A Brand New Me

by Shari Low

  Gavin strutted on in front, down a flight of stairs and into the cavernous bowels of the club. Even though it was early evening, there were already a hundred or so people in the room, many of them sitting in expansive booths upholstered in a cow-print fabric that swept around chunky ebony tables.

  Over in one corner was a semicircular DJ booth, partly concealed by a smattering of barely clad young ladies who were swinging their pants (or lack thereof) on the dance floor.

  ‘What would you like to drink?’ Gavin asked when we reached the bar. Several of the waitresses that were huddled around a hatch at the end of the long stretch of marble counter glanced in our direction, smiled familiarly at Gavin and then went back to their conversation.

  ‘A white wine, thanks.’ Seconds later a glass of Dom Pérignon champagne was in my hand and he was clutching a bottle of water. No money changed hands.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ I had to lean right into his ear so that he could hear me over the thump, thump, thump of the music. I was definitely getting old. Another couple of years and I’d be asking the DJ to turn the volume down and complaining that all modern music was just ‘rubbish with no melody’.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Everyone here seems to know you and you haven’t paid for anything–sorry if that’s rude, but do you work here?’

  He nodded. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘So what exactly does a nightclub promoter do, then?’

  He clinked his plastic water bottle against my glass. ‘We just fill up the clubs and then keep them happy.’

  Right then. So that was as clear as his complexion.

  ‘I’ll be back in two secs, darlin’,’ he added, and then disappeared off in the direction of a wall, where one of the panels cunningly opened under his touch. A concealed doorway, how Cluedo was that? And yes, I was instructing my inner feminist to overlook the fact that he’d called me darlin’ in a randomly patronising way.

  Two seconds stretched to two and a half records, enough time for me to reach the half way mark on my champagne glass while subtly nodding my head in time to the music in what I hoped made me appear to be a cool, clubby, independent female, as opposed to a daft tart that was on the pull.

  When he returned, he was suitably apologetic. ‘Sorry, but had to have a quick chat to the manager–just setting some stuff up for next week. So…fancy moving on somewhere else?’

  ‘Sure,’ I nodded, relaxed now. I was beginning to doubt my initial conclusions as to Gavin’s motivations. He hadn’t burst into song, he hadn’t recited a poem and he hadn’t tap-danced all the way down the stairs. If he was a wannabe, he was hiding it well. Maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe he was just a guy who worked really hard and didn’t have the opportunity to meet someone special. I thought back to the short time at college when I’d worked in a local bar to pay the rent (and to sneak illicit vodka and cokes to Trish and Stu). I’d meet cute guys all night long, but I was so busy that I never got the chance to talk to them, and by the time I clocked off they were either paired up or lying in a puddle of Pernod and blackcurrant under a table.

  Perhaps Gavin shared the predicament. Back in the car (which, thanks to ‘the boys’, hadn’t been ticketed, towed or trashed), I attempted to probe his inner depths.

  ‘What made you write in to Zara then?’

  He shrugged, then took several seconds to formulate his answer. ‘Just looking for new opportunities, I suppose.’

  Groan. He was a wannabe after all.

  ‘Opportunities for what?’

  This was where he’d pull the car over to the side of the road, whip off his trousers to reveal pants with a large lion on the front, and burst into three verses and a chorus of Robbie Williams’ ‘Angels’.

  ‘To meet people. New people. Sometimes you get tired of seeing the same old faces every night, and I just thought this might be a way of expanding my horizons.’

  Oh. Robbie Williams had left the building.

  ‘Shocked the fucking life out of me when I got picked, though. I mean, what are the chances?’

  I considered informing him that they were 3,342 to 1, the exact number of young men (or deranged specimens, depending on your viewpoint) that had responded to Zara’s appeal, but my nerd attack was cut short as we’d stopped again. This time we were outside Caesar’s, one of the most exclusive bars in the city, where on any given night you’d expect to find at least half the Arsenal team, two-thirds of Tottenham Hotspur, a dozen or so household-name soap stars and the current year’s crop of glamour models and Big Brother contestants.

