Model Guy (48 page)

 
My wine looks a bit cloudy.
I taste it carefully.

 
"You sure this wine
is okay?" I ask her.

 
"Yes, of course it
is. Just drink it." She turns away and looks round the room. "Let's go
and see what else is going on. I'm bored with this."

 
"Let's go up one
more floor, I think there should be a pretty cool little gathering in the attic
space," says Piers. Out of Nora's line of vision, he nudges my elbow and mimes
a blow job. I'm beginning to get a headache and feel dizzy.

 
We push past people sitting
and lying on the stairs. A man is banging a young girl from behind. Her eyes are
closed and her face is a mask until she opens her mouth and is violently sick. The
guy behind her doesn't miss a beat as his thrusts synchronise with her spasms of
vomiting. A woman nearby tuts and says: "Oh, really." A naked man with
huge metal vices on his nipples stops me at one point and barks: "Do you know
where the coats are?"

 
"Er, no, sorry,"
I mutter, feeling even queasier at this sight of his pinched, bruised flesh. We
get upstairs and Nora, who has just obliviously knocked wine over a couple of women
snogging passionately in a chair, disappears to find some more names and dubious
activities for her story.

 
"She's a funny one,"
says Piers, shaking his head.

 
"Why do you say that?"
I ask. I know she's a funny one, as he puts it, but I'm wondering why he thinks
so.

 
"It's the way she
just doesn't relate to other people. Doesn't understand what effect she has on them.
Can't read them. Turned over lots of people for stories and can never understand
why they feel so hurt and angry afterwards."

 
"A typical journalist,
I suppose."

 
"Not even that, I
don't think she's particularly ambitious. I mean this is a great story but she's
not what you'd call a newshound. She's very bright. Guy says she's just got a very
low boredom threshold. She'll just do anything to amuse herself never mind what
effect it has on other people."

 
I listen in silence. I
think of our sex together and our cosy evening in with a takeaway and Some Like
It Hot. Close, cosy. Affection if not love - and then she stabbed me in the back
so callously, so coolly. I find myself feeling sick at the thought of it.

 
"Got no real friends,
you know," Piers is saying. He shakes his head dismissively. "Not really
a woman's woman is our Nora. I knew she'd go for you. You slept with her? Thought
so. That's what she does - she has sex with men and then has rows with them. Great
one for these dramatic, stormy affairs then she gets tired of the whole thing and
moves onto the next one, God help him."

 
I'm beginning to feel
really sick to my stomach now at thought of our whole relationship.

 
"Guy says that even
that clumsiness thing is put on. You know, she loves going to posh parties and restaurants,
smart store openings and galleries and things then physically demolishing them just
in case she doesn't get the opportunity to do it in writing."

 
I take another mouthful
of wine and then a deep breath, and say:

 
"She told me about
her father."

 
"Ha," says Piers.
"Her mother's a better story."

 
"Her mother? She
died when -"

 
"Dead? No, she's
still going. Amazingly. Drinking New York dry. Have you noticed Nora's going the
same way?" He tuts. "That woman drank all through her pregnancy, my ma
says. They thought Nora would be still born because her mother was doing a bottle
of vodka a day, almost. Then again perhaps that's why Nora's the way she is. It
has had an effect, I suppose." He taps the side of his head and rolls his eyes.

 
"I used to hate having
to play with her when we were kids. All the cousins did. She'd be playing something
perfectly normally then, without any warning, she'd throw everything up into the
air - Lego or whatever - and just wonder off. People who didn't know her thought
she was tired or upset or we'd that been bullying her something but no, that's Nora
for you.

 
"Then there were
her stories. She rang the police when she was seven or something and told them she'd
been kidnapped by some frightening men. Gave exact descriptions of each of them.
Major alert. APB or whatever, police kept her on the line until they traced the
call - to her pre-school. She'd sneaked into the office when she should have been
doing PE or something.

