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It was a few weeks after I had finished my degree. I was about to start an internship at my favourite magazine. I’d bought every copy ever published. I was addicted to it from the first issue. I’ll never forget the launch copy. My best friend showed me it. The lead fashion shoot—set in a dilapidated mansion—was a glossy homage to what eventually became known in the tabloids as ‘heroin chic’. The models—dressed in flimsy, sheer, de-constructed fabrics—were draped across broken beds and chairs or lying on the cracked marble floor, as if they were abandoned garments themselves. But the ten-year-old me didn’t look at the pictures and think, ‘Yikes, they’ve had a heavy weekend on the skag …’. I didn’t even know what narcotics were, other than that they could possibly be disguised as fruit pastilles, as my father constantly told me: ‘NEVER ACCEPT ANY SWEETS FROM HER (my best friend’s) FAMILY—THEY COULD BE DRUGS!’
We—my best friend and I—stared at the shoot. She fell in love with the clothes; how everything looked on the surface. I loved what was going on beneath; the way each model was captured by the camera. Each one had a story to tell. But it was a secret.
The receptionist at the front desk puts a call through to the magazine.
‘Good morning, your new intern is waiting in reception. Shall I ask her to wait for you down here?’ He smiles at me from behind his sponge mouthpiece. ‘The Editorial Assistant will be right down.’
‘Ah, okay …’ I feel my purple heat rash spring across my chest. My dream job. This was actually happening. After everything that had happened. Life was about to happen.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ says the receptionist, mistaking my excitement for nerves. ‘She’s new too.’
But she wasn’t new to me. As the lift doors opened, I saw her before she saw me. Unquestionably pretty, petite—almost imp-like—and dressed casually but coolly in ripped skinny jeans, a grey T-shirt and Nike Air Max. Her hair was in a mussed-up high pony tail. I had ironed mine into a poker-straight bob. Typically for her, she looked at my shoes first. She stared at my ‘office smart’ kitten heels as if I had dragged in a rotting animal—no, human—carcass. I used this time to gather myself. It was only a few seconds … it was not enough. But an hour would not have been enough. Nor a day. Nor another year. And it had already been five. She gave me her trademark impenetrable stare. Her face was emotionless.
RECEPTIONIST: Ah, you two know each other? Well, that’s nice, isn’t it?
But it was not nice. Not for me, Tanya Dinsdale. Or her, Ashley Atwal.
Trance-like, she nodded at me to approach the lift. I walked over and got in. The doors shut but she did not press any buttons. I stood by her side. Should I say something? Should I say nothing? No. Yes. I should say …
ME: I don’t know what to s—
HER: (Interrupting. Voice flat.) Have you seen The Devil Wears Prada?
ME: (Confused.) Erm … yeah, of c—
HER: (Interrupting again.) You know that montage? Which loops together the makeover scenes? It starts with the Style Director taking Andrea—the awkward, shy intern—into the fashion cupboard and lending her a poncho? Then she borrows more and more clothes, and as she does she grows and flourishes into a confident, well-rounded member of staff who fits right in? Well, this scene and the rest of the movie—is a pile of crap. It is about as far removed from the reality of life doing work experience on a fashion magazine as you can get … and even further from the reality of what your life will be like at Catwalk. There will be no development of your personal storyline, no actual job to be retained or offered at the end … and you can bet every penny you have—I hear that’s a fair bit these days—that at no point will you be taken into the fashion cupboard by a kindly gay male member of staff to help get your look on point using all the latest designer clothes.
Firstly, you will already be in the fashion cupboard—and trust me, ‘cupboard’ makes it sound far more glamorous than it actually is; it makes the communal changing cubicle in an out-of-town discount-designer outlet resemble Coco Chanel’s Parisian apartment. It has no windows. The iron and industrial steamer are on permanently. Your pores will open up like craters.
