‘You didn’t tell him…’ I asked, horrified.
‘Don’t worry. He thinks that call was a model I used to see. Her name is Emma, so I called you Em, rather handy that.’
I felt an instant pang of jealousy. Maybe he was still seeing her. And other models, whatever he had said about them that time, being sexless objects. But I pushed the thought away. What right had I to be jealous of Miles?
‘I’d better get going then,’ I said, starting to get up.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me back, kissing me deeply. Then he put his nose to my face and neck, sniffing all over my skin, like an animal.
‘Just in case I never get to do it again,’ he said. ‘I want to remember your smell.’
I just looked at him in amazement. He seemed to have such a direct connection between his feelings and his mouth, with no baggage in between to trip him up. He told you what he felt and that was it. I’d never met anyone like that before, except for possibly Nelly, and I wanted to make a gesture as sincere and uncomplicated as him.
‘Here,’ I said and handed him the extra key card I’d got from the concierge. ‘Keep it.’
He looked at me steadily, slightly raising one eyebrow.
‘Just text me first,’ I said.
By the time we came out of the Rochas show at eight o’clock that night, Luigi was waiting for us. Frannie and I exchanged a look. Had Bee finally gone insane? We had a Milanese driver in Paris.
‘Oh, you clever boy,’ said Bee, kissing him on both cheeks. ‘You got the first plane over, didn’t you? Got the car from the agency? Wonderful. I love people who can be spontaneous. Now, I’ll direct you back to the hotel and then we’ll get the concierge there to give you the low-down on driving in Paris. You’ll be fine.’
We got in the car. It was nice to be with Luigi actually, a familiar back of head to look at, and we traversed the short distance back to the hotel without mishap apart from two extra circles of Place de la Concorde, just because he wanted to.
‘Now girls,’ said Bee, as we pulled up. ‘I’m staying in tonight. Easing into it gently this week. I’m doing some appointments in the morning, but they’re all with beauty advertisers, so you don’t need to bother yourselves. Have a nice easy one and I’ll meet you all here at two o’clock to go to Helmut Lang. That’ll be a challenge for Luigi. It’s on the far edge of the Sixteenth – practically Belgium.’
She chuckled happily to herself and disappeared inside with Luigi.
‘Well,’ said Frannie, waiting until Alice was also out of earshot. ‘She’s looking happier. So where did you say we were having dinner?’
‘Hôtel Costes – that’s where Nells and Iggy are staying.’
‘Oooh, very posh, I’d better go and change myself. I feel like an old fish-supper wrapper; greasy, smelly and unwanted.’
Dinner was hilarious and my pleasure at seeing Nelly was tripled when Paul joined us as well. Everyone was on sparkling form and while it was not the intimate get-to-know-Iggy dinner I had been looking forward to, it more than made up for it in laughs, turning into one of those big nights you can never plan – they just happen.
Iggy was a great host, generously ordering bottle after bottle of champagne and as he passed me a glass I noticed he wasn’t wearing the spooky hook, he had a prosthetic hand on instead and was so natural with it, you hardly noticed, which explained why I had never spotted his missing hand until the night of the show.
After dinner, we repaired to the Costes Bar, which was always a scene. Various Vogue cover models were in there and a couple of photographers more famous than the people they shot – Mario Testino holding court in one corner, Stephen Meisel in another. There were unexpected faces in there too, including Roman Polanski and Farrah Fawcett-Majors, but not together.
With Nelly’s usual bravado we somehow managed to commandeer a nicely dark back corner and it soon became a hot spot of table hopping, as people came over to say hi – mainly to Iggy and Nelly, it had to be said – while the rest of us basked in their reflected glory.
The ghastly Peter Potter came and joined us for a while, which I was not thrilled about with the scent of Miles probably still on me, but at least chatting to the happy couple gave him an item for his column, which got him off my back. Of course, we both faked being thrilled to see each other so brilliantly that anyone observing would have thought we were the closest of pals. It was a game I knew how to play and I was happy to play it. He didn’t stay long, to my great relief – there were too many other famous people in the bar to distract his attention.
