by Rosie Nixon
‘What more is there to discuss?’ She wasn’t having any of it. ‘Come on, Amber, babe, it’s a no-brainer. And forget Rob. You’ll feel better after another glass.’
Chapter Seventeen
We sat together, feeling worlds apart. Mona was gazing around the room, picking at her fingernails, fiddling with her zips, chatting about the upholstery on the seats; anything but invite questions about my wages. She made eye contact occasionally, to check whether I was looking at her pretending not to look at me. But tonight I didn’t feel like being a total pushover. The knock I’d taken from Rob had given me the guts to stand up for myself—not to let ambiguity rule the day. If only I’d known he had a girlfriend, I could probably have stopped myself from feeling so hurt. Vicky was right, I should have stalked him on Facebook. Besides, my rent was a pressing issue and I needed to know where I stood.
‘So about the money for the flights—are you okay to transfer it first thing tomorrow, please, Mona?’ For once I resisted the urge to fill the awkward hush hanging in the air between us as I waited for a response.
‘I found my purse,’ she replied at last. ‘It must have fallen out of my bag during the premiere party.’ The ‘sick party’, how could I forget?
‘Great, so we’re set? And for the new job, will I be paid more than the work experience rate of fifty pounds a week? My rent is due now, and I can’t ask my flatmate to sub me. It would be humiliating to have to ask my parents.’ Stay firm, Amber.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she replied eventually, and gazed in the opposite direction, her eyes hunting for the waitress. Silence descended again. But I was ready to boil over now.
‘I’m sorry, Mona,’ I began, voice trembling, ‘but you’ve already accepted a job on my behalf—a job that will turn my life upside down for the next few weeks. I’ve had to fork out for flights I can’t afford, plus I haven’t received the pay owed to me for the last fortnight. The least you can do is transfer my money in the morning, like you said you would.’ I took another large gulp of champagne. She just sat there, motionless. Why is she being so evasive? I was enraged.
‘Is there any problem with paying me?’ I pressed. ‘I think I deserve to know if there is.’
Still no response. I have to finish what I’ve started now, I’ve got no choice.
‘I’ve seen the pile of unopened bills in your office, you know. And I heard the message from the loans company.’ Mona’s face did not reveal a flicker of acknowledgement. I necked another mouthful, finishing off my glass. If she didn’t say something soon, I was preparing to storm out. But first, buoyed by the alcohol, it was time to pull out the big guns. ‘My mother’s a lawyer, you know.’
Finally, a glimmer of vulnerability: ‘How did you hear about the loan?’ she asked, her tone calm, measured.
‘Your phone, on the day of the Globes. I had to listen to your messages so I could sort out Jennifer and get the gowns to the right clients, because you were … recovering. Remember?’
A solitary tear formed in one of her eyes and hovered there for a few seconds. I stayed very still, physically almost unable to move. Then I handed her a napkin from the table and she dabbed at the corners of her eyes, embarrassed.
‘It’s okay,’ I offered, a pang of guilt shooting through me for having caused a grown woman to weep in the middle of Soho House. ‘If there’s a problem, perhaps I can help you with it? I am your assistant after all.’
‘I’ve not talked about this before,’ she muttered, her bottom lip beginning to tremble. ‘It’s hard.’
‘I’m happy to listen.’ I shuffled a bit closer.
As a group of men entered the bar, looking in our direction, Mona reached into her bag for her sunglasses. I noticed actual big, hot tears falling from Mona Armstrong’s eyes and plopping onto her leather jacket. She wasn’t made of steel after all.
Is she having a breakdown before my eyes? Oh, how I wished I had one of Beau’s scripts for what to say. I shuffled up the bench seat, leaning in, wondering whether to put my arm around her, as I naturally would if I saw anyone other than Mona so upset. I grabbed another napkin. The tears were really falling now and I suddenly saw her in a completely different way. She looked so defenceless.
‘Jesus, you must think I’m going down the Britney Spears path,’ she scoffed at last, pulling back her hair and sitting up straighter. Crying wasn’t in line with Mona’s image.
Tentatively, I placed a hand on her arm. ‘Nah, you’re much cooler than Britney ever was.’
