The Square (11 page)

“That’s show business, Mum. I am in the Art World, remember!”

“Yeah, well get out of it and go into the movies. Bye, babe. Gotta go. And babe?”

“Yeah?”

“Walk the dog.”

Walk the dog, do some stuff, earn some money, spend it, walk the dog again. It’s not great, but it’s not a bad routine, thinks Jas. All he has to do is continue to put up with Philip, keep his head down and pretend to be interested in golf, a game which he will never play. Don’t screw up. On the threshold of his twenties, Jas has realised that quite a lot of adulthood seems to involve the simple maxim of not screwing up. He is determined to abide by it.

He surveys the TV again. A man comes on, grinning, and starts bringing down huge figures on some sort of whiteboard behind him. He is very fair and is wearing a white suit, which Jas thinks is a bit ridiculous, as it’s still quite cold outside.

“Good morning!” yells the man. “Are we ready to do away with debt? Looking after your pennies can be done, you know!”

It’s Alan Makin doing his daily routine on the breakfast show.

No thank you, thinks Jas. I hate that bastard. Why should someone who clearly has a colossal bank balance tell us all how to do away with debt? You need someone who is skint to tell you how to cope with looking after your pennies. That would be believable. Using a rich bastard to do that simply doesn’t work.

He checks his phone. Shit. He’s going to be late.

He goes to the bottom of the stairs, screams up to his brother.

“Javi, you arse! Get up out of bed. I’m out. And walk the dog!”

He leaves the little flat, shuts the door carefully because it is warped, steps out onto the little porch with its slatted roof, runs down the wooden steps and out of the estate, heading towards the expanse of the Square.

Back in the house, Alan Makin continues telling the nation how to save their pennies. Quite a lot of this morning’s advice seems to centre around eating soup, and walking everywhere. ‘Ditch the car’ is the Saving Slogan of the morning.

Jas steps into the green light of the place, which is as always incredibly quiet, as if the Square is actually wadded with noise-cancelling bushes, and everyone in their houses is doing something fascinating and absorbing. Silently.

He wonders if he’ll see Belle again. Belle. Ding Dong, he used to call her. His old friend. Although now she is incredibly posh and, so much so, living just a few doors along from Philip Burrell. That is of course another way through, thinks Jas. Winning the Lottery, like Belle’s old man did. He remembered the celebrations at his primary school, the day Belle’s mum Tracey brought along a huge cake, saying to his teacher, ‘Of course, it’s not going to change anything.’

Not that she did, in fairness, change all that much. Apart from moving to the Square, obviously. As far as Jas could make out, she was still the same old tarty Tracey in her heels and short skirts. It was the daughters Belle and Grace who changed, started going to different schools and wearing boaters, behaving as if they had been born in the place, not just lucked out into it.

Winning the Lottery. Yes, that was an option. But was it an easier way through than becoming an eccentric character in the art world? Both seem quite impossible to Jas, whose generally benign view of the world is nonetheless bitterly tempered by a fundamental knowledge that, bar acts of God, being a Premier League footballer and winning the Lottery, (which is sort of the same thing), Britain is cemented into its positions of wealth and power.

He reaches the door, rings the bell, hears Gilda pad along the corridor. He loves Gilda. The door opens with a flourish.

“Mornin’.”

She is wearing a red silk kimono, with a red ribbon around her forehead and long crystalline maroon earrrings. A slash of red lipstick on her mouth. You go, girl, thinks Jas.

“Jas,” says Gilda dramatically. “My nightingale. How wonderful.”

“Yep,” he says, walking in. I’m only turning up for work, he thinks, but he still gives Gilda a nice smile and a wink. Funny how these arty people greet every day as if it’s an event akin to walking down the red carpet at the Golden Globes.

He carefully hangs his coat up in the cloakroom. He comes here twice a week. The elements of the house: the pornographic pictures, the bits and bobs of Gilda’s fanny in the downstairs loo, all that tat, hold no interest for him. He’s seen them too often, and anyway, he can see all that stuff on the internet at any given time. No big deal.

He pokes his head around the studio door, taps his pocket to check his phone is off.

“Mornin’.” says Jas.

Philip raises an eyebrow. Then he looks, too obviously, up at the giant clock on the wall. He says nothing. Jas feels obliged to acknowledge the gesture.

