Alexander Smith - Unbearable Lightness of Scones

Nick rose to his feet. “The thing is,” he said, “we’re in this together. I take the snaps, and you jut the chin. I have a lot of overheads, you know. This place. Getting the shots out to the agency. Lunch with creative directors, and so on. That mounts up.”

And my overheads? Bruce felt like saying. Personal grooming. The gym. That mounts up too.

“Some of the talent gets an agent,” said Nick. “Personally, I don’t like working with agents, and I’m not sure how useful they are to the talent themselves. Twenty per cent for the local market; thirty per cent for overseas. So on, so forth. It all mounts up. And what does the talent get in the end? Far less than he would have got if he’d negotiated the deal directly.”

“So you think I don’t need an agent?” asked Bruce.

“I’m not saying that. I’m not saying that agents are totally useless. It’s just that I think that you have to be careful – especially at the beginning.”

Bruce nodded. It seemed to him that he was getting objective advice from Nick, and they had been at school together, after all. If there was anybody one could trust, then surely it would be somebody with whom one had been at school.

“So what I suggest is this,” Nick went on. “I have a standard form agreement here in the studio. You could sign that right now. It’s a sort of release form and working agreement rolled into one. Pretty standard terms. Sign that now, so that when we get down to brass tacks with the agency tomorrow, everything will be in position.” He paused. “That’s what I’d do if I were you, Bruce.”

Bruce stared at Nick. It was hard not to smile, but he managed to control himself. You must think I was born yesterday, he thought. You really must. “I don’t think so,” he said evenly. “I think maybe I should get an agent after all.” Then he added. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Nick. It’s not that at all.”

Nick waved a hand in the air. “No, that’s fine. That’s absolutely fine. We can get you an agent tomorrow. No problem there. I know a good one.”

“Great,” said Bruce. “What’s his name?”

“David.”

“David what?”

Nick walked across the studio to pick up a lens hood that he had laid down on the floor. “McNair, actually. Same as me. He’s my brother, actually. He’s really good.”

Bruce’s eyes widened. “Your brother?”

Nick shrugged. “Yup. You’ll like him.” He looked at his watch. “I’m going to have to scoot. When do you need to move into the flat?”

Bruce explained that it would be most convenient if he could move in that evening. “I don’t want to go back to Howe Street,” he said. “If I go back there, even for one night, it’ll raise her hopes. I don’t want to do that.” He made a chopping movement with a hand. “It’s better to make a clean break, I think. Don’t you?”

Nick agreed. He was for clean breaks too. And lucky ones. In fact, any sort of break suited him. “That’s fine then,” he said. “We can go round there now and I’ll show you the place. I have to go out a bit later, but you’re welcome to tag along, if you’ve got nothing better to do. I’m going for a drink and bite to eat with some friends.”

“Suits me,” said Bruce.

They left the studio and made their way to Nick’s car. Bruce noticed that it was a Porsche.

“I had one of these,” he said. “But I got rid of it.”

“Why was that?”

“Noisy exhaust,” said Bruce.

They set off for Leith. Bruce felt the leather of the seat below him; very good. And the model was a better one than his had been; more powerful, more expensive. Talent pays, he thought. Talent pays. There’s a slogan for you, he thought. And it cost nothing.

Nick McNair lived in a converted bonded warehouse in Leith. “Very bijou,” remarked Bruce as they walked across the car park at the back of the warehouse. “You forget that Edinburgh’s got places like this. London’s got all those new places along the river. All done up. But we’ve got this.”

Nick fished for the keys of the shared front door. “A word of advice,” he said. “We’re not actually in Edinburgh here. People feel a bit sensitive about it – or some people do. It’s Leith.”

Bruce smiled. “Don’t worry,” he said. ‘I’m good at merging with my surroundings. Leith it is.”

They went into the hallway, which had been cleverly converted, using old whisky barrels as panelling. “This was one of the biggest bonded warehouses in Scotland,” said Nick. “They converted the old bit and added the new, high bit at the end. I’m right at the top – the eighth floor. You’ll like it.”

Bruce threw an appreciative glance around the hall. “Who lives here?” he asked. “I mean, what sort of people?”

“Creative people,” said Nick. “Advertising. Media. And money people. Fund managers. Actuaries. People like that.”

“You must feel at home,” said Bruce. And he felt at home too, instantly. Julia Donald’s flat in Howe Street had been all very well, but it was hardly the epicentre of the New Edinburgh. This was far more like it, although he was not sure about the epicentre of Edinburgh being in Leith.

They got into a lift which was barely large enough for two people. Bruce felt slightly disconcerted to be standing in such close proximity to Nick. And from that distance, from within the photographer’s personal space, he could not help but notice that his new flatmate had not shaved one side of his chin. He noticed the hairs, tiny black eruptions, emerging from the skin like little… like little spikes. And Nick had dandruff too; not very heavy, but small flakes of it on the collar of his jacket. Bruce found his eyes drawn compulsively to these as the lift moved slowly up between floors, and at the fifth floor, with three floors to go, he could no longer control himself, and he reached out to brush the dandruff off Nick’s collar, a friendly gesture, but one which misfired, as the lift lurched slightly and he missed and stroked Nick’s chin instead.

Nick looked at him in astonishment.

“Sorry,” said Bruce, immediately retracting his hand. “I was going to…”

Nick brushed the apology aside. “No, don’t worry,” he said. “It’s just that…”

But he did not finish, as the lift had reached the eighth floor and was opening onto another hall.

“I didn’t mean…” began Bruce, as they moved out. “I didn’t…”

“No, no worries,” said Nick.

“What I meant…”

“I said no worries,” repeated Nick pointedly. “We all have different ways of expressing ourselves.” And then, changing the subject, he pointed to the view from the large plate-glass window at the end of the hall.

“We look all the way over to the Calton Hill on that side,” he said. “And from the infinity pool we look all the way over to Fife.”

They entered the flat. “I’ll show you your room first,” said Nick. “Then I’ll show you the kitchen and where everything is. I’ve got two fridges and so you can keep your food in one and I’ll keep mine in the other.”

“That’s great,” said Bruce. “Did you know that the biggest source of aggro in shared flats is food? People get seriously angry about people eating their food. They even write notes like ‘I’ve licked my cheese’ to put people off.

“And then somebody writes: ‘And so have I.’”

Nick grimaced. “Mind you,” he said. “Eating at home is so…so yesterday. I eat out most nights. I suppose you do too.”

“Always,” said Bruce.

“I thought that we could go and have a bite to eat at the place over the road,” said Nick. “It’s quite a good little bistro. Seafood. And not a bad wine list.”