“Mornin’.”
She is wearing a red silk kimono, with a red ribbon around her forehead and long crystalline maroon earrrings. A slash of red lipstick on her mouth. You go, girl, thinks Jas.
“Jas,” says Gilda dramatically. “My nightingale. How wonderful.”
“Yep,” he says, walking in. I’m only turning up for work, he thinks, but he still gives Gilda a nice smile and a wink. Funny how these arty people greet every day as if it’s an event akin to walking down the red carpet at the Golden Globes.
He carefully hangs his coat up in the cloakroom. He comes here twice a week. The elements of the house: the pornographic pictures, the bits and bobs of Gilda’s fanny in the downstairs loo, all that tat, hold no interest for him. He’s seen them too often, and anyway, he can see all that stuff on the internet at any given time. No big deal.
He pokes his head around the studio door, taps his pocket to check his phone is off.
“Mornin’.” says Jas.
Philip raises an eyebrow. Then he looks, too obviously, up at the giant clock on the wall. He says nothing. Jas feels obliged to acknowledge the gesture.
“Sorry I’m late.”
In his robe, Philip walks grandly towards Jas.
“Well, I have to inform you that he has seen it. And he thinks it will work,” he says, gesturing to the new sculpture on the trestle table. He leans over the piece. “All we must do is build quite a few more of them.”
“Sorry, who has seen it?”
“Why, Magnus, of course.”
Oh, yeah. The dealer. Well, that’s good, thinks Jas. More work. He looks at the course of the London Marathon. Lots more work. This test model took him over a week to construct, and he knew all the buildings already. By the time he’s built Berlin and Paris and New York, he’ll have earned enough to buy a car by the end of the summer, if he plays his cards right.
“You will need to do some research for me. Can you do that, can you research this stuff?”
Of course I can. Do all your thinking for you. He doesn’t mind being used like this, as long as he is being paid properly, but something inside Jas does rankle. I mean, he considers, everyone thinks artists are completely original. Isn’t that what makes them an official artist? Bet Leonardo da Vinci didn’t have someone researching stuff for him in his studio.
Jas has been brought up to understand that there are rules, like invisible areas of order around everyone. And in order to have authority in those areas, you have to be trained. Doctors had to do this, or that. Teachers similarly. Artists the same. You had to be able to draw. Only in Philip’s case, you didn’t. He can’t draw and he can’t sculpt. All he does is have ideas. Jas’ job is to help him realise those ideas. Jas simply didn’t know how he had become the world’s greatest artist at the same time as not being able to do anything artistic. It was like magic. Or a con. Only Jas didn’t like to believe it was a con, because that would mean he was working for a con-man, and that would be humiliating. He sighs. What is Philip cantering on about?
“… and so I need you to find out what these races actually are.”
“What?”
“The five or six Masters. The great marathons around the world that the serious marathon community runs. That’s what we’ll be building. The elite races. For the elite runners.”
“Are you sure?”
Philip glances quickly at Jas. He hates being queried.
“What? Of course I’m sure.”
“It’s only that… the Marathon Elite.” Jas considers how well Philip’s work will wash with sporting professionals. He thinks that Philip will go down quite badly.
“It’s just that, well, I don’t know that they will be all that interested in owning… ” he gestures to the table “… one of these. Shouldn’t we be doing stuff that rich people like, find the marathons which collectors might be running? What are our most successful golf holes, after all?”
He knows, because he has made them dozens of times. It’s the ones in the rich areas. Augusta. Littlehampton. Hampstead. Virginia Water. St Andrew’s.
“Alright, well find out where those ones are, then. The posh races.”
“It’s going to be Paris. New York and London,” says Jas. “And maybe Florence. And each one is going to take us about two weeks to build, I should think. More, maybe. Think of all those Eiffel Towers. And I bet Florence won’t be easy. Any quicker, and I’ll need some help. Unless, of course, you want to do it with me.” As if that was ever going to happen.
