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‘I should be off then. D’you want me to pay you back for the extra hour? Not really fair for you to cough up for when you’re not here. Daddy can easily afford it …’ Sienna started and Bella laughed.
‘My lateness isn’t your dad’s fault, sweetie. Nope, this is my punishment for being the past-mistress of pissing about.’
Sienna laughed too. ‘Well, you’d better make the most of what time you’ve got left then.’ She looked out of the window and groaned. ‘Oh, Goooood. Bloody Josh is out there again. I swear that boy is stalking me.’
Bella followed her gaze. Sitting at the wheel of a convertible red Porsche was a baby-faced boy of immeasurably arrogant demeanour. If the car wasn’t clue enough, everything about his appearance screamed money – from the slicked-back dark brown hair and ruddy pink cheeks to the immaculately faded jeans and butter-soft leather jacket. While this might conceivably have had some allure on an older man, on a boy of barely 21 it was both loathsome and faintly ludicrous.
‘He is sooooo uncool.’ Sienna rolled her eyes at Bella as she picked up her vintage lace parasol. ‘He hangs out at places like Whisky Mist and Mahiki, trying to suck up to Harry Wales. He’s thick as pigshit too – God knows how he got into King’s. But he’s so loaded he’s got half the boring wannabe Sloanes at college eating out of his hand.’
If Sienna thought he was loaded, reflected Bella, the baby-faced Josh must be rich as Croesus. Certain sectors of society had yet to be hit by the recession, it seemed.
‘Toby, shut up, you fucker! You’re such a fucking loser!’
‘Cretin! Thunder thighs! Fatso!’
‘Loser! Wankstain! Fuckwit! Toby’s a fuckwit, Toby’s a fuckwit!’
Alison put her fingers in her ears and tried to ignore the screaming bickering of her teenage almost stepchildren as she concentrated on the details of the latest horrible case she was working on. You’d think the classically (some might say boringly) wood-panelled, leather-upholstered study would be soundproof, but no. Their spoilt, public-school, brattish voices, an entire floor up, would probably pierce the thick concrete walls of a torture cell (the like of which the creeps she was defending would doubtless end up in, if she didn’t sufficiently deploy the Human Rights Act).
Alison was meant to have married Andy last year. They’d been together for thirteen years, ever since Cambridge, and it had seemed like a logical progression. But she’d become so caught up in the minutiae of organizing the perfect wedding, and keeping her bloody parents happy, that she’d lost sight of the fact that, somewhere along the line, they had fallen out of love with one another. When her older boss Philip, senior partner in her law firm, came on to her one night they were both working late, she’d felt properly alive again for the first time in years. They’d actually fucked on his desk. The age gap suited them both – it made Philip feel virile and Alison desired – something Andy hadn’t managed at all in the last few years of their relationship, though he’d done his best to pretend. And the Eaton Square house was the pinnacle of her grandiose domestic aspirations.
She hadn’t reckoned with the bloody teenagers though.
‘LOSER, LOSER, LOSER, LOSER, LOSER!’ Now they were stamping, banging on the floor above, to the extent she was worried the ceiling might fall in. Something sounded like gunshot. Little sods. She took a deep breath and ventured upstairs, to the room directly above her study – their playroom. For God’s sake, at their age.
Toby was shooting an air rifle out of the window, trying to kill pigeons, while Imogen and one of her horrible little friends bounced around the room on state-of-the-art pogo sticks. They were all so bloody spoilt that neither of her parents had the nerve to tell Imogen that cropped leggings weren’t the best option for her chunky little legs.
‘Children.’ Alison tried to smile.
Toby turned around, pointing the air rifle right at her.
‘Children,’ he drawled sarcastically. ‘Yes, what is it, wicked step-mummy?’
Both girls cracked up. Alison flinched away from the gun and tried to keep her temper.
‘Could you just keep the noise down a bit, please? I’m trying to work …’
‘Trying?’ brayed Imogen, tossing her dyed-yellow hair. ‘Well, you probably need to try a bit harder then, don’t you?’
‘Hahahaha! Oh, Imo, you’re so funny!’ spluttered her equally obnoxious (though not so blubbery) friend.
Never the most patient of women at the best of times, Alison snapped, ‘Just shut up, you little bastards …’
‘Really, Alison,’ came a mild voice from behind her. ‘I’m sure it’s not necessary to speak to my children like that.’
