Chapter 14

Andrew had stopped Abi from asking any questions while he recounted the phone call with Manon. She was almost bouncing with excitement to ask him questions.

“Are you really thinking about doing it?”

This was the key one. Everything became ‘I wonder what it would have been like’ if he did not accept. But if he agreed then from that decision all the other questions flowed.

“When I did the photoshoot there were 10 people there plus the models. Now that I realise they were filming it as well then there were probably more. Seven women and three guys. So it wasn’t as if it was just three people, the two models and the photographer. The thing was it didn’t feel sleazy, sure they were keen for both of us to show some arse but it was manufactured. That was the problem at the start with the towel scene. I had no chemistry with the first two models. It was only when Heloise and I were together that it clicked. Suddenly it wasn’t pretending it seemed more real and it flowed from there. When they tried again with the other two models it was much better.

“If I do this it will be for many reasons, but money is not one of them. I had to get Leslie’s dad to introduce me to his accountant so that I can make sure I paid tax properly on my modelling fee. I doubt I actually made any money from the stuff in March. But because I am not doing it for the money it is very liberating. Heloise asked me at the time why I was doing it and I said it was the job equivalent of a one night stand. Now they want me back, and Heloise specifically wants me, but it still doesn’t alter the fact I am doing it for the adventure, plus I think I have to admit I am a bit of show off.”

“A bit!”

Abi laughed with him.

“Look Mum talked to me very vaguely and generally about some of her experiences and it sounded grubby. You heard her that day in Bristol, she was judged on it for years afterwards. You don’t worry that people will judge you the same way?”

“As I was walking over here that what I was thinking about. There are two, maybe three things that are relevant. First, and probably most importantly, there is a double standard. Rather than being judged or looked down on for getting naked for this, it will be ‘well done mate, they were all really fit’. It doesn’t make it right but I think I will be envied rather than judged. Secondly, nothing like that is going to be shown in Britain. Fuck, Whitehouse and her gang would have a conniption. This is going to be a sexy, racy commercial shown in France and who knows where else in Europe. I don’t speak, there will be a naked woman in the shot so half the people won’t be looking at me anyway. Finally, Hermès know what they are doing. They must have given this some thought. I suspect that it will be sexy rather than blatant, you have seen their stuff. It is all high quality, beautiful workmanship. Sure it sounds like they are trying to sex it up a bit but I doubt they will go too far.”

“The double standard thing is interesting. You are right, if they showed it in the bar here at the start of next term the guys would all be talking about the women you were with and would be jealous and most of the women would be plotting to kill me so that they could spend Sunday night in your arms.

“So what are the odds. 50:50?”

“75:25 in favour at the moment. I will want to see the paperwork before committing. What am I getting paid? I have heard of something called residuals, where you get a small payment every time a show or movie is shown. I don’t know if that works the same in France. Just the whole thing of working in France again. It all happened so rapidly last time that it was only when I was back that I wondered about union rules, visas, all that sort of thing. Let me ask you something, if I can get Manon, or her boss, to agree would you want to come with me, see the shoot?”

“Don’t tease me Andrew. You would let me come and watch?”

“Abi, it is not like you haven’t seen me naked. We can recreate the scene in the hotel bedroom later, you can imagine you are the star of the shoot.”

Andrew said this fully expecting a scolding and a whack. That he got neither was very interesting.

“You are thinking about that aren’t you?”

“I don’t think I could do it, the double standard would work against me but as a fantasy. Oh boy.”

Eleven minutes later Abi was sprawled out on top of him letting the world come back into focus.

“That was a worryingly intense orgasm Andrew. Who knew I had such a repressed exhibitionist streak? My oh my. I think you stumbled across the filthiest corner of my imagination.”

Five minutes of bathroom clean-up and they were back in her bed.

“All mind-bending orgasms aside, would you really be okay with me watching the shoot?”

“I suppose I have to ask you the same thing. At the photoshoot I had my hands on the model’s bodies a lot, round their tummies, straying up, on their hips straying down and round. The reality is I am going to be feeling up some beautiful women. You have to go away and make sure that wouldn’t freak you out. And before you say it I know we have talked about seeing other people, being greedy, but this would be in front of you.”

Abi sighed.

“Would we stay together at the hotel?”

“Yes.”

Suddenly Abi giggled.

“So I have this little exhibitionist fantasy and you will have been feeling up beautiful women all day but that night will be holding me in your arms. I think I would get the benefit of 12 hours of foreplay. You whispering in my ear about being in the shoot, all these people watching me.”

