Mad About the Boy

by Maggie Alderson

  Needless to say I cheated. When Percy wasn’t around I continued to stuff down muffins and cake in the shop. Sometimes I had fish and chips from the shop opposite, to fill up after my diet lunch, which I had usually consumed by about 10.25 a.m. At home I hid packets of biscuits in my knicker drawer to keep me company on the nights when he went out. Then I’d smuggle the empty wrappers out again. I knew the only person I was cheating was myself, but I just didn’t think I could get through a whole evening in alone on celery sticks.

  And, of course, I didn’t lose much weight. There was no hard evidence of my lack of success, because Hugo – always vainer than me – had taken the bathroom scales with him when he left and Percy said he didn’t believe in weighing yourself anyway, because of muscle weighing more than fat and all that. He also thought it was ‘suburban’ to know how much you weighed – just one of his many unique insights on life.

  But even without the empirical proof of the scales, I knew I couldn’t get away with it for ever. My retribution came one muggy January morning – almost a year to the day since Hugo’s big announcement – as I made my cup of hot water and lemon (just a little palate cleanser for the three full-cream milk lattes I would have in the shop later) in the kitchen at home, wearing only a knotted sarong.

  I saw Percy peering at me over his bowl of grated apple, muesli and soya yoghurt and held my stomach in, hoping he wouldn’t notice that my silhouette was hardly any more streamlined than it had been several weeks before. No use – I was rumbled.

  ‘You’re still incredibly fat,’ he proclaimed. ‘Tie another sarong around your head and you could pass for the maid in Gone With The Wind.’

  He narrowed his eyes as he carried on looking at me. Then came the verdict I dreaded.

  ‘You’re cheating, aren’t you, Antonia?’

  Without any hesitation, I nodded. I was quite happy to sneak a packet of chocolate digestives up to my bedroom in my handbag, but I have never been able to tell lies. Like I said, I’m a vicar’s daughter.

  ‘So what has it been, fatty?’ asked Percy in quite a frighteningly severe tone. ‘Currant buns and doughnuts in the shop? Tim Tams by torchlight? Tom has already told me you are hoarding chocolate biscuits amongst your lingerie, which is fine with him when he’s feeling peckish, let me tell you, but if you’re cheating at work as well, that’s another matter.’

  I hung my head. When I looked up, Percy had his chin resting on one hand and was looking at me intently with those pale blue Heaveringham eyes, which were so disarming and so very like Hugo’s. For a moment I started to laugh, as a kind of nervous reaction, but he just carried on looking at me blankly. I went back to feeling mortified.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Percy,’ I gabbled. ‘I know you only want to help me and I do want to lose weight really, it’s just that food is so nice. It’s the only thing that comforts me. I’m already thinking about the next mouthful before I’ve swallowed the one I’m chewing. As long as my jaws are moving I feel I can cope with it all, but when I’m hungry as well, the big hole where Hugo used to be just seems to become a yawning gap.’

  Percy listened to me, drumming his fingers on his cheek. I was terrified he was going to say he was so hurt and disappointed with me he was going to leave. Finally, he spoke.

  ‘Filling holes, eh, Antonia?’ he said. ‘Like your needlepoint? Is that what it is?’

  I nodded. He was right. I was just filling holes. I hadn’t thought any of it through until I’d made my confession, but that was exactly what I was doing.

  ‘Well, if you can’t give up the comfort eating,’ he continued, picking up a huge spoonful of his breakfast and sticking it in his mouth. ‘We’ll just have to step up the exercise.’

  And he opened his mouth wide, to give me a good view of the masticated food inside.

  The next evening I found myself in a truly terrifying place. Percy and I were side by side, going nowhere fast on electric treadmills and all around us was a heaving mass of sweaty people punishing their bodies.

  There were about thirty other people on the treadmills alone, ranging from a ridiculously tall and thin girl who must have been a model, to an enormous man who looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Samoan big brother. His arms were the size of my torso.

