Gucci Mamas (26 page)

‘Darling, I know the whole “Tree Change” thing is so the go at the moment, but moving to Red Hill? Isn’t that a tad extreme?’ Monique tilted her head to peer from under the brim of her stunning Melissa Jackson hat.

‘Surely you want to hold on to Malvern just in case it gets a bit, you know, tedious,’ Tiffany suggested with a big smile and just a hint of bitchy undercurrent.

Right! Game on, thought Mim.

‘It’s actually Malvern that I’m finding a bit tedious, Tiff, and all the snobs that go with it,’ Mim grinned happily back, not interested in being anything other than honest.

It was Derby Day and the women sat in a prestigious marquee on the ‘The Rails’ at Flemington Racecourse, which was filled, like a teeming aviary of exotic birds, with delicate creatures of every hue and style, proudly preening and flaunting their wares. Flemington’s famed roses were a blooming mass of fragrance, the carpet of lawn was manicured to the last blade, and cheerful bunting sailed atop celebrity-packed marquees.

‘It’s not a temporary move,’ explained Mim, patiently keen to get the conversation back on friendlier ground, ‘it’s a lifestyle choice. We need to simplify. We’ve sold the beach-house, and Malvern. It’s quite liberating really. We will miss you guys but it’s only an hour away and you must promise to visit us.’

‘Sounds a bit Buddhist to me,’ Monique said, ‘… but then I suppose that’s not a bad thing … I mean Richard Gere’s gone a bit that way, hasn’t he – and he’s gorgeous!’ She sipped her pink piccolo through a colour-coordinated straw while keeping a shrewd eye on the passing parade of fashion.

Derby Day is quite possibly the biggest fashion moment in Melbourne every year. Blow this one and you could forget about invites to the next season’s best soirees. Therefore the Mothers’ Group girls all started working in earnest on their Derby ensembles a good two-to-three months ahead of time. There were appointments with the city’s best milliners; outfits to be chosen; accessories perfectly matched; and the right Nancy Ganz underwear bought to suck in any excess rolls. One year Tiffany had flown to Sydney because she’d heard an exclusive lingerie boutique had an all-in-one undergarment that actually made the wearer appear taller.

Precisely five days before the day, hair salons and beauticians in Melbourne’s best suburbs were booked solid as body maintenance became an obsession for the frenzied fashionistas. Spray tans were booked for the Friday. This crucial job needed to be done twenty-four hours before to allow the tan to darken marginally before the big day.

It was essential that blonde locks were highlighted on the Thursday; anything more than forty-eight hours of regrowth would require a last-minute emergency dash for a crown touch-up. It didn’t matter that most heads were
hatted – one could potentially make an eleventh-hour decision to swap to a fascinator, so foregoing foils was just playing with fire.

Manicurists and pedicurists whipped up an emery frenzy across the suburbs, and if one could book both hands and toes simultaneously, it was truly a time-management coup. Fat-free bodies were buffed and exfoliated to a newborn softness, all unnecessary hair ripped, lasered and waxed to oblivion, eyebrows shaped and lashes tinted, and slight tummy bulges remedied by manipulation of the pill or colonic irrigation. Monique had an annual standing booking for the first week of November at Maison Merdon, and swore by their famous Bowel Burnish treatment.

Amid a flurry of fittings, numerous panicked phone calls and credit-card damage, the big day had finally arrived. The much-phoned weather number had threatened rain, but had, thankfully, been wrong and the sunshine burst its way through morning drizzle just in time for the first round of Fashions on the Field.

Hollywood-taped and cellulite free, the flamboyant hordes teetered and fluttered through the Flemington gates, alighted from chauffeur-driven vehicles, spilled off the train platform in cheap knock-offs with too-high shoes and too-silly hats or – in the best cases – emerged like butterflies from the flock of helicopters landing on the centre of the racecourse.

The lip-sticked, hair-sprayed and Botoxed masses took their places in the caste system of the course. Distinguished members in morning suits linked to immaculate wives in George Gross or Escada headed straight for the Champagne Bar or The Chairman’s Club. Robbie Williams lookalikes eagerly followed scantily clad gaggles of twenty-something girls who screeched hysterically while balancing on pencil-like heels and flaunting thigh-baring skirts while enjoying
Mum and Dad’s $1500 car spot in the Nursery carpark. The corporate marquees were the plum pick. An invite to the Emirates, Myer or L’Oréal marquees in the prestigious ‘Birdcage’ area was social gold.

