Dog Handling Part 5

"Why not?"

"Men are like dogs: you have to train them. If they get what they want straightaway, they lose interest. You can't give away the goods just like that." James snapped his fingers to demonstrate how quickly Will would head for the hills.

"Boys, boys. 'Give away the goods.' This is the twenty-first century. Now usually I would defer to your better judgement, but I want s.e.x, not everlasting love. So thanks all the same," Liv insisted as she went off for a wander around the market to ponder the problem of whether painted toenails or nude ones were s.e.xier. Dave and James looked at each other.

"She won't be saying that when he doesn't call." James shook his head ominously.

"Heartache waiting to happen," Dave agreed.

Half an hour, two smoothies, and one vegetable pasty later, Liv arrived back and tweaked one of Dave's pigtails, having decided that nude was always s.e.xier.

"I think we're breaking through. We're a success." James started hugging her furiously, kissing her madly.

"You've changed your mind and I am allowed to have s.e.x after all. Is that it?" She chucked her cup in the rubbish bin and smiled. "Well, it's nice to have your blessing. Thanks, boys."

"Gorgeous, we just had our best-ever customer." He pointed to the almost empty stall-rows of missing lace undies, a gap where a sequinned bodice had been, and a transparent turquoise bra had vanished.

"Who?" Liv asked, suddenly worried that her own rather unique breast size might just be freaky and not fit anyone else.

"Amelia Fraser. Sydney socialite and general G.o.ddess." He smiled. "She almost bought us out."

"Amelia skinny blonde leather pants Amelia?" Liv asked.

"More like very little denim skirt, T-s.h.i.+rt v.small and so tight I could tell she didn't actually need a bra." He looked into the sky as he recalled the unbelievableness of Amelia, "You know, even though her t.i.ts are big enough to make you weep, they'd still stand the pencil test. Amazing!"

"What pencil test?" Liv asked, suddenly diverted and jealous and wis.h.i.+ng she had an HB handy to measure her own amazingness with.

But James hadn't heard. "So do you mean to say you actually know her?" He turned to Liv as he registered what she'd said.

"Saw her at the races on Sat.u.r.day. She's got a boyfriend, I know, but I think she's having an affair with a serf." Liv smiled, proud that though she'd been in town only a few weeks she had a handle on the gossip.

"Listen, if Greta's Grundies do the trick for her she can do the dirty with whomsoever she likes. She's always in Vogue, you know. Just hope she spreads the word."

James got back to work flushed with excitement, and Liv craned her neck around the other stalls, wondering if maybe she could pick up a tip or two on being a G.o.ddess by watching Amelia Fraser.

"Lush boyfriend, too, though. Can't think why she'd want to fool around with anyone else. He's very s.e.xy in that 'could be queer' kind of way."

"He's not queer, James. Take my word for it."

"I'm not taking the word of an ingenue on anything. Come back to me when you're all grown and maybe then I'll listen," James mused, and began to sketch a new G-string with the inspiration of it all.

Liv contemplated telling them exactly how she knew but was too caught up with the fact that Ben Parker had been here just minutes ago-she wondered if he'd left a chewed bit of gum behind or something she could take home for a keepsake, but not a relic in sight. So she pushed Ben to the back of her mind and focused on a magazine article telling her how to drive her man wild in bed. "Only revision," she told James when he asked her how she'd managed to reach the age of twenty-seven without such a necessary life skill. At least when the time came for Ben and Amelia to get divorced she'd be prepared, Liv rea.s.sured herself as she memorised one particularly complicated twist-and-squeeze routine that might well change her life forever.

Chapter Nine.

You've Come a Long Way, Baby The restaurant that Liv and Will had arranged to meet in was a cla.s.sically Australian affair-tucked behind a pub-but nonetheless, the food in all these joints was worthy of a Michelin star and you didn't have to put up with stiff waiters trying to shove napkins down the front of your s.h.i.+rt. But as she sat waiting Liv suddenly realised that she couldn't even slightly remember what Will looked like. She knew vaguely that he was stocky and un-Tim-like but not much else. Darkish hair, ish-ish nose, but that was about it. She hadn't a clue. So it was just as well that with her dark hair and still stupidly pale skin she stood out from every other golden six-foot blond girl in the restaurant and he could identify her should he, too, have forgotten.

