The Perfect 10 (34 page)

‘OK.’ Christian yanks open the door and we hurl ourselves into the warmth. ‘Well, they sound nice. It makes me think of
Dynasty
! Anything else?’

‘Nipple flickers,’ I say.

‘I’m sorry, who?’ Christian stops and grabs my arm dramatically.

‘Look, I’m not sure about them either, but I thought it would be good to try them out. It’s a new franchise possibility. You clamp this thing on – it’s like a little suction pad with some wires coming out of the top, and they’ve got these little rubber sticks inside them, and they kind of flick …’ I say, flicking my finger at him to illustrate. ‘Lighter, and harder, and then, if you want, you can make them squirt cold water …’

‘Enough!’ Christian screams. ‘Enough, Sunny. No more. At some point you draw a line and say a tongue is irreplaceable. The human body is irreplaceable. Plastic is never going to compensate for that!’

‘I know,’ I say, ‘but I’ll see how they sell.’

We walk through into a large open room with a counter at the end like an Argos shop with no catalogues, and I retrieve a slip of paper from my pocket.

‘I didn’t mean to scare you off,’ he says, ‘in the car, about Cagney.’

‘You didn’t,’ I say, and nod my head. ‘I do like him, Christian,’ I say quietly, as we move up the line.

‘I know,’ Christian squeezes my hand.

‘But us, with all our baggage – I’m just scared we’d hate each other too.’

‘Or maybe you’d understand each other a little better.’

‘Maybe. Maybe we are alike. Because I like him, Christian, and I swear to God I can’t even tell you why.’

Christian turns to me, and strokes my cheek. ‘But, darling, don’t you see, that is the best reason there is.’

Cagney hears footsteps on the stairs leading up to his office. It isn’t Iuan, as he doesn’t hear the step, clunck, step, clunk, on the wood, slowly pounding out the threat of a Welshman gone crazy bored with his leg in plaster. Iuan’s eyes have turned wild in the last few days, he is an even looser cannon than usual, and Cagney is watching him carefully. Besides, Cagney can’t hear the telltale stream of truly offensive swear words, in a perverse twisted English-Welsh hybrid, that accompanies him taking so long to get up one flight of stairs. And it isn’t Howard, as he has been sent to buy drink for Iuan’s birthday party this evening. Howard is overly excited. He has been frothing at the mouth like a one-year-old Labrador all morning, and Cagney had to make a decision to either send him out of the office, or kill him, especially given that the root cause of most of Howard’s excitement is Sunny Weston. Howard hasn’t met Sunny yet, but Iuan has invited her to his birthday drinks tonight. Iuan has also informed Howard that he definitely thinks that Cagney might love her. This has driven Howard into some kind of frenzy, the like of which Cagney hasn’t seen since Howard ate three Pot Noodles in quick succession on the morning
of 12 February 2002, and then washed them down with a litre of Fanta …

And it isn’t Christian, because he is at home making his Tom Jones costume, determined to be the best Tom in the room tonight, realising as he does that there will be at least a dozen others. The theme is ‘Wales’: what else is there to be? It will be a room full of Tom Joneses, with the occasional weak leek, lazy dragon, easy rugby player, and half-arsed Shirley Bassey.

So it must be a client, new or existing, winding his way slowly up the steps, and it makes no difference, the idea of their presence is equally as appalling today. Cagney would qualify his mood right now, if asked, as ‘dark’. And that is coming from a man who considers his usual state to be quite upbeat, much to the confusion of anybody who has met him in the last ten years. Maybe his assistant will tell this uninvited guest that he is busy. He still hasn’t hired an assistant, of course.

‘Bollocks!’ he shouts, loud enough for whoever is standing outside his door with his knuckle poised to knock, to stop short of hitting the glass and reconsider their actions. Foolishly, this gives Cagney hope. He is devastated when the hand knocks moments later, albeit nervously, on the glass, pounding over his name with their knuckles, gradually wearing him away. Cagney doesn’t answer. But the doorknob turns and a head pokes around the door frame anyway.

‘Hello?’

‘I’m painting!’ Cagney shouts in a last desperate attempt to keep whoever it is out.

‘Hello?’ he says again.

‘Damn,’ Cagney says irritably, and removes his feet from his desk, sitting up reasonably straight.

‘How are you?’ the man says, and Cagney looks up at him in small talk alarm. What does he care? It is then that
Cagney recognises the shaggy haircut and jeans that is Adrian standing in front of him, palm outstretched to be shaken.

Cagney hesitates for a beat, and then pushes himself to his feet, gripping Adrian’s hand. He lets go first, pulling himself up to his full height, which is almost exactly the same as Adrian; Cagney may even have it by a whisker.

‘I’m well,’ Cagney says, and sits down again.