Secondly, we do not have any ‘kindly ‘gay male members of staff. All three who work here are caustic. But that said, nowhere near as brutal as the straight women. And as for being tasked with anything to do with the Editor; in respect to her life on the magazine or private world, forget it. You won’t even meet her. In fact, you won’t get as far as that end of the office because you will spend seventy-five per cent of your time in the aforementioned leper’s cave of a fashion cupboard, another ten per cent by the photocopier and the other fifteen per cent tramping round Central London, running personal errands for senior staff. This could be anything from picking up dry cleaning to buying cashew nuts. And if you do, for fuck’s sake don’t buy salted, honeyed or roasted. Plain. Always plain. They won’t touch a modified nut. It also goes without saying that if you consider Anne Hathaway’s kooky fish-out-of-water shtick as endearing … then I suggest you don’t simply keep that opinion quiet, you keep it locked and hidden in a dark vault in the recesses of your mind, never to be unlocked. Remember all of the above and you should be able to last the twenty days you have been pencilled in for. It is essential to note the word ‘pencilled’, as you are only here as it suits us. There is no contract. No cosy back-up from HR. No pay. You are here or not here because we do or do not want you to be. By ‘we’ I mean ‘I’.
She gave me that flickering sideways glance. Because to look at me directly would be giving me too much when she felt I deserved nothing.
ME: You.
HER: Yes. Me. Are you in? Or out?
She raised her finger and hovered it over the button for the fourth floor. Out. I was out. Our relationship was about to be over for a second time. I left the lift and vacated the building. I did not turn round.
This time, it is her who doesn’t turn. I watch the door swing shut as she leaves, then face myself in the mirror. I am wearing a shirt under a jacket with trousers and boots. All Reiss. Not too edgy. Not too conservative. Not too high street. Not too expensive. But not too cheap either. Solid middle-ground shopping choice. Everything in black. A quick glance in my wardrobe and it could be assumed I was a funeral director or a mime artist. Black is the perfect colour for being present but not drawing attention to yourself. You can be there, but not ‘HERE!’. Unless, that is, you were invited to one of those toe-curling-ly cringe Z-list celebrity weddings on a foreign beach, where all the guests are asked to wear white (and go barefoot).
I breathe in very slowly. Then exhale. And continue to stare. This is me now. Not the me she knew. I am finished with both of them.
‘Hon-eeeeey!’
The only reason I am here flies through the door and gives me a perfunctory peck on the cheek.
‘Noelle! How are you?’
‘How am I? Duh! Not exactly happy. That bitch!’
‘What bitch?’
‘The bitch who interviewed me. Ashley some-one-or-other.’
I realise Noelle has not recognised her. Not surprising. She was a small kid when everything happened. A concerted effort was made to ‘keep her out of it’.
‘Sorry, I got here late. Was at the hospit—’
‘You missed the whole thing?’
‘Not on purpose. What’s the matter?’
‘I got trashed out there,’ continues Noelle. ‘I’ve never been so embarrassed in my, like, life. If Frédéric hadn’t arrived … well, quelle doomage! Anyway, why didn’t you come and find me?’
‘I attempted to. But was prevented from doing so by a lady holding a clipboard and wearing an I’m-so-special-I could-eat-myself hat.’
‘Oh, you mean Sophs. She was only making sure I saw all the right people first. No, like, offence. There were a lot of serious national journalists out there. Internationally, if you include Internet hits. I mean, the Web has become even more important than print these days, yeah.’ She adds this as if she was revealing a prize nugget of information gleaned from years studying the development of digital media.
I don’t engage. ‘You’re okay then?’
‘I’ll pull through, I think. I have to. I’ve got to hang with Frédéric, sign some like, shit—I mean books—ha! for my fans … then go to another party.’
‘I meant, generally, are you okay? I keep getting missed calls from you at weird times of the night.’
She shrugs. ‘Soz. Only tryin’ to catch up and t’ingz. Time-zone issues. But, yeah, I’m more than okay. Honeeeeey, believe … this bitch is fly.’
‘Good, because I was …’ I stop myself. There is no point voicing concern. ‘We can still do a picture?’
‘Yeah, I’ll get Sophs to arrange it.’
‘What’s there to arrange? All you have to do is stand in front of the display of your books by the podium.’
Noelle scrunches up her face. The bones underneath don’t so much jut as project.
‘Thing is,’ she says, ‘Sophs, is a bit funny about who snaps me these days.’
‘Noelle, you snap yourself every day on a Hello Kitty phone. You’re not Nick Knight.’
‘Don’t get on my grill. That’s different. Insta, innit! Let me see what I can do. It is, like, you, after all. Wait there. I need a pee.’
