Читать книгу Drowning in the Shallows - Dan Kaufman - Страница 5

3

The most beautiful woman in the world has stepped outside for a cigarette, leaving me with her friend who’s dressed like Louis XIV. He’s wearing knee-high socks, ruffles and a purple satin outfit that his mother designed and sewed for him.

He’s also telling me he’s sick of his job as a fashion photographer.

“The problem is there are no real celebrities in Sydney,” he says disdainfully. “They’re all B-grade, aren’t they? B-grade celebrities. It’s getting boring.”

I want to kill him.

I tilt my head down until my glass of wine becomes visible through the slits in my black mask, which has restricted my peripheral vision to a highly narrow field. Having already bumped one of the waitresses in tight bodices, dropped blue cheese on the floor and head-butted the wall while looking for the cheese, I’ve learnt to be careful. How Zorro performed feats of derring-do while so visually hampered I’ll never know.

I carefully bring the glass, made from Czech crystal, to my lips in slow motion.

We’re at a masquerade ball in a nightclub so exclusive the public aren’t allowed in. Rock stars, B-grade celebs and gorgeous young things perhaps, but certainly not the hoi polloi. Exceptions, however, are sometimes made for journalists and bloggers, which is why I’m here.

One of the few things I do, other than sleep ten hours a day, fend off my psychotic cat and teach journalism, is write bar reviews and lifestyle stories for a certain newspaper that’s on its last legs – which is why publicists send me invites to parties such as this. Unfortunately they’re shooting themselves in the foot, as once a bar buys me drinks I can no longer write about them – it would look biased if I did – but of course I choose not to let the publicists know this. Quite frankly, by now they should have figured this out for themselves.

You could argue if I were truly ethical I’d ignore the invites but … hell, you ought to see the women at these parties. I never said I was holier-than-thou and I’ve stumbled upon a parallel universe that would never normally let a putz like me in. That’s shallow of me to say and yes, most people here can barely read, but as Keats once said: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”, and while I don’t know what that means there is a hell of a lot of beauty here.

Besides, the ethics boat sailed from my harbour long ago. Though some lifestyle bloggers and journos genuinely think they’re contributing to society through the written valium they dispense, I realise how meaningless my work is. There’s no doubt the newspaper should be investing what little funds they have left on proper news and investigative features instead of on fluff producers like me – but I’ve got a fat cat to feed and I’m damned if I’m going to argue.

The club’s décor is as nutty as the photographer and aims to make the place look like 18th century Versailles. There are period armoires, chandeliers, 23 carat gold gilded mirrors, a velvet day bed and silk-tented ceilings. It’s hard to say whether this is classy, tacky or decadent. I suspect the distinctions depend on how much you’ve drunk.

The photographer’s stopped talking, leading to a pause that’s even more uncomfortable than the conversation.

“So what are you going to do?” I ask reluctantly.

“I’ll go back to advertising,” he says, eyes glazing. “I started in advertising but after a few years I became bored.” He waves his hands airily. “Now photography isn’t doing it for me anymore so I might go back …”

He stops speaking and stares to one side for longer than is natural. It’s hard to say whether something’s caught his attention or if he’s had a stroke. I’m hoping for the latter and, seeing an opportunity to escape, finish my drink and tell him I’m going to the bathroom. He nods his head slightly.

I was introduced to the photographer by Chrissie, the club’s PR manager, who asked him to take my photo (I’m probably E-grade in his books). After the first two shots, however, the most beautiful woman in the world glided into view – it turned out she’s his friend – and he asked us to pose together by staring into each others’ eyes while he took some snaps.

I’d once read about a psychological experiment in which complete strangers were paired off and had to stare into each other’s eyes for a lengthy period of time. What happened was the artificially-made couples invariably found themselves developing strong feelings for each other.

Up until now I never gave this study much thought but as I gazed into Venus’s eyes while the photographer fiddled with his camera­ I swear something happened. It sounds stupid if I say I genuinely felt moved by looking into her eyes but …

I genuinely felt moved.

Her nose looks like it was broken once, which suits her tomboyish shock of short, whitish-blonde hair, not to mention the razor-straight scar barely visible above her mask.

Her eyes are as green, and almost as beautiful, as my cat’s, and the only flaw is she’s young, probably no older than twenty-two – but then in eighteenth century France that would be de rigueur.

Anyway, as we looked into each other’s eyes while the photographer struck a pose I commented this was a pleasant way to meet and she laughed, although I wasn’t funny. Then, when the photographer finished and I expected the sultry siren to politely say goodbye, she instead continued talking to me and ignored her friends, who were sitting nearby.

It’s at this moment we have to pause: she continued talking to me.

This is not normal – most people look at me like I’m something floating in their toilet bowl. I am, to put it mildly, an acquired taste and yet this gorgeous aberration of nature – her name is Amy, though “goddess” will do – was lovely, asking questions about what I do and genuinely seeming interested despite having the most exquisitely long and slender arms.

