The Godson

by Robert G. Barrett

  ‘Yes, so I believe,’ chuckled Norton. ‘So what do you want to do — seeing as you’re our guest in this fine country?’

  ‘Do?’ Peregrine walked over to Les and actually placed a friendly hand on his shoulder. ‘Well, I think the gentlemanly thing to do would be to get changed into something a little more appropriate for the occasion, dear boy, and spend what’s left of the afternoon sitting by the edge of the pool sipping the best cocktails the establishment has to offer.’

  ‘Peregrine,’ winked Les. ‘I think that is an absolutely splendid idea. Quite gentlemanly indeed.’

  Twenty minutes later they had changed and were placing their towels on two banana-chairs closest to a sign which said Ring For Service.

  Norton had to suppress a bit of a chuckle as Peregrine set himself up at the pool’s edge. It wasn’t his complexion or build — for a to-and-from he wasn’t chalky white and he was more wiry than skinny — it was the outfit. Les just had on thongs, shorts and a Mexican beer T-shirt Warren had given him, but Peregrine did frock up for the occasion. He had on a jade Pierre Cardin bathrobe and matching Gucci shorts, black Italian leather sandals, and a Yves St. Laurent sling wallet and sunglasses. This outfit was topped by a small white Panama. If Noel Coward could see this, he’d roll over in his grave, thought Les. But Peregrine was completely oblivious and so, it seemed, were the others seated around the pool.

  ‘Well come on, old boy,’ he said, moving to the side of the pool. ‘Last one in’s a rotten egg.’ Then he dived in. He surfaced a few metres out and began swimming towards the middle with the worst style Norton had ever seen. His arms flayed madly at the water as his head swung from side to side and he made hardly any progress. He stopped and turned to Les.

  ‘What’s it like?’ Norton called out.

  ‘Absolutely marvellous, old boy.’

  ‘Yeah? You sure?’ Norton’s tongue was planted firmly in his cheek.

  ‘Of course. Come along! Don’t be such a slacker. Ho! Here we go.’ The Englishman duck-dived to the bottom of the pool while Norton watched laughing to himself. Peregrine was like a little child having the time of his life and thinking he was killing them. Les watched him for a little while then he dived in. Norton would never make the East German swimming team but he managed to get to the other side of the pool and back in about the same time it took Peregrine to make it from halfway.

  ‘Yeah, it’s not too bad, I suppose,’ he said, holding the edge of the pool with one hand.

  ‘Oh, come on now, Les. Where’s your sense of adventure? This is absolutely beautiful. You know, I don’t think you’re as tough as you make out.’ Flushed with his own wellbeing, Peregrine dragged himself out of the pool. ‘Anyway, that’s enough exercise for the day, I think. Time now for drinkypoos.’

  ‘Yeah. Not a bad idea. I’m just about buggered myself after all that.’ And wait till I get you out on this farm, Horatio Hornblower. I’ll give you sense of adventure.

  They towelled off and Peregrine ordered drinks: Fourex for Les, a nice long whisky sour for himself. These arrived promptly and Peregrine immediately ordered two more. And that was how they spent the afternoon, except that after his third whisky sour Peregrine switched to Tom Collins. By then it was getting on for five and the sun was starting to go down over the mountains and banana fields surrounding the resort. Les asked Peregrine what he wanted to do that night. Peregrine suggested dinner in the resort restaurant around seven-thirty then a trip into Coffs Harbour later that night. Norton replied that that didn’t sound like a bad idea at all.

  ‘But do we have to wait till half past seven before we eat?’

  Peregrine gave Norton a look of disdain across the top of his Tom Collins. ‘My dear boy — a gentleman never dines before seven.’

  ‘What about a bloody hamburger?

  Peregrine shook his head and finished his drink. ‘Shall we leave?’ he sniffed.

  Norton spent the next couple of hours reading a magazine, getting changed, drinking one or two beers from his fridge and not doing a great deal at all except stand on his balcony and think how lucky he was to be there. At seven-thirty sharp he was in a clean pair of jeans and a brown Le Shirt knocking on Peregrine’s door.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, old chap,’ said Peregrine, razor in one hand, shaving cream all over his face. ‘I was reading a book and dozed off. Shan’t be a tick.’

