Wicked Pleasures (49 page)

‘A guy from Hambros,’ he said. ‘Things are very interesting over here at the moment. Something he refers to as Big Bang is on the horizon.’

‘What’s Big Bang?’ said Max. ‘Sounds like fun.’

Baby laughed. ‘’Fraid not. It’s what’s going to happen in 1986, when the fixed commission system on the Stock Exchange here ends. It’s just been announced by Cecil Parkinson in the House of Commons, apparently. The old-fashioned brokers will lose their monopoly to buy and sell shares and it’ll be a free-for-all. More like what we have at home. Very exciting. I want to hear more about it.’

‘Oh really?’ said Fred. ‘You must tell me more about your plans.’ Again the hectoring voice.

‘I don’t have any plans,’ said Baby. He looked very sombre suddenly. ‘Unfortunately. Anyway, I’m off. Charlotte darling, could I borrow your car to drive to the station? I may be quite late back.’

‘Of course you can,’ said Charlotte. ‘Just remember it’s only a Mini now, Uncle Baby, not one of your Mustangs or Porsches.’

Bossy cow, thought Max.

‘Max, telephone.’ Georgina’s voice pierced his sleep; he had sat down by the fire in the library after lunch and drifted off. I must be getting old, he thought.

‘I’m asleep. Who is it?’

‘Some man.’

‘I’m still asleep.’

‘Don’t be so lazy.’

‘Georgina, take his number, there’s an angel. I’ll call him back.’

‘Oh, all right.’

‘It was some photographer guy,’ said Georgina, sitting down on the footstool by his chair. ‘Apparently one of the press photographers at the dance told him to ring you.’

‘Oh for God’s sake. I don’t want to buy any of his rotten pictures.’

‘I don’t think he wants you to. He wants to talk to you. Do, Max, he sounded really nice. Here’s the number.’

‘I’ll call him,’ said Melissa brightly, ‘I love photographers. They’re so sexy.’

‘Melissa, you think milkmen are sexy, and solicitors, and window cleaners and accountants and art historians and insurance salesmen,’ said Charlotte, laughing. She was sitting on one of the windowseats, reading. ‘Go on, Max, ring the guy up. I’m curious.’

‘OK, I will. Later. I have some serious revision to do.’

‘Good God,’ said Georgina, ‘what on earth about?’

‘The female anatomy. I’m going riding with Sarah Elliott.’

‘You’re disgusting,’ said Georgina.

‘Yes, I know.’

He phoned the number while everyone was having tea; he went back into the dining room doing an exaggerated, campish walk, trying not to look as excited as he felt.

‘Hey, guess what? He was a fashion photographer. He wants to take some pictures of me. He says I have – wait for it, everyone – a great look. What do you think about that?’

‘I think it makes me feel sick,’ said Georgina. ‘You’re not going, I hope.’

‘Of course I am. Why not?’

‘Oh Max, really,’ said Charlotte. ‘He’s probably some social-climbing gay who fancies you.’

Max, who had actually only been half serious about going to see the photographer, promptly decided nothing would stop him.

‘You’re such a snob, Charlotte,’ he said.

‘And you’re not, I suppose,’ said Charlotte. ‘Max, you’re not serious about this, are you? Whatever do you think Daddy would say?’

‘I couldn’t care less about what he’d say,’ said Max.

He never called Alexander anything these days unless he had to.

The photographer, whose name was Joe Jones, was out when Max turned up at his Covent Garden studio next day. A girl dressed entirely in black with white spiky hair and long green fingernails looked up coolly from reading
The Face
when he walked in.

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve come to see Mr Jones,’ said Max.

‘What for?’

‘To have some pictures done.’

‘Are you a model?’

‘Not yet.’ Max gave her his most dazzling smile; she met it blankly. ‘Who’s your agent?’

‘I haven’t got one.’

‘I should get one if I were you.’

She went back to her magazine.

Max was not used to this kind of treatment.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I don’t have a great deal of time.’

She shrugged. ‘I can’t conjure him out of the blue for you.’

‘But didn’t he say I was coming?’

‘No. Not that I remember.’ The magazine had re-engaged her interest. Max began to feel irritated.

‘There must be somewhere you can contact him.’

‘No, there isn’t. He’s on location.’

‘What’s that?’

The girl looked up again. Her blank brown eyes flicked briefly and contemptuously over Max. ‘It’s out,’ she said, ‘out working.’

‘I think,’ said Max, ‘you should take my name. And tell him I came. And if he wants to see me he can contact me. I really don’t have the time to hang around here all afternoon.’

She shrugged. ‘Fine.’

‘Well shall I give you my name?’

‘If you like.’

‘It’s Max Hadleigh,’ said Max. ‘Viscount Hadleigh actually,’ he added, thinking to impress. It was a very big mistake.

‘Oh really?’ she said, and for a moment there was some emotion behind her eyes and her lips twitched. ‘My goodness. Do I curtsey?’

‘I must say,’ said Max, ‘I think you’re one of the rudest people I’ve ever met.’

‘I can live with that,’ she said. ‘Cheers. I’ll tell him you came.’

Max was just slamming the door behind him when a cheerful-looking young man, dressed in jeans and with a shock of untidy black hair, pushed past him. He was laden with bags and a large silver umbrella. Max scowled at him and walked away; thirty seconds later he heard a shout: ‘Hey! If you’re Max, come back.’

Max turned; it was the cheerful-looking man.

‘Are you Joe Jones?’

‘Yup. Sorry I was out.’

‘That’s OK. Your secretary wasn’t exactly helpful.’

‘Who, Sula? Oh, she’s OK. Looks after me all right. Look, stay there, and I’ll do some shots now in the street. Then I’ll do a few in the studio.’

