It's Got To Be Perfect

by Claire Allan

  I thought of my flat – the awful mess it really was in. When I left the day before it was stale with sweat and dust and general mess and I wasn’t looking forward to going home to sort it out. Especially with a hangover – but needs must. In some ways, though, it was the least I could do. A penance of a Friday night on hardcore cleaning before I finally got to talk to Pearse.

  “Penny for them?” Fionn asked.

  “We don’t have long enough,” I said with a wry smile. “Bawb will be wondering where we are so we’d better get back in. He’s already threatened my job once already this morning.”

  “He has not!” Fionn said incredulously.

  I nodded and gave a half-smile. Maybe that was part of my penance too.

  The biggest part of my penance, however, seemed to involve the aforementioned campaign outside Love, Sex and Magic. Looking down at my blue hot pants and nipple-tassels (sewn onto a lurid bra top complete with dazzling sequins), I wondered if I would have been better fixed wearing the French Maid’s Outfit. My ass would definitely have been warmer.

  It crossed my mind that if my parents were still around (not that they were dead – they had merely retired to the Costa Del Tax Haven), they would have despaired. Four years at university and this was how I spent my working day – dressed like a cheap trollop and trying to convince the local old-biddy brigade that the shop was not a modern-day version of Sodom and Gomorrah.

  “The shop, as you may see from the name, is also about love. Love is good – and this shop can be used to purchase items which will promote loving relationships in committed couples. These items don’t have to be known as sex toys.” (There was an audible gasp at that) “If you prefer they can be marketed as marital aids.”

  A small woman with greying hair and yellowing teeth, dressed in a prim and proper twin-set and pearls, looked me straight in the nipple-tassels and said: “My dear, there is no room in any Christian marriage for a butt-plug.”

  There is some logic you can’t argue with.

  I took a deep breath, allowing me just enough time to gather my thoughts, and replied: “But this shop sells all sorts. Honestly. Maybe you should have a look and see?”

  “I think not,” she muttered, turning back to her group of cronies and encouraging them to waft their placards higher than ever.

  Bob walked over, a smile on his face. I expected him to be apoplectic that I hadn’t managed to quell the protest but instead he rubbed his hands together in glee.

  “The newspapers are here – and UTV. We’re guaranteed some cracker coverage over this!”

  Oh great, I thought, cringing. Me and my shiny blue bottom would be centre-stage on the evening news. This would be even more humiliating than the time I was snapped dressed as a giant latte promoting the latest coffee shop in town.

  If Darcy – my sister – were here, she would be positively glowing with joy at my humiliation. It wasn’t that she was a bad person, and she wouldn’t do it in a hateful way. She just had a wicked sense of humour and would enjoy adding the picture to her growing Facebook folder of “Annie pulls an ‘Annie’” pictures – humiliating myself having been a big factor in my life so far.

  But thankfully Darcy was in Dublin and she never watched the UTV news so I knew, on this occasion at least, I would escape her mockery. All I had to do was make it through the next hour with my nerve – and my costume – intact.

  This was so not my scene. Of course PR work as a concept was my scene. I loved it – but this, touting marital aids, or sex toys, or butt-plugs was not. I was quite prudish really. I rarely, if ever, did anything out of the ordinary.

  3

  I couldn’t really explain why what happened with Chewbacca happened. To be utterly honest, I couldn’t really remember it. I knew it had been a hard day at work. Bob had been in best “Bawb” mode – where every sentence out of his gob was a cliché and every time he so much as looked at any one of us he was shouting about targets and thinking outside the box etc.

  I didn’t want to think outside the box. I wanted to climb in the box, with a bottle of vodka, and shout out from the corners that he could go feck himself.

  Trying not to make myself seem too much like a bona-fide loony tune, I decided to forgo the box and opt simply for the vodka. I’d phoned Pearse just on the very off-chance he would leave the restaurant for the evening and come and keep me company. It was a Wednesday night and even Manna couldn’t be that busy on a friggin’ Wednesday night, I reckoned. But, busy or not, that place was his baby and I, well, wasn’t, obviously.

