by Simon Brooke
“So your new girlfriend Nora isn’t related to Piers then?”
“She isn’t my new girlfriend! But, yeah, that other bit about Piers is right.”
“It’s also right when it says that 2cool is going down the tubes, isn’t it?”
“Yes, probably.”
“For God’s sake, Charlie, just leave it will you? Walk away.”
“I know, you’re right. Look, I’m waiting for a call from Karyn at Jet. I’m going to go back to modelling.”
“That’s very sensible. I’m glad to hear it,” she says, like a mother talking to her son who’s decided he will go back to college after all, this term. I always used to love Lauren’s self-assurance, her absolute conviction, but at the moment it’s just a bit annoying.
“First, though, I want to find Piers and Guy and find out what’s going on,” I say.
“I don’t believe it. Just forget it, will you?”
“I told you I will forget it—when I’ve found Piers and Guy and asked them some questions.”
“Well, I can’t stop you,” she says quietly. “But just stay away from that Nora woman, she’s trouble.”
“Seeing Peter tonight are you?”
“No, as a matter of fact, I’m going out with Sarah, but my work with Peter is totally different to your, your relationship with Nora. He’s helping my career, she’s destroying yours.”
I think about it for a moment and then I hear the “call waiting” bleep.
“I’ve got to go, I think that’s Karyn from Jet.”
“I’ll see you later.”
As I press the button to get through to the other call I wonder why Lauren and I cannot talk these days without rowing.
“Hi, it’s me,” says Nora.
“Hi.”
“No one at the Post has sent a photographer, and I checked with the news desk and my editor, and no one is doing a piece about 2cool.”
“So it must be another paper.”
“Yep. I’ll ask a mate of mine on The Times if they’re doing anything.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“You all right, Charlie?”
I laugh bitterly. “Oh, fine. My career’s collapsing around me, my girlfriend has read in the paper that I’m seeing someone else, the police are visiting me almost every day and I’ve got no money.”
“See what you mean. Oh, well.”
“Oh well?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that. It’s been a tough couple of weeks for you, hasn’t it? Do you want to have a drink tonight and talk about it?”
This woman is trouble, like Lauren says—especially after the piece in the Standard. But on the other hand Lauren’s out, and if she were in we’d only end up rowing. Nora, at least, knows what I’m going through at the moment.
We arrange to go to a place near hers at seven.
I sit at a café and order a cup of tea and a ham sandwich because I haven’t had any lunch yet. In fact I haven’t eaten much at all over the last few days. I’ve had no appetite recently, and Lauren normally decides what we eat even if it’s not her turn to cook. Like I say, I’ve always loved Lauren’s self-assurance and her no-nonsense approach; wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, you just have to look at her and she’ll know what to do next.
But now I’m doing something different, something she doesn’t approve of, doesn’t understand—and she obviously just can’t stand it. Like one of those big, smart hotels that will offer you anything, as long as it’s on the menu. If you ask for something a bit odd, there is no procedure in the customer care manual to handle it. I once wanted to go swimming in a hotel pool in France after we’d been shooting a catalogue all day and they just wouldn’t let me. The pool and the surrounding area were empty. I’d be very quiet, I assured them, and I just wanted to do twenty lengths or so, but neither the smiley receptionist nor her smiley manager would let me. Guest. Swimming pool. After 8 P.M. Access Denied. Won’t compute.
Perhaps that’s the thing about Lauren. You can have anything you want as long as it’s on her menu, within her sphere of competence. I think about Becky and her baby. I must have broached the subject three or four times but on every occasion I get this dismissive look as if I’m suggesting we get a pet snake or buy a holiday home in Bulgaria. It’s not that mad, is it? I’m thirty, for fuck’s sake. My dad already had two children at this age.
Perhaps there are some things that Lauren thinks are mad or inappropriate which, in fact, aren’t. Perhaps, amazingly enough, she might not be right all the time.
