Almost Perfect (13 page)

‘Wikipedia,’ Jack tutted. ‘Wikipedia.’

‘It’s just… Look, can we sort this out before I have to find out?’

Jack reached across the desk and took Ianto’s hand. He led him gently back into the Hub. ‘Come on. Ianto – that ferry. What if you were on it? Gwen’s going through the files, seeing if there’s any reference to you. Think. Has it triggered anything? Is that little pill working?’

Ianto shrugged. ‘Not really. Well, it is, kind of. I’ve been remembering working at a supermarket while I was at university. I can remember the prices of everything. From tinned peas to cereals. Every single brand. It’s not terribly helpful, but it’s allowed me to work out the true rate of inflation.’

‘Can you remember anything more? Think. Ferry. Ever been on the ferry before?’

Ianto shook his head. ‘No. The only time I took the Irish ferry was from Swansea when I was a kid. Mum drank two pints of Guinness on the way over and was sick and she clipped me over the ear when I laughed.’

‘Thank you. That’s charming, but not entirely helpful.’

‘It was cold and windy, and they only had Panda Cola and I wanted a slush puppy.’ Ianto’s face took on a wistful glaze. ‘And… ah.’ His face lit up. ‘The full range of alcopops and a quite unbelievable offer on cocktail jugs. But I’m travelling on my own, and I don’t like saying the names out loud.’ He stole a glance at Jack. ‘Some of them are quite frank, you know.’

‘That they are. People who order Sex On A Beach have clearly never done it.’ Jack cupped a hand to Ianto’s cheek. ‘Well done, Ianto. We’ve a recent memory. Anything more?’ Jack had steered him down to the Boardroom. He signalled Gwen over.

Ianto’s eyes started to cloud over just slightly, and a thought happened. ‘I’m starting to remember something. Oh yes.’

‘What?’

Ianto shuddered. ‘Hen night.’

2. LUCKY DEBBIE’S DUTY-FREE
PURSUIT OF LOVE

IANTO IS HAVING A FLASHBACK

It is last Friday night. Ianto is on a ferry. Ianto is alone at the bar. Ianto is a man. Which, at the time, isn’t surprising, really. But thinking about it now… Anyway, he’s there on the ferry, pulling out of Cardiff Bay, and there’s a little cabin with orange curtains and a stranger snoring in the top bunk, so he’s at the bar. He’s asked them to make him a coffee to keep him alert, and he’s not liking any of it. The beans were burnt, over-diluted, and it’s been sat in the coffee-maker since February. He thinks he may stop being so silly. He’s supposed to blend in, but here he is at the bar in a suit drinking coffee from a tiny cup and saucer and all around him is noise and formica and laughter and music from every nightmare wedding disco in his life.

He’s keeping an eye out. Someone here. Several someones. Someone must be a patient. Someone must be ill. Does anyone look ill? Or out of place? Who are the patients? Who are the doctors? There’s a hen night over there, dressed as nurses, but they’ve also got on devil horns, angel wings and some tinsel. Perhaps it’s all a double bluff? Ah. Cunning.

He looks over at them a bit more. They seem happy and very drunk. They’re all so young and so loud and keep yelling out for Lucky Debbie. He guesses Debbie is getting married.

‘Hello, sailor!’ says a voice at his elbow.

He looks around. She’s quite drunk but very pretty. And wearing L-Plates.

‘Hello.’ He smiles.

‘I’m Debbie,’ she says. She’s trying to attract the attention of the bored bar staff by waving a handful of notes.

‘As in Lucky Debbie?’

She smiles. ‘Yeah. And you?’

‘Ianto. Not lucky at all, really.’

She makes a boo-hoo face at him. ‘Well, we can change all that, you know. Clearly, I’m spoken for – not that that’s gonna stop me licking whipped cream off the nipples of a Chippendale tomorrow night – but lots of my friends are… well, you know… Hen Night. Come on, join us. Hey!’ This to a barman, who appears to be twelve and entirely covered in acne. ‘Four jugs of Screaming Orgasm, One Shitting Whippet, a rack of Zambucas and a pineapple juice.’

‘Pineapple juice?’ asks Ianto.

Debbie leans forward, a bit confidential. ‘There’s a reason why I’m Lucky Debbie. And a lot of it’s to do with pacing myself when I’m around those screaming whores. God, we have a laugh, but sometimes it all gets a bit much. And when you’ve picked vomit out of your hair on the bus home once, it’s kind of… a sign. You want anything?’

‘I can be tempted.’

‘Oh, then you’ll love my friend Kerry. She’s quite formidable when you first meet, but easier than a GCSE.’

