Upgrading

by Simon Brooke

  “OK. Hang on, let me look at my file.”

  “Can I come in?” I say but there is silence.

  “I’ve got a record of another job but, like I said at the time, I take the earnings from the first jobs to cover my expenses.”

  “What, still?”

  “Things like photographs cost money.”

  “But I never had a photograph and—” I realize I’m getting off the point here. “Look, what about the other jobs I did?”

  “Well, you didn’t do many jobs because you haven’t been around much. I’ve talked to your flatmate more than you,” he adds prissily.

  “But I did do jobs for you—Marion, er the American woman, and that girl, the young girl, in Clapham—”

  “Have you got dates for these jobs?”

  “Dates? Look, I can’t … erm … there was one a few weeks ago.”

  “Andrew, I’m really sorry, I need dates.”

  “The young girl, Erren. It was … let me think. Tuesday the eighth. Yeah, it must have been. Or the ninth. Whichever was the Tuesday.”

  “What about the credit card receipt?”

  “I gave it to you.”

  “Did you keep a copy with the job reference number on it?”

  “What copy? What job reference number? Jonathan, can you let me in for a minute?”

  “I need the dates and job reference numbers, Andrew. I’m very sorry but you’ll need to be more precise. I’ve got a lot of guys working now—and girls. I can’t just dole out cheques willy nilly.”

  “Willy nilly?” I repeat, probably because it’s such a daft phrase. “Willy nilly? Listen, you owe me that money, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Andrew, this is getting a bit boring. I told you: I need the credit card slips and the references.”

  I bang the door with my hand and take a deep breath, trying to get a grip. Then I have an idea. “What if I asked the clients for the slips? They might still have them.” Does Jonathan laugh at that?

  “I really don’t want you pestering clients.”

  “What about Marion, you know, the American woman in Chelsea?” She must have noticed that the amount has been debited from her card and she’ll certainly remember the date. “I can ask her tonight … hello?”

  “Tonight? I don’t have you booked to see her tonight. Laura? Do we have any bookings for Andrew Collins tonight?”

  “No, but I’m seeing her anyway,” I explain desperately, almost hysterically and then it hits me.

  “You mean you’re seeing a client without the agency?” says Jonathan calmly.

  “No … well, yes. We’ve started sort of going out, that’s all.” Oh, shit! Why did I say that?

  “Andrew, as I explained when you signed up, dealing with clients without the agency is strictly forbidden. I’m afraid I’ve no choice but to end your employment with us. Goodbye.”

  “What?” I screech. The entryphone is silent. “Jonathan! Jonathan!” I bang the door again, so hard my hand hurts but I don’t care—I just wack it again. I stab the button again and yell at the small metal box in the doorway. “Listen, you fucking bastard. You fucking owe me.” I stand back and look at the door for a moment as if it’s going to give me a break and open by itself. Then I kick it as hard as I can. The force sends me staggering backwards. I lose my balance and fall down the steps, landing at the feet of two middle-aged women.

  One of them cries out in fear. They back off quickly as I struggle to stand up. “Cunt!” I bellow above the noise of a passing motor bike at the impassive building towering above me. “You bastard.”

  “Excuse me,” says a voice from behind me.

  “Oh, fuck off,” I hiss without turning.

  “Now, hang on a minute, sir.” I spin round, ready to punch someone but it’s a policeman. I look away from his intense, curious gaze.

  “He owes me money,” I mutter.

  “Well, I don’t think you’re going get it by swearing at him in the street,” says the policeman in the kind of calm, patronizing logic you would expect of someone in a uniform in this kind of situation. “I’m going to have to ask you to move on.”

  “I’ve got no money,” I hear myself saying.

  “Look, you’ll have to talk to a solicitor about recovering it, then. You can’t stand here shouting and swearing.” There is an edge to his voice now. He is about my age. “That’s not going to get you anywhere.”

  “What will get me anywhere?” I ask but he just watches me silently until I move off.

