Chapter 3
three
. . .
Reuben
Edinburgh is cold. It’s also packed. I shiver as I stride down the street, dodging around slower-moving pedestrians.
I huddle into my jacket, but still the wind pokes icy fingers into me.
Everywhere I look, there are people—shoppers, tourists, Edinburgh residents heading to work.
The press of them is enough to unnerve me, and I pick up my pace, hearing my breath coming fast. The icy pavement is slippery, but I don’t slow down.
I wonder if there will ever be a point in my life when I’m not trying to outrun my stupid fucking mind.
I’ve spent many years in war-torn places all over the globe and learnt open spaces are where snipers and bombers work best. I sometimes revisit those spaces in my nightmares that are filled with violent images—like the day a rookie journalist was shot in the head next to me.
Justin? Was that his name? It seems very important to remember, particularly as I can still feel the sun and smell the copper scent of his blood as it covered my face. That scent tortures me even now, when I’ve been out of the game for five years.
Fuck this. I force myself to stop, ducking against a building out of the way of passing people. Controlling my ragged, panting breaths, I suck in a deep lungful of air and then another, until the stupid panic ebbs into a simmer at the back of my mind where it always lives.
I lean against the cold wall and sigh. I’m weary to the bone, a husk of my former self. Back in the day, I was always on the go, my mind and body fizzing. Now I can keep the anxiety at bay for months, and I’ll get my hopes up, but then bam, it’s back, and I yo-yo between panic and exhaustion.
Stress is an obvious trigger, and avoiding high stress levels is why I changed the way I work.
I’ve spent the last couple of years out in the wild, photographing nature in the sun and the wind and the rain, out where there’s nothing to harm me—no loud voices, no sudden movements, just beautiful, natural spaces.
Just the wind in the trees, the sun on my face, and pretty things.
I’ve found a sort of a peace, but that peace lacked Xavier.
I take a final deep breath and straighten, pushing away from the wall and moving back into the street again.
Xavier needs me. I huff out a laugh. Of course, he’d deny this fact vehemently, and if he did ever acknowledge it, he wouldn’t exactly be thrilled or polite about it.
But five years ago, I turned around in a small hotel bar and met a laughing blond boy, and over the course of a week, I fell head over heels in love with him.
Over the years, I’ve never been sure whether that love was a curse or a blessing, but it’s still a fact.
And that boy who’s no longer so shiny, thanks to me, needs me now.
Focusing on finding the building where I’m working today, I check my phone and take a left and then another.
I used to know Edinburgh like the back of my hand, but I haven’t been here in years, and places change.
Eventually, I find it. It’s an old Victorian warehouse, its windows grimy.
A group of very beautiful men stand outside it, smoking furiously as if it’s the last ciggie they’ll ever inhale.
I want to smile. People who work in the fashion world are very predictable creatures, really.
They’re almost universally pretty and give them even the slightest gap in their schedules, they’ll be immediately mainlining nicotine like it’s going out of fashion.
As I approach the front door, I notice a young man leaning against the adjacent wall. He’s got blond, wavy hair and is dressed in one of those dry robes that look fine on a beach, where they’re fulfilling their function, but not so much in Edinburgh. He looks like he just stepped away from a wave.
He eyes me and then jolts, abruptly pushing away from the wall. “Hey, Reuben,” he calls. “Reuben Langley?”
“Yes,” I say warily.
“Yay, great. I’m your assistant today, man.”
“I wasn’t aware I’d asked for one.”
He hands me a huge Starbucks cup. “A large vanilla latte. Pip told me to get it for you.” He wrinkles his nose. “More like he ordered me, if you know what I mean.”
I take it automatically, curling my chilly fingers around the cup’s warmth. “I know exactly what you mean, unfortunately. Thank you, erm—?”
“Oh yeah. Simon. Nice to meet you. Jonas told me to get up here and help you, so I took the first flight this morning.” He leans closer. “I’m not telling tales out of school, but Evan, the photographer…?”
I nod.
He says, “I’m glad he isn’t here. He fell out of a sex swing a couple of days ago, and now he’s very grumpy. Artists, eh?”
I’d be grumpy too if my name was automatically followed by the words “sex swing accident victim,” but what do I know?
He gives me a sunny smile. “Anyway, here I am to help you. Not sure how much use I’ll be because I usually work in the office at the London agency, but beggars can’t be choosers, eh?”
