by Simon Brooke
I get home at nearly ten-thirty and open the front door. She’s in. She’s on the phone, talking to her booker at the agency it sounds like, checking the venue and fee for a job the next day. I know she’s thorough but it seems to take ages. I wait in the living room, staring at the wall.
Finally she says “Bye, Lou, take care,” and puts the phone down. Then there seems to be a lot of paper shuffling. Oh, come on. Finally she walks in and jumps slightly when she sees me.
“You gave me a shock.”
I say nothing.
She puts some papers in her bag, which is on the chair next to me. “Where were you last night?” she asks, not looking up.
It doesn’t really matter how we start this thing, we both know roughly where it’s going to go.
“I was out.”
She stops what she’s doing for a moment.
“Yes, I know that. Where?”
“Never mind, where were you?”
She looks at the far wall. “I was here, Charlie, in our flat. In our bed.”
“Not when I came home.”
“Obviously not, but I came back just before midnight and went to bed. Now where were you?”
“I was out with someone from work.” We don’t have to say who. “You were with Peter, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I was as a matter of fact. We had a drink with a friend of his who’s a commissioning editor at Channel Four and then I got a taxi home and went to bed.”
It all sounds so reasonable. Oh, my God, how could I have doubted her?
“Lauren, I know you’re sleeping with him.” It comes out more considered, more assertive than I expected.
She finishes putting her stuff in the bag and turns towards me. “That’s complete crap. How can you say that when you’ve been out all night, fucking that weird, horrible woman who’s knifed you in the back time after time?”
I stand up and walk over to the window.
“Charlie,” she says more quietly. “I want you to move out. For a while at least.”
“So that Peter can move in?” As soon as I say it, I regret it. It sounds cheap and silly—and I don’t mean it. Perhaps I just want to hurt her. Why can’t Peter just take his silly, floppy fringe and his TV talk and his commissioning editor friends and leave us alone?
“No. I just need some space, that’s all. I think we both do. Last night was just…just the final straw.”
Chapter
25
Having stuffed some carelessly chosen clothes and a handful of toiletries into a bag I walk out of the flat and slam the door behind me without saying anything to her. I stomp purposefully along the street into the main road and then stop and look around.
What the hell am I going to do now?
I walk back down the road parallel to ours (“ours”?—can I still say that?) and sit down on a wall. A woman with a briefcase marches along and gives me a suspicious glance as she passes me. That’s right, dear, I’m just casing the joint.
Where can I go? I don’t want to move in with Nora; that would be too much. I could never go back to Lauren if I’d been staying there. Anyway, it’s not like I want to set up a new life with her, it’s just that…Just that what? I’m enjoying playing away from home? Getting at Lauren. Perhaps. Either way, it’s no reason to try and set up a new life with someone. Lauren’s words, sensible words, come back to me: “That weird, horrible woman who’s knifed you in the back time after time.”
I decide to focus on practical considerations again. I can’t land on Sarah and Mark or any of mine and Lauren’s common friends—it’s just not fair on them. I can hardly arrive at Becky’s with her new baby and a boyfriend I haven’t met yet.
I find myself thinking about me, Lauren and children. It seems further away than ever. A pointless daydream. Being unfaithful and staying out all night is hardly the best way to prepare for kids.
I realise that I have few other friends that are close enough just to crash out for a few nights with anyway. I can imagine my mates’ girlfriends who I hardly know, whispering in the kitchen about how long I’m going to be sleeping on the settee. I fidget at the thought of a settee and a sleeping bag. Why are living rooms always so cold at night, colder than bedrooms, somehow? I even contemplate the office—there’s a loo, a kitchenette and a long sofa there. What an awful thought. Somehow it’s only one step up from a doorway.
I need a bed and preferably my own room. I can’t land on my mum and anyway, that house is too depressing, so I consider the other parent. His spare room is en suite. With a jacuzzi. And a forty-inch plasma screen. What am I waiting for?
