Chapter 8

Since they were at the top of the hill already Abigail made Andrew climb the Cabot tower with her. It had been built at the end of the Victorian era to commemorate the 400^th anniversary of John Cabot’s journey to Newfoundland. Until that point Andrew had not realised that Cabot had sailed from Bristol. Yes, his geekery knew no bounds. Abigail was hilarious as she babbled on, just like earlier the release of tension had her mindlessly talking. Andrew was hungry so they found a pub but Abigail immediately set out to plan their friendship.

“Goodness sake woman, relax. We don’t go back up to Cambridge for another seven weeks or something. Friendship is not planned it is something that happens organically. Look, let me give you an example. I knock on Helena’s door every morning to get her up, see her for all of five seconds and that is it. I sometimes see her at dinner, often I don’t. I was out every night until at least 9.00 during the week. Sometimes I would see her in the bar, often I didn’t even go to the bar. But we hung out at the weekend and would go to the movies, the Common Room, the bar, even Cindies.

“Then consider Malcolm. I saw Malcolm every morning for a year. We had breakfast together every weekday. We walked to our classes together nine days out of ten. I often saw him at dinner. But he is not a close friend. Why, I can’t tell you? I have stayed with Helena, Justin and Nigel. Seen you and Navya outside College. I got as far as Paris on the way to see Pedro. But Malcolm and I are friendly but not friends. The friendship between you and I has to be natural, not forced. Just be yourself. It is pretty clear that you want to break out of this self-imposed shell that you have constructed. We are all separated from the corridor now. It will be a chance to meet some new people.

“I suppose what I am saying is don’t build this up too much. Helena told you all the good parts but did she tell you about the times when I was in the Library, when I was out. I am a very selfish person. And truthfully, I am happiest on my own studying. I have a life goal to make sure that I keep some balance in my life otherwise I can be remote.”

“We have all seen it Andrew. You work very hard. But Matt says you are brilliant without the studying and that you are downright scary with it. So yes, I know that you are not this perfect man. But you treat women very differently than most of the men at Trinity or at Cambridge generally. Having met Leslie I can see that she was a big influence. But you are right I need to relax. I am just excited that I have my first true male friend.”

They ate their lunch and one beer turned into two as they sat and chatted.

“Can I ask you all the questions I have wanted to about Paris?”

“Sure. You know most of it already.”

“Ha. We will see. Tell me about the fashion show. What was it like?”

Andrew closed his eyes, not in weariness but to try and recall all the details.

“So Manon had shown Pedro and I around the city, and we had done all the usual tourist things.”

“Wait. Can you tell me how you met Manon?”

“Okay. So last year I was down for an Army camp and the weekend before it started I was in London for the Supertramp gig at Earl’s Court.”

“Supertramp. Really Andrew.”

Clearly, they were still the least fashionable group out there.

“Enough, I know that not everyone appreciates good music. So I am in a bar near there, I think the night before the gig, but anyway the place is packed and I did my dick move of shouting over the heads of the short people standing at the bar and getting served out of turn. It makes short people so mad when I do that. Well two of the short people were Manon and her friend Yasmine. I think Manon wanted to kick me in the shins, but Yasmine just flirted with me and got me to buy them a couple of drinks. We ended up having a fun time, harmless flirting going nowhere and we went our separate ways. They were in Britain for a month playing tourist so I gave them my number in Edinburgh and said, if you get that far north give me a call. Never thought anything of it and didn’t expect to get the call. But they called about 10 days later from York and came north a couple of days after that. My Dad is a huge history buff, and is very good on Scottish and Edinburgh history. So he helped me show them around the town, gave them more facts than they needed to know but they had a good time. He can speak passable French so that helped as well. Manon reciprocated the offer when she left and so this February I wrote letting her know that Pedro and I would be in Paris. Again I didn’t expect a reply but she wrote back. So fast-forward to our break and there we are, having spent the day in Paris and at the end of the day she says she has a surprise for us. So we walk past the Louvre and across the Place de la Concorde and turn onto Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore. When we get to the Hermès store she turned to us and with some pride tells us that this is where she works. Of course Pedro and I are standing there looking at her going ‘and?’. She was so disappointed. I can tell from your face that you still haven’t forgiven us. So the main store is also the global headquarters of Hermès. We walked into the store and were led up this grand staircase to a long gallery that runs the length of the store. Off this gallery were several rooms, the first of which she called the Salon. This was the room where the rich, fashionable and shiny all mingled and oohed and aahed over each other.”

Abigail giggled at his prejudices.

