Model Guy

by Brooke, Simon

  "Ten past ten."

  "OK, I've got to be out by midnight to file, I'll read it over to the copy takers from my mobile. That's the very latest time I can do it. Don't let me forget, for God's sake. Things should have got going already with a bit of luck."

  I grab her arm.

  "You're really going to write about this?"

  "Derr! Why do you think we're here?"

  "I don't want you writing about it."

  She laughs irritably.

  "What's it got to do with you? How can you stop me? I can write about anything I want."

  "What's the problem?" says Piers from behind us.

  "My dad. Even if he's not here tonight, he's involved, isn't he?" But he did say he was doing something tonight, though didn't he? This was obviously it.

  "Oh, for God's sake," says Nora. "I won't mention him, if you don't want me to. There are plenty of other important people, after all."

  "But it'll get back to him. Other journalists will be looking for every name connected with it. People will talk, won't they?"

  "Piers, get the door. You'd better stand by that security camera; you're the one they'll be expecting."

  "Nora."

  "Just fucking go home then. Go on."

  "No." I think about it for a moment. "I'm coming with you to see if my Dad's here. And if he is I'm going to get him out of here and I'm going to make sure you make absolutely no mention of him."

  "I said I wouldn't."

  "But you're a liar, Nora, I don't trust you."

  She looks at me for a moment. Hurt? I bloody hope she is. I begin to wonder if I'm here with her as moral support. Perhaps she needs me to come with her, to look after her, since she can't trust Piers who is now looking around furtively in a way that would attract the attention of anyone if there was anyone around in this darkened little side street.

  "I told you, I won't mention him. Now look I invited you because we've been a team so far." A team? Is that how she sees it? Sensing that I need convincing on this one she adds: "We've worked very well together on this but if really you don't want to see it through then, fair enough, just...go...home...and I'll speak to you later."

  "I'm coming in," I tell her; it's meant more as a threat than an offer.

  She thinks about it for a moment and then says: "Piers get the buzzer." Piers squeezes between us and hits the intercom. A harsh white light comes on from above us.

  "Hello?" squawks a women's voice from the entry phone.

  "It's Piers. I'm here for the badger meeting."

  "Piers? Piers Gough-Pugh? You naughty boy, come in."

  The door opens.

  "Oh," says the woman, looking at the three of us.

  "I brought a couple of friends," says Piers, kissing her on both cheeks.

  "Well, I'm not sure..." She takes a look at me. "Oooh, I dunno."

  She moves aside and lets us in. She's wearing a tight black dress. It's only as we walk past her and go inside that I see it's made of rubber. And backless. Very, very backless.

  "Get yourselves a drink and come on in," she say peering around outside carefully before shutting the door. "Well, Piers, this is a turn up for the books, we didn't expect to you here again. I think there are rather a lot of people who are just a teensy weensy bit cross with you," she says, pulling down his shades with a long, slim, bejewelled finger. "I think they might want to spank you."

  Nora laughs.

  "I think they'll want to do something worse than that."

  "Even better," says the woman looking me over again. "Get changed upstairs if you want to."

  We move down the hall way. The living room, and the rest of the house, as far as I can see, is decorated very much like the Huntsmans' - antiques, classic upright sofas, huge lamps, marble topped tables, silver photograph frames, landscape paintings alongside some abstract pieces on dark, heavily patterned wallpaper. There are big book cases full of leather bound volumes which look as though they've been bought wholesale by an interior decorator and never read.

  But despite the classic furnishings there is something odd about this place, I can smell it before I even see it. Bodies, sweat. I can sense a certain electricity. As I peer further into the living room wondering whether I'll see anyone I know, I notice a coffee table like the one my Dad used to have except that underneath it is man in a leather basque. A real man.

  We walk through, looking into a couple of other rooms further towards the back of the house. In one I notice a naked bottom. In fact it's a large woman on her knees giving a man, half hidden by the shadowy light, a blow job. Wide eyed and trying not to laugh Nora, turns round the look at me. It would be funny except that I know that my Dad is connected with this in some way. The idea that I might confront him in a moment doing something like this couple (no, wait a minute, there's three of them, now that I look carefully) is too horrible.