“Sorry I’m late.”

In his robe, Philip walks grandly towards Jas.

“Well, I have to inform you that he has seen it. And he thinks it will work,” he says, gesturing to the new sculpture on the trestle table. He leans over the piece. “All we must do is build quite a few more of them.”

“Sorry, who has seen it?”

“Why, Magnus, of course.”

Oh, yeah. The dealer. Well, that’s good, thinks Jas. More work. He looks at the course of the London Marathon. Lots more work. This test model took him over a week to construct, and he knew all the buildings already. By the time he’s built Berlin and Paris and New York, he’ll have earned enough to buy a car by the end of the summer, if he plays his cards right.

“You will need to do some research for me. Can you do that, can you research this stuff?”

Of course I can. Do all your thinking for you. He doesn’t mind being used like this, as long as he is being paid properly, but something inside Jas does rankle. I mean, he considers, everyone thinks artists are completely original. Isn’t that what makes them an official artist? Bet Leonardo da Vinci didn’t have someone researching stuff for him in his studio.

Jas has been brought up to understand that there are rules, like invisible areas of order around everyone. And in order to have authority in those areas, you have to be trained. Doctors had to do this, or that. Teachers similarly. Artists the same. You had to be able to draw. Only in Philip’s case, you didn’t. He can’t draw and he can’t sculpt. All he does is have ideas. Jas’ job is to help him realise those ideas. Jas simply didn’t know how he had become the world’s greatest artist at the same time as not being able to do anything artistic. It was like magic. Or a con. Only Jas didn’t like to believe it was a con, because that would mean he was working for a con-man, and that would be humiliating. He sighs. What is Philip cantering on about?

“… and so I need you to find out what these races actually are.”

“What?”

“The five or six Masters. The great marathons around the world that the serious marathon community runs. That’s what we’ll be building. The elite races. For the elite runners.”

“Are you sure?”

Philip glances quickly at Jas. He hates being queried.

“What? Of course I’m sure.”

“It’s only that… the Marathon Elite.” Jas considers how well Philip’s work will wash with sporting professionals. He thinks that Philip will go down quite badly.

“It’s just that, well, I don’t know that they will be all that interested in owning… ” he gestures to the table “… one of these. Shouldn’t we be doing stuff that rich people like, find the marathons which collectors might be running? What are our most successful golf holes, after all?”

He knows, because he has made them dozens of times. It’s the ones in the rich areas. Augusta. Littlehampton. Hampstead. Virginia Water. St Andrew’s.

“Alright, well find out where those ones are, then. The posh races.”

“It’s going to be Paris. New York and London,” says Jas. “And maybe Florence. And each one is going to take us about two weeks to build, I should think. More, maybe. Think of all those Eiffel Towers. And I bet Florence won’t be easy. Any quicker, and I’ll need some help. Unless, of course, you want to do it with me.” As if that was ever going to happen.

Philip snorts, and strides out of the studio, leaving Jas to get along with sculpting the 10th hole at the Royal Liverpool in Hoylake.

Chapter Eleven Tracey

She starts off by putting his name into Google.

Stuff comes up. Testimonies, accolades, that sort of thing. Alan Makin, you have changed my life. Alan Makin, you have reorganised my budget, my bills, my world. You are a modern day Saviour.

She could do with having a modern-day Saviour in her world, she thinks. To have all the bills paid off. To have everything smoothed out. To be like her neighbours. Organised, efficient, adult, responsible. When they had won the Lottery, they had had some help from the people at Camelot, it was true. But once they had bought the house, had sorted out a new car and got the girls into private school, all of which had taken about a year, Camelot had moved on, onto other winners. People who had won more than she and Larry had. That was when the money problems started.

Eventually, she discovers his website, contact details, agent. MoneywithMakin.com. She envisages various possible gambits.
Hi, is that Alan Makin? I’m the woman who shouted out at your show the other night. Alan Makin, I spoke to you in the tent on the Common. Just wanted to say how inspiring you were. Dear Alan, I heckled you last night. Can you forget that, and give me a financial makeover?

That’s the one.

When she tells her eldest daughter of her plan, Belle is incredulous. “Mum, people just don’t contact other people like that.”

