by Simon Brooke
I suddenly feel a wave of anger. How could they dump me in it? If only I’d smiled and said “No thanks,” when we started discussing it at that modelling job.
I make a list of the model agencies I could approach. There are three that I think I’d be prepared to go with. It seems like a very short list on the laptop screen, the cursor blinking underneath it expectantly. Even adding the phone numbers doesn’t seem to bulk it up. My options appear pretty limited to say the least.
I pick up the cuttings and go out to the copy shop down the road. The woman there smiles and asks me how I am.
“Fine, thanks,” I say.
“I saw the piece about you today,” she says as the copier zips back and forth, flashing light over her face.
“Yesterday? In the Mirror? That was pretty embarrassing. I don’t think we’ll be including that one in the file.”
“No,” she says, taking a press cutting off the glass and replacing it with another one. “Today. I’ll have to put this one on A3, is that okay?”
“Today?”
“Yes, in the Post, I think it was.”
My first reaction is that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but I’ve had so many surprises—most of them horrible—over the last few weeks that I realise she’s probably right.
“Can I pick these up later? I’ll pay you cash.”
“Of course, if you want to, but I’ve nearly finished.”
I race out of the door and rush across the road to the newsagent’s, missing a taxi by inches.
It’s the main story in the features pages.
The dream finally ended yesterday as the smartest website on the Internet closed. Post reporter Nora Benthall, who has followed the 2cool2btrue story from the start, talks exclusively to Charlie Barrett, the man at the centre of the controversy.
There is a photo of me from the site, looking cool and pleased with myself.
Charlie Barrett seems relaxed for a man at the epicentre of what has been described as the South Sea Bubble of the noughties. Wealthy celebrities ranging from financier Sir James Huntsman to pop star Sir Josh Langdon and theatrical impresario Martin Preston have lost millions after investing in the website 2cool2btrue.com and many other investors are promising legal action.
With the real financial whiz kids behind the site in hiding, hotly pursued by Fraud Squad officers, former male model Charlie Barrett is now the focus of attention and has found himself holding the fort against creditors and reporters. The last few days have certainly been tough on Barrett—his office has been bombarded by photographers and his every move watched by police and angry investors—but he has managed to stay cool, 2cool, perhaps?
He is sanguine about the eventual collapse of the site which kept its millions of fans around the world in touch with the cutting edge of cool.
“It was fun while it lasted,” says Barrett, thirty, over a glass of champagne. “But I’m glad it’s closed, it’s finally reached a conclusion. May it rest in peace.”
His good looks are more than matched by his easy charm, and it’s not difficult to see why in a career spanning almost ten years he has worked in London, New York and Milan, promoting everything from smart suits to whisky and Italian designer labels to fast cars.
“It was time for a career change,” he tells me. “I’d had enough of modelling.”
Later on I say (apparently):
“We really thought that 2cool could be different, something that would appeal to young people wherever they are and show them what is on offer in the way of clothes, music, food, architecture. It was like we were reinventing youth culture, relaunching it for the twenty-first century, the biggest statement since it had been invented in the sixties.”
Did I really say that? It sounds more like Guy or Piers. I certainly sound eloquent. Daft and pretentious, but eloquent.
His naivety is remarkable at times, but has the effect of making him all the more endearing, even charismatic. You can suddenly understand why normally shrewd business people would want to be involved in 2cool, a project that he so clearly believes in and sells with such effortless cogency. Barrett freely admits that he had almost no marketing experience other than a degree in the subject from Leeds University, and his knowledge of Internet entrepreneurship is also almost nonexistent.
However, he reveals the thinking behind this. “It meant that I came to it fresh, with no preconceptions, no baggage,” he says. He argues that being a successful model also requires a certain skill in marketing. It’s a tenuous connection but, again, Barrett’s obvious sincerity and enthusiasm carry you over the treacherous, rocky terrain of his illogicality.
It goes on to talk about Lauren and my flat before concluding:
Given the cool, casual smartness of his own lifestyle, almost every aspect of which—from his blonde model girlfriend Lauren to his elegantly understated Chiswick flat—looks like a shoot from the pages of a glossy magazine, it’s quite understandable that he should want many more of us to share in the wonderful world of luxury and style that he inhabits. It’s just a shame that boring things like basic economics and balance sheets got in the way.
I walk to the office building and up to the second floor feeling almost dizzy with confusion and disbelief as much as anger. I’ve been so close to this woman, emotionally and physically, and now she’s done this to me. How? Why? Did I think our making love might make a difference? I skim through the piece again just to make sure that there are no references to my body or performance in bed.
At that moment my mobile rings. I don’t recognise the number shown on it but, in something of a daze, I answer it anyway.
“It’s me. I’m outside,” she says.
“Erm, come up.”
I buzz her in and sit down at my desk. I don’t want to shout at her, I’m too stunned and perplexed for that, I just want an explanation. I just want to know how I got it so wrong. Perhaps this is normal behaviour, perhaps people often do this kind of thing in life and I’m just not aware of it.
