Authors: Simon Brooke
i
first met Jonathan after I read an article about him in the
Evening Standard.
“Out placed” from an advertising agency, he had used his golden two fingers or whatever they called it to start an agency (“escort agency” would be too vulgar, he explained) supplying eligible young gentlemen to women of all ages looking for someone to escort them to the theatre or to dinner.
There was a large picture of him—a reasonably good-looking thirty-year-old, with a pleasant smile, ex-public school, ex-Oxbridge and now ex-ad agency. A female friend of his had been complaining that it was impossible to find a decent bloke to accompany her for social or work events.
Jonathan had connected this with the fact that a lot of his friends would have welcomed a bit of extra pocket money for doing no more than taking a woman out on a date. After all, if you can do something you like and get paid for it, what could be better? grinned Jonathan.
So he decided to fill what he saw as a gap in the market place. I would have thought that if there was a gap in the market this was because there was no demand, but then what did I know? I was still poor. Jonathan’s faith in the enterprise culture and the free market had led him to found Men About Town.
He went on to explain that clients so far included high-powered female executives who just wanted a relaxing evening out after work, girls who were “between boyfriends” and women whose husbands were just too busy to pay them much attention. I read more:
But what about sex, surely that issue must arise? Smiling coyly, Jonathan explains that his escorts offer nothing more than companionship—anything beyond that is not really part of the service.
Vinny, my flatulent flatmate, who had half-jokingly pointed the article out to me and was now watching the snooker over his Marks & Spencer Roast Chicken Meal For One, looked round and saw that I had finished reading the piece and was onto the sport.
“Well, what do you think? That’s the kind of thing you could probably do in your spare time if you wanted to earn some extra dosh. You’re always complaining you’re broke. I mean, you know your way around town and you fancy yourself as a bit of a babe magnet.”
“Mmmm,” I said.
“You might get a bit of sex too.” He belched. “Take your mind off things.”
That thought had occurred to me too.
I might also improve my education, learn more about the opposite sex. I’m not saying that women are a closed book to me but the thing is, so far I’ve only read the first few chapters and I’ll be buggered if I can work out the plot.
I rang the
Evening Standard
the next day from a callbox during my lunch break. They couldn’t put me through to the journalist who wrote the piece but a bloke who worked with her gave me the number—only, that is, after shouting across the office, “Another American gigolo looking for that agency, anyone got the number?” I thanked him quickly and put the phone down.
Then I rang the agency and Jonathan answered immediately so we had a quick chat. Part of me hoped that he might not take me on, that I might be too young or that he might be full already but he sounded quite enthusiastic so I arranged to go round and see him that evening.
He wasn’t far away from us, in another, posher part of Fulham, fifteen minutes walk from the maisonette I shared with Vinny. Vinny had already been living there for six months, having moved to London from Birmingham to start a job in graphic design when I answered his newspaper ad for another tenant nearly a year ago. The first applicant was a vegan and the second asked where he could put his skis so when I turned up Vinny told me the place was mine if I wanted it.
“Go on, then,” I said, and that was that.
Our maisonette consists of the first and second floor of a small, terraced house. The guy downstairs is very quiet and keeps himself to himself so we naturally assume he is a serial killer and we always watch the local news waiting for him to show up on it. His only real form of interaction with us is to bang on the ceiling whenever we are noisy. He has the exclusive use of the garden, which is a bummer since it would be great for parties but instead on the few occasions Vinny and I
do
have social events we always encourage our guests to use the little patch of grass as an ashtray, so it isn’t totally wasted.
Jonathan’s place was all stripped pine floors and white walls with groups of black and white prints on them, including that one of the couple kissing outside a Parisian café. On his glass desk in the living room was an iMac and a black anglepoise lamp. Jonathan, wearing neat faded jeans, scuffed docksiders and a pale pink button-down collared shirt gave me a glass of Soave and we chatted for a while about work and living in London.
He started by asking a few questions about my age and current occupation. I was going to say something like photographer, pop video director or war correspondent but he seemed to like Media Sales Executive and I suppose it gave us something in common—we had both been well and truly shafted by the advertising business.
“So why do you want to do this?” He smiled. I’d already rehearsed a sort of answer on the way over.
“Well,” I began, trying to remember it. “I just want to earn some extra money, really. For holidays and things.” As well as being what I thought he wanted me to say it was actually the truth.
