One Day, Someday Read online

  ‘This is one of my absolute favourite pictures,’ I tell him, as I draw up alongside him. ‘The thing that’s always struck me about it is that you can’t be sure who exactly is who. It’s called Running Away With the Hairdresser, you see. The guy who painted it studied at Cardiff, you know. And don’t you think it has all the qualities of a great impressionist work? I mean, I know I’m no expert, but don’t you think it’s reminiscent of Cezanne, somehow? The quality of the light. The way it’s so intense, you know. That sort of acuity you get when it’s about to pour down, but the sun’s still hanging in there. And the brushwork. It’s so immediate, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mmm,’ he says, turning and studying me for a moment. ‘Right, then. You ready to go?’

  We head down the front steps. The air is warm and full of pollen. Despite my disappointment about Stefan and his ‘stuff, we have at least communicated. As they have, it seems.

  ‘Dear me,’ Joe observes chattily, as we head across the road and into the gardens beyond. ‘What a wanker that guy is.’

  I stop in my tracks by the Rossi’s ice-cream van that’s habitually parked there. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  He tilts his head back towards the museum. ‘That tutor of yours. I mean he obviously knows his subject but, well, what a wanker, eh?’ He glances at me, then chuckles to himself.

  I continue walking. And say nothing for some moments. ‘Really?’ I venture finally. ‘Why, exactly?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Lu. You’ve got to admit it. I mean, I know you’re into all this art lark and everything but you surely can’t take all this stuff that seriously, can you? I mean, I’m as in awe of great art as the next man. But when all is said and done, some of the paintings in there are, well, quite beyond me. How can anyone stand there and be so bloody metaphysical about something that could have been done by a five-year-old, for God’s sake? Or a load of stripes? Dear me, is that what you get up to in your classes? Learning how to spout that sort of elitist bilge?’

  ‘Different things,’ I say haughtily, ‘appeal to different people. Just because you do not personally respond to some forms of artistic expression does not make them any less valid, you know.’

  The smile dies on his face and he looks at me sharply. ‘Oh, absolutely,’ he agrees. ‘But the same, therefore, can be applied in reverse, can it not?’ There is now an edge to his tone. ‘Which is exactly what I’m saying. Just because someone - me, for instance - does not get the point of something does not, by inference, make them a pleb. Just because someone has not made it their business to memorize huge chunks of pretentious and largely meaningless artsy psychobabble, does not mean they lack the necessary tools to make an informed judgement about artistic merit.’ He puts much of this in verbal quote marks. ‘Or lack of, for that matter,’ he finishes, gruffly. ‘A fact that that wanker,’ he jerks his head back towards the museum, ‘would do very well to remember.’

  We reach the end of the gardens and wait at the crossing while the early-evening traffic streaks past us.

  ‘That wanker,’ I tell him, as the lights turn to red, ‘just happens to be my boyfriend.’

  There is a longish pause, which I try to savour as I walk. Which I would be savouring as I walk were it not for the fact that declaring Stefan as my boyfriend makes me feel like I’ve just put a bad spell on myself.

  ‘What?’ splutters Joe. ‘Him?’

  He turns and walks backwards for a few paces as if a second view of Stefan might crystallize the reality of the situation in his brain.

  ‘Yes, him,’ I say.

  ‘You mean, you and he are - he and you are - good God! Ooops! I see. Sorry about that.’

  ‘No need to apologize,’ I say stiffly. ‘You weren’t to know.’

  He looks at me pointedly. ‘Because you never said.’

  Much as I am aware that there is an underlying accusation in his tone, I refuse to acknowledge it. Wanker indeed. ‘I wasn’t aware it was in my contract that I had to keep you informed of the details of my private life.’ Such as it is right now.

  ‘Yes, but, well, you never said,’ he says again. ‘So you can hardly blame me for—’

  ‘Calling him a wanker? No. I can’t.’

  ‘But I’m sorry, anyway.’ The smile is creeping back now.

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? Only because if you’d known he was my boyfriend you would have kept your opinions to yourself. It wouldn’t have changed them any, would it?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that. If I’d known he was your—’

  I whirl round to face him. He stops with a judder.

  ‘It doesn’t make any difference! You think he’s a wanker. On the evidence of a five-minute conversation with him you have decided he’s a wanker. Fine. End of story. But I don’t care what you think of him anyway. Your opinions don’t matter a fig to me, OK? Or to him, for that matter, I’m quite, quite sure.’ I resume my walking. ‘Why should he care what someone like you thinks of him?’

