Model Guy

by Brooke, Simon

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I sleep surprisingly well, probably because of the intense silence and darkness of my new room which, because of the design of the building has a Jacuzzi but no windows. When I wake up the next morning at just after nine I lie in bed for a while trying to decide whether my Dad has gone to work yet. He must have. I get up, put on a T-shirt and boxers in case what's her name is still here and open the door to the main reception room. The sunshine streaming in through the wall of glass opposite me hits me like a bucket of cold water, I stagger back and close my eyes for a moment.

  Slightly more accustomed to the light I open them again. It really is the most beautiful day. Oh, God, why hasn't someone told the weather about what's happening in my life. I've got no job, no money, no career prospects, my girlfriend has chucked me out, I'm known by millions as that tit from the up-its-own-arse website which has bitten the dust, and yet standing here, I'm bathed in glorious, golden, late summer sunshine.

  I find some orange juice in the fridge and flick on the telly to interrupt the gentle, monotonous roar of the air conditioning. I open the window but even though it's a relatively calm day, this far up, this near the river, it's just too windy to stand outside in your underwear. When I step back inside again, my dad's current girlfriend is just emerging from their bedroom. She looks at me for a moment, her long blonde hair all over her face, wearing nothing but a man's shirt which is undone. Her breasts are clearly visible underneath but she makes no attempt to button up the shirt. They are pert and tanned and remind me of Lauren's.

  "Oh, hi," she says.

  "Hi," I say. "Erm, I'm just staying for a while, did my Dad mention it?"

  It's definitely the one I met at breakfast in Knightsbridge. She looks blankly at me. Perhaps she doesn't understand. Or even remember me.

  "Oh," she says, finally, without smiling. Then she walks over to the kitchen unit and gets herself a bowl of cereal and takes it across to the settee. She switches on MTV. I do the same and then I go into my bathroom, visualise those breasts and have a wank.

  My plan, such as it exists, is to spend the next few days at my Dad's just chilling. I'll call the model agencies again, keep in touch with Nora, check in with Piers a few times, wait to hear from the police and see if Lauren rings me again. I don't think I've got a cat in hell's chance of finding Guy, frankly. The more I think about it, I realise that he is very sensible just getting out of it. As soon I can, I think I'll do the same.

  I watch more telly with the girlfriend who has established herself Guardian of the Telly Controller and turns over quite arbitrarily without any consultation or consideration.

  I go for a swim in the vast empty pool in the basement of the building. Then I have some lunch of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. I offer some to Her. She smiles acceptance and scoffs it hungrily as soon as I put the plate down in front of her. In fact eating things - and watching MTV, VH1, The Box and some bizarre Brazilian soap opera - is what she seems to do all day.

  Nora rings in the early afternoon to ask 'how it's going'.

  "How's what going?" I ask, laughing.

  "Things," she says, sounding slightly hurt.

  "You mean how's it going sitting here in the middle of nowhere with a girl who just watches telly all day and stuffs her face and can't speak a word of English," I say looking across at her, wondering if she might understand this bit and react. Instead she slowly puts another Pringle in her mouth and stares at the screen as two women set about each other screaming and pulling their hair.

  "What do you mean 'in the middle of nowhere'? Which girl?" asks Nora.

  I mutter 'Oh, fuck', remembering that she knows nothing about this. I suppose I can't pretend I'm calling her from Chiswick but I don't want to get involved in a long explanation so I say: "My Dad's girlfriend. I'm staying with him for a while."

  There is a pause as she takes it in and considers what to say. She obviously can't think of anything appropriate so she instead she just says: "Oh, right, I see. So you're not in your flat."

  "No, I've...I'm not."

  "Oh. Well, I haven't found out much more about Guy. I rang and left a message for Piers just to see if -"

  "Do you know where Guy is?" I ask her suddenly.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You really don't know where he is?"

