Upgrading (6 page)

“Marion, I—”

“Don’t worry,” she says, still looking at her letter. “The driver should be outside. He can take you on to work.”

“Oh, OK. Thanks. Bye, then.”

I stand there for a moment. A car. That’ll be nice. Then it occurs to me. Of course, I’ve been dumped. I’ve given her what she wanted, now I’ve been dumped. Fuck ’em and forget ’em. Never very nice, not even when there is a chauffeur-driven car chucked in by way of consolation.

Marion looks up from her paper and says, “I’ll give you a call later at the office. I want to take you shopping.” She looks down at my suit. “Get you some new clothes.” Oh! phew—not dumped then! The idea of her buying me clothes stops me in my tracks for a moment. What kind of clothes? Can I choose them? Which shops? If you eat at Ciccones and Claridges you can’t shop at Blazer and Next. The idea thrills me suddenly. Perhaps I’ll get paid for tonight with a little something from Bond Street. I feel the lapel of my rented DJ absent-mindedly before coming round to more pressing issues—like getting to work before Debbie fires me.

“Great, um, see you later,” I gasp.

“OK, honey.” She rubs my arm gently and then picks some dust off my sleeve.

Sure enough, the car is waiting. The driver says nothing, just opens the door and lets me in. I ask if we can go to Fulham please. He nods and sets off. As we move slowly along the King’s Road I slide down in the seat so that people can’t see that I’m still wearing my dinner suit.

By the time we get as a far as Fulham Broadway it’s already past nine. I ask the driver to hang on and take me to work.

“Er, come in for a cup of tea or something while you wait.”

He looks as if this is the stupidest thing he’s ever heard and then says, “Thank you, sir, but I’d better look after the car.”

“OK, I’ll be five minutes.”

I belt into the house, have a quick and dangerous shave, throw on the only ironed work shirt I can find and then run out of the door still tying my tie. We set off again and I reach for the mobile phone. I’m just about to ask the driver for permission to use it and then I realize that it’s Marion’s phone, not his, and she won’t mind. He takes no notice as I grab the handset and dial Sami’s direct line.

“Good morning. Classified. Samira speaking.”

“Hi, it’s me.”

Her tone changes, “Andrew! For goodness’ sake, where are you?”

“I’m on my way, I got a bit held up.”

“You’re hopeless. Debbie’s already asked where you are.”

“Oh, shit.”

“When will you be in?”

“About twenty minutes. Listen, will you do me a favour? Just grab some papers, photocopy them and meet me in reception in fifteen minutes.”

“Oh, OK.”

“You’re a star.”

“And you’re a-a-retrograde.”

I laugh. “Sami, where do you get them from? See you in a minute.”

Of course it takes longer than I had hoped and it’s nearly ten by the time I get to the office. Sure enough, Sami is waiting, lurking behind a potted plant, in reception.

“Ooooh, blimey, all right for some,” says Ted from behind his desk. “I was saying to young Sami, here, all right for some. Wasn’t I, Sami? Their very own welcoming committee.” I smile at Ted. Oh, not now, you mad old wanker.

“Here you go,” says Sami, thrusting a pile of papers at me. “You go first, I said I had to go to Accounts about something.”

“Brilliant. Thanks, Sami.” The idea, of course, is that I walk upstairs and pretend that I’ve actually been in the building since before nine photocopying down in the basement and delivering things around other departments. Debbie has missed me, that’s all. See?

“Tell her the copier kept getting stuck, that’s why you were so long.”

“Good thinking.”

Sami presses the lift button. “Why
are
you so late? And whose car was that? Of course! Last night!”

“Oh, don’t ask.”

There is a ping and the lift doors open. We throw ourselves in—just as someone else is coming out. I get an eyefull of expensive pinstripe suit and the impact sends my papers flying into the air. Under the snowfall of A4 I see that I have hit Ken Wheatley, the dreary yet remarkably smug director of finance.

“Oh, Christ, sorry,” I gasp. He regains his balance and looks at the papers floating down around us.

“Someone’s in a hurry,” he mutters with the quick wit you’d expect of senior paperpusher.

“Bit of a rush on upstairs,” says Sami quietly.

“I see,” says Wheatley. He picks up a couple of pieces while I get the rest.

“There you are,” he says, handing them to Sami very slowly and looking her in the eye. She says nothing but lets him past and then gets in the lift. I follow.

