Upgrading (13 page)

For both these kinds of people, money is a terrible affliction. It makes a disgusting, ugly mess of their lives. I, on the other hand, offer another option, a third way: I would be a perfect balance, I could spend it so well. My whole lifestyle—clothes, houses, cars, holidays, parties, whatever—would all be in the best possible taste. I would be the prime example of how to live and spend. A human advertisement for gracious living. I would become a sort of wealth performance artist. All I need is someone (and somehow I’m beginning to think it’s not going to be Marion) to provide me with the raw materials—the cash to prove it and I’ll be well away.

I come back to her as she is telling me about a family holiday in Barbados where her dad held her brother’s head under water, nearly drowning him, while the other holiday-makers on the beach watched in horror and nearly said something to someone.

After she has been talking for a while, I look down and say “Oh God” sympathetically. I scratch the back of my left hand and discreetly look at my watch. It is nearly three forty-five. I’ve got work tomorrow. I’ll give it till four and then I’ll go.

Suddenly I wake up with a hot, sharp pain down in my neck. My cheek is stuck to the table and my left arm has gone to sleep. As gently as I can, I peel my face off the sticky not-so-scrubbed pine surface and drag myself up, wincing in pain. Every muscle in my body is pinched tight. I stretch and shiver and breathe deeply. I feel faint for a moment.

The girl is still asleep opposite me. I blink and roll my eyes and feel the pain from my neck move up into my head. I am tortured from a weird, unnatural sleep full of sad, violent dreams. The girl is out for the count, snoring gently, her eyes more red and swollen than ever, her mouth slightly open. How often does she end up doing this? Falling asleep pissed after crying and damning her father to people she doesn’t know? I look around for something to put over her shoulders but I can’t find anything.

I decide to make for the door. The fresh morning air revives me slightly. All around curtains are closed. I look at my watch, it’s six-twenty. I suddenly realize that I haven’t got a cheque from her. I can’t wake her.

But I really need that money. I have to give £50 commission to Jonathan anyway. If I get the cheque I will be a hundred and fifty quid better off (minus taxi fares). If I don’t, I will be fifty worse off (plus taxi fares).

I’ve got to do it.

I walk back into the house, deciding that brisk and businesslike is the best approach. Nothing to be embarrassed about, it’s just a commercial arrangement, after all.

She is still out cold. Oh, shit. I can’t do this. I groan and breathe out heavily, half-hoping it will wake her up. I just can’t do this. I walk out again into the hall and consider for a moment. The wreckage looks even uglier in the daylight through the curtains. And the stink is worse. My stink. I’ve contributed to this, I’m part of it now.

I realize I am standing on a broken CD. How weird, I’ve never seen a broken CD before. I didn’t know you
could
break them.

Oh fuck! That’s it. I didn’t come here in the middle of the night to listen to this pathetic girl’s stories and pay fifty quid (plus cab fares) for the privilege. Fuck it, you’ve got to be tough in this business.

I march back into the kitchen and cough loudly where the combined smell of rotting rubbish, booze, stale cigarettes and sleep almost makes me retch. She stirs slightly, but that’s it.

“Excuse me.” Nothing. I say it again louder. She stirs slightly and then looks up at me, squinting, trying to focus.

“Sorry to wake you, but, er, I’ve got to go and, er, you know.”

She sniffs and frowns, obviously trying to remember who I am and what happened last night.

“I’ll need a cheque,” I say quickly.

“Hey? Oh, yeah, right.” She straightens up, pushes her hair back and looks around her. She begins a pathetic attempt to find her cheque book while I stand, hands in pockets, casually looking out of the kitchen window. After a few minutes I suggest that it might be in her bedroom. Or the living room. Or under that pile of magazines over there. Oh, shit—this is hopeless. In the end I stumble around the flat, swearing softly and throwing things left and right, looking for anything that she could use to pay me—credit card, cashpoint card, anything.

