Dinner for Two

by Mike Gayle

  ‘But, Jen, you are emotionally blackmailing me.’

  ‘I know,’ she says, laughing. ‘By any means necessary, eh? Okay, I’ll just lay it on the line, shall I? I’m massively short-staffed here, and this morning I had an increase in the marketing budget of the magazine, which means that the next three issues will have cover-mounted free gifts, which means—’

  ‘That all your issue deadlines are being brought forward. We used to have the same thing happen whenever we slapped a free CD on the cover of Louder.’

  ‘Exactly. So the thing is I need help in the office on the editorial side of things for a few weeks. It would be perfect for you, Dave. It’d be freelance so you could come and go as you please, as long as the work gets done. And it’s just basic stuff really: sorting out a few album and singles reviews, doing a couple of celebrity interviews with various teen pop stars and at a push, maybe, the odd think piece like the one you’ve just done. It’s the kind of thing you’d do standing on your head.’ She pauses then adds, ‘So, will you do it?’

  I think for a moment. Jenny’s right. This kind of thing is easy enough. The only thing I’m not too sure about – and I know I’m being a snob – is the distinct lack of cool in writing for teenagers. It’s a long time since I’ve been the kind of jobbing journalist who’d write about anything as long as he got paid.

  My fear is that when word gets out that my first job after the closure of Louder is working on a teen mag, and that I’ve done the think piece for Femme, people will think I’ve gone a bit soft. That I’m no longer serious. Because if there’s one single requirement you need to be a music journalist, it’s seriousness. On the other hand, I’m reminded that I want to write about music for an audience who appreciate it. And there’s no audience in the world who feels about music as intensely as teenage girls. Maybe their enthusiasm will rub off on me. Maybe I’ll get my passion back for music. Or maybe it will be a nightmare from start to finish.

  less

  ‘I don’t get it, Dave,’ says Izzy, when I call her at work and tell her what I’ve agreed to do. ‘Why teen mags? You know enough people to get yourself some freelance work with proper music mags. You’ll hate it. You couldn’t have picked a weirder mag for a thirty-two-year-old man to work on. You don’t know anything about teen pop music. You hear a catchy chorus on the radio and you act like it’s going to permanently damage your hearing. I’d never heard of a good sixty per cent of the bands you used to write about in Louder and I consider myself quite up to date. In short, you know nothing about teenagers.’

  Izzy’s right. Apart from catching ten minutes or so of kids’ TV on Saturday mornings, I’ve paid little attention to the teen world. Occasionally record companies sent various pop offerings by mistake to the Louder office and I’d never even take them out of the Jiffy-bag in which they arrived. Instead I just piled them up next to my desk and when the tower of bubblegum grew tall enough to topple over I’d take them to a second-hand CD shop in Soho and exchange them for cash.

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ I tell her.

  ‘Fair enough,’ she says, resignedly. ‘But if you’re going to compromise on this, you should compromise on all your other no-go zones. Ever since you wrote that piece for Femme my boss has been on about me getting you to write a regular “men’s point of view” column for us. I said you wouldn’t do it in a million years but you bloody well can do it now.’

  ‘How regular is regular?’

  ‘Every month.’

  ‘That’s a bit steep, isn’t it?’

  ‘And the column’s going to be called Male Man – you know, as in postman only not quite – and will feature a picture of you looking sufficiently fanciable.’

  I laugh and cringe at the same time. ‘You’ve got to be joking – me? Male Man?’

  She adds: ‘This is my revenge for all the time you’ve spent thinking about that yucca plant.’

  welcome

  It’s nine fifty-five on the following morning and I’m standing in front of the revolving glass doors of the Palace Building, 112 Tottenham Court Road, which is home to Peterborough Publishing. A couple of people are outside having a cigarette. They look like journalists. I enter the building and walk up to reception to sign in. There’s quite a big queue of people ahead of me, most of whom I overhear are freelancers waiting to sign in because they haven’t got full security passes. I take a moment to study all of the magazine covers on the wall by the lifts. Peterborough isn’t as big a publisher as BDP but they have quite a few well-known titles. Apart from Teen Scene there’s Stylissimo (women’s fashion), New You (women’s health), Top Wheels (motoring), Burn (Heavy Metal), Metrosoundz (dance music and lifestyle), Gloss (unisex fashion and lifestyle), and finally Grow (urban gardening).