“Good. That’s what most of my guys do it for. We’ve got everyone from resting actors to accountants who have a bit of spare time on their hands. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said a bit too quickly. “I mean, why not?”
“Why not indeed, Andrew. How old are you?”
“Twenty … nnnnnine.”
Jonathan looked at me for a moment.
“Was that twenty-nine?” he asked, smiling again.
“Yes,” I said defensively.
“I don’t believe you,” he said, casually shuffling some papers on his desk to make it clear he wasn’t even going to countenance twenty-nine. Somehow I didn’t blame him.
“Twenty-six,” I bid. He looked at me again. “All right, twenty-four. Really.”
“Yeah, that’s possible,” said Jonathan kindly.
“I am … really.”
“All right, I believe you,” he laughed. “You’re probably a bit young for my team but what the heck. I’m sure we’ll find you some work. You’re a good-looking bloke.” I felt myself blushing. “No, I’ve got to say it. That’s the business I’m in. You look Italian, you know, with your dark hair, brown eyes. No? Just wondered. You wouldn’t believe the monsters I’ve had in here since that piece appeared.” We both laughed this time. “What about sex?”
“Sorry?”
“Sex. What if these women want sex?”
“Er, yeah, I’m up for that. Oh, yeah, huh, why not?”
Jonathan shook his head and smiled. “You are
so not
up for that.”
“Yeah, I am, I mean if they want to—”
“Don’t worry, they won’t. Well, ninety per cent of them won’t, anyway. Our clients just want to talk and feel appreciated. They want a bit of flirtation and they want to be made to feel beautiful. Someone to open a door for them and get the bill. Sex really
is
out of the question, I wasn’t just saying that for the
Standard
, you know.”
“Oh, OK,” I said casually. Christ! That was quite a relief, actually. What if we got to that stage and things, you know, didn’t quite work out? Not that that’s ever happened in the past, of course, but this is a different thing altogether. Would they want their money back? But Jonathan was talking again.
“Right, admin,” he said, shuffling some papers around on his desk. “I’ll need some photos if you’ve got them.”
“Yep, I can get those,” I said. I decided to give him a few snaps we had taken for an internal promotion thing at the office.
“Great. Now let me see: hair? Dark brown. Eyes? Brown?”
“Er, yep,” I said, looking away from him for some reason.
“OK, height? You’re what, six two?” I nodded. “Good height, they don’t like men too tall. You keep in shape, obviously.” Oh, Christ, the sex thing again. I suddenly panicked that he was going to ask me to take my clothes off or something. He laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s just that a beer gut and drooping shoulders don’t look too good, you know.” I smiled, feeling a bit of a fool for appearing so obviously horror-struck by something so innocent and obvious.
“OK, payment. You fill in their credit card details on this slip and then ask them to sign it.” I nodded. “It’s a duplicate, see.” Jonathan nimbly rubbed the two sheets apart with his thumb and forefinger. “You give them the bottom copy for their records and give me the top one. Just pop it in the post the next day, should be all right. You’ll usually get your money about a few weeks after you did the job minus a few of my expenses but you’ll soon pay those off.”
“Sure,” I said. Anyway, the forms seemed easier than the paperwork we have to fill in at work when one of our clients actually buys a slot in the paper, I thought, so I should be able to do that bit right even if I do order red wine with fish and drink the finger bowl.
“I take twenty per cent commission and most of our clients pay about £200.” I do a quick calculation—£160. Worth having.
“I presume you don’t have a girlfriend at the moment.”
“No,” I said, too quickly again. “I mean I have had one, had a few, that is. I went out with a girl for over two years at university but then she started going out with someone else.”
Oh, shit, I don’t want to start thinking about Helen again now, but I find myself remembering that ridiculous conversation while she was planning to come back from France. My suggesting I meet her at the airport and her explaining that, don’t worry, she would take a taxi with Didier, who was this guy she had met while she was out there and she was really sorry, she had been going to try and tell me this before but it had all happened so quickly.
A simple chat about logistics that had changed my whole life, it seemed.
“Oh, sorry,” said Jonathan, looking away, realizing what a can of emotional worms he had inadvertantly opened.
“I’ve been out with a couple of other girls in London since but nothing serious,” I said helpfully.