  “But I’ve had a rotten day at work,” I whined.

  “I’m busy,” he huffed. “I’ll come over later,” he added, his voice full of promise.

  I wasn’t in the mood for promises. I just wanted a boyfriend who was there when I needed him – not just when he needed me. Fionn had it – every night she went home to a gorgeous man who, even though he had a young daughter, still made time for just them.

  I could have handled coming second to someone’s child – but not someone’s fecking restaurant. The bloody garlic chips would surely be safe in the hands of one of the other chefs.

  So it was in a fit of pique that I’d hit the bar on my own and it was in a fit of something – loneliness, lust, whatever – that I’d found myself trapped under a strange man the following morning.

  Now I should point out that I wasn’t a slut. I didn’t normally shag around. I found it enough of an effort to maintain a relationship with a significant other – all that shaving legs and dressing in skimpy undies nonsense. Going out and taking a random stranger to bed was unheard of for me and yet the evidence was undeniable. You can’t wake up in the buff amid your own discarded clothes and covered by another human being without reasonably believing you had done the down and dirty.

  I remembered, vaguely, meeting Chewbacca. I’d been on my third double vodka and stuffing my face with my third bag of Bacon Fries when he’d asked if I had a light.

  “I don’t smoke,” I’d replied and he shrugged. But then, of course, I remembered the lighter kept solely for my FSBs with Fionn.

  I’m sure he must have thought I was mad, or an arsonist, or both, as I fished in my bag and handed him the luminous pink piece of plastic.

  “Thanks,” he smiled and bought me a drink.

  Of course I let him buy me the drink in an act of wilful feck-you-Pearse frustration and the next thing I remember was, of course, waking up under him. I didn’t even know his name. Names just didn’t seem important when you were on your fifth orgasm. And the following morning I just hadn’t had the time to ask as I tried to get him the hell out of my flat and out of my life. Guilt is a terrible thing. If it wasn’t for guilt . . . well, who knows . . .

  And yet as I walked back in the door that Friday evening, tired from my day pimping the local sex shop, there was a faint trace of him still there – and it wasn’t all down to the moulting.

  I dragged my hair back into a ponytail and changed into my old grey trackie bottoms and T-shirt. Strange as it was, I felt a lot more glam in my trackies than I had in my sparkles and spangles.

  Stripping the bed off, I pushed the windows of the bedroom open. I desperately wanted and needed a shower, but there was no point in soothing away the stresses of the day before deep-cleaning the scene of my crime. Picking up my discarded outfit from Wednesday night, I cringed. I imagined him stripping it off me – or, worse still, me in some drunken state of madness performing a weird striptease. Please God, I thought, may that memory be simply a figment of my imagination and not an actual flashback. I bundled the suit, along with my bedclothes, into the washing machine and whizzed around the room, picking up two discarded wineglasses, a pizza box and my missing pink lighter from the floor. Lifting a foul-smelling saucer with three cigarette-butts stubbed out into it, I wondered for the umpteenth time just what the hell had I been thinking? I never let anyone smoke in my flat and yet this mystery man had crossed that line – and a million more.

  Then I se
t about doing my best Mrs Mop job with the polish and Hoover. It took almost two hours before I could look at my flat and see it as my home again and not just the scene of some dirty sex-ridden crime. My candles were burning, my rooms were aired out and everything was fresh and clean. I was just about ready for my shower – which would be followed by a luxurious soak in the bath. There was no way I could soak in the bath without scrubbing off the grime of the day first – otherwise it was just like lying in dead-skin soup.

  It was only then that I could sink back and start to relax. Yes, of course, I still had to deal with Pearse and the mess our relationship was in but, as that wasn’t going to happen any time soon, I figured I’d just make the most of a night on my own.