I dig out my mobile from my bag and ring him at work. He comes on the phone via the squawk box. He says, “Yeah? Oh, shame,” when I tell him about Lauren. I would have quite liked some paternal words of comfort or advice but, then again, this is a man whose TV commercials last longer than his relationships.
“Nothing lasts forever,” he adds profoundly, his voice distant and distorted through the loudspeaker.
“No, I suppose not. Hang on, isn’t that a line from that beer commercial you made a few months ago?”
“Yeah, well spotted, kiddo,” he says, delighted. “It just won an award at the TV ads international festival in Toronto. Our third!”
“Well done.”
My dad’s secretary arranges for a key to be waiting for me at the block’s marketing suite. I set off up the road and decide to pop into the shopping centre in Hammersmith to buy some magazines to read on my never-ending tube journey to the other side of the world. My soft leather holdall by Loewe looks slightly out of place in Hammersmith mall amongst the Safe-way carriers and Burger King bags. It’ll probably get snatched and then I’ll be completely unencumbered, with literally nothing but the clothes I’m standing up in.
There is a strong stink of piss by the entrance to the mall and as I walk in, an enormous teenage girl in black leggings and a bomber jacket is coming out shouting, “Leave my fucking dad alone, you slag. Go on, fuck off, I know you’re sleeping with him.”
At first I think she’s just bonkers, shouting at the world in general, and I really wouldn’t blame her for that. Then I see the object of her tirade: another girl, also a teenager, who is now shouting something back.
I buy GQ, Vogue Hommes and FHM plus the Post and The Times and set off to the tube station. As I wander along the street, replaying my last (last ever?) conversation with Lauren in my mind, I pass a dirty nappy lying on the pavement, a tiny smear of shit nestling in the stay-dry fabric. Nearby, a mother is changing her baby in a stroller, humming to herself and blithely throwing dirty wipes down on the ground. The smell makes me feel sick.
At the station I flick through a magazine and manage to read the whole of it without a train coming. I wait a bit longer and then walk up the platform and find a London Underground man.
“What’s the delay?”
“There’s no delay.”
“There must be, I’ve been waiting for over twenty minutes.” Small exaggeration.
“There’s no delay.”
“So, when’s the next train?”
“Don’t know, probably not for another couple of hours.”
“A couple of hours?”
“Yep, eastbound Piccadilly line services are suspended until further notice, from here as far as Green Park due to a person under a train at Knightsbridge. Harrods sale again. Like this every time—station’s packed—people falling under the trains all the time.”
“Oh, right.” I sigh and consider my options. “Wait a minute, I thought you said there was no delay.”
“Aha,” says the man triumphantly. “There isn’t a delay, there’s a suspension of service, which strictly speaking, is not a delay.”
I decide to take the bus into town and go to the office to start calling round model agencies. Eventually a bus comes. Needless to say it’s absolutely packed. I’m just about to get on when a little old lady pulls me off. I step back onto the pavement.
“You will
let me get on first, I think,” she says in a heavy Eastern European accent.
“Yeah, sure,” I say, allowing her to go ahead with a melancholy flourish of my hand.
I wait nearly an hour outside the bus station for the next. This is ridiculous, but what else have I got to do?
I get to the office and speak to a very nice French journalist who is waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She wants to know more about the site but I explain that it’s over, kaputt, fini. She asks for an interview and I say no and smile sadly. She looks disappointed and wanders off. You’re not the only one who’s disappointed by the demise of 2cool, love, really.
I make myself a cappuccino from the machine in the corner—the first time it’s ever been used. Now it will have to go back. We told our readers it was the chicest thing to put in your open-plan kitchen, which the manufacturers must have been pleased about, but then we suggested another, more expensive, brand a couple of days later. Immediately a freebie arrived from that company. I wonder where the new one went.
