Authors: Simon Brooke
Having stuffed some carelessly chosen clothes and a hand full
of toiletries into a bag I walk out of the flat and slam the door behind me without
saying anything to her. I stomp purposefully along the street into the main road
and then stop and look around.
What the hell am I going
to do now?
I walk back down the road
parallel to ours ('ours?' can I still say that?) and sit down on a wall. A woman
with a briefcase marches along and gives me a suspicious glance as she passes me.
That's right, dear, I'm just casing the joint.
Where can I go? I don't
want to move in with Nora - that would be too much. I could never go back to Lauren
if I'd been staying there. Anyway, it's not like I want to set up a new life with
her, it's just that... Just that what? I'm enjoying playing away from home? Getting
at Lauren. Perhaps. Either way, it's no reason to try and set up a new life with
someone. Lauren's words, sensible words of course, come back to me: "That weird,
horrible woman who's knifed you in the back time after time."
I decide to focus on practical
considerations again. I can't land on Sarah and Mark or any of mine and Lauren's
common friends - it's just not fair on them. I can hardly arrive at Becky's with
her new baby and a boyfriend I haven't met yet.
I find myself thinking
about me, Lauren and children. It seems further away than ever. A pointless day
dream. Being unfaithful and staying out all night is hardly the best way to prepare
for children.
I realise that I have
few other friends that are close enough just to crash out for a few nights with
anyway. I can imagine my mates' girlfriends who I hardly know whispering in the
kitchen about how long I'm going to be sleeping on the settee. I fidget at the thought
of a settee and a sleeping bag. Why are living rooms always so cold at night, colder
than bedrooms, somehow? I even contemplate the office - there's a loo, a kitchenette
and a long sofa there. What an awful thought, somehow it's only one up from a doorway.
I need a bed and preferably
my own room. I can't land on my Mum and anyway, that house is too depressing and
so I consider the other parent. Besides, his spare room is en suite. With a Jacuzzi.
And a 40 inch plasma screen. What am I waiting for?
I dig out my mobile from
my bag and ring him at work where I manage to catch him. He comes on the phone via
the squawk box. He says: "Yeah? Oh, shame," when I tell him about Lauren.
I would have quite liked some paternal words of comfort or advice but, then again,
this is a man whose TV commercials last longer than his relationships.
"Nothing lasts forever,"
he adds profoundly, his voice distant and distorted through the loudspeaker.
"No, I suppose not.
Hang on isn't that a line from that beer commercial you made a few months ago?"
"Yeah, well spotted,
kiddo," he says, delighted. "It just won an award at the TV ads International
festival in Toronto. Our third!"
"Well done."
My Dad's secretary arranges for a key to be waiting for me at
the block's marketing suite. I set off up the road and decide to pop into the shopping
centre in Hammersmith to buy some magazines to read on my never-ending tube journey
to the other side of the world. My soft leather hold by Loewe looks slightly out
of the place in thenHammersmith mall amongst the Safeway carriers and Burger King
bags. It'll probably get snatched and then I'll be completely unencumbered, with
literally nothing but the clothes I'm standing up in.
There is a strong stink
of piss by the entrance to the mall and as I walk in an enormous teenage girl in
black leggings and a bomber jacket is coming out shouting: "Leave my fucking
dad alone, you slag. Go on, fuck off, I know you're sleeping with him."
At first I think she's
just bonkers, shouting at the world in general and I really wouldn't blame her for
that. Then I see the object of her tirade: another girl, also a teenager who is
now shouting something back.
I buy GQ, Vogue Hommes
and FHM plus the Post and The Times and set off to the tube station. As I wander
along the street, replaying my last (last ever?) conversation with Lauren in my
mind, I pass a dirty nappy lying on the pavement, a tiny smear of shit nestling
in the stay dry fabric. Nearby, a mother is changing her baby in a push chair, humming
to herself and blithely throwing dirty wipes down on the ground. The smell makes
me feel slightly sick.
At the station I flick
through a magazine and manage to read the whole of it without a train coming. I
wait a bit longer and then walk up the platform and find a London Underground man.
"What's the delay?"
"There's no delay."
"There must be, I've
been waiting for over 20 minutes." Small exaggeration.
"There's no delay."
"OK, when's the next
train?"
"Don't know, probably
not for another couple of hours."
"A couple of hours?"
"Yep, eastbound Piccadilly
line services are suspended until further notice from here as far as Green Park
due to a person under a train at Knightsbridge. Harrods sale again. Like this every
time - they go down like nine pins."
"Oh, right."
I sigh and consider my options. "Wait a minute; I thought you said there was
no delay."
"Aha," says
the man triumphantly. "There isn't a delay, there's a suspension of service,
which strictly speaking is not a delay."
I decide to take the bus into town and go to the office and start
calling round model agencies. Eventually a bus comes. Needless to say it's absolutely
packed. I'm just about to get on when a little old lady pulls me off. I step back
onto the pavement.
"You will let me
get on first, I think," she says in a heavy Eastern European accent.
"Yeah, sure,"
I say, allowing her to go ahead with a melancholy flourish of my hand.
I wait nearly an hour
outside the bus station for the next. This is ridiculous but what else have I got
to do?
I get to the office and speak to a very nice French journalist
who is waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She wants to know more about the site
but I explain that it's over, kaput, finis. She asks for an interview and I say
no and smile sadly. She looks slightly disappointed and wanders off. You're not
the only one who's disappointed by the demise of 2cool, love, really.
