by Holly Smale
“That sounds—”
“This is not Baylee. There is no four-hundred-year heritage and enormous profit margin to fall back on. It’s my designs, my name, my career. I do not have the luxury of tolerating maverick behaviour this time. Is that perfectly clear?”
I swallow, suitably chastened. I’ve never been described as a maverick before. Maybe I’m turning out more like my father than I realised.
It’s a sobering thought.
“I understand,” I say solemnly, and write 3. Just behave.
“You are being paid a lot of money,” Yuka says as I underline the last point three times for good measure and draw a series of stars next to it. “If you cannot meet those three simple expectations, there are many models who can.”
I redden. Annabel made it part of my initial contract that I don’t find out how much money I’m making until I’m eighteen. But – honestly – I’m a little bit intrigued now. I might be able to afford a piano, and then I can be just like Beth in Little Women, without the dying of typhoid part.
“OK,” I agree.
“Good,” Yuka says, turning to the window and making it clear that the conversation is over.
I watch the huge lights of Tokyo flash past in meek silence. You can say what you like about Yuka Ito – although obviously no one actually does – but she doesn’t mince her words. She’s terrifying, but at least you always know where you stand.
About four centimetres from decapitation, usually.
I clutch my new modelling list nervously in my hand until the car starts slowing down. I’m hit by a powerful salty, tangy smell that I recognise immediately. It comes from a chemical compound called bromephenol, which is found in algae and seawater.
I lean forward in excitement. “Ooh – are we at the seaside?”
Yuka snaps, “Tokyo is not a coastal destination.”
“But the smell,” I explain. “It smells like—”
“This is Tsukiji, the biggest fresh-fish market in the world.”
We’re pulling up outside one of the most enormous warehouses I’ve ever seen. It’s immense, and industrial, and the fishy smell is so strong, the chocolate biscuit in my stomach is threatening to make a reappearance.
“But …” I frown. “I thought we were doing our first shoot today?”
“We are,” Yuka says, opening the limousine door. “We’re doing it here.”
hoever says that modelling is glamorous is totally fibbing.
There’s blood everywhere. Shining at the bottom of boxes. Dripping off tables into buckets. Casually staining mounds of crushed ice, the way strawberry sauce stains a Slush Puppy. And – in the middle of all the redness – are fish. Big fish, little fish. Oysters, lobsters, squid, prawns, scallops, eels. Thousands and thousands of sea-life, piled on top of each other or laid out in rows. Whole, headless, finless or chopped into tiny pieces. Some that have already shuffled off this mortal coil, and some that are clearly in the process of desperately trying not to.
It’s 4.40am and I’m standing in the middle of a Quentin Tarantino version of Finding Nemo.
“Problem?” Yuka says sharply.
I swallow. “Nope.”
“Then find something prettier to do with your face.” Yuka turns on her sharp black heels and starts clicking violently across the enormous concrete warehouse. I follow meekly behind her: smiling as hard as I can at everyone. They ignore me completely. I guess fishermen in Japan have even less interest in fashion than I do.
A corner of the warehouse has been set aside for the shoot, in the most temporary way possible. A ‘changing room’ has been propped against a wall with a mirror leaning next to it, and a fold-up table covered in make-up/hair accessories is standing right next to a bucket of eels. Fashion people are running around: talking loudly and plugging in hairdryers and curling tongs. It’s a whirlwind of activity and noise, yet as we approach it goes strangely silent.
I’m 6,000 miles away from school, but it feels like I’ve just entered the classroom with the headmistress standing behind me.
“Not there,” Yuka snaps at a woman who just put a chair by the wall. “Move them,” she says, pointing to a pair of shoes on the floor. “Stop that,” she says to a man brushing a coat with a clothes brush and wiping terrified sweat from his forehead.
Any second now she’s going to demand that everyone sits up straight before she asks for their homework.
