‘I dunno …’ Why did I pick those subjects? Wendy suggested sociology. Fran thought history was interesting and a good all-rounder, and I generally do well at French. ‘With the move, and changing school and stuff, I guess I just thought it was … safe?’
‘D’you wish now that you’d—’
‘Given it more thought?’ I say, cutting her off. ‘Or … made a considered choice?’ She nods. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I do. There was no reason for me not to, other than I’ve gotten used to waiting for other people to decide what’s best for me.’ I don’t know how March manages to do this; makes me blurt things I’d never usually say so easily …
‘What are you interested in?’
I shrug. ‘At school?’
‘Wherever,’ she says, flinging her one arm wide. ‘What do you like? What do you enjoy doing?’
Such simple questions, I’m flummoxed. ‘Um … eating and watching TV.’
She laughs. ‘Yeah, yeah, my two favourite things,’ she says. ‘But c’mon.’
‘Taking photographs, maybe? I think I’m better with pictures than with words. But I don’t take many these days.’
Her eyebrows rise. ‘And what do you like to photograph?’
‘People.’ I say it quickly. Even though it’s not strictly true. Although it’s people I’m interested in, most pictures I’ve taken lately are of things, maybe because things are safe. An image can reveal as much about the photographer as the subject of the photo, and I think I’m afraid of other people seeing what I see.
‘So why not take photography then?’ she asks.
‘I don’t have a camera.’
She raises both hands. ‘That’s your excuse?’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘Lucky we’re about to get rich then, isn’t it!’
I sigh. ‘You make it sound so … simple.’
‘It’s as simple as you make it,’ she says, looking at me like she might actually have the measure of me.
‘They start from two hundred,’ the guy says, looking down at his clipboard, where he’s written March’s name. He’s wearing jeans and a jacket that are two different denims and his long, dark hair is slicked back like treacle. He smells of cigarettes.
Four hundred quid! I say inside my head, but March says it out loud, like she’s angry. ‘It says small admin fee on your website.’ She waves her phone at the guy. ‘We’ve already paid a tenner to the girl downstairs to fill out one of those.’ She points to the applications on the desk, where we’ve completed everything from our eye colour to our waist measurements and stapled our passport photos to the top right-hand corner.
Double Denim waves his hand over the pile. ‘Those forms are for our background artistes,’ he says. ‘The portfolio option is offered only to the very small percentage who we feel could fit our modelling books,’ he says, looking only at March.
She places her hand on her hip. ‘And what’s the difference?’
‘What you’re paid,’ he says. This gets her attention, which he takes as a good sign. ‘Look, you’re a beautiful girl.’
‘Thanks,’ March says, flatly. I’m nervous, but to her this is business.
‘You could earn big from that face,’ he says, pulling a large black portfolio the size of one of Dad’s photography books out from under the desk and placing it on top. ‘A lot more than the hundred-quid day rate you’d get with our Extras division.’ He lifts the cover of the book. ‘These shots are taken by our professionals in a proper studio,’ he says, flicking through the pages. ‘And they’re sent to the best agencies in London, all of whom are on the lookout for actors and models, for all sorts of work,’ he says. ‘They’re not just extras.’
He moves closer to March so there isn’t enough space between them. March steps back but her eyes eat up the open page as intently as his eyes do her. I can only see the pictures upside down but even from here I can tell they’re the worst. Not wanting to sound arrogant, but I reckon I could do better.
‘How old is she?’ March says, pointing at one girl.
‘Lauren,’ he says. ‘She’s seventeen. Gets lots of catalogue work. Earned thousands of pounds this year and she’s in line for a big campaign with a major fashion brand.’
March continues turning the pages, pressing her painted fingernail down like she’s studying each of them. I step forward to see better and the headshots are as cheesy close up as from afar but it’s not this that makes me want to drag her away from this creep. My pulse is racing.
She looks up at him. ‘Thousands of pounds? In one day?’
