2cool2btrue (6 page)

“Well, I think it’s the whole concept that’s so exciting,” I hear myself saying.

“Kids’ll love it,” she says, as if she isn’t one of them, of course.

“It’s very much of its time, I think, you know, after all the dotcom hysteria that surrounded the first generation of Internet entrepreneurs.”

“Wasn’t all that business just crazy?”

“Absurd.”

Scarlett has got us a nice quiet corner table at Dekonstruktion, this week’s scorchingly hip restaurant. After we have ordered tuna carpaccio followed by steak and kidney pudding for her, and smoked wild boar on a bed of pak choi and then Alaskan cod tagine for me, she says the one thing that I really don’t want to hear above all else.

“So, you used to be a male model.”

“Model,” I correct her. “I used to be a model. Unless, that is, you’re a lady journalist.”

She is unembarrassed. “Oh, I’m no lady.”

I decide not to wait for the standard “Do you shave your chest?” line (to which the answer is no, never) and change tack.

“Is that an American accent you’ve got there?”

“Does it still show? When I go back to the States all my friends say I talk like the Queen.”

“I thought I heard it,” I smile, trying to smooth over the male model faux pas and also, I have to admit, to avoid discussing 2cool in case she guesses that I haven’t really got a clue what I’m talking about.

“My father’s American and I grew up mostly in New York, but then I came to London to work after I left journalism school about ten years ago.”

“Do you like it at the
Post?”

“Uh huh, it’s pretty cool. I mostly get to do things like ‘Which of these women is most likely to suffer from cellulite in five years’ time?’ and ‘Men who spend more on beauty products than their wives do.’ You know, the big issues.” She gesticulates with the fork she has picked up and inadvertently stabs a passing waiter in the arm. He tuts prissily but Nora continues regardless, clearly unaware of what she has done. “Plus a few celebrity interviews.”

“Really? Like who?”

“Oh, Debbie Harry the other week.”

“What was she like?”

“Big head.”

“I bet a lot of these people are really conceited.”

Nora looks at me. “No, she has a big head.” She spreads her hands around her face to make the point.

“Oh, right.” That communication thing again.

“They mainly employ me to make fun of stuff,” Nora is saying. “But this is quite a fun story by comparison. I think it’ll be pretty big.”

“If it all works out,” I say, consciously lowering expectations a bit.

“Sure, but even if you all fall on your asses, it’ll still be interesting.”

I smile. “You’ll still get a story.”

“Sure. A better one, in a way.”

I try to work out whether she is being deliberately provocative or whether she simply doesn’t appreciate how annoying that sounds, but her innocent smile gives nothing away.

“You know Piers already?”

“Piers? Er, yeah, we’ve known each other for a long time. He’s quite a guy—never stops.”

“A real ideas man.”

“Always.”

Our food arrives and I’m quite relieved to have something to concentrate on.

“So why’d you give up the male, I mean, the modelling?”

“This seemed like an interesting project. They asked me. I’d been modelling for eight years or so; it seemed like the right time to change career.”

“What experience do you have in Internet entrepreneurship?”

“None,” I tell her confidently, deciding that I’d better make a virtue of it. “That’s the point in a way, I’ve come to it fresh, no preconceptions, no baggage. Like I said, we’re a second-generation dotcom, we’ve drawn a line in the sand after the first wave and learned from their mistakes.” Way to go, Charlie!
I
almost believe me.

“What experience have you got in marketing?” she asks, shovelling food into her mouth as if she hasn’t eaten for a week.

“I’ve got a degree in it.”

“That all?”

Her bluntness takes me by surprise but I get back into my stride. “Well, to be a successful model, you have to market yourself effectively. After all, you’re selling yourself as a distinct product at every casting and when you do a job you have to be in tune mentally with whatever you’re selling, be it fashion or…I don’t know, office furniture or holidays,” I waffle fluently, cobbling together some of the things Piers, Guy and Lauren have said to me recently. Sounds good, anyway—we’re on a roll here.

“Suppose so. What kind of things did you model?”

I really want to get away from the modelling thing so I say quickly, “Clothes, holidays, laptop computers; but this is a more exciting challenge.”

“I think I’ve seen your face. Did you do that one for a bank or something where you’re walking across a station concourse while everyone else is in slow motion?”

“Yes. So what else are you writing at the moment?” I ask pointedly as the waiter, thankfully not the one she’s just stabbed, takes our plates.