  A few days later I also think I see Jonathan whiz past in a cab when I’m sitting at a café in Brompton Road. I leap up ready to run after the cab but whoever it is is on a mobile phone or something so I can’t quite see for sure. I could really do with that money. It’s also the principle of the thing. He owes it to me. Plus cab fares, plus hours of sleep, plus my job …

  My encounter with Jonathan, or rather his entryphone, is about the only exciting event to upset the gentle rhythm of my pointless existence. Marion gives me ten or twenty pounds or so every now and then and buys me some more clothes: a really cool Dolce & Gabbana white T-shirt. If you look at it close up and you know about these things you can tell it’s expensive. Unfortunately, after Anna Maria washes it it becomes a bit tight and when I catch sight of myself in it with my shades I realize I look too gay. She also buys me an off-white suit from Hugo Boss which looks pretty cool, especially with the aforementioned white T. Except that there aren’t many places I can wear it and Mark says something about Richard Gere in American Gigolo having one. I sort of leave it at the back of the wardrobe after that.

  I think about Jane a lot and ring Paperchase a few times but put the phone down before there is any answer. I can’t work out what to say to her. My prepared speech or plan to meet her suddenly sounds all wrong when I get ready to say it. Sometimes I think it’s pure lethargy that prevents me from arranging to see her, or the thought of having to invent some story about Marion and where I’m living now or simply not knowing what to say to someone so sensible, so organized, so together. But in fact it’s probably just shame that stops me from ringing.

  One of my dad’s books talks about something called creative visualization—if you really see something happening you can actually bring it about. The square-jawed motivator who wrote the book was referring to a more senior position within your department, I think, or a pay rise or something else really worth having, but with me it seems to work with Jane.

  I’m sitting at the Picasso Café reading the paper I used to work on for a change when I look up and see her. She is wearing Ray-Bans and a pale blue summer dress.

  But it’s not her.

  It’s just another girl walking down the street. A girl with a job and a flat who has friends she sees for a glass of white wine after work and who reads glossy magazines at the hairdressers.

  So I pay for my coffee quickly, pick up my magazine and Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses and go off to find a phone box. I have to hold on for a while because Jane is serving a customer but somehow I manage not to put the phone down.

  “Hello, can I help you?” she says finally. I’m slightly taken off guard by her formal greeting.

  “It’s me, Andrew.”

  “Oh, hi,” she says, surprised but friendly. There is a pause. The phone box suddenly seems very hot and smelly.

  “How are you?”

  “OK, how are you?”

  “Fine, thanks.”

  “Great … how’s it going?” Shit, haven’t we just done this one?

  “Good, yeah, busy.”

  “Oh, sorry. Can you talk?”

  “Yes,” she says but then she doesn’t. She is obviously going to make me do all the running on this.

  “I was just ringing to say hello … and …” Either she takes pity on me for my faltering conversation or she is genuinely interested.

  “Where are you? It’s very noisy, it sounds like a phone box.”

  “It is. I … er …”

  “You not at work?” />
  “No … I …”

  “Day off?”

  I may as well tell her. “Everyday’s a day off at the moment. I’ve been sacked.”

  “Oh, God. I’m sorry.” She seems genuinely surprised, upset. It’s as if I’ve got my slick, yuppie comeuppance. “That’s awful.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’m quite relieved, actually. Stupid bloody job.”

  “Oh,” she says quietly. Perhaps I sound like I don’t care at all about working, like I don’t have to.

  “Jane, I just wondered if you wanted to do something tonight.”

  “I can’t, I’m going to see at film at the NFT with my friend.”

  “Oh, of course. Sure.” A huge truck thunders past. I wonder if she has said something that I didn’t hear. “Sorry, did you say something?”

  “No,” she says quickly. “No, sorry.” Why do words always get in the way when there’s something important you want to say?

  I try again. “Er, tomorrow night, then?”

  “OK, why not?” She sounds quite pleased, quite enthusiastic.

  “Great!” I say. “I’ll see you—where? Sloane Square Tube? At what? Eight? And we’ll have something to eat. You know—somewhere cheap and cheerful.”