‘Dadddddeeeee!’ shouted Imogen, running as fast as her fat little legs would carry her. She launched herself into her father’s arms, as though she were 4, not 14.
‘Darling!’ Philip swung her up and round in the air. Alison was amazed he didn’t rupture himself. He put Imogen down and saluted his son, who had hidden the air rifle behind his bespoke pool table.
‘All shipshape, captain?’
‘All shipshape, sir.’ Toby saluted back, grinning.
‘Righty-ho. Well, as it’s half-term, who’s up for Pizza Express?’
‘Oh, Daddy, you’re the best!’ Imogen snuggled up to him.
‘I was going to cook coq au vin,’ started Alison, even though she hated cooking.
‘Darling, I thought I’d give you a break from the kitchen. It’s not exactly your forte, is it?’ Philip winked at Imogen, who giggled.
As Alison walked wearily downstairs after them all, Toby turned round and gave her the finger, glee written all over his smug, spotty little face.
Chapter 5
‘Owwww!’ screamed Poppy as Fabrice pulled the first strip of wax from her nose. She scowled at him in the mirror. ‘Surely this isn’t necessary? Of all the things I’ve ever been accused of, having a hairy nose isn’t one of them.’
‘Welcome to Manhattan grooming, Blondie.’
As the pain ebbed away, Poppy tried to smile, aware that it was important to keep the people behind the scenes on your side in this business. And it wasn’t actually Fabrice’s fault – he was only doing his job, after all.
‘Sorry – just haven’t got used to it yet. And these ridiculously early starts. How on earth do you do it?’ This week they were shooting the coolest places for power breakfasts and weekend brunches, a deliciously New York concept. That said, it was six a.m., Poppy had already been up for an hour and she still had Hair and Make-up to go. She was looking forward to the week they did cocktail bars.
Poppy’s bosses had taken a huge punt in giving her, a complete unknown, such an enormous slice of airtime. Half an hour, Monday to Thursday nights at ten p.m., for twelve weeks. The later time meant that Poppy could be a little more risquе and attract younger, cooler viewers. Every week there was a different theme on Poppy Takes Manhattan. This week, breakfasts and brunches; last week, vintage clothes stores; the week before, hotels with roof terraces. To stay bang on trend, the programmes were broadcast the week after they’d been shot (so this week they were showing the vintage clothes store episodes, Poppy’s favourites so far).
Already the show was gathering a loyal following. Poppy was proving to be a natural in front of the camera, chatty and conspiratorial without ever patronizing the viewer. She’d wondered how Americans would take to an English girl telling them what was cool on their territory, so she played up the fact that she was an outsider, acting delighted and awestruck with every new gem she discovered (most of the time she didn’t have to act much). It worked. The natives lapped it up. The show was due to be broadcast in the UK later in the year, and Poppy hoped she’d go down equally well with British audiences.
‘Haven’t been to bed yet.’ Fabrice tapped the side of his own ink-black, perfectly waxed nose. He probably should have paid a little more attention to his nostrils though, both of which were ever so slightly crusty.
‘Ooooh – where’ve you been?’ Poppy was always eager to hear about others’ debauchery, but now she could actually indulge in her passion for gossip in the name of research. This job really, really couldn’t be better. She knew how lucky she was and was working like a trouper to show her gratitude.
‘Where haven’t I been?’ Fabrice winked, and Poppy giggled at him in the mirror. She did like the way she looked, even with a smarting red nose.
‘Oh, my screaming Andy Warhols, you are just sooooo cute. If I had even an atomo of hetero hormones, I would be up your tiny tight pussy faster than HIV in a seventies ’Frisco sauna!’
‘Wow, thanks … I think. So, Fab, take me through your night. I want to hear it all – bars, restaurants, clubs, the lot!’
By the time Fabrice had hilariously and indiscreetly told all, Poppy felt they might be friends for life. The final wax strip barely stung.
Make-up passed without a hitch – New Yorkers didn’t want to look like footballers’ wives, after all – and she emerged looking like an even better version of herself (if that were possible). But ensconced in Hair, Poppy had a battle on her hands.
‘Um … I’m sure you know your job far better than I do …’ She smiled winningly at the latest addition to her hairdressing team.