  Again, we’d drawn to a halt on double yellow lines and we were ushered straight inside, bypassing a queue of bored revellers waiting in a line to get in. Thankfully, the envious queuing masses couldn’t hear my internal mantra, repeating furious prayers that I wouldn’t fall foul of a vertiginous-heeled mishap that would end with my buttocks meeting the floor.

  We were barely inside the door when a tall, dark-haired gent in a beautifully cut navy suit and open-neck white shirt greeted Gavin with an enthusiastic handshake. ‘Hey, my man, how’s it hanging?’

  ‘All good, Caesar, all good.’

  This was Caesar! I was in the presence of London nightclub royalty, the man who was a prince to Peter Stringfellow, the thong-wearing mullet king.

  Caesar guided us through the throng, to a VIP bar at the back that contained, if my vision and knowledge of famous faces could be relied on, Sean Bean, Ant or Dec (I was never sure which one was which), and Ashley Cole Is a Knob. Oh, and Sven-Göran Eriksson…or it could be a middle-aged geography teacher from Gillingham–it was hard to tell. Even though Gavin left me there for five minutes while he had a chat to Caesar, the subtle waves of thrill and excitement convinced me that I was beginning to enjoy the whole experience of this night. Gavin wasn’t exactly a conversationalist, but he was obviously one of the trendy ‘scene’ guys and my shallow genes were relishing the opportunity to be, for once in my life, one of the in-crowd. I wanted to process this new development in a classy, appropriate manner: by calling up everyone who’d ever known me and shouting ‘Woo-hoo, I’m cooler than a penguin’s arse’.

  ‘I’m sorry I keep deserting you, but this is the kind of job where you’re never off-duty,’ he apologised on his return.

  ‘That’s okay, I’m enjoying myself. Usually I’d be one of those poor souls standing outside with their face pressed against the glass, so just being inside is a bonus.’

  His polite laughter was tinged with scepticism, but he didn’t probe any further. Maybe he was under the illusion that I was more interesting than I actually was.

  Instead we switched to small talk over the beats thundering from the huge amps that were suspended from every corner of the room, and after half an hour I’d confirmed that yes, he was indeed Gavin, 25, a nightclub promoter. That was it. I hadn’t learned a single new fact about him. I’d used all of my people skills and investigative prowess, garnered from years of watching Homicide: Life on the Street, to come up with exactly nothing–zero, nada. This guy wasn’t so much still water as a frozen puddle. But then, I supposed, in this industry, superficiality was the norm.

  He’d subtly volleyed every question back to me or diverted my attention to another famous face being personally escorted by Caesar into the VIP world of three-hundred-pound bottles of Cristal and silicone breasts so huge they could suffocate a man with one squeeze.

  ‘How about one more club and then we’ll grab something to eat?’

  Back in the opulent surroundings of leather seats and a state-of-the-art automotive sound system, I had another go at information extraction and managed to ascertain that yes, BMW was his favourite car, and no, he’d never driven a Nissan Micra, much less a canary-yellow one like mine. At least he seemed amused by my suggestion that he was missing out on a valuable life experience.

  The Freezer was next on the list, an achingly cool club that kept its name in the gossip pages by revealing details of at least one punch-up featuring a minor royal every
month. For the first time that evening, the paparazzi were in evidence, and two Amazonian creatures with straight, waist-length hair and cheekbones you could slice cheese with were standing in the middle of the pack striking a multitude of poses.

  The paps didn’t even flick their flashes in my direction, but a few of them nodded to Gavin. For a few seconds I got a rush of the feeling that I imagined groupies must thrive on, a vibe of fame and respect by association, although I was getting it without having to give the drummer a blow job. Happy days. Gavin, strong but silent gentle giant that he was, hadn’t made a single inappropriate comment or overture all night, and (despite not knowing whether to be relieved or offended by that) I appreciated his chivalry. He’d been nothing but polite and courteous, and on the journey to The Freezer he’d actually expressed quite an interest in my job. Did he set my lust factor on gas mark eight? Mmm, nope, not even a gentle simmer. But hey, I’d been in two of London’s top clubs for free, and was just about to visit another; I’d had a few obscenely expensive glasses of champagne and seen a geography teacher from Gillingham–it beat sitting at home running up my phone bill by making spontaneous, overpriced calls to vote for my favourites on Strictly Come Dancing.

