The Perfect 10 (37 page)

‘No, you stay where you are. I’d actually rather just sit on the floor, anyway.’ I sit down suddenly, and lean against the filing cabinet.

Cagney looks a little shocked. ‘Oh. OK.’ He moves back around the desk, and hovers over his chair, looking at me for some kind of final say-so, before he sits down, content that I’m not lying, and I don’t really want to sit in his chair.

We sit in silence for what feels like an eternity, but is probably only about ten seconds.

‘How’s work?’ he asks me, to fill a shocked silence.

‘Do you really want to know?’ I ask, scared that this is going to degenerate into another argument straight away.

‘I don’t know. I mean, tell me if it’s doing well. But you
don’t have to tell me what’s really selling, unless you feel you absolutely have to.’

‘Are you uncomfortable talking about sex?’ I ask, being a little confrontational, in spite of my best intentions.

‘Yes. Aren’t all men, with women, when what women really mean when they say they want to talk about sex, is emotions? Am I comfortable talking about emotion? Well, what do you think?’ He smiles a rueful smile at himself, and I feel my shoulders fall and relax.

‘I guess we should either all talk about it, or not talk about it at all. These half-measures just confuse everybody,’ I say.

‘The problem is, while nobody is really talking about it, nobody thinks they are getting enough.’ Cagney shifts in his chair, and takes a slow gulp of his red wine, and looks up at me.

I meet his gaze for a moment longer than I thought I could. ‘What is enough, anyway? I mean, is it when you can’t physically walk?’ I wince at my own suggestion.

‘No, it’s when you are throwing up from the physical exertion.’

‘But not in bed, I hope,’ I say with a mock serious smile. ‘Although there is bound to be a name for that. Some people probably love it!’

‘Agoraphobia could double up. How many people do you know, really, with a fear of wide open spaces? We might as well put it to good use,’ he says.

‘Yes. Scared you aren’t getting enough sex – agoraphobia number two.’ I nod my head. ‘But actually I think it’s bigger than that. I think everybody is scared they are missing out on everything. Scared they aren’t being loved enough, or loving enough themselves …’ I trail off and look at him for his thoughts.

‘Oh, you are good, but it won’t work,’ he says with a smile.

‘Sorry, I’m confused.’

‘I don’t do the emotional talk, not even at three a.m., and not even with … well, love is love is love. What’s the point pulling it to pieces? People say it, and then they rip it apart in front of your eyes. But I fear I may sound jaded …’

‘Surely not!’

‘Well, Miss Sunshine,’ he says it kindly now; it isn’t thrown at me like a curve ball, to smash my feelings, or bruise me somehow. ‘We don’t have to talk ourselves round in circles to know the truth. Most people today feel like they are worth shit, nada, nothing. But if somebody says, “I love you” then you are worth something. Somebody has seen something worth loving in you. And the only reason we need somebody else to give that to us is so we have some kind of responsibility not to go and live on a boat in the middle of the ocean and opt out of everything and go crazy if we want.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ I say. ‘Maybe it is just to stop us wandering off into the desert and never coming back.’

‘Maybe it’s the reason I turned to whiskey and you turned to doughnuts – we need something to numb the pain if we aren’t loved, because we feel worthless.’

‘So love is the cushion that stops me needing the doughnuts, and you the whiskey?’

‘You got it, Sunshine. It blurs the edges. It eases the pain.’ He smiles honestly at me. I think I could crawl up, climb in him, and sleep for ever. We sip our wine. I feel my eyes closing.

‘And there is one more thing, of course,’ Cagney says, and I force myself to prise my eyelids open.

‘I can’t shut you up now, can I?’ I say, exhausted.

‘Hey, you uncork the bottle, you drink the wine,’ he says, and when he looks at me his stare is serious and intense. ‘The person you love is the ultimate reflection of who you
are. And who you want to be, and what you value.’

‘So … I feel like you are going somewhere with this, Cagney …’

‘So be careful who you love: make sure they deserve it. Make sure they reflect you well.’

‘I will,’ I say, and as much as I want to talk to him, and laugh with him, and get closer to him, and crawl inside him, I feel my eyelids, so heavy that they could sink fleets, slide shut.

