Upgrading

by Simon Brooke

  Yes, all right, I lied. I had a one-night stand and now I’ve lied about it. I am a pathetic little piece of shit, I admit it. But I’ve never been unfaithful before, that’s the point. My mates were straying all the time. I provided my friend Ben with an alibi half a dozen times but I was always completely faithful to Helen—and look what I got for it. I’m twenty-four and it’s about time I did what most blokes my age having been doing for years: having great, mindless sex whenever they feel like it.

  Besides, from what Davina said at the party, Marion’s been lying to me for the three weeks since we met, which is kind of hurtful in its own way. Unless Davina really was just bonkers. Anyway, Marion and I really does feel like a fling, not like we’re going out properly. How could we go out together in the usual sense? We’re hardly likely to get married. And I know from what Davina says of her past that Marion’s no angel.

  “I want you to wear that Rolex,” she says suddenly.

  Oh, God. Why now?

  She reaches round to the table next to the settee, opens a drawer and takes it out. She opens the box elegantly and there it is, gleaming in the sunlight—Swiss-made, accurate to a few seconds a year, waterproof, twenty-two carat guilt, I mean, gold.

  Now I do feel like shit. She hands it to me and I put it on while she watches.

  It does look good, though.

  “Thank you,” I say, kissing her on the lips.

  “I know it’s difficult for you dating an older woman. It’s difficult for me with a younger man. I’ve never done it before, either,” she says, taking my hand. “And I know that the world of luxury you’ve been thrown into takes some getting used to but if a relationship is worth having, it’s worth working at.”

  “Yes, I know,” I say, overwhelmed by this sudden outburst of emotion. What is she saying? I thought she thought we were just having fun.

  “I want you to wear the Rolex tonight.”

  “Sure,” I say quietly. “Where are we going?”

  “Well, I’m going to a dinner party,” she says, closing the box and putting it back in her handbag. “But you’re having dinner with Channing.”

  “What?”

  “I said to Channing you’d have dinner with with him.”

  “Without you?”

  “Like I said, I’m going to another dinner party.”

  “What? Go out with him? Oh, Marion.” I knew this was too good to be true.

  “Just have dinner with him.”

  “What? With that old poof?”

  Does Chris snigger from across the room?

  “What’s a ‘poof’?”

  “Poof. Fag.”

  “Don’t call him that,” says Marion, closing her handbag with a resounding snap. “Channing is one of my best and dearest friends. I am sure if you get to know him, he’ll become one of yours too.”

  I get up and begin to pace the room. “Unlikely.”

  “Andrew. It’s an invitation to dinner. You should be flattered,” she says, getting up.

  “Flattered? He just wants to-to—”

  “To get to know you?”

  “To get my trousers off.”

  Chris is definitely stifling a giggle now but I don’t care.

  “Andrew, don’t be ridiculous. He knows you are my lover.” She pauses. “He knows you would never be unfaithful to me.”

  Ooops. I try another tack. “Oh, Marion, come on—”

  “And I’m sure you won’t object to some free dinner.” A bit below the belt, that. I sigh deeply.

  “Oh, OK, then. If it’ll make you happy.”

  “Good. I’ve said you’ll be there at eight.”

  Strangely enough, when I get home to get changed, Vinny is lying on the settee watching TV. He has the phone carefully wedged between his face and a cushion.

  “So? What was she like?” he says, raising his eyebrows in welcome at me. “Yeah? Yeah? Ah, rampant nymphomania—I’ve always admired that in a woman.”

  Oh! God. Normality. How I miss it.

  I walk along the tiny Chelsea street where Channing lives, counting down the numbers on the toy houses until I come to his. I’m wearing my blue blazer and a pair of very ordinary grey trousers that I haven’t worn for ages. Catching my reflection in the window of the tube train I decide it’s probably some desire to want to appear as wholesome and clean-cut as possible. Except that the stripey tie makes me look like a schoolboy.

