by Simon Brooke
“That’s another thing we do,” says Peter. “We give little tips on how to get that professional look.”
“Oh, that would be useful,” says Sarah, clearly feeling guilty about her last joke. I know she couldn’t give a toss, though, and so I’m trying not to laugh again.
Over the main course, the others ask Lauren about her new career and she smiles knowingly at Peter. Then they ask about my new venture. Mark doesn’t say anything, even though I address most of my comments to him. He nods in an interested but noncommittal way.
I make my usual contribution to the meal by taking the dinner plates into the kitchen and putting them in the dishwasher. Then I carefully take the Patisserie Valerie tarte aux fraises out of its box. Two things are racing certainties at this point: one is that I’ll nearly drop it—which I do, breaking the crust slightly—shit! Lauren will notice, even if no one else does. The other is that Mummy’s Little Helper will make an appearance.
“Can I do anything?” asks Sally from behind me.
“No, it’s fine, honestly. No problem. Thanks.”
“Are you sure?” she asks, her voice rising another octave.
“Yes, honestly. It’s very kind, Sally, but there’s no need.”
“Really? I feel so guilty leaving you out here doing all this while we’re in there having a good time.” I’m probably having a better time loading the dirty dishwasher and struggling with an uncooperative tarte aux fraises than I would be in there, but I don’t say it.
“No, I know my place, Sally. The old kitchen porter.”
“Oh, you are good.” Oh, you are annoying. “Are you sure?”
“Oh, go on then, clean the oven, will you?”
There is a silence from Sally as I crush up the tart box and bash it down into the overflowing bin. Obviously not my funniest line ever. But when I turn round, Sally, in her pearls and immaculate Thomas Pink shirt and pressed blue jeans is peering anxiously into the oven.
Chapter
8
On the way to the tube station on Monday morning I grab a copy of the Post to see Nora’s piece. I have to read through quite a bit of other stuff before I find it and by this stage I’m sitting on the train, so when I say, “Oh, shit,” loudly, quite a few people around me notice.
The first thing I see is a picture of me. It’s from a job I did last year, or the year before, for some Swedish fashion house. I’m in a white linen shirt with most of the buttons undone and an old pair of jeans and cowboy boots, lying back against a huge, moss-covered log in a wood, hair ruffled, giving it the old three-quarters-to-camera, frowny “come to bed” look. I hated the picture when I first saw it and never even put it in my book. Now coupled with the headline
AT LAST…THE NET NERD GETS SEXY
I hate it even more.
It’s huge—across nearly two whole pages. There are other pictures, including one of me in a tux which is taken from a catalogue, and another featuring me on a beach, wearing some stupid bright yellow trunks, I was originally advertising a holiday brochure, but now my “family” have been carefully cut out so I look like an extra from Baywatch.
If the pictures are toe curling, the text is worse:
The blond, six-foot hunk is self-effacing when I ask about his involvement with the new site. “I think they’ve just employed me because I’ve got the right look, you know, classy, cool,” he says.
Did I? Possibly, during lunch at some point, but I was being sarcastic. Tongue in cheek. Didn’t she understand that? Well-aired observations about Americans and irony flit through my mind.
You won’t know his name but you’ll know his handsome face—and his well-toned body—from hundreds of advertisements and commercials around the world for a variety of luxury products, ranging from designer-label clothing to fast cars. Charlie Barrett is one of Britain’s most successful male models….
No, I’m not—and I told her not to use the phrase “male model.”
Over lunch at his favourite restaurant, the mind-bogglingly hip Dekonstruktion in Soho, haunt of celebrities and the media world’s most beautiful people, he explains a bit more about how the site, dubbed “the coolest thing in cyberspace,” will work. “It’s a second-generation site so we’ve learnt from the mistakes of the net pioneers.”
I’ve never used that phrase in my life.
“It’ll be the first web designer label,” explains Barrett. “But what about the Gucci and Prada websites?” I ask.