‘Ah. I see. Um. Just a diet coke please.’

Debbie laughs. ‘Seriously? The booze is dead cheap on here. It’s not like flying.’

‘I know,’ says Ianto. ‘But, I’ll let you in on a thing. I’m a secret agent for an organisation that’s beyond the Government, above the UN. And I’m on a mission. So I’m not drinking, see.’

Lucky Debbie’s eyes wander away erratically, watching the barman pour skimmed milk over a jugful of ice. The sound system starts to play ‘You’re Beautiful’.

‘Awww…’ says Debbie. ‘I hate this song. But love it at the same time. You know what I mean? Like, I can’t stand hearing it, but I would love someone to sing it to me. I tried explaining this to Phil. My Phil. Lucky Phil, if you like. But he thought I was asking him to do Karaoke. Sad, really. You know what I mean?’

Ianto nods, sipping gratefully at his drink. ‘I dunno,’ he says eventually. ‘I’ve always had time for sincere music.’

Debbie tilts her head on one side. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Help us carry over these drinks and join in the party. With that suit they’ll think you’re a stripper.’

‘Why thank you,’ says Ianto.

Ianto doesn’t know it yet, but he is being watched. He’s trying to blend in, he’s trying not to arouse suspicion, but he is. He noticed that there were two people standing in the shadows of the dock as he got aboard the boat. There was something odd about them. Two men, dressed like sailors out of a perfume commercial, just standing and watching people get on the ferry, smiling blankly.

Oddly, it’s not them who are watching him.

Later, Ianto is sat at a table in the ferry bar. He’s quiet, but he’s watching the room. Around him are the girls. Including Kerry, who keeps giggling and nudging his arm, which just makes Ianto feel a bit bashful. He’s sipping his drink, and he’s watching the girls. They’re having fun. Simple, really drunken fun. It’s been ages since he’s done this. He’s feeling a bit… not left out. Just… sad.

He remembers the last time he went for an evening out. Tosh got tiddly and danced like a dervish. Owen tried not to break anything coming back from the bar with drinks. Gwen was laughing cos she’d recognised her first boyfriend from school (‘Bloody hell, he’s gone bald!’), and Jack – Jack had looked at everyone else in the room then suddenly, on a whim, turned to him and smiled the widest smile in the world. Then Tosh came staggering over, laughing out loud at the word ‘Kajagoogoo’. She tugged at his elbow, insisted he dance.

But Tosh is gone now, and there’s Kerry.

The bar staff are bringing more drinks to the table, somehow managing to keep the tray stable while the room tilts from side to side.

Ianto isn’t feeling sick, which he finds remarkable. And Kerry keeps asking if he wants to dance. He carries on observing the room. An old couple come in and take a glass of wine each to a small table. He watches them. They’re a possibility. There’s another man sitting alone – he’s wearing a terrible jumper and drinking beer from a jug, so possibly Norwegian.

The girls all start to sing along to the music. Ianto thinks, ‘I may be undercover, but no. There are some things I cannot do.’ So, after a wan smile, he leaves them to sing about their umbrella.

The cold night air really, really clears his head. He takes a walk around, heading down a flight of stairs and into a long corridor. It’s quite an old ship and there’s a lot of it that’s like his childhood – full of browns and oranges and formica. There are lots of narrow passages. It’s an old Norwegian ferry, and so there are signs scattered around in English, Norwegian (he guesses) and Welsh. Apart from the bar staff, the crew are spookily absent, so there’s no one to go up to and ask, ‘Excuse me, have you seen any alien technology?’

He passes a few doors marked ‘Staff Only’. But they’re not locked, and just lead to boring corridors without even lino. The ship is lurching alarmingly, and Ianto is finally feeling a bit sick. He can sense the sweat pricking under his clothes. He makes his way to a railing and breathes, breathes, breathes.

He’s got a night on the boat, a day in Dublin, and then a trip back. What if it’s all like this? It’s oddly like an airport departure lounge at sea. Completely anonymous, faceless, the perfect cover. Everyone’s a stranger, everyone’s nobody.

He passes a sign advertising events on the ship. It is, gloriously, an old-fashioned velveteen board onto which little gold block letters have been pinned haphazardly. It tells him that there’ll be some poker in a function room. It mentions that there’s a small private party for someone’s wedding. It welcomes a car dealership who are on a trip. And it says that the cinema, in addition to screening some films from last year, will be showing a ‘health presentation’ in an hour’s time.

‘Health presentation?’ Bingo.

