The Square (12 page)

The waitress appears, bearing cups full of speciality Viennese coffee dusted with bitter chocolate.

Alan and Tracey, the badly named couple, take their cups from her and settle, blowing on the coffee, ruminating on the social hurdles which come with having blue collar names in a white collar world.

“Makin is good though.”

“Oh, that. Actually, confession Numero Uno. It’s an invention. Works well with what I do. Makin’ money.”

He’s quite fun, she thinks. Amusedly open, giving away trade secrets. Small and fair, with nice clothes.

She puts one of her hands over his wrist.

“What is confession Numero Duo? That you can’t add up?”

Alan laughs.

“Oh, no. Figures have always been my speciality.”

“Can you wave your magic wand over my financial affairs, then?”

He looks at her archly.

“So, let’s talk about it. Don’t be embarrassed. People give me their financial secrets every morning on national television. Right. How much money do you owe, right now? Including your mortgage?”

She squirms.

“We don’t have a mortgage.”

“Well that’s a start. Excellent.”

“We won the Lottery a few years ago.”

“And you are coming to me for help? Well, well.”

Tracey feels as if she has entered a Confessional box at church.

“So we bought the house and put the children into private school and now I think I need a plan, so the rest of it doesn’t… fritter away. I’ve already got an overdraft.”

“Do you think you have, shall we say, an entitlement to debt? Because everyone else is looking flash and spending money on your street. And everyone else is probably also in debt, so it’s okay? Where do you live?”

“In the Square.”

Alan nods knowledgeably.

“Oh, I know about the Square. And you bought a house there without a mortgage? I won’t ask how much you won from the Lottery,” he says, even though he already knows, because he has Googled her too.

“No, no, that’s alright,” says Tracey, slightly disappointed.

“How do you know about the Square?”

Because he has done his homework. Because he has just had a performance in a marquee in that part of town. Because he knows how things are, in places which are called by a singularity.

“Well, I’ve never been to it. But I assume it’s full of bankers and lawyers and bankers’ wives, no? With their Prada handbags and cars and au pairs and bonuses and beautiful haircuts?”

She thinks of Jane unloading the Audi.

“Perhaps.”

“And you’d like to be like them? Feel ashamed that you aren’t? So you take out that 0% finance on the credit card, right? To pay off another one? Then your salary stagnates, so you can’t pay anything off bar the minimums?”

She looks at him. He is her confessional priest.

“That is exactly where I am right now. Sometimes I feel, I feel… ”

“What?”

“That I am looking into the abyss. And it’s frightening.”

“It’s also… not good for you. Is it?”

“Is there anything… to say?”

“There might be. Shall we talk about how things work, or shall we say
don’t
work, for you? What is your mode of employment, if you have one?”

Forty minutes later, after experiencing an indepth conversation about selling cosmetics door to door, and how it really works, with commission spiralling back to a pyramid of Giza-like dimensions, Alan Makin looks rather dazed. Still, he’s not averse to a challenge. His whole life, as those who have heard him talk know, has been about challenges. He rolls his sleeves up. He has enjoyed the morning. He likes this woman, with her clothes of a twenty year old and perfectly presented face, with her trashy name and her Lottery story, and her silly spiralling debts and her phalanx of brimming credit cards desperate for relief.

He knows how to help people like this.

He is also aware that her belief in him, Alan Makin, and in what he, Alan Makin, knows, is what drives his show, the belief that life can be effectively ironed out and started over again.

He thinks this is a worthy thing to communicate. He hates the bankers, the debt peddlers, the payday loan merchants. Despises them. He would like to save this woman from them.

“How about I talk to my team about something?”

“What, a makeover on your show?”

Alan shrugs.

“Perhaps. ‘How I ran through my Lottery Millions’ is a good start. Would you like to be on TV?”

Would she like to? She’d love to.

Over supper, back at home, she’s walking about the room, humming. She’s rather proud of her conquest.

“What, so Alan Makin took you out to coffee? You actually MET him?”

“Yes, Grace, I did.”

“What did you wear?”

“The pink suit.”

“Oh, MUM!”

“Well, Belle, it is actually a very smart suit.”

