The Godson (18 page)

‘Well, what do you reckon, Peregrine?' said Norton, pouring himself a drink. ‘The odds are certainly in our favour. You could have a head like an apple on a stick and still finish up with something here tonight.'

‘Yes, I agree. There's no shortage of crumpet here, is there? But my hat. Some of them look old enough to be your aunty.'

‘Yeah, you're right. They're nearly all diesels. Still, there's got to be something in there worth cutting out of the herd.'

‘Mmmhh,' nodded Peregrine. ‘I imagine we'll find a tradein somewhere before the night is over.'

They stood against the wall, watching the dancers moving around in the smog from the smoke machine, finished the first bottle of champagne and ordered another. For some reason
Norton suddenly found he was bored. What should have been a smorgasbord of women was starting to look more like a big feed of stale cheese sandwiches and sausage rolls. The music was plain, bland disco, each song sounding the same as the one before, with the same monotonous bass line and beat from a drum machine. Either the disc jockey had never heard of Machinations or The Angels or Rose Tattoo, or if he had, he was keeping the Zinkoff team safe from them. After thirty minutes of boom-boom-boom-boom-bum-bum-bum-bumone-two-three-four, Norton would have given his left nut for a bit of Spy Vs Spy. Then he noticed Peregrine had zeroed in on something like a point-setter.

A pretty little girl of about twenty-one, with short dark hair bobbed under an elfin face and pert lips was walking towards them holding a drink. She was wearing a blue lurex top tucked into stretch black tights and a wide black belt with a huge silver buckle hugged her tiny waist. Peregrine waited till she was almost on top of them, then he struck.

‘Cynthia,' he beamed, bringing his hands up to his side. ‘I say! Imagine running into you. And in here of all places.' The young girl looked at Peregrine quizzically as the Englishman drew back slightly. ‘It
is
Cynthia isn't it? Cynthia Robards? Celeste's sister? You came to the studio with her the other week when she put down that demo tape?'

The young girl smiled and shook her head. ‘My name's Heather. I'm a hairdresser. I come from Port Macquarie.'

‘Oh dear me,' spluttered Peregrine. ‘I am so sorry. I had you confused with someone else. My deepest apologies.'

‘That's okay,' shrugged the girl. ‘Don't worry about it.' She looked at Peregrine for a moment; something in his voice had her in. ‘What did you mean — put down a demo tape?'

‘My father owns EMI records in London. I'm out here on a business trip promoting Mick Jagger's new album. Celeste Robards was in the studio a week or so ago getting her new album together and she brought her young sister with her. They're both in Australia at the moment seeing some relatives and I thought it was you. The similarity is quite uncanny I must say. Quite.' The young hairdresser didn't really know what to say, but Peregrine had her in. And he was about the only guy there close to her age and his old man owned EMI records. That had to be a plus. ‘Anyway,' continued Peregrine, still oozing charm. ‘It is rather dark in here, and one can make a mistake. So may I offer you a glass of champagne to make up for me being such a prat?'

‘Well… yes. Thank you. That'd be nice.'

Peregrine took her half-finished drink from her, handed her a glass from the ice-bucket and topped it up. ‘I'd best get another bottle. That one's finito.' He nodded to the waiter standing by the restaurant door, who nodded back. ‘Heather, is it?'

‘Yes.'

‘I'm Peregrine. And this is Les.'

‘How are you, Heather?'

‘Hi, Les.'

As Heather turned to Norton, Peregrine wiggled his eyebrows at him over her shoulder. Les smiled back but not too obviously. Well, chalk one up to you, Peregrine old son. The oldest dodge in the world: haven't I met you somewhere before? And he's pulled off a new variation of it. He edged away slightly to give Peregrine a chance to fill Heather full of Dom Perignon and piss in her pocket at the same time. Well, it's catch and kill your own in here. Now what about yours truly?

Norton let his eyes run around the disco in the solarium again and couldn't help but find his thoughts running back to Ingersoll in her pink and grey tracksuit. The women around him may have been clean and well-dressed, but there were definitely no Norwegian au pair girls. There had to be a possibility on the fringes though somehow. He was trying to fathom it out when he heard an over-polite voice to his right.