Back in the bar, appearing normal, Ianto sits down next to Lucky Debbie. She’s singing merrily away, and pats him on the arm. ‘You’re gorgeous,’ she says. ‘Kerry really likes you.’ She laughs, her breath rich with alcopop. She digs him in the arm. ‘You can get a snog, cheer you up. Cure the seasick!’

‘Can I?’ Ianto says, trying to sound enthusiastic. Kerry appears to be asleep at the table, slumped face down in a cake, the tinsel from her angel wings hanging loose in the breeze.

‘Yeah – when she wakes up. Bless ’er. I’m having a great night. Are you?’

‘Yes. Yes I am, thank you.’ Actually, yes, I am. Hmm.

‘Why are you on the boat? Business trip? A lonely travelling salesman?’

Ianto shakes his head. ‘No. Like I said – I’m a secret agent.’ Lucky Debbie barks with laughter and clinks his glass. ‘You’re full of it. Bless, what are you like?’

‘Well…’ Ianto demurs. ‘I did see that there’s a seminar on health in the cinema in a bit.’

Debbie makes an exaggerated yawn. ‘Right. And any minute now we’ve got a stripper booked if Kerry’s organised it right. What’d you rather see? A film about vitamins, or an oiled stranger stirring your pint with his tackle?’

Ianto considers. ‘Well, when you put it like that, I’d better just pop along and watch my vitamin film.’

Debbie laughs and nudges him on the shoulder. ‘Stay a bit more, eh? Who knows – Kerry may come round for a bit. Just one more pineapple juice. Stay…’

Ianto checks his watch.

Ianto walks into the cinema as the ship lurches quite alarmingly. He clutches at an old flip-down chair. He manages not to spill any popcorn as he sits down. He suspects that, just slightly, he might appear drunk and harmless. Or, as his auntie used to say, ‘tiddly’. Good.

He sneaks a look around himself. There are a clutch of people in the cinema, which has thin carpets thick with chewing gum and a pervasive, cabbagey smell of popcorn. There is an old couple in a corner. They have brought notepads. There is a bored-looking girl in the second row.

A single man, very thin and quite yellow, is sat on his own, coughing slightly. A little away from him is a bald, fat, middleaged man listening to an iPod and laughing a bit too loudly.

Projected onto the screen are a series of slides advertising amenities on board, special offers at the bar, and a range of interesting snacks available. Music is playing (the theme from
Van Der Valk
, on pan-pipes). There is an atmosphere of comfortable anticipation. He notices the old couple keep squeezing each other’s hands and bickering quietly. They remind him of his parents – perfectly content in each other’s company, passing the days in a series of complicated little arguments and score-settlings. The old lady reaches over and adjusts her husband’s shirt collar. She looks like the kind of woman ready to pounce on grandchildren with spittle and a tissue at the slightest hint of a stain. Ianto decides he likes them. What treatment are they here for?

He decides the thin, yellow man is dying – probably of about five different things. Perhaps the oldies were just becoming forgetful, or hoping to keep rowing for a few more years. Perhaps the bored girl had just wandered in. The bald, fat man might be looking to lose weight and gain hair. Who knew?

But what about himself? Ianto tries to think of something important he could be in need of curing. Perhaps he could just claim curiosity.

Van Der Valk
fades away and the slide of the Balti Buffet chunks off. There is a blue screen, a fizzing, and then, of all wonders, an old VHS tape projects into life. The picture crackles, crackles, wobbles and then slow tracking snow drifts down the screen. With an abrupt final crackle, the feature starts. For a brief instant, Ianto is in darkness and about to see Indiana Jones with his father sat on his right, a small bucket of popcorn balanced between them and an orange ice lolly melting stickily over his knuckles.

The picture goes white, and a reassuring logo of cupped hands rising up around a globe appears. Synthesised music swells out, a tune of energy and warmth that sounds just like (and yet, for copyright reasons completely unlike) the theme from
Top Gear
.

A smooth voice pours over shots that track across an empty hospital ward, a crowded waiting room, and then through a garden where people of all ages walk in the sun. The tone is warm, upbeat and strident.

‘Welcome to Hope. We’ve got used to living in an age of miracles. Where the cure for everything is just around the corner. But what if you can’t wait until tomorrow? Well, we’re here to tell you about how we can offer you the medicine of tomorrow today. This is not a trial. This is not a placebo. This is real hope, a real cure – the stuff of dreams. What we are offering on this boat is not legal, but it is moral. We refuse to keep back a cure that works. This is not alternative therapy, homeopathy, or moonshine – this is the real thing. We’ve worked on a genetic therapy that offers real, rapid repairs of your DNA…’