Vanity

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 ça 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.

‘Wow, man, you are one lucky guy,’ said Lars. He put his enormous arms around Damian in the biggest, strangest (but somehow loveliest) man hug Damian had ever experienced.

‘More schnapps!’ shouted Damian, aware that there was something he was meant to be doing today, but not till an awful lot later. It was still broad daylight, so he had plenty of time …

‘Schnapps! Skol alcohol fer dom som tol!’ shouted Lars.

‘Skol alcohol … der molisotito … fom!’ shouted Damian and the barman.

After a moment’s thought, ‘Hey, dude?’ the bartender asked mildly. ‘What does that mean?’

At that the enormous Swede started to laugh so much he was crying, wiping his eyes with his oversized fingers. ‘It means … it means … cheers, alcohol … for those who can take it!’

Damian and the barman also started to laugh so much that great salty tears were pouring down their cheeks. Another macho group hug was in order.

After a bit, Lars said decisively, ‘And now we must shing. Ssshurely, you shing, my brotherssh?’

‘Karaoke? Hey, man, why not? I’ve finished my shift and probably lost my job anyway!’ said the good-natured barman, who Damian thought was called Tom or Tim (or possibly Jim). So they all piled into a great big limo ordered by the equally great big Swede, Damian and the Swede singing ‘New York, New York’ at the tops of their voices. Soon they drew up at a seedy-looking place with blacked-out windows and KARAOKE in neon letters above the door. The sun was still blazing overhead.

‘It’s not the toniest joint in town, but it’s the only one in the neighbourhood where you can sing karaoke in daytime. Most of them don’t open till seven,’ said the omniscient barman. But Damian and Lars weren’t listening, as they shouted the final chorus of ‘New York, New York’ into the bouncer’s face.

‘It’s OK, dude, they’re with me,’ said the barman. Lars, still singing, shoved some 100-dollar bills into his hand.

The karaoke bar gave new meaning to the word dingy, but that bothered none of them. There were only a few other punters, and although it was hard to tell in the gloom, it was fair to say that they were probably in a similar condition to Damian and his new chums.

‘Born to be wild, man,’ said Damian, not really aware of what he was saying.

‘YEEEEESSSSSHHHH!!!’ shouted the mad Swede, like a blond Brian Blessed on acid, and soon the three of them were up there on the stage with their air gee-tars, shaking their heads and belting out the theme tune to Easy Rider.

Poppy sat in the sun outside the second-hand bookshop and sipped her freshly squeezed orange juice in total contentment. Her shopping trip had been an unmitigated success, partly thanks to Sandra’s recommendation of this bookshop, which had been run by a lovely old gent called Louis for the past forty-five years. Dapper in pink shirt and chinos, he had smilingly told her that ‘books are my life’, before helping her find exactly what she was looking for.

Inside, the shop was comfortable and welcoming, all polished wood bookshelves and slouchy armchairs, in one of which resided a very sleepy and affectionate tabby cat. Outside, a few rickety tables and chairs had been set out on the pavement under the trees. Louis’ daughter baked a couple of cakes every evening and brought them around the next morning for Louis to serve to his customers (today’s selection was carrot or lemon drizzle). Louis himself squeezed the oranges and brewed the coffee in a little kitchen round the back. It was just heavenly, thought Poppy.

She took a bite of the scrumptious carrot cake and turned her attention to her purchases. Aside from the Halston dress for Bella, she’d also found her a beautifully bound 1920s edition of The Collected Short Stories of Dorothy Parker, which she knew her friend would love. She was aware she was being excessively generous, but her new job paid obscenely well and she still hadn’t got over her guilt over her fling with Ben. For her mother (who had been a proper, bra-burning seventies feminist), a first edition of Fear of Flying and a pair of Art Deco jet-and-emerald earrings, with a necklace to match.

Poppy had had to stop herself buying a first edition of The Grapes of Wrath, which her father, a lifelong lover of Steinbeck, would have treasured were he still in his right mind. He would have no idea what it was now, and it was seriously expensive. Just for a second her gaze misted over, then she shook herself and turned back to her bags of goodies.