She disappears into the toilet. I see the tips of her shiny patent brogues poking towards the gap beneath the cubicle door. Then she flushes and turns round. Now I can see the backs of her shoes and pompom-socked ankles. I know what she is doing. Sure enough, I hear the sound of a card being tapped quickly and violently on the cistern, followed by a long drawn-out gutteral snort, which she attempts to drown out by flushing the loo again. But frankly, she could have carried out that little routine by the Niagara Falls and still be heard. Also as expected, I gag.
Even after I had grown up enough to realise that my father had not been joking and that Class A and B drugs did in fact look like many sweets (Sherbet Dip Dab, Toblerone, Love Hearts etc,) but not fruit pastilles, I avoided them. Therapy had given me mental stability. Well, more of a plateau of not feeling anything, which suited me fine. I did not want to see where a pill or powder could ‘take me’. I did not want to go anywhere.
At college, people would question my lack of adventure and tell me I didn’t know what I was missing out on. But Dr Google gave me a pretty good idea: ‘A brief, intense high and rush of confidence that is immediately followed by depressive thoughts, anxiety, a craving for more of the chemical, heart palpitations, insomnia, hyper-stimulation and paranoia …’ And all that was only in the short term! Oh, and it gave you terrible diarrhoea; I witnessed both verbal and gastric. The latter of which I think Noelle is now experiencing because she is flushing the loo again. Either that or she is doing another line. I gag again.
‘Noo-Noo! Noooooooooo-Noooooooooo!’
A clipboard appears in the doorway, followed by the peak of a tweed cap and the enticingly punchable face of Noelle’s agent.
‘She’s in there.’ I point at the correct cubicle. ‘Testing out the efficiency of the plumbing.’
Sophie walks in and knocks on it. ‘Noo-Noo, we need to do one last circuit and then get you down to drinkalinks at the Serpentine. I want your arrival to be circa the same time as Paltrow or Palermo. And Harry. Styles not Windsor. We’re okay-ish for the moment, Loopy’s just radioed through … but we really should bloody chop chop.’
‘I think she’s already done that,’ I mutter.
Sophie ignores me. Noelle unlocks the cubicle door and beams at us. Her eyes are glassy and wide. Her top lip sweaty. Her smile skewed. As on the last few occasions I have seen her like this, there is part of me that wants to take her aside and tell her exactly what I am seeing. But then the other part of me speaks up to remind me that Noelle isn’t fussed by what I see. Only how she is seen … by people she doesn’t even know.
She goes to the sink and starts washing her hands. ‘Sophs, I’ve promised this honey …’ She nods at me. ‘… I’ll do a snap, yeah?’
Sophie crinkles her nose. ‘Eh? We’re not doing any pics today, Noo-Noo. It was part of the deal with Catwalk; they get the exclusive on all the party images to go up online overnight. I know nothing about any other requests.’
‘It’s for my own personal website,’ I explain. ‘I have a blog.’
‘A fashion blog?’
‘More of an on-going study about the relationship between women, image, marketing, reality, art and social media.’
The look on Sophie’s face tells me I may as well have asked, ‘WOULD YOU LIKE TO ROLL IN SOME FOX FAECES WITH ME?’
‘How nice,’ she says. ‘But not today. Maybe another time. Pending on your hit scores, we could tie it in with something for charity. I’m all about getting bad ass on bullies. And STDs, obviously.’ She adds nonsensically and passes Noelle a make-up bag. ‘Noo, blow your nose, get some slap on and meet me back by the bar.’
As Sophie departs, Noelle grimaces at me. Her pupils are even more dilated and blacker, like the liquorice swirls we used to love. She shakes the water from her hands.
‘Don’t get ants in your pants, honeeeeey,’ she shouts. ‘I’m as, like, gutted as you are. I, like, really mean that, yeah? But I guess, if I’ve learned anything from this situ it’s that I’m now at a point in my career where the smaaaaa-llest request has to be, like, put through my agent? Bonkers, I know, but then everyone knows where they stand and I’m not disappointing anyone. Espesh peeps who I like, really care about, yeah? Because you know that’s not who I am. I’m a people-pleaser not a, like, people-letter-downer. I mean, yeah, if the request gets like turned down, they’ll still be disappointed, but Sophs will do the disappointing for me, you know? It means I don’t have to carry that, like, burden.’ She does a ducky-mouth pose in the mirror and captures the moment on her Hello Kitty mobile. ‘But, hey, at least you got to come down and get a little taster of how cray cray life is for me right now, huh … I mean, that bitch out there was just jealous of my success, right? My fans still love me. Like I give a, like, fuck about the haters.’ She shrugs off their imaginary hate. ‘It’s always women who are having a pop at me. Remember that show I did in the States … Check Me Out, Sista!? Feminist wackos basically said that by making over lonely teenage girls using fashion, make-up and haircuts inspired by the most popular celebs that we were like, not only taking away their individuality … but moreover underlining the homig-homug- …’
‘Homogenisation?’ I interject, only because I want to correct her.
