“I’ll brief you when you get back to town. It’s an afternoon job. Nothing you can’t handle.”
Sam frowned. He had seen this name ‘Oodle’ somewhere before, but he couldn’t remember where. He tried running a search online. Nothing came up apart from a few random pictures of people he had never seen before. They did not look very healthy. “What do they want me to talk about?”
“You don’t need to talk at all. Just appear. That’s what they wanted. Just a few pictures, that’s all.” Annette adjusted her underwear as she put down the telephone.
Tatania touched down at JFK one hour before Kira. Not that she knew, of course, but she re-entered her reality of pampering and privilege just one hour before Kira was due to leave hers of seclusion and fiercely guarded privacy to make her artistic debut in the USA.
Tatania made her way through the airport, picked up her personal assistant and bodyguard and donned her dark glasses, assuming that the paparazzi had been informed of her arrival. They had not. Tatania was unsure whether to be happy about this or sad. Lack of attention was not a good sign. She called her house manager.
“Any sign of that bastard David?”
“No, ma’am. He is staying away as instructed.”
“I’m sure you can find him if you really want to, George. Let him know I want to talk to him, will you?” Tatania did her best to sound sweet.
“Certainly ma’am. Will you be back for dinner?”
“After a little shopping. Send the dresser to Vida, will you?” Vida was Tatania’s current favourite in clothing design.
Aldous decided that priming Kira a little couldn’t hurt. The organisers of the award had requested maximum publicity. She had elected to avoid the corset for a day or two, as setting up Raw Sex Object necessitated a lot of bending and she didn’t really want to have to worry about it. Aldous looked at her, twiddling away with the panels, kicking the base into shape. The frame had originally been in his brother’s bedroom.
“What do you think Aldous? Is there any way of altering those spotlights at all?”
“I don’t know. Who do you think will turn up, Kira?”
“Probably nobody, just like the rest of my life. Do you think it’s socially unacceptable to advertise for a sperm donor?” Kira sank to floor level and polished frantically at a small scratch on the wooden platform supporting the artwork.
“Why do you want a sperm donor?”
“I don’t particularly want to do what everyone else does and pretend to have a relationship when I’m in love with someone else.”
“How can you be in love with someone you’ve never met? You would probably hate him.”
“Don’t ask me. I just know it is so, and he doesn’t want me. So is it socially unacceptable to just post an ad saying something like – fancy having a child before it’s too late? Lady, 43, plump, doesn’t care about your hobbies or your good sense of humour. Busy looking after mother so doesn’t want to live with you. Vile family background etc etc. Talking of which, remind me to call the respite unit and check on her, will you?”
“Why don’t you try having a relationship?” Aldous felt strongly that Kira’s more unconventional traits should be discouraged.
“Because that’s gone so well in the past, hasn’t it? Who the fuck would want to be part of my family?” Kira plucked a bit of fluff from the artwork and prepared to bang a panel pin into a loose area of carpet.
Aldous knew this to be the case, but he didn’t want Kira to start crying again, so he tried to change the subject. “Have you any idea who your customers are?”
“I’m not really interested. I’m just glad they seem to like it.” Kira’s clothing line, handbags and hats had sold surprisingly well. “Some of the names seem vaguely familiar, but I’m sure it’s coincidental. There, I think that should do it. Does it look OK from where you are?”
“Yeah it looks OK to me.”
“Great. Ok let’s get changed.” Kira stood back from the screen, cocking her head and adjusting the top spotlights on the panel at the back of the room. She was covered in plaster dust from the floor she had been rolling about on. “The Japanese top I think. Did you pack it?”
“Yep.”
Sam examined his appearance in the mirror. He had managed to deflect the light from the worst of the wrinkles, and ensured that his curls were crisp, shiny and perfect for the photos. At least he was allowed hair for this event, unlike the TV appearances. He was a little annoyed at Annette. He had been unable to find out anything much about the Oodle company, and she had neither asked them nor been able to answer his questions. All he knew, was that he was being paid five figures for a couple of hours at some downtown venue which was apparently very fashionable with journalists.
He grabbed his jacket, didn’t bother with a bag since he still had no idea what he was appearing for, and headed out to the crowded and dark subway. He would normally have walked, but it was hot, and pictures were the only things Annette had mentioned as a requirement.
One hour later he entered the oddly shaped building, grateful for the blast of air conditioning in the cavernous white entrance hall. He was directed towards the ‘main hall’ by a grim faced receptionist, whereupon he entered a large white room filled with a variety of works of art and a somewhat stranger variety of people. He scoped the room for someone recognisable, and could find no one. One area had a crowd of excited Japanese with cameras, another had some very serious arty Scandinavian types, still another had some rather overdressed people seemingly trying to outdo each other for attracting attention. He tried scrutinising these.
“Oh my God, it’s Lady Julep.” Sam muttered audibly, “And Big G Minor.” He spotted several more greater and lesser entertainers clustered around one object. It slowly dawned on him, but he couldn’t see all of it so he went closer to be sure. Yes, indeed, it was Raw Sex Object, Kira’s gift that his agent had rubbished. The bitch had actually paid him for coming here. Sam supposed he would have to be nice to her in front of these potentially useful new friends. She must be some kind of crazy control freak. He had always had that impression of her. Thank God she was usually in a different country. He looked around the room to see if he could spot her.