  “All right.” She seems to warm to it. “All right, that’ll be fun. See you, then.”

  “Marion,” I say over dinner at Ciccone’s that night. “I’ve been thinking about this marriage thing.”

  “Yes?”

  I take a deep breath. “Well, I think I’ll do it.”

  Yep, I will do it. I’ll take the money and then get the hell out of this. No more Ciccone’s perhaps but no more tight lead, no more killing time over coffee in the King’s Road—oh, and no circumcision. I might get out of here in one piece.

  So now I’ve got to escape from this mess, cut my losses, get what I can and get out of it. A bogus marriage was not what I had originally planned but it’s better than carrying on like this. At least it’s money—perhaps cash. Quickie wedding, quickie divorce, take the money and run. Like Mark says, everybody does it. And Marion will be getting something out of it, too. So will Anna Maria.

  “OK,” says Marion coolly.

  There is a pause.

  “Well, you know, if it’s still on, if you still haven’t found anyone?”

  “Mark had a friend, I think, but, as I said, I would prefer to give you the opportunity.”

  “I know, thanks for that.”

  “I’ll speak to the lawyer in the morning and he’ll tell you what to do.”

  “I don’t fancy talking to Mr. Markby again.”

  Marion spears a piece of ravioli. “Don’t worry, I’ve found another one.” She puts the pasta in her mouth and chews gently for a moment. “More amenable.”

  I ring Jerry, the more amenable lawyer, the next morning and he is very amenable—and very reassuring. Over his mobile phone in what sounds like a Coffee Republic he explains exactly how it all works. He tells me to let him sort out the forms. He’s done it a hundred times. No one ever gets caught. Easiest thing in the world.

  After my experiences with Jonathan I wonder whether to ask him to draw up something between me and Marion for the little matter of the £15,000 but that sounds just too tacky. Besides she’d never go for it. I’ll have to trust her.

  When I tell her how helpful Jerry was and remind her of the payment we discussed, she says, “I should hope he was helpful—the amount he’s making out of me.”

  Following my conversation with Jerry I’ve made a careful note of what we have to do and then I go into the kitchen to explain it all to Anna Maria. I realize that we haven’t spoken about this before and perhaps she doesn’t even know that I’ve agreed to do the deed. As soon as I walk into the kitchen and say her name she senses something is afoot. I suddenly feel rather nervous and realize that I am, in fact, proposing to her. It almost makes me laugh for a moment and then I realize that this is how it’s going to be: a grotesque parody of what should be one of the most serious and moving events of my life.

  We are going to do it “by licence” since this means we only have to give three days’ notice. We’ll do it Chelsea Registry because technically I now live in the Royal Borough. We just need two witnesses. Marion will ask two discreet friends to do that, probably Charles and Victoria. Then, after a few months we will send our papers to the Home Office in Croydon and they will lift the residency restrictions on Anna Maria’s passport and she can stay in Britain as long as she likes without any difficulty. Later she can apply for citizenship if she wants.

  I think she takes it all in. Later that afternoon the driver takes us to the Town Hall to register. The clerk in charge with his overused suit and brown striped shirt seems to radiate disapproval even though he doesn’t say anything beyond what he is legally bound to tell us. He looks at me and then at her and then back at me again. I give our names, spelling them in an attempt to be extra helpful and curry favour. He types them into a computer and asks for our addresses. There is something about the formality, the smell of disinfectant, the polished lino floor, the faint echo of our voices and the forms on the desk that reminds me of school exams and I begin to feel slightly sick. Suddenly Anna Maria is tugging at my sleeve. I look round and realize how ridiculous we must appear—she’s got to be less than five feet tall.

  “What?” I say, trying to look lovingly at her.

  “My name.”

  “Yes, dear.” I say. It sounds ridiculous, like I’m taking the piss out of this whole thing even more. “He’s got to put them both into the computer.”

  “No, my name no like that.”