  Piers has started to talk to some people in a quiet corner, by the stairs, his cap pulled down over his ears but when he sees us move off he follows.

  "Wait, while I get rid of my coat and put on my disguise."

  "Disguise?" I ask. "Aren’t you disguised enough?"

  "No, that woman at the front door wasn't kidding. There are a quite a few people who'd like my balls for marbles."

  "Well, why are you staying here, then?"

  He shrugs his shoulders and looks at me as if it were obvious.

  "Because it's fun. Best free peep show in London." The risk, probably appeals, I guess. Part of me hopes that one of these irate investors recognises him and decides to vent his spleen.

  "Piers, go and put your disguise on and then come back quickly. Coats are in there, I think," says Nora, nervously, pointing to a door beside us. He is back within a few seconds.

  "That's better," he says.

  "Piers?" I say. "What are you doing? What's that for?"

  "What's what for?"

  "You're wearing a gas mask."

  "I know - disguise."

  "Don't you think it looks a bit odd?"

  Piers gives a muffled laugh.

  "You're so innocent." I sort of see what he means.

  "Come on, let's look upstairs. If anyone asks you to, you know, get involved just tell them you're getting a drink and you'll be right back," Nora instructs us.

  "Roger Willco," says Piers. I look round at him but it's impossible to tell now if he's taking the piss or not. We move towards the stairs, keeping as close together as it's possible to be without tripping over each other.

  But before we go up we look into another room where some people are having sex over tables, hands grasping desperately at each other, looking to grab some new piece of flesh, some new appendage or erogenous zone that they haven't experienced yet. Just then there is a farting noise as an old guy is pulled by along a polished dining table by two young girls, his skin alternately sliding and sticking on the polished, dark wood.

  I pull Nora and Piers out of the doorway and we go up. A woman is giving a man a blow job on the stairs as another man takes her from behind, his thighs slapping rhythmically against her quivering buttocks, generating waves of flesh. Without acknowledging our presence they shuffle over to one side to let us pass. I find myself saying 'thanks' which makes Nora laugh.

  On the landing there are two giant Chinese vases and a huge imposing portrait of a young girl. Obviously recently painted her face is frozen in a look of self-conscious seriousness. The owners' daughter? She must love coming home and seeing that. Better than coming home and seeing this lot I suppose. I'm aware of somewhere staring at me. An older guy with bouffant, blue rinsed hair and a black polo neck is inches away from my face, looking at me provocatively. I step back - into Nora and Piers.

  "Care to join us?" asks the man, squeezing my bicep. I pull away. 'Us' seems to refer to a sad looking young guy wearing only a pair of navy blue Y fronts. With his solid build, pale skin and round face, he looks Russian or Middle European. He stares impassively at me. "Mmm?" enquires the older guy, who is holding him
the by the hand.

  "Er, no thanks," I mutter.

  The older guy shrugs petulantly and leads his friend off into another room.

  "Spoil sport," says Nora.

  "It was tempting," I tell her.

  "You should," she says, smiling wickedly. "That guy's minted, what's his name? He owns half a dozen theatres and he's got shows all over the world."

  It occurs to me that everyone we've seen so far is either over fifty or under twenty five. Nora, Piers and myself are a sort of demographic hiccup: presumably neither young and desperate enough to be paid or old and desperate enough to be paying.

  We look into the master bedroom, continuing our ritual: a quick glance, a moment to analyse exactly what is going on, a wave of relief on my part that it's not my dad, followed by another sensation of repulsion at which I drag a smirking Nora and Piers out. Scented candles blend with the smell of sweat and pot. A searing stink of Amyl nitrate meets us suddenly.

  On the floor of this huge room, with its chandelier and elegant mahogany fitted wardrobes, a middle aged, Rubinesque woman is riding a very thin young guy who looks more scared than turned on, her huge legs almost crushing his thin thighs. Still bouncing energetically she shouts across to a grey haired bloke who is jerking off furiously as he watches two young girls kissing listlessly on a settee.

