Perfect by Rachel Joyce

Author:Rachel Joyce
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Contemporary Fiction, Contemporary, Literature & Fiction
ISBN: 9780857520661
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2013-07-03T23:00:00+00:00

6

Looking for Small Things

EILEEN’S CAR IS parked and waiting beneath the sign that reads, No Parking. No Waiting. It is only once he has stepped out of the staff door that Jim realizes it is hers. Panic prickles his neck and shimmies all the way to the backs of his knees. He tries to reverse but the door has already clunked shut behind him.

There is nothing for it but to pretend he is someone else. A person without a new plaster-cast foot, for instance. Eileen stares straight at him and her face erupts into an eager, happy smile of recognition. She waves. Clearly he needs a new tactic. He must pretend she is someone else instead and that he has never met her.

Jim peers carefully through the dark at other things – the stashed trolleys, the bus stop, the cashpoint. He studies each of them as if he is finding them so extremely interesting he cannot possibly register anything else and will need to keep this up for a good few hours. He hums to give his distracted appearance further authenticity. And all the while he is studying these extremely interesting inanimate objects, what he is in fact seeing is Eileen. Her image is branded over his vision. She is all there is. Her green coat. Her flame of hair. Her radiant smile. It is as if she is talking to him.

Jim finds a very interesting spot in the pavement. He stoops to take a closer look. Then he makes a show of seeing another interesting spot a few feet on. If he can keep this up, if he can follow a trail of interesting spots, he should make it to the other side of the car park.

Already he is right next to her car. Without looking he can feel all through his left side