“Hi?” she says, putting her head round the door.
“Why?” is all I can say.
“Oh, Charlie.” She sighs matter-of-factly, putting her bag down on the desk and sitting down. “Look, I was debating whether or not to tell you last night.”
“Why didn’t you? Hang on, why the hell did you write the thing in the first place?”
“Because they told me to write a piece about it after that Mirror story and the TV report and…ow, do you mind if I take my shoes off? They’re killing me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you ask me?”
“I don’t have to ask you. I can write whatever I like, it’s a free country,” she reminds me, as if I’m being the unreasonable one.
I slam my hand down on the desk. “Nora, you and I made love last night. You can’t do this to me.”
“Why, do you feel violated?” she says, enunciating the last word with exaggerated passion.
“Don’t push it,” I say, raising my finger at her.
She takes a deep breath and looks down at the floor. “Look, I didn’t ask you because if I’d asked you, you’d have said no. Or, if you’d let me do it, you’d have been too self-conscious. It wouldn’t have worked right. Anyway, the point is it’ll do a lot of good, it’s just telling your side of the story.”
“I don’t need you to tell my side of the story.”
“Just read it,” she says, reaching over the desk and flipping the paper round to face her. “Read it and tell me if there’s anything you don’t like, anything that I’ve got wrong.”
“Of course! That call last night.” It comes back to me, making me feel even sicker, even angrier. I was just feet away from her, naked, running a bath. “You rang the paper to get them to put that line in about it being taken off the net. You checked your watch to make sure that you could still catch them before it went to print. Christ, you bitch. How could you?”
“There’s no point in going on about it now, it’s too late
to change it. I think it’ll do you a power of good.” She puts her left foot on to the desk. “I also think I’ve crippled myself with these bloody shoes. One of the fashion assistants leant them to me. Some new guy just out of college who’s going to be very hot, already been recruited by Tom Ford or something but God, ow, he must hate feet.”
“Just stop talking.”
She looks round and stares at me, affronted.
“Don’t you know, don’t you care what you’ve done? I can’t tell if you’re serious or not. Do you think this is funny?”
“No, I don’t think it’s funny. I just think your reaction’s over the top, that’s all.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Nora. I wish to God I’d never met you. I regret this whole 2cool shit but what I really regret is ever getting involved with you.” I’m inches away from her face now, leaning over the desk. “I wish I’d never met you, do you understand, Nora?” I sense a jolt of adrenaline. This feels good. “I just can’t believe anything you say to me. You’re a compulsive liar, aren’t you? How could you have sex, make love—is that what it was?—to me one minute, literally one minute, and then trick me, shit on me the next?”
I can feel tears pushing their way up into my eyes. My hands are trembling.
“What else are you lying about, Nora? If that’s your real name. Or is that just another lie? What kind of name is Nora anyway? I’m sure a bright girl like you could have invented something more convincing than Nora,” I tell her. “Can I believe that you went to Vassar and you had a boyfriend who said that stupid thing about reading when he was too old to play sport? Those are pretty convincing lies, I could fall for those, yep, quite easily.”
If I still don’t know the real Nora, still can’t get close to her after we’ve slept together, then perhaps upsetting her, making her cry will do it. She looks away, but not at her foot this time, and when she turns back at me, she is blinking away tears like a little girl trying to be brave.
“I did go to Vassar, I did have that boyfriend. All that I’ve told you is true, Charlie. I’ve been, well, less than honest about the articles, but then I had to be. I’ve never lied to you about who I am…or how I feel about you. And I am called Nora.” Her voice is suddenly cracking. Are those tears real?
“Oh, yeah,” I say, less angry now, suddenly a bit concerned at what I’ve started.
“If you must know, my dad gave me my name. Quite simple. Why are you called Charlie?”
I look at her for a moment. Okay, not a good comparison. “Never mind,” I tell her.
She takes a deep breath, made ragged by tears. “If you must know, if you think it’ll help, Nora is an anglicisation of my name. Really I’m Noor.”
“Noor?”
“Do you know that name? It’s Arabic.”
She stops and swallows hard. She looks in her handbag for something and I realise she wants a hanky. I go across to Scarlett’s desk and pick up a box of tissues. Nora takes one, saying “Thanks,” almost inaudibly. What have I done here?
“My father is a doctor and my parents were living in Cairo when I was born, because he was working there as part of an aid programme. My mother went into labour unexpectedly when Dad was out with some colleagues and medical students at a party. She was rushed to hospital and the servants went out to tell him but it was hopeless, they couldn’t find him anywhere, so they had to wait until he got home after midnight. Then they gave him the news. In fact, all they could tell him, all they knew, was that she had gone to hospital.”
She pauses and bites her lip. I stand back and watch her.
“Unfortunately, though, there had been…there had been a complication. It wasn’t the doctors’ fault…a one in a million chance…and my mother…When he finally got there ready to see his wife and his first child he was told that they had both died. Can you imagine? Instead of having a wife and a child, a family, all he ever wanted, he had nothing, no one. So he was taken upstairs to see the bodies—his wife’s that he knew so well, and the tiny corpse of this complete stranger, someone he’d created, who was part of him, someone he’d listened to and felt kick, but he’d never met before and would never know now.