The shape of his mouth changes. ‘Sometimes,’ he says. ‘The right look at the right time can make serious money.’ March stares at the book again, hungrily, like she wants it all too much for my liking. I watch his eyes move all over her. ‘We’re getting more requests for plus-size. Of course, the curvy look might just be a trend but even if it doesn’t last you could lose weight easily. It’s something a lot of our girls choose to do once they sign up.’
He lets out a long, lingering breath, but I suck mine in. Did he really say that? ‘To feel good about themselves,’ he adds then. ‘Not because they’re under any pressure. It’s entirely their decision. They just find they get more work, that’s all.’
March lifts her face from the book and fixes her eyes on him. I blink and blink again. My breathing becomes quick and noisy. How wrong would it be for me to yank her away? I could make up some excuse, any excuse. Double Denim would be mad, maybe March would be too, but I want to get us the hell out of here. I reach my hand across the desk, wishing my fingers weren’t shaking. Then, before my hand touches her arm, March slams the book shut, dips down to the floor and swings her bag over the shoulder.
‘Let’s go, Vetty,’ she says, taking off across the room. ‘Let’s go get something to eat!’
I follow her to the door. It’s all I can do not to punch the air.
We ride the lift in silence to the ground floor and we’ve reached the street before she opens her mouth. ‘Wanna get noodles?’ she says.
I nod, sucking in large gulps of warm London air at the same time. I’m so relieved to be out of that room, I’ll go anywhere. Besides, I’m starving.
‘Let’s walk into Soho,’ she says, taking my hand. ‘There’s the best place.’
We cross the road entwined and we stay like this as she weaves us down alleyways and busy streets. She doesn’t stop, not once. She knows exactly where she’s going. My heart races and my legs move with some borrowed energy. Am I imagining the heads that turn as we pass? Outside H&M on Oxford Street there’s an enormous photo of two long-legged girls in sportswear, hanging in the window. They look like they’re about to step out on to the street in front of us. I slow my pace to see it better and I catch our reflection for a split second; just us, two girls walking together. Soon the image is gone but not before I photographed it in my mind.
When we reach Chinatown I follow her through a tiny door into a dark room. It’s not a place I would have picked and when I look up at the enormous menu behind the counter I wonder how anyone knows what to choose in these places.
‘Meat, veggie, sweet, sour, spicy, mild … what’ll it be?’ March says.
I turn my neck around and stare at the board. ‘I usually have spare ribs and a pancake roll.’
She laughs. ‘For starters, this place is Korean. I’d recommend something only I like to pick a surprise.’
‘At random?’
‘Why not? It’s all good,’ she says, leaning into the counter and catching the eye of the elderly lady serving. ‘OK, so one number thirty-nine, Jjamppong, to take away please,’ she says.
‘Seafood noodle soup?’ the woman says. ‘Spicy.’
‘Perfect!’ says March. ‘With lots of your special sauce please.’
The woman smiles and then looks at me. ‘And one … japchae?’ I’ve obviously mispronounced it, so I start pointing. ‘Number sixteen!’
‘With extra sauce?’ the woman says.
&n
bsp; ‘Extra sauce!’ I exclaim, beaming at her and then at March, who is giggling in the doorway. For some reason, I clap my hands.
These are easily the chewiest, most delicious noodles I’ve ever tasted. March finishes her soup quickly, making an impressive amount of noise as she slurps up the last of it. ‘Up for one more stop?’ she says, flinging her empty box into a bin.
I nod. ‘How about some ice cream?’
She takes her phone from her jacket pocket and leans her head against mine to take a picture of the two of us. I can see in the phone screen that she’s screwing up her face and I try some sort of smile as she takes a quick snap, then she starts googling again like it was nothing. ‘There’s a great place near here. We went there after the march a few months ago. Let me check,’ she says, licking her fingers then swiping her screen.
I stab at the last swirl of noodles inside my box, wondering what the photo looked like. ‘The march?’
She looks up. ‘Mum loves a good rally. We discovered the ice cream place after the Woman’s March. Chin Chin, that was it!’
