amount of
publicity, Tilda managed to get Debbie Sarchet half a line in an actual
American movie shooting in London at the time, the Studio Visage wooing really
began in earnest. Would we like to go to a meeting with them? Could they take
us all out to lunch? For a couple of months we wasted time farting about with
them, while they toyed with ideas, first of a merger and then of buying us out.
They must have looked only at our most successful client list, done a few sums
and reckoned it would be nice to expand into films.
Of
course, when it was explained to them that to run an agency like this you have
to have a ratio of at least three low earners to one star and they realized
that we have to do a lot of dog-work for over 100-odd clients, they backed off
a bit. What really sent them packing, though, was when, to their amazement, it
was revealed that we have no actual contracts with any of our clients. Anyone
is free to piss off at any time.
This
they could not buy. I was relieved. They were awful people who had no
understanding that this is a very personal business. Bigger is not necessarily
better, and you can’t force a director or employer to take someone on. It’s all
about relationships with people. It’s about loyalty and intimacy. But by then,
Naomi had seen the figures. I mean, financially speaking. And they were, it has
to be said, impressive. There must be a lot of dosh swilling around in the glam
biz but I didn’t want to hang about watching Mullin and Ketts turning into an
artistic laughing-stock, however many copulating holidays in Barbados I could
have afforded in the short term.
One or
two of the pics of the model boys stayed up on the cork board alongside Tania’s
animal rights posters, though. Debbie Sarchet married some pitiable
thirty-year-old muso millionaire and scuttled off to Los Angeles, occasionally
appearing nowadays in women’s magazines — as you must no doubt know — with
tips for young mothers on exercise and dieting and, of course, breastfeeding.
Although whether it’s possible to breastfeed through a silicone implant is
tactfully not gone into.
Strange
that all this seems so clear to me when it comes to the agency, but at home I
seem to have adopted the reverse policy, having signed the ultimate ever-after
agreement with Liz. I often wonder why I married Liz, why she married me. My
three-reasons-for-marrying—Liz joke: I fancied her, I fancied her and I fancied
her. I suppose I figured that to. stand a sparrow’s chance in the
happily—ever-after stakes it would be best to marry a woman I fancied a lot
rather than one I liked but only half fancied, since as a man I might be
tempted to become a bit frisky and spoil everything after a couple of years.
Actually women are as likely to be unfaithful as men, but we all conspire to
remain silent on that. However, with previous girlfriends I’d kept other doors
open, had a roving eye even, but with Liz it was different. She had a way of
looking into my eyes as if I was the only person on earth who could save her,
and this used to — still does — make me tumescent. That and the needy quality
in her voice. As if that very inability to cope in her, which has now become
untenable, irritating, was initially the main attraction. Vanity, all vanity of
course; who am I to save anyone? But that look and that plaintive sound made me
feel right, like I had a place. Somehow I got it into my head that she needed
me. I wanted to be useful.
As the
taxi came to a standstill on Hammersmith Broadway, the cabbie took time to
reflect further on the absurdities of life.
‘There’s
people dying everywhere, you know. Sarajevo, look at that, and did you see the
programme about Burma on the telly last night? Diabolical.’
I hoped
that the traffic was not going to snarl into a gridlock as it can so often in
this part of London. The thought of sitting here for forty minutes with Mr
Morbid did not fill me with any joy. I wondered how long it would take to
publicity, Tilda managed to get Debbie Sarchet half a line in an actual
American movie shooting in London at the time, the Studio Visage wooing really
began in earnest. Would we like to go to a meeting with them? Could they take
us all out to lunch? For a couple of months we wasted time farting about with
them, while they toyed with ideas, first of a merger and then of buying us out.
They must have looked only at our most successful client list, done a few sums
and reckoned it would be nice to expand into films.
Of
course, when it was explained to them that to run an agency like this you have
to have a ratio of at least three low earners to one star and they realized
that we have to do a lot of dog-work for over 100-odd clients, they backed off
a bit. What really sent them packing, though, was when, to their amazement, it
was revealed that we have no actual contracts with any of our clients. Anyone
is free to piss off at any time.
This
they could not buy. I was relieved. They were awful people who had no
understanding that this is a very personal business. Bigger is not necessarily
better, and you can’t force a director or employer to take someone on. It’s all
about relationships with people. It’s about loyalty and intimacy. But by then,
Naomi had seen the figures. I mean, financially speaking. And they were, it has
to be said, impressive. There must be a lot of dosh swilling around in the glam
biz but I didn’t want to hang about watching Mullin and Ketts turning into an
artistic laughing-stock, however many copulating holidays in Barbados I could
have afforded in the short term.
One or
two of the pics of the model boys stayed up on the cork board alongside Tania’s
animal rights posters, though. Debbie Sarchet married some pitiable
thirty-year-old muso millionaire and scuttled off to Los Angeles, occasionally
appearing nowadays in women’s magazines — as you must no doubt know — with
tips for young mothers on exercise and dieting and, of course, breastfeeding.
Although whether it’s possible to breastfeed through a silicone implant is
tactfully not gone into.
Strange
that all this seems so clear to me when it comes to the agency, but at home I
seem to have adopted the reverse policy, having signed the ultimate ever-after
agreement with Liz. I often wonder why I married Liz, why she married me. My
three-reasons-for-marrying—Liz joke: I fancied her, I fancied her and I fancied
her. I suppose I figured that to. stand a sparrow’s chance in the
happily—ever-after stakes it would be best to marry a woman I fancied a lot
rather than one I liked but only half fancied, since as a man I might be
tempted to become a bit frisky and spoil everything after a couple of years.
Actually women are as likely to be unfaithful as men, but we all conspire to
remain silent on that. However, with previous girlfriends I’d kept other doors
open, had a roving eye even, but with Liz it was different. She had a way of
looking into my eyes as if I was the only person on earth who could save her,
and this used to — still does — make me tumescent. That and the needy quality
in her voice. As if that very inability to cope in her, which has now become
untenable, irritating, was initially the main attraction. Vanity, all vanity of
course; who am I to save anyone? But that look and that plaintive sound made me
feel right, like I had a place. Somehow I got it into my head that she needed
me. I wanted to be useful.
As the
taxi came to a standstill on Hammersmith Broadway, the cabbie took time to
reflect further on the absurdities of life.
‘There’s
people dying everywhere, you know. Sarajevo, look at that, and did you see the
programme about Burma on the telly last night? Diabolical.’
I hoped
that the traffic was not going to snarl into a gridlock as it can so often in
this part of London. The thought of sitting here for forty minutes with Mr
Morbid did not fill me with any joy. I wondered how long it would take to
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