  When the flat was clean, I loved it. I could see past the rickety windows and the fading carpet when everything was in its place. I could pick out the character in the sloping ceilings and sash windows and think I could never, ever live in a fancy new build like Pearse’s. (Even if his house was warm and stylish and all the things mine wasn’t.)

  Pouring an overly liberal dollop of bubble bath into the tub, I pulled on my fluffy dressing gown and tied my now-wet hair up on top of my head.

  My bathroom was huge – too huge maybe. I couldn’t reach the door while I sat on the toilet which always made me nervous. I had an irrational fear about it. I preferred to have the safety of knowing I could reach the door to check it was locked in the event of an intruder breaking into the house while I was mid-poo. Despite the fact I had two locks on it.

  But my huge bathroom was one of the characteristics of my higgledy-piggledy home which made it so unique. The top floor of a sparklingly ancient house, the bathroom was the same size as the living room, while the galley kitchen only fitted one person comfortably. Pearse refused to cook in it – there wasn’t room to toss a pancake never mind sauté or blanche anything (not that I actually knew what that meant – but it sounded fancy). Half of the living room was a dining room and my bedroom was large enough for three double beds with just one small radiator stuck below the draughty window. (It only had one double bed, mind you.)

  And yet, when it was clean and tidy like this, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

  Not that I had the option. Of course I joked about living with Pearse, or him living with me. I was always fielding questions about when we would move in together – and I knew it was mostly because many of my friends wanted a good nosey around his house – but, when I thought of it, he had never asked me. And I certainly wasn’t going to ask him to move in here – he barely even stayed the night. We always went to his place – or he would visit mine for an after-hours booty call and then clear off home.

  That’s not to say he was a bad person. He didn’t treat me that badly. He told me he loved me and bought me nice jewellery and took me away on the (very) occasional romantic weekend (generally to places where he could check out new restaurants). But when it came to commitment he seemed reluctant – and, as I sank under the bubbles and thought about the conversation we were going to have the next day, I realised that I was too.

  4

  It was hard to know what to cook for a chef. Pearse was a fussy sort, while my usual repertoire of meals for one consisted of pasta and sauce or potato waffles with a garnish of lettuce and tomato – and it was ordinary lettuce too – none of your fancy curly-leaf stuff.

  So when Pearse visited for lunch I was always a little flummoxed and on this occasion, knowing that he was coming over to confront me about my terrible indiscretion, I felt even more flummoxed than usual.

  “Leek and potato soup is easy,” Fionn had suggested down the phone that morning. She was quite the cook herself and liked to offer her recipes at a second’s notice.

  “The only leek and potato soup I can be guaranteed not to feck up is the kind out of a can,” I replied and while she tried to offer me her best bread-making tips for a side dish, I was already planning a trip down the crusty-roll aisle in M&S. This was not just any food – this was make or break food. My shoddy cooking could not be relied on to save the day. Not, mind you, that I had decided the day needed saving.

  I had lain awake most of the night, mulling it over in my head. While my dalliance with the Hairy-backed One had not been intentional, could I really love Pearse if I had let that happen? And would I have been out, drinking on my own, chatting to strange men, if he had loved me enough to spend a decent amount of time with me?

  Of course I couldn’t have this conversation with Fionn just now – excited as she was at the thought of a garlic and herb ciabatta – because I couldn’t bring myself to admit to her just how utterly ridiculous I had been. I had enough fish to fry in the shape of Pearse and I would deal with Fionn later.

  “You’re so lucky,” she crowed. “A romantic lunch, maybe a glass or two of wine, and a little afternoon delight. I’m taking Emma to McDonald’s while Alex and the ex meet to talk over what’s going to happen while we’re on honeymoon.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I hate to sound awful but I hope she doesn’t make it difficult. I love Emma and I’m ready to share my life with her but I wouldn’t mind at least a week with just Alex at the start of our married life.”

  “I’m sure Rebecca will have a little compassion about something so important,” I soothed, all the while knowing that Rebecca was not known for her compassion about anything Fionn-related.