Our little hardcore group was still there happily boozing and chatting in the early hours, when Paul suddenly sprang to his feet and walked a few steps away from us.
‘OK,’ he said, starting to walk back. ‘Who am I?’
He had his front teeth in a slightly goofy position, his chin held back into his neck as he lolloped along, swinging straight arms and leading with his hips.
‘Karolina,’ I shouted out.
‘Gimme flesh, sista,’ said Paul and we smacked hands in mid-air. ‘Your go.’
I got up, immediately knowing who I was going to do. I started walking towards them, taking each step with a high-lifted pointed foot, pouting sulkily, waving my hips from side to side and looking up from under my lashes.
‘Naomi!’ said Iggy.
‘Corrrrrect,’ I said. ‘Your go.’
Iggy stood up and started to walk like a gangling young horse, with knock knees and a stupid expression on his face.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Can you see? This one is vintage piece.’
‘Claudia bloody Schiffer,’ said Frannie.
‘Da!’ said Iggy and they smacked palms. ‘When I first go to Saint Martins I spend all my time watching videos of old fashion shows – I like late Eighties early Nineties, especially Chanel. That walk! How did she get job? She walk like magarac…’
‘That’s Serbian for donkey,’ said Nelly, who seemed to be getting fluent in her new lover’s language very quickly.
Next it was Frannie’s turn and she got up and walked along our imaginary catwalk looking like the proverbial village idiot. Her arms hung straight by her side and she plonked along on flat feet looking as miserable as if she was going to the scaffold.
‘What the fuck?’ said Nelly.
None of us could get it.
‘Give up?’ said Frannie, eyes sparkling with mischief.
‘Tell us!’ we all cried out.
‘Any male model,’ said Frannie and we all fell about.
And so it went on until Paul got up for another turn.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘This is a work in two parts.’
He turned his back on us then he swung back round and strode towards us, his head up, looking left and right, his eyes shining, swinging his legs and executing a perfect twirl, stopping in a killer pose.
‘I know! I know!’ I squealed, overexcited.
‘Say nothing,’ he commanded, holding up his hand. ‘Here’s part two.’
This time he walked tentatively along not moving his head, his mouth hanging slightly open, looking very unhappy, with a dazed, zombie-like expression.
‘Oh, that’s horrible,’ said Nelly. ‘I can’t bear it.’
‘Ooooooh,’ I said. ‘Ouch. Poor Maria.’
‘You’re right, girlfriends, that was Miss Maria Constanza. The Queen of the Runway – then and now.’
‘It’s so sad,’ said Frannie. ‘Why does she do it? She’s still so beautiful, but you just can’t do catwalk over the age of thirty, when all the other girls are nineteen. And she looks so depressed, like she’s lost her mojo. I just want to get up there and give her a big hug.’
‘Da,’ said Iggy, nodding. ‘I remember Maria too from videos. With Christy and Linda and Naomi and Helena. She was goddess. I have not seen her now, but I have heard. This very wrong.’
‘That’s what I hate about this business sometimes,’ said Nelly, vehemently. ‘It can be so fucked.’
‘Only
if you let it,’ said Iggy, looking deep into her eyes and squeezing her hand with his one good one.
After that poignant note the evening just melted away. Paul was going ‘out’, as he called it and he walked along Rue du Faubourg St Honoré with me and Frannie, looking for a taxi to take him the other way to the Marais. One finally pulled up and as he was kissing me goodbye he took my face in his hands and looked closely at me.
‘Any chance we might get to see each other properly this time, skinny?’ he asked. ‘And I don’t count a coffee standing up with you bleating on about shopping as properly, OK?’
‘How about tomorrow morning?’ I said. ‘We’ve got nothing until Helmut the pelmet at two thirty.’
‘Cool,’ said Paul. ‘I’m directing Céline, so I’ll have to be there by one. I’ll see you in Café Flore at ten.’
9
The next morning, it was such bliss to have time to myself, I got up the minute I woke, did my yoga and hair and walked over to Saint Germain deliberately early.
