This is true—that The Face is the best magazine in the world. In the nineties, it simply means “Everything that is cool this month.” Everything that is not in The Face is, however hard it tries, not quite as cool as something that is in The Face.
Because of this, I was excited to be in the office—and, also, intimidated. I am used to the D&ME, which basically felt like a pub, full of people in jeans and band T-shirts, mooching around.
This, by way of contrast, actually is an office, and everyone in it is much better dressed than at D&ME. They are wearing trainers I can tell are rare—mainly because, every so often, someone comments on someone else’s trainers—“Nice. Where from?” “New York”—and sporty, zip-up jackets, and . . . colorful things. There are women here—five of them. And they’re all a lot younger than the staff of the D&ME, and have actual “haircuts,” rather than “just some hair.”
This has been my one big worry about potentially working for The Face—that I don’t look like the kind of person who works for The Face. I still have no money to buy clothes—which is a moot point, as the shops don’t sell things that would fit me anyway. Dorothy Perkins—the unofficial National Outfitters of Teenage Girls—only goes up to a size 14. I don’t know what size I am, but it’s not a 14. I’ve never even tried to put on something in Dorothy Perkins, as they have communal dressing rooms, which work by way of a booth into which you can enter, in order to give yourself intense and immediate suicidal feelings.
Recently I have adopted the motto, “If you can’t fit in, fit OUT.” This means wearing things that make it very, very clear I’m not even trying to look like everyone else. As a consequence, today I am wearing a floor-length, red-and-gold-sequinned sari skirt, bought at a jumble sale in Wolverhampton for 50p, a black polo-neck jumper, a leopard-skin fake-fur jacket, and my forehead is covered in stick-on bindis, as sported by Björk on the cover of Debut. I look like the drag queen Divine, trying to get cast in a Bollywood movie.
“So—what’s it been like, at the D&ME?” the editor asks, conversationally. “Had any good trips?”
This throws me. At D&ME, the drugs of choice are beer, very cheap speed, spliff, and, if there’s a generous press officer around, cocaine. Most conversations the men have are about hangovers, or how much their teeth hurt, from taking speed. But this is, clearly, a place where the Big Drugs are used. I feel like I need to explain myself.
“My father always said I had exactly the wrong personality for acid,” I say, truthfully. “He used to be a dealer, and when I was eleven, he told me I must never, ever touch it. ‘You think you’re taking acid—but the acid takes you,’ he said. ‘You get caught in a silent scream.’ So I’ve never had a trip, no. But I think if you’ve got a very vivid imagination, you don’t need to? I can imagine anything. Like, policemen on horses—they’re basically centaurs, aren’t they? When you think about it. Protests are policed by heroes from Narnia. I think I’d like Ecstasy, though. That seems to have a favorable reputation.”
There’s a pause.
“I meant, have you gone on any trips, abroad?” the editor says, faintly. “Tokyo? New York? To interview someone?”
“Oh, no,” I say, cheerfully. “I’ve been to Dublin—that was nice. And I like Manchester. All journeys north and west are exciting, aren’t they? But the farther east you go, the more boring it gets. Norfolk is just . . . a sugar beet farm.”
I decide I should stop talking at this point, mainly because the editor looks completely confused, if amused.
“Dolly, if I may, I’m just going to have a quick chat, with some colleagues,” the editor says, standing up.
“Before you do, can I do my one-minute pitch?” I say, sensing that a decision is close to being made, and I might have fatally confused things with my drug chat. “I work hard, and I work fast, and promise you that, if you take me on, I will file, early, every month, and every piece will make you laugh at least three times—or you can fire me. And, ah, I won’t sleep with anyone here. Unless it seems like a very good idea. That’s a thing I’ve learned. I’m very . . . learned.”
“Right,” the editor says. “I’ll bear that in mind. Back in a minute.”
