In all of my days, I’d never been a good drinker. The first time I’d ever got properly wasted was at university during Fresher’s Week. A sophisticated combination of Archers and lemonade cocktails mixed with shots of Aftershock led to my first ever puking-in-the-park extravaganza. The only reason I knew that I’d passed out in the student union toilets with my knickers round my ankles after dancing on the bar and singing ‘Oops! … I Did it Again’ by Britney over and over and over was because Amy took lots and lots of photos. I lost the will to live and she lost a shoe. After that, I tried to lay off the sauce as much as was humanly possible for a student, but I was terrible in the face of peer pressure and Charlie and Amy were not good peers for a bad drinker.
So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that I woke up on Thursday morning with a headache that felt like it could only be cured by a guillotine. Prising one eye open, I turned off an alarm I didn’t remember setting and rolled carefully over to squint at my empty bed. Wasn’t there someone else in it when I fell asleep? I was almost certain I hadn’t imagined Nick’s nursemaiding, but then again, I was entirely certain I could pull off a red PVC catsuit ten years ago. And I could not. Regardless, he definitely wasn’t there now. I peered under the covers to see that my underwear was still safely upon my person, and even though I felt like I might actually just die at any second, I did have both my eyes open and, seemingly, full control of all my faculties. Slowly, the events of the night started to come back. Cocktails, Kekipi, karaoke. McDonald’s, shouting, puking and then sleeping. Yep, Nick had definitely been in my bed before. And now he’d vamoosed. What a shock. I just wished I could remember the pertinent details of our conversation aside from my yelling, his sighing and my throwing up. I had a nagging feeling we’d discussed something important – I just didn’t know what it was.
When I regained the ability to focus properly, I looked at the phone in my hand and saw several missed calls from Amy. As well as three voicemails, there were more than half a dozen texts, emails and Facebook messages that were borderline death threats. I felt like calling my mum and telling her I was being cyberbullied. Then I remembered me and my mum weren’t talking and I just stuck the phone back on its charger and had a little cry. It lasted for about seven seconds before I realized I needed a wee far more than I needed to cry and I only had enough energy to do one thing at a time.
‘Aloha, Vanessa?’
From the bathroom I heard a knock at the front door, followed by a familiar voice that split my head in two. I grabbed onto the bathroom sink while washing my hands and retched, but nothing happened. At least I seemed to be fully puked out. Silver lining to every desperately pathetic cloud.
‘I have coffee and breakfast and many headache remedies.’
The look on Kekipi’s face as I appeared in the doorway was priceless.
‘Are you dying?’ he asked. ‘Did you and Mr Miller do crack after I left?’
‘I think I just shouted at him a lot and then threw up on myself a bit,’ I said, staggering over to the coffee. It smelled so good. I had no idea whether or not I’d be able to keep it down. ‘Thanks for this.’
‘No problem.’ He took a short step backwards. ‘The cars are leaving for the shoot in forty-five minutes. Are you going to be OK? I feel dreadful.’
He felt dreadful? Wait, what? Cars? It took a moment before it dawned on me what he could possibly be talking about. The cars were leaving. For the shoot. The shoot was actually happening. Oh dear God.
‘I will not be OK,’ I said, pouring the coffee and trying to suppress the rising panic that was threatening to give me a heart attack. ‘But I’ll be dressed and holding a camera and hoping that somehow this thing gets cancelled again today.’
‘Sadly, I don’t think you’re going to be so lucky,’ he said, heaping three giant spoons of sugar into my cup and stirring for me. ‘It would seem Ms Sullivan and Mr Bennett Junior have decided to press ahead without Mr Bennett senior.’
‘Brilliant,’ I muttered and took one tiny sip of the sugary sludge in my cup. It was magical. ‘Well, it’s not like I haven’t got this far on horrible decisions, is it? Who knows, I might be a better photographer when I’m hammered.’
‘I’ll make a hangover picnic, and you make this human again,’ he replied, waving his hand in my general direction. ‘It’s going to be a great day. And at least you don’t smell of vomit.’
