by Carmen Reid
Now his T-shirt was sticking to him underneath his jumper as he walked. He was sticky, sweaty, unshaven, his hair was grubby and messy and he needed to get home and shower from top to toe. He needed to get last night out of his head, his mind and definitely out of his hair. He needed to get his act together for the Big Lunch with Sam Knight tomorrow.
The bridge of his nose hurt. He gave it a rub and realized that he must have knocked the scab off at some point. It felt a little crusty, as if some dried blood was sticking round there. God, he needed a wash. He could at least have washed his face before leaving. What if he bumped into someone important? He was walking up Belsize Park Road for God's sake.
That was when he saw Annie speeding past in the back of a cab. Or thought he saw Annie.
After giving her a quick ring to find out, he cut her off to answer the call from his insufferable, pompous arse of an agent Ralph (Rafe) Frampton-Dwight, known to his clients as Frightful-Twit. Still, the man got him lots of great work and other actors queued round the block to get onto his books, so he could hardly complain.
'Rafie darling, lovely to hear from you,' Connor gushed as charmingly as he could through the increasing pain of his hangover.
'Where the bloody hell are you?' came Ralph's angry response.
This took Connor by surprise. Where the bloody hell was he? Where the bloody hell was he supposed to be? OK, yes, yes, over the years, there was the odd little meeting or appointment . . . hell, even audition he'd been a tad late for . . . or, only very occasionally, missed. But he was sure there was absolutely nothing scheduled for today . . . Thursday?
'Where am I?' Connor asked Rafe. 'I'm walking up Belsize Park Road in search of a bloody bacon butty.
Wrong place to look, really. Where are you?'
'Connor McCabe!!' Ralph Frightful-Twit erupted but in a low voice, as if he didn't want to be overheard, 'I am sitting in the sodding Chelsea Dining Room waiting for Sam Knight to turn up for a meeting arranged five weeks ago because he's thinking of casting you in his next sodding film. That's where I am, you imbecile. Get. Over. Here. NOW.'
'Oh fuck,' was Connor's pithy response, 'I thought that was on Friday.'
'This is Friday you hopeless wanker.' Clearly the gloves were off now.
'Have I got time to go home and change?' Connor wondered.
'No you bloody well do not. In fact – fuck's sake,' Ralph muttered under his breath, 'that's him now. Just get here!'
In the back of the taxi, Connor attempted to smooth down his hair. Then he flapped his sweater and T-shirt to try and let some fresh air circulate. Better keep the sweater on, he reasoned; less chance for the stale sweaty smell to escape.
Bloody shit damn expletive buggering bloody hell.
He'd been preparing for this meeting for weeks . . . months! He'd been to AA! Detoxing! Wheat-free! Pumped up! Annie herself had approved the perfect outfit for today: subtle designer jeans, just the right side of broken in, a very flattering blue cashmere T-shirt, shoes the perfect groovy crossover between shoe and trainer, and a Ralph Lauren blazer.
Now, here he was speeding towards Mr Knight in a stinky T-shirt, a jumper with holes and a pair of chinos which, on closer inspection, appeared to have a wine stain on the knee. He didn't even want to think about the stinky, ragged baseball boots on his feet. Shit!
And Mr Knight was one of those Californian health nuts. Only ate raw vegetables and seeds, swam a mile before breakfast, all that kind of crap.
Connor fell into something of a gloom as his taxi sped towards the Dining Room. Would they even let him in? he wondered.
Just as the cab pulled up outside the restaurant and Connor was digging about in his deep pockets for the fare, his mobile went off.
Handing over a jumble of pound coins and 50 pence pieces to the irritated driver, Connor could see that Hector was calling him. He cheered up immediately.
'Heck!' he said affectionately into the phone. 'Hello! Nice to hear from you.'
'Is it?' Hector asked moodily. 'I thought you were avoiding me last night.'
'No, you avoided me!'
'You definitely avoided me.'
'No,' Connor insisted, aware that the cab had pulled off, that two men seated right at the window, in the restaurant's best table, were looking at him with . . . well . . . looks that ranged from angry to kind of surprised.
'You're not going to believe this . . .' Connor began, 'but I'm going to have to call you back because I'm just about to meet—'
'No!' Hector interrupted, 'you're not allowed to hang up on me, Connor. I don't care if you're about to go and meet Steven bloody Spielberg himself. You have to talk to me right now!'
'I can't,' Connor pleaded, 'I will phone you as soon as I've finished . . .'
The line went dead.
Connor cast his eyes back to the men at the window. Even at this distance, he could see how scarlet Rafe was turning. With a casual ruffle of his messed-up hair, he jogged towards the restaurant's reception.
A waiter ushered him to the table where he made fulsome and apologetic greetings: 'I am so, so sorry . . . grovelling . . . honestly, Mr Knight, if you'd let me lick your shoe leather, please.'
