It's Got To Be Perfect

by Claire Allan

  “Not everyone can get away with your look,” I said as she mocked my tailored black trousers, cerise pink T-shirt and satin neckscarf.

  She sat there, eating toast in my living room, her hair a mess of frizzy curls, but still looking fabulous and her long skinny legs creeping out of some vintage cropped denim leggings while an off-the-shoulder tunic completed a look which screamed: “I used to be in Bananarama!”

  I hated – but loved – that she looked amazing in her outfit and, yes, I did feel a little boring in mine, even though I had tied the scarf in a very “in season” bow and teased my hair into a funky beehive.

  “You should try my look some time. It could work on you, petal,” she said.

  “Maybe,” I said with no intention of ever following through on her suggestion. “But for now I must go and throw myself on my proverbial sword and hope that Fionn forgives me.”

  I lifted my non-designer bag and left with my spirits high.

  In fact, as I drove to work, all set for telling Fionn what an utter eejit I was etc, I even had a smile on my face. I listened in to the radio, laughing along with Chris Moyles and his morning crew and arrived at the office early (seven and a half minutes) once again.

  I was the first person there, which made me feel nicely smug and superior. I switched on the lights and the coffee machine and even went so far as to sort out the post and put it on Bob’s desk which would earn me brownie points without a doubt.

  I then sat down, switched on my computer and tapped out an email to Fionn.

  “Fionn

  Please can we meet for a FSB at 10.30?

  I know you have cause to be annoyed with me but please let me explain properly, and I promise you I will do my very best to sort it out and not make it any worse.

  Axx”

  She replied, shortly after she arrived, with a simple okay and the scene was set. I texted Darcy to tell her that I had sent the initial email of apology and she replied with a “Good luck!”, which buoyed me up. Good old Darcy – with her ability to make things seem infinitely surmountable.

  I just had to kill the time before the FSB and I was determined that whatever it was I would do, I would impress Bob. So I set about looking up the latest campaign for my cosmetics client, Haven. We had become so used to plugging their products that we rarely did anything above and beyond the usual mail-out of freebies to greedy journalists with nicely designed press releases – so I set about brainstorming (with my brain competing against itself) for something which would launch their latest twelve-hour-lasting lip gloss into the stratosphere of the public consciousness.

  I was kissing my thirty-sixth piece of card – for the press releases – when Bob walked in and looked at me strangely. Whether it was because I was snogging paper with a shade of bright pink lippy slapped across my mouth, or whether it was because it was before nine twenty-five, I’ll never know, but I think he looked impressed. It was either impressed or amused.

  Fionn and I took our usual place in the corner of the smoker’s hut. She looked at me expectantly and I tried to remember just exactly what it was I had planned to say to her.

  “Fionn, look, I’m sorry.”

  “You said,” she replied, without so much as a glance towards her prop pack of cigs.

  “I thought I was helping,” I ploughed on. “I thought if Alex knew how much you were upset and how much you thought of him and Emma, he might reassess how he has been behaving and things might get better for you. I know I do things in a slapdash way sometimes but I was doing it with the very best of intentions.”

  “Well, he reassessed his behaviour all right.” Fionn took a cigarette from her prop packet and lit it for real. She inhaled slowly, the warm curl of smoke catching in her throat and making her cough. “He’s talking of postponing the wedding. Not calling it off mind, just ‘postponing’ it until we can get ourselves sorted. He said it is clear there are major issues in our relationship and that he will not subject Emma to a wobbly relationship. She needs security in her life, apparently, and at the moment he is not sure if I can offer her that.”

  I felt my heart sink to my boots. Actually, it sank below my boots – right down through the ground. I knew I hadn’t helped and I knew Alex had been pissed off but I didn’t realise it was this bad.

  “Is there anything I can do? Should I talk to him again? I could explain that you hadn’t sent me? That I had gone and then just not even realised I had given him that impression? I could even buy a sofa – a really expensive one?”

  I hoped injecting a little humour – however badly timed – could help the situation but I was wrong.

  “You’ve done enough, Annie.”

  “I really am sorry,” I replied.

  “You said,” she repeated as she stubbed her unsmoked cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray. Then she walked off, not looking back.

  I knew Fionn was too kind-hearted to stay cross at me forever. I wasn’t devastated that our friendship was over. I knew it wasn’t. But I did know that it was badly damaged and I needed to do something – feck knows what – to make it better.

  It was with slightly less enthusiasm that I went back to my desk and resumed the task of snogging press releases. Somehow my fervour for high-gloss lipsticks had waned and, I’ll admit, a few smudged.

  I sent Fionn an email just before lunch.

  “Things will get better. I know they will. And we’ll all laugh about this in times to come. Well, you probably won’t laugh about it. And I certainly won’t. I’ll be too busy trying to make it up to you forever. But, you and Alex, you will get through this.”

  She replied shortly after.

  “I hope so, Annie. And I know you were trying to be a good friend, but sometimes, just sometimes, I wish you would engage your brain before you speak. It’s all well and good to be Quirky Annie who messes things up from time to time, but you can’t meddle in other people’s lives. Imagine if I decided to take a visit to Manna and tell Pearse your innermost thoughts and fears?

