The Social Diary Read online

  ‘If the police search you and find that, you’ll be charged with carrying a weapon,’ I cautioned.

  ‘I’m not going to be searched because I don’t intend to do anything wrong,’ he said. ‘I’m entitled to defend myself if I need to in extraordinary circumstances.’

  I didn’t think that he was right about that and, besides, anyone who looked like Pee Wee, with his long dreadlocks like coiled snakes halfway down his back, was always going to be drawing attention to themselves. But it was no time to argue. I had been hit by another crazy wave of adrenalin—just like getting off a scary ride and then deciding to go back on it again almost straight away.

  By the time we reached the landing on the ground floor, it seemed so quiet that I thought maybe the whole thing had fizzled out. But it turned out that this was just the universe holding its breath before more mayhem was unleashed. Seconds later I heard an almighty roar and the crackling and hiss of a fire being ignited. Just metres away, a police car had been torched, and the air filled with the sickening acrid smell of noxious fumes. I could hear police beating their shields and yelling, the sounds of sirens piercing the air.

  How ridiculous had Selma and I been to believe that we could just bob up in the middle of this battleground like intrepid girl reporters. We had been absolutely stupid. And where was Selma now? Lying injured somewhere?

  ‘Run!’ yelled Pee Wee, his voice a roar in my ear. Taking my hand he started to drag me back the way we had come, towards the entrance to his block of flats, but now there were barricades in place preventing us from going through. Yanking me in another direction, he led me at a sprint down a street of sad-looking, broken-down shops—a tawdry symbol of Brixton’s currency as a centre of commerce, without the cash flow. Now the pounding of our feet on the asphalt matched the beating of my heart. I had the irrational thought that we could run all the way back to Ladbroke Grove, but Pee Wee had other ideas; he led me into a laneway behind another block of council flats, and we stopped to catch our breath.

  My throat was burning from the fumes and exertion. ‘Oh my god, I need a drink,’ I wheezed.

  Pee Wee was frowning at his video camera. ‘There’s something wrong with the light meter,’ he grumbled. He looked up abruptly as another explosion crackled the air close to us, and suddenly we were running again. I surged out in front and could sense someone following close behind me but there wasn’t time for me to turn around and reassure myself that it was Pee Wee. I was urging myself forward when somehow I staggered and fell straight over on my right side. For a moment or two I lay there, dazed.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Pee Wee was standing over me. When I nodded weakly he urged, ‘Then get up, get up!’

  Feeling dizzy, I tried to ease myself to a standing position, and suddenly found myself blinded by the light of a torch trained on me by a couple of cops.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ they asked roughly. The sight of them so close to us worked a treat on my central nervous system, propelling me onto my feet.

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks,’ I replied, my voice nevertheless sounding shaky. I dabbed pitifully at my bleeding knee but the policemen had already turned their attention to Pee Wee, who was glowering at them.

  ‘Why were you both running?’ one of the policemen asked suspiciously.

  Jeez, why did he think? Because there was a big herd of police banging their batons on their shields and threatening to mow us down!

  It seemed the perfect time to identify myself as a working journalist. ‘Excuse me, officer,’ I said. ‘My name is Savannah Stephens and I’m covering the riots for Replay magazine.’

  They watched incredulously as I rummaged in my bag for my NUJ card, which I now proudly produced in its dog-eared plastic sleeve. ‘You see? My colleague here,’ I continued, gesturing to Pee Wee, ‘is helping with the shots.’

  The two officers looked from one of us to the other in disbelief. Finally, they seemed to decide that we were the least of their worries.

  ‘You’re going to have to go back to wherever you came from,’ one said testily. ‘This is a very sensitive operation and you’re right in the middle of it. If we see you here again tonight you will be arrested.’

  ‘I live here,’ Pee Wee snarled. ‘My flat is in the estate just around the corner.’

  ‘Well, go home and take her with you. If I see you again I’ll charge you with being a public nuisance.’