“I’ve got to interview a woman this afternoon who’s just discovered that her husband is married to three other women.” She looks up at me over the top of her heavy glasses, then pushes aside a stray hair that has fallen out of place as she has been shovelling her food.

“Three
other women?”

“I know, I suppose if you’re going to do these things you might as well do it big, go for it.”

“Why not? Do it in style.”

“Even if you fall on your ass,” she says, taking a sip of wine.

We leave the restaurant at three o’clock. I can’t believe where the time has gone but I’m just relieved it has. As we make for the door, Nora manages to take out another waiter, this time by walking into him as he is carrying a stack of dirty plates. She is telling me about a piece she did some time ago about people who have married their old school teachers, walking fast through the crowded restaurant, turning her head round completely to talk to me. I try and warn her about where she is headed but perhaps she doesn’t notice or she cottons on just too late and so either way, seconds later there are plates everywhere, one of which slides elegantly down the back of a woman I recognise as a TV weather presenter.

“Oh, no,” says Nora, only mildly concerned. “Did I do that? I’m
so
sorry.”

The weather presenter’s face has what could be described as a black cloud on it. She looks slightly absurd, glowering at Nora, her familiar smiley features now contorted with fury while she tries to see what kind of damage the dirty plate has done to the back of her bright pink jacket.

“Shit. What a mess,” says Nora. Is she enjoying this? “Don’t worry,” she says, “that kind of fabric dry-cleans really well. I had a jacket like that—last year.”

The recipient of her helpful observation opens her mouth to say something but is speechless.

“Just send the bill to the restaurant, I would,” says Nora, touching her shoulder kindly.

I say good-bye to Nora at the top of the street and suggest she give me a ring if she has any questions. She says she will and that the piece should be in the paper on Monday.

As soon as I get back to the office I brief Guy and Piers on the lunch. They seem pleased with how it went although I leave out the final disastrous episode.

“She should be a useful ally in the PR campaign,” says Piers. “I met her recently at a dinner party and I thought she could be helpful to us.”

I think about this for a moment. “I thought you’d known each other for quite a while.”

Piers looks surprised. “Yeah, yeah. I meant met her
again.”

“Right, next thing on the agenda for you, mate, is the launch party,” says Guy. “We’ve booked Frederica’s—do you know it?”

“That big place in Berkeley Square?”

“Yep, we’ve got the whole place. It’s all booked for next Friday.”

“A week tomorrow?”

“Yep, hope you can make it,” says Guy, only half-joking.

“Oh, yes, of course. That’s brilliant,” I say, genuinely impressed.

“Our PR company have developed a guest list for us. Can you look over it and let us know about any thoughts you have, anyone else you think we should ask? Ta.”

Scarlett hands me a file with lists of names and their organisations. There are newspapers and magazines—
Vogue, Harpers & Queen, Tatler, GQ, Esquire, Wallpaper
^*
—some TV presenters and a batch of celebs, most of whom I’ve heard of, with a note of their agencies, and some models with agencies and figures next to them. “Sophia Kendall—£5,000,” says one.

“Is she doing a shoot for us?” I ask Scarlett, pointing to her name.

“No, that’s her attendance fee.”

“What? She’s being paid for coming to our party?”

“Yep. For…” she runs her finger further along the line, pushing mine out of the way, until she finds what she’s looking for. “For a minimum of fifty-five minutes. Any less and she’s in breach of contract.”

“Any longer?” I ask, not really interested but thinking vaguely of overtime—every model’s first thought (after travel expenses and buyouts).

“Sophia won’t be here for thirty seconds more than her contract states; our doormen will time her entry and departure,” says Scarlett, rolling her eyes towards her eyebrow ring.

There are other names on the list: aristo model Henrietta Banbury (£4,000, one hour ten minutes),
Blue Peter
presenter Sarah Jones (two hours subject to other commitments on the evening, exact timing to be decided with agent by 5
P.M
., £2,000). And, oh fuck, the weather presenter in the pink jacket. Well, the pink, brown, yellow and red jacket. She’ll be pleased to see me. I can’t help smiling at her fee: £500.

“Simon Smith, the PR, is coming in at four to talk us through it and to confirm the other arrangements,” says Scarlett.

“Simon Smith,” I murmur, really just trying to cope with all the names and information being fired at me.

“Yes,” says Scarlett, picking up her phone. “He’s an asshole.”

