by Lindsey Kelk
‘Don’t pronounce it like you’re Italian; it makes you sound like a tit.’ The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. I never had been very good at keeping a dignified silence around him. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be off “travelling” somewhere?’
God help me, I loved an air quote when I was irate.
‘I was “travelling”.’ Nick mimicked my bunny ears, sipped his coffee and took a moment to peruse the pastries. Not in any rush to answer me at all. ‘I “travelled” to Hawaii and to New York and to London and now I’m in Milan.’
‘You were in London? When were you in London?’ I wanted to be cool and calm and collected but I didn’t know how. I shoved another mini pastry in my mouth, hoping it would slow down my snappy responses. When in doubt, eat.
‘Last week,’ he said. ‘Why? Did you miss me?’
Across the table, I saw Amy finally snap out of her Nick trance and blink back at me before opening her mouth as far as it would go, pointing at me, pointing at Nick and then miming shooting herself in the head.
‘I called you,’ I said as coolly as possible given how very sweaty and naked we had been a few hours ago. ‘I emailed you.’
‘And my out of office said I wasn’t replying to messages.’ He shrugged, sipping his black coffee. ‘So what’s the problem?’
‘But you must have seen the missed calls!’ I was starting to spin out. Maybe mainlining sugar at breakfast wasn’t such a good idea. ‘You gave me your number, you told me to call.’
‘I don’t answer numbers I don’t know,’ Nick rubbed his hand across his eyes and yawned. ‘Sorry.’
‘You told me to call you!’ I shouted.
‘You should have left me a message,’ he said.
‘You just said you weren’t listening to messages!’
‘I wasn’t.’
Placing my teacup gently on the table, I stood up, blinded by rage, sleeplessness, and badly applied eye make-up, and marched straight into the server bringing out Al’s Coco Pops.
‘Priceless,’ Nick laughed as I pawed at a bra full of cold milk. ‘Where’s a photographer when you need one?’
I turned back to beg Amy for help but she was already on her feet.
‘Ow!’ Nick yelped at the perfectly timed slap she delivered to the back of his head on her way past. ‘What was that for?’
‘Nothing specific,’ Amy replied, handing me her napkin and propping me up. ‘But we’re here for a week – let’s assume I’m going to need a couple in the bank.’
‘So that’s Nick.’ I rubbed at the pale chocolatey stain spreading across my white T-shirt as we all but ran back to my room. Amy raced to keep up with my long legs, breaking out into a gallop every few steps, altogether far too excited.
‘Oh my God, Tess,’ she said, grabbing hold of my forearm and shaking it. ‘Oh my God!’
‘Don’t,’ I warned, waiting for her to produce my key to our rooms. Hers was still missing. ‘Just don’t.’
‘You’ve seriously had a go on that?’ she asked. ‘Really?’
‘It’s not something I’m proud of.’ I stomped into my bedroom, tossing the ruined T-shirt onto the bed. ‘He’s an arsehole.’
‘You should be proud! He is literally one of the sexiest men I’ve ever seen with my own eyes.’ Amy opened up the suitcase of nightmares and started looking for something for me to wear that wouldn’t get her punched in the face. ‘I thought my knickers were going to melt right off.’
‘I told you he was hot,’ I muttered, shaking my head at a gold lamé crop top.
‘Yeah, no offence but you think Charlie is hot,’ she replied offering a neon-pink sweatshirt with a diamanté bunny face. Amy loved her neons.
‘Charlie is hot!’ I grabbed the sweatshirt out of her hand and threw it across the room.
‘Charlie is good-looking,’ Amy acknowledged. ‘But in that bloke-down-the-pub-who-you-have-a-bit-of-flirty-banter-with-after-your-third-drink way. Nick is break-the-bed, don’t-come-up-for-air-for-two-weeks hot. H-O-T. I wanted to get on him. It was like, primal. I think I might actually be pregnant from looking at him.’
‘Yes, he’s hot but he’s also arrogant and pretentious and smug and self-absorbed and selfish and mean and impatient and—’
Amy had stopped rummaging through the suitcase and turned a pair of enormous blue eyes on me.
‘You had sex with him!’ she shouted, hurling T-shirts and blouses and assorted faux furs at my face. ‘You had sex with him last night!’
