Model Guy (11 page)

 
"Oh, right. You must
really learn something," says Sarah. She mulls it over while Peter looks on
smiling at the brilliance of his baby. "But on the other hand I think I'd be
tempted to say 'OK, you try keeping a three year and a five year old from killing
each other while you piss about with Cannellini beans and skinning tomatoes.' You
know what I mean?"

 
But apparently Peter doesn't.
Tim who has also been listening to the exchange and who deals in commercial property
doesn't really do jokes unless they come from a client, so there is only one person
now roaring with laughter in the room. Oh dear, it's me.

 
"It'd be wasted on
our kids," says Mark, inadvertently twisting the knife, I mean the reinforced
steel, Sabatier cook's paring knife, in the wound.

 
Fortunately at that moment
Lauren and Sally come back in, each with a tray full of starters arranged on small
plates.

 
"...it's called centre
height," Lauren is saying to Sally. "The idea is that you arrange the
dish so that it’s raised at the centre - looks more dramatic, more interesting,
then it's so easy, you just chop up a packet of herbs and sprinkle them over - gives
it a more professional appearance in no time."

 
"That's another thing
we do," says Peter. "We give little tips on how to get that professional
look."

 
"Oh, that would be
useful," says Sarah, clearly feeling guilty about her last joke. I know she
couldn't give a toss, though and so I'm trying not to laugh again.

 
The others ask Lauren
about her new career and she smiles knowingly at Peter. Then they ask about my new
venture. Mark doesn't say anything even though I address most of my comments to
him. He nods in an interested but noncommittal way.

 
I make my usual contribution
to the meal by taking the dinner plates into the kitchen and putting them in the
dishwasher. Then I carefully take the Patisserie Valerie tart aux fraises out of
its box. Two things are racing certainties at this point: one is that I'll nearly
drop it which I do, breaking the crust slightly. Shit! Lauren will notice, even
if no one else does. The other is that Mummy's Little Helper will make an appearance.

 
"Can I do anything?"
asks Sally from behind me.

 
"No, it's fine, honestly.
No problem. Thanks."

 
"Are you sure?"
she asks, her voice rising another octave.

 
"Yes honestly. It's
very kind Sally, but there's no need."

 
"Really? I feel so
guilty leaving you out here doing all this while we're in there having a good time."
I'm probably having a better time loading the dirty dishwasher and struggling with
an uncooperative tarte aux fraises than I would be in there, but I don't say it.

 
"No, I know my place,
Sally. The old kitchen porter."

 
"Oh, you are good."
Oh, you are annoying. "Are you sure?"

 
"Oh, go on then,
clean the oven will you?"

 
There is a silence from
Sally as I crush up the tart box and bash it down into the overflowing bin. Obviously
not my funniest line ever. But when I turn around, Sally, in her pearls and immaculate
Thomas Pink shirt and pressed blue jeans, is peering into the oven anxiously.

Chapter Eight

On the way to the tube station on Monday morning I grab a copy
of the Post to see Nora's piece. I have to read through quite a bit of other stuff
before I find it and by this stage I'm sitting on the train, so when I say: "Oh,
shit," loudly, quite a few people around me notice.

 
The first thing I see
is a picture of me. It's from a job I did last year, or the year before, for some
Swedish fashion house. I'm in a white linen shirt with most of the buttons undone
and an old pair of jeans and cowboy boots, lying back against a huge, moss-covered
log in a wood, hair ruffled, giving it the old, three quarters-to-camera, frowny
'come to bed' look. I hated the picture when I first saw it and never even put it
in my book. Now coupled with the headline "At last.....the net nerd gets sexy,"
I hate it even more.

 
It's huge - across nearly
two whole pages. There are other pictures including one of me in a tux which is
taken from a catalogue and another featuring me on a beach, wearing some stupid
bright yellow trunks where I was originally advertising a holiday brochure, except
that now my 'family' have been carefully cut out so I look like an extra from 'Baywatch'.

 
If the pictures are toe
curling, the text is worse:

"The blonde, six foot hunk is self-effacing when I ask about
his involvement with the new site. 'I think they've just employed me because I've
got the right look, you know, classy, cool', he says."

Did I? Possibly during lunch at some point, but I was being sarcastic.
Tongue in cheek. Didn't she understand that? Well-aired observations about Americans
and irony flit through my mind.

"You won't know his name but you'll know his handsome face
- and his well-toned body - from hundreds of advertisements and commercials around
the world, for a variety of luxury products ranging from designer label clothing
to fast cars. Charlie Barrett is one of Britain's most successful male models..."

 
No, I'm not - and I told
her not to use the phrase male model.

"Over lunch at his favourite restaurant, the mind bogglingly
hip Dekonstruktion in Soho, haunt of celebrities and the media world's most beautiful
people, he explains a bit more about how the site, dubbed 'the coolest thing in
cyberspace', will work. "It's a second generation site so we've learnt from
the mistakes of the net pioneers."

 
I've never used that phrase
in my life.

'"It'll be the first web designer label," explains
Barrett. "But what about the Gucci and Prada websites?" I ask'.

 
No, you didn't.

 
"Ah", he says,
his deep blue eyes flashing with excitement, "they are just luxury products
with a website - this will be a website that is itself a luxury product. It's a
global village of cool. Your boss will actually be impressed to see you surfing
it at work."' With his chiselled jaw and elegantly swept back mane of blonde
hair, Barrett, who lives in trendy Chiswick with his model turned TV presenter girlfriend...

 
When did that happen?

"...is something of a designer label himself. But he has
now decided to turn his back on the modelling world..."

 
I can't wait for Penny
to read that.

