Model Guy

by Brooke, Simon

  "Yes, of course it is. Just drink it." She turns away and looks round the room. "Let's go and see what else is going on. I'm bored with this."

  "Let's go up one more floor, I think there should be a pretty cool little gathering in the attic space," says Piers. Out of Nora's line of vision, he nudges my elbow and mimes a blow job. I'm beginning to get a headache and feel dizzy.

  We push past people sitting and lying on the stairs. A man is banging a young girl from behind. Her eyes are closed and her face is a mask until she opens her mouth and is violently sick. The guy behind her doesn't miss a beat as his thrusts synchronise with her spasms of vomiting. A woman nearby tuts and says: "Oh, really." A naked man with huge metal vices on his nipples stops me at one point and barks: "Do you know where the coats are?"

  "Er, no, sorry," I mutter, feeling even queasier at this sight of his pinched, bruised flesh. We get upstairs and Nora, who has just obliviously knocked wine over a couple of women snogging passionately in a chair, disappears to find some more names and dubious activities for her story.

  "She's a funny one," says Piers, shaking his head.

  "Why do you say that?" I ask. I know she's a funny one, as he puts it, but I'm wondering why he thinks so.

  "It's the way she just doesn't relate to other people. Doesn't understand what effect she has on them. Can't read them. Turned over lots of people for stories and can never understand why they feel so hurt and angry afterwards."

  "A typical journalist, I suppose."

  "Not even that, I don't think she's particularly ambitious. I mean this is a great story but she's not what you'd call a newshound. She's very bright. Guy says she's just got a very low boredom threshold. She'll just do anything to amuse herself never mind what effect it has on other people."

  I listen in silence. I think of our sex together and our cosy evening in with a takeaway and Some Like It Hot. Close, cosy. Affection if not love - and then she stabbed me in the back so callously, so coolly. I find myself feeling sick at the thought of it.

  "Got no real friends, you know," Piers is saying. He shakes his head dismissively. "Not really a woman's woman is our Nora. I knew she'd go for you. You slept with her? Thought so. That's what she does - she has sex with men and then has rows with them. Great one for these dramatic, stormy affairs then she gets tired of the whole thing and moves onto the next one, God help him."

  I'm beginning to feel really sick to my stomach now at thought of our whole relationship.

  "Guy says that even that clumsiness thing is put on. You know, she loves going to posh parties and restaurants, smart store openings and galleries and things then physically demolishing them just in case she doesn't get the opportunity to do it in writing."

  I take another mouthful of wine and then a deep breath, and say:

  "She told me about her father."

  "Ha," says Piers. "Her mother's a better story."

  "Her mother? She died when -"

  "Dead? No, she's still going. Amazingly. Drinking New York dry. Have you noticed Nora's going the same way?" He tuts. "That woman drank all through her pregnancy, my ma says. They thought Nora would be still born because her mother was doing a bottle of vodka a day, almost. Then again perhaps that's why Nora's the way she is. It has had an effect, I suppose." He taps the side of his head and rolls his eyes.

  "I used to hate having to play with her when we were kids. All the cousins did. She'd be playing something perfectly normally then, without any warning, she'd throw everything up into the air - Lego or whatever - and just wonder off. People who didn't know her thought she was tired or upset or we'd that been bullying her something but no, that's Nora for you.

  "Then there were her stories. She rang the police when she was seven or something and told them she'd been kidnapped by some frightening men. Gave exact descriptions of each of them. Major alert. APB or whatever, police kept her on the line until they traced the call - to her pre-school. She'd sneaked into the office when she should have been doing PE or something.

  "She told my little sister that, she, I mean my sister, was adopted and that her real mother was married to a giant who was coming back to eat her up. Poor Sophie had nightmares for months afterwards. Chaos. Chaos and trouble, that's what Nora likes and she doesn't care who she hurts."

  "What...what about her father? They were very close, weren't they? She told me how she got her name." I can hardly get the words out.

  "How she got her name? What? Nora? Nah, her mother called her that. Her dad wasn't around much when she was born."

