Freya North - Pip

Zac turns around. Who? Oh. Her. Without the make-up, eyes still quite a startling blue-green. Dressed down in jeans. Upright, not doing the splits. Hair in a plain pony-tail. She’s smaller now, close to and not in costume.

‘I didn’t recognize you with your clothes off,’ says Zac and then cringes. ‘I mean, with your clothes on. I mean, in jeans.’

She laughs. ‘Did you enjoy the show?’

‘Great,’ Zac answers economically. He really doesn’t feel much like chatting. He’s hungry and headachy in Holloway when he’d so much rather be home alone in Hampstead.

‘Thanks,’ the girl says, with grace.

‘Have you a card?’ Zac asks, remembering he wanted one though now wondering why.

‘Sure,’ she says, and one seems to materialize, as if by magic, from what appeared to be the swiftest snap of her fingers.

‘Ta,’ says Zac, not looking at her, pocketing her card without even glancing at it. He’s at his car. He gets in and drives off. Doesn’t give her a backward glance nor even so much as a ‘goodbye’. His headache is threatening to consume him.

Pip McCabe thinks he’s rude, though. She stands on the kerb side, watching him drive away – too fast.

You can tell a lot about a person by the friends they keep. You would think you could tell a lot about a person by the clothes they wear and the place they live. However, you’d be hard-pressed to guess what Zac does for a living by analysing his dwelling, his dress or his disposition. Each is at odds with the other and none are remotely representative of the stereotypes traditionally associated with Zac’s particular vocation.

Take a look around his flat. To say it sings with colour is an understatement. It’s not so much a symphony of colours as a full-blown rock opera. To forgo the approved, if ubiquitous, muted heritage hues predominantly deployed by fellow Hampsteadites was no act of rebellion, no salute to the Shock of the New on his part. Zac simply opted for oranges and turquoises and citrus greens and parma violets because they are his favourite colours. Leyland Paints groan when he comes into the store. He spends a fortune there because he is so exacting. ‘No. I said ultramarine and I mean ultra ,’ he’d complain and they’d have to spend a morning adding a dribble of this and a drip of that until Zac nodded and grinned and proclaimed something along the lines of ‘Turquoise-tastic! Fan-bloody-brilliant! Ultimate ultramarine. Ta.’

Zac’s inspiration comes not from the Sunday Times ‘Style’ section, certainly not from Changing Rooms , not from hip clubs, but really just from his own predilections. Zac is in no pretentious pursuit of retro-psychedelia; nor is his home an arty-farty appraisal of the merits of kitsch. Objectively, elements of his colour schemes are indeed psychedelic and some of his furniture and objects are quintessentially kitsch. But he only chooses what he loves. He doesn’t refer to style magazines. In fact, when he flicked through a copy of Wallpaper at a friend’s house, he thought it so brilliant that he started chuckling because he genuinely assumed that the magazine was a parody on other style magazines. He was quite horrified to learn it was serious. ‘But it’s so far up its own arse,’ he’d reasoned, ‘they might as well call it Toiletpaper .’

Zac doesn’t read about art but he does love to look at it. He didn’t consider trend when he was choosing colour for his walls and furniture for his rooms but he did pay homage to Matisse. Zac simply loves colour for its own sake. He loves the greenness of green, the blueness of blue, and he finds great expanses of solid colour incredibly satisfying. He cannot comprehend how colours can be in and out of fashion. He loves it that he cannot fathom how colour can convey movement, rhythm and mood. It’s a mystery he is content to be awestruck by.

My job’s stressful. The building is grey. I want to come home to energy and a place that – I don’t know – grins. Turquoise and orange have always made me feel positive. Green makes me feel refreshed. What’s all this crap about blue being a ‘cool’ colour – cool in what respect? Cold? Or hip? Pardon? I just find blue relaxing. Swimming-pools and cloudless skies.

Zac goes for things he really likes the look of. He loves things that amuse him. His acid yellow PVC banana beanbag chair is just as comfortable as his black leather Eames lounger. He knew the Eames was almost vulgar in cost but what price ultimate comfort for reading papers or snoozing or chilling out with a beer? The Eames serves much the same purpose as the banana chair but the banana chair was forty pounds. Zac didn’t think it a ‘bargain’, he simply thought ‘funky chair, great colour, really comfortable’, bought it on the spot and took it home on the bus. He doesn’t own a coffee-table so it’s just as well that he doesn’t buy sumptuous coffee-table tomes. Though he loves the feel of his Folio editions of fables and myths, he also devours commercial paperbacks. His book shelves are crammed with them. ‘What’s wrong with Grisham or Herbert?’ he might say. ‘They’re bloody good reads.’ He sometimes rereads Wilbur Smith and he really quite liked Bridget Jones’s Diary . He read it on the tube going to and from work. He was aware that people stared at him. He didn’t care.

It’s always open house at Zac’s. His flat just has a subliminal effect of putting people in a good mood. He doesn’t officially entertain but he has the sort of personality and the type of place that encourage people to pop in. Male friends stop by for a beer or two if they’ve had a crap day at work or a row with a wife or girlfriend. And those very same wives and girlfriends pop in if they’ve walked their feet off perusing Hampstead’s shops. Zac tells them to ‘take a load off’; while he fixes them a juice, they revolve a while in the Eames, or snuggle gratefully into the bizarre banana chair. If their kids have thrown tantrums at the Finchley Road Sainsbury’s, they’re dragged in to let off steam at Uncle Zac’s; scampering around his flat, throwing themselves on to his large low bed, rolling off on to the tufty orange rug by the side, coming back into the living-room to snuggle on Mummy’s lap and gaze at the lava lamp or quietly snigger at the massive painting that’s allegedly of mountains but really looks like a large pair of blue bosoms.

Ah, but have a look inside Zac’s wardrobe. It’s like an archive for Gap. Beige, navy or black. No deviation. Trousers, shirts or pullovers. He owns one suit. It’s currently at the dry-cleaner. It’s navy. He never wears it by choice; only if he must – a meeting with specific clients, a wedding, a funeral. His underwear is unremittingly black and blue.

His kitchen reveals his obsession with gadgets which he affectionately calls ‘toys’. A top-of-the-range fully automatic espresso machine, a sixties-inspired juicer, an impressive if intimidating array of Global kitchen knives, all manner of high-shine stainless-steel utensils hanging from hooks above the granite worktop. His fridge-freezer is, of course, one of those cavernous walk-in American machines that do ice and cold water and can take a whole sucking pig plus the apple. There is no pig inside, just a staggering array of ready-meals. Does this man work for M&S? No? He must have a discount card, then, surely? No? Does he have substantial shares in the company, then? Or is this simply what you’d call brand loyalty? Or is it just plain laziness? No wonder that all his utensils and gadgets look so pristine – they’ve never been used. He has no need of any of them. You do not need a mandolin from Divertimenti to prepare an M&S ready-meal. The only things requiring any chopping are the tomatoes (aesthetically still on the vine) and, of course, the oranges for the juicer (despite the fact that there are cartons of fresh juice, every conceivable variety, in the fridge). His friends’ offspring like the cupboard over there best; it contains the most astonishing variety of biscuits, chocolates and crisps. Have a peek in his kitchen bin – nothing but chocolate wrappers and cartons from his shove-it-in-the-oven-at-190-degrees meals. Zac Holmes hides nothing. He is totally at ease with his likes and dislikes and the choices he’s made.