Aldous, stuck in a mannerly chitchat with the gallery owners, spotted Sam just before Kira entered the room, having finally made it into her brown Japanese Kimono top. She still hadn’t remembered to brush her hair, he sighed. Tangled brown waves everywhere and no makeup at all. She looked taller than usual, however, thanks to some platform wedges. Aldous wondered if he really should drag her back through the door and brush it for her, and then decided not to. She was hopeless. He extricated himself from the oddly crude American version of polite conversation and joined her.
“Who are all these people? Why are they here?” Kira looked confused.
“Don’t you recognise the clothes?”
“Some of them, oh yeah that blonde bit has one of my handbags. The big black dude over there is in that jacket I made for Sam. Are these all customers?”
“Haven’t you seen the videos?”
“What videos?”
“They’re musicians. Quite famous, some of them. Your clothes have been in a few videos.”
“Really? I should put my prices up.” Kira did not smile, but seemed a little more relaxed. Aldous looked over her shoulder and spotted Sam, who was staring in horror at her bottom.
“Ah I see the guest of honour is here. Go and talk to Rivron and I’ll be back in a minute.”
Aldous greeted Sam. “She will be ready in a few minutes.”
“I take it you are the Oodle company.” Sam looked miserable.
“Correct. The gallery owners wanted a few pictures of the muse and artist together. Come and meet Kira.” Aldous smiled to himself. He wasn’t sure how Kira would take it, but he hoped it might resolve things once and for all.
Sam allowed himself to be led over and stood behind Kira as she chatted with Rivron, the gallery owner, a tall thin bespectacled man with a nasty purple silk tie. Aldous tapped her arm. Sam was transfixed as she swung round, blue white skin and a wide face to match the huge hands. To his surprise she looked horrified.
“What are you doing here?” She looked at Aldous. “Did you do this? He isn’t a whore, Aldous.” She looked back at Sam. What a strange looking man, she thought. I wonder why I find him so compelling? She cocked her head, unsmiling, unblinking.
“You didn’t know? You look amazing, by the way.” Sam did his best to go into oily mode, since his fee was rather huge. He held out his arms, offering a hug.
Kira knew this was not the case. She was not 21, a hippy, vain, or stupid. “Shut up, shut up. That shirt is hideous. Take it off this instant. You can wear this.” Oblivious to the crowd, she took off the kimono top and held it out to him. The Japanese, thinking this was the beginning of the event, started to applaud and take photographs. The rest of the crowd turned to witness the small, rotund and incredibly pale woman waving her very expensive top at Sam.
“I like this shirt.” Sam looked annoyed and paused, noting the paint splattered mammaries. The paint was a variety of shades. “You could kill someone with those. You have good skin, you should exfoliate.”
“Alas I cannot kill anyone with them, it’s been tried. Hurry up and put this on. I will find something else.” Kira’s sour yet quizzical expression did not change. “Did you bring the velvet, Aldous?”
“I did indeed.” Aldous smiled. This was like watching the Discovery channel. Would the lions mate or kill each other in the attempt? Sam took the top.
“You want me to put this on here?” Regaining awareness of the now fascinated crowd, he looked at Aldous in panic. The funny little woman was starting to look cold under the blast from the air conditioning unit. Either that or she was very pleased to see him. “What do you see in me anyway?”
“You would have made more money if you ran away, but you didn’t. It doesn’t mean I approve. You’ve worked very hard. Why were you so horrible to me? You’ve wasted years of my time, not to mention money.” Kira still looked rather challenging for Sam’s taste, so he elected to say nothing and looked at Aldous.
“Duck behind Raw Sex Object, there is room and the crowd will love it.” Aldous was always helpful. “I’ll take the shirt.”
Kira went to the backroom of the gallery to put on her brown velvet alternative and the audience exclaimed and giggled as they knocked back yet more wine. When she emerged, she was rubbing her head. The unkempt waves now looked almost styled into a curly heart shape. The gnome like roundness was now rather more comfortingly concealed beneath dark brown cotton velvet.
“Can you fluff up his hair a tad, Aldous? Yes that’s better. OK we are ready now.” Kira had managed to restyle Sam in under 3 minutes, all told.
The professional photographer took the obligatory shots of artist and muse standing with Raw Sex Object and the audience politely applauded.
“May I have the camera? And can we have the lights down apart from the spots?”
Gosh, thought Aldous, Kira is assertive today. “Can you sit inside the object please?” Kira tweaked the positioning of the object to cuddle Sam as he sat cross legged on the mat. The lighting brought down, Kira lay on the floor and started to take shots of Sam inside her artwork.
“Think cold and heartless thoughts for me?”
“I don’t do cold and heartless.” Sam frowned.
“You do now. This is my gig, not yours. Think Caligula rather than Dionysus, for once.” Kira took shots continuously, rolling around and moving up and down to get the required angles.