  "It's from Noor, meaning 'light' in Arabic, isn't it?" I say, forcing out every syllable now.

  Piers laughs.

  "Where d'you get that from? No, it's from Leonora, meaning, I don't know, 'The stupidest name I can give my daughter because no one can stop me.' Guy's theory - want another drink? No? OK - Guy's theory, you know, he's really into this psychology guff, is that she's trying to get at her mother all the time, she's constantly hurting people and knackering things because she's trying to get revenge on her mother."

  "What about her father?"

  "She hardly knew him really. Left her mother when she was quite young. Nora always idolised him, I suppose she wanted a least one parent to look up to. She's only met him a few times. I think he's not very interested. He's got a new life - and a new wife, now."

  "Oh, come on boys, you going to join in or what?" says a ruddy faced man with white hair. "It's not just a spectator sport you know."

  "Be with you in a minute, Sir Michael," says Piers, winking cheerily. "Where was I? Oh, yes her dad."

  "An obsti...obstet..."

  "Yeah, a doctor. Well, until he was struck off. Touching up the patients apparently. Especially as an obstetrician, plenty of opportunity if you think about it. Went to Cairo or somewhere and practised there for a while. Nora visited him a couple of times I think, but like I said it wasn't a very happy meeting apparently. Not according to my mother, anyway."

  The room really is moving, now, rising and dipping. Or am I? I can't seem to stand still.

  "You...know, I think I feel angrier with you for introducing me to Nora than I do for getting me mixed up in the 2cool thing," I say, trying to focus on him.

  Piers looks surprised.

  "Really? Well, you shouldn't have slept with her then, should you, matey? Look, do you want to do something here? Quite welcome if you want to. I'd better stay out of it - I think that guy has recognised me. Might have to get out of here pronto. But there's some quite decent totty and I'd sure you'd be in great demand. Yeah, I'm going to push off, he's looking a bit shirty. Never mind, booked myself into a nice hotel for tonight under an assumed name. You alright?"

  But I'm not. It's as if his last few words have been coming to me through a long pipe. His face and the gas mask perched above it appear blurred and distorted. He begins to look like The Scream.

  My legs seems to be giving way under me, I can't control them. I'm sliding, falling, and there's no one to catch me - where's my dad he can help me but I can't see him can't see anyone I know just bodies and laughing teeth and glasses of champagne and diamonds and people lying around me but now I'm floating gently downwards I can just feel the wall behind me it's the only firm thing what's Piers saying now I can't hear him someone has taken hold of my legs and they're stretching them out I feel like my body weighs a hundred tons someone's undoing my shirt no I don't want to join in leave me alone to lie here and die they're taking my jacket off that's my Armani jacket my 2cool Armani jacket be careful with it you don't want to damage it there's Nora hallo Nora what are you doing what you saying oh God I wish I'd never met you Nora some woman in a low cut dress more tits fucking hell I've seen a lot of tits tonight Piers haven't I what is Nora saying to you why is she walking out of the room some other people are looking at me and then walking out as well I want to go out I want to go home Lauren will be home tomorrow I want to see her tell her I love her where's my dad hello dad is that you where is he I want to go home I'm
tired so tired I just want to close my eyes and sleep for ever

  Chapter Thirty

  A huge, flat glassy eye stares at me, unblinking. The woman says something in Spanish that I don't understand. I laugh and shrug my shoulders.

  "No, gracias."

  Is that right? Must be. Wish I'd bought the phrase book. She holds up the fish enticingly, it's tongueless, sharp toothed mouth lolling open between her cracked, reddened fingers. I laugh again and shake my head, frowning apologetically.

  What am I going to do with such a huge fish? Take it back to the hotel? Put it in my suitcase? It does look very good, though. I've watched enough cookery shows over the years to know what to look for - the bright eyes, the shiny scales, the pink gills.