Finally I find a couple of credit cards behind a pizza flyer on the mantelpiece. I choose the one with the latest expiry date and fill in my credit card slip. I put £200 on and ask her to sign it which she does in silence with big childish letters. The chances of it going through all right are minimal but by now I don’t care.

She looks up at me through bloodshot eyes as she hands back the slip.

“I, er …” I mumble, folding it and putting it in my back pocket. “Well, it was nice to, er … I hope it’s not too bad this weekend, you know, with your dad.”

“Mmmm, no,” she says and sniffs.

I say, “Thanks, bye.”

It’s nearly seven as I head for the Tube.

It takes me days to get over my night of hell with Erren and her father. I notice that we do actually have some of his swivel chairs in our office but there is no one I can talk about it to even if I’d wanted to. They’re the really cheap, uncomfortable ones that everyone pushes around to other desks and only the people who are last into the office in the morning—like me—end up sitting on.

*   *   *

Jonathan rings me the following evening as I’m tearing off to go to Marion’s and thanks me for the job I did the previous night.

“I knew you were right for it. I’m concious that things have been quite quiet recently for you,” he says, a note of concern in his voice.

“Yeah, I know, I’ve been quite busy with work,” I say, although why I’m offering him an excuse I don’t know.

“I thought that American woman might want to you see again.”

“Er, yeah, funny that. Mind you, I think she said she was going back to the States for a while so perhaps she’s just not around,” I say confidently. This obviously sounds plausible to Jonathan.

“Probably, most of our clients are international,” he says. “Anyway, well done, mate.” He laughs. “They’re not all like that, promise. I tell you what, next really glamorous, high-rolling job that comes in is yours.”

“Sure, I just wondered about—”

“There is one woman I was talking to who’s going to Rome for business next week,” he says. “Hates travelling alone. Just wants someone to carry her bag at the airport, sort of thing, take her to dinner while she’s there. I’ll put you forward for that.”

“Great.” I’ve never been to Rome. “But what about—”

“Business class and five-star hotel, of course. Separate rooms, just so there’s no misunderstanding … well, er, unless you wanted there to be but I’ll leave that up to you.” We laugh. “All right, bud, well done. Speak soon. Bye.”

“That cheque in the post?” I find myself half-shouting at last.

“Oh, God, yeah. Sent it the day we spoke. Hasn’t it arrived yet? Bloody post office.”

My mum rings me later that afternoon at work and after checking for twenty minutes that I have the time to talk to her (by which time I don’t) she tells me that she and my dad will be in London the following Saturday. The daughter of a friend of theirs is getting married.

“It’s only a registry office do but they’re having drinks afterwards,” she says. “Nice of them to invite us.” I hear my dad, who is already home at five-thirty mutter something in the background. “Nothing’s
wrong
with a registry office, I just think churches are nicer, you know with the flowers and the music. You wouldn’t get married in a registry office, would you?”

“Er, I hadn’t really thought about it, Mum.” I know she is thinking about Helen and the plans she was half-making for us.

“Oh, no, I’m not pressuring you, plenty of time for all that. Sorry? All
right.
Your father says to hurry up, as usual. We’ll be round about six or seven if that’s OK.”

“Great, see you then,” I say, watching the TV with the sound down.

“If you’re not going out that night.”

“No, don’t worry.”

“Don’t want to cramp your style.”

I laugh. “Don’t worry, you’re not cramping my style. See you on Saturday.”

When they arrive my mum’s face is slightly rosy with drink and my dad has loosened his tie.

“It
was
a
lovely
dress, wasn’t it, Derek?” says my mum. My dad has now switched the TV on and is slumped in front of it. He grunts. “I think her auntie made it. Which one was her auntie? The tall lady?” My dad is even less interested in guessing the identities of this girl’s relatives than he is about her dress. My mum gives me a look and rolls her eyes. “We were just going to have something to eat and then get the train back. Do you want to come? I don’t want to get in the way of your plans.”