Each year, favoured Langholme Grammar parents were invited to the Forsythes’ car spot on The Rails. The most prestigious of each of the available carparks, The Rails was situated right at the edge of the action. Flanked by the Birdcage on one side and the home straight on the other, it was an excellent, and envied, position.

The Forsythes’ carpark was more lavishly styled than their own wedding: silver buckets iced dozens of mini bottles of French and Crown lagers, trays of sushi and crustless chicken sandwiches garnished with roses competed with other cutting-edge delicacies. Pristine white-linen napkins and white china leapt from the hot-pink tablecloth. Bunches of fuschia roses in floral vases complemented the table, carefully placed under the huge white market umbrella, which was also draped in garlands of pink roses.

But for Mim, this year’s Derby Day preparation had lost its thrill and she had simply pulled her hair in a low pony at her neck and, with relief and little care, stepped into last year’s Lisa Ho outfit and matching hat.

‘Love your frock, darling,’ LJ Mahoney had commented, then added nastily, ‘Isn’t it lucky that pastel is still in, it looks just as good on you this year as last year!’

Mim had just smiled at her. ‘I don’t care what anyone says,’ she told her assembled friends as she related LJ’s catty remark, ‘we’re broke and I couldn’t afford a new outfit this year.’

‘Shush, Mim,’ said Monique, glancing over her shoulder. ‘Someone will hear you.’

‘I don’t care,’ Mim repeated with a self-satisfied smile. ‘James has finished up at work and until we settle on the
house we are broke and I really couldn’t give a stuff who knows.’

‘Can’t you just say you’re budgeting,’ insisted Monique. ‘Broke sounds so … well … poor.’

They all laughed but were easily distracted by the sight of a group of young women sauntering past with breasts barely contained in their halter tops, and flippy skirts hardly covering their bottoms.

‘Will you just look at that,’ Tiffany indicated to Mim with her piccolo of pink champagne. ‘How ridiculous.’

‘I know, it’s such a shame, no class any more, no sense of style. And they’re not even wearing hats!’ said Mim, with more than a touch of sarcasm. ‘Alert the media!’

‘How on earth they get into the members’ is anyone’s guess,’ moaned Monique.

Tiffany nudged Monique as she spied well-known hotel-chain heiress Anastasia Sebleton escorting a woman in a stunning sequined gown complete with chiffon diamantéstudded wrap. ‘Check this out,’ whispered Tiffany, ‘who’d wear
Collette Dinnigan
to Derby Day, I mean really!’

‘Careful, Tiffany,’ whispered Monique, ‘that
is
Collette Dinnigan!’

‘Collette, darling!’ Monique gushed and tilted her head a full ninety degrees so that she could air-kiss the bronzed cheeks of the fashion designer from under her mammoth hat.

Tiffany, horrified by her fashion faux pas, waited chastened for an introduction to the international haute couture creator.

After a quick show-and-tell session …

‘Love your bracelet – platinum is it?’

‘Have you been in the Emirates marquee yet – gorgeous!!!’

‘Love the shoes – Manolo?’

‘Yes I got them in LA for the event.’

‘That hat is the most!’… the two celebrities continued on their way, leaving the girls to their banter.

‘Boys, we’re here,’ Mim sang out to their husbands, who were heading towards the carpark from the bookies, somewhat distracted by a slinky nubile duo that was passing them by.

James and Malcolm grinned sheepishly when they realised they’d been caught out.

‘Ladies, looking lovely,’ said James, and the men stood next to their wives and bestowed the required attention before they could break away, get a cold Crownie and discuss their next wager.

Petrice Forsythe floated over, decked out in a flamboyant haute couture floral chiffon layered dress topped with a Peter Jago hat in a rainbow of pastel, as her husband Montgomery joined the group.

‘So James, old chap,’ said Monty, ‘what’s this I hear about you taking the family up bush? Won’t you all be a bit isolated?’

‘Hardly up bush,’ said James. ‘We’re off to live on the Mornington Peninsula. It’s only an hour from town, it’s hardly Flying Doctor country.’

‘Well, I suppose you’ll be close to some halfway decent golf courses, at least it’s got that going for it,’ conceded Monty. ‘It all sounds a bit feral, though, and what about the Gentlemen’s Club? We expect members to attend the monthly breakfast meeting, how will you make that?’

‘I’m letting my membership lapse, old man, don’t think I need any of that pretentious crap any more,’ said James.

