Spectacles

by Sue Perkins

  All clear.

  Go on.

  All clear.

  A Gram of Gorilla

  As my thirtieth birthday loomed, Mel went very quiet – possibly remembering her own thirtieth two long years before.

  I had my suspicions she was organizing a surprise party.

  I’ve never been any good at entertaining. Perhaps it comes from my mother’s catastrophizing gene – ‘Well I wouldn’t want to cater. My friend Jean knows someone who got Cushing’s from a mushroom vol-au-vent’ – or perhaps it comes from my father’s over-empathetic gene – ‘Don’t ask them. They won’t want the imposition of being asked.’ Either way, I fear holding a party. What if the people I know from school don’t get on with the people I know from college? What if the people from college don’t get on with my work colleagues? What if any of those people find out I’m not really an Olympic fencing champion?

  It’s made, as it turns out, for a rather compartmentalized life. And that’s annoying and self-defeating. Silly me. Anyhow, I digress.

  So, the story I’d been given was this. I was told to come to our local for 7.30 p.m. for a quiet meal with Mel and my closest mates. As I walked up to the main doors I could hear a throng of people shouting.

  ‘I told you to get here at 7.30!’

  ‘Shut up, Dan!’

  ‘You shut up!’

  ‘Shh, you bunch of twats – she’s coming!’

  I approached the door, and, even though I could imagine what lay the other side, I still felt sick with apprehension. As I pushed through, the place erupted.

  SURPRISE!

  I’ll tell you what was a surprise – the fact that my parents were there. Why? Because it turns out their ability to keep a secret is second to none. They didn’t tell me about the surprise party when I phoned to say I would come and see them for lunch on my birthday. They didn’t tell me after I drove – for two hours in the pouring rain – the fifteen miles home to Croydon. They didn’t tell me as I sat opposite them eating a metre of vegetarian lasagne. And they certainly didn’t tell me as I turned round and drove – for another two hours – all the way back to north London.

  ‘Careful when you brake!’ said Mum as I pulled away. ‘The roads are treacherous! And remember what I told you about that Yardie scam. If someone flashes their lights at you, don’t flash back, else they’ll carjack you and leave you for dead in Norbury.’

  And with that she stood on the front step and waved until I disappeared into the distance.

  Bastards. They must have got in their car and followed me as soon as I was out of sight. And so there they were, as I opened the door to the pub in Kensal Rise that very same evening.

  ‘Surprise!’ they shouted alongside everyone else.

  ‘You utter pricks!’ I shouted back into my mum and dad’s faces, somewhat ungenerously.

  I spent the evening getting very drunk. There were a few speeches, some mild indiscretions, some gift-giving. But as the night wore on, things took a sinister turn. At around 11 p.m. I became aware of a rather shifty-looking guy loitering at the margins, talking to Mel.

  ‘Who’s he?’ I asked Emma. ‘Do we know him?’

  ‘I dunno. I mean, he’s probably no one,’ said Emma, unconvincingly.

  I felt the cold hand of fear clamp around my throat.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the man pull out of a bag what appeared to be a large Marigold studded with pubes. Next came a full body suit, similarly hairy, and a large Planet of the Apes face mask. I watched as Mel gave him a surreptitious thumbs up, and he disappeared into the toilets. I tried to carry on my conversation but found myself staring at the door, transfixed, waiting for the inevitable to appear.

  I didn’t have to wait long. The music suddenly changed. Leery music. Sexy music. The crowd moved back into a semicircle leaving me isolated. Finally, emerging from the bogs, a figure resembling a bargain-basement silverback approached. I remember seeing an ex-boyfriend pre-emptively covering his face with his hands and hearing the sound of our mate Gareth, head flipped back like a Pez dispenser, laughing that room-filling boom of his.

  What followed was so deeply traumatizing all I remember is a patchwork of images – fragments that come and go in no particular order:

  Firstly, the man in the pube-suit lumbered towards me, arms outstretched. As he did so, his face mask slipped so that he could no longer see through the eyeholes. The lack of visibility meant he became less Gorilla in the Mist, more Gorilla’s Slightly Pissed. His fingers made their first point of contact with me just around my nipples, whereupon he ground to a sudden halt.

  In an instant he was frantically stripping. There was nothing erotic about it – it was simply mask off, suit off, job done. In fairness he did take his time struggling with one of the rubber gloves, which gave the performance a faint air of burlesque mystique. Other than that, he dispensed with his clothes with all the urgency of a contaminated chemist shedding a biohazard suit.

  The man now stood before me wearing nothing but a pair of leopard-skin micro-pants and a furry gauntlet.

  In a flash he had pushed me down to the floor and stood over me, gyrating. The PA kicked into Tight Fit’s version of ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’, and I could see, as I lay there prostrate, Mr Gorilla’s pelvis thrusting to the beat, and his ball sack following a second later, in joyous syncopation.