Once I was certain I could keep the coffee down, I drank it as quickly as I could and chased it with a sip of water and two headache tablets. After scrubbing myself down and cleaning my teeth for about seventeen minutes, I plaited my hair, pulled on my jeans, a little black T-shirt and my Converse, then carefully applied as much mascara as my eyelashes would hold. Putting on make-up seemed to be the only way to prove that I actually had eyes. With five minutes to go, I checked my camera bag. I had a million battery packs fully charged, I had all my lenses, all my memory cards, my tripod, my reflectors, light monitor, flash and a few other things that I wasn’t entirely sure of but assumed were something a professional photographer was supposed to have. It was time.
‘Right then,’ I said to the mirror. My reflection, laden with bags, looked resolute and, oddly, not nearly as bad as I felt. But to be fair, that probably wasn’t actually possible. ‘Everything’s been fine so far, hasn’t it?’
My reflection didn’t reply, but it did throw me a look that just seemed to say, ‘Really, Tess?’
‘Look at you,’ Kekipi declared when I reappeared in the kitchen fully dressed and not on the verge of falling down. ‘You look just like someone who went out and got wasted last night but is almost certainly capable of doing an adequate day’s work.’
‘That’s the best I could hope for,’ I replied, grabbing another cup of coffee and a second pastry. Pastries were good. Cocktails were bad. ‘Are the cars here?’
‘They are,’ he said, craning his neck to look out of the window. ‘You’re in with Ms Sullivan. The models are in together and I’ll be travelling with Mr Bennett.
‘You’re coming?’ I asked. He nodded and clapped. ‘I’m so glad. If I go missing at all, can you just tell everyone I’m dead?’
‘Sure thing,’ he replied. ‘But don’t worry, really. You’ll be fine – you’re just a little hungover. Everyone’s a professional here. What’s the worst that could happen?’
‘Oh my God, this is a complete fucking disaster.’ Paige buried her face in her hands and stifled a scream. ‘Tell me this isn’t happening.’
‘It’s not happening?’ I offered, resting my hand on her back and making small soothing circles. ‘It’s definitely not happening.’
But it was happening. As it turned out, I really shouldn’t have been worried about my hangover. What I should have been worried about was an unforecast tropical storm, a model so doped up on whatever sleep aids she’d taken she couldn’t stand up straight, a wardrobe selection so horrifying they made Lady Gaga’s stage costumes look too conservative, and a location that had seemingly forgotten we were coming. There was something about a soggy, obese man from Arkansas in a neon-orange bumbag that really took the shine off an haute couture photo shoot. By eleven a.m. I was still in the back of the SUV drinking my fifth cup of coffee, and I hadn’t even taken my camera out of its bag. Apart from to take a picture of the obese man from Arkansas. You didn’t see a sight like him round Old Street.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ Paige whispered at me, her face fearful and tear-stained. ‘I’m amazing at this. I’ve directed shoots on the top of volcanoes, I’ve had the Eiffel Tower closed down so Naomi fucking Campbell can have her picture taken in peace, I did an entire editorial on a yacht on Lake Como with an entirely Italian crew. I don’t speak a word of Italian and I had violent seasickness all the way through it and still came home with the best pictures the magazine had ever seen. What am I going to do?’
As a photographer, there was really nothing I could say that would help. As a creative director, I was in agony for her. I’d had shoots and projects go wrong, but this was just chaos. She had managed to pull a feature out of her arse when Bertie went AWOL, and now she was stuck in the back of a car with no location, an amateur photographer, a stoned model and a disgruntled middle-aged man who had brought half of Lily Savage’s wardrobe with him. I looked out of the window at the Iolani Palace. All the way here, Paige had been telling me about her concept, how amazingly beautiful it was, how we would have the models and Artie reclining on the white stone steps, leaning against palm trees, posing in the throne room. That it combined all the elegance and glamour of high fashion with the cultural significance of Hawaiian royalty. Right now, it looked like a wet weekend in Brighton. Even the fountain on the driveway looked sad. It must be tough to be a water feature when you’re competing with a storm so scary. I was a little bit afraid our car might wash away.
‘Ms Sullivan.’ The car door opened and Kekipi stuck a soggy head inside. ‘I’ve spoken with the manager on duty and he says he has no record of the booking and can’t get in touch with the events coordinator. I think we’re going to have to find a second venue.’
‘I had one.’ Paige rubbed her temples and closed her eyes. ‘But we’re so behind schedule, I didn’t reconfirm. Shit, I had a third and fourth venue, but they’re all outdoors. And I can’t rely on this stopping, can I?’