“You know, Belle dumpling, not everybody wants to walk around as if they are in the London branch of an Amish sect,” snorts Larry. “Some people like to recognise we are in the 21st century, and reflect that in their costume.”

Belle pulls a face at him.

He turns to Tracey.

“How was it, then?” he says, amused.

“Quite good, actually. He’s going to talk to his producer about having me on the show.”

“Really? Did he ask you about the Lottery win?”

“No. He didn’t seem in the least bit interested in that. Well, I told him about it of course, but he didn’t… linger on it.”

“It would probably make your experience seem too unusual. Alan Makin’s show isn’t about the unusual. It’s about the bloody familiar, that’s why it’s a hit.”

“You? On telly? Hee hee hee.”

“Yes, Belle. Not everyone thinks I am an embarassment.”

“When? When will you be on, when?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps next week. Will you both stop texting at the table?”

“I’m not texting, I’m DM-ing.”

“I’m not texting, I’m Instagramming.”

Belle and Grace giggle and punch one another.

“Well, whatever it is, please desist,” says Larry, ineffectually stifling a burp.

Tracey pushes her plate away. She doesn’t want to be in this kitchen, her familiar home, a place full of burping adults and whining children. She wants to be back in Patisserie CoCo, putting her hand over Alan Makin’s wrist, in a world which is smart and fast moving and free of financial snares, and full of important people having meetings and appearing on television.

The door bell rings. Anya, the Eastern European au pair glides away to answer it.

“What is the time? Eight? That will be Roberta. Your piano lesson, darling.”

“But I thought you cancelled her! I thought that lesson we had over on George’s piano was going to be my last one?”

“Well, I didn’t actually. Cancel her.”

“God, Mum! How could you! I hate her! I hate you!”

“Go on. Go and have your lesson.”

“But I haven’t practised. Oh, Mum.”

“Well, darling. Roberta rang me and we had a long, long chat.”

What did they talk about? Tracey couldn’t quite remember, but she knew it mentioned various key things, such as The Repertoire, and Grade Five. Oh, and of course Belle’s chances at university. Yes, that was it.

“Roberta reminded me that music always looks good on a Personal Statement, you know.”

“I thought you couldn’t afford it.”

“We can always afford things for your education, dumpling,” admonishes her father.

Anyway, things might be on the upturn, thinks Tracey. With the blessing of a television show.

Belle pushes past Anya who has returned and is silently tidying up the marble island. Belle glares to nobody in particular.

I could be at the gym right now, she thinks. Rather than doing bloody Hanon. La-de-dah. Why does Mum even want me to play the piano? It’s stupid, stupid. A nineteenth century leisure pursuit. Not a single one of the other Populars plays an instrument. Honestly, not one. Well, Cathy plays the clarinet. And Maria the trumpet. But those are fashionable. Jazzy. Portable. Accessories, really. In boxes with shiny hinges and a handle. Whereas, the lumbering old piano. It’s like playing furniture. She enters the living room.

“Hello, Belle. Shall we start with Hanon?” says Roberta, in her deceptively cool manner.

Belle pulls the stool out and settles down, huffing slightly.

Downstairs in the knock-through kitchen, Tracey hums as she hears the familiar patterns once more. Her phone buzzes. It’s an email from Alan.
I’ve just been working things out. How about a meeting with the production team next Tuesday? 9.30? That would suit me fine. All directions on the website
www.MoneywithMakin.com
.

She answers it with a single word, then snaps the phone shut with a happy sense of progress.

Chapter Twelve Belle

The door bell rings.

“Mum!” she shouts. “Muu-uum!” Where the hell is she, thinks Belle, before remembering about Tracey’s ‘Production Meeting’ at Makin TV. She puts the quotation marks around it even though she is only thinking the words.

She walks to the door, opens it. She blinks at the person several times before she realises who it is. Christ, it’s Jas. What the hell does he want, is her first thought. Why am I wearing a flowery top, is her second thought. Belle does not like being seen in obviously female clothes.

“’Right, Belle?” says Jas.

She eyes him suspiciously. Hates the way he says her name. He seems to put a W into it. Bewul. Ugh.

“Jas.”