I spend most of the day drifting off, thinking about Marion, our night together, our very enjoyable sex, her house, her champagne, her car. I find myself visualizing the way she pouts, her soft lips, the way she opens her eyes wide when she is surprised or amused by something I’ve said. I smile to myself as I think about her strange questions, her interest in my ordinary life. I’m probably as alien to her as she is to me. Am I falling for her? I’ve almost forgotten what’s that like.

But, shuffling my papers around my desk, as I’m paid to do, I realize that perhaps I am.

h
arvey Nichols shimmers in the heat like a mirage over the Knightsbridge traffic as thousands of horsepower throb and fume impotently. I look across at Marion, who is sitting next to me on the back seat. She is furious. I touch her hand and she looks round quickly. I smile and her face softens slightly.

“Can you believe this fucking traffic?” she hisses.

“There’s not much I can do, madam,” mutters the driver. Marion says nothing. His neck looks very exposed, for a moment I wonder if Marion is about to leap forward and rip a chunk out of it like a lion at a gazelle. I’m sure she doesn’t mean to take it out on us, it’s probably just her frustration at being kept from consuming.

“We could get out and walk,” I suggest and immediately realize that this is not an option.

“Just what the fuck do these people think they’re doing?” she snaps. “And look at all these fucking buses. They should keep buses out of town.”

After a couple of lurches and a little rolling forward up to the bumper of the car in front, we get within a hundred yards or so and Marion decides we can walk.

“Try and park as near as you can, like Reading or someplace and I’ll call you when I want you,” she tells the driver.

We get out and head for Sloane Street. Walking quickly past a couple of shops, she suddenly looks in the window of one, mutters something and ducks inside with me following closely behind. The arctic air-conditioning hits me like a cold shower. A heavy, dark-haired woman in black moves forward and says in a thick foreign accent, “May I help you?” It sounds as if she is guarding her territory rather than offering any assistance.

Without looking at her, Marion counters with, “I don’t know yet” and begins to look at the only rack of clothes in the shop. I find a chair by the front door under a blast of cold air and sit down.

Marion called me on Sunday night and asked if I wanted to go shopping on Monday. She didn’t specifically say she would be buying anything for me, but why else would she invite me? I was actually quite nervous about this. The last woman who took me shopping for clothes was my mum when I needed a new school blazer. And that wasn’t a very pleasant experience, needless to say. Will it be easier with Marion? Or will I get bored and look like a berk hanging round rails of women’s clothes? Or like a shop window dummy as she holds things against me and says, “That’s so
you!”

Even more unnerving is the situation at the office. I’ve told them that a water pipe had burst in the roof (they do have pipes in the roof, don’t they?) and that during the night I’ve been up and down stairs with buckets and the plumber hadn’t turned up so now I was waiting for another plumber but the place was absolutely soaked and didn’t know whether it would ever be the same again. I tried to make it sound funny, you know, sort of farcical, with me at one o’clock in the morning drenched and covered in plaster, but the little turd who picked up the phone when I rang—new guy, I don’t know his name—didn’t laugh and just said, “OK, I’ll tell Debbie.”

When I got to Marion’s she let me kiss her quickly on the lips and then told me I was late. I began to apologize but the door bell rang again and she just told me to sit down.

Anna Maria introduced a camp little bloke with a white T-shirt and a Tintin quiff who turned out to be a flower consul-tant. (“Do you know what this room says to me?” he hissed in a South London whine. “It says classic opulence combined with a lightness of touch.” Marion looked round her living room and said, “Three hundred pounds max and nothing that leaves pollen stains on my clothes.”) Then she sent him away and gave Anna Maria a list of things to do while I waited patiently in the corner of the room flicking through FrenchVogue.

We move on to Prada and then down a bit to Gucci. Marion sends the women in Gucci scurrying to find some jacket she’d rung up about earlier in the morning. Finally one of them is deputized to say very apologetically that they can’t find the jacket in question. Marion’s eyes narrow and she gives the women a long look.

“Well, when I speak to Miuccia next week I’ll ask
her
about it,” she says. The woman looks confused and even more terrified but Marion turns and walks out with me following as fast as I can without looking too much like a lap dog. I probably ought to practise this—even a man having clothes bought for him by an older woman must have some dignity.

“Prada has really gone off,” she says, irritably.

I look back at the shop, just to make sure I’m right and then say, “That was Gucci.”

“Pardon me?” she says, making for the zebra crossing.

“I said that was Gucci, not Prada.”

Marion turns and stares for a moment, then looks along to Prada.