‘Yeah, the homogeni-wotist of, like, female youth erm … culture, yeah. That’s it. I was like, “Whatever, go laser your bikini line …” It sucks! I really don’t need those negative vibes.’
‘Not when you’ve got a book to sell, eh?’
‘I’d also like an MBE … at some, like, point.’
‘I’m going to go home now, Noelle.’
‘All that way? Bit of a trek, honey. Why don’t you crash in my hotel? We could hang tomozz … I’ve got fittings for fashion week at Tory Hambeck—I’m doing ‘da c-walk’ for her—but that’s, like, it. I would invite you to the Serps but it’s totally invite only. I mean, I could ask Loops if she could get in contact with the peeps running t’ingz, see if she can track down a spare ticket, but I can only i-mag-ine the waiting list. It starts in an hour.’
‘I imagine it would be easier to locate, purchase and install a new lung before then. Not to worry. I can’t stay in London, anyway. I’m going to a gig … at The Croft.’
‘That old pub by the station?’
‘It’s been revamped.’
‘Sweet! Awww, I can’t do gigs any more, they remind me of Troy too much. Coachella was like twisting a, like, Sam-Sam-Samo- … a big knife in my heart. Sometimes I wish Loops had screwed up my Access All Areas pass for Reading so I’d never met him. It probably would have been better …’ She sniffs loudly with dual purpose; to halt her runny nose and demonstrate how upset she is at the memory. ‘So your boyf is still singing? That’s cute. God loves a try-er!’
‘Yes, he is still singing … because he is a singer. I emailed you a link to his most recent demo. It’s an acoustic set …’ I cringe at those two words. It find it impossible to use music terminology without sounding pretentious. ‘I thought that maybe you could help, with your connections …’
‘Email it again, honeeeeey. Probably landed in my junk. I permanently have major storage issues.’
I can’t help laughing. ‘Sure you do. Bye, Noelle, it was great catching up. I’m glad I came all this way.’
‘I’m glad you came too! Hey, you know what …? I think Sophs is right. I should do more charity work.’
‘Well, you know where they say charity starts …’
‘Who does? Where does it?’
Add inability to detect sarcasm to the paranoia in short-term effects of cocaine. I hug her goodbye and go out into the foyer. The room where Noelle had her launch is still buzzing. The guests will all be ‘going on’ somewhere soon. Either to that do at the Serpentine or some other bash for more customised cocktails and loosely themed finger food. On the steps of the hotel, I bump into the man who sprayed the macaroon crumbs. He is holding a bag from American Apparel.
‘Excuse me,’ he says. ‘My name is Fitz Martin … I work at Catwalk.’
‘Get you.’
He squints at me, confused at my reaction.
‘My friend, the one who … with the Wang. Is she in there?’ he asks, worriedly, as if he was arriving at hospital to witness her last rites. ‘Can’t believe that top was Wang. Unworn Wang.’
‘I know. It was a shame. But …’ I pause and look up and down the street on both sides, pretending to gauge the activity. ‘… thank goodness, the world is still turning.’
I lift my hand to hail a taxi. It’s a confident departure … which is the only way to navigate clearly out of a situation. Not ‘out there’ or ‘up for it’ or ‘in-your-face’ confident, but ‘quietly’ confident—which is more believable. Anything more than that is obviously a front. I am fascinated by how much ‘fake’ confidence people—especially women—project these days, especially on social media. It’s why I started my blog … to examine how women present themselves on the various portals. There is a lot of faking extreme confidence going on. You know that for every smug #nofilter #nomakeup ‘selfie’ posted, there are forty-seven rejected images—taken in umpteen different locations (ploughing on through successive breakdowns over choice of outfit) until the most flattering light is found—sitting on their camera roll. That for every ‘Woooooooooo! PARTY TIME!’ status update, there are double the amount of lonely nights in, spent reaching the depths of despair (and a carton of pecan-fudge ice cream) that never get flagged up. That for every sobering, wise and self-aware proverb ‘meme’ posted, there has been a spate of pissed, stupid behaviour that they live in fear of being reminded about.
