Yes Yes More More Read online

  Maddy’s pen is poised.

  Everything, everything, everything, everything

  “Well, I really enjoy the work I’m doing at the moment,” I say. “I love the office too, it’s a good little company and I’ve learned a lot.”

  Elise is nodding, Maddy is waiting to write something.

  “What I want now is to dig in deeper. I want to write more, I want to travel more, I want to meet more people and try new things.”

  Elise is nodding and smiling now. Maddy still hasn’t written anything.

  “And the work you do here, the character of this magazine – that’s something I’d like to be involved with. Style, fresh ideas, a real interrogation of new fashions and trends, you know?”

  Now Maddy is making some notes, or doodling.

  “I mean, if you’re going to work on something for eight or nine hours a day, five or six days a week, you have to care about it, don’t you?”

  A rueful smile from Elise. Rueful and fond. I think she likes me.

  “Is it a croque madame that’s vegetarian?” I ask. I can’t remember. It’s tricky being vegetarian in France. People keep trying to give you tuna and anchovies. I’m not peckish or anything, I’m just wondering. I had some oeufs mayonnaise for my lunch, with a glass of very cold, very pale rosé. The bouncy curves on the eggs were wonderful, the slippery mayonnaise and the boing and the flavour.

  “Absolutely,” says Elise. “Can you tell us a bit more about your current role, the responsibilities you have there?”

  I stretch in my chair a bit, adjust my posture, engage those core muscles. Debra pops in with my gin and tonic and I give her a smile and a wink.

  Why don’t you call me, I feel like flying.

  Why don’t you call me, I feel like flying

  “I oversee the production, keep everything running smoothly and keep the schedule front-loaded as much as possible,” I say. “Lots of nudging and encouraging. I try to run a tight but friendly ship!”

  Elise smiles, perhaps imagining a tight and friendly ship.

  “And recently I’m doing much the same with the online content. There are different challenges there, but I think it’s vital that we give it the same, like, forensic attention.”

  Maddy is writing, and nodding.

  “I work with the editor on plans and ideas for the future, too – the month-to-month nitty-gritty and the longer term identity of the magazine, where we’re headed over the next couple of years and more.”

  Everything, everything, everything, everything

  I put my shoulders back, feel the leather of the chair against my back and slippery under my skirt. My hand is rubbing the back of my neck. I look at Elise, smile at her. Then I realise my head’s tilted back as if I’m about to eat her, so I tuck my chin down a bit and try to look meek but also steely.

  “And do you get to do much writing at the moment?”

  “Oh, lots of short news pieces and occasionally an interview or a longer feature. I’d like to do more, that’s one of the reasons I’m looking to move.”

  “Well, you’d certainly get plenty of opportunity to write here. We like the pieces you sent over very much.”

  “And it’d be great to have you managing some of our younger writers,” says Maddy.

  “Oh, I’d like that,” I say. I give a motherly smile, nurturing, inspiring even.

  “We could introduce you to Frank, head of editorial development,” she says. “He’s our talentspotter, always looking for more people to help with his schemes for getting new young writers in.”

  I picture this unknown Frank as an actual talentspotter, like a benevolent childcatcher, in a special costume perhaps, looking for young people with ripe ideas. I feel a tiny wave of sadness that I am no longer quite a young person with ripe ideas.

  I’m invisible, I’m invisible

  “This job is just maternity cover, though, as you know,” says Maddy.

  “Yes,” I say. “That’s fine with me, I can probably only stay for a couple of weeks.”

  “We can guarantee it for a year, although it may go on a bit longer. It really depends on Victoria and when she decides to come back.”

  “No problem,” I say. “Totally fine.”

  Everything, everything, everything, everything

  Three small-ish children are playing by the fountain, about ten yards away on the dusty avenue. Their parents are in another cafe, across the road from me and just past the fountain. Two men, my age, and two women, who are looking happy and relaxed, talking, smoking. I can’t quite hear them and I can’t tell who’s with who, or which children belong to which adults. They all have tanned white skin and very dark hair. Maybe they’re all related, one big extended family, siblings and cousins on holiday together. Maybe I’m in the quiet, nice sort of place where chi-chi French people go on holiday. I watch the children at the fountain. Two small girls dipping their hands right into the water, and one even smaller boy with a little truck or a car, zoom-zooming it around the stone edge of the fountain. Kids are great, but I don’t think I want to have any.

