Low Expectations (28 page)

‘Go find Julian! Tell him we need fur hats! Pronto! Fox, orange and fluffy!' Trigger barks in my direction.

I run up the stairs to find Julian and say breathlessly, ‘Anna Karenina hats! Fox, orange, fluffy!' He whips around to the nearest intern and instructs her to search all the nearest vintage shops. As I run back down the stairs, I can hear her asking in confusion, ‘Anna Karenina? Is she a model?' The Chinese whispers that function as commands are a hazard in an intern-heavy industry dependent upon delegation. Who knows what she might return with.

At a quarter to midnight, I have just about finished mounting the Polaroids of the looks on the wall. What was a few hours ago an insurmountable chaos in the fitting room, has now been carefully arranged on labelled groups of hangers. Quite a few pieces have yet to be finished, but by the time the girls return to be fitted before the show all the toiles will be replaced by completed garments. We hope.

There may be one or two final additions, the result of creative doubt and panic, hastily sewn up and then drawn up on Illustrator as tech specs, ready to be put into the online ordering system should they make it into the show. More likely, these will be scrapped, the all-night work of exhausted Polish seamstresses ultimately fruitless. It might appear to be a waste of money, fabric, energy and time but is a necessary part of the process. Many people don't realize when they buy a designer frock how much hair-tearing thought has gone into every aspect of it. A few centimetres' difference here and there in the hem, the painstaking consideration of the colour and fabric, the changes that have gone into the prints or embroidery, how many versions have bitten the dust, how much work is abandoned.

Truly, though spending an exorbitant amount of money on a piece of clothing might seem absurd to some, you get what you pay for. Whether or not the final product is a revelation or a hideous blot on the face of design (for these do frequently appear), rest assured, a hell of a lot of work has
gone into it. Work that is paid for with a living wage to the designers, seamstresses, suppliers and factories involved in the supply chain in a way that a dress from the high street might not be.

Excepting, of course, the interns. In an industry where payday arrives months after all your budget has been spent, how would they survive without a free, infinitely replaceable workforce desperate for experience? We can learn only so much at university and we are unlikely to land a job without considerable previous experience, thus interning is indispensable.

The morning of the show, 9 a.m. and running on two hours' sleep, Julian and I share a sneaky, shaky fag break outside the building. We are both clutching coffees and gabbling about what still needs to be done. Technically, at this moment, nothing needs to be done, by us at least. Everything has slowly come together to the point where all the garments have all their hardware and correct finishings with labels and swing-tags in place. With the looks lined up neatly in runway order ready to be transported to the show, hung with OCD levels of care in assembled Schrödinger garment bags, the essential work is over.

A board divides each look on the rail – an A1 card with the model's headshot, name, a Polaroid with her looks and notes on the styling to make everything idiot-proof for the team of professional dressers who will expertly guide them
in and out of their catwalk changes. Taxis are scheduled to arrive in thirty minutes and we have nothing to do, but feel that we should be running around like headless chickens, having done so all week. Though it is not unusual for stressful last-minute changes to be made the night before the show, this time around little was dramatically altered. Whether through foresight, exhaustion or prioritizing looking good for the cameras over tailoring at 3 a.m., Trigger burst into the studio at 11 p.m. and said to Marco ominously: ‘I leave this in your hands'. He then swept out majestically in his wool Margiela jumper-coat.

The only major adjustment to do on Sunday was overprinting on a jacket, dress and skirt when Trigger suddenly decided he hated the underlying motifs. One of the first finalized prints of the collection, it was probably a matter of him having seen it one too many times and its having lost its allure rather than through any inherent ugliness. However, this print being something that Julian worked on start to finish, he is worried.

‘He's dropped practically everything I had a hand in, Georgie. Things he loved a month ago. What the fuck? I don't care about everything I do getting in the show but I'm starting to worry about my job. I feel like maybe he's edging me out – that he's going to replace me with Marco. Fucking Marco!'

