Model Guy (32 page)

 
Behind me is a huge collage
with photos of people taken at parties, in a jungle or somewhere, outside a gothic
school building (from her time Vasser?) and what looks like a Middle Eastern city
somewhere. Nora with girls and boys - one square jawed guy with his arm round her
photographed on a skiing trip which might be her empty headed, football scholar
ex, I guess. There are older people who must be parents and relatives, even teachers
and college professors.

 
I flush the loo again
and, finally, my water logged tormentor disappears from view.

In the other room, I kiss her on the lips once, but less out
of lust or even affection, and mainly because I can't think what else to do. I start
to get dressed in silence as she watches.

 
"You can stay if..."

 
"Um, well, I'd love
to but, well you know, I'd better...I'm sorry about this."

 
"Oh, of course, yes.
Do you want me to call you a cab."

 
"No," I say,
too quickly. "I'll pick one up in street."

 
"Right, sure. It
shouldn't be too difficult. There's usually quite a few around this time of night
in Ladbroke Grove."

 
"I'll speak to you
tomorrow," I say, tiredness, confusion and an all embracing feeling of guilt
and seediness preventing me from saying anything more romantic or meaningful. The
sex should have brought us closer but somehow, afterwards, we seem to have nothing
but small talk - a trivial conversation about transport. We share a final awkward
kiss and then I smile at her and leave.

Like I said, I've never had an affair in the seven years I've
been going out with Lauren. Not once. But then again, in my case, the old joke about
not bothering to go out for hamburgers when you've got steak at home really does
apply. Which makes what I've done all the more inexplicable - and weird.

When I get home Lauren is just turning off the lights to go to
bed. She's opened all the windows and put the fan on to get rid of the smell of
Sarah's smoke.

 
"Hello," I say
in a quiet voice, putting my head round the living room.

 
"Hiya," she
says without looking up. "Where have you been tonight?"

 
Luckily she doesn't make
a move to kiss me a hello.

 
"Just out for a drink
with...with the people from the office," I tell her in a daze. If she'd asked
any more questions I'd have been stumped, unable to invent any more innocent but
fictional details of my night out.

 
Instead she just nods
her head slightly in acknowledgement. One thing about Lauren, she hardly ever sulks,
she just comes out and says it but this time she can't be bothered: she's just so
obviously deeply pissed off with me - and us.

 
"I'm just going to
have a -" I'm about to say 'shower' but it sounds too suspicious somehow as
I usually shower in the morning so I say "bath" instead.

 
"What? Now?"
says Lauren looking at her watch.

 
"Yeah, I'm just so
knackered, I need to unwind a bit."

 
She nods again and walks
through into the kitchen with the glasses.

 
I have a quick bath, washing
my dick well. If only my conscience was as easy to clean. When I was a kid we'd
eat peppermints after we'd smoked at parties. Years later my Dad said he knew exactly
what we'd been doing and he'd actually have preferred the smell of Silk Cut to the
pong of all those Extra Strong mints.

 
I get dry, brush my teeth,
sloosh round two shots of mouthwash and slip into bed, lying very still at the edge.
Listening to Lauren breathe and trying not to breathe loudly myself, I try to get
to sleep.

 
So, this is what adultery
is like.

I pour semi-skimmed milk on my Rice Krispies but instead of putting
the empty carton back in the fridge as I normally do (oh, the bin's right over at
the other end of the kitchen) I find myself carrying it across the room and carefully
putting it in with the rest of the rubbish like a good boy. Lauren calls me from
the bedroom. I freeze for a moment but she shouts again: "Come and look at
this. Quickly!"

 
I wonder into the bedroom
where she is watching telly in bed. My eyes sweep over the floor and the bed in
case she's somehow found some proof of my unfaithfulness but she gestures towards
the telly. Sir Josh Langdon, the ancient and debauched rock star normally known
for doing Royal Command Performances and marrying teenagers, is being interviewed.

 
"Yeah, of course,
I'm really BLEEP, BLEEP, off with the whole thing. I've lost a lot of money, yeah?"
he says, stopping for a moment between the front door of his Chelsea home and a
large black Merc, two men in sunglasses shuffling around uneasily behind him. "I
suppose there's no fool like an old fool and it sounded kind of young and funky
and cool so I put in few hundred thou. But now of course, I'll never see a BLEEP
penny of that, will I?" He gets into the car but before one of the heavies
can close the door, the interviewer asks: "Will you sue?"

 
Langdon looks up from
his seat. "You bet I'm going to sue.” Just then a woman in a dark suit who
is sitting in the car next to him whispers something in his ear. "Well, let's
just say I'm thinking about suing 'em. I've got better things to do with my time,"
he snarls and pulls the door shut.

 
Then there are shots of
Sir James Huntsman, as the reporter explains that many big names from the City have
also invested and have had their fingers burned. The next shot is of me, leaving
our office and walking down the road. Once I've got over the shock of seeing myself
I begin to take in what is being said.

 
"Although the police
are still looking for the two men who arranged financing of the site, attention
has been focussed over the past few days on Charlie Barrett, seen here. A former
male model, Barrett has been very much the public face of 2cool and is also being
investigated by the police. We asked for an interview with him or any other spokesman
from the company but there was no response from the 2cool offices."

 
There is a shot of a computer
terminal with our homepage on it. The camera pulls back to reveal a female reporter
in a bright green suit and shoulder length blond hair sitting on the desk next to
the terminal.