‘What are you talking about?’ I tried not to sound impossibly flustered through a mouthful of angora.
‘You had sex with him,’ she repeated, eyes narrowing as she Sherlocked the room. ‘You were all mardy and weird this morning and you wouldn’t say why, then you weren’t surprised when he showed up at breakfast and – Oh. My. God! – there are condom wrappers sticking out from underneath the bed!’
She bent down to grab the shiny foil squares and waved them in my face. ‘Magnums? Tess? Fuck off. There’s no way someone gets to be that scorching red hot and be hung like a horse. It’s not fair. Tell me everything.’
On my knees by the edge of the bed, I pressed my face into my hands and shook my head. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘Well, you’re going to,’ she said, giving me the same slap around the head that she had given Nick. ‘And since we’re supposed to be back downstairs meeting Al in fifteen minutes, I’d imagine you’d want to get it out the way now. Before I tell Kekipi.’
I looked up, fully aware of the pathetic expression on my face and sniffed. ‘He turned up last night, after you left,’ I said, aimlessly sorting through her clothes. ‘And it just happened.’
‘What, was he naked? You fell on his penis and it slipped in?’
‘Sort of …’ I said.
‘You didn’t ask him why he hadn’t called you back?’ she asked. ‘You know, before you shagged him rotten?’
‘There wasn’t a lot of talking,’ I admitted, rubbing my itchy nose. My nose always itched when I was about to cry. ‘It was just all a bit, well, you know – you’ve met him now. Knicker-melting.’
Amy pulled off the plain black vest she was wearing and handed it to me before picking up the pink rabbit sweater and slipping it over her head. It went perfectly with her polka-dot hot pants. ‘And you didn’t talk to him after?’
‘There was some panting and then some silent cuddling,’ I mumbled, feeling tears stinging my eyes. Why was it so much more awkward reliving the tender moments than the getting shagged rotten moments? ‘Then I must have fallen asleep and when I woke up, he wasn’t here.’
‘He fucked off while you were asleep and he didn’t take his own condom wrappers with him?’ Amy asked. ‘That is the worst thing I’ve ever heard.’
‘That’s the worst thing you’ve ever heard?’ I pulled the vest over my head and pretended it wasn’t very snug. ‘Honestly?’
‘He could have at least cleaned up after himself if he was going to shag and run,’ she said. ‘Now come on, I’m not having you sitting around heartbroken when you’ve got important things to do. You’re not going to let him ruin today, are you?’
‘I’m not heartbroken,’ I said, utterly heartbroken. ‘I feel stupid. And angry. And awful. I mean, what about Charlie?’
‘First things first.’ Amy held up her hand to tick off her very important points on her fingers. ‘One, you shouldn’t feel stupid. You were seduced by Michael Fassbender’s better-looking younger brother. Anyone with a vagina would drop trou for him so you can’t be held responsible. Two, you are allowed to be angry. The condom thing has got me raging, let alone his vanishing in the middle of the night. And I know three isn’t going to make me popular but, what about Charlie? You’re not married to the man, you’re not even technically going out with him, are you?’
‘I suppose not,’ I said, pouting. ‘But I don’t think I’m supposed to be shagging some random man, either.’
‘This is going to come as a bit of a shock …�
�� She took my hand in hers and squeezed. ‘I know you’ve been in love with Charlie forever, but you know all those years you’ve spent pining over him and building up that lovely little fantasy world in your head?’
I nodded.
‘He wasn’t doing the same thing.’
I hated it when Amy was right.
‘He was out shagging other women left, right and centre. So you might be ten years into this thing with him but he’s spent, what, two weeks thinking about you as anything other than his mate? You told him you needed time to think and you’re thinking. You haven’t done anything wrong other than have regrettable sex with a twat and Tess, believe me, we’ve all done that. Charlie included.’
I swallowed, slapped both hands on my thighs, pretended it didn’t sting like a motherfucker, and stood up straight.
‘I know you don’t believe me,’ Amy said, bouncing upright and drowning in her sweatshirt. ‘But you didn’t cheat on Charlie. You don’t have to feel guilty.’
