Model Guy (4 page)

 
"Thing is Charlie
Barrett, I'm booked up all this week -"

 
"Ohrightnoproblemsureofcoursejustwonderednevermind,"
I spewed elegantly.

 
"But I could do lunch
on Wednesday."

 
"Lunch?"

 
"Yeah, why not? You
do have lunch don't you?"

 
"Yes I have lunch
every Wednesday," I said. It was supposed to be a joke but I'm still not sure
how it sounded.

 
"Give me your number
and I'll ring you in the morning to confirm where and when," she said. I thought,
'Oh I see, that's a nice way to do it'. You won't ring, you'll accidentally lose
it and I'll be too embarrassed to mention it if we ever meet again at a casting.
Slightly despondently I gave her my number and expected nothing.

But she did ring me. We went out to a little Italian restaurant
in Soho where she had fish and salad because she was on a high protein/low carb
diet. I ordered chicken kiev. I didn't particularly want it but I'd been too busy
talking to look at the menu and when the waiter came it was the first thing I saw.

 
"You're not doing
any swimwear stuff at the moment," she said as I gave my order.

 
"How do you mean?"

 
"Chicken kiev, all
the butter."

 
"Oh right, no, not
really."

 
"That's the thing
about boys, you never have to watch your diet, do you?" she said.

 
"No, I suppose not.
I just tend to eat any old thing," I said, laughing oafishly.

 
"You're lucky, you've
got a naturally slim build," she said. Was there just a flicker of a smile
across her face as she realised the effect that this innocent observation was having
on me? I mean, it was a compliment, wasn’t it? "I bet you never put on weight,
do you?"

 
"Yeah," I said.
"I mean no, not really."

 
She definitely smiled
this time.

 
"Do you do much sport
or go to the gym?"

 
"Swimming - and I
play football on Saturdays." I watched her snap off a piece of bread stick.
"Why are you laughing?" She laughed more. "Because you sound like
a little boy talking about your hobbies to a friend of your mum's or something."
She laughs again. "I didn't mean to make it sound like that."

 
"I collect stamps
too."

 
She stopped smiling and
looked unsure for a moment as if she felt she ought to something polite to say about
philately. I let the confusion continue for a moment. Then I said:

 
"I'm joking."
She laughed - amused by my joke or her own gullibility? Who cares? Lauren 1. Charlie
1.

I loved the way she loved being annoyed by my teasing. It was
like playing along with my silly jokes annoyed her but she couldn't help it.

Even if nothing had ever come of this romantically, I'd have
learnt something about how to market myself as a model, how to buy an ISA, how to
negotiate with hotels to get the best room rate and how to fillet a fish.

 
That makes the rest of
our conversation sound so tedious but it wasn't. Lauren was just so on the ball.
About everything. Opinionated, perceptive - and funny too. Everything interested
her and she had strong views on every subject.

Later having, asked about my background and my career she told
me about hers: she had done A-levels, two As and a B, but had decided to put off
going to college because she wanted to see something of the world. She had known
she had the potential to be a model, so she decided this would be good way of earning
money while she thought about what she really wanted to do with her life.

 
"I just couldn't
work for anyone, could you? I've always needed to be my own boss," she said.

 
"I don't know, never
done it really," I told her. "Work generally doesn't, you know, do it
for me."

 
She stopped the expert
filleting of her sea bass and looked at me again. Was I being serious? I wasn't
sure. I was just giving her a provocative, enigmatic look which always works well
in shots for women's magazines, when my chicken kiev, which I'd just stuck my knife
into, spurted melted butter across the table at her. It exploded. All over this
beautiful elegant woman. In the middle of the restaurant. On our first date. Hot,
liquid butter, flecked with chopped parsley, dripping down her elegant cream-coloured
linen dress. A huge yellow smear. The restaurant seemed to go silent or was that
just the strange hissing noise in my ears, the kind you get before you faint?

 
Eventually I managed to
drag my eyes away from the stain and look up at her face. She seemed expressionless.
Then she rolled her eyes (oh God, not a good sign, surely. Why? Why me? Why now?)
and suddenly smiled.

 
"Charlie Barrett,"
she said. "You are a fuckwit."

Waiters fluttered around. The owner's wife was consulted. Napkins
were produced. Advice was given. We finally ate although on my part every mouthful
was torture. As we ordered coffee and I emptied her sachet of sugar into my cappuccino
as well as my own, it occurred to me that not only could she carry off almost any
situation, anything that life, figuratively speaking, or me, literally speaking,
could ever throw at her, I'd never be lost or bored with this woman. I was right.
Lauren has an in-built compass so she always knows exactly where she is going and
at that moment I decided I wanted to tag along.

 
As we walked through the
restaurant she had an even greater effect on our fellow customers than she had had
in the casting. The butter stain looked at a cursory glance like a pattern on the
dress and she gave the impression that she really didn't care at all about it. Garlic
butter appliqué? Oh, it's very in this season, didn't you know?

 
I held the door open for
her and she swept out, putting on her sunglasses as she did so.

 
"Are you around next
week?" I asked her, assuming she'd give me a polite, polished brush off, the
kind of thing a girl as stunning as her would have to say to men about two or three
times a day. Especially to one who has just covered her with the contents of a chicken
kiev.

 
But she didn't.

 
"Actually, we could
do something tomorrow," she said.

 
"Oh, right, I thought
you were busy all..." What the fuck was I doing? Trying to put her off?

 
"Yes, I was,"
she said. "But I've decided to cancel."

Chapter Three

I arrive at the job early with a selection of trendy young businessman's
clothes as instructed. I've brought a navy blue suit, a long-sleeve polo shirt,
a black T shirt, a cream button-down collar shirt and a French cuffed navy blue
number with matching cufflinks. One thing about this job is that you need a large
wardrobe - although mirrors on it aren't compulsory. Oh God those mirrors. It happened
again last night. Perhaps we can't do it without the use of mirrors anymore. We
don't smoke, natch, but we do use mirrors to create an illusion.

