Will Wiles - Plume

The memorial was a handy place to meet, but an uncomfortable object to spend too much time around. It’s very small, almost too small, as if it is somehow embarrassed, which is a bad vibe for a memorial. Its size also makes it look a little kitsch, and I can never see the two bronze children without thinking of the charity collection boxes for the blind that used to be found in every pub. And then, having been struck by those thoughts – every time – I am embarrassed to have felt that way about a reminder of the Holocaust, and the little bronze children are full of reproach.

The equilibrium I had briefly experienced on the train was gone, and I began to choke up again. My options were limited. The pubs were just now opening, and in any case there was no time. On the station concourse there was a little food and wine shop, but where could I discreetly drink a can?

‘Jack.’

I had drifted away from the memorial, into the middle of the concourse; Alan had come up behind me, packhorse-heavy with bags, tripods, reflectors and other equipment.

‘Alan. Hi.’

‘You look a bit lost, mate,’ Alan said, full of cheer and heartiness. He was a short, muscly man somehow well-served by his receding hairline, which gave him an aura of toughness and experience. He combined this with a plain-speaking, no-airs, working-man demeanour – all ‘mate’ and ‘pal’ – that I suspected was a carefully cultivated pretence. Nevertheless, it was enough to set me – provincial bourgeois – ill-at-ease, eager to demonstrate my own (entirely affected) rough-diamond nonchalance. I had the same ridiculous problem with plumbers.

‘Yeah, no worries,’ I said, regretting every word as I spoke it. Was I supposed to be Australian? ‘I was just thinking about getting a coffee.’

‘Now you’re talking,’ Alan said. He checked his watch with a flourish. Chunky metal strap, hanging loose. ‘Yeah, plenty time, plenty time.’

We crossed to a little coffee booth, Alan’s many bags clanking against my nerves. I ordered two black coffees. Coffee might help, for a time.

‘Jack, mate, this Q&A guy …’

This took me a moment to parse. ‘You mean F.A.Q.?’

‘Yeah.’

I didn’t like this direction. Alan had had real trouble getting Quin’s portrait. He had wanted to shoot the designer in the Tamesis nerve centre, where a giant screen streamed live data from the app. But Quin had refused, and was steadfast in his refusal, fretting about client confidentiality and industrial espionage. The alternative offered was his characterless office, which Alan hated. Eventually, using the combination of charm and un-embarrassable persistence that is a standard part of the photographer’s kit, Alan got Quin up on the roof of Bunk’s Shoreditch building. The London skyline made a good backdrop for the creator of Tamesis. But the very next day I got an agitated phone call from Quin – the first of many – insisting on picture approval. Compounding all this was the rush caused by our – by my – lateness. I would prefer never to hear the name Quin again, but it continued to dog me.

‘Can you nudge your people?’ Alan said. ‘I haven’t been paid.’

‘Shit. Alan, I’m sorry, I’ll give them hell.’

‘I knew I could count on you,’ Alan said.

The coffee was too hot to hold for long and I had to continually switch it between hands as the pain became unbearable. Alan did not appear to be affected. He even sipped his.

‘Do you want a hand with those bags?’ I asked.

‘Nah,’ Alan said, redistributing the load around his body with a practised sequence of heaves and shrugs. ‘Used to it. Like to keep everything with me.’

‘Very sensible.’

‘You drinking that? We’ve got to get a shift on.’

‘Uh, I’ll take it on the train,’ I said, changing hands.

The eastbound Central Line platform was quiet, but I would have been happiest turning right and walking along it to find its quietest part. Alan had different ideas and turned left, where there was only a short stretch before the platform ended. Again, he said this was habit – it was where the rear of the train would be, and there would be more room, in theory, for his bags. I doubted his reasoning. I doubted his Tube sense. And we were left standing in an awkward corner between two staff-only doors, right by the tunnel mouth. One of those doors was a concertina-like affair, which I found gravely unnerving. Warning signs. Cabinets closed with inspection tape, like a crime scene. My discomfort was ticking upwards at regular, frequent intervals. The coffee could only be tolerated for ten seconds or so in one hand before it had to be passed to the other, and was still too hot to be sipped. I tried, once, and scalded the roof of my mouth and the middle knuckles of the fingers of my right hand. While the pain of that had subsided, stickiness had spread between all my fingers, across my palm, and down to my wrist. I wanted to wash my hands in icy water, and to splash that water against my face. I wanted to be holding a cool can, fresh from the fridge. How had Alan drunk his so quickly? His innards must be Le Creuset.

‘Do you got it with you?’ Alan said, without intro.

‘Got?’ I said. ‘ It? ’

‘The mag,’ Alan said. ‘The one with the F.A.B. piece in it. Want to see how it came out.’

Had he asked for one? I couldn’t remember. I had considered bringing along a copy of the magazine to give to Pierce, but I hadn’t written anything in the most recent issue, and I knew he had already seen the one with the Quin interview – besides, I wasn’t too proud of that one. If I went through the back issues until I found a feature I was proud of, I’d be taking him a copy from three years ago, and that just seemed plain odd.

‘You weren’t sent one? You should have been sent one.’

‘Nah.’

‘Typical.’

‘Muppets,’ Alan said, shaking his head. Wanting to align myself with Alan, against the muppets, I tried to think of an equivalent term of cockney abuse.

‘Ragamuffins,’ I said. Then winced.

Alan frowned. ‘You need to have a word. You guys used to be the best, a right treat to work with – good as Monocle , good as Condé fucking Nast. Taxis, expenses, assistants …’

‘Times are tough.’ I couldn’t remember the last time Eddie had sprung for a taxi. The no taxis rule was so strict and long-established it might be in the Old Testament.

‘How’d it turn out?’

‘It turned out fine.’ It had been, perhaps, half a step from becoming an unstoppable meltdown that rendered my career an uninhabitable fallout zone. But the photography was not at fault.

I really didn’t care to have that piece – and the multiplying failures in the magazine’s treatment of its freelancers – brought up again. And I had a fearful premonition as to how this morning was going to go. Alan, I suspected, was going to get on with Pierce a lot better than me. I would be left on one side, stammering, watching them form an easy, down-to-earth rapport. I had too much at stake, I was just too impressed by Pierce, almost star-struck. Alan would not be so hindered, and would chat freely, drop impressive names, and they’d find they had friends in common; I’d be left going oh-please-sign-my-books-Mr-Pierce and where-do-you-get-your-ideas-from. I wasn’t too worried about appearing drunk – I am an expert at concealing it. If anything the problem was that I was not drunk enough , that I would freeze up, that my hands would shake, that I’d be visibly, palpably ill-at-ease. Not even that: visibly ill , lacking, empty. Perhaps Pierce would be cool, offer me a glass of wine, a bottle of something from the fridge? Those bottles were always tiny compared to a good, solid, weighty can, but it would be something. But it was futile to hope, we’d be there at 11 a.m., no one offers their guests booze at 11 a.m.