‘Don’t ask. It’s gratis. Well, I paid for the stockings, but I did get a five-finger discount.’
Ned drove them out to Sussex in his new Mercedes 190E and Lizzie and Tom sat in the back, holding hands and feeling glam and frisky. Tom looked dashing in his suit and Lizzie was radiant. She felt like she was off to her year 12 formal, the one she’d missed because, well, it wasn’t that she didn’t have a date – she didn’t – but it was a protest against what she knew it would be: skolling competitions, burnouts and gang rape. It felt like everything she’d ever missed out on was right here in this car, like some giant catch-up.
As they drove up the M12, Ned took advantage of the captive audience to assault them with the progress of his financial portfolio and his recent encounters with famous Tories.
‘Michael Heseltine is actually quite a funny chap. The other day when I was having a drink down at the Carlton Club with Portillo et al …’
Every time Ned dropped a name, Tom pretended to cough while saying ‘wanker’ under his breath. Lizzie giggled.
Eventually they pulled into a picturesque village just outside Surrey. They made their way to St Hilda’s chapel, a quaint little bluestone church surrounded by elms. There was an ancient cemetery next door and an old farmer herded his sheep across the road in front of their car. The bride, Tom’s cousin Kate, was just climbing out of a Bentley with a little help from some pastel-draped assistants.
Ned parked the car and they emerged to the smell of honeysuckle and the sound of birds chirping.
‘Nice tits,’ said Ned.
Lizzie was taken aback. ‘Really?’
‘Blue tits,’ said Tom, pointing to the birds. ‘They’re blue tits.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
They walked towards the church in silence.
‘But you do have very nice tits,’ Tom whispered.
‘Thanks,’ said Lizzie. ‘They’re blue tits.’
Kate, glowing in the midsummer sun, spotted the boys as she righted her dress. ‘Ned! Tommy!’ The cousins exchanged pecks and then she looked Tom up and down. ‘I’m so glad you’re back. And who’s this, then?’ Tom took a step back and ushered Lizzie forward.
‘Kate, Kate Shorebrook – well, not for long – this is Lizzie Quealy.’
‘Lovely to meet you,’ fumbled Lizzie. ‘You look glorious.’
‘An Australian girlfriend! I would never have picked it, Tom. Well done. She’ll teach you how to drink. I’d better go – seems I have a whole church full of people waiting for me. Next time you see me I’ll be Kate Sexton!’
And with that Kate’s father appeared, offered her his arm and ushered her away.
‘Late as usual I see, boys.’ An older man was at Tom’s elbow. ‘Keeping up the family tradition.’
‘Dad,’ said Tom. ‘It’s was Ned’s fault. He drives like a vicar. Dad, this is Lizzie.’
‘I’ve heard a lot about you, Lizzie.’
‘Hello, Mr Shorebrook.’
‘None of this Mr Shorebrook nonsense. Call me Dr Shorebrook.’
Lizzie laughed heartily for a moment before she realised with a terrible jolt that nobody else was. Before she had time to salvage her dignity they were ushered into the hush of the church.
Kate gathered up her skirt and walked down the aisle on her father’s arm. At the altar stood the groom, Harvey Sexton. In his morning suit, cravat and top hat, he looked like a plastic figurine from the top of a wedding cake.
Lizzie muttered to Tom as they sat down on the worn wooden pew. ‘Sorry I laughed when your dad said that “Call me doctor” thing – I thought it was a joke!’
‘It was! We’ve all heard it a hundred times before. You’re fine, Lizzie. They’ll all love you.’
But do you, Tom? Lizzie thought, as Kate and Harvey exchanged vows. She couldn’t help getting teary. But do you?
As they sat through the ceremony, Lizzie felt like a child at a friend’s place for dinner – the routine was similar, but just different enough to be confusing. You were never quite sure what would happen next.
Lizzie had been sloppily brought up a Catholic. In Sunshine you barracked for the Bulldogs, voted Labor and went to mass, if only for Christmas, Easter and funerals. If you didn’t you were up yourself, the worst thing an Australian could be. She’d never been to a church service of any other denomination before. It was so sweet and so foreign, it felt like a real travel experience. Bugger Madame Tussauds, she thought, you could sell tickets to this. It was almost like an art installation, as if someone had been given a grant to re-create the perfect English wedding.