  I receive my pass and take the lift to the third floor then walk along a short corridor. I know when I’ve reached the Teen Scene office because the door is plastered with stickers that say things like: ‘Kiss Me Quick, Snog Me Hard!’ and ‘Wow!’ and my least favourite, ‘Hello, Big Boy.’ In the middle is a large poster of Leonardo di Caprio taken from The Beach. Someone has scribbled, ‘Love god,’ across his chest. I feel threatened.

  I take a deep breath, open the door and step inside the office. No one looks up. Ignoring strangers in magazine offices is pretty much standard industry so I don’t take offence. Anyway, being ignored allows me to get my bearings. The Teen Scene office is busy: telephones ring, printers spew out pages of copy, and the music of some boy band is playing in the background.

  During my survey I notice two things: first, that I am the only man here, and second, that I’m the only person over twenty-five. All the Teen Scene staff, from editorial to production, art and picture research, are dressed as if they’re part of some impossibly trendy twentysomething secret army: hair up, hair down, big thick black ‘media’ specs, sunglasses on head, numerous hybrids of army trousers, designer jeans, denim skirts, T-shirts emblazoned with logos and slogans and top-brand sports footwear.

  Feeling distinctly out of place, I approach a girl sitting at the desk closest to the door, staring intently at her computer screen. Like the others, she’s in her early twenties but she seems young in a way I can only just about remember being. She’s wearing a T-shirt with the American hip-hop label Rawkus Records’ logo across it, a long denim skirt and blue and white Adidas trainers. I can just make out a small indentation on the left side of her nose where she must have had a piercing in her student days and then thought the better of it. She’s pretty in a delicate way – the sort of girl that a younger version of me would definitely have found attractive. As it is, her small stature and air of fragility stir up in me feelings towards her that are more brotherly than sexual.

  ‘I’m Dave, the music bloke,’ I say to her, by way of introduction. ‘Jenny the editor’s expecting me.’

  She turns and stares at me. ‘Hello, Dave the music bloke,’ she says. ‘I’m Fran Mitchell, the junior writer. Jenny the editor . . .’ her eyes flit to the back of the office ‘. . . is in meetings all morning.’

  Her manner makes me smile. Sarcasm with strangers. I like her style.

  ‘I’ll just wait for her, then, shall I?’ I ask.

  She pulls a Post-it note from the screen of the computer next to her desk, reads it then hands it to me.

  ‘It says I should make myself at home,’ I announce.

  ‘I thought that’s what it said.’ She points to the desk next to her. ‘This is where freelancers live when they’re in the office. Pull up a chair and I’ll show you the ropes.’ Her phone rings. ‘Hello?’ She nods, listens, then covers the mouthpiece. ‘I’m going to have to take this call. Do you mind? I won’t be long.’

  ‘No problem.’ I sit down at my desk, switch on the computer in front of me out of habit rather than a desire to do any actual work and look around me. The Teen Scene office is more modern than I’ve been accustomed to at Louder. All the editorial staff are working on brand new colourful i-Macs, the pale grey desks are ungraf
fitied and the carpet isn’t coffee-stained. The office seems brighter too: a line of huge windows runs along one side of the room flooding the space with natural light; along the other there are huge shelves filled with books, magazines and folders. All in all, this seems like a nice place to work.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ says Fran, putting down the phone. ‘It’s a reader’s real-life story I’ve been chasing for the last three weeks. Basically it’s this fourteen-year-old girl is so obsessed with a certain soap star that she’s spent weeks camped outside his house. Anyway, about a month ago, by means that I’m still not sure are legal, she managed to get a pair of his underpants from his washing line. It’s such a great story.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Our readers love that kind of stuff. It reassures them that they’re not completely alone in the world. You know – that they’re not utter basket cases. Because the thing you have to remember about teenage girls is that, at the end of the day, they’re all only a few steps away from basket-casedom. I should know. I used to be one.’