"Liv, you look great." Will strode across the restaurant and was far too competent to have forgotten her. "Am I late? Have you been here ages?" he asked as he kissed her very comfortably on the lips.

Good, no messing around. I like that, thought Liv.

"I only live round the corner, so I was here before I knew it." Liv smiled.

"Good. Now I figure that because we don't really know each other it's going to be awkward for about an hour and then it'll be okay," he said as he reached for the wine waiter.

"Okay." Liv shrugged. This was nice-a straight-talking, to-the-point man. Couldn't have been further from . . . oh, she wasn't going to even think about Tim, was she? No. And she didn't want to. Who wanted some s.h.i.+lly-shallying, polite tiptoer through tulips when Will told it like it was in that rather disarming war-correspondent way?

"Red or white?" he asked as he scanned the menu. "Or champagne. Let's start as we mean to go on."

And so they went on. And on and on. Chatting about pretty much everything, laughing properly at each other's jokes, discovering that they'd both had a penchant for break dancing as fifteen-year-olds, and Liv kept stealing glances at Will and though he was just as chubby as she'd remembered, just as not-her-type-in fact, not many people's type really in the looks department-there was definitely something about him. And when he'd taken her hand and put it palm-to-palm with his and looked into her eyes and talked about the incompatibility of life in war zones and finding the woman of your dreams, she'd almost volunteered herself: "Fear not, not-so-fair William, for I'm here. And your luck's in tonight, because I'm insta-bride-I've still got a ring at home and actually a whole b.l.o.o.d.y wedding planned, with a cake in my mum's freezer and a Bedouin tent and Carpenters tribute band because I couldn't quite bring myself to cancel it because I was in such a state of denial." Except of course she didn't say this, because the next thing she knew they'd polished off the poached pears in cardamom syrup, he was kissing her neck outside a bar on Oxford Street, they were three margaritas up, and it seemed unimportant because it was so clear that they were destined to be together. Oh, and it was rude to talk with your mouth full. So instead of discussing wedding plans they kissed a lot.

"Come back to mine?" Will asked as they walked and kissed and stopped occasionally for something a bit more heavy-duty by someone's garden wall on their way back to his house.

"Oh, I don't know," Liv mumbled, remembering what James had said about first dates. Would Will think she was easy? He pressed himself against her, making her feel as sweet and salty as a margarita inside. "Yeah, okay." Liv was persuaded, her decision owing just a bit to the blood rush to long-forgotten places.

He laughed and brushed her hair back from her face and looked at her. "You're very cute, Liv."

"Thanks." She wanted to add that he was cute, too, but as he wasn't she'd have had to qualify it with lots of stuff about great personality and quick mind and fantastic sense of humour because he so clearly wasn't an oil painting and he must know that. Still, it didn't detract from his confidence, which was so magnetic that about six minutes and forty-five seconds later Liv was lying naked on his bed as he trailed his hands over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Blimey. You've come a long way, baby, she thought to herself as she reached for Will's love handles and completely began to see the point of chubby boys.

The Walk of Shame. G.o.d, how Liv loved it. All the mornings she'd looked enviously at girls she'd pa.s.sed on the street as they shuffled along in crumpled skirts and high heels and crushed-but-happy hair on their way home from some wanton encounter in Shepherd's Bush. And now it was her turn. She knew everyone would think she was a cheap little s.l.u.t, but this was a novelty for Liv. She'd spent five years being Miss Sensible Knickers and she was d.a.m.ned well going to wring every drop out of her night of raunch with Will. She'd had a fantastic f.u.c.kfest, some real headboard-cras.h.i.+ng, knicker-melting s.e.x, and she was going to savour the moment. She meandered her way home along Oxford Street and tried to do fairy steps just to make it last: her eyeliner somewhere about her ears, a little cut on her lip, her nose all peeling from stubble burn but the rest of her glowing. No more expensive face creams required, either; she'd forgotten how s.e.x made your skin gorgeous. No matter that her T-s.h.i.+rt was on inside out because she was cruising the Walk of Shame past the people waiting at bus stops and couples sitting in cafes picking at sun-dried-tomato m.u.f.fins. Past the joggers who should learn alternative ways of firming the inner thighs. She smiled smugly. Ah, her hormones soared with the late-morning sun as she thought gratefully of Will. Never had a man been more wonderfully useful, she mused as she examined a scratch on her arm and a bruise on her knee proudly. Wounds of love. She smiled dramatically and wondered what she'd ever seen in Tim and his mundane ways. Better to be s.h.a.gged senseless by a war correspondent once than a lifetime of the same old, same old know what's coming next. What a boring concept forever is when you have last night, she decided.

