Beautiful People (2 page)

    She really didn't want this boy to get away. He was extraordinary. And Wild was not the only agency who had scouts out all the time, all over London. The risk of him being snapped up by someone else was just too great. No, she'd take him back to the agency herself, but, bugger, damn it, she couldn't. She had this lunch with Jack Oeuf.

    Sam stared furiously into the convoluted depths of her Birkin. Then the answer hit her. She'd phone a colleague. Stacy, a Wild scout, would, at this very minute, be patrolling Oxford Street Topshop. It wouldn't take her long to get here, and she could then take this boy back to the agency.

    The downside of this plan, of course, was that Sam would be late for Oeuf and he'd be furious. But, she decided, now feeling back in control, she'd promise him first dibs on the next face of the moment. The one now looking at her with alarm and confusion written all over it.

    "I think you've got an amazing future in modelling," Sam now told the boy. Unexpectedly, the huge trainer-clad feet opposite herself suddenly moved. With incredible speed, the boy ran off into the crowd and, within seconds, had disappeared from sight. But not before Sam, with the presence of mind that had got her where she was in life, grabbed her mobile from her bag and snapped what could be seen of his departing face with its camera.

    The boy shot through the middle of Covent Garden market. Through the rows of painted, novelty cuckoo clocks and triangular candles, past the hippies sitting cross-legged on the steps eating beans with plastic forks out of polystyrene cartons, past the woman who may or may not have been an opera singer but who was belting out "Nessun Dorma" in an earsplitting vibrato nonetheless. He ran as if wild animals were after him, or the Wild Model agency, which seemed even more fearsome a prospect.

    The boy's brain rushed with fear, his heart was pumping, and from time to time, he looked behind him. The hamster-faced woman had not followed him however.

    Now slowed down from a run to a fast walk, the boy found himself before the large church in the piazza. The huge neoclassical building with its gilded clock and pillared portico was in deep shadow; the shadow of the building itself stretched out across the cobbles in front. There seemed, to Orlando, to be something protective about it; he darted gratefully into the gloomy refuge between the church's blue door and the thick, brown sandstone pillars in front of it. He sat down on one of the broad, brown stone steps and waited for his heart rate to return to normal.

    He wasn't alone for long. A gaggle of girls appeared, passed from the light into the shadow of the church, and walked by him rather too closely. From his school, the boy recognised, heart sinking.

    "Look," said one of them, nudging the others. "It's Orlando. Looks even better out of school uniform, doesn't he?" They all giggled.

    Orlando ignored them and watched with relief as the girls passed out into the bright sunlight on the other side of the shadow. Then his heart sank as they stopped, hesitated, and giggled before turning and, giggling again, re-entering the shadow and coming past once more. They were leggy, with lots of eye make-up and long blonde hair, which they swished about while looking coyly at him through it. Exactly the type of girls, Orlando reflected, staring hard at the step, who would never have given him a moment's notice before.

    Before…

    Before his appearance had changed. He looked different now from how he had looked a year ago. A year ago, and many of the years before that, he had been average height and above-average chubby and pimply. Girls had not given him a second glance; he had never had a girlfriend, although he had got on well with the shyer, less swishy-haired, less self-confident ones. And this had suited him just fine. He had been plump, pimply, unremarkable—and content.

    But in the year since then, his appearance had radically changed. He had no idea why. Or how. He had not started to go to the gym. He had not started to use any cleansing facial products. But for some reason, over the last twelve months, he had grown taller, much taller, and so fast that his bones ached in the night. He had also slimmed down, become quite skinny, in fact.

    His pimples had disappeared of their own accord, his thinnish lips had suddenly become fuller and pinker, and his eyes seemed to have receded under what were now heavy, dead-straight, brooding brows. A prominent Adam's apple appeared in his newly thickened throat, and his dull, unremarkably mousy hair, which he had never cut much anyway, developed blond streaks all by itself and now swished in a golden curtain about his neck without him having to put anything on it or even brush it all that much.

    And so, without particularly wanting to—without remotely wanting to, in fact—the eighteen-year-old Orlando, who had never been interested in women in any other way but friendship, now realised with dawning horror that he was of great interest to them. And they wanted a lot more than friendship.

    They stared at him all the time, wherever he went. And Orlando found that he disliked being stared at because he was handsome. That he hated being looked at, full stop. And so he protected himself as best he could. He narrowed his eyes beneath his great level cliffs of brow and hid under his curtain of hair. He pushed out his full lips in go-away defiance. He slouched, he brooded, he muttered, he maintained distance. But this just made matters worse. Women and girls stared at him even more.

    And now one of them had asked him if he wanted to be a model. It was hard to think of anything he wanted to be less.

"Give my love to the Queen," Dad shouted from the other side of the train window, his voice faint through the thick glass.

    "I will!" Emma laughed, not caring if the other people in the train car stared. Let them stare.

    As the train pulled out of Leeds and her parents' faces, half proud, half anxious, slid past, a mighty wave of excitement passed through her. She was going to London. To seek her fortune, like Dick Whittington in the books at the nursery she worked at. Or had worked at.

    She fought through the jumble of people and luggage at the end of the carriage. "Is anyone sitting here?" she asked a grey-haired, grey-suited, grey-skinned man, whose pink newspaper was not only the one colourful thing about him but who also occupied an entire four-seater table area. If he'd paid for all four seats so he could spread out his
Financial Times
to the max, then fine, Emma thought. But she doubted this. He didn't look the extravagant sort.

    "No," the grey man admitted. From behind his glinting glasses, he scanned Emma as she edged into the seat, feeling, despite herself, rather self-conscious. Of course, she didn't care a button what a stuffy, miserable, old wrinkly like that thought about her looks, but even so, it would be wonderful to have the kind of whippet-skinny figure that allowed one to slide swiftly into confined areas. But her build required a little more room.

