Model Guy

by Brooke, Simon

  As I open the door of the office Scarlett and Piers, who are the only ones in, cheer in a sort of unison.

  "Our media star," says Piers, beaming.

  "You mean your media twat."

  "What's the matter?"

  "I don't think he likes the piece, Piers," says Scarlett dryly.

  "Don't you? Why not?"

  "Why not? It's just so fucking embarrassing."

  "Is it? Why? Where?"

  "The pictures for a start - and all this shit about me being Mr Super Cool, drop dead elegant...."

  "I liked the picture," says Scarlett. "Nice bod, honey. Is it true that male models -?

  "No, it's not. Well I don't anyway."

  "Look, Charlie," says Piers putting an arm round my shoulder and walking me over to my desk. "I'd be lying if I said we didn't employ you for the way you look but it's much more than that. It's your style, your presence, the way you wear your clothes, the way you carry yourself...you're our...what's the word Lettie?"

  "Muse," says Scarlett, scraping the bottom of a yogurt pot with a plastic spoon.

  "That's it, you're our muse. We want to create a website, oh, more than that, a lifestyle, a façon de vivre for people who want to be like you." He pauses for effect. "That's why that piece is so good, so important."

  "But, Piers, I look like a total bullshitter and a total tit," I say, shaking his arm off me and sitting down heavily.

  He puts his hands on my desk, leans over and looks down at me.

  "Charlie, you think that you do because you're a nice guy, a modest sort of bloke who is embarrassed by this kind of adulation, OK? But believe me, to the ordinary punters out there, to those Post readers, you're the smartest, hippest thing ever. You simply are 2cool2btrue. You represent what they want to be, what they want a piece of. This is exactly what our target audience is looking for. Aspirational! You said it yourself."

  I get some water out of the fridge. It's that six quid a bottle stuff. Glacial purity. Actually, I never mentioned the word 'aspirational' to Nora. Did I?

  I ring Nora at the Post's office just to see if I can at least ask why she wrote what she did but funnily enough she is not around.

  "Who? Nora?" There is a laugh. "No, she's sort of out at the moment."

  "Sort of out?" What does that mean? Just generally out of it?

  "She will be back later, can I take a message?"

  "Yes please. Could you ask her to ring Charlie Barrett."

  "Will do."

  "Ta."

  I put the phone down. Can't that girl even be out in a normal way?

  Lauren rings towards lunchtime. She has just done a casting and someone we both know pointed it out to her.

  "Oh don't! Who was it?"

  "Jo Preston."

  "Oh shit.”

  "What do you think of it?"

  "Well..."

  "Oh fuck, don't' say 'Well'."

  "Are they pleased at the office?"

  "At 2cool? Yeah, Piers is delighted."

  "Well, that's what I was going to say - that's the important thing. If they're pleased then you're doing your job."

  "I suppose so."

  "Cheer up. I'll save a copy for my mum. Love you. See you tonight."

  Karyn also rings to tell me that she has seen it and to ask what she should tell Penny at the agency.

  "Well, I'd better be honest I suppose."

  "Why?" says Karyn.

  I laugh.

  "You're right, Penny's never been much into honesty has she?"

  "Why don't you just say that it doesn't change your relationship with us greatly and that you can still do the occasional job. Penny will hate to see you go."

  "You're right, I've been dreading telling her."

  "I'll put you through to her now, let me just see if she's in her office...er...yep. OK, just tell her what we agreed and don't say anything more. Ring me back and let me know how it goes if you want."

  "Ta, babe."

  There are a few minutes of a dance track and then Penny picks up.

  "Hello Charlie." She is curt.

  "Hi Penny, how are you?"

  "Fine." Oh, shit.

  "I suppose you saw that piece in the Post today," I begin, flattering her that she is on the ball and reads more than just OK and her stars.

  "Yes I did Charlie, I was rather surprised I must say."

  "Yes, it all happened rather quickly."

  "It must have done."

  "I wasn't sure initially how much of a commitment this job was going to be or even if it was going to be full time," I explain, glad that the others are out at lunch and can't hear this statement.