  “Kids are great,” I say. “But I don’t think I want to have any.”

  “They’re little terrors,” laughs Maddy. “I love mine, but they are little terrors.”

  Elise doesn’t say anything about children. I don’t know if she has any. She’s very slim, but she looks quite tired.

  “Little terrors,” I say. “Ha!”

  I take another suck of my icy gin and tonic, in its tall glass with a long straw. Just a few feet away from me sits a sturdy leathery old man in a soft navy cap, his little dog beside him, slurping a cold pastis on his way home. I like to see old locals on holiday. Authentic, grumpy, cool, something like that. He’s actually got the baguette he just bought on the table, wrapped in a bit of greaseproof paper. I bet he’ll eat it with salty butter and some good jam. Or gooey cheese. I mean, fucking hell, eh? Life’s about priorities.

  “Ooh, you were at special projects at Natmags for a while – did you work with Sallie there?” Elise is just perusing my CV now, making conversation. I imagine they’ve already decided whether or not I’ll get the job.

  “Oh yes, we were on production together. That was one of my first magazine roles. She was great to work with.”

  “She’s certainly indispensable here.”

  Elise is smiling and Maddy is writing something again. I wonder what Sallie will say when they ask about me. We always got on. We used to play darts at the pub together at lunchtimes. Once I went with her to the walk-in clinic when she had a strange, sudden rash up her thigh. I’m not sure she ever found out what it was.

  Right across from me there’s a broad doorway, wooden, with cast iron hinges and a cast iron handle. It has a stone stoop and on that stoop there’s a ginger cat, stretched out on its back. His tail is in the shade but he’s mostly in the sunshine, his white and ginger furry belly up in the air, ready for a tickle. Except you know most cats actually don’t like it when you stroke them on their belly. It’s a bit much. Another cat, a black cat and much smaller, is a couple of feet away. They must know each other, these cats. The black cat is almost still a kitten, and skinny. Wants feeding. I hope they’ll come over, say hello, rub against my leg, give me a nose bump. I don’t suppose they like pastry, or coffee, but I can offer them strokes and scruffles behind the ear.

  I’m invisible, I’m invisible, I’m invisible, I’m invisible

  “We’re interviewing a few more candidates, today and tomorrow,” Elise tells me. “And then we’ll be in touch as soon as we can.”

  “Great,” I say. “Great.”

  Why don’t you call me, I feel like flying in two.

  Why don’t you call me, I feel like flying in two

  “You should hear from us before the end of the week, with any luck.”

  “Great,” I say. I’m pleased that’s all over, and that it went so well. I think it went well. I lean right back, take a slow deep breath, relaxing in the sunshine. The ice has almos
t melted in my drink, pink and blue light is somehow caught in the glass. The birds are darting between the trees, they’ve got their own thing going on. I feel the clamminess in my armpits and between my legs. I wiggle my toes in the heat. I am fleshy and warm and ever so happy.

  “Good to meet you,” Elise says, rising from her seat. Maddy doesn’t get up, but she gives me a lovely big smile. The sun is shining through the office window onto her pale blonde hair. You can see that her shoulders would burn in five minutes in this weather. I bet she uses factor 50.

  Everything, everything, everything, everything

  “The pleasure’s all mine,” I say, and decide I’ll order another drink. The sun will soon begin to soften into evening, the colours in the wide avenue will get richer, the shadows will get longer. I’ll have maybe one more drink after this one, watch the people walk by, watch those sparrows – les moineaux, my lips purse twice with the word – in the trees, and think about where I might have dinner tonight.

  ‌A Shania Story

  “

  Hey Annie!” Stella looks at me, one eyebrow raised. “What would you say is the best thing about being a woman?”

  “Oh,” I say. “Surely it’s the prerogative to have a little fun? You know, go totally crazy.”