 
"She told my little
sister that, she, I mean my sister, was adopted and that her real mother was married
to a giant who was coming back to eat her up. Poor Sophie had nightmares for months
afterwards. Chaos. Chaos and trouble, that's what Nora likes and she doesn't care
who she hurts."

 
"What...what about
her father? They were very close, weren't they? She told me how she got her name."
I can hardly get the words out.

 
"How she got her
name? What? Nora? Nah, her mother called her that. Her dad wasn't around much when
she was born."

 
"It's from Noor,
meaning 'light' in Arabic, isn't it?" I say, forcing out every syllable now.

 
Piers laughs.

 
"Where d'you get
that from? No, it's from Leonora, meaning, I don't know, 'The stupidest name I can
give my daughter because no one can stop me.' Guy's theory - want another drink?
No? OK - Guy's theory, you know, he's really into this psychology guff, is that
she's trying to get at her mother all the time, she's constantly hurting people
and knackering things because she's trying to get revenge on her mother."

 
"What about her father?"

 
"She hardly knew
him really. Left her mother when she was quite young. Nora always idolised him,
I suppose she wanted a least one parent to look up to. She's only met him a few
times. I think he's not very interested. He's got a new life - and a new wife, now."

 
"Oh, come on boys,
you going to join in or what?" says a ruddy faced man with white hair. "It's
not just a spectator sport you know."

 
"Be with you in a
minute, Sir Michael," says Piers, winking cheerily. "Where was I? Oh,
yes her dad."

 
"An obsti...obstet..."

 
"Yeah, a doctor.
Well, until he was struck off. Touching up the patients apparently. Especially as
an obstetrician, plenty of opportunity if you think about it. Went to Cairo or somewhere
and practised there for a while. Nora visited him a couple of times I think, but
like I said it wasn't a very happy meeting apparently. Not according to my mother,
anyway."

 
The room really is moving,
now, rising and dipping. Or am I? I can't seem to stand still.

 
"You...know, I think
I feel angrier with you for introducing me to Nora than I do for getting me mixed
up in the 2cool thing," I say, trying to focus on him.

 
Piers looks surprised.

 
"Really? Well, you
shouldn't have slept with her then, should you, matey? Look, do you want to do something
here? Quite welcome if you want to. I'd better stay out of it - I think that guy
has recognised me. Might have to get out of here pronto. But there's some quite
decent totty and I'd sure you'd be in great demand. Yeah, I'm going to push off,
he's looking a bit shirty. Never mind, booked myself into a nice hotel for tonight
under an assumed name. You alright?"

 
But I'm not. It's as if
his last few words have been coming to me through a long pipe. His face and the
gas mask perched above it appear blurred and distorted. He begins to look like The
Scream.

 
My legs seems to be giving
way under me, I can't control them. I'm sliding, falling, and there's no one to
catch me - where's my dad he can help me but I can't see him can't see anyone I
know just bodies and laughing teeth and glasses of champagne and diamonds and people
lying around me but now I'm floating gently downwards I can just feel the wall behind
me it's the only firm thing what's Piers saying now I can't hear him someone has
taken hold of my legs and they're stretching them out I feel like my body weighs
a hundred tons someone's undoing my shirt no I don't want to join in leave me alone
to lie here and die they're taking my jacket off that's my Armani jacket my 2cool
Armani jacket be careful with it you don't want to damage it there's Nora hallo
Nora what are you doing what you saying oh God I wish I'd never met you Nora some
woman in a low cut dress more tits fucking hell I've seen a lot of tits tonight
Piers haven't I what is Nora saying to you why is she walking out of the room some
other people are looking at me and then walking out as well I want to go out I want
to go home Lauren will be home tomorrow I want to see her tell her I love her where's
my dad hello dad is that you where is he I want to go home I'm tired so tired I
just want to close my eyes and sleep for ever

Chapter Thirty

A huge, flat glassy eye stares at me, unblinking. The woman says
something in Spanish that I don't understand. I laugh and shrug my shoulders.

 
"No, gracias."

