Model Guy (12 page)

 
"No, sure. Well,
as you say, we'll see how it goes. That's great". Then I play my only trump.
"Obviously we'll be using Jet models whenever possible."

 
She hardly skips a beat.

 
"We'd be very happy
to work with you."

 
"Great. Thanks Penny."

 
"Bye."

 
She hangs up and so do
I, after I've made a face and stuck two fingers up at the receiver.

 
"Oh, she could have
been a lot worse." Karyn points out when I ring her back later on the mobile
and she pops out onto the fire escape to talk. "You know how it is. Remember
Paul Sommers?" Paul Sommers, an affable Australian, was caught doing some 'freelance'
work for a shifty photographer. The pictures ended up being used everywhere and
eventually Penny saw them. She screamed at Paul across the office: 'You'll never
model in London again!" and threw his cards at him. In fact he went back home,
got into some soap and now he's coining it, but no one wants to feel the full, Concorde
engine force of Penny's wrath.

 
I try to get on with some
work such as finalising the details for the party and chasing the PR company for
a draft of the press release. Perhaps Lauren is right. And even Piers. I might not
like the coverage but it might be right for the target audience whatever I think,
but all the same: 'chiselled jaw', 'well toned body' Oh, God!

On Tuesday after lunch when Scarlett is out having a cranial
massage and Zac is...well just not in the office, I ring my Dad on his mobile.

 
"I thought it was
great - very positive coverage."

 
"I thought I looked
like a tit."

 
"Yeah, but it's not
aimed at you is it? Think of your target audience."

 
"So what? I still
look pretty daft - everyone I know will be laughing at me."

 
"Not when you make
a mill or two out of this thing. Look I've got to run, I've got a busy morning ahead
of me."

 
"What do you mean
'morning'? It's afternoon. Where are you?"

 
"I'm in New York.
Someone faxed that piece over to me yesterday as soon as it appeared. We're just
keeping an eye on 2cool."

 
"Okay, give me a
ring when you get home again. Come and find me. I'll be in hiding up in the hills."

 
"Will do. Don't worry
- like I said, it's brilliant brand positioning". It's this comment and the
realisation that he saw the piece not because of any paternal pride or interest
but because of the commercial opportunity associated with it that makes me snap
at him: "Except I'm not a brand, I'm your son," I point out. But he has
gone and I'm left shouting to no one across thousands of miles of empty air.

Our fantastically cool and expensive stereo arrives later that
day and a bloke spends a couple of hours installing it, asking if I have any idea
how state of the art this thing is. I say I don't but can I get radio 2 on it? He
doesn't see the joke and talks about watts per channel and digital quality sound
reproduction or something wanky.

 
Bags of clothes are delivered
from the 2cool stylist and Scarlett and I have some fun trying them on while Piers
is out lunching someone at Le Caprice and Guy is doing the same at the Savoy Grill.
Later a couple of crates of champagne are dropped off which have apparently been
ordered for entertaining in the office. Before I can stop her, Scarlett has decided
that we need some entertainment and she opens one.

 
But other than that there
is very little to do in the office for the most of the week. I begin to learn something,
though, that all my friends who went to work in offices after school and university
learnt many years ago: the art of paper shuffling and time killing. Scarlett and
I go for organic juices and Shiatsu massages and even spent a couple of hours shopping
on Wednesday with our 2cool credit cards: a Hugo Boss shirt for me and an outfit
from a shop called Sceeech! for a lesbian wedding she is going to on Saturday.

On Thursday Piers takes me for what he describes as ‘a fact finding
trip’ to Bond Street and Harrods.

 
"This ghastly tat
is just the kind of thing we're not about," he says very loudly in Harrods'
Room of Luxury. A few shoppers look around in surprise. I pretend to be one of them.
"Harrods is what Gucci and Pierre Cardin were in the seventies when they licensed
themselves to anything and everything," explains Piers. "You've got to
guard a brand with your life. After all, it is your life, well, your livelihood
anyway."

 
We move into another area
of the shop, part of the menswear department and Piers picks up some ties and drops
them.

 
"Crap display!"
he bellows. Partly to hide my embarrassment I say: "I'm just going to the loo
Piers, shall I see you back here in five minutes?"

 
"A piss?" he
roars. "Yeah, I could do with one too."

 
"I think the Gents'
is down there," I whisper. At the urinals Piers continues to lecture me on
luxury goods marketing.

 
"They're called 'ostentatious
goods'. Part of the attraction is the high price - people feel they're treating
themselves whenever they buy something like that or they just feel good because
they know other people simply can't afford them. It's that old tag line 'reassuringly
expensive.'"

 
Piers even pees fast -
his jet could cut slate. Mine is a pathetic, old man's trickle by comparison. Piers
finishes, looks down to see if I'm going (yes, I'm going as fast as I can!) and
then spins round to wash his hands.

 
We sprint out of the shop,
Piers managing to make a couple of telephone calls between the inner and outer set
of doors at the entrance. As we dash further down Knightsbridge we pass a beggar
on the street outside, patterned shawl and skirt blowing in the breeze generated
by the cars, hand extended, face set in the usual contorted mask of desperation
and pleading. A drugged baby lies slumped in her arms. I look away, embarrassed,
uncertain whether to give her money or not.

 
"See, that is bad
market positioning" says Piers, dialling another number on his mobile. It takes
a moment for me to realise that he talking about the woman we've both seen.

 
"What?"

 
"No one is going
to give her money there. They're either hard hearted bastards who don't care or
they've only got plastic on them. She should try the King's Road or somewhere like
that where there are lots of kids around who are into that sort of thing, you know,
begging and busking."