  Since I started in this business, getting dressed has become something of minefield. The idea was that I’d acquire a wardrobe full of gear and enjoy choosing what to put on everyday. Instead I’ve got the same stuff plus quite a few other bits I’ve had to buy myself. My credit card bill is probably affecting the balance-of-payments deficit. Deciding what I should wear each evening occupies my mind from lunchtime onwards. It’s just lucky that I haven’t got anything more important to think about.

  Lying in the bath, earlier in the evening, I tried to look on the bright side. I might find out something more about Marion. Perhaps she really has been just lying to me and I’ve believed it all, like a fool. Perhaps she is not as rich as she says, or perhaps she just invented her entire past because she thought it would impress me.

  Or perhaps Marion wants to get something more on me. Find out whether I did do it with Louise. Discover my true intentions, check that I’m not just a paid escort on the make—which I’m not, of course.

  Or perhaps Channing hopes I am, that I’ll go out with anyone who pays, that I’ll do anything for money. Is that why he is so keen to have dinner with me? Oh no, I hope not. I feel slightly sick at the thought of it. Anyway, it’s not going to happen. Funnily enough, it’s not even the physical act, it’s the seediness of it. Look on the bright side though, I might meet some new people—female ones, that is—who might help me out financially if, when, Marion dumps me.

  At least, as Marion so kindly pointed out, I’ll get a free dinner.

  I watch him for a moment through the front window, phone clamped under his chin, spinning around the room adjusting the invitations on the mantelpiece, shoving a new CD in the machine, throwing glossy magazines into a pile in the corner. I am just considering how likely it would sound that I had forgotten the address and the phone number and so I had not been able to meet up after all, when Channing turns and sees me. Still on the phone, he raises his eyebrows and shouts over his shoulder at someone.

  As I walk up the few steps to the front door it is opened by the maid, a dour, wrinkled little South American woman, probably aged well beyond her years. How did I know he’d have a South American maid? Inside the house dance music is belting out of the CD player.

  “G’d evening,” I say.

  She looks at me mournfully and I realize that she has obviously never had a good evening in her life. Her days are probably pretty grim as well. She lets me in and walks back down the hallway.

  Suddenly a tiny dog appears, yapping around my feet. I wait until the maid has turned her back and is disappearing downstairs again and then try and kick it away. Obviously thinking this is a game, the little bastard comes back for more. I turn to it and start mouthing “Stay” and holding up my hand. It leaps up at my finger, snapping and snarling, its diamond collar glinting in the light of the chandeliers. I yank my finger out of the way and hold my whole hand up. Now it thinks I am doing some kind of dance and so it gets even more excited. Still backing off, I walk straight into Channing who has obviously been wondering how it could take anyone so long to travel the three yards from the front door to the living room. Still on the phone he rolls his eyes and shrieks, “Coco! Bad dog!” Coco runs off happily.

  Channing finishes his call and puts the phone back. He looks me up and down, smiles coquettishly and asks what I would like to drink. For some reason I say beer, which he does not have, so I settle on Scotch with ice but without water. He has a vodka martini. Then he gestures me to take a seat. Like Marion’s house, there is nowhere to sit comfortably, you can either perch on a tiny, hard doll’shouse chair or
collapse into a cottonwool settee. I go for the perch option and immediately feel ridiculous. He, of course, knows which is the only sensible seat in the room and takes it.

  We sit facing each other for a moment like one of us is going to draw and shoot and then, still smiling, he says, “Well, I’m so glad you could make it.”

  “So am I,” I lie.

  “Nice of Marion to let you out of her sight for an evening,” he smirks.

  “Oh, she does from time to time,” I say blandly.

  “Marion usually keeps her boys on a short leash.”

  “Perhaps I’m not one of her boys, then,” I say coolly. He laughs loudly and sweeps off to refill his glass. Grimacing with discomfort, I take the opportunity to swap seats onto the soft settee and sit bolt upright, my hands on my knees. He sits down again and smiles broadly. God, I wish he wouldn’t do that. I’m beginning to recognize expensive dentistry when I see it.

