by Simon Brooke
I put on my Ray-Bans and check how I look in the mirror behind the sun shield. Then I take the handbreak off, move it up to “D” and spin the wheel round with the palm of my hand.
* * *
Parking in the West End is a nightmare. Even though most of the shoppers are leaving it takes me ages to find a space which is not barred by some stupid restriction. Finally I find a little side street off Tottenham Court Road. As I get out two lads sitting on a low wall look menacingly at me. Envy? Yeah, probably. Even a couple of policemen sitting in their Ford Fiesta at the traffic lights at Charing Cross Road had done a double-take. “What the hell is a kid like him doing in a car like that?”
But these boys are making me nervous, one watching my car, the other watching me as I walk casually back to Tottenham Court Road. I am just about to turn the corner when anxiety gets the better of me and I decide to return to the car. They are talking to each other now. I get back and wonder exactly what I am going to do—pretend I have forgotten something? This thing is such a bloody responsibility. I get in, start the engine and move off. It is 6:10 p.m. No time to park anywhere else. I drive round, back into the main road. Passing Paperchase on the other side of the road I see Jane waiting by the main entrance, dressed in a white T-shirt and long skirt, carrying a large shoulder bag. She is chewing a nail and looking round suspiciously. She looks prettier than ever.
I slow down and wave, hoping to attract her attention somehow, even though she is looking the other way. I beep the horn quickly but still she doesn’t turn—unlike everyone else. I realize she doesn’t even know what she is looking out for. She probably assumes it’s a Renault Five or a Datsun Cherry. I beep again and shout.
Still she doesn’t turn.
By now the cars in front have started to move off and a cab driver behind honks at me. I consider going round the block and coming back but it would take forever. The cab driver behind starts shouting at me to get a move on.
Jane sighs and puts her bag down between her legs and looks up again but through me. I shout again but what attracts her attention is the cab driver behind me honking again. Jane frowns and I shout again “Jane! Here!” and wave her over. She doesn’t smile but looks round at the traffic in the hope of a gap between the cars. Of course, they are moving quickly and solidly up towards Euston Road. I turn to tell the cabbie to shut up but he has realized what I am waiting for and is moaning to his passengers via his rear-view mirror. Meanwhile, some other cars behind him have decided to vent their frustration and there is an echo of horns down the street. I try to move into the next lane to let them pass but there’s just not enough room. Someone starts shouting at me. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! This is so uncool.
Jane finds a space before a bus and dashes across to get to me. I set off immediately and we travel for a moment in silence, glad not to be the centre of attention any longer.
“How are you?” I ask as casually as I can.
“OK. Whose car?”
I can’t believe I haven’t got an answer ready for this. “Just a friend.”
“You must have some pretty rich friends.”
I can’t think of an answer to this either. I’m fine if someone asks me in the office but Jane is a bit close to home and I realize that I don’t want to lie to her so I change the subject: “Where shall we go?”
“I don’t know. You’re driving,” she says, running her hands through her hair and gently moving it away from her face. Her white skin looks hot and slightly sticky.
“OK,” I say slowly, thinking about the traffic. “We could drive up to Hampstead Heath and find a pub or something near there.”
“Sure,” she says without enthusiasm.
We crawl through the unrelenting traffic. Part of me is absorbed in driving: desperately urging lights to go green so that I can move ahead a few feet or wondering what the hell other drivers are playing at and all the time hoping more than anything else in all the world that we don’t get stuck behind a bus. But part of me is aware of Jane sitting sulkily beside me—unenthusiastic, ungrateful, unimpressed. After five long, long minutes I decide to break the silence and bring the situation to a head.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine.”
Pause.
“Because I can drop you at a Tube station or a bus stop somewhere. I don’t know how you usually get home but it’s no trouble to me,” I say quickly, looking straight ahead. It all sounds more aggressive than I wanted it to. She looks round at me and I glance across at her quickly.