‘I’ve only seen marches on TV. You make placards and stuff?’
‘Course,’ she says. ‘Since I was a kid. I wasn’t great with crowds at first. I used to get claustrophobic.’ Her hands dance around her face like she’s remembering. ‘But I’m better now and there’s always the most insane energy.’
‘Is that why she called you March?’
She stands. ‘Nah,’ she says, stamping on a rogue Whopper box that missed the bin. ‘My birthday is on the fourth. Guess it made sense at the time.’
Going home we sit on the top deck, right up the front. It’s been ages since I’ve seen London from this height and even the sky looks new. March is still talking, listing everything she thinks is wrong with the world. It’s a long list but I’m enjoying the sound of her as much as the view. Everything she’s worked up about sounds worthwhile so it’s reassuring that someone is getting mad about it. The bus is busy again. I start to explain to March what happened with Arial the other morning. A boy opposite us stares as if he’s listening, and I’m surprised by how little I mind being overheard.
‘That that’s what she wanted me to look like was a shock, you know? Like, I’m OK with admitting that I’d like to look sexy sometimes, but that it’s her first idea of … pretty – and for work – just felt, I dunno … kind of sad maybe?’
‘We get told early,’ March says. ‘We get the signals from everywhere. That beauty or whatever is something we should be for other people. Like, it’s more about what we’re supposed to look like, as opposed to figuring out how we want to look, or even how we feel about ourselves?’
As we approach Mornington Crescent the boy on the opposite side of the aisle drops his phone getting off. March picks it up from under our seat and as she hands it back to him they bounce some flirty lines back and forth. When the bus finally stops he heads off down the stairs, looking like the cat who got the cream. She turns back to me after, like it was nothing.
‘Do you ever not know what to say?’
She cocks her head. ‘Huh?’
‘It’s great, by the way. I’d love to be so confident, but do you ever feel … ?’
She presses her lips together. ‘Insecure?’
I wouldn’t have had the guts to put it like that, but … ‘Yeah.’
‘Course,’ she says.
‘Really?’
She blows air between her lips for a long time and then turns face to the aisle. ‘I had this boyfriend last year,’ she says. ‘His name was Sully and he was always talking about his sister’s friends and how fit or not fit they were.’ She stops and inspects her fingernails, which are green today like grass. ‘But it wasn’t just these girls, it was all girls and he could be mean sometimes. He blew hot and cold with me too and I’d question everything I said, what I wore, all that. I’d compare myself to everyone he passed comment on. It really messed with my head. I was so miserable at the end of last summer, it was unreal.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Finished it.’
‘Just like that?’ I ask.
She nods. ‘But then he started messaging me the whole time, waiting outside my house and stuff. It’s so nuts to admit this, but I was kinda thrilled and I got back with him because I thought it meant that he loved me.’ She shakes her head. ‘Course, soon as I slept with him he lost interest,’ she says, looking down at her lap.
I straighten in my seat. ‘That must have hurt.’
She sighs. ‘I regret it. I should’ve known it would never work out,’ she says, sliding her eyes to mine. ‘Well, he was no listener, I’ll put it that way.’
‘What way?’
‘He wasn’t a great … communicator,’ she says, and the sides of her mouth tug upwards. I squint back, unsure as to where this is going. ‘After a year of us going out he still had no idea how to please a girl.’ She does something with her brows. ‘I’m serious,’ she says. ‘He was so quick to tell me what he wanted but when I tried explaining to him what I liked he zoned out. Didn’t care. Honestly, I kept telling him it wasn’t my thing, but the boy was obsessed with fingering.’ I start to giggle and soon I can’t stop. ‘Obsessed!’ She says it again, really laughing. ‘I’m telling you!’ When she sits back in her seat, I do too, leaning my face against the cool glass of the window, watching the traffic crawl up Camden High Street below. ‘Look, there’s a new Shake Stop!’ she says, leaning over me and pointing out the window.
I stare down, but we’ve already passed it. ‘They do amazing milkshakes, apparently. We should go there sometime.’