  He catches me up. ‘What do you mean, someone like me?’

  ‘Someone,’ I say acidly, ‘who clearly hasn’t a modicum of artistic intelligence. Someone who obviously has the intellect of a gnat.’

  ‘That’s hardly fair.’

  ‘It’s perfectly fair. If it’s acceptable for you to breeze around deciding people you don’t know from Adam are wankers, then it’s certainly fair for me to make the observation that you obviously have the intellect of a gnat. In fact, I would even go so far as to suggest that the two things might not be entirely unrelated.’

  ‘Not true, actually.’ Is he grinning now? God! ‘I can call him a wanker because it’s an opinion. My opinion. Which I have every right to.’

  We reach another junction and I turn to waggle a finger in his face. ‘Hang on. Hang on. You just told me you were sorry you called him a wanker, did you not?’

  He waves his plastered arm at me. ‘I’m talking hypothetically. Anyway, as I said, that’s a value judgement. An opinion. Whereas your comment about the extent of my intellect is not. Intellect, as far as anything of that kind can be measured, is a quantifiable thing. I could, for example, produce evidence to support the fact that I do not have the intellect of a gnat. So it’s not the same thing at all, is it?’

  I set off across the road. ‘And can you?’

  ‘Can I what?’

  ‘Produce some evidence. Come on, Mr Smartass, let’s hear all about your credentials, shall we? Let’s see what qualifies you to call Stefan a wanker. Let’s see how much you know about art, shall we?’

  He stops on the opposite pavement and stares at me. ‘Lu, that isn’t the point at issue. Look. The point at issue here is that I called that guy - Stefan, was it? - a bit of a wanker, which—’

  I continue round the corner into the lane where the Jag’s parked. ‘Not a bit of one,’ I correct him. ‘Just the definite article.’

  ‘And you’ve gone completely bloody potty! Look, I’m sorry, OK? I opened my big mouth and stuck my boot in it. I don’t know him. It was just an observation. A throwaway observation. Which I would most certainly not have made if I’d known who he was. And I’m sure if I did know him I’d have cause to revise my opinion. Or not, as the case may be. But, as you say, I didn’t know he was your boyfriend, and now I do—’ He stares at me. ‘Oh, God! Now you’re crying! Oh, God! Look, I’ve got some tissues in my case. Hang on and I’ll—’

  ‘I don’t want your bloody tissues!’ I fish the car keys from my bag and stab at the remote. ‘Just get in the car, will you!’

  ‘Look, is there something—’

  ‘Yes! No! Look, just leave me alone!’

  We drive, in a cold and foggy silence, for the twelve minutes it takes to get from his parking space in town to his house in Cyncoed.

  ‘Look, Lu,’ he begins, as he undoes his seat belt, ‘I—’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘Err … well. Good luck for tomorrow, then.’

  ‘Goodbye.�
�

  See you Friday, then.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘You’re pre-menstrual, my darling. That’s all it is. Come on. Pour yourself a nice big glass of wine and curl up in front of Millionaire or something.’

  I already have a glass of wine. I have a glass of wine and a thumping headache. The kind of headache that is usually demonstrated in aspirin advertisements by means of exploding craniums. The kind of wine that would be better employed dressing a salad in a Little Chef. And were Del in the room she would doubtless observe that I have a bit of a face on as well.

  ‘I’m not pre-menstrual, actually,’ I correct her. ‘I’m just very pissed off. Why am I doing this, Del? Why? I’m sitting here in what looks like a Nigerian field hospital after a locust attack and I’ve just told my boss to fuck off.’

  ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘I did.’ I sniff. ‘But only after I drove off. I don’t think he heard me.’

  ‘So, no harm done, then. But should I enquire why?’

  ‘Because he called Stefan a wanker.’

  ‘Ri-ight. And when was this?’

  ‘Tonight. After my class.’

  ‘And would this be for any particular reason?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t even know. Something to do with something he said to him about some painting in the museum. I’m not even sure what. He didn’t realize Stefan and I were going out with each other. And he was taking the piss, Del. Oh, I’m just so bloody angry.’

  ‘So I can hear. I thought you were a bit peculiar when you came to pick up Leo. Why didn’t you say something?’