  Mostly, though, the people on the treadmills, the rowing machines and the vast expanse of exercise bikes next to them, were trimly built men with dark orange tans, very short hair and well-moisturized faces, wearing discreet grey marl singlets and jersey shorts.

  ‘I wasn’t going to tell you about this place,’ panted Percy, whose treadmill was at a gradient roughly equivalent to the upper reaches of the Matterhorn. ‘It’s one of my secret little social venues – wonderfully steamy steam rooms …’ He waggled his eyebrows. ‘But because it’s still New Year resolution time there are all kinds of deals on, so you can’t tell me you can’t afford it. Plus there is no risk of you running into any of those ghastly social-blights down here.’

  He wasn’t kidding. The place was called Muscle City and it was rather as I imagined the gym area at Saint Quentin prison must be. An enormous smelly expanse of brutal-looking equipment servicing an even more brutal-looking clientele. There was no Enya piped over the PA system here. In fact the main sound track was animalistic grunting, with a percussion mix of enormously heavy metal objects being dropped on the floor and the rhythmic thump of feet on the rubber treadmill tracks.

  Far more gripping than the television screen over my head, which was showing particularly vapid music videos, was the free-weights area, right at the back, which had the floor space of the average multi-storey car park.

  The trim tanned fellows seemed to stay within the aerobic zone, where we were, and around the weight machines. The free weights seemed to be strictly for the tough guys – and there was no missing them.

  They wore WWF leotards and fingerless string gloves, and had wide leather belts strapped around their waists. Their massive necks grew out of their shoulders like Edinburgh Castle rising from Princes Street Gardens and tapered into the tops of their heads, many of which were shaved for added menace.

  They walked with their arms crooked because the sheer bulk of their muscles prevented them straightening them by their sides. Their ‘lats’ – as Percy informed me the muscles on the upper sides of their backs were called – reminded me of the flying buttresses on Notre Dame. Their buttocks looked ridiculously small compared to their enormous shoulders. It was the most fabulous freak show.

  My eyes were on stalks. It was better than watching the Discovery Channel and I came to the conclusion that if one of Tom’s beloved raptors had come strolling in to pump some iron, it wouldn’t have looked remotely out of place among the other pin-head primitives.

  I was so fascinated I actually forgot I was doing horrid exercise and was quite surprised, when Percy leaned over and pressed the off button on my machine, to find that I had been power walking for thirty minutes. My T-shirt was wet through.

  ‘Good,’ said Percy, looking me over. ‘You’re glowing nicely. Now I’m going to set you up for tuition on the weights machines.’

  As we walked over to a seating area in a corner, which seemed to be populated by a collection of man’s early ancestors, Percy was waving and nodding and shaking hands like a minor Royal at a garden party. He seemed to know everybody in the place, although with his appearance people rarely forgot meeting him. More surprising was that this lot all seemed pleased to see him again.

  ‘Now which of you bully boys is going to look after my treasured niece?’ he asked the assembled Cro-Magnons when we reached them. He had his hands on his hips, head coquettishly tipped to one side, like Doris Day at a clam bake.

  ‘I need someone tough, but fair,’ continued Doris/Percy. ‘She’s a lazy little trollop and I want her to lose two stone – that’s about twelve kilos in your language. I warn you, she doesn’t know a dumb bell from a dumb fuck, which is probably a good thing in your cases, but she responds well to threats and bullying. Volunt
eers please.’

  For a moment I thought they might tear him to bits, standing there in his pink singlet and hibiscus print shorts, a scarf tied around his mauve hair, but instead of throwing him through the nearest plate-glass window, their rugged faces split into big grins and they all offered to take me on. I honestly do not know how he did it.

  After some serious consideration of their various pros and cons, which gave Percy the opportunity to indulge in a little more outrageous flirting – ‘Oh no, Andy, I think you are just a little too big …’ and the like – we settled on a bald-headed bruiser with the unlikely name of Tristan, who promised to knock me into shape.