‘I’d like that,’ I say as we pass the Tube, sneaking another look at her face, heat rising steadily from my neck. By the time we hit my stop on Camden Road, I feel bright red. I stand to ring the bell. ‘See you tomorrow,’ I say quickly, bounding down the stairs before she clocks the colour of my face. I’m waiting at the lights when my phone beeps.
LOOK UP! the message says. When I do, March is pressing her face against the glass like a blowfish and as the bus pulls away she waves wildly, sticking her tongue out too, and I’m left alone, smiling at thin air.
When I get home, Arial follows me around the flat and into my room. She sits up on my bed, watching me as I change out of my clothes. It’s that appraising look again, like she’s sizing me up or waiting for wisdom, and I can’t deal with it now. I hate making her feel unwelcome but it’s late and I want to be alone. I grab my laptop and sit on the floor, doing my best to ignore her as she plaits her hair in the mirror. If there was a tiny downside to my night out with March it’s that I spent a chunk of the money I’d managed to save. But it’s a small price to pay.
Finally, Arial gets the hint and walks out. I hop into bed and to distract myself from the guilt of constantly handling her so badly, I email myself a list of the products I’m going to buy for my pre-party operation transformation. So far, I’ve got: major hair removal product (more research required!), fake tan, to take the harm out of my milk-white legs, and concealer, sufficiently heavy-duty to handle recent chin eruption!
For at least six minutes I stop stewing over what a bad sister I am but soon my mind drifts back to what March said about her old boyfriend and how he had no idea how to please a girl. These last five words dance around in my head. It’s not like I’ve thought about having sex that much, but when I do it’s mostly to worry about whether I’ll get it right or how little I’ll look like the girls on Pez’s iMac while I’m doing it. Actually, asking for what I want, or even enjoying it, hadn’t really crossed my mind. Thinking about my own pleasure as opposed to what I’ll look like seems almost radical. What March said about how we’re taught to act in a way that we’re told is attractive makes me wonder whether I’ve been expecting sex to be a kind of performance. Maybe it doesn’t have to be. Maybe it’s about listening too and this being a skill unrelated to personal grooming or the size of my boobs, feels like an achievable goal.
I pick up my phone and distract
edly check my emails, then Instagram, then Topshop, but my mind’s in overdrive again. How will I explain what I want to someone when I’ve no idea what I like? Soon, I’m typing all sorts of things into Google.
I go to Tumblr and next thing I’m signing myself up. How old are you? it asks. Why, twenty-five, I say, and after a few rounds of assuring them I’m not a robot, I’m in! What are you into? Mmm … I click Fashion, on the basis that I plan to be in future. Movies? Click. There’s a photo of a chubby panda on a square called Cute – I click this too – then Photography and because Maisie Williams’s face is on the TV window, I click this because why not?
I’m good to go, apparently, so I enter the names of some photographers I like: Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, then I scan through Gregory Crewdson and Corinne Day because we have their books at home and I’m not ready to search what I really want to search just yet. I keep going, scrolling, hovering, edging closer, circling around and around until finally I type in the word …
PORN.
I stare at it for a minute and hit return.
That’s it for porn.
Nothing?
It must be the parental controls Dad put in place. He’s been all over internet safety since Arial searched Google Images for pictures of lovely grannies a couple of months ago. She’d been making a family collage for her RE homework and got way more than she bargained for. She and Dad were traumatised. As I consider what else to try, my fingers tap through the categories trailed across the top of the screen like breadcrumbs.
Okaaaaay. Wow! It’s all there.
I guess they’re called keywords for a reason. At first, I want to turn it off, but I don’t. I keep going and alongside the multitude of dick pics are lots of people working really hard to look sexy. A lot of the girls don’t do much except moan occasionally and as I watch I get the distinct impression that quite a few of them are acting how they think they’re supposed to act rather than how they want to, like March said. Still I keep going, clicking and clicking, waiting to be grossed out but even though I kind of am, a little bit, I don’t stop.
All the Invisible Things Page 12