Nervous tension often manifests itself as paranoid
bitchiness, I find. At this stage in the game, everyone is either chatting shit about someone, running their mouths in a continuous stream of nonsense or acting as the silent recipient of this hyper-fatigued prattle. I reassure Julian for ten minutes, though in his place I would share the same concerns. Even if he can't be outright fired, things can be made so miserable for him that he can be pushed out if Trigger so wishes it.

The show is being held at 1 Terrance Place, a gorgeous mansion in Mayfair that normally functions as an exclusive members' club but can be hired out for events. Its exorbitant expense has been offset by Premiere Vodka, who are in the midst of a rebranding attempt and hope to get an in with the fashion crowd through sponsoring the show and after party.

The girls will walk out through a side door into the enormous indoor greenhouse garden, down a cobbled pathway that winds around a fountain before pausing in front of an enormous banquet. Here they are instructed to pose for the photographers cordoned into the far left corner before cutting a swath through the centre of the garden, entering the main door and marching up the spiral staircase in the main hall to hurry into their next look.

The seating plan for the guests has been arranged in order of importance and fame, with top editors, journalists, buyers and celebrities nabbing upholstered William Morris couches and vintage rocking chairs scattered at key viewing points.
The rest of the
invités
will have to be content with standing space in the hallway. An effusion of imported exotic plants has made the garden savage.

The best view can be had from the wicker swing hanging from a tree near the banquet, but the front of house girls have been put under strict instruction not to seat anyone there. This is because it is a feast with a difference. Continuing the themes of life, death, sex and decay, the food (specially commissioned from a Michelin-starred chef) was cooked ten days ago and is now swarming with flies and maggots. The hothouse flowers surrounding it had been chosen for drama, not scent, but their odour rises up and mixes with the smell of putrid flesh. The glass atrium is oppressively heady.

Trigger had debated whether or not to go ahead with this concept, as it is so clearly derivative of Hirst. The important thing, Paloma assured him, is that the right mood is evoked, not whether it is an original idea. What is original these days? The blooming flowers contrasting with the rotting meat against the gloriously decadent clothing is a powerful image for the press.

All the garments have been unloaded and organized, the model boards spread out and the hair and makeup teams set up in the upstairs dining rooms. The girls start to wander in and disrobe, having their hair backcombed and crimped into shagged-in-a-bush abandon with long gold-plated twigs artfully arranged in their knotted locks. Lipstick in deep blood
red and plum is perfectly applied and then roughly smeared across one cheek, as if they had just been passionately kissed. Those of us backstage are left hanging around. We receive an occasional command along the lines of ‘Find Tit-Tape!' (said with the urgency of a First World War doctor shouting for a saw and morphine) but otherwise we have no further responsibilities. We eat the sandwiches provided for the models, wander around, gossip and pretend to be busy as we wait for things to start.

Finally, the guests trickle in at a quarter past one and we help put on the finishing touches to the girls – straightening a skirt here, tucking in a blouse there. We keep up a soothing stream of mild chat as the girls are obediently lifted, tweaked and adjusted, ethereal rag-dolls. Trigger is occupied with interviews downstairs, so Julian and Marco run around making sure no fuck-ups are being made. They shout encouragement and tips to the models – ‘Fantastic! You look beautiful! Now remember we want a strong walk but limp wrists. A knackered feel. Pretend you're dying of consumption. Have you seen
Moulin Rouge
? You are Satine!' – which elicit laughter from the English-speakers and blank confusion from the rest. As they are all clearly exhausted from a non-stop week of travelling, walking, standing, waiting around and parties, looking elegant and near-death isn't much of a stretch.

As melancholic strains of contemporary orchestral-electro are struck up, everything begins to go very quickly. I peek outside
at the hushed crowd below as they watch the runway. Their expressions behind raised handkerchiefs (silk, hand-embroidered with a monogrammed SC, both gift and vital protection against the potent smell of decomposition) vary from the excited to the blasé. The girls languidly march forward, beautiful faces sensuously wan. The collection is magnificent, decadent and replete with a buttoned-up volupté. The bass reverberating, the intoxication of smell, sight and sound overwhelm the guests, some of who are physically overcome. This is what Trigger intended. People love nothing so much as to be shocked into feeling again after so many similar presentations.