  ‘I couldn’t trust myself to speak.’

  ‘Well, I wish you had. If I’d known you were in such a flap I would have whipped out my ironing-board and given you some of Ben’s shirts to take it out on. But, as I said, no harm done. And I suppose he is entitled to his opinion.’

  ‘Don’t say it!’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘That you agree with him.’

  ‘I wasn’t about to.’

  ‘But you do, right?’

  ‘No comment. I’ll leave all the faux pas to Joe, thanks.’

  ‘Grrr! That’s exactly what makes me so bloody mad at him. Who does he think he is? I’m a bag. Stefan’s a wanker. What right has he got to hurl his abuse all around the place wherever he bloody chooses? Huh? He’s a horrible, pig-headed, arrogant man and I don’t care if he bloody knows it!’

  ‘I’m quite sure he already does.’

  ‘And I’ll tell you something else. If he sends me another bloody bouquet of his bloody stinking flowers, I tell you, Del, I’ll shove them right up his bloody arse! Oh! Leo! What are you doing downstairs? Look, Del, I’d better go.’

  ‘Hang on a tick. There was a reason why I called you. Two things. One was to say that we’ll be over first thing. They’ll be coming to yours first in the morning because they want to do the opening link at the end of your road. And the other was a favour. Weekend after next. I was wondering if you could have Simeon for me. I’ve got a date for getting my eyes done. Well, one eye done anyway. It’s on the Monday, in Bristol, but as Ben’s at some conference in Bath I can stay over with him, and then he can drive me home. There’s some dinner-dance too. Just Saturday to Monday. That OK with you?’

  ‘Oh, the laser thing, right?’

  ‘Yep. Can’t wait. I’ll say yes, then?’

  ‘Yes. Fine. No problem. I’d better get Leo back to bed.’

  ‘Get yourself to bed too. Early start in the morning. Sweet dreams, sweetie-pie.’

  I wish I did have some shirts to iron. I wish I had someone to iron shirts for.

  13

  Wednesday 16 May 8.22 a.m.

  ‘Hello! And welcome to Roomaround! I’m Africa O’Brien and today we’re in Cardiff, capital of Wales - hang on. Should I bother saying that, Mand? That it’s the capital? I mean, doesn’t everyone know that already? What? No, no. Just checking. OK. OK, Bill? OK.’

  ‘Hello! And welcome to Roomaround! I’m Africa O’Brien, and today we’re in Cardiff, capital of Wales. Specifically, in the beautiful village of Cefn Melin - no? Cef-in Melin? No? What’s that? Cevin? As in Kevin? Kevun? Keven? Oh, OK. Ceven. OK. Ce-ven. Right.

  ‘Hello! And welcome to Roomaround! I’m Africa O’Brien and today we’re in Cardiff, capital of Wales. Specifically, in the beautiful village of Cefn Melin, a place whose main claim to fame is a pub that boasts no less than Oliver Cranwell among its - Oliver Cranwell? Who the bejesus is he when he’s at home? Shouldn’t that say Cromwell, Mand? Surely they mean Cromwell. Sorry, guys. We’ll have to go again. What? Yes? Definitely Cromwell? Tsk. You just can’t get the staff.

  ‘Hello! And welcome to Roomaround! I’m Africa O’Brien and today we’re in Cardiff, capital of Wales.

  Specifically - oh, I don’t believe this! Typical! Bill? Anyone? Umbrella?’

  Don’t believe everything you see on the telly.

  Africa O’Brien is just the latest of the thirty-seven- odd people who have been descending on my home since something like a quarter to seven this morning. There are runners, carpenters, carpenters’ mates, soundmen, cameramen, design assistants, makeup artists, people with giant Frisbees for reflecting the sunlight, people with small clipboards for telling them to, people with lengths of cable slung over their shoulders, people whose job seems to be to hold coats for other, more important people, and people who don’t seem to have any jobs at all yet, except standing around drinking coffee from polystyrene cups. There are five vans and a lorry parked up on the street outside, all open-jawed and spewing out stuff. Paint, power tools, wheelbarrows, toolboxes, panelling, timber, sheets of MDF, big lights on stalks, small lights on wires, things in bags, things in boxes, things in strange-looking crates. There are two people erecting gazebos in my garden and another erecting tables and benches for drills. There is someone else busy stacking a rickety trestle with tea urns and cool boxes, tea bags and Coke. There is even, I’m told, at this very moment, a large catering lorry parked up by the sports field, which will cater for any and all culinary whims.