  "Well, is it?"

  "Yes, yes, it is, but they're giving me quite a bit of freedom so obviously if any good jobs come up..." I decide not to be too specific here.

  "OK, we'll see how it goes," she growls. "A lot of clients will be very disappointed about this but I suppose we could say something like you're by Special Arrangement only and hope that works. I can't promise anything though, and don't come running back here when it all goes tits up."

  "No, sure. Well, as you say, we'll see how it goes. That's great". Then I play my only trump. "Obviously we'll be using Jet models whenever possible."

  She hardly skips a beat.

  "We'd be very happy to work with you."

  "Great. Thanks Penny."

  "Bye."

  She hangs up and so do I, after I've made a face and stuck two fingers up at the receiver.

  "Oh, she could have been a lot worse." Karyn points out when I ring her back later on the mobile and she pops out onto the fire escape to talk. "You know how it is. Remember Paul Sommers?" Paul Sommers, an affable Australian, was caught doing some 'freelance' work for a shifty photographer. The pictures ended up being used everywhere and eventually Penny saw them. She screamed at Paul across the office: 'You'll never model in London again!" and threw his cards at him. In fact he went back home, got into some soap and now he's coining it, but no one wants to feel the full, Concorde engine force of Penny's wrath.

  I try to get on with some work such as finalising the details for the party and chasing the PR company for a draft of the press release. Perhaps Lauren is right. And even Piers. I might not like the coverage but it might be right for the target audience whatever I think, but all the same: 'chiselled jaw', 'well toned body' Oh, God!

  On Tuesday after lunch when Scarlett is out having a cranial massage and Zac is...well just not in the office, I ring my Dad on his mobile.

  "I thought it was great - very positive coverage."

  "I thought I looked like a tit."

  "Yeah, but it's not aimed at you is it? Think of your target audience."

  "So what? I still look pretty daft - everyone I know will be laughing at me."

  "Not when you make a mill or two out of this thing. Look I've got to run, I've got a busy morning ahead of me."

  "What do you mean 'morning'? It's afternoon. Where are you?"

  "I'm in New York. Someone faxed that piece over to me yesterday as soon as it appeared. We're just keeping an eye on 2cool."

  "Okay, give me a ring when you get home again. Come and find me. I'll be in hiding up in the hills."

  "Will do. Don't worry - like I said, it's brilliant brand positioning". It's this comment and the realisation that he saw the piece not because of any paternal pride or interest but because of the commercial opportunity associated with it that makes me snap at him: "Except I'm not a brand, I'm your son," I point out. But he has gone and I'm left shouting to no one across thousands of miles of empty air.

  Our fantastically cool and expensive stereo arrives later that day and a bloke spends a couple of hours installing it, asking if I have any idea how state of the art this thing is. I say I don't but can I get radio 2 on it? He doesn't see the joke and talks about watts per channel and digital quality sound reproduction or something wanky.

  Bags of clothes are delivered from the 2cool stylist and Scarlett and I have some fun try
ing them on while Piers is out lunching someone at Le Caprice and Guy is doing the same at the Savoy Grill. Later a couple of crates of champagne are dropped off which have apparently been ordered for entertaining in the office. Before I can stop her, Scarlett has decided that we need some entertainment and she opens one.

  But other than that there is very little to do in the office for the most of the week. I begin to learn something, though, that all my friends who went to work in offices after school and university learnt many years ago: the art of paper shuffling and time killing. Scarlett and I go for organic juices and Shiatsu massages and even spent a couple of hours shopping on Wednesday with our 2cool credit cards: a Hugo Boss shirt for me and an outfit from a shop called Sceeech! for a lesbian wedding she is going to on Saturday.

  On Thursday Piers takes me for what he describes as ‘a fact finding trip’ to Bond Street and Harrods.

  "This ghastly tat is just the kind of thing we're not about," he says very loudly in Harrods' Room of Luxury. A few shoppers look around in surprise. I pretend to be one of them. "Harrods is what Gucci and Pierre Cardin were in the seventies when they licensed themselves to anything and everything," explains Piers. "You've got to guard a brand with your life. After all, it is your life, well, your livelihood anyway."

