Sugar Mummy (9 page)

'Easier said than done,' I say, but nod.

I ask what he's been doing at the Hyde Park Hotel. He glances
down the street and then looks down at the pavement, tapping some imaginary ash
off his cigarette.

'Oh, yeah. Just visiting someone. Another American,' he says,
looking past me at the shop windows and then taking another drag.

'Americans your speciality?' I ask.

'Not really. It's just that there are a lot of them around at
the moment - always are in the summer. Anyway, it's so easy to give them that English
gentleman bullshit. I tell them I play cricket and they say things like ‘Mmm, I'd
really like to see you in all that white gear.’ They love it. All that shit. Then
I mention I went to Eton, that my family's lived in the same house for four hundred
years, stuff like that. I've usually turned into Hugh Grant after half an hour.'

I laugh. 'They believe it?'

'Yeah, 'cause they want to.'

'Perhaps I should try it.'

'Works a treat. I tell them that I'm reduced to selling my body
because my dissolute father gambled away my inheritance.' We both laugh at this
one.

'You must read a lot of Mills & Boon.'

'Research,' he says with mock seriousness. We laugh again.

'Just invent yourself a history, the posher and sadder the better.
They all go for it: Americans, Arabs, South Africans, the Hong Kong lot. South Americans
really dig it for some reason.' We laugh at the absurdity of it. Then Mark says,
'Oh-oh, I think you're wanted.'

Marion is standing by the open door of the car, looking across
at me meaningfully.

'I've got to go.' I wish I could think of something else to say
to him.

He smiles, sadly I notice, and says, 'See you around.' Marion
gets into the car - no chance of leading her off to Harvey Nics now. 'Who was that?'

'Mark, you know, he was with your friend at the ball the other
night.'

She ignores my answer. 'That shop is just so gross. That's the
trouble with London these days - no one has any taste any more. All the English
are running around trying to sell their asses to anyone with a platinum card'.

She looks at herself in her compact and tells the driver to take
us home. No shopping for me today, obviously. Maybe next time. I'll just have to
invest a few more hours on these little shopping trips. Anyway, she might give me
some cash for taking her out this afternoon.

 
We go to Aspinalls that
night and I have rather too much champagne. Marion introduces me to some people,
including a couple who both have exactly the same colour hair and we play roulette
a bit. It's actually very easy. I put some chips on the red panel a few times and
it comes up once or twice and then have a go on the black and the same thing happens
again.

'He's good, your friend,' says someone Marion hasn't introduced
me to.

'He's my lucky charm,' says Marion, pinching my cheek. We all
laugh. I catch her eye for a moment and she looks away quickly. Is she blushing
beneath her expertly applied make-up? A woman with a tray comes along, smiling as
if she is in on the joke and asks whether we'd like something to drink later at
the bar. I say 'champagne' and then look at Marion, wondering if I've stepped out
of line.

'Good idea, bring a bottle of the Laurent Perrier. After all,
we're on a winning streak, aren't we? Put it over there, we'll be done in a minute.'
At just before two Marion cashes in our chips and, as we wait in the lobby for our
car, she pushes four £50 notes into my top pocket. More than I would have earned
if we'd been doing it through Jonathan with his twenty per cent commission - just
for taking a phone call from her and making another to me. I see what Marion meant:
we can safely cut him out of this little equation.

'Thank you,' I say and kiss her lightly on the lips, partly so
that other people around us can see.

When I wake up the next morning with Marion already in the shower
I find them lying on the bedside table next to my keys and feel very decadent. Is
this what it's all about? I wonder.

The first thing I see when I open the door of the office later
that morning is Debbie. Or rather her eyes: narrowed with fury. She is standing
over a new girl's desk, giving her some pieces of paper. I know that all around
her, they are wondering how long this one will last, whether she will hit her target
and be lucky enough to stay, whether it is worth getting to know her. By the time
I have taken off my jacket Debbie has finished with the new girl and is saying,
'Can I have a word with you in my office, Andrew?'