  ‘That’s all right, mate. Take your time.’ Les closed the door. ‘You had a shower yet?’

  ‘Yes. Had a quick one about five minutes ago.’

  ‘Yeah. I heard you poms are pretty quick when it comes to having a shower. I’m surprised you had one at all.’

  ‘What was that, old boy?’ came from the bathroom.

  ‘Nothing, mate. Nothing at all.’

  While Peregrine finished shaving, Les had a bit of a quick check of his clothes; there wasn’t a real lot but what there was was top quality. He also made a mental note: 82 cm waist, size 8 shoes. Next to the bed were two books by Charles Bukowski: Women and War All The Time. There was also a small book of Shakespearean sonnets. He had a quick read and replaced them.

  ‘So, how are you feeling?’ he asked as Peregrine came from the bathroom.

  ‘Absolutely first class. How about yourself?’

  ‘Good. But I’m bloody hungry. I’d eat the maggoty arse out of a dead bandicoot.’

  ‘Yes… well I don’t know that I’m that hungry but I am rather peckish.’ Before long Peregrine was in a pair of tan velvet trousers, cream silk shirt and a matching cravat. On Les it would have looked poncey. On Peregrine it looked as it should. Aristocratic.

  ‘You ready, old boy?’ he smiled.

  ‘Reckon,’ replied Les, rising from the lounge. ‘Let’s hit the toe.’

  They took the lift to the restaurant.

  The restaurant was tastefully furnished in blue and white and overlooked the pool area and the beach beyond. The bar area was to the left and in between sat a young bearded piano player in a tuxedo tinkling out the theme from The Godfather on a baby grand. He smiled around the room in his white tuxedo as his hands moved gracefully across the keys — it looked like something out of an old Humphrey Bogart movie. The restaurant was fairly large and appeared to be about half full. You couldn’t miss the Texans and their wives down one end next to the windows. The women all had two hundred dollar hairdos, horrible loud dresses and enough jewellery to embarrass Marie Antoinette. The men wore customary calflength boots, arrow-pocketed jackets and trousers and string ties with turquoise toggles. Not far away sat the Germans, all stiff and conservative, eating almost in unison. Sitting there straight-backed, silent and Teutonic, they looked as if they would all jump up from the table, click their heels and give a Nazi salute if someone had yelled out ‘achtung’. Around them were families, couples and a girl of about twenty-eight with two other girls who were about eighteen. From behind a desk materialised the head waiter in a tuxedo.

  ‘For two, is it, sir?’ he said to Peregrine.

  ‘Yes thank you.’

  ‘Anywhere in particular you might wish to sit, gentlemen?’

  Peregrine nodded to a cubicle next to the wall. ‘Just there should do.’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’

  The head waiter ushered them to their table, placed the wine list and menus in front of them and vanished. As they studied the menu, the voices of the Texans carried across the room. Peregrine turned towards them momentarily then turned to Les.

  ‘Do you know why American tourists talk so loud, Les?’ he asked. Norton shook his head. ‘So they can hear themselves over their clothes.’

  Norton gave a bit of a chuckle. ‘Anyway, this food looks all right.’

  ‘Yes, it certainly does. Have you made up your mind yet?’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Norton. ‘I’m going to have the Triton seafood cocktail in light raspberry sauce for starters. And … the lobster nouvelle with brandy cream and vegetables Julienne for the main. What about you, Pezz?’

  Peregrine gave the
menu one of those looks of grudging approval. ‘Well, I might have the smoked goose Riverina with red currant and port wine sauce for an entree. And the Danish fillet of beef with blue vein cheese and port wine sauce again for the main. For dessert? I’ll see how I feel after this.’

  ‘Yeah, me too. What about wine?’

  Peregrine looked at Les impassively. ‘Les, please. I only ever drink French champagne.’

  ‘You seen how much it is a bottle?’

  ‘Yes, I noticed. And if I drink ten bottles a day for the next fifty years I still wouldn’t make a dent in twelve months’ interest.’

  Norton studied the Englishman for a moment. ‘Just how much money have you got?’

  Peregrine shrugged. ‘About twenty-four million.’

  ‘Twenty-four million bucks! Shit!’

  ‘Twenty-four million pounds, Les.’