Simon Smith from The Communications Game seems like a nice bloke, although he does engage in what appears to be an amateur arm-wrestling match with Piers. They call each other “jerk-off,” “arse face” and “donkey balls” before he sits down with me.

“We’ve invited A-list celebs and movers and shakers. People like Richard Branson, Jonathan Ross, Rik Mayall,” he explains, staring me hard in the face.

He fiddles with his silk cufflinks as I whizz down the list and nod approvingly.

“Anyone we should add?”

“Um, there are a couple. One is the TV producer Peter Beaumont-Crowther—you’ve heard of him?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” says Simon, scribbling on the list.

“And the other is my girlfriend, Lauren.”

Simon and Scarlett exchange glances and I wonder if I’ve overstepped the mark. For God’s sake, it’s one person in two thousand.

“She usually comes to parties free of charge,” I say deadpan, realising what a terrible lost money-making opportunity this is for her.

“Splendid,” says Simon, shuffling the papers together. “I think you’ve approved the menus, haven’t you?”

“I haven’t,” I say. It comes out slightly petulantly so I add, “I wouldn’t mind having a look.”

Silently Scarlett takes out another file and I read through the menu of Japanese-style black cod, poached sea urchins, miniature smoked reindeer soufflés. Champagnes: Pol Roger, Laurent Perrier, Krug. Price per head: £250.

“Bloody hell! £250? Times two thousand people. That’s…”

“Half a million quid,” says Scarlett calmly.

W
hen did you hear?” I ask Lauren.

“I got back from a casting this afternoon. I was just putting my key in the door when my mobile went and it was Peter.”

“So what’s it for again?” We’re lying on the settee. We’ve just made love. Lauren told me about her audition within seconds of my getting through the door and then pounced on me. We did it in the living room—something we haven’t done for ages. Well, not since we, I mean Lauren, had the settee dry-cleaned. The mirror here is an antique, faded Venetian job resting on the white limestone mantelpiece. I sometimes wonder if the people who come for dinner or to our parties (Lauren loves entertaining) realize that we actually live the scrubbed-pine, neutral-coloured, elegantly understated, sunlit lifestyle we spend so much of our time advertising. Sometimes even I’m not quite sure where our work ends and our real lives begin.

I push my face into her breasts, kissing and biting them gently.

“Charlieeeee,” she says, pushing me away. “Stop it. Aren’t you interested?”

“Of course I am. I told you, I’m so pleased for you, babe, honestly. What’s the show again? Sort of a dating thing?”

“Well, each week we take an ordinary person and the idea is that a group of experts—psychologists, advice columnists and other people—assess who would be the right boy or girl to go out with that person, and then I have to find one with the help of their friends, on the street, at a club, at work.”

“That’s great. How many are up for it?”

“There are just three of us. I got through the first two rounds just on the strength of my audition tape alone.”

“You’re a star. I told you.”

“How was your day?” she asks, rearranging her hair and sniffing it for some reason. Must be a girlie thing. I sniff my armpit in reply and tell her, “Pretty busy. I had lunch with this journo who’s going to write something about the site.”

“That’s good. Did you fix that up?”

“No, Piers did. She was bloody weird. Dressed like a tramp; bizarre clothes that didn’t match,
wouldn’t
match anything really.” I can see her now, sitting opposite me at the table. Intense and provocative. Totally unself-conscious. I’ve never felt quite so closely observed. Even casting directors don’t look at you that deeply, they just check out your face, but she seemed to be going further. Probing, penetrating. Was she laughing at me throughout the whole meal? Or is that how she is with everyone? She must be clever. When I asked her about her career she told me she went to Vasser and Columbia journalism school. Perhaps if you’re as bright as her it’s tempting to take the piss out of everyone else, the less bright of this world. Especially a former
male
model who’s trying to persuade you that he works for the planet’s coolest website.

“And?”

“Erm,” I’m shaken out of my unexpected reverie. “Erm, oh God, and then, when we were leaving she crashed into this waiter.” I laugh. “Just smashed into him. Plates flying. Food everywhere.” I tell her about the weather presenter. “It was so funny, Nora, this journalist, was like ‘Hey, ho! These things happen.’”

Lauren says, “God, how embarrassing. I’d have died. That woman—what’s her name?—should have sued for the drycleaning costs, or even the whole jacket. You’d have loads of witnesses.”

“It was
funny,”
I say. I suppose you had to be there. With Nora, still intent on carrying on her conversation, oblivious to the chaos she had just caused.

