The Godson (15 page)

Two bottles of shampoo had them roaring a little so they decided they might have sweets. Both went for the Banana Coruba, which was caramelised bananas rolled in coconut and almonds then flambed in Jamaican rum at the table. It got them even drunker and went down extremely well, so well, in fact that Peregrine ordered another bottle of Dom which they had brought to them in the piano bar.

The piano bar was laid-back and tastefully decorated in shades of grey with matching cane chairs. The boys found a table beneath one of the smoked glass windows facing away from the pool. It wasn't very crowded, one or two couples, a well-dressed
man with his two young daughters and one table away were the two young girls and the older one who were in the restaurant earlier. Norton began to notice them just as the waiter placed an ice-bucket with their champagne next to their table. The two younger girls were pretty in a snooty sort of way: plenty of dark eye makeup, short auburn hair shaved up high at the back and baggy black pants rolled up to their calves above shiny Dr Martens. Apart from being a bit young they definitely weren't Norton's type. The one with them was, though: tall with reddish blonde hair combed loosely but neatly down each side of her face, she had piercing blue eyes and a slightly square jaw which suggested she may have been of Nordic extraction. Unlike the other two, she was wearing a trim pink and grey Reebok tracksuit and white aerobic boots. Peregrine caught the two younger girls' eyes just as the waiter popped the bottle of champagne.

‘Care to join us?' he asked politely, gesturing to the empty chairs next to him. ‘You're more than welcome.'

The two younger girls looked at the one in the tracksuit. She shrugged a look of ‘why not?' and the next thing the three of them were seated at the boys' table.

‘I'm Peregrine, and this is my friend, Les.'

‘Hello girls,' smiled Norton. ‘How are you?'

‘Fine, thank you,' was the general chorus as Peregrine ordered more champagne and the piano player began tinkling ‘Stormy Weather' in the background.

The waiter poured the girls their drinks. There was a quick ‘cheers' all around then it was bottoms up and the girls introduced themselves. The two younger ones were cousins, Kirsty and Josephine; Josephine at eighteen was a year older than Kirsty. They came from Armidale where they attended an exclusive young ladies' finishing school. Their fathers were graziers with stacks of money and had promised the girls a week at Penguin Resort if they did well in some exam; which they did. The older girl was a little more formal and gave her full name which was Ingersoll Ovstedal. She was Norwegian and was the girls' governess cum au pair girl sent along by daddy to keep an eye on them.

‘It is lovely here to be sure,' said Ingersoll, sipping on her glass of bubbly. ‘But sadly we have to leave at eight in the morning. The driver calls for us.'

‘Yes,' nodded Peregrine. ‘I could not agree with you more. It is absolutely delightful here. And sadly we too are only here
the one night ourselves. So,' he raised his glass and smiled. ‘Why don't we make this last night a good one?'

‘Yeah, why not?' grinned Norton, glowing from all the champagne.

‘Reckon,' chorused Kirsty and Josephine and tipped another glass of Dom down their sweet little throats. Ingersoll shrugged, smiled and drained her glass too.

Three bottles of Dom Perignon later, Tuesday night at Penguin Resort was beginning to shape up quite nicely. Josephine, seated next to Peregrine, was starting to get very heavy eyes for the young Englishman; his charm, well-modulated voice and impeccable manners almost had her in a spell. Generally with two Australian girls, if one meets a guy and fancies him a bit the other will run interference and do everything in her power to drive a wedge between them. In this particular case, however, Kirsty appeared to have the hots for Peregrine herself and was doing the exact opposite. Ingersoll, who was supposed to be keeping an eye on the two girls, was now beginning to get a bit fruity herself from all the Dom and appeared to be more intent on keeping an eye on Norton, steadily moving closer towards him on the seat. Norton knew one thing for sure. He wasn't going far. In the background the piano player tinkled from ‘Ain't Misbehavin” straight into ‘Gimme the Moonlight, Gimme the Girl'. The man had magic in his fingers.