  "Course not; don't you think I'd have told you if I did?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "Course I would. Charlie, what are you saying?" I don't answer. "Look, I've been ringing round his friends and acquaintances from Cambridge. We've got a stringer, you know, a local reporter, working in the area too. I've even spoken to his brother in the Galapagos Islands."

  "And?"

  "He didn't seem that bothered. Obviously not a very close family. So the trail's gone a bit cold. You haven't heard anything more then?"

  "No, nothing at all," I sigh, getting up and walking round the room.

  "Your dad hasn't said anything?"

  "My dad, no. Why should he?"

  "Oh, just wondered. They're getting a bit tired of the story here at the moment. They're asking me to do other things. Don't know anyone who had an affair with their cleaner do you?" Suddenly she starts talking to someone away from the phone. I hear a shout in the background. "Well, you shouldn't have left it there, should you? It was right by my elbow," I hear her say. Then she comes back to me. "Sorry, where was I?"

  "Little accident?"

  "Honestly, what a stupid place to leave a cup of coffee." Someone is talking to her again. "Just turn your keyboard upside down and pour it out. I'm always doing it; it doesn't do them any harm. Except for the 'b' that sticks a bit - oh, and my 'v’ has been playing up recently but you don't even take sugar so you shouldn't have any problems." I'm laughing now. She whispers to me: "She can't even bloody write anyway, it's probably a blessing. So, where was I? Oh, yes, you don't know anyone who's had a thing with their cleaner, do you?"

  "With their cleaner? No, 'fraid not."

  "Anyone who'd be willing to say they had. What about some of your model friends? We need some good looking young men, twenty to thirty year olds. We'd pay them."

  "I'll do it."

  "Erm, I think you're a little bit too famous now," she says.

  "Oh, don't say that," I groan.

  "Besides I thought you didn't like being in the paper."

  "Nora, I still haven't forgiven you for that," I say, seriously.

  "I know, I said I'm sorry. So what's on TV?" she asks obviously hearing the screams and dramatic music in the background.

  "It's a Brazilian soap opera."

  "Hey, what's happening in it? We used to get them on cable in New York. I love 'em."

  I squint over at the telly.

  "This woman is running through a house screaming for some reason. Every time she opens and closes a door all the scenery moves...Oops, she's just slammed the door straight into the camera...oh, no, a little hand's come up and opened it, that's lucky...for some reason you can't see her face, we're just getting a shot of her bum, I don't think the cameraman can keep up with her or something."

  She laughs. "God, I miss them. They're so mad. They have to do everything in one take and they never even have time to rehearse I don't think." There is a pause. I know she's going to say it: "Will you stay at mine again tonight?"

  "Let's have a drink, shall we?" I know I'm not answering the question.

  "Sure, okay."

  I suggest somewhere in town, mid way between hers and my Dad's.

  I get to the bar at seven, glad to leave the flat, I mean penthouse, and relieved to be going out before my Dad comes back in a way. I haven't really spent much time with him since I was a kid and the new him, although it's quite a few years old now, still takes some getting used to. Nora doesn't get there till nearly half past. I roll my eyes and look at my watch. Pushing her way through the crowd, she makes a face and mouths the word 'Sorry' at me.

  As she nears me, she transfers her bag one from
hand to the other and, in the process, manages to swing it like a croquet mallet, sending a bowl of pistachio nuts flying off a low table. I can just hear her tell the girl who was about to take a handful of them before they shot off: "They're actually really fattening, full of calories."

  When she gets to me says: "She'll thank me next time she gets on the scales."

  We kiss lightly on the lips.

  "You took your time," I tell her. "If I'd waited here any longer they'd have turned me in to a Starbucks.'

  "Ha, ha," she says sarcastically. "I've love a drink, thank you. Large G&T."

  "Good day?" I ask, looking round to the barman.

  "Oh, fuck," she says making a face.

  I laugh.

  "Do you ever have a good day?"

  "Sometimes but, oh, today, I'm in so much trouble. Did you see my piece in the paper?"

  "Erm, sorry, I didn't buy it."

