As Good As It Gets?

by Fiona Gibson

  ‘Mum,’ she hisses, ‘there’s no need …’

  ‘Yes there is,’ I mouth at her, adding, ‘It’s fine, Gloria. I know you’re concerned, but honestly, there’s nothing to worry about at all.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Rosie is perched on a high chrome stool in a brightly-lit alcove, having her make-up applied by a girl called Boo. Despite it being rather stuffy in the photographer’s studio, Boo has topped off her black linen shift dress with a sort of Peruvian hat with hanging-down ear flaps in hairy brown wool. She must be boiling in that, I muse, then realise how silly I’m being for worrying about a young girl’s sweaty scalp. This is fashion, I remind myself. Comfort doesn’t come into it. Bet the photographer – an unshaven, rather irritated-looking man called Parker – like the posh pens – doesn’t nurture such thoughts. And nor will his stocky, ginger-cropped assistant, who’s been introduced to me merely as ‘my assistant’. Perhaps Parker doesn’t feel he’s important enough to warrant a name.

  ‘So it’s your first shoot, Rosie?’ Boo says pleasantly, while I leaf through the copy of Vogue that was lying on the low table in the studio. I have myself installed in the furthest corner of the room, on a rather grimy tan leather sofa, so as to be as unobtrusive as possible.

  ‘Yes,’ Rosie replies. ‘I don’t really know what to expect …’

  ‘Oh, you’ll be fine. Parker’s great. You’re so lucky to be working with him.’

  ‘Yes, I know, Laurie said he’s amazing …’ Already, after just a few brief phone chats with her booker, Rosie has adopted a slight model-agency inflection. Amaaaazing …

  ‘You mean Laurie at Face?’ Boo asks.

  ‘Yeah, she scouted me—’

  ‘Oh-my-God, you’re so lucky! D’you realise how lucky you are?’

  Rosie chuckles. ‘Um, guess so.’

  ‘She’s the best!’ Boo shrieks. ‘She, like, owns the industry!’ As they fall into companionable chatter, I can’t help feeling impressed at how relaxed Rosie seems in this unfamiliar environment. The hairdryer is switched on and, feeling pretty redundant, I continue flicking through the magazine.

  ‘Looks like we’ve got Cassandra for Friday’s shoot,’ Parker tells his assistant. Models, I’ve realised, rarely have surnames.

  ‘She’s a great girl, amazing attitude,’ the assistant remarks approvingly. Also: they are not women but girls.

  ‘She’s got that androgynous sexy insouciance thing going on,’ Parker drawls, opening a small fridge and extracting beers for the assistant and himself. I sip my tap water from a glass with a brownish lipstick smear on it, realising that I’ll never understand this world, not when I look at a picture of a swimsuit – a ‘simple one-piece’ at that – and wonder what kind of maniac would pay £795 for it. I mean the cossie (and I do know that no one in such circles says cossie) is plain black with a thin white belt and a tiny gold buckle. For that kind of money, I’d expect a flashing fairylight neckline and a sticky-out skirt bit, with martinis perched upon it.

  Having expertly appraised the fashion pages, I check my watch. Rosie has been having her hair and make-up done for three quarters of an hour. I stifle a yawn. Of course, I didn’t expect anyone to talk to me, or for Parker to be eager to know about the inner workings of a premium crisp company in Essex. In fact, Rosie’s right, in that I probably shouldn’t have come at all. Parker’s studio is on the top floor of an old, weather-beaten warehouse near Old Street; she would have been capable of finding it by herself. ‘You do realise there’ll be nothing for you to do,’ she pointed out on the Tube journey here. I joked that there might be a box of jigsaws and colouring-in books.

  When she emerges from the alcove, it’s all I can do not to gasp. She is breathtakingly lovely: made up, certainly, but so skilfully you can barely detect Boo’s handiwork at all. My daughter has been sort of smoothed over, her eyes and lips subtly enhanced and her cheekbones defined with expert brushwork. She is wearing the dark skinny jeans she arrived in, but has swapped her checked shirt for a simple white vest.

  ‘Lovely!’ Parker says approvingly. ‘You look beautiful, darling. Now, all I need you to do is stand in front of the background so we can test the lights. And don’t worry, there’s no need to pose as such. Just be yourself. It’s all about a nice, relaxed feel …’

  I stare from the sofa, transfixed. I know Rosie would prefer me not to watch, and that I should still be forensically examining Vogue, but I can’t help myself. The background is a roll of pale grey paper, and Rosie looks a little unsure as she stands in front of it. ‘Just relax your face and part your lips a little,’ Parker says encouragingly. ‘That’s it. That’s gorgeous.’