  “So, you from London originally?” he asks. Oh, Christ, we’re not going to go through all this, are we? On the other hand, at least it is quite a safe topic so we do the whole thing and then move on to him.

  He is originally from Georgia but had moved to New York City when he was about eighteen to escape his small-town parents and their small-town ideas. He worked in a clothes shop or “couturier,” as he calls it, on Fifth Avenue and ended up living with the owner. He then did the same thing with an interior designer, a night club manager and finally, an antiques dealer, where he learnt his trade. But he had got bored with New York and then went to Rio where he had some wild years and met Marion. Now he is giving London a shot.

  Lucky London.

  And it’s OK. A bit quiet and a really early town, you just cannot eat anywhere decent after midnight except Joe Allen’s but it will do him for a while. I agree and say that it is a bugger that the Tube finishes at midnight. He laughs and I realize that he has probably never been on the Tube in his life.

  Then he announces that we had better go or we will miss our reservation and he dashes off to get ready. I suddenly feel a lot more relaxed—partly at the thought of a short break from him and partly at the thought of some nice food somewhere.

  I leap out of the horrible settee and have a good stretch, discovering that I can nearly touch the ceiling. I help myself to another drink and wander around the room, tripping up on a huge leopard skin rug. There is a lot of leopard skin now I that I come to notice it. His friend Irena, he tells me later, gave him the idea—she has a whole room decorated in leopard skin. “Most of it real,” he says enthusiastically.

  All over the little tables and the huge mantelpiece are hundreds of picture frames. He is in most of the pictures: with Joan Collins, with Fergie, with Princess Diana (ignoring him in a receiving line), with Elizabeth Taylor, with models, male and female, and other people with lots of blond, blow-dried hair, with some other old queen in a black tie, on a white sandy beach with a young guy who is laughing, underneath a flowery umbrella drinking long drinks with a lady in sunglasses and a big hat. More and more pictures of him and his friends in party mode, glamourous and fun, tanned and blond and blowed-dried and beautiful. Yes, I’ve got the message, Channing: you’re a glamorous, attractive person with lots of glamorous, attractive friends and life is just fab. No dreary suburban lifestyle, no bored wife or fat kids staring at the box and demanding to be fed.

  A shriek of “Coco! Bad dog!” and a waft of Georgio of Beverly Hills aftershave announce his return. I quickly pick up a picture and pretend to glance at it casually. Channing appears behind me wearing a huge coat with fur collars despite the heat. He takes the photograph out of my hand. It is of him and a young guy at a black-tie do.

  “Nice guy. Real shame,” he says and hands it back to me. “Come on, you know San Lorenzo, you’re not pronto, pronto you losa that tavola.”

  His black Merc drops us off outside San Lorenzo and some waiting paparazzi relax as they see it is no one famous.

  “It’s such a relief coming here with somebody nobody’s ever heard of for a change,” says Channing, gathering his coat around himself and leading the way into the restaurant.

  The maître d’ feigns delight to see Mr. Charisse and sizes me up in the split second it takes for him to arrange for a girl to take Channing’s coat.

  We are shown to what I suppose is a reasonably good table. I look around for celebrities. Lots of pony tails, more blond blow-dried hair and honey tans. Lots of older guys, some with blue blazers, some just with white shirts. Thick dark hair, flecked with grey erupts from unbuttoned shirt fronts or sweeps down from neatly turned back cuffs. Big, thick, hairy hands, big, thick gold jewellery are everywhere. Bits of Versace splashed here and there. Except on me, of course.

  “My God, look at that shirt,” says Channing, shaking out his napkin.

  “Where?”

  “To your left. It looks like a cat fight between a beach towel and a roll of psychedelic wallpaper.”

  I look round and see what I think he is talking about. I laugh politely. Then I look back and realize I can’t see the difference between it and his. He is looking at me taking the place in.

  “I can’t believe that Marion has never brought you here before,” he says, biting the end off a bread stick and chewing furiously.

