by Louise Kean
‘Socrates could drink anybody under the table,’ Peter shouts, and I blink quickly five times in succession, to stop the noise from hurting me. ‘And then he could convince them to sleep with him … drunk … and at the same time.’
‘But you aren’t Greek, darling,’ Christine says, as if she were talking to a child.
‘What in fuck difference does that make, darling?’ Peter demands of his wife, who flinches when he swears.
‘They can handle their wine, of course. They nurse them on it.’
‘They nurse babies on wine in Greece?’ Christian asks, confused. I shake my head in what I think is his direction, and mouth ‘no no no’ and hope he understands that they don’t.
I turn round slowly to see where Adrian is, if he is still on the phone, if he is still here. I can hear him, but he has moved into the other room.
‘So you sell sex,’ Cagney says. I look up to see who he is speaking to. And then realise it’s me.
‘Excuse me?’ I point at him.
‘You sell sex,’ Cagney says again.
‘No! No, I sell sex toys. There is a huge vast really big difference – not that I’d expect you to understand.’ I sigh heavily. I think I should go home soon.
‘I understand perfectly. You sell plastic cocks to women so they don’t need a man.’
‘You’re a crazy man,’ I say, and look around for support. But nobody else speaks, so I have to again. ‘I think that is quite a blinkered view, Mr Cagney. I mean, society,’ I make speech marks with my fingers and regret it instantly – maybe I am starting to sober up. I push my wine glass away from me slightly. ‘Society is a lot more open these days, to women, young and old, finding out what they like, exploring their sexuality … I’m not replacing anything.’
‘I’m sorry, did you not see me just eating?’ Cagney asks me.
‘I don’t understand … we all ate … we just had dinner …’ I look around with a bewildered smile for backup, at Peter and Christine, Christian, the politely terrible Turnballs, but none comes. And then I realise that Cagney is being sarcastic.
‘Oh, I get it – what is wrong with saying that exactly? It makes you sick that women explore their sexuality?’ I rest my head in one hand, so tired I may fall asleep in seconds, so ready for a fight I might spring to my feet and karate chop Cagney James like Cato.
‘What really makes me sick, little plucky Sunny, is if I, as a man, decided to stay home on a Friday night and explore my sexuality I would be accused of being a sad lonely wanker.’
‘If the cap fits …’ I say, but I don’t even get a giggle from Christian. I am sobering up now.
Cagney ignores me and continues, ‘But a woman does it and everybody wants to give her a Nobel. It’s hypocritical, and it’s disturbing – a nation of women lying around on their own every night with their fingers buried inside themselves, egging that elusive orgasm on, ignoring life in favour of a quick slick fix.’
‘You paint it sordid, Mr James, but you are right – the female orgasm is traditionally elusive. Men get the most amazing natural high easily, and by chance, whereas if we as women want to make permanent and recurrent friends with it, we have to seek it out. And in doing so, we learn a little bit about ourselves. We learn how to be sexual beings, and embrace our sexuality, and … it’s a way to understand ourselves better.’
That has exhausted me, and I can’t remember what point I was making, or what I said at the start of the conversation, or frankly, what I said only moments ago. I hope he doesn’t ask questions.
‘What’s so hard to understand?’ Cagney asks me evenly.
Nope. Nothing. Did I say understand? I cough once.
‘Sorry?’ I ask, confrontational, attempting to disguise the fact that my mind is a blank. All those strongly held convictions that just sung from me moments ago have slipped from my mind and are floating down my neck in my bubbly boozy bloodstream to infuse the rest of me.
‘Why do you need to understand yourselves better? I understand perfectly.’ Cagney’s chin is jutting out, and I almost do an impression of it, before stopping myself at the last second, getting a handle on how very wrong that would be. I answer instead, hopefully the question that he asked.
‘Do you? Do you really?’ I reply. I don’t know what else to say, but I know I still want a fight.
Christian attempts to cut the right wire and diffuse the situation. ‘Women are very complex, Cagney,’ he says earnestly, and smiles at me.