  She fixes her gaze on the lens and, as Parker starts to shoot, something incredible happens. She is no longer my daughter, still partial to snacking on cookies and milk on the sofa with Guinness plonked on her lap. She’s not the schoolgirl with her hair in a scrunchie who comes home and tips out the contents of her battered old schoolbag – dog-eared jotters, Milky Bar wrappers, a brush so matted with hair it could be classed as a rodent – on the kitchen table. Right here, in Parker’s sun-filled studio, she is wearing the most casual clothes imaginable, and her hair has merely been lightly mussed up. Yet something magical is happening. Her beauty is shining out of her.

  My eyes fill up. Even Will would be moved if he could see our lovely girl now.

  ‘These are amazing,’ Parker says, continuing to shoot. Amaaaazing …

  Watching her, I can hardly believe I am fifty per cent responsible for her genes. People are wrong when they assume mothers envy their daughters’ beauty. How could I? I feel proud, actually. In front of the camera, she is other-worldly, like a beautiful cat.

  ‘Is this really your first shoot?’ Parker asks, pausing to flick through the images on his camera.

  ‘Yes,’ Rosie says meekly.

  ‘You’re a natural. You really are.’

  ‘I’m a bit nervous,’ she admits, with an apologetic grin.

  ‘Don’t worry, darling. These are looking great, your agency’s going to love them …’ He resumes shooting as, somewhere at the far end of the studio, a mobile rings. ‘Get that, Fletch?’ Parker says distractedly. So that’s the assistant’s name. Is no one in fashion called Linda or John? There’s a mumbled conversation, and Fletch holds out the phone.

  ‘It’s Joely.’

  ‘Tell her I’m shooting,’ Parker says without looking round.

  ‘She says it’s urgent.’

  He grimaces, grabs the phone and mutters, ‘Sorry, Rosie, won’t be a sec. It’s my sister. Always some bloody drama …’

  He marches off with his phone. Rosie twists her fingers together and looks around, obviously wondering what to do with herself. I jump up from the sofa and stroll towards her, not to get involved or anything; just to reassure her that she’s doing really well. Her eyes widen with alarm as I approach, as if I am about to dab at her face with a spat-on tissue. ‘Mum!’ she hisses. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing, I just—’

  ‘Go and sit down,’ she commands, ‘or go for a walk or something. Have a look around—’

  I frown at her. ‘There’s nothing around here to look at.’

  ‘There must be something.’

  ‘Um, I don’t really fancy just wandering the streets, love …’

  She lets out an exasperated gasp, then switches on a big, beaming smile as her new best friend Boo appears with her little pot of powder and brush and proceeds to sweep it over Rosie’s face.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, nightmare,’ Parker is saying, phone still clamped to his ear, as I slink back to the sofa. ‘You should call Face – they’re always taking on new girls. Got one here now. She’s great. A real find …’ He’s pacing around, rubbing at his bristly chin and glancing at Rosie. ‘Well, yeah … in fact her mum’s here now. Yep. First shoot. You know how they are …’

  I glare at him. ‘They’ are just being parents, actually. ‘They’ want to make sure no one says, And
could you just whip your clothes off for this one, darling? ‘Er, not bad,’ he adds, assuming an indecipherable expression. He drops his voice to a murmur. ‘She’s all right. She’s … you know. Just a mum.’

  What does that mean? I’m wearing newish jeans and a floral printed top from White Stuff that’s a particular favourite, in that it minimises things in the boob region. After feeling so provincial-officey at the agency, I thought it best to opt for a casual mum look today. Parker glances in my direction and pulls a fake smile. I shift uncomfortably, aware that, for some reason, I am being assessed. Why on earth are they talking about me? Today, I am just a chaperone.

  ‘I s’pose I could ask her,’ Parker says, now staring blatantly at me. ‘Better clear it with Face, though.’ He finishes the call and holds out his phone. Fletch scampers to take it from him.

  ‘Er, Mum?’ Parker says.

  Mum? I’m not his mother. He is easily as old as I am. ‘Yes?’ I say politely.

  ‘Bit of an emergency here. My sister’s a fashion journalist, writes for that new free mag, the scrappy-looking thing – what’s it called again?’