  “What?” I was hoping that this little tiff made the whole thing look quite convincing. What comes next doesn’t.

  “You no write it like that.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Like this.” She reaches forward to the screen and covers up half her name with her finger.

  “Sorry?” Irritably, she snatches a pen from off the desk and writes her name on one of the leaflets we’ve been given. “Ana Maria” One “n.”

  “Of course, darling, I forgot.” Yeah, forgot how to spell my fiancée’s name—as you do. “Sorry, can you just delete that extra ‘n,’” I say. The clerk looks at me for a moment and then very slowly and meticulously moves the cursor over one “n” in Anna and presses the backspace button. He swivels round in his chair prissily and picks up a huge diary.

  “When would you like to book the ceremony itself? You can do so any time from the day after tomorrow,” he asks, skimming over pages and avoiding looking at us. My stomach twists further at the thought.

  “Let’s do it this week, shall we, darling?” I say, looking down at the book, as if we just can’t wait. Impassively, the clerk turns the page and Ana Maria and I both stare at the week spread out before us in little lines and boxes—ready for me to make the worst mistake of my life. I wait a while for the clerk to suggest something but he just shrugs his shoulders dismissively and looks up at me.

  “Erm.” My heart is racing and I know I’ve got to get out of here. “Friday. Shall we?” I don’t wait for Ana Maria to reply. “Yep, Friday, what’s that? 10:30? OK, let’s do it then.”

  “Ah, my husband,” laughs Ana Maria hysterically as we leave. I want to tell her never to call me that but instead I smile at her.

  “Where are you going?” says Marion.

  “Just out for a drink with a friend.”

  “Which friend?” she says from the bath. “And don’t get shaving foam and stubble all over the sink, will you, it’s not very nice for Ana Maria to have to clean up. Your poor wife.”

  I exchange a glance with myself in the mirror, which Marion might or might not see. Then I carefully sluice the sink and taps down with water. “Which friend?”

  “Just an old college friend.”

  “This is new—what’s his name?”

  “Jack.”

  “Jack who?” she says, soaping a shoulder.

  “Wha
t does it matter? You don’t know him.”

  “So what am I going to do tonight on my own?”

  “I thought you were going out tonight?” I lied. “You’ve usually got something planned.”

  “Only to entertain you.” Eh? Never mind. Marion’s World. A bit like Wayne’s World only slightly less anchored in reality. Marion soaks and I shave in silence for a moment. Then I rinse my face and sit on the side of the bath.

  “Look, I won’t be late.”

  “It’s not that, Andrew, it’s just that I really hoped you would take up with a slightly more prestigious set now that you’re dating me. You should raise your game a little, that’s all.”

  “Well, I could cancel.” She sighs painfully.

  “No, don’t worry. Luckily I’ve arranged to have dinner with my Personal Shopper. She’s going to do a Wardrobe Audit for me so that we can plan for the Fall.”

  “Oh, good,” I say. “I mean, that’s a good idea.”

  Marion still manages to make me late by asking me to zip up her dress, tell her which brooch goes best with it, which chain goes best with the brooch and whether she should go darker for the winter. Her new organic colourist says that everyone is doing it. Finally, just as I’m tearing out of the front door she tells me that I must get some new shirts because mine are so last year but I don’t bother responding to that one.

  Jane is looking slightly annoyed as I stride up to her. For one awful moment I’m reminded of our first meeting outside Paper-chase in Tottenham Court Road.

  “Christ, sorry I’m late,” I say, kissing her on the cheek. “You look lovely.” And she does—navy blue and white summer dress, red cardigan. Her hair is up and I can see her ears properly, the smallest, whitest, most perfect ears I’ve ever seen.

  “Thank you,” she says. “I was a bit early.” Good on two counts: a) she is taking the blame herself and b) she is keen.

  “Where shall we go?”

  “I don’t know. This is your manor, isn’t it?”

  “Right. Well, there’s an Italian place right down the other end where you can sit outside.”

  “Sounds lovely. It’s not too expensive, though, is it?”