“What, by emailing them?”

“Yes! Nobody emails anyone, any more.”

“Don’t be ludicrous.”

Tracey sighs. First nobody writes to anyone any more. Snail mail, used only for thank you letters and postcards. A few years on, nobody calls anyone else on landlines. Apart from Granny and salesmen from AmEx. Mobile calls are the next thing to go. Now it’s emails. Belle makes her feel so old. The other day, she banned her from listening to Radio One. Marched into the room and switched it off.

“You are too old for that, Mum.” Where does one go when you are told you are past it? You’re never going to be younger, thinks Tracey. Now I can’t even send emails, apparently.

“What do people do, then?”

Belle sighs, and shrugs on a voluminous sludge-coloured shrug.

“Facebook? Direct Message on Twitter? WhatsApp?” she says, leaving the room in her Doc Martens.

What the hell is WhatsApp? And DM Alan Makin? Really? Somehow, Alan Makin doesn’t seem to be a Twitter kind of guy, she thinks. She emails him.

Two days later, a response.

It is both oddly formal and rather suggestive.
Tracey (if I may), of course I remember your ‘heckle’. Very interesting it was too. Yes. Moving forward, let’s move forward. Coffee? Thursday?

Thursday it is. What to wear. She stands in front of her wardrobe, deciding. It must not be too short. Short skirts and financial acumen do not go together. She must not look flirty. Eventually she wanders up to Belle’s room, and stands in front of her wardrobe. None of Belle’s clothes are in the least flirtatious. She pulls on a black dress made of boiled wool. It has a very below the knee hemline, almost calf-skimming. Perfect with flat heels. Good. Although actually putting the thing on goes against the grain with Tracey. She simply never would wear a skirt of this length. Furthermore, does she want Alan Makin to think she is a below the knee person who never wears stilettos? She’s not sure she does. She abandons the boiled wool and goes back downstairs.

In heels, her pink tweed fitted jacket and its matching, not-very-mini, mini skirt, Tracey is finally ready to meet Alan Makin for coffee. She brushes her hair, checks her nails, runs her tongue over her teeth for stray lipstick marks. There are none. Her makeup, as ever, is immaculate. She is rather excited.

She slams the door and steps out into the Square. Walking briskly along in her heels, jacket, mini skirt, she feels the part. What part? She doesn’t know. Just the part.

Jane, who would never need a financial makeover because Patrick earns hundreds of thousands of pounds every year in the City, probably millions actually, is carting groceries from the back of her Audi.

“Hi Jane,” she sings out.

“Oh, hello. Going anywhere special?” asks Jane, somewhat sourly, Tracey thinks.

“Oh, no,” says Tracey. “Not really.” Just to meet a television star, ha ha.

“Well, actually I am.” She pauses by the car. Jane, who had had no intention of stopping, is forced to stand still.

“It is quite special. I’ve got an appointment with Alan Makin.”

Jane cocks her head at Tracey, birdlike.

“You know,” continues Tracey, “the guy who appears on TV. Sorting out everyone’s financial problems. Well, I went to see him with Harriet the other night and he now wants a meeting! With me! Don’t think it’s anything special,” she says, deliberately downplaying it. “I mean, I don’t think he wants me on TV with him,” she continues.

Jane stands holding her groceries. There is a distinctly fed-up look on her face.

“Marvellous” she says faintly. “You’d better go. Don’t want to be late.”

Tracey clicks away in her heels.

When she arrives at Patisserie CoCo, an authentic Viennese pastry shop selling Austrian fancies to harassed Londoners who already have dangerously high levels of cholestrol, Alan Makin is in place.

“Tracey. My dear,” he says, proffering a chair.

Tracey slides into it.

Alan looks at her, half humorously.

“You know you don’t look a bit like a Tracey.”

Tracey sighs.

“My parents thought it was a fashionable name. It was, when I was born. And it’s turned out to be a white trash signifier.”

She laughs, delivers the customary punchline.

“They were debating with the idea of calling me Sharon.”

Alan laughs too. “Do you know, I have the same problem.”

“What, that your parents were about to call you Sharon?”

“Yes! No, no, with being called Alan. A signifier not so much white trash, as date sensitive. Only men of a certain generation are called Alan.”