  ‘Front,’ Fletch obliges.

  Parker chuckles. ‘Yeah, Front. It’s all fashion and beauty, isn’t it? So what’s that about?’

  Fletch shrugs. ‘Front row? Y’know, like at the shows …’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Parker says, turning back to me. ‘Ever seen it?’

  I nod. ‘Just strewn about on the Tube …’

  ‘Yeah, well, they’re doing a thing about the new London girls and their mums, how they feel about it, that kinda thing—’

  ‘The new London girls?’ I repeat.

  ‘Yeah, the new faces. You know. Models. The ones coming up. They want to know how their mums feel about, er …’ He shrugs. ‘Dunno really. My sister doesn’t half waffle on. But they’re doing a mums and daughters shoot in a studio across town and one of the models has had a strop with her mum and stormed out …’ He raises a hopeful smile. ‘So you’ll do it, yeah?’

  I glance at Rosie, whose face has sort of crumpled. ‘You mean … I’d be photographed with Rosie?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he says, as if it’s no big deal at all.

  ‘And … we’d both appear in the magazine?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’m not sure, I mean—’

  ‘Oh, c’mon, Mum,’ he cajoles me. ‘No one’ll see it. It’s just a crappy little magazine full of, well, I dunno really, never read it myself …’ Rosie stares, looking mildly stunned, as Parker rattles through the procedure: ‘I’ll do the pictures here. They’re cool with that. There’s no time to get the two of you over to the other shoot anyway …’ As if travel arrangements are foremost on my list of concerns. ‘It’ll be good for you, Rosie,’ he adds. ‘Get you some attention as one of the new, young crop.’ Hmm. Does he have to make her sound like a carrot?

  ‘So … what d’you think, Rosie?’ I ask her.

  She looks appalled. ‘Yeah, great,’ she croaks.

  Parker grins and nods to Fletch. ‘Call her agency, check it out with them, then ring my sister back and tell her I’ll do the shots here. She can speak to Rosie and Mum’ – can he please stop referring to me as universal mum? – ‘in about an hour’s time.’ He nods to no one in particular and marches off. Before I can talk it over properly with Rosie – to find out if this is really okay, or if she feels bullied into it – I am whisked off to the make-up alcove where Boo swaps her breezy demeanour for one of grim determination.

  ‘Hop on the stool,’ she commands, surveying my reflection in the mirror. Her face tenses, locked for a moment in extreme concentration, as if she has been challenged to transform a grotty 70s pebble-dashed bungalow into a structure of architectural splendour befitting an episode of Grand Designs. And now comes a torrent of products, kicking off with a shimmery cream, ‘to brighten your ashen tones’, Boo says charmingly, alerting me to an aspect of my appearance I’d never thought to worry about before. No less than four foundations are blended on a palette, bringing to mind those men mixing up mortar when they were repointing our house. The resulting shade – which looks too dark, in my inexpert opinion – is daubed on thickly with a brush. Still, at least a roller wasn’t required. Powder follows – enough to create a small dust storm – then Boo moves on to my eyes. ‘We want a smoky eye,’ she chirps, proceeding to layer on many shades of brown shadow and, alarmingly, black. She finishes by painting my lips with a colossal amount of goo.

  ‘Now for your hair,’ she mutters, tugging off her woolly hat and dumping it on the make-up table. This is serious work; it’s making her sweat. ‘What d’you do with it normally?’ she asks.

  ‘Just wash it really,’ I reply.

  She peers at me with ill-disguised horror. ‘You don’t blow dry or style it, to give it a bit of body?’

  I feel as if I have been ushered into the wrong job interview – one for which I am entirely unsuited. I’d feel no more out of my depth than if she were to suddenly ask, ‘So how would you go about diagnosing an enlarged spleen?’

  ‘I’m usually in a rush in the mornings,’ I explain. ‘Anyway, it dries in the car on my way to work.’

  Boo looks quite nauseous at this, as if I have explained that I don’t in fact bother with cleaning myself at all. ‘You don’t use any products?’

  ‘Well, shampoo, obviously, and Rosie and I like that Body Shop banana conditioner—’

  ‘Well, we’ll need to do something,’ she huffs, unearthing a collection of hair appliances and brushes from her bag. I am squooshed with a water spray, then blow dried and tonged – I thought tongs had died out at around the same time as fax machines – until my face is framed by a mane of billowing curls. ‘What d’you think?’ Boo asks, plonking a hand on her hip.