  ‘Teenage girls,’ I repeat, scribbling down the words on the back of my Post-it note message, ‘total basket cases.’ I underline the last two words.

  ‘You think I’m joking, don’t you?’ says Fran, smirking.

  ‘No,’ I deadpan. ‘And do you know what? That’s what really unnerves me.’

  wait

  I’m left alone to wait for Jenny for over an hour before she drops by briefly, says hello, then disappears to another meeting without telling me what to do. To amuse myself I begin work on my next column for Femme but don’t make any great inroads. I’m torn between writing about why it’s a man’s fundamental right to leave the toilet seat up and why it’s impossible for men to do more than one thing at a time. I’m thinking about taking myself off to the nearest newsagent’s for a packet of crisps when Fran, who has been tapping away at her computer for the last half-hour, asks, ‘So, tell me, Dave the music bloke, what are you doing here? Not that being here is a bad thing but . . . you know, you don’t exactly fit in, do you?’

  ‘I don’t?’

  ‘Don’t get funny with me. I know for a fact that you’re a proper music journo. I used to read your stuff in Louder when I was at university but only because my then boyfriend bought it every month religiously. So come clean: what are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m a friend of Jenny’s. She wanted me to help her out and as I wasn’t doing anything better here I am.’

  ‘What about Louder?’ Her eyes widen and she looks scandalised. ‘Have you been sacked?’

  ‘Nothing so glamorous. The mag folded a few weeks ago.’

  ‘I didn’t know. I haven’t bothered with music mags since I stopped going out with muso types. Anyway, they’re all staffed by po-faced boys who think that the more obscure a band is the cooler they are.’

  ‘So I guess there’s no point in me talking to you about my collection of limited-edition seven-inch Sub Pop singles, then,’ I say. ‘You should count yourself lucky. But there were an awful lot of writers on Louder who were infinitely more po-faced than me. I’m just mildly po-faced.’

  There’s a long pause while Fran peers into her screen, concentration written all over her features.

  ‘So you’re married?’ she says eventually, and looks across at the third finger on my left hand, which is currently resting on my mouse.

  ‘Three years,’ I reply. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I don’t meet many married people.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘No. And you don’t look married either.’

  ‘How am I supposed to look?’

  ‘Less down-with-the-kids,’ she says, looking me up and down. I was wearing jeans, my Nike trainers and an ancient bootleg Beastie Boys T-shirt from the year they’d toured with the Rollins Band. ‘You look like you should be shacked up in a crap flat in Ealing with a girlfriend who has long since decided she hates you.’

  ‘That could well have been me ten years ago,’ I say, and she laughs. ‘So what about you?’ I peer over at the third finger on her left hand. It’s naked.

  ‘Am I married? No way. One very crap, very sullen boyfriend.’

  ‘Is he nice?’ I ask.

  ‘He’s okay,’ she replies.

  I can’t really think of a follow-up boyfriend-related question but I like talking to her and I don’t want to stop yet. ‘So how did you end up here?’ I ask rather unoriginally.

  ‘The usual way,’ she says, shrugging. ‘Went to university. Came out with an English degree. Moved to London with a bunch of friends. Decided I wanted to be a magazine journalist. Did work experience here at Teen Scene for a month and got offered a job when Daisy over there’ – she pointed to a ridiculously skinny girl wearing a bright red long-sleeved top –‘got promoted to a senior writer’s position. It’s all just a big game of musical chairs, really. I love this job, though. It’s the best thing in the world. People think it’s easy just because we’re writing for teenagers but I’ve written for supposedly grown-up magazines and this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.’

  I’m not convinced, and I make sure my face says so.

  ‘Tell me this,’ she says, in response to my frown, ‘would a Louder reader stop reading an article after three lines because it was boring? Would a Louder reader write you a seven-page letter telling you why they hated one of the features you wrote on their favourite pop star? Would a Louder reader threaten to stop reading Louder because you were rude about their favourite TV programme?’

  ‘No,’ I reply. ‘They were quite a quiet bunch, really.’