  Percy announced he was going upstairs to ‘freshen up’ – a statement accompanied by a stage wink – and I was left to Tristan’s care.

  Do you know, it wasn’t that bad? Although he had hands the size of tennis rackets and a head like the Loch Ness monster, he was definitely your more gentle breed of Neanderthal and clearly sought to disarm non-physical types like myself with the contradiction between his brutal appearance and delicate manners. He called me ‘Miss’ and referred to his women clients as ‘my ladies’.

  It worked for me. He was so polite and earnest I actually wanted to please him – at least, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. By starting me off with a gentle run through all the machines on the lightest weights, he didn’t scare me off either, although I did feel intimidated by all the men lining up impatiently to use them.

  An hour later I joined Percy in the reception area, where he was looking very rested in his favourite white linen kaftan and Indian sandals, freshly applied mauve varnish visible on his toenails.

  He asked Tristan how I had behaved and after I received a good report card he stood over me while I joined the gym, paying a terrifyingly large sum up front for my first fifteen private sessions with Tristan, and wrote the appointments – five days a week for three weeks – in my diary, in black pen.

  He also had Tristan witness his promise – taken with his right hand in the Boy Scout salute – to look after the shop for two hours a day for three weeks while I was doing them, so there could be no sneaky ringing up to cancel, using Anteeks as an excuse.

  There really was no way of getting out of it.

  At the same time as Percy was forcing me into physical hard labour, expanding my social scene outside what the gossip columns called the ‘Social A List’ – and which he called the ‘Social All Pissed’ – and educating me about Sydney’s historic sites, I was quietly making another friend.

  A very attractive woman, who looked about forty, although it was hard to be certain, with infuriatingly long legs and flame-red hair, had been coming into the shop regularly for a couple of months. She was always immaculately dressed, with a crocodile Kelly bag over her arm, and she would look at everything in the shop with the concentration of an earnest student at the British Museum. Better still, she always bought something – usually a lot of somethings.

  She really did have an unusually lovely face, I thought, with creamy skin, high cheekbones and full lips, but while she always smiled sweetly at me as she handed over her credit card, there was something guarded about her manner which stopped me asking the kind of questions that would have developed our relationship. It was a shame, because there was something about her I really liked. And not just her black Amex card.

  One afternoon, when she had bought my entire display of pretty mismatched teacups, I threw in a silver filigree tea strainer and a set of embroidered napkins as a grateful bonus. She was radiant with delight.

  ‘That’s so nice of you,’ she said. ‘I don’t think anyone has ever given me a freebie in Woollahra before. They’re normally too busy trying to get me to spend more.’

  ‘You’re my best customer,’ I told her. ‘I just wanted to thank you for supporting me.’

  ‘I love your shop,’ she said fervently. She paused and I could see she was wondering whether to say more. I smiled encouragingly and popped a couple of extra doilies into the parcel I was making up for her.

  ‘It has such a sweet feeling in here,’ she said in a rush, as though she was expressing something that had been dammed up inside her. ‘I haven’t been anywhere with an atmosphere like this since I left Tasmania over twenty years ago.’

  She fixed me with her cornflower-blue eyes, which definitely weren’t lenses.

  ‘It reminds me of my grandmother’s house,’ she said very quietly, stroking one of the doilies.

  I smiled at her again. Although I didn’t know her, I could tell that this was not something she would share lightly. I was touched.

  ‘It reminds me of my granny’s house too,’ I said. ‘I think that’s the feeling I’m going for. I’m so glad you like it. Not everybody gets it. A lot of people don’t like the idea of second-hand sheets.’

  She laughed and I glanced down at the credit card she had handed me. It said, ‘T. D. M. Sullivan’.

  ‘My name’s Antonia,’ I said, holding out my hand. ‘But everyone calls me Ant.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, shaking my hand gently. ‘We’ve been to a lot of the same parties, but we’ve never actually met.’

  ‘Oh really?’ I said. I was surprised I didn’t remember seeing such a beautiful woman.