No, you didn’t.
“Ah,” he says, his deep blue eyes flashing with excitement, “they are just luxury products with a website, this will be a website that is itself a luxury product. It’s a global village of cool. Your boss will actually be impressed to see you surfing it at work.” With his chiselled jaw and elegantly swept back mane of blond hair, Barrett, who lives in trendy Chiswick with his model turned TV presenter girlfriend…
When did that happen?
is something of a designer label himself. But he has now decided to turn his back on the modelling world…
I can’t wait for Penny to read that.
and to trade on his good looks and his cool, self-assured manner in order to bring his lifestyle of elegance and hip sophistication to a wider audience. “It’s very aspirational,” he says, using one of the marketing men’s favourite buzzwords. Now we can all aspire to be like Charlie Barrett.
Feeling light-headed with the initial shock, and anger welling up inside me, I fold up the paper as the woman next to me quickly goes back to her book after allowing herself one final glance at my face.
I get off at Piccadilly Circus and feel, or at least imagine I feel, thousands of pairs of eyes on me. I’ve been stopped in bars, at the gym and even on the street before with the question, “Aren’t you the bloke from—?” Or, “Sorry, but aren’t you in that ad for—?” It goes with the territory and it can even be quite funny sometimes, depending on who makes the comment and what kind of mood you’re in, but “Hang on, aren’t you that vain, arrogant jerk in today’s Post?” isn’t quite as much fun somehow.
As I open the door of the office, Scarlett and Piers, who are the only ones in, cheer in unison.
“Our media star,” says Piers, beaming.
“You mean your media twat.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t think he likes the piece, Piers,” says Scarlett dryly.
“Don’t you? Why not?”
“Why not? It’s just so fucking embarrassing.”
“Is it? Why? Where?”
“The pictures, for a start, and all this shit about me being Mr. Super Cool, drop-dead elegant….”
“I liked the picture,” says Scarlett. “Nice bod, honey. Is is true that male models—?”
“No, it’s not. Well I don’t, anyway.”
“Look, Charlie,” says Piers, putting an arm round my shoulder and walking me over to my desk. “I’d be lying if I said we didn’t employ you for the way you look, but it’s much more than that. It’s your style, your presence, the way you wear your clothes, the way you carry yourself…you’re our…what’s the word, Lettie?”
“Muse,” says Scarlett, scraping the bottom of a yogurt pot with a plastic spoon.
“That’s it, you’re our muse. We want to create a website, oh, more than that, a lifestyle, a façon de vivre for people who want to be like you.” He pauses for effect. “That’s why that piece is so good, so important.”
“But, Piers, I look like a total bullshitter and a total tit,” I say, shaking his arm off me and sitting down heavily.
He puts his hands on my desk, leans over and looks at me. “Charlie, you think you do because you’re a nice guy, a modest sort of bloke who is embarrassed by this kind of adulation, okay? But believe me, to the ordinary customers out there, to those Post readers, you’re the smartest, hippest thing ever. You simply are 2cool2btrue. You represent what they want to be, what they want a piece of. This is exactly what our target audience is looking for. Aspirational! You sa
id it yourself.”
I get some water out of the fridge. It’s that six quid a bottle stuff. Glacial Purity. Actually, I never mentioned the word “aspirational” to Nora. Did I?
I ring Nora at the Post’s office just to see if I can at least ask why she wrote what she did, but funnily enough she is not around.
“Who? Nora?” There is a laugh. “No, she’s sort of out at the moment.”
“Sort of out?” What does that mean? Just generally out of it?
“She will be back later. Can I take a message?”
“Yes, please. Could you ask her to ring Charlie Barrett?”
“Will do.”
“Ta.” I put the phone down. Can’t that girl even be out in a normal way?
Lauren rings towards lunchtime. She has just done a casting and someone we both know pointed out the article to her.
“Oh, don’t! Who was it?”
