It's Not Me, It's You

by Mhairi McFarlane

  He pressed the stop button and smoothly returned to the discussion at hand. Kurt was unfazed by it – but then unfazedness by clients’ eccentricities was his job. Delia goggled.

  ‘… So you need a fight with a top chef,’ Kurt concluded. ‘After all, who was Gordon Ramsay before he threw AA Gill out of his joint? Some guy with saucepans and a face like a tortoise’s scrotum.’

  Delia was fairly sure he was a Michelin-starred tortoise scrotum, but didn’t mention it.

  ‘… That fracas was a 360-degree win. Ramsay looks like the tough guy, Gill looks like the most controversial critic in the country. Everyone goes home more famous.’

  ‘You want me to give a Ramsay place a drubbing? It’s not that controversial any more. His brand of staid neo-classicism for golden anniversary celebrations is distinctly tired. He’s got himself into airports for goodness’ sake.’

  ‘No, there’s no point re-running it with Ramsay. You’re the enfant terrible of critics, you need like-for-like. I was thinking Thom Redcar.’

  Gideon Coombes put his head on one side.

  ‘I give Apricity a bad review? I suppose some of his dishes do err on the side of post-Blumenthal innovation for its own sake. At times his spicing is positively thuggish. Apricity is solid, however. I gave it four out of five, despite the sea trout sashimi misstep. I compared that experience to a sex act in a morgue, but subs lost their nerve and took it out.’

  Delia was only dimly aware of Thom Redcar from a piece in a Sunday supplement, months back. One of those slightly annoying spreads where a ruggedly handsome sleeve-tattooed cook is posed like a rock star in his chef’s whites, holding a giant cleaver, biceps like bags of walnuts, hair teased with wax. The strapline telling you he’s a young hothead who’s going to cook the fuck out of shit and generally mess you up with his iconoclastic approach to scallops.

  After training under various big names, Thom Redcar had recently opened his own restaurant, Apricity, in a derelict rail shed near King’s Cross. It had a star dish involving a smoking duck egg on hay and a waiting list for tables longer than those for a donor liver.

  ‘We don’t leave it to chance to get you thrown out. I say we get Thom in on this. That way we can tip the paps off. It’ll be endless publicity for this Apricity and he’ll come out of it looking like the big I Am, too.’

  Gideon forked some subpar gnocchi round his plate. Delia noted despite comparing them to droppings, he could still finish them.

  ‘What if someone decides to squeal it was a set-up? I’m a little antsy about these very contrived things backfiring.’

  ‘That’s the beauty of bringing Thom in. He’s not going to tell on you if it means telling on himself.’

  ‘What if he says no at the first hurdle, then tells on us?’

  ‘Hah!’ Kurt leaned back in his seat. ‘Trust me, that’s not how I handle business. He won’t know you’ve said you’re in until he’s said he’s in.’

  Gideon wiped his mouth on a napkin.

  ‘Then I’m in. What was the artichoke like?’

  Delia was startled by Gideon addressing her directly. He’d barely acknowledged her since her arrival.

  ‘Uh. Nice,’ Delia said.

  ‘Nice doesn’t butter critical parsnips, darling. Don’t mind me,’ and with that, Gideon had dug his fork into her pasta.

  It wasn’t often Delia’s heart sank at the mention of having desserts.

  As they left Gideon in the street, he was muttering: ‘Partially redeemed itself with an efficient if uninspired tartufo,’ into his Dictaphone.

  ‘What did you think? To Gideon?’ Kurt said, as they strode through Soho, lest Delia think he wanted amateur views on the pomodoro sauce.

  ‘Uhm, he’s very … on the ball,’ Delia said, congratulating herself for finding something positive to say that had a vague sheen of truth.

  ‘Haha! He’s a ball ache, that’s for sure.’

  Delia allowed herself a small guilty smile. ‘Is he?’

  ‘He’s got these ambitions about television. Trouble is, he wants to be a media personality, and his personality is his weak point. We need to make him a Simon Cowell, Mr Nasty-type hole.’

  ‘Or just a hole, with a lid,’ Delia said, before she could stop herself. Kurt boomed with laughter.