  ‘Pounds! Christ! That’s about fifty million bucks. Fuckin’ hell. What’s it like to have fifty million dollars?’

  Peregrine shrugged again. ‘Hasn’t everybody got fifty million dollars?’

  Norton shook his head and they ordered. And for the next half hour or so they ate the most beautiful food imagineable and drank ’71 Dom Perignon at $190 a bottle.

  Two bottles of shampoo had them roaring a little so they decided they might have sweets. Both went for the Banana Coruba, which was caramelised bananas rolled in coconut and almonds then flambed in Jamaican rum at the table. It got them even drunker and went down extremely well, so well, in fact that Peregrine ordered another bottle of Dom which they had brought to them in the piano bar.

  The piano bar was laid-back and tastefully decorated in shades of grey with matching cane chairs. The boys found a table beneath one of the smoked glass windows facing away from the pool. It wasn’t very crowded, one or two couples, a well-dressed man with his two young daughters and one table away were the two young girls and the older one who were in the restaurant earlier. Norton began to notice them just as the waiter placed an ice-bucket with their champagne next to their table. The two younger girls were pretty in a snooty sort of way: plenty of dark eye makeup, short auburn hair shaved up high at the back and baggy black pants rolled up to their calves above shiny Dr Martens. Apart from being a bit young they definitely weren’t Norton’s type. The one with them was, though: tall with reddish blonde hair combed loosely but neatly down each side of her face, she had piercing blue eyes and a slightly square jaw which suggested she may have been of Nordic extraction. Unlike the other two, she was wearing a trim pink and grey Reebok tracksuit and white aerobic boots. Peregrine caught the two younger girls’ eyes just as the waiter popped the bottle of champagne.

  ‘Care to join us?’ he asked politely, gesturing to the empty chairs next to him. ‘You’re more than welcome.’

  The two younger girls looked at the one in the tracksuit. She shrugged a look of ‘why not?’ and the next thing the three of them were seated at the boys’ table.

  ‘I’m Peregrine, and this is my friend, Les.’

  ‘Hello girls,’ smiled Norton. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ was the general chorus as Peregrine ordered more champagne and the piano player began tinkling ‘Stormy Weather’ in the background.

  The waiter poured the girls their drinks. There was a quick ‘cheers’ all around then it was bottoms up and the girls introduced themselves. The two younger ones were cousins, Kirsty and Josephine; Josephine at eighteen was a year older than Kirsty. They came from Armidale where they attended an exclusive young ladies’ finishing school. Their fathers were graziers with stacks of money and had promised the girls a week at Penguin Resort if they did well in some exam; which they did. The older girl was a little more formal and gave her full name which was Ingersoll Ovstedal. She was Norwegian and was the girls’ governess cum au pair girl sent along by daddy to keep an eye on them.

  ‘It is lovely here to be sure,’ said Ingersoll, sipping on her glass of bubbly. ‘But sadly we have to leave at eight in the morning. The driver calls for us.’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Peregrine. ‘I could not agree with you more. It is absolutely delightful here. And sadly we too are only here the one night ourselves. So,’ he raised his glass and smiled. ‘Why don’t we make this last night a good one?’

  ‘Yeah, why not?’ grinned Norton, glowing from all the champagne.

  ‘Reckon,’ chorused Kirsty and Josephine and tipped another glass of Dom down their sweet little throats. Ingersoll shrugged, smiled and drained her glass too.

  Three bottles of Dom Perignon later, Tuesday night at Penguin Resort was beginning to shape up quite nicely. Josephine, seated next to Peregrine, was starting to get very heavy eyes for the young Englishman; his charm, well-modulated voice and impeccable manners almost had her in a spell. Generally with two Australian girls, if one meets a guy and fancies him a bit the other will run interference and do everything in her power to drive a wedge between them. In this particular case, however, Kirsty appeared to have the hots for Peregrine herself and was doing the exact opposite. Ingersoll, who was supposed to be keeping an eye on the two girls, was now beginning to get a bit fruity herself from all the Dom and appeared to be more intent on keeping an eye on Norton, steadily moving closer towards him on the seat. Norton knew one thing for sure. He wasn’t going far. In the background the piano player tinkled from ‘Ain’t Misbehavin” straight into ‘Gimme the Moonlight, Gimme the Girl’. The man had magic in his fingers.