The show seems to last mere seconds, rather than minutes. After all the build-up – the sleepless nights, the stress, the hysterical laughter, the escaped tears, the inflated and injured feelings, all to lead up to this moment – the actual event is a brilliant but rapid climax. Fifteen minutes to sell this vision to the world, six months in the making. As the girls all line up in a row and Trigger comes out to bashfully take a bow, there is a standing ovation from the crowd. He has arrived. The guests start to leave, already late for the next show. We are left behind – congratulations are made – the girls are stripped – garments are carefully rehung – makeup wipes are distributed – we clear up. We sleepwalk through the motions, dreaming of a long afternoon nap before the after party tonight.

I step out of the taxi, wobbling on my Marant rip-off heels. I am already a little bit tipsy from the bottle of champers that Julian, Theo and I had downed before throwing out of the window in giggling abandon (we were severely reprimanded by our driver, yet unrepentant). Somehow, on a diet of stress, cigarettes and Hobnobs, I have managed to lose the majority of my Christmas coating. I just about fit back into a body-con dress that is admittedly both a bit tacky and slightly Essex Girl, but fuck it, flattering. Sometimes you only want to feel sexy, especially after being cooped up with girls, gays and lank, greasy locks for an endless week. So – tits, arse, heels and hair are the order of the day.

‘Fucking hell, look at this joint all done up,' Julian says,
a cigarette rakishly hanging out of the corner of his mouth. He has been smoking like a fiend, though he is always threatening to quit as it goes against his obsessive skin-care regime.

‘Not bad, not bad at all.'

The after party is in the same venue as the show – a large expense but the extra cash was the only way Terrance Place would agree to keep a slowly rotting table of gourmet food cordoned off in the greenhouse for the better part of a week. The white eighteenth-century façade has been lit up with spotlights, and intricately drawn illustrations of flora and fauna are projected on to the walls, slowly decaying in stop-frame. Though it is past midnight, a long queue still snakes its way up to the clipboard-clutching guardian of the door, who looks appropriately sphinx-like, her bitch-face set to petrify.

Fashion parties can go one of two ways. Either they are uptight, pretentious, cold affairs where people stick to gossiping with a handful of intimates, or they are the most riotous, silly, disco-heavy, smile-at-the-ready, drug-fuelled fun ever. Luckily, this looks as if it will fall into the latter category.

Inside, the light is dim enough to flatter but bright enough to admire, with giant yellowing antique-lace handkerchiefs recalling
A Streetcar Named Desire
swamping the lamps. We perfunctorily admire walls covered in bouquets of dried flowers before leaving our extra layers at the cloakroom and heading straight to the bar. An array of sponsored
vodka cocktails are being made by gorgeous mixologists who dispense eye-fucks along with drinks. Flamboyantly dressed guests smother each other in kisses, smiling with manic magnanimity as they twitch with tell-tale tics, rubbing their nostrils, sniffing and chomping enthusiastically on gum. As for me, after the New Year's debacle I have sworn off drugs for ever, with the vague willpower of one who has not yet had the opportunity to turn them down. The techno beat makes me itch with desire for a little pick-me-up, but as Julian and Theo think that drugs are common, I figure I will be safe enough in their company.

We get silly drunk with the clear buzz that comes from imbibing only high-quality spirits, quite unlike my usual beer-haze or wine-bubble, or toxic mixture of the two. We have arrived at just the right time – the music is getting progressively cheesier. I expected to feel some am-I-inside-or-outside-the-group awkwardness due to my short tenure this season, but the dual social lubrications of alcohol and Rihanna are impossible to deny.

If I am not on a natural high, I am at least on a legal one when I run into Gary in the mixed-sex loos. I am trying to blow-dry the perspiration rings under my armpits with as much nonchalance as I can muster. Catching sight of his shaven head emerging from a toilet, I lower my arms with the swiftness of a ninja and stick my hands under the dryer like a normal person.

‘Gary! Oh my gosh! What are you doing here?' I lean in to give him a hug.

Taken by surprise, Gary responds warmly with ‘I'm shagging a famous makeup artist!' before realizing who I am and pulling back with a narrow-eyed once-over.