  ‘How are you finding Steph?’

  ‘She’s great. I love her,’ Delia said.

  ‘Hmmm. I’m not sure she’s distinctive enough.’

  Delia was disquieted by this. It didn’t fit the ‘easy breezy, let’s all get to know each other’ tone of days prior. Also, she wasn’t so egotistical or naïve as to think Steph wouldn’t be asked the same about her.

  One of Delia’s life rules was, if you condone someone treating someone else badly, it will come right back round to you and roost. She couldn’t say she liked the fact that Paul was friendly with his exes, whenever they’d called by, but she respected what it told her.

  ‘She’s finding her feet,’ Delia said, but Kurt wasn’t listening.

  ‘I’m getting coffee, if you can find your own way back,’ he said. How Kurt didn’t race off his tits on the amount of Americanos he inhaled, Delia didn’t know.

  ‘Kurt,’ she said, as he made to go. ‘How will you get Thom Redcar to say yes, without telling him Gideon’s involved?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll tell him Gideon’s involved,’ Kurt said nonchalantly. ‘I only told Gideon what he wanted to hear to put some steel in his backbone. Golden rule, Red: tell the client what they want to hear.’

  But what if it backfired, the way Gideon said? What about the risk? Delia walked the rest of the way back to the office thinking she was too sensitive for this world.

  When she got back to the office, she was relieved to have lurid tales of how Gideon Coombes spoke to waitresses to regale Steph with – something to distract her from Kurt’s small effort to divide and conquer. She didn’t like to think of what his comments meant for Steph; surely he wouldn’t fire her on a whim? She was the perfect officemate: down to earth, fun, and staunchly observant of proper tea-round etiquette.

  At the end of the day, the landline rang while Steph was brewing up: Delia could hear her tapping a tune with the spoons on the Formica (Steph played drums and was gutted to leave her kit behind in Birkenhead).

  ‘Hello, Twist & Shout,’ she said, with sing-songy confidence.

  ‘Kurt Spicer, please,’ said a confident, fairly youthful male voice.

  ‘I’m afraid he’s not here at the moment. Is it anything I can help you with, or take a message?’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Delia Moss, account manager.’

  ‘Hello, Delia Moss, account manager. It was a meet and greet I was after. A chat through Twist & Shout’s clients and future opportunities. Is that something you could help with?’ Brisk, bit posh.

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Adam West. Journalist. I’m freelance. Mainly a business writer.’

  ‘Was it consumer stories you’re looking for?’

  Delia balanced the receiver between her shoulder and cheek and silent-typed his name into Google, with business reporter after it. A variety of national newspaper stories sprung up.

  ‘I’m easy really, what with the freelancing. You know, if you’ve got anything compelling, perhaps we could come to an agreement.’

  ‘OK, we could meet up,’ Delia said. She wanted to feel capable in the face of this man’s bumptiousness, and fancied the feather in her cap of making a useful contact. ‘When were you thinking?’

  ‘How about tomorrow? Brunch at Balthazar? Eleven?’

  Delia had only a faint idea of where or what that was, but brunch sounded good.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Great. See you there.’

  Delia rang off, and put the meeting in the office diary that no one really checked.

  Feeling buoyed at the prospect of bringing in a contact of her own, she thought: I am getting to be alright at this. Maybe confidence is all about simply pretending, until it�
��s not a pretence any more.

  Delia felt a swell of excitement, and pride.

  Her staid old office, Ann’s right-angled big toes, and Roger’s Patriot Games with Peshwari Naan, and even Paul and his pub, seemed so very many miles away.

  Could it be this easy, after a lifetime of doggy paddling, to jump in the deep end, and swim?

  The buzzing brasserie of Balthazar in Covent Garden looked like a posh Café Rouge to Delia. She appreciated that they were both an Anglicised version of a Gallic original, but she’d never been to France so it was her only point of reference. She pushed all thoughts of Paris out of her mind. Paul was never far from her thoughts.

  Inside the doorway was an explosion of a flower display the size of a tree, in a giant urn. She was well ahead of time and asked for a table for two, trying to act like she belonged.

