LOVE'S GHOST (a romance) (17 page)

“I just had a phone call,” she said.

My heart sank.

“From Portia.”

“Oh.”

“She’s not happy. No, that’s an understatement. She’s livid.”

“Why?”

“She’s livid with
you
.”

I tried to trawl through my memory as quickly as possible, to arm myself. But I couldn’t think of anything. I’d handled all her bookings professionally. If anybody had been less than professional it had been her.

“Why is she mad?” I asked for the second time.

“Apparently, you were at the opening of the Carl Rask exhibition at the Tate Modern.”

“I was, yes.”

“You were his date.”

“That’s true.”

“And Portia asked you to get a photo of her with Carl.”

Now I remembered. But I couldn’t see why she was still harbouring a grudge about it.

“It wasn’t on work time. It’s my social life.”

Polly raised her eyebrows. “Since when have you been on the arm of world-famous artists?”

“We just met by accident. I didn’t know who he was.”

Polly made that shape with her mouth that she always made before she was about to do something she didn’t want to do. Her lips both slid to one side of her face as if, inside her mouth, she was trying to dislodge a piece of meat she’d had for lunch.

“Put yourself in my position, Fay.”

I didn’t know what she meant by that. But I replied anyway. “Okay.”

“When we lost Sienna, this firm looked like it might go bust. But now we have Portia, things are looking healthy again.”

She stared at me as if I was supposed to fill in the blanks. I think I just looked bemused, which annoyed her.

“It’s like this — Portia is very upset. She’s been reading a magazine. And instead of seeing a picture of her on the arm of Carl Rask, there’s a picture of you. I’ve tried finding the magazine in our rack, but it’s not there.”

I averted my gaze.

“But I found the picture online.”

“It’s not my fault they took my picture.”

She waved away my explanation. “That’s not the point. You can have your picture taken whenever, and with whomsoever. The point is, Portia is very upset. She’s so upset she’s threatening to leave our little agency unless I fire you.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But then it was my turn to get miffed. “But you’re not going to. Because you wouldn’t do that.”

I waited for Polly to confirm my reading of her character, but instead, she gazed at her computer again, pulling that ridiculous expression with her mouth.

“You wouldn’t do that, Polly. Not you. Not the woman who threw a plate of canopées over the editor of The Mirror.”

“Either you’ve misread my behaviour or you’re not as clever as you think you are. My mischief isn’t genuine. I realised long ago that fashion needs people who are larger than life. So I obliged. The editors know that. The advertising agencies know that. It’s not about principles, it’s about putting on a show. That’s what fashion is about.”

I had deluded myself. For all her faults, went my thinking, I always believed I was working for somebody who stood up for what she believed in.

“So you’re firing me?” I reiterated.

“Yes.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Terrible.” But she said it without a flicker.

“But I’m your best talent spotter. I discovered Sienna. And I found Portia. I have an eye. What happens when the agency finds itself in need of another star?”

“Look, Fay, you must see the spot I’m in. Don’t be difficult.” She sighed. “Yes, you’re right, you do have an eye for talent spotting. And that’s how I’d like to use you in the future. For every model you unearth in the future, and recommend to the agency, I will give you one percent of future earnings. And before you dismiss that as too little, it isn’t. If they go on to become successful, and if you find enough of them, it could work out all right.”

I didn’t have the mathematical skills to work out, in an instant, what that would amount to, but my hunch was that I’d have to unearth a Naomi Campbell every month just to make a living.

“Should I leave today?” I asked.

“Probably for the best.”

“But I…”

“I’ll pay you for the next three months and give you a good reference.”

I didn’t know what to say after that. She told me she’d give me a good reference as if she was doing me a favour. What a joke.

I walked out of her office in a daze. I’d never been fired before. And although I knew it wasn’t my fault, it still hurt. The thought that the agency would carry on the next day without me was gut wrenching.

Back at my desk, I rifled through my drawers. I didn’t keep much in them, and what there was didn’t seem worth taking. I slumped in my chair and watched everybody on their phones talking to the industry.
 