She says, “Well, what do you want me to say, Andrew? ‘What a big car. I bet you’ve got a big penis as well?’ ”
“Oh! For Christ’s sake,” I say, not sure how to answer her. She laughs irritably and looks across at me, raising her eyebrows quizzically.
“I’m sorry, but do I look like the kind of woman who’s impressed with a big car?”
“Jesus! Of course not!” There is another pause and I decide to act hurt. “OK, I apologize. I just thought I’d offer you a lift home and perhaps we could spend some time together this evening. You could have said no when I rang.” Either my logic or my hurt little-boy voice has the right effect.
She sighs and says, “I’m sorry. I thought it would be fun to meet up but this doesn’t feel right. Here, in this ridiculous car, that’s all.” She looks around it disapprovingly and back at me. “It’s her car, isn’t it?” she says slowly.
I’m about to say “Whose?” but I realize that playing the innocent will only make things worse.
“Yes.” We sit at a traffic light which I realize is in fact green.
She sighs. “I can’t do this.”
I look round quickly and she is running her hand over the door looking for the handle.
“Jane!”
“Sorry, Andrew.” She gets out, slams the door and walks off down the street. I see her in the rear-view mirror. I try and stop but suddenly the traffic begins to move again and immediately the frustrated rally driver in the car behind me begins to honk. There is no way I can stop and besides, even by twisting round in my seat and looking behind me I can’t see her. She has just vanished. The honking starts again. The road in front of me is empty.
“Oh, fuck offffff!” I shout at the driver and the world in general but, of course, no one can hear me through the thick glass and the roar of the air-conditioning.
I drive back. It takes me hours. Fucking Jane. I like her so much it annoys me. But what was I thinking of? Offering her a lift in this car? I knew she wouldn’t be impressed with it and it’s also bloody insulting, like suggesting to your mistress that she borrow some of your wife’s clothes.
“Oh, fuck.” At the inevitable red light, I take the opportunity to bang my head against the steering wheel. Outside a cyclist in a safety helmet and a Barbour, coasting to a halt at the lights, looks down at me, surprised and disapproving.
At home there is a message from Jonathan asking me to call. My cheque! It seems like small compensation after my disastrous experience with Jane but it would be better than nothing. I ring him back.
“Who? Oh, Andrew, hi mate. Sorry, it was a job for tonight but I had to give it to one of the other guys.”
“Oh, sorry about that. I just wondered, though—”
“You’ll have to make yourself available a bit more if you’re going to get some work.”
“Sure.” Perhaps those little wage-slave cheques from Jonathan would be easier and more reliable than trying to get something out of Marion.
While I’m getting a beer out of the fridge I realize that Jane would never in a million years understand what I want in life. In fact she would probably be really shocked. That also annoys me about Jane—she’s so bloody sensible. Most men are wary of sensible women because they remind them of their primary school teachers, those patronizing Stalinists with flat shoes and sensible skirts who had an answer for everything.
What I really want is the best of both worlds: spend time with Jane and spend Marion’s money. At the momen
t I don’t seem to have either. I need to get some cash together and then I’ll be in the market for a serious relationship again. But will Jane still be around?
I think about ringing Marion but then realize that she hasn’t left a number or even told me which hotel she’s gone to. I don’t know any posh hotels in Venice so, instead, I channel-surf for a while wishing we had cable so that there were more channels I could find nothing to watch on. I realize that Vinny must be out. What’s he doing out on Saturday night while I’m stuck here? I ought to just ring some of my friends, see if they’re around tonight. Except that I don’t seem to have any friends anymore. Did I ever? I can’t remember. Sure I did. I must have. My past life all seems something of a blur since Marion.
At about ten I decide to order a curry and find a flyer for one that delivers. When it arrives three quarters of an hour later it is cold and not what I ordered. What’s the matter with me? Can’t I even order a curry these days?