Cagney raises his eyes and smiles at Christian. Christian smiles back. I can’t tell whether the joke is at my expense or not. But I feel paranoid. Enough! Enough of this woman-baiting and bashing by a couple of old queens. It’s not my fault they don’t fancy me, and I’m not going to bear the brunt of Cagney’s attitude, nor his need to dismiss anything without a dick as substandard.
‘Just because you aren’t attracted to women, Mr James, that doesn’t mean we aren’t complex. I mean, how would you like it if –’ I blurt it all out, slurring, half shouting, drunk again, on red wine and pent-up aggression. I feel giddy.
Cagney interrupts me before my argument trips over its own feet, and falls flat on the floor.
‘Because I’m not what?’ he demands.
‘It’s men like you that give homosexuals a bad name!’ I shout suddenly, banging my fist on the table, trying to stand up, getting to my feet, standing/crouching, then realising it’s too much effort and lowering myself slowly back down, and leaning back, relieved to be safely in my chair.
‘Hey, who says homosexuals have a bad name?’ Christian sits up and asks me seriously.
‘Oh no, Christian, I didn’t mean you. You’re one of the nice ones.’ I smile and wink, and feel like I have just slipped into a very big hole, and my skirts are blowing up around my ears, and I can’t see for my own big fat conversational mistakes. But it doesn’t stop me going on, ‘What I meant was … I mean … the ones with the bad name are the ones that hate women …’ I say.
‘The ones that hate women?’ Christian asks, incredulous.
‘I don’t mean you, Christian!’ I raise my voice at him slightly to make him understand. In my head I think I hate myself too. A tiny little sober part of me is kicking back there, kicking at my skull, trying to get at the soft squidgy parts of my brain that control what I say out loud.
‘No, Christian, she is right.’ Cagney looks at me evenly, seriously, with a trace of contempt. ‘I am the kind of man who gives homosexuals a bad name. Given that I actually have sex with women.’
The table falls silent. I wince at him, and replay what he just said in my head, to understand it. When the penny drops I don’t have the capacity to stop myself saying what I think aloud. ‘Oh Christ, not a bisexual!’ and I throw up my hands.
‘Sunshine, who said I was gay?’ Cagney tosses the accusation at me, and I drop it.
I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. But if he isn’t gay, why is his date a man? Why is he wearing a gay jumper? Why am I so drunk? How did this happen? Who let it happen? I look around to find the culprit. Nope, nobody here but little old wine drinker me to blame for this one. Time to make amends then.
‘I just thought … because you are with Christian … you guys were a couple …’
Christian gasps in not so mock horror.
‘So what you are saying is that you don’t believe that a straight man can be friends with a gay man, because sex gets in the way? You, Supergirl, believe that I can’t bring my male friend, who happens to be gay, to a dinner party without assuming we’re lovers? That’s just ignorance. And it’s petty. And it’s certainly very disrespectful of Christian.’
Christian claps his hands at the sound of his name. ‘Don’t be spiteful, Cagney. You know she didn’t mean anything by it … really … even if it did all come out a little wrong.’ Christian grimaces at me and I mouth ‘I’m sorry’ and frown at myself.
‘Christian, I think you are forgetting that she just accused you of sleeping with me.’
Christian turns to speak to Cagney, but then turns back to address me instead. ‘That is actually very hurtful, Sunny. My feelings are officially a little singed.’
‘I’m really sorry, Christian,’ I blurt out, as I feel myself blushing.
‘What about me? Don’t I deserve an apology, for being the victim of your rather unpolitically correct assumptions? For the accusation that I, Cagney James, give homosexuals a bad name. That’s just mean, Sunny.’
I know that he is mocking me. I hear a clock in the hallway chiming midnight. I feel my feet in my high-heeled shoes beginning to ache. I feel the drunken dizziness being replaced by tired nausea. I am worn out with fighting, but I’m not a quitter, or a loser, and Cagney James certainly hasn’t won.
‘Well, no matter what your sexuality, Cagney, I can’t imagine you have ever even got close to understanding a woman, which is all any woman really wants. Which is why it was so easy to mistake you for a middle-aged bachelor … alone.’
‘You don’t think I understand women. That’s interesting, given that I’ve spent one long evening with you and I understand you completely. Utterly. You are transparent.’
