Perfect on Paper

by Gillian Harvey

  ‘Do you mind?’ the girl with the black hair appeared by her side suddenly, clutching the guitar case.

  She did, actually. Especially as there were several other seats available. But Clare found herself saying, ‘of course not’ anyway. Because she was far too polite.

  The girl shuffled onto the seat and rested her guitar case on the floor, supporting it between her unnaturally skinny legs like a giant, misshapen penis.

  Looking at her phone as an excuse to avoid conversation, Clare began to think about what she might actually do when she arrived. When she’d read about the open auditions in the local rag a couple of weeks ago she’d imagined herself signing up, dusting off her poems and airing them for the first time.

  At the time she’d smiled but turned the page and started reading the property adverts. It had seemed like a funny fantasy, not something she’d actually do. But maybe her subconscious had held on to the idea after all.

  As if answering her question, her phone buzzed and her eyes were drawn to a new email notification. The title read: ‘Today’s Meeting’. It was from Stefan Camberwaddle.

  Shit. In all her ridiculous turmoil she’d forgotten that she’d arranged a meeting with her most important client this morning. Her absence would matter after all.

  As the bus began to pull away from the stop, Clare felt familiar anxiety bubble up and looked out of the window to calm her thoughts. It was a mistake, but she couldn’t do anything about it now. Even if she got off the bus, called a taxi and rushed back to the office she’d be late. Surely Stefan wouldn’t mind if she called it off – feigned sickness of some sort?

  She tapped her bag, feeling the familiar rectangle of her notebook against her fingers. She’d been carrying this book around for a decade, noting down her thoughts and feelings like a diary; a rhyming diary. But on some level she’d always wondered whether her ditties might actually be a little bit … well … good, actually. Poems seemed a bit old-fashioned – not something that most people seemed to read or enjoy – and she’d always thought of writing them as a guilty pleasure, the sort of thing she could enjoy for herself but never share.

  This was her chance, wasn’t it? To read a poem to a room full of strangers and see whether she was actually any good at it. And it wouldn’t matter. Nobody would know. She wouldn’t have this opportunity again.

  An hour later, sitting in a room full of chairs, the idea didn’t seem quite as wonderful as it had earlier on. She’d already been waiting for ages; there was clearly at least an hour more to go. Somewhere, back in her office, Camberwaddle had been stood up – she’d texted Ann to say she was sick and asked her to contact him but suspected that he’d be mightily put out at the late cancellation.

  The room was alive with excited chatter. Dancers stretched impossibly flexible limbs. Singers carried out vocal exercises. A man dressed as a clown was juggling in the corner. He kept dropping a ball and looked close to tears. Clare was willing to bet none of the acts would be standing there reading poetry like a poor man’s version of Pam Ayres. What was she doing?

  Then she noticed a familiar coat hanging over the back of a chair. Next to it, a man with grey hair was limbering up. His rotund frame was squeezed into a leotard covered in green sequins. Looking up, Mr Flasher – or perhaps Mr Flashy – caught her eye and she gave him the thumbs up. A* for bravery if nothing else! He smiled back.

  In the row behind her was a small group of boys – all dressed in black – together with a man who looked to be in his early thirties. His hair was curly and cutely unkempt. The sort of man, she thought, who didn’t spend a second longer than he had to thinking about his fringe. ‘Remember lads,’ she heard him saying. ‘We’ve been training for this. We’re ready. Just have fun with it.’

  ‘But we want to win, right?’ one of the boys replied.

  ‘Yes, Mark, we want to win,’ the man said, leaning forward and ruffling a mop of brown hair. ‘But we want to enjoy it too.’ He glanced over at Clare and grinned. ‘Pretty nerve-wracking,’ he said. His smile was wide and showed both sets of teeth. It was impossible for her not to grin back.

  ‘Just a bit,’ she said. ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. Like the boys he was with, he was dressed in a black T-shirt, but his jeans were blue and covered in fashionable rips. ‘I’m just the coach,’ he added. ‘The boys are the talent.’