“We were unsurprisingly led past this and into the room where the fashion show was going to take place. The runway, bathed in spotlights, three rows of elegant chairs down either side. We are ushered over to the sound and light desk out of the way, given a drink and told not to talk to anyone. Then the connecting doors are swept open and the shiny and sparkly all flow through for the show. We then watched 90 minutes of 12 models wearing different scarves. Right before the show Manon had told us that two of the models were going to spend the following day with us as she had to work unexpectedly. So Pedro and I spent the whole show critiquing the models and totally ignoring the scarves.”

Abigail laughed and whacked him on the sheer principle of it.

“But then the two of them showed up and we went for dinner. We met them the next day, and Heloise and I spent most of the day at the Louvre. It was bloody freezing in Paris and so we just wandered the galleries and looked at the art a little bit, fought the crowds to see the Mona Lisa and spent the rest of the time chatting away. I found her to be a very nice person, very street smart. I learned a lot, most of it not very nice, about human nature from just listening to her experiences.”

Abigail look oddly sneaky which confused him.

“I presume you got her full name Andrew? What is her surname?”

Andrew returned the look, although his was tinged with suspicion.

“Why?”

“Indulge your new friend Andrew.”

He had no defence to that smile.

“Her name is Heloise Hautecloque, or something like that. I would have to look at my address book to be sure of the spelling.”

“Heloise de Hauteclocque?”

“Yes that sounds right, there is a ‘de’ in there.”

“Do you know who she is Andrew?”

“I am guessing that the answer of ‘a model’ is not sufficient.”

“Heloise Leclerc de Hauteclocque is the granddaughter of the French General that liberated Paris.”

“Oh. That would have been cool to talk to her about.”

“Andrew, Heloise is the most famous model in France.”

Abigail opened her bag and pulled out a page of a fashion magazine folded over and creased. She carefully spread it out and there was Heloise. Andrew smiled when he saw her picture.

“That is her. I can tell by the way you smiled just there. Andrew, did you know that you went out with the most famous model in France?”

“No, until that night at Hermès I had never clapped eyes on her, or heard of her either.”

“Were you not aware of lots of people looking at you?”

“Well sure, but I am 6’5” and so was she in her heels. We did rather stand out. I just thought it was that.”

Abigail started laughing and just couldn’t stop. They left the pub but it took her ages before she finally had herself back under control.

“I am sorry but it is priceless. You went out with one of the 50 most recognisable women in France. It is probably lower than that, one of the 20 most recognisable women in France and you had no idea. I think it is genius of your friend Manon to do that for her. That woman must be so suspicious of all these men hanging around and there you are chatting away about engineering or some crazy thing.”

Andrew thought about what Abigail was saying and it in a way it was genius. Only with someone who had no idea who she was could she be sure of a genuine reaction. Well the next letters to Paris were going to be interesting.

“I can’t wait to tell Mum. We read all these magazines together. She will be amazed at the story. It will be okay to tell her, yes?”

Those few sentences did more for their friendship than months of planning.

“Yes you can tell your mother. You don’t have to ask my permission, you are the one that worked it all out.”

“Yes, but I hated to be talked about at school. I still hate to be talked about, so I ask.”

They were walking along the side of the River Avon by this time. So he made an instinctive decision.

“So you wanted to hear about the Paris trip?”

Abigail stopped and turned to look at him.

“Yes. Why, is there more?”

Andrew laughed at her immediate interest.

“Yes, there is much more. On the Wednesday when Heloise and I were in the Louvre she asked if I had ever modelled. So I told her I did some modelling.”

Abigail looked like she wanted to grab Andrew’s coat lapels and shake him.

“Steady, I will tell you all about it. In February I was asked to model by four final year students at the College of Art in Cambridge. One of them had seen me swimming and through mutual acquaintances they approached me one night, in Cindies of all places, to ask me to model for them. I refused at first but decided in the end to go for it.”

“You model in Cambridge? You modelled last year?”

“Yes. Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons. I would take my books and pose for them while studying.”

Andrew could see Abigail had a thousand questions just about that.

“Anyway, I told Heloise about my modelling while we were in the Louvre. When we got to Hermès that night she told Manon. There was an awful lot of talk in French that I didn’t follow but at the end of 30 minutes Manon came over and explained that they would like me to model for them for the rest of the week and would pay me as well as cover the expenses of my hotel. So I had to decide. Pedro’s parents had moved to Madrid and so we weren’t going to Ferrol and I was going to head back to Edinburgh the next day; or I could have an adventure. So I went for the latter.

