Upgrading (27 page)

“Er, no.”

She tuts.

“Got any drugs?” she says leading me through a small white and gold marbled hallway into an even tinier kitchen. I can see that her dress is only half zipped up at the back.

“Sorry?”

“Drugs? You boys usually ’ave ’em.”

“Sorry, no one told me,” I say like a boy scout. What “boys”?

She tuts again and opens the fridge. “Champagne or beer or—” She peers into it, scrunching up her face which is quite pretty under all the powder. “Or whatever you want, but if you want a Bloody Mary or owt like that you’ll have to make it yourself.”

“Whatever’s open.”

Without saying anything she picks up a tall, heavy glass, thrusts it into my hand and pours champagne into it until it drips over my fingers.

“Thanks,” I say, licking some of the froth off my fingers. She takes something from behind the cappuccino machine. It’s an envelope. She half-pulls some fifty pounds notes out of it.

“That’s your five hundred plus another two,” she says, shaking the notes in my face. “Extra. If you do a good job.” She puts it back and makes towards a spiral staircase, slipping her stilettos off as she goes.

“Hang on a minute,” I say, finally catching my breath. “It’s you and me, right?”

She tuts and rolls her eyes. “See this house?” She nods in the direction of the sitting room. “Ten of ’em like this. He owns the whole bloody mews,” she hisses, as if that is supposed to explain what we are going to do. “Just look as if you’re having the fuck o’ your life and don’t worry about me—I’ll make the right noises.”

I follow her up the tiny spiral staircase trying not to trip up or bang my head. I realize that my hand is shaking slightly on the rail. We emerge into a bedroom which covers the whole upper floor of the house. It is lined with black wood, mirrored cupboards and a thick, cream-coloured shag-pile carpet. The lights are on low and the place is full of shadows. I can make out an empty champagne bottle lying on the floor next to an ashtray and a handbag. Most of the room is taken up by a huge bed which is covered with a white fur bedspread. It looks as if there is a dead pig on it. In fact it is a fat bloke lying on his stomach, his head hanging over the edge.

Vivienne strokes his scraggly grey hair and then runs her hand down his hairy back to his huge fat bum which is also covered with grey hair.

“Wake up, love,” she says tenderly. “Look what I’ve brought you.”

He grunts and stirs and then squints at her, taking a moment to remember who she is. Then he says, “What have you brought me, Viv, my love?”

“A young stud,” says Viv. Hang on—that’s me. I try to smile seductively but I feel more like a future son-in-law than a panting sex machine. He stares up at me. So does Viv, giving me a look of “Oh, put your back into it.” His face is like the rest of his body, bulging, sagging and pink with wisps of grey hair. His huge bloodshot eyes struggle to focus on me and as they do so his fat fingers, with their heavy gold rings, grasp the bedcover tightly. Only a chunky gold identity bracelet shows where the fur ends and the grey hair of his forearms begins. He farts and belches and then his head drops down on to the bed again. I look at Viv for guidance.

“My love,” she says to him. The old man mumbles something. “What did you say, my darling?”

He moves his head out of the furry bedcovers and and say, “Tell him to take his clothes off.”

She looks up at me. “Well, you heard what he said.” I freeze for a moment. Obviously I knew from the start this was going to happen from the time Jonathan first told me about the job but standing here with these two it feels even weirder than I thought it would. “Go on,” she says again, like I’m a bit slow.

My hands tremble even more as I pull off my T-shirt. I stop at my underpants. Viv rolls her eyes.
“All
your clothes, he wants to see what you’ve got for me.” I take a deep breath and slip off my underpants with all the erotic finesse of a man facing an army medical. The old guy is watching me now. I feel very vulnerable, I have to stop myself from covering my dick with my hands.

“He’s big,” coos the man. “You’ve done well, my dear.” I’m feeling slightly sick by now.

“Ye-e-e-s,” says Vivienne. “He’s a big boy.”

“Vivienne,” says the man, like the presenter of a 1950s TV programme to a guest who brought a baby tiger cub in to show the children, “will you show me what you do to boys like this.” Viv gets up and fixes me with a mean, sneering look. Then she kicks off her shoes, drops to her knees and takes my dick in her mouth. I gasp more with surprise than pleasure and the client looks up at me. Then Vivienne begins to make groaning noises. She starts to dig her long, sharp nails into my bum, out of spite, I think, rather than desire. I decide I’d better make an effort if I want that five hundred, no,
seven
hundred pounds. I say it to myself again. In cash. I start to moan too and move rhythmically in and out of Viv’s mouth.

