The Flirt (11 page)

O
ld Compton Street,” Olivia called, climbing into the back of a black cab. “And hurry!”

Weaving in and out of traffic, the cab negotiated the congested curve of Hyde Park Corner and Olivia sank back into the seat.

She was late. It wasn’t like her to be late. But suddenly life had become interesting; there was so much to organize, so many changes to be made now that Red Moriarty was part of the new show. Before she’d realized it, half the morning was gone. Now her best friend, her only friend, Mimsy Hollingford, would be furious.

Mimsy was waiting for Olivia at the Factory, the hottest new beauty salon in Soho. Although getting an appointment with the owner, Rolo Greeze, was next to impossible, Mimsy had arranged one for Olivia months ago as a birthday present.

“Now that you’re forty,” she counseled, “you’ll need to revamp your style. And Rolo is the most exclusive hairdresser in the world. He has clients in Rome, Paris, New York; he flies out once a month. Did I tell you he dyes Gordon Ramsay’s roots?”

“But I like my style.”

“Yes, of course. But really,” Mimsy shot her one of those looks; the one that signaled in no uncertain terms that she was not impressed, “let’s be practical now. All these troubles with Arnaud;
typical. It’s a midlife crisis. Nothing a good haircut can’t sort out.”

Olivia didn’t like to ask whose midlife crisis. But by now she was well used to Mimsy’s methodology. According to her there was no problem in life which couldn’t be solved using sheer will-power and a platinum credit card. Fifty-five now, the veteran of four husbands, countless affairs and numerous surgical procedures, she was fond of taking people in hand. They’d met at a fund raiser when Olivia first arrived in London eleven years ago. Mimsy had struck her as powerful, chic; confident with her emaciated figure and strong, feline features. Olivia had allowed herself to become Mimsy’s new project, not fully realizing Mimsy liked to revamp indefinitely.

“Forty is a milestone,” she’d continued. “You need to rethink everything. Time to get the needles out, book a surgeon, hire a full-time Pilates instructor and a macrobiotic cook. And, let’s face it, in the bedroom, you’ve got to work, work, work! You can slack off when you’re sixty but this is the crunch period. Forty is when most women start to give up. What they really should be doing is upping their game. No more lying back and thinking of England. From now on, oral sex is always on the menu; if you can’t give a good blow job, you’d better learn. To tell the truth,” she leaned in, “it saves so much time. Fifteen minutes and you can get back to watching telly. Oh, and make an appointment at Bordello. I have a dozen pieces from her—worth every penny. Arnaud should never see you wearing anything that isn’t sexy or gorgeous. Lord knows, as soon as you take it off, he’ll have to start using his imagination, so help him out a bit!”

The cab dipped into the narrow labyrinth of one-way Soho streets. Outside the window, the bold pink neon signs of sex shops blinked, cheek by jowl with bijou patisseries, oyster bars and coffee houses. A rainbow display of wildly colored fishnet tights on naked
mannequins graced the window of a wholesale fashion outlet across from the West End production of
Mary Poppins
. Film production companies, ad agencies, sushi bars, Chinese herbalists; bicycle couriers veered dangerously onto the pavement, terrorizing slow-moving clots of disorientated tourists; a homeless man and his dog camped in front of the Ivy playing show tunes on a harmonica…all life spilled out, raw, unchecked, vibrant. Olivia soaked up the unfamiliar, louche atmosphere.

Mimsy had her heart in the right place, she reminded herself, staring at a young woman with a shaved head, washing down the windows of a venue called the Pussy Cat Club. For her, marriage was a full-time profession, a never-ending game of chess with houses, holidays, even children as rather useful pawns. Men were to be outwitted, manipulated, cajoled. And Olivia had taken a lot of Mimsy’s advice; she wanted to make her marriage work and hated how dramatically it had changed recently. But the military approach to relationships was still daunting. Buried deep in her heart, Olivia had a vague dream of reaching a place with Arnaud where the pretense would fall away and the constant forward planning become obsolete.

The bald girl tossed a bucket of soapy water across the front doorstep.

But she would never dare share that with Mimsy.

Just as she predicted, Mimsy was pacing the floor of the waiting area when she arrived. The whole place was done out like an industrial manufacturing plant with cold stone floors, sheet-metal counters, large black dentist-style chairs and huge communal wash basins like giant stone troughs. A soundtrack of Patty Smith blared “Because the Night” and nubile young men in tight black overalls balancing trays of cold drinks were everywhere.

“My God!” Mimsy threw her hands up. “What are you wearing? And what took you so long?”