  As he lifted his arm to rub his hand across his springy, curly hair, his T-shirt lifted up to reveal an enviable six-pack.

  Oh, I don’t know, thought Clare, then felt herself blush as if she’d said it out loud.

  ‘Anyway, hope it goes well for you,’ he said, sitting down and giving her a wink.

  ‘Me too.’ She felt her cheeks flush a little.

  She read through her lines again. Well, unlike the boy dancers she hadn’t been training. And she definitely didn’t have a six-pack. But she was here now. What the hell, she thought. She was damn well going to do it anyway.

  Chapter Seven

  An hour and a half later, reading her chosen lines for the tenth time, Clare saw Stefan’s number flash on her phone. She pressed the red button to bin the call, hoping he would leave a message instead of persisting. Luckily, one flashed up. She nervously lifted the phone to her ear: ‘Clare, it’s Stefan Camberwaddle. Sorry you’re sick. We do need to get this transaction tied up though. I’m afraid nobody else at your office was able to help. Please message me to rearrange things.’ She felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. But before she could decide what to do a small, mousy-haired woman appeared at her side like an apparition: ‘Would you like to come this way please,’ she said. ‘Next two rows.’

  Too late to back out now, Clare, she told herself. She put the phone back into her bag. She’d call later and sort things out.

  The group of boys – all of whom looked to be in their early teens – stood up too, as well as Mr Flasher, who was now modestly covered with his mac again. They walked together, like the strangest and most motley crew imaginable, through the double doors.

  Then there was momentum and the low murmur of conversation as they turned a corner. A woman was sitting on an empty box and breathing into a brown paper bag. The passage opened up into a larger area, where a man leaned casually against a wall, sporting a pink tutu and a curly pink wig. ‘All right darlin’?’ he said as she passed, as if this was just a normal situation.

  ‘I don’t …’ she said to a young lad in a T-shirt marked ‘Crew’ by her side. ‘I just don’t …’

  ‘Everyone says that,’ he reassured her, without making eye contact. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.’

  Mr Flasher was first. Breathing deeply through his nose, he whipped off his mac and sprang through the doors into a room whose door had been labelled ‘Audition Room’ with the help of a sheet of A4 paper, a biro and some Blu Tack.

  Clare peeped in. The room itself was no more than a corporate meeting room. There was a wooden table with metal legs on which someone had put a sign with the word ‘Judges’ in comic sans typeface. It wasn’t exactly a high-budget, live-TV situation. She thought back to the number of times she’d watched You’ve Got Talent, thinking that the auditionees had literally walked in off the street.

  ‘So, who are you and where do you come from?’ asked a woman with a clipboard, sitting on the edge of a table.

  ‘I’m Martin, I’m from Hatfield and I’m sixty-nine years old!’ said Mr Flasher.

  The woman glanced at a man who was seated at the table. They exchanged a look and a nod. Clare thought about talent shows she’d seen on TV, where anyone over sixty got treated as if they were suddenly cute and eccentric, rather than borderline insane and dressed in a ridiculous costume.

  Clare’s dad was sixty-nine, and if he wanted to go on a talent show dressed in a leotard, she was pretty sure she’d have him sectioned.

  Catching her eye, the woman with the clip
board stood up and closed the door gently. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Won’t be long.’

  Clare blushed – caught out. Now she’d probably never know exactly what Mr Flasher’s talent was.

  Minutes later he exited the room, beaming.

  ‘How did it go?’ Clare asked.

  He gave her an excited thumbs up. Then a girl, who looked no older than Katie, clutching a folder of papers, came up and rested her hand on his back. ‘Now,’ Clare heard her say, ‘do you know how you’re getting yourself home, sweetheart?’