Cagney moves round the desk and gently takes the glass out of her hand before it spills on Iuan’s tracksuit. He crouches beside her, and wonders how to wake her. And then it occurs to him – he doesn’t have to. Cagney sits down against the filing cabinets, and leans in closer to her. She fidgets and shifts her weight, and tries to rest her head on something, and with his arm stretched upwards she finds his chest as a pillow. He places his arm over her shoulders gently. Her face angles upwards towards his, like a scene from a 1930s film, when men and women locked together, and kissed passionately, and then tore themselves apart.

He could just kiss her now … Cagney turns his head to face the opposite direction, so he doesn’t have to look at her, or he won’t be able to stop himself.

Facing the wall, he too falls asleep.

I wake up with my head on Cagney’s chest. I am leaning against a filing cabinet in his office. I remember falling asleep, sensing the glass being taken out of my hands, and a body next to me, a chest offering itself to be slept on. I look up and Cagney’s face is pointing away from me, his eyelids flickering slightly, dreaming strange dreams. But then he shifts and his head turns towards mine, his eyes still closed, still darting behind his lids. I could just kiss him now, wake
him softly, and claim it was a mistake if he rebuffs me, and say that I thought he was somebody else – Adrian perhaps – confused in sleep. I feel my eyelids fall heavily again, and I close my eyes.

I wake up to light streaming in through a large window opposite me, and I am immediately struck by how uncomfortable I am, lying on Cagney’s floor, my head flush with the carpet. I sit up and rub my eyes, and check my watch. It is half-past eight. I have been sleeping for six hours. My head pounds and my eyes feel like they are glued together with mascara. Cagney is standing staring out of the window.

‘Hello,’ I say.

‘Good morning, Sunshine,’ he says, with a small smile.

‘I should have gone home. I am exhausted. I ache,’ I say, stretching my arms, examining the orange tracksuit that I forgot I was wearing.

‘I meant to ask you last night, did Adrian leave you here to walk home on your own?’

‘Oh, yes, he had to leave.’ I remember that I broke it off with Adrian last night. A wave of relief sweeps over me.

‘Look, Sunny. Nothing happened last night.’ Cagney is staring out of the window, not even looking at me as he speaks.

‘I know that,’ I say defensively. ‘I wasn’t trashed!’

‘I know, but I thought you might have wanted it to, and I wanted to explain –’

‘What do you mean, “I may have wanted it to” – what about you?’

‘What about me?’ Cagney turns to look at me, and his face is stern, aggrieved.

‘You might have wanted it to, more than me,’ I say angrily, pushing myself to my feet.

So he’s seen how I look in the morning and now he’s not so interested? Nice.

‘Well, what difference does that make?’ he says, and sighs.

‘A big bloody difference!’ I say, brushing myself down. I am not being rejected again!

‘I think we should just be friends,’ he says, and I nearly

gag.

‘Friends? Since when did hating each other seem friendly to you? Unless this is the closest you get,’ I say, with a smirk.

Cagney looks at me sadly. ‘I think you should go, before we say things we’ll regret.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m leaving,’ I say, and grab my stiff wet blazer and shorts. Without a backward glance, I walk out, slamming the door behind me. I need a shower, I need some warm clothes of my own, I need my bed, I need … I stop at the top of the stairs. This is definitely fear. See it, recognise it, do it anyway. I force myself to picture Cagney, who is in the office behind me. If I don’t say it, maybe neither of us ever will. Maybe I need to be brave enough for the both of us.

I turn round at the top of the stairs to walk back into his office, as the door swings open.

‘I don’t want to be just your friend,’ Cagney says, ‘but you’re with Adrian.’

‘No, I’m not,’ I say.

‘Well, that changes things,’ he says, neither one of us able to look away from the other.

‘It’s not such a big deal,’ I say, although still holding on to the door for support.

‘We don’t amount to much in this big old village.’ He takes a step forwards.

‘It’s nothing really. Well, maybe it’s a small something. But nothing will change.’ I let go of the door, and it swings closed behind me.

‘Exactly. I mean,’ Cagney takes two more steps forward, and I do the same, ‘if I kiss you now, the tree outside my
office is going to keep on growing. It isn’t going to change the world if I kiss you.’

‘It will only change ours.’ I can’t smile or frown, or do anything. ‘And I don’t know about you, but I am just about ready for a change.’

I can feel his breath on my face, and his lips barely touch my lips, as he speaks.

‘You said it, Sunshine.’