‘I think it will, but we shouldn’t bank on it,’ he replied, looking up at the dark grey sky. ‘I have an idea. Wait just a moment.’
‘Not bloody going anywhere, am I?’ she muttered, pulling out an iPad and scrolling madly up and down an email inbox. I had a feeling it wasn’t really helping but I didn’t want to say. I didn’t dare say.
‘You look nice.’
If in doubt, go with compliments.
‘Thanks,’ she replied without taking her eyes off the screen. ‘It’s Rag & Bone.’
‘What did you get up to last night?’ I asked, adding a little yawn to show how casual I was about the question. I didn’t quite know whether or not to believe Nick’s version of events when he’d shown up on my doorstep, but given that he was on my doorstep in the first place, I had to assume things hadn’t gone quite to Paige’s plans. ‘Anything fun?’
‘I don’t really want to talk about it right now,’ she said, looking up at me at last. Her black liquid liner and scarlet lipstick hadn’t even thought about smudging, even through her tantrum. Cow. ‘Can we get dinner tonight? If I don’t kill myself and everyone on the shoot?’
‘Absolutely,’ I promised. ‘Can you make mine a quick death?’
‘Absolutely,’ she promised.
‘I think I have a solution.’ Kekipi opened the door with a big smile and jazz hands. ‘My friend is the events manager at the Royal Hawaiian. It’s very old Hawaii, very stately. They have a space we can use and some props. It might take a little creativity, but we have a location.’
‘Kekipi, if it wouldn’t turn your stomach, I would kiss you,’ Paige said, her face a picture of relief.
‘Ms Sullivan,’ he replied, ‘if we could take a picture and send it to my grandmother, I might let you.’
‘Shall we have a look at the venue first?’ she suggested, slipping the iPad back in her bag. ‘And we’ll pose for engagement photos later.’
‘Yes, boss,’ he said, closing the car door and banging on the roof.
‘If you could just turn to the left a little?’ I called to the blonde model. ‘So I can see more of the feathers?’
Kekipi had come through on the location. The hotel was almost as palatial as the actual palace. Unfortunately, it was also pink. Bright, Pepto-Bismol pink. We were stuck in a courtyard right off the beach, which would have given me great light to shoot with if we’d been there three hours earlier, but instead, all I had were doomsdayesque shadows from the overhead midday sun. The storm had passed but that was the only thing that felt like it was going our way.
Our blonde model, Ana, had woken up from her sleeping pill haze, and, if it were in any way possible, was behaving even worse than she had during our brief meeting the night before. She swore at the local make-up artist, she gave me the finger when I went to say hi, and she actually hissed at Paige. Hissed like an angry cat. The other model, Martha, a stupidly beautiful black girl with eyes so enormous I kept worrying that she was hypnotizing me, just looked like she might cry. Whether something was wrong or Ana was pinching her while we weren’t looking I wasn’t sure, but I suspected the latter. Paige had tried to talk to her approximately eighteen thousand times, but she just sniffed, shrugged and sat there quietly having her mascara reapplied. Again. And again. And again.
As if the location, the lighting and the personnel issues weren’t bad enough, I also had the pleasure of trying to make the wardrobe look like it hadn’t just been dragged out of Joan Collins’ ‘Save it for best circa 1982’ closet. The clothes that Artie had picked out of the Bennett vault couldn’t possibly be indicative of the fashion nous that had made his dad so successful. Unless his dad was exclusively clothing drag queens and the cast of The Muppets. Currently we had Ana in a baby-blue feathered affair that grazed her knees and dipped so low at the back that the make-up artist was having a wonderful time trying to cover up her tramp stamp. Martha had fared no better, stuck in a dropped-waist canary yellow silk number that had shoulder pads so big she could have just leaned her head over and had a little nap. Maybe that’s why she was so sad.
There were one or two outfits that had made Paige squeal with delight – some late eighties Gaultier, and a dress that she held up with such reverence I had to wonder if it was the Turin Shroud; but no, it was just vintage Valentino. I thought she was going to slap the taste out of my mouth when I responded with an ‘oh’. Sadly for the beautiful dresses, they were every one of them either red, pink or emerald green, all of which looked ridiculous in front of the pink palace, and so, instead, the models stood there, looking like someone had puked a rainbow against the wall. And it was my job to capture that rainbow.
