The Right Man

by Nigel Planer

  I pushed line 3 and flicked the adjoining office door closed with my foot. A pointless gesture, because any one of the women in the office could have listened in on line 3 had they wanted, but it was all part of playing along with the game.

  ‘Susan. Sue. Hello, m’dear.’

  There was an un-Susan-like pause before she spoke.

  ‘Guy, I’m really sorry to call you like this.’

  ‘Pas de problemo, Susan. I like to speak to a real person at least once a month. How’re Dave and Polly?’

  ‘They’re fine. He loves the tennis racquet.’ I’m godfather to Dave, the Planters’ eldest. There are some agents who prefer to keep all their client relationships on a purely business level, knowing nothing about their clients’ personal lives or inner thoughts. They don’t really take any interest in what makes an artist tick, so long as he or she is still ticking. I am not that kind. I couldn’t operate like that. I like to know everything that is going on. It’s more satisfying this way, more fun, and also, I believe, better business in the long run. Artists trade off their emotional life — they’re a one-product line — and it’s as well to know what’s going on in it so that you can get a feel not only for what they say they want but for what other possibilities there might be. What they may want in, say, a year’s time, so that you can use the old intuition.

  ‘Have you spoken much to Jeremy recently?’

  ‘Well, we haven’t had one of our curries for a while, but I was at the recording Friday before last, so … Why?’

  ‘The halfwit has gone off with one of the bimbos, Chrissie or Bella or Samantha or something, something tacky like that, some piece of furniture. Do you know her? He says he’s in love with her. Well, he sort of nodded sheepishly when I challenged him about it. He means it, Guy, he hasn’t been back here for eight days, except once when I was at work, to pick up his camera equipment, the little bastard.’

  ‘Oh, Lordy Lord.’

  ‘He didn’t mention any of this to you?’

  A ‘definitely not’ noise from me.

  ‘No, well he wouldn’t, would he? Cowardly little shitbag. I’m sorry to do this to you, Guy, but I’m really distraught back here. The kids are going bonkers. Did you know anything about all of this? Anything at all?’

  ‘Christ, no. Oh, this is awful.’ After years on the phone I can have a very convincing tone when required.

  I knew that Jeremy had done a fair amount of shagging in the past. He was easily flattered by the attentions of women — well, by any attention, come to think of it — and I suppose in the last couple of years he had been increasingly exposed to temptation.

  ‘I think there’s a photograph of them together, of him coming out of her house or something yukky like that, Guy.’

  A tabloid headline using the famous Planter delivery shuttled across my mind and flickered there awhile. ‘J-Jack the L-Lad J-Jeremy W-Wants to P-Plant One On ‘Er.’ I must admit that, for the teensiest moment, I did consider whether this affair would be a good thing or a bad thing for Jeremy, career-wise.

  ‘Oh, no. That’s the last thing we need,’ I said, and then, ‘How is it your end sewer-rat—wise?’

  ‘Oh, you know, pretty hopeless really. We had the Sunday Mirror going through the dustbins last night — I thought it was an urban fox. Luckily they didn’t wake the kids. And last week I had this woman with a bicycle pump and a CND sticker on her duffle-bag, claiming she came from some women’s group and would I like to talk to her, she knew how I felt, et cetera. Turned out she was from the Sun. I saw her off the premises. I mean, he’s only a game-show host, for Christ’s sake. A cheap, shitty little scummy fucking arsehole of a game-show host.’

  I murmured an affirmation. I reminded her to ring round any relatives and friends and warn them not to be taken in by phone calls from anyone who was ‘an old friend of Jeremy’s’ but who’d ‘lost his number’.

  ‘They’re not really doorstepping us or anything. Yet. But me and the kids had one of those guys with the snoopy lenses bugging us in the supermarket.’

  I crushed the bit of me that was disappointed that my client wasn’t considered worth twenty-four-hour surveillance by the gutter press and tried to deal with what was actually happening to my friend.

  ‘Listen, Susan, I didn’t know about this, I promise you. I knew about that stupid … What was her name?’