  Delia slid into a lipstick-red booth under a gigantic silver-misted mirror and ordered a hot chocolate. She pulled the client folder out, shrugged her coat off and thought: business brunching. Respectable. Even chic. I am officially part of the rhythms of industry in this city. Perhaps London wasn’t so bad after all. You needed to start putting pins in the map, creating fixed points of familiarity you orbited around.

  In the rattle and hum and coffee machine hiss of the morning service, she had a moment of contentment. This was perhaps what it was like, when you were forging forward and doing scary new things, acclimatising. You were briefly in sync with the environment – for a few seconds, it all started to make sense. As time went by, hopefully these moments would become more numerous until they strung together like a paper chain, and you simply felt at home.

  She flipped open the Twist & Shout folder, her as-yet-unfinished homework. She was enjoying plans for Marvyn Le Roux, an old-school, end-of-the-pier-style magician who Kurt was apparently determined to re-design as some dangerous psychological trickster.

  She soon forgot to examine the client notes in favour of people-watching. There was a large mother-daughter duo from the States, who were the spit of each other. They were talking at that loud American volume about having been to the cutest places in Florence where they got their matching silk scarves. Delia found them touching: it must be lovely to be that close to your mum. She wasn’t about to start wearing fleece gilets though.

  Across the room from her, a table of twenty-something spivvy suits were having a meeting, clearly all trying to outdo each other with braying witticisms. The laughter rolled round the group at perfectly spaced intervals.

  Her eyes moved to a male customer who had been sat down, and was now in conversation with the keeper of the Bookings Book. He didn’t look like ordinary people: more like he was in a film or TV drama, discussing his role with the director.

  He had mussed, short dishwater-blond hair and one of those classical faces with pronounced cheekbones and brow, and a strong, straight nose. It was a brook-no-argument A-list handsomeness that could change the air pressure in a room, causing women’s heads to rotate like owls.

  He was the kind of person you were more likely to see in London, Delia thought, peacocking about as if he owned the place. No other city would’ve been big enough for them.

  Delia found his appearance interesting to admire, in a safari trip sort of way, through binoculars. She couldn’t say she particularly liked it. She preferred Paul-style good looks: unassuming, characterful. Looks that stole up on you, instead of slapping you around the face. That made you feel drawn to him, rather than intimidated. But then, Delia always preferred worn, pre-loved things to gleaming, sharp-edged perfection.

  She had a pang of missing Paul. He’d try the Bloody Mary if he was here. He was a connoisseur and had to have one everywhere he went. She hadn’t thought this ‘absence making the heart grow fonder’ deal might work both ways.

  Blond Man wore a gumshoe’s beige trench coat, hands shoved in pockets underneath it. He rocked back on his heels as he spoke, the very picture of entitled, metropolitan self-confidence.

  He turned and scanned the room, as if looking for someone. Oh, wait? No you don’t. Not you. Delia realised she’d been expecting a Stephen Treadaway-type little oik from the Chronicle, but this Dorothy was no longer in Kansas.

  His eyes snagged on her and her spirits plummeted. He stared hard, as if she was an anomaly in this universe, in her pink checked gingham. She loved her diner waitress dress, but under this man’s gaze she felt instantly uncomfortable. Delia had been found out. She didn’t belong.

  As she swallowed hard and hastily stuffed the folder full of secrets out of sight, he strode towards her.

  ‘Delia. Twist & Shout?’ he said, with a note of question in his voice, when he reached her. She nodded and he did a mechanical lift-and-drop smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Delia’s previous burst of happiness was shredded, in ribbons at her feet.

  ‘Adam West.’

  He thrust a hand out and Delia shook it. It was a cool, confident palm of course, and Delia was grateful hers hadn’t had the time to get clammy. Why did he have to throw her off-balance with his blinding genetic superiority? It wasn’t fair, the beautiful automatically outranked you.

  ‘I’d booked and they said you weren’t here. I didn’t realise you’d taken a different table,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry,’ Delia said, unsure if she was being accused of something.

  ‘Did you want to eat?’ he said. Well, we did say brunch.