But back to reality – which in this case involves drinking through a mask and getting the hell away from the stroked-out photographer.

The room is obnoxiously packed, like an aquarium overfilled with pretty piranhas fed by bodice-clad waitresses.

“Where’s the loo?” I ask one waitress, trying not to look at her barely concealed breasts, and she points towards the far corner while tugging her corset up.

Just as I guiltily thank her, a suit bumps into me hard, almost a tackle, and I swivel to see him striding triumphantly past.

This is Sydney: if you’re not six feet tall in an expensive three-piece suit tailored to fit your gym-honed biceps, you’re invisible.

This is a city that’s completely caved in to top-end real estate agents, stockbrokers and douchebags. I’m not surprised Trump is president of the US: I’m just surprised he didn’t come from here.

Edging my way through the throng, past the bar and bookshelves filled with leather-bound tomes that will never get read, I join a small queue for two unisex cubicles just ahead of a group of young women who roll their eyes at my nerve for being faster than them.

“They shouldn’t allow men in these lines,” one of them, who’s wearing – I shit you not – leopard print, says.

“Well, it depends on the man,” her friend, wearing a PVC dress with a zip down the front, replies.

Then, as you do prior to evacuating waste, they start taking pre-toilet selfies. Lord only knows if they’re planning after shots as well.

Finally: a cubicle door slides open and a couple walk out, with the woman wiping her mouth and the guy doing up his fly. As I said, this club is classy.

The cubicle’s unlike any I’ve seen before, and is more of a small dressing room than anything else – with no toilet. There’s a mirror, an ornate Louis XIV chair and a bench but … no lavvie.

I start peering at the surfaces more closely. Is there a button I’m meant to be pushing? A revolving wall? Does it fold out from somewhere?

Then the hyenas outside start talking:

“What’s he doing in there?” one asks impatiently.

“Probably having a masty,” her friend replies.

I’m tempted to yell that I’m most certainly not having a masty when I realise the loo might be in the chair. I lift the cushion and, sure enough, the porcelain bowl is revealed.

I take a whiz, press the flush and … it doesn’t do anything.

I try the lever again – nothing. Frantically jerking it does nothing – not even a trickle.

“Must be a good wank,” one of the girls says.

“Why can’t they last this long during sex?” the other responds.

“I’m coming!” I scream, before realising that could be taken the wrong way.

I pump the flush, flop sweat breaking on my brow, and finally give up. I slide open the door to come face-to-face with my persecutors, and the better part of me still thinks I should warn them about my deposit …

“I couldn’t find the loo,” I begin to say, “and then I couldn’t …”

“Yeah, I know how to work it,” leopard print says with attitude.

I did my best.

Back in the fray, I grab a balloon-sized glass of red from a hostess’s silver tray, and as I suckle at it I spy Amy, who’s come in from her smoke and flashes me a smile that could melt an iceberg.

A camera’s slung over her shoulder, the high-end type professional photographers at the paper used to use before they were sacked and replaced by cheap uni graduates with high-powered mobile phones and the delusion this industry has a future.

These days, working in the media is like being in Logan’s Run.

“What’s with the camera?” I ask.

“I want to be a photojournalist,” she says. “It’s a job where you can … I don’t know. Where you can actually see the world.”

I’m tempted to say the only thing she’ll see is a social security cheque, but I bite my tongue.

A band’s playing French versions of pop songs and Amy asks whether I’ve heard of them. I tell her I’d interviewed the singer a few months back and, noticing this impresses, I’m about to elaborate when one of her friends interrupts. The friend says something into Amy’s ear, looking at me suspiciously all the while, and Amy informs me her friends are going dancing in the club one floor below and I’m welcome to join.

Not wanting to look like a love-struck puppy, I nonchalantly say I might pop down later. As Amy’s slender arms head downstairs I can’t help thinking I made a mistake.

Chrissie the PR finds me and insists I meet the club owner, who insists on us drinking single-malt scotch – and then a round of bright red shots – and I lose track of how much time passes before I escape downstairs.

With naked light bulbs dangling from the ceiling and torn rock-and-roll posters on the wall, the downstairs club is a whole different world. Amy’s dancing with her friends, her mask still on. Like the Phantom of the Opera I leave mine on too – she might not like me if she sees what I actually look like.

“Hi,” she says to me, “come dance!”

I taught myself to boogie by watching 80s music videos with my cat, and although he thinks I’m the bomb, humans disagree – but I don’t have an exit strategy. Yet just as I’m about to launch into a spasm the mollycoddled photographer goes up to her and says something in her ear.

Why do they keep doing that?

When he finishes, Amy looks towards the stairwell, which all her friends are heading toward, and …

She apologises, says she has to go.

What can I do?

I could give her my number but really – who am I kidding? Besides, at the risk of sounding adolescent I really did enjoy just talking and flirting with her, so to spoil it all, to puncture my ego, by getting rejected now is not an option.

I wave at her, hopefully not too forlornly, as she heads down the stairs.