‘Ana, to me,’ I called again. ‘More feathers.’
I did not really want to see more of the feathers. All I wanted to see was the inside of my eyelids and possibly the bottom of a toilet bowl. This was officially joining the day I got fired, the day things went to shit with Charlie and the day I dropped my favourite My Little Pony out of a speeding Ford Escort somewhere on the M1 and my mum wouldn’t stop to get it as one of the worst days of my life.
‘I’m just not sure it’s working,’ I said quietly to Paige, flicking through the images on my camera screen while the poor local make-up artist tended to beauty and the beast. ‘It just looks so forced.’
‘Then make it look better,’ she replied just as quietly. ‘Don’t fuck me over, Tess. Do not fuck this up. Artie is getting pissed off, I can tell – we don’t have much longer.’
I looked up at her, a little startled. Me? What had I done? Oh, right, I wasn’t a real photographer and therefore the shitty pictures had to be my fault. Nothing to do with the fact that all I had to take photos of was a grumpy middle-aged man in a nasty suit lounging on a papier mâché throne, flanked by two models who would apparently rather be poking sticks in their eyes than getting paid to hang out in Hawaii wearing designer clothes for money.
‘OK, um, Martha, could you maybe sit down on the steps and pull the train out behind you?’ Oh yes, the yellow dress had a train. Martha did as she was told like a sad puppy and looked up expectantly.
‘Ana, I need you to give me something really solid, something really strong,’ I shouted.
Anything to offset the tragedy of the man on the throne, I thought to myself. I’ve taken better pictures in a photo booth. To Ana’s credit, after muttering something obscene under her breath, she struck a pose and it seemed to work. I fiddled with the camera for a moment, adjusted the height of the flash that would hopefully light up Artie’s face a touch better than his non-existent smile, and started shooting again.
‘Ladies, I’m really not terribly comfortable in this crown,’ Artie bellowed from his seat, disrupting the first half-decent shot I’d got out of the lot of them in over an hour. ‘I think it would be better not to use it.’
‘But the crown is the lynchpin of the whole concept, Artie.’ Paige used her most soothing tone of voice to try to convince Bennett Junior to keep his hat on. Personally, I thought he looked like he’d just crashed a fashion shoot on his way home from a boozy trip to Burger King, but my input was not required. As Paige had already told me several times. Every suggestion I’d made had been shot down. Any confidence I’d managed to build in my ability as a photographer, the confidence that she had worked so hard on helping me with, was completely shattered. But I had to remember Paige was in charge. Paige was the art director. I was the photographer. I was just there to do as I was told. And it was grating on my last nerve.
‘Looks … interesting?’
And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, Nick arrived.
‘I’m busy, we’re busy,’ I replied, not taking my eyes away from the camera and ignoring the prickling sensation running down my back. ‘Closed set.’
‘No, it isn’t. Anyway, I’m here to talk to Artie.’ He came nearer until he was close enough to whisper in my ear. ‘Feeling better, lover?’
‘If you don’t back up immediately, I’m going to throw up on you,’ I replied. And it wasn’t a lie. He had that effect on me. ‘Please let me get on with this.’
‘They look ridiculous, you know,’ he said, stepping aside and folding his arms. I took a precious second away from my camera to glance over at him. Messy hair, scruffy stubble, grey-blue eyes against a golden tan. And the outfit hardly hurt – bright white V-neck T-shirt and perfectly fitting khaki cargo shorts. Bugger me, he looked good in shorts. Men hardly ever looked good in shorts. ‘What is Paige thinking?’
‘Why don’t you ask her? I’m just the camera monkey.’ I tightened my plait and looked back at the scene in front of me. It did look ridiculous. Mario Testino couldn’t have made this look good. Maybe Agent Veronica should have sent a chimp with a camera phone after all – there was every chance he might have seen something in it that I couldn’t.
‘Memory card’s full. Give me two minutes everyone,’ I called over to my models. And Artie. ‘One more set-up, I promise.’
Me and my shadow went over to the table where I’d set up my laptop and plugged in my camera. More and more upsettingly average pictures of a depressingly tragic set. I couldn’t see a single one I was proud of.