  ‘I don’t mix much at parties,’ she said, as if reading my thoughts.

  ‘What does the T stand for?’ I asked, indicating the credit card. She was really shy, I realized. It was like bringing out one of the timid children at Tom’s birthday parties.

  ‘Dee,’ she said and laughed again at my surprised expression. ‘Theresa Deirdre Mary Sullivan – née McBride – but everyone calls me Dee, for Deirdre. My mother was also called Theresa, it got too complicated.’

  ‘Well, it’s lovely to meet you, Dee, and I do really appreciate your support of Anteeks. Please come in and see me any time you feel like a reminder of your grandmother’s house – and don’t feel you have to buy something. Come for tea next time you’re nearby. It would be nice to see you.’

  She smiled at me so radiantly, I almost blushed. And I couldn’t help comparing it with the neon brashness of Nikki Maier’s famous smile. What a world of difference.

  Dee did come in for tea the following week, bringing the most delicious selection of French-style patisserie with her, which I happily gobbled down, feeling virtuous about my new gym routine. She was still shy, but we had a really pleasant time chatting about inconsequential things such as whether we preferred Earl Grey or Lady Grey tea and comparing French tea blenders Mariage Frères with my favourite British tea merchants, Williams & Magor.

  Any time I tried to make the conversation a little more personal, asking what I thought were fairly unintrusive questions like whether she had any children, where she lived and what her husband did, she found a way of changing the subject.

  I did manage to establish that she knew Suzy and Roger Thorogood – she had also been at Suzy’s fortieth it turned out – and now I came to think about it, I thought I did remember noticing a striking redhead, in an amazing sapphire-blue dress, with the jewels to match. But when I asked her if she knew Nikki Maier or Caroline French, she quickly said she didn’t, although she knew the names.

  That surprised me, as they sort of went together as a group and the Eastern Suburbs set they were part of was so tight everyone seemed to know each other, but I didn’t push it. At the time, it didn’t seem important.

  9

  To my own great surprise, three weeks later, well into the humid horror of February, I was still going to the gym. More than that – I was starting to look forward to it. Who-would-a-thunk-it? I thought to myself, echoing Tom’s current catchphrase. He loved words and had a new favourite every week.

  One sunny Saturday he had been playing with Vita in our garden, when he came running in, loudly asking Percy and me to come outside and see what they had built.

  ‘Mummy, Perky, come and look,’ he shouted, waving arms covered in mud up to the elbows. ‘Vita and me have made a bugger
y – come and see it.’

  ‘Vita and I,’ said Percy. ‘But otherwise that’s an invitation I certainly shan’t turn down. Shall we go and see, Antonia?’

  The buggery turned out to be a house for small beetles, made from an empty kitchen match box. Percy and I laughed about it for days – and I was laughing more, generally. Although I could barely stand to admit it to myself, my sessions with Tristan were starting to make me feel better. Not so much physically, I still had a way to go with that – and I still couldn’t sleep – but I felt much better in myself.

  After the first week of daily workouts I could hardly move and had to spend an entire Sunday lying on the sofa watching old movies, but once I had got over the ‘fatigue hump’, as Tristan called it – sparking another phrase craze in Tom, who would say things like ‘I can’t go to bed yet, Mummy, I haven’t reached my fatigue hump’ – I began to enjoy the routine and the challenge of it.

  I even liked the alien nature of my surroundings at Muscle City. It was so unlike anywhere else I had ever been. Most of my life – the shop, our house, Woollahra – could best be described as ‘divine’. All toile de Jouy, witty details and fresh flowers on every flat surface. The gym was gritty, smelly, tough and urban, like the inner city suburb where it was located.

  Although it was only ten minutes walk from the centre of town, Percy had told me the neighbourhood was ‘vice HQ’ and a ‘heaving hotbed’ of prostitution, junkies and drug dealers, though I could never see any signs of it. There were a few drunken derelicts and scruffy types around, but I just gave them a wide berth.