“Sounds more dangerous than funny.”

“You know me, I’ve just got a strange sense of humour.” I begin to kiss her breasts, tasting the slight salty sweat on them, feeling myself get hard again.

“Oh, well,” says Lauren, looking down at me and squeezing my ear, which she knows I like. “Makes a change from you throwing food all over the woman you’re having lunch with.”

I smile sarcastically. “You still think that was an accident.”

She makes a face and pushes me away.

“I think we should celebrate our successful weeks—do something fun on Saturday,” I say. “Let’s hire one of those thirty-pound-a-day cars and drive into the country. It’s going to be lovely this weekend. We could go to—”

“I can’t, hon, I’ve got to practise for this next audition,” she says, getting up and putting her bra back on.

“Oh, okay.” I look at her, looking at herself in the one reflective spot of the antique mirror. Is this how it’s going to be with the new career? Weekends spent practising for auditions? What shall
I
do? I used to spend Saturday afternoons playing football with some old mates from university, a couple of other models, a guy called James who everyone thought was a friend of everyone else but who, it turned out, was pretty good in goal. Then we’d go to a pub in Barnes, the game contracting and the drinking expanding depending on the weather, how many of us turned up and how energetic those that did felt. I wonder if they still play?

When Lauren and I bought this place my Saturdays were suddenly spent at Ikea, Habitat and The Pier, or painting and sanding under her direction or just holding the end of things while Lauren made comments like, “Oh, watch what you’re doing, will you?”

“It’ll take
all
Saturday, will it?” I ask in rather a small voice.

“Sorry?” Lauren is running her fingers over the mantelpiece and looking irritably at the resultant thin film of dust. Was it my week for dusting? Well, if there’s still dust around, it probably was.

“It’s not going to take all day, is it? Why don’t we go out on Saturday evening and celebrate. I’ll book La Trompette, shall I?”

“Charlie,” she says, turning round.

Oh, fuck, now what? It’s just a bit of dust, for God’s sake.

“What’s happening on Saturday night?” Phew, acquitted on dust charges, anyway.

“This is something I should know about, isn’t it?” I surmise. Accurately, as it happens.

“Yes, Saturday night, I told you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Oh, Charlie,” she says, shaking her head, trying not to smile. “I told you weeks ago: dinner. Tim and Sally, Mark and Sarah, and I’ve invited Peter too.”

“You didn’t tell me.” Okay, perhaps she did, but I’m a bloke and I’m no good with these things.

“I bloody well did, sieve brain. I assume you can make it.”

“Yes, of course I can. Sorry babe.”

“It’s not your fault, you’re just a boy.”

“Guilty, m’lud. I mean, m’lady.”

She takes my face in her hands and kisses me deeply. “I love you.”

“Love you too.”

“Even if your memory is crap—and your dusting’s abysmal.”

While Lauren is doing her audition practise, I decide to make a duty call and go and see my dad. Dad lives in Docklands now and he is very happy for me to come round to his flat, I mean “place.” As long as it’s not too early that is.

He works in advertising. Ten years ago he set up an agency with two colleagues half his age. Dad is actually an accountant and was working with them in a big agency balancing the books and looking for tax breaks, but when these two guys—Cambridge educated, off-the-wall twenty-somethings who exist in a world of street-fashion labels, pop culture and wall-to-wall irony—decided to go solo, they realised that his dull, safe financial know-how could form an essential bedrock to the company and so they invited him to join them.

Needless to say, my mum wasn’t keen. She pointed out the risks of starting a new business with reference to her auntie, who had opened a wool shop in Lewes in the seventies and failed, reminded him that he was comfortably on his way to retirement, and just sighed a lot when these two arguments failed to convince him. I think it was her retirement point that actually clinched it for him and made him go out and do it.

He pointed out that he had just about paid off the mortgage, the children had left home and, after all, nothing ventured, nothing gained. He didn’t mention the real reason: midlife crisis. But then perhaps he wasn’t aware of it.

The new company, Matthewman Kendall Barrett (the order of names should tell you something), won a clutch of big accounts with their cheeky, irreverent approach, grabbed some headlines in
Campaign
magazine, provoked a couple of outcries from the
Daily Mail
over risqué copy lines and then quickly floated. Suddenly my dad was fifty and a millionaire. He decided to get a new wardrobe and a new car. He got rid of his old suits, his Volvo estate and his wife, and set up home in a Docklands penthouse flat that has its own lift, speakers in the ceiling and panoramic views of the Thames—just beyond some corrugated-iron sheds and a double-glazing storage depot, that is.