...and to trade on his good looks and his cool, self-assured
manner in order to bring his lifestyle of elegance and hip sophistication to a wider
audience."

 
"'It's very aspirational'"
he says, using one of the marketing men's favourite buzz words. Now we can all aspire
to be like Charlie Barrett.'

 
Feeling lightheaded with
the initial shock and anger welling up inside me, I fold up the paper as the woman
next to me quickly goes back to her book after allowing herself one final glance
at my face.

I get off at Piccadilly Circus and feel, or at least imagine
I feel, thousands of pairs of eyes on me. I've been stopped in bars, at the gym
and even on the street before with the question: "Aren't you the bloke from
- ?" Or, "Sorry, but aren't you in that ad for - ?" It goes with
the territory and it can even be quite funny sometimes, depending on who makes the
comment and what kind of mood you're in, but "Hang on, aren't you that vain,
arrogant tosser in today's Post?" isn't quite as much fun somehow.

 
As I open the door of
the office Scarlett and Piers, who are the only ones in, cheer in a sort of unison.

 
"Our media star,"
says Piers, beaming.

 
"You mean your media
twat."

 
"What's the matter?"

 
"I don't think he
likes the piece, Piers," says Scarlett dryly.

 
"Don't you? Why not?"

 
"Why not? It's just
so fucking embarrassing."

 
"Is it? Why? Where?"

 
"The pictures for
a start - and all this shit about me being Mr Super Cool, drop dead elegant...."

 
"I liked the picture,"
says Scarlett. "Nice bod, honey. Is it true that male models -?

 
"No, it's not. Well
I don't anyway."

 
"Look, Charlie,"
says Piers putting an arm round my shoulder and walking me over to my desk. "I'd
be lying if I said we didn't employ you for the way you look but it's much more
than that. It's your style, your presence, the way you wear your clothes, the way
you carry yourself...you're our...what's the word Lettie?"

 
"Muse," says
Scarlett, scraping the bottom of a yogurt pot with a plastic spoon.

 
"That's it, you're
our muse. We want to create a website, oh, more than that, a lifestyle, a façon
de vivre for people who want to be like you." He pauses for effect. "That's
why that piece is so good, so important."

 
"But, Piers, I look
like a total bullshitter and a total tit," I say, shaking his arm off me and
sitting down heavily.

 
He puts his hands on my
desk, leans over and looks down at me.

 
"Charlie, you think
that you do because you're a nice guy, a modest sort of bloke who is embarrassed
by this kind of adulation, OK? But believe me, to the ordinary punters out there,
to those Post readers, you're the smartest, hippest thing ever. You simply are 2cool2btrue.
You represent what they want to be, what they want a piece of. This is exactly what
our target audience is looking for. Aspirational! You said it yourself."

I get some water out of the fridge. It's that six quid a bottle
stuff. Glacial purity. Actually, I never mentioned the word 'aspirational' to Nora.
Did I?

I ring Nora at the Post's office just to see if I can at least
ask why she wrote what she did but funnily enough she is not around.

 
"Who? Nora?"
There is a laugh. "No, she's sort of out at the moment."

 
"Sort of out?"
What does that mean? Just generally out of it?

 
"She will be back
later, can I take a message?"

 
"Yes please. Could
you ask her to ring Charlie Barrett."

 
"Will do."

 
"Ta."

 
I put the phone down.
Can't that girl even be out in a normal way?

Lauren rings towards lunchtime. She has just done a casting and
someone we both know pointed it out to her.

 
"Oh don't! Who was
it?"

 
"Jo Preston."

 
"Oh shit.”

 
"What do you think
of it?"

 
"Well..."

 
"Oh fuck, don't'
say 'Well'."

 
"Are they pleased
at the office?"

 
"At 2cool? Yeah,
Piers is delighted."

 
"Well, that's what
I was going to say - that's the important thing. If they're pleased then you're
doing your job."

 
"I suppose so."

 
"Cheer up. I'll save
a copy for my mum. Love you. See you tonight."

Karyn also rings to tell me that she has seen it and to ask what
she should tell Penny at the agency.

 
"Well, I'd better
be honest I suppose."

 
"Why?" says
Karyn.

 
I laugh.

 
"You're right, Penny's
never been much into honesty has she?"

 
"Why don't you just
say that it doesn't change your relationship with us greatly and that you can still
do the occasional job. Penny will hate to see you go."

 
"You're right, I've
been dreading telling her."

 
"I'll put you through
to her now, let me just see if she's in her office...er...yep. OK, just tell her
what we agreed and don't say anything more. Ring me back and let me know how it
goes if you want."

 
"Ta, babe."

 
There are a few minutes
of a dance track and then Penny picks up.

 
"Hello Charlie."
She is curt.

 
"Hi Penny, how are
you?"

 
"Fine." Oh,
shit.

 
"I suppose you saw
that piece in the Post today," I begin, flattering her that she is on the ball
and reads more than just OK and her stars.

 
"Yes I did Charlie,
I was rather surprised I must say."

 
"Yes, it all happened
rather quickly."

 
"It must have done."

 
"I wasn't sure initially
how much of a commitment this job was going to be or even if it was going to be
full time," I explain, glad that the others are out at lunch and can't hear
this statement.

 
"Well, is it?"

 
"Yes, yes, it is,
but they're giving me quite a bit of freedom so obviously if any good jobs come
up..." I decide not to be too specific here.

 
"OK, we'll see how
it goes," she growls. "A lot of clients will be very disappointed about
this but I suppose we could say something like you're by Special Arrangement only
and hope that works. I can't promise anything though, and don't come running back
here when it all goes tits up."