Still high on my afternoon with Miles and the hilarious night with my best pals, I just wanted to be out there in Paris. It didn’t matter how many times I went there, the beauty of that city never failed to knock me over and although I had felt lonely the day before, sometimes I just wanted to be alone in it, to drink it all in undisturbed.
I crossed to the Tuileries, and turned left to look down through the triumphal arch to the Louvre, in the golden autumn light. It was quite brisk, but I didn’t care. I pulled my Greek fisherman’s cap down over my ears and turned up the collar of my favourite Helmut Lang reefer coat. I was wearing my Gucci trainers and, in what amounted to an act of rebellion, I didn’t have a handbag with me. Just my wallet in one pocket, my phone in the other. I felt so free.
I walked all the way down to the central courtyard of the Louvre, so happy not to be rushing to a show there, but with time just to take it all in. I slowly circled I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid, looking up at the old building surrounding it, then I turned towards the Seine and went out through the huge gate, waving goodbye to all the statues of French philosophers I had never heard of.
There was no one on the Pont du Carrousel but me. Paris is not a city that gets going early and it was barely nine. I paused and looked east along the river, to the Ile de la Cité and Notre Dame, and west to Musée d’Orsay and the Eiffel Tower. Then I looked over at the trees along the Left Bank. The leaves were starting to fall and behind the branches I could see the magnificent grey stone houses on Quai Voltaire.
Finally I crossed over to Saint Germain, which was the part of Paris where I felt I really belonged. I stopped to look at a very small painting in a very large shop window on the Quai, which turned out to be a Bonnard – a real Bonnard. Then I turned up Rue des Saints Pères, looking in at the antique shops along the way, then left into Rue Jacob and right into Rue Bonaparte, my spirits lifting with every step.
By the time I got to Place St Germain des Prés, where die-hards and tourists were sitting outside the Deux Magots having their coffee in the weak morning sun, I still had nearly an hour before it was time to meet Paul. I just kept wandering further into the Sixth arrondissement, going left and right as the whim took me, although I knew where I was headed really. I paused in front of St Sulpice to admire the gushing fountain and then I kept going until I reached my final destination – the Luxembourg gardens – and wandered in, past the magnificent palace and up to the round pond.
Here I stopped, sitting on one of the moveable chairs they provide in Paris parks – and which wouldn’t last overnight in London – watching the light play on the water. It was a place with special memories for me. I’d gone there as a child, with my father – just the two of us – and sailed a boat on that pond; one of the lovely wooden boats you could still hire from the little kiosk.
I was seven and it had been one of those rare times in my childhood when everyone had been happy. We were living in Paris for six months so that my father could take up a special bursary from the French government, to paint – in a studio provided – and to spend days in galleries and museums.
Amazingly, my mother was contented just to be there, in a pokey flat in Rue du Cherche Midi, on the top floor, where she didn’t seem to mind being crammed in with two small children and having to drag the shopping up all the worn stone stairs. Every day she took us out for long walks through the beautiful streets, visiting museums along the way. I didn’t go to school for six months, but Toby and I learned French by listening and we learned about beauty and elegance, just from looking around us.
It was strange how happy my mother had been there, because in our large house in the Sussex countryside, where we had loads of room and domestic arrangements were eased by a cleaner – until my mother sacked her in a drunken rage – she was mostly depressed, drunk, stoned and impossible.
But for that magical time in Paris, none of that impinged and just for a moment it was nice to sit and remember a time in my childhood when I had been truly happy. I guarded that memory like a treasure.
Paul was waiting for me when I arrived at Café Flore, two pots of hot chocolate and a plate of croissants laid out ready for us.
‘Hey, babe,’ he said, kissing me on the lips, as usual. ‘You look gorge. You’ve got the kind of glow guys like me spend hours trying to achieve artificially in photographic studios.’
He pretended to hold a microphone under my nose.
‘Tell me, Miss Pointer,’ he said, in a cod American accent. ‘How do you achieve your amazing glow? Is it rampant sex, or daily applications of rhinocerous sputum?’
‘All of the above,’ I said, quickly. ‘And walking fast, on a cool Paris morning.’