  We move into another area of the shop, part of the menswear department and Piers picks up some ties and drops them.

  "Crap display!" he bellows. Partly to hide my embarrassment I say: "I'm just going to the loo Piers, shall I see you back here in five minutes?"

  "A piss?" he roars. "Yeah, I could do with one too."

  "I think the Gents' is down there," I whisper. At the urinals Piers continues to lecture me on luxury goods marketing.

  "They're called 'ostentatious goods'. Part of the attraction is the high price - people feel they're treating themselves whenever they buy something like that or they just feel good because they know other people simply can't afford them. It's that old tag line 'reassuringly expensive.'"

  Piers even pees fast - his jet could cut slate. Mine is a pathetic, old man's trickle by comparison. Piers finishes, looks down to see if I'm going (yes, I'm going as fast as I can!) and then spins round to wash his hands.

  We sprint out of the shop, Piers managing to make a couple of telephone calls between the inner and outer set of doors at the entrance. As we dash further down Knightsbridge we pass a beggar on the street outside, patterned shawl and skirt blowing in the breeze generated by the cars, hand extended, face set in the usual contorted mask of desperation and pleading. A drugged baby lies slumped in her arms. I look away, embarrassed, uncertain whether to give her money or not.

  "See, that is bad market positioning" says Piers, dialling another number on his mobile. It takes a moment for me to realise that he talking about the woman we've both seen.

  "What?"

  "No one is going to give her money there. They're either hard hearted bastards who don't care or they've only got plastic on them. She should try the King's Road or somewhere like that where there are lots of kids around who are into that sort of thing, you know, begging and busking."

  Later we pass a young guy beggar with a painfully thin mongrel on the end of a piece of rope who shakes a tatty McDonalds cup at us. Again I look away but Piers tells him: 'Oh, eat your dog."

  "'Iya," says Lauren. "Good day?"

  "Pretty quiet, I've just been finalising things for the launch party on Friday night. It should be spectacular. Scarlett and I did a final tour of the place this morning. The money they're spending - three bands, giant video walls to show the site when it goes live, thousands of staff, cars to pick up the VIP guests and the food budget - I told you didn't I? £250 a head. Even the guy at Frederica's said it was one of the most amazing menus he'd ever seen."

  "Grea'" says Lauren, opening a bottle of Merlot.

  "What did you say?"

  "I's like that's really cool, yeah?"

  "Why are you talking like that?" I laugh, slightly spooked.

  "Well, the thing is, Pe'er says my accent is a bi' too cu' crystal, yeah? A bit too Received Pronunciation and I should troy fla'ening it ou' a bi'."

  "You're joking! You sound like you're an American doing a terrible loveable cockney routine."

  "Well, thanks for the encouragement," she says, slamming the corkscrew down on the work surface and turning to get the glasses.

  "Sorry, it's just...why?"

  "I'm going for this presen'ers job on Friday, yeah? And it's a bit more stree'y? A bit more cu'ing edge and so Pe'er's worried my accent might coun' against me."

  "But I thought you were warm and, what was it, authoritative or something?" I ask, taking a welcome mouthful of wine.

  "Oh, I am, but for this part I just need something different, a new string to my bow," she says normally.

  "I liked your old strings," I say sulkily.

  "Oh, honestly Charlie, I'm no’ going to do i' f'rever, just for a few days while I ge' into it, yeah?"

  "All right Eliza Doolittle," I say, lifting Lauren's simple cotton dress over her head. "Now, lawks-a-mercy, let's have a bath and get that soot off you."

  Chapter Nine

  On Friday I arrive back at the club just before seven and try to smile confidently in a you-know-who-I-am kind of way at a bloke in a DJ with an earpiece and a headset. He lets me in impassively. The party is planned to start at eight but I've been here all afternoon, watching the giant video walls go up while armies of glasses spread across white table clothes and plates pile up ready for the buffet. Cables and control boxes appear then disappear as they are neatly tucked away. In fact I haven't had to do much because Simon Smith, our PR man, and his assistant Charlotte have been organising most of the activities.