 
Is that right? Must be.
Wish I'd bought the phrase book. She holds up the fish enticingly, it's tongueless,
sharp toothed mouth lolling open between her cracked, reddened fingers. I laugh
again and shake my head, frowning apologetically.

 
What am I going to do
with such a huge fish? Take it back to the hotel? Put it in my suitcase? It does
look very good, though. I've watched enough cookery shows over the years to know
what to look for - the bright eyes, the shiny scales, the pink gills.

 
Piled on to the crushed
ice are mounds of fish. I think I recognise red snapper, one particularly gruesome
bugger must be an eel, I suppose, just from the shape of it - and that's monkfish,
I reckon. I certainly know the squid when I see them, grey and shiny and semitransparent,
eyes drooping slightly with apparent boredom. Something about the way they're piled
on top of each other adds to the sense of casual abundance. Luxurious, somehow.
Not a word I can use lightly. I find myself wondering how this woman is going to
sell all this fish today. Still it's only just gone one and the market stays open
late, like everything else in Spain.

 
The next stall sells fruit
and vegetables. Techni-colour piles of them. Red peppers, tomatoes, onions, oranges,
glossy purple aubergines, courgettes - everything bigger, fatter and juicier than
I've ever seen before. A surfeit of taste and colour. Shamelessly exposing themselves.
Looking gorgeous. Subtly, reticence and discretion have no place here. More, bigger,
every inch of every stall covered in them. Like cheap prostitutes garishly dressed,
pushing their breasts out at the punters. Vulgarly seductive.

 
I almost want to stop
and tell someone that I've just never, never seen so much gorgeous food in all my
life, share my feelings with them.

 
There is a stall with
nothing but olives, a little sign above every plastic container describing its contents.
Why didn't I bring that bloody phrase book? How many olives do you need, for goodness
sake? This is ridiculous. In a second the man behind the counter swoops one out
of a tub in a tiny sieve and offers it to me - salty, garlicky. Is that rosemary,
too? Lauren would know. It makes me realise how hungry I am. I have to buy some.
With a combination of sign language, plus 'si' and 'no' at the appropriate moments
I manage to buy a small pot of the ones I've just tasted.

 
I throw the stone down
under the stall like everyone else does. This is not the place for politeness or
niceties. This place is about big gestures. Even the floor is sort of alive, full
of colours, shapes and smells - rejected fruit and vegetables, bits of paper, newspapers
and magazines, cigarette ends, brightly coloured wrappers, half a croissant, a lurid
coloured ice cream.

 
And the noise. People
shouting, laughing, talking, haggling, someone singing, tinny pop songs playing
out of a battered old radio hanging up from an awning. Knives banging down onto
counters as chickens are quartered, fish decapitated and vegetables chopped up for
display. A cacophony of human life at its most energetic, all echoing up in to the
cast iron and glass ceiling. Someone shouts just behind my right ear and I scoot
aside to let a guy rush past with a trolley full of boxes bursting with fruit and
vegetables. Coming towards me is a middle aged couple who are obviously English
- the sallow complexions, the sensible dowdy clothes, the diffident manner in dramatic
contrast to the raucous colour and racket around us. We smile a conspiratorial acknowledgement
of pure joy at each other.

 
I buy some bread from
another stall and choose a couple of small cheeses from the one next door. We could
eat these at the hotel before we go out at midnight for dinner. That would be a
nice surprise for her when she gets back. Or I could just chuck them away - it's
the buying, the being part of this amazing event that counts.

 
"I love markets,
don't you?" says a voice behind me. I spin round.

 
"That's because you're
economist," I say.

 
Guy laughs.

 
"No, it absolutely
is not. I love the noise and life of markets. I thought if you came to Barcelona
this was the one thing you should see. The Gaudi Cathedral is interesting in a slightly
bizarre, surreal way and the view from the top at dusk is breathtaking but this
is the best thing about this city. No one should ever leave without experiencing
the legendary Mercat de Saint Josep."