  ‘Blood clot!’ Pee Wee cursed not quite under his breath, but before the police officers could respond, he took me by the arm and we hobbled away. Personally, I was glad that we had been ordered off the streets. I was not Lois Lane, I realised; I was scared, in pain and the only thing I knew for certain was that I was not cut out to be a war correspondent, particularly when it came to urban battles. Pee Wee did not let go of my hand as we weaved our way through the back streets, passing burned-out cars, smashed windows and clusters of black youths taking stock of themselves. Luckily Pee Wee was a popular figure in the area.

  ‘Yo, Pee Wee,’ a group of young dreads shouted when they noticed him. ‘Are you all right, brother?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ he reassured them. ‘But what’s been going on here?’ he asked. He turned his camera on them, which they didn’t seem to mind at all.

  ‘Man, Babylon come and take the life of one of our youth and we had to re-tal-iate,’ said one man. ‘The police are brutalising us. We want justice.’

  I knew I should be scrabbling around in my bag for my pen and pad—here was my chance to get a first-hand account of the rioters’ grievances. But my heart wasn’t in it. In fact, I admitted to myself, my heart wasn’t in London. I had been playing at having a voice in a culture that I really didn’t understand. As I stood in that Brixton street in the early hours of the morning, the air pulsing with the sound of sirens and glass smashing and screams, I knew that this wasn’t my place. It was time to go home.

  The youths now regarded me with interest—dirty dishevelled mess that I was—as Pee Wee put a protective arm around me.

  ‘Is this your woman, man?’ they asked.

  ‘Soon will be,’ he said, winking at me lasciviously and tightening his grip around my waist.

  Oh, great! This was all I needed. Right there and then, in the middle of the most hellish scene I have ever experienced, which had just taken a turn for the worst, I made myself a vow: as soon as I made it back to my flat, I was going to start looking at options for finding work back at home in Sydney.

  One

  Sydney, 20 February 1984

  The cream door with its gold knocker was thrust open, and in the doorway stood our caramel-haired hostess, Beatrice Bonney (yes, the Beatrice Bonney; Queen Bea herself)—the celebrated charity queen and president of the ultra-exclusive Entre Nous committee. She had one wrinkly bejewelled hand resting on the doorframe; it resembled an old crocodile’s claw with about twenty carats of diamonds crammed onto it. Her long, red, bugle-beaded sheath—by local couturier Laurence Lavin—clung to her in all the wrong places as she stared with unseeing eyes into the lush, velvety Point Piper night. What did she expect to find there? Only Josef—a limousine driver, waiting patiently for the Spanish Consul-General, Raoul Hernandez, and his wife Julia, who were among the illustrious guests seated for dinner in her ballroom. (Yes, Queen Bea had her own ballroom—probably the only one in Point Piper—although most people would have referred to the subterranean space where two long banqueting tables were set up as a dining room. Certainly no formal dances had ever been held there—it just wasn’t big enough, though her acolytes were much too smitten with her to point this out.)

  Queen Bea had really outdone herself tonight. She had scattered wild roses with abandon up and down both tables. Attached to each flower stem was a small plastic tube of water, which would ensure that they, unlike some of the guests and even her own husband, Harry the Industrialist, stayed fresh until the end of the evening. She had also dusted off the family heirlooms, and there was so much fine crystal and silver at each place setting that he
r guests would hardly be able to manoeuvre their utensils, which was fortunate given her questionable talent in the kitchen. (Queen Bea didn’t believe in caterers at home; it was one of her golden rules of entertaining—Keep It Real.) On the menu tonight was avocado stuffed with crab (seafood extender) and slathered with Kraft Thousand Island dressing, a rack of lamb served with peas laced with mint leaves and her ‘famous’ baked potatoes, followed by sherry trifle for dessert. Peppermint crisps, petit fours and filtered coffee would be served with cognac and port in the ‘library’. At least that had been the plan for the evening—according to the handwritten menus placed in front of each setting.

  Queen Bea was a thoughtful host who wanted to show her guests exactly where they belonged. She had an A table peppered with major names who were served Moët, while on the B table it was domestic bubbles with the label discreetly hidden in the folds of a white napkin held firmly in place by the waiters. Like many rich people, Bea was stingy. Her other maxim when it came to entertaining was simple: if the guests weren’t used to the best, why bother serving it to them?

