to remember that she’d like him for his mind. He was sharp and she was certain he’d already increased her first year’s turnover by a zillion percent. Which was a good enough reason for her to have an ex-fiancé.

  Well, that and the fact that as they looked out over the Heads, onto the sea, he put his hands on her shoulders and gave her ego the friendliest stroke she could ever have imagined. He tried to kiss her.

  “Tim, what are you doing?” She took a step back and looked at him in bewilderment.

  “I still love you, Liv,” he said.

  “No.” She couldn’t believe it. Had the world gone mad? “Have you gone mad?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry. I really am. I just . . . I just don’t know if splitting up was the right thing to do. I still think about you all the time, you know.”

  “Bloody hell.” Liv walked away from Tim for a moment’s breather. “Just give me a minute, will you, Tim?”

  She sat on the grass as he pretended to look around the old lighthouse keeper’s cottage. What about the Glamazon? Could Tim really be serious? She also thought extra hard for a second because until that moment she and Tim had been getting on so well. It had been easy, fun, nice, and light, and she knew that even if they were to walk along the beach until they were fifty years old they’d still have something to say to each other, still laugh together. It wouldn’t be all fluttery and Ben Parker wonderful, but it would be nice. Was she being mad, being in love with Ben? He still had to chuck Amelia; imagine if he couldn’t bring himself to at the last minute. Then she looked back and watched Tim loping around the cottage, caught his profile, the way he smiled at her. And she didn’t feel anything. She really wasn’t in love with him anymore. No matter how flattering all this was, it was only that. Inconveniently, she was in love with Ben.

  “Listen, Tim, I think we should be getting back.” She stood up and walked towards him.

  “But, Liv, that’s why I’m here. I came to get you back.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant. I have a meeting at four o’clock. Anyway, like I said, I don’t know that I can ever forgive you for what you did.”

  “But, Liv . . .”

  She remembered the shrine she’d built to him on her dressing table in London and h
ow she’d meditated on his passport photo for a whole week in a bid to conjure him up by witchcraft. And he hadn’t so much as called her to make sure she hadn’t hurled herself under a bus.

  “Besides, getting back with an ex is such a cliché. It’s like fancying Brad Pitt or being turned on by a man driving a Ferrari. Sure, it happens, but not to people with any taste.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  It’s My Party and I’ll Ruin It

  if I Want To

  Liv knew that her alarm clock was droning away for a reason, but through the fog of sleep she couldn’t remember quite why. Not market stall. Even through the fog, she worked out that it wasn’t Saturday. It was . . . ? What day was it? What had she done last night? Ah yes. Last night she’d had supper with Alex. Pizza. Beer. Not much out of the ordinary. So today was Thursday. No market stall. Ben? No, she hadn’t shaved her legs so she knew for a fact that she wasn’t planning to see Ben again until the party. On Thursday. Today. Tonight!

  Liv caused trauma to every single one of her vertebrae as she leapt out of bed seconds later. It was more a cat on a towering inferno type leap than a cat on a hot tin roof jive. She was up and at ’em. Today was indeed the day when everything receded into the background apart from canapés, cocktails, RSVPs, having her hair professionally “done”for the first time in her life, and still making it to the venue on time. It was a displacement wedding. She was about to marry her career. It was make or break for Greta’s Grundies. If only three fashion assistants arrived on their way to a book launch and the waitresses had to take home the canapés wrapped in bacofoil at the end of the evening, then Liv didn’t have a job, a future, or an income. If, however, the supermodel snogged the politician in front of the Greta’s Grundies’ large pink cardboard logo and seven hundred people lined the street outside in a bid to squeeze through the doors of the overcrowded party, then Liv and Alex had a hit on their hands. The latter, of course, was absolutely the dream-come-true-but-first-you-have-to-sell-your-soul-to-Beelzebub so was a bit unlikely. Somewhere in between would be gratefully appreciated.

  “Alex.” Liv banged on Alex’s bedroom door. “Getting up?”

  “I don’t feel well!” Alex called out.

  “Morning sickness? Then have a glass of water. It’s mind over matter,” Liv chided as she took a dry handful of Just Right and threw it at her mouth, though most of it escaped to the kitchen floor.

  “Laura. You will be finished painting the giant G-string, won’t you?” Liv panicked as Laura walked into the dining room rubbing her eyes and still wearing her nightie.

  “Sure.” Laura sat down on the sofa and reached for the television remote control, flicking on MTV. How could she choose this moment to get over herself and become a normal human being again? How dare she stop obsessing about her work and running round like the cat fresh from the aforementioned towering inferno and instead be as cool as a cold thing?

  “Is something wrong, Laura?” Liv asked as she took to her guest list with a pen and began counting ticks next to names.

  “I’m fine. In fact, I really am fine. You know, this whole thing between you and Ben has given me closure. I’m really, really well.”

  “You mean you’re better? No more shrink?” Liv asked, astounded yet horrified. Did this mean that Laura would no longer use work as a tool to manage her emotions and so Liv wouldn’t be getting her giant painted G-string for tonight’s party anytime this side of Christmas?

  “I feel fine. In fact, I’m not even going to take a single beta-blocker before tonight’s party. Isn’t that great? I realise that Ben’s just completely ordinary, farts sometimes, gets the odd spot, and has smelly feet bloke. I really like women much better.”

