Material Girl (16 page)

In the beginning I wasn’t exhausted by trying to hit a nail on its head that didn’t want to be hit. I wasn’t desperate and crazy with the effort of trying to pinpoint what was wrong with me. When Ben and I first met I thought myself inherently loveable, and then I fell in love with him one day. Driving me to the train station, after a night spent together at the flat of a man that he worked with who was away on business, we came to a railway crossing. There were cars in front and behind us, and we were all moving at about twenty miles an hour. When it was our turn to bump over the railway crossing Ben turned to me, with his hands on the wheel and the car in motion, widened his eyes and screamed ‘argh-hhhh!’ for the three seconds it took us to cross. I laughed out loud and with surprise. It was the silliest thing I had ever seen him do, and suddenly I knew that I was in love. But then I learnt, as time crept on, that unfortunately I wasn’t loveable, and it kicked the shit out of me.

Of course, I resolved to make myself loveable, somehow, but nothing seemed to work. So then, for my own sanity and peace of mind and pride – pride! – I resolved to pretend Ben loved me anyway, with contrived cuddles and asked-for kisses
and sofa inquisitions, desperately dragging a nice word out of him that I could cling to for weeks. I have changed – I know that I have – but not because I wanted to. I read in the paper last week about a man who shot a woman dead in the street near Victoria Coach Station. They had been lovers but she ended it after a month because she didn’t see a future with him. A month doesn’t seem that long, I am sure she thought little of it. Unfortunately he was already so crazily in love with her that he went out and bought a 1941 German pistol, walked up to her and shot her outside Superdrug before turning the gun on himself. My first thought when I read this story in the
Standard
was: At least she knew he loved her. My second thought was terror, at my increasingly twisted psyche. My third thought was to circle the story for Ben before I left him the paper on the kitchen table that night, and to write alongside it, ‘You could learn a little something.’ Or maybe, ‘Watch your back.’ But I realise that’s not funny either.

‘Maybe I’ve changed a little. I’ve put on a bit of weight.’

‘Have you?’ Tristan chuckles. ‘How much?’

‘About a stone, in three years.’ I take a large gulp of my wine to wash away the facts.

‘Did it all go to the pillows?’ He smiles warmly at my breasts in turn, as if they are two small children who have just joined us.

‘No. Some of it’s gone to my thighs as well.’

‘They look okay from here.’ Tristan isn’t looking, of course. He’s eyeing up the room for more fun than me, and I don’t blame him. I’m boring myself.

‘What do you care?’ I wait for him to turn back to me with an indignant look on my face. He has the attention span of a teenager at an MTV and Xbox convention. He is staring at a crowd in the corner who are cracking open a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.

‘I can still appreciate it, darling,’ he says absent-mindedly,
but spins back to me, shaking his head to clear it of some nasty thought or other.

‘Who has told you my little secret anyway? Who’s let on? I can still do it, you know, love. I may be a non-libidinist, but there are other reasons to do it. Not many good ones I grant you, and they generally aren’t that convincing, but for you …’ He lowers his glasses and flashes the reddish whites of his eyes at me. I catch my breath. For a second I think I glimpse the devil.

‘I think I could be persuaded to pop a pill, Make-up, if you fancy a joy ride?’

My stare is incredulous, but he is too crazy to notice.

‘No thank you, Tristan, but you’re bloody Mother Teresa to offer.’

He waves his palm in front of him; don’t mention it, any time. ‘I just don’t understand how you can be this gorgeous and this miserable!’ He smiles again. He has strange yet winning ways.

‘Because I’m quite obviously not gorgeous! I’m a complete construction, I’m a fabricated pretty. I’m a make-up artist for Christ’s sake! I’m no natural beauty, young, fresh-faced, without lines or sagging, thin in most places but plump of breast and pout.’

‘What utter shit! That sounds like a whole truckful of cobblers to me. I could pick out a thousand girls who’d eat my hand off to look like you, Make-up.’

‘My name is Scarlet, Tristan! It’s not a hard name to remember; can’t you use it once in a while? Anyway, not in London they aren’t! All the women in London are gorgeous. I am terribly, horribly average.’ I stare at the bottom of my wine glass. I don’t even want another one. I want to go home to somebody that loves me.

