by Louise Kean
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Modesty, Cagney, that’s what makes you the man that you are. But fuck that, tell me what happened.’
‘Nothing happened. I heard some woman screaming, and that’s that.’
‘Fine. Don’t tell me. Iuan will tell it better anyway.’
‘Iuan knows?’
‘Everybody knows! It’s the talk of the village!’
‘But how? It only happened twenty-four hours ago! And on a Sunday, for Christ’s sake!’
‘Come on, boss, don’t be shy. Did you hit him?’
Cagney sighs. This is just what he knew would happen. He shouldn’t have done anything, should have just sat at his desk and ignored it all. Now he’s in for at least a week of people trying to talk to him, perfect strangers accosting him in the street to discuss it, the entire nosy-busy-body-caring-sharing-smile-on-its-face-village falling over itself to ask him how he feels and offer a thousand shoulders to cry on when he needs them. Then they’ll congratulate each other for Cagney’s heroics, believing they’ve finally turned him with their sweet sensitive carnival of Champagne liberalism. They got him in the end, that sour old hack always dressed in black, their village Grinch, not painting or singing or living the life glorious with the rest of them. They got him with their cheerful persistence, and forced him to care by trailing their lives for him to see and share, like multicoloured ribbons flying from the backs of their push bikes. They got him, while shaking sad heads at their knowledge of life’s problems, courtesy of that morning’s Guardian newspaper. Yes, they’ll think they got their man in the end, as Cagney got his, but theirs were rugby tackles of love. Cagney winces at the thought, and looks down at his desk, at the piece of paper with a hastily scrawled address and Friday’s date written in big black letters. It will be awful. It will be the kind of dreadful appreciative small-talk-filled evening that could actually kill him. But how can he not go?
Plus that ridiculous girl will be there. Sunny Weston. What the hell was that? Something inexplicable had happened between them. In any other situation, with any other woman, he would have ignored her, or walked away. Ignored her and walked away. But something had made him argue with that girl. Her ridiculous perky face with a big black eye, her smiley ‘wasn’t it all a big adventure and there is no evil in the world that can’t be fixed with a hug’ demeanour. Her name, for Christ’s sake! She hadn’t seemed familiar, she didn’t remind him of any of the women who had ruined his life. She had just stood there, babbling. Having done something brave and admirable and positively manly she had undermined it all with some gibbering and blushing and turned everything sour. Yet when he shook her hand he had felt a wave of something unfamiliar, and he had felt truly uncomfortable.
Whatever it was, it is not worth thinking about. Other than that he is going to have to see her again, on Friday, and no doubt with some big dopey boyfriend propping her up, laughing at him. Cagney can’t bear it. He will have to take somebody …
The brush falls out of Howard’s hair and on to the floor with a bang.
‘Bugger. Ah well, for the best.’
Cagney shakes his head to clear the notion. Howard is not a dinner date option.
‘Now, as charming as I find this moment we’re sharing, Howard, we have a job to do.’
‘Great!’ Howard claps his hands together with enthusiasm, but Cagney ignores it and carries on.
‘Jessica Fellows, nineteen, blonde, looks like a spender and a screamer, probably just the one hit needed, SW6, ten thirty.’ Cagney checks his watch. ‘I’ll have to tell you the rest in the car.’
‘Photo?’
‘Here.’ Cagney throws it across the desk and Howard whistles.
‘Hello, Foxy!’
Cagney is already at the door. ‘No time for masturbation, Howard. We have to go.’
Cagney takes the stairs two at a time, as Howard scuttles behind him.
‘So this Jemima …’
‘Jessica.’
‘That’s what I said. What’s she been up to, the dirty rabbit?’
Cagney doesn’t answer, as he swings the street door open and just stops himself crashing into the side of a lorry at the last second, parked so closely to the door he is unable to get out.
‘Jesus H. Christ!’
‘I meant to tell you about that.’ Howard slams into the back of him.
‘How the hell did you get in?’
‘Christian very kindly let me come through the shop.’
‘How sweet of him. It’s probably Christian’s fucking truck!’
‘A fucking truck, bloody good idea! Mobile.’