Olivia looked down at her jeans, cashmere cardigan and ballet pumps. “What I always wear to the hairdressers. I’m sorry I’m late…”

“How is he going to be able to create a new look for you if you don’t give him some inspiration!” she interrupted, peeling off an unstructured Chanel jacket and thrusting it at her. “You look like you’re about to do the school run, for Christ’s sake!” Then she stopped. “Oh, sorry, Olivia! Really, I am!”

“It’s OK,” Olivia lied, taking the jacket. It reeked of Venom; a hangover from Mimsy’s heyday in the eighties. And the couture piece wasn’t anything she’d ever buy. Still, Mimsy had gone to a lot of trouble. Dutifully she slipped it on. “Am I too late?”

“Well,” Mimsy readjusted the collar of her blouse in the mirror, “he’s running an hour behind. But that’s not the point!”

“What is the point?” Olivia laughed, relieved.

Mimsy shook her head. “The point is, you’re not taking this seriously. And I’m telling you, God is in the details, darling. Everything flows from the head down. Besides, this man’s a genius. He works miracles. He’s the most exclusive hairdresser in the world!”

“Rolo is ready for you,” the receptionist informed them coolly, sashaying down a long gray corridor.

They followed her through the brigades of stylists, blow-drying, cutting, gluing on extensions, to a small raised platform in the center of the salon. There, in a mirrored alcove, stood Rolo Greeze; all four foot nine of him. Like a dark dwarf he oiled up to them, smoothing down his goatee. Two terrified assistants stood at the ready on either side.

“Ah!” Arms spread wide, he embraced Olivia, as if they’d known each other for years. “Sit down, sit down! NOW! Let me see!” And he began flipping her hair about. “See this?” he positioned his hands at her jawline. “Your hair must never be longer than this, right?”

“Then I won’t be able to put it up.”

“Putting up your hair is over! Aging!” He shook his head, emphatic. “This is it! Anything longer and it’s completely wrong for your face! And I want layers; lots and lots of layers! Let me see your hands!” He grabbed one. “Perfect! Lovely! What I’ll do is cut a long fringe, something that hangs right here.” He indicated the middle of her nose. “And then you’ll have to push it out of your eyes using these wonderful hands of yours! It will be so young! So sexy!” he enthused. “Everyone will see that gorgeous ring of yours!”

“Oh, yes!” Mimsy was entranced. “That’s a brilliant idea! Very rough and tumble!”

“I won’t be able to see.”

“You don’t have to!” He laughed. The assistants laughed. Mimsy laughed. “Everyone will be looking at you! And when you want to see someone, it’s like you come out from behind this veil of hair…”

“Yes, yes!” Mimsy nodded.

Olivia shifted. The dentist’s chair was uncomfortable. “But I don’t want hair in my eyes. I can’t stand it.”

Rolo went quiet. His lip curled.

The assistants looked nervously at one another.

“Really, darling.” His tone was flat, bored. “You have to trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

“Yes, Olivia!” Mimsy berated her, aghast. “I mean, that’s why we came, isn’t it? To get expert advice?”

But surely I’m the expert, Olivia thought.

Then the inevitable undertow of guilt kicked in. She was wasting their time; it was what Mimsy wanted; what did she know about hairstyling, anyway?

They were staring at her; waiting.

Rolo checked his watch.

The passion of the morning ebbed away; a thick, numbing layer of hopelessness replaced it.

“Well, I suppose…”

Then her phone rang.

It was Simon, calling to confirm that exact position of the Knowle sofa.

Olivia excused herself and under the withering gaze of both Mimsy and Rolo, took the call. Midway through, an idea came to her.

“I’m so sorry,” she gushed, when she’d hung up. “A crisis at the gallery!” Pulling off the Chanel jacket, she passed it back to Mimsy. “I’ve got to go immediately, I’m afraid. It can’t be helped.”

Rolo regarded her sourly. “There’s a cancellation fee for my time.”

“Of course!”

“But…but what gallery?” Mimsy stammered. “You can’t just leave a hair appointment! We’re about to transform your life!”

“They need me,” Olivia said simply. “But why don’t you take my slot? After all, you deserve it.” She eased Mimsy toward the chair. “I can’t wait to see how it looks!”

Sensing a far more lucrative client, Rolo sprang to life, yanking bits here, flipping bits there. Mimsy was lulled into a trance by the authority of his voice and her own glorious reflection. (Rolo had invested in incredible rose-tinted lighting that instantly took years off everyone.)

“I’ll ring you later!”