“Honestly, you’re not. I’d love to,” I say, looking at my mum and realizing that I haven’t seen her for nearly two months. “Where do you want to go? That pasta place round the corner?”

“That’s a good idea. Do you think they’ll be able to fit us in? I know what these London restaurants are like. You have to book weeks in advance.” I laugh at the idea of the little Italian round the corner with its wipe-clean tablecloths and wax-strung Chianti bottle candle holders being booked up. Just then there is a thump outside in the hall and Vinny arrives.

“All right, Mrs. C, Mr. C,” he says, stifling a burp.

“Hello, Vincent, I mean Vinny,” says my mum. I don’t know why, but she adores Vinny. She’s obviously slightly surprised by it herself but there you go. I think it is partly his dress sense. “I can’t believe he’s going out like that,” she whispers after they meet every time.

“Nice to see you up in town tonight,” says Vinny, just slightly taking the piss, as always.

“A wedding,” explains my mum. “Only a registry office but it was very nice.”

“Oh, right,” says Vinny. “I went to a registry office do last month. Beautiful choral music.”

“Oh, lovely,” says my mum.

“They slightly ruined the effect when the clerk turned it off with a stereo remote control.”

“Oooh, dear.” My mum laughs in spite of herself. My dad smiles in our direction, out of politeness.

“The continuing secularization of our society,” observes Vinny.

“Mmmm, yes,” says my mum. “She did have a
lovely
dress though.”

Vinny can’t come out with us, despite my mum’s invitation, because he is going to a party in Stockwell.

“Isn’t that near Brixton?” says my mum. “Bit rough round there, isn’t it? Oh, do be careful, Vincent. Don’t talk to any strangers.”

“That’s slightly the idea of going to a party, isn’t it?” says Vinny, frowning in amusement. My mum looks confused and then laughs.

“Well, make sure they’re
nice
strangers,” she says.

“That’s definitely the idea of going to a party,” adds Vinny, giving her a wink. She laughs again, even more confused but sure it’s probably the right thing to do.

Much as I love her, my mum always drives me mad in restaurants. This particular evening she runs through her repertoire of irritating habits: she asks me what everything means and then, when I tell her, she says, “Do you think so? What do you think Derek?” When my dad says he’ll have spaghetti bolognaise she says, “Oh, no. I was going to have that, I’d better have something else.”

“Have what you like,” says my dad. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I know but I just … oh, look, ravioli with
lobster.
Do you think it’s fresh lobster? That’s my favourite, I think I’ll have that. Now, are we having a starter?”

She starts telling me about my sister Rachel and her awful husband but then falls silent when the waitress approaches, as if she’s been caught talking in class.

“Hi,” says the waitress to me.

“Hi, how are you?” I ask. OK, showing off a bit.

“Very well. Your friend not here?”

“No, gone to a party,” I say.

“Oooh, party,” says the girl.

“I’ve got the address if you want.”

She laughs. “No, no. When I finish I am very, very tired.”

“Shame,” I say, tutting. “That’s why we came in tonight—give you the address. He’ll be really disappointed.” She laughs again, flipping open her pad.

“I’ll have the ravioli,” says my mum stiffly when it’s her turn to order.

When the waitress is gone she says, “They all know you here,” half-disapproving, half-proud.

“So that’s where your money goes,” says my Dad in mock disapproval, shaking his head and folding his arms.

When we leave my dad thumps me on the shoulder and says, “Proud of you, son.” I give a sort of goofy smile and look down at my shoes. My mum kisses me then looks at me as if she is going to say something. They turn and walk back to the Tube station. I watch them for a while. They suddenly look very small.

i
want you to meet some people,” Marion says, the following evening, holding her champagne glass in both hands. “A lot of my friends have been asking about you and I’d like very much for you to meet with them so I’m throwing a little party tomorrow night.”

“Throwing a party”—I like that.