  Piled on to the crushed ice are mounds of fish. I think I recognise red snapper, one particularly gruesome bugger must be an eel, I suppose, just from the shape of it - and that's monkfish, I reckon. I certainly know the squid when I see them, grey and shiny and semitransparent, eyes drooping slightly with apparent boredom. Something about the way they're piled on top of each other adds to the sense of casual abundance. Luxurious, somehow. Not a word I can use lightly. I find myself wondering how this woman is going to sell all this fish today. Still it's only just gone one and the market stays open late, like everything else in Spain.

  The next stall sells fruit and vegetables. Techni-colour piles of them. Red peppers, tomatoes, onions, oranges, glossy purple aubergines, courgettes - everything bigger, fatter and juicier than I've ever seen before. A surfeit of taste and colour. Shamelessly exposing themselves. Looking gorgeous. Subtly, reticence and discretion have no place here. More, bigger, every inch of every stall covered in them. Like cheap prostitutes garishly dressed, pushing their breasts out at the punters. Vulgarly seductive.

  I almost want to stop and tell someone that I've just never, never seen so much gorgeous food in all my life, share my feelings with them.

  There is a stall with nothing but olives, a little sign above every plastic container describing its contents. Why didn't I bring that bloody phrase book? How many olives do you need, for goodness sake? This is ridiculous. In a second the man behind the counter swoops one out of a tub in a tiny sieve and offers it to me - salty, garlicky. Is that rosemary, too? Lauren would know. It makes me realise how hungry I am. I have to buy some. With a combination of sign language, plus 'si' and 'no' at the appropriate moments I manage to buy a small pot of the ones I've just tasted.

  I throw the stone down under the stall like everyone else does. This is not the place for politeness or niceties. This place is about big gestures. Even the floor is sort of alive, full of colours, shapes and smells - rejected fruit and vegetables, bits of paper, newspapers and magazines, cigarette ends, brightly coloured wrappers, half a croissant, a lurid coloured ice cream.

  And the noise. People shouting, laughing, talking, haggling, someone singing, tinny pop songs playing out of a battered old radio hanging up from an awning. Knives banging down onto counters as chickens are quartered, fish decapitated and vegetables chopped up for display. A cacophony of human life at its most energetic, all echoing up in to the cast iron and glass ceiling. Someone shouts just behind my right ear and I scoot aside to let a guy rush past with a trolley full of boxes bursting with fruit and vegetables. Coming towards me is a middle aged couple who are obviously English - the sallow complexions, the sensible dowdy clothes, the diffident manner in dramatic contrast to the raucous colour and racket around us. We smile a conspiratorial acknowledgement of pure joy at each other.

  I buy some bread from another stall and choose a couple of small cheeses from the one next door. We could eat these at the hotel before we go out at midnight for dinner. That would be a nice surprise for her when she gets back. Or I could just chuck them away - it's the buying, the being part of this amazing event that counts.

  "I love markets, don't you?" says a voice behind me. I spin round.

  "That's because you're economist," I say.

  Guy laughs.

  "No, it absolutely is not. I love the noise and life of markets. I thought if you came to Barcelona this was the one thing you should see. The Gaudi Cathedral is interesting in a slightly bizarre, surreal way and the view from the top at dusk is breathtaking but this is the best thing about this city. No one should ever leave without experiencing the legendary Mercat de Saint Josep."

  We walk on a bit as Guy points out some of his favourite stalls, smiling and speaking in authentic sounding Catalan to the owners.

  "Are you hungry?" he says after a while.

  "Starving."

  "There's a great tapas bar just round here."

  "Brilliant."

  "Where's Lauren? Is she coming?"

  "She's shopping across the other side of the Ramblas. We're meeting later back at the hotel."

  "Oh, OK. I was hoping I might see her again."

  "Well, she's a bit cross with you."

  "Really?"

  I laugh.

  "You know, what with the whole 2cool thing?"

  "Ah, that."

  "Don't worry, I've forgiven you."

  "Have you?"

  "Yeah. I think so. I mean it would be different if it had got serious, if I had been arrested or prosecuted. Oh, fuck, when I think of all the things that could have happened to me."

  "Actually they wouldn't really. If I'd thought you could have been at real risk of conviction or anything, I'd have come back."

  "Thank you." We stroll on a bit. "So you just let me sweat a bit."

