2
You’re So Vain
I was face-to-face with the man that a million schoolgirls had their first crush on.
I could sort of see why – his genetics alone qualified him to be in a boy band: he was pretty, with wide-set blue eyes, and non-threatening, with smooth cheeks that didn’t need to be scraped every morning with a razor. His floppy hair was long enough to look rebellious, but short enough to keep middle-class parents happy. That’s the thing about teenage crushes: it’s fun imagining the under-the-cover fumblings, but the real fantasy is to marry them.
Right now, Jonny Delaney – aka ‘The Cute One’ from Hands Down – didn’t fit the image of fantasy lover; he looked constipated. His waxed eyebrows were scrunched together in concentration as he recited all the reasons why the review we’d given him was ‘total arse bollocks’. I tried to act like I was listening, sipping my champagne and nodding, but I was scanning the room for someone else: Patrick Armstrong, the man we were here to celebrate.
It was dark in the bar so I couldn’t make out faces. The walls and ceiling were draped in black velour and the only illumination came from perspex candelabra blinking on mirrored tables. It was like being in Ozzy Osbourne’s boudoir with one of Sharon’s yapping dogs for company.
The only thing I could clearly discern were Delaney’s teeth. They were blue-white and as symmetrical as tabs of chewing gum. They had to be capped – no one in London had a set like those by the grace of God. He grabbed a bottle of beer from a passing waiter and slung back his head to take a gulp. A flash of grey gave me hope. Was that an amalgam filling? If he’d only open his mouth a bit wider...
‘Are you even listening, Zadie?’
Zadie? I guess Jonny must have hadWhite Teethon his bedside table. Fitting, really.
I corrected my gaze to meet his eyes. ‘Of course I’m listening.’
‘It’s the best album we’ve ever made. You need to review it again.’
‘That’s not how it works.’
‘Make it work – you’re the editor.’
Being the editor didn’t mean I had everything my way. I still had to fight my publisher to convince him that a boy band like Hands Down had no business in our magazine. I’d lobbied hard against including the review that was causing Jonny all this excess spittle. Except the piece had prompted so much discussion on our website that the extra traffic had almost vaporised our servers. Even the print edition had benefited: after twenty-three months of declining sales, circulation had gone up.
But neither our core readers nor the new readers were happy; my inbox was overflowing with ‘Disgusteds’ from Hackney, while my Twitter feed had been scorched by teenage girls venting their outrage in block caps.
Everyone hated me this week, except for my publisher.
Above the din of the party, I tuned back into Delaney, whose drunken yammering was now up to eleven. I caught a whiff of his breath – it smelt of rotting garlic. The most snoggable man on the planet – according to the tabloids, at least – had an unfortunate case of halitosis.
‘I bet you didn’t even listen to it, you stupid bitch.’
Wow. He thought calling me names would help his case? Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. This was someone whose highest form of self-expression were the emojis on his liner notes.
He was right about one thing though: I hadn’t listened to it. I hadn’t even written the review. But I wasn’t going to tell him that; I was going to have a little fun.
‘I didn’t need to,’ I said. ‘A boy band’s third album is the “grown up” record. You co-write the songs yourselves so every track is about sex, you rope in a couple of guest rappers with criminal records to give you credibility, the cover showcases your newly acquired tattoos and the one song that isn’t about sex is about the price of fame. This time next year, one of you will have a baby, one of you will come out as gay and one of you will have found Jesus. None of you will ever make a record again.’
Delaney’s mouth dropped open, and rather than wait for another blast of hot air and bad breath, I made my escape.
I was breathing hard, and it was only after I’d put several bodies between me and the Poundland Prince Charming that I could relax. I smoothed down my chiffon dress and unclenched the hand that was coiled around my champagne glass.
It wasn’t my most professional hour, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to let that idiot derail what I was here for: toasting the retirement of Patrick Armstrong, one of the biggest managers in the business, who also happened to be my mentor and friend.
Years ago, when Patrick first set up Armstrong Associates, he used to rent the office above my parents’ restaurant in Acton and would pop in for his daily fix ofkeftedesand tzatziki. I used to work lunchtimes during the school holidays and usually hated those afternoons behind the bar because my mum never trusted me to do the fun things, like use the wall-mounted optics to measure out spirits, or make Irish Coffee – even though I’d secretly perfected pouring the cream over the back of a spoon to get a perfect swirl. No, all I got for my efforts was a face blasted by dishwasher steam and ears assaulted by the seventies Greek pop that my parents insisted on playing and my mum insisted on singing along to, always half a tone off-key.
But Pat’s visits were a high spot and we got talking. I was fascinated by what he did, and later, when I’d finished university, he introduced me to a couple of music journalists who invited me to write some reviews. I owed Patrick my career. He knew everyone and was famous for always wearing a bow tie and never being without a tumbler of Gordon’s in his hand. Twenty years on, and countless neat gins later, two hundred of us were crammed into a private members’ club in Fitzrovia to give him a proper send-off.
His company had moved from a couple of rooms in Acton High Street to a three-floor office off Old Compton Street, but now he’d sold it to Pinnacle Artists, a conglomerate whose head office in the City inspired the wrath of Prince Charles for its spiky steel façade.
As I moved around the bar, I kept a lookout for any other moon-faced boy-banders in case their radars had beeped to tell them one of their own had been disrespected.
I found Patrick among a group at a nearby table. I caught his eye as a waitress in a pencil skirt leant closer to whisper in his ear and slip something into his jacket pocket. Anyone else might think contraband was being exchanged, but I recognised this for what it was: an enterprising musician getting her demo into the hands of a very influential man. Patrick nodded, the waitress left with a flirty smile and he came over.
‘It’s never the pretty young men that whisper in my ear,’ he said.