Half an hour later Kira was filthy from the gallery floor, but had taken about a hundred shots of Sam with the object. The photographer transferred them to computer and the lights were brought back up for the audience.
Sam, now uncomfortably stiff, longed for the cover of darkness. Was it possible that anyone could make his dick hard, just by looking at him for long enough? Why was he so turned on? He thought about dead birds for a few minutes, staring at a small spot on the floor until he judged it safe to get up. He joined the crowd as a slide show of photographs flashed on the huge display screen.
“I’m beautiful.” Sam was delighted. The audience duly clapped. “I really like this top.”
“Keep it, as long as I can burn that shirt.” Kira did not look at him, and she still did not smile. Sam did not know how to handle this at all.
“Thank you. What does the back mean? Love immemorial? Am I the Sam in big letters?”
“People I should forget forever. Love is just wasted energy if you happen to be me. Fortunately I have learned how to productively redirect it from my years of experience.”
Sam felt strangely hurt. “It’s never wasted.”
“Of course it is. You don’t give a shit about me, and that’s entirely normal. Even my own mother doesn’t. I’m the one that’s weird. It’s fine. It’s just normal.” Kira turned to address the audience and patrons of the event.
“Thank you so much for the opportunity and prize. Thank you, everyone for coming, and thank you for wearing my stuff. I really appreciate it. Please enjoy the rest of the wine.” She turned to leave. Sam looked at Aldous.
“You can go now, if you want. Or stay and do some networking. She won’t come back in. She’s very timid, and she’s probably in tears. She does that angry thing to protect herself.”
“OK.” Sam felt as if he had been punched in the face. These crazy British people were far too efficient. “Can I have my shirt back?”
“No. She wasn’t kidding about burning it. Thank you for coming.” Aldous shook his hand, and went the way of Kira, out from the back of the gallery.
Sam took a moment to gather his thoughts before introducing himself to Big G Minor, a man who would definitely benefit from some health advice. A few of Kira’s admirers shook his hand and chatted for a while. Sam carefully took time to engage with a few of the recognisable ones, glancing at the door Kira and Aldous had gone through, hoping that they would reappear. After an hour, he realised that they would not. He felt rather abandoned. It wasn’t as if they were friends of his. He looked again at the artwork. Pink imprisoned chaos for romance on the spring panel, Conventional order and lush green on the summer panel. Off centred tradition for the autumn panel and Grey Gothic stonework for the winter panel. The story of any relationship told in wool and surprisingly ordered design. Quite smart, he guessed, for a crazy person.
He wondered briefly what she would have done if he had accepted it. It was too late now. There was no way of ‘unhurting’ her, and no real reason to anyway. It wasn’t even as if she was even cute.
“You never mentioned that Raw Sex Object wouldn’t be coming back with us.” Kira pouted as she and Aldous tolerated the tedious movie on the way home.
“The gallery want to display it for six months. They will ship it back, don’t worry.”
“As long as they don’t try to sell it.”
“Are you worried that dear Sam will propose and you won’t have it? You might as well get some money out of the thing.” Aldous was feeling waspish.
“No, no. I just wanted to leave it to him in my will, along with the beginnings of the academic piece on the netbook.”
“Why bother? It’s not like he gives a shit.”
“Jeez, why do you people act like this? Do you honestly think love is restricted to people who get drunk, accidentally end up fucking, and then slowly learn to tolerate each other?” It was Kira’s turn to get rather irritated. ‘You people’ now included all of her friends.
“Reality check, Kira, he doesn’t like you.”
“He doesn’t know me. I don’t know him either. It’s between the ears, not the legs, don’t you get that?”
“Evidently you didn’t spot the look on his face when he saw your backside.”
“My backside doesn’t do much thinking.”
Your brain doesn’t either, thought Aldous. Smell the coffee, you stupid cow, and write the book for yourself. He knew her well enough, however, to know that she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, do that. He sighed. “Even if he did feel the same way, would you honestly want his life?”
“I would hate it Aldous, and the cats would not approve. He would have to want to be with me, as opposed to the other way around. It isn’t a goer. Ownership is not an option, if you want to put it that way. Do you see the great Redwood toppling to come and live a quiet life? I don’t, and I don’t like sharing either. Not one bit.”
“What on earth is the point then? He would just use you to get the material, anyway. Look at the guy’s history.”
“Genuinely unconditional love from a member of the opposite sex is a rare thing, Aldous, and it only happens under very unusual circumstances. Once you consummate it, it’s gone. The ‘painful longing’ pink romantic period is the most productive bit.”
“Productive? Who told you love was productive?”
“You need to read an old translation of the Symposium.” Kira laughed. “My father had a work equals love ‘thing’ going on. That is probably at the centre of it. At least this way neither of us can fuck it up.”
“You always were a bit odd.”
“Art is about making the intangible tangible. Love is my art. That sounds good, doesn’t it? We should make that a catchphrase of some sort. Ooh we are almost at Reykjavik. Goody, let’s buy expensive green tea when we stop. The beautiful blonde people might smile at us if we try really hard.”