She made a feeble attempt to laugh, before sighing. ‘I was.’
‘Then what happened?’ I asked, softly.
‘Oh, Amber, you’re so young. You won’t understand.’
‘Try me,’ I said.
Her breathing was erratic, like a child who’s cried for too long. I could almost hear her brain turning over as she internally debated whether to unlock the door. In the silence, I tried a different tack.
‘Maybe there are things I could help you with?’ I said, trying to sound more upbeat. She slipped her feet in and out, out and in of her Chanel ballet pumps, balancing one shoe on her big toe. We both looked at it sticking out from under the table.
‘Like the box of paperwork under the desk in LA?’ I said, instantly panicking that I’d overstepped the line. She didn’t respond. ‘My mum—she’s a lawyer, you know,’ I said again, but this time with a different motive. ‘If you need legal advice, maybe she could help?’
‘Oh, it’s all bullshit!’ she cried, sending the shoe falling to the ground.
‘Everything okay here?’ A waitress approached. ‘Another drink, maybe?’
‘Two double vodka tonics,’ Mona said. The canyon reappeared between us as we waited for them to arrive.
‘Sometimes,’ she began, ‘I just want to be your age again, rest my head on someone’s shoulder and let them make some decisions for once—let them open the bills, pull the clothes, suck up to the celebrities and designers, and deal with it all. I keep telling myself it’ll get easier, and the money will start rolling in, but then another red carpet, another premiere, another awards season, another year passes—and what do I have to show for it?’ She looked at my blank face. ‘I’ll tell you what I have,’ she continued, ‘endless bouquets of beautiful fucking flowers, designer handbags, enough scented candles to open a small concession in Harrods and some dresses even Anna Wintour would sell her children for. But what about the cold, hard cash? The stuff that will actually stop the bailiffs and the loans companies from calling?’ I let out a sigh. Vicky had been right.
‘I’m broke, Amber—isn’t it clear to see? If I had my way right now, I’d go to sleep and never wake up. I’m buried alive in bills and unpaid loans, and I don’t have the energy for it any more.’ She held her head in her hands and started crying again. ‘And I don’t know what to do.’
I placed a cautious hand on top of her mound of curls. She came up for a second to throw down her sunglasses and then hid her face in her folded arms on top of the table. She stayed there, sobbing, for a few moments. The bartender gave us a strange look. My mind was racing.
‘But what about the clients—Beau, Jennifer? They pay you, right?’
She lifted herself up and replaced her shades, before anyone else noticed her eye make-up had made a bid for freedom. ‘Oh, their management or the film companies pay some of my expenses—the odd flight, hotel bill and the like—but most of them think the honour of my being able to say they’re my clients is payment enough. It’s crass to discuss money in the circles I move in. Everybody thinks everyone else is swimming in it, but the designer clothes on my back mean jack shit.’
I exhaled loudly. I had to admit I had Mona down as someone ‘swimming in it’, too. Didn’t you have to be, to live in a Hollywood mansion with a pool?
‘But your house in LA—it must be worth a fortune?’ I said.
‘My divorce,’ she scoffed, without taking her eyes off her nearly drained glass. ‘Only thing the bastard gave me was to li
ve rent-free, with a housekeeper, in that prison. He owns it, Ana keeps it clean and tidy, and I’ll never make a penny from it. But at least I have a roof over my head. At least I’m not completely destitute. Wonderful!’ She clapped her hands together sarcastically. The house wasn’t exactly somewhere I’d describe as a prison, but this wasn’t the time to argue.
‘Can he help you at all?’ I asked.
She puffed out her cheeks. ‘We haven’t spoken in ten years and I’m not about to start.’
‘What about Clive?’ I asked, shocked by what I was hearing.
‘Clive sent me this charming watch, but can I use it to pay your wages? No pawnshop wants this season’s Michael Kors ladies’ timepiece until it’s become an antique. It’s a frigging joke!’ She snorted into the napkin and then looked me straight in the eye. ‘I’m counting my last shekels, Amber. I’m bankrupt.’
Bankrupt. The word sounded so scary and final. It also meant I was unlikely to see a refund for the flights or the money to pay my rent until it was sorted out.
