Pants on Fire Read Free

good root.” Then, after explaining what a “root” was, she told me she’d heard there was a job going back in Sydney on Glow. I stopped crying immediately. A little ray of sunlight lit up my brain. I already knew the mag and loved it. We had it airmailed over to the Kitty office every month, so we could rip off all their ideas. I’d love to work on Glow, I decided—and wasn’t Sydney full of gorgeous men who looked like Mel Gibson, but taller?
    I applied for the job straightaway, had a five-minute phone conversation with the editor and took it. The starting date was in one month’s time. My friends thought I’d gone nuts again. But I knew exactly what I was doing—I’d read A Town Like Alice, I knew what happened to English gels who went to Australia. They met marvellous men with strong forearms who tipped their hats, saved your life and then took you off to live in a house surrounded by verandahs on a farm as big as Wales. I could hardly wait.
    After two weeks in Sydney I hadn’t met him yet, and I wondered if Danny Green’s Australia Day party might be a good hunting ground. So I got on the phone to ask Liinda’s opinion.
    â€œDanny Green?” she said in her gravelly voice, the product of several daily packets of Marlboro and a fair helping of affectation. “Yes, I know him. He’s a half-witted social photographer—you’ll probably be in the Sun-Herald party pages, how embarrassing for you. Danny Green knows every junkie model, society hooker, ageing hack, corrupt magazine editor, actor-turned-waitress, bitter fashion designer, trust-fund bunny, coke-addicted stockbroker, anorexic hairdresser, closet queen, career bullshitter and bum bandit in town.
    â€œHe’s famous for parties which I’m told resemble the last days of the court of Caligula. You’re guaranteed to leave with your IQ three points lower than when you arrived. I’d rather walk naked through the David Jones cosmetics hall than go to one. You’ll love it.”
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    Looking round at the heaving mass of people, squealing and air-kissing each other under their hats, Liinda’s assessment of the crowd seemed pretty accurate. And she was right, I did love it. These posturing queens and chic, bitter women, all simultaneously smoking, drinking and shouting, clearly intent on embracing oblivion as soon as possible, were exactly my kind of people. Brittle, brilliant, pretentious, original, bitchy, hilarious, worn out, vicious, warm. Where fashion, art and the media collide, I thought. Home.
    â€œWhat a lovely smile. You must be thinking about something you like.” Standing next to me at the drinks table was a man who looked like something from a 1960s’ Qantas travel poster. Dark blond hair, ridiculously white teeth, a perfectly judged sprinkling of freckles and blue eyes with regulation issue Aussie bloke crinkly edges, the whole package twinkling out from underneath a very battered and bent Akubra hat.
    â€œActually, I was thinking how much I like parties,” I replied.
    â€œIs that right? So do I. Wanna dance?”
    Without waiting for a reply, or even a change of expression, he grabbed my hand and pulled me through the crowd to an area where people were throwing themselves around like lunatics. A lot of the men had their shirts off and their hands over their heads, all the better to show off their washboard stomachs and chunky upper arms.
    â€œBilly Ryan,” he shouted into my ear as he spun me into an accomplished rock and roll turn, seemingly oblivious to the fact that we were dancing to hardcore techno.
    â€œGeorgia . . .”
    As he pushed me away into another spin I was able to get my first good look at him. In stark contrast to the rest of the crowd, who were clad in skin-tight T-shirts, lacy slip dresses, or general designer black, Billy Ryan was dressed in what I’d only recently found out were called moleskin pants,