“OK,” I say, from the settee opposite her. Anna Maria pours me some more champagne and puts down another bowl of nuts. Frankly I’d rather spend an evening with a bunch of Mastermind contestants than Marion’s freak-show friends but it will make her happy and anyway, I might meet some other potential cash cows. Unfortunate phrase, that.

“You haven’t had a chance to meet many interesting people in your life, I know,” she says. “It will be a chance for you to meet some of the upper classes.”

“Can I come?” says Vinny, later, when I tell him about the party for some reason. The One Aside Indoor football league has come to a temporary halt after a written warning from the landlord (inspired, no doubt, by Mr. Anal Axe Murderer from downstairs) and a chunk of plaster that fell out of the wall after a spectacular header by Vinny.

“No, mate,” I explain, handing him a beer and taking a swig from mine. “Not enough savoir-faire.”

“Oh, OK,” says Vinny. “Fair enough. You, on the other hand—?”

“I, on the other hand, am oozing it from every pore.”

“Right.”

“You wouldn’t get past the door with those trousers.” Vinny looks down at his ultra baggy cords, the crotch around his knees. “Do they pay graphic designers to dress like clowns?”

“Yes,” says Vinny.

“Oh, actually, I suppose they do, don’t they?”

“It’s because I’m artistic, mate.”

“Well, your artistic, saggy-arsed trousers won’t get you within a million miles of this glittering soirée.”

“Oh, well,” sighs Vinny. “I’ll just stay at home with
Changing Rooms
and a takeaway.” There is a pause.

“Lucky bugger,” I say, taking another swig.

“Ha,” says Vinny with feeling.

Thrilled as I am with the prospect of meeting the upper classes, I don’t want to be there when everybody arrives so on the day of the party I take the opportunity to earn some brownie points at work by staying late. Sod’s law means that there is absolutely no reason to that day. The office is completely dead. Probably because it is a Friday in July. In fact when she leaves, Debbie gives me a look of suspicion rather than gratitude or encouragement. I end up ringing a few friends but put off seeing them because, as I explain, “I’m rather tied up at the moment.”

Yeah—with a noose round my neck.

I get back home at nearly eight, ready to get changed. I’m wearing my best work suit—which is pale grey, single-breasted, three-buttoned—and a pale blue shirt which I bought specially for the occasion. Yes, that’s right.
I
bought. Not quite the way I’d planned it but never mind—I do look pretty good, I have to admit. Cool, understated and, because it’s all new (or near enough), rich. I’ve even applied a splash of some of the horrible aftershave she bought me in duty free at Charles de Gaulle airport.

As I walk downstairs, practising my cool, debonair look, the door buzzer sounds. I pick up the entry phone and shout, “Hello?”

“Hi, Vinny, it’s Jane.”

“Oh, Jane,” I say unnecessarily. I’ve been thinking about that cute little turn of the head when she was doing the washing up and I’ve been looking forward to seeing her again but I wasn’t expecting her to be here now, this soon. Why the hell didn’t Vinny warn me she was coming over?

“Hello?” she shouts.

“Well, are you going to let her in, you dork?” says Vinny from behind me.

“Yeah, sure.” I press the door button, open our front door and a few moments later she appears, stomping up the stairs.

“Oh, hello, Andrew. Was that you? I thought it was Vinny.”

“Oh, sorry, I wasn’t expecting you.”

She is wearing a pale pink T-shirt and a dark blue cardigan, buttoned up. She’s even prettier than I remembered her from the first time. She smiles. But it’s a smile of kindness more than interest. Perhaps I was wrong. Arrogant bastard. Perhaps she doesn’t like me that way at all.

“You look very smart,” she says, again less out of conviction and more simply to break the silence, it seems.

“Thank you. So do you. I like your …” I realize I’m about to say “breasts” but I manage to catch myself. “Your cardigan. It’s very nice.”

She looks slightly surprised. “Oh, thank you. It’s just from a shop at home.” She laughs. “So, you off out?”

