A Curious Career Read Online Free Page A

faintly sad about her solitude. But then a man joined her – it might even have been my future nemesis, François – and she simply handed him a slice of newspaper and carried on reading right through lunch. It was so devastatingly drop-dead cool that all the chattering at the other tables somehow died – we farmyard animals knew we were in the presence of a Fabulous Beast.
    So when I heard she was coming to London (she lives in Dublin) to publicise the film Intimacy , I jumped at the chance to interview her. It all seemed quite straightforward: she would go to David Bailey’s studio at 12.30 p.m. to have her photo taken – she likes David Bailey, they ‘go back a long way’, to the 1960s – and I would pick her up at 4 p.m. and interview her till 6 p.m. when a car would take her to the airport for her flight back to Dublin. My only worry (ha ha, in retrospect) was where I could take her between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., because I thought that as a reformed junkie she wouldn’t fancy a wine bar. Silly old me.
    At 1 p.m., the publicist phones to say Marianne has not yet arrived at Bailey’s – she was still in bed when they rang at 12.45 p.m. – so everything has been put back an hour. Fine, or fine-ish. I arrive at Bailey’s studio eager-beaver at 5 p.m., and walk into an atmosphere you could cut with a knife. Marianne, trussed like a chicken in Vivienne Westwood with her boobs hanging out, ignores me, Bailey likewise; half a dozen assorted stylists, hairdressers, make-up people stand around looking tense. The PR is friendly but apologetic – she says the photographs will take at least another hour and I should push off and have coffee. A Frenchman who looks like Woody Allen but without his suavity and charm introduces himself as François Ravard, Marianne’s manager. I wait for some apology or explanation of why they are running two hours late – it never comes. Finally I say, ‘You’re running late?’ ‘Ah yes,’ he says with a shrug. ‘You know how it eez – it eez always the same.’ Really? ‘But don’t worry,’ he adds, ‘we have dinner later.’ Thanks a million, mon frère – I was supposed to be having dinner with friends. I push off to make calls cancelling my evening.
    When I return to Bailey’s, the atmosphere is even worse. No sign of Marianne – she has gone off to change – Bailey looks like thunder. Various sotto voce conversations are going on around me and I hear the ominous phrase from Bailey ‘as long as it takes’. Time for my tantrum, I feel. Choosing my spot carefully, I stamp my feet like a flamenco dancer and address the studio at large. ‘There is no point in taking photographs,’ I warble, ‘unless there is an article to stick them in. And there is no article unless I get my interview NOW.’ The hair and make-up people stare blankly – so uncool! – but Bailey’s assistant and the PR seem to get the point and agree that they will shoot one more pose and finish at 6.15 p.m. This news is relayed to Bailey with much fierce muttering and hostile staring at me. I decide to go outside and do some deep breathing.
    When I get back, Bailey is at the camera; Marianne, in a black mac and fishnet tights, is sprawling with her legs wide apart, her black satin crotch glinting between her scrawny fifty-five-year-old thighs, doing sex-kitten moues at the camera. ‘Oh please, stop!’ I want to cry – this is sadism, this is misogyny, this is cruelty to grandmothers. I wonder if Bailey actually hates her – I wonder if this is her punishment for turning up late. I hear the agent and the Frenchman muttering behind me – ‘They won’t use this, they can’t.’ So why is Bailey shooting it then?
    Suddenly, the session is over, and we – Marianne, the Frenchman, the PR and me – emerge into the street where a chauffeur-driven limousine has been waiting all this time. It is now 6.45 p.m. and Faithfull has still barely said hello. The PR says we can eat at the Italian restaurant at