Olivia made a dash for the door.

As little as a week ago this appointment had been the highlight of her month; the lynchpin in her campaign to win back Arnaud’s affections. And yet here she was, heading out onto the gloriously filthy streets of Soho unaltered; grateful to have escaped.

The gallery beckoned. There was that sofa to sort out, final
adjustments to be made to the guest list and her very own protégée, Red Moriarty, to guide and promote. The girl was remarkable; both she and Simon were on tenterhooks to see what she would produce next. Already they’d reserved a space for it in the show.

Best of all, the spark of excitement was back, undimmed. And, stopping on impulse to buy a pair of electric-blue fishnets from the fashion wholesale shop (the color was amazing even if she could never wear them) and a freshly baked croissant from Patisserie Valerie, Olivia took her time, wandering through an invigorating, strange, altogether darker part of London before returning to Mayfair.

R
ose was standing in front of Moriarty’s Second-Hand Furniture Emporium on Kilburn Lane, waiting for her father. He was late. He’d been late all her life. Mick Moriarty was famous throughout London for both his ability to find whatever you were looking for and not showing up on time. He’d get things wrong by days rather than minutes. Knowing this, Rose had rung him twice this morning. But still, Mick was nowhere to be found; the shop was closed and his mobile mysteriously unavailable. Luckily, Rory had fallen asleep in his pushchair on the way over. She gently rolled him back and forth. At least he wasn’t awake, screaming and wriggling, wanting to get out.

Her father said he had something for her and Rose couldn’t afford to turn him down. It was sweet, really, the way he earmarked various bits of furniture for her. But she didn’t have all day to loiter about; she was due at the gallery this afternoon for a meeting with Olivia and Simon—a meeting she was dreading.

She checked her watch again. Now she was going to be late too.

Her dad was a law unto himself. He was a good father, so long as you didn’t actually need him for anything. There’d been a time, when she was very small, when he’d been different. Normal almost. Mick Moriarty had always liked to fix things. But after her
mother had left, what had been a hobby became not only a profession but a mania. He became obsessed with what everyone else thought of as just junk. He only had to clean it, repair it, redeem it and send it out into the world again; maybe it wasn’t quite as good as new, but better than it had been. There was something in his zeal that Rose recognized; a way of making sense of the one event of his life he’d never managed to recover from.

Finally, just as she was on the verge of leaving, Mick rattled up in the battered white Transit van that had been the result of one of his earliest negotiations.

“Dad!”

“I know! I know! But you’ll never believe it!” Hopping out, he flung open the back doors of the van. “Just look at this!” He pointed to what looked like a pile of old kitchen units, in a strange turquoise color. “Flung into a skip! As if it were junk! Isn’t that incredible!”

“It is junk, Dad.”

“You must be mad! Look! They’re original fifties units; I can get three grand for them if I take them over to Islington. Get in the van.”

“Why?”

“We’re going to Islington.”

“I don’t want to go to Islington. I only came because you said you had something for me!”

“Yeah, that’s right. You’ll love it. Can you put Rory on your lap?”

“You’re not listening to me! We’re not going anywhere! As a matter of fact, I was hoping you’d look after Rory for me—I’ve got a big meeting and I have to get to Mayfair…”

Mick was already lifting the sleeping Rory out of his chair. “I’ll drive you, luv. Get in. God, he’s heavy!” He gave him a cuddle, smoothing his hair down. Rory, exhausted from hours spent racing
around the park chasing dogs and collecting used ice-cream sticks, wasn’t waking up for anyone or anything. He flopped over Mick’s shoulder, a solid, dead weight. “Get in!”

“Mayfair’s nowhere near Islington and I don’t want you hauling him from shop to shop, Dad. He’ll go mad.”

“Oh no, I can’t take him, angel. Not till later, anyway. But I’ll get you to Mayfair, no problem. Haven’t had a look around there for years. They’ve got nice digs in Mayfair.”

Rose thought she would scream. He was impossible. But still she found herself climbing into the front seat and taking Rory, strapping the seat belt across the both of them, burying her nose in his hair. The only way to deal with her father was to go along for the ride.

She watched in the rearview mirror as he folded the pushchair up, putting it into the back along with the entire fifties kitchen and Lord knows what else. Slight, with thick dark hair and blue eyes, he was still an attractive man; handsome even in his funny white boiler suit. She’d never got to the bottom of the boiler suit—one day it appeared and suddenly it became part of his professional identity. Like a doctor in a white lab coat, he insisted upon wearing it every day, never visiting a client without it. Considering that most of his clients were willing to sell their own furniture to pay their debts, this delicacy struck her as particularly funny.

