Page 34 of Glitterland
“I was scrubbing paint from places where it ’ad no right being for days after.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I couldn’t just leave it up there, babes. It’s probably like toxic or summin.”
“No, I mean…” I tapped the page. “Why this?”
He shrugged. “Cos it’s the job.”
“Yes, but it’s not really a job, is it? It’s more of a…” I felt the sudden stillness of his body and my voice trailed away.
“More of what?” he asked.
“An aspiration. A hobby. I don’t know.”
He gave me a look I couldn’t quite read. A faint creasing of the brows, a certain turn of the lips. “I fink that’s a bit aht of order,” he said, finally. “Maybe it ain’t a job to you, but I like it and I get paid, so I reckon that makes it a job to me.”
“Yes, but what about the future? I mean, it’s hardly a career, is it?” Oh fuck, I sounded like my mother. Not that she would ever say something like that to me. Everyone had loved her when she’d come to visit me in hospital. Every week, without fail. So delicate in her pearls and her tap-tapping heels, her voice as soft and resolute as water. For the last twenty-eight years, she had been unfailingly kind to her wayward, broken, disappointing son.
“I don’t fink I want a career, babes,” said Darian comfortably. “Can you really see me in an office, being all, ‘Awhight, Mark, photocopier’s dahn again.’ And, anyway,” he added, “it ain’t up to you.”
“No, you’re right.”
There was a long silence.
“You gonna like say sorry or summin?” he asked. “Um, why?”
“For acting like I’m some sorta skiver.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, because it was easier than arguing about it. How had I allowed myself to get dragged into this? I didn’t care what Darian did with his life. But my attempt at an apology sounded so ungracious even to me that I found myself adding: “You’re clearly very good at what you do.”
He looked mollified. “Fanks, babes.” After a moment, he went on, “I’m not gonna let my nan starve or nuffin. I do uvver fings as well when I ’ave to, but I reckon I won’t ’ave to if I get an agent in London. Already got one in Essex but I’m finking big, janarwhatamean?”
“It worked for David Gandy,” I said, with a faint, insincere smile.
He laughed. “I said I was finking big, not like totally massif. I’m nevva gonna be a high fashion model or nuffin like that. I ’aven’t got the body for it. But I fink if I try really ’ard, I’ll do ahwight.”
“I’m sure you will.”
I turned the page. I flipped past a couple more fashion shoots. It was disconcerting to see Darian dressed to someone else’s specifications. As if he had somehow become the reflection of a different image. One picture showed him crouching a little coyly on a cobbled street in his ubiquitous skinny jeans and a V-neck sweater-vest one shade bluer than his eyes. The sleeves of the undershirt were rolled up to his elbows, and he was wearing a bowtie that I presumed was meant to be quirky or otherwise ironic, a pair of red Vans, and a trilby. He looked adorably, if incongruously, preppy and I suddenly realised how well he had arranged his body to display the clothes he was wearing.
“My mate Chloe,” he said proudly. “She’s a designer. Got ’er own shop now and everyfing. She’s well clever. Loves clovves. Don’t fink geek-chic is really me, though.”
“I do prefer you with your clothes off,” I agreed.
He leaned forward and flipped over the final page. I drew in a sharp breath. “I fought I’d better do summin arty,” he said. “Just in case or summin.”
His portfolio ended on a couple of black and white nudes. I gazed, entranced, at the way the light shimmered on his naked skin, drawing the eye into the shadowy secrets of his flesh.
“You look like Rodin’sDanaïd,” I whispered, unable to resist tracing the curve of his spine with my fingertip.
“You what?”
“But a man, obviously,” I added quickly.
He pulled out his phone and Googled. “I’m glad you said that, babes, cos I know I ’aven’t got a six pack but I don’t ’ave moobs neeva.”
“It’s the juxtaposition of submission and sensuality.”