Lizzie had only been to three weddings in her life, all of them her brothers’. She’d been flower girl in every one. Shane and Barry both married girls called Debbie, while Tony married a girl called Donna. Tony always liked to be different. All three ceremonies were held at St Leo’s and all three receptions at the local footy club. Beer, lamb on a spit, pav for dessert and a honeymoon in Surfers Paradise, or the Sunshine Coast if you were Tony. For ten-year-old Lizzie, this had been the epitome of romance.
Kate and Harvey’s reception was a whole different thing. It was held in a marquee behind Kate’s family home, an estate of bluestone, bird baths and manicured hedges. It looked more like a castle than a place people actually lived in. I wonder what the poor people are doing now, Lizzie couldn’t help thinking as they wandered the grounds. When they passed the catering trucks and she saw three women her mother’s age lugging trays of glasses out of a truck, she knew. The poor people were washing the dishes. Or wearing borrowed dresses from Selfridges and stockings shoplifted from Boots.
‘Aunt Catherine and Uncle David, this is Lizzie Quealy.’
Lizzie liked Aunt Catherine immediately. She was short, plump and jolly and dressed from head to toe in orange. ‘Quealy – that’s unusual. Is it Welsh?’
‘No, it’s the original Irish for “Kelly.” We were one of the few Irish families who got off the boat knowing how to spell.’
‘Or perhaps so pissed they forgot how to,’ quipped Uncle David.
‘Mind your manners, David, this girl is a visitor. So, Tom, is this your girlfriend?’
Tom looked at Lizzie and grinned.
‘Yes. We met travelling.’
‘On the Trans-Siberian Express,’ added Lizzie.
‘How romantic. So are you moving to Britain, Lizzie?’
‘Yes, Lizzie – well, are you?’ teased Tom.
‘Good question. I haven’t thought that far ahead. I didn’t even know I was his girlfriend till just then.’
They all laughed and then his aunt and uncle regaled the two of them with stories of travelling around Europe with small children. Tom rested his hand on the small of Lizzie’s back.
Tom and Lizzie were on the family table. Kate’s parents had divorced years ago and had both since happily remarried. The four of them got on like old friends, dined together, holidayed together and played tennis together. It was disgustingly civilised. Back in Sunshine, somebody would have been in jail or dead or both.
The food was stunt English food: foie gras, quail, grouse and truffles served on Wedgwood. They drank French champagne, Italian Brunello and a Spanish sherry served in the family crystal. Dessert was lemon sorbet or strawberries and cream. The food was glorious, but Lizzie didn’t taste a thing. She was in love and all she could smell was Tom.
As they sat back to let the speeches wash over them, Lizzie and Tom were buzzing, mellow and horny as all get out.
‘Fine girl, Kate. Well done, Harvey. It’s my job as best man to toast the bridesmaids. So here’s to the bridesmaids. Don’t they look smashing?’
Tom ran his hand up and down Lizzie’s thigh, slowly pulling her skirt up. Lizzie turned towards him and moved her mouth a little closer to his ear so that he could hear her breathing getting heav
ier.
‘I stand before you tonight as the happiest man in the world …’
Tom slipped his hand between Lizzie’s legs.
‘… not just because I am marrying Kate Sexton …’
Tom slid two fingers over her clit and inside her.
‘… but because I hear we’ve just beaten the Australians in the cricket.’
Up went a huge roar from the crowd and out came an audible moan from Lizzie. Tom thought quickly and kissed her gently on the lips as everyone turned to look at the only Australian in the room. Who was coming.
A daggy band played all the old favourites and Tom and Lizzie danced together for the first time. She was thrilled to see he was as crap as she was – but how cute he was at crap dancing. Tom, meanwhile, couldn’t take his eyes off Lizzie and would have followed her anywhere. High on champagne and candlelight and the perfume of roses, he wished the music would never end. This was the first wedding he’d ever enjoyed. He wondered if that meant he was officially an adult.