  “Actually, Laura, that’s the man I love you’re talking about,” said Liv. “But if you go and paint my G-string now I won’t hold it against you!” she yelled as she headed for the bathroom before new, chilled Laura had a chance to become a reclining redhead among the bubbles and commandeer the loofah for the day. Right now she looked so relaxed she might just slide off the sofa and evaporate into a puddle on the floor.

  Thankfully Alex emerged from the bathroom before Liv could administer any more bossy kicks to Laura’s behind.

  “Ah, my partner. Thank god we’re in this together,” Liv proclaimed as she dragged Alex bodily into the bedroom to help her decide which dress she was going to wear tonight. “Then we have to go to the flower market, then the hall, and make sure everything’s in place.” They had decided to hire out an abandoned church in Woollahra on the simple grounds that they could afford nothing else. Thankfully all the pews had been stolen so they’d just have to decorate the place with twinkling fairy lights, sweep the floors, and fill it with flowers to achieve their desired champagne-fountains-and-marble-staircases effect. Well, almost. They were also borrowing a few of Laura’s old sets of Venice and Umbrian hillsides and Paris by moonlight and other schmaltzy things that looked better than mouldy old church walls. That was if Laura ever surfaced again now she’d locked herself in the bathroom. Only violet wafts were coming out from beneath the door.

  “Actually, we’re not quite in this together because I’m not quite together.” Alex sat on the edge of the bed on the exact dress Liv had just planned to wear and burst into tears. “I dumped Rob!” Alex wailed.

  “You did what?” Liv didn’t really have the time for a crisis, but this was pretty earth-shattering and potentially party-ruining.

  “Late last night. I told him I couldn’t marry him because I have to stay with Charlie.”

  “Why?” Liv sat on the bed beside Alex and put her arm around her shaking body.

  “It’s Luke—he’s won this amazing scholarship to a sports academy in the States. His future’s guaranteed. How selfish of me would it be to say he couldn’t go just because I love Rob? In time maybe we can be friends. But I’ve got to do it. For Luke. I’m so proud of him. Just it’s a fortune, twenty-five thousand dollars a year for three years. I mean our business is okay, but it’s not going to make up twenty-five thousand dollars in the next few weeks, is it? I can’t afford to leave Charlie. It’s as simple as that.” Alex sobbed.

  “And you told Rob that?” Liv asked, stroking wet strands of hair back from Alex’s face.

  “Yeah. And he just left. You know what he’s like, Livvy: he’s uncomplicated. It had never really occurred to him that I was only with Charlie for the money. I mean Charlie knows that and to him it’s not such a big deal, but Rob took it badly. I tried calling him all night, but he wasn’t at his flat.” Alex burst into fresh tears and clung onto Liv.

  The minute Alex was tucked up exhausted and asleep in her bed with her pashmina over her and a glass of water and box of tissues beside her in case she woke up, Liv scribbled her a little note telling her to rest and sit in the sun for the day and that they’d work it out later. Then she stole Alex’s mobile from her handbag and headed off to the flower market, calling her troops on the way.

  “Dave, you’ve heard of Black Monday?” she said.

  “I’m a stockbroker, I live in terror,” he replied while also selling grain, just in case Liv had insider information she was about to impart.

  “Well, today’s Pitch-Black Thursday. Please help.”

  She also called James and said the same thing, only he said he’d never heard of Black Monday, but he had a fuck of a hangover so would gladly come and hang out in a silent, darkened church hall for the day. If she provided him with a can of Diet Coke and an Egg McMuffin he’d be there in fifteen. Result. Liv also called Tim, but he wasn’t in his room. She imagined him in his green silk jacket on a Captain Cook Cruise on the harbour with his Glamazon, who didn’t know that he also liked shorter, darker, less attractive girls. She left a message telling him where the church was and asking him to pull on some old jeans and come along. Cheeky maybe, but if ever there was an hour of need it was now.

  So by the time Liv got back from the flower market with a fieldful of antique roses in the back of Laura’
s car there was a lineup of unwilling men sitting on the wall of the church, smoking and basking in the sunshine. Well, lineup of three, Dave, James, and Tim, and they seemed to be getting on well, with James using Tim’s green jacket as a parasol and Dave and Tim locked in conversation.

  Liv screeched the car to a halt and fell out before either could impart incriminating stories about her to the other. “Boys, oh, thank you so much.” She ran around the back of the car and opened the boot to unload her roses. “I’ve got the key. James, will you open up?” Liv handed over the key and James creaked to his feet.

  “Where’s my Macca, Livvy? You promised.”

  “I’ll zip down to Bondi Junction and get you one in a second. And, Tim? James? Big Macs all round?”

  They nodded as they removed the boxes from the boot and carried them along the cracked concrete path to the church. As Liv lurched up behind them under the weight of boxes of fairy lights she wondered if she and Alex had done the right thing in hiring this place. It had only cost fifty dollars and she hadn’t seen the inside yet. They should probably have taken Amelia up on her offer of her apartment, but given the circumstances Amelia might well find out the Terrible Truth and leave them high and dry.

  Though it was looking terrifyingly as if they were high and dry now.

  “Are you sure this is the right place for your rocking, glitzy party?” Tim asked as he looked suspiciously at the six-foot spider’s web obscuring the rotting church doors.

  “I think so.” Liv was glad she’d given James the key and was about to offer him an extra cheeseburger if he opened the door for them. But thankfully his glasses were so dark that he couldn’t see anything as minor as the bird-sized spider that was waiting menacingly for lunch in the corner of its web. Instead he lumbered straight into the doorway, bouncing back slightly as the web resisted him, but putting it down to bad coordination due to his hangover.