He looked at me straight in the eye, as he lit a very long cigarette with a very gold lighter. One eyebrow was still up there. which seemed quite an achievement with all the eyeballing and cigarette lighting that was going on.
'Blimey,' I said.
'Well, enjoy it, because this may be a small town by world standards but it's a tough one. The knives are just as sharp here as they are on Fleet Street or whatever, and they are wielded by the most surprising people.
'And two other things.' He counted them out on his fingers.
'One: watch out for that Jasper O'Connor, he's as big a prick as he looks in that stupid hat; and two: you need to have manicures. Sydney is a nails town. You're a smart girl, you'll find out. In the meantime, if you'd like some more unsolicited advice, call me. This i my card. Goodbye.
With one last salute from his eyebrows, he picked up one empty glass and two full bottles of champagne and shouldered into the crowd.
Feeling slightly like I'd just been mugged, I looked down at the small card he'd given me, which said 'Anthony Maybury. Costumier', and automatically ran my finger over the type to see if it was engraved.
'Yes, it is braille.' I heard him say, but when I looked up, he'd gone. And then I realised something else about Anthony Maybury, costumier. He was the only person at the party not wearing a hat.
Even though it was just after four in the afternoon the place was already pumping, and the lavishness of the headgear made the room seem even more crowded than it was. The noise level was unbelievable, with shrieks of hilarious laughter and general yelling almost drowinng out the DJ. There seemed to be all age groups here, from beautiful young creatures to middle-aged men and women, and they were all milling around, hopping from group to group and greeting each other with great hugs and cries of delight.
I had been invited to this fixture in Sydney's alternative social calender just a few nights before, when I'd met its host, Danny Green, at a special preview of an exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum.
I wasn't aware I knew Danny until he bustled over to me, with three cameras around his neck, kissed me warmly on both cheeks, and pushed me together with two total strangers to take our picture. I had no idea why and it seemed rude to ask. He seemed very nice, whoever he was.
'Oh and Georgie,' he'd said, after asking how to spell my name and ignoring my repeated corrections of 'Georgia, not Georgie, Georgia.' 'You must come to my Australia Day party this weekend. Everyone comes - you'll love it. You can meet all of Sydney in one go. It's in my studio and the only rules are: wear a hat and bring a bottlw. I lay on the tea. Everyone lays on top of everyone else.'
He whooped with laughter and thrust an invitation at me, featuring a picture of him in a Mad Hatter's topper with a condom tucked into the band, holding a black poodle wearing the same.
'And the great thing is,' he added, conspiratorially, 'even though it's on a Sunday, everyone's got the Monday off, so we can get as trashed as we like.'
When I got home that night I called the only person I felt I'd really got to know in the two weeks I'd been in Sydney, to find out if I should go or not.
Liinda Vidovic was the features writer at Glow magazine, where I worked. It was a monthly glossy aimed at eighteen - to twenty-six-year-old women and full of useful information about orgasm, lipstick and the precise anatomy of the male sexual organs. Following our advice, conscientious readers of Glow could learn to jog in high heels, lose weight through multiple orgasms, exercise their stomach muscles while delivering the perfect blow job and balance their cheque books while flirting with the boss (male or female, we advocated flirting with everyone, even dogs and inanimate objects).
When I came in as deputy editor, Liinda and I bonded on sight because we had the same Prada handbag. (I didn't find our until later that hers was a Bangkok fake.) I was also intrigued to find out that she'd changed her name from Linda to Liinda by deed poll, because it was more fortuitous in numerology, one of the many ologies which rule her life.
Bag aside, Liinda was also thrilled to meet me because she knew I'd arriced from London with a severly broken heart. Liinda loved emotional catasrophes more than anything. There was always the chance she might get a feature idea out of them. I was shaping up to be 'If You Leave the Country, Will He Leave Your Heart?', which was definite coverline material. And coverlines are everything on a magazine like Glow. As the editor, Maxine Thane, was always telling us: 'Coverlines are what sell magazines, girls. Not all the shit inside.'
I did believe Liinda liked me - she had done my astrological chart within an hour of our meeting ans announced with glee that we were destined to have an intense, supportive friendship punctuated with major dramas, because she is a triple Scorpio and I am a Gemini with Scorpio rising. But I was also aware of the coverline factor, although I couldn't really blame her - my romantic disaster was a gothis horror.
The man I had come to Australia to forget was called Rick (rhymes with ... ) Robinson. What can I tell you abotu him? He was the senior art director at a major London advertising agency. Very highly paid, very good looing (black hair, blue eyes, devastating smile, that kind of thing), very bright, very successful, very groovy. We'd been together for five years and were, in fact, 'engaged' (a 'hideously' bourgeois term, according to Rick). But it wasn't his impressive CV and vintage Mercedes convertible that attracted me - I really loved Rick. He was funny. He was thoughtful. He was an Exocet missile in bed.
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