His voice is a drawl, his eyes sunny and slightly glazed. I inhale and catch the whiff of dope. Great, I’ve been sent a stoner. “And are you the beggar or the chooser?”
He blinks slowly, and I watch my question slowly make its way beyond his hazy eyes. A couple of moments later, he laughs. “It’s got to be better than what I was scheduled to do today.”
I wait, and when he doesn’t say anything, I prompt, “Which was?”
“I’m usually Jonas’s runner for Model Clinic.”
“Oh god,” I say faintly. “You have my deepest sympathies.”
Model Clinic is a podcast run by two supermodels and Pip.
Someone at Jonas’s agency conceived the idea.
Whoever it is wants sacking because it’s the most scurrilous affair I’ve ever encountered.
Pip made me listen a few times, and in the course of ten minutes, they’d discussed fisting, love bites at interviews, and very cheerfully libelled ten people.
The podcast is supposed to be about helping people with their problems, but the only people I can see it helping are the lawyers.
I’ll never get those ten minutes of my life back, and the blame lies squarely at Pip Simmonds’s feet.
Simon claps me on the shoulder. “I’ve seen things,” he says darkly. “Heard things that no one should hear.”
“It’s like The Iliad came to Camden.”
“Eh? Is that a designer?”
“Greek.”
His smile appears again. “Man, I love Europe. Well, let’s get you up there.”
He takes my arm and ushers me past the crowd of smoke-enshrouded fashion people. Xavier isn’t one of them. I have a highly attuned antenna that lets me know whenever he’s nearby. He must have the same because he usually scarpers when we’re in public.
We enter the building and walk down a narrow corridor. Music thumps out a loud beat ahead of us, and I catch the faint scent of hairspray and cologne. It’s all very familiar, and I ease back into the frame of mind I had back when I did fashion photography.
I spent a couple of years doing fashion shoots after I left photojournalism. Eventually, I quit fashion to lecture at a university for a term.
Simon opens a door and ushers me into a large, open space.
The bones of the place, which apparently was originally a mill, have been preserved, but I doubt the workers would recognise the huge lights blazing, the makeup stations, and clothes rails filled with a rainbow of colours.
Shoes and accessories are lined up nearby, and each rail features the model’s headshot.
I catch a glimpse of Xavier’s photo. He’s staring into the camera sullenly, his hair swept back from his sharp face.
His full lips are pursed in a pout, but unlike a lot of headshots, he doesn’t look posed.
Instead, it looks as if he’s genuinely pissed at whoever has interrupted him.
My mouth twitches, because that look has been levelled at me a fair few times over the years.
I become aware that Simon is watching me, and I clear my throat. “Okay, first step, turn this shit off.”
He blinks. “What?”
I set my backpack and camera bag on a chair and gesture at the speaker that’s pounding out some godawful music. “This needs to stop.”
“It’s Ed Sheeran.”
“It’s dreadful.” I repress a smile. “I simply cannot work in these conditions,” I add piously.
“Yeah, man, I see your point.” He looks at the speaker as if it’s going to grow feet and walk over. “So, what do you want instead?”
“Skindred. Make it loud.”
I strip off my jacket and throw it over a chair. Then I roll up the sleeves of my black shirt and wander around the room, scoping out the area.
Sunlight streams in through the huge windows, and dust motes dance in the light. My fingers stray towards my backpack and my camera, but I resist the impulse. Instead, I wander over to the area where a cream cloth backdrop has been set up. Durand is known for their simple, minimalist style.
Voices sound as the models start to stream in.
They’re loud and uninhibited as they strip off their clothes.
The makeup and hair teams immediately leap into action, dragging their charges over to the stations.
It’s another familiar sight in this world, like watching a dance that you never forget the steps to.
However, my previous fashion shoots lacked one thing that’s present here today—Xavier.
He’d exploded onto the modelling scene just as my fashion photography career was ending, but while I’d been working, I made it a rule not to book any gigs with him.
Despite my efforts, he’d had an unerring ability to find me—and shag me—regardless of what city I found myself in.
I wonder what he thinks of my last-minute substitution as a photographer on this job. My lip twitches. Whatever his thoughts, his external reactions will be vicious and loud.
There’s movement at the door, and he appears. It’s always a shock to see him anywhere other than my memories. Like a defibrillator jolting my heart into life again.