Material Girl

by Louise Kean

  ‘Right now?’ I say.

  ‘Yep, just for fifteen minutes or so, somebody just cancelled,’ he replies, consulting his book again, throwing me his chocolate smile.

  ‘Are you allowed to cancel?’ I ask surprised.

  ‘What?’ he asks, as if I’m an idiot.

  ‘Okay, well, the thing is, I have to be at work.’ I look at my watch and grimace, without registering the time: it could be four in the morning, two in the afternoon or midnight. Both me and ham-knuckles know that I couldn’t tell him the time now if he asked. I realise so suddenly that I should slap my hand to my forehead: I had only planned on making the appointment, and then missing it, crazily, and by accident. What a mistake to make, coming in person!

  I’m distracted by the tall, alarmingly handsome black man strolling towards reception, and ham-knuckles calls out to him.

  ‘Dwaja, you’re free right now, aren’t you?’

  Dwaja gets the biggest chocolate grin of the morning. I think ham-knuckles loves him. And I don’t blame him.

  ‘I am,’ he says, and gives me a warm smile. I feel the heat of it as if a tanning bed has just encased me and the neon tubes of light have sprung to life. I have to adjust my eyes. He has a beautiful broad smile that I might fall in love with, given the chance and probably a different set of circumstances. He wears a white polo shirt with a little navy horseman in the corner, and thick black-rimmed glasses. He passed six feet in his teens, and his gym membership is all paid up. The muscles in his arms twist invitingly like rope, up and under his short sleeves. The hems of the sleeves dig a little tightly into his arms, which bulge beneath the material as if inflated by a pump. I want to sit in a room and look at him for a while. I may not even care if he tells me off, although I don’t know how appropriate it is to be indulging in lustful thoughts about my slut counsellor, it might all be part of the test …

  ‘Let’s go!’ I say, smiling, tossing my hair over my shoulder like a show pony. Ham-knuckles snorts a disgusted grunt behind his counter.

  ‘So, Scarlet?’ Dwaja says as we sit opposite each other in his room and he looks over my file. I have a file now, at the sex clinic. The land is littered with all these nasty little records that are keeping track of my mistakes: first my credit history that earns me no credit, and now this.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, with a glossed smile, crossing my legs. I’m wearing a black plunging V-neck, a black pencil skirt, and grey tights with pink polka dots littered all over them that, at a glance, might lead you to think I’m ill. But my Mary-Janes are fuchsia three-inchers, and nobody with any kind of serious sickness would wear those. Illness dictates trainers or bare feet.

  ‘You told the nurse who did your tests that you needed to wait three months, because of the HIV test validity, is that correct?’

  ‘Unfortunately it is. But, fortunately, I tested negative, for everything, so I’m glad I waited.’ Look down, glance up, smile, dismount. Judges, I’ll have those scores now please!

  ‘Okay …’ He looks down and smiles, lost in thought. He chucks the file on the desk beside him. I notice three condoms in their sweet-wrapper packets lying casually by the phone. In any other environment it would look strange.

  ‘So what if you’re pregnant?’ he asks, putting his fingers together on his chin to imply thought or concentration, and raising his eyes.

  I cough up a lung. Almost.

  ‘Why would you say that?’ I ask, alarmed.

  ‘I’m just asking if you’ve thought about it?’ Dwaja says calmly.

  ‘No, I’m not pregnant! Besides, I’m on the pill, I don’t need to think about it. That’s just upsetting,’ I say, ‘I would never let that happen. That would be just … just … awful!’ I shake my head to chase the thought out of my mind. I don’t hate babies, I love them. I just don’t want one now. I’m only thirty-one. I’ve got at least four years yet.

  ‘You know the pill is only effective ninety-nine per cent of the time?’ he says.

  ‘Well that sounds like pretty good odds to me. You’d take those odds on the Grand National, wouldn’t you?’ I nod and smile convincingly.

  ‘And what if I told you that the odds, as a heterosexual woman, of contracting the HIV virus, are plummeting all the time. And you have NO protection against that, except blind luck, if you choose not to use disease-preventative contraception?’