  However with so much planning involved, why had she abandoned her visitors to stand at the open front door? All the seats were filled, so she could not be awaiting a late arrival. Was Queen Bea now regally summoning Josef to collect the Spanish couple before the trifle had even been plated? If she was, she must be using telepathy, because her body remained quite stiff.

  ‘Mrs Bonney, it’s Savannah Stephens, is everything okay?’ I enquired delicately. I had suddenly come upon my hostess in this bizarre stance after I had made my way up the stairs in desperate search of a loo. (Cheap champagne always went right through me.) I had initially tried to follow her line of sight out into the street, but had been unable to detect anything out of the ordinary. Was the place haunted? The thought crossed my mind that perhaps she had suffered a stroke.

  I was just about to head back to the dining room—sorry, ballroom—to fetch Harry when Queen Bea suddenly spoke.

  ‘Leave!’ she said dramatically. ‘I want everyone to leave!’

  ‘Pardon?’ I was sure I must have misheard.

  There was a short silence. Was she in some kind of trance?

  ‘Everyone must go home immediately,’ she declared.

  This was truly awkward. Was it too crass to continue on to the loo (I really was busting to go) or should I do her bidding and inform the other guests of her decree? Tricky when I hardly even knew them. After all, I had only been invited as the newly appointed social diarist on The Sydney News in the hope that I would write a flattering piece about Queen Bea’s hostessing skills. But it looked like an entirely different story was starting to evolve. Would her guests take kindly to a blow-in—a gossip columnist acting as Queen Bea’s emissary—instructing them to put down their cutlery and leave the premises immédiatement?

  What to do? With the society doyenne showing no signs of leaving her post, I hurried to the loo while she wasn’t looking and decided to deal with the situation on my return. Hopefully by then someone else would have discovered her.

  It had been daunting enough just arriving at Queen Bea’s home for my first society dinner party. I had been ushered inside by a pompous butler, whose withering glance at my ensemble let me know that he did not approve of my black crepe pantsuit, which had come all the way from Kensington High Street. Maybe women were not supposed to wear pants to a black-tie dinner? He had then made me repeat my name three times before he got it right. (Apparently no one was called Savannah. What was I thinking?) Not for the first time, I questioned whether I was really cut out for a job as a social diarist. Even boring old court reporting would be preferable to this. (If only I’d passed my shorthand test . . .) But I had returned from London with a stack of press clippings from my time as a music writer in my portfolio, only to find there had been no call for entertainment writers on any of the newspapers I had tried. The only work I could get in the beginning was writing bland freelance stories about soapie stars and doing late-night shifts in news rooms, where all that was required was to man the police radio. After such demoralising employment, I thought that writing a gossip column would be fun and only slightly challenging. But I was soon to discover that I was very wrong about that.

  I didn’t know any of the guests who had gathered for pre-dinner cocktails in Queen Bea’s drawing room, which was dominated by handsome portraits of her in her debutante year, but I had certainly heard a lot about them. A huge chandelier ensured that everyone was bathed in a flattering golden light.

  ‘Hi, I’m Savannah,’ I said, introducing myself to Entre Nous’s plump, blonde vice-president, Susie Carruthers-Kard, and her reportedly lecherous husband, Emanuel, whom I recognised from the social pages.

  ‘Oh, you must be the new columnist on The Sydney News,’ Susie exclaimed, shaking my hand. ‘It’s so lovely to have you with us tonight. Do you have a photographer with you?’ She peered over my shoulder.

  I would soon discover that having a photographer on my arm was the best accessory ever in social circles. (Just as long as the photographer didn’t put me to work, holding the flash above my head.)

  ‘No, but I think there’ll be one arriving soon.’

  The paper’s official social snapper, Oliver Orlan, was a man who prided himself on his extreme tardiness, though he usually turned up to an event before it ended. There was no sign of him yet.

  A kindly woman, Susie proceeded to do her best to make me feel welcome, while Emanuel just stared at me, a half-smile playing on his fleshy lips. He seemed amused that his wife would spend time on a lowly journalist.

