The Perfect 10 (36 page)

Cagney walks towards the bar and grabs two full bottles of red wine. Holding them in one hand and his glass in the other, he kicks open the door and walks off towards his office.

I sit on a bench under a tree, outside the butcher’s. It is such a dark and overcast night, it feels that if the sky were unzipped all the stars would tumble out and dot the sky with kisses. I have goose pimples on my thighs where my white tennis shorts fail to give me any kind of adequate protection against the chill.

Adrian sits down next to me, and puts his arm around my shoulders, but I don’t slide back into it.

‘Hey, this party is weird. Shall we go and get something to eat? Do you fancy a curry?’

‘I’m not hungry,’ I say, and turn my head to smile at him.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Sunny, one fucking Indian isn’t going to make you fat again! You can’t eat like this for the rest of your fucking life.’

I sigh.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to swear. I just mean – you can allow yourself one takeaway, right? Sunny?’ He is prodding my leg gently with his finger. ‘Sexy Sunny, I’m sorry,’ he says and tries to pull me closer with his other arm. But I resist, staring ahead. ‘What?’ he asks, confused, rejected.

Just wait for it. I’ve never done this before. I’ve never had the opportunity. It already feels awful, and I am scared I will lose my courage, but I know that I will say it really. I turn to face him.

‘I’m really sorry, Adrian.’

‘What?’ he asks again, confused, but I can already see the hurt spring into his eyes.

‘Let me talk, just for a minute. Just please don’t interrupt.’

Adrian moves his arm from around me and sits up, giving me his full attention. I give him as warm a smile as I can. But then I look honestly into his eyes, and begin.

‘I’m sorry. I think that I have treated you like a block of wood – or just a set of constituent parts, a pair of lips, a
pair of arms, a penis,’ I wince slightly at the word, and the admission, ‘to practise on. I haven’t thought about who I was kissing since that first kiss in the cab, that first night. But that was the end of my fat film, which was a fairy tale, and what’s been playing out since, well, it’s not quite so sweet and innocent. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’ve never felt, since we started seeing each other, like I am with you. I’ve always felt alone.

‘And I think that is because, at a very basic level, you don’t understand me; that I feel like far too much and nowhere near enough, all at once. How I feel about how I was, and how I’ve changed, but not changed at all. How I still feel like a little unloved fat girl, who needs to be adored, just a bit, to make up for the years of being hurt, and sad, and on her own. But I don’t think you get that, and I think it’s because you haven’t tried, and you don’t want to try, and I don’t blame you for that, honestly! You’ve got far too much on your plate already! I mean, I know that me saying this is barely even going to register on your emotional radar, because you’ve left Jane, and you’ve been with her for so much longer, and that hurts too much for you to even think about me. But I just thought it was fair that I tell you honestly.’

‘Of course it hurts. I like you, Sunny,’ Adrian says, staring me straight in the eye. ‘But I’m scared you want too much. I think you’re living in a dream world, and maybe you thought I was going to be Prince Charming, and I kind of am, because Prince Charming doesn’t exist, Sunny. But I’m a nice guy, a fun guy, I’m honest and …’ Adrian stops talking, and we are both a little embarrassed.

‘This is what you do – you meet somebody you fancy, and you spend time with them, and you take it from there. That’s how it works. It’s no more complicated than that. I don’t think you get that. You’ve got some romantic ideal in
your head, and you’re just going to be disappointed.’

‘Maybe,’ I say, nodding my head. ‘But I think I do understand, really. I’ve just waited too long for this, to settle for second best now. I completely admit that I’ve had all these romantic dreams and notions of what love is and blah blah blah swimming around in my head, making me crazy, but I think I know now. I just need for whoever I am with to take the time and make the effort to understand what makes me happy. And I’m not talking about material things, I’m talking about the person I want to be, and the person I want to be with, how we look at life, how we go about it, how we treat each other. I need for them to be willing to find that out, and then to try and give me that, to want to give me that, when he can. That’s all it is. I don’t need a prince at all. I don’t need a dozen red roses or weekends in Paris.’