‘Well, I don’t know if I’ve got time now,’ said Max. He was still feeling sulky.

Joe Jones looked at him and grinned. ‘If you’re going to model,’ he said, ‘you’re going to have to do an awful lot of hanging around. You’d best start getting used to it. Stay there, I’ll get my camera.’

They went out into the designer-styled streets and patios of Covent Garden. Joe told Max to lean against a pillar in one of the arcades, and shot off a roll of film there; he did another one of him standing in the middle of some stalls; yet another with the buskers as a background, and then a final roll in front of the Opera House. Some Japanese tourists formed a small crowd, following them round, giggling, pointing, smiling at Max.

‘Ignore them,’ said Joe.

‘They don’t bother me,’ said Max, and it was true. He was enjoying himself more than he could remember for a long time, moving easily and naturally from one frame to the next, gazing into the camera as if it was some very pretty girl. ‘We should do a shot with them. They’re half my size. It’d look great.’

Joe told him he was a cocky little bugger and did the shot.

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Now then, let’s go into the studio. Did you bring anything else to wear?’

‘No, I didn’t. Sorry.’

‘That’s OK. You look all right. And they’re only tests. But if they turn out all right, could you work tomorrow? I have a job to do for the
Evening Standard
and the guy I’d booked has gone sick. I really need someone.’

Max thought fast. Tomorrow he was supposed to be going for an interview at the sixth-form college in Swindon. But he had no intention of going there. There was no point even turning up.

‘Sure,’ he said.

Joe rang him at nine that night.

‘They’re great. You look terrific. Be at the studio by eight, OK?’

‘I don’t think I can,’ said Max.

‘Why the fuck not? You said you could work.’

‘Well, I’m in the country. I don’t think I can get up to London by eight.’

‘Haven’t you got a car?’

‘Well – yes.’

‘Well get your arse into it and drive it here. OK?’

‘Yes, OK.’

Max put the phone down. He would take Georgina’s car. She had gone off for two days with Simon. OK, so he hadn’t passed his test. He wouldn’t get caught. And if he did, his father would bail him out. Or rather, he thought, with the now familiar slightly nauseated feeling, the man who was supposed to be his father. It’d be a good laugh. And he’d earn – what was it Joe had said – a hundred pounds? He could use a hundred pounds. Money for old rope. Or rather new dope, Max thought, smiling at his own wit. Much more rewarding than talking to some moron about what A levels he could do.

No one in the family saw the pictures in the
Standard
, being very much ensconced in the country that week, but one of Nanny’s nieces who lived in Bromley had recognized Max and sent the paper to Nanny with a note saying how excited they all must be.

Nanny looked at the three pictures of Max, wearing white tie and tails, helping various pretty girls out of punts. The article was about dresses to wear at balls which, the writer said, were making a comeback for the very young. She didn’t think Alexander would be in the least excited, except in a manner rather different from the one her niece had meant. She put the pictures in her pocket and went to find Max, who was ostensibly studying in the library and was actually reading
The Sun
.

‘I’ve got some pictures of you,’ she said briefly.

‘Oh Nanny, have you? Let me guess. When I was four or when I was five?’

‘When you were sixteen.’

Max looked at her face. ‘Oh.’

‘Yes, oh.’

‘Well, let me see them. Do I look nice?’

‘You look all right. I suppose that was the day you took Georgina’s car?’

‘Well – sort of, yes. How did you know?’

‘I’m only seventy-two,’ said Nanny.

‘Ah,’ said Max. ‘Yes, I see.’

‘You’re a fool, Maximilian. You missed your interview, didn’t you? What are you going to do if you don’t get into college? Go into that the deal, I suppose?’

‘The dole, Nanny. No, I’ll do more of this,’ said Max, gazing enraptured at himself. ‘I look older, don’t I?’

He did; he gazed moodily out of the page, his blond hair slicked back from his elegant, rather bony young face. He looked very tall and slightly more heavily built than he actually was. ‘Joe said it would put half a stone on me.’

‘Who’s Joe?’

‘The photographer.’

‘I see. Well it’s no job for someone like you, Maximilian.’

‘But Nanny,’ said Max, looking at her oddly, ‘I don’t think we can be sure about that. Can we? It might be exactly the job for someone like me. Um – you won’t show them to Dad, will you?’

‘I will,’ said Nanny, ‘if you don’t rearrange that interview. You’re lucky no one else spotted you. Including the police on the motorway,’ she added grimly.

‘I suppose so. All right, Nanny. From this moment forward, I’ll slave night and day. Would you like to be my agent? You can have twenty per cent of everything I earn.’

‘It wouldn’t be enough,’ said Nanny. For once her meaning was rather clear. ‘Anyway, how much money did you get for those pictures?’

‘A hundred pounds,’ said Max.

‘That’s much too much,’ said Nanny, ‘I hope you’re going to invest it properly, Maximilian, not waste it.’

‘No, I’m not going to waste it,’ said Max. ‘I’m going to buy an air ticket to New York with it.’

The day after the pictures had appeared in the
Standard
, Dick Kreis had called from Models One in London.

‘Come and see me. I’m starting a men’s agency here. I think we might be interested in you.’

‘Sure,’ said Max. ‘I’ll be in town tomorrow.’

‘Good. Do you have any shots, other than those in the
Standard
?’

‘No, I’m afraid I don’t. But Joe Jones has a few. Some tests he did.’ He was learning the jargon already.

Dick Kreis was a thoughtful, intelligent man; Max liked him.

‘I think we can talk business. Are you readily available for work?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Have you left school?’

‘Er – yes.’

‘Not going back to do any more exams? Or to university?’

‘Nope.’

‘Would your parents be happy about you modelling?’

‘My mother’s dead.’