I think about Jane. The way she scoops her hair back behind her ear. Her bossiness when she made pancakes for Vinny and me the other night. Her trendy, right-on friends that she thinks I’ll hate. The way she laughs. Why is she working in Paperchase and living in Holloway or wherever the hell it was? Why can’t she want more? More than just working to earn enough to pay the bills, a salary addict. Or better still, why can’t she just be rich? If Jane had Marion’s money, I’d be OK.
After a while I go out and look at the car again. Partly to check it is still safe, I must admit. Luckily the dodgy family opposite have not taken the wheels off it. Yet. Perhaps Vinny was right. What would happen if I sold it? Would Marion mind? I could probably get fifty grand for it. I’d be laughing. I get in and switch on the CD player. I turn it up, start the car and set off for a drive around. I go up the Fulham Road and into Chelsea, looking at people in restaurants and watching a couple leaving a party in a house while I wait for the lights to change.
The woman shouts something to the host who laughs loudly then the man puts his arm around her and they begin to walk down the pavement together. Suddenly I feel like crying. What am I doing driving around on my own on a Saturday night? I turn the CD off and head back home.
On Sunday morning while I’m out getting some milk and the papers Marion leaves a message on the machine to say that she has decided to go on to Paris. “I’ve got a ton of shopping to do and my personal shopper’s arriving from London to give me a hand,” she says.
Vinny surfaces at about two while I’m watching a video.
“Mornin’ all,” he mutters, flopping down on the settee.
“Afternoon,” I correct him.
“Ooooh, ’scusez-moi.” He pulls the expectant, slightly pained expression that I know only too well.
“Oi, don’t you dare.” But it’s too late. I throw a cushion at him and waft away the toxic odour with the Sunday Times magazine.
“Sorry, mate. Vegetarian bangers and beefburgers have that effect on me.”
“Sounds delicious. What you do last night?”
“Barbie, mate,” he says in a terrible cod Australian accent.
“Was it good?” I ask, flicking through the channels. There is no answer so I look round at Vinny, wondering whether he’s fallen asleep again. But instead he’s staring mischievously at me. “I just asked whether it was good.”
“Oh, yes,” says Vinny, still smiling demonically. “It was good.”
“Whose was it?” I ask.
“Guess,” he says.
“Whose?” I don’t like the sound of this.
“I told you—guess,” he says again, delighted at my growing unease.
“I’ve no idea,” I say, even though I have. “Whose barbecue, you stinky bastard?”
“You had your chance.”
“Jane had a barbecue last night and you went.”
“Bingo!” Vinny is triumphant. “Are we jealous?”
“No,” I say shortly. So she left me in the car and went off to a barbecue she didn’t even mention.
“I think we are.” I look back at the telly. “Well, you would have been if you’d been there.” He picks up the Appointments section and begins to scan it ostentatiously.
“What does that mean?”
“One here for you, mate—Sales Director for Durex. Both your talents rolled into one.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, Jane was having a rather in-depth conversation with some bloke from the local Friends of the Earth group. Bit of a hunk, according to the females present.”
“Liar.”
“I think it was Jane’s very own rain forest he was interested in, if you get my drift.”
“Shut up.”
“OK.” He carries on scrutinizing pages of jobs that he has absolutely no interest in. I have a vision of Jane, beer in hand, looking up adoringly at some dreadlocked eco warrior.
“You kidding me?”
“Oh, Christ! Well, actually she spent most of the night trying to get away from him, but the point is, Mr. Love For Sale, you’d better get in there, otherwise …”
“All right, all right.”
“Well I’m just saying …”
“Look, I don’t need to ask you for advice on women,” I tell him. “But I’ll be all ears next time I need help on …” Vinny’s particular sphere of knowledge escapes me for a moment. “Erm … stupid trousers.”
“My wise counsel is at your disposal,” he says, smiling and scratching his bum energetically.
The person I do need to get some advice from is Mark, I decide. I ring his number that evening and get the answer-phone. “Hi, this is Mark, this is the tone, you know what to do.”
I start speaking but then Mark picks up so we arrange that I’ll go over and see him after work on Monday.