  Clare looked at her crumpled piece of paper again as the man in the pink tutu disappeared into the judges’ room, desperately memorising lines before her moment. She wasn’t going to get through of course, she told herself. But then she had no desire to get through really. She just wanted to see if she could make a small dent in the consciousness of those around her. And whatever lay in wait for her, at least she didn’t have to face it wearing a sequinned leotard.

  Minutes later, there was a bang as the door opened abruptly and its handle hit the wall behind. The tutu man, now clutching a saxophone, walked out, red-faced after a stinging dose of reality. Then Clare found herself being shoved in the small of her back.

  ‘You’re on!’ grinned a girl with a folder.

  ‘I …’ she said. But it was too late.

  ‘Best of luck!’ came a voice. Clare looked. The handsome man with the curly hair was grinning and leaning against the wall, the boys lined up messily behind him. When their eyes met he gave her an elaborate wink.

  ‘Thanks,’ she replied, feeling sick but excited at the same time.

  ‘So,’ said the woman with a clipboard as Clare entered the room, her knees suddenly jelly-like. ‘What’s your name and where do you come from?’

  ‘I’m …’ She thought back to the pseudonym she’d given when she’d filled in the paperwork. ‘Martha. From … from Hatfield.’

  ‘Hi Martha. So, when you’re ready?’

  Clare glanced over towards the slightly open door and saw a couple of the teenagers looking at her, their faces swimming and decapitated in the darkness. One of them gave her a thumbs up, and she returned the gesture on instinct.

  Then the door closed. Beyond the silence in her room she could hear the thump of a beat – the boys were clearly having one last rehearsal along the corridor.

  ‘Do you want me to get them to turn it down?’ asked the man, leaning forward as if to stand up.

  ‘Oh, no. Honestly, it’s OK,’ she smiled. The last thing she wanted to do was to spoil someone else’s chance.

  ‘OK, well, when you’re ready,’ prompted the woman.

  Then there was nothing to do but to get on with it.

  ‘Why do I feel so down?’ she said, her voice sounding small and quivery.

  ‘I’ve got a job, a house in town,

  Two kids, a husband,

  Everything,

  That middle age is meant to bring.

  So why is it I feel so “meh”?

  I look around me, everywhere,

  Are people who look

  Just like me

  Except they seem content, you see.

  I’m not, I’m “meh”

  Don’t feel like me,

  Or not the me

  I thought I’d be.

  I want to laugh and feel alive

  There’s more to me than nine to five,

  Than being mum, or being wife

  Or employee – I need a life.

  This might seem dumb

  But I want to say

  Look around you – every day.

  You’ll see women, just like me

  We look dull, it’s true, you see

  But peel away the “meh” and look

  Not at the cover, but the book!’

  She looked up from the notebook, which was shaking slightly in her hand. The man sitting at the table clapped his hands a couple of times. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Good, but probably not quite right for this.’

  He glanced at the woman, who leaned and whispered in his ear. ‘But make sure we’ve got your details Martha,’ he added. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘OK,’ Clare said, wondering what the woman had said. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t going anywhere. She’d known it was a long shot – but she’d pushed herself to do something different – and it had felt pretty good to put herself out there.

  And they might not have roared with approval, but at least she’d had a captive audience for once.

  Chapter Eight

  Clare splashed out on another taxi to get home – after all, the bus wasn’t leaving until all the acts had finished and she needed to resume normal life. It occurred to her that if she kept calling cabs like this, she’d have wasted the price of a small run-around within a few weeks.

  Just as she entered the hallway, her mobile rang as if on cue. Nigel.

  ‘Hello, erm, Clare,’ he said, getting her name right for once. ‘I … are you feeling better?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ she replied, feeling her face get hot.

  ‘Good … I mean, obviously can’t be helped. But we did have a bit of a to-do with your client in the office today.’

  ‘Oh dear. I’m sorry to hear that.’ Clare felt an unusual spike of anxiety. What had happened with Camberwaddle?

  Nigel cleared his throat noisily. ‘It’s just … well, perhaps next time you could brief one of the others to take over the meeting? Will, for example, was available. Just to keep continuity, you know?’