“But I wasn’t dead. Somehow I’d made it. I’d started breathing. The nurse had just noticed this and was so busy trying to revive me that she hadn’t had time to tell anyone else yet. When my dad came in and she saw him she started crying, apparently, even though she was used to seeing life and death every day. My dad says as soon as she handed me to him and he held me in his arms he knew what to call me—Noor. It means ‘light’ in Arabic. Standing with the body of his wife in that terrible darkness, I was his only light.”
She sniffs again and wipes her nose. “You see the irony was that my dad was an obstetrician, the best in the city, probably the best in North Africa. If he’d been on duty at the hospital that night he would probably have been able to save her, save his wife.”
We sit in silence for a moment. Then I walk round the desk to where she is and kneel in front of her, taking her hands in mine. I kiss them gently. She leans down and I feel her rest her face on my head, still sniffing back tears. I don’t know how long we stay like that. It’s my mobile that brings us out of our trance.
“Answer it,” whispers Nora, huskily.
“No, don’t worry.”
“Get it. I’m okay,” she says, sniffing and unfurling the soggy tissue.
Still watching her, I get up slowly and pick up the phone from the desk. It’s showing another mobile number that I don’t recognise. I press “OK” to answer it.
“Hello?” I say and cough to get my voice back.
“Charlie Barrett?” barks a throaty voice that is vaguely familiar.
“Speaking.”
“Anastasia Huntsman.”
“Oh, hi, Anastasia. How are you?”
“Good, thanks. Listen, I know where Piers is.”
Chapter
23
I’m not quite with it so this information takes a moment to sink in. I look round at Nora.
“You what? You know where Piers is?”
“Yes, I made a few phone calls after we spoke and a friend has just come back to say he knows where he’s living at the moment.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No,” she laughs, clearly revelling in the power this knowledge is giving her, a bored rich girl looking for a thrill, something to tell her other bored, rich friends about. “I’m deadly serious.”
“Well, where is he?”
“It’s a squat in south London. Piers in a squat, can you imagine it?” She laughs again.
“No, I can’t.” I laugh too, but really just to humour her. I look across at Nora, who is staring intently at me. She mouths something but I ignore her, anxious in case Anastasia rings off.
“Can you give me the address?” I ask.
“That I’m waiting for,” she says in her luxurious drawl.
“You haven’t got it?”
“No, patience, my boy.” She is definitely playing with me now. I roll my eyes heavenward and say “Oh, fuck” silently. Nora is now standing up and trying to attract my attention.
“But you could get the address for me?” I ask, mainly for Nora’s benefit. “I’d really appreciate it, Anastasia.”
“Oh, sure. He’s staying in a house owned, well not quite owned, but occupied from time to time by some guys who get my gear for me if you know what I mean. I’m not sure where they’re hanging out at the moment, that’s all. I can call them after seven this evening and they’ll give me the address then, I’m sure, no problem.”
“And you’ll ring me then?”
“Sure, don’t worry,” she says smoothly.
“Thanks, Anastasia.”
“You’re welcome, love. Speak soon. Bye.”
“Oh my God, she knows where he is,” says Nora, hanging on to my arm, eyes still red but now wide with excitement. “I don’t believe it. She knows where he is.”
“Yeah.” I’m wondering whether
, when I do get this address, to tell the police.
“Amazing news! That’s so great. But why couldn’t she give you the address now?”
I’d feel bad handing Piers over to the police, but then again, why not? He’s landed me in it. If he has defrauded people then he deserves to face the consequences. On the other hand, if he hasn’t done anything wrong he’s got nothing to fear. It would also avoid getting further embroiled with Nora.
“Why didn’t she give you the address now? When is she going to call you?” she asks.
But the idea of handing him to that mean, ugly bastard Slapton on a plate is too much. I have a vision of him standing in my bedroom. He’d have such a coup. Nora is pulling at my arm like a kid. I look at her, wondering how she could turn me over again with this new development.
My thoughts still elsewhere, I tell her, “She doesn’t have the address at the moment. She needs to get it from her dealer and she can’t ring him until after seven tonight.”
“Seven tonight?” Nora looks distraught. “We can’t wait that long.”
“Well, Nora, we’re going to have to, aren’t we?”
She thinks about it for a moment. Then she says, “You’re going to the police.” She looks horrified at this sensible option.
“Well, let’s face it. I should go, shouldn’t I?”
“What?” She stomps across the room and throws her hands up in the air. “Are you crazy? This is huge. This is what we’ve been waiting for. How can you give it all away?”
“Because the police will know what to do.”
“Don’t be insane. This is such a massive story.” She stops when she realises what she’s said.
“That,” I tell her, “is exactly what I’m afraid of.”
She looks guiltily at me. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Oh, Nora. I just want to get out of this. I want to call the police, give them the address when I know it, let them arrest Piers or whatever and get my life back.”