Marina Granovskaia: My (imaginary) interview with Chelsea’s mysterious executive, part 1
We sent Barrett Rouen for a rare interview with Chelsea executive Marina Granovskaia. Here is the first part of the write up, where he sets the scene for a truly unique experience.
The four-stroke engine in my tiny Ford Focus coughed slightly while I looked out the window at the Belgravia address where I have been told my interview with Chelsea’s Marina Granovskaia would take place. As I looked at the Range Rovers, Jaguars and other luxurious machines that lined the street I decided that perhaps the mews around the corner would better fit my automobile. I’ll stick it there and make my approach on foot.
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After parking the car and stepping out into the cool London night I am worried for a moment. What will I say? What will I do? No-one has ever been granted an interview with Ms. Granovskaia before. Yet, here I am nervously parking around corners and sweating into my undershirt like a sumo wrestler at his first post-retirement weight-watchers class.
I walk around the corner and up to the door. Checking my watch to make sure I’m on time I realize that I am five minutes late. Damn my automobile induced embarrassment.
I pull back on the gothic looking doorknocker and, before I release it, the door opens. I trip forward into the house still attached to the door by a single dexterous extremity. I’m met by a man. Or at least what I believe to be a man.
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The rather large and bald besuited gentleman picks me up like a baby. With two hands beneath the armpits he places me on my feet.
“Thanks,” I mutter, unsure if I really am. He does not respond.
“Mr. Rouen, you’re late.” I hear a voice come from a room down the hall. I don’t move. I’ve never been in this house and to my left (and alarmingly close) is a rather large thing, of whose species I am not entirely sure.
“Can I go further?” I ask the assumed-man.
He looks at me and smiles out of the right side of his face while gesturing that I should move forward into the townhome.
“Reginald does not speak, Mr. Rouen. You may enter.”
I begin to walk down the hallway. The foyer of the house looks like something that Martha Stewart would design for a Czar who was obsessed with the decor of House of Cards. The tiling is perfect, black and white in very crisp lines. The foyer table is adorned with ten white roses and a giant vintage mirror. All of this beneath a chandelier that would have seemed too grand for the Titanic.
I gulp. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t want to be a rug in this imposing hallway.
The clicking of the shoes I spent 20 minutes polishing in preparation for this meeting guide me as I walk gingerly progress. Why had I spent so long polishing my shoes instead of preparing any legitimate questions for this genius of a woman?
My editors, George and Ajitesh, will probably kill me in some weird cross-cultural Texan-London ritual if I make it out of here. Then again, that is a big if.
Finally I reach the end of the hallway – it is so long that I wonder if I am stuck in some sort of M.C. Escher nightmare. Before I can dawdle on the topic, Marina’s voice breaks through the silence and beckons me into the grand living room.
“Ten minutes late now,” she says.
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Before a large fire sits Marina Granovskaia, Roman Abramovich’s right hand and the woman entrusted with the transfers deemed too important for Michael Emenalo. She is at a large round table seated upon a pile of cushions that would make most Persian princes blush. Yet, she seems completely suited to the environment.
“Come, Mr. Rouen. Perhaps some caviar for yourself? Or maybe some vodka?”
She knew, damn it. Vodka and caviar. I was never going to turn that down. Alas, every semblance of control I had over the interview was being tossed out into the cool English evening.
As I walk closer to the table I feel the heat of the fire grow with every step. How can she possibly be seated so close to this Achillian pyre of a blaze?
“Too hot?” she asks, almost mockingly.
“Perhaps just for suede,” I respond.
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I slide off my jacket and as I am about to put it down I feel a pair of hands take it from me. Reginald has come silently from the shadows to grab the piece of clothing.
“Jesus,” I say aloud.
“Reginald see to it that the jacket is pressed and cleaned before Mr. Rouen leaves would you?” Although somewhat terrifying, Ms. Granovskaia is certainly hospitable.
Reginald nods and leaves my sight as astonishingly as he entered it. Sensing my shock, Marina puts out a glass and pours me an elephantine serving of vodka from the unmarked bottle on the table.
“I found him beside the road when I was visiting Mr. Abramovich’s interests in Chukotka several years ago. He is the last son of a great Shaolin master. Naturally some of his gifts are inherited.”
I take it that I am supposed to find this explanation helpful and nod as James Bond would before sipping the served vodka. I cough. Poison. It’s poison. Maybe even acid.
Marina laughs, “It is not for sipping.” She pours herself a shot the size of a mastodon (sticking with the elephant scale). “It is from my personal distillery in Vasilyevsky Island.”
“It’s wonderful,” I say while wondering if my heart will explode in the coming seconds.
To be continued…