  Am rather impressed.

  9.18 a.m.

  Am no longer impressed. Am amazed, appalled and horrified, frankly, that I forgot one very important fact. Fact that guest couples on Roomaround are expected to act as a lumpen foil to the glittering celebrity contingent, and to spend the entire two days in an XXXL Roomaround T-shirt and jogging bottoms combo, colour dependent upon season. The latter, clearly the benchmark in clothing-as-contraceptive, feature an elasticated ankle cuff, drawstring and mock-fly detail, plus large interior swags of redundant pocket lining, which make one’s hip region reminiscent of the Pennine Way. As it is summer, the choice is between ‘sea’ (dark blue - thus already nabbed by Del) or ‘sand’. For ‘sand’ read ‘yesterday’s washing-up water’, or ‘chicken korma’ or ‘pork-scratching puce’.

  ‘Slip them on, my love, so we can shoot the opening link,’ urges Africa. Someone comes and combs her hair while she speaks to me.

  ‘But these won’t fit me,’ I explain. ‘They’re a size sixteen.’

  She clucks, which I take to be Irish for ‘Tough, mate.’ ‘Well, you know what it’s like,’ she says. ‘End of the series and so on. All we had left. And better too big than too small, I always say. Think Carol Vorderman! That dreadful suit! Ugh!’ She pats the top of my head. ‘Don’t worry. They’ll look fine once you’ve got the T-shirt on over the top.’

  I get the T-shirt on over the top. I look like a cot mattress.

  I tuck the T-shirt in. I no longer look like a cot mattress. No. I now look like I have seventeen ferrets down the front of my knickers and a guinea pig glued to each buttock.

  ‘There!’ she says, smiling. ‘You look great, Lucy! Great! And you get to keep them too, you know!’

  10.22 a.m.

  The leviathan that is Roomaround has finally lumbered into being, and after waving a fond farewell to Del and Ben for the camera, we have relocated to their house with our overnight bags
(plus Tia, Damon, Manda, Africa, about ten other people, most of the vans, more gazebos, urns, power tools, workbenches, stuff in bags, lights, Frisbees, etc.), and Stefan and I are finally allowed our first taste of the awesome creative capability that has been brought to bear on Del and Ben’s bedroom, in which we are now standing. Tia’s vision is illustrated by means of a watercolour and ink sketch, surrounded by little fabric swatches and dabbings of paint. It looks very professional.

  ‘So, Tia, what’s your main angle?’ says Stefan, who is naturally quite at home with the strange, amorphous language of the truly artistic, and who has, I suspect, found a like-minded soul.

  ‘Well,’ she says, lobbing a hair hank behind her and stabbing a French-polished fingernail at it. ‘Look around you. Angles. Dormer. North-easterly aspect. Tate Modern.’ She pauses for effect. ‘What else?’ Oh, indeedy. Just what I thought. She casts her hand around and waits for our murmur of approval. ‘Screams it, doesn’t it?’ Stefan nods gravely. ‘Plus it’s very now. It’s very in-yer-face. It’s very strong. It’s very statement.’

  It’s very statement? Stefan nods gravely again.

  ‘But,’ she goes on, ‘it needs a different spin. You know what it’s like. You can find yourself with a very sixties early-seventies colour scheming thing going on once you go down that road, and I felt Del and Ben weren’t really aquataupe/mustard kinds of guys. Am I right, Lucy? Hmm? So I’ve gone down an entirely different road here and come up with something that I think will draw together the kind of elements I want the room to be defining, but still keeping within the framework of their particular lifestyle parameters. So it’s really a sort of Tate / Quality Street fusion thing.’

  And she has, too. She turns over a leaf of her big important cartridge pad and on the second page there is a selection of Quality Street wrappers - real ones, both shiny and Cellophane - all carefully stuck down in neat little rows. There’s the toffee penny one, the long yellow swizzle, the purple one with the hazel in caramel inside. The red one - Montelimar? - that’s always still there after Christmas, and the new turquoise one, whose filling escapes me but which sits very well with the green one next to it. They look very pretty. I’m not entirely sure Del would approve of being described as someone with a mass-market festive-chocolate-selection lifestyle parameter. But they do look very pretty. Very Del, in fact.