‘I do.’ Jojo, a terrifyingly well-groomed middle-aged redhead, didn’t smile back.
‘It’s just that, if I’m meant to be the cool Anglo chick around town, I wouldn’t be all blow-dried to within an inch of my life like this. I mean, my hair’s always been a bit messy …’
‘U-huh.’ Only New Yorkers could imbue so few syllables with such disdain. Jojo pulled a golden lock even harder around the round brush. Poppy tried to stay friendly.
‘… and I think that’s kind of what they wanted – you know, for me to keep my – erm – unkempt London essence?’
‘If you think I am letting you out in front of those cameras looking how you looked before, then you are mistaken, Brit chick,’ said Jojo grimly. ‘It’s my reputation on the line here.’
Poppy smiled back sweetly, knowing she’d mess up the Stepford blow-dry as soon as she was out of the Nazi bitch’s hands. It was her hair, and she’d wear it as she bloody well pleased.
Damian stared at his laptop morosely. Still no new messages, unless you counted the endless press releases and PR guff that flooded his inbox daily, as an ex-important journo (he was amazed they didn’t update their files more frequently and put him in the box marked useless). It wouldn’t hurt any of the editors he’d approached to at least acknowledge receipt of his features’ ideas. A ‘thanks but no thanks’ would be preferable to the interminable silence. Apart from anything else it was bloody bad manners. He wasn’t some unknown hack, he was a former Stadium columnist, for fuck’s sake. And he knew most of the editors personally – they had all drunk and snorted together at many a press hooley.
Oh, well. He tried not to let it get to him as he got up off his sun lounger. Wandering over to the bar, he marvelled at the number of New Yorkers able to hang out on Soho House’s roof terrace in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week. He imagined that a lot of them were, like him, newly unemployed. Recent victims of the recession. He laughed at himself. Victim wasn’t quite the right word, not when you still had enough dosh for Soho House membership. And he wasn’t the only one grabbing the opportunity to go freelance, which definitely had its perks. Networking in the sunshine over a cocktail or two wasn’t such a bad way to spend your days.
Damian ordered another Manhattan. It seemed appropriate.
‘I’ve got a tab. Um. It’s in my wife’s name. She’s the member.’
Was the bartender ostentatiously hiding a smirk?
‘And your wife’s name, sir?’
‘Poppy Evans-Wallace.’
He knew he was being childish. Poppy had insisted on keeping her maiden name for anything professional, which he was fine with really. That was how she was known in the TV world, after all. As it happened, the barman didn’t even seem to notice the insertion of Evans, as he gave a little yelp.
‘Poppy Wallace? Omigod, I just love her, she’s so cute. They were filming here just a couple weeks back. That show’s gonna be a cult classic, y’know. Have the drink with the compliments of the house, sir.’
‘Thank you.’ Damian smiled, his heart swelling with pride. Even he, who probably loved and admired Poppy more than anybody in the world, hadn’t foreseen her new show being quite such a success. All he had to do was emulate some of that success himself and they’d be sorted. He took his drink from the bartender, thanking him again, and walked back to his sun lounger, fired up and full of fresh resolve to crack New York.
Opening his emails again, he saw there was a new one from Simon Snell, from his Esquire address. His heart quickened as he opened it. Surely, Simon, of all people, would respond positively to at least one of the pitches Damian had sent him?
I’m really sorry mate, but with this bloody recession we’re just not commissioning from freelancers at the minute. Of course we’ve got to fill the mag somehow, so everybody with a salary is working twice as hard for their filthy lucre – I haven’t left the office before 9 since I started here. Not that that’s much comfort to you, I imagine. They were fucking good ideas though. Have you tried GQ? Their budget is massive compared to ours. Hope you’re having fun in NY – I see it’s 90 in the shade today. It’s raining here. Plus ?a change. BTW I’ve heard Poppy’s show’s going down a storm – please give her my congratulations. Sorry about the feature ideas, but I’m sure something will come up soon. Courage, mon ami and au revoir x
Damian took a large swig of his Manhattan, mulling everything over. Of course he’d tried GQ – UK and US versions. Simon must have realized that. Also, since Poppy’s fling with Ben last year, it was very unlike Simon to say anything nice about her – though his Best Man’s speech, delivered through gritted teeth, Damian suspected, had been charm itself. His professional situation had to be bad, he concluded. So what to do? If even Simon couldn’t pull any freelancing strings for him, he needed another project to get his teeth into. Hmmm. Maybe he could write a screenplay?
