Picture Imperfect

Tuesday 17th



As I get off the tube and walk to the bloody office, I start thinking about Mark and his holiday again. Try as I might, it’s really hard to keep it out of my head. I mean, are we a couple or not? Couples don’t do things like that to each other, do they? Aren’t couples meant to be nice to each other and be considerate of each other’s feelings or something? Do nice things together? It’s not like Mark and I are involved in some grand, passionate affair where we can’t keep our hands off each other and can’t live without each other and all that stuff, but not that many people I know are.

I’ve only had one outside opinion about the whole thing so far and that was my mother’s, which was about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike. For her, it was just another thing which proves that all her opinions about me are right, so it’s really not worth worrying about.

The place where I work is on the first floor of a large building off Wigmore Street in the West End. It’s quite handy for the shops in Oxford Street which are only a few minutes’ walk away, but that’s really all it’s got going for it. Sorry – did I sound unenthusiastic just then?

I’ve been working there part-time for almost eight months now. I’m a sort of permanent temp. The whole building, which is pretty old, must have been home to some incredibly rich family at one point, but now it’s full of companies like the one I work for, which is called Melton’s Graduate Recruitment. It’s an agency which gets jobs for female graduates, who usually find themselves doing PA or secretarial jobs instead of running television production companies and the like. I feel that I have quite a lot in common with many of them.

Luckily, my job doesn’t entail actually meeting or talking to any of the clients. They tend to be sour-looking girls in their early twenties who are all very bright and bubbly when they arrive and downtrodden and depressed when they leave. I feel sorry for some of them. They’re only just realising that their degrees in English Lit or geography or whatever aren’t going to get them some fantastic job after all. I bet they all wish they’d partied harder while they were at uni.

By the way, even though I just said ‘uni’ a second ago, I can’t stand hearing other people use it. It’s like they badly want you to know that they went to university, but at the same time are trying to make light of it so it doesn’t seem like they’re showing off that much. There. Got that off my chest. Uni. Uni, uni, uni.

When I get there, the girl that I share an office with, Kristin, is on the phone and waves at me without looking up. Kristin is from Tauranga in New Zealand. Whenever she talks to clients on the phone, they always ask her if she’s from South Africa. This annoys her terribly and I’ve seen her slam the phone down on some hapless client on more than one occasion. She points to my in-tray where there is a large stack of letters waiting to be typed up.

Mrs Goddard, the manager, or manageress if you prefer, likes to write her letters in longhand as opposed to using some sort of dictating machine. I’d prefer the dictating machine, as her writing is absolutely awful and I always having to ask her what certain words are meant to be, which I know she doesn’t like as it disturbs her thoughts. She’s forty something and is divorced. Whenever you have to go into her office, she’s swivelled her chair around so she can look out of the window. The only view is that of a big chemist across the road and the traffic. I get a terrible vibe of unhappiness from her.

I can only imagine that her marriage must have been bloody great and it’s almost killed her that it’s over. It all happened about five years ago, according to Kristin, and no one knows what happened. I don’t know if kids were involved. I don’t think they were. The awful thing is is that’s she’s really, really attractive. Beautiful, even. She has a real va-va-voom figure that reminds me of a fifties pin-up girl. You could easily imagine her as one of those Gil Elvgren paintings. She’d be wearing some tight-fitting blouse and a short skirt which the wind has blown up to reveal black stocking tops and matching suspenders. I don’t ever mention this to her, though. I somehow don’t think it would be a good idea.

Kristin, on the other hand, is the complete physical opposite to Mrs Goddard. When I first came to work here I thought she must have been over six foot five. It was only when I was standing next to her that I could see that she was slightly shorter than me, and I’m five foot six. I have no idea how this effect is achieved. She wears heels, but only two inch ones, so it can’t be that. She’s very thin, has short, jet black hair, long legs and no boobs. Men go crazy over her, and she’s been bouncing from one hot bf to the next since I’ve known her. I can only assume that she has ‘it’.

I sit down and switch on my computer, checking all my stuff while it goes through all the crap it has to do before it starts up. When I finally start typing, I must be hitting the keys exceptionally hard, as Kristin looks over and raises her eyebrows.

‘Bad journey in, Chloe?’

‘No, no. No. Just, er, the same as usual.’