 
Lauren, needless to say,
has put her wardrobe together over the years she's been modelling with military
precision. Her side of the hanging space contains suits, skirts, blouses and casual
clothes to fit every occasion: busy executive, young mother, seductive girl in bed,
sensible girl in the kitchen. All perfectly appropriate for her colouring and build,
all tax deductible. Lauren does her own accountancy. She also does mine now.

 
I, needless to say, have
chosen my work clothing with absolutely no thought or skill, whatsoever. Most of
it is stuff I wear anyway, stuff I've rushed out and bought the day before a job,
stuff I've borrowed from friends and sort of forgotten to return, stuff I got cheap
at Primark because I know I need it, plus a couple of things I've nicked from fashion
shoots. "Where is that grey T shirt?" one harassed stylist asked me after
a job. I shrugged my shoulders: "Dunno, search me," I said, knowing that
if she did she'd find the missing item in my bag. Oh, shut up! They've got thousands
of them. On the other hand I've also been chased down the road by a stylist to return
a pair of socks that I'd forgotten to take off. It's tit for tat.

 
But this is a suit job.
Smart, confident, and on-the-ball. Huh, I wonder what that feels like. It's the
job from the casting the other day, the dotcom job.

 
"Clever boy"
said Karyn when she rang to tell me I'd got it. "I knew you looked like a dotcommer."

 
"What? You mean broke,
washed up and desperate."

 
"What's the matter
with you? What happened to your get-up-and-go?"

 
"It got up and went."

 
"Oh, Charlie. Don't
be so cynical."

 
Perhaps it's beginning
to show.

 
"Sorry Karyn. I'm
delighted. How much is it again?" I know that will encourage me - even minus
agency commission.

 
"Fifteen hundred
and you're worth every penny of it."

 
"You say the sweetest
things."

We're shooting it at a massive loft apartment overlooking the
river in Battersea. Sun is flooding in and the clothes they have brought for me
after having spurned my own motley collection are actually really cool - lots of
Prada, Ermenegildo Zegna and Dries Van Noten. They've even managed to get the right
sizes in some cases. It always amazes me that although all my sizes are clearly
printed on my card in UK and European sizes and we always confirm them before the
job, the stylists always manage to get the wrong ones. It must be on their list
of things to do: 1) Bring iron. 2). Polish up shoes. 3). Make sure model's clothes
don't fit. Etc.

 
Oh, moan, moan. Sorry.

 
Piers bursts in, late
again, just as we're going through the wardrobe and the photographer's assistant,
a fat guy called Benny with Joe 90 specs is putting up the lights.

 
"Morning, gang,"
he sings at us, his fruity voice filling the whole cathedral-like void of the apartment.
There is no way any of us can match his enthusiasm so our response sounds decidedly
downbeat. "What have we got for our cool young businessman to wear?"

 
He dives into the neatly
laid out wardrobe and starts throwing the things around, much to the annoyance of
the stylist Hilary, a tall willowy girl who is frightfully posh and has just been
telling me about working on the latest Joseph Fiennes movie. "He's like, such
a total sweetie, yeah?" I feel I should apologise for being just a nondescript
model doing some crappy advertising shoot.

 
"This is great,"
says Piers, pulling out a black Prada shirt and holding it up. "This is very
'2cool'. Guy! Very '2cool', don't you think?" Guy who is talking intently to
the photographer looks over and nods.

 
"I haven't ironed
that yet," says Hilary, snatching it back.

 
"You need a dark
suit too, like this," Piers informs me, ignoring Hilary and grabbing a jacket
off the rack. "Yep, perfect."

 
"He can't wear all
that black, he'll just disappear in the picture," says Hilary, catching the
trousers as they slide off the hanger.

 
"Excellent,"
says Piers, dumping the whole lot on her and marching over to Guy and the photographer,
presumably to cock things up there too.

 
Hilary runs her hands
through her hair and says quietly:

 
"Just keep that twat
away from me will you?"

 
"Yes, ma'am,"
I tell her, picking up the trousers.

I always get on well with stylists and makeup artists, even though
makeup takes thirty seconds for boys - just a bit of powder to stop us shining and
something to cover up any spots and shaving cuts that have chosen to appear that
morning. Remember those unwelcome but very noticeable visitors on the day of a teenage
party? Well the bigger the modelling job the more likely they are to pop up - literally.

 
Perhaps because this isn't
exactly a massive job, there are none of the little buggers in evidence which means
I spend even less time with the makeup artist, an Eastern European girl with a round,
pale face whose name I don't catch.

 
The only time I've ever
lost my temper with a wardrobe person was when I was doing a show for Paul Costello.
My dresser rabbited on endlessly about the new flat she was buying with her boyfriend
and so I only just had time to let her rip off one set of clothes and help me put
a suit on ready to go out again. I did my stuff, sauntering down the catwalk (or
runway as we call it in the biz, just to make it clear that we are in the biz) and
came back ready to change into the next outfit on the rail. It was only when I reached
down to take off my trousers that I realised that she had sent me off there and
back without my fly done up.

 
"Oh, fuck,"
I hissed. "How embarrassing. How could you do that?"

 
"Look, mate,"
she said, thrusting a jacket at me, "there are some places where only your
hands go."

 
The thing about these
shoots is that as a model you have almost nothing to do all day until the very last
minute when the photographer, art director, client and God knows who else decides
that they are ready for you. So you sit around and chat with strangers. By the end
of the day you sometimes find that you know almost all there is to know about someone
who you had never met that morning and might never meet again.