Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [33]
All of them eventually got jobs – Charlie as a hairdresser, Zandra in a restaurant, Kevin on the shop floor at Comme des Garçons, Geraint on the door in a cutting-edge club, and Lisa in a high-street clothes shop, where she lifted more of the stock than she actually sold. A wonderful barter system got going. Charlie would do Lisa’s hair, she’d steal a shirt for Geraint, Geraint would let them into Taboo for nothing, Zandra would give them free tequila sunrises at the restaurant where she worked. (A mini-barter system was in operation there, because the barman wouldn’t insist on dockets from Zandra in exchange for low-grade sexual favours.) The only person who wasn’t in the loop was Kevin because the shop he worked at was so expensive yet so minimal that, if he nicked one single thing, the entire stock would diminish by twenty-five per cent. But he added general, free-floating kudos to the whole group in these frenzied days of mid-to-late-eighties label worship.
None of them would spend money on food – like cups and furniture, that too was a waste. If ever they were hungry they’d descend on the restaurant where Zandra worked and demand to be fed. Or else go on a shoplifting spree at their local Safeway. Strolling around the aisles, eating as they went, then shoving the wrapper or the banana skin at the back of the shelves. Sometimes Lisa insisted on actually taking stuff out with her, she liked the thrill it gave her.
Life continued like this for eighteen months, until the wonderful intimacy began to disintegrate into squabbles and rows. The novelty of having a rota for cup use had begun to wear thin. Then Lisa’s magazine-executive boyfriend decided to take a risk and swing her a job on Sweet Sixteen. Though she had no qualifications and barely an education, she was scarily smart. She knew what was in, what was on its way out, who was worth knowing, and she always looked spectacularly, astonishingly, just-this-minute fashionable. Seconds after something had appeared in Vogue, Lisa was arrayed in a cut-price version of it, and, most importantly of all, dressed with conviction. Many people wore puff-ball skirts because they knew they should, but most of them couldn’t shake the accompanying air of confusion and shame. Lisa sported hers with aplomb.
Then, as now, the magazine she was working on was low-budget crap and it was hard to find a flat that she could afford to rent. But the difference was that back then having a shit job on a magazine was thought to be fantastic – being employed by a magazine at all was what was important. And trying to find a half-decent place to live was a huge step forward – after living in the squat. Those were circumstances to be savoured. A source of pride, not embarrassment. Even though she was at the bottom of the heap, she was still the success story of Five Live in a Squat in Hackney.
And now look at them. Charlie worked in a salon in Bond Street and had lots of private clients, all of them horribly rich women. Zandra reverted to Sandra, went home to Hemel Hempstead, got married and had three children in speedy succession. Kevin was also married – to Sandra. It turned out he’d only said he was gay because he thought it was fashionable. Geraint was dead, he’d tested HIV positive in 1992 and his lungs gave out three years later. And Lisa, look at Lisa now. All those years of hard work, just to end up like this, back at the start. How had it happened?
Back in the nightmarish present, Lisa climbed into her hotel-room bed and smoked cigarette after cigarette, waiting for the Rohypnol to deliver four hours of merciful oblivion. But round and round the same ugly thoughts went. She was appalled at the huge task ahead of her on Colleen and hated being here. But there was no way out. She couldn’t return to London. Even if there was an editor’s job going – which there wasn