“Yeah, I’m going to a … thing.” I don’t want her to see me like this, dressed up like Roger Moore.

“A
thing?”
she says with a sort of mocking indulgence.

“He means a party,” says Vinny. “They’re inviting him because of his sparkling conversation.”

“Yes, a party, I mean.” Oh fuck! What’s the matter with me? I want to make it clear to her that I would rather spend time here with her, even with Vinny.

“In Belgravia,” he explains. Shut up, you twat, you’re only making this worse.

“Very nice,” says Jane, quietly. She pats the bottle of cheap white wine she is holding. “Well, have a good time. Vinny and I’ll probably still be watching telly and making our own version of sparkling conversation when you get back.”

“Yeah, brilliant. Well, perhaps I’ll see you, then.”

“OK,” she says. There is another pause, as I try and think of something interesting to say. What words would explain my bizarre, tongue-tied behaviour, justify my current poncy garb and make her realize that basically I’m quite a nice bloke?

I feel Vinny squeezing past me. “Listen,” he says. “I know her name’s not on the list but are you going to get out of the way and let her in?”

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck,” I mutter as I trudge downstairs to the front door. “Oh, Christ!”

I realize that our football-suppressing downstairs neighbour is staring at me, his key poised by the lock. “Oh, shit!” I tell him.

Marion greets me as if I was the caterer, reminds me I am late and then turns round to talk to someone else. Fair enough. I take a glass of champagne from a tray and knock it back partly to give me Dutch courage for this ghastly event and partly to obliterate the awful memory of my bizarre performance in front of Jane.

I pick up another glass and wander around a bit, trying to looking bored and aloof but it occurs to me after a while that in fact I just look a bit dim like I don’t know the point of the party. I start desperately looking for someone I know. Luckily, by the time I look around the room again it is half full of people. Everyone seems to be looking past everyone else, probably to see who they could or should be talking to. Just then Farrah says “Hi.” We double kiss and she introduces me to some smooth-looking guy who is dressed in a tweedy jacket and a pink Brooks Brothers button-down collar shirt. All wrong but he does look rich. We shake hands. For some stupid reason I say, “Where’s David?”

Farrah gives me a look of what I realize is discreet panic.

“He couldn’t come.” No, of course he couldn’t. Not with his replacement here. Perhaps he’s in prison, after all. That thought, together with the one and a half glasses of champagne I’ve just downed, cheers me no end. I knock back the remainder.

“Farrah, you look great,” I gush.

“Oh, Andrew, you’re the sweetest ever. I could just eat you. I’ve just been to see my crystal therapist.”

“Your crystal therapist? What does he do?”

Farrah licks her lips in concentration and begins to explain.

“They apply different types of crystal to every bodily orifice and these crystals draw the impurities out of your body and replace them with positive energy.”

I laugh. By now I don’t really care and I’ve had
two
glasses of champagne on an empty stomach.

“What? You pay someone to shove a crystal up your—”

“Andrew!” It’s Marion who has come up behind me like the Belgravia Secret Police. When I turn round I notice that she does look very good indeed—diamond earrings and a simple white dress.

“You look great,” I say, giving her a quick kiss on the lips. This is going to be my standard line for this evening, I decide. I’m sure one of my Dad’s books advises it: “Try greeting every new acquaintance or prospective co-worker with a positive, opening expression of your feelings.”

“Thank you. Now, get yourself another drink. There are a lot of people here tonight that I really want you to meet.”

“Hey, you look great,” I say to Anna Maria as I grab another glass.

I’m actually really pleased to see her but Marion hisses irritably, “Don’t talk to the staff like that. Andrew, you have so much to learn.” She looks round at Anna Maria who is moving off through the crowd, tray in hand, more mystified by my comment, I think, than flattered.

Marion leads me into the centre of the room. For one awful moment I think she is going to make some sort of announcement but luckily a man leaves the group he is with and walks over to us. His aftershave arrives before he does and it burns my nostrils.