Philip snorts, and strides out of the studio, leaving Jas to get along with sculpting the 10th hole at the Royal Liverpool in Hoylake.
Chapter Eleven Tracey
She starts off by putting his name into Google.
Stuff comes up. Testimonies, accolades, that sort of thing. Alan Makin, you have changed my life. Alan Makin, you have reorganised my budget, my bills, my world. You are a modern day Saviour.
She could do with having a modern-day Saviour in her world, she thinks. To have all the bills paid off. To have everything smoothed out. To be like her neighbours. Organised, efficient, adult, responsible. When they had won the Lottery, they had had some help from the people at Camelot, it was true. But once they had bought the house, had sorted out a new car and got the girls into private school, all of which had taken about a year, Camelot had moved on, onto other winners. People who had won more than she and Larry had. That was when the money problems started.
Eventually, she discovers his website, contact details, agent. MoneywithMakin.com. She envisages various possible gambits. Hi, is that Alan Makin? I’m the woman who shouted out at your show the other night. Alan Makin, I spoke to you in the tent on the Common. Just wanted to say how inspiring you were. Dear Alan, I heckled you last night. Can you forget that, and give me a financial makeover?
That’s the one.
When she tells her eldest daughter of her plan, Belle is incredulous. “Mum, people just don’t contact other people like that.”
“What, by emailing them?”
“Yes! Nobody emails anyone, any more.”
“Don’t be ludicrous.”
Tracey sighs. First nobody writes to anyone any more. Snail mail, used only for thank you letters and postcards. A few years on, nobody calls anyone else on landlines. Apart from Granny and salesmen from AmEx. Mobile calls are the next thing to go. Now it’s emails. Belle makes her feel so old. The other day, she banned her from listening to Radio One. Marched into the room and switched it off.
“You are too old for that, Mum.” Where does one go when you are told you are past it? You’re never going to be younger, thinks Tracey. Now I can’t even send emails, apparently.
“What do people do, then?”
Belle sighs, and shrugs on a voluminous sludge-coloured shrug.
“Facebook? Direct Message on Twitter? WhatsApp?” she says, leaving the room in her Doc Martens.
What the hell is WhatsApp? And DM Alan Makin? Really? Somehow, Alan Makin doesn’t seem to be a Twitter kind of guy, she thinks. She emails him.
Two days later, a response.
It is both oddly formal and rather suggestive. Tracey (if I may), of course I remember your ‘heckle’. Very interesting it was too. Yes. Moving forward, let’s move forward. Coffee? Thursday?
Thursday it is. What to wear. She stands in front of her wardrobe, deciding. It must not be too short. Short skirts and financial acumen do not go together. She must not look flirty. Eventually she wanders up to Belle’s room, and stands in front of her wardrobe. None of Belle’s clothes are in the least flirtatious. She pulls on a black dress made of boiled wool. It has a very below the knee hemline, almost calf-skimming. Perfect with flat heels. Good. Although actually putting the thing on goes against the grain with Tracey. She simply never would wear a skirt of this length. Furthermore, does she want Alan Makin to think she is a below the knee person who never wears stilettos? She’s not sure she does. She abandons the boiled wool and goes back downstairs.
&nbs
p; In heels, her pink tweed fitted jacket and its matching, not-very-mini, mini skirt, Tracey is finally ready to meet Alan Makin for coffee. She brushes her hair, checks her nails, runs her tongue over her teeth for stray lipstick marks. There are none. Her makeup, as ever, is immaculate. She is rather excited.
She slams the door and steps out into the Square. Walking briskly along in her heels, jacket, mini skirt, she feels the part. What part? She doesn’t know. Just the part.
Jane, who would never need a financial makeover because Patrick earns hundreds of thousands of pounds every year in the City, probably millions actually, is carting groceries from the back of her Audi.
“Hi Jane,” she sings out.
“Oh, hello. Going anywhere special?” asks Jane, somewhat sourly, Tracey thinks.