Then Yuka reaches behind a curtain and retrieves a blue plastic suit bag. Slowly, she slides it open and pulls out the contents. It’s short and pale orange and frothy, made of layers and layers of delicate, transparent material: tight, rigid and wired at the top and puff-balling out at the waist into a stiff bell shape. There are tiny embroidered red circles scattered through each layer – stitched in an immaculate, intricate spiral – and at the hem and around the neck are thin tendrils of orange material, floating upwards and outwards.
It’s a dress. Or perhaps I should say: it’s related to a dress the way a fat ginger cat is related to a tiger, or a mural on the wall of McDonald’s is related to the Sistine Chapel.
“Oh my goodness,” I whisper, reaching out to touch it. “It’s so beautiful.”
Yuka immediately knocks my hand away. “Of course it is,” she says stiffly. “I don’t make things that aren’t.” She raises an eyebrow. “This is haute couture. Do you know what that means?”
I quickly scan my brain for anything I can remember from French GCSE. Couture = scar. Haute = tall.
“A huge trauma?” I guess tentatively.
“No.” Yuka’s lips are getting thinner by the second. “It means high fashion. It means there is only one. I made it, by hand, specifically for you. It is more valuable than the car we just came in. These, therefore, are your dressers.” Yuka gestures to a couple of young Japanese women wearing black, who’ve just appeared on either side of me like twins in a creepy old horror movie.
I blink then start feeling a little bit indignant. Dressers? Exactly how much of a child does Yuka think I am? “I’m very nearly sixteen years old,” I tell her in my most aggrieved-yet-still-respectful voice. “I think I can dress myself.”
Yuka lifts her eyebrows. “This time I do not want you accessorised with stickers. Gold or otherwise.”
And I think she’s made her point.
am a creature of maturity and elegance, maturity and elegance, maturity and elegance.
It doesn’t matter how many times I say it: I’m not convincing anyone. I’m certainly not convincing Yuka. She won’t let me touch anything. I’m dressed enthusiastically by strangers, with my hands stuck in the air and my feet apart like some kind of rigid, overly affectionate teddy bear.
When they’ve finally finished zipping and prodding and the make-up artist is done poking and colouring me in – thick white foundation, black eyeliner and red lipstick – I’m finally led over to the mirror.
It doesn’t matter how many times this happens: I’m totally shocked at the transformation. My hair has been smoothed into a shiny red bob, my skin is glowing and spotless and my eyes have actual, visible eyelashes so I don’t look like a rabbit. I’m totally unrecognisable. My own family couldn’t pick me out of a line-up. Every single time I model, I start off as a normal schoolgirl and end up looking like somebody else. Like somebody.
It’s like being Superman, except I only transform temporarily every few months with the help of a lot of very highly paid professionals and an enormous quantity of expensive cosmetics.
The team tweak the dress until they’re happy, and then finally lead me – unable to see or walk very well – round the corner into a different part of the warehouse. Where I stop, startled.
On the floor there are fish.
Thirty or forty enormous dead silver fish glittering under huge temporary lights, lying nose-to-tail in perfectly straight lines like a sort of camp, aquatic military school. Faint steam is rising into the freezing air and between the fish are two men, arranging fins and spraying water to keep
the fish shiny.
It’s impossible to look away. Which – considering it’s an advertising campaign – I’m guessing is sort of the point.
“Fresh tuna,” one of the stylists whispers. “They’ll go on sale in an hour to every sushi restaurant across the country. The shoot needs to be finished before the fish have to be cut up and carted off.”
I nod, totally speechless. Only Yuka would shoot a fashion campaign this horribly beautiful.
Humans eat 100 million tons of fish every year and a single Brit alone consumes an average of 20kg. I can’t get judgemental and weepy just because I can see their faces and they’re not mixed with mayonnaise, put between two bits of bread and wrapped in a nice, bar-coded package for M&S.
A small, neat Japanese man in a dark suit with stiff, waxed hair walks over to me and bows politely. “Halloo,” he says.
“Halloo to you too,” I say, accidentally doing a little curtsy and then trying to turn it into a confused bow. I get sort of stuck halfway between and end up bobbing up and down as if I need the toilet.