  ‘I get it,’ I say.

  Dwaja nods. He’s made his point, albeit clumsily. He should have just chucked me a Tiny Tears wearing a jumper with ‘AIDS’ sewn on it. It would have been quicker.

  ‘We’re not here to tell you off,’ he says, smiling.

  ‘I know, I get it, I won’t do it again,’ I reply, not sure if I agree with him.

  ‘Would you like some condoms?’ he asks.

  ‘It’s okay. I’m not having sex any more,’ I say, and stand up to leave.

  ‘What, never?’ he asks with a laugh.

  ‘You haven’t met my boyfriend,’ I reply, grabbing my bag.

  It’s amazing how quickly you can go off somebody.

  Heading down towards New Oxford Street, I call Ben. I need vacuous conversation, and I know that he’s good for it.

  ‘Hey,’ I say.

  ‘Hi,’ he replies, sounding mildly irritated.

  ‘What are you doing tonight?’ I ask.

  ‘Iggy is coming round.’

  ‘Again? Sorry, are you okay to talk right now?’

  ‘Yeah, for a minute, I’m on lunch.’

  ‘Okay.’

  We both fall silent.

  ‘What are you having for dinner?’ I ask.

  ‘Sausages and beans.’

  ‘I’m going to be late tonight, I think.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Sorry. I know I said last night that I’d try to be back early …’

  ‘That’s okay, don’t worry about it. Iggy is coming round anyway.’

  ‘Okay … no need to sound too relieved, Ben.’

  I hear him sigh.

  ‘Did you speak to your mother? The answerphone is full with all her messages, Ben.’

  ‘No.’

  Silence again.

  ‘Jesus, Ben! Is this the most boring conversation we have ever had or what? Haven’t you got anything to say?’ I stop and stand in the middle of the pavement outside Forbidden Planet, the comic-book store. I glance in and it’s packed. At the same time about thirty pale guys in long black coats stare out at me, and simultaneously look away, because a wave of embarrassment drowned them all at once.

  ‘You called me! And I haven’t done anything today, Scarlet, I only spoke to you a couple of hours ago!’

  ‘I know, but Jesus!’ I wave my arms, flailing in exasperation. ‘Nothing has happened to you since then? You didn’t think anything or hear a joke, or learn anything? Nothing interested you on TV? You have the TV on all morning, there are thirty of them in your shop, they’ve got you cornered! There wasn’t anything interesting on Phillip and Fern? Or maybe a customer said something? Anything!’

  ‘Jesus, Scarlet, don’t start!’

  ‘Or maybe you had a thought about us, or something we could do at the weekend, or next week, or next year? Or a film you want to see, or something different you might do tonight, or anything, Ben! Just give me something to work with, please?’

  ‘I told you! I’m going to have my tea, play some Xbox with Iggy, watch some Star Wars and go to bed.’

  ‘Oh my God, Ben! You do that every night! Don’t you want to do something different?’

  ‘No! I like it. That’s why I do it.’

  I am running out of ideas.

  ‘Okay, just for now, just for this phone conversation then: how about my morning? Do you want to ask if anything eventful has happened to me today, since last we spoke? Maybe I got mugged? Maybe I got flashed at on the tube by a guy with a six-foot-long tattooed penis and Tourette’s?’

  ‘Okay, fine! What’s happened to you in the last four hours, Scarlet?’ he asks sarcastically.

  I
open my mouth to speak and then realise that I can’t actually tell him about the clinic, about the negative HIV test, about the pregnancy grilling, and how uncomfortable and lonely it all felt.

  ‘I read HEAT on the tube,’ I say apologetically.

  ‘Great!’ he replies sarcastically, ‘I’m so glad I asked!’

  That’s pissed me off.

  ‘Did you speak to Katie yet this week?’ I ask.

  A pregnant pause, and then, ‘Not yet, no.’

  ‘So why did you pause?’ I persist, full of accusation.

  ‘Scarlet, why are we talking about this again? I told you I’d call her for a catch-up so you should just assume that I will. I don’t want to discuss it.’

  ‘But you only spoke to her about a week ago. It was a week ago, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe, but so what?’