‘Georgie, all right?' he says guardedly.

A naturally convivial person, this greeting is, for him, cuttingly glacial. I nod in response, laughing at nothing with a strained rictus grin. It is one of my Life Goals Before Thirty to be able to present myself with a cool, collected veneer of confidence in such situations. When that is accomplished, I can focus on other things, like marriage and kids.

‘How are things? With – how is – The Newt?' I blurt out, as he turns to leave.

‘Fine. How is Leo?' he says with contempt.

‘Oh, I'm so glad. I don't know. I imagine he's fine, we broke up.'

‘Did you now? What happened there?' A glimmer of renewed interest sparks Gary's eyes and as his handsome friend makes impatient moves towards the dance floor, Gary waves him off with promises to join him.

‘Oh, it was nothing dramatic, not like New Year's … I just kind of realized one day – well, last week – that he's a bit of a dick and always will be.' The words stumble out in a rush. ‘And what does that make me if I'm girl-willing-to-put-up-with-a-dick? Either someone with really low self-esteem, or,
you know, also a dick. So I broke up with him. To which his response was, “Then just go. Go home, have a nice life, or not, I don't care”. So, no regrets there.'

My unspoken regret is the Scottish elephant in the room. A smothering feeling of dread still creeps up on me on the rare occasions I allow myself to think of how I behaved. The hollow victory I chose, a poor decision based on fear. I reassure myself that he probably wasn't that interested and that this current, mild heartbreak is better than the crippling heartbreak that would have eventually ensued if I had actually dated him. It's a small comfort.

‘Just a bit of a dick? Jesus, Georgie, the man was a giant fucking cock. I couldn't believe that you took his side when he assaulted Alice,' Gary says with some disgust.

This time my only response is to hang my mouth open in utter shock. I try to shout ‘Whaaaaaaat?' but the only sound to escape my throat is a choked whistle of shock.

‘You don't know? Clearly you don't know. Thank God, I hoped you weren't that much of a bitch. Fuck me. Let's get a drink.'

I numbly follow Gary, who dances nimbly through the crowd to where the vodka sings its siren song. He grabs four long cocktails from a tray behind the bar and shouts to follow him. We wind through the kitchens, scramble through the service door and sneak up a back stairwell that has been cordoned off. A series of smallish rooms hold couples sharing
intense conversations and passionate embraces. I don't recognize anyone from Schrödinger. Typically, the random, least deserving guests are having the best of secret times. Gary leads me to a quiet corner near an open window. He sets our drinks down on the floor, reaches into his blazer and smoothly pulls a deck of Marlboros, a pack of Golden Virginia and an electronic cigarette from various hidden pockets.

‘Pick your poison,'

Taking a cigarette, I take a deep gulp from my glass and say solemnly,

‘Tell me what happened.'

Gary, a natural storyteller, takes a bit more delight in the gruesomeness of the encounter than I would have liked, but being The-One-Who-Sided-With-A-Sexual-Assailant, for me to bring this up now would be quibbling.

‘This is the culmination of a drama that had been going on for years,' he begins. ‘Starting at one of Scott's house parties, 2011. Tim and Leo had just become close and Alice was passed out in the spare bedroom. She went through a long phase of caning it on the weekends. When I first met her she was still a bit of a mess to be honest, it's only quite recently that she has been more together. Soo, Scott walks in to check on her and finds Leo lying next to her, clearly awake, drunk and acting shifty when the lights come on. Her top is off. Alice is still passed out. Scott yells at him, wakes her up and
she laughs off the incident, saying it was nothing. I think she just didn't want to rock the boat.

‘So, Leo acts totally outraged, said he came in and she had taken her shirt off and he was trying to cover her up with a blanket, rah rah rah, super-dodgy story. For whatever reason, Alice backs him up and then Tim does as well and Scott's the only one with serious concerns. As you can imagine, he's always been suspicious of him. And he had massive doubts about Alice managing their band.'

‘He never seemed that concerned to me, why didn't he say anything?' I ask, puffing away in a fever of angst.