“Halloo,” he says again, a bit louder.
This is obviously some kind of Japanese custom I haven’t come across yet. “Halloo.”
“Halloo.”
We could be here all day. “Halloo. I am Harriet Manners.” I quickly race through some of the phrases I’ve studied, and convert it to: “Wa-ta-shi-wa Har-riet Man-ners desu.”
“His name is Haru,” a woman says from somewhere behind me. “Spelled H-A-R-U.”
Ah.
I blush bright red and spin round to face a pretty Japanese lady with a straight black fringe and pouty, pillowy lips. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” I turn back to Haru. “I didn’t really get much sleep and I don’t really know what I’m doing and when I get nervous I can’t stop talking and I’m doing it now aren’t I and I should probably shut up but this is all so exciting and—”
“He doesn’t understand English,” the lady adds.
“Watashi wa kameraman desu,” Haru says in a tone that indicates he already thinks I’m an imbecile.
“Haru is the photographer for this campaign,” the lady explains, smiling. “One of the very best in Japan. I’m Naho, his translator.”
I look at Yuka standing at the edge of the room, watching us with her usual expression. “Well, it’s really lovely to meet you both,” I say, holding out my hand nervously.
Haru looks at it. “Kimiwa omoinohoka sega hikuine,” he says flatly.
“You’re shorter than he thought you’d be.”
“Right.” I can feel my cheeks getting even hotter. “Umm – sorry about that. My father’s quite small as well. He claims our genes would be too overpowering for the world in larger quantities, and possibly hallucinogenic. Like nutmeg.”
“Hayaku hajimeruyo,” the photographer says sharply, turning to his left and nodding at one of his assistants. “Kono gaki no tameni wazawaza jikann wo saku hituyouha naikarane.”
“Haru says—” Naho pauses just long enough for me to realise she’s editing his words as well. “We don’t … have time for this delightful talk. Let’s begin.”
She points at a small white chalk cross on the floor in a gap between two particularly shiny fish. “You stand there.”
“Isoi de,” Haru barks.
Naho looks embarrassed. “Erm – quite soon, please?”
“Right. Sure.” I start cautiously tiptoeing between enormous fish without treading on noses or fins as if I’m playing a particularly tricky game of fish-death Hopscotch. Then I stand, wobbling slightly, on top of the cross. “OK?”
“Koitsu, baka ka?”
“Umm …” Naho says, closing her eyes briefly. “Fine.”
According to what I’ve gathered thus far from my epic modelling career, all I have to do is move my arms and legs occasionally with my most bored, lifeless expression on my face. How come after all the life-changing exams I’ve done in the past month, this is the one that feels the hardest?
Haru looks sternly through his camera with his eyebrows furrowed, fiddles with a few buttons and then nods.
I blink. “Did you want me to do something else?”
“Nande gaikokujin moderu tukaunnda, nihonjin demo iijyanaika?”
Naho frowns.
“Charlie,” she says to the room in general. “Somebody grab him.”
Charlie? I’m working with another male model?
Sugar cookies. I don’t think I’m ready for this. I’m nowhere near as impervious to beautiful boys as a female model probably should be.
One of the assistants wheels an enormous tub next to me, and I blink at the very-much-alive and squiggling bright orange and red contents. I stare at the tendrils and embroidered sucker-style circles on my red and orange dress and everything slots into place. “Charlie, the octopus?”
“Yes,” Yuka says in a clear voice from across the room. “Try not to let him outshine you.”
I studied the domain of Eukaryotic for a project in biology last year. Did you know that an octopus has three hearts: two to pump blood to the lungs, and one to pump blood around the body? Or that they have special cells called ‘chromatophores’ that change colour so they can blend into any background?
And did you know that octopi are generally acknowledged to be the most intelligent of all invertebrates and have been known to steal cameras, defend themselves with weapons and unscrew lids to get at prey within containers?