He goes over to a colleague at a far desk, and starts having an intense conversation with him. I see the colleague look over at me, and so I quickly arrange my face into an expression which I hope conveys that I am full of great words. I am later told that, at that moment, I looked as if I was suddenly very hungry. To be fair, I was. Dadda had eaten the last of the cereal that morning. When I got to the packet, there was only cornflakes dust left, which turned to gummy corn paste when I added milk. And the milk was off, anyway. So it was all for the best, really.
The colleague starts reading the columns the editor has given him, and I cross all my fingers, and toes, and legs, and say “white rabbit, white rabbit” to myself, over and over—because if the first thing you say, on the first day of each month, is “white rabbit,” you get to make a wish, and I have been saving up all my white rabbits since July. I have a rabbit farm of wishes.
After thirty seconds of reading, he laughs, and looks up at me again, and smiles, and gives a tiny nod, and I sigh, and uncross my legs, and quietly think to myself, “I think you might be able to buy some cornflakes on the way home—to celebrate. Maybe even Crunchy Nut!”
“Let’s go to the Groucho,” the editor says, when he comes back. “Knock a few ideas around. We’re intrigued. I want to hear more about you.”
12
On an already amazing day, this is the exploding cherry on the cake. I know about the Groucho Club. I had read a piece about it in The Sunday Times Magazine, when I was thirteen—it was a ground plan of the club, like a map, showing all the tables, and who sits where: the table by the bar is Stephen Fry’s; Emma Thompson likes the one in the middle; Melvyn Bragg prefers the corner banquette. If London is the center of Britain, then the Groucho Club is the center of London. The shiny brass hub. The pivot. It’s where “everyone” goes. I had that map on my wall for years—planning which table I would sit at, if I went. When I went. For you had still not arrived in London until you went there. And now, finally, I am here.
It’s 4:00 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. Quiet, but buzzy. The bar gleams like the bar on the Titanic. There’s a piano, where a man is playing “Life on Mars,” gently. Another man is propped up on the piano, singing along. It’s Keith Allen. I save this up, in my head, to tell Krissi. We have watched all the Comic Strip films. Keith Allen!
A small, dark man in a zebra-print suit greets the editor.
“Bernie!” the editor says.
“Darling, all the usual cunts are here,” Bernie says, by way of greeting. “I’ve kept the scratters out of your place, though.”
He seats us by the window, and I try to look legendary while he gets the drinks. The editor seems to know half the people here. I think how wonderful it would be if I knew people here—walking in, like Norm from Cheers, and being all like, “Evening, everyone,” to which the bar would reply, “Norm!”
“So, let me run you through a couple of things,” the editor says, “about working for The Face. I’ve heard what it’s like at D&ME, and things are a little . . . different with us.”
“Okay,” I say, taking a pen out of my bag, and assuming an air of diligence. “I am ready for instruction.”
“Well, I don’t know how to put this, but you can’t just . . . make stuff up. You have to do your research. Like, in this piece on ‘Why I Would Not Like to Be Famous,’ you’ve referred to an ELO song called ‘Bruce.’ There is no ELO song called ‘Bruce.’”
“There is!” I say, indignantly. “You know! ‘Don’t bring me down, Bruce!’”
“That’s called ‘Don’t Bring Me Down,’ Dolly,” the editor says. “Do you not fact-check your pieces?”
I laugh. “How would someone do that?” I ask, like he’s asked me to write it in pieces of fruit.
“In the reference library?” he says, astonished. “You would
check your facts in the reference library of the magazine?”
“Reference library of the magazine?” I repeat, confused. Some dim memory stirs in my head. Actually, I think we did have a reference library at D&ME, but it was a badge of honor to never go in there. It’s where Rob kept all the spare booze.
“I think I have been brought up in a journalistic environment where facts are . . . malleable,” I confess. “Kenny says he never tapes an interview—he just ‘remembers the good bits.’”
The editor winces, hard. In 1992, The Face published a feature on pop star Jason Donovan, which insinuated, incorrectly, that he was gay. The subsequent libel case nearly closed the magazine. Facts have been painful at The Face.