  "I can only apologise, Charlie. It was a cowardly act."

  Guy's formal phrase could be just Guy or it could be a way of avoiding the fact that he really does feel guilty. I let him think about it for a moment as we walk, passing a cheese stall where a spectacularly toothless woman in a headscarf is gossiping indignantly with the owner.

  "Oh, don't worry about it," I say at last. "It was pretty horrible at the time but in fact all that happened to me in the end was that I grew up a bit. The end of my charmed life."

  "How ironic given that that's what we hired you for," smiles Guy. "Here we are. Look it's only half past one so the Spanish haven't even started lunch yet." We take a seat each at the bar of a tapas bar in the middle of the market. The counter in front of us is packed with dishes and plates: there are golden crusted tortillas on a display and various stews with fish, beans and great boney chunks of meat. Guy orders us both a glass of Cava. "Try the tomato and courgette tortilla," he says, so I nod at the woman looking expectantly over the counter at us.

  "I have to say I think I was most pissed off when you rang on my dad's mobile and then hung up when I answered."

  "Oh, that. God that was a bit of a shock, I must say. Sorry, I panicked but I just couldn't think of anything else to do but hang up."

  "Why were you ringing him?"

  "I wanted some advice, wanted to know how to get out of this. Of all the people we'd roped in to 2cool he seemed the most sensible. You look surprised? Well, perhaps not in his private life but in business he's a very savvy operator, actually. I thought he might be able to help."

  "He lied to me."

  "He thought it was for the best, Charlie. It was agony for him but he thought that if he could just hang on the police would find nothing to charge you with, 2cool would be wound up and you'd be safely free from it all."

  I think about this. The tortilla arrives and I'm distracted for a moment by the rich sweetness of the tomatoes, courgettes and peppers. All my senses seem to be heightened today.

  "Are you still speaking to each other?" asks Guy, sticking his fork in to his own potato and onion tortilla.

  "Yes, oh, yes. He is my dad after all."

  "Bet you're glad he wasn't there that night, then."

  "Yeah, mind you, everyone got out safely in the end."

  "Yes, I heard," says Guy, intrigued. "Something went wrong with the camera, is that right?"

  I smile and roll my eyes.

  "Nora's camera.
She, um..." I laugh.

  "What?" says Guy. "What was it?"

  "She forgot to put any film in."

  I turn and look at Guy. He bursts out laughing and within seconds we can hardly sit on our stools, tears running down our cheeks. Even some of the Spanish stop their shouting and smoking to look over at us.

  "You're joking," says Guy, wiping his eyes with a very old, dirty hanky.

  "Yeah, the bloke at the picture desk on the paper showed her how it all worked and gave her the film cartridge but she was so over excited that night that she forgot to put it in the camera."

  "But they still had the story."

  "I know but according to Piers who has spoken to her they didn't dare run it without the proof of the photographs. Can you imagine the risk? Nora's word against the great and good from politics, the City, the arts and everywhere else. The law. They'd have shredded her."

  "I'd love to have seen her face."

  "Glad I didn't. I hope I never see her again."

  "That I did feel very guilty about - I mean when Piers told me what she was doing to you - writing about you without telling you and things."

  "And then the final insult at the party. God I was ill for days after."

  "What was it in the end?"

  "Some kind of drug she'd begged or nicked from some dealer there. A double dose the doctors said. She wanted to come and help but then, once she was in and had some stuff, she suddenly got so terrified that I'd try and stop her filing her precious story or screw it up for her in some way that she...she poisoned me. Risked my life. Can you believe it?"

  Guy thinks about it and then nods slowly.

  "Yeah, yeah, in a way I can."

  "She didn't even have to really - I couldn't stop her sending her story to the paper, even if I'd really wanted to but she was just so desperate not to let anything get in the way." I find myself reliving that evening for a moment before I pull myself out of it. "I knew that wine tasted weird."

  We finish our tortilla.

  "Have some fish," says Guy, getting up from his bar stool. "Look, come over here and choose what you want. It's so fresh! It was still swimming in the sea just a few hours ago."