“Jo Preston.”
“Shit. What do you think of it?”
“Well…”
“Oh, fuck, don’t say ‘Well.’”
“Are they pleased at the office?”
“At 2cool? Yeah, Piers is delighted.”
“Well, that’s what I was going to say—that’s the important thing. If they’re pleased then you’re doing your job.”
“I suppose so.”
“Cheer up. I’ll save a copy for my mum. Love you. See you tonight.”
Karyn also rings to tell me she has seen it, as indeed has Penny.
“What are you going to tell her?” asks Karyn.
“Well, I’d better be honest I suppose.”
“Why?” says Karyn.
I laugh. “You’re right, Penny’s never been much into honesty, has she?”
“Why don’t you just say that it doesn’t change your relationship with us greatly and that you can still do the occasional job. Penny will hate to see you go.”
“You’re right, I’ve been dreading telling her.”
“I’ll put you through to her now. Let me just see if she’s in her office…er…yep. Okay, just tell her what we agreed and don’t say anything more. Ring me back and let me know how it goes, if you want.”
“Ta, babe.”
There are a few minutes of a dance track and then Penny picks up.
“Hello, Charlie.” She is curt.
“Hi, Penny, how are you?”
“Fine.” Oh, shit.
“I suppose you saw that piece in the Post today,” I begin, flattering her that she is on the ball and reads more than OK and her stars.
“Yes, I did, Charlie. I was rather surprised, I must say.”
“Yes, it all happened rather quickly.”
“It must have done.”
“I wasn’t sure initially how much of a commitment this job was going to be or even if it was going to be full-time,” I explain, glad that the others are out at lunch and can’t hear this statement.
“Well, is it?”
“Yes, yes, it is, but they’re giving me quite a bit of freedom, so obviously if any good jobs come up…” I decide not to be too specific here.
“Okay, we’ll see how it goes,” she growls. “A lot of clients will be very disappointed about this but I suppose we could say something like you’re available by special arrangement only and hope that works. I can’t promise anything, though, and don’t come running back here when it all goes tits up.”
“No, sure. Well, as you say, we’ll see how it goes. That’s great.” Then I play my only trump. “Obviously we’ll be using Jet models whenever possible.”
She hardly skips a beat. “We’d be very happy to work with you.”
“Great. Thanks Penny.”
“Bye.”
She hangs up and so do I after I’ve made a face, and I give the receiver the finger.
“Oh, she could have been a lot worse,” Karyn points out when I ring her back later on the mobile and she pops out onto the fire escape to talk. “You know how it is. Remember Paul Sommers.”
Paul Sommers, an affable Australian, was caught doing some “freelance” work for a shifty photographer. The pictures ended up being used everywhere and eventually Penny saw them. She screamed at Paul across the office, “You’ll never model in London again!” and threw his cards at him. In fact he went back home, got into some soap and now he’s coining it, but no one wants to feel the full, Concorde-engine force of Penny’s wrath.
I try to get on with some work such as finalising the details for the party and chasing the PR company for a draft of the press release. Perhaps Lauren is right. And even Piers. I might not like the coverage, but it might be right for the target audience, whatever I think. All the same: “chiselled jaw,” “well-toned body”…Oh, God!
On Tuesday after lunch, when Scarlett is out having a cranial massage and Zac is…well, just not in the office, I ring my dad on his mobile.
“I thought it was great—very positive coverage.”
“I thought I looked like a tit.”
“Yeah, but it’s not aimed at you, is it? Think of your target audience.”
“So what? I still look pretty daft. Everyone I know will be laughing at me.”
“Not when you make a mill or two out of this thing. Look, I’ve got to run. I’ve got a busy morning ahead of me.”
“What do you mean ‘morning’? It’s afternoon. Where are you?”
“I’m in New York. Someone faxed that piece over to me yesterday, as soon as it appeared. We’re just keeping an eye on 2cool.”