“But I’m totally on board with facts now!” I say, cheerfully. “I will fact you! I will be absolutely factual at all times!”
It’s just as I have made this unbending vow of journalistic integrity when I hear someone say, “Well, that’s an offer no man can refuse.”
I turn around, and see Jerry Sharp. The editor stands, and shakes hands with him. I stand too.
“Jerry!” the editor says. “Hello, fella!”
Everyone called everyone “fella” in 1994.
“Long time no see! Jerry—this is Dolly Wilde. She’s generously considering becoming our new columnist,” the editor says, charmingly.
“I know Dolly,” Jerry says, kissing my cheek. “I’ve had that pleasure. So glad to hear she will fact you.”
I can’t help myself—I go red when he says it. Looking around, I can see Jerry’s presence has caused a small stir here. Several people are curiously checking out the fat, hat-wearing teenage girl he is talking to. That fat, hat-wearing teenage girl is me.
“Well, we’re both young roister-doisterers, out on the town, loving the rock music!” I whirlwind, aware we are being observed. “No sleep until dawn.”
“No—no sleep until dawn,” Jerry says, slowly, staring at me intently. And I blush again. This is odd. He is flirting with me, in front of the audience of this whole bar.
He looks more . . . together than last time I saw him. Sober, and shaved, and wearing a suit with a T-shirt. He looks more like that famous guy off TV—and less like that drunk guy on the sofa, angling his crotch at me in a flat full of tat.
I can see a couple of people at the bar are now discussing Jerry and me. “Jerry and me.” I have someone here who knows me.
“So—seen anything good on TV recently?” I parry, with a knowing look.
And he blushes. I have power over him! I guess that night does have the potential to be a funny anecdote, after all.
“Good callback,” he says with a nod. “Establishes a narrative. Good.”
And he smiles at me—a warm smile.
Suddenly, I feel like I get it. Men and women—it’s just a word battle. So long as you keep being sassy, and wisecracking, they will respect you, in the end. You just have to show you’re strong enough. This thought makes me feel incredibly powerful. I am in charge of this! I can win! Words are what I do!
I sip my whisky through a straw in what I believe is a minxish way. Jerry stares at me, intently.
The editor is looking at us both—he can see there’s something going on.
“It’s always good to see writers swapping tips!” he says, to break the slightly charged silence. “Want a drink, Jerry? Care to join us?”
Despite all my reservations about Jerry, my heart leaps a little. A man who can be that funny and lovable on TV can surely be that funny and lovable in real life, too, if you find the right conversation to have with him? If you just . . . become a little bit magic? But Jerry shakes his head.
“Sorry guys—would love to. But I can’t leave Michael Stipe.”
He lets that hang, as the editor and I go, “The fuck are you here with Michael Stipe,” and, “Yes, because that’s a thing that’s really happening.”
Jerry smiles, and gestures to a table on the other side of the room. And there, indeed—wearing the beanie hat that famous people wear when they don’t want to be recognized, but which totally makes them recognizable, because the only people who wear beanie hats somewhere posh are famous people, so it might as well be a helmet with Famous written on it—is Michael Stipe.
“You’re with him?” I say. Then: “I thought you thought he’d sold out?”
“No,” Jerry says, blankly. “He’s a fan of the show. He likes watching it.”
And he shoots me another challenging look.
“That’s you in the corner,” I say, because Stipe’s table is in the corner, and that is a reference to an R.E.M. lyric.
“Nice,” Jerry says, amused. Or as amused as comedians get at other people’s jokes.
He shakes the editor’s hand again, and kisses me goodbye, saying, “Good luck with your . . . job. Don’t blow it,” in a saucy manner.
When I sit down, I don’t quite know what to think.
“You know him, then?” the editor says.
“We met at a gig,” I say. And then, in an attempt to look worldly wise, and like I know what I’m doing, “He’s quite a troubled character. But then, all the best people are, aren’t they?”
I feel so knowing.
I have just turned nineteen.