‘I don’t think you understand blokes, though, Sun. We don’t think like that. You’re not going to get some guy who sits there thinking about how he wants to seem or be, or how you want to seem or be or whatever. You’re throwing this away and it’s a mistake. You’re not going to get what you want.’

‘I think I will,’ I say, and glance over at Screen Queen. At some point the disco music stopped, and the whole shop is now booming ‘Land of Our Fathers’. It bursts triumphantly into the night, slipping through the October leaves clinging to the trees, enveloping us, and it makes us smile. But then Adrian’s face drops again.

‘Sorry,’ I say, and reach out and hold his hand.

He squeezes it quickly, then stands up. ‘I’m gonna go. I don’t feel like hanging around.’

‘OK,’ I say, and nod my head in agreement.

‘So … I guess, I’ll see you … can I come and pick up my bag tomorrow?’

‘Of course,’ I say. I don’t ask if he has got somewhere to
stay. I don’t ask what he is going to do. It’s nothing to do with me.

I stand up and kiss him on the cheek.

Adrian walks off. I didn’t realise he was still carrying his inflatable guitar, and he lets the air out as he walks away.

I stand under the tree, and realise it has started to rain. I move out from underneath the branches and feel the wind brushing my face, as the rain starts to drive a little harder onto my skin, not quite stinging, but quickly I’m wet. I wipe my face, certain that I am smearing my layers of mascara and black eyeliner all over my cheeks. I tug off my wig and shake out my hair that falls on my shoulders. I run my fingers through it and it is instantly damp with the rain and my hands.

I don’t want to cry at all. Was that a strange decision to make? I liked him, he was a nice guy – should I have given it more of a chance? Am I just scared of the emotions that go along with relationships and, rather than deal with them, or the prospect of compromise, have I just cut it short, nipped it in the bud before my heart got out of hand? I know that’s not true.

I lean against the butcher’s window and slide down it so I am sitting on the pavement with my legs bent, and my tennis shoes flat on the floor in front of me. I run my hands through my hair and then relax, letting them fall into my lap.

I know I’ve been on my own for ever, and that I am independent, and that I am not used to compromising, or thinking about how somebody else feels. I am used to thinking about how I feel. But I don’t want to have to fight, just to be myself. I don’t want to adapt too much, to hit the wall of somebody else’s personality and just crumble in front of it, in a puddle of ‘whatever you wants’, a series of ‘OKs’, and ‘if you likes’.

I don’t want to simmer or fester or succumb. I like myself now, and not just my body, or my hair, or my clothes, but me. I don’t want to change. I sit on my own in the rain, wet and bedraggled and with make-up smeared all over my face and white shorts turning black with dirt and damp. I smile and know that I would rather be out here, on my own, than inside with the wrong man.

I don’t know how long I sit in the rain, but eventually I push myself up, shivering with damp cold, and head back to Screen Queen. The valleys’ chorus has died down, and three very drunk revellers, with their arms locked around each other, tumble out of the door, and I stand clear of them so they don’t fall on me by mistake and squash me. Inside, the floor is littered with rugby balls, and beer bottles, and Welsh flags, and the odd rugby player, and the odder Tom Jones. I can hear a Stereophonics album playing quietly on the CD system – that is who Adrian was dressed as, the lead singer of the Stereophonics – and I spot Christian, Iuan, and a man I don’t know, sitting in a row, leaning on the front of the counter. I look around, but don’t see Cagney. I am sure he left hours ago and a wave of disappointment sweeps over me.

I stand in front of them, with crossed arms.

‘Well, you’re a sorry sight,’ I say in my best Welsh accent.

‘Fantastic,’ murmurs Iuan, hammered, and then, ‘This is her.’

‘This is who?’ I ask, as the third guy, the one I don’t know, who has a yellow circle around his head with stiff yellow cardboard petals sticking out of it, and is wearing a green polo neck and green corduroys, slowly looks up.

‘No way. She’s young,’ he says, so tired he can’t have slept for days.

‘Who, me? Are you talking about me?’ I ask confused.