For herself, Poppy had picked out a 1930s eau-de-nil silk slip edged with coffee-coloured lace, which she planned to wear as a dress, and an original hardback version of To Kill A Mockingbird, though that might just be on loan to herself. It would be a lovely thing to give her daughter, were she ever to have one; she remembered devouring the book when she was about 12.

The Collected Works of Hemingway, published in 1961 (the year the great man died, as Louis had helpfully pointed out), was a perfect present for her scrivener husband. Poppy savoured the word husband, still loving the sound of it. She’d pop into Macy’s on the way home for a few more bits and pieces for him. Damian was a joy to buy clothes for, his lean build and dark colouring lending themselves well to most styles. It was like having her own life-sized Ken doll, she thought fondly. She was looking forward to introducing him to her boss tonight.

Poppy wiped her fingers on a paper napkin and took another peek in the bag containing the fabulous Halston dress. She hoped Bella would take it in the spirit it was meant, that it wouldn’t scream guilt gift too loudly. She and Bella had been inseparable best friends since they first met as new girls at school, aged 10. Shagging Bella’s boyfriend would have been unforgivable under any circumstances, but when you considered that Ben had been the first person Bella had really thought herself in love with, it was just too awful to contemplate.

When Bella and Ben had first got together, Poppy had been unreservedly delighted for both of them. So when Ben had started flirting with her (very subtly at first – the odd text or Facebook message), she thought she must have been imagining it. After all, he was her boyfriend’s best friend and her best friend’s boyfriend. All very neat and symmetrical. But by the time Ben upped the ante and started coming on to her in person, Poppy was already out of her mind with grief about her father’s illness, and using coke heavily to numb her feelings. Unfortunately, it also numbed her finer feelings.

It all came to a head after the first occasion on which her father didn’t recognize her. Poppy had dealt with it (not very maturely, she knew) by going on a massive bender. It was during this bender that Ben had called her, suggesting they meet one night he knew Damian was going to be away; he had told Bella he was flying to New York for a modelling shoot. Scheming fucker.

If Bella hadn’t walked in on them, maybe nothing more would have happened, maybe … well – who knew what would have happened? But Poppy still couldn’t bear to think about how much she’d hurt Damian and Bella, and was still amazed that either of them had ever spoken to her again (they weren’t so forgiving towards Ben). It was only once she’d shacked up with the vain bastard that she’d realized how incompatible they were, how much she missed Damian. Both Poppy and Ben needed an audience, someone to adore them unconditionally. They’d ended up irritating the shit out of each other, two massive egos both clamouring to be heard loudest.

Whereas, Damian … Poppy smiled fondly again as she thought of Damian. Dear Damian, so cool and laid-back about most things. How she’d missed his dry sense of humour and (OK, she admitted it) pretty much unconditional adoration. They had a great relationship, complemented one another perfectly.

Though it was funny that somebody so laid-back in most areas of his life could be so sensitive professionally. Despite his success in the men’s magazine world (until now), Poppy knew that Damian was highly ambitious and wanted greater recognition. He was a damned good writer, after all, she thought proudly. Probably the best of the lot of them on Stadium, which had showcased his wit and left-field humour perfectly. She sincerely hoped that this recession would prove an ill wind that blew him some good. Who knew what opportunities New York would throw up?

She took her iPhone out of her new Marc Jacobs handbag and called him, just to hear his voice. It rang for ages but there was no reply. Strange. Damian always answered his phone swiftly, just in case it was a commissioning editor (or Poppy herself). She tried again. Still nothing. Oh, well. Instead, she sent a text.

Hope you’ve had a great day darling husband. Looking forward to seeing you at L’Ambassadeur at 8. Wifey x

She finished her cake and orange juice and went inside to say goodbye to Louis. She’d better go home and get changed. She wanted to make a good impression tonight.