“Oh, no,” says Tracey. “Not really.” Just to meet a television star, ha ha.
“Well, actually I am.” She pauses by the car. Jane, who had had no intention of stopping, is forced to stand still.
“It is quite special. I’ve got an appointment with Alan Makin.”
Jane cocks her head at Tracey, birdlike.
“You know,” continues Tracey, “the guy who appears on TV. Sorting out everyone’s financial problems. Well, I went to see him with Harriet the other night and he now wants a meeting! With me! Don’t think it’s anything special,” she says, deliberately downplaying it. “I mean, I don’t think he wants me on TV with him,” she continues.
Jane stands holding her groceries. There is a distinctly fed-up look on her face.
“Marvellous” she says faintly. “You’d better go. Don’t want to be late.”
Tracey clicks away in her heels.
When she arrives at Patisserie CoCo, an authentic Viennese pastry shop selling Austrian fancies to harassed Londoners who already have dangerously high levels of cholestrol, Alan Makin is in place.
“Tracey. My dear,” he says, proffering a chair.
Tracey slides into it.
Alan looks at her, half humorously.
“You know you don’t look a bit like a Tracey.”
Tracey sighs.
“My parents thought it was a fashionable name. It was, when I was born. And it’s turned out to be a white trash signifier.”
She laughs, delivers the customary punchline.
“They were debating with the idea of calling me Sharon.”
Alan laughs too. “Do you know, I have the same problem.”
“What, that your parents were about to call you Sharon?”
“Yes! No, no, with being called Alan. A signifier not so much white trash, as date sensitive. Only men of a certain generation are called Alan.”
The waitress appears, bearing cups full of speciality Viennese coffee dusted with bitter chocolate.
Alan and Tracey, the badly named couple, take their cups from her and settle, blowing on the coffee, ruminating on the social hurdles which come with having blue collar names in a white collar world.
“Makin is good though.”
“Oh, that. Actually, confession Numero Uno. It’s an invention. Works well with what I do. Makin’ money.”
He’s quite fun, she thinks. Amusedly open, giving away trade secrets. Small and fair, with nice clothes.
She puts one of her hands over his wrist.
“What is confession Numero Duo? That you can’t add up?”
Alan laughs.
“Oh, no. Figures have always been my speciality.”
“Can you wave your magic wand over my financial affairs, then?”
He looks at her archly.
“So, let’s talk about it. Don’t be embarrassed. People give me their financial secrets every morning on national television. Right. How much money do you owe, right now? Including your mortgage?”
She squirms.
“We don’t have a mortgage.”
“Well that’s a start. Excellent.”
“We won the Lottery a few years ago.”
“And you are coming to me for help? Well, well.”
Tracey feels as if she has entered a Confessional box at church.
“So we bought the house and put the children into private school and now I think I need a plan, so the rest of it doesn’t… fritter away. I’ve already got an overdraft.”
“Do you think you have, shall we say, an entitlement to debt? Because everyone else is looking flash and spending money on your street. And everyone else is probably also in debt, so it’s okay? Where do you live?”
“In the Square.”
Alan nods knowledgeably.
“Oh, I know about the Square. And you bought a house there without a mortgage? I won’t ask how much you won from the Lottery,” he says, even though he already knows, because he has Googled her too.
“No, no, that’s alright,” says Tracey, slightly disappointed.
“How do you know about the Square?”
Because he has done his homework. Because he has just had a performance in a marquee in that part of town. Because he knows how things are, in places which are called by a singularity.
“Well, I’ve never been to it. But I assume it’s full of bankers and lawyers and bankers’ wives, no? With their Prada handbags and cars and au pairs and bonuses and beautiful haircuts?”
She thinks of Jane unloading the Audi.
“Perhaps.”
“And you’d like to be like them? Feel ashamed that you aren’t? So you take out that 0% finance on the credit card, right? To pay off another one? Then your salary stagnates, so you can’t pay anything off bar the minimums?”
