The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl (30 page)

'Are you certain? Because he asked specifically for you.'

Am I certain I'm not home? Yes, fairly sure of that. Unless north London has suddenly turned into a sunny seaside locale full of flowering plants. It could happen. 'I'm afraid so.'

'Can I ask him if he would be willing to book you for tomorrow instead?'

Lady, are you deaf? 'I can't do tomorrow. I'm not back until Monday.'

She sighed. For the love of . . . it's not as if the man wants to marry me. Someone else from the agency would probably do just as well. I said so, as gently as possible. 'I think perhaps you should take this job less casually,' she said tartly and hung up. Ten minutes later a text came through: 'Lost booking.'

I texted her today, but have not heard back.

mardi, le 18 mai

Ah. I must look like the world's largest mug, as I was just approached by three fundraising youths from the very same charity, all on the same street. Sorry, lads ‐ did you not see me brushing off the last one?

Fundraiser one: 'Where are you from?'

Me: 'Guess.'

'Barnsley.'

'Sorry, no. Where are you from?'

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'Barnsley.'

Fundraiser two: 'What's your name?'

Me: 'Linda.' (Obviously, not my real name.)

'Fantastic, Lucy. Have you ever thought about how many people will be afflicted with mental illness in their lifetime?'

'No, but I understand short‐term memory is a growing problem.'

Fundraiser three: 'Can you guess what proportion of the UK will suffer mental illness at some time in their lives?'

Me: 'One out of three. I just heard all this thirty seconds ago, thank you.'

mercredi, le 19 mai

There is one client with my real name and phone number. He rang to ask why I wasn't seeing anyone. Being a regular, after all, shouldn't he be the first to know if I was off the market?

'I'm not,' I said. 'Have you heard otherwise?'

He said he'd rung a couple weeks ago and the manager said I was on holiday. Ah, yes, that's because I was, I apologised. Then I rang yesterday, he said. And she said you were away indefinitely and offered me someone else.

Have I been not‐so‐subtly dropped? I checked the website and the profile's still there, though rather lower in the listing than before. No matter. He offered to book with me privately for next week. I said I'd think about it.

jeudi, le 20 mai

Things you may not have needed, but perhaps were curious, to know about Belle:

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I love to sing

When alone, I am usually listening to music or singing. Friends are cruelly and repeatedly subjected to this. I always sing in the shower.

Once, I forgot myself and started singing in a client's toilet ‐ when I came out he was laughing. I love to sing, but am not a very good singer, alas.

I love perfume

Especially if it smells of citrus or lavender. I love smelling it (in small doses) on other people, as well.

I prefer the texture of food to the taste

Raw mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, sandwich pickle and fudge all feel good to the tongue. Pasta, peanut butter and cooked carrots do not.

I can tell edible mushrooms from poisonous ones (usually)

Admittedly, this is not a skill that comes into use very often. I can also identify most of the speedwell (genus Veronica) wildflowers. This is of no use to man nor beast.

The day of my birth was predicted by

my mum's best friend

Spooky.

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My dream dinner party would include . . .

William Styron, Katharine Hepburn, flip flops, Noel Coward, Iman, cashew nuts, Alan Turing, Margaret Mead, Dan Savage, fruity cocktails, Ryan Philippe and a dungeon.

I don't really want to work independent of an agency Regardless of what happens. The clients are vetted through them and (most) never even get so much as my phone number. I spend enough time on the phone as it is, and I've seen the manager having to take enquiries in public. I do actually have other avocations besides what is reported here. Managing my own appointments would cut into that.

I still haven't heard from the manager

You would think she'd at least have the decency to ignore me on a sunny weekend.

Je ne regrette rien

If the textbooks are to be believed, this makes me a psychopath. If the glossy magazines are to be believed, this makes me an independent modern woman.

dimanche, le 23 mai

The manager and I are still at apparent loggerheads. She hasn't rung, and I haven't tried to ring her. While I appreciate this sort of treatment may be a mainstay of all

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mesdames' arsenals, I don't half feel like calling her up to say, 'Pardon me, but do you know who I am?'