Sulky Soozie held her phone away from her ear as somebody on the other end went into a rage. No doubt one of our models had turned up late, or not at all. Cool Chrissie typed with one hand and held her phone with the other. It was a marvel how adept she was at that.

Diffident Dougie was the only one not on the phone. He was staring into space. He caught me looking at him.

“You all right, Fay?”

“Yeah, fine.”

I didn’t want them to see me cry. Besides, I don’t think I could cry. I don’t think I had any tears left after the last few days.
 

I grabbed my coat and bag and just left. It was so unfair. It would have been difficult enough if I’d been fired when it was my fault. But there was no point taking it to a tribunal. Polly would just make something up. Besides, fashion was such a subjective industry, sometimes having a face that suddenly didn’t fit was enough to find yourself unemployed.

It was a strange sensation walking back to the train station in the middle of the day. I was very upset, but it was true, I had no tears left. That didn’t stop my insides churning, as if I’d eaten a particularly rancid dish of prawns.

I wanted to talk to someone. Emily would still be at work, I couldn’t disturb her. The best listener in times like this was Russell. But I couldn’t call him. That wouldn’t be fair.

I walked through Covent Garden. Everybody appeared to be so busy. Even the tourists looked like they had abandoned their usual stroll in favour of a purposeful stride. I, on the other hand, dawdled. People crashed into me, then apologised. Some didn’t bother to apologise. I didn’t know what to do with myself. It’s a strange feeling being out and about mid-afternoon with no need to rush back to the office.

I could call Carl
, I thought. But I hardly knew him. And from what I did know, he wasn’t the kind to sit down and talk about problems. Or perhaps I was doing him a disservice. But anyway, it was too early on in the relationship, if that’s what it would turn out to be, to burden him with this.

When you meet someone new, it’s the most exciting time. Everything is slightly unreal, like a magnificent fantasy. Of course, the fantasy can’t last for ever and ever, but it’s best to try and prolong it. Carl was my fantasy. He was exactly what I needed right now.

But fantasies aren’t good for sharing bad news with.

There was no need to worry. Polly was giving me three months’ pay. I should take it easy, not panic.
 

Just breathe, Fay,
I told myself.

I took out my phone and looked up Carl’s number in the address book. I hesitated but then hit the “call” button.

“Hello,” he said, “Can I call you back?” He sounded rushed.

“Yes, sure.”

The line went dead. Perhaps I had caught him in the middle of working on a new canvas. But he said he never took his phone into his studio. Or maybe he was with another woman. Maybe Portia, with fire in her belly, had wormed her way into his place and seduced him.

At least that thought made me smile.

But it was silly calling him. How could I tell him I’d been fired? Such a respected, committed artist. He hadn’t got to where he was today by listening to people whine on about their everyday problems. And I had to respect that. I’d tell him I’d been fired once I’d found a new job.

My phone rang. It was Carl.

“Hi,” he said. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

“Yes.” I didn’t know what to say.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

Then I surprised myself with my own thoughts. I couldn’t tell him what had happened, but I wanted to be near him. Needed to be near him. Just to touch him, to smell him — to keep the fantasy alive, to drive away real life. But he was probably in work mode. There was only one thing for it.

“I want you to paint me,” I said.

“Okay.”

“Can you do it if I come round now?”

“Yes, I’m struggling with my current work, so it would be a welcome pleasure.”

I ended the call and wondered what the hell I’d done.
 

IT WAS STRANGE approaching Carl’s house from the front. Unlike the other houses, whose owners had opted for neo-classical styling, as if they wanted to be seen as Roman emperors, Carl’s place looked like it had grown out of the surrounding vegetation. It’s wood, granite and dark glass with its modern simplicity made the houses around it look overly ostentatious.

I knocked on the door and Carl opened it. He was dressed in dark blue overalls that were spattered in paint. Just seeing him cheered me up.

“That’s a nice look. I can see it in next year’s collections.”