‘OK. I won’t ask. You sit there fuming like you just sat on a cactus and I’ll complete ignore it. Your petty, uninteresting personal issues are nothing to do with me. You just go on taking whatever it is out on that poor little keyboard that has never hurt anybody and I’ll just sit here smiling to myself and admiring my razor-sharp perception of other people’s moods.’

‘Do you want a coffee, Kristin?’

‘What do you think?’

I get up and go to the coffee machine and get a coffee for Kristin and a hot chocolate for myself. Like everything that comes out of coffee machines like this, they don’t taste anything like what they’re meant to be, but at least they’re hot.

I hand Kristin her coffee and go back to my desk. I prop up one of Mrs Goddard’s handwritten missives next to my keyboard, so it looks like I’m doing something and swirl some hot chocolate around my mouth. My tongue recoils in fear. Kristin looks right at me, an amused expression on her face.

‘So. Is there anything you want to talk about, miss?’

I tell her about Mark and his sudden holiday and her eyes widen in theatrical shock. I’ve managed to convince myself that I’ve been very cool and laid back about all of this and that there’s nothing out of the ordinary about something like this happening. We’re a mature, adult couple in our early thirties. I’ve arrived at an emotional plateau with the whole thing, barring my mother’s ridiculous views on the subject.

But the expression on Kristin’s face as the tale unfolds is something to see. It’s as if my first reaction to Mark’s surprise announcement is manifesting itself on someone else’s face. She takes a gulp of coffee, pulls a face and shakes her head from side to side. She’s almost laughing.

‘The little shit!’

She pronounces it ‘sheet’.

‘Well, it’s only for five days like I said.’

‘Don’t make excuses for him. I’ve never heard anything so bloody outrageous in my whole life! Only five days? Let me get this straight. He left on Sunday and he’s coming back on Saturday? That’s a week in my book, not five bloody days. But I’ll tell you something: even if it was just one bloody day it’d be one day too many and that’s a fact, girl.’

‘Well, I thought, you know, he’s been working hard recently…’

I sound pathetic. I sound defeated. I sound like a mousewife from the 1950s.

‘And you haven’t? What’s working too hard got to do with this? I’ll tell you, shall I? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Zilch. You’re dumping him, of course?’

‘Dumping him?’

The idea had never occurred to me, mainly because I still can’t work out whether this is a serious, relationship-threatening event or not. Kristin’s personality can be so overwhelming that I feel I should say something quickly before she jumps in again.

‘Er, I, I haven’t…dumping him?’

I think that got my point across.

‘He’s a worm, darling. No one treats their girlfriend like that! God – can you imagine…’

Kristin rolls her eyes around, trying to think of some sentence or three that will break through her exasperation.

‘Try and imagine what he’d have to say if you went on an ex-bloody-otic, sexy holiday with an old university girl pal and a couple of hot guys? And the reason you were going on this holiday was just that you fancied it (pronounced ‘eet’) or apparently thought you deserved a nice break. You knew he couldn’t afford it, so you decided to have one without him with people who could! He would be quite justified in describing you as a major bitch. He’d almost certainly walk out on you.’

‘OK, but it wasn’t quite like that. His friend Danny had booked the holiday, and his friend dropped out at the last minute.’

‘Oh, well boo-hoo. So poor old Danny has to go on holiday to Greece for a week with a couple of girls. Poor old Danny. My heart bleeds for him.’

‘I think it had all been paid for and it was too late to cancel any part of it.’

‘Well that still isn’t Mark’s problem, is it? Did Mark push the other guy off a cliff or whatever happened to him? No. I’ll tell you, if you did something like this to Mark, he’d be sitting at home, stewing in his own paranoid juice for a week, imagining you getting up to all sorts of shenanigans in every combination possible with two guys and another girl and that’d be just on the first day. Actually, this is beginning to sound pretty erotic. Sorry.’