I can tell she is really pissed off because she is using my name.
I suppose I'll have to explain why I wasn't in the office yesterday morning and
also why I was late this morning. It was actually because the chauffeur was late
getting to Marion's to pick me up because of traffic in the King's Road but I can
hardly say that.

'Sure,' I say casually and step in.

'Close the door.' It's getting worse. 'Where did you sneak off
to yesterday?'

'Yesterday? I didn't sneak off. Like I said, we had a leak at
the flat and I called the plumber. Didn't you get the message?

It was a disaster, there was water everywhere ...'

'Oh, I see. It's just that Robin took a call on your phone at
eleven-forty from a woman asking where you were because you were supposed to be
at hers at eleven-thirty.'

Oh fuck! My mind goes blank. What the hell is the matter with
Marion? Has she no sense?

'No, no. She was supposed to be at mine at eleven-thirty, you
know, for the plumbing ... and things ... ' I mutter something about plumbers being
useless. Debbie's dad is probably a plumber.

She pauses and raises her eyebrows, sceptically, 'Your plumber
is an American woman?'

'No, she's just the secretary, you know, who answers the phone.'

There is another pause and Debbie shakes her head slowly and
then says, 'Don't let it happen again.'

'Oh, don't worry. I think they've fixed it,' I say and immediately
regret it. Debbie looks down at her desk and I realise that the interview is over.
I leave feeling furious with myself or her or Marion for making me feel so stupid.

Sitting at my desk doodling angrily, I decide that the only consolation
is that in the end Debbie is the stupid one. Yes, of course she is good at her job
and well respected by the corporate squirrels that infest this place, but so what?
She's got a job that she hates and it's taken over her whole life. She's got a miserable
little flat, which gobbles up all her income and probably suffers from negative
equity as well as rising damp and rampant Ikea. She spends most of her income on
DIY stuff which is what she does all weekend and the rest on River Island suits
for work. I mean, what is the point of living like that? She's got the spending
power of a Tesco check-out girl and the stress and the workaholic lifestyle of a
chief executive. It's the worst of both worlds!

Thinking about Debbie makes me more determined than ever to get
something better than this. And I've got a new plan now. I was playing with those
lovely crisp £50 notes on the way into work in the chauffeur-driven car this morning
and it occurred to me that there is plenty more where these came from.

Every evening at my mum and dad's, it's the same: both of them
sitting in front of the telly, my mum knitting or flicking through a magazine and
kidding herself she isn't watching, my dad tutting at the news or complaining how
whatever he's watching is a waste of the licence fee and how much is this guy getting
paid, anyway?

Sometimes when I was still at school, when there was nothing
worth watching or I couldn't face my homework, I would leave my parents sitting
in front of the set, drift upstairs and, for want of something better to do, sit
on my father's side of the bed and flick through his self-help books. If he ever
looked in and saw me reading he would join me, pulling one out of the stack and
finding some chapter that he thought was particularly relevant. He referred to them
by their authors, square-jawed, slick-haired Americans with button-down shirts whose
weird names were followed by a string of qualifications from the University of God
Knows Where.

'If you're thinking of going into advertising you ought to read
Gierson,' he would say, running his finger down the ever-increasing pile. They all
had titles and subtitles like: Close that Deal - How to Make Them Say Yes or Busting
The Block - Taking On The Corporation And Winning. Each one was such a hard sell
that one title was not enough. There were new ones he'd picked up in the discount
bookshop and dog-eared old friends that he turned to for comfort every night, reading
the patronizing, reassuring advice. Don't worry, bud, leave it to us - we'll look
after you. In my dad's case, reading them and repeating their simplistic, cocksure
advice like a mantra was a substitute for actually doing any of the things they
advised.

Not that it was that easy to work out what they were advising
you to do and whether it would be relevant to the purchasing department of a tool
hire company based in Slough. 'It always seems to me like they're generally in favour
of virtue,' mused my mum one day.