'No, no,' Sam Knight, tanned, shiny with health and wealth, just exactly as you'd want a Hollywood film director to look, insisted, sounding a little bewildered.
'Sam, allow me to introduce Connor McCabe,' Frightful-Twit began.
'I couldn't get a taxi, then the taxi got stuck in traffic . . .' Connor wondered whether he should explain his outfit and general state of unwashedness. Frightful- Twit seemed to be staring at his nose with an expression set in utterly alarmed disbelief.
Connor made a mental note to leave at the same time as Knight. He didn't really want to hear what Frightful- Twit might have to say to him as soon as Knight was out of earshot.
Jesus, look at Knight. He had a totally smooth neck and chubby cheeks. Did people from Hollywood really think it was normal to go around looking like a chipmunk's bum?
'Been in London long?' Connor ventured as he headed towards his chair.
'I'm just here for three days. Back-to-back meetings, no chance for sightseeing,' Sam replied briskly. Clearly this was going to be a quick lunch.
'So Ralph here—'
'Rafe,' F-D chipped in smarmily.
'He tells me you're a big TV star over here. Sunday night ratings of over eight million.'
Connor suspected he was supposed to give 'power meeting' now. He was supposed to sit down and wow Sam Knight with his energy and brilliance and dedication and commitment and determination and drive . . . blah, blah, blah. Just how had an acting interview managed to get so like an accounting interview?
'Oh . . . well, yes,' Connor began . . . and all of sudden he just truly couldn't be bothered. He leaned back, tipping his chair dangerously. 'Well, there are a few old ladies who like to tune in to The Manor every now and again.'
Frightful-Twit's face was returning to a dangerous shade of red.
'A few old ladies, huh?' Sam Knight repeated.
'Connor's being modest . . .' Frightful-Twit began to intervene.
'No, no. Old ladies love me,' Connor broke in: 'obviously they're in denial about the fact that I . . .' his voice dropped low and he had Knight's full attention now, 'sleep with other men.'
'Right,' Knight said.
'Because, let's not beat about the bush. I'm goodlooking, I can act the socks off anyone you'd like to name, but I'm a great, big, raving poof' – Connor had decided to give it to him straight, so to speak – 'and you're not going to have me walking the red carpet with a fake girlfriend or keeping coy in interviews about my "other half" and "very good friend" and all that bollocks.'
'Right,' Knight repeated.
'So here I am. This is me. Take it or leave it,' Connor added, 'I'm not giving you any of that marketing wank about myself.'
Connor suspected he'd blown it. No, make that, he knew he'd blown it just as soon as he'd pulled up in the taxi outside the resta
urant . . . so he decided, on the spot, that since he'd so blown it, he might as well go down in style.
'And I'm not going to go on about how much I love your work either,' he continued. 'Your first two films were cracking, but that thing you brought out last year: The Geologist's Nightmare?'
'The Biologist's Daydream,' Knight corrected him.
Frampton-Dwight's mouth hung open slightly, his face frozen in an expression of horror.
'That was a steaming pile of horse manure,' Connor announced bluntly, 'and you're good, so you must know it.' He sat up straight now. 'Yeah, right, well, I'd absolutely love to come and work with you, but not on a stinker like that.'
Connor heard his mobile phone beep, and making another sudden decision, he stood up, muttered an apology or two and left to finish off this call. It really couldn't wait.
He hurried over to the restaurant's lobby. Phoning Hector back now seemed far, far more important than chatting up some big US director dick. And then there was Annie: what had Annie just said about Ed? He was going to have to call her too.
Back at the table, Sam Knight began to laugh.
'The Brits!' he exclaimed to Ralph Frampton-Dwight. 'That guy!'
Frampton-Dwight was struggling to read the expression on the movie man's face. He was just about to tell him that Connor McCabe was no longer on his books and would he be interested in meeting Steve Crookston, who could be here within fifteen minutes, when Knight asked, 'D'you think he was in a fight last night? Did you see his nose? He looked like he hasn't slept or washed in a week. No one, no one in the States would dare to meet me looking like that!'
'I know. Deplorable,' Frampton-Dwight agreed, 'absolutely deplorable. So unprofessional—' 'It's great!' Sam Knight said picking up the menu and looking seriously as if he intended to stay for lunch after all, 'He's gonna be perfect for the part. I wanted a sort of retro Withnail and I feel to the thing anyway. And you know what? I think I'll make his character gay. Let's have a gay lead. And yeah . . . he's right about The Biologist's Daydream. That's what happens when you listen to too much . . .' he paused and then tried out the phrase uncertainly, 'marketing wank?'
As Frampton-Dwight tried not to choke to death on the large swig of wine he'd just taken, Knight sipped at his still mineral water and added calmly, 'Yesterday I met one of your actresses. Big name . . .' he gestured vaguely, 'Kate?'