‘But the girls aren’t that great looking. I wouldn’t describe them as hot. I don’t think…’

‘But that’s even worse. These plain-Jane girls go off on their own looking for a couple of virile Greek fishermen with no taste, huge libidos and two words of English, Mark and whatshisname are left drinking by the pool, ogling every bit of suntanned foreign tail that goes by – it’s a disaster waiting to happen! God, if I had a boyfriend who did this to me, I’d kick him in the balls so hard they’d come out the top of his head. How could he? How could he do this to you? Bottom line – you’re a couple. You should share stuff. If one of you can’t afford expensive foreign holidays, then you don’t go on expensive foreign holidays. Unless, of course, he’s a generous, non-materialistic type who pays for both of you. Simple as that. I mean – what the hell?’

‘I don’t know if I’m just being intolerant by…’

‘Stop defending him all the time. Are you mad? This is unacceptable, full stop. This is him, not you. He could have said no, couldn’t he? He could have said that he had this beautiful girlfriend and if he was going to spend x amount of money going on holiday with anyone, it would be with her. But he didn’t.’

I flop back in my seat. I’m getting exhausted with all of this. It’s like having a hurricane-level blast of righteous indignation that you can’t turn off.

Kristin picks up a pen, scribbles with it on a piece of paper to make sure it’s working and sits up, staring at me, pen poised in mid-air.

‘Right. Let’s work out how much this flatworm has spent on this so-called cheap holiday shall we?’

‘I really don’t want to get into all this. I don’t want to think about it.’

I can tell she’s going to do this with or without my cooperation.

‘You said the holiday was a little over three hundred pounds, yeah? Let’s call it three hundred and fifty. Did he tell you how much the return flight was?’

‘I don’t remember.’

She narrows her eyes, knowing I’m lying.

‘Alright, it was two hundred and seven.’

She scribbles this down.

‘How much spending money?’

‘I really don’t know. We didn’t discuss it.’

‘Fair enough. Conservative estimate, then, let’s say two hundred, make it three hundred. This is only going to be a ball park figure, after all. How much do you think he spent on your shopping spree?’

‘Well, he did buy quite an expensive bag and some hundred quid sunglasses.’

‘How much did he spend on stuff altogether?’

‘Something like five or six hundred pounds, maybe? Possibly more?’

‘Well call it five hundred. Let’s be conservative on that one. Add on things like snacks and magazines at the airport, taxi the other end and other sundries. Let’s make that, say fifty pounds.’

I watch her moving her lips as she makes the calculation.

‘Crap. That comes to close on fifteen hundred! Now I’m not a lesbian, even though I experimented at school for a while, well – more than a while, but if I had a beautiful girlfriend like you and was going to spend that sort of money on a holiday, I’d spend it on you and take you away to some luxury spa hotel in the Cotswolds for a few day’s pampering and frequent sexual intercourse with scented candles and exotic massage oils.’

‘Thank you. I’m flattered.’

‘You’re welcome.’

Mrs Goddard suddenly appears. I realise that her office door has been open while Kristin and I were having our little chat and I’m worried that she’s steeling herself to tell us both to shut up and get on with some work. I don’t like to upset her as she’s obviously upset enough already. I don’t know if I mentioned it, but it was down to her that I got the job here in the first place. I came here as a so-called graduate girl, but explained that I only wanted a job for a couple of days a week. She said they were very hard to come by, but she had an idea…

Instead of firing us both, she sits down at the side of my desk and lights a cigarette. I had no idea she smoked. I look around for an ashtray, but there isn’t one. I guess as she’s the boss she can flick ash on the floor.

‘It’s an aggressive, insulting gesture to you.’

‘Sorry?’

‘He resents the fact that you’re not pulling your weight financially. Money is very important to an insecure man like the one you’ve been describing. So is status. He probably thought it was very exciting going out with a beautiful girl who was also a working artist at first. It made him look good, but he wasn’t aware of the realities of such an occupation, or if he was, he chose to ignore them at the time. I’m sorry, Chloe, I was listening to everything you said. I couldn’t help it.’

‘That’s alright. So you think it was only a matter of time before something like this happened?’

‘Kristin said something a few minutes ago that hit the nail on the head. She said that your boyfriend could have said ‘no’ to the offer that his friend made him. But he didn’t. He would have known immediately that going away on a holiday to Greece would hurt your feelings. The fact that there were two girls involved, hot or not, would just have rubbed salt into the wound. He was given the opportunity to do something rather nasty and petty to you and he took it.’

Kristin is nodding her head enthusiastically. ‘And the little grub knew that you had plans for this week, as well. All the stuff you told me you were going to do – those things were just casually discarded like they were nothing. Like they didn’t matter a toss.’