‘Oh, you understand nothing.’ I dismiss him with a wave of my hand, and search the table for a bottle of water that I might pillage. I can feel Cagney boring holes in my forehead, but ignore him, and the table falls silent.
‘Is somebody wearing Aqua Di Gio?’ Christian asks.
‘I’m wearing Anaïs Anaïs,’ Christine replies.
‘I just sprayed oven cleaner in the kitchen,’ says Deidre.
‘Hmmm,’ Christian says, nodding.
I hear Cagney mutter something, and I inhale sharply. I can’t believe he has said what he has just said, in polite company. OK, so I might not have been that polite, but none the less …
‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’ I ask him directly, staring sharply in his direction, hoping my eyes aren’t dilated.
‘You’re greedy,’ he repeats.
Christian gasps a little gasp, and I gulp. I feel the tears spring to my eyes straight away. Here come the fat jibes, and I will always deserve them.
‘I’m what?’ I ask, and I know I sound pathetic. Not strong, or composed, or any of the things I want to be, or at least seem. I sound like a girl about to cry, who has drunk too much red wine in front of strangers. Adrian is still on his phone. I’m on my own again. As usual. ‘I have barely eaten anything …’ I start to say.
‘You want it all,’ Cagney says simultaneously. I stop speaking, but he carries on. ‘You want to earn the cash, and have the babies, and spend five hundred pounds on a pair of shoes and not get stressed and have three holidays a year and have the sex life of honeymooners. And when that doesn’t happen you get pissed off and you take it out on the nearest loser you can find.’
I stare at him confused. Where is the bit about food? Did he say something about shoes? And honeymooners?
‘Petrol is my favourite smell,’ says Peter.
‘Hmmm, yes, I love the smell of petrol in the morning,’ Christine volunteers with a smile.
‘Does it smell like victory?’ asks Christian.
I break the staring contest I am having with the vase just over Cagney’s left shoulder to glance quickly at Christine, to make sure that she is OK, and not high.
‘No … it means I’ve dropped the girls at school already. I never fill up the Land Rover on the way to school, we never have time.’ Christine looks from me to Christian, to Peter and back again, confused … she really is very short.
‘Hmmm,’ Christian says.
Somebody sighs, and something falls on the floor. I really want to go home now. I glance around to find Adrian, but he is still in the other room.
‘Do you know what I think, Mr James?’ I sound reasonably sober; I impress myself. ‘I think that the only thing you really understand about women is that they scare the shit out of you, and the only thing you are more scared of is admitting it.’
‘Maybe you are right.’ Cagney nods his head, and looks up. ‘But it’s not all women I am scared of … just the ones that are bigger than me.’
Christian drops the spoon he was playing with and looks up sharply at Cagney. My shoulders sag.
‘Remember 1976?’ asks Terence.
‘Why?’ asks Deidre.
Terence doesn’t answer. Christian and Cagney and I look from one to another of us, never quite meeting either of the other’s stare.
‘Cagney …’ Christian reproaches gently, but it’s like a starter pistol.
‘Women today want the world!’ he shouts, banging his fist on the table.
‘And why shouldn’t I want the world?’ I demand, just as angrily. ‘Why is it for you and not for me?’ I stab my finger in a point towards him.
‘What do you want it for? What could you possibly do with it? Paint it pink? Cover it in chocolate sauce?’ Cagney’s cheeks are flushed red, but his voice is lower, controlled, but angry.
‘What if I want it just to have it? Is that so bad? Or so different, for that matter? Isn’t that what history is all about – men who wanted the world just to have it?’
‘It’s utterly different. The men of history wanted to create better places, greater civilisations. You! You wouldn’t know what to do with it if you had it! You’d have to ask your councillor, or your yoga instructor!’ Cagney laughs a short sharp laugh of derision, and then throws down his napkin for good.
‘What does your agency do?’ I demand, suddenly urgently needing to know.
‘I catch out cheats,’ Cagney says.
Adrian is still in the other room.
‘What do you mean, “cheats”? What do they cheat at? Poker? Monopoly?’
‘Marriage. Sex,’ Cagney replies flatly.
‘You catch men or women who are having affairs? You mean, you take photos? How awful!’