‘Hi there. How are you?'

She was about thirty-five, blonde, in a white sweat-shirt and loose pants holding a drink and a cigarette. She had a big arse and no tits and the nicest thing you could say about her face, which supported several double chins, was that it was homely.

‘Pretty good, thanks,' replied Les, then dodged around her with a side step Russell Fairfax would have clapped.

Someone sitting at the end of a lounge next to four other women had caught his eye earlier. She was no more than thirty. She had jet black hair combed in two neat bangs up under her chin, sexy dark eyes edged tastefully with mascara and long pink fingernails. A sleeveless black dress with Stiletto stencilled across the front in silver was wrapped around a whippy body emphasising the thin silver jewellery around her neck and wrists. Unlike the gushing women seated next to her she'd left her Zinkoff name-tag in her room and she had fox, written all over her in capital letters. Their eyes had met for a brief moment earlier and she had returned Norton's smile. After
leaving ‘fat arse' in his wake with a body swerve, Les squatted down next to the one in the black dress.

‘You mind if I sit down here for a moment?' he said. ‘There's a couple of poofs over there keep trying to get on to me.'

Black dress looked at him indifferently for a moment, except for the hint of a smile creasing the corners of her eyes. ‘That wouldn't surprise me,' she said. ‘It's probably the shirt.'

Norton had to give her a double blink. He'd tried to be a bit clever and she'd flattened him with a perfect squelch. ‘Shirt? What's wrong with my shirt?'

‘Nothing. Apart from looking like you just pulled it out of salad-dip, it looks terrific.' Black dress seemed to look foxier than ever when she could see she had the big Queenslander stuffed for a comeback.

‘Lovely, isn't it?' said Les, shaking his head. ‘I'm feeling all emotional and upset so I come to you for a bit of comfort and understanding. And all you do is insult me.' He reflected into his drink. ‘I dunno. It's a tough old world and it's getting tougher.'

‘I think you'll live with it, handsome.' She let her eyes run across to where Peregrine was still talking to Heather. ‘I noticed you and your friend over there getting into that Dom Perignon like you own half of Bordeaux. Any chance of a glass?'

‘You like a bit of French shampoo, do you?'

‘I love it. But unfortunately it's not on the Zinkoff free list.'

‘Say no more,' smiled Norton.

This was the moment Les had been waiting for. He looked across the dance floor, held up his hand and caught the head waiter's eye then made the appropriate gestures with his fingers. The head waiter understood perfectly. In roughly two minutes he was over with a fresh bottle in an ice-bucket and two glasses. Long enough for Les to find out Foxy's name was Margaret and to tell her his.

‘Room 220, is it, sir?' said the head waiter.

‘Of course,' replied Norton, winking over at Peregrine as he signed the bill and slipped the head waiter a twenty; not too flashily but enough to make sure Margaret could see. Norton figured it was worth the excruciating pain of having to extract a rock lobster from his kick to bridge up a bit and it was the first time he'd put his hand in his pocket since they'd arrived at the resort.

‘Anyway, cheers,' said Les, after he'd topped up her glass.

‘Yes, cheers. And thank you. This is lovely.'

‘So where are you from, Margaret?' he asked.

‘Melbourne. A place called Box Hill.'

‘Melbourne!' Les took another look at her eyes. ‘I might have guessed,' he smiled.

‘Why's that?'

Norton was almost laughing. ‘I was down there not so long ago.'

It turned out Margaret was originally a hairdresser but had been a sales rep for Zinkoff for the last nine years and was now the area manager for the district in Melbourne where she lived. The job didn't turn her on all that much but it was ten times easier than hairdressing, she now knew all the lurks and perks and all her clients and she'd be lucky if she worked three hours a day; so she'd be foolish to toss it in. She lived on her own after being married for four years to a builder who drank too much and was now divorced. Not being all that company motivated, the sales convention didn't turn her on much either. But it was a break from Melbourne and part of the job and things could definitely have been a lot worse than drinking champagne in Penguin Resort.