  The Freezer was an entirely different experience to the other clubs. Red lights pulsed, the music was intoxicating, and the atmosphere radiated sex from the black rubber floor to the two dozen onyx chandeliers that hung in a square formation above the main floor area. In the middle, a state-of-the-art lighting rig illuminated a dance floor that was about half full, mostly girls again, all deploying dance moves picked up during dedicated study at the Porno School of Rhythm and Movement. A bar stretched the full length of the wall opposite the entrance, but it was the action taking place against the other three walls that was responsible for my chin falling so low I could have played keepie up with my bottom teeth. Metal poles rose from black platforms, seven or eight of them along the wall and dangling from every pole was a female, completely naked, each one completely covered in a different colour of metallic body paint. Their bodies glistened against the lights as they turned, and flipped, and oh-my-God-I-couldn’t-look–Miss Silver and Miss Gunmetal Grey were going to end up with friction burns on their Brazilians if they did that split descent thing again. I averted my eyes but no corner of the room was safe. Directly to my left was…eeeeeewwwww. In contrast to all of the other perfectly smooth, hairless girls, if Miss Aluminium strayed too close to the light-bulbs she was in danger of starting a bush fire.

  Again, judging by the smiles, the hugs and the countless handshakes from designer-clad clubbers, everyone seemed to know Gavin, and I basked in his reflected glory for about an hour as he chatted to one person after another. There was no disappearing act this time, just a steady stream of revellers who seemed anxious to say hi, most of them even having the decency to feign interest when Gavin introduced me. He might not be boyfriend material, but staying in touch and having the occasional night out with him would be a blast. Although Stu was loaded and Trish earned a really good salary, neither of them had ever been crazy clubbers, partly, I suspected, because they knew that on my marketing-assistant salary, a few cocktails and an entrance fee would swallow up a huge chunk of my weekly wage. However, so far this evening, Gavin hadn’t had to put his hand in his pocket even once. There was a new private club in the West End that I regularly read about in Hello!, and I had a hunch that Gavin could be the passport to a free gawk at the kind of stars that demanded a huge Winnebago and charged ten million a movie.

  It was after ten o’clock when we made it back to the car, my stomach pacified by four large glasses of champagne and a bellyful of celebrity spotting. Anyway, now that I was a close personal friend of Kate Moss (I was ninety per cent sure she’d been the stick-thin blonde standing next to me in the queue for the toilets at Caesar’s) I no longer needed food. This was the new Leni, the one who lived on champagne and who intended to start smoking the minute she could lay her hands on a packet of Marlboro Lights.

  ‘Are you having a good time?’ Gavin asked as he clipped his seatbelt on.

  ‘I am, thanks. This is the most fun I’ve had in ages. My mates and I have slipped down the path of Saturday-night DVDs and a takeaway so it’s been a while since I was out on the town. Of course, it’ll be even better when the ringing in my ears stops.’

  For the first time I heard him laugh, and it was as high-pitched as his voice. I was getting a better handle now on why he’d opted for employment in the world of nightclubs: far more chance of career progression and success with the opposite sex if you spent every night in an environment that couldn’t hear too much of those dulcet tones.

  ‘Permission to blurt out something really naff?’ I requested, figuring we were chummy enough now that I could drop the cool-and-collected act.

  ‘Fire away,’ he replied.

  ‘I’m loving seeing all the famous people. I feel like I’m living in page two and three of News of the World.’

  He was facing me now, his features slightly softened by the dim lighting and those four large glasses of champagne. Maybe I could find him attractive after…No! Bloody hell, I was turning into a lush. Next I’d be searching down those footballers and offering them a quickie in the toilets.

  ‘Actually, you could return the favour.’ It took me a moment to comprehend what he’d just said and work through the possible explanations until I reached a firm understanding of his meaning. Nope, no idea whatsoever. How could I return the favour? I didn’t know anyone famous except Zara. Zara! Gavin didn’t strike me as the obvious type, but maybe he was deeply spiritual and fancied having a personal reading. His methods were a bit strange, though–he could have saved himself the bother of trailing me around all night and just called the office for an appointment.

