Upgrading (11 page)

“Well, it’s up to you,” she says, idly rearranging her hair. “But if you really cared, you’d—”

“What?” I gasp, getting out of bed. “Marion, I can’t believe you’re saying this. I’ve lived twenty-four years with it like this, I’m not changing it now. Anyway, do you have any idea how painful it would be at my age?”

“It wouldn’t last long and you’d soon feel the benefit.”

I look down at my dick which looks even more shrivelled and miserable than it usually does after sex. Marion shrugs her shoulders and then gets up and goes to the bathroom. As soon as she has gone and the bed has become neutral territory I get into it again. I begin to realize that this is the deal. Yes, you can travel to Paris and stay in a suite in one of the most beautiful hotels in the world. Yes, you can eat in the one of the famous restaurants and you can probably have some presents into the bargain but in return you have to lose a little bit of your manhood—literally.

Marion comes back and immediately I go into bathroom. As I brush my teeth I look at myself in the mirror and realize that I’ll have to play for time—she can’t mean it really. I have a quick piss and then go back and get into bed next to her. Staring up to the heavily moulded ceiling I say, “I’ll make some enquiries when we get back to London.”

“Good boy,” she says, turning slightly to face me.

I roll over and try to go to sleep.

On Sunday we get up late, have breakfast in the room and then go for a walk around the Marais which is the bit of Paris I know best. I’m glad to be able to take the initiative for once. Marion says it’s beautiful but complains about the shops and when we find a little brasserie and have steak frites for lunch she says it’s too small and noisy. Never mind.

Monday night, after a day of shopping—for Marion—we arrive back at hers. I am interested to see that it’s just as depressing for the rich to get back from a trip as ordinary people. The house feels cold and empty and so do I.

Marion goes upstairs to change and I decide to make a cup of tea. While the kettle boils I switch on the TV and watch the end of news and the weather. Tuesday will be a typical grey, rainy June day. Then I click onto MTV and watch some Israeli boy band. The thought of work depresses me so much I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.

Marion calls from the living room, “Andrew, would you come here a minute.” She sounds formal and serious. I wonder for a moment if she is going to “chuck” me. I haven’t been “chucked” for years. Not since Helen. Well, at least I got Paris. And the opportunity to keep my foreskin.

“Yes?” I say, as I come into the room.

“Come here.” She holds up a watch. “Do you know what this is?”

“It’s a watch, isn’t it?” Oh my God! Oh my God! I hope I don’t sound too obvious.

“It’s a Rolex. Twenty-two carat gold. And I want you to have it. That watch you have on at the moment is just disgusting. Get rid of it. I want you to wear this, OK?”

“OK.” I feel a bit dizzy. This is it. Get that ice or else no dice.

Mark would be proud of me. Hang on, I can’t wear it to work, someone is bound to notice. So what if they do? Why not? Five-star hotel in Paris, Rolex watch. What did
you
do this weekend, guys? Sainsbury’s and the pub? This is what it’s all about, after all. “It’s beautiful,” I say.

“It is a beautiful timepiece,” she says and puts it back in its box which is on the table next to her and
then takes it back upstairs with her.
What the fuck is she doing? Where is she going? Can’t I wear it? What do you mean? Why are you taking it away from me? “You can wear it next week when we go to Aspinalls for dinner,” she says casually from upstairs.

At least I think that’s what she says. I can’t hear properly because my head is in my hands.

The next morning I walk quickly into the office, sit down at my desk without taking off my jacket, pick up the phone and dial the number of a client. Any client. I wait and, of course, there is no answer. The ringing tone is beginning to hypnotize me and my mind is wandering off when I hear Debbie’s voice behind me asking Sami to ask me to come into her office when I have finished on the phone. Debbie knows that I am not speaking to anyone and I can hear her perfectly well but it is part of her prickly, artificial politeness never to interrupt anyone on the phone. That is the thing about Debbie: you don’t actually dislike her for anything in particular. It’s just the fact she’s Debbie.