‘What!’ Monty turned puce with indignation. ‘But it takes years to get admitted into the Club, you can’t just let it lapse, what will people think?’

‘I really don’t care what people think, I might join the CFA instead!’

‘Well, it’s all a bit too pedestrian for me,’ said Monty, storming off, his sensibilities highly offended. He loudly whispered to Petrice, ‘Time to cull the guest list yet again. The Woolcotts are no longer
our
kind of people.’

James turned back to put his arm around Mim and said quietly, ‘What a wanker! I can’t believe I’ve ever aspired to being part of his golfing four.’

‘Darling, you don’t need to rub his nose in it, his Gentlemen’s Club is his life, you know,’ chided Mim.

‘Well, he should try to get a more interesting life then.’

James and Malcolm headed off to find cold beer and help out a neighbouring carpark that was having trouble with its market umbrella. Tuning back in to the conversation, Mim heard Petrice crowing, ‘Can you believe the news about Liz Munroe? It’s just too tacky to be true! LJ phoned me yesterday morning, and obviously I rang Liz immediately to un-invite her today but her machine said she’d gone away.’

Liz’s best friends shared a glance and said nothing.

‘Fancy just flitting off like that without letting me know she couldn’t honour her invitation,’ Petrice continued, fingers splayed across her chest. ‘How rude! I thought she had more class than that! Of course
I
thought she had more class than to have an illegitimate daughter too …
honestly
, you think you know someone. Suzanna! Dahhling!’

Her attention was captured by Suzanna Smythe sweeping in, wearing a frothy Show Pony dress. It was obvious by the blinding sparkle of her ring finger that her cheating rat of a husband was back. Every time Barry Smythe upgraded Suzanna for a younger, prettier model, he bought his way back into the family home and her affection with a bigger, more impressive diamond. This one was at least five carats and, judging by the clarity, it had cost a bomb.

‘Suzanna, it’s gorgeous.’ The women crowded around Suzanna’s ring finger exclaiming loudly.

‘Just incredible. Kozminsky’s?’ Monique asked.

‘Naturally,’ replied Suzanna, holding out her hand and admiring the token of renewed affection. ‘I just love it. Barry will be here shortly – he’s so generous, so thoughtful, he’s taking me out tonight to Silks to celebrate our twelfth wedding anniversary.’

Somehow, Mim thought, every time the bauble got bigger, Suzanna’s self-esteem got comparatively smaller. Big price to pay for a ring.

LJ glanced over her shoulder as she slipped into the anonymity of the crowd. She had left Philby and his desperately boring PR cronies at the Terrace on the pretext of having ‘a bit of a wander’. She was safe out here away from the Members’ no one would recognise her in the Public Area, mingling with the great unwashed.

She wandered over to one of the bookies and made a pretence of staring at the odds. But behind her enormous Gucci sunglasses she expertly scanned the crowd.

There, over by the bar: six foot two, dirty blond hair pushed back by silver wrap sunglasses. Earrings. His suit was cheap, his shoes were scuffed and his physique powerful. He was comfortable in his own skin, slouched against the bar, draining the last of his plastic tumbler of Jack Daniels and Coke.

He was laughing at something his weedy, pointy-nosed companion had just said. Three other equally grubby punters joined them and began to discuss the form guide.

Then he glanced up, almost as if he sensed her gaze upon him. Their eyes locked. A languid smile crept across his face. He knew.

LJ held his gaze as she prowled past the group; a predator stalking her prey. She strode along the perimeter of the building, picking her way through the flotsam of sun-faded
tinnies and cigarette butts until she reached the rear wall. Her Prada mules daintily tiptoed past the dumpster where she was obscured from the crowd.

She stood, legs akimbo, arms folded, and watched a large, black spider weaving its web on the rusted corrugated iron-guttering.

She didn’t have to wait long. The broad figure cast a long shadow across the alley as he paused to stomp out his ciggie, taking a few measured seconds to grind it under his heel before moving towards her.

‘G’day,’ he flashed imperfect teeth. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Do you care?’ LJ breathed seductively, hooking one manicured talon into his belt and pulling his large frame over her skeletal body. His powerful forearms, scarred with indiscriminate tattooing, pounded the shed as his mouth firmly opened hers. The dirty taste of nicotine thrilled LJ and her tongue greedily searched for more as she thrust her cleavage into his chest.

His rough hand kneaded her breast as she efficiently dispensed with his belt and fly. He forced his hand under her designer skirt with little deference to the $500-per-metre silk.