2cool2btrue (28 page)

“No, she’s not like that, she’s very levelheaded, as you know,” I say, hoping he’ll remember that he has met her frequently over the last six years. “She’s just got this thing about getting into television. Met this awful bloke called Peter Beaumont-Crowther.”

“Oh, right, Freak Productions.”

“That’s him. Do you know him?”

“Met him a couple of times. I think he’s produced some infomercials for us.”

“What do you think of him?”

Still watching the telly, Dad shrugs his shoulders dismissively. Either he doesn’t know much about PBC or he doesn’t think much of him.

“Where’s, erm…” What’s her bloody name?

“English lesson,” intercepts Dad. “I told her I could get someone over here to do it but she insists on going to this school in Soho or something.”

A cynical thought about her desire to get away and mix with her own age group in the bars of Soho crosses my mind. But Dad is asking me about 2cool. I don’t tell him about Piers. I just tell him that the site is no longer up on the net and that we’re waiting to hear back from the Fraud Squad.

“But you’ve done nothing wrong, you’re sure of that?” he asks, looking at me severely.

“No, I told you—I signed a few cheques.”

“But that was before the other two disappeared, before there was any suggestion that finances might not be healthy.”

“Yes.”

“I did tell you about those revenue streams,” says my dad, flicking over to
CNN Financial.

“Yeah, I know,” I say sadly, wondering suddenly what Nora’s doing tonight.

“What do you want to eat?” he asks.

I’m about to ask what he’s got in the flat but then the absurdity of this notion strikes me.

“Whatever.”

“There’s this new online sushi place,” he says. He presses a button on the TV console. A keyboard appears from the table next to him and the TV screen turns to an Internet home page. He types in an address and suddenly a picture of a sushi bar appears before us.

The chef, looking mildly surprised, bows and says, “Harrow, may I take your ordah?”

“You can see it all being made in front of you on webcam before it’s sent off to your home,” Dad explains to me. Then he says into the mike, “What do you recommend today?”

“The brue marrin is very good.”

“What? Oh, blue marlin? Yep, give us a couple of those. Any fugu fish?”

The chef looks alarmed. “No fugu fish today,” he says decisively.

“Fugu fish is the poisonous one. If it isn’t filleted in exactly the right way, the venom remains in the flesh and you’ll be dead in seconds,” explains Dad.

“Shame they haven’t got any, then,” I say.

“What else do you fancy, kiddo?”

“I don’t know. Salmon? Tuna?”

“Good idea.”

My dad orders lots of things I’ve never heard of and then we watch them being prepared on screen, the paper-thin, surgically sharp knives stroking the fish into tiny strips and cubes and the rice being patted and cut into shape. The only slightly disconcerting thing is the one non-Japanese member of the team who stands at the back, watching the other chefs at work and picking his nose disconsolately from time to time. Unfortunately the camera pans away from him just as he has finished the extraction process so we don’t see where his quarry ends up.

Anyway, twenty minutes later our sushi, beautifully laid out with intricately carved vegetables and mysterious fronds of greenery, arrives with a slightly overwhelmed guy on a bike and we set it out on the coffee table before us.

Dad puts the screen back to television mode. He’s got over 600 channels I’ve already discovered. On one we find a rerun of
Fawlty Towers.
We smile and sit back, midsushi. We used to watch it when me and my sister were kids and he and Mum were still together. But he just wants to check what’s on the other 599 channels and by the time we’ve scanned through all of them and got back to
Fawlty Towers
on 178, the seventies sitcom channel, it’s over and instead there’s
Are You Being Served?
which we don’t like.

At about eleven I announce that I’m going to bed and he says he’s going to do some work until what’s-her-name comes back. (He doesn’t call her that, of course, but I just
cannot
remember this girl’s name. Read into that what you will.)

I brush my teeth in my own bathroom and get into bed. Was ever any bed too big for one person? I feel as if I’m in a hospital ward. Lauren will be in our bed. I hope she’s on her own. The idea of Peter, with his head on my pillow, looking lovingly across at her, inches away from her face under our sheets, makes me shudder.

I stare at the ceiling for a while, gently torturing myself, and then I reach across to the lighting control panel. I press a button and the ceiling lights dim slightly, but some others by the dressing table come on. I touch another nob and the ceiling lights come back on and so do the ones by the Jacuzzi. I try a third and the Jacuzzi lights go off along with the main lights, but some others by the bedside tables come on. The fourth puts the main light on dimly and the Jacuzzi lights on brightly. The fifth and sixth still leave lights on in various places in the room. By this time I’ve run out of buttons—and patience—so I whack the whole panel a couple of times and finally I’m in complete darkness.

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 no windows. When I wake up 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 after the intense darkness. 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, 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 get some cereal myself and then 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, the more I realise that he is very sensibly just getting out of it. As soon as 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 scarfs 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 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 each other’s 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 still in 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 instead she just says, “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.”

“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 around the room.

“Your dad hasn’t said anything?”

“My dad, no. Why should he?”

“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. It was the only TV I ever watched.”

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.”

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, midway 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 from one 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 she 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.

“I’d love a drink, thank you. Large G and T.”

“Good day?” I ask.

“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,
hitched
all the way over to Tangier 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 gets up to water her plants but I left the
l
out of plants. Think about it.”

“Water her pants?”

“Yes. She was wandering around her tiny, immaculate living room watering her pants. What was she? Incontinent?”

Just then the 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 of 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 difference 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’t worry, 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? 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’s 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’s mum, my aunt Lucille, lives in South Carolina now with her second husband, Piers’s stepfather.”