 
"Whether Sir John
Langdon sees any of his money again depends very much on the eventual outcome of
the police investigations," she says giving us a frowning, head tilting look
of genuine concern, "but one thing seems certain: what promised to be the coolest
site on the web has suddenly become too hot to handle. Juliet Hargreaves, BBC News,
Central London."

 
I sit down heavily on
the bed.

 
"Oh, fuck."

As soon as I come up out of the tube station at Piccadilly Circus
my mobile rings.

 
"Hi, it's me,"
says Nora.

 
"Hiya" I say
gently, wishing I was somewhere that I could talk more easily. "How are you?"

 
"All right, you?"

 
"Yeah, OK. I'm sorry
you couldn't stay last night."

 
"Yeah, so am I."

 
"I'm so glad you
came back, though, and we made love." She sounds like she has rehearsed the
comment.

 
"So am I," I
say. But I'm not, absolutely not. If you start to deceive your partner, you soon
have to start deceiving the other woman too, I suppose. And yourself for that matter.

 
"Perhaps I'll see
you tonight or tomorrow then."

 
"Sure, I'll give
you a ring later."

 
"Bye." I'm just
thinking that at least I didn't mention love when the phone rings again.

 
"Hello?"

 
"Charlie, it's me."
For a moment I hardly recognise the voice.

 
"Lauren?"

 
"The Police are here."
Her voice is cracking, she is almost in tears.

 
"What?"

 
She swallows hard.

 
"The Police are here.
They've got a warrant or something and they're searching the flat, our flat."

 
"Oh, fuck."

 
"Could you please
come home and deal with this?"

 
"I'm coming, I'm
coming. Let me find a cab. I'll be right there."

 
I find one coming down
Regent Street and leap in, ringing Scarlett to tell her what has happened. She's
had more calls from journalists already but promises to handle things till I get
back. Almost as an afterthought she gives me some other news that is either terminally
bad or quite a relief - I can't decide which.

The traffic is mercifully light at the end of the rush hour and
I'm home in 25 agonising minutes.

 
Lauren is waiting in the
hallway, arms folded, eyes red, motionless. She is wearing a cream V-necked pullover
and jeans. Her hair is up. She looks gorgeous even in distress and I feel even worse
than ever - for putting her through this, for Nora, for everything. I put my arms
round her and say: "Are you all right?"

 
"Yeah, okay. They're
in the bedroom." She doesn't move, unresponsive to my embrace. I go into the
bedroom and a young policeman who has been searching under the bed looks up at me,
enquiringly. I'm enraged. This is my bedroom.

 
"Oh, hello, sir,"
says Slapton who is wondering about, ostensibly supervising but also just poking
around our personal things, I can tell. "We won't be long."

 
"Why the fuck couldn't
you do it while I was here?"

 
He looks at me impassively.

 
"You'd left for work."

 
"You could have called
me."

 
"Not our practice
to call every time, sir. For obvious reasons. But we've got the necessary paperwork
and we showed it to your girlfriend."

 
"What are you taking?"

 
"A few papers and
things. We're going to have to take your computer away with us, I'm afraid,"
he says, nodding towards it.

 
"What else?"

 
"We'll know when
we see it," he says, his rubber gloved hand poking at some of Lauren's neatly
folded clothes which are sitting on the bed. "You'll get a receipt."

 
"You bastard,"
I tell him. "You're enjoying this."

 
He half laughs then he
steps up to me and his smile tells me that I've guessed right.

 
"Oh, don't try and
get tough with me, pretty boy. It's pathetic to watch. You just stick to flogging
your Prada handbags and your trendy champagne glasses. Leave the tough guy stuff
alone, it doesn't suit you." I sense some of the policemen sniggering.

 
After about half an hour
during which time they've even been in the bathroom they leave and I go into the
kitchen to find Lauren. She looks up at me.

 
"Have they gone?"
she asks without looking at me.

 
"Yes." She bites
her lip. "Can I make you a cup of coffee."

 
"No."

 
I wait for her to say
something.

 
"I'm sorry about
that."

 
"I've never felt
so dirty in my life. The police searching my flat."

 
"I know."

 
"How is this happening
to us? I don't understand." Her lip trembles. "I was in the shower when
they knocked on the door. I was terrified."

 
"I'm so sorry babe."
I put my arms around her but she is still unresponsive.

 
"When are you finally
going to let it go?"

 
"The truth is I have
let it go. There's nothing left to hang on to. We had to give up our computers so
we can't in put any more content. Worse still...when I rang Scarlett from the cab
on the way over here she told me that the internet company that runs the site on
the net has cut us off. There is no such site anymore. That's it. Finito."
I think of the two ways of looking at it: it's a relief, not terminally bad as I
first wondered.

 
She looks up at me.

 
"Really?"

 
"Yup. RIP 2cool."
I repeat the phrase over to myself to see what effect is has on me. I suppose it
hasn't quite sunk in. Or else I just care anymore.

 
"Good," says
Lauren. She takes a deep breath. Her face and shoulders seem to relax. "Good.
That's that then." I can see her pulling herself together. There's not much
that fazes Lauren and so she finds not being in control of any situation even more
frightening than most people would. "You've got a receipt for what they've
taken, haven't you? If I've lost any work or anything because I can't get on to
the computer I shall expect them to pay."

 
I laugh.

 
"So they bloody well
should."

 
"It's not funny.
Anyway, I think you're right going back to modelling. At least it's safe and you
know how it works," she says, picking up a cloth and wiping down the already
immaculate work surface.

 
"Yes, I suppose too.
The only problem is that when I spoke to Karyn at Jet yesterday she said that Penny
won't take me on again because of the adverse publicity."