Neither of them knew it, but the oldies couldn’t stop watching Lizzie and Tom. It made the grandparents reminiscent, the middle-aged despondent and the couples with young children think, ‘Just you wait, it doesn’t last.’
‘So, Tom, what are you going to do now you’re back?’ was the question at every turn. It felt like an ambush. Travel stories gave way to talk of real estate, children and careers. Tom knew this was normal life and what normal people talked about. And this was his habitat. If he wanted it, his destiny was mapped out for him. He could see exactly what would come next. Deep in his heart he feared that however fast he ran, he’d never escape the future they had in mind for him. But he was determined to run until he got caught.
Everyone loved Lizzie. But he knew that if he told them he was serious about her, it would be another matter entirely. ‘Get the wild girls out of your system now, lad,’ he could hear his father saying. ‘Then find a nice girl from Kent who knows how to make relish and settle down.’
The night shimmered and Lizzie knew she looked a million bucks, but she could feel she didn’t belong. She faced a different line of questioning. ‘So, what does your father do?’ everybody wanted to know. ‘He’s in healthcare,’ she’d reply, before offering to go to the bar or asking where the ladies was. Considering her father had spent a fair whack of his life in hospitals and had been on the invalid pension since he was forty-three, she thought this was an honest, if not particularly detailed, response.
‘And what did you study at university, Lizzie?’
‘Education.’ Lizzie had spent two years at Melbourne teachers college, most of it at the university bar cracking on to third-year law students, before she deferred. Or, as some people called it, dropped out. At twenty she’d started waitressing and doing stand-up.
‘Tom, I don’t get this. What church is the queen head of?’
‘The Church of England.’
‘I thought so. But she’s an Anglican, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘Get what?’ asked Tom.
‘What don’t you get, oh girl from Down Under?’ slurred Ned, lurching drunkenly up behind them.
‘Bugger off, Ned. Don’t you have a girl with a hyphenated surname to sleaze on to?’ snapped Tom.
‘Actually, no, to tell you the truth. Saving herself, apparently. No, I want to know what it is our Antipodean friend doesn’t get. Happy to assist.’
‘I don’t get how the queen is an Anglican but she’s head of the Church of England,’ said Lizzie.
Ned stared at her with a look of condescending astonishment and then burst into laughter. He turned to Tom and patted him on the back. ‘I’ll leave that one for you to explain, old man. Too complicated for me.’ And he staggered away.
‘What the fuck, Tom?’
‘He’s a complete wanker and totally pissed, Lizzie.’
‘So answer my question.’
‘They’re the same thing, Lizzie. Anglican is the adjective.’
‘Oh. Okay, I get it. Like Muslim and Islam.’ Lizzie fell silent. She was totally humiliated.
‘I know, it’s very confusing. I had the same problem with Belgium and Flemish for years. I kept wondering where this place was that they spoke Flemish. Was it called Flem?’ Tom steered her gently towards the bar. ‘Let’s get you a nice glass of champagne and then we’ll run a sharp implement along the side of Ned’s car. Will that cheer you up?’
‘Immensely. Got a hammer? And can we put some sugar in his petrol tank?’
‘I like the way you think …’
Late in the evening, Lizzie went for a walk through the grounds while Tom and his dad played with Dr Shorebrook’s new phone. Wandering the gravel paths, she felt like an extra in A Room with a View. When she paused to read a tiny sign displaying the Latin name of one of the trees, she bumped into Ned, who was pissing in the bushes.
‘So, Lizzie, did you enjoy hanging out with the posh people?’
‘It was an experience, Ned. How did you find it, slumming with your family and pissing on a 300-year-old hedge?’
‘Ha, ha,’ said Ned as he bit off the end of a cigar and lit up. ‘So, when are you back off to the Antipodes, or do you still have to commit a crime to get free passage?’
‘I’ve always been a fan of deportation. It certainly helps your travel dollar go further. I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I’m just going to see what happens.’
‘Well, I can tell you one thing. Don’t count on Tom sticking around because you’re not his type. He’s more a Sloane Ranger man.’
Lizzie felt her face flush. ‘Is that right?’
‘Yes, actually, it is.’