  ‘Exactly,’ she says. ‘Welcome to the world of the most demanding readership that you will ever encounter. Welcome to the front line.’

  I’m amused by the idea that, after nearly ten years in music journalism, working in teen mags is considered ‘the front line’. The phone on my desk rings several times and I look at it as if I’ve never seen a phone before.

  ‘It’s a phone,’ says Fran.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to answer it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I nod. ‘I’m not really expecting anyone to call, are you?’

  Fran laughs, and I pick up the phone and clear my throat. ‘Hello, Teen Scene. How can I help you?’

  ‘Is that you, Dave?’

  It’s Izzy.

  ‘Yeah,’ I reply. ‘That was my first “Hello, Teen Scene”. Did you like it?’

  ‘It was great,’ says Izzy. ‘Very well delivered.’

  ‘How’s it going, sweetheart?’

  ‘Same old, same old. Had a couple of meetings. Had a shoot fall through for this afternoon but on the whole everything’s been okay. But never mind me. How are you coping with the world of teens? You hate it, don’t you?’

  ‘Actually I don’t,’ I say, looking at Fran, who’s now on the other side of the office standing by the network printer with her hands on hips waiting impatiently for something to come out of it. ‘I quite like it.’

  ‘That’s great. I’m really pleased for you – even if it does mean I lose the bet.’

  ‘What bet?’

  ‘I bet Jenny a slap-up meal you’d be out of there by the end of the day.’ She laughs. ‘Made any new friends?’

  ‘Not really. They’re all girls.’

  ‘No boys?’

  ‘No boys.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she says, teasing. ‘Who are you going to talk man things with? Who are you going to impress with your encyclopedic knowledge of obscure bands?’

  ‘I know. I’m a right Billy-no-mates.’

  ‘What about Jen? Can’t she play with you?’

  I adopt a suitably childish sulky tone. ‘She’s like you. She’s in meetings all day, doing important stuff.’

  Across the office Fran is now angrily fiddling with the printer’s paper drawer. I like this. I like the fact that she can make me laugh without using words. ‘Actually, I have kind of made one friend.’

  ‘Who?
’

  ‘The girl who sits next to me. Her name’s Fran. The only thing is, I think I might’ve annoyed her by implying that she was wasting herself writing for teen mags.’

  ‘The scathing sarcastic school of making friends,’ says Izzy. ‘I know it worked with me, Dave, but I’m not sure it works with all of us birds. You should make it up to her.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I explain. ‘You know how I don’t like to have women as friends.’ I’m not exaggerating: I really don’t have any female friends who aren’t friends of Izzy’s or in a relationship with one of my male friends. I’ve never been a big fan of having women as friends: it makes life too complicated. The only one I’ve ever had I married.

  ‘So who are you going to have lunch with?’ asks Izzy.

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Oh, Dave, that’s so pitiful. It’s like the first day at school.’ She laughs. ‘D’you want me to get a cab over and meet you somewhere?’

  ‘No, honest, I’ll be all right.’

  We speak for a while longer about nothing in particular, and this makes me feel good. Talking to Izzy on the phone from work is one of the things I’ve really missed in the time I’ve not been in an office. It’s not the same when the time’s your own. There isn’t that frisson of pleasure to be gained when you really know you should be working. We chat for five minutes or so, say our goodbyes and I hang up. Seconds later Fran’s phone rings and she races across to answer it. After a moment in which she says little but laughs a lot she puts down the receiver.

  ‘That was your wife,’ she says. ‘She’s just made me promise to look after you at lunch-time in case you’re lonely.’

  bloke

  Fran and I talk haphazardly, lurching from one topic of conversation to another all the way from the office to the magazine’s local watering-hole, a wine bar called Hampton’s. She’d invited some of the other girls to join us but they all declined. Stylissimo was having a beauty sale – selling off the various products that cosmetics companies had sent in to be reviewed. Apparently a huge pile of cheap beauty products is more alluring than three-quarters of an hour being nice to the new boy in the class. So it’s just her and me. Me and her. I feel very uncomfortable.