“Mmmm,” says Viv from down below.

“Oh y-e-a-h,” I gasp, hoping it sounds genuine. But my voice is shaking slightly.

“Oh, yes,” says the little piglet enthusiastically, as if he were endorsing a motion at the Residents’ Association meeting. It’s actually the least surreal conversation we have had all evening. After a while he seems to get bored.

“Vivienne?” he asks politely.

She looks round at him, still with her mouth full.

“Vivienne? What else can he do?”

She stands up. “Shall we show him?” I look at her dumbly.

She slips off her dress, bra and panties very quickly while the piglet and I watch. When she stands naked I notice that her pubic hair is blonde with tiny black roots.

“There’s a condom in the draw, stud,” she says. I pull open the drawer, take out a condom, tear open its packet with difficulty (I am sure Viv rolls her eyes at this point). For some reason I
have
got a hard on. It’s as if my dick is betraying me. Shouldn’t it feel revolted and appalled by this whole thing? Apparently not. I roll the condom on while they both watch. When I look up again Viv is moving onto the bed.

“You like it doggy style, don’t you, Viv?” says the piglet. This time even I can tell that he means, “I don’t care how you like it, Viv, I’m paying.”

“Oh,
yes,”
murmurs Viv, moving onto all fours next to him on the bed. She pouts and inserts a long red fingernail into her mouth. “That’s the way I like it,” she gasps and I realize this is an invitation to me to get to work.

I move over towards her. But I can’t do it. My dick has finally got the message. This isn’t right—worse, it’s just disgusting. No amount of money is worth this, in fact the idea of the money suddenly makes me feel even more dirty.

Viv looks round irritably to see why our little live show, audience of one, has stalled. I stare at the floor, trying to avoid her eyes. But Viv, obviously quick-thinking and resourceful, has nimbly backed on to me and is apparently enjoying great sex, moaning and arching her back. I stand there, numb, wondering whether it looks convincing to our client or whether he just wants it to. But then I notice that the old git has slumped forward with his eyes closed again.

“K-e-n?” Viv whispers in ecstasy. No reaction. “Ken?” she groans again, louder this time. “Ken?” Her tone changes to one of irritation.
“Ken?”
She reaches across and pokes him roughly. “He’s off at last,” she says. “Thank fook for that. What’s the matter wi’ you, anyway, you’re not fooking being paid just to stand there, you gormless twat,” she says, pulling off a false eyelash while reaching across to the ashtray for her ciggie which is now mainly ash. She takes a drag and picks some ash out of her pubes. Just then Ken wakes again and looks round at us. Instantly Viv is back in position and in ecstasy again, gasping and squealing this time. But this time I move away. I don’t even want to touch her. I stand back against the wall, breathing hard. Feeling dizzy. Feeling disgusted. Trapped.

“Come back, my love,” murmurs Viv, giving me a furious look.

I just stare at her for a moment.

“What’s the matter, young stud?” says Ken, also slightly pissed off that his purchase isn’t doing what he bought it for.

I don’t say anything—what can I say? I look at them both lying on the bed. I realize that they are almost the same colour. Pale, pink, insipid. Ugly. So very, very ugly. Like me. We’re all so very ugly. I just reach down quickly and find my underpants.

“ ’Ang on,” says Viv, getting up.

“We haven’t finished yet,” says the piglet, as if I was a waiter trying to take his plate away.

I open my mouth to say something—excuse, abuse—but nothing comes out. My underpants are on at last and so is my T-shirt, distorted and wrapped around my body in my panicked haste. I throw my trainers down the spiral stairs and follow them, tripping and falling down the last few steps. Sprawled at the bottom, I pull my jeans on, and without doing them up get up again and run into the kitchen.

“Oi,” says Viv from above me. I don’t look up. I reach round behind the capuccino maker for the envelope. I’m entitled to at least
some
of that money.

It’s not there.