‘And that’s it, is it? That’s the end of the wonderful world? Love, I know it’s your job but you might want to think about
something other than pretty, and sometime soon! It’s just smoke and mirrors.’ He reaches up and strokes my cheek with a surprisingly rough finger. It runs the course of my face until it settles under my chin and tilts up my head.

‘I know I put a lot of emphasis on it, Tristan, but you wouldn’t understand. You’re not female for a start, it’s not one of the essential criteria you’ll be judged on. You’re not subject to a bathing-suit section. But for a woman, getting older, something shifts. I know I’m still attractive but I’ll never be that hot new thing any more. The problem is that I also know it kind of wouldn’t matter, not half as much at least, if I had somebody who loved me: me! And not the way that I look. But I don’t, and it stings like hell. It’s as if it would be okay, it would be anaesthetic enough for the pain, if I had something better, something instead, but I don’t. I think that’s why I’m so absorbed by our problems, mine and Ben’s. If he loved me it wouldn’t matter so much. But he doesn’t. So I don’t have anything.’ I shake my head and try and make him understand.

‘I don’t have those next thirty-something options. What next, if not with love? What next, if the next steps aren’t there for me?’

‘Are you sure he doesn’t love you, love? You’ve done little but whinge at me for the whole twelve hours that I’ve known you, but I’ve already got a bit of a crush …’ Tristan’s finger is still propped under my chin, tilting my face towards his. If it were anybody else I’d show him the yellow card.

‘All I have to go on is how he acts and what he occasionally says. He doesn’t act like he loves me when I see him, we have no real physical contact and no affection, and he says that he can’t say that he loves me, at least not yet. But … it … has … been … THREE YEARS! He should have fucking said it by now, surely!’

‘Where?’ Tristan looks over his shoulder, but still with his hand under my chin.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘Shirley?’ he says seriously.

‘Childish, Tristan. Childish.’ I tell him off.

Our faces are breathing space apart. I think that he can find sport in anything. Where other hearts might bruise, Tristan’s dances.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t know, I’m running out of answers – could he possibly be dead inside?’

‘Maybe. I just don’t think he feels anything for me. I have to leave.’

‘What, now? It’s only just midnight, Cinderella, and I was hoping you’d lead a conga!’ Tristan is so close to me that he is whispering.

‘I mean I have to leave Ben.’

‘You said it.’ He leans in and kisses me gently on the lips. I don’t kiss him back, he doesn’t deserve it. There is no tongue. His Jackie O’s bang against my nose.

‘Now!’ He pulls back, sits up straight and claps his hands, enlivened like a vampire after a sudden stabbed blood injection into a vein bursting out of a belt-squeezed arm. ‘Can we please talk about something else? Please! You’re killing me, Make-up, with this talk of unrequited love.’

‘Yes.’ I nod my head and feel the wine coursing through me. Enough sad talk, enough tears, enough melancholy, baby.

‘Yes, Tristan, Lucifer, whoever you may be! Absolutely yes! I’m driving myself crazy! Let’s definitely talk about something else. What do you want to talk about?’ We take a simultaneous hit of our drinks as a fat man walks into the bar and shouts, ‘I’m home!’ Some people cheer, Tristan smiles faintly.

‘Let’s talk about me,’ he says, searching forwards for the rim of his glass with his lips.

‘Okay … how long have you lived in Streatham?’

‘Oh, love, that’s dull as shit. Something else.’

I cough with embarrassment and balk, but try again.

‘How long have you wanted to be in theatre?’ I ask, less confidently this time.

‘Oh all my life, love, and I have been, kind of, and will be. No, something else, something bigger.’ He nods his head but offers no clues.

‘Okay, let’s talk about you not wanting sex? Where does that leave you in the love stakes? Have you ever been in love?’

He smiles a long, slow smile again. I think that’s better.