She looks at him. He is her confessional priest.
“That is exactly where I am right now. Sometimes I feel, I feel… ”
“What?”
“That I am looking into the abyss. And it’s frightening.”
“It’s also… not good for you. Is it?”
“Is there anything… to say?”
“There might be. Shall we talk about how things work, or shall we say don’t work, for you? What is your mode of employment, if you have one?”
Forty minutes later, after experiencing an indepth conversation about selling cosmetics door to door, and how it really works, with commission spiralling back to a pyramid of Giza-like dimensions, Alan Makin looks rather dazed. Still, he’s not averse to a challenge. His whole life, as those who have heard him talk know, has been about challenges. He rolls his sleeves up. He has enjoyed the morning. He likes this woman, with her clothes of a twenty year old and perfectly presented face, with her trashy name and her Lottery story, and her silly spiralling debts and her phalanx of brimming credit cards desperate for relief.
He knows how to help people like this.
He is also aware that her belief in him, Alan Makin, and in what he, Alan Makin, knows, is what drives his show, the belief that life can be effectively ironed out and started over again.
He thinks this is a worthy thing to communicate. He hates the bankers, the debt peddlers, the payday loan merchants. Despises them. He would like to save this woman from them.
“How about I talk to my team about something?”
“What, a makeover on your show?”
Alan shrugs.
“Perhaps. ‘How I ran through my Lottery Millions’ is a good start. Would you like to be on TV?”
Would she like to? She’d love to.
Over supper, back at home, she’s walking about the room, humming. She’s rather proud of her conquest.
“What, so Alan Makin took you out to coffee? You actually MET him?”
“Yes, Grace, I did.”
“What did you wear?”
“The pink suit.”
“Oh, MUM!”
“Well, Belle, it is actually a very smart suit.”
“You know, Belle dumpling, not everybody wants to walk around as if they are in the London branch of an Amish sect,” snorts Larry. “Some people like to recognise we are in the 21st century, and reflect that in their costume.”
Belle
pulls a face at him.
He turns to Tracey.
“How was it, then?” he says, amused.
“Quite good, actually. He’s going to talk to his producer about having me on the show.”
“Really? Did he ask you about the Lottery win?”
“No. He didn’t seem in the least bit interested in that. Well, I told him about it of course, but he didn’t… linger on it.”
“It would probably make your experience seem too unusual. Alan Makin’s show isn’t about the unusual. It’s about the bloody familiar, that’s why it’s a hit.”
“You? On telly? Hee hee hee.”
“Yes, Belle. Not everyone thinks I am an embarassment.”
“When? When will you be on, when?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps next week. Will you both stop texting at the table?”
“I’m not texting, I’m DM-ing.”
“I’m not texting, I’m Instagramming.”
Belle and Grace giggle and punch one another.
“Well, whatever it is, please desist,” says Larry, ineffectually stifling a burp.
Tracey pushes her plate away. She doesn’t want to be in this kitchen, her familiar home, a place full of burping adults and whining children. She wants to be back in Patisserie CoCo, putting her hand over Alan Makin’s wrist, in a world which is smart and fast moving and free of financial snares, and full of important people having meetings and appearing on television.
The door bell rings. Anya, the Eastern European au pair glides away to answer it.
“What is the time? Eight? That will be Roberta. Your piano lesson, darling.”
“But I thought you cancelled her! I thought that lesson we had over on George’s piano was going to be my last one?”
“Well, I didn’t actually. Cancel her.”
“God, Mum! How could you! I hate her! I hate you!”
“Go on. Go and have your lesson.”
“But I haven’t practised. Oh, Mum.”
“Well, darling. Roberta rang me and we had a long, long chat.”
What did they talk about? Tracey couldn’t quite remember, but she knew it mentioned various key things, such as The Repertoire, and Grade Five. Oh, and of course Belle’s chances at university. Yes, that was it.
The Square Page 9