‘It is awful, yes. That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all night, Sundry. The propensity for women to cheat on men is so great it keeps me and all my staff in hot champagne and penthouses.’
‘You might want to up your clothes allowance if that’s the case,’ I snigger, but to nobody, to myself. And then, ‘Hold on, you mean men and women, right? You just said women.’
‘I was right the first time.’
‘Are you saying men aren’t unfaithful?’ I laugh, wide-eyed, amazed. This guy is from another century!
‘No.’
‘Then why no wives?’ I ask, confused.
‘Because I don’t work for women.’
I cough once, violently and uncontrollably, and Christian looks at me with concern, and mouths, ‘Darling’, before putting two thumbs up and mouthing, ‘You OK?’
‘You mean you won’t work for women?’ I say squarely.
‘Won’t … don’t … tomato … tom—ato.’
‘Let’s call the whole thing off!’ Christian sings loudly, and we all turn to face him as he throws his hands in the air.
I turn back to Cagney. ‘I am sorry, Mr James, but that is just hateful! What you do is just … it’s just evil! You are just evil!’ I consider standing up for emphasis, but realise that I have lost one shoe whilst dangling it off an aching foot beneath the table, and if I did stand up quickly, even now feeling almost entirely sober, I would be lopsided. And then I would fall down.
‘It is in no way worse than what you do!’ Cagney fumes, his cheeks turning pink, and puffing out. He resembles a spoilt child throwing a temper tantrum.
‘I sell underwear, for Christ’s sake!’ I shout. Christine winces as I swear. I don’t see it, I just sense it.
‘And great big bloody dildos!’ Cagney shouts back, and I feel Christine almost pass out.
‘What is so wrong with a vibrator?’ I shout, reclaiming my shoe and pushing myself to my feet, as my chair scrapes back across a cold slate-tiled floor.
‘You are replacing men!’ Cagney shouts back, and visibly thinks about standing up himself.
‘Oh my God, Mr James, men ar
en’t just there for sex! What is wrong with you? A man is not just the sum of his reproductive parts. Some men can actually have a conversation with a woman! Can you believe that?’
‘What do you call what we’re having?’ Cagney jumps to his feet and places his palms face down on the table, leaning forwards in my direction.
I take one step forward, place both of my palms flat on the table as well, and say in the lowest most controlled voice I can muster, ‘A living bloody nightmare.’
‘Why? Because dessert hasn’t arrived yet?’ Cagney stares at me. And the tears rush to my eyes again.
‘Sorry?’ I ask softly.
‘Need that chocolate, do we?’ Cagney asks flatly.
I feel my lip quiver, and I gulp loudly. Cagney’s eyes flicker, and he glances quickly at the table, and then back at me.
‘What are you saying to me?’ I ask quietly, my lip trembling, my hands shaking, my eyes watering.
Cagney stares at me for a second, and I see something sweep across his face as a tear swells out of my right eye and lands heavily on my cheek. I see his hands, clenched in fists of the tablecloth, loosen. But then Peter Gloaming coughs a drunken cough, and it catapults Cagney out of the trance that had taken us both just then, feeling the pain together. He remembers his audience, and plays the role that he started to the end.
‘Calm down, Sunny – lose your sense of humour as well as your love handles, did you?’
My hand moves up to wipe my eye quickly, and I move out from in front of my chair. ‘I’m leaving,’ I say flatly, waiting for the tears to subside.
‘Don’t bother, I will.’ Cagney moves out from behind the table with a ferocious speed.
‘No! I said it first!’ I shout at him, and he stands still. I turn to Deidre and Terence. ‘I’m really sorry but I have to go now. Thank you for this evening, and …’ I am already moving towards the door, before I stop suddenly, and turn to address them seriously, as I should.
‘Words cannot express how glad I am that Dougal is OK, as OK as he can be. I am truly thankful that I could help, and the fact that he is still safe with you is all I need to know. I don’t think it would do him any good to see me again, in case it does make him remember something he might otherwise have blacked out for life. So anyway … I’m just saying thank you, for tonight. But now I have to go.’ I stare at them for a second, and then dart around the table and kiss them both on the cheek. I look up to see Christine and Peter sitting opposite each other, hammered, trying to focus on my leaving.