“Don’t worry,” said Jonathan, apparently embarrassed for the first time in our conversation. “It just, you know, makes things easier.”
I signed a piece of paper, took some of the credit card slips and left, having agreed to be available at home the following evening if he needed me.
So that’s it, I thought, as I made my way back through the darkening streets to my own flat. I was going to escort women to dinner, to the theatre, to parties, to drinks at the Savoy and make witty conversation with them. I’d have to make sure I’d read reviews of all the latest films, of course. Read a few books. Read the papers so I’d know about current affairs. Read
Hello!
Well, perhaps not.
And sex? Well, if it happens, it happens. As Jonathan said, that’s not really part of the service.
Just as I was pondering this point, a bloke in a pinstriped suit came striding round the corner carrying an evil-smelling curry in a plastic bag and yelling into his mobile. “I know, I know, I thought someone had already done it. I’m sorry, I’ll have it all on your desk by eight tomorrow morning …”
Call me an escort, call me a gigolo, but going out to smart restaurants to make interesting conversation and getting paid for it had to be better than that guy’s evening.
t
wo days after my first date, which Jonathan rings to congratulate me on, I throw my Sainsbury’s bags down on the floor in the hall and pick through the post—as usual it’s just for the mysterious, faceless past tenants of this hole. Who is this C. K. Hampson who’s always being chased to take out a personal loan? And where the hell has Davina Highton-Brown gone without telling Reader’s Digest Prize Draw of her where-abouts?
I shout “Hi” and Vinny shouts back. I look into the living room where he is watching telly in Couch Position A (sitting hunched over what my mum would call an “occasional table” eating something from a foil container). Later he will be in Couch Position B (lying down and farting).
“Jesus, what a smell. What the hell are you eating?”
“Chicken tikka lasagne with Thai dumplings. Want some?” he asks with mock enthusiasm.
“Urgh. What are you watching?”
“Foreign film.”
“Bit intellectual for you.”
“Yeah, but there’s a strong chance of a bit of tit later on.”
“Oh, OK. Give us a shout.”
“I don’t think you’ll be around, though, your friend Jonathan rang just before you came in. Looks like another job, stud.”
My heart leaps.
“When did he ring?”
“I told you, just before you came in,” says Vinny with his mouth full, and adds in a remarkably accurate imitation of Jonathan’s impeccable, strangled Home Counties vowels: “Have him call me as soon as he gets home.”
I ring Jonathan and he snaps, “Where have you been?”
“Er, work. Can’t give up my day job yet.” What was supposed to be friendly sounds sarcastic.
“What about your mobile? It’s off.”
“We have a rule about switching them off in the office and I haven’t turned it on again—”
“She’s very impatient, quite rude, actually,” says Jonathan, ignoring me. “Thing is, I sold you hard to her and then I couldn’t get hold of you. Bit embarrassing. I was going to try one of the older guys but she definitely wants someone your age.” He pauses. “Sorry, mate. Bloody clients! Let me call her again and I’ll come back to you.” He hangs up.
I start to put my shopping away, telling myself that I’ll probably be at home this evening after all. The phone rings again and I drop a pack of cherry tomatoes which explodes like a cluster bomb on the floor. Jonathan starts talking immediately, “Chat her up a bit. She should be all right. Just a bit pissed off at being kept waiting. Started asking me what kind of outfit I’m running here. Fucking nerve. Anyway, give her a call.” He gives me the number.
I put the phone down and close the kitchen door. Taking a deep breath I dial the number. It is engaged. Fuck! That’s it. Two hundred quid out of the window. She’s organizing something else. Jonathan will be furious. Fucked up on only my second date.
I pick a cherry tomato off the floor and try once more. Engaged again. I switch on the oven to convince myself that I really have given up and am ready for an evening in with Chris Tarrant and Vinny’s gut-wrenching flatulence. Then I try again and it rings only once before it is answered. A slightly husky American voice says, “Yes?”
“Hello. It’s Andrew from the agency,” I say too quickly. Cool or what?
There is a pause and then the voice says, “Ah! Hello, Andrew from the agency. About time too!”
“Sorry, I’ve been out.”
“So that asshole of a boss of yours said.”
I laugh nervously.
“Well, look, Andrew—you’re English, right?”