  “Forget you’re a lady?”

  No one else in the queue finds this funny. They are not Shania Twain fans, and they do not appreciate juvenile in-jokes based on Shania Twain lyrics.

  Stella and I are savvy, sexy, sassy, that kind of thing. We are drunk. We are waiting to get into Frankie’s Bar. This is a cool place to be. A cool band is playing later, and although we are not on the guest list we feel pretty cool. We are breezy and powerful. We’ve been trying to shake off the two men with us since we left the pub. Stella knows them from work, and they are blocking our dazzle. They stand too close and they have aggression just under their skin, just under their nice-blokeness. Their mums, me and Stella would agree, were too soft with them. Any girl would be lucky to have them, apparently, they’re a catch. Imagine.

  Once we’re inside, the dark and the noise and the lights and the faces fill us up, sweep us away. The DJ plays a song which is not I Feel Love but which sounds enough like I Feel Love to make me and Stella smile and swoon and spin round and round. Hundreds of people are smiling and swooning and spinning around, smiling at each other in the dark with the blue and red lights, and nothing more is asked of us.

  Then Stella and I slip sideways, away from the two cockblockers, zigzagging through the bodies and into the smaller room off to one side, the room where you have to know someone to get in. Janine on the door knows me, likes me, and we’re through. Warm, swaying people rub past each other. My eyes are wide. Craig Darling who works at Dazed is at the back by the bar next to Oli from High-A Records. The cute but gak-fatty A&R who is at every gig I go to is talking to a woman I met at Grace’s 40th birthday when we mixed MDMA into the punch and cried when Lou played Everywhere by Fleetwood Mac. None of us says hello.

  I love the faces and the clothes and the haircuts and the shoes, the way people lean in to each other to talk, throw back their heads to laugh, tilt their heads to listen. I love how the music covers the conversation, thuds into our ribs, pulls us all together like bass stock for people soup. I love the possibilities and the dancing, and the being alone, together, in the dark, late in the night. I love the faces that I’ve only ever seen at night, people I know more about than they’ve ever told me.

  There’s a carpet in this room and amber uplights behind the bar, making the bottles of whiskey and vodka and gin glow. So classy. When I see the bass guitarist from the band heading over I lean back, look over my shoulder, try to aim my profile in his direction, do a slow blink. He curves through and lands in the spot next to me.

  “What time are you on?” I grin, I’m happy. He remembers me from a gig last week and hugs me. Turns out they’ve played already. He smells of warm skin and sweat and cigarettes. I think he smells American but it’s because his American accent is leaking into all my senses. His voice is slow and carefree. It makes things feel less real. He tells me I’m super-fucking-rad, which is of course ridiculous but also I love it. Stella has gone for another dance.

  So I talk to the bass player and the rest of the room is turned down. I am absorbed by him and by what he might be thinking about me. It is giddy and simple.

  “We’re having a party at the hotel,” he says, which is an invitation in not-bothered disguise.

  His bandmate, the drummer, tells me, “It will ruin our trip if you don’t come back to the party with us. My heart will break.”

  The drummer is short and wiry, he looks like he’s about to bounce away, like you should be bouncing away with him. He passes me a bottle of Jack Daniel’s which is not, obviously, allowed in a carpeted bar with amber uplights. I take a swig and I enjoy the cheesiness, the bullshit. I am a cowboy, all muscle and swagger. The whiskey doesn’t burn at all. The bass player is talking to another man, hairy and muscly, a roadie or a sound guy, about where their van is. The bar is busy with noise and people but Stella is back again and bored of the music and we are ready to leave. We have completed this level.

  The drummer licks my shoe and tells us where the band’s hotel is. There are other people heading there too but Stella and I go to get a taxi on our own because we are in no mood for logistics. We are headlong, we are night people, towering.

  Outside the club, the street is wet and dark. We look for yellow lights.

  “Ooh it’s like an Edward Hopper painting,” I say, in a silly, airy voice.