“I will tell you about the shoots in reverse order. Friday was spent at one end of a central Paris hotel pool. They had laid out a patio scene, lit it well, put up some backdrops and generally disguised that it was a standard hotel pool. My role was to be the boy toy eye candy.”

Abigail was agog and giggling all at the same time.

“Exactly. I spent the day climbing out of the pool and standing at the edge of the scene while these impeccably dressed older models were front and centre with the product highlighted, lots of scarves, lots of bags, and lots of Andrew in swim trunks.”

“Buy a Hermès bag and you too can have this teenage hunk drip all over you.”

Abigail seemed to say that last one with entirely too much relish.

“Exactly. I was the male version of the big titted girl in the bikini. I felt like I had struck a blow for women’s lib by being objectified as well.”

“Only you could think like that. Okay so that was Friday, what was Thursday and why are you telling me about it last.”

“Because Thursday was much more, I don’t know, much more French. It was for cologne of all things. I didn’t know that Hermès sold cologne but the list of things I don’t know about Hermès is long and extensive. So it was a cologne shoot.”

Andrew paused and built up the tension before looking at her.

“Are you sure you want to hear about it? It is pretty racy?”

Bloody hell she was going to go full Khrushchev on him.

“Okay, I will stop teasing and please stop hitting me. The scenario was a bathroom after a shower. I was in a towel and the female model was in a short, silk robe. I was oiled up and sprayed so that I glistened for the camera. I spent all morning standing in front of the mirror on the set, splashing Hermes cologne on myself, right hand, left hand, help from the woman, fending off the woman, trying to splash cologne on with the woman draped all over me, every conceivable way to apply cologne in a sexy manner. Fortunately it was not actual cologne as I am not sure any of us could have coped with the smell. Then after lunch they wanted the action shots.”

Abigail was now utterly transfixed.

“This was where my lack of any model training and experience came through. There were three models and they tried different shots but it wasn’t working. The first one was smaller, maybe 5’6” and so there was lots of gazing up at me. The second one had the fullest figure and was 5’10” but again they didn’t like the shots. It was only when it was Heloise that I started to relax and the chemistry developed. She coached me through a lot of it, and when the brought the other two models back it they were happier with the shots the second time. This is where it got fun. First, they did shots where the female model would drape herself in my arms and then I would slide the robe off her shoulders and it would fall in a puddle at her feet. Now she is pressed into me so it is a little side boob and some arse cheek. But I had to do that with all three of them.”

Abigail’s face was a picture.

“What is good for the gander is good for the goose and so then it was my turn. The female model would grab hold of the towel and I would turn away, she would hang onto the towel and my arse is there for the whole world to see.”

Abigail finally found her voice.

“You got naked at a photoshoot?”

“Yes I did. For about an hour. There were 20 or 30 shots per model, so it was probably more than an hour. Basically all afternoon the models took turns being undressed. And the part they didn’t tell me at the start was that they were also recording the shoot to see if it could be used as a commercial. It was probably best I didn’t know that. Anyway the said they would get back to me about that but as I have heard nothing I guess they decided not to use the footage for a commercial. Other than some friends in Edinburgh, Leslie being one of them, you are the only person who knows the complete story of my week in Paris.”

They walked by a park bench and Abigail pulled them down to sit. Andrew was sure he had blown the circuits of her mind. But she rallied quickly.

“That is the most unbelievable story I have ever heard. I have followed fashion for at least 10 years and Mum and I read loads of fashion magazines. But to hear you tell this tale, so matter of factly. Andrew, these were shoots for Hermès, with one of the top models in the world. And you tell me walking along the edge of the river in Bristol like it is no big deal.”

“Em, sorry?”

“Oh you idiot, don’t be sorry. It is a wonderful story. And I can tell Mum?”

“Yes. Do you know why I told you the story? Because of what you said. You hated being talked about and you asked if you could tell the story, even if it was just to your mum. You asked earlier about whether university was like I expected and one of the main ways that it has disappointed me is how it is still very like school. Lots of gossip, everyone sharing secrets. My friend Freya basically told off Helena, Navya and her sister, told them to grow up and that the only way for people to start to open up to them is to maintain confidences. That is the change you saw in Helena in term three. She took Freya’s words to heart. And she was pretty blunt with them. Whereas you can see it hasn’t yet sunk in with Navya, if anything she is worse than before. You were worried about our friendship and planning it but just by being someone who doesn’t gossip you have done more for our friendship than weeks of your planning could have done. I don’t mind being honest with friends and a small group of people, but I hate being blabbed about across College.”