‘Listen, I’m not an accountant, but I think I might be able to help you,’ I suggested. Even I knew that a situation involving bailiffs, loans companies and bankruptcy was not something that would go away of its own accord, and the last thing Mona needed was for this to become news in itself. I was starting to feel sorry for her—she seemed so completely alone. ‘We’ll make sure we go through every single bill in the basket in LA—we’ll do it together. It might even be—fun?’ That last comment caused both of us to titter slightly hysterically. ‘Well, it won’t be fun, but it’s necessary,’ I corrected myself. ‘And in the meantime, why don’t we take some of your most amazing gifted clothes—’ her eyebrows shot up in alarm ‘—the ones that you hardly ever wear, I mean, to one of those designer sale shops? They’ll think Christmas has come round again, and you’ll make a tidy sum. That will help tide us over through the BAFTAs, anyway.’ I pulled a notepad from my bag. Surely a list would sort out everything. ‘Here, let’s make a note of everything you could sell.’
‘We’ll have to go to my lock-up,’ Mona snivelled, wiping at a clump of mascara that had settled beneath her right eye. I sucked the top of the pen. We must be talking a treasure trove if she needs a whole lock-up for her discarded designer wardrobe.
‘Fine. Do you have the key?’ She nodded in response. ‘Great, we can do that tomorrow and then focus on the BAFTAs on Sunday.’
She seemed a bit perkier after we had made a rough list of the bits she could bear parting with. Three classic Chanel handbags would easily set us up for the immediate future and there were dresses by Zac Posen, Azzedine Alaia, Hervé Léger and Christian Dior—all unworn—a Balmain wool cape, plus a couple of Bvlgari bangles that came to mind, all off the top of her head. I was confident we wouldn’t go short.
The throng around the bar had thinned as it approached midnight, and with Mona all cried out and drunk, and my eyelids barely able to hold themselves open, I asked for the bill and put it on my card. By some miracle it didn’t get declined. I hadn’t quite worked out what we’d do if it did. I decided to use the last of the cash in my purse to put Mona into a taxi.
‘Where to?’ asked the driver. I realised I didn’t have a clue where she lived.
‘Mona—your address?’ I repeated, loudly, praying she wouldn’t pass out.
‘Travelodge,’ she slurred, almost lying flat across the back seat. ‘Barking.’
I put the forty pounds remaining in my purse into the driver’s palm before begging him to get her home for not a penny more, and shut the passenger door. Then I pulled my scarf up around my ears for the frosty walk to the tube. If I hurried, I’d make the last train. Mona, living at a Travelodge, in Barking? Nothing more could shock me this evening.
When I got home the flat was silent and Vicky’s bedroom door closed, indicating she was either asleep or entertaining. I pressed my ear to the door and was relieved to hear her quietly snoring. I’d been half-expecting to find her with her head in a bag of chips, just back from another drinking session somewhere in central London. It had crossed my mind to call her on the way home and I would have, had I not been so exhausted by the evening’s revelations and desperate to be reunited with my bed. I hadn’t failed to notice that Vicky had been either tipsy or full-blown drunk almost every evening since I could pretty much remember. But who was I to talk? Jesus, what a day.
Next morning I was woken by the sound of a mug of tea being clunked down on my bedside table, loud enough to wake a sleeping log. Bleary-eyed, I looked up to see Vicky, hair in a topknot, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
‘Left you as long as I could, but it’s nearly ten and I know you’ve got the Miss P fitting today,’ she said, looking way too together for my foggy brain to deal with. ‘I didn’t want you to oversleep, because you’re doing this job for the both of us, remember?’
‘I am? What day is it?’ I croaked.
‘Saturday, honey. Do you want some eggs?’
‘Saturday,’ I repeated, looking at her, uncharacteristically smart for a Saturday, in a structured black dress and the chunky gold choker she’d bought the other day. ‘You look amazing—but why so posh? Are you due in court for something?’
‘Silly! I’m coming with you to see Miss P.’ She smiled. ‘Oh, please let me, it’s the weekend and I’m dying to meet Mona. I thought I’d better look the part,’ she begged, registering my confused expression.
The memory of last night began flooding back. It made me feel even more queasy. I reached for my phone. One new message, and it was from Rob. I pushed myself up, fumbling to squish the pillows behind my back.