He poured the chocolate and we sipped – it was incredibly rich – and chatted with the instant intimacy only possible between really close friends. We had a good laugh about the night before, he told me all the backstage gossip and what he had got up to in London. I told him about Peter Potter and Nivek Thims.
I wrote his name out backwards on my napkin and we agreed that Luap Stniassuot was not an improvement, in fact it was unpronounceable, but he liked Y-lime a lot. He also suggested – without writing it down – that Eillo Rehtorbriaf was pretty good too. It took me a while to cotton on.
‘Eillo,’ I said, squinting as I struggled to turn the letters round in my mind. ‘Ollie! Eillo… did you do that in your head?’ I asked him, amazed.
He just shrugged.
‘Your IQ must be off the scale,’ I said to him.
‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Never had it tested. It’s always been dwarfed by the size of my penis.’
I threw my croissant at him.
It was all very entertaining, but after a while I became aware of a slightly shifty look around Paul’s eyes. I had the feeling he wanted to ask me something, or tell me something, and was trying to find the moment. I was desperately hoping it wasn’t anything to do with a certain runway photographer – but in the end I couldn’t stand it any longer.
‘What is it, Paul?’ I said, ‘I can see you’ve got something on your mind. For once in your life, spit, honey.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Fully busted. Here’s the thing. It’s Ursula.’
‘What about Ursula,’ I said, suddenly worried. ‘She’s not ill, is she?’
‘God, no,’ said Paul. ‘The woman is a force of nature, but she’s worried about you.’
‘Oh, not that again,’ I groaned, instantly pissed off. ‘I wish she wouldn’t do this – and now you are her latest way of getting to me. I should never have introduced you. What is it this time? And why are you telling me now? Why didn’t you tell me in Milan?’
‘You wouldn’t shut up about shopping and shit, if you remember.’
‘Oh, well I do apologize, Mr Serious Pants,’ I said sarcastically, pretending to joke, but really quite cross. ‘Sorry, I must have confused you with my gay friend for a moment.’
Paul looked hurt and I felt like a shit. I sighed deeply. I loved Ursula to bits,
but I really hated it when she started interfering like this, and dragging my friends into it was too much.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I know you’re only doing your duty. Ursula’s put you in a difficult position and I know you love me, so go on, tell me what she’s obsessing on now.’
Paul took a deep breath and exhaled through pursed lips like a trumpeter.
‘Well,’ he continued. ‘For one thing, she thinks you’re too thin.’
‘Yeah, yeah, tell me something I don’t know. That’s just some weird lesbian obsession. She’s always thought I was too thin. Is that it? Or is she worrying about me not having children again?’
‘Well, there is that,’ said Paul, looking unusually uncomfortable. ‘But the real thing of it is, she doesn’t like Ollie.’
‘I know that as well,’ I said, leaning back in my seat and shrugging. ‘She’s never liked him and he doesn’t like her either. Why do you think we never stay at her place when I go over to New York with him? He always insists we stay in a hotel so he can make the whole thing look like a business trip, but really it’s because he feels uncomfortable at Ursula’s place.
‘She is the closest thing I have to parents and it used to bother me that they don’t really like each other, but it doesn’t any more. I love them both and that’s all that matters.’ I folded my arms. Case closed.
‘Really?’ said Paul, looking quite amazed. ‘You really don’t care?’
‘No. She made it quite clear to me when I told her I was going to marry Ollie, that she didn’t think it was a good idea. But I did.’
‘Did she tell you why not?’
‘I know why not,’ I said. ‘Ollie is a straight.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s obvious, babycakes,’ said Paul, back on more familiar territory. ‘Or I would have knobbed him years ago.’
‘Very funny, Paul, but I didn’t say “straight”, I said “a straight”. Although he definitely is sexually straight as well, despite his fondness for shopping and nice flowers. But Ollie is also a straight – as in fundamentally conventional, mentally limited, not creative. That’s what Ursula doesn’t like about him.’ I stirred my chocolate a bit, then continued.
Handbags and Gladrags Page 14