“Okay, give me a ring when you get home again. Come and find me. I’ll be in hiding up in the hills.”
“Will do. Don’t worry, like I said, it’s brilliant brand positioning.”
It’s this comment and the realisation that he saw the piece not because of any paternal pride or interest but because of the commercial opportunity associated with it that makes me snap at him.
“I’m not a brand, I’m your son,” I point out. But he has gone and I’m left shouting to no one across thousands of miles of empty air.
Our fantastically cool and expensive stereo arrives later that day and a bloke spends a couple of hours installing it, asking if I have any idea how state-of-the-art this thing is. I say I don’t, but can I get Radio Two on it? He doesn’t see the joke and talks about watts per channel and digital quality sound reproduction or something just as absurdly pretentious.
Bags of clothes are delivered from the 2cool stylist, and Scarlett and I have some fun trying them on while Piers is out lunching someone at Le Caprice and Guy is doing the same at the Savoy Grill. Later, a couple of crates of champagne are dropped off which have apparently been ordered for entertaining in the office. Before I can stop her, Scarlett has decided that we need some entertainment and she opens one.
Other than that there is very little to do for most of the week. I begin to learn something, though, that all my friends who went to work in offices after school and university learnt many years ago: the art of paper shuffling and time killing. Scarlett and I go for organic juices and Shiatsu massages and even spend a couple of hours shopping on Wednesday with our 2cool credit cards: a Hugo Boss shirt for me and an outfit for her from a shop called Sceeech! for a lesbian wedding she is going to on Saturday.
On Thursday Piers take me for what he describes as a fact-finding trip to Bond Street and Harrods.
“This ghastly junk is just the kind of thing we’re not about,” he says very loudly in Harrods’s Room of Luxury.
A few shoppers look round in surprise. I pretend to be one of them.
“Harrods is what Gucci and Pierre Cardin were in the seventies when they licensed themselves to anything and everything,” explains Piers. “You’ve got to guard a brand with your life. After all, it is your life, well, your livelihood anyway.”
We move into another area of the shop, part of the menswear department, and Piers picks up some ties and drops them.
“Crap display!” he bellows.
Partly to hide my embarrassment I
say, “I’m just going to the loo, Piers, shall I see you back here in five minutes?”
“A piss?” he roars. “Yeah, I could do with one too.”
“I think the Gents is down there,” I whisper. At the urinals Piers continues to lecture me on luxury-goods marketing.
“They’re called ‘ostentatious goods.’ Part of the attraction is the high price—people feel they’re treating themselves whenever they buy something like that, or they just feel good because they know other people can’t afford them. It’s that old tag-line, ‘reassuringly expensive.’”
Piers even pees fast—his jet could cut slate. Mine is a pathetic, old man’s trickle by comparison. Piers finishes, looks down to see if I’m still going (yes, I’m going as fast as I can!) and then spins round to wash his hands.
We sprint out of the shop, Piers managing to make a couple of telephone calls between the inner and outer set of doors at the entrance. As we dash further down Knightsbridge we pass a beggar on the street outside, patterned shawl and skirt blowing in the breeze generated by the cars, hand extended, face set in the usual contorted mask of desperation and pleading. A drugged baby lies slumped in her arms. I look away, embarrassed, uncertain whether to give her money or not.
“See, that is bad market positioning,” says Piers, dialling another number on his mobile. It takes a moment for me to realise that he is talking about the woman we’ve both seen.
“What?”
“No one is going to give her money there. They’re either hard-hearted bastards who don’t care, or they’ve only got plastic on them. She should try the King’s Road or somewhere like that, where there are lots of kids around who are into that sort of thing, you know, begging and busking.”
Later we pass a young guy begging with a painfully thin mongrel on the end of a piece of rope, who shakes a tatty McDonald’s cup at us. Again I look away but Piers tells him, “Oh, eat your dog.”
“Iya,” says Lauren. “Good day?”