  The marriage of Emanuel and Susie Carruthers-Kard was the stuff of local legend. Formerly a Greek waiter at The Metropolis, Emanuel Kard had hung up his apron for good when he had married into old Sydney money. Susie’s father, grazier Horace Carruthers, had strenuously resisted his daughter’s choice of a partner (he privately referred to the handsome, mahogany-tanned Greek as a gigolo). Shortly after they started dating, Susie had duly been packed off to the snowfields of Europe, where she was introduced to a whole range of eligible men.

  ‘If she has a thing for Greeks at least she could find a shipping heir in St Moritz with a bit of money who can actually ski,’ her father told his cronies at the golf club. But on returning home to Sydney, Susie had headed straight back into Emanuel’s arms. There was nothing else for it but for Horace to ensure that his daughter’s finances were structured in such a way that his prospective son-in-law could not access them without a great deal of difficulty.

  The wedding at St Mark’s in Darling Point had been suitably lavish, even if there were strangely few representatives there from the groom’s side. However, no one had foreseen that Emanuel would become a businessman in his own right following the honeymoon. With only a modest investment from his father-in-law, he set up his own hugely successful import company, Little Acropolis, bringing in specialities of the region. His Greek accent became much more pronounced than it had been when he first arrived in Australia, and he now insisted that he could trace his roots to the former Greek aristocracy. Susie had also done well in business and had a thriving interior design store of her own, The Three Pears, in Woollahra. She had recently branched out into manufacturing her own collection of china.

  Emanuel and Susie were good friends with Raoul and Julia Hernandez because their daughters were classmates at the same exclusive Eastern Suburbs private school. Susie introduced me to Julia, then immediately began to gush over the other woman’s gold, pleated gown.

  ‘That’s a Fortuny, isn’t it?’ she asked.

  Julia looked pleased but said modestly, ‘Ah, yes, you are correct, Susie; you are so knowledgeable about fashion. It is several years old but I simply can’t bring myself to discard it.’

  ‘Why should you? It’s a classic.’

  ‘And your dress—isn’t that a Zandra Rhodes? I love it.’

  I had been wondering about Susie’s flamboyant, multicoloured tent dress, which looked slightly odd
on her but was now confirmed as extremely expensive. I was starting to feel right out of my depth in the cheap pantsuit which was already coming apart at the seams.

  If Susie seemed a little jittery around Julia, it was probably understandable, because Julia and Emanuel had been having an affair for the past six months. It wasn’t hard to see why he was attracted to the svelte, elegant and exotic woman, who wore her hair in a chignon at her neck. Unfortunately for him, Julia also perfectly complemented her husband Raoul, who was tall, dark and greying slightly at the temples, which gave him a suave James Bond appearance. She was never going to leave him.

  I looked around at the other guests. Also drinking Bea’s lukewarm champagne in the drawing room, and wearing an unforgettable red and gold brocade jacket, was the fascinating Indian jeweller Lahar Kapoor, who had only recently arrived on the scene with the opening of Collier, his store in the CBD. Collier specialised in over-the-top diamond and gemstone necklaces—no doubt inspired by the television series Dynasty. Queen Bea was wearing one of his creations tonight but, far from flattering, it drew attention to her sagging jowels.

  Accompanying Lahar was a pretty young blonde, Candy Jones, well known in Double Bay hairdressing circles where she worked as a stylist. Unfortunately, she already seemed to be bored by the gathering. She rolled her eyes at me as if to signal, Get me out of here, when we were introduced.

  ‘What part of India are you from, Mr Kapoor?’ asked Julia Hernandez. I had the impression she was trying to distract herself from Emanuel’s seductive glances.

  ‘Our family is originally from Delhi,’ Lahar explained. An extremely vain man, he was aware that he was quite something to behold with his mane of salt and pepper hair brushed away from his face, his glistening dark skin and light green eyes. In Julia, he also saw someone who could advance his reputation as a jeweller of class. ‘We left India for the UK when I was a small child and I was educated in Oxford and then Princeton.’ He unleashed his blinding white smile.