Must resist the urge to smack‐down, though. I always wondered why the profiles on the website were occasionally shuffled to put some girls above others. Now I suppose I know.

Ahh, the (relative) freedom. No particular desire to make or keep manicure / waxing / any other appointments. Though I daresay if the sun comes out and I go into the garden in a bikini, someone may be forgiven for coming at me with a strimmer.

Walking last night from A3's house to the tube station, I passed a shop festooned in the most horrible things ever: plaster babies' feet.

Painted in pastel colours. Sticking out of the wall. Someone please assure me that the biological desire to reproduce does not signal the end of taste. It's enough to put a girl off her vibrator for fear of being impregnated with jelly babies.

mardi, le 26 mai

And still no word.

'I want out,' I groaned to N. The manager's cold shoulder is beginning to wear on me. There are plenty of other outfits around, but the thought of going through another agency seems a dead end.

I've even gone so far as to pull out an ancient CV and to think how it might be updated so the gaps in employment don't look Grand Canyon‐wide.

'Okay, but don't leave just to sell out.' I rolled my eyes. Aren't we past the age where authenticity matters more than solvency?

Everyone I know has a career, spouse, property or retirement fund. Or several of the above. I questioned his choice of words.

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'What is the definition of selling out?' he said. 'Never do anything for money that you wouldn't do for free.'

'I spend a lot of time picking at my nails.' It came out sharper than I expected. 'Don't think there's a chance of a career in that.'

'Don't be sarcastic,' N said. 'It never suited you.'

There is, in the end, only one place for a woman to turn in her hour of desperation. When all else has failed, when the bank accounts are running from black to red to overdraft limit to carefully worded letters from the bank, she has to draw on every nerve she has and steel herself for the inevitable.

The job pages.

I started with the administrative positions. General knowledge of computers? Check. Organisational skills? Plenty. Self‐motivated and hard‐working? Sort of. Dedicated? To what, scheduling meetings and faxing letters? Being able" to seal envelopes and transfer incoming calls requires dedication now?

Maybe not for me. I perused academic posts instead.

Depressing. It would seem the higher the degree, the lower the corresponding starting salary. A2 and A4 are academics, and confirm my suspicion that research grants are a convoluted plan by the powers that be to keep clever people from thinking about things like world affairs. Why pay attention to politics and other matters of import when there is a £5,000 bursary to be fighting tooth and claw over?

jeudi, le 27 mai

I am determined not to give up, in spite of the fact that papers and websites suggest the London economy is based on exactly three things:

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1.

Copywriting and subediting:
been there, done that . . . actually, I haven't as such. Tried to be there and do that, and been turned down by everyone from scientific journals to
World Walrus
Weekly.
The country's finer philately organs did not even honour me with a rejection letter.

2.
Temping and PAs:
definitely been there and don't ever, ever want to do that again. Revisiting calloused fingertips from sealing billing envelopes at a stockbroker's is a fate too depressing to contemplate. The abject degradation of having to collect someone's daughter's school uniforms from the dry cleaner makes scat play look a doddle.

3.

Prostitution:
damnation.

I could stay in the business and go independent. It would mean never having to give up a third of my earnings to an agency again. On the other hand, it would mean vetting my own clients, taking calls all hours of the day and night, maintaining a portfolio, organising security and . . . oh. Too much work for me on my own. There'd barely be time for scheduling waxes, let alone any other essential maintenance operations.

samedi, le 29 mai

Letters. Applications. Download, print, fill in. Envelopes and stamps on letters to which I'll probably never receive replies. And then, late yesterday afternoon, a call from a personnel department. They want to see me for an interview. A position I would love to have.

Shortlisted. And I know the list is extremely short. My chances are good.

That's it ‐ I'm off the game.

From the profiles on the agency website, it's apparent that 267

a lot of the girls ‐ maybe not the majority, but a large proportion ‐ are not from the UK. Eastern Europe, north Africa, Asia. Britain is doing a roaring trade in importing sex workers.