“These cheap stores all look the same. Gucci, eh? Well, I’ll certainly give Tom Ford a piece of my mind when I see him next. Copying Prada like that.”

We go into Armani and I linger over some rather nice navy blue jackets. Marion seems not to notice so I try one on. It fits perfectly. I wonder about the etiquette here: do I ask? Or just drop hints? £350. Bloody hell—I’ve never bought any clothes in my life for that amount of money. I walk around a bit, hoping Marion will see me. One of the assistants, a young Italian guy, comes over to me.

“Hey, that looks really good on you,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say, wondering where Marion is. He watches me as I walk around in it a bit more. “What’s it made of?” I’m really beginning to like this thing. Will she buy it? Should I try and persuade her?
How
do I try and persuade her?

“It’s all cotton,” says the guy, checking the label of another jacket on the rack to make sure. “Why don’t you try the trousers?”

Finally I see Marion at the other end of the shop checking out some dresses. Would it be too presumptuous to put on the trousers too?

“OK,” I say. “Marion, what do you think?”

She looks up distracted. “You can’t wear navy blue in the summer.”

“Can’t I?” I mumble. What about later? The assistant looks at her and then at me, obviously wondering for a moment what is going on here.

Marion looks at me again, more closely this time, but then she says, “We’ll get you some summer suits. Take that off. Let’s go. I’m getting a headache.”

The assistant helps me off with it, saying nothing. Yes, I would have liked to earn you some commission too, mate, but the lady with the cash is obviously not bothered—either that or I’m just not very good at this sort of thing.

We leave and Marion stomps off to another shop. There is one rail of black clothes in the middle of the shop. The rest is white limestone. A Japanese girl steps forward as Marion works her way down one end of the rack and I mooch around by the front door, enjoying the air conditioning.

“Hi, can I help you?” says the assistant in a tiny voice. Marion ignores her so she turns to me.

“Just looking, thanks,” I say smiling. She smiles back, a fixed, bored smile. Suddenly I decide that I need some fresh air. I tell Marion that I am just stepping outside.

“Oh, OK,” she says. “But don’t go far, I don’t want to be here too long.” I see the assistant exchange a glance with her colleague—offended or relieved?

Despite the heat it feels good to get outside. Two Japanese girls with Chanel bags walk past me, as if they were carrying Sainsbury’s plastic carriers. I walk down the street and then turn into Knightsbridge. People on the top decks of the buses gaze down at me or point things out to their uncomprehending children. I tell myself that this is better than work. It is ten to three on a Monday afternoon. Normally the street is out of bounds to ordinary working people like me at this time of day. What, I wonder, are all these people doing? Don’t they have jobs to go to?

As I look across to the Hyde Park Hotel I see a tall, dark-haired guy in a leather jacket and jeans walk out of the front door and slowly down the steps. He stops to light a cigarette and as he takes a drag, he looks up and sees me. After a moment’s recognition he smiles, waves and hops across the street, playing matador with the cars. It’s Mark from the Claridges do.

“Hey!” He shakes my hand firmly. “How are you?”

“I’m OK. How are you?”

“Good. You have fun the other night?”

“Erm, not really.”

“ ’Orrible, wasn’t it? I really hate that place. Still, you got her to Knightsbridgge, then?”

I got
her?
He obviously doesn’t know Marion.

“She wanted to do some shopping.”

“For you?” he says, as much suggesting as asking.

I remember my clumsy attempt to interest Marion in an Armani jacket for me. What must that assistant have thought? A kept man? Well, they probably get them all the time but I’m just a rather crap example of the species.

“Yeah, yeah, we’ve just been to Armani,” I say casually.

“Very nice,” he says looking around for a bag.

I consider making up some story about the chauffeur taking it or yelling “oh my god, it’s been micked,” but then decide to come clean.

“She didn’t like the jacket I tried.”

Mark laughs at my pathetic failure. I realize he would probably have had half the shop if he wanted it.

“You’ve got to lead them to it subtley. Embarrass her into it. She wants you to look good because it makes her look good, right? So you make sure you look scruffy until she buys you something new and then wear it a few times and then find something else old and scruffy so that she has to buy you something else new. No problem.”

“If you say so.”

“Tried Harvey Nics?”

I shake my head.

“Take her to the men’s department downstairs. Clown around a bit. Pick up some stuff. Ask her what she thinks, what she likes. You’re here to entertain her, don’t forget.” I laugh but he says, “No, really, you’ve got to lead her by the nose but make her think she’s in charge.”

“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.