  It’s not my place, and I wouldn’t do it.

  I love you. You are my best friend. But there are times when it is very, very hard to be around you. I need a little time – I have to concentrate on what really matters to me. I have to make it work with Alex because, even though he is being a dick of the highest order just now, I love him and can’t imagine not having him in the rest of my life.

  So give me some space and understand that I’m angry with you – and rightly so.”

  I couldn’t argue with her email, no matter how badly it stung.

  I took myself out for a solitary FSB and when I returned I clicked on the reply button.

  I tried to think of what else to say but all I could think of, once again, was that I was sorry and that just seemed trite.

  “I’m here when you are ready to talk again,” I typed hesitantly and clicked Send and looked up. She gave me a half-smile. It wasn’t the progress either I or Darcy had hoped for, but it was a start. My plans, however, to visit Alex in my lunch break were well and truly scuppered. That would break things entirely and, while I wanted to let him know that Fionn had nothing to do with my impromptu visit, I would have to find another way to do it.

  Next on my list was to arrange my liaison with Pearse. I called the restaurant and Toni answered, her snooty tones clearly indicating that Manna was a very posh place to eat indeed and that she was a very important person in the workings of the place. I kicked myself for not just calling his mobile.

  “Hi, may I speak with Pearse, please?”

  “Who may I say is calling?” she asked and I mentally slapped her square across the back of the head. She knew it was me. She had spoken to me a lot over the phone in the last two years. She was just being a smart-arse and I was in no mood for smart-arses.

  “It’s Annie, Toni. Is he about?” I asked, biting my tongue.

  “I’ll just check,” she muttered and I heard her put the phone down and click-clack off across the marble floor in her fancy shoes.
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  I knew she didn’t actually have to check. The same woman would have known, at any hour of the working day or night, exactly where Pearse was. Be it the kitchen, the dining room or in the loo having a quick dump, you could bet your Crème Brûlée Toni would know about it.

  A minute passed before I heard her click-clacking back.

  “I’ll just put you through,” she muttered and I wondered why she hadn’t just patched me through to the kitchen in the first place. Surely one of the other chefs could have told me if he wasn’t there. I guessed she was just looking for an excuse to gaze lovingly at his face.

  It crossed my mind that this shouldn’t annoy me. After all, even though he had taken me to heaven and back again just a few days before, I had well and truly concluded that Pearse and I were going nowhere as a couple. It shouldn’t annoy me one touch, but it did, and mentally she got another slap.

  The phone beeped and Pearse answered. He sounded stressed.

  “Work or pleasure?” he barked.

  I didn’t know how to answer. I wasn’t calling for work but I certainly wasn’t calling for pleasure.

  “Erm, Pearse. Can I see you some time?”

  “I can call over in half an hour.”

  “No, not today. This evening? I’m at work just now.”

  “That’s never really been a problem before. Tell Bob you’re meeting me, his biggest and best client. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

  “Actually, Pearse, if there is one thing I am sure of, it is that he will. And no, l-look, we n-need to talk properly.” I stumbled over the words, my nerves at this whole sorry mess getting the better of me.

  “Talk? I thought you might have been looking for something more than just talking.”

  I could hear the smirk on his face and I could swear I heard one of the other chefs laughing. The fecker probably had me on speakerphone – he often did when he took calls in the kitchen. He didn’t like to dirty the phone with flour or oil or blood or whatever.

  I had to be careful how I played this. He was under the illusion – and why wouldn’t he be? – that we were well and truly back on again, in which case, no, we wouldn’t just talk when we met. But I could hardly break it to him, over the speakerphone in his restaurant, that we needed not only to talk but to have TheTalk.

  “Pearse, could you just let me know when you might be free to come over?”

  “I’ll try and get over tonight – after we close – is that okay?”

  “Yes, fine, p-perfect,” I stuttered.

  He told me he was looking forward to it (to a distinct “Way-hey!” from the chef in the background) and I hung up feeling like a complete and utter bitch.

  In fact, I felt so bitch-like I had to immediately text Darcy and ask her what she thought.

  She replied that I was not a bitch, but I was an eejit and asked me to bring home two Wispas and some bottles of Pear Cider. The woman had her priorities right.

  I climbed the stairs to the flat with a heavy heart and a heavier carrier-bag. I hadn’t bothered to get in touch with Ant. I’d had enough of things going wrong and I didn’t see the need to make it a hat trick of disasters.

  Darcy was lying on the sofa, her funky outfit now accessorized with a pair of fluffy bedsocks. She was watching Home and Away and as I walked in she greeted me with a very chipper “G’day.”

  “Hello,” I replied, throwing myself ungraciously into the armchair.

  “What’s wrong, Sheila?” she asked in a dodgy Australian accent.

  “Nothing,” I sighed. “It’s just been a tough day.”

  “Well, how about I throw a couple of shrimps on the barbie and open a tinny or two?”

  I raised my eyebrow.

  She dropped the accent. “Okay, then how about I whip us up a quick spag bol and we crack open a bottle of this cider?”