“Channing,” says Marion.

“Marion,” he says. “We were just talking about Sonia Kaletsky. You heard she told everyone she wanted a small wedding. Well, apparently she got such a small wedding there wasn’t even a groom.” We all laugh.

After a few seconds Marion has done enough laughing and she says, “Chan
ning.
Look, Channing, this is Andrew.”

“Hi,” says Channing. He is small, dark and tanned with viciously gelled short hair. He’s wearing a black and yellow Versace check jacket with dark blue jeans and black bikers’ boots which reach up to his knees. We shake hands. His hand is soft, plump, hairy and heavily ringed. It lingers a little too long in mine.

“Channing is my best friend from New York,” says Marion, careful to add this geographical qualification. I’ve learnt that Marion has “best friends in London,” “best friends from California,” “best friends for shopping,” “best oldest friend” etc. Everyone can be Marion’s best friend as long as it’s in their own particular category. I’m probably her “best media sales friend.” Or “best friend for imposing circumcision on.”

“Very nice,” says Channing. I sort of hope he means “very nice to meet you” but I’m sure he doesn’t.

Then he completely ignores me and starts telling Marion about somebody they know from New York who sold his apartment to someone else they know from New York and what the person who bought the apartment said about it and what they were going to do with it or something.

While I am looking around the room a girl comes to join the three of us. She is tanned with long blonde hair and a face that would be pretty if wasn’t just a bit too sporty. She is also wearing dark blue jeans and a huge white shirt, undone so that I can see her bra and the top of full, freckled breasts. Her gold chains and bracelets look really good against her tan. She holds her glass in both hands in front of her. Looking up at me, in her gold and white, she looks like an altar boy, offering me the blood of Christ.

She laughs enthusiastically with Marion and Channing. She doesn’t know what they are talking about and so her guffaws make me laugh and soon we are laughing at each other laughing. Marion and Channing become uneasy about the amount of laughing going on and so Marion drags me away just as the girl is putting out her hand and saying, “Louise.”

“Hi. You look—” But Marion has pointed me in the direction of some people sitting on the settee.

“God, that girl’s dumb,” she spits. “She says she’s into photography but I can’t believe she knows one end of a camera from the other. At least not like she knows one end of a photographer from the other. Here, I want you to meet Toby Erskine-Crumb. Toby works in the City of London,” she says as if he were the only one who did.

“Well, that’s what I do when I’m not drinking there,” laughs Toby, offering a hand. “Hello.”

“Hello, Toby,” I say. “Oh, fuck off, Toby,” I think. Marion whisks me off again. My head is spinning with champagne and this whirlwind tour of her friends.

At another settee she introduces me to a tiny little lady clutching her glass as if her life depended on it. In front of her is a sea of cannibalized canapés—each half-bitten through or gnawed at. Like most of Marion’s friends, her face has that surprised, shiny look, probably because most of it is now gathered up behind her ears.

“Davina, I want you to meet Andrew.”

The lady’s face cracks as far as it can into a smile.

“Hoi,” she says in a thick Manhattan drawl. I bow slightly and take her hand, which she obviously appreciates. In fact the only reason I am bowing is because she is so tiny. Marion leaves me squeezing onto the settee next to Davina, presumably because it is less likely I will get off with her than with Louise. As soon as I sit down Davina is off.

“Do you know Marion’s problem?”

Is this going to be a joke? I shake my head, getting ready to laugh if I’m required to do so. “Marion’s
problem?”

Davina waves a liver-spotted hand at me and draws me in closer. “She’s working class. She’s blue collar and she hates it.”

I am not sure what my reaction is supposed to be. In some ways Marion is so strange that I wouldn’t be surprised if she was created in a test tube or constructed by the inventor of Barbie on an off-day. On the other hand, that little speech she gave me at lunch a couple of weeks ago suggested that she was more blue blood than blue collar.