'Blanchett? Winslet?' Frampton-Dwight offered eagerly.
'Yeah . . . something like that,' Sam said. 'And you know what? She brought her baby! To the meeting!'
'Oh God,' Frampton-Dwight offered with a grimace.
'No, no, listen up. It was a big baby. It could walk and everything . . . and she said she had to bring it, because it's still breastfeeding! And then, she starts feeding it, during the meeting! I mean that is different. I'm not going to forget a meeting like that.'
'No . . .' F-D had to agree, 'and I suppose that way you know she won't have a problem with a nude scene.'
'Oh, you are so wrong!' Sam exclaimed. 'She's sitting there with a toddler hanging off her nipples. Great tits, by the way. And she's telling me on no account will she do nude. Not even a partial buttock, not even upper thigh.'
'Really?' F-D felt a little at sea. Was he supposed to be admiring or disapproving? He seemed to have lost his bearings here. Was McCabe hired or fired? He should have stuck with the mineral water too.
'That is what I love about the Brits,' Sam continued. 'They don't care. In LA everyone is sucking A so hard their faces are distorted.'
Sucking A? What did he mean? The man spoke a different bloody language. 'So you've cast this Kate?' he ventured in confusion.
'Sure! And her baby too if she wants and you know what? I think your guy will be great with them. Just great. I'm hoping he gets off the phone soon so he can tell us what he did last night. What do you think we should order for him? Another round of beers?'
Chapter Twenty-seven
Tilly B-P's Blitz spirit:
Red skirt suit (Valentino)
Wide black patent belt (The Store's
accessories department)
Red pillbox hat with veil (same)
Black seamed stockings (same)
Black patent shoes (Chanel)
Total est. cost: £1,200
'This looks like a bloody bit of satellite.'
'Are you still at home?' Connor's voice was fever-pitch with excitement.
'No, I'm at work now. I'll be here till eight,' Annie informed him.
'I've got something to tell you!' Connor exclaimed. 'It's huge, it's immense! Enormous! It can't wait.'
'What?' Annie asked him. 'Babes, I really have to go.'
'Wait! I'm going to be one of the stars in Sam Knight's next film. Annie, I'm going to be famous! Really, internationally, movie star famous!'
'That is fantastic!' Annie told him, 'I am so, so pleased for you. But I have to go.' She glanced over at Tilly B-P, one of her favourite clients, who had an enormous Prussian blue hat, trimmed with metal, balanced on her head and was drawing a line with her finger across her throat. This didn't mean 'Get off the phone or else.' Annie knew it was Tilly's shorthand for 'If you want me to wear this, you'll have to kill me first.'
'I'm coming round later,' Connor informed her, 'to check on you.'
'No, you don't have to,' Annie told him. 'Dinah's feeding the children and once I get home, I'm going to bed early. Anyway, you should go out with your glamorous friends and celebrate.'
'But you are my glamorous friends,' Connor said and all of a sudden Annie had to swallow hard. 'See ya later?' Connor asked.
'OK doll.'
'Annie! What are you thinking? Are you feeling a bit off-colour today? PMT?' Tilly was asking her, now that she'd put her phone away. 'This looks like a bloody bit of satellite fell out of the sky and landed on my head. I didn't live through cancer only to get hit by a sputnik!'
Much as Annie wanted to laugh, she astonished Mrs Brosnan-Pilditch, who was in the suite to choose an outfit for her 70th birthday lunch, by welling up with tears.
'Oh dear! I'm sorry!' Mrs B-P soothed. 'It's not your day today, is it?'
'It's not the best,' Annie agreed, pressing hard at her eyes and gulping tears back. Streaked mascara all over the place wasn't the best personal shopper look.
'And you, being you, will definitely not want to talk about it, will you?' Mrs B-P said next, 'you'll just want to fix it.'
'Well, it's not very professional to be gushing all over my clients. But I've not been very professional,' Annie blurted out, thinking of the conversation she'd had with Mr B about his zipless bags half an hour ago in her office with the door tightly shut.
She'd given it to him straight: 'Harrods won't take the bags because they have no zips.'
'No zips!' she'd heard him declare. 'But why they need ugly metal zip? We have beautiful brass button with magnetic closure, much, much more elegant and easy.'
'But this is London,' she'd insisted. 'We have thieves. And anyway, the bags you showed me had zips. The bags I ordered had zips!'
'No, no, no! No zips,' he'd countered.
'Yes they did, I checked . . .' she'd said, realizing how naïve and amateurish she'd been. She'd taken no photos of the original bags she'd ordered, she hadn't written up any sort of detailed specification. No contract. She'd certainly not thought of making Mr B sign anything. Oh, she could just about scream at herself for being so green!