Cagney pivots and Howard jumps out of his way, following him to a door at the end of the corridor.
Snatching it open, he is orally bitch-slapped by a shrieking Barbra Streisand. Videos lie in piles on the floor and against the walls, in no discernible order. Signs hang from the ceiling, pinned to the walls, screaming in orange and purple ‘Tom Hanks: Don’t even ask!’ and ‘Rewind/don’t rewind. Life’s too short!’ It is a video carnival. The garlands that hang down from the ceiling are straight off a Notting Hill float. It looks like Liberace’s funeral. Cagney steps gingerly over huge plastic Buddhas that lie drunk and comatose, passed out across the floor, and marches towards a figure high-kicking in the middle of all of it, in a cropped yellow T-shirt and leather trousers, singing with his eyes closed. Somehow his split kicks and step ball changes manage to miss every paper rose and fuchsia peacock feather surrounding him.
Cagney stops suddenly, two feet from the chorus line, scared by the speed of the flying limbs. The dance doesn’t stop, and eventually Cagney coughs, as gruffly as his surroundings allow.
‘Don’t rain on my parade, Cagney.’ Christian, eyes still closed, performs a jazz jump that causes Cagney to flail backwards into a life-size Dolly Parton cardboard cut-out. Christian stops moving, stands perfectly still, and slowly opens his eyes.
‘Have you bent Dolly?’
‘She’s fine.’ Cagney brushes himself down quickly, and suspiciously eyes the two-dimensional wig and breasts behind him.
‘Doesn’t everything have to be bent in here, Chris?’
Howard bounds forward to check out Dolly’s cardboard breasts, and Christian raises his eyes to heaven, and whispers to Cagney, ‘Stupid as a stick.’
Cagney nods twice.
‘Cagney, can I just enquire, why the interruption? You can see it’s display day, and I’ve already had that dog without a leash bounding through here this morning.’ Christian gestures with his eyes towards Howard, who is pretending to squeeze Dolly’s assets.
‘Sorry, the sedatives aren’t working, but I’m trying him on arsenic. You only have yourself to blame, anyway – there’s a bloody great van parked outside my entrance.’
Christian grabs at a remote control and Barbra stops shrieking. Cagney exhales with relief.
‘Well, Cagney, a real man can always find a way in or out, but that’s by the by.’ Christian winks at him, and in reply Cagney sighs, and checks his watch. ‘Look, I’m sorry, I know it’s a big sodding nuisance, but I thought it would be gone by now. It’s the Buddhas – they had to come by special delivery from Bulgaria, and now the driver has scuttled off for a lard sandwich. But it’ll be gone by the time you get back, I swear.’
‘Swear on the cardboard.’ Cagney gestures with his head towards the life-size cut-out.
Christian gasps in mock shock. ‘Don’t call her that – she’ll hear you!’
Cagney raises his eyes to heaven in exasperation.
Christian smiles. ‘I swear. I swear on Dolly and Barbra and Sandra Bullock! The truck will be gone in half an hour.’
‘Thank you.’ Cagney nods his head, and looks around. ‘So what’s this week?’
Christian claps his hands and jumps once. ‘Bolly Dollywood! I thought of it in the bath! I’ve got Nine to Five next to The Guru, next to Lagaan. Honestly, I know I’m wasted here – I mean if I didn’t own it, that is. But what c
an we do but juggle life’s balls?’ Christian smiles, but stops talking, staring at Cagney intently. ‘How are you, Cagney?’
‘Peachy.’ Cagney doesn’t smile.
‘Really? Because I heard … you know, about your uncharacteristic act of bravery yesterday morning – although what you were doing in the office at eight a.m. on a Sunday I don’t know. It must have affected you, and if you haven’t cried yet, you will. It’s the shock, it can be delayed.’
‘If it helps I can tell you I’m welling up right now.’
‘Stop it, Cagney. Stupid little jokes instead of conversation, not giving a straight answer to anything – there are a thousand self-help books with your name on, and you’re not buying any of them!’
‘If I talked about my feelings you’d know I had some.’
‘Don’t be a fool, Cagney. The world’s moved on, and you must too. This hard-man act you’re projecting isn’t convincing anyone. It’s so 1987.’