Climbing in next to her, he started the engine. “So what’s this meeting then?”

“It’s to do with my new job.”

“Which is?” He pulled out, nearly slamming into a red Fiat. He thrust his head out the window. “Wanker!”

Rose had avoided telling her father the details of her new profession, mostly because she wasn’t sure if she could explain how she’d entered it and because she was absolutely certain she couldn’t tell him what it entailed. “Well, Dad, I’m an artist.”

Mick laughed. “Really? You? But you can’t even draw, can you?”

“Honestly, Dad! No one draws any more. Everyone knows that!”

“So what do you do? And I’m warning you right now, if it involves taking your clothes off, you’re in big trouble!”

“I’m a contemporary artist. It’s all about defamiliarization.”

“And what’s that when it’s at home?” Mick leaned on his horn. “Pick a lane, pal!”

Simon had spent the best part of an afternoon trying to explain it to her. At the time she’d been tempted to write notes on the back of her hand. But in the end she settled for memorizing a few key phrases. “It’s when you take familiar objects and put them in a different context so that the viewer is forced to see them in a new way.”

“Right.” Mick ducked into a bus lane, speeding past a long line of traffic. “So, like if I put a cheese grater into, I don’t know, the Albert Hall, suddenly it’s art?”

He was trying to make her feel stupid.

It was working.

“Could be,” she said sullenly.

“What do you mean, could be? Either it is or it isn’t!”

“Well, it all depends on who you are, Dad. It’s not just about the art—it’s about the artist. I mean, if Picasso draws on a napkin at dinner it’s definitely art but if Rory has a go, it’s just a ruined napkin, see?”

“So how did you get to be so special?”

This was the nagging question that had disturbed her ever since that fateful day in Chester Square. She’d gone over it again and again in her mind. Why was everyone so excited? Could it have been her handwriting? Or the way she’d balanced the cards? The worst part was, now they were all expecting her to do it again.
The opening of the exhibition was looming and she had nothing else to offer them. And deep in her heart, Rose had to agree with her father on the cheese-grater-in-the-Albert-Hall affair: at the end of the day, it was still a cheese grater to her.

“I don’t know. Actually, Dad,” she confided, “I’m in a bit of a pickle.”

Mick turned. “Do they want money? Never do anything where you have to give money up front to get started.”

“No, Dad, it’s not that. It’s just I’ve done this thing, this installation…”

“Did you follow the instructions?”

“No, that’s what they call the art, they call it an installation. I’m supposed to have another one for today and…” she hugged Rory closer for courage, “and I can’t do it, Dad! I don’t know how.”

“Well,” he nipped down a one-way street, “how did you do the first one?”

“It was an accident really. And I’ve tried coming up with another idea but it’s…it’s so hard, Dad! I’m completely stuck!”

While Rory was at nursery, Rose had spent the best part of the morning trying to be inspired.

She sat at the kitchen table.

And thought.

Hard.

About art.

Nothing came.

She made a cup of tea instead.

Drinking it, she concentrated on her favorite paintings. There was one her aunt had in her living room of a hay cart next to a river. That was nice. Peaceful. Maybe a bit too brown for her liking. Then she remembered nature was meant to be inspiring.

So she spent a long time staring out of the window of her flat at the small patch of scraggly lawn in between the council blocks.
She never let Rory play on it because the man downstairs took his bulldog there. All she saw was filth.

She concentrated harder.

But still, it was all dog poo to her.

Finally she tried her hand at drawing. Simon Gray claimed it didn’t matter. He’d reeled off the names of half a dozen supposedly well-known artists who couldn’t scribble a circle let alone render a reasonable likeness. But Rose didn’t believe him. First she tried to draw Rory. After all, she was with him all day long; she ought to know what he looked like. But he came out all stiff and round, and his eyes too close together. He looked like an angry stuffed toy.

She might have more luck with Victoria Beckham. Opening a copy of
Hello!
, she chose a photograph of her standing outside the Ritz in Paris in an evening dress. That went a bit better. But still her head was far too big, the dress too long; she looked like a mermaid, except Rose got stuck on the feet and had to draw them both in side view. This gave it an Egyptian feel.

The whole morning was depressing. Rose felt inadequate, irritable and small. The more she tried to think of something original or interesting, the duller and more mundane she felt.

“Well, can’t help you there, luv. Why don’t you get a proper job?” her father suggested. “Be a hairdresser or something. People always need their hair cut.”