  “I have to keep my faculties about me. Pearse is coming over later to have The Talk.”

  She responded with an ominous sounding “Duhn duhn duuuuuhn!” and I had to smile.

  “A wee drop won’t hurt you,” she said, her accent now transformed into a Mrs Doyle from Father Ted impression. “Ah, go on – go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on!”

  Of course, being Darcy, she was right. A wee drop wouldn’t hurt me – but a couple of bottles would. And we skipped the spag bol, choosing to sustain ourselves entirely on Wispas and alcohol for the evening.

  At eleven twenty-one we were just reminiscing about our childhood, and how our father had actually made us believe John Denver was our uncle, when the intercom buzzer bleeped and I nearly had a small coronary.

  “Oh shite – Pearse,” I muttered, stumbling to my feet.

  “Oh yes. Pearse. Pee-Arse,” Darcy said, before falling into hysterical laughter.

  “Darcy, behave!” I chided before the giggles got the better of me too.

  We were struggling to keep straight faces when he arrived at the front door – a look of wanton expectation etched across his face and his crotch.

  “Annie,” he began, reaching his arms towards me and enveloping me in an embrace, “I’ve been thinking about you and about us all day.”

  I struggled to focus, feeling giddy from both the pear cider and the effort of trying to stifle my giggles.

  I pulled back from him and stuttered, “I-I don’t know about ‘us’, Pearse –”

  “Ah, Annie, you know we make a good team,” he cut in. “And yes, I know we’ve both made mistakes but I wouldn’t change you – faults and all – for anything. And I believe we can get through this and I can forgive you.”

  He reached a hand to my stunned face and I heard a snort from behind me.

  “Pee-Arse, how lovely to see you again,” Darcy said, walking towards us, and it was Pearse’s turn to look a little stunned.

  “Darcy,” he said, stretching his hand out to shake my sister’s.

  He didn’t say it was lovely to see her and I wasn’t surprised. He had clearly been expecting something a little more sexually gratifying than a chat with my sister.

  “Here, come and sit down,” she said, gesturing towards the living room and the sofa.

  “Can I get you a drink? A pear cider? Although on second thoughts I think we might have finished the cider. There might be some Jack Daniels, or beer or –”

  “Malibu?” I offered – knowing there was a dusty bottle of the coconut-flavoured liquid festering in the back of my cupboard.

  “No, thank you,” Pearse replied, tersely, taking a seat. “Actually, Darcy, lovely and all as it is to see you, I’m really here to talk to Annie, as I’m sure you’ll understand.”

  “But of course,” she said with a strange drunken bow before turning to leave the room. “You know where I am if you need me,” she mock-whispered to me over her shoulder, and walked into my bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  I’m sure I heard Pearse let out a small whimper. The bedroom door was closed: there would be no hanky panky.

  I took a deep breath, steadied myself as best I could, and sat down beside him.

  “As I was saying,” he said, “we can get over this. Haven’t we already made a good start? I can’t remember the last time sex was so good.”

  Whatever wild hopes I’d had that he knew what I was going to say, and would let me off the hook, evaporated as he went on telling me just how lucky I was to have such a wonderful, talented, forgiving man on my arm and that he was horny as hell.

  “We have let things slide,” he continued. “You know, got stuck in a rut. You’ve let your appearance go a little – but that’s okay. That often happens a few years into a relationship, I suppose. And I know, well, your lifestyle isn’t quite the same as mine, but don’t they say that opposites always attract and . . .”

  He wittered on. To be honest I had to stop myself from listening. As he chatted, I didn’t see us moving closer together, I saw us drifting further apart. I didn’t want this – no matter how good the sex, or how comfortable I felt with him, or how well he was doing. There
was a reason I had slept with Ant and one bonk on a lonely afternoon was not going to fix it. Nor was the experience of Pearse pointing out my faults under the pretence of doing me a favour.

  And it dawned on me that when I created my Life Plan, the man I imagined standing beside me as I reached that altar wearing that very frou-frou dress was not one who could only point out that he loved me in spite of my faults. The man I imagined marrying was one who would shout all my positive attributes from the rooftops.

  I never wanted to be any man’s second best – the one he settled with because it was the easier option. I wanted to be his be-all and end-all and it was clear that I wasn’t for Pearse. Regardless of how I felt or didn’t feel for him, he didn’t love me. He probably never really had. He may well have been fond of me in his own way, but love – no. It dawned on me that the only person Pearse was in love with was himself.

  He wittered on as my eyes filled with tears.

  “Don’t cry,” he said. “It’s okay. I’m okay with what’s happened. It will be okay now.”

  I shook my head, struggling to find the words I needed.

  He reached his hand out to me but I couldn’t bear to let him touch me. It didn’t matter that his hands were familiar to me. It didn’t matter that not so long ago I had let him caress every inch of my body. I didn’t want him near me now.

  “Pearse,” I said. “It’s over. I need you to go.”

  He didn’t look shocked. In fact, a smile was dancing across his face. “Here we go again! Annie, don’t be so dramatic!” he said, as if he were merely humouring me. “You need me.”