“Yep.”
“OK. Look, Andrew, the thing is I just want to go out tonight and relax a little.”
“Sure,” I say, glad to get onto familiar territory.
“I’ve had one holy shit of a day and I just need to unwind, OK?”
“OK.”
“I’m going to make a reservation for about nine o’clock so you had better be here by eight-thirty at the latest.”
“Great.”
“OK.” She hangs up. I’m about to call a mini cab when I realize that I don’t know where I am going.
I press redial. “Yes?”
“Hi,” I snigger ridiculously. “Er, where are you?”
“I’m at home.”
I laugh again. “Yeah, of course, but where
is
home? The agency didn’t give me your address,” I start explaining but suddenly she has said it and I’ve missed it. “Sorry? I didn’t catch that.”
She sighs and repeats an address in Belgravia with exaggerated clarity, adding, “Now hurry up.”
It takes me less than five minutes to get ready but the cab is late and I am just abusing the guy at the car company when the door bell goes.
“I won’t wait up, my little studling,” sniggers Vinny, now in Couch Position B.
The taxi drops me at the entrance to a quiet mews near Eaton Square. Her house is painted white and pink. There are blue flowers in the immaculate little window boxes. A Wendy house probably worth over a few of million pounds of real money. I push the bell and a moment later a tiny South American woman in a pink and white striped uniform opens the door suspiciously.
“Hi, I’ve come to see—” Who have I come to see? What’s her fucking name? Jonathan was in such a panic he never told me. “Er, the lady who lives here. An American lady.” But the maid jerks her head knowingly and opens the door wider to let me in. Inside, the house smells of scented candles and flowers. It is mostly cream and white with a few touches of gold. On little tables and along the mantelpiece are silver-framed photographs sprouting like mushrooms on a forest floor. There is a huge crystal vase overflowing with white lilies on a glass coffee table. The settees around it are piled high with fat cream and gold cushions. I notice that, like my first client’s living room, the chairs face each other rather than the telly like in normal people’s living rooms. This is how posh people must do it. The South American girl is saying something to me.
“Sorry?”
She gives a small laugh. “I say, would you like drink something?”
“Er, yeah. I’ll have a Scotch with ice,” I say, remembering that it seemed to work with my first date.
She moves over to what looks like a bookcase but the books are false and behind them is an array of bottles and cellophane-thin cut crystal glasses with gold rims. She makes my drink while I look round again and sit down, trying to mount a cushion in a dignified and manly way. She gives me my Scotch and I say, “Thank you.” She looks at me for a moment and then her big mouth breaks into a wide grin and she turns round and almost runs out of the room.
I take a mouthful of Scotch to calm my nerves and carry on looking around, taking in this opulence. Then I hear someone coming downstairs. I stand up and turn to see a tall slim woman in a simple, mustard-coloured dress walk into the room. She is fiddling with an earring so I can’t see her face properly as she eyes me up and down but she has a tan and an enormous wave of perfectly sculpted dark blonde hair.
“Got a drink, then?” she says.
“Yes, thank you,” I say like a well-behaved seven-year-old staying at a friend’s house for tea. Hang on, is she being sarcastic?
I’m just about to ask what she wants when she says, “Fix me a Manhattan, will you?”
A
what?
Oh shit! What’s that?
“On second thoughts make it a vodka tonic. Oh! These god-damn earrings. You need surgery to get them in.”
Deciding that earrings are women’s things and best left to her I poke around in the drinks cabinet and make her drink, adding lots of ice because I know Americans like it that way. When I turn round she has won her battle with the earrings and is looking me up and down again. She has a sharp, lined face but it’s still very pretty—slim nose, large dark eyes and a full-lipped, sensual mouth. She must have been gorgeous twenty years ago. Perhaps thirty. She takes the drink from me, still checking me out.
“Chin-chin.” She wanders off around the room, moving a photograph frame imperceptibly and touching her earring again with her fingers. “You said you’re English, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.” I try a smile but I’m too nervous. My face sort of cracks.
“You don’t look English.” She sounds like she thinks she’s being cheated.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She ignores my pathetic joke.
“From London?”
“Near it, do you know Reading?” I say and immediately realize that she obviously doesn’t know anywhere outside SW1.
“Reading? Never heard of it. Where is it?”
“Sort of west of London.”