‘Do you think she’ll rate my dress?’ Vicky was far too alert this morning. I think I preferred her hungover. ‘It’s by a hot new designer, Star-Crossed, a graduate—we’re featuring her in this month’s mag. I thought Mona might be interested.’ I recognised the name from Smith’s and Jas’s ‘ones to watch’ rail, but right now I was distracted.
‘Rob’s going to propose to his girlfriend,’ I sighed.
‘He what?’
‘Long story, but let’s just say yesterday was a nightmare, and I’m an idiot for not realising he’s taken.’
I tried to focus on the phone and Rob’s message: So how did it go with Mona—are you coming back to LA? x
I flung the phone on top of the duvet.
‘I’m totally over men, too,’ Vicky said, thankfully not reminding me of the fact I should have stalked him on Facebook and that she had guessed I fancied him before I’d admitted it to myself. ‘Anyway—eggs?’
‘Yes, please.’
She left the room and I wiped the sleep from my eyes. I didn’t actually know what I was meant to be doing today, but my vague memory was that we were putting Miss P’s styling session off until tomorrow and instead going to Mona’s lock-up to sell some of her clothes for cash. The BAFTAs were little more than twenty-four hours away, though, so we didn’t have much time. I called Mona to check and the phone rang out. It really didn’t help that my head, yet again, felt like it was in a vice. Another thing I had Mona to thank for.
‘So, why are you off men, too?’ I asked, as I sat at the kitchen table waiting for Vicky to present me with breakfast: two slices of thick-cut granary toast, topped with smoked salmon and a heap of creamy scrambled eggs, with two paracetamol tablets on the side. I eyed it suspiciously. This was unlike Vicky. ‘Ten out of ten for presentation, but what have I done to deserve this?’ I asked, necking the pills.
‘I had an epiphany last night,’ Vicky said, sprinkling parsley over our plates. ‘As a result, I’ve decided to stop drinking for a while. It was making everything cloudy and I was doing things the sober me wouldn’t do.’ She registered the concern on my face. ‘It’s cool, I’m cool, I just need to focus on other things for a bit. You know?’
I nodded solemnly, wondering if Simon’s comments about her being ‘too drunk’ had anything to do with it.
‘I’m proud of you, I mean that,’ I said,
horribly aware of my own splitting headache. ‘Cheers to that, my friend!’ I held up my mug and we chinked.
True to her word for once, Mona soon sent an email containing the address of a Big Yellow Self Storage Company depot in Kennington. I took this as a positive sign, but decided to take Vicky along, too, for backup (and because she begged me). I could see that cajoling Mona into parting with some of her best-loved fashion items might be harder work in the cold light of day—and perhaps she wouldn’t sack me if we had company. But she had shown such vulnerability last night, I felt she needed me now. And, strangely, I wanted to help. Though crestfallen having to change out of the fashion-forward LBD for our trip to the lock-up, Vicky was buzzing about the opportunity to hang out with my much-fabled boss. She alerted her followers on a number of social networks that she was spending the day with ‘fashion royalty’.
Miraculously, Mona was pleasant all afternoon. It seemed that last night had actually brought us closer. She greeted Vicky warmly, making her entire year by commenting on how much she loved her vintage biker jacket, before throwing herself into the unpacking of boxes and suitcases containing her wardrobe overspill. She had even dressed appropriately, and the jeans, pumps and baggy Acne sweatshirt really suited her; she looked prettier, more human. For three hours solid we worked, taking our orders from Mona about which box to put where and giving her a few moments alone when she came across a suitcase containing her Galliano wedding dress, made for her by the young up-and-coming designer eighteen years ago. She didn’t even pause to scream for a macchiato (though I had already cased out the storage company’s refreshment offerings and ruled out anything as suitable for Mona, except for the chewing gum).
‘She’s so sweet!’ Vicky gushed, when we were left on our own. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been complaining about.’
‘Sweet’ was a word I never would have used to describe Mona ordinarily, but it really seemed as though she’d turned into a different person overnight; she appeared relieved to be doing something to help herself and got into the spirit of turning her niche wardrobe to her financial advantage.