Damian was having the time of his life. Ever since he’d hit London in the late nineties he’d been obsessed with obscure dance and indie music, keeping up with the hippest DJs and latest bands, always to be found backstage at gigs and festivals. None of his friends or men’s magazine cronies would believe it if they could see him now, singing along to cheesy Queen hits with the wild abandon of an alcoholic uncle at a wedding. ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ was going down particularly well.

He and Lars were cheered along by the motley crew of fellow daytime karaoke aficionados that made up their audience. Actually, it was no longer daytime, but most of them had been there since lunchtime. Once the song was over, they prepared to descend from the stage, despite cries of ‘More!’ and ‘Encore!’. The time had come for another drink.

‘Thanks, guys,’ said Damian modestly, taking a bow. ‘But now I think it’s time for somebody else to … to … to … RRRRRRRIP UP THE FLOOR!’ By the time he got to the end of his sentence, he was shouting and waving his mike in the air, to rapturous applause.

‘Darren, my friend,’ slurred Lars. Damian couldn’t be bothered to correct him. ‘Am I glad to have met you, man.’ And without further ado, he slung Damian over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and carried him to the bar.

Through tears of laughter, Damian started to sing ‘New York, New York’ again, the words muffled against Lars’s huge back.

Lars joined in from somewhere around Damian’s knees, and the rest of the room happily shouted out the chorus. Then there was much shushing as the next singers had mounted the stage, about to give their performance of a lifetime.

‘What you drinkin thish time, man?’ Lars asked Damian, putting him back to his feet like a dishevelled half-Indian rag doll in designer jeans.

‘No no no, it’s my round,’ said Damian, reaching into the wrong pocket for his wallet, and pulling out his phone instead. ‘Ooooh, look, messssage … oh, fuck! Shit, Lars, what’s the time?’

‘Wasssshamatter, old buddy?’ Lars furrowed his blond brow, putting a heavy hand on Damian’s shoulder.

‘Lars, mate, what’s the time?’ Damian had forgotten he could check the time perfectly well himself on his phone. Not to mention his watch.

Lars looked at his enormous Rolex.

‘It’sh twenty hundred hoursh. But why, my friend?’

‘Because I’ve just been reminded where I’m supposed to be, right now. D’you know a place called L’Ambassadeur?’

‘Do I know L’Ambasshadeur?’ Lars smiled broadly. ‘Man, I have sharesh in that place.’

‘Is it far from here?’

‘I’ll take you there, my friend. Who ya meeting there?’

‘Oh, only my wife. And her boss. And his wife.’

Both men stared at each other for a second, then started roaring with laughter again, slapping backs and thighs in total male harmony.

‘So you see, Poppy, it is vitally important that we don’t feed our kids dairy. Cows’ milk is for kiddy cows. We don’t express our milk and feed it to those kiddy cows, now do we?’ Eleanor, Marty’s wife, gave a nervous laugh and Poppy tried to make her own laughter sound sincere. She had to admit Eleanor had a point (if not a vocabulary that included the word calves), which might, at a pinch, be interesting, but all she had talked about since they’d arrived at L’Ambassadeur had been child-rearing. And not the fun stuff that Poppy’s few friends with children back in the UK talked about – the very sweet things they sometimes said or did, or the anecdotes of embarrassing swearwords coming from little mouths in public. Oh, no.

Eleanor’s party chitchat ran the gamut from children’s nutrition to pre-school education to ‘downtime’. Her only son, Hammond (Why did so many Americans have names that should be surnames?) was 18 months old. Poor little bugger. Poppy didn’t think Eleanor was a bad woman, but she was just so bloody earnest, so desperate not to get things wrong. She had a face that hovered between plain and pretty. Her smile was sweet, her jawline delicate and her pale skin flawless, but her forehead was just too narrow, her eyes just too small, her lips just too thin for her to be a proper beauty. Her light brown shoulder-length hair was side parted, very straight and very shiny. A beautifully cut Narciso Rodriguez beige silk shift dress, a few shades lighter than her hair, skimmed a slender body that bore no visible signs of childbirth. Apparently, she’d been a trader on Wall Street, pre-Hammond. Poppy found this very hard to believe.