“What’s your last name?”
“Collins. Sorry, I’ve just realized I don’t know yours.”
“I’m Marion,” she says quickly. Is she annoyed by my impertinence? She moves over to one of the settees and sits down, folding one leg up behind the other on the cushion and stirring the ice in her drink with a long, slim finger. “So, Mr. Andrew Collins of Reading, siddown. What do you feel like doing tonight?”
“I don’t mind, it’s up to you.”
She pauses, still looking at me. Is she smiling?
“I hope you like Italian.”
“Love it,” I say, beginning to feel a bit more confident.
“You love it. That’s good. We’re going to a little restaurant in Knightsbridge called Scarafinos. Do you know it?”
“Ermm …” OK, any decent Man About Town would know it, know the manager and know which is the best table and be able to get it if she wanted it. I don’t. I can’t. OK, I’m crap.
I’m about to say something like “I think so” when she says, “Obviously not.”
I decide to go on the front foot with this one.
“I’m sure it’s great. There are
so
many restaurants in London, you can’t know them all.”
She puts her head on one side.
“No. That’s true.” She looks at me for a moment. “Perhaps you’d prefer to go somewhere else. What’s your favourite restaurant in this neighbourhood?”
Oh, fuck. My mind goes blank. Quick, quick. Along Knights-bridge—it’s all a blur. King’s Road, erm. Pizza Hut. Yep, just her sort of place. She has already picked up the phone. “I’ll cancel Scarafino’s if you want and we can go someplace else.”
“No, no. Scarafino’s is fine with me.”
“Good.” We look at each other for a moment. “
I
like it.”
“Where are you from in the States?” I say, my voice shaking slightly as nerves suddenly grip me. She ignores me.
“Been doing this for long, Andrew?” My stomach begins to tighten. This is not how it’s supposed to be. I’m supposed to have charmed her, made her laugh, listed a variety of smart restaurants within a few minutes’ drive and persuaded the receptionist at the one she has chosen that since it’s me, yes, they
do
have a table. Instead … well, I think I’ll just go home. I hold her stare a moment and decide to brazen it out. After all, I’ve got nothing to lose—except £200 and any remaining shred of dignity.
“Not long. In fact, you’re only the second woman … client … I’ve seen.” Obviously impressed by my candour, she nods slowly.
“Good. Lucky me.”
I smile. Then I find myself pushing it further and saying, “What about you? Do you do this often?”
Now it’s her turn to be slightly wrong-footed but, of course, she regains her composure almost immediately. She looks away for a moment as she puts her drink down.
“No,” she says slowly. “No, I don’t. It’s just that all my friends are out of town or busy tonight and someone gave me Jonathan’s number. Back home in New York I’ve engaged a couple of …
walkers
, as we call them in the States, and I find them, I find it very relaxing. It’s a great way to unwind after a tiring day. When you have money but limited time you can spend it on things like this. I mean it’s quite natural to spend it in this way.”
She looks at me as if to say
touché.
She has acquitted herself very nicely.
“Makes sense,” I say. I wonder whether to ask if she always likes her
walkers
to be twenty, thirty years younger than her but I decide that really would be pushing it a bit. She stands and takes a final slip of her vodka tonic.
“Drink up, Andrew, I think the car is here.”
A huge black BMW is sitting outside. A chauffeur opens the door for her and she gets in without saying a word. He comes round to open my door but I have done it anyway so I say “Sorry.” He smiles. Then he gets in as well.
“It’s Scarafino’s,” murmurs Marion, looking at her lips in her compact.
“Yes, madam,” says the guy who I realize is just a bit older than me. It only takes a few minutes, which is a shame really, because riding in that huge, soft air-conditioned car is pure sex. Driving it would be even better.
The manager at the restaurant is delighted to see Marion and bows for some reason. She acts as if it is the least he can do, as if he’s promised her something and let her down.
“How are you, Mario?” she asks.
“Oh, no so badder, you know whe’ you get my age.”
“Mario is a grandfather and still working,” Marion tells me, as if nothing could bore her more.
“Oh, congratulations,” is all I can think of to say. “Congratulations?” What the hell am I on about? Fortunately they ignore this weird comment and as a young girl takes her coat from her Marion says, “Mario, this is Mr. Coleman. Coleman? Is that right?”