‘I’m OK, I really am,’ I said, fluffing out my hair until it was roughly the size of Africa and grabbing my camera bag from the desk. ‘Shall we get this show on the road?’
‘Yeah, after you throw these away, skank.’ Amy threw the torn condom wrappers at me, flapping her fingers in midair. ‘I need to wash my hands about a million times.’
‘Milan is pretty,’ Amy whispered to me as we moved swiftly through the streets in the backseat of Al’s SUV. ‘And sometimes a bit like Leicester. But mostly really pretty.’
I smiled back in lieu of a reply and carried on staring out of the window. I knew what she meant: one moment we’d be driving past some ridiculously elegant building, all sparkling rows of identical windows and gorgeous columns, and the next, we were circling around a grey sixties concrete office block. It was unsettling, but not nearly as unsettling as the feeling of someone staring at the back of my head. Nick was in the back of the car, beside a very vocal Kekipi. Al had taken the passenger seat and, other than the insistent rhythmic tapping of his fingers on his knee, had been silent for the entire trip. I took random snaps out the window, of Al’s nervous tic, of my feet. Anything to distract myself.
‘Who are we meeting this morning?’ Amy asked, twisting underneath her seatbelt to address Kekipi directly. And to give Nick a very, very dirty look. ‘Are we nearly there yet?’
‘This morning, it’s Edward Warren,’ Kekipi replied after consulting his iPad. ‘He’s a pattern cutter. And yes, sit down properly.’
‘What does a pattern cutter do?’ she asked, ignoring him and shifting onto her knees.
‘A pattern cutter is the most important part of the puzzle,’ Al answered Amy’s question in a loud voice, cut with excitement. ‘He is the translator between the designer and the manufacturer.’
‘I’m going to assume you don’t mean translator as in English to French?’ I asked. Nick laughed. Amy doubled her efforts in the filthy look department. Nick shushed.
‘Actually, it’s very similar. The pattern cutter takes the sketches from the designer – in this instance me – and turns them into samples, working patterns, to send to the manufacturer,’ he explained. ‘The pattern cutter takes the dream and turns it into a reality.’
‘Sounds hard,’ Amy said. ‘He’s basically a magician.’
‘A very technically skilled magician who can take very vague sketches from the alleged designer and turn them into something someone might actually want to wear, without offending said designer.’ Al upped the pace of his nervous tapping. ‘So you can imagine, the best in the business are in high demand. I am incredibly lucky that Mr Warren has agreed to see us today.’
‘He’s good then?’ I asked.
‘Edward Warren is the best,’ Al nodded, brushing his beard. ‘I have known him for a very long time but I’m still very lucky that he’s agreeing to even discuss this with me. Where it goes from there, we shall see.’
‘He’s worked for everyone,’ Kekipi said, flashing his eyebrows towards the roof. ‘Seriously, anyone you can think of—’
‘Let’s not be indelicate …’ Al issued a caution from the front of the car. ‘Edward is a very private man. It was all that I could do to convince him to let me bring you all along in the first place, without your spreading gossip about him before we even get to his studio.’
‘Versace, D&G, Armani, Prada,’ Kekipi mouthed. ‘Everyone.’
Al cleared his throat loudly. ‘You do know I can see you in the mirror, don’t you?’
‘And?’ Kekipi asked. ‘I didn’t say a word.’
I looked over at Amy and wondered if we would still be bickering in the back of other people’s luxury cars in fifty years time.
‘What?’ she stared back at me, confused. ‘What are you looking at?’
‘Your face,’ I said, turning my attention back to my camera and smiling.
Edward Warren’s office was no more than a ten-minute drive from the palazzo, but we had been up and down and in and out of so many tiny winding streets, that I had no concept of how far we had driven. We arrived outside an odd building, somewhere in between the charm of old Milan and the misery of its sixties expansion. Complete with square windows and iron bar balconies, it looked like a council house version of Al’s home. Only the heavy, warm wooden door suggested something interesting might be going on inside. One by one, our awkward group trailed inside: Al in the front, Amy right behind him with Nick holding rank in the middle, while Kekipi and I brought up the back.
‘Is it worth asking what on earth is going on with you and Mr Miller?’ he whispered as Al announced us to the receptionist. ‘Or are you still dreadfully angry that I didn’t tell you he was here?’
