Then a thought struck me. Milo was always complaining about the brain-dead bimbos he had working for him. Kookai and Kleavage were, believe it or not, the pick of the bunch. Perhaps it was time for a change of direction. Wasn’t I made for fashion PR? Could I shmooze and smarm with the best of ’em? Didn’t I have a contact book full of names? Okay, so I’d have to begin by licking envelopes and making coffee. I could do that. But surely it wouldn’t be long before I would be . . . would be . . . going to parties and all the other things that Milo did.
Up until now I’d been avoiding phoning Milo. He was such a Nazi and hated the weak and the poor and the jobless. I’d wanted to reestablish links when things had normalized; but now I knew things were never going to normalize. It had to be done.
There was a phone in the room. It was live. I called Smack!.
“Smack! PR, how can I help you?”
It was Justine, the famous Smack! phone girl. She could make her voice deep and husky or little-girl vulnerable as the situation demanded. She was masterly. Any man hearing her say “Smack!” would immediately feel impelled to sign up with Milo, just for the chance to meet her. But how, in the flesh, she disappointed. You could hear the sound of faces falling from two blocks away: a noise like frogs being stepped on in the dark.
“Justine, hi, it’s Katie.”
“Katie?”
“Katie Castle.”
“Katie!” she enthused, suddenly my oldest friend. “Where have you beeeeeeen?”
“Oh, you know . . . busy. Look, can I speak to Milo? It’s quite important.”
“God. You haven’t heard, have you?”
“Heard what? What’s happened?”
“Look, I’d better put you through to Ayesha.” Ayesha? Kookai or Kleavage? Think, think, think. Yes, Kookai.
“Hello, Katie?”
“Ayesha, what’s going on? Justine sounded very mysterious.”
“Oh, Katie, it’s awful. It’s Milo. He’s been . . . stabbed.”
“My God! What do you mean? Who by?”
“It was Pippin. You remember the party?”
“Yes, of course. Who could forget? But we didn’t take him seriously. I thought he was just being camp. How did it happen?”
“Pippin got into his flat. He must have had a key. He scared off Xerxes with a fire extinguisher and then he tied Milo up. There was some sort of device. . . .”
“What do you mean device? Electrical?”
“A . . . stimulator of some sort, I think he said. Not quite sure . . . Oh, Katie, I’m not really supposed to say, it’s all top secret. I promised.”
“For heaven’s sake, Ayesha, I’m family.”
“Well, Pippin stabbed him with this thing, in, you know, the behind.”
“Christ. How Edward the Second.”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind.”
“It’s terribly serious. He’s ruptured a spleen. They had to amputate. But that’s okay, because apparently you can get by perfectly well on one.”
“So he’s alive?”
“Yes, and he’s out of danger now, but still too ill for visitors. He’s in St. Mary’s, the private bit. The Lindo Wing, I think it’s called. He’s been there since Sunday.”
I didn’t mention the eerie coincidence to Kookai.
“What about Pippin?”
“He’s on the run. No one’s seen him. He’s just disappeared.”
“How was Milo . . . discovered? Did he call for help?”
“No, his cleaning lady found him unconscious the next morning. The battery was still running. It must have been awful.”
There was a pause as I constructed the scene in my head and reined in the wild horses of laughter.
“So what’s happening to Smack!?”
“Well, it’s weird. Sarenna . . . she’s sort of taken over. She said that Milo had okayed it, but I don’t quite see how. Anyway, things are more or less going on as before, but with less Milo and more Sarenna.”
“Look, Ayesha, I’ll be brutally frank. The reason I phoned was that I’ve had a few problems workwise lately. . . .”
“Yes, you poor darling. We’d heard about those. I was so shocked.”
“Well, yes. Anyway, I was phoning to see if Milo . . . if you, had anything. You know, a place. I could do anything, I mean anything.”
“Oh God! Katie, you know we all think you’re amazing. Nobody in the world, and I mean the whole wide world, knows more than you do about fash and things, but it’s just that Sarenna took someone on just yesterday, a new trainee, and I don’t think there’s much else for anyone to do.”
Bit of a body blow, that. I tried to sound breezy.
“Oh well, it was just a thought. Anyone I know?”
“Well, yes, actually. It’s an old friend of yours. You’ll be so excited. It’s Veronica Tottle.”
CHAPTER 16
Katie Goes Native
It was the supreme test. I could laugh at Milo’s misfortune, but could I also laugh at my own? I passed, but only just. It was funny, there were no two ways about it. Milo in ER, Veronica in PR. But where did it leave poor, poor Katie Castle? The laughter saved me from self-pity.
I decided to go see Milo. The Lindo Wing was an unimpressive redbrick structure, but it at least had a certain well-intentioned earnestness about it: if it had worn a jacket, it would have had leather patches on the elbows. Inside it was not at all like a hospital, but rather had the feel of a country solicitor’s office, with scratched wood paneling and glazed partitions. I asked for Milo at reception.
“You family?” said a man through a hatch. He was wearing a bus conductor’s cap several sizes too small for his head.
“Yes, I’m his sister . . . Callista.”
“Sign in. Third floor.”
So much for the no visitors.
I had to look into several rooms before I found Milo. In one an old man was ponderously climbing down from his bed. His hospital shortie-nightie had bunched over his haunches, and I got an eyeful of wrinkly buttock. In other rooms faces stared blankly back at me or smiled expectantly before I sorried away.
I found him lying facedown, his head at the bottom of the bed, watching a telly in the corner. The sheet was held suspended over his middle third by some kind of frame. The room was dark and stuffy: heavy curtains covered the windows, which were grimy and closed. The room gave the impression of being untended. There were no flowers, which made me pleased that I’d remembered.
“Look at the state of Judy today,” said Milo in a strange monotone. He appeared unable to tear his eyes away from the screen. “She looks like she’s been attacked by a bear. You don’t suppose Richard beats her, do you?” His face was a powdery white but for the black rings around his blacker eyes. As he spoke his breath hit me in waves, heavy, drugged, cadaverous.
“I’d guess it’s more the other way round. I brought you some flowers. Just peonies, I’m afraid. Best the Edgware Road could do. How’s your gizzards?”
“Terrible state. My bottom looks like potted meat. I suppose you heard the story?”
“I got a version from Ayesha, but she seemed a bit confused about your spleens. Still, I got the basics.”
“Nobody’s come to visit, you know,” said Milo, still looking at the screen.
“Isn’t that because you were too ill to see people?”
“Everyone was supposed to ignore that: you did. The nurse said there’ve only been two phone calls. One was my mother, which counts as a minus, so the real score is zero.”
I’d met Milo’s mother once at a charity lunch, so I knew what he meant.
“Perhaps people just haven’t heard about it yet.”
At that Milo laughed and, in laughing, winced.
“Not heard yet? Everyone has heard. Those two cosmonauts marooned on Mir, they’ve heard. Yak herdsmen in Mongolia can talk of little else. This is my greatest ever PR coup. Superb word of mouth; magnificent brand recognition.”
Such bitterness, howsoever wrapped
in his characteristically baroque exaggeration, was alien to Milo. Bitter undermines bitchy, which needs detachment and superiority and casual malice. Bitterness is the preserve of those who have failed. I sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his head.
“What about Xerxes?”
“Disappeared. Have to count the spoons when I get home. Little shit. At least Pippin cared enough to . . . do what he did.”
“Poor Milo. I’ve had some problems as well, you know.”
“He’s mad, of course. I always knew it. But I like to think it was love that drove him mad.”
“Ludo’s left me.”
“If he’d hung around, I might have taken him back.”
“And Penny’s kicked me out of the company. I’m single, homeless, and unemployed.”
“Sorry, what were you saying? Makes you think about friendship, all this. All those people I invited to the party. I would have called most of them friends. But it’s all an illusion. It’s our business, Katie, it’s all about pretending: pretending things matter when they don’t, pretending things are rare when they’re common, or common when they’re rare. We don’t make anything real, anything that people can use. We work in lies; we sell lies.”
“You sound like Ludo.”
“What were you saying about Ludo? I heard he’s dumped you. Shouldn’t worry too much. Another day, another sucker.”
I stopped stroking and went and sat on a chair.
“Milo, listen to me, please, and for God’s sake, stop watching the telly. I need help. I need help really badly. Everything’s gone wrong for me. I need a job. I need to get my life back.”
Finally Milo’s eyes turned to meet mine.
“So, you too. You didn’t come here to see me. You came to see what you could get. Well, I can’t give you anything. I’m out of the business, out of PR, out of fashion. Forever. If that’s all you wanted, you can go now.”
Another door had slammed in my face. It was worth the effort, but I now slightly regretted the overpriced peonies.
“I’m not going to leave with a quarrel. I came to see how you were; true, I also needed some help, but I’d have come anyway. I hope your bottom gets better soon. By the way, I did make things. I made clothes, not lies. And I’ll make them again.”
The bell rang at seven-thirty the next morning, and I buzzed Jonah in.
“How are you feeling today?” he asked, doing his best to sound considerate.
“Raring to go. The world is my oyster, or winkle, or whatever.”
“That’s the spirit. You’ll go all the way yet.”
“You mean your three transformations nonsense?”
“I mean the three transformations. Anyway, I’m a man of my word, and I’ve arranged for you to meet another associate of mine.” This time I restricted my imagination.
“Your rag trade connection?”
“That’s right. Mr. Ayyub. Well, strictly speaking, my associate is old Mr. Ayyub, Shirkuh, but you’ll be seeing Kamil, his nephew. He’s in charge of the day-to-day . . . action.”
I had nothing to lose by going to see what was on offer.
We drove in Jonah’s ancient but strangely impressive car, which I think may have been a Ford Zephyr, from Kilburn into deepest Willesden. The inside of the car seemed to be lined entirely with sheepskin. Four fir tree car fresheners dangled from strategic points, and books were crammed into every crevice.
We really were now traveling into the heart of darkness, as far as I was concerned. I was vaguely aware of the fact that it, Willesden, existed somewhere in London, but I would have had no idea where to start looking on a map. We drove along a narrow high street and turned off into a world of warehouses and industrial estates. What did they make there? Sandals with enormous spikes in the soles for aerating your lawn? Novelty toilet seats? Crossbows? Car fresheners? The world would never know.
Jonah was very quiet, and I wondered if he was regretting his “generosity.” It may just have been that he wasn’t one for small talk. I filled time by looking at some of the books. They were all paperbacks, battered and broken spined. Like, I thought to myself, one of Jonah’s “customers,” late for a payment. The first to catch my eye was The Gay Science, which seemed to answer my love nest speculations. But it turned out to be the inevitable Nietzsche. Many of the titles had a fine ring to them: The Birth of Tragedy; Thus Spake Zarathustra; Human, All Too Human; Twilight of the Idols. As well as Nietzsche, there were tracts by people I’d never even heard of: Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, Schelling, Fichte.
“Help yourself, Katie,” said Jonah, mistaking my idle perusal for interest. “I’ve formed a little reading group. We meet up once a week and discuss a key text. We’re doing Beyond Good and Evil this week, and then next The World as Will and Representation—just the first part, of course, not all the irrelevant rubbish in the second volume.”
“Thanks, but I’m afraid that I’m a bit busy at the moment, what with . . . well, you know.” The idea of being locked in a room with Jonah, half a dozen other loonies, and a tome as thick as two short PR girls, hardly appealed. I decided on a quick change of subject.
“So how do you know the Ayyubs?”
“I’ve taken care of some of their, ah, security and, er, debt recovery situations.”
Oh.
We finally found the right industrial estate, and Jonah pulled up outside a long, low, flat-roofed, cheaply built unit. A gaudily painted sign told me we had arrived at Ayyub’s Parisian Fashions, who, the sign proudly proclaimed, operated out of Paris (naturellement), New York, Kabul, and Willesden. A faint, familiar sound of whirring and clacking reached me through a small window.
We got out of the car, but before we reached the door it was thrown open, and a small man with a huge mustache, wearing a leather jacket, and beige slacks, and Cuban heels, sprang toward us.
“Jonah Mister Whale!” he gushed, undertaking a couple of rather dainty-looking boxing maneuvers, entirely ignored by the impassive Jonah. “And this is the lady, Miss Castle, you said.”
“Katie, meet Kamil. I’ve a bit of business to attend to elsewhere. I’ll be back in an hour.” I had to fight an impulse to beg him to stay.
“Come into the office. May I call you Katie, okay?”
“Of course.”
The office was the size of a child’s bedroom, and it appeared as if a child with a reform school future ahead of him had been hard at work creating havoc. Wherever you looked there were piles of paper, eviscerated box files, elastic bands, mold-bearing coffee cups, fast-food cartons, and other rubbish. One corner of the office was taken up by a hand-cranked fax machine that might have been cutting-edge technology during the Boer War. What messages it must have received: “Unsinkable Liner Hit by Iceberg”; “The Lights Are Going Out All Over Europe”; “England Celebrates World Cup Victory.” A broken venetian blind fell at an acute angle across the dirty window, throwing weird striations over the ghastly scene.
A thin girl, who looked as if she were killing time before the next methadone prescription, gazed wanly at me and murmured weakly, “Hi.”
“Welcome to my kingdom,” Kamil said ingratiatingly. “This is my PA, Vicky, called Vic for short. Take a pew.”
He spoke a weird combination of classic Estuary English, with every “l” converted subtly into a “w” and no glottal left unstopped, with the occasional slurring into American, and a subtle undertone of all-purpose Middle Eastern.
“So, you’ve come for our job as head of production lady. It’s a very hard job and long hours, but the money is good, say, starting at twelve grand a year, and there is no reason not to go higher if you’re doin’ it good.”
“Wait a moment, are you offering me the job?”
“Yeah, ’course. What else you doin’ here?”
“I thought there would be an interview, you know, questions, finding out about my experience.”
“Look, good enough for Jonah Mr. Whale, good enough for Kamil Ayyub, I think. So what you say?”
As
we spoke, Vicky looked blankly from face to face.
“I was paid a lot more in my last job.”
“Look, Katie, if some things hadn’t gone bad for you, you’d not be here knocking on my door. Twelve fifty’s a good wage for here.”
“What about fifteen?”
“No way can do. Maybe go up to thirteen. Any more and good-bye, no matter Mister big man Jonah Whale.”
Well, thirteen thousand was crap money, but it wasn’t any less than I’d get working in a shop. And I didn’t have to worry about rent, so it was all play money. And at least I could keep my hand in, productionwise. But I wanted to know a bit more about Ayyub’s Parisian Fashions, of Paris, New York, Kabul, and Willesden.
“What kind of clothes do you make?”
“All kinds, very fashionable.”
“Who do you supply?”
“We got one shop in Kilburn, you must have seen? One of your jobs is go there and sometimes be manager. Kick ass, stop them chewing gum, and all that shit. And then we sell to many other shops, across whole of northwest London: Queens Park, Kensal Rise, you name it. And then some big players . . .” He mentioned here some vaguely familiar names, like half-forgotten battles. One was a mail-order company, another a make I’d thought had disappeared with the Boomtown Rats. “We produce stuff for them. But the markup is shit, ’scuse French. Best money is with our own lines.”
“What’s your turnover?”
Kamil looked hurt. “What is it now? Tax man, is it? You can leave the numbers game to me.”
“Can I have a look around?”
“Sure, look, see everything.”
The office led on to what Kamil called the showroom.
“Here all the top buyers come. . . .”
“From all over northwest London.”
“Yeah, sure.”
The room looked like a store cupboard for all the crap that wasn’t up to the high standards set in the main office. My eye was particularly caught by the one piece of furniture: a red plastic stacking chair, with a fertility-threatening gash in the seat. This was obviously where the top buyers relaxed as Kate, Cindy, and Naomi paraded before them.
Beyond the showroom we entered the sweatshop, or “main production facilities,” as Kamil put it. The room was crammed with machinists: there must have been twenty in a shed the size of a middle-of-the-range conservatory. Anxious brown faces looked up as we came in, but none paused for a moment in their labor. Somehow four industrial steam irons and a cutting table had also been squeezed into the space. The sweatshop managed to be both stifling and chilly, and you simultaneously wanted to fan your face and pull on a cardie.
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