Straight eye for the crooked guy
‘Bailey. I’m truly sorry. I can’t do this!’
‘You can and you will.’
‘I won’t. It’s just not me.’
‘All the more reason to do it, I’d have thought.’
Fergus Blaine stood before a full length mirror in Leon, one of York’s trendier menswear stores in a brown leaf printed linen shirt hanging loose over light brown linen trousers. His feet were wrapped in hip brown sneakers, the perfect cool casual complement.
‘Bailey. Can I just say that I have worked for some of the world’s most prestigious agencies in my clothes,’ – he began counting off fingers on gnarled hands – ‘won three Clios, five New York and four D&AD in my clothes, been to any number of successful interviews in my clothes. What does that say to you?’
‘It says it’s about time you washed your clothes.’
‘That’s very funny. I didn’t mean the clothes I’m wearing today.’
‘I know you didn’t. I’ve seen you in sorts of abominations. But I don’t care. You’re not going anywhere near JAS 360 with me in any of your clothes.’ I nodded at him. ‘You’re going in those clothes.’
And if I may say so myself, it was a vast improvement. Not that it was actually physically possible to make him look worse. And there was a very low ceiling to any improvement with those eyes and that wonky overbite. This wasn’t mutton dressed as lamb. This was Gollum dressed as Brad Pitt. If only we could do something about that pallid skin.
***
‘For fuck’s sake, Fergus! Stand still!’
‘It tickles!’
‘Well, let it tickle! I’m not paying this lady twenty quid to spray tan the walls! And, I’m telling you now, you’re not wearing those nice new clothes over those disgusting y-fronts.’
‘Bailey. This isn’t funny anymore! Nobody’s going to see my underwear!’
‘I just did! And it never was funny. I’ve been mentally scarred from this experience.’
‘You know, I could really grow to dislike you, Bailey Harland, I truly could.’
***
‘Hello. I was wondering if you could help my ahm acquaintance here. He’s looking for some Calvin Klien briefs.’ I cupped my hands, sized up my acquaintance. ‘About a small mens?’
‘Excuse me! I’m a medium, thank you!’
***
‘Tell me honestly, Fergus. How does it feel?’
As a sort of enforced Hells Angels-style initiation to the world of fashion, I’d made Fergus wear his new clobber back to Creative Solutions.
‘To be truthful, Bailey,' he said standing pasty, petulant and imperfect before me, a clothes horse one catwalk away from dog food at best. 'It feels very foreign. I’m not comfortable in these clothes. I can’t be myself in these clothes.’
I lounged on a sofa by the pool table in a dim and dowdy back room and smiled: ‘Surely that’s got to be a good thing.’
‘That’s very funny, Bailey,' he said sitting as far away as possible. ' I just don’t see what gives you the right to tell me what to wear.’
'Hmm,' I said placing a melodramatic finger to my lips. ‘The distinct possibility turning up at JAS 360 with a smelly tramp will jeopardise my chances?' This,' I said holding the same finger in the air and throwing him my most witheringly sincere gaze, 'is the biggest opportunity of my life! It’s all right for you; you’ve worked for top agencies. I haven’t. A creative hot shop in Leeds might not be such a big deal to you. It is to me!’
I wasn’t about to tell Fergus Blaine just how big a deal: that such a lucrative and conspicuously prestigious job would solve a lot of problems. One, the precarious state of my charade of wealth would receive a sizable and welcome boost. Two, such a job and its inherent pay packet would dilute the impact of the Chicken Colditz debacle and its ultimate resolution – it would still hurt, just not as much. Three, maybe, just maybe, I’d find the sixteen hundred spare pounds necessary to buy those Charalais.
Charlie Chabot appeared in the pool room door.
‘Sorry. Not interrupting, am I?’ He spotted Fergus. ‘Well, well! What’s the occasion?’
It was an awful moment. There we were – the conspiring mutineers and the captain walks in. I hated lying to Charlie Chabot, one of the sweetest upper class twits I was ever likely to meet. Certainly I hope the sweetest upper class twit I would ever betray.
‘Nothing, Charlie,' I said wringing my hands and finding a sudden need to inspect the walls for mildew. 'We just thought it was time to sharpen Fergus up a bit.’
‘Lovely,’ said Charlie with an amiable smile. Well, you’ve done a splendid job, I must say!'
He dithered about as long as it took to realise neither of us was available for comment. 'Sorry, ahm, won’t keep you,' he said hesitantly as eyes failed to meet his. 'Just thought I’d pass on the good news. Appears we may be more than a little inundated over the next month or six weeks. Rather a lot of work coming in, I suspect. All of which will be written up on our splendidly newfangled briefing template!’ He grinned, sucked a laugh through his teeth, the audio equivalent of a bicycle pump.
‘Briefing template, Charlie?’ I felt sick.
He threw his head through a great swoop of a nod. ‘Aaah yup!Copied it off the Internet. Quite something it is too. Unique selling propositions and demographics and lots of other things I’ve never heard of. Once I’ve got the vaguest clue what I’m doing, I’m sure it will be quite something. Must appear to be keeping up with the whiz kid creatives!’
And with another sucked laugh, he was gone, leaving us to search each other’s faces; Blaine no doubt finding mine pensive, guilt-ridden and a little sad; me finding his strangely, sniggeringly amused in the manner of a naughty schoolboy caught flushing lab rats down the toilet. Well, at least one of us was sparing a thought for Charlie Chabot, the – if all went well – soon to be abandoned Charlie Chabot. Just when he’d settled us in, got us up to speed, believed he had a good thing going, we’d be off.
We hoped so anyway.