Oh, God, I love her so much but I just need a bit of freedom to do my own thing after all these years. To do something that’s not on the Lauren Tate list of officially approved activities. I realise how angry I am with her about 2cool. Okay, so she doesn’t think much of it but she must see how important it is to me, how much I want to prove that I can at least do my best, clear my name and not just look like another model who tried to do something else and failed.
I think I deserve a little support here.
Karyn rings me back while she’s out on a very late lunch break.
“Hi, Charlie, sorry about that. How’s it going?”
“From bad to worse to disastrous. I was wondering, actually, if I could go back to modelling. Do you think Penny would take me back?”
Her reply takes me by surprise. “I’m afraid not, Charlie. We were talking about you this morning. Penny saw the piece in the Standard and she called me in and said she doesn’t want us to represent you again because of all the bad publicity.” I’m stunned. “Charlie? Are you there?”
“Yeah, er, yes. You’re kidding, though. I was one of her highest-earning models. I’ve made her a shedload of money over the years.”
“Oh, Charlie, of course you have, but you know what she’s like.”
“The ungrateful bitch.”
“I’m sorry to have to tell you that but she’s absolutely insistent.”
“Don’t worry, it’s not your fault.”
“To be honest she’s forbidden me to talk to you. It’s a good thing you didn’t give your name to Brad. Sneaky little queen, he knew it was you when you called just now and I’m sure he’s the one who’s told her.”
“I don’t want to get you into trouble, Karyn.”
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be okay. Look, Charlie, Nevs or MOT or SoDamnTuff would take you in a second with your book, you know that.”
“But not with my business track record and the bloody awful publicity I’ve had recently.”
“I’m sure they won’t be bothered.”
“That’s very sweet of you to say, I wish it was true. Look, I’ll give you a call on your mobile in a few days or something.”
I set off back to the office. At one point a man with a TV camera walks alongside me. I decide to say nothing and carry on walking, trying to look relaxed and confident, although I feel like I’m going to throw up at any moment.
“Cheers, mate,” says the cameraman nonchalantly, slipping the machine off his shoulder. In the office I suggest to the others that they go home. I tell them they should think about other jobs. Zac informs me that he’s already talking to a web design agency and Scarlett says she’s been asked to manage a new band that could end up being as big as someone I’ve never heard of.
I leave early with the phones ringing. We haven’t got any money to give to these people so why bother even speaking to them? After half an hour mooching around at home, cursing Penny, I decide to go swimming at the health club where I’ll soon have to give up my membership. The woman at reception gives me a lingering look and checks the name on my membership card. That’s right, love, I’m the guy from the poncey Internet fiasco. Ha, bloody, ha.
I spend quite a lot of time underwater, hearing my own breathing. Then I sit in the hot tub, which feels good on my stiff back and shoulders.
“Great thing about this is that you can fart all you want and no one else can tell,” says the other bloke in there with me. I smile politely and then
get out quite quickly.
What inspires people to say these things?
Back at home I have a shave since I couldn’t be bothered to this morning, and put on a black Thomas Pink shirt and faded blue jeans. Then I take that off and put on combats and my favourite B-52s T-shirt. Then I change that for a long-sleeved, ribbed T-shirt and my faded blue jeans again.
I leave early, so that I don’t see Lauren and have to tell her that I’m seeing Nora tonight. I arrive ten minutes early at where we’ve agreed to meet, cursing myself because I know Nora will be late. I pick up a paper; it’s the Standard. A sense of horrid fascination forces me to look at the article about Nora and Piers. There it is. Who could fail to miss it? Half our friends must think that me and Lauren have split up—which we haven’t, of course. Not technically, anyway.
Nora arrives almost on time. We’ve agreed to meet in a pub she knows. It’s just an ordinary pub, nothing smart, glamorous or achingly hip. Nor is there any special treatment or free drinks courtesy of 2cool, and that’s something of a relief. I’m glad to be able to go out for a drink without being an ambassador of cool. She’s wearing a peasant blouse and she looks good in it; quite normal, I suppose, is what I’m thinking.