And so Liv's grin lasted until about Tuesday afternoon. Two and a half days of postcoital daftness, which included smiling even though her bank threatened to cut off her credit cards and laughing in the face of all her white clothes being mutilated by a rogue pink sock in the wash. And then she began to wonder why the phone hadn't rung. What exactly had happened to the man who'd turned her world upside down and pushed Tim to a dusty corner along with her Duran Duran alb.u.ms and lock-up diary of 1995?

"Perhaps he's gone to Bosnia again," Liv mused to Alex as she pulled on her swimsuit with one hand and cradled the phone with the other.

"Erm . . . no . . . Charlie saw him at The Royal last night," Alex said reluctantly.

"Playing it cool?" Liv tried again, though she hadn't got Will down as the playing anything type. He was way too up-front for that.

"Probably, I'm sure," Alex rea.s.sured her.

"Okay, well, we'll talk about it later. I've got to dash to my surfing lesson-do you want to come along and watch?" Liv asked as she grabbed her towel and some factor 37,000 sunblock.

"Oooh, please. I'll just go and oil myself up." Alex hummed. "See you there in twenty."

"I can't stand up!" Liv yelled to the man who was standing up on a surfboard three feet away.

"Just kneel to begin with. Then you're away!" Justin hollered back.

Liv got onto all fours. "It's no use. I can't!" she called. "It's just so b.l.o.o.d.y embarra.s.sing." She looked around the beach and at the small group of j.a.panese tourists who'd abandoned their sunbathing to watch her learn to surf on the sand. Not a wave in sight. "Can't we just go into the sea and do it?"

"Unless you can sort yer balance out here, love, you'll be bats.h.i.+t in the water." Justin came over to Liv and started to pick up her legs and rearrange her arms. She'd enrolled in the surf course a couple of weeks ago after she'd spoken to Fay, who had asked her what mind-altering, character-building things she'd been doing since they last spoke. What could she say? I drank too much in this great restaurant in Surry Hills last night. I discovered a fabulous cheese called King Island Vintage Cheddar, which is now enjoying a new lease of life around my midriff. Oh, and yes, I spent an entire evening flicking through Laura's back issues of Vogue and Cleo looking for pictures of Ben Parker and his girlfriend Amelia Fraser. And at the time her night of l.u.s.t with War Zone Will, now Missing in Action Man, hadn't even been a glint in her eye, so she'd had nothing to divulge on the jackeroo front. So she improvised and said she'd enrolled at Surf School. It came out of her mouth as she watched a cl.u.s.ter of pigeon-chested teenagers run fearlessly into the ocean with their boogie boards on Home and Away, which was on the telly at the time. She had no intention of really doing it, but her conscience finally got the better of her and the next morning she had signed up for a twelve-week course before she could say "dumb idiot with no sense of balance."

Justin was her instructor, who, despite his angel face, Liv was beginning to realise was as formidable as Arnold Schwarzenegger. There was no s.h.i.+rking, no girlish wimpiness allowed.

"We'll have you surfing Wiaimae in no time at all," he a.s.sured her, which may or may not have been a good thing depending on what Wiaimae was. This morning she'd tried to skive her cla.s.s altogether, but when she came down for her midday dip and sunbathe with Alex he'd spotted her by the ice-cream kiosk and given her a ticking off.

"It's not my time you're wasting, Liv. I get to sit in the sun and watch the babes for the entire hour you're not there. But you're cheating yourself out of achievement." He looked earnestly at her from above the stripe of green zinc across his nose and told her he had a free slot at four that afternoon if she wanted to redeem herself. Liv hung her head and agreed that she would.

As she'd slunk away in disgrace Alex let out a low whistle. "Fantastic. How much do you pay him to be strict with you?" she asked, casting a glance back at his perfect young body and shoulder-length blond hair.