The central theme of one of his favourites was: Live Each Day
at the Office As If It Was Your Last! 'There are two types of worker in every corporation,'
boomed the blurb on the back above the price in dollars. 'The Doers and the Donetos.
Have you ever noticed how your boss and his boss are both a world apart from the
geek sitting at the desk next to you? 'Course you have. And what's the difference?
Your Boss is a Doer and the geek is a Done-to. So, how do you get to be a Doer?
Simple.' (It always was.) 'Live every day in the office like it's your last. Like
you don't mind getting fired this very afternoon.'

I don't mind getting fired in the very next ten minutes but apparently
if you could wait until this afternoon, the way to act was to: 'Devise and implement
operational programs that you want regardless of budgeting prerequisites!' and 'In
meetings initiate multi-directional interfaces regardless of hierarchical command
criteria!' Eh? Lots of exclamation marks and quotes from Done-tos who had managed
to become Doers followed to back this up. What it boiled down to was: be a rebel,
cut a swathe and you'll be promoted.

I've tried being a rebel, living as if I didn't mind getting
fired whenever convenient. But the way I've done it is to come into the office late
every morning, to leave early and to spend half an hour going to the coffee shop
down the road where a pretty Italian girl flirts with me and her crazy old father
whips up cappuccino like a deranged magician, rather than be a good boy and use
the coffee machine by the loo where a thin trail of instant stuff pees into a flimsy
plastic cup like a long overdue oil change. And funnily enough, it's done me absolutely
no good whatsoever.

Neither has it helped my dad. None of the books have helped him.
I think they just hold out the promise. Like those women in that play we once saw
at school, who are always crapping on about pissing off to Moscow, knowing that
they will never get round to it. My dad finds refuge in his self-help books, knowing
that some day he will find the perfect solution to his life and rise up, a Doer
not a Done-to! One day, dad, one day. Before you retire, perhaps.

Chapter
Seven

When I get home from work that evening Marion has left a message
on my answer phone: 'Andrew, it's Marion. I'm having a little dinner party tomorrow
night and I would very much like for you to come.'

I've just opened the fridge to get out a Rolling Rock when Vinny
crashes through the kitchen door, talking to a tall black guy he introduces as Male.

'Don't mind if I do, squire,' says Vinny, peering round me into
the fridge. 'Male?'

'Chismate,' says Male, sitting down at the kitchen table.

'You'd like a beer, is that what you're saying?' I ask Vinny.

'When you're ready,' Vinny smiles innocently. 'You could bloody
die of thirst in here,' he says to Male.

'You'll die of something else in a minute, shit for brains,'
I tell him.

'Andrew works in the media so he's good with words,' says Vinny
to Male, who laughs politely. I find myself smiling too. God, he's infuriating!

'And Vinny works in graphic design so he's good with er ... let
me think ... oh, absolutely nothing,' I explain.

'Male's a graphic designer too,' says Vinny triumphantly.

'Don't worry about it, mate,' says Male quickly. 'My dad thinks
it's something to do with coloured pencils.'

'Sorry, mate,' I say, handing Male a beer. 'It's just that Vinny's
not a particularly good advert for your profession.' Vinny has mock hysterics and
then plays his ace: 'And Andrew's a part-time gigolo,' he explains to Male.

'Oh, right,' says Male. 'It's you, is it?'

I finish choking on my beer.

'You bastard,' I say to Vinny, then to Male, 'What he means is
... I sometimes ... escort ...' This sounds even worse than Vinny's description.

 
'Do go on,' says Vinny.

'Hang on,' says Male. 'You get paid to go out with women.'

I think about it for a moment. Male looks impressed. 'Yeah,'
I say, glad to hear him put it so attractively, so acceptably. 'Yeah, that's about
it.'

We kick the football around a bit, idly working out how Indoor
One Aside Footy could be adapted to accommodate a third player. Then we give up
and decide to watch telly instead. Vinny suggests we get a pizza or some dope from
a friend of Male's. In the end we opt for a pizza because we're all quite hungry
so we have a whip-round, Vinny and I poking around on dressing tables and mantelpieces
for some change and negotiating who puts in what. Then Vinny sets off up the road
to get it.