She shivered. And another 10 minutes later they had to clean up again. Andrew had really fucked Abi hard for the first time. On her back, legs wrapped round him, totally into it. After a more bedraggled clean up Abi was once again in his arms.

“I will be very disappointed if I am not allowed to attend.”

They both laughed and fell into a weary, contented sleep. When Andrew phoned Mhairi at lunchtime on Monday from the Department she laughed at him before he said a word. Everything was in hand and he was to call her on Wednesday night. She would have everything translated as well as ideas for the negotiations.

“Mhairi, I trust you. You know I am not doing this for the money. If you have ideas negotiate with Hermès, let them know that I will have to agree but if you can have something for me to review and hopefully sign off on then go ahead.”

“Are you sure Andrew?”

“Like I said, I trust you. Just think of the fun you can have with Neil at the dinner table tonight.”

“Oh, I would never talk about you like that with Neil, you are a client.”

“I will call on Wednesday.”

Andrew’s head was going to explode he was keeping so much exciting information secret. Between modelling and the day at the test track Andrew was as giddy as he had been in a long time. And just like trying to be different had not worked at Addenbrooke’s the last two weeks, so that week it swung the other way. One of the nurses made a throw-away comment that it was good to see his exuberance back.

Andrew walked home in the cold and dark thinking about that simple sentence. Was that what was missing? Finding that sweet spot of enthusiasm and exuberance within the confines of a cancer ward where some of the children were dying. And it was not acting differently, it was a mindset, a way of approaching the volunteering. Now he was trying to walk the high wire in some pretty strong winds. Upbeat and positive without being inappropriate, with everyone being different. A pleasant distraction for one person, is an out of place fool to another. But there was something there, he needed to be fizzing with energy. Had Cambridge, and the demands of the course, sapped him of all his energy. Andrew was putting in the time at Addenbrooke’s and he thought the effort, but the latter was open to debate now. He was not discouraged by this revelation, in fact he was pleased that he had found something to work on; the ultimate feedback always came from the patients.

Wednesday evening after dinner Andrew found one of the quieter phones and called Mhairi. When she called back he settled down to listen to what she had worked out.

“You challenge me as a lawyer Andrew, you know that? Entertainment law, never mind international entertainment law, is not a specialty in much demand in Edinburgh. But with a few phone calls, and a quick review by someone referred to me in London, we have the outline of an agreement. Let me tell you Andrew this has been fascinating. And the guy in London said it as well. It is the nudity in the commercial that has skewed this. So here are the high points and then we can get into the detail. You will be making the commercial with a production company who have been hired to do this. Hermès will have retained an ad agency who will have hired this company. So there are three parties, Hermès, their ad agency, who are key, and the production company. I know that you understand at least a little about residuals but I don’t think we can worry about residuals because how the hell would we have any idea if they were being honest. We will never see the commercials, and will have no way of monitoring them. So we are proposing you get paid two ways. A fee for making the commercial, what is called a session fee, and the key one, a holding fee. This is so that they can continue to hold your image. What it means in practice is that as long as they are showing your commercial you cannot work for a competing company, like Chanel or someone like that. It is a lump sum residual almost. The holding fee is paid every quarter so if they pay you that, then the assumption is that they will continue to show the commercial, but we don’t have to trust them to report honestly, or find some way of monitoring, which would be impossible anyway.

“The final thing, and again very important, is your co-star. This is a big deal for her and for Hermès. I had one of my associates do some research, she had a fun day with that, and Ms. de Hauteclocque is a huge star in the French fashion industry, probably the top model in France. I think that this commercial is going to be shown a lot, and you are going to be shown a lot.”

She might be 30 and a partner in a law firm but she still giggled.

“Sorry too good to resist. Anyway, I sent it back to them at lunchtime and spoke to them this afternoon. That I got an immediate response is interesting in and of itself. But I was well armed with background from my colleague in London and I think we have a deal. You have a good session fee and a holding fee of varying multiples of that. I also put an exclusion in for showing the commercial in Britain. Under current rules there is no way it could be shown so they were okay agreeing to that. I think it is a wise precaution. I know you don’t care at present but it may be a different matter in two or three years and you don’t want to have to explain your naked cavorting.

“The final thing, and it was a real point of debate was whether this was covered by one contract or three. From what was sent to me, you will in effect be shooting three commercials with three different models. They wanted to have three different contracts because the other two models are not as famous as Ms. de Hauteclocque. We traded back and forth on amounts but in the end they agreed to one contract although both session and especially holding fees are lower than if it had just been Ms. de Hauteclocque.

“Does all that make sense Andrew?”

Andrew thought it all through. He would be paid for the commercial and then every quarter they would pay for him not to model for a competitor. How on earth was a simple engineering student mixed up in all this?