  "Don't worry. Anyway, I had an interview in it with this little old lady who'd hitched, can you believe it? Hitched all the way over to Tangiers to see the grave of her war hero husband because she couldn't afford to get there any other way."

  "Amazing."

  "Oh, she is, I was so impressed. Does charity work and everything, really lovely woman. But unfortunately in the piece there's a spelling mistake in the third par. Oh God, third par -"

  "Par?"

  "Paragraph. Right at the top of the piece. The subs should have picked it up but they didn't. Damn them! Anyway, I describe her living room and then it's supposed to say that she offers me tea and then gets up to water her plants but I left the 'l' out of plants. Think about it."

  "Water her pants?"

  "Yes. She was wanders around her tiny, immaculate living room watering her pants. What was she? Incontinent?"

  Just then barman puts down her drink in front of her.

  "Oh, God, do I ever need this."

  We don't spend long in the bar as it’s too noisy. We go to a pizza restaurant round the corner where she orders a bottle of Chianti before we've even sat down.

  "You like your booze don't you?" I say.

  "No, I don't," she says defensively. "I mean I do, but not excessively."

  "Sorry, just saying."

  "Besides all journalists drink quite a bit - or nothing at all if you know what I mean. I suppose models have to watch it, you know, keep your skin clear and your weight down." She purses her lips and sucks in her cheeks absurdly.

  "Ha, ha. I don't think I'll ever be a model again though."

  "Really? Why not?"

  "I've left messages at all the main agencies, well, the ones I'd work for anyway and none of them has rung me back."

  "Why not, with your reputation, your portfolio, they'd have you like a shot."

  "My reputation's the problem, I think. They don't like all the stuff that's been in the papers about me."

  "And that's my fault?"

  "Well, some of it, yeah," I laugh bitterly.

  She begins to consult the menu. Around us groups girls are meeting over white wine and garlic bread for gossipy, giggly evenings. I catch a couple of them looking at me. I give them a convincingly cool smile. 2cool? They giggle to each other and look away.

  "Do you want me to say sorry again?" she says from behind the menu

  I sigh.

  "No. What different would it make anyway? I just fancy having a moan. Thing is I don't know what the hell I'm going to do." She looks sympathetically at me. "Oh, don'tworry there's nothing you can do. I'll find something. I thought I might go back to college and refresh my marketing skills."

  The waiter comes over and we order.

  "I spoke to Piers this afternoon," she says.

  "Really? What did he say?"

  "He's had to move."

  "Why? Did someone discover where he is?"

  "Not exactly." She stifles a giggle. "It's not funny actually."

  "What happened?" "He burnt the house down."

  "What?"

  "You know that little calor gas stove he had? Well, it must have caught on something and the whole house went up in smoke."

  "You're kidding. Is he all right?"

  "Funnily enough, he got out unscathed."

  "Typical Piers."

  "I saw a report about the fire on the local news this evening. Now he's found a deserted warehouse that a club promoter he knows was using for illegal raves."

  "Well, that news has cheered me up a bit," I tell her, refilling her glass.

  After our food arrives I ask her about their common grandparents.

  "Piers' mum is my Dad's sister, that's all," she says dismissively. "There were six brothers and sisters altogether. One died in a car crash ten years ago. Piers' mum, my aunt Lucille, lives in South Carolina now with her second husband, Piers' step father."

  "So, Piers is half American?"

  "Yeah, 50 per cent yank though he always plays the Hugh Grant role whenever he goes there."

  "Very shrewd."

  "Oh, yes, he knows how to charm the right people, what to say to take them in. But then you know that, don't you?"

  By the end of dinner the issue of whether I'm going to go back to hers is hanging in the air between us. Our conversation is getting sort of vague and disjointed with short, half finished sentences as a result. Of course, I could easily go and stay with her now that I'm not living with Lauren but somehow that fact makes it worse. It would be like a double betrayal. Even if she is cuddling up with Peter tonight I can't go back with Nora. I do actually enjoy talking to Nora, she makes me laugh, she's so different from anyone I've ever met before, we never seem to run out of things to say, she's so sharp it's scary, she's got that dangerous unknown quality about her, I feel like I'm playing with fire just having dinner with her, let alone having sex with her. But I just can't go and sleep with her again, even though Lauren wouldn't know about it this time, of course, I just can't do it.