Where the fuck is it? I’m
sure
she put it back there. I ferret around quickly to see if it’s somewhere else but then I hear the stairs start creaking behind me. I have one last desperate thrash around on the shelf and send glass jars of coffee and tea bags together with a full wine glass crashing onto the floor. No good, it’s not fucking there. Suddenly I feel a couple of notes, two fifties, a hundred quid. Fuck it, that’ll do. It’ll have to.

I skid on the mess and then make a run for the door.

“He’s taken money, the robbin’ cunt,” I hear Viv screech behind me. This brings the old man to his feet and I hear the staircase creak as it takes his weight. I manage to slide the bolts of the front door back and throw it open before they get to the glass-embedded mess on the kitchen floor.

I run out into the mews still carrying my trainers. I sprint down the empty, darkened street towards what looks like a main road. The sound of Viv screeching pain and swearing about a cut foot reaches me but I also hear the man running behind me. He is silent. And somehow that’s worse.

I keep running long after I know the man has given up. He must either be naked or wearing only a robe anyway so he can’t go far. I just want to keep on. I stop and sit down on the pavement, conscious of the few people around at this time of night staring at me discreetly—intrigued but desperate not to get involved.

I quickly put my trainers on, realizing that I must have left my socks behind.

I start to walk back home.

t
he next morning I lie in bed for a moment wondering whether I dreamt the whole of last night. A cross between a nightmare and a wet dream. Even after a long hot shower I can still smell Viv on me. I find myself wondering: do people like that have no shame? That man presumably buys sex whenever he wants, just as if he were buying dinner or a holiday. Last night he bought me. Do I have no shame, anymore? Viv and I were both prostitutes last night. And if you come from a nice middle class home and have a degree in business studies and wear a suit, what excuse do you have for doing that?

As I stare up at the ceiling, wide awake, now more awake than I’ve been for a long time, another thought dawns on me. What is the difference between me and Marion and Viv and the piglet? There is one, isn’t there? There must be. Just what the fuck is it?

I turn over and hug the pillow as if a different position will produce different logic. What’s really funny is that however uncomfortable and disgusted I feel, I don’t feel tired this morning. It takes me a while to get used to this new sensation. Sleepy yes, but not tired. Yesterday morning I felt more knackered than when I’d hit the sack and today I should feel worse than ever but instead I feel well rested and strangely relaxed. I look around the room and notice how light it is. And it’s not just lighter than normal, it’s the quality of the light that is different.

Why isn’t my clock radio on?

I sit up. It’s very quiet. No echo of Vinny’s radio downstairs, no showers on anywhere, no cars queuing up the street to get into the main road. The day has a sort of used feel, it’s lost that early morning rawness and got into its stride—without me.

Oh my God!

I take a deep breath and look round at the clock radio.

It’s 1:23 p.m.

1:23 p.m.? How the hell could it have got so late? I haven’t just overslept, I’ve been entombed. I leap up and look around for my clothes. Suddenly the room is moving around me. I sit down on the edge of the bed again and put my head in my hands. I feel better and then it occurs to me that I’m so late there is no real point in hurrying. I may as well take my time. I breathe deeply and stretch a bit, trying to touch the ceiling. I put on a T-shirt and wander downstairs to make a cup of tea. There is some post on the mat but none of it is for me or Vinny, for that matter.

I put the kettle on and try and decide what to tell the office—I’ll just have to be honest and tell them, I mean her, Debbie, that is, that I completely and utterly overslept. She’s more likely to believe that than some story about unreliable plumbers or sudden illnesses.

I pour boiling water on a tea bag and watch it swell and surface for a moment. Still half asleep, I dredge it out with a spoon and flick it across the floor into the sink, where it lands with a satisfying splat, leaving a trail of dark brown spots across the floor and up the cupboard door.

I pour in some milk and stab the wet spoon into the bag of sugar. After a couple of sips I look across at the phone, sitting menacingly on the kitchen table. I hate that thing. It’s like an evil envoy from the outside world. If it didn’t exist I could just close the door and keep everyone out. I notice that the light is flashing on the answer machine. I wander over, just too out of it to be bothered with any of this and press “play.” The first message is from Sami.

“Andrew? Andrew? Hello? Are you there?” There is a pause. “Oh, Andrew? Where the hell are you? Please pick up the phone. Please.” She clicks off. She sounds so worried, so concerned that I feel a spasm around my lips, like I almost want to cry. Sorry, Sami, I wish I wasn’t putting you through this.