‘I’m so far past angry,’ I replied, smiling politely as Al introduced each of us in turn for the purpose of the visitors’ book, ‘that I’m not going to tell you. That’s your punishment.’
‘What if I take you shopping once we’re done here?’ he bargained. ‘Miss Smith filled me in on her well-meaning wardrobe snafu and without Miss Sullivan here to dress you, someone is clearly going to have to help.’
‘That would be the best thing ever.’ I even amazed myself at how quickly I rolled over sometimes. ‘Is there an H&M in Milan?’
Kekipi pulled away sharply and scrunched up his features.
‘How would I know?’ he sniffed, slipping his arm through mine. ‘I said I would take you shopping, not trawling for rags with the unwashed masses.’
I immediately had visions of myself rolling around on the floor with my camera, trying to get a good shot in a full-length ballgown.
Before I could reply, we were ushered through the nondescript lobby and into a lift that clearly wasn’t big enough for the five of us, the receptionist, and Nick’s ego. Or whatever else was pushing into my hip when I squeezed in front of him. Clamping my hands tightly around my camera, I kept my eyes front and centre.
Given that I was concentrating so hard on keeping quiet, it might not have been immediately obvious as to how overwhelmed I was by Edward Warren’s office. As the lift doors slid open, I immediately cast my eyes downwards, assuming we had accidentally arrived on the set of a period porno but, as the receptionist ushered us out and I made myself look around, I realized the room wasn’t full of naked women, just incredibly graphic, life-sized photographs of naked women.
Al strode down the room, ignoring the copious vaginas on display, laughing heartily at a man who sat on what appeared to be a throne, his pointy ankle boots thrown up on his enormous desk. Kekipi attempted to keep pace with his boss while Amy wandered along behind them, all wide eyes and wandering hands. The room was huge, but it was crammed with furniture; a leopard-print chaise longue by the window, an oversized work table draped in silks, satins and various velvets by the door and, for a reason best known to Edward Warren, at least a dozen statues of big cats. The walls were lined with red silk and I counted fourteen enormous nude photographs on the walls. It was definitely an acquired taste – even Hugh Hefner might
have called it a bit much.
‘Edward bloody Warren!’ Al’s voice boomed across the room.
Filling the space with the world’s most expensive shit did nothing to dull its acoustics. Possibly something to do with the enormously high ceilings, complete with their own version of the Sistine Chapel frescoes, redrawn to include a man who looked ever so much like Warren, of course.
‘Mr Bennett!’ Edward rose to his feet and met Bertie in a very aggressive-looking hug. For some reason, I’d expected him to be a short man; however he was anything but. Al had to be almost six feet tall, maybe even more before his age had brought him down an inch or two, but Warren towered over him. Yes, there was a touch of help in his Cuban heels but this was not a Tom Cruise situation. He was enormous. Stooping to trade air kisses with Kekipi, I saw that he was starting to lose his hair on the top of his head but what was there was jet black and stylishly cut and when he looked up to fix Nick, Amy and myself with a sharp, level gaze, I couldn’t quite work out how old he was.
‘And the back-up dancers,’ he commented, making no move towards us. ‘They are adorable, Al.’
‘My photographer, Tess Brookes, and her assistant, Amy Smith,’ Al turned to introduce us. I waved my camera in an attempt to verify my profession. ‘And Nick Miller, our esteemed writer – perhaps you’ve read some of his work?’
‘No, I haven’t.’ Edward gestured for Al and Kekipi to take the two seats in front of his desk before waving the rest of us towards the many other seating options in the room. ‘Please sit.’
I took a seat next to Amy on the leopard-print chaise while Nick glowered on a black velvet armchair opposite. I frowned, bouncing the weight of my camera between my hands, waiting to feel good about him feeling bad. My brain wanted to laugh right in his face but my ovaries wanted to go over and give him a hug. What was all that about?
‘So, what’s all this I hear about the House of Bennett finally happening?’ Edward might have been a total tosspot to us but he smiled so warmly at Al, I could almost forgive him. At least my brain could; my ovaries were still a bit offended on Nick’s behalf – stupid reproductive organs. ‘I’m all ears, Al.’