“Hi,” she says, reaching up and giving me a peck on the cheek.
“Hi, what would you like to drink? G and T is it?”
“Double please,” she says to the barman. “Charlie, this is Cole. He’s an art student.”
“I am not,” says Cole. “I’m studying business finance.”
“That’s very useful,” I tell him, with grim irony.
“But Cole’s such a brilliant artist, he should be studying art,” says Nora.
“Nora, just because you’d like something to be true, doesn’t mean that you can go round saying it is,” Cole explains, dropping ice into a glass and giving me a what-can-you-do? look. I know the feeling, mate. I order a bottle of beer and we go to a quiet corner table.
“Did you tell your girlfriend about the Standard piece?” she asks.
“Didn’t have to—she saw it herself.”
“Ouch! Was she upset?”
“Just a bit.”
“Oh, dear. What does she do for a living?” asks Nora, taking a sip, quite a large one.
“She’s a model,” I say. “Too.”
“Beautiful couple.”
I laugh. Doesn’t feel like that any more. “She wants to get out of it and become a TV presenter. But you know that, don’t you?”
“Do I?”
“You said so in that first piece.”
“Did I?” I’m trying to work out if she’s really this forgetful or if she’s just putting it on. Under the unruly dark red hair and through the black-framed specs, her eyes give nothing away. Instead she thinks for a moment and then groans, “Oh, TV presenter. Doesn’t everyone want to be one these days? I was thinking that today when I was having lunch. Everywhere you go now, people—waiters and waitresses, shop staff, bar staff, people on the street—everyone acts like they’re, well, acting, waiting to be discovered. I was having lunch with an old college friend who’s a TV producer and our waitress must have known what he did for a living—she was practically doing audition pieces between the courses. Anecdotes, funny observations, chatty little asides as she took our order. If someone had had a cigarette lighter she’d have been performing in the light from it.”
I smile. “I know what you mean. I think Lauren will probably do it if she wants to. She’s very determined.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’d be very good. I hope she makes it,” says Nora, quickly.
“She probably will.”
“I never watch TV myself. It just bugs the hell out of me.”
“Quite relaxing sometimes, though.”
“No, see, I don’t think so. I hate it when you go to someone’s house or apartment and the whole room is focused on the TV. Even when it’s switched off, you sense this brooding presence, almost like you should be trying to pay it homage or at least bring it into the conversation. You know what I mean?”
“Blimey, you do hate them.” I suddenly feel I’m squaring up for a debate here. I wonder whether to take the opposing view just for the hell of it. “Television can educate and inform. I’ve learnt lots of things from it.” Please don’t ask me what, though.
“You couldn’t have got it from a book?”
“Probably, but you can see moving images.”
“From your position lying on the settee.”
“And I should be reading some improving work, sitting on a hard chair, is that it?”
She ignores this comment. “In fact, I think the size of a telly has a direct bearing on the owner’s intellect.”
“Mine’s fourteen inches,” I say. “My telly, that is.” I’m not sure which is more embarrassing: the Carry On-style double entendre or the claim to some sort of superior intellect.
Nora is just staring at me with interest. I wish she’d laugh or something. Instead she says, “Like this guy I dated in New York when I was at journalism school. He was a Wall Street trader, went to Stanford on a football scholarship or something.”
“A bit thick?” I ask. I’m keen to move on from my fourteen-incher comment.
“Could have rented his head out for storage space.”
I laugh.
“He caught me reading a book once, when we were staying with his folks in the Hamptons. You’d have thought I was doing drugs or picking my nose and flicking it at his family portraits. Finally told me, ‘I’m going to read when I’m too old to play sport.’ Can you believe it? I said, ‘Don’t you mean you’re going to stop playing sport when you’re old enough to read?’”
“Very good.”
“That was that.” She drifts off for a moment.