Rose’s father had been trying to get her to be a hairdresser since she was three. “Dad, I don’t want to be a hairdresser! I’ve never wanted to be a hairdresser! Just because Mum wanted to be a bloody hair—”

“Oi!” he interrupted. “Don’t speak ill of the dead!”

“She’s not dead, Dad. She lives in Brighton.”

“Same difference.” He ran through a red light. “Anyway, you’ll have to own up sooner or later. If you haven’t got the gift, then
that’s that. Nothing to be ashamed of. Not everyone’s a Damien Hirst, after all.”

Rose stared at him in amazement. “How do you know about Damien Hirst?”

Mick laughed, pulling into Brook Street. “You could always put a cheese grater in the Albert Hall, kid! Just remember, I want a little credit on that one! Now, where is this place?”

Rose sighed. He wasn’t taking her seriously.

Then again, why would he?

It was so typical of her life; just when she thought she was going to get somewhere, be somebody, she fucked it all up. Always. It was like that at school when she was doing so well, studying for O levels, and then fell in love with Rory’s dad, a DJ at a big club in the West End. For three whole weeks they were mad about each other; she actually thought he was going to propose. But the next thing she knew, she was pregnant, her father furious, and he’d buggered off to hit the club circuit in Ibiza with some girl named Doreen. There was no point continuing with her studies; her fate was sealed.

In school they’d studied
Hamlet
; the teacher banged on and on about him having a fatal flaw. That was her all over. No matter what she did, how hard she tried to alter her destiny, her default setting was failure. And now here she was again; she would have to explain to Simon and Olivia that her worst fears were true: she wasn’t a natural talent, only a fraud. And her budding career as an artist would be over before it had even begun.

A few minutes later, Mick parked on a double-yellow line in front of the gallery, jumped out and opened the back of the van. Rory woke up crying and as Rose tried to soothe him, she spotted a parking warden heading their way.

“Dad! Dad!” she hissed.

Mick poked his head out. “Shit! I just want you to have a look
at this chair, luv. Wait a minute.” He ducked back inside the van and Rose could hear him struggling with something.

Simon ran out. “There’s no stopping here! Oh, Red!” he greeted her in surprise. “Please say this is your latest piece! After all, we’re opening soon!”

“I’m so sorry,” she stammered. “I…I know you’ve been so supportive and I so badly wanted to be an artist but I have to tell you, I can’t do it! I…”

The parking warden was upon them. “What’s going on here?”

“Unloading!” Mick shouted, struggling to unearth a particularly ugly brown velour armchair from the back of the van. “Won’t be a moment.”

Simon stared at it. “What is it?” He gingerly picked up the yellowed lace doily from the headrest.

But Rose recognized it immediately. It had belonged to her father’s neighbor, Mrs. Henderson. She’d been a sweet old lady, like a grandmother to Rose. Unfortunately, she’d passed away two weeks ago.

“Oh no!” she murmured, her eyes filling with tears. It had been a tense morning and now just seeing it made her feel emotional. “No, no, Dad!” she whispered. “Put it away! I can’t even look at it!”

“But wait!” Mick insisted, bending down to demonstrate the reclining feature; he pressed a lever on the side and a faded foot-rest shot up, nearly knocking Rory over. “It’s a beauty, Rose! It was broken but I fixed it. Another Moriarty original!”

Simon’s eyes lit up. “A Moriarty original? Rose! At last! I knew you’d come through!”

Rose shook her head. “You don’t understand,” she said to Simon.

“Oh, yes,” Simon smoothed the doily back in place. “I think I do.”

“But Mrs. Henderson died in this chair!”

“My God! That’s powerful!” Backing away, he stared at Mrs. Henderson’s recliner in awe. “An entire tale of life and death in a single chair! The…sheer…ordinariness of the whole thing is so moving!”

“What’s he going on about?” Mick wanted to know.

Rose ignored him. She grabbed Simon’s arm. “You don’t understand! It’s junk, Simon! Nothing but old junk!”

“It’s always the same!” He squeezed her hand. “Everyone thinks their work is junk when they deliver it. Nothing more than nerves!”

Rory was clambering all over it now. The parking warden reached for his pad and pen. “Look here, there’s no stopping any time…”

“Except,” Simon interrupted, “when unloading valuable new pieces of art!” He plucked Rory off, handed him to Rose and picked the chair up. “You have surpassed yourself, Red! I can’t wait to show Olivia! Now, if you don’t mind!”

He nodded imperiously to the parking warden, who, somewhat confused, held the door open while Simon pushed the chair inside.