Mrs Goddard expertly flicks the remains of her cigarette right across the room and out of the window. ‘Kristin’s right. What you wanted to do and what your feelings might be were of no importance. Right from the start he put a spin on what had happened. He didn’t really want to go on this holiday particularly – he was just playing the Good Samaritan to his friend. Yet you told Kristin that he hadn’t even seen this friend for years. And this Donny…’

‘Danny.’

‘Whatever. He wanted some male company. Maybe it was as simple as wanting someone to get drunk with all day and night. But once he discovered that Mark was living with someone, he should have retreated, not persisted. Mark was living a different life now and he should have respected that.’

She stands up and strolls back to her office. ‘Anyway, I could be wrong. Mine is just one opinion. There could be things going on that I don’t know about. Take it or leave it.’

She closes the door behind her and returns, I would guess, to staring out of the window of her office. A second later she comes back out again.

‘My ex-husband was an unsuccessful writer. I was so stupid and materialistic that I used to work myself up into a terrible anger that he wasn’t like my friend’s husbands, who all had conventional jobs and could afford to pay for holidays abroad, nice cars and all the rest of it. I left him and then we were divorced. I’m still in love with him. I’ve regretted it ever since and I haven’t been seriously involved with anyone else since. I don’t think I ever will be. I used to have lots of affairs to punish him when we were together. I was stupid and immature and I’m still paying the price for it. If I could go back in time, I’d have behaved more reasonably, more sensibly. I certainly wouldn’t have screwed around. When I was talking about your Mark, it started to sound as if I was talking about myself as I was back then. I don’t know if this is useful to you in any way. You’ve got to have a really good think about your life, Chloe. You can’t waste it on the wrong person.’

She pauses, as if she’s going to say something else, but doesn’t, and returns to her office.

Kristin has a big smirk on her face.

‘Well that’s told you!’

When I get home that evening, I start work on Canvas Two. I’m so pissed off, I want to do something that will take my mind off all the awful, worrying thoughts that are coursing through my brain like evil tadpoles. I get out of my work clothes, have a shower and change into my new artist’s uniform of old t-shirt and knickers. I make myself a large coffee and stick Jack White on the stereo. Not literally, you understand.

After all the trials and tribulations of Canvas One, I’m sick of red and decide to go for something brighter – yellows, oranges, stuff like that.

Bright colours like this are usually there to give a happy, uplifting mood, but considering what I feel like at the moment, I don’t think things are going to turn out that way. I keep thinking about all the things that Kristin said. Her immediate outrage. Her pithy, decisive comments. And Mrs Goddard. Who would have thought it? I knew there was something going on with her, but I would never have guessed it was that. I wonder if her ex became a famous writer afterwards? And if he did, would he have tried to get her back? I doubt it somehow, particularly if he knew she’d been sleeping with other men. I wonder if I’ve ever read any of his books? Maybe they’re all about her…

I dab paint onto the canvas as if the canvas has done something terrible to me and I’m exacting my revenge upon it. Sometimes I imagine I’m poking the brush into Mark’s face. After two and a half hours without a break, I step back and have a look at it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was finished. It’s a little disturbing to look at, and despite being in jolly colours, is a little depressing, too. It’s so bloody big!

On a whim, I drag Canvas One across and place it next to Canvas Two. Together, they’re pretty overwhelming, particularly in a confined space like this hallway. I walk to the front door and look at them from there. They’re overwhelming from the side, too. I reckon if Rhoda fires me tomorrow, I could probably get somebody else interested with these two. I start fantasising about how much I could get for them. A few hundred quid would be handy. But who would buy?

Maybe I could get a reputation going and start getting loads more work. For some reason, that’s never happened. Whenever Rhoda has sold a painting or two to someone, that’s it, and we have to start again from scratch. Maybe that’s what it’ll always be like. I don’t know any other artists to ask.

I suddenly feel very tired. I clean my brushes, eat some scrambled eggs and watch an episode of The Killing. I can hardly keep my eyes open. I realise I haven’t thought about Mark for a while. When I do, and when I remember where he is, I get a feeling like someone’s stabbing me in the stomach with a carving knife.

I get into bed and drop off straight away.