Carl looked puzzled for a second, then looked down at his clothes. I don’t think he was even aware of what he was wearing.

“Just something I threw on,” he said.

He stood back and let me in. We walked down the hallway, past the flotation room. I could feel my cheeks redden. I look ahead and again marvelled at the high-ceilinged, open plan living room.

This time, we took a right, through a set of doors into Carl’s studio. It was my first time inside it. It wasn’t like the other rooms. Those were very ordered, with furniture in just the right place, a perfect ode to feng shui.
 

But this room was chaos. Complete chaos.

Three of the walls were completely glazed, windows from floor to ceiling. The wall behind me was painted white, or used to be white. Now it was a paint-spattered mess. Much like the floor. Carl hadn’t put dust sheets down to protect the wooden floorboards. And now there were blotches of paint — reds, greens, blues — every shade of every colour. So many blotches that it was difficult to see the wood beneath.

Numerous canvases leaned against the wall, like drunken revellers the night after a party. One canvas lay on the floor but had been slashed right down the middle, disfiguring what looked like a landscape. I’d never seen Carl paint but I’d seen him switch over to his “other world”, his “artistic world”, on the morning he’d suggested I leave. And now I thought about it, I wasn’t sure that visiting him to have my portrait painted was such a good idea.

Carl looked at me. This was definitely his artistic persona. The eyebrows pointed in at each other, a frown the result of their conversation. He was looking at me in a different way, with a sense of detachment, as if I were an object, not a person.

“Have you ever posed before?” he asked

“Only for holiday snaps.”

“Right. I want to try something.”

I thought it would be just a case of taking my clothes off and sitting on a chair for hours on end. Was I trying too hard to sound glib? At least it was taking my mind off my sacking.

“I want you to take one item of clothing off every ten minutes. That will give me time to capture what I want. You see, I want to paint you as a nude. But I also want to paint the process of your becoming a nude. Your change. I don’t know if it’ll be work, or if I’m trying to capture too much. But I want to make the painting be about ‘transformation’. That’s my intention. It may change as we move along.”

I nodded.

“And when you take each item of clothing off, I want you to do it very slowly. Extremely slowly. You’re divesting yourself of a layer of your old self. I want you to think about that as you’re doing it.

“Sounds simple enough.”

“It’s not,” Carl said, with a note of severity in his voice and in his eyes.

He walked away from me and picked up an aerosol can. He walked further into the room and sprayed paint on the floor in a circle about four feet wide.

“I don’t want you to stray outside of this circle,” he said.

“I want you to feel every change as you lose each garment. The change in temperature, the change in your own feelings.

I walked slowly towards the painted circle.

“How long will I be in this circle? It’ll only take me an hour to take off all my clothes on your schedule.”

“But that’s only the beginning. I like to paint over a period of time. You’ll be in that circle for at least ten hours.”

“There will be comfort breaks won’t there?”

“No. The moment you leave the circle, the session is over and I commit to memory whatever I have seen, however short or long the session is. It’s about the continuity of the experience. It’s just something that works for me.”

This wasn’t what I’d expected. I didn’t think there would be all these self-imposed rules. I didn’t want to question him. There must be method in his madness.

“You want to go through with this?” he asked.

I nodded and walked towards the circle. It was only then that I felt shy. I glanced out of the windows. The room was surrounded on two sides by thick clusters of trees. On the third side was the river, but that was some way in the distance. No one would be able to see me.

Was this really the best way to deal with being fired? But I couldn’t face going back to the empty apartment.

Approaching the circle, I felt myself shiver. I suppose I could have pulled out, but I didn’t want to.

“Do my shoes count as one garment?”

“Two. Take the first one off in your own time.”

I bent over and reached down.

“Slower,” Carl demanded. Then, more quietly: “Much slower.”

He didn’t take his eyes off me as he walked behind his easel, on which was a virgin canvas.

I slowed down as much as I could without falling over and took off my first shoe. I expected him to be painting while he watched me do this. But he didn’t lift a brush. He just watched.