  ‘So … do you think that’s healthy, Ben? Does that feel like moving on to you? Because it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it to me!’

  ‘I’ve told you, Scar, she will always be part of my life.’

  ‘No, it’s fine, Ben, you don’t have to remind me! I remember when you told me that. I remember because I recall thinking that it’s so great when you just tell me how things are going to be, and the discussion bit, the bit that other people seem to have in their relationships, gets sidestepped because you can’t be arsed or just don’t care enough about me to hear what I think. But I thought I might just tell you what I think about it, in case you’re interested at all? I mean we both know that you’re not, but let’s pretend. It makes me feel horrible. It makes me feel uncomfortable. I don’t know what you’re talking about – are you telling her you still love her? Because I don’t bloody know! You never talk to me! We don’t have weekly catch-ups for Christ’s sake! Do you even care in the slightest how I feel about this, Ben?’

  Silence.

  ‘Because if you don’t then we don’t have anything at all. You and I, we aren’t a unit, are we? Look around you, things fall apart all the time, for everybody. I am trying to make us into a unit, trying to make us best friends, because you don’t fuck your best friends over, and that means we won’t fuck each other over, do you understand?’

  Almost silence. I hear him breathing.

  ‘Ben, have you even considered that maybe you do have to let Katie go, for the sake of us? If “us” is important to you in any way, because that has ended, Ben, and we’re still going, just about …’

  ‘I can’t … I don’t know …’ I hear him exhausting himself at the end of the phone, trying to articulate something but with no idea how, and I’m glad that he finds it hard, that it drains and confuses him. If I feel this bad, it should be hard for him too.

  ‘I can’t explain it, Scar, but you have to get used to it. Jesus, I left her for you, isn’t that enough?’

  I sigh. ‘No you didn’t, Ben. Not completely.’

  ‘Well I’m not talking about this again. I just won’t tell you I’m going to call her next time.’

  ‘Oh, because that’s a healthy next step! Why don’t we lie to each other more, Ben, let’s really make this relationship special!’

  ‘I’m done with this conversation,’ he says.

  ‘Do you think you’re being fair?’ I ask him calmly, quietly.

  He doesn’t answer.

  I say ‘bye’ and then hang up the phone. I refuse to have that discussion ever again. I hear myself shrieking and I hate it. I realise that I have just said, ‘I am trying to make us into best friends.’ Maybe Ben has realised that we never will be.

  I walk down Monmouth Street, which leads me out at the Seven Dials.

  The Seven Dials of Covent Garden is the epicentre of London’s magic – the fault line that runs through the heart of our town. It’s a roundabout with a sundial in the middle, with seven roads that lead directly off it at even intervals, surrounded by cobbles to ward off devils, because devils wear high heels, well, their hooves are high, and it’s hard to walk on cobbles in heels. I am nearly always confused by which road to take, even me, who knows where she is going some of the time. Imagine the tourists! Imagine our US allies confounded by this series of turnings, especially when you remember that across the water they don’t even have roundabouts. It must be quite a puzzle! Which makes me smile. Often I find myself guessing which road to take, crossing my fingers and hurling myself forwards, hoping for the very best. It feels like a test from an old quiz show. Seven options! Seven different choices. What if I pick the wrong one? Will a trap door open above me and half a ton of green gooey gunk fall on my head?

  Seven suggests itself to me as the perfect magic number, but for everybody. It could be the world’s lucky number. In the same way that cats have nine lives, I wonder if I, if we all, have seven lives that we could live, seven different paths to follow, and the path we choose is dictated by some random choice that we make at some seemingly inconsequential point in our lives. Or even some deliberate turn that we take, while not fully understanding the implications at the time. And the result is the life we end up with.

  Maybe when you are young, between the ages of five and six, you decide one Sunday afternoon that you prefer drawing pictures of your cat to growing cress with your daddy. Little do you know that you would have become a world famous biological scientist if you had carried on with the cress, but that option floats away that Sunday afternoon like an old balloon after the birthday party ended.