‘I say,' exclaimed Peregrine. ‘That chap's jolly good.' The others all agreed. ‘Waiter!' he called out. The waiter appeared and Peregrine had a freshly opened bottle of Dom and the ice-bucket sent to the piano player. ‘Tell the young gentleman, with our compliments. And we'll have another two bottles.'

‘Certainly, sir.'

The piano player gave a double blink when the waiter placed the ice-bucket and champagne next to him. Wide-eyed he stared over to where the waiter was pointing then smiled appreciatively. All five smiled and waved back. Drunk or not, Sir Peregrine Normanhurst III had certainly added a new dimension to the term big spender.

‘So, tomorrow you are leaving also, yes?' Ingersoll said to Les.

‘Yeah. We're off to the Tweed Valley for a couple of weeks,' nodded Norton. ‘A mate of mine's got a property up there. We're stopping on it while he's away.'

‘I wish we didn't have to go tomorrow,' said Kirsty. ‘I love it here.'

‘Yes, me too,' added Josephine. ‘It's so… so romantic.' She gazed directly at Peregrine. ‘Do you find it romantic here, Peregrine?'

Peregrine smiled softly at Josephine. ‘Are you asking me, Josephine,' he said ‘whether this resort and the evening bring out any romance in me?'

‘Yes.'

Peregrine put his glass down for about the first time that evening, took Josephine by the hand and looked softly into her eyes. ‘Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,' he began.

 

What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?

No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;

All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.

Then if for my love thou my love receivest,

I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;

But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest

By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.

I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,

Although thou steal thee all my poverty;

And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief

To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury.

Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,

Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes.

 

Poor young Josephine didn't know what hit her. She sat there staring at Peregrine who was still holding her hand. ‘What was that?' she blinked.

‘That?' smiled Peregrine. ‘Just a little Shakespeare I picked up at Harrow. And brought on by your beauty and the delights of the evening.'

Being good and drunk, most of the verse went straight over Les and Ingersoll's heads, but the way Peregrine recited it and really gave it the Richard Burton treatment, they had to be impressed none the less. Christ! thought Norton. Fifty million bucks or not, this boy's got style with a capital ST.

 

‘Do you know any more?' asked Kirsty.

This time Peregrine took both their hands.

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,

Which like two spirits do suggest me still:

The better angel is a man right fair,

The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.

To win me soon to hell, my female evil

Tempteth my better angel from my side,

And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,

Wooing his purity with her foul pride.

And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend

Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;

But being both from me, both to each friend,

I guess one angel in another's hell:

Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,

Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

 

This left both Kirsty and Josephine starry-eyed and more than a bit wet in their pants. Peregrine was their Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise and George Michael all rolled into one. Even Ingersoll was now starting to heave a little. She moved closer to Norton and undid the top of her tracksuit slightly giving Les a glimpse of something much more spectacular than the fjords around Folgefon.

‘Nothing like a bit of the old bard,' hiccupped Peregrine, ‘to add a drop of flavour to things. I only wish my tawdry voice could do the man justice.'

‘Oh Peregrine, it does, it does,' chorused Josephine and Kirsty.

‘You're both too kind,' smiled the Englishman.

They ordered and drank more champagne, then someone suggested they have a swim. Peregrine said this sounded like a jolly splendid idea and asked the head waiter if they could be served champagne out by the pool. The head waiter assured Peregrine that at $190 a bottle and the way he was throwing money around he would be served champagne if he wanted to jump off the roof with a candle stuck in his arse, singing ‘A Star Fell From Heaven'. However, Ingersoll said that she'd been outside for a bit of fresh air earlier during an excursion to the loo and the wind was now well and truly up and even though a frolic around the pool would be a lot of fun, in the middle of August at ten-thirty at night it would be rather chilly to say the least, even for an Eskimo let alone a Norwegian.

‘I know,' said Peregrine. ‘I'll get that chap on the piano to play a request.'