  ‘Selina Barkworth.’ One of Jeremy’s flings. The one I knew that Susan knew about.

  ‘Yeah. I knew about that but that was ages ago. But this… He’s kept it very quiet, which isn’t like him, is it?’

  ‘No, that’s why I’m worried, Guy. I’m …’

  Oh, lawks. I really can’t stand hearing someone cry down the phone. Especially Susan, who isn’t the crying type — I mean, who doesn’t, I mean, she’s usually so strong. Being a man, even one who spends all day in an office full of women, I can’t just let emotional or sad things happen. I have to try and make them better, I can’t help it. I can’t just sit there and empathize.

  ‘He’s a fucking stupid shitty bastard,’ I said, and then in slightly less than perfect Planter, ‘He’s a f-fart, he’s a w—wanker, he’s p-p-pathetic, what does he think he’s doing? He’s an arsehole,’ I added, and then, rather inappropriately, ‘Re’s a c-c-cunt.’

  Luckily, I don’t think she was listening to me at all, anyway. My direct line was bleeping and I pushed it on to hold. Only eight people have the number of my direct line, so I knew it must be one of my heavy seven, or Liz.

  She snorted a half-laugh. The direct line stopped bleeping. Whoever it was had given up, or Joan had taken it.

  For a moment, I was aware of a twingette of jealousy. I’m sure guys like Jeremy actually have a nicer time than Mugs Mullin here on the end of the phone. Sara Henderson’s husky voice came snapping up to me from the depths: ‘He’s done this before.’ For .guys like Jeremy, and Bob Henderson, whoever he was, there would always be new bimbos at the end of the rainbow.

  ‘You feeling a bit better now?’ I said, and added, ‘And listen, call me any time, OK? I mean it, any time.’

  ‘Thanks, Guy. I’m sorry. I feel terrible. I didn’t even ask how you were.

  ‘Oh, I’m fine, fine,’ I said. ‘Well, reasonable really. My father died last week, so … but apart from that I’m fine.’

  ‘Your dad died? Oh, Guy, I’m sorry, I didn’t know. And here’s me blubbing down your phone.’

  ‘No, it’s OK. We knew he was going to. I’ve got to sort out all the gubbins, though, that’s the only pain.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Guy. Rave you had the funeral?’

  ‘Last Wednesday, no, tell a lie, Thursday.’

  ‘And how’s your mum?’

  ‘Unchanged.’

  I don’t know why, but Susan was the only person with whom I could talk about the inconveniences and realities of life without fear of intrusion. None of the women in the office knew I even had a father, for instance. And with Liz, it was always best to keep problems down to a minimum. I didn’t want to load her down. Liz was stressed enough as it was, stuck indoors all day with our progeny. I don’t think she or I had realized what an enormous task having a child would be, and how career-compromising. But Susan, on the other hand, seemed to have an extraordinary ability to soak things up without throwing any of them back at you. Confidences and disclosures were safe with her and I hope she felt safe with me. We got off the phone and I immediately got Joan to put in an inconsequential and routine call to Harry, the producer of Planter’s Revenge, which was the name of Jeremy’s latest vehicle. Harry was in a meeting and would call me back. I accepted that nonchalantly. No point in sounding any alarm bells yet. I kicked the door back open and waved across at Naomi that I needed a chat when she was off the phone. I called Joan in for the rest of the afternoon’s bumf.

  ‘Simon Eggleston called, something about his tour dates not fitting in with The Bill. I’ve told him they’ll have changed again by September anyway but he’s fretting. It’s John Egan’s
birthday on Tuesday. I’ve got you a card, here, and Jeremy Planter called you but said it’s OK because he was biking something round to you and you would know what it was all about.’

  I pride myself on being able to have my face register absolutely nothing of what I am thinking if it’s a question of avoiding unnecessary upsets. Even Joan, who’s known me three years after all, would have no idea that the package from Planter would have any significance other than routine. I OKed John Egan’s card — we never sign things in this business, we ‘OK’ them — sixty-five, bloody hell, he was getting on, and left Joan to sort out Simon Eggleston and his National Theatre/television dates clash.