  The morning was spent with Scarlett and a couple of Simon's colleagues arranging for a fleet of nearly a hundred Mercedes and BMWs from every chauffeur drive company in London to pick our VIP guests up and take them back home again afterwards. On their return journey they'll find a 2cool goodie bag featuring, amongst other things, an Italian-designed crocodile mobile phone holder, a bottle of Krug especially labelled 'poile de chien' (hair of the dog - geddit?) and a pair of Luttoxica sunglasses to protect the really hung over.

  A little envelope contains complementary treatments at spas such as the Dorchester, Aveda, Moulton Brown and Bliss. There is a little coke container with their own monogram on it created by one of Mayfair's finest Royal Warranted silversmiths. Poor old buffers were told the little solid sterling silver tube with its miniature scoop was for snuff. Ah bless, as Scarlett put it when they agreed.

  Now I'm back on duty wearing a black Armani suit and dark grey Costume National shirt with Tim Little shoes I bought on my 2cool credit card.

  Simon is still shouting at people and consulting a clip board when I get back. It seems Heaven, the decorator, is giving him a hard time about some delivery. Over the last two weeks of working in an office I've discovered that the thing to do in these situations is to concentrate on doing some small job. It makes you look busy, it keeps you out of the way, and at least you can point to something you've done if anyone asks. Not that they have so far. In this case it is telling two guys where to put some potted plants.

  "Two, two. Testing. Two, two," says a voice from behind me but when I look around I can see no one. A techie guy laughs at my confusion and explains: "It's a new sound system. There are three hundred miniature speakers around the place, tucked away in flower arrangements and places like here..." He reaches up and pulls out what looks like a black match box from behind a picture. "So wherever you are it sounds like someone next to you is talking rather than all that shitty sound quality with Tannoys booming and distorting across the room."

  Suddenly sequences of the new, updated website flash onto the screens. One telly in the wall of monitors isn't working and remains obstinately blacked out, like a missing tooth in a smile. The techie tuts and yells something to his mate.

  "I told you that they were your respo
nsibility," Simon is saying.

  "Hello? Are you not hearing me? My responsibility was to buy them. Your responsibility was to get them here," spits Heaven, lovingly enunciating every venomous syllable.

  Simon consults his clipboard but, finding no solace in it, says: "Well, I would have thought buying them would have included actually, you know, getting them here."

  "Not when I had no budget for transport and the shop doesn't deliver. I would have thought that was obvious," says Heaven, hands on hips, edging slowly closer to Simon who is pretending that he is not remotely interested in this conversation. Finally Heaven is so far into his adversary's personal space that Simon has to say something: "Well, at the end of the day it's your problem. You're responsible for candles and you haven't got them." Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, goes unsaid. The two face each other for a few moments.

  "Oh, working with you is just Hell," says Heaven.

  At that moment Piers arrives.

  "Finger tip control?" he says, rubbing his hands together. Heaven and Simon give him a poisonous look but he is impervious to it and rearranges some of the exotic flowers, admiring his irrelevant handiwork. "How's it going Charlie?"

  "Fine, no problem. Should be ready in plenty of time, shouldn't we Simon?"

  It's supposed to be supportive but Simon obviously doesn't see it that way. His jaw locks and he shudders slightly before spitting out: "No problem."

  "Great," says Piers.

  "Huh! Give him a clipboard and suddenly he thinks he's bloody Stalin," yells Heaven from across the room. Simon begins to talk to Piers. "Poncey public school twat!" adds Heaven for good measure.

  "You will never work for The Communications Game again," says Simon with dignity.

  "Good!" yells back Heaven. "I wouldn't want to!" He turns around to concentrate on something else. "Oh, for God's sake, sprinkle love, sprinkle," he shouts at one of his terrified staff. "If I'd wanted that much glitter on it I'd have given you a bloody shovel."

  "Splendid," says Piers.