  Then, when you are thirteen, you decide to go out with Barry Bloss instead of Scott Taylor, because you like Barry’s hair better, and he’s got a cool bike. Scott, it turns out, was a sex hound who wanted it long before Barry did: inadvertently you sidestepped the option where you were knocked up at fifteen, Mrs Taylor by seventeen, divorced with two kids by twenty-five. Then, at eighteen, Brighton and Cardiff Universities both accept you to read Business Studies BSc Hons, but you choose Brighton because it’s closer to home and your dad doesn’t like driving much so you’ve got more chance of lifts back and forth at Christmas. So you don’t meet Mark, the man you would, maybe should, have married at twenty-seven, who lived in the room below the one you would have been assigned. You would have bumped into him on the stairs every day for the first two months, gate-crashed his Halloween party, and become friends. He would have kissed you in the summer rain outside the Student Union on the last night of your fresher year, but you chose Brighton instead, and although you had fun with lots of boys, none of them ever promised your idea of a life-changing love. So you leave Brighton single. Mark was one of your soul mates: but how were you to know?

  Then, aged twenty-five, you drop your keys outside your front door while double-locking it one Tuesday morning because the house next door got burgled last weekend, and it takes a couple of seconds to bend down to pick the keys up and toss them carelessly into your bag. So you’re half-walking, half-running to Ealing Broadway station in the way that you always do, and when you get to the main road you consider running out in front of an oncoming bus, but at the very last second you decide not to because you aren’t sure how fast you can go in your new heels, which are half an inch higher than your normal stilettos. Two seconds earlier and you would have chosen to run. If you had, that bus would have hit you when your heel got caught in the manhole in the middle of the road, and you tripped and fell to your knees. The bus was moving at twenty-eight miles an hour and couldn’t stop in time. So your neck doesn’t break, and blood doesn’t flood your mouth and your lungs as you kneel in the road in new heels, and you live, and don’t die. Option four.

  Option five. You’re thirty-one. You live in a flat in Ealing with your boyfriend who has never told you that he loves you. After three years together, you realise you teeter precariously every day on the verge of tears, and decide to spend a day with him at the zoo. You determine that by the end of that day you will know what to do. You will either tell him that you’re leaving, or remember why you love him enough to stay for as long as it takes.

  I reach for my phone.

&n
bsp; ‘Hey, it’s me,’ I say.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, waiting for me to apologise for before, because I always do.

  ‘When is your day off this week?’

  ‘Sunday.’

  ‘Good, that’s mine too. Will you come on a day out with me?’

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ he asks, suspicious, surprised.

  ‘Let’s go to the zoo,’ I say, and hang up the phone.

  I spot the Evening Standard seller on Long Acre and get my forty pence out of my purse as I weave my way towards him, avoiding tourists and cracked paving stones.

  ‘Hi,’ I say.

  ‘Afternoon, dear,’ he replies, folding a paper in half.

  ‘How are you?’ I ask, smiling.

  ‘I’m well, dear,’ he passes me my paper. ‘You chose option five.’

  He smiles. I stare.

  ‘Was that the right one?’ I ask, accepting one end of the paper, while he still holds on to the other.

  ‘Who am I to say? I don’t know anything about anything. If you forced me, well, and I had to bet, I would say I would have gone for option six myself. But what do I know?’ he shrugs.

  ‘But is that better? Can I still change it?’ I ask, panic filling me like a bad transfusion.

  ‘Of course you can, dear, you can do anything.’

  He begins sorting his money into change piles: short pillars of silver, sixty pence, ready change, for the people that give him pound coins.

  ‘How will I know if I’ve picked right, though?’ I ask him, trying to catch his eye as he mumbles numbers at the money, performing calculations in his head, but a woman asks me to move as she offers up her forty pence. He swaps it for a paper, and asks, ‘Do you want the property section?’ She shakes her head, and he says, ‘Excuse me, dear’ to me, gesturing that I move out of the way. A young guy in a T-shirt that says ‘Your mother loved it’ volunteers his money to him now.

  The Standard seller starts to whistle.

  ‘I wondered if you could,’ I say.

  He smiles and carries on. It’s ‘All You Need Is Love’.