He swayed to his feet, weaved clumsily across the room and whispered something in the piano player's ear. The piano player looked thoughtful for a moment then grinned and nodded. Peregrine returned to his seat, smiled at the curious looks on the others' faces and poured himself a fresh glass of Dom. He'd just raised it to his lips when the piano player switched gently from ‘Am I Blue?' into ‘Till The Lights Of London Shine Again'.

‘Not a bad old song, this,' beamed Peregrine, crooning some of the words in a voice that wasn't too bad for a complete drunk. ‘But the next one is considerably better.' He smiled directly at Josephine when he said this.

While Peregrine hummed some of the lyrics the others sat in silence watching him with the piano tinkling softly in the background. Then the piano player switched from that song straight into ‘Only A Kid Named Joe'.

‘This one is especially for you, Josephine, my dear,' said Peregrine, raising his glass. Once again it was another lovely old song and this time Peregrine hummed the lyrics directly at Josephine.

 

She's only a kid named Joe,

What's her last name, I don't know.

But I buy the papers From a kid named Joe.

 

This was the final straw for the young schoolgirl from Armidale primed up with bottle after bottle of French champagne. Her eyes swam and her knickers began melting down her legs quicker than the flambed caramel flavouring the boys had earlier on the banana Coruba. She was breathless, speechless and Kirsty wasn't far behind her.

‘Any chance of some more Shakespeare?' sighed Kirsty, after Peregrine crooned another chorus and the song finished.

‘Why don't we go somewhere quieter to hear it?' suggested Josephine, turning to Ingersoll. ‘Do you think it would be all right if we went back to Peregrine's room while he read us some more sonnets?'

The way she said ‘we' indicated she meant her and Kirsty and no one else. Paradoxically, this was music to Ingersoll's ears. She was dying for an excuse to get the red-haired Queenslander alone somewhere too, but being the girl's governess she had to appear worried or at least look a little concerned.

‘I'll go along too,' panted Kirsty. ‘So there'll be the two of us.'

‘Well… I suppose it will be satisfactory,' nodded the tall, sexy Norwegian, trying her best to look serious. ‘But do not forget, girls. Eight o'clock we are leaving. Seven o'clock we must be up for the breakfast.'

‘We will,' chorused the two schoolgirls, almost leaping to their feet and dragging Peregrine to his at the same time. ‘Come on, Peregrine.'

‘Well… I… Yes, that sounds like a splendid idea. Jolly
good indeed.' He stood a little unsteadily on his feet. ‘Just one moment,' he said, then lurched across to the bar where without so much as the blink of an eye he signed the tab for the best part of two grands' worth of food and drink. He returned to the table and extended a hand to Ingersoll. ‘My dear lady. May I just say that this has been an absolute pleasure.'

‘Likewise too I am sure,' smiled Ingersoll, giving his hand a polite squeeze.

‘I shall see you in the morning, Les.'

‘Yeah righto, mate,' winked Norton. ‘Look after yourself. Night girls.'

‘Goodnight, Les.'

That left Ingersoll and Norton alone with ‘Fire Down Below' tinkling in the background and you didn't need to be a rocket scientist to know what was on both of their minds. But there was a certain amount of protocol to be observed and they would have to give the others at least five minutes start before they raced to Norton's room and started ripping each other's clothes off.

‘Well, it's certainly been a funny old night,' said Norton. ‘That Peregrine sure knows his Shakespeare.'

‘He does for sure,' breathed Ingersoll, edging a little closer.

There was a pause for a moment.

‘What would you like to do now?' asked Les.

‘I don't really care.'

‘Would you like to come back to my room? We could get some more champagne and there's a late night rock show on SKY Channel.'

‘That sounds very good,' heaved Ingersoll, giving Les a good sight of her white bra and a pair of lovely big tits that had him drooling like Zeke Wolf over a lamb chop.

‘Then let's go.'

Norton got to his feet and offered Ingersoll his hand. When she took it and almost pulled him face down onto the table, Les realised just how drunk he was. Christ! he thought, as the room spun slightly. You can shove that French shit in your arse. I'm stickin' to Fourex.