  I went into the main office where Tania, our accountant, was putting on her jacket.

  ‘I’m just taking Cleopatra for a walk, OK?’ she said in her squeaky little girl’s voice.

  At the word ‘walk’, the large tail of a very ancient Alsatian dog started banging against the metal underside of her desk. Cleopatra got up stiffly and tottered to where her lead was kept on the door. I don’t know what Tania saw in her dog. Five operations and arthritis in three knees. Anyone else would have surely given up on her years ago but Tania had a morbid attachment and seemed to love her more for her pitiabiity. I’m not being unfair here: Cleopatra had been six years old and fairly smelly when Tania first got her out of Battersea Dogs’ Home, so there must have been something in Tania that preferred an ill dog to a fit one. Tania is a completely kind-natured girl, or I should say woman because she is over thirty after all, even if she does still have the high, scratchy voice of a nine-year-old. She cares about things and seems to live her life in a constant torment over animals. Articles about battery farming, vivisection, the ivory trade, zoo conditions and veal transportation have, at various times, been pinned by her on to the cork board. And on her computer, a wealth of wildlife stickers. Anyone accidentally kicking the lampshade collar around Cleopatra’s neck, when she had doggy eczema last year, would get the kind of look from Tania that could make you feel guilty for weeks. She was the best part-time book-keeper ever, though, and probably the only person in the office who really knew the inner workings of Mullin and Ketts.

  Naomi Ketts was wearing the big pink jacket. I’ve often thought that a darker colour would suit her complexion better, and something without the shoulder pads and wide pockets might make her seem less daunting, but I would never suggest it, despite a decade of proximity. We don’t have that kind of relationship. Anyway, her sartorial aggression is probably deliberate; she likes to have people on the defensive. Through the partition window in Naomi’s office where I was slouching on a filing cabinet, I saw Joan signing for a Jiffy envelope.

  ‘Oh, typical bloody man. Fucking typical male behaviour. It’s pathetic. You’re all the same,’ said Naomi. ‘Little bit of cash in the pocket, little bit of success, couple of TV shows and whoopsie doopsie I think I’ll trade in the bint for a more nubile model.’

  ‘Yeah, I agree. It is rather standard bloke stuff,’ I said, ‘but we’ve never been under any illusions about our Mr Planter’s moral standing, now have we?’

  I raised my eyebrows at Joan and she came in and gave me the envelope, closing Naomi’s door again. It was addressed to me and marked ‘Personal’.

  Not wishing to tell tales out of school, and Naomi Ketts does have some remarkable qualities, but an awareness of the effect she has on people is not one of them. Even at her age and stature, she seems determined still to see herself as a hard-done-by little girl. Once I saw her petting in a corner with a cameraman, saying with a child’s lisp, ‘Pleathe look after me, won’t you, becauth I get tho lonely and lotht.’ A bizarre sight, particularly taking her height into account. To justify her hopeless love life, she would say: ‘What other kind of men could someone like me get?’ Yes, Naomi had had a lot of trouble finding the right man. I had tried persuading her that ‘Hello, are you the man who’s going to have visiting rights to my children?’ is not the most enticing of pick-up lines, but then she did have a point that most men would find a woman her size, with an aggressive sense of humour to match, somewhat threatening.

  ‘What do you expect from the male of the species? Different bloody planet! Well, he’s a dickhead, that’s all I can say,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, we’ve known that for years, but a very talented and popular one — well, popular anyway,’ I said, tearing open the package. ‘Don’t worry, though, I’m on the case. I just wanted you to know in case we have a “life-change” situation on our hands.’

  ‘Well, he’s your client. You know how to handle him. I don’t want to have anything to do with the little slit. God! Men!’ And she threw her little gravel-bag toad against the picture of Steve McQueen on her wall.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I replied. ‘I’ll let you know if it gets to RFA dimensions.’