    Of course, she wasn't fat; far from it, but she wasn't thin either. She defied anyone not to be plump when they lived with her parents, however. Mum put out two different types of potato every Sunday teatime—roast and mash—and there was always pudding and custard to follow. And Emma had never known the biscuit tin to be empty, even in the most difficult times, and there'd been a few of those. In fact, the leanest times were when the biscuit tin tended to be at its fullest.

    But physical appearances didn't matter so much anyway, Emma reminded herself—not in the business she was in. It was how good you were at your job—and she was very good at hers. Too good in fact now, with all the extra qualifications she'd spent the last two years getting at night school. Especially as Wee Cuties, the nursery in Heckmondwike that employed her, was uninterested in keeping up with the latest educational theories. It was time to move on. And, without mortgage, without fiancé, there would never be a better time to do it.

    Should she stay, she would probably remain at Wee Cuties for the rest of her life, as most of her colleagues seemed to be planning to—the ones, that was, who were not planning to defect to the soonto-be-completed supermarket, which was rumoured to be offering better wages and longer holidays. And while Emma sought both, she sought also excitement, challenge, and possibility, none of which were normally associated with supermarkets.

    And so it was, when first her eye had fallen on the ad in the
Yorkshire Post
, that a thrill of recognition had gone through Emma. The ad leapt out at her immediately. "Nanny Sought. Smart Area of London. Well-behaved Children. Excellent Pay and Holidays." With shaking hands, she copied down the details—Dad hated his paper being vandalised.

    The train was hot. So that it would not crease, Emma removed the pretty fawn jacket with its nipped-in waist bought, along with the skirt, especially from Whistles for the interview. In the shop, the pale brown had perfectly complemented the chestnut shoulder-length hair that was, Emma felt, her best feature, with its flash of red threads in the sunshine. She crossed her feet in their smart, low-heeled brown pumps at the ankles and tapped her fingers on the new matching handbag. Perhaps she looked too smart, but better to be too smart than too scruffy. After all, Mrs. Vanessa Bradstock, the mother who would be interviewing her, had sounded very grand on the phone.

    Stepping out of her carriage in St. Pancras International, Emma's gaze swung automatically upwards to the great glass arc of roof flung above the station, through which poured sunlight from an optimistically blue sky.

    London was as fast moving and purposeful as a colony of ants. To the right and the left of her, people swarmed off the train, darting towards the shining chrome barriers in a jostling, heaving mass, weighed down with rucksacks and briefcases.

    All the rush and running made her feel she should run herself, and Emma found her pace quickening past the glossy shops in the terminal; no scruffy cafés these, but smart bookshops, glamorous French patisseries with aluminium chairs outside, and fashionable florists whose chic bouquets arranged tastefully round the door bore price tags that made Emma gasp. She lingered in front of the great glass window of Hamley's toy store, her eyes running greedily over the big, shiny, colourful, wonderful things on the other side of it. The idea of bringing a small present for her future charges—if the interview with Vanessa Bradstock went well—came to her. Emma ventured inside, amid the lights and pounding music, and quickly picked a little stuffed pink cat for the girl—girls always liked cats—and a small rubber train for the boy. She had yet to meet a boy who didn't like trains.

    One should always employ fat girls. They were so grateful and had absolutely no self-confidence. This girl, with her brown hair— not a highlight to be seen—and almost make-upless face had low self-esteem written all over her.

    "You're late," Vanessa said challengingly. Best make it clear from the start who was in charge.

    "I'm sorry," Emma said immediately, even though she did not consider the fault to be hers entirely. It would have helped a great deal in finding the house—one of a row of red brick Victorian terraces with pointed roofs and small front gardens—if she had known it was in Peckham and not posh Camberwell, as for some reason had been put on the letter.

    "My last nanny's father was a peer of the realm," Vanessa loftily informed Emma. "She was excellent. So if you get this job, you'll have some very big shoes to fill." She glanced at Emma's shoes and twitched her lips disapprovingly. They looked plain and brown and possibly from Office Shoes.

    Emma's reaction was not what Vanessa had expected. Instead of looking cowed and terrified, as had been the intention, this girl from the north turned her brown and direct gaze on Vanessa and asked her, in a quiet yet steady voice, why Jacintha had left, exactly.

    Vanessa, while unpleasantly startled, nonetheless realised she had to give an answer. The windmills of her mind whirred in panic as she searched for one. That The Honourable Jacintha had left to go and work for the family of a famous writer had been a bitter blow. A more famous writer, Vanessa corrected herself; she herself had a newspaper column and was extremely well-known. In media circles. Her lack of influence in more general circles had been unpleasantly illustrated by Jacintha's resignation.

    "The Honourable Jacintha had been with us for some time," Vanessa hedged. "It was time to move on."

    "How long?" Emma asked steadily.

    Vanessa pretended to think hard, as if the answer—six weeks— had somehow been lost in the midst of much more pressing concerns. "Three months," she asserted, with an imperious toss of her head that warned Emma that she proceeded any further down this track at her peril.

    Emma added the toss to her store of impressions about Vanessa. Her main impression was that she was rather cross and unhappy looking. But why was a mystery. Her house was big and roomy, if not particularly tidy. She clearly had money. She was also very attractive, slim in a close-fitting white T-shirt and long purple denim skirt, her pink-sequined flip-flops revealing tanned feet with red-painted nails. Her shining blonde hair was brightly streaked, but so finely it looked natural, and much chopped about in that artful way that only real good hairdressers could pull off. She had big blue eyes, which were pretty, if bulgy. And good skin, even though her face was rather red. So what did she have to look grumpy about?