“Er, Belle, I got something to suggest to you. Now, I don’t know if you’re interested in this, what with your house, and everything.”

“But?”

“But, well, I wondered if you’d like to earn some money?”

Emboldened by her eyebrows rising, he continues.

“It all depends on, like, how good you are at making things.”

Three minutes later, Belle and Jas are sitting at a bench in the middle of the Square. Jas is smoking. He knows better than to light up indoors, so they have come outside to talk. He’d rather, anyway.

Belle looks up at the vast canopy of the London plane above them. About 20,000 leaves are about to unfold, all at once, on the tree, but at present, there are just bright green buds on the dark twigs and branches, giving the sensation of a verdant mist. It is a spectacle which only lasts about a week.

Even though she is in her huge black astrakhan coat, she shivers, wrinkling her nose at the bitter smoke.

“Tell me again what you need me to do.”

“I want you to be my assistant, for a week or so at least. At Philip Burrell’s studio. You know, just over there, at No. 32. I want you to help me make models of famous marathon courses around the world.”

“What? Like a sort of Lego thing?”

“No, out of wood and papier mâché and paint.”

There is silence under the plane as Belle tries to envisage the plan.

“Why? Does he think this is art?”

“Yes! Not just him. He does this sort of stuff. It’s his scuplture, his thing. He has a dealer, and collectors, and, like, art fairs. His stuff goes for a bomb, Belle. There’s a lot of money involved. A lot. It is art, anyway,” Jas continues, seeing Belle’s incredulous face. “Sort of,” he concludes quietly.

Belle would quite like to know how much money Philip makes out of this venture, but realises, correctly, that Jas wants to have his pitch without being quizzed on it. She lets him continue.

“I am Philip’s main assistant. I help him make golf holes. Like solid replicas of famous golf holes. In miniature.”

Belle is getting a bit confused. “I thought it was marathon courses, a minute ago.”

“Yeah, well he does golf holes, mainly. They sell all over the world. I mean
all
over. For a lot. Tens of thousands of pounds. Then he had a brainwave and thought he should escalate to marathon courses. Why not?” Jas pauses.

When Philip is doing it, explaining everything in his studio, it sort of makes sense. He’s not sure he is making sense to Belle, but he badly needs to convince her.

“Belle, Philip is an artist. One of the most important artists in the country. And this is his latest idea. Anyway, people want to buy his stuff. And I don’t have enough time for it all. I need someone to, like, help me make it.”

He does not want Philip to ask anyone else for help. Particularly that arsey dealer Magnus. Jas doesn’t want the work to leave his grasp. He can see the amount of money hovering over the project, like the green mist above them. He intends to have some of that money. And why not? He’s earned it, turning up three times a week and having lunches with Philip and Gilda. That’s another card to play.

“You know Gilda? His girlfriend? Russian? Well, you’d meet her and see their house. It’s pretty awesome.”

“Is it true the place is full of porn?” says Belle, not wanting to seem too curious about it, but as a matter of fact, the porn at her arty neighbour’s house was something that the Populars had urged her to find out about for months now, that would be something to have up her sleeve.

“Yep.”

That did it.

“I’m in. When do we start?”

“Really?” He’s really pleased. “Great. Belle, I knew you’d be up for it. I think you’d be great. Remember that project on the River Thames that we did together in Year Five? It’s going to be a bit like that. It’s going to be a blast.”

She laughs. “What, with papier mâché?”

“Yeah, and chicken wire. Do you know anything about marathons?”

“No. Only that they are bloody long, and all the traffic stops for a day.”

“Well, pretend you do. And when you meet Philip, don’t, for fuck’s sake, mention the Tate Gallery.”

“Why? Artists like the Tate, don’t they?”

“Nah. Not this one.”

Belle looks at Jas. He lifts his chin, smiles back at her merrily. He is pleased that his plan seems to have worked out.

She thinks about how they were together, working on art projects in their aprons at school. She wonders how different she would feel now, if a big hand marked Money hadn’t picked her up and moved her away into the Square and private school, what she would be like now.

Jas looks at Belle. Success in one field has given him a notion about success in another. He wonders vaguely when he might be allowed to fuck her.