Excited now as much by his new idea as the two Manhattans and blazing sunshine, Damian opened a new document in Word and saved it as SCREENPLAY. Then he stared at the empty page for a few minutes. Hmmm, he thought again. He probably needed another drink for inspiration. He drained the dregs of his Manhattan and made his way back to the bar for the third time that hour.
‘Same again, sir?’ The bartender was positively effusive this time, flashing Damian a cheeky grin as he started preparing another Manhattan. ‘Hey,’ he added, to an enormous blond man standing next to Damian, ‘this lucky guy is married to that cute Brit chick with the new TV show. Y’know, Poppy Wallace? The one they were all raving about last night?’
‘Dude, that is cool,’ said the Viking in a clearly Scandinavian accent, turning to pump Damian by the hand so hard his teeth rattled. ‘She is one hot chick. I’m Larsh.’
‘Damian.’ He shook back enthusiastically. ‘And thanks for the comments, both of you. Poppy’s even more gorgeous in the flesh. She’s really clever too.’ He was starting to feel a tad sentimental. This bartender mixed his drinks strong.
‘I’m sure she ish, man, sure she ish.’ Lars was slurring a little and Damian realized he was in the company of a fellow boozer. Excellent. Damian himself wasn’t generally a lunchtime drinker, but with so much time on his hands he was finding it very easy to slip into, and curiously enjoyable. He looked properly at his new companion for the first time.
Everything about Lars was huge, from his head to his hands to his feet, but he wasn’t fat. Just … HUGE. Piercing blue eyes looked out from a good-natured, square face, with a beaming smile that revealed big, square teeth.
‘Let me get you a drink,’ said Damian. ‘What are you having?’
‘Thank you, man.’ Lars slapped Damian on the back, nearly propelling him over the bar. ‘I am drinking schnapps.’
‘Sounds great. I think I’ll join you. Two very large schnapps, please, and have one for yourself, mate,’ Damian added to the barman. ‘It’s on my wife’s tab.’ All three men roared with laughter at this. The barman gave Damian the Manhattan he’d just mixed (which Damian proceeded to down in one, belching slightly), then swiftly poured three absurdly large tumblers of neat schnapps.
Lars raised his glass and bellowed, ‘SKOL!’
‘SKOL!’ shouted Damian and the barman. They poured the drinks down their throats and the barman happily started to prepare another round.
‘So if you want your eggs sunny-side up in east Manhattan, I couldn’t recommend a better place.’ Poppy winked at the camera. ‘And I have to say this sunny-side East Side is an awful lot more sunny – and, dare I say it – up than the grey old East End I left behind me in London. They have jellied eels in the East End of London, you know, and they are just as revolting as they sound!’
She felt a bit guilty about her disloyalty to her beloved ’hood, but hey. Business was business. And jellied eels were revolting. She’d tried them once, for a bet, pissed as a fart as she staggered home from Dalston to Hoxton, clad only in a shocking-pink leotard and laddered purple tights; she’d managed somehow to lose her boots, hat and skirt en route. Poppy had, with an effort, kept the eels down; her fellow reveller, a minor rock star used to three grams of coke and a bottle of JD a night, had puked his guts up.
‘It’s a wrap!’ said Marty, the director.
‘Really?’ Poppy beamed at him. This was only her second take.
‘You’re a natural, honey. Go have some fun now. And don’t forget – eight p.m. at L’Ambassadeur tonight.’
‘How could I forget?’
As it was Thursday and they’d finished for the week, Marty had suggested that Poppy and Damian join him and his wife for drinks and dinner that evening at the hottest new restaurant in town. The assistant director and his boyfriend were going to be there too. ‘Thanks for this morning, Marty, you’re a star.’ Poppy kissed him on the cheek and Marty blushed, unable to know how to take this gorgeous yet apparently unaffected English girl, their new star in the making. She was a breath of fresh air, of that he was certain.