“Mhairi, that is great. You have brought in a subject expert and this seems comprehensive. As you said there is no way to monitor usage so we have reached a good compromise. Call them in the morning please and tell them I accept. Have them send a complete contract including all the payment terms to you for review, translation etc. and then if you are okay then send it to me here and I will sign and return it to them. Tell them not to send it to me directly, I won’t sign anything without your okay.”

“I really have trained you, haven’t I? I wish all my clients were as disciplined. Okay, I will contact them tomorrow. The contract probably won’t be with you before the middle of next week.”

She stopped and her tone changed.

“Talking as your friend, not just as your lawyer, are you sure about this Andrew? This is verging on top-shelf magazine territory. According to the contract the two of you will be naked pretty well the whole time.”

“Mhairi, think about that scarf I gave you. It is elegant and very high quality, an exclusive item. I think Hermès want a sexy, younger image for their cologne, and to capitalise on having Heloise in the commercial. But I don’t see it being shocking or grubby, they want it to be sexy. Sure there will be more skin than normal but I don’t think that they will want to associate themselves with something seen as too low class. Couples are naked in the bedroom and bathroom in real life, so it will be realistic. Or at least I hope so. Without being too crude, 30 seconds of my naked arse is not going to encourage anyone to buy cologne is it?”

It was fun to hear her giggle, the woman not the lawyer showing through.

“That is true, it is the line between steamy and smutty. Okay then, I will let them know.”

At the Art College the following evening it did make Andrew smile. Here he was, an amateur model to all intents and purposes but would be acting in a commercial in little over a month. After the session he told Lily he would see her on Saturday but headed home. Friday seemed to drag by, time just not appearing to move but despite having had difficulty falling asleep, it was finally Saturday morning. Andrew went through a normal weekday morning routine and was at Peggy’s Café at 7.40, his usual time but not normally on a Saturday.

“What’s got you in here on a Saturday Andrew?”

“I have arranged to meet someone here rather than at Trinity Peggy. No point in having them fight the one-way system up there, that’s all.”

Fortunately she didn’t ask who or why and so at 7.55 Andrew was up the street from her café waiting for the DK Engineering truck. Their timing was impeccable, at 8.01 a flatbed truck with a canvas frame came up the street, a simple DK on the door. He flagged the driver down, and climbed in. His age surprised the driver but Andrew showed him his driver’s licence and they were off. Len was full of questions as they got themselves out of Cambridge. Andrew decided to be truthful with him, it was pointless having yet more secrets.

“I bought it as a wreck, well it had been crashed but not wrecked. I only ever saw it once, sitting in the garage, front end crumpled. A friend of my parents knew about DK Engineering and so they had you guys restore it and then store it. This will be my very first time driving the car. This is the first time I have even seen it since it was restored.”

Len was a petrol head and could understand the excitement.

“What do you drive at the moment and have you any experience of something this fast?”

“I have an original Golf GTi but I only have taken it above one hundred once, on the motorway at night. Too many cops about, and I don’t want to lose my licence. Something like this? Nothing close.”

The remainder of the drive Len talked about what they would find at Snetterton and how he proposed they should handle it. This was Andrew’s car on a race track, in theory he could have asked Len to sit in the truck all day while he played boy racer. But Len was a long-time employee of DK and suggested that Andrew let him take the car round the track for 10 laps or so, watch how he drove the car, get used to the dimensions, get used to the circuit and then they would swap over. The rest of the day would be progressively faster speeds and just have fun with the car, finally get to play with this long withheld toy.

“I would strongly recommend that you don’t tell them you own the car. This is likely to be the best thing there, rarest, fastest, the one to get all the other guys asking questions. If you say this is yours then you will have an endless stream of punters wanting to ride along with you. If you just let me say it is a rental for the day, and we do that all the time, then I can play the bad guy. We will let everyone have a look round it at lunchtime, take some pictures, I’ll even take a photo for them, if you are okay with that. What do you think?”

That was a no-brainer. The day of racing was a birthday present from his grandmother. It was insured for Andrew and the guy from DK, sorry no one else could be out on the track. Easy and as Len said, it took the spotlight off him. The rest of the journey was spent talking about the car, what to expect, how to deal with situations. They got past Thetford and not long after the circuit was signposted.

Snetterton, like a lot of racing tracks in the UK, was an old airfield. The original circuit was defined by the runways and taxiways, and you could still see remnants of them all over the place. But the track was now more of a custom built motor racing circuit, no longer using the two long runways, that you could see off to the side of the current track. Len gave Andrew a potted history as they drove up to the pit lane.