Getting there is near impossible: you have to go to a perpetually windswept station and then ring for a taxi which takes you along the dual carriageways through the post-industrial wasteland to a shimmering white residential Fort Knox which has a surly security guard and a “marketing suite” which is permanently open.

Dad has had a number of girlfriends since he left my mum, but to be honest I tend to get them confused: they’re all thirty years younger than him, all blonde, all leggy and have names that end in
i
like Linzi, Leoni, Nikki and Toni. I’m sure most of them put a smiley face in the dot of the
i
when they sign their names, although none of them has ever written to me.

Amongst other things, my dad bought a coffee table supported by the kneeling fibreglass figure of a naked woman in a leather basque which he proudly showed to me when I went over there once. Holding our shots of frozen flavoured vodka, we circled it, studying it intensely.

“Sexy, eh?” said my old man, eyeing up the cellulite-free, rock-hard curves of her behind in a way that still makes me shudder slightly.

“I think it’s supposed to be ironic, Dad,” I said uneasily, trying to make out the woman’s expression. He walked round to get a better view of her face too.

“Yeah, whatever,” he said.

When I finally penetrate the security and arrive at my dad’s flat, he has obviously just got up and is still in a sort of kimono thing. My initial reaction is to say “I think you’re a bit old for that, aren’t you?” but then, of course, that observation applies to his entire life, so really what’s the point? Dad thinks he is Hugh Heffner made over by Calvin Klein. My sister says that he is more Austin Powers meets JC Penney.

“Hey, Charlie,” he says, hugging me and slapping me on the back. Unlike my mother, Dad does call me Charlie and he seems to really like the name. Whose idea was “Keith,” anyway? But I still call him Dad, not Jared, as he sometimes asks me to. I suppose Jared is similar to John, but then it was John who was married to my mother and fathered me so I’m a bit sensitive about that.

“Hi, Dad,” I say, wandering in and looking around with a mixture of intrigue and trepidation for his latest purchase. “Pool table’s gone.”

“Mmm? Oh, yeah, took up too much space,” he tells me, his voice echoing around the barnlike emptiness. “Want some coffee?”

“That’d be great,” I say, drifting around and looking out at the view. In the distance a tractor is pushing something into a hole and a crane moves almost imperceptibly against the shimmering skeins of cloud.

“How do you have it?” he asks, looking slightly apprehensively at a black and chrome espresso machine the size of a nuclear power station.

“White with a couple of sugars, please.” I wouldn’t expect him to remember that.

“Espresso? Cappucino? Latte? Ristretto?”

“Rigoletto? Ravioli? Ravenelli? Oh, I don’t know, just white coffee would be great, thank you.”

“O…kay,” says the nonstreak-bronzed barista. “Erm…” He yanks the handle off and looks for somewhere to bang out the dregs. He looks along the line of identical, minimalist, brushed stainless steel cupboard doors and chooses one. His smile indicates that this is the one with the bin.

“I can have instant, Dad, honestly, whatever’s easiest.”

“Nope, nope, this is no problem…honestly,” he says, mesmerised by the line of dials and buttons. He presses one and suddenly boiling water begins to trickle down into the grate below. He leaps back and curses again.

Just then an angel appears and saves us: a beautiful girl, straw blonde hair cascading over her shoulders, wearing only a baggy white T-shirt and a pair of tiny panties, wanders into the vast living area, the shadows of the window frames slipping over her shoulders and clearly visible breasts as she glides along, hips swaying. She comes up behind Dad, puts her arms around him, reaches up to kiss his neck and then gently, silently and confidently takes charge of the coffee machine.

Two minutes later we’re all drinking wonderful lattes.

“Very good,” I tell the girl to break the ice.

“This is Kari,” says Dad over his chunky American Retro mug. No, I don’t think I’ve met this one before, which is very possible since I haven’t seen my dad for nearly three weeks.

“Charlie,” I say. I’m never sure whether to admit I’m the son or just let them assume that I’m a cool young dude my dad happens to know—his dealer, perhaps.

The girl smiles back from the black leather settee, her legs luxuriously folded up under her. Like father like son: me and my dad both have the same taste in women. Except that his are usually ten years younger than mine.