  "Jeremy, uh, uh, you'll have to feed, uh, uh, the meter in a minute, you know," she says. Thinking that this might be slang for another sexual position, I look away and drag the others out again. We turn and bump into a bloke who I've seen on the telly a few times but I can't think when.

  "What a fantastic dress," he tells Nora. "I love it. Where did you get it?"

  "Thanks, it's Hussein Chalayan," says Nora. "What about yours?"

  "It's a just a little Vivienne Westward number," he says, touching her arm. Then it comes to me. Of course - he's that rugby commentator.

  "Don't leave me alone," she says to me after he's moved off.

  "OK, let's go up another floor," I tell her. "And then we'll get the fuck out of here."

  We bump into a rather drunken Lady Huntsman, her arms round two young men, one, a skinhead has a tattoo of a spider web across his neck and the other while the other is in camouflaged combat pants and is drinking champagne out of the bottle, letting pour down over neck and naked torso.

  "Huh," she says, looking me up and down. "Changed your mind have you?" She moves on haughtily. We pass a girl, totally naked doing coke off a marbled topped consul table.

  "Oh, my God, can you believe this?" hisses Nora at me as we move into another room. "I just hope I remember all the names. Wait." She rather clumsily holds her handbag up in front of her and fiddles with the catch. "Look, there's Josh Langdon." Langdon, drunk or stoned or both, is with three young girls. "Oh, fucking hell, there's Sir Peter Townsley - he owns The Informer - now that would be funny." She holds up her bag again.

  "Nora, someone's going to notice you doing that in a minute," I tell her.

  "No," she says, "they're all too trashed. Talking of which I could do with a drink. Can you get me one?"

  "I'm not sure...oh, wait a minute, there are some bottles over there."

  "Charlie."

  "Yes?"

  "Get me a large one will you."

  "Sure."

  "Er, yep, whatever's going," says Piers when I ask him.

  "Will you be able to drink it through that?"

  "When it comes to alcohol, mate, where there's a will there's a way."

  I notice a table over the other side of the room, complete with snowy white table cloth. There are cut crystal glasses, a huge ice bucket and a silver dish with elegant slices of lemon. Bottles of Tabasco, Angostura Bitters and Worcestershire sauce are gathered in a little triangle. Everything else is neatly arranged but the ultimate absurdity are the canapés: exquisite squares of brown bread with smoked salmon and gravad lax, little cocktail sausages and what looks like foiegras on crackers. Who, tell me, who, is here for the food?

  I shake my head in disbelief. In a way this very ordinary sight seems more bizarre than anything else I've seen tonight. I pour a nicely chilled Chablis into three heavy cut crystal glasses. As I replace the bottle in silver ice bucket I notice a face peering up at me from beside the table. It's a middle aged man with a moustache and neatly cropped grey hair. He winks at me then closes his eyes and opens his mouth. Feeling slightly embarrassed and not wanting to be a party pooper, I take the bottle out and pour some of the wine into his open mouth. He gently squirts a bit out and lets it trickle over his face and down his neck, before drinking the remainder.

  "Don't you want to piss?" he asks, sweetly.

  "Erm, not at the moment, thanks."

  "Oh, well, you know where I am if you do," he says, smiling.

  "I'll bear it in mind, thanks."

  I get back to the others and give them their drinks. Nora knocks her's back almost in one go and then looks around again.

  "You're right," she says. "I shouldn't waste my time writing this one silly article. I should blackmail these people; I'd get a hell of a lot more for it, that way."

  We watch a bit more, backed up against a wall, hoping there is safety in numbers. I realise that not many people seem to be actually enjoying themselves. Those that aren't obviously too pissed or stoned to know what's happening are looking around to see what else is going on and what other activities they should be involved with. It's like one of those parties where everyone is looking past everyone else to see who else they should be talking to.

  "I'm going to the loo," says Nora, after a while. "Do you know where it is?"