There is a beep and it’s Claire’s voice.

“Andrew, it’s Claire, it’s, um, nearly a quarter to eleven. Obviously we’re just wondering where you are and if you could make contact just to let us know that everything is all right and there is no reason to worry I’d be very grateful. I don’t seem to have you booked out on annual leave today but if you could just give me a ring, that would be very helpful. Thanks. Bye.”

Oh, fuck off, you smug bitch.

There is another beep and it’s Marion.

“Andrew, I called you at the office but they said you weren’t there. It’s a quarter after eleven. I want to make arrangements for this evening. Call me on my mobile.”

Her message just goes right through me. I just can’t really think about Marion or what I’m doing this evening. I’ve just had enough. I take another gulp of tea, the machine beeps again and Debbie’s voice comes on.

“Andrew. It’s twelve-thirty. Where are you? Could you either give me a call or come into the office. Thanks,” she says evenly. There is no message from Jonathan, thank God. Presumably Viv and the pig decided that it was not worth making a fuss over £100.

I ring Sami but she’s out at lunch so I tell someone I don’t know that I’ve overslept and I’m on my way in. It sounds like it’s their first day and they’re so polite that I feel like adding, “By the way, have you
any
idea how much trouble I’m in?”

I decide to have a shower and wash my hair—since I’m so incredibly late anyway, half an hour extra won’t make any difference. I have a couple of pieces of toast and another cup of tea standing in the kitchen, still trying to come round properly and then set off. My suit and shirt feel odd on me, perhaps because I’m not used to putting them on halfway through the day. Needless to say, I have to wait ages for a bus and when I finally walk into the office it is gone half-past three and I don’t know why I bothered.

Sami doesn’t see me because she’s on the phone but Claire just says lightly, “Oh, hi. Debbie wants a word, let me just see if she’s free.” Debbie is on the phone so I have an agonizing wait until she finishes her call. Sami sees me and looks up with a mixture of anger and concern. I mouth “overslept” and she gives me a desperate look. She is just telling the person on the phone to hang on a minute when Debbie calls me in. I shrug my shoulders, smile apologetically and go into Debbie’s office.

It all happened very quickly. I thought I’d just get a bollocking as usual but when Debbie said she wanted me to resign “for all our sakes” I didn’t argue.

She was right: I had pushed it too far. I could have asked for another chance and told her quite honestly that I had genuinely overslept this time, but to tell the truth I just couldn’t be bothered. I was fed up with the lying and the atmosphere and the constant strain of trying to work out new excuses for getting time off. I was fed up with rehearsing my arguments with her and trying to justify myself to her. I was fed up with constantly being on the verge of being sacked. Debbie had finally won.

I wrote a brief letter to confirm my resignation and the terms we’d agreed and put it on Debbie’s desk. She looked up at me as if she was about to say something but I just walked out. I thought about apologizing for the trouble I’d caused but really I never wanted to see her again. I started clearing out my desk and then realized that there wasn’t anything to clear out—I didn’t actually own any of this shit and I certainly didn’t want it. Sami’s chin was trembling as she tried to force back tears. She looked so much like a seven-year-old being brave that I couldn’t help smiling—which was probably what stopped me from crying. I touched her arm and she started to sob, then I muttered “Sorry” and she ran out of the office. Another girl caught my eye across the room and tried to look sympathetic. That really did make me laugh. She looked slightly confused.

As I walked out of the office for the last time I heard Claire say something about my P45 being in the post. How many times had we joked about that?

I walk most of the way home. My only thought is “Oh God, I’ve got to take my suit off again—I only put it on five minutes ago.” I pop into the corner shop, Knightsbridge Food & Wine, and then drop the thin, striped polythene bag of milk and orange juice in the hallway, drift into the living room and flop down in the armchair. I switch the telly on. A black and white film with Kenneth More, then a quiz show with a contestant wearing a tie and a V-neck pullover. By the end of the programme he has won £25. He seems quite pleased. Then I switch over and it is the news: pictures of women in veils wailing at the camera and later a long shot of people walking down Oxford Street.

Suddenly it’s evening. I decide to go for a run. I haven’t done it for ages. It’ll do me good. Wake me up. Help me to think through what I should do next.