"Too much, clearly. If he were earning a fiver an hour he wouldn't care." Liv sulked, thinking now she wouldn't be able to watch The Bold and the Beautiful and wait in for Will's phone call that afternoon.

Alex had taken time out between her Indian head ma.s.sage and a trip to the library to watch Liv grow, as she put it. Really, she just wanted to perv at Justin. She walked along the sand looking like the perfect Australian Beach Babe-she had on a hot pink string bikini and pair of sneakers and her hair was getting longer and blonder by the day. Even though sunbathing was practically illegal in Australia, given their understandable aversion to skin cancer, Alex had managed to fake a dipped-in-something-sweet-as-honey colour. And just to add to her cuteness-as if bonus points were needed-Alex had brought along Charlie's new puppy. Mate was a Jack Russell terrier who accessorised Alex's beach bag perfectly. Charlie had got him as a babe magnet but was off in Melbourne for the day so had left him in Alex's care. He salivated adorably on Alex's shoulder.

"All right, Liv? You're getting good at that." She smiled and settled herself on a towel nearby with Mate beside her licking her knee. Liv tried to ignore her as she toyed with a block of something called s.e.x Wax, which was meant to stop her falling off the board. She wondered what would happen if she rubbed it on her body.

"Do you reckon lifeguards and dogs would fall in love with me and follow me along the beach like a body spray advert?" she asked Justin.

"More like flies from miles around would flock to you. Like a human dog-poo," he replied seriously.

Liv brushed off the insult and turned on Alex. She knew Alex was only here so she could check out Justin's tuition and low-slung blue board shorts. While she was a cynic when it came to rich, older men, she did seem to come over all romantic and misty-eyed in the presence of penniless youngsters like Justin.

"What are you still doing here, you voyeur?" Liv barked at Alex.

"I can look, can't I?" Alex said shamelessly. And she proceeded to look and drool and occasionally dip into her novel.

"Okay, we'll call it a day, Livvo. See you down here seven A.M. tomorrow. Thought we'd get a bit of speed work done, so put on a bathing suit that you're not going to lose in the surf." Justin dusted the sand off the back of Liv's legs as Alex's eyes practically popped out.

"I must say I completely approve of you having an affair with your surf instructor," said Alex as they made their way back to the cottage with Mate once again in Alex's bag.

"I don't want an affair with Justin," Liv whispered, turning around to make sure he couldn't hear. "Anyway, I've got a lover," Liv said, though she was far from certain. She really ought to dash home and listen to her messages.

"Yeah, but he's nowhere near keen enough. It's no good having a lover who's not around to provide da luvvin'," Alex said. "So Little Justin would be perfect. Uncomplicated l.u.s.t. Keen as mustard and no chance that you'll fall in love with him-he's too young and eager."

"I don't fancy him," said Liv.

"That's because your mind isn't open to the experience yet. You're still thinking like a faithful girlfriend. You've just replaced Tiny Tim with Will the Weasel, who, it has to be said, is not known for his sense of commitment. You need to get in touch with your inner woman," advised Alex.

"There's quite enough outer woman for me to deal with first." Liv felt her bottom trail behind her like a small child. "Don't you think we should let Mate out for a bit of exercise?"

"Sure. Help yourself," Alex said as Liv lifted the panting pup from his beach-bag transport.

"Here you go, Mate. Fetch." Liv threw a nearby stick for the dog, but he just eyed her in a bored fas.h.i.+on and rolled around on the sand.

"You have to be firm with him," Alex told Liv. "Watch." She went and stood beside the puppy. "Sit," she said, and raised a forbidding eyebrow at the tiny hound. Mate sat and flashed her adoring eyes.

"Okay. Sit," Liv repeated, but Mate just looked at her and then began to maul her sandal. "Oy, get off!" she yelped, and tried to shake him free. He clung on for dear life with his deceptively strong jaws.

"You just don't have the knack, Liv. You're much too nice. He just takes one look into your eyes and knows you don't mean business. You have to get tough," Alex advised. "Oh, and by the way, I think that you should dump Will," she added.

"I will. I really will. Just as soon as he calls me," Liv said bravely. "It's funny, but James said this would happen. He said I shouldn't give away the goods on a first date. That I ought to treat men like dogs-train them and not give in to them. Which, judging by my success with Mate, I'm clearly c.r.a.p at."