  ‘Of course.’ Clare had to bite her tongue to avoid pointing out that a) Camberwaddle was her client and Nigel had shown no previous interest in him and b) if she really had been throwing up all morning, the only thing she’d have been able to share with her colleagues would have been the contents of her stomach.

  ‘Anyway, the good news is your office is almost ready. So we’ll get some of the juniors to start moving filing cabinets and so on soon,’ Nigel said, his tone so upbeat that she had to remind herself he was talking about her move into a shoebox rather than upscaling her to a glass-windowed power office.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, through gritted teeth, wondering why she didn’t feel able to say how she really felt.

  ‘Well, see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Yep. See you tomorrow.’

  She took off her coat and hung it and her straining tote bag over the hallway hook, then dialled Ann’s number.

  ‘Hi Clare, feeling better?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, guiltily. ‘Yes, much better, thank you.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Yes, look, I’m sorry to call you, but I just wanted to see if everything was OK in the office this morning? Nigel rang and said something about a to-do?’

  Ann snorted with laughter.

  ‘Oh, no! What happened?!’

  ‘Well, of course, you had that awful Camberwaddle bloke coming in – the one who thinks because he’s a billionaire or whatever, people have to roll out the red carpet for him at all times.’

  ‘Yes, about that …’

  ‘Well, I tried to ring him, but couldn’t get through. So obviously when he came in, I had to tell him you’d called in sick at the last minute, and he was a bit put out.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes, which was ridiculous. No one can help being sick. I gave him my best glare on your behalf.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Clare tried to suppress her growing sense of guilt.

  ‘Anyway, he looked me up and down and asked me whether there was anyone “senior” he could speak to – meaning I was obviously not good enough for him.’

  ‘Oh, Ann. I’m sorry,’ Clare said. In reality, Ann would have been more than capable of answering any queries that Camberwaddle had – probably more so than anyone else in the office.

 
‘Don’t worry. I’m used to it. Nobody expects a secretary to have a brain.’

  ‘Well I certainly know you do!’

  ‘Anyway, I thought I’d better knock on Nigel’s door to see if he could come and smooth things out a bit, you know? But when I told Mr Camberwaddle I was going to speak to the senior partner, he sort of tagged along at my heels rather than waiting in your office as I’d thought …’

  ‘Right?’

  ‘And, I got to Nigel’s room, and knocked and, well, we went in and …’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Ann snorted. ‘I just … well, I opened the door and …’ more snorts of laughter.

  ‘Don’t keep me in suspense!’

  ‘Oh, Clare, it’s not funny really. But Nigel was there with Will. And they were … well they’d both taken their trousers off.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘But … well, they still had their shirts and ties on, you know? And, well, pants. Bare feet. Sitting on gym mats …’

  ‘What? Seriously?’

  ‘Yes! They were … they had their eyes closed, doing this meditation thing. And humming.’

  ‘Humming?’

  ‘Yes, you know, hommmm,’ Ann mimicked.

  ‘Oh god, what did Camberwaddle say?’ Clare was torn between dissolving into laughter and baulking in horror.

  ‘Well, I’d already … well, when I opened the door and saw them, I just said, sorry – but they heard me and both sort of sprang up.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Nigel was in these … these floral baggy boxer things, long black socks, hairy legs. Will was in these little tighty whities …’ Another snort.

  ‘Good grief.’

  ‘So there I was standing with this billionaire client, bringing him to see the senior partner and instead he got greeted by a bald, little man and a tall, young boy sitting around in their pants.’ Ann’s voice quivered with laughter.

  No wonder Nigel had been so put out.

  ‘They said they were doing an inspiration exercise … Will’s idea, of course. Then Nigel went and sat behind his desk and asked Camberwaddle to take a seat. Will had kind of ducked out of the room by then. I think Nigel did the whole meeting … in his pants. You know – like a newsreader: all dressed up on top, but nothing under the table.’