  “I need a wee,” says Stella, scanning around for a welcoming, private spot. She reels imperious across the street and through revolving doors into a hotel lobby. Quite a posh hotel, middle of town, dark wood and green coloured glass. I follow her. Nothing can go wrong because we are drunk and the world is ours. And it’s only a hotel lobby. With toilets – we have a wee then sit on the comfy chairs by the basins.

  “So nice that you can just walk in here,” I say. I snuggle down a bit in the seat. “And they have handcream. I love that. The world is so good.”

  Stella takes off her pumps and washes her feet in the sink.

  “Hang on,” I say. “Is that allowed?”

  “I want that handcream on my toes,” she says. She rubs it in and all in between. Then she does mine, although I do not wash my feet first. Then I pick the black shit out of the corner of my eyes, and we are back outdoors.

  Across the street, the bass player and the drummer and the hairy man are right there at the door of the club, their van fully loaded. There’s room for me and Stella though, and we climb in.

  “It’s like Scooby-Doo,” Stella says. The drummer woofs. We are hilarious. London’s daytime cafes and shops are wet and empty, dark. No people. We are snug in the van, peering out of the windows, with R Kelly on the stereo. We wait at traffic lights, sing along in silly voices, “Sipping on coke and ru-uum, I’m like, So what, I’m dru-uunk.”

  I am not sitting next to the bass player. He looks at me, over and over, and I try to sit up straight but kind of slouchy too, like I haven’t noticed.

  Their hotel is huge, Victorian, white and pillars, up a wide avenue. It has a lobby with too many patterns, and more comfy chairs, sofas, tables with ashtrays and glasses full of ice and booze. One man is asleep, lying across a sofa, and another man gently lifts the first man’s legs so he can sit there. He puts the legs back down, across him, like the safety bar on a fairground ride.

  Two men and two women are sitting round a little table, leaning forward, elbows on knees. I saw them at Frankie’s, with their heavy fringes and wide eyes. Their voices clatter and overlap, they are panicked with things to say – ooh yes me too, yes, I know that one, I’ve been there, oh you would love it, it was amazing, yeah. There is no music playing but the band’s singer is humming a tune and giggling, talking to a woman who is dangling a bottle of Southern Comfort in front of him like a pendulum while a man is tickling h
im in the ribs.

  I spot a piano in the corner and I run over, all excited. Stella and I sit on the keys and bounce up and down along the piano. “Bum chopsticks!” Stella shouts, and the drummer starts to bang on the piano stool. We are idiots. The bass player has another bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the floor next to him and half a bottle of Southern Comfort in his hand. Now Stella is talking to the pendulum woman and the tickling man. The drummer is playing piano, concentrating like a little boy at a lesson. He plays the theme from The Exorcist and sings, “I wanna go to Mars.” I sit and sway and fade a little, and feel the quiet softness of things. I sit like this for a while. He sings and plays. The Jack Daniel’s is good but the Southern Comfort is better.

  I go to explore – to find the toilets – and see the morning seeping through the front door of the hotel. I like it, a soft pearl light heading our way. And, as I thought, as I knew, when I come out of the bathrooms and cross the hallway to get back to the party, there’s my bass player. He’s walking up the stairs, which are shallow and wide and swoop around and up. He’s walking slowly and when he sees me he smiles and sits down, near the top of the stairs. He’s wearing what Stella and I refer to as lee-zure slacks, and a white vest with a short-sleeved shirt over the top. He is chubby and cute, greasy brown hair and blue eyes. He looks like an American boy who plays bass and tours in a cheap van with a half-decent band. I walk up the stairs and I don’t care about him or what he’s like. I care about his sticky, late-night skin and his boozy, flabby belly. He’s revolting and appealing.

  “I’ve got more whiskey in my room,” he tells me. Which is another invitation. His room has more patterns and twin beds, and a window looking over the backs of big expensive houses. He sits on the bed and tucks his fingers into my waistband, pulls me away from the view.

  “C’mere” he says. I fall onto the soft bed. Lying down is a good idea I should have had hours ago. The bass player pulls my jeans right off, without undoing the buttons. I notice this like you’d notice a car door slamming outside. I suppose he pulls my pants off too. I feel a knocking in my brain, you have to do something now, time to do something.