‘He had his concerns, but Alice is a big girl. Sometimes supporting someone silently and being there for them when things inevitably fuck up is more helpful than being a loud voice of dissent from the beginning, you know? People always see through their worst mistakes with the most determination, I've noticed.'

I sigh deeply in agreement, wishing Scott hadn't been so discreet in this case, whatever his motives.

‘But this time, things were really grim. After the gig on New Year's Eve, Alice was helping Leo to load their equipment in Tim's van – Tim was off drinking with the promoter – in this empty car park behind the warehouse. She's knackered; Leo offers to give her a backrub, starts kissing her neck. At first I think she was probably sort of into it as they'd all been drinking, but then he pushes her on the floor of the van and
starts getting rough with her. She hasn't been very detailed about what happened, it didn't get too far, but apparently she was trying to fight him off and he wouldn't stop.'

‘Fucking hell.' I take a huge gulp of my cocktail, hoping to calm the bilious roiling of my stomach. This is so much worse than expected. I feel sick to my soul.

‘I know. Luckily, Tim came back earlier than expected and heard scuffling noises coming from the van. The doors were shut and locked. He bangs on the door; he can hear Alice shouting – he starts screaming that he'll smash a window to get in. Alice finally opens it and spills out sobbing, her skirt up around her waist and bruises on her arms. Leo scrambles out, Tim tries to tackle him to the ground but Leo is way bigger and stronger than him. He pushes Tim off and just runs away without saying a word. No explanation, no apology, nothing.'

Runs off to The Newt, to me. To the one who never questions, never demands; the one least likely to investigate and most likely to take his explanations at face value. The blind faith of the permanently disappointed wishing to remain ignorant.

My eyes fill up with tears. I have to wait a few minutes for them to subside, for the lump in my throat to clear, before I am able to speak. Gary gives me time, putting a sympathetic hand on my shoulder.

‘Jesus Christ. I feel terrible for Alice; I can't believe it.
Actually, I can totally picture it, isn't that fucked up, that I am not that shocked? God, that's so fucked up. I am so appalled … that I ever let him touch me. Poor Alice, God, how is she now?'

‘She's okay, it's been a while. She's carrying on managing Tim, he wrote most of the songs, you know. So it's not like she quit her PR job for nothing. She doesn't seem to be dwelling on it but she just needed to cut him out of her life, totally. I can't believe she didn't press charges, but these things are so difficult to prove and so emotionally draining, she didn't think she could cope.' Gary shakes his head sadly. ‘It's only on Alice's account that Scott didn't track Leo down and beat him to a pulp. She just wanted to forget it ever happened.'

‘How could you all … think that I knew all this? And that I still chose to be with him?' I ask, heart in my throat. It is far and away the most depressing assessment of my character, ever. And I'm pretty sure not everyone of my acquaintance thinks highly of me.

Gary looks a bit guilty, then shrugs.

‘Scott was very angry with you. I wanted to think you wouldn't be so stupid but we were all furious, it was easier to just shut out anyone associated with him. It didn't seem so impossible – I wanted to think the best of you – but in these situations women are often blind. You have to know how it looked.'

‘I do. God, I need to apologize. I need to apologize now. They must be so disgusted with me.'

My veins boil with a sudden urgency, to find Scott, now, wherever he is, find him and explain. I hold no hopes for anything between us, beyond him not remembering me in such a horrible light, even if my behaviour was awful and selfish and this is probably no more than I deserve.

I stand up abruptly, my knees wobbling. Necking the rest of my first drink, then swiftly downing the other – if ever there is a time for ill-conceived Dutch courage, I rationalize that it is now – I set down both glasses with a firmness of resolve that nearly shatters them and declare that I am going to find him.

‘What, Scott? Now? Georgie, it's half past two in the morning. The pub is closed, he'll be in bed. Wait until tomorrow, when you've sobered up a bit.'

‘No, I need to find him now,' I say as I sling my bag over my shoulder, slurring slightly. ‘I need to explain. I can't bear that he thinks—'

‘Georgie … this is really not the time. It's been two months, what's the difference of a few hours? Harassing a man in the middle of the night is never a good idea.'