Adrian nods his head, as if waiting for Cagney to ask something of him, although Cagney can’t think what. After a few moments he smiles and looks around for a chair.

‘No chairs, sorry. They encourage people to stay.’ Cagney gestures to the box that is still in front of his desk. ‘Are you … I’m sorry, I don’t really know why you are here?’ Cagney looks around as casually as he can for his bag of monkey nuts. He needs a handful straight away. He feels unnerved.

‘I know,’ Adrian laughs and shakes his head. ‘It’s crazy, crazy.’

Cagney doesn’t understand this at all. What is crazy?

Adrian jerks his head up as if somebody has just flicked him on the nose with their thumb and forefinger, and clears his throat, and takes a deep breath. Cagney sits back a little startled, but waits for Adrian to speak.

‘I remembered you saying, or somebody saying, that night at the dinner party, when I was on the phone, I remember overhearing that you do something funny …’

‘Funny?’ Cagney asks, confused.

‘Yes, you know …’

‘Like juggling?’ Cagney asks.

‘Ha ha.’ Adrian is nervous and laughs in a short sharp burst. ‘No, I mean, your job. You, like, check people, check up on people, see if they are fooling around on their partner, or whatever …’ Adrian stares at him expectantly, but Cagney is reluctant to confirm or deny, very suddenly scared to speak, or guess where this is leading. What can Adrian want?

‘And – I never thought I’d hear myself saying this – but, well, I have somebody I’d like checked out. I’m not sure, but I think she might play away, given the opportunity and, well, I just need to know, you know, if she’s marriage stock! I am right, though – that is what you do?’

Cagney is numb. He is going to ask her to marry him. It is done. It’s over.

‘OK. But we might have a problem, because she has met me, of course, and Iuan, one of my associates, although he wouldn’t be applicable in this case. I don’t know if she has seen my third associate or not, but that would be the key –’

‘Sorry? How?’ Adrian looks bewildered, sitting forwards on the box, concentrating hard, trying to focus on Cagney and therefore understand.

‘How what?’

‘How has she met you already … or … God, you think I mean Sunny? Oh no, it’s my fiancée, Jane. Shit, this is a bit embarrassing.’ Adrian shakes his head guiltily, as the penny drops for Cagney.

‘So, to be clear, your fiancée, whom you are cheating on with Sunny – you want me to check if she will do the dirty on you, and if she will you won’t marry her?’

‘I know it sounds awful but, you know, I’ve just got myself in a bit of a pickle …’

‘A pickle?’

‘Yeah.’ Adrian looks at Cagney evenly, matching the unmasked confrontation in Cagney’s tone. ‘Sorry, do you have a problem, mate?’

‘No. Not at all. Go on.’

‘OK. Well … what do you need to know?’

‘Do you have a photo?’

‘Yep.’ Adrian reaches into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet, and removes a photo from the inside, leaning forward to hand it to Cagney, who takes a look. He knew
it. Blonde. Sweet. Vacant. No wonder he’s fooling around with Sunny – this woman looks like she’d rather chew off her own arm than have sex. Or a conversation.

‘What does she do?’ Cagney asks innocently.

‘She’s a PE teacher.’

‘OK, alright, ah-ha.’ Cagney nods, still looking at the photo. She plays netball, for a living.

‘While I come to think of it, can you not mention this, to Sunny obviously, but also to your mate, the gay guy who runs the video shop, Christian? They seem quite tight, and, anyway, I’ve kind of told Sunny I’ve already left Jane, so it would just really complicate things if she found out.’

‘You haven’t left her?’

‘No. Not yet.’

‘But you are going to leave her?’

‘Well, that depends on you guys!’

‘So …’ Cagney reaches into his drawer and pulls out the almost empty bottle of whiskey, and grabs the beaker from the desk. He pours himself a double. He doesn’t offer Adrian one, but cradles the drink in his hands, thinking. ‘So … if she cheats, you dump her, and stick with Sunny. But what if she doesn’t cheat, what then?’

‘Well, there’s the rub!’ Adrian nods his head at Cagney and laughs, as if they are co-conspirators, as if Cagney completely understands. ‘I don’t know, Cag,’ he says, his face dropping in desolate awe of the confusion that may follow.

Cagney shudders.

‘Sunny is a lovely girl but, Christ, she can be hard work! She thinks too much, she talks too much, there is always the worry that she might start to eat too much again … And she’s been on her own for so long, she’s a bit too independent, you know? She’s not a “cook your dinner and rub your feet” kind of girl, is she?’

Cagney stares at Adrian and waits for him to dig himself an even dirtier hole.

‘I just want my mum, you know how it is. Who wants to do their own washing?’