  What do I think? I look like Brian May out of Queen, in lipstick. ‘It’s quite, er, eighties,’ I say, my fixed smile implying that this is a positive thing.

  ‘Yeah, you needed a bit more oomph,’ Boo says blithely, producing an industrial-sized can of hairspray, like a golden fire extinguisher, and liberally squirting it all over my head. ‘All done,’ she announces.

  I blink through the haze of spray and step out to greet my public. Rosie stares, seemingly incapable of speech. Parker and Fletch have rearranged the lights, and dragged a stylish clear Perspex chair in front of the grey background (because clearly, I am too decrepit to stand). ‘Oh, good job!’ Parker enthuses, as if I’m a re-sprayed car. ‘She looks all right!’

  My daughter is still gawping at me as if she’s never seen me before. The shoot begins, and whereas it was all about ‘a nice relaxed feel’ with Rosie, it now appears to be all about many props: a navy blue curtain is hung behind us, a table is dragged into shot for me to lean on ‘casually’, and a lamp is plonked on it, which I’m hoping will obscure my face (but no – Parker adjusts its position to ensure that I and my massive man-perm are clearly in view).

  Every so often he stops to change lenses. I do hope there’s a youth-making one to make everything fuzzy, as if shot through twenty-denier tights, or a colander. Parker has asked Rosie to stand behind me with her hand resting on my shoulder. I can sense her mortification seeping down from her fingers, through my top and into my skin. Boo keeps scampering over and brushing on more powder, as if my face is dissolving into a puddle of oil. ‘Bit of a shine issue,’ she says, frowning. ‘D’you always break out like this?’

  ‘It’s just quite hot in here,’ I point out, although Rosie’s face has remained perfectly matte: perhaps I have developed the sebaceous glands of a thirteen-year-old. Or maybe it’s a menopausal hot flush? On a positive note, at least Parker is taking literally hundreds of pictures so, hopefully, one of them will be okay.

  Shoot over, I am dispatched back to the sofa while Rosie is interviewed by Parker’s sister on the phone. Rather than sitting beside me, she has chosen to pace back and forth across the vast studio floor: Yeah, it’s great … just happened when I was out shopping, yeah …
with friends.

  Er, with me, actually, while I lugged that wretched stereophonic equipment around Forever 21 – in which Will has shown no interest after the initial opening, apart from to stack it all carefully in our bedroom. An invisible ‘unwanted gift’ label has hovered over it ever since.

  … Feel so lucky, Rosie goes on. Yeah, well, I s’pose my ambition is to work with all the top designers …

  What about being a vet? I want to shriek. What about your A-levels?

  She finishes her interview and hands the phone to me. ‘Hi, Rosie’s mum,’ comes Joely’s bright voice. ‘So, er, what’s your name again? Sorry, I didn’t quite catch—’

  ‘Charlotte,’ I reply. ‘Charlotte Bristow.’

  ‘Great, yeah – so can I ask a few questions?’ She fires them at me, and I mean really fires them, in the way that Will accused me of doing, when I gently quizzed Zach about his educational prospects. Yes, I find myself babbling, I’m delighted about Rosie being scouted. No, we’d never considered it before, and no, there aren’t any other models in the family – then I remember. Gloria. ‘Well, her grandma was Miss Foil Wrap in the seventies,’ I add, hoping this’ll satisfy her enough to finish this thing as swiftly as possible.

  ‘Wow, did that lead to an amazing career?’ Joely asks.

  ‘Um … not exactly.’

  ‘Oh dear … so what happened?’

  The pause hangs in the air. Rosie is perched on a window sill with her legs dangling down, and Boo is packing up her products into a small wheeled suitcase. ‘Er … there was a sort of thing – a groping thing – with a photographer. And then she got pregnant—’

  ‘A photographer got her pregnant?’ Joely gasps. ‘Gosh, it’s a wonder you’re so relaxed about Rosie modelling at all. You must be a really cool mum!’

  ‘No, I mean she got pregnant by her husband,’ I explain limply.

  ‘Oh. So, um … I’ll finish with a few questions about your beauty routine, okay?’

  Not this again.

  ‘Favourite product?’ Joely prompts me.

  ‘I don’t really have one,’ I reply, aware of Rosie yawning and fiddling with her phone.