  ‘Are you curious to know what’s in store or is there someone on the other side that you want to contact?’

  ‘The other side of what?’

  ‘In the other world.’

  ‘What, America?’

  Shit, I hated these conversations. I was saying one thing, he was saying another, yet there was absolutely no connection between the two whatsoever.

  ‘Let’s start again,’ I suggested. ‘Why do you want to meet Zara?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  How many glasses of champagne had I drunk? Had someone spiked them? Or had I somehow ingested the chemical mood enhancers that were very obviously floating around in the toilets of all three of the clubs we’d visited? That must be it–I was buzzed by osmosis.

  ‘So how can I return the favour then? You did say that, didn’t you? Or did I hallucinate the whole of the last five minutes.’

  ‘Conn. I wouldn’t mind hooking up with Conn,’ he revealed.

  The furrow of confusion on my brow was so deep I could have used it as a pencil holder. I was definitely stoned–or maybe this flash motor of his had a technical fault that was feeding emissions directly into the car, causing severe confusion and a departure from logical thought and comprehension.

  ‘But why would you want to meet Conn? He’s not famous.’

  ‘Are you kidding me? He’s legendary, man.’

  I crossed my fingers that ‘man’ was a colloquialism as opposed to another confusion caused by the faulty exhaust fumes. Gavin slipped the gear-stick into drive, checked his side mirror, and we pulled out of the parking space and into the road.

  ‘Legendary for what?’

  I never got to hear the answer. A black car suddenly swerved straight in front us, perpendicular to the X5 and blocking our path. An identical one nudged our back bumper, trapping us in a black car sandwich. A third car, a silver one this time, screeched to a halt a few feet away from Gavin’s door, and from each vehicle sprang at least a dozen black-clad Ninja warriors (actually, that might be a slight champagne exaggeration, but there were about a dozen blokes in total, they all seemed to be dressed in black, and in my head they were definitely of the Ninja variety), who proceeded to leap athletically around our
car, two of them actually jumping over the bonnet in an action-hero-like manner.

  ‘Out of the car, out of the car!’ one of them screamed, his face contorted with rage, spittle spraying out of his mouth. I tried to comply, I really did, but my legs were temporarily refusing to receive signals from my brain.

  The doors were wrenched open, and that’s when I noticed the scariest development of all: every single one of the men was brandishing a handgun.

  Fuck. Me. Dead.

  My legs were suddenly getting their instructions directly from the cranial synapse labelled ‘Shake Ferociously’.

  Everything was happening like a Chinese gangster movie on fast-forward. One of the blokes wrenched Gavin out of the car, spun him around and slammed him against the back door, the other six pistols that were pointing at him encouraging him to keep his hands exactly as they were, above his head, palms clenched together.

  ‘OUT, OUT, OUT!’ screamed the large man now standing next to me.

  I spun my body around, put my feet out of the door and threw the rest of me out after them, hoping my legs would at some point remember their anatomical purpose and support my body weight.

  They did. Just.

  Seconds later my cheek was hugging the glass of the back passenger window, and my new friend, otherwise known as ‘Big Scary Man with Gun’, was frisking me from head to toe.

  This was definitely a hallucination. It had to be. Or a bad dream. I was actually sitting at home with Mrs Naismith watching telly and I’d nodded off and slipped into the nightmare from hell, one that a large crowd of bystanders were now forming around, all of them craning to witness the action and filming the unfolding drama on their mobile phones.

  Presumably satisfied that I wasn’t carrying Trish’s Uzi, Big Scary Man with Gun pulled my arms down behind my back and snapped on some kind of plastic wire stuff before pulling me around to the bonnet of the car. Any minute now, I’d wake up and there would be Mrs Naismith waving a cup of tea and a ginger slice under my nose. Either that or the terror would cause a fatal heart attack and Big Scary Man with Gun would have to write up a brown paper tag and tie it around my big toe.