I don't ask about their motivations for doing the job. It's not my business. I wasn't forced into working for the agency and hope they weren't either. If the agency was really a stable of illegal workers under the thumb of an abusive pimp, they wouldn't hire so many local girls.

Would they?

I realise all that aside, I'm not really in a very different position to those Jordanian and Polish girls right now. Maybe they're over on student visas and in extreme debt. Somewhere along the way it was implied ‐ not guaranteed, I understand that, but implied ‐ that the reward for working hard at school and completing a degree was a reasonable career. Now here I am wondering whether a six‐month appointment colour‐correcting magazine illustrations or assistant manager at a high‐street retailer would be a better career move. And competing with hundreds of other graduates for the same paltry pickings.

But for now, I have shirts to iron and interview questions to worry about.

lundi, le 31 mai

I rose early to catch a train. This was a London of which I had only heard rumours: suited men and women crowding the platforms, waiting for a place in a packed carriage. Most looked slightly dazed, not quite awake; others had clearly risen early and had their schedule down to a science. I wondered whether some of the freshly made‐up women had to rise at half four to look so pulled together by eight.

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The train arrived on time, but it took less walking than I expected to find the offices. I went round the corner for a cup of tea and to waste time beforehand. A woman whose grasp of English was remedial at best prepared my drink, pouring in the milk long before the tea was steeped and before I could stop her. I sat at a small table facing a window on the street. Everyone around me, builders to executives, was bent over a newspaper. I had none, and looked out on the human traffic.

When I arrived, the other two interviewees were already there. We introduced ourselves, talked briefly about the social and professional connections that joined us. Then we filed into a room and, with a group of interviewers, watched each other's brief presentations. We were directed back to the first room afterwards, and called in one at a time for the interview proper.

A dark‐blonde, pudding‐faced girl was the first candidate. When she left for her grilling, the other interviewee smiled wanly at me. 'I knew when I saw you I didn't have a chance,' he said. I had thought something similar, since while my degrees and referees were better, his experience was enviable.

'Don't be silly,' I said. 'It could be any of us.' Either, I corrected silently, since it was fairly certain the other girl didn't have a chance.

Her degree was only tangentially related, her graduate experience non‐existent, and she had mumbled and dragged through her presentation, the content of which was not terribly impressive. The second candidate went for his interview and must have left straight after, as he didn't come back to the room.

I entered the room for my interview already sweating. Don't walk into the table, I thought. Don't drop anything. There were three people on the other side: a tall thin man; an elderly gentleman with glasses; and a thirtyish woman with short dark hair.

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They took their questions in turns. The division of labour soon became clear: the older man asked very little and was clearly more senior. The thin man asked questions relating to personality ‐ the usual things, such as what I thought my weaknesses were and where I saw my career in five years' time. The younger woman was left the technical questions, and these scared me the most, but I thought before starting to answer each. At some points I was aware that composing an answer left them hanging for the start of my sentences, but I thought it better to get it right than to amble aimlessly.

When the interview concluded, the three stood with me. The selection should be made fairly quickly, they said, since they wanted someone to start as soon as possible. I could expect a phone call or letter in the next few days. As I was the last candidate, they left the room as well. The elderly man and the young woman turned down the hall one way to their offices. The tall man offered to walk me through to the‐lobby.

We stood quietly in the elevator together. I smiled. 'I remember you from a conference three years ago,' he said. 'Impressive presentation.'

'Thank you,' I said. Crud. Most of the presentation I'd given earlier in the day had been recycled from that one.

We walked through the quiet carpeted hallways. He started talking about his own work, something he was clearly passionate about. I like people with passion. I asked him leading questions, argued the devil's advocate while making it clear I actually agreed with him, and in the end he stood with me at a taxi queue until the cab came to take me to the station. He shook my hand warmly and closed the door for me. As the taxi pulled away, I could see him still standing at the kerb.