There is no need for Sami to repeat Debbie’s request. I’ve had enough of this ringing tone anyway, so I put the phone down and follow her into her office. As soon as I sit down I realize that this is a mistake, I should have taken a moment to think and get my story straight.

“Where were you yesterday?” she asks, pressing some aspirins out of a foil pack.

“I was away,” I say defiantly.

She throws the aspirins into her mouth and takes a sip of coffee. “Yes, I know that. You were supposed to be here.”

I decide to go on the attack a bit. “No I wasn’t, I had the day off, remember?”

“You
didn’t
have the day off,” she says, obviously trying to control her temper.

I know I am beaten but I try anyway. “I did. Remember, I said last week—”

“I said we’d see how it goes. I never said yes and you know it.”

“Oh, come on, Debbie, I thought—”

“Come on nothing, Andrew. If I’d said yes, Claire would have marked it on the sheet and it would all have been done properly. I’m giving you another warning.”

Oh fuck it, I’ve lost. Better just to end this whole thing quickly.

“Well, I’m sorry. I obviously misunderstood.” I turn to leave.

“Andrew,” she says quietly. She bites her lip. “What’s the matter with you these days? Look, is there anything wrong? Anything I should know about?”

What can I say? I can’t tell her the truth, I don’t want to lie to her again and I’ll be buggered if I’m going to apologise any more. She’s had one “sorry.” We stand in silence. She breaks it.

“You used to be good—one of our best sales people. You saved our skin on more than one occasion.” I stare at the floor, wishing she’d just shut up and let me go, wishing that what she is saying wasn’t true. “Remember that supplement they suddenly dropped on us?
How
many pages did we have to fill?” It was four and a half but I’m not going to remind her. “You worked so hard and you really pulled the whole team together. I was really grateful.”

You were also nearly in tears one night, I think. I know that if I say anything now it will make things better between us but somehow I just can’t. She waits a second and then her mood changes.

“OK. Don’t let it happen again. That’s a warning. An official warning. I’ve had enough.” She picks up the phone.

As I get back to my desk I decide that this isn’t working out quite as smoothly as I had first thought. Paris was great—apart from Marion moaning about the lack of shops and posh restaurants in the Marais. How can anyone not like the oldest, quaintest, most beautiful part of Paris?

But now I’ve come back to this dump and a bollocking from a woman who can’t see further than the end of a balance sheet.

My phone starts to ring but I don’t answer it. I look up at the dust dancing around in a beam of sunlight. It shows the dirt on the windows. Don’t they ever wash those bloody things? Why bother, we’re only Classified.

What’s the fun in living it up in Paris with a beautiful rich woman and then coming back to this?

I’ve got to escape. I need more income to do that, which means I need to meet more women like Marion, women who will spend their money on me. After all, if they’ve got the money just sitting there and I make them happy, so what? I mean, they wouldn’t spend it on me if they didn’t want to! I’m not black-mailing them or mugging them. It’s just a sensible, convenient commercial arrangement. Mutually beneficial.

Does that sound immoral? Who said there was anything moral about media sales? None of us in this crappy little office is selling two-centimetre, one-column-width advertising space to people with holiday villas to rent and six-week language courses to flog because we think it will make the world a better place, we’re doing it to earn twenty grand a year plus commission if we reach our targets. I can’t really see anything particularly noble about that. If I’d asked about the vocational or ethical element of the job at the interview, somehow I don’t think I’d have got it.

Women like Marion obviously have plenty of money—all I want is just a little bit. A little bit from her and a few others, women that Jonathan or even Mark could introduce me to and it’ll soon grow. Give it five or six years, by the time I’m thirty I’ll have a nice little nest egg and fuck off media sales, fuck off advertising, fuck off career plan, fuck off ever having to work in an office ever again.