  ‘Oh dear … Oh dear … No, that’s … Oh. Oh dear …’ said Mel weakly from the sidelines.

  Mr Gorilla decided to take it up a notch. Without warning he spun round, squatted down onto all fours and started doing press-ups – ON ME – his body facing the other direction from mine. As his groin battered my nose, I got the unmistakable tang of unwashed fur fabric and sweaty seam. I gagged a little and tried to block out the fact that all the people I loved in the world were not only watching this horror unfold, but may actually have had an active role in planning it.

  Added to which, I could hear him, each time his face descended towards my groin, moaning a name, rhythmically in time with his thrusts. It was indistinguishable at first, but gradually grew clearer.

  ‘Mel …

  ‘Oh, Mel …

  ‘Yeah, that’s right, Mel.

  ‘Mel. You love it, Mel.

  ‘You love it, don’t you, Mel. Oh yeah …’

  Let me tell you, there is only one thing worse than being cock-slammed by a man with questionable hygiene wearing a single poorly made gorilla glove in front of your family and friends. That is when the man with questionable hygiene wearing that single poorly made gorilla glove happens to be orgasmically groaning the name of your best mate.

  The booking was made under the name of Mel. He thought I was Mel. Hell, everyone, even a bloody gorilla, thinks I’m Mel.

  The atmosphere in the room had now changed. The laughter and cheering had subsided, and now there was just an uncomfortable silence. This was slowly turning into a primate re-versioning of The Accused.

  ‘He was only supposed to read a poem,’ said Mel despairingly, her voice now a mere whisper.

  Mr Gorilla jumped up and pulled my limp body from off the floor. It’s over, I thought. Finally, it’s over.

  It wasn’t. He proceeded to lean me up against a wall and dry-hump me.

  During the next five minute ordeal, I remember Mel approaching Mr Gorilla, proffering his other glove and gently encouraging, nay pleading with him to put his clothes back on. She then held up the suit, which now looked like a massive used condom that had been rolled on by a million Labradors. But no, he carried on, oblivious, until the final track had finished.

  All I can say is this. Mel, you are fifty in a few years’ time. On that d
ay I will find you – and I will be bringing Cheetah with me.

  Births, Deaths, Marriages

  Melanie Giedroyc, who is nearly two years older than I am, could have chosen any outfit she wanted to dress me in for her wedding, and boy, she really thought about it. She’s my maid of honour, after all, she mused, so I could legitimately put her in a peach meringue with puffball sleeves. Or something bias-cut, in ivory. She’d love that. Mmm … But what would cause maximum damage? What would cause maximum damage to Sue’s already fragile psyche?

  She finally found the ideal sartorial weapon, in the form of a pair of acid-pink silk pyjamas with a Mao collar. It was November. I looked like a Chinese Jane from Rod, Jane and Freddy – but colder.

  I turned up late to Mel’s wedding, like I do to all weddings. You see, I have form when it comes to public splicings. I was so late for my friend Catherine Hood’s nuptials that she was already at the door of the church when I arrived. As I wandered down the aisle, desperate to find a seat, the organist started ‘Here Comes the Bride’ – which caused quite a stir, I can tell you. ‘Gosh, we didn’t think it was that sort of marriage. Why on earth didn’t she say …?’

  I went one better for my brother’s wedding. I nearly didn’t turn up at all.

  It took place in Perth in Scotland over a long and very drunken weekend. I arrived heartbroken and skinny (which is the best kind of heartbroken) and spent the night before the ceremony ruefully reflecting on yet another failed relationship. The next morning I saw my family for a full Scottish breakfast, after which we all went to our respective rooms to get ready. The plan was we’d rendezvous at 11 a.m. and the minibus would take us all from there. Simple. What could possibly go wrong?

  OK, so I was a little late. Maybe five minutes – ten, tops. Quarter of an hour at the most. I may or may not have been watching a World Cup match, which might have gone to penalties. Plus I had to do my hair. I have the hair of a baby – fine and flyaway – and it takes tubs of goop to make it do anything or go anywhere. In the end I was forced to grease it into a shape thereafter rather unkindly known as the ‘wonky cockerel’. I put on my suit, a rather flamboyant affair in a rich Lenten purple which with hindsight made me look like a Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen impersonator. Finally, after twenty minutes – max – I headed down to reception.

  The hotel was silent. No one was there. Not in the entrance hall or the bar or the dining room. The panic was immediate. There is no way my anxious mother and equally anxious sister would not have been on time. They would, if they had been allowed, have camped out all night outside the church with sandwiches and a Thermos. I approached the woman on the front desk.

  Me:

  Scuse me. Do you know whether the minibus for the wedding party has arrived?