And with that the night had curdled.
A cousin drove Lizzie and Tom back to their bed and breakfast. As they pulled out of the grounds, they saw Ned snogging one of the bridesmaids next to his car.
‘Always the bridesmaid, never the bride,’ Tom whispered in Lizzie’s ear. Lizzie chuckled but she was miles away.
They arrived at the Bishop’s Inn and were led to a quaint little room: floral bedspread, floral wallpaper and floral curtains. There was a fire burning in the hearth. Tom threw Lizzie onto the bed and ravished her. He came quickly; so much for brewer’s droop. She responded, but she couldn’t be aroused. This was the first time she hadn’t come with him, and the first time she’d considered faking it. She didn’t.
‘Sorry, Lizzie. Was it something I said? Beautiful girl, talk to me.’
‘No, darling, I’m just so tired. The speeches satisfied me.’
They took off their party clothes and were back to their default setting: naked. Tom fell asleep straightaway but Lizzie stayed awake for hours, tossing and thinking and tossing. Something had taken a little air out of their balloon.
When she finally slept, she dreamt about something she hadn’t thought of in years: Para on the Yarra. Para on the Yarra was a yearly ritual on the last day of year 12 before final exams. It drew year-12 students from schools across Melbourne to the banks of the Yarra River. The idea was to drink until you were paralytic.
There were only twenty year-12s in Lizzie’s class and most of them were such goody-two-shoes that they went home to study instead. But Lizzie and her mate Maria Toohey decided to go into town and check out this famous Para on the Yarra. They were well equipped thanks to Lizzie’s brother Tony, who set them up with half a dozen West Coast Coolers and a packet of Winfield Blues.
Wearing their green-checked school dresses, which had been signed in black texta by the Sunshine High class of 1990, they alighted at Flinders Street Station and wandered down to the riverbank feeling excited and grown-up.
It was a sea of private-school boys in ties. There were a few girls; not many. The smell of testosterone and privilege was overpoweri
ng. Maria and Lizzie planted themselves under a tree with their six-pack of lukewarm cans and perved at the guys while playing Spot-the-Spunk. They divided the boys into ‘Shit yeah,’ ‘Fuck no’ and ‘Just for practice.’ It was all purely hypothetical – they were both virgins.
After two West Coast Coolers each, both girls were quite pissed and having a blast. Suddenly a shadow fell over them.
‘Hello, ladies,’ said a voice. They looked up. It was James. They didn’t know James, but he was the tall, incredibly good-looking guy they’d spent much of the afternoon watching. He’d spent the day skolling while people stood around clapping ‘James, James, James, James.’ He was definitely a Shit Yeah.
‘Hi.’
‘Mind if I join you?’
‘Sure,’ said Lizzie, hardly able to believe her eyes as he lowered himself onto the rubbish-strewn grass. ‘Pull up a chip packet. Want a cigarette?’
‘No, thanks. I’ve got my own,’ he said, plucking a packet of Dunhill from his shirt pocket.
This enormous spunk was sitting next to her and if Lizzie didn’t know better, she’d swear he was trying to chat her up. He went to Melbourne Grammar and he was a rower. His dad was a QC and he lived in Hawthorn. She couldn’t believe her luck. He was incredibly interested in her school subjects and her family. Maria got the hint and made herself scarce and before Lizzie knew it, James was kissing her. His arms were around her and his tongue was down her throat and she lay back on the grass and felt the weight of his golden body on top of her. He smelt strange, intriguing. She was in heaven.
Suddenly he stopped and stood up. His dozen or so mates, a good twenty metres away, let up a huge cheer and James raised his arms in triumph. Dusting himself off as he walked back to the group, he turned and spoke once more to Lizzie. ‘Nice to meet you, slag.’
Lizzie was dumbstruck. The boys were fishing money out of their wallets and giving it to James. It was a bet. A dare. She felt dirty and stupid. As if a guy like that would be interested in her. She straightened her skirt and stood up, biting back tears and trying not to vomit. She couldn’t see Maria; Lizzie was all alone in a mob of ties, blazers and girls in long white socks. Everyone was staring at her.
The Happiness Show Page 10