  “You and me both,” Fionn said, her voice returning to normal. “Look, enjoy your lunch. I’ll get you a spare Happy Meal toy from McD’s so you don’t feel you missed out. And enjoy the afternoon nookie if you get the chance.”

  In the background I heard a precocious voice ask what nookie was and Fionn said a hasty goodbye before leaving me settled on a tin of soup and some fresh-baked grocery bread. I decided against putting a bottle of wine in the fridge to chill – I wanted my faculties about me for what was to come.

  By the time Pearse arrived I was regretting that decision. I could have done with a bottle of wine. Or two. He smiled at me – not warmly – when he arrived and walked in. There was no kiss on the cheek or tender embrace, but I could hardly expect it, could I? I felt in many ways that he was looking over my shoulder just in case I had any other part-time lovers secreted away.

  “I made lunch,” I offered as he walked through the living/dining room. I had set the table – functionally, just the basics. “It’s only soup and crusty bread, but since it’s cold out there I thought it would be nice.”

  Neither of us commented on the frosty atmosphere inside as well.

  Pearse sat down on the sofa, the furthest point in the room from my non-fresh cooking, and looked up at me.

  “We need to talk,” he started and I nodded.

  I sat down opposite him. “I’m sorry, Pearse. I don’t know what happened. Well, I do know what happened but I’m not sure why.”

  He nodded – a weird expressionless nod. I’m not sure whether he cared about what I’d done – despite the flurry of text messages – or was beyond hurt. He was giving nothing away. Nothing at all.

  “Who is he?” he asked, tone flat.

  I blushed because, of course, I didn’t really have a clue who he was. “No one important. It was a silly, stupid thing of me to do.”

  “Yes, well, you’re right. It was.” His tone was still flat and yet I felt as if he was shouting at me. “I mean, I can’t actually believe you would think so little of us to risk what we have for the sake of a one-night stand.”

  I sat for a moment, taking in what he was saying. I had risked “what we have” but then I had to wonder what it was we did have. The way Pearse was talking, we had it all. Truth was, he was little more than an associate I met once or twice a week. Yes, there was a certain kudos in having him as my boyfriend but there was little actual boyfriend behaviour going on these days. And if I questioned him about it, he would get annoyed and tell me I should be grateful that he was working so hard “for us”. But I didn’t see how he was working for us. The quality of our rel
ationship certainly had not improved. I had spent birthdays and holidays alone. I had been unable to talk to the one man who was supposed to comfort and care for me when I had a bad day or needed a hug. I had even spent our two-year anniversary sipping Martinis on my own in the corner of Manna while Pearse worked and congratulated himself on how far we had come.

  And it wasn’t like I had a share of the restaurant stashed away somewhere, or drew a wage from it, or even got to share in Pearse’s house, drive his car or enjoy any of the trappings of his success. How he was doing this “for us” was beyond me entirely.

  “I’ve been thinking about this – a lot,” he said, cutting through my thoughts. “In fact it’s all I’ve been able to think about these last few days and, much as it hurts me to say it, I don’t know if I can forgive you.”

  His words seemed well rehearsed, robotic even. It was almost as if he was reading a speech straight off an auto-cue, or if he had prepared this talk as if it were one of his many after-dinner speeches. Oh God, he had probably even made flash cards.

  I knew this was my moment. I had two choices. I could beg him, plead and cry for his forgiveness, and promise to be the perfect little trophy girlfriend from now on. Or, I could be honest.

  “I’m not sure I want to be forgiven,” I muttered, and he had the decency to look shocked. My reaction had obviously not been in his script. “I love you, Pearse,” I said, resisting the urge to add “in my own way”. “And I wish this had worked out. I honestly do, but how can it? I think we both know that we want different things out of life.” And in that moment I meant more – much more – than wanting to sleep with different people. I had been holding on to Pearse, perhaps long after I should, because I hoped he would be my happy ending but it was dawning on me that he never was going to be. Not unless he changed. Not unless he really wanted to.