  Woman:

  Oh aye, that’s away now.

  Me:

  What do you mean away?

  Woman:

  They’ve been away up the church – ooh – about ten minutes ago. Hang on – let me check …

  Me:

  No, it’s fine …

  Woman:

  It’s nae bother. I’ll check for you.

  She proceeds to ring each and every room. I desperately try to interject …

  Me:

  Listen …

  Woman:

  Och, I’m not getting an answer from your mum and dad.

  Me:

  It’s really OK.

  Woman:

  Let me try your sister’s room.

  Me:

  Please.

  Woman:

  It’s ringing!

  Five whole minutes pass as I watch this sweet, kindly woman help me. For a moment I long for the unhelpful churlishness of a London receptionist. If nothing else, impoliteness is a time-saver.

  Woman:

  Nope. All gone!

  Now I could have just rung my mum, but this was 2001. Mobile phones were the size of house bricks and the price of unicorns. I did own one, but as usual I hadn’t bothered charging it.

  You need to know this about me. In almost all situations I have no charge on my mobile phone, plus:

  b. little or no idea of where I am

  c. little or no cash

  d. no credit card

  e. an extremely, extremely limited well of personal resourcefulness

  So, the facts were these. My brother, my beloved brother, was getting married in twenty minutes. My family had all left without me in the minibus provided. I had lost the invite months ago and had no idea which church they were getting married in.

  Desperate, I turned again to the kindly receptionist.

  Me:

  Sorry, would you be able to call me a cab? As soon as possible?

  Woman:

  Of course, dear. Let me ring my pal Sammy, up at the station. He’s the best driver round this way.

  Me:

  Thank you.

  The phone rings. I hear a man answer.

  Woman:

  Is that you, Sammy? Halloo, it’s only Moira up the hill. How are you?

  The man rumbles a response.

  Woman:

  I’m very glad to hear it. Will you be wanting your tea again tonight, only it’s no bother for me to fix it …

  More rumbling.

  Woman:

  I can do you soup and a roll?

  Monosyllabic bark.

  Woman:

  Will you be needing something more substantial?

  Miscellaneous jibber-jabber.

  Me:

  Seriously, I should be getting on …

  Woman:

  How’s Jacky? His hip still giving him bother? Ach, poor lamb …

  I wonder how long it might take. How long my instant-gratification city-honed demanding personality can take. The answer is thirty seconds.

  Me:

  [shouting maniacally over her] I need a cab now! Now! NOW!

  Five minutes later a smiley-faced octogenarian with grey mutton chops pulls up at the hotel entrance.

  Cabbie:

  Right, where can I take you?

  Me:

  To a church. Any church. All the churches. NOW!

  I had turned into everyone’s worst nightmare of a Londoner. Rude, pushy and with wonky cockerel hair.

  Perth has at least fourteen churches. I know because I visited them all, one after another. I had no idea which denomination the building I was supposed to be in was, so the cabbie and I did a whistle-stop tour of two Methodists, one Presbyterian, a Church of Scotland, Free Church of Scotland and the distinctly happy-clappy Evangelical Church of the Nazarene.

  I had all but given up hope when suddenly a long, sleek black limo came into view. It was a fifty-fifty chance – either wedding or funeral cortège. I took that chance.

  ‘Follow that car!’ I bellowed at the minicab driver while secretly wondering whether, if I had indeed chosen wrongly, I could rock my purple Regency-fop look at a crematorium.

  We followed the car until
it came to a halt at yet another of Perth’s churches. I held my breath to see whether a cadaver or my sister-in-law-to-be would emerge from the vehicle. I can still feel the relief as she got out – radiant, nervous and beautiful.

  ‘STOP THE CAR,’ I screamed, ‘and have soup and a roll on me!’ I shoved a twenty-quid note into the driver’s lap.

  I will always remember Lynne’s face as I sprinted past her. The organ started up. Not again, I was thinking. Don’t go down the aisle to ‘Here Comes the Bride’ again. I pelted through the church door and past the pews until I found my family, at the front. Michelle was sobbing. Dad was fiddling with the stopwatch setting on his wristwatch. Mum was rocking anxiously and threw her hands in the air as I dropped into the seat next to her.

  Mum:

  Oh gosh, Susan! I’m so sorry – we forgot all about you!

  Me:

  [hissing] There are only three of us! And one of us is busy getting married! So really you only had two of us to remember. You forgot about 50 per cent, 0.05 of your available children!

  My sister carries on sobbing, clinging on to me like a taffeta barnacle.

  Mum:

  [wailing] You’re right! I’m a terrible mother!

  Me:

  Oh Christ, here we go again …

  Dad:

  [bellowing] What’s going on with you?

  Me:

  What do you mean?

  Dad:

  Is that deliberate?

  Me: