by Wendy Holden
Dylan groaned inwardly. All Smiles had sold all round the world and there were various international telly versions in the pipeline. He’d long got used to all of that. It was spoilt of him, he knew, and complacent; nonetheless, it was how he felt. It just wasn’t exciting any more.
‘Can’t you deal with it?’ he asked Julian.
Fond as he was of his agent, a long, hot journey to London did not appeal. Not when the surfing weather was like this. It was almost overwhelming, the urge to get up and go out to the car, where his rubber wetsuit waited, still damp from yesterday and probably full of scratchy sand.
‘Not really, dear boy. Documents to sign, you know the kind of thing . . .’
Dylan pictured himself in the oak-panelled office at Copley & Co., Julian’s agency, while Julian himself, with his round Bakelite spectacles, glossy wings of grey hair and the red suede shoes which were his trademark, sat opposite him on the leather-buttoned chesterfield. Despite being one of the savviest players in a hi-tech business, Julian preferred the accoutrements of patrician tradition.
‘Over lunch,’ the agent added.
Dylan’s heart sank further. Not even the oak-panelled office; he was to be taken out and displayed in public. He would have to look smart; shave off his stubble; brush his unruly, over-long, salt-roughened mop and search in his wardrobe for something that wasn’t just ancient, torn shorts and faded T-shirts.
‘We’ll go to Bruton Street,’ Julian declared. ‘Seriously, you haven’t heard of it? Been in the boondocks too long. It’s the new club, dear boy.’
Dylan tried his best to muster some enthusiasm. Julian was a member of every smart club going. He knew everyone and lunch with him, as Dylan knew from past experience, was a succession of famous media faces swooping in for air kisses over reductions of cauliflower and black pudding ice cream. It was exactly that kind of exposure, as well as that kind of food, that Dylan had come to the West Country to escape.
He knew he had no choice, however. The arrangements were made and Dylan clicked off his mobile with a heavy heart.
It soon lifted again, however. The door of Bosun’s Whistle slammed and the familiar clack of high heels on kitchen lino could now be heard. Heels so high and sharp that they had pierced the floor tiles like bullet holes. Eyes burning, hair flying, nostrils flaring, Beatrice now appeared round the door.
‘Hi, hurney,’ she pouted in her heavily accented English. She was already unbuttoning her blouse. ‘I’m ’ome!’
Dylan rose from his desk and went towards her. Charm Itself would just have to wait – again.
CHAPTER 2
It was May, and a dull Tuesday afternoon in North London. In a downstairs flat in a row of Victorian semis, a mobile buzzed.
Nell, at her bedroom mirror pulling straighteners through her hair, put them hurriedly down on the floor. The phone was spasming about the surface of her desk; the bedroom was also her office. Nell leapt to grab it. Her heart was thumping. Surely not. With only an hour to go?
The screen in her shaking hand confirmed her worst fears.
Sorry. Can’t make tonight. Babysitter probs. Will reschedule. Lx
A wave of rage and helplessness swept through Nell. ‘Shit!’ She rumpled her just-straightened blonde mane in sheer frustration.
It was always the bloody same. Whichever one of her friends she arranged dates with – and she was always the one doing the arranging – they always got cancelled in the end.
Usually this happened the night before. But as this was the actual day she’d had high hopes of this drink with Lucy. Lucy was one of her more reliable friends and Nell’s one-time business partner at Vanilla, the small PR and marketing operation which the recession had put paid to two years ago.
Nell had fought hard to keep Vanilla going. She had worked every hour possible. But in the face of squeezed client budgets she had had to accept the inevitable. The business had died, but Nell believed in Fate and was sure that, in the future, she would set up again.
Even though she now worked at home she still wore a crisp white fitted shirt each day; still put on her make-up and did her hair. She still had her pride and self-respect; she was still investing in her appearance. How, otherwise, could she expect anyone to invest in her?
And now this self-belief, she had hoped, was about to pay off; the economic outlook was improving. Perhaps Vanilla could rise again, phoenix-like from the ashes. ‘Phoenix PR’ had a good ring, and it was about this that she had hoped to talk to Lucy tonight. But Lucy had let her down.
An acrid smell alerted her to the hair straighteners burning into the floor. Nell pounced on them and stared miserably at the smoking black line eating the gold weave of the carpet.
There was no phoenix, but there were certainly ashes. Her recently installed sisal was ruined.
Nell took in a deep breath and fought a sudden urge to cry. For goodness’ sake, it was only a carpet. Albeit a very new and very expensive one.
And she was a grown-up. Almost thirty. She was educated, reasonably attractive, financially independent, she had her own flat. She had a career, even if, following the collapse of Vanilla, this was working at home writing catalogue copy.
But what she didn’t have was either a partner or children. And this, Nell had discovered, made dates with you eminently cancellable.
Take tonight. Lucy’s children had come first. Everyone’s children came first. Children were the great enemy of the single woman.
All her friends – people she had been at university with, or had worked with – had families now and had moved to the provinces or to suburbs so remote they might as well be the provinces. Not that Nell would ever have dared to say so. People clung to the idea of living in London even when they were actually deep into Surrey. Or, like Lucy, practically in Brighton.
And just as the tide of friends had receded, the work colleagues one had too. Her professional interactions now took place, not in an office with real people, but online with commissioning editors she’d never met and who changed so frequently there was no chance to build up even an email friendship.
Nell wasn’t quite at the stage of going to zumba classes for the social opportunities. But she was definitely getting there. The white shirt’s days were numbered too; it was getting harder and harder not to shuffle to her keyboard in her onesie.
Nell now turned off her mobile, dropped a book on the scorch mark to cover it and tried to concentrate on her work.
She flexed her fingers and began to type. ‘Splash some colour about in this appliqué top, made from ultra-strong hi-tec fabric.’
Hi-tec or high-tech? Or hi-tech? Or high-tec? Nell consulted the style sheet. Hi-tec.
Every catalogue had its own style sheet and for ease of reference Nell kept them in a box file tucked into a copy of the relevant publication. The box file lived on her desk and she looked at it now, counting the small volumes.
Here was Urban Fox, an interiors and lifestyle catalogue which offered ‘tradition with a twist’ to image-conscious thirtysomething men. This seemed to boil down to silver shaving brushes, underpants with Latin mottoes and witty neon chess sets.
An Englishman’s Castle supplied vintage coat hooks, framed destination boards from old Routemaster buses and Twenties-look gramophones that concealed state-of-the-art music systems.
Eggheads sold ironic crocheted antimacassars and other knowingly grannyish knitted goods. Croker & Descendants was a retro furniture catalogue specialising in corner units upholstered in PVC and other examples of ‘Sixties penthouserie’.
Some of the catalogues were designed to go out with museum membership packs and acknowledged the subscriber’s cultural interests. They sold headscarves printed with the rose window of Salisbury Cathedral, Charles Rennie Mackintosh cardigans and Ancient Egyptian-themed wristwatches.
Year Zero was an eco-chic cat
alogue offering weekend bags made of recycled Cambodian rice sacks, sustainable armchairs upholstered with vintage Welsh blankets, and underpants made from cotton produced by Indian farmers whose access to Wi-Fi the catalogue helped fund. Buy underpants, connect people, was the subliminal message.
There was The Knitting Sheep, an upmarket children’s emporium selling miniature deckchairs, personalised ballet bags, child-sized croquet sets and hand-crafted wooden play-forts. Buttermilk dealt in undateably plain and floaty women’s clothes in light wool and linen. Every item had a name chosen to trigger certain associations: the ‘Elizabeth’ coat, the ‘Margaret’ dress, the ‘Cate’ pyjamas, the ‘Angelina’ thong. Sometimes, as in the case of the Morpheus beds catalogue, Nell chose the names herself. She had worked her way through the atlas of Europe this way, with beds called after towns from Albi to Verona.
Less romantically, there were several catalogues for financial services, all featuring images of people in vaguely horticultural environments. This, Nell had guessed, suggested growth whilst euphemistically avoiding any suggestion of actual money. The models were obviously selected to represent all social types – a man with a trim white beard (older savers) smiling at an apple tree; a blond tot by some daisies (parents and grandparents); a groomed young man of vaguely Asian appearance squatting over some tomatoes (a complex catch-all including middle-youth, couples, homosexuals, career types and people of ethnic origin).
And here was Toe Be Or Not Toe Be, a cashmere sock catalogue which required a Shakespearean reference in every description. Nell always had to rifle the Complete Works for that one and enjoyed it so much it made her wonder whether a career in academia might, in other circumstances, have been a possibility.
Looking at her range of clients, Nell tried to fan her sense of pride; she had done well, after all, to launch herself as a freelance copywriter. At least she was still working with words. Even if it was describing lamps and bathmats. She was still paid for ideas.
And yet her ability to persuade people from the back bedroom of 19a Gardiner Road N1 wasn’t quite the same as holding meetings in Vanilla’s Soho offices and advising clients over an entire range of marketing options – brochures, posters, websites, ads. It wasn’t the same at all.
‘Every man’s favourite casual shirt. Great price too. As easy as life should be!’
Nell paused over her keyboard and wrinkled her nose. Was that quite the right description? A price tag of £99 did not strike her as especially great. And where did the idea of life being easy come from, exactly?
Everything she had achieved had been through sheer dogged hard work. Especially Vanilla. Its collapse had been heart-breaking, but tonight, she had hoped to persuade Lucy that they could resurrect it. Oh well. If Lucy hadn’t even managed to make it into town she was hardly a good bet as a business partner. Even if she’d been a good one in the past. But these days Lucy was a full-time mum and seemingly content to be so.
They probably wouldn’t have talked about Vanilla at all. Lucy would have spent the whole evening – or the couple of short hours before she had to get her train back – banging on about her children or complaining about her partner Uri, who sold eco heat-pumps for a living. They were always going wrong, apparently, and poor Uri spent his life snorkelling around in people’s filthy ponds trying to fix them.
Nell wouldn’t have wanted Uri herself, but at least he was a partner. Even ones covered in pond slime were in short supply, especially as one grew older.
Nell had been single for over a year now, ever since things ended with Toby. He had dumped her, although not in any dramatic fashion. Nothing was ever dramatic with Toby which, actually, had been the problem. They had parted amicably but had not kept in touch; he was married now, Nell had heard through the grapevine.
Well, good for him. She hoped he would be happy. But in the middle of the night sometimes the fear gripped Nell that she had rather easily let go what might prove to be her last ever relationship. London, after all, was famously full of single ladies. Sternly she would tell herself that she was an independent woman, better off alone than with the wrong guy.
She focused on her screen again. An expensive, swingy little miniskirt needed a breezy caption. Resolutely, Nell poised her fingers over the keyboard. ‘Life’s a party!’ she wrote. ‘And you’ve been invited!’
CHAPTER 3
It was the afternoon of the next day. A new estate agent’s board was going up outside Nell’s house. The upstairs flat was for sale. It had been empty since Choon, a friendly Chinese man Nell had been fond of, had moved to Wimbledon some months ago. Having done the rounds of several local agencies, No. 19b Gardiner Road was now on the books of a smart new one, Carrington & Co. Nell had seen its gleaming offices on the main street. Would it succeed where the others had failed?
She forced herself back to work; finding a caption for a rather horrid stag-beetle-printed T-shirt (‘Insectious good humour’? ‘Unleash beetlemania’?). Her landline rang.
‘It’s Rose,’ said a voice. ‘I’m at St Pancras and my train’s been delayed. Want to meet for a drink?’
Nell had met Rose at university. They had lived next door to each other in halls. Rose always had more success with men, despite being short, dark and hairy to Nell’s tall and blonde. ‘Big tits, though,’ Rose always said, jiggling them smugly whilst looking at Nell’s comparatively flat chest.
‘I’d love to,’ Nell said now. ‘What about the champagne bar?’
Life was a party, after all, and she had been invited.
Rose looked curvier than ever, Nell saw as she strode across the concourse at St Pancras. Perhaps having four children had done it. Nell could not imagine why anyone needed so many, or why Rose had called them Alder, Wolf, Moonshine and Sid. It seemed only partly explained by the fact that Griff, Rose’s husband, had become a pagan after Sid was born.
Ten minutes after sitting down at the champagne bar Nell was digesting the news that Griff was currently suspended from work, locked in a dispute with HR for wearing a phallus round his neck. ‘It’s an ancient fertility symbol, but can they get their heads round his value system?’ Rose complained.
Rose, who had moved with her pagan brood to Kettering, had come to London for a charity board meeting. GroomRoom aimed to educate children about the dangers of online chatrooms. All Rose’s children, even Moonshine, who was four, had smartphones. ‘Denying access is no way to deal with the problem,’ Rose pronounced when, cautiously, Nell pointed this out. ‘That’s head-in-the-sand territory.’
Nell was beginning to regret the champagne bar idea. They were on their second glass each and she’d bought both rounds. Rose evidently had no plans to get in the third.
They were talking about Nell’s love life now. ‘Non-existent,’ said Nell. Like the wine; the glasses were both empty again.
She signalled, resignedly, to the barman. They should have bought a whole bloody bottle, like he suggested in the first place.
‘Why don’t you do internet dating?’ Rose asked as she lifted her newly-full glass. ‘Everyone else does.’
Nell knew this. People were always suggesting it to her. But online had never appealed. What was that phrase – the odds were good but the goods were odd? ‘I’ve never really fancied it.’
‘It’s a well-known fact,’ Rose announced, ‘that people who meet on the internet are much happier than people who don’t.’
‘Is it?’ Nell had never heard this before.
‘Absolutely. There was a survey recently of Dutch couples who met online.’ Rose spoke with magisterial authority as she hoovered up a second bowl of nuts. ‘They shared more interests.’
A booming, incomprehensible voice echoed across the concourse. ‘Ooh,’ Rose exclaimed, sliding off her stool. ‘That’s my train. I’d better go. Good to see you.’
She swigged back the rest of the champagne, lunged at Nell i
n an attempt at an air kiss, and was gone. There was no suggestion she might contribute to the bill.
Perched on her bar stool, Nell lifted her glass in ironic salute to the figure, draped with lumpy bags, hurrying towards the gates. She was in no rush to leave herself. What self-consciousness she might have felt had been removed by the champagne, and besides, what was there to go back to in Gardiner Road? Especially now the waiter had once again replaced the nuts.
It was pleasant here at the bar, with the great Victorian red-brick walls behind her and the pale blue iron arches soaring overhead. After the solitude of her bedroom St Pancras was all glamorous bustle. It reminded her of the places she had taken clients for drinks and lunch during Vanilla’s heyday. She felt once again plugged into the world.
The champagne bar was a glowing island in a sea of shining marble over which glided the easy rumble of suitcases and people bound for exotic destinations. Nell looked over to the golden windows of the lit-up Eurostar. People were seated within, smiling, chatting. Off to Paris, Brussels, Bruges . . .
She sipped her champagne and wished she was on the train as well, wherever it was going. She thought about the travel centre on the floor below and pictured herself in the Eurostar queue, slipping a large ticket into one of the brushed-steel entry gates, seeing them spring back, being waved through by one of those smart workers in their dark blue and yellow uniforms. Her fingers twitched. Should she? Could she?
No. She reached for a macadamia instead. Running away wasn’t really the answer. Wandering around Europe would solve nothing and cost a fortune. She must face up to things here, in London. Her drifting career. Her non-existent love life.
So – internet dating. She had resisted it so far, but it was true that everyone did it. Were couples that met that way – Dutch or otherwise – really happier? Might it be worth going online to find love?
Two days later, Nell had selected ‘Elite Connections’ from an infinite number of other possible cyber meat markets. She had done so on the entirely practical grounds that the joining fee was so steep it would preclude, if not the psychopaths, then at least the skint and the seedy.