“You’re quite angry, aren’t you?” I tell her.
“Sorry, am I moaning?”
“No, I didn’t say that, I just said ‘you’re quite angry.’”
“I suppose so.”
“Anger’s a good thing, isn’t it?” It dawns on me. “I mean anger, if it’s directed properly, can be quite invigorating, energising, empowering?” Why am I thinking of Lauren and 2cool when I say this? “Can’t it?”
“Yeah, yeah it can. A lot of people do what they do, create things, change things, improve things, because of anger.”
She looks away and I watch her, wondering what she’s thinking now. She tries to catch the eye of Cole at the bar.
“I’ll get them,” I say, taking her empty glass.
“You’ve got to be quite angry to write,” she says when I come back. “Even fluff like I knock out.”
“What do you mean? Just to stir it up?”
“Yes, I suppose so.” She takes a drink and looks around the pub. “So you’ve had the police in.”
“How did you know that?” I ask defensively.
“You told me,” she says.
“Did I?” Shit, I’ve forgotten what I’ve told to whom. “Yes, they’ve been in twice. They’ve taken away all the financial stuff we’ve got.”
“The Missing Persons Unit took all that?”
“It wasn’t the Missing Persons Unit, it was the Fraud Squad.”
“Shit! That’s serious.”
“I wish I hadn’t told you that.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? Because I don’t want it in the paper.”
“Charlie. You still don’t trust me?”
I can’t believe she’s just asked me that. My silence is more damning than any words could be.
She looks surprised, hurt. “I promise I won’t mention it. From now on I won’t write about 2cool without talking to you.”
“I’d be very grateful,” I say, underwhelmed by her offer. I look at my watch: it’s gone nine. “Do you want to get something to eat?”
“Yes, I’d love to. I mean, that would be nice.”
“Where do you fancy?”
She thinks about it. “Somewhere with pictures of the food
on the wall outside.”
“Mmm, yummy, slightly faded ones.”
“Exactly, or better still a plastic model of them.”
“Deeelicious—and probably slightly dusty.”
“The waiters have name badges.”
“Printed with those Dymo tape machines.”
“And where they say ‘Enjoy your meal.’”
“And do their audition pieces between each course, just in case you’re someone who can get them on telly.”
She laughs, but I’m wondering how far Lauren is prepared to go.
Chapter
21
After dinner in a little Italian place round the corner (one bowl of salad knocked onto the floor during an animated description of the behaviour of Mariah Carey’s entourage during an interview, followed by a glass of wine while attracting the waiter’s attention about the salad) I decide to walk her back to hers before I get a taxi home.
“Well, night then,” she says, looking up at me. We haven’t done the key thing yet. We’re standing so close that I can smell the alcohol on her breath, and then somehow I find myself kissing her. Her mouth is soft and she lets my tongue find hers.
I pull away—but not to leave—and she takes her key straight out of her bag without any difficulty and opens the door. Silently, I find myself following her in. We go into her living room where she switches on a lamp, before turning to me and kissing me again. I know I should leave now. Every second that this goes on will make it harder to say “goodnight,” turn my back on her, and walk out.
Her flat is crammed with ornaments and books. Three huge bookshelves dominate it. Well-used paperbacks, their edges scuffed and worn, are packed in any old how. I turn my head to read some of the titles: The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf, Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, and No Logo by Naomi Klein are rammed in alongside Pride and Prejudice, The Catcher in the Rye, Little Dorrit and Animal Farm and even the Koran. I suppose quite a few people I know could claim to have the same titles on their shelves, but these books are so obviously well used. Read, reread and consulted.
Having turned on one table lamp and switched the main light off, she walks up to me and stands expectantly in front of me. I look at her and smile. What would Lauren say if she could see this? Stupid question. But I’m wondering. Would she dump me immediately? Or would she be hurt and angry and want to know why I was doing this? Why am I doing it? I’ve never been unfaithful to her in our entire relationship, so why am I doing it now?