‘I’ll have you know I’m up for Best Male in a Non-supportive Role. And I intend to win.’
‘You need to talk. It’s good to talk. Like in the advert! You used to go out, Cagney! Occasionally, to the pub – I mean albeit on your damn own, but at least it was slightly social. I don’t think I’ve seen you with anybody but stupid, stupid Howard or Iuan for months, years even. And that’s no way to live! You need to get out, let your hair down. Maybe the odd femalia?’
‘Is that one of these new sexual diseases?’
‘Women, Cagney. I mean Women!’
‘Christian, I meet women every day, and you’re right, they are all odd.’
‘Well, I know that but then breasts don’t hoist my mast. But, Cagney, you are emotionally harboured in lonely straits: if you insist on giving boys the thumbs-down, then you are going to have to learn to be nicer to the opposite sex! This angry young man act only works for the young – you just look surly, and the bags under your eyes are as black as your mood. A quip here and there won’t convince anybody that really cares that you’re happy, Cagney.’
‘I’m scared of laughter lines.’
‘You’re scared full stop, and that’s the truth without a card or a bow.’
Cagney bristles, and checks his watch again. ‘Look, I’ve just been busy. How about you? Any special … someone round at the moment?’
‘No, no lucky boy right now, just some interesting possibilities, but bless you for risking the hernia and asking, Cagney. You know me: footloose, commitment free. You should try it … you might like it.’
‘I don’t have your gaydar.’
‘I’m not talking about men, Cagney. No self-respecting homosexual would have you with your moods. But women, Cagney – girls, if you like. Speaking of which, I hear there was a Supergirl in your Superman scenario yesterday.’
‘Sunny Weston.’
‘Yes! I knew I knew her! She comes in here, rents some lovely films. I call her desperately shrinking Susan – you know she must have lost stones and stones in the last year. She’s practically disappeared. Not that she didn’t have it to lose, but you have to admire that kind of commitment.’
‘What do you mean, she was fat?’
‘Huge! Big as a bus!’
‘She didn’t seem … I mean she didn’t look fat.’
‘Well, no, not now, Cagney, that’s what I’m telling you. That girl has obviously been on some kick-arse Nazi regime diet, and we’re not talking Rosemary Conley and prancing about with a tin of baked beans in your hands. I mean in a year, Cagney, she is half the woman she was. Impressive, no?’ Christian mocks an Italian accent, and Cagney finds himself hugely irritated.
‘Diets are for fools.’
‘Now, Cagney, that is unfair. I personally am always on a diet, as you well know, and you are just lucky that that whiskey hasn’t hit your hips … yet. So she was the one who got the kiddie back?’
‘Yes, well, she was on the floor when I saw her, but the kid was with her, and … you know her then? She’s local?’
‘Yes, lives by the Gardens. Very smiley; I like her. She has eyes like Judy Garland. I think she has hidden pain, Cagney, and that’s the best thing about a woman in my book. Like Oprah. Or any of the alcoholics – Marilyn … Sue-Ellen …’
‘Women are all the same. There is no best or worst.’
‘Glass of bitter for one, Cagney?’
‘A lifetime of reality, Christian.’
‘Well, I like her. She looks like she needs cuddling.’
‘Cuddling? Gagging, more like – she was screaming at me outside the police station for a good ten minutes. If she was soft before she sure as hell isn’t now.’
‘You’re being unkind, Cagney, I know it. I’m sure you must have provoked her, or been mean. And in which case, good on her, I like them feisty!’
‘You don’t like them at all!’
‘No, now that’s the irony – I love women, I just don’t want to manhandle them. And you loathe them, for all their fluffy loveliness, but they are the only ones that get your juices going. Life’s a bitch, ain’t it? Anyway, if she made your blood boil, Cagney, it’s probably only because your penis was refusing it entry, you’ve been celibate for so long. There is a fine line between love and hate, Cagney – maybe you’ve met your match.’
‘There was no match, just a lot of hot air. She did nothing more than irritate me.’
Christian raises his eyes and tuts.