I tip the dirty laundry basket upside down and find my sweat pants. I pull on my trainers, a T-shirt from this morning and set off. At first it feels awful—legs like lead, heart racing. I’ve forgotten how to do it. I pass some girls on the other side of the road and I decide they must have had a laugh even though I can’t hear them do it. But after a while as I get back into the old rhythm a bit more I begin to enjoy it. The sweat starts to run down my face, into my eyes, blurring my vision. The pumping of blood and the roar of my breath shut out the noise around me. Belting down the quiet streets, breathing hard and sweating, I feel completely calm, for the first time since I don’t know when.

Even though I’m not as fit as the last time I ran a few months ago, I push myself hard and after I’ve done my old circuit, I carry on. I go back round the park into some nearby streets I’ve never been down before.

Finally I begin to make my way back. Gasping and wheezing. I put the key in the lock and run upstairs, collapsing on top of the clothes I’d scattered from the dirty laundry basket. The room is spinning slightly and my heart is thumping through my ribcage but I feel much better.

I have a shower and feel strangely calm and relaxed. Marion rings from the car while I am drying my hair.

“Hi, honey. You have a good time last night with your
mate?”
She articulates the word not just as an absurd piece of English slang, but as if it were totally absurd that I should have any mates at all. “Where’d you go?” she asks reproachfully but I don’t rise to it.

“Yeah, it was fun. We just went for a few beers and a Chinese,” I say flatly.

“Sounds thrilling. Anyway, I’m on my way to Lord and Lady Caterham’s for drinks but I’ll be back around eight-thirty so I’ll call you then and we’ll go eat some place, OK?”

“Sure.”

“Hey, guess who I saw today?”

“Who?”

“I was having lunch with an old friend at Joe’s Café and I bumped into Farrah. She was raving about you. So charming, so good looking, she said. Anyway she wants us to go over for din-ner next week.”

“Great.”

“You sound a bit down, everything OK? Still feeling hungover from all that charlie?”

I take a deep breath and tell her. “Marion, I got sacked from work today. I overslept and when I went in they sacked me.”

“Sacked? What does ‘sacked’ mean? Fired?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh God! You’ll need cheering up tonight.”

“Cheering up? Just a bit. What the hell am I going to do?” But she is telling the driver something about parking.

“Look, I’ll call you about eight-thirty and we’ll talk about it then. OK. Kisses.”

“Yeah, bye.”

I put on a rugby shirt and my oldest jeans and get a beer out of the fridge. There is another game show on telly and I realize I have started answering some of the questions so I turn over quickly. Vinny comes in.

“Evening all.” Funny thing about me and Vinny, we’ve lived together for very nearly a year now, seen each other naked, seen each other ill, made tea for each other, dragged each other up to bed when we’ve been too pissed to put one foot in front of the other but we hardly ever call each other by our first names. “All,” “mate,” “sunny Jim,” “dog breath,” even surnames, but never our first names.

“Hi,” I say.

He disappears into the kitchen and comes back a few moments later carrying a tray with a steaming polystyrene box and a bottle of beer on it.

“Don’t mind, do you?” he says, holding up the bottle of beer.

“What?” It’s one of mine. “Oh, no, help yourself. What’s that?” I say, looking at his food.

“Baked potato with chicken tikka,” says Vinny, clearly pleased I’ve asked. “From that new place near the Tube station. £2.95. Can’t be bad, can it? Stir fried beef and chilli £3.25, Thai prawns £2.95, guacamole £1.75—or was that the beef? Can’t remember, anyway something like that. Gastronomy from around the world gathered for your delectation, lovingly microwaved and gently laid out in an expanded polystyrene tray. I should be a copywriter not a graphic designer.”

“Brilliant.” We watch the telly a bit longer.

“So how’s the prostitution going?” he asks wow-wow-wowing some hot potato. I give half a laugh. “Well?”

“Never mind.”

Vinny pokes around in his baked potato a bit more. “All right, how’s the throbbing hub of the media world then?”

“Dunno. I got sacked today.”

He looks round at me and swallows hard. “Bloody hell.”

I look at him. “I overslept this morning and when I went in they sacked me.”

“Oh, shit, mate, I’d have woken you but I thought you were staying at hers.”

“Oh, it’s not your fault. It was just the last straw, they’d have sacked me for something else.”

“What time did you get in to the office, then?”

“About three-thirty.” We look at each other for a moment and then burst out laughing.