  ‘I say,’ exclaimed Peregrine. ‘That chap’s jolly good.’ The others all agreed. ‘Waiter!’ he called out. The waiter appeared and Peregrine had a freshly opened bottle of Dom and the ice-bucket sent to the piano player. ‘Tell the young gentleman, with our compliments. And we’ll have another two bottles.’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’

  The piano player gave a double blink when the waiter placed the ice-bucket and champagne next to him. Wide-eyed he stared over to where the waiter was pointing then smiled appreciatively. All five smiled and waved back. Drunk or not, Sir Peregrine Normanhurst III had certainly added a new dimension to the term big spender.

  ‘So, tomorrow you are leaving also, yes?’ Ingersoll said to Les.

  ‘Yeah. We’re off to the Tweed Valley for a couple of weeks,’ nodded Norton. ‘A mate of mine’s got a property up there. We’re stopping on it while he’s away.’

  ‘I wish we didn’t have to go tomorrow,’ said Kirsty. ‘I love it here.’

  ‘Yes, me too,’ added Josephine. ‘It’s so… so romantic.’ She gazed directly at Peregrine. ‘Do you find it romantic here, Peregrine?’

  Peregrine smiled softly at Josephine. ‘Are you asking me, Josephine,’ he said ‘whether this resort and the evening bring out any romance in me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Peregrine put his glass down for about the first time that evening, took Josephine by the hand and looked softly into her eyes. ‘Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,’ he began.

  What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?

  No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;

  All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.

  Then if for my love thou my love receivest,

  I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;

  But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest

  By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.

  I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,

  Although thou steal thee all my poverty;

  And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief

  To bear love’s wrong than hate’s known injury.

  Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,

  Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes.

  Poor young Josephine didn’t know what hit her. She sat there staring at Peregrine who was still holding her hand. ‘What was that?’ she blinked.

  ‘That?’ smiled Peregrine. ‘Just a little Shakespeare I picked up at Harrow. And brought on by your beauty and the delights of the evenin
g.’

  Being good and drunk, most of the verse went straight over Les and Ingersoll’s heads, but the way Peregrine recited it and really gave it the Richard Burton treatment, they had to be impressed none the less. Christ! thought Norton. Fifty million bucks or not, this boy’s got style with a capital ST.

  ‘Do you know any more?’ asked Kirsty.

  This time Peregrine took both their hands.

  Two loves I have of comfort and despair,

  Which like two spirits do suggest me still:

  The better angel is a man right fair,

  The worser spirit a woman colour’d ill.

  To win me soon to hell, my female evil

  Tempteth my better angel from my side,

  And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,

  Wooing his purity with her foul pride.

  And whether that my angel be turn’d fiend

  Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;

  But being both from me, both to each friend,

  I guess one angel in another’s hell:

  Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt,

  Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

  This left both Kirsty and Josephine starry-eyed and more than a bit wet in their pants. Peregrine was their Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise and George Michael all rolled into one. Even Ingersoll was now starting to heave a little. She moved closer to Norton and undid the top of her tracksuit slightly giving Les a glimpse of something much more spectacular than the fjords around Folgefon.

  ‘Nothing like a bit of the old bard,’ hiccupped Peregrine, ‘to add a drop of flavour to things. I only wish my tawdry voice could do the man justice.’

  ‘Oh Peregrine, it does, it does,’ chorused Josephine and Kirsty.

  ‘You’re both too kind,’ smiled the Englishman.

  They ordered and drank more champagne, then someone suggested they have a swim. Peregrine said this sounded like a jolly splendid idea and asked the head waiter if they could be served champagne out by the pool. The head waiter assured Peregrine that at $190 a bottle and the way he was throwing money around he would be served champagne if he wanted to jump off the roof with a candle stuck in his arse, singing ‘A Star Fell From Heaven’. However, Ingersoll said that she’d been outside for a bit of fresh air earlier during an excursion to the loo and the wind was now well and truly up and even though a frolic around the pool would be a lot of fun, in the middle of August at ten-thirty at night it would be rather chilly to say the least, even for an Eskimo let alone a Norwegian.