Read Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend Online

Authors: Jenny Colgan

Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend (13 page)

BOOK: Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend
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I dialled my old work number. ‘Hello?’ said a smooth, sleepy-sounding voice. Weirdly, I think it sounded a bit like me.
 
‘Hi there, it’s Sophie Chesterton!’
 
There was a long pause. A loooonnngg pause. Not by any stretch of the imagination the type of pause that is just taking in a deep lungful of breath so they can scream, ‘WELCOME BACK! WE MISSED YOU SO MUCH!’ down the phone at you.
 
‘Sophie,’ said the voice, finally, smoothly. I recognised it as Ladushka, a terrifyingly elegant woman who did something unspecified with galleries. ‘What can I do for you?’
 
I aimed for cheerful perkiness, but it might have come out as strained desperation.
 
‘Well, I was just calling to tell Jules I’ll be back in to work tomorrow, and I’ll want to chat to him about, you know, my conditions and things . . .’ My voice trailed off. There was another, not very encouraging pause.
 
‘Sophie, Jules thought you’d left.’
 
‘I didn’t leave! My father died!’
 
‘Well, yes, but . . . it’s been weeks, and it was only ever an internship anyway, so . . .’
 
‘It was my job! You can’t fire me from my job because my father died!’
 
‘No, Sophie, it was an internship, with a small sum attached . . . I mean, you didn’t think that was a salary, did you?’
 
It was certainly more of a salary than I was getting now.
 
‘I was sorry to hear about your father,’ said Ladushka, her voice softening. Which meant I could tell that she knew the battle was over and that she’d made her position quite clear. ‘You must miss him terribly.’
 
Not so I was going to own up to her.
 
‘Eh, could I just speak to Jules?’
 
‘I’m terribly sorry, he’s in Reykjavik shooting girls swimming under the ice for Italian
Vogue
.’
 
I’d hit an impasse.
 
‘No mobile signal up there,’ Ladushka added quickly, just in case I hadn’t finally, irrevocably got the message.
 
‘I see,’ I said.
 
And I did see. Easy come, easy go.
 
 
 
I confided in Eck. I had to confide in someone and he was the only person handy.
 
‘I’ve lost my job,’ I said.
 
‘Oh no!’ he said. ‘Did they ask you to clean the loos?’
 
‘What do you do when you lose a job?’ I said, realising I sounded a bit pathetic.
 
Eck raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, you get another one. Or if you’re desperate you could sign on.’
 
‘Really? Do people still do that?’ I said, wondering if I put a headscarf on nobody could ever recognise me.
 
Eck eyed me over his paper and toast.
 
‘Not very many your age with four working limbs,’ he said.
 
‘Is that meant to make me feel guilty?’
 
‘No. Do you feel guilty?’
 
Just about everything, all the time, I didn’t say. I just sat there.
 
‘Do you want to look at the jobs in my paper?’
 
He handed it over. There was quite a lot of jobs on offer for someone with my qualifications, i.e. not much. But they all seemed to involve something called hostessing or exotic dancing.
 
‘You need to buy a better quality paper,’ I said.
 
‘It pleases me to think I read the same paper as exotic dancers,’ said Eck. ‘Don’t worry, Sophie. You’ll get a job. You could waitress, or you’re getting quite good at cleaning . . .’
 
I’d taken to the surfaces of everything with a tin of polish. I’d gone a bit overboard - OK, you could get slightly high walking in the house. And I’d used one of my old pairs of Agent Provocateur pants as a duster. They didn’t fit me any more for some reason.
 
‘Nope,’ I said, standing up. ‘No more cleaning. I’m a photographer. That’s what I am. That’s what I’ve always wanted to be. I’m dedicated, and I’m going to do it.’
 
‘Yay! Good for you!’ said Eck, saluting me with his toast. I grinned back at him, then stopped suddenly and hoped I had enough money left for camera film.
 
 
 
The dedicated photographer trudged around every studio in London in the end. That’s OK, flat hunting had made me quite good at trudging, and it gave me something to do during the day, apart from watch out for dropped pound coins on the street. I couldn’t rely on the boys sharing their fish and chips forever.
 
I wished my portfolio were bigger. God, after Daddy put in my own dark room and everything. That made me feel all squirmy and guilty. I took a lot of shots en route though; of a sudden piece of beauty amongst the graffiti, and rubbish on the bypass; a wildly optimistic daffodil pushing up through concrete, or a grubby child, eyes wide, pointing at a fire engine.
 
The West End had nothing for me. They had photography assistants up to their eyeballs, which coincidentally was where the legs of those photography assistants came up to too. East London wasn’t much help either. So finally I ended up even further south from where I started out; down the bottom of the endless Old Kent Road, in New Cross. I’d just taken the address from
Yellow Pages
.
 
In the end it was less a studio, more a big garage that someone had knocked a large north-facing window into. Inside, one corner had big, red velvet drapes pinned up. The rest was the usual photographer’s mess of empty coffee cups and cabling, as well as a large selection of slightly dubious-looking clothing. Suddenly I wasn’t sure about this at all. It looked definitely a bit on the seedy side.
 
‘Hello!’ yelled a voice from behind the curtain.
 
‘Hello,’ I said, trotting out my spiel. ‘I’m looking for a job? I’ve been working with Julius Mandinski, and I’m looking for a bigger challenge.’
 
A burly figure stepped out from behind the curtain.
 
‘Oh yeah?’
 
It was Julius.
 
‘Julius!’ I said. He looked at me, and I could tell he was trying to remember my name.
 