  "Shall we get the bill?" I say, bringing things to a head.

  "Yes, of course." She looks round very energetically for a waiter while I watch her. Sometimes she's so in control, so cool, like when we first met and had lunch and then, sometimes, she's like an insecure teenager. I wonder how many boyfriends she has had. I wonder if the Wall Street broker with the parental home in the Hamptons was the only one. I wonder if he really exists at all.

  She insists on putting it on expenses. It's only twenty five quid a head so I let her. Besides, I'll have to start saving my money now. We step outside and I realise that getting back to my Dad's is going to be a hell of a schlep. Notting Hill is just fifteen minutes away. But still I can't do it.

  "I'd better be getting back," I say, touching her cheek.

  "You don't want to come back to mine?" she says looking down at the ground, kicking an old crisp packet gently.

  "I, er, I can't. Sorry."

  "Not even for a quick fuck?" she says. I see a muscle in her jaw jump angrily.

  "Nora, don't say that."

  "Why the hell not? That's all it is."

  "It is not. Look, I really like you, Nora, but -"

  "But just not that much."

  "Just let me finish, will you?" Suddenly the street seems very crowded, very public. "I've been going out with Lauren for six years; it's a big chunk of my life."

  "But you're not with her now."

  "Well, I'm not living with her but -"

  "But when you feel like doing it with someone else again, you'll let me know."

  "Nora, don't say that."

  "Well, why did you do it with me then?"

  I can't think of how to put it so we stand in silence as people push past us.

  "Nora, I was angry and confused, you were kind, you were there. I really appreciate that."

  "And I was a useful way of getting back at your girlfriend when she was pissing you off, is that it?"

  "No, no." I touch her cheek again but she looks away angrily.

  "Nora, I really like you. I don't want to hurt you and I promise I wasn't just
using you, but I'm in a relationship, or perhaps I'm not anymore perhaps I'm just getting over one, I don't know. Either way, I just need some space at the moment. I don't want to mess you around." She takes a deep breath and looks around her.

  "Sure," she says in a whisper.

  "The point is if I did come back now and we had sex, it would just be a quick fuck. And I really don't want that either."

  "OK." She looks up at me says the worst thing she can say: "I love you."

  I smile as kindly as I can. Oh, Nora, I'm so sorry. I kiss her on the lips.

  "Let's find you a taxi then."

  What I didn't say because it seemed too cruel to say it at that moment is that I still don't trust her and I'm not sure that I ever will.

  Finding a cab for Nora is no problem but it takes three attempts to find one who's willing to go anywhere near my dad's. The first two obviously think they're going to fall off the end of the earth.

  "What the 'ell do you wanna live there for?" asks the driver as we shoot out along the Commercial Road, the metre clicking up the fare rhythmically.

  "I don't," I yell at him from the back seat. "My dad does."

  "Oh, right." As we drive on I notice him look at me again in his mirror and then say: "I thought I knew your face, you're that guy from that website, arncha?"

  I think about it for a moment.

  "No, that's not me. That's my brother."

  "Really, you don't half look alike. Bet he's keeping a low profile somewhere is he? He must feel a real prick."

  "Yeah, I think he does."

  "Unless, you know, no offence intended, he's in on the whole thing. Waiting to get his share and then scarper, know what I mean?"

  "I don't think he is; I think he's just a helpless pawn in a bigger game."

  "Oh, right, sure, well, you'd know." He drives on a bit more with me willing him to shut up. "But what about all these big names they must be livid. They'll be suing the arse off him, won't they?"

  I think of Josh Langdon's little bit of back tracking on the news report and Piers' odd laughter when I mentioned legal action to him.