  "No," I tell her, "but there's a bloke by the drinks table who'll be happy to oblige."

  "Oh, he knows, does he - Oh, I see what you mean." I don't look around but I assume from her expression that someone is indulging the guy. "Actually I just want to make some notes."

  I catch her arm.

  "Nora -"

  "Oh, for goodness sake, your dad's obviously not here and don't worry I won't mention anyone associated with him, I told you."

  "Look, Nora, please don't do this. It could still get back to him."

  She rolls her eyes and breathes deeply.

  "Oh, Charlie, face it: it fucking serves your dad right - stupid cunt shouldn't have got mixed up in all this shit, should he?" Her vehemence takes me back for a moment but then I say: "It's not my dad I'm worried about. Don't you understand? It's my mum." I can hardly bare to think of her, here, now. "It would just kill her."

  She gives me a look of what I realise is contempt.

  "Nora!" But she has disappeared. I turn to Piers who is chatting to a well preserved woman with long blond hair. She's wearing a leather waistcoat, riding chaps and cripplingly high stilettos.

  "Hello," she says, extending a hand. "Sabrina. I'm mistress of pleasure."

  "Hi," I say shaking it, wishing she'd bugger off, mistress of pleasure or not, and let me talk to Piers.

  "We're having our own little thing up on the next floor, front bedroom. Hope you'll be able to join us."

  "Very kind. I'll certainly try and make it," I tell her.

  She moves off.

  "You'll enjoy that, all right. She gives the best blow jobs ever. Makes you feel you're sort of melting. Her husband's very senior in -"

  "Piers, I'm not going to join her bloody party. I'm pretty sure my Dad's not here so I'm going in a minute and I'm taking Nora with me but look, just to get this straight. You went to one of these things with Guy and then blackmailed half the people you saw there to get them to invest in 2cool, is that right?"

  Piers looks surprised.

  "Oh, no," he says. "We didn't have to blackmail anyone to start with. Everyone wanted to put their money into 2cool. They were falling over themselves to invest once we'd described it to them and given them the presentation. But, I have to say, when a mate brought me along to one of these and I saw half our investors here it was quite useful for later. See what I mean? Reminding them of
this when they started nagging us about dividends and returns on investments and things and crapping on and on about where their money was going." He tuts and shakes his head as he remembers. "God, it was so boring but one little mention of the badger meetings and we never heard another peep out of them."

  I nod, taking it in.

  "Oh, right, I see." How sensible. Is it? I'm not sure anymore.

  "I don't know, perhaps it would have been better if we had listened to them nagging at us. Who can say? 2cool2btrue.com might still be up and running." He looks around the room and nods at someone on the other side of it. "But why does the Badger Preservation Society - or whatever it's called - meet? I mean why do these people, all these rich, famous, influential people, do it all together like this?"

  "Well," says Piers rocking on the balls of his feet and finishing his drink. "In a way you've answered your own question: they like to do it with people of equal social standing, movers and shakers, I suppose. People they can do business with, quite literally - so many deals are struck at these things, you wouldn't believe it - plus there's safety in numbers, you see. No one's going to blow the gaff, if everyone's got the same amount to lose."

  "Unless someone does give the game away."

  "Ah, but they wouldn't, would they? Besides the best lawyers in the land, some of whom are here, along with a couple of judges too, I see," he says, he smiles a 'hallo' at someone who I see is taking part in a manic groping session in a corner. "Yep, the legal establishment would be down on any squealers like an avalanche on a school skiing trip. They wouldn't stand a chance."

  "What about the other people? The young girls and boys?"

  "Oh, half of them have just arrived from Eastern Europe or Brazil or somewhere yesterday, they don't even speak English, let alone know who these people are that they're having sex with."

  I'm just about to ask who organises these events when Nora comes back carefully carrying three glasses of wine. She hands me one, then gives one to Piers and takes a drink of her own.

  My wine looks a bit cloudy. I taste it carefully.

  "You sure this wine is okay?" I ask her.