‘Look, Christian, when you’ve finished your psychoanalysis, I have a favour to ask.’
Christian mock gasps and throws a hand over his mouth. Cagney stares at him dully until he stops.
‘Fine. What do you need?’
‘I’ve been invited to … I mean I have to go to this thing. And I have to take somebody with me … and I was wondering if you could, you know, come along. It’s going to be hell. I need the support.’
‘Cagney, are you asking me out on a date?’ Christian eyes Cagney seriously, before a smile breaks across his face.
‘Don’t be so fucking ridiculous, and if you’re going to make a big bloody song and dance about it let’s forget I said anything.’
‘No! No way, you are not getting out of it that easily. I will come with you, to … what is it exactly?’
‘It’s a dinner thing. A dinner party, I suppose.’
‘Wonderful! I love them! Where, who, why? Is there a theme – tell me it’s fancy dress! I have a fabulous Carmen Miranda …’
‘Christ, no. No, it’s just a dinner, at the kid’s house.’
‘What kid? I don’t understand.’
‘The kid, the parents of the kid, the one that got … you know … snatched.’
Christian’s face drops, and he suddenly looks his age, which is only a year older than Cagney. He is so animated all of the time, it gives him a youthful air that Cagney just doesn’t have – not that he cares; he’s not about to start wearing sailor shirts and tight jeans to grab hold of thirty-five again.
‘Oh, Cagney, that’s fucking awful. Tell me you are joking.’
‘No, I’m afraid not.’
‘Don’t go.’
‘I said I would.’
‘Why? What in God’s name possessed you to say you would go to something so terrible? The first invitation you accept in years is this? Do you just love the pain, Cagney?’
‘I don’t know, but that Sunny Weston was there, and she said she would go first, and then I would have just looked rude …’
‘You always look rude! Rude is what you do best! Why change now?’
‘I don’t bloody know, alright? But before I knew it I had said I would. And I was scared the kid’s mother would start crying again.’
‘Cagney, in all seriousness, it’s plainly an obscene idea. Talk about post-traumatic syndrome – you’ll be suicidal by the end of it.’
‘I’ve said yes now, I have to. And she’ll be there, probably with some stupid rugby-playing thug of a boyfriend …’
‘Oh no, no boyfriend.’
‘How do
you know that?’
‘Because I know, Cagney. She never comes in here with a man. Plus she was big as a house before. No, she’s a single girl. And a thought occurs …’
‘No.’
‘If she is going to be on her own …’
‘No.’
‘And you are going to be on your own …’
‘No.’
Christian crosses his arms and takes a step back, eyeing Cagney slyly. ‘I don’t think I should come. I think you have feelings for this girl.’
‘Are you insane? She’s practically half my age!’
‘Oh, Cagney, she must be thirty, and you’re not even forty yet, although I know we are officially counting down. That’s a good gap. I was dating a thirty-year-old recently – Brian, he was still young enough to be fun. I love that generation. They’re just so … carefree and pretty.’
‘I’m not interested, in her, or the goddamn dinner, or any of it, but I have to go, and you have to come with me, to stop me gassing myself in their Aga.’
‘Let me think about it.’
‘Fine. Time’s up. Friday at six forty-five. I’ll meet you here. We have to go. Howard!’
They both turn to face Howard, who is cautiously licking a flower garland. They mutter an incredulous ‘Jesus’ simultaneously.
‘Come on, Howard, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Nice T-shirt – can I get one of those?’ Howard stops by Christian, appraising his yellow chest that reads ‘Be Gentle Yentl’.
‘You concern me.’ Christian shakes his head at Howard, and turns, disappearing under a sea of paper flowers.
Cagney is already in the car, revving the engine, when Howard jumps in, wanting to chat.
‘Christian’s great, isn’t he?’
‘He speaks very highly of you.’
‘He’s old, and gay, and yet really funny.’
‘Strange, isn’t it?’
‘I’m just saying, not often you find a sausage jockey who doesn’t want to, you know, get in your boxers.’
‘You’re a very attractive man, Howard – who can blame them?’
‘Have you ever tried it?’ Howard looks at Cagney curiously, actually expecting an answer.