This is my first ever encounter with a real-life octopus. I’ve always wanted to see one up close. They’re the geeks of the sea world.
I lean forward to get a better look.
“Furenaide kudasai,” Haru shouts. “Kare wa junbi ga dekite naikara.”
“Please,” Naho squeaks. “Don’t touch the—”
My finger makes contact with an arm. Charlie makes a sudden thrashing motion.
And – in one swift arc – sprays dark blue ink all over my dress.
Q tests on the internet can say what they like; it’s not a great sign when you’re outwitted by an octopus. Never mind invertebrates, Charlie’s clearly smarter than at least one animal with a spine as well.
My co-model isn’t ready. That’s what Haru was telling me. Charlie needed a few minutes out of water first so he wouldn’t panic. Nobody expected me to try grabbing him straight away; they expected me to categorically refuse to touch him, like a normal fifteen-year-old girl.
The dark ink doesn’t just hit the dress: it goes everywhere. All over my face and hands and legs. All over the floor. All over the expensive tuna fish. It’s like the world’s biggest, most explosive, broken biro.
“Baka!” Haru yells as I stand there in shock, quietly dripping deep purple everywhere. “Bakayaro!” He throws a plastic lens cap on the floor.
“Umm …” Naho says, but this time there’s no need for translation.
He’s right.
I’m an idiot.
I apologise earnestly and repeatedly, but by the time they’ve wiped me down with half a dozen paper towels and sponged the ink off my hair, I realise the situation can’t be saved. The one-off dress is ruined. The fish that aren’t blue have been sold; the rest are being hosed down in a corner. The photographer is smoking outside and throwing sporadic Japanese words at me through the door. Naho is politely refusing to translate them.
And Yuka has gone.
or the second time in a week, I am totally the wrong colour. All I need now is a little gold lamp and a curly black beard and I’ll look exactly like the genie from Aladdin.
What is wrong with me?
“For the love of dingle-bats,” Wilbur sighs down the phone as I clamber back into a taxi and sit carefully on a towel. “This is exactly what I was talking about, Honeytoes. Do I need to get a portable naughty step sent with you everywhere?”
I rub my nose guiltily and then look at my finger. It’s faintly purple. “I’m so sorry, Wilbur. I honestly don’t know how it happens all the time.”
“Really, Plum-pudding? No id
ea at all?” He sighs again. “I suppose I’d better ring Yuka and try to calm her down before we both get fired. But please, my little Carrot-cake. If we speak again this week I want it to be because you’ve found a sparkly pink unicorn roaming the streets of Tokyo and you’d like to gift it to me as my new steed, OK? Not because you’ve mucked something up again.”
There’s a silence.
“Are you thinking about a sparkly pink unicorn now?” Wilbur asks sternly.
“What if it’s purple?”
He sighs for the third time. “I think, Kitten-shoes, this may be part of the problem. Try and focus.”
Nat’s not as surprised about my octopus mishap as I’d like her to be either. According to the poet, Christina Rossetti, a friend is supposed to:
Cheer one on the tedious way.
Fetch one if one goes astray.
Lift one if one totters down.
Strengthen whilst one stands.
They are not supposed to send one a text message that says:
AHAHA u r such a plonker. xxx
While I’ve been busy turning everything in a ten-metre radius blue, I’ve also had eleven missed calls from my parents, two wrong numbers, four answer machine messages and nine text messages. Most of which want to know if I’ve arrived in Japan safely, and four of which want to remind me of what I’m missing:
You left a multipack of Mars Bars on top of your wardrobe. Can I have one? Dad x
I had three. Hope that’s OK. Dad x
I’m just going to have one more. Dad x
Harriet, your Dad’s made himself sick on an entire multipack of Mars Bars again. Please don’t leave sweets where he can find them. Ax
I begin to smile, and then I remember.
Maybe it’s best for everyone if she’s not here.
My bottom lip sets, and I glare at my phone. They wanted me to leave: they can’t get all clingy now I’ve actually gone.