I make myself a cappuccino
from the machine in the corner - the first time we've ever used it. Now it will
have to go back. We told our readers it was the chicest thing to put in your open
plan kitchen which the manufacturers must have been pleased about but then we suggested
another, more expensive, brand a couple of days later. Immediately a freebie arrived
from that company. Where did the new one go?, I wonder, looking around.
Then I take a deep breath,
pick up the phone and ring round the three model agencies I've been considering
working with. I leave messages for the head booker in each case. Then I try a couple
more that I hadn't originally considered contacting.
"We see new faces
between 10 and 12 on Wednesdays," says a girl when I explain why I'm ringing.
"I'm not a new face,"
I tell her sniffily and put the phone down.
What am I then? An old
face?
By three I've had enough. I'm beginning to get sick of this place,
anyway. I don't even like it; I don't think I ever did. Coming here is like an addiction
- I hate it but I can't stop doing it.
I get to docklands at nearly half past four. As usual the cab
driver has never heard of the development and we drive past it a couple of times
on the wrong side of the dual carriage way with me pointing frantically, trying
to make him understand where I want to go. Finally he deposits me by the barrier,
next to the skip and the burnt out car. I walk over the unfinished road along to
the marketing suite. It smells damply of filter coffee and dodgy gas heater.
"I've come to pick
up a key from Mr Barrett in the penthouse," I tell a girl with shoulder-length
blonde hair, a dark suit and lots of makeup.
"Oh, yes of course,"
she says, smiling ecstatically. "Now, I'm afraid, the penthouse has actually
been sold but -"
"Sorry, I don't want
to buy anything, I'm staying here with Mr Barrett, he's my dad. I've come to pick
up the key. He said you'd have it."
Her face falls.
"Oh, OK. She opens
a drawer in her desk and takes out an envelope with my name on it. Then she pauses
for a moment. "We do have some properties with a river view on the fourth floor,
though."
I look at her bewildered.
"No, I'm just staying
here. I don't want to buy anything."
"Oh, of course."
She hands over the envelope.
"Thanks." I
open to check that the key is in there but she is saying something else. "Sorry?"
"Would you like to
go on our mailing list?"
"No, thank -"
"Please," she
says. She looks desperate. "I need three more names by the end of today."
So I give her my address
in Chiswick and trudge off over the loose rubble and broken bricks to the special
Penthouse entrance. Once inside I dump my bag in the room and wonder over to the
stereo. It's so minimalist that it looks like a rectangle of brushed stainless steel
with one dark circle in it but fortunately I was there when my Dad first got it
and we spent a Saturday afternoon together working out how to operate it.
I choose some music -
a dance compilation that I'm kind of guessing Nikki, Mari, Toni, Traci or one of
the 'i's probably bought - and turn up the volume with the remote as far as it will
go which is pretty loud. My ears are almost ringing. I potter round the apartment
and wait till the music ends. Then I ring Nora. She hasn't heard anything from Piers.
I don't tell her about Lauren even though she must be wondering after our night
together.
"You're not writing
about him are you?"
"What? Piers? For
a piece? No, honestly Charlie."
"Sorry, just wondered."
"And you haven't
called the police?"
"No, no, don't worry.
I think he'd cause trouble if he did speak to them."
"Oh, well. Just wondered."
I'm about to say 'bye' when she says: "You all right, Charlie? You sound really
down."
"No, fine, don't
worry, just tired."
"Will, erm, I see
you tonight?"
"Oh, er, no, sorry
I'm going out with a friend -"
"Sure, no problem.
I'll speak to you tomorrow, then, perhaps."
"Yep. Bye."
I look out across towards the City and central London just as
the sun is setting in a glorious pink and blue mess like a strawberry ice cream
melting on a pale blue plate. The lights are coming on in the office blocks and
along the roads. I can see the appeal of living up here in this ethereal sanctuary,
watching the rest of the world as if it was all happening on giant TV screens.
I decide to have a Jacuzzi.
While it's filling I get myself a drink. One fridge is full of nothing but champagne
I discover, but another has a few bottles of white wine so I open one and take a
glass into the Jacuzzi. Cold wine and a hot Jacuzzi - it should be wonderfully,
luxuriously, self-indulgent but in fact, sitting alone in this vast white echoey
sensory deprivation tank I feel like crying.
My Dad gets home around eight, still on his mobile to what I
guess must be his New York office. I mime a drinking action to him and he mouths
'white wine, please' back at me. I suddenly notice the vintage of the bottle I've
already opened - 1982. Oops, I hope he wasn't saving it for a special occasion,
then I remember that my Dad's whole life is a special occasion.
He takes the glass from
me, gives me a wink of thanks and goes into his bedroom, telling New York: "We'll
need to see the last five years billings at least, together with future projections
for this year and next plus...oh, bullshit, Marty, course they can. Get them over
to me and I'll have a look at them later tonight."
When he comes back he
is wearing a sort of kaftan and smelling of cologne.
"So what kind of
day have you had?" he asks collapsing on the settee.
I give him an exasperated
look.
"Well, pretty shit
actually."
"Mmm? Oh, yeah. Lauren.
Women just suddenly get these things into her head. So, what's the matter with her?
Time of the month?" He flicks on Bloomberg Business News on the telly. I feel
quite indignant on Lauren's behalf.
"No, she's not like
that, she's very level headed, as you know," I say, hoping he'll remember that
he has met her frequently over the last six years. "She's just got this thing
about getting into television. Met this awful bloke called Peter Beaumont-Crowther."