"James has a point," Alex said as they neared the cottage. "I always train my boys. Slap them across the nose with a rolled-up newspaper when they behave badly. It's the only language they understand, poor loves. And I always said you were way too easy on Tim. You should have slapped him down a lot more than you did."

"Yeah, but you're not normal, Alex. You've never been in love, so you don't know what it's like to long for a man to call you."

"I never have to long for long. Because I'm firm. They do respond to that, you know, Liv. There is such a thing as being too nice and available."

"Well, I'll be a b.i.t.c.h on wheels when Will calls then. Show him I'm not available. At least not that same night anyway," Liv decided as Alex opened the front door and they fell into the cool shadows of the cottage. Mate leapt up again and tugged at the hem of Liv's shorts. "Down, boy," she snarled firmly, trying to muster up a ferocious gaze. Mate stopped yapping for a moment and then looked up at her. "Good boy," she said much too soon, as he c.o.c.ked his leg and peed on her ankle.

"There must be someone you're interested in apart from Will?" Alex pulled a couple of c.o.kes out of the fridge and Liv washed her foot and gave Mate the evil eye.

"Well, yeah, there's somebody. Ben Parker, for instance. But I don't stand a cat in h.e.l.l's chance with him because not only is he otherwise occupied; he's occupied by Perfect Amelia, who I wouldn't even want to stand next to in a bus queue for fear of looking shabby. Let alone make a fool of myself by trying to seduce her boyfriend."

"Well, you never know about Will. I mean he might just be really, really busy. I'm sure he'll call by the weekend," Alex said. Which Liv supposed was a neat way of avoiding the fact that with Amelia as compet.i.tion in the race for Ben, Liv was definitely going to be the horse that fell at the first fence.

Chapter Ten.

If the Phone Doesn't Ring

It Can't Be Him

By Sat.u.r.day, a week and still no phone call after her date with Will, Liv was rudely awakened at six o'clock.

"Oh, G.o.d. Surfing," she croaked as she turned over and knocked the alarm to the floor. Her head puttered to life like an old car on a winter morning. As she was mentally preparing to find her swimsuit and shave her underarms, she remembered, "Sat.u.r.day. Thank G.o.d. Thank G.o.d." She buried her face back in her pillow and let herself drift back to sleep. As the warm early-morning sun was catching her hair and making her relish her lie-in she suddenly sat bolt upright. "f.u.c.k. Sat.u.r.day. I'm late." It was miserably true. She'd meant to get up at five o'clock this morning. Not six. She'd promised James that she'd help him drive his stock from some warehouse in the city and bring it to Paddington. Sure enough, the phone rang three seconds later and compounded her general trembliness. She shuddered and ran into the sitting room nursing the shred of hope that it could be Will. At 6:00 A.M. Yeah, right.

"Yes." She tried for husky, but it came out homicidal.

"Where are you? You were supposed to be here at six." It was James sounding as if he'd already jogged seven miles, breakfasted on smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, and read a spectrum of improving newspapers.

"James, I'm so sorry. I'll be there. Now," she said, pulling on a T-s.h.i.+rt that was lying on the floor. Laura's? Probably; it was disfiguringly tight and had splodges of Venice on it, but no time to lose. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail. She'd definitely overdone the frizz-smoothing serum when she'd last washed her hair, she thought as she grasped her lank, greasy locks. And trousers. Trousers? Not a prayer. She found a pair of denim shorts that might have looked good on Naomi Campbell. But only might. Oh well. Key. Wallet. Out the door.

By midmorning on the stall Liv was flagging badly. She'd given up on life and love and it was definitely showing in her appearance. Like girls who meet a man and mysteriously lose weight and s.h.i.+ne. Liv lost two men, gained weight, and became ugly. Her hands were purple with dye from all the crushed velvet she'd had to lug around the warehouse, and her face was a whiter shade of wallpaper paste. James had asked her if she wouldn't mind sitting in the back of the van and running through the books. He'd said it kindly, but she knew that in truth it just wasn't good for business to have someone who looked like a Goth who'd been in a smash on the M3 on the way home from a Cure gig in the late eighties as your muse.