How To Lose Weight And Alienate People. Ollie Quain
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Everyone at the table giggles. Clearly, they aren’t picturing Clint hammering away at some desperate wannabe with vacant eyes.
As the loud, crass, womanising gossip columnist for News Today, you would have thought that Clint is exactly the kind of punter who would have his application for membership at a swish private club like Burn’s revoked as soon as it came before the selection committee, but actually he and his friends are just the kind of punters we need. It’s simple. Clint and his mates rack up huge bills on booze, then go to the toilet to rack up huge lines of cocaine and then they return to the bar to rack up even bigger bills on booze. If we turned him away he would only go to any of the other members’ clubs in London, then Burn’s would miss out on his custom and all the free promotion we get from being mentioned repeatedly in Clint’s Big Column.
He can be a handful, but I like Clint. Without him I wouldn’t have my job at Burn’s, and he’s saved me from being sacked a number of times. (‘If you tell ‘er to ‘oppit, I’m ‘opping off to Shoreditch ‘ouse.’) When I first met him I had left drama college and was working in a scuzzy basement wine bar. We were open from 5 p.m. until My Boss Was Drunk Enough to Ignore All Laws Concerning Sexual Harassment in the Workplace and Would Start Pestering Me to Sleep With Him. Clint bowled in one night, celebrating his first major splash as a junior reporter: revealing the three married Premiership soccer stars behind a series of roasting orgies. He got so plastered he left without his laptop; it contained all his leads and contacts. I made him sweat a couple of days then called him at News Today saying I had found the computer. He immediately asked what he could do for me in return. I told him I was desperate for a new job; somewhere with a bit more pizzazz and finite working hours. Clint had the answer; he had just been asked to become a member at a brand-new private club in West London. He put a word in for me and I was hired instantly. So, I slept with my boss one (more) time, then handed him my resignation.
‘So, ‘ere’s the score, Vivian … we need some of that quality Krug. Something very special indeed ‘as ‘appened.’ Clint rolls up the sleeves on his jacket – a pale blue silk bomber with the word ‘Parksie’ emblazoned on the back in diamanté studs. ‘The wife’s only got a bleedin’ bun in the oven. She’s preggers!’
‘Wow,’ I say.
After this initial response, I have time to practise my ‘I’m thrilled for you’ face, as one of his cronies – a depth-free harridan called Sophie Carnegie-Hunt, who runs Get On It! (a celebrity management and promotions company) – returns from the loo. As usual she is wearing a hat tipped at a jaunty angle and a guitar band gig T-shirt. That’s her thing. Today it’s a woven tweed shooting cap with a top from the Strokes Is This It? tour. She sits down without acknowledging me and rubs Clint’s back in that overly earnest way induced by a recently ingested substantial line of coke.
‘You really bloody deserve this blessing, angel.’ She nods. ‘You’ll be a bloody amaaaaaaaaaa-zing father. My daddy is a bloody amazing man … genuinely philanthropic. I think I got the desire to nurture and support people from him.’
Clint rolls his eyes at the rest of the table. ‘That’ll be the nurture and support our Sophs offers at a standard rate of thirty per cent of all future earnings, eh?’ They all laugh and he turns back to me. ‘She’s right, though. With me as a dad, Junior will want for nothing …’
‘Except maybe regular visits from Social Services.’ I smile at Clint. He snorts loudly and winks at me. ‘Anyway, let me get that champagne sorted. You wanted the Krug Grand Cuvée?’
‘That’s the one. Three bottles to get us going. Bung ‘em on my tab.’ No one else at the table gives me another option for payment. ‘Right, I’m off to the khazi.’ He pulls away from Sophie’s hand, which is still pawing his back. ‘Oi, Sophs, you got my nonsense?’
She passes him her handbag. ‘In there somewhere, angel.’
I pretend not to notice, but the truth is none of the staff at Burn’s would ever stop anyone from doing drugs. The police never come in anyway. Years back, they did show a bit of interest after Sadie Frost’s sproglet was reported to have found an ecstasy pill to nibble on in another leading members’ club, but these days serious knife crime quite rightly takes up more of their time than preventing go-getting career professionals from bellowing self-aggrandising crap at one another for hours on end.
Clint heads off upstairs. Our members tend to eschew the lavatories on the restaurant level for coke snorting as the futuristic egg-shaped toilet bowls jut out of the cubicle wall. There is no visible cistern or anywhere to get a purchase on, unless you use the loo seat … which they would consider using a bit … well, druggie. So they go upstairs. There, the roomy art deco influenced unisex conveniences have the required air of decadence and purpose. In fact, they may as well have been designed in consultation with regular visitors to The Priory or Promises. Every surface in the loo is mirrored, including a heavy back shelf – which is also under-lit, so every last grain of gak can be accounted for.
I wave over to Dane, one of the waiters. He also plays guitar in a folk rock band … sort of Mumford and Sons-ish but with more of a message. Despite this, he’s an all right guy. He walks over.
‘Parksie’s having an ickle tiny kidlet,’ Sophie tells him in a baby voice. (Another of her ‘things’, it’s not just because of the subject matter.) ‘Bloody-wuddy amazing, no?’
‘That’s cool, man. Pass on my congratulations, won’t you?’ Dane smiles sweetly, whilst I’m thinking how much I would like to plunge a fork into her hand. ‘Champagne all round, then?’
‘Three bottles of Krug,’ I instruct him. ‘Cheers, Dane.’ Then I mooch off …
… to do more mooching around the restaurant; checking that orders are being taken, glasses filled, bills issued and tables turned over swiftly. The air is thick with braying voices regaling industry anecdotes. Our members are a mixture of those with glamorous jobs in the media (movies, music, television, journalism, advertising), the fashionably creative (designers, artists, photographers), plus a few of the more urbane City boys and girls. Everyone wears conspicuously on-trend outfits. For the men this means sharp suits and smart-casual wear from fashion-forward labels available on Selfridges first floor, or an ironically hip talking-point garment like Clint’s ‘Parksie’ jacket. For the girls it’s bang up-to-date designer gear mixed smugly with decent high-street copies, vintage pieces, and a ‘statement’ handbag (usually a Mulberry or a Chloe). A statement that they hope says emphatically: I have it all! But what it actually says is, I have a very negative image of myself but forking out nine hundred quid on a single accessory every season has a temporarily positive effect.
As a hostess I have to wear black. Within this remit I can choose clothes that are stylish enough to give the place an aspirational vibe and slightly intimidate the non-members coming in, but not so stylish that I make the regulars feel like they are losing it or that the venue is too of-the-moment. I can get fully ready – tan, outfit, face, hair – within two hours. This may sound like a long time but as well as wanting to get my look right for work I have always stuck to a simple grooming statute: I will never leave the house unless I wouldn’t mind bumping into anyone who I went to school with. Obviously, when I say anyone, I mean someone.
‘What a gorgeous evening. Summer really is on its way,’ trills Tabitha, the receptionist, as I am walking into the foyer to check on … not much. (Tabitha always has everything under control.) ‘We’re going to be busy bees …’ She rearranges her tartan headband. ‘The restaurant and alcoves are all fully booked and the first-floor bar has been chock-a-block since lunchtime.’
Tabitha is in her mid-twenties but accessorises as if she was still nine, and likes to send group emails to us all of YouTube footage showing different breeds of animals unexpectedly befriending one another. She sees the good in everyone and is always irrepressibly cheery. So much so that at first I thought this might be a front she puts up to hide a much darker side, but then I bumped into her having a night out with her