‘It’s Sophie, remember? Your assistant? I thought you were in Reykjavik.’
 
‘Uh, yeah,’ said Julius. He looked a hundred per cent not very happy to see me. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
 
‘Well, what are
you
doing here?’
 
Suddenly I heard a squawk from the door behind me.
 
‘Well, I’m not going to be big sister, right, so you might as well just get over yourself, Kelly.’
 
‘I would do,’ came a voice that sounded like it possessed extremely long fingernails, ‘if you weren’t looking like such a hideous old bag. Maybe we could be, like mother and daughter, yeah?’
 
‘Oh Christ,’ said Julius, looking worried and glancing at his watch. Two little minxes pushed open the door. Neither of them could have been taller than five foot two. Both had really cheap blonde synthetic hair extensions down their backs, obvious fake logoed bags (I recognised them but would never have bought them) and very pale lipgloss. They could easily have been sisters.
 
‘Hello, Grace. Hello, Kelly,’ said Julius. I glanced at them in disbelief. He knew these girls? The only girls he ever worked with were over six foot and under six stone.
 
‘JULIUS!’ they both started up at once. ‘I’m not going to be the big sister.’
 
‘She’s an old trout,’ said Grace, whose eyebrows were possibly more arched than Kelly’s, though it was a close run thing. ‘One, she’s twenty-one anyway, two, she’s had too much sunbed, and three, all the kids have dragged her tits down to the ground anyway.’
 
‘They have not!’ said Kelly, affronted, ‘And I’m smaller! I should be little sister!’
 
I looked at Julius and he shot a look at me.
 
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
 
Julius rolled his eyes. ‘You trust-fund honeys never do. There’s no money in fashion photography, darling. The fees are so low it hardly covers the models’ waxing bills. This is what pays for the flash pad.’ He waved his hand at the lowly studio. ‘Bit o’ glamour, bit o’ catalogue.’
 
He turned away from me. My mouth dropped open.
 
‘Now, can we just get the tops off, girls, and get started?’ he said.
 
‘No,’ said Grace. ‘Not till she confesses that she looks older than me.’
 
‘No way,’ said Kelly. ‘Bitch.’
 
‘Now, come on, girls. This is for the
Sport
; you’ve got to look like you love each other.’
 
‘Neh,’ said Kelly.
 
‘I’ve got another two girls in an hour,’ said Julius to me desperately. ‘I’ve really got to get this done.’
 
I put on my poshest voice. I don’t know why, it helps me sound louder and like I really mean things.
 
‘God, girls, you both look gorgeous,’ I said, putting on a ludicrous ‘fashion’ accent. ‘You both look like twins to me. Why don’t you play it like twins and let me see how it goes - I want to take a few Polaroids.’ And I took out my little camera.
 
Both the girls’ eyes widened with excitement. Well, I hadn’t
said
I was anyone important, had I? Kelly shrugged off her pink fake-fur gilet.
 
‘Which one’s the oldest twin?’ asked Grace.
 
‘You know,’ I said to Julius out of the corner of my mouth, ‘I’m also pretty good at cleaning up.’
 
‘I don’t need—’
 
I kept my best card till last. ‘And keeping my mouth shut.’
 
Julius heaved a big sigh. ‘Then I guess you’ve started, love,’ said Julius.
 
 
 
I stopped off at the off-licence and bought some cans of something with Greek lettering on that I figured must be beer to take home in celebration.
 
‘You never thought I’d do it,’ I said to Eck when I told him I had a proper job in photography.
 
‘I absolutely did,’ he said and raised his can to me then drank it.
 
‘Jesus Christ, what the hell is this?’
 
‘I don’t know,’ I said. I’d never bought beer before.
 
Cal sniffed it. ‘Is it . . . is it fizzy ouzo?’
 
Eck stared at me incredulously. ‘Were you raised in a barn? On the moon? A moon barn?’
 
‘Here’s a hypothetical question,’ mused Cal annoyingly. ‘I wonder what it would be like to have never had to buy your own beer before.’ And he shot me a suspicious look.
 
We were eating lemon chicken out of a silver-foil tin. This wasn’t the light tempura I was used to in smart Japanese restaurants. It was thick and heavy, smothered in batter, with a viscous sauce that clung to your teeth and made them ache. It was delicious.
 
‘So where exactly are you working?’ said Cal.
 
‘It’s a photographic studio. I’m in photography. Ergo, this is the job for me,’ I said.
 
‘What kind of photography though? Babies? Fruit? Cats?’
 
‘Uh, more . . . catalogue.’
 
‘Catalogue? Like underwear? Like, Page Three?’ said James excitedly.
 
I shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
 
For the first time, I had stunned them into silence. I felt quite proud of myself. Until James said, ‘Lovely jugglies! Ooherr! Fantastic!’
 
‘So posh - so down with the Page Three mob,’ said Cal thoughtfully. ‘You are a wonder, Cinders. Though they do always say the posh birds are the dirtiest.’
 
I ignored him. ‘I’m not actually
doing
anything like that,’ I said. ‘I’m an assistant. I get coffee and fix lights and hopefully I’ll work up to doing stuff for myself.’
 
‘Do you have to, you know. Spray the girls to make them wet or anything,’ said James, as if this was a completely normal topic of conversation and he was only being polite.
 
‘No!’ I said. This wasn’t strictly true. That very afternoon there had been a bit of T-shirt soppage. Kelly had been very unhappy.
BOOK: Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend
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