  RFA is Mullin and Ketts jargon for Red Fucking Alert. In this interchange I was using it to imply the danger of losing a valuable client. You see, when a man or woman, but usually a man — as Naomi put it so succinctly — ditches one partner suddenly for a younger model, it signifies a possible desire for ‘life-change’. This might be perfectly harmless, but more often than not, the publisher, editor or producer is the next to be dropped, and then, inevitably, the agent. This Bella/Chrissie! Samantha could be working on our Jeremy even now, suggesting new vistas to him. The new sex had obviously made him feel confident enough to abandon his wife and kids. In the après-sex, she might be urging him to new professional heights, inspiring him to bigger, better shows, tougher deals, a new agent.

  You don’t have to be a Zen master to work this one out. What possible good to a Bella/Chrissie/Samantha, with her sprightly nipples and tight box, would the old representation be? Previous alliances from his old pre-bimbo life. She would know pretty soon, if not already, of Jeremy’s long-standing relationship with Mullin and Ketts and of my friendship with Susan; of my being Dave’s godfather, even. None of this would make her feel secure in her new role as Queen Planter. If this were sixteenth century Italy, we could all soon expect poison in our soup.

  Inside the package was a note from Jeremy and his front-door key Sellotaped to the back of an autographed Walker-print of himself. The note asked me to go round to his place to pick up certain things for him and bring them to the office. He would explain all when I next saw him. No pleases, no thank-yous. So it was beginning already.

  Asking your personal representation to do little favours for you is definitely on the cards and is normal: checking your travel arrangements, booking tickets for you, ringing people to apologise for you. Going round to water the plants while you are away is stretching it a bit, even for an artist with whom one has a very personal relationship. This is something that could be left to a cleaning person or neighbour. So Planter’s graceless request was a sign that he had relegated me, and therefore Mullin and Ketts, to the role of skivvying for him. I wondered if he had already been lunched by one of the big agencies, like ICM or Peters Fraser and Dunlop. I wondered how long the ugly process might take. I pocketed his front-door key and threw away the note. It was half past three. I had been hoping to see round a couple of flats for my mother this afternoon, but that would have to wait until some other time. Mum had agreed with me that it would be best for her to move after Dad’s death. I rang the estate agent’s to let them know, and I wrote a memo for Tania, to call up all monies unpaid to Jeremy Planter and chase them. I went to the Planter file and took out his last seven contracts, photocopied them, putting the photocopies in my bag, and with light-hearted apologies said my ‘hasta lasagnes’ and left the office.

  The evening was a total bastard. I was twenty minutes late getting back from the West End, so Liz and I passed each other at the front door. She was going to the gym, or to see her best friend Heather, or both. For the first time, I wondered whether all this was true. She was in a frazzled state; Grace had obviously been winding her up all day. She doesn’t go to day nursery on Wednesday, the original idea being that I’d b
e able to get back early on Wednesdays, but that turned out not to be possible on a regular basis. Liz left without a word to me. It must be tough for women who have to stay in all day with the baby, brain turning to gelatine.

  Grace tried her not-eating-anything gambit again, but I soon put paid to that by ignoring her and taking exaggerated enjoyment out of eating my own egg — the old Tom and Jerry trick, works every time. No doubt Grace would get wise to it sooner or later, but for the meantime it meant we’d get through another night without ‘I’m hungry’ at a quarter past ten. I was able to watch two of the nine videos I had to look at over the weekend after Grace had her bath. Although I get Tilda to do most of my viewing nowadays, there are always some which I have to watch. Not watch them properly, of course, like I used to, but fast-search to the scenes which my clients are in. It’s no good having a client on telly and having to explain to them the following week that you didn’t even see their work. But there are ways of lightening the load: just taking a couple of notes about salient points and mentioning them with emphasis can give a client the feeling that you have been avidly following every nuance of their perf. Theatre is more wearing on the vertebrae, of course, you have to be seen to have actually been there, and leaving in the interval is risky — the scenery may fall down in the second half and you wouldn’t know. ‘I thought you paced your performance brilliantly in the second act, m’dear’ would soon be sussed if your client had had a fainting fit in the final scene, or been too pissed to finish the show. Not that we have any real piss-artists at Muffin and Ketts, I can’t be doing with them.