‘Oh shit, darling, thousands of times,’ he states quietly. I have to strain to hear him above the gentle Gerry’s roar. ‘You don’t need sex for love. You need sex for a relationship, but not for love. I mean, what is love when you look at it? It’s just a need to be with somebody, how they make you feel when they are with you, and how you let yourself feel when you’re with them, how you reflect in their light, or their shadow. What you see in them. “
And all that’s best of dark and bright, Meet in her aspect and her eyes
.” Byron. He knew it. Of course he had a lot of sex as well, but he understood where it starts and where it ends. In the eyes. A back can arch,’ his hands curve in front of him, ‘and a smile can catch you and carry you and smash you against rocks like a cruel and powerful wave. And you can admire many things, many things,’ Tristan nods his head to himself, ‘a leg, an arse, a wing. Be a tit man, a bum man, a leg man, a face man, a hair man, a cock man, anything, anything. But that’s all sex, it’s just sex. Love? Love only comes from the eyes.’

The bar is dark now, but warm with bodies and laughter.

‘Ben would much rather spend time with Iggy than with me,’ I say, ‘and he only kisses me with his eyes closed. I ask him to open them sometimes, but he can’t. Not a passionate kiss, just a small quick peck, with his eyes open. But he can’t.’

‘I think he might be hiding something,’ Tristan says, nodding his head, as if that’s okay and not going to ruin my night and my life. ‘But more importantly, who the fuck is
Iggy? Something to do with Top Cat? The small orange one with the annoying voice?’

‘The cartoon?’ I ask, incredulous. ‘No, Tristan, Iggy is Ben’s best mate. He’s not a cat. He works in a warehouse in Ealing.’

‘Oh. Okay. I think I’m starting to get the picture. Are you sure you’re not just way too much for this poor fool, Make-up? Hmmm?’ I see his eyebrows stretch up above his glasses, he is widening his eyes at me, nodding at me to agree. ‘I mean, you seem like a handful in every sense.’ He winks at my chest and I sigh – no more breast jokes. ‘And he sounds like a simple chap, with simple friends, Make-up …’

‘My name is Scarlet! It’s easy: Scar-let. Scarlet. Try it, you might like it!’

‘No, love, I can’t. If I call you by your real name I make everybody else jealous. You want that, do you? You want blood on your hands?’

‘But you call Gavin by his real name!’ I say, tugging at his suit jacket, but he shrugs me off.

‘Gavin could kill me with his thumbs. Have you seen the size of him? How big is an actual giant, I mean really?’

‘He’s not that big, Tristan!’ I say. I was trying to be stern but now I’ve got the giggles. ‘He’s probably about six foot six. He’s not clinically tall, Tristan.’

‘I don’t agree. I’m going to look it up. I bet you a tenner he’s giant material,’ he says, nodding and taking a swig of his vodka rocks, then offering me his hand to shake on the deal.

‘No.’ I bat his hand away. I don’t know much about height, but I don’t think it would go down well with Gavin if he found out we’d been betting on him being a giant, especially after the midget fiasco. ‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘how can I be too much for Ben? I mean, how can you be too much for anybody? That’s just stupid. They should just like the fact that you have all of these qualities and that you want to be with them. They should just like it, surely?’

‘Where?’ Tristan looks over both shoulders then back to me.

‘Childish, Tristan! Stop it!’

He smiles broadly and swigs the last of his vodka and grimaces. ‘Okay, my glass is more ice cube than alcohol so I know I’ve stayed too long with you, love. You’ve hogged me all night like a big greedy cow, and now you have to share me with the rest of the class. However, I will say this. Don’t be naïve. You can be far too much for someone, if they feel like they don’t measure up, if they can’t be bothered like you can, to improve, to perfect, to challenge themselves. The reason we aren’t all driven is because some of us aren’t and some of us don’t want to be! Some people, possibly your Ben, just want to kick back and relax and lead an average life. I personally have nearly always been too much for everybody that I’ve met, including my own mother. It’s actually a blessing that I have no fucking libido,’ he smiles at what he’s said, ‘otherwise I’d be as miserable as you are!’

He stands up to leave but I pull him back down by the arm of his suit. ‘No, wait, just quickly. So you’re saying that limited enjoyment, but with no effort, can be all that some people want? As opposed to wringing life dry of enjoyment, but with the effort that it takes to do that? I don’t understand that, there’s no choice there! Why would anybody settle for less?’