shoulder-in right. Right? Which way is that? Bloody hell, this is supposed focus me.
A huge old desk sits centrally in the back end of the huge room, a low snooker hall light swings gently hovering 6ft above from a very long chain coming down from an anchor in the ceiling, too far away to see in this light its fixed point of origin. It's shafted beam lighting everything on the desktop and giving the effect of putting the whole rest of the space into graduating shadow. This is definitely the focal point, and I suspect the person it belongs to would be my focus when he finally appears.
The desk is huge and thickly decorated, it looks and probably is an old oak piece salvaged from a shipwreck. It has fish tailed maidens, mythical sea creatures and waves beautifully carved in its tree trunk legs, winding and mixing like a story.
..."won’t be a second...please take a seat Miss Charles" comes the voice again. Miss Charles? I’m not a geography teacher!
"Thank you" I say to the disconnected voice, where is this man? But my brain is taking in all the details, it can’t help it.
His desk is tidy to the point of obsession, control, order, all his pens lay neatly in an old jack Daniels jar, two iPhones lay side by side along with his watch perfectly perpendicular to the desk edge and aligned to each other: a vintage Rolex: black, a Monte Blanc pen and a little round pot of Carex lip balm, I’m too far away to see the words, but he has 4 new message alerts queued up on the screen of one of his phones.
A bashed-up old black leather biker jacket, a real one, not a fashion version, hangs over the back of his chair. Revealing a hint of the Kevlar elbow linings under the quilting where the leather is worn, and no.3 chunky metal zips at the cuffs and front pockets. No photos anywhere, not personalised at all. Just a clean space where work is done.
A Mac laptop with an extra huge screen sits atop the desk with a drawing tablet and pen, no mouse...just how I like my own set-up. A cold half cup of very dark tea, the periodic table on the cup belies a complicated mind and the dark tea suggests, like me Daniel has a builder in his ancestry, but unlike me I won’t let tea to get cold, it's too good. Too useful. Too calming.
Behind the desk on the wall, where I hear a rustling beyond, are rows and rows of anvil made metal meat hooks forged by a blacksmith not by Wickes, with jeans hanging from their belt loops in all states of development. I can smell indigo and 32oz Japanese denim. Selvedge, dark and raw. Heavy and unyielding. It's only by wearing and never washing them, these grow to become part of the wearer. I’m in a place I belong, denim is my game.
I 'cool hunt' the trends before they become trends, I notice things other people don’t, that’s my gift. I have a strange aversion to things that aren’t right, I know instinctively what’s coming and can't explain when asked to justify a prediction. It's a gut feeling like a detective who can tell when someone's lying, he doesn’t know how, just instinct and experience working in a marvellous partnership. Brains, I think to myself, are as mystifying as the universe, ever accelerating and expanding space and knowledge...
Now, I’d really like a cup of tea.
The later bit before chapter one, last Thursday: 17thoctober2013, 4.12pm, Daniel Pearce
A tall elegant man emerges from beyond the curtain of jeans, I judge to be about 6ft3, he comes out from a door behind the denim, they swing like a curtain and mess up his hair. It's short, shaved at the sides and back but long and floppy on the top and his tattooed fingers adjust it back into a Matt Smith quiff with a motion which makes me think he has to do this a lot. He looks at me, he has the most beautiful face and clear greyed green eyes, the colour of gooseberries, and a wonderful warm inviting smile. I feel oddly attracted to him, his gaze has a pull to it, I fight the feeling and lose.
MC collected trot. Much Better.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, I feel it’s insistence for my attention, but my brain is busy with something else, caller, please leave a message.