‘Twenty-eight,’ Christian volunteers.

‘Seriously, are you talking about me?’ I ask again. ‘Because I have a name, you know!’

‘Sunny,’ they all chant at once, as if this is a prayer meeting and I am their leader.

‘How do you know that?’ I ask the daffodil.

‘Because, you’re the girl, aren’t you?’ He smiles a lopsided grin at me, winks, and then pulls up his green polo neck to show me his left nipple.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Nothing,’ he says with a smile, and lowers his top again. ‘Our boss is in love with you.’

‘You work for Cagney as well?’ I say, and then cross myself for tempting fate, assuming he is talking about Cagney.

‘Shizza,’ he says.

‘Are you on drugs?’ I ask.

‘He’s always like this, Sunshine,’ Christian volunteers, before resting his head on Iuan’s shoulder.

‘By tomorrow morning my head is going to feel like somebody cracked it open and threw up in it,’ he says, and smiles at me, giving me a thumbs-up.

‘Look, Christian, do you have a towel? And something I can wear home? I’ve got wet in the rain and I’ll freeze if I go anywhere in this.’ I gesture to my outfit.

‘You look exceptional, by the way,’ says the third guy.

‘Who are you?’ I ask, bemused.

‘I’m Howard! Oh, come on, don’t tell me he doesn’t talk about me …’ He throws his head back to laugh but instead crashes it against the counter. I wince but nobody else seems that bothered.

‘So, Christian, do you have anything?’

‘No, sorry, my lovely.’

‘My tracksuit is upstairs in the office, if you want that.
I got changed into toast here,’ Iuan says, lifting his head to smile at me. ‘Exceptional. Gladys Pugh, I love that,’ he adds, closing his eyes.

‘Hi-de hi,’ Howard whispers.

‘Upstairs?’ I ask, backing away.

‘You can have this.’ Howard pulls off his round petal face frame, still with his eyes closed, and offers it to me. ‘I’ll be alright without it,’ he says, and it falls to the floor.

I look around the room. They are the only people left standing/sitting. I walk over to the front door and lock it from the inside.

I check my watch: it is ten past two in the morning. I walk through the side door, and see some stairs, reaching for a light switch that isn’t there, I cling to the wall and climb them slowly one by one. There is a light on in the room at the top of the stairs, and a door is slightly open. It is the only room there is, and therefore I assume the only place that Iuan could have left his tracksuit. It is also, as the glass reads, Cagney’s office.

I push the door open and Cagney says, ‘Hello.’

I am startled, but too tired to show it.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask, looking at a half-empty wine bottle on the table, and what looks to be a full one by its side.

‘I came up here, for a drink, hours ago. But it hasn’t been going down that well,’ he says, turning his attention to the bottle, focusing for the first time in hours on its contents. ‘What are you doing?’ he asks.

‘I got soaked in the rain, and I want to walk home now, so Iuan said I could borrow his tracksuit.’

‘It’s over there.’ Cagney points to an orange heap in the corner of the room.

‘Oh, thanks. Do you mind if I … change … it’s just that I am a little cold … and …’

‘Of course.’ Cagney spins his chair round and stares out of the window, and I grab at my blazer, throwing it off, and scramble into the tracksuit top, which is an XXL. I am no more than an M now. I peel off my shorts, but stop short of taking off my damp knickers where the rain has soaked straight through, stuck to my skin from sitting for hours on the pavement. I pull on the tracksuit trousers, which, I calculate, are just over a foot too long.

‘Thanks,’ I say loudly, and Cagney spins round.

‘Looks nice,’ he says evenly.

‘I bet,’ I say, and smile.

‘Well,’ he says.

‘Well,’ I reply.

‘I should get going,’ I say, at the same time as Cagney says, ‘Will you stay for a drink?’ and offers up the half-full bottle of red wine. Half empty? Half full.

‘I’ll stay for a drink,’ I say with a smile.

‘You come and sit here.’ Cagney jumps up and moves round the desk, passing me a glass, pointing at me to sit in his chair. ‘I’ll sit on the box.’