  ‘Not really …’ Delia lied. She wanted the double eggs on muffins with yellow sauce or even steak au poivre with shoestring fries – and for the man opposite her not to be there.

  ‘Sure? They do a good waffle, I’m told.’

  ‘Are you eating?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  If this was some sort of waffle-based power play, Delia wasn’t biting.

  ‘I’ll get drinks, then,’ he said as a waiter appeared at his side. ‘A black coffee for me, thanks, and …?’ he looked to Delia.

  At that moment, a hot chocolate arrived, complete with whippy cream. Yes, of course she’d ordered a childish drink. Adam West stared at it as it was set down and said: ‘Right,’ absently.

  ‘Did you have far to come?’ Delia said, in a bid to distract him from the beverage.

  ‘It’s all quite far in London,’ he said. Delia was immediately irritated at his assumption that her accent meant she didn’t know her way around. ‘How long have you worked for Kurt Spicer?’

  ‘Uhm,’ Delia didn’t want to give an answer that screamed NEWBIE, but short of outright lies, she had no choice. ‘Almost a month.’

  ‘A month?’ Adam said, accepting his coffee as it arrived. ‘And before that you were, where …?’

  ‘Sorry, how is this relevant?’ Delia said, terse, and embarrassed.

  ‘Just “getting to know you” chat, Delilah,’ Adam said, accepting his coffee.

  ‘It’s Delia,’ she said, to the top of his head.

  ‘Delia.’ No flicker of embarrassment for the error. She was starting to really dislike this man.

  ‘I’ve recently moved down from Newcastle,’ she conceded. ‘I worked in comms.’

  ‘This is a bit of a change then,’ Adam said, regarding her over his cup as he sipped.

  Delia bridled at this. It was code for underqualified hick from the sticks.

  ‘Not really. Same principles.’

  At this, Adam West broke his first genuine smile. ‘Principles.’

  Delia stirred her hot chocolate to make the embarrassing cream disappear and decided it was time to change the subject. ‘So what can I help you with today?’

  ‘I thought you could talk me through who you have on your books and we could go from there.’

  ‘Er …? We don’t give out the client list like that.’

  Delia got a whisper of danger to add to the instinctive dislike. He must know she wouldn’t do that. What was he up to?

  Ah. Experience. Here was where it might come in handy.

  Customers arrived at th
e table next to them and Delia had to move her coat and bag. She welcomed being able to break eye contact with this man; he really did lower the temperature.

  ‘As I said, I’m very open to any kind of story. Good ones. Something with a bit to go at. Not so much frothy world of showbiz, unless it’s got some heft,’ he said.

  ‘Business?’

  ‘Yeeeah,’ Adam said, with the insouciance of someone completely-at-ease-in-his-skin. ‘Business. Consumer stuff. Politics.’

  ‘Where are you working? I know you said you’re freelance; where are you selling most of your stories?’

  ‘Didn’t you Google me?’ he said, looking up from under his brow. A look that had no doubt worked on a lot of women. That said, he was shit out of luck with this one.

  ‘Yes,’ Delia said, curtly, ‘most of the bylines were from a few years back.’

  ‘Alas, I’ve not yet made the Daily Star. But I dare to dream,’ he said without a flicker of a smile and without answering the question. ‘Do you have any start-ups? Entrepreneurs?’

  ‘Uhm …’ Delia immediately thought of one which was wildly inappropriate, but her mouth started to move without getting approval from her brain. ‘We’ve got something quite light and novelty in the consumer realm. Nothing hefty …’ Delia muttered, wishing she’d kept her trap shut and hoping she could put him off.

  ‘Try me.’

  Oh, no.

  ‘Er. It’s an aromatherapy bathroom thing. The client is looking at rolling it out to higher-end hotels. You … er. Spray it in the loo.’

  Adam’s eyes widened. Delia wanted to dissolve.

  ‘You’re offering me hippy Air Wick?’

  ‘Shoo Number Two is different because it doesn’t mask smells, it neutralises them.’

  Adam choked on his black coffee with laughter and Delia thought, the only tiny piece of dignity to be reclaimed was to act as if she was deliberately trying to derail the conversation.