I’ll be young, rich and free or die in the attempt, I decide, as the tea trolley clatters into the office.

A few minutes later Sami comes back to her desk and sees me staring into space.

“All right?” she asks, her huge brown eyes wide with concern at the bollocking I’ve just had from Debbie. She looks so sweet that I can’t help but laugh sadly.

“Yeah, fine.”

“Shall we have a drink at lunchtime?” she asks.

I suppose Sami proves that you can be hard-working and virtuous and nice rather than hard-working and virtuous and horrible, like Debbie.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes, let’s do that.”

Sami and I leave the office at 1 p.m., carefully explaining to our colleagues that we are just nipping out and we will be back by 2 p.m. We give up on the lift and walk downstairs in silence. We get to reception almost in a trance. Ted starts to say something but we just carry on walking.

We find a quiet corner of the pub and I get a Coke for Sami and a Scotch for me. I really need a drink.

“Cheers,” I say.

“Cheers,” says Sami just as miserably. We both take a drink and put our glasses down with extra care—Sami because she always does, me because I just don’t feel I can do anything properly at the moment.

“Oh, fuck,” I say.

“Oh, Andrew, don’t worry.”

“I’m going to get sacked, aren’t I, at this rate?”

“No, you won’t. Just keep your head down for a few days. Debbie still likes you.”

“Think so?” This makes me feel slightly better. For all the bollockings she’s been giving me, Debbie must still quite fancy me. At least a bit.

“Yeah, otherwise you’d have been sacked ages ago.”

“Oh, thanks,” I say, unflattered.

“Well, it’s true, Andrew.” Sami smiles.

“You’re probably right. Oh, God.”

She touches my arm. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Course there is, I
know
you. You’re always tired and late for work these days. Where were you yesterday?”

“Paris.”

“Paris?”

“Yeah, it’s the capital of France.”

“Andrew.”

“Oh, sorry, Sami, I’m just … I dunno.”

“Who did you go with? That American woman who keeps ringing up?”

“Yeah.”

“Is she your girlfriend?” Girlfriend? What a weird thought. Is she? I look across the pub and then at Sami.

“Sort of, we’re … you know.”

“What? I mean, is she nice?”

I laugh. Sami’s questions! “Nice” is an even stranger way to describe Marion than “girlfriend.”

“Yeah, she is quite nice.”

“Well, where did you meet? How long have you been going out together?”

“Oh, a few weeks.”

“That’s great. Can I meet her, then?”

“Oh, yeah, why not?” Only 165 good reasons why not. “When you get a boyfriend we could go out in a foursome.” Sami gives me a stare that takes me by surprise. “If you wanted to, that is.” She looks embarrassed suddenly and smiles.

“And did you have a good time? In Paris, I mean.”

I have to think about it for a moment. Paris has sort of faded from my memory since I got back to the office.

“Yeah, yeah, it was lovely. You know: cafés, delicious food, Place de la Concorde, that view down to the Arc de Triomphe. All that sort of Paris stuff.”

“I’ve never been,” says Sami without embarrassment.

“Haven’t you? You’re kidding. I’ll take you. We’ll go one weekend.” Sami laughs, slightly embarrassed now. “No, it’d be fun, go on.”

“OK,” she says, taking a sip of her Coke. “I went to Rome once with school. That was fun. We bought a bottle of wine and drank it in the youth hostel. My friend Kelly was sick in my rucksack.”

I laugh. “Oh, gross.”

“Oh, it was. She couldn’t find anything else to throw up in. I was really sick too but I managed to get to the loo down the hall in time.”

“Sami, you’re so good,” I tell her for the thousandth time. “Is that why you don’t drink alcohol? I thought it was, you know, because you’re a Muslim.”

“Don’t be daft. I
do
drink alcohol. Didn’t you notice me drinking the punch at the Christmas party?”

“Were you?”

“Yeah, ’course. I had a can of lager and then two glasses of punch.”

“Wild,” I say.