His flat in Notting Hill is on the ground floor of a white stuccofronted building. On one side a Trustafarian couple are just arriving back from a long weekend in Gloucestershire in a Merc estate, dripping children, scruffy soft toys and car blankets. On the other side there is what can only be a crack den. I buzz Mark’s flat and he lets me in.
“Hello, mate,” he says, giving me a firm handshake. “How’s it going?”
He is wearing creased, very soft cotton trousers, mules and a cream, sleeveless knitted top which looks like a Dries Van Noten. It has that casually expensive look that I’d frankly give anything in the world to be able to do. It shows off Mark’s elegantly muscled, honey-tanned arms which, I guess, like the rest of him, have been carefully developed for the benefit of a select, paying clientele.
The flat is huge and high-ceilinged with wooden floors, cream-coloured walls and a white settee covered in a huge, white loose cover. I smile to myself as I wonder how long a white settee would last at my and Vinny’s place. The ornate marble fireplace is stacked with stiff card invites and snapshots. Next to it there is a CD player and two truly huge piles of CDs. It has a look of cavalier understated elegance like Mark’s arms, clothes, answer machine message—his whole life, in fact.
I sit down on the settee and he takes an easy chair. He looks at me for a moment and smiles.
“So, my little studling, how’s it going?”
“Oh,” I start optimistically and then decide not to lie. “Crap.”
Mark laughs. “Marion not paying up, then?”
“Not a penny.”
“Anything at all?”
“Oh, a few clothes but I’m not really sure I even like them.”
“I told you, get it in cash if you can,” he says, walking round to the kitchenette. “Clothes won’t pay your rent, will they?”
“No, I suppose not. The most I get is a twenty every now and then to pay my taxi fare.”
“What do you want?” he asks, getting up.
“Well, I just want enough money to enjoy myself a bit. Buy my own clothes, go on holiday, have the kind of fun you can’t when you’re twenty and you’ve got a crap job and just enough to pay the rent and go to the pub a couple of times a week. You know?�
� I suddenly think of Debbie. “I want to get enough to buy a flat or even put something away so that I can start my own business one day—I’ve had enough of working for other people. I mean, I’m not so naive as to think that Marion will set me up for life but, you know, a few thou would help, if nothing else.”
Mark looks at me for a moment, slightly confused. “Actually, I just mean what do you want to drink?”
“Oh, er—” Shit, how embarrassing.
“There’s some good white wine,” says Mark.
“Oh, yeah, wine would be great, thanks.”
“No, that sounds very reasonable,” says Mark as he pours two glasses of perfectly chilled Orvieto. Slighty distracted by my embarrassing outburst I walk around the room a bit looking at the photographs stuck on the wall and lying on the mantelpiece: Mark in black tie, on a beach, at a restaurant with two older women and a silver-grey-haired man, at Ascot, saluting the camera with a glass of champagne: always smiling, always handsome, always good value, always working. There is one picture of him with a toddler in a sunny garden. Mark hands me my wine.
“My son. Ben.”
“Your son?”
“Yep,” he says, picking up the picture and studying it carefully. “This was taken ages ago. He’s nearly eight now.”
“Sweet kid.”
“Thanks,” says Mark, still looking at him. “So funny. Very serious. Always frowning and asking questions. How does a plane stay up?”
“Search me. Wings?” I say, shrugging my shoulders.
He smiles.
“I had to buy him a book about it.” He looks at the photo again and then carefully puts it back, arranging it in pride of place amongst the invitations. He sits down.
“Do you see him much?” I ask, sensing he wants to talk about it.
“Once a fortnight, just for a few hours. His mum, who he lives with, got a very good deal in court. Not surprising, really, given she’s a barrister.” He looks into his glass. “Question was: should he live with his mother, who as I say, is a barrister and has a nice house in Dulwich and a husband who works in the City, or should he live with his father who’s a rent boy? Tough question for the judge, eh?”