Louise Kean - The Perfect 10

But then he juts out a hand, to be shaken. ‘Cagney, Cagney James.’

My eyes widen involuntarily. That’s not a name, it’s a 1950s detective show, complete with black-and-white opening credits, and old-fashioned sirens under the theme music, and bad edits and childish graphics.

I remember my manners and offer my hand to be shaken. ‘I’m Sunny. Sunny Weston. Just Sunny.’

I see his eyes widen too. He has trained his face into deadpan but this time his reaction was too quick to suppress. I wonder if he is ever caught so off guard that he smiles.

‘Your name is Sunny?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sunny?’

‘Yes …’

‘Like Perky, or Happy, or any of the other dwarfs?’ He looks at me with incredulity.

‘And who was Cagney?’ I ask. ‘The dwarf who liked to drink and sleep with hookers?’

We are still shaking hands, our fingers clenched in a mutual rage. Given the chance I believe we would break each other’s bones. Simultaneously we pull away, equally alarmed.

I wriggle my hand to cast him off me, and pray my cab will arrive and toot its horn and that will be that. I glance up at his face but he is staring at his fist. I won’t call it electricity. It was just … funny. Weird funny, not ha ha funny. Not good funny.

I step backwards when he speaks.

‘That was a stupid thing you did this morning, Smiley.’

‘I’m sorry, Caustic, I don’t understand.’

‘No surprise there. This morning, running after that bastard. You shouldn’t have done it. I was only a few feet behind you; you should have waited. You could have been hurt. Or can’t bad things happen in fairyland?’

‘I was hurt, as it happens, but my ego survived, getting the child back and all, and not losing a lung in the process.’

I stare at him, shocked at my own tone, shocked at his. I need to make this normal. I don’t know why I am behaving this way.

‘Anyway … he looked really scared, actually. I don’t think he quite knew what he was doing …’

‘And that justifies it, does it?’

He straightens his back. I cock my head. I feel angry, and I can’t explain why.

‘Of course not. But it’s not black and white, is it?’

‘Not black and white? Snatching a child is not black and white? Is it the colour of ice cream and butterflies, Sunny? Is it a magical adventure on a unicorn?’

‘No, but it’s not black like your lungs or white like your hair …’

‘Well, Miss …’

I stare at him expectantly until I realise he has forgotten my name, and is waiting for me to fill in the blank. ‘Weston,’ I say irritably.

‘Well, Miss Weston, what is it exactly? I’m dying for the insight.’

‘Look, Cagney ,’ I enunciate his name with sarcasm, and instantly regret it, feeling ridiculous.

He looks at me with disdain.

‘I obviously didn’t mean that it was OK to do what he did.’

‘How else could you mean it?’

‘I meant that, although not making it right or justifying it in any way, there must be a reason why he did it.’

‘He is a sick bastard. That’s all the reason there is.’

‘Well, yes, he probably is sick, in some way. But he wasn’t just made that way. As a baby, he wasn’t born wanting to hurt people or … snatch children … or whatever.’

‘Of course he was! Some people are born sick.’

‘You don’t really believe that?’

‘Utterly. What do you believe, that he wasn’t breast-fed until he was eighteen and his daddy was a drunk, and it’s all his parents’ fault?’

A line of sweat trickles down the back of my neck. I hate him.

‘Is that your excuse, Mr James?’

‘I think, given who we are comparing me too, I turned out OK.’

‘Yes, ignorant and angry is very healthy.’

‘I might not be hugging this tree but I’m not hurting anybody.’

‘Maybe not hurting, but boring. I pity your wife.’

The skin around his eyes tightens and his jaw locks. My hands are shaking with rage.

‘Do I look stupid enough to be married?’ he fires back at me.

‘You look stupid enough to do most things.’

Two policemen walking into the station glance at us suspiciously as I raise my voice, and I smile at them as sweetly as I can. I wait for them to go through the swing doors, and turn to Cagney, half expecting him to be gone. But he is standing in exactly the same position, staring at me with what can only be contempt.

‘I wouldn’t be stupid enough to do you,’ he says flatly, and I flinch.

‘I, like most women, wouldn’t be stupid enough to let you try,’ I say, my voice as controlled as I can manage.

‘Well, women today are too busy burning their bras, and lifting weights,’ he motions with his eyes, just in case I didn’t realise he was talking about me, ‘to know a good man when they see one.’

‘Burning their bras? Are you still trying to pay in shillings? News flash: it’s the twenty-first century. If you see a good man do point him out to me because I’m not sure they still exist. I’ve missed them all so far!’

‘Maybe they saw you first.’

Cagney glares at me, and I glare back. If I wasn’t outside a police station I’d slap him.

‘Hello?’

We both spin violently towards the voice and see a tall, elegant but gaunt woman approaching us. It takes me a heartbeat to recognise her as Dougal’s mother. Her eyes are swollen from crying. None of the children are with her, thank goodness. Cagney and I stare at her in disbelief. This is a strange day.

‘I really, really have to say thank you, to you both.’ Dougal’s mother puts her long arms on her hips, then removes them and clasps her hands nervously, then flicks hair from her eyes, then wrings her hands in front of her. An awful thing has happened to her this morning. I feel some of the rage ebb in my stomach like sweet relief, and I am overwhelmed with gratitude to this woman for shattering whatever it was that had gripped Cagney James and me just moments ago. I wasn’t myself – that is my only excuse.

‘Please, there is no need to thank us … me.’ I glare at Cagney. ‘Anybody would have done the same thing. I’m just glad it’s … you know … as OK as it can be.’

She smiles a weary smile at us both, and flicks the hair at her eyes again.

I take a step towards her, away from Cagney.

‘The boys are with their father. Dougal is terrible – shaken and upset and … anyway, Terence, that’s my husband, Dougal’s father, when I explained, well, he can’t thank you both enough, of course. And he suggested that you both come to dinner, next week – we live locally, in Kew – and that we might say thank you that way, although of course it will never be enough to say thank you, but he suggested it, so I thought I might still catch you here …’

I am horrified. I gag with disbelief. This poor woman has been through an unspeakable horror only hours ago, the kind of hell that a mother can only dare imagine, and she is offering to make us dinner? It is the most inappropriate thing I have ever heard.

‘Oh, I really don’t think that’s necessary. I think we probably just want to forget all about it …’

‘Oh, my goodness, no, you must come. Terry wants to thank you himself, and it’s the least I can do. It won’t be anything elaborate. Probably duck, or whatever the butcher has in fresh …’ Her voice trails off and her eyes become a matt version of their previously glossy selves. I have a feeling they will be permanently matt soon: any joy she has is being slowly replaced by fear …

But her reaction is as if she has dropped a plate from my chinaware, or spilt red wine on my trousers. It is so horribly embarrassing I don’t know what to say. I stand open-mouthed, completely aghast. So she carries on talking.