 
Later we pass a young
guy beggar with a painfully thin mongrel on the end of a piece of rope who shakes
a tatty McDonalds cup at us. Again I look away but Piers tells him: 'Oh, eat your
dog."

 
"'Iya," says
Lauren. "Good day?"

 
"Pretty quiet, I've
just been finalising things for the launch party on Friday night. It should be spectacular.
Scarlett and I did a final tour of the place this morning. The money they're spending
- three bands, giant video walls to show the site when it goes live, thousands of
staff, cars to pick up the VIP guests and the food budget - I told you didn't I?
£250 a head. Even the guy at Frederica's said it was one of the most amazing menus
he'd ever seen."

 
"Grea'" says
Lauren, opening a bottle of Merlot.

 
"What did you say?"

 
"I's like that's
really cool, yeah?"

 
"Why are you talking
like that?" I laugh, slightly spooked.

 
"Well, the thing
is, Pe'er says my accent is a bi' too cu' crystal, yeah? A bit too Received Pronunciation
and I should troy fla'ening it ou' a bi'."

 
"You're joking! You
sound like you're an American doing a terrible loveable cockney routine."

 
"Well, thanks for
the encouragement," she says, slamming the corkscrew down on the work surface
and turning to get the glasses.

 
"Sorry, it's just...why?"

 
"I'm going for this
presen'ers job on Friday, yeah? And it's a bit more stree'y? A bit more cu'ing edge
and so Pe'er's worried my accent might coun' against me."

 
"But I thought you
were warm and, what was it, authoritative or something?" I ask, taking a welcome
mouthful of wine.

 
"Oh, I am, but for
this part I just need something different, a new string to my bow," she says
normally.

 
"I liked your old
strings," I say sulkily.

 
"Oh, honestly Charlie,
I'm no’ going to do i' f'rever, just for a few days while I ge' into it, yeah?"

 
"All right Eliza
Doolittle," I say, lifting Lauren's simple cotton dress over her head. "Now,
lawks-a-mercy, let's have a bath and get that soot off you."

Chapter Nine

On Friday I arrive back at the club just before seven and try
to smile confidently in a you-know-who-I-am kind of way at a bloke in a DJ with
an earpiece and a headset. He lets me in impassively. The party is planned to start
at eight but I've been here all afternoon, watching the giant video walls go up
while armies of glasses spread across white table clothes and plates pile up ready
for the buffet. Cables and control boxes appear then disappear as they are neatly
tucked away. In fact I haven't had to do much because Simon Smith, our PR man, and
his assistant Charlotte have been organising most of the activities.

 
The morning was spent
with Scarlett and a couple of Simon's colleagues arranging for a fleet of nearly
a hundred Mercedes and BMWs from every chauffeur drive company in London to pick
our VIP guests up and take them back home again afterwards. On their return journey
they'll find a 2cool goodie bag featuring, amongst other things, an Italian-designed
crocodile mobile phone holder, a bottle of Krug especially labelled 'poile de chien'
(hair of the dog - geddit?) and a pair of Luttoxica sunglasses to protect the really
hung over.

 
A little envelope contains
complementary treatments at spas such as the Dorchester, Aveda, Moulton Brown and
Bliss. There is a little coke container with their own monogram on it created by
one of Mayfair's finest Royal Warranted silversmiths. Poor old buffers were told
the little solid sterling silver tube with its miniature scoop was for snuff. Ah
bless, as Scarlett put it when they agreed.

 
Now I'm back on duty wearing
a black Armani suit and dark grey Costume National shirt with Tim Little shoes I
bought on my 2cool credit card.

 
Simon is still shouting
at people and consulting a clip board when I get back. It seems Heaven, the decorator,
is giving him a hard time about some delivery. Over the last two weeks of working
in an office I've discovered that the thing to do in these situations is to concentrate
on doing some small job. It makes you look busy, it keeps you out of the way, and
at least you can point to something you've done if anyone asks. Not that they have
so far. In this case it is telling two guys where to put some potted plants.

 
"Two, two. Testing.
Two, two," says a voice from behind me but when I look around I can see no
one. A techie guy laughs at my confusion and explains: "It's a new sound system.
There are three hundred miniature speakers around the place, tucked away in flower
arrangements and places like here..." He reaches up and pulls out what looks
like a black match box from behind a picture. "So wherever you are it sounds
like someone next to you is talking rather than all that shitty sound quality with
Tannoys booming and distorting across the room."

 
Suddenly sequences of
the new, updated website flash onto the screens. One telly in the wall of monitors
isn't working and remains obstinately blacked out, like a missing tooth in a smile.
The techie tuts and yells something to his mate.

 
"I told you that
they were your responsibility," Simon is saying.

 
"Hello? Are you not
hearing me? My responsibility was to buy them. Your responsibility was to get them
here," spits Heaven, lovingly enunciating every venomous syllable.

 
Simon consults his clipboard
but, finding no solace in it, says: "Well, I would have thought buying them
would have included actually, you know, getting them here."

 
"Not when I had no
budget for transport and the shop doesn't deliver. I would have thought that was
obvious," says Heaven, hands on hips, edging slowly closer to Simon who is
pretending that he is not remotely interested in this conversation. Finally Heaven
is so far into his adversary's personal space that Simon has to say something: "Well,
at the end of the day it's your problem. You're responsible for candles and you
haven't got them." Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, goes unsaid. The two face
each other for a few moments.

 
"Oh, working with
you is just Hell," says Heaven.

 
At that moment Piers arrives.

 
"Finger tip control?"
he says, rubbing his hands together. Heaven and Simon give him a poisonous look
but he is impervious to it and rearranges some of the exotic flowers, admiring his
irrelevant handiwork. "How's it going Charlie?"