Les told Margaret he was a physiotherapist with a practice in Double Bay. Peregrine's brother was Mark Knopfler the guitarist in Dire Straits and was in Australia buying a property on the North Coast on behalf of his brother. Les had been the band's official masseur and physiotherapist the last time they toured Australia. Mark had kept in touch with him and had his brother contact him when he arrived in Australia to be his driver and advisor while he looked over various properties in NSW. It was all expenses paid and there was a good earn for Les at the end. How could I possibly think up a contrived load of horseshit like that? Les mused. It must be this bloody champagne. Still, it's better than telling her I'm a bouncer up the Cross and Peregrine is a pommy pisspot on the run from the IRA. But it went over all right with Margaret. She was impressed and even thought Les looked like he could have been a masseur because he had big strong-looking hands.

They began to get along famously. They knocked over one bottle of Dom and Les ordered another. She introduced him briefly to the women on her right who gave him polite but uninterested smiles, which suited Les because they were a boring, suburban-looking lot — their names went in one ear and out the other and he didn't feel like sharing any of his champagne with them. Starting to glow a little from the French fizz, Margaret suggested they have a dance. Why not? thought Norton and chivalrously helped her to her feet. As they moved
on to the dance floor he noticed Peregrine was nowhere to be seen.

Margaret wasn't real bad on her feet, much better than Les, with lots of hand and hip movements as she spun in and out of the other dancers. To Norton's ear the music wasn't the best for dancing to but he jigged around, even did a bit of dirty dancing and found he was starting to enjoy Margaret's company. He also found he was enjoying the thought of getting into her pants. They had a few more dances then some real lemon came on so they sat down.

Some of the other women had gone when they returned to the table and the disco now seemed to be thinning out in general. Les sat down next to Margaret and figured this might be as good a time as any to make a move.

‘Well, Margaret,' he said, pouring them the remainder of the second bottle. ‘Looks like this'll be over soon. What are you thinking of doing then?'

‘I don't really know, Les, not much I don't think. I have to be up reasonably early in the morning. We've got quite a few things on tomorrow.'

‘Yeah, we're leaving ourselves tomorrow. But,' Norton shrugged. ‘I was going to say, if you want to, you could come back to my room, we could have another bottle of champagne and I'll give your back a bit of a rub. I won't charge you Double Bay prices.'

Margaret smiled at him from across the top of her glass while she thought about it; and somehow seemed to look more like a fox than ever. ‘All right, then,' she said. ‘Just for a little while, though. But I won't walk out with you. I'll say goodnight to some people here and I'll meet you in your room in about twenty minutes.'

‘Okay,' said Les, getting to his feet. ‘It's room 219. See you then.'

‘Bye, Les.'

Norton drifted off towards the lift whistling softly to himself. This could turn out to be all right, he thought. That sheila from Melbourne is a dead set horn. And I know where I'd like to give that little fox physiotherapy. Right on her beaver. He got to his room and rang for another bottle of Dom Perignon. While it was arriving he switched the TV on to more rock video on SKY channel and got changed into a tracksuit. Almost half an hour later Les was thinking she might have changed her mind when there was a light tap on the door.

‘I'm a few minutes late,' said Margaret, as she stepped inside.
‘It took a little longer to get away than I thought.'

‘That's okay. I see you got changed too.' Les noticed she was wearing a blue and white, Qa Va tracksuit which clung to her willowy body in all the right places.

‘Yes. This is much more comfortable. Besides, after three hours in that disco my dress smelt like a bag full of hamhocks.'

‘You don't smoke?' Margaret shook her head. ‘No. Neither do I.'

‘My husband used to and half the time it was like kissing an ashtray.'

Norton chuckled. ‘Yeah. They're not the best are they? Anyway, I've got another nice bottle of shampoo chilling over there. Why don't we have a glass?'

‘Wonderful. Thank you.'

Les poured them both a drink and they moved across to the sliding glass door. The view across the balcony was almost as beautiful as the one the night before, with possibly just a few more tufts of cloud drifting lazily across the night sky.

‘You've certainly got a nice view from here, haven't you?'

‘It's not bad, yeah. What's yours like?'

‘All right, but we're on the other side.'

‘We?'

‘I'm sharing with another girl from Melbourne.'