But I understand. Truly, I do. Faking it is the only way to move forward. Pretend that everything is okay. The good news is that if you do this for long enough, you’ll start to believe it. Whatever happened in your past will not affect you any more. I never thought I would get to that point. But I have. A base line of aggressive therapy helped but, after that, it was all me. I didn’t quite realise how far past that point I was until about twenty minutes ago. But seeing her … how can I put it?
I loathe Disney animation. The heroines all have craniums bigger than their waists. It’s the first registration point for any girl wanting to sign up for self-esteem issues later in life. But today I am going to paraphrase Queen Elsa: I have let it fucking go.
And I never swear. She did. Not Elsa. Ashley. She swore a lot. But today it feels right. No, good.
Three (#ulink_419f5737-7341-5418-9710-cf507f58d1cf)
ASHLEY
Tanya Dinsdale. Tanya Dinsdale. Tanya FUCKING Dinsdale. She was never meant to factor in my life. I took one look at her and thought, ‘Nah, no way’ … even though I was actively on the lookout for a new best friend. I had been forced to ditch my last one because she’d developed a habit of stealing. When her parents found a load of clothes from a selection of mainstream mall brands under her bed, she stitched me up, saying I had nicked the lot and had forced her to hide them. I didn’t know what was more offensive … the fact her parents believed that I was a thief or that I would have thieved such a bland and impact-less array of ‘stretch jersey basics’. Within seconds of meeting Tanya Dinsdale in the school canteen, I could tell she was one of those girls who liked to act as if she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, even though the cutlery in question was more likely to have been one of those plastic forks which come free with a Pot Noodle. Even worse, she was wearing Mary Jeans and culottes. No, worse, she was wearing them proudly. I should have walked away then.
I let myself in the front door, ignoring the photo on the sideboard, and walk into the lounge. Zach is layering a large cardboard box with bubble wrap. He is wearing his gym gear. I hadn’t realised he was working out again. He jumps up to hug me, but we end up giving each other a nervous head lock. I add a handshakey-matey-back-slap, as if I am welcoming him onto my own chat show. As he pulls away, I sense him scanning my face.
‘Sorry I had to drag you away from your work thing, Ash, but it’s imp—’
‘Yeah, so you said. Whatever. I wanted to leave, anyway. That magazine is doing my head in … and before you suggest I put my feelers out to see whether a decent position is coming up on another one, I would know if it was. No one wants to budge. The magazine side of the industry is getting smaller and that means it’s less fluid—not an environment you take risks with your income. Not if …’ I stop rambling.
I am about to say not if you have reproduced—as many of the women in the top spots have done—often multiple times. They need their solid salaries to pay for the painfully expensive day-care bills, that probably hurt more than giving birth itself. But I don’t approach this topic. Not in front of Zach. Shit, I forgot to buy any red wine.
‘… not if you can be totally sure that the magazine is secure, i.e., supported by other products …’ I continue. ‘And that would mean going to a publication which is part of an umbrella company and, trust me, those jobs are hard to come by because applicants for the second-job-down nearly always come from the inside.’
Zach nods. In a few seconds, he will give me the same half-understanding/half-tolerating look he has been doing ever since I started to talk at him, as opposed to with him. He knows there is no point trying to engage because this is a rant, not a discussion. Everything I say to him I have already made up my mind on. He reaches back down into the cardboard box and straightens up a batch of records even though they are stacked perfectly. Zach used to own a ton of vinyl, most of which he stored along the walls of our flat—literally, sound insulation—but sold most of it in the New Year because we would be ‘needing the space’. I told him he would regret selling his collection (mainly rare remixes of classic pop songs) because he started it when he was a kid. But he went ahead and bunged pretty much all of it on eBay as a job lot. All those tunes he had meticulously chosen and added one by one over the years … gone in three days and seven bids. It made me uncomfortable. I felt as if he wasn’t so much preparing for the future, as forcing it.
He looks up at me. But the look I was expecting is not there. I can tell he is nervous.