‘It’s not your fault, you know,’ Nick said quietly, one hand on my back. ‘They aren’t bad pictures. This … all this …’ He waved his hand around at the hotel, at the models, at a foaming-at-the-mouth Paige. ‘It’s not exactly working for you.’
I looked up from the screen and out at the ocean. Waikiki beach was full of holiday-makers sunbathing, running in and out of the waves, building sandcastles and basically having a very lovely time. I wondered what would happen if I just cobbed the camera at Paige’s head and started running. I could reinvent myself as one of the slightly scary ladies wandering up and down the sand selling bits of mango. It was a good life.
‘I think we need to make more of the Hawaiian feeling,’ Paige announced, snapping me out of my daydream and slapping Nick’s hand off my back. ‘We need to add more fun, more playfulness. Kekipi, let’s do it.’
I was fairly certain that the playfulness was already very well communicated in the slightly off-kilter crown Paige had put on Artie’s head and in the fact that our models were wearing outfits it looked like they’d made themselves, but no. To Paige, ‘Hawaiian feeling’ and ‘playfulness’ could only be communicated by adding two girls in grass skirts holding ukuleles and a pile of pineapples.
‘Oh dear God, shoot me now,’ I whispered, wide-eyed and afraid.
‘If I could, I would,’ Nick replied.
‘Paige,’ I started with caution. ‘Are you sure about this?’
‘Yes,’ she shouted, her voice brittle.
‘It’s just … I mean, it’s not clichéd?’
Big mistake. Huge.
‘I’m really fucking stressed right now, Vanessa,’ she said with an awful lot of emphasis on my name. ‘So if you could try and take a half-decent picture out of what we’ve got, we can all get out of here before Christmas, yeah?’
‘Hey, Paige, I know you’re stressing, but don’t take it out on Vanessa.’ Nick leapt to my honour before I could say anything. And it did not help matters in the slightest.
Paige paused in her direction of the hula girls and turned to face us fully. I took a tiny side-step away from Nick and looked at the floor while whispering ‘please don’t let her be the violent type, please don’t let her be the violent type’ to myself.
‘Nick, could you be a love and fuck off until you’re needed?’ she said sweetly. ‘We’re trying to get something done and you’re not helping. Vanessa can’t be distracted while she’s creating her masterpiece. Isn’t that right, Van?’
‘Vanessa can probably speak for herself,’ he responded, not moving. I shook my head, still focusing on the grass beneath my feet, and prayed for the ground to open up and swallow me. Why weren’t there active volcanoes in Hawaii? Where was a flowing river of molten lava when you needed it?
‘Vanessa probably could,’ she agreed. ‘But seriously, not the time or place. Nick, do one. We’re busy.’
My refusal to make eye contact with anyone other than the little brown bird that was pecking the ground beside my feet was probably a touch out of character as far as Nick was concerned. I felt his eyes on me, waiting for a snappy comeback or at least a ‘fuck you’ for Paige, but instead I shrugged, clicked a couple of buttons on my camera and kept my mouth shut.
‘Fine,’ he said, defeated. ‘I’ll be in the bar. Send Bennett in when you’re done.’
I met his eyes briefly, trying to explain without an explanation, but he just looked a little pissed off and a lot confused.
‘If the look you’re going for is that bit in The Jungle Book where Baloo dresses up as a monkey, then you’re right on the money. If it’s not, you’re buggered. Have fun, ladies.’
I looked at Paige. Paige looked at me. We both looked at the hula girls.
‘Lose the girls,’ Paige bellowed. ‘Keep the pineapples. Now let’s take some pissing pictures so we can all go home.’
The two dancers sashayed sadly away, their grass skirts swishing as they went. Even though I was this close to bursting into tears, I felt a chuckle bubbling up inside me. It was like someone had said something hilarious in science class and I had lost all control over myself.
‘Don’t you dare laugh,’ Paige warned me, taking a red lipstick out of her handbag and reapplying it perfectly without a mirror. ‘Just don’t.’
‘Thought hadn’t even crossed my mind,’ I said in the squeakiest voice possible. ‘Shall we just get this done?’
‘Yes.’ She pushed a long, Veronica Lake wave out of her face and breathed out purposefully. ‘I need a cocktail. Sorry. I just want this done.’
‘And I need a miracle,’ I said, turning back to the set. Still shit. ‘But I will settle for a cocktail.’