The editor gets more drinks in, and asks me about myself: “You’re quite . . . unusual.” So I tell him about being brought up on benefits, and worrying they’d be taken away, and making a pact with Jesus that I wouldn’t masturbate if he kept us safe, but being unable to keep that promise to Jesus for more than twenty-four hours, “because it was summer, and hot,” and so deciding I’d better earn money, and become a writer, and sending stuff off to the D&ME.
The editor keeps ordering more drinks, and laughing at my jokes—because I’m making the whole story as funny as possible—and I’m feeling so happy. This is a warm and twinkly bar, and it looks like I have a new job, and the editor is so nice, and, every so often, Jerry darts a look at me from the other side of the room, and I feel like everyone else can see it, and so know that I truly belong here. If London is a game, tonight I am winning it. I have a line of cherries. The machine is full of gold.
When I go to the toilet—gently bumping off things; I’ve had a lot of whisky—I’m humming to myself, with joy. And on the way back, I bump into Jerry, by the bar, settling up his bill.
“Dolly, may I be honest?” he says, drawing me close to him. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I am mortified. Last time, you did not see me on my best day, and I apologize. I’d just got out of a bad relationship, and I think I may have been . . . ungentlemanly.”
“You were bestial,” I confirm, cheerfully. The sassier you are, the more they respect you.
“Life seems so fucking shitty and hopeless—but you seem to have some knack of seeing the world as innately wonderful. How do you do that?”
There is something very powerful about someone making an observation about you, and then wishing they could be like you.
“Oh, I have my dark side,” I say, because that seems to be the appropriate thing for Sassy Dolly to say, and I want Jerry to feel okay about his dark side. Everyone should feel . . . understood.
“Do you?” he says, getting closer.
At that point, Michael Stipe comes over to say good-bye to Jerry.
“Early start tomorrow,” he explains, from under his Famous Famous Famous beanie hat.
“Michael, this is Dolly,” Jerry says, introducing me to Stipe, and putting his arm around me. Stipe looks at us.
“You make a lovely couple,” he says, nodding to us both. He then leaves.
There is a pause.
“Did we just get . . . married by Michael Stipe?” I ask.
“It felt quite official,” Jerry says, and kisses my hand. “And I feel, now we’re married, that I should know about my wife’s ‘dark side.’”
I think. Do I have a dark side? Everyone does, I guess. I’ve just not found mine yet, because I’m nineteen. But I don’t want him thinki
ng I’m . . . vanilla. Sassy Dolly isn’t vanilla. And Sassy Dolly’s doing very well tonight, so far.
“Well,” I say, slowly, “I just feel like I think too much. And the only time I stop thinking is when I’m . . . fucking.”
Jerry kisses my hand again, more slowly.
“Honey,” he says. “I feel bad—because last time, I promised to fuck your brains out, and I didn’t. But I’d like to do that now, very, very much. If that’s something you’re interested in.”
He stares at me. I think. I really am perfectly divided, 50/50, on whether to go or not. Last time was, undoubtedly, awful. I thought he revealed himself to be a bad man.
But in the end, the optimist in me wins out. You should always give everyone a second chance! Maybe he was just having a bad day! Maybe I will make him have a good day! And sex is more exciting than going back to my house, where my father is chopping up seed potatoes, ready for planting.
So when he says, “Shall we go?” I pause, then say, “Yes.”
Here is the full list of reasons you will have sex again with someone you did not enjoy attempting sex with the first time—on top of generally being an optimist. (1) You’re not a quitter! (2) Maybe you just needed to get to know each other better—and that first, unfond shit shag was your “meet cute,” from which something amazing will grow. (3) You have nothing else to do. (4) You know no one else here. (5) You should always be up for adventure! (6) You like being kissed. (7) Girls just do, don’t they? I mean, we all have stories like this.
I went back to Jerry’s house, to have my brains fucked out. At 10:37 p.m., I had realized he was not, after all, fucking my brains out—I was lying there, thinking, sadly, “He still can’t kiss properly. And there is no good sex without good kissing.”