  “Erm, I don’t think she has,” I say, as if it is difficult to keep track of all the places we go to.

  “It’s best for lunch, of course, but I can go for it any time,” he says, looking past me and smiling at someone. A waiter comes over.

  “Can I get you gentlemen some drinks?”

  “I’ll have a vodka martini. What you will have? Scotch?”

  “Er, yes, please.”

  “OK.” The waiter smiles knowingly. I realize that he probably thinks we are “together.” God! Marion, why are doing this to me?

  “Cute, huh?”

  I realize that while I’m thinking, I’ve been watching the waiter walk off. I decide to ignore this comment and look at the menu. Channing consults his with the same bored, weary look that Marion reserves for menus.

  “I should have something light, I guess I’ll just have the grilled sea bass,” he sighs, finishing the last of the bread sticks with a flick of the wrist. “You should have their linguine. To die for.”

  “I’ll have the steak,” I say firmly.

  We order from the same waiter and to my horror I find myself blushing deeply. Channing smiles and starts talking; he compares British boys (smelly, bad teeth) to Brazilians and Americans. He tells me about how awful Concorde is (so cramped you can’t swing a hair dryer), what his house in Brazil was like and how you could gaze down onto Ipanema beach and choose whatever you wanted.

  “Well, why don’t you fuck off back there, then,” I find myself thinking but I decide to be polite and just eat some bread and sit and listen. Besides, behind his head I spot a very pretty blonde girl, French or something, who is with what looks like her grandparents. She notices me look at her and looks back, then, the second time, she half-smiles and looks away as the old lady says something to her.

  Channing does not seem to notice. Our first course arrives and he carries on, pausing every now and then for a reaction. He makes various references to my sex life with Marion and hints that I am just one of many worthless young men she has got herself mixed up with over the years he has known her but I just let it go.

  “She’s an incredibly attractive woman—you should think yourself very lucky,” he says.

  “I do,” I say quickly.

  “I’ve never known her take such a liking to one of her escorts.” I’m beginning to hate that word. Someone at a nearby table turns round. “Do many of your clients see you as much as Marion?”

  “I don’t have clients, I just met Marion and we started going out,” I say.

  “Going out?”

  “Yes.” Channing smiles and concentrates on his food. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing.” I watch Channing eating for a second.

  �
�Has she seen many es—I mean, people like me, of my age.”

  “Sorry? People of your age? No. I mean, she has paid guys to take her out to dinner a couple of times in New York. Quite a few young actors who haven’t had a break yet or models. You know. Why not? She’s a rich woman. She has the money.”

  “I see.”

  “I’ve introduced her to a few as well. She likes young people. So do I—that’s what keeps us young and there are always young people around who’ll accept a free dinner.”

  Like tonight, I think, but I don’t say it. He looks enquiring at me but I still say nothing so he adds, “I must say, though, you’re certainly the youngest yet.”

  “I see. How old is she?”

  Channing looks shocked. “You never ask a woman that question.”

  “I’m not asking a woman, I’m asking you.”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Go on, I won’t say you’ve told me,” I say, enjoying making the running for a change.

  “No, I mean I can’t tell, she hides it very well.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  We both eat in silence for a moment. Then I ask, “How many husbands has Marion had?”

  “You mean how many has she married, or how many has she, you know, had.” He raises his eyebrows wickedly.

  “Let’s start with married.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s two.”

  “Two? Not three?”

  “Two is not three, that’s true.”

  “Very clever. All rich, though?”

  “Well, of course. Is there another kind? Why do you wanna know? Feeling a little insecure?”

  “No.” I pay some attention to my food. Channing is obviously not going to play ball.

  “That’s probably why she likes you,” he says, obviously trying to regain the initiative.

  I look up from my plate. Having got the reaction he wants, he immediately looks down at his.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Mmm?”

  “I said, ‘How do you mean?’ ”

  “Well, you’re different. Young, unsophisticated, fresh.” He pauses. “You’re kinda naive, proud but without a cent to scratch your ass with.”