Then I take a deep breath, pick up the phone and ring round the three model agencies I’ve been considering working with. I leave messages for the head booker in each case. Then I try a couple more that I hadn’t originally considered contacting.
“We see new faces between ten and twelve on Wednesdays,” says a girl when I explain why I’m ringing.
“I’m not a new face,” I tell her sniffily, and put the phone down.
What am I, then? An old face?
By three I’ve had enough. I’m beginning to get sick of this place, anyway. I don’t even like it, I don’t think I ever did. Coming here is like an addiction. I hate it but I can’t stop doing it.
I get to Docklands at nearly half past four. As usual the cab driver has never heard of the development and we drive past it a couple of times on the wrong side of the dual carriageway with me pointing frantically, trying to make him understand where I want to go. Finally he deposits me by the barrier, next to the Dumpster and the burnt-out car. I walk over the unfinished road along to the marketing suite. It smells damply of filter coffee and dodgy gas heaters.
“I’ve come to pick up a key from Mr. Barrett in the penthouse,” I tell a girl with shoulder-length blonde hair, a dark suit and lots of makeup.
“Oh, yes of course,” she says, smiling ecstatically. “Now, I’m afraid the penthouse has actually been sold but—”
“Sorry, I don’t want to buy anything; I’m staying here with Mr. Barrett, he’s my dad. I’ve come to pick up the key. He said you’d have it.”
Her face falls. “Oh.” She opens a drawer in her desk and takes out an envelope with my name on it. Then she pauses for a moment. “We do have some properties with a river view on the fourth floor, though.”
I look at her, bewildered. “No, I’m just staying here. I don’t want to buy anything.”
“Of course.” She hands over the envelope.
“Thanks.” I open to check that the key is in there but she is saying something else. “Sorry?”
“Would you like to go on our mailing list?”
“No, thank—”
“Please,” she says. She looks desperate. “I need three more names by the end of today.”
So I give her my address in Chiswick and trudge off over the loose rubble and broken bricks to the special penthouse entrance. Once inside I dump my bag in the room and go over to the stereo. It’s so minimalist that it looks like a rectangle of brushed stainless steel with one dark circle in it, but fortunately I was there when my dad first got it and we spent a Saturday afternoon together working out how to operate it.
I choose some music—a dance compilation that I’m kind of guessing Nikki, Mari, Toni, Traci or one of the is probably bought—and turn up the volume with the remote as far as it will go, which is pretty loud. My ears are almost ringing. I potter around the apartment and wait till the music ends. Then I ring Nora. She hasn’t heard anything from Piers. I don’t tell her about Lauren even though she must be wondering after our night together.
“You’re not writing about him are you?”
“What? Piers? For a piece? No, honestly, Charlie.”
“Sorry, just wondered.”
“And you haven’t called the police?”
“No, no, don’t worry. I think he’d cause trouble if he did speak to them.”
“Just wondered.”
I’m about to say “bye” when she says, “You all right, Charlie? You sound really down.”
“No, fine, don’t worry, just tired.”
“Will, erm, I see you tonight?”
I think about it. I need some time on my own.
“Oh, er, no, sorry I’m going out with a friend—”
“Sure, no problem. I’ll speak to you tomorrow, then, perhaps.”
“Yep. Bye, babe.”
I look out across towards the City and central London just as the sun is setting in a glorious pink and blue mess like a strawberry ice cream melting on a pale blue plate. The lights are coming on in the office blocks and along the roads. I can see the appeal of living up here in this ethereal sanctuary, watching the rest of the world as if it was all happening on giant TV screens.
I decide to have a Jacuzzi. While it’s filling I get myself a drink. One fridge is full of nothing but champagne, I discover, but another has a few bottles of white wine so I open one and take a glass into the Jacuzzi. Cold wine and a hot jacuzzi—it should be wonderfully, luxuriously self-indulgent but in fact, sitting alone in this vast, white, echoey sensory-deprivation tank I feel like crying.