Once Poppy had wiped her face clean of the make-up (it might have looked natural on screen, but it felt beyond disgusting in this heat), she decided to go to Greenwich Village and hit all the vintage shops she’d been filming in last week. It was about time she bought some presents for her loved ones, and unless she was very much mistaken, the shops would be falling over themselves to give her a discount.
‘Poppy Wallace!’ Sandra, a 65-year-old ex-rock chick with madly teased peroxide hair, a ton of black eyeliner and a treasure trove of a clothes shop, greeted her warmly. She was wearing an original Biba minidress, turquoise tights and purple PVC over-the-knee boots. She looked rather wonderful. ‘Welcome back, doll! Since your show aired on Monday, I’ve quadrupled my takings!’
‘Really?’ Poppy’s delight was genuine. All she had done, after all, was get some cameramen in there, while Sandra had been building up this Aladdin’s cave for the last twenty years or so. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased for you. You deserve it. This place is to die for.’
The shop’s interior was a fabulous juxtaposition of rock chick and over-the-top girly. The walls were painted a grungy matte black and hung with framed album covers from the sixties and seventies – the Stones, Led Zep, Velvet Underground, New York Dolls. (‘It only goes on the wall if I screwed one of the band,’ Sandra had confided to camera last week, much to the entire production team’s delight.) Mingling with the album covers were beautifully stylized Vogue fashion illustrations from the twenties to the fifties.
The matte-black walls were offset by floorboards painted a glossy white and strewn with thick, fluffy sheepskin rugs. Either side of the shop window, sumptuously thick pale pink velvet curtains pooled luxuriously to the floor. Two ornate antique chandeliers glittered overhead, their light refracted against the black ceiling in ever-changing swirls by the disco glitter-ball rotating slowly over the pale pink painted Louis XVI escritoire that acted as the cash desk. Faux-French armchairs and chaises longues had been upholstered in animal print (leopard, zebra and cow), and the two longest walls were lined with rail upon rail of exquisite vintage clothes, ranging from Victoriana to the nineties – almost a century’s worth.
Overgrown exotic plants lurked in every corner, except for the one that housed the single, very comfortably sized changing room, curtained off in the same sumptuous pale pink velvet. Inside, a huge Venetian mirror was propped against one black wall and a leopard-print upholstered chaise longue lounged alluringly against the other.
‘Thanks, honey. Ya want some pot?’ Sandra offered Poppy the spliff she held between age-spotted, scarlet-tipped fingers.
‘Thanks, but I think I’ll pass today. I’m on a mission to shop! And not even for myself, which makes it so much better. Guilt free!’
‘I get where you’re coming from, baby doll. But surely you’ll want a couple pieces for yourself too?’ Sandra looked at Poppy in an almost coquettish manner and Poppy laughed.
‘Oh, go on, twist my arm then. Seriously though, I really want to get something nice for my best friend Bella. I put her through hell last year and she didn’t deserve it.’
Sandra knew better than to enquire further, except to ask about Bella’s size, shape and colouring. She rummaged amongst the rails and after some deliberation emerged with a Halston silk empire-line maxidress, circa 1977. It was a deep emerald green, with jewelled peacock feathers creeping up both the floor-sweeping hem and the thick halterneck ties.
‘Oh, my bloody God, you are a genius, Sandra! Really! I didn’t even tell you that all Bella’s favourite dresses have halternecks! She’s got lovely shoulders. She’ll absolutely love it!’ Poppy flung her arms around Sandra’s neck, and it had the same effect as it always did, on everybody. Sandra would be a little bit in love with Poppy for the rest of her life from now on.
‘Yessssshhhh, that is right, David.’ Lars tried to focus on his new best mate, his blue eyes substantially more glassy than piercing now.
‘Damian.’ Damian tried to pronounce his own name correctly.
It transpired that Lars had been living in the Big Apple for five years, ever since he’d been headhunted from Merrill Lynch in Stockholm at the age of 29. The previous year, along with about half of his fellow emerging market traders, he’d been unceremoniously dumped by the bank. And even less ceremoniously dumped by his girlfriend, a stunning 21-year-old Romanian, who, in retrospect, he realized, ‘loved the banker, not the man’. He repeated this phrase several times to Damian and the bartender.
‘She sounds like a complete bitch, dude,’ said Damian. ‘What you need is a proper woman with her own mind, and her own job, like my wife.’ He went all misty eyed for a second.