‘Well … exactly.’ Cagney nods slowly. ‘Write down the name and address of her school – do they go to a local, some of the teachers?’

‘No, she doesn’t go to the pub; she doesn’t drink much.’

Cagney doesn’t quite cough up his final gulp of whiskey; he has seen the photo, he isn’t surprised.

‘She goes to Cannons, though.’

Cagney looks at him blankly.

‘The gym,’ Adrian says, as if it’s obvious.

‘Oh, right.’ Cagney nods his head, as if he knew all along.

Twenty minutes later Adrian is gone, and Cagney sits alone, rolling his now empty beaker between his palms, staring out of the window, but not really looking, letting it all blur into a hazy blend of grey. He is thinking.

Would it be wrong to lie in this instance? If he thought that Sunny would be happier with him, in the long run, would it be wrong to lie?

Would it be unprofessional?

Is he going to do it anyway?

He has never chosen a woman over business before.

Now,
there
’s the rub …

Cagney enters the party from the corridor below his office, slipping into the room unnoticed. The Welsh flag hangs as bunting, back and forth and back and forth across the room, and the floor is scattered with rugby balls and daffodils and miners’ hats. Christian has also laid plastic grass – the green green grass of home, he explained to Iuan, as the Welshman broke down. It had been on the cards.

‘Where’s your outfit?’ Iuan hobbles over and confronts
Cagney. Iuan has discarded his crutches for the night, balancing on his plaster precariously, like a fawn on fresh hoofs. The fall is inevitable.

Cagney leans down, picks up a daffodil, and sticks it through his lapel. ‘I’m wearing it.’

Iuan looks disappointed, but passes Cagney a glass of red wine none the less.

Cagney looks him up and down twice. ‘What are you?’

He has a large brown board stuck to his back, and is dressed in a yellow Lycra catsuit.

‘Welsh Rarebit,’ Iuan answers with a sigh, as if Cagney was the tenth person to ask in ten minutes, and it is as obvious as day follows night.

‘Of course,’ Cagney replies flatly, and walks away.

He spots Christian near the front door talking to a man dressed as Hannibal Lecter, sucking his beer through a straw that he sticks through his mouth guard. Cagney walks over and stands a couple of feet away, waiting for their conversation to end. Hannibal becomes unnerved, glancing over his shoulder at Cagney every thirty seconds, until he makes his excuses and moves away.

‘I don’t get it,’ Cagney says to Christian, gesturing at the departing Hannibal.

‘Anthony Hopkins,’ Christian says,

‘So am I stuck with you for the rest of the evening, Cagney? Loitering just over my shoulder, scaring away any other conversation? I can’t quite believe you are here, but I suppose the chances of you talking to somebody you don’t know are as remote as a Sahara outpost.’

‘I’m shy, like a schoolgirl,’ Cagney says, gulping down his wine.

‘Are you hell! You’re easily bored and just as easily rude.’

‘You say tomato …’ Cagney glances distractedly at the door, and back to Christian.

‘What was that?’ Christian asks, narrowing his eyes.

‘What?’ Cagney tries to look innocent.

‘That, that glance?’

‘What glance?’

‘You glanced, at the door, like you were waiting for somebody, or …’ Christian pouts in thought.

‘I didn’t glance. I have something in my eye.’

‘You’re waiting for Sunny!’ Christian’s smile is magnificent.

‘Or your trousers are too tight, and they’re cutting off the blood supply to your brain. I don’t get it.’

Cagney gestures at a man dressed as a Roman Centurion who walks past.

‘Richard Burton, from
Ant & Cleo
.’

‘Who’d have thought Wales had so much to offer?’

‘Who’d have thought Iuan had this many friends?’

They both nod once in agreement.

The room is quickly filling up with rugby players, leeks, dragons, Catherine Zeta Jones in Chicago outfits, and many many many Tom Joneses. Cagney counts seven in his immediate eye-line.

But Christian is the best. His dark blond hair is covered by a wiry black curly wig. He is even more tanned than usual, and wearing a red silk shirt, mostly undone to reveal an uncharacteristically hairy chest. The shirt is tucked into black leather trousers so tight Cagney thinks that he might have bought them from Miss Selfridge. Then there are the Cuban-heeled boots, and a large gold medallion. At that moment the Stereophonics’ ‘Have A Nice Day’ is replaced on the sound system with ‘What’s New Pussycat?’.

‘Thank God it’s not “Goldfinger” again,’ Christian sighs. ‘The woman just shouts!’

Cagney hears the door scream – Christian hasn’t disconnected his Halloween buzzer for the evening – and glances over, inhaling sharply. A strange party have just arrived:
Sophia Young walks in first, her blonde hair lying over one shoulder, spun like gold, framing her face in a heavenly halo. There’s irony, thinks Cagney.