My dad gets home around eight, still on his mobile to what, I guess, must be his New York office. I mime a drinking action to him and he mouths “White wine, please” back at me. I suddenly notice the vintage of the bottle I’ve already opened—1982. Oops, I hope he wasn’t saving it for a special occasion. Then I remember that my dad’s whole life is a special occasion.
He takes the glass from me, gives me a wink of thanks and goes into his bedroom, telling New York, “We’ll need to see the last five years’ billings at least, together with future projections for this year and next plus…oh, bullshit, Marty, ’course they can. Get them over to me and I’ll have a look at them later tonight.”
When he comes back he is wearing a sort of kaftan and smelling of cologne.
“So what kind of day have you had?” he asks, collapsing on the settee.
I give him an exasperated look. “Well, pretty shit actually.”
“Mmm? Oh, yeah. Lauren. Women just suddenly get these things into their heads. So, what’s the matter with her? Time of the month?” He flicks on Bloomberg Business News on the telly. I feel quite indignant on Lauren’s behalf.
“No, she’s not like that, she’s very levelheaded, as you know,” I say, hoping he’ll remember that he has met her frequently over the last six years. “She’s just got this thing about getting into television. Met this awful bloke called Peter Beaumont-Crowther.”
“Oh, right, Freak Productions.”
“That’s him. Do you know him?”
“Met him a couple of times. I think he’s produced some infomercials for us.”
“What do you think of him?”
Still watching the telly, Dad shrugs his shoulders dismissively. Either he doesn’t know much about PBC or he doesn’t think much of him.
“Where’s, erm…” What’s her bloody name?
“English lesson,” intercepts Dad. “I told her I could get someone over here to do it but she insists on going to this school in Soho or something.”
A cynical thought about her desire to get away and mix with her own age group in the bars of Soho crosses my mind. But Dad is asking me about 2cool. I don’t tell him about Piers. I just tell him that the site is no longer up on the net and that we’re waiting to hear back from the Fraud Squad.
“But you’ve done nothing wrong, you’re sure of that?” he asks, looking at me severely.
“No, I told you—I signed a few cheques.�
�
“But that was before the other two disappeared, before there was any suggestion that finances might not be healthy.”
“Yes.”
“I did tell you about those revenue streams,” says my dad, flicking over to CNN Financial.
“Yeah, I know,” I say sadly, wondering suddenly what Nora’s doing tonight.
“What do you want to eat?” he asks.
I’m about to ask what he’s got in the flat but then the absurdity of this notion strikes me.
“Whatever.”
“There’s this new online sushi place,” he says. He presses a button on the TV console. A keyboard appears from the table next to him and the TV screen turns to an Internet home page. He types in an address and suddenly a picture of a sushi bar appears before us.
The chef, looking mildly surprised, bows and says, “Harrow, may I take your ordah?”
“You can see it all being made in front of you on webcam before it’s sent off to your home,” Dad explains to me. Then he says into the mike, “What do you recommend today?”
“The brue marrin is very good.”
“What? Oh, blue marlin? Yep, give us a couple of those. Any fugu fish?”
The chef looks alarmed. “No fugu fish today,” he says decisively.
“Fugu fish is the poisonous one. If it isn’t filleted in exactly the right way, the venom remains in the flesh and you’ll be dead in seconds,” explains Dad.
“Shame they haven’t got any, then,” I say.
“What else do you fancy, kiddo?”
“I don’t know. Salmon? Tuna?”
“Good idea.”
My dad orders lots of things I’ve never heard of and then we watch them being prepared on screen, the paper-thin, surgically sharp knives stroking the fish into tiny strips and cubes and the rice being patted and cut into shape. The only slightly disconcerting thing is the one non-Japanese member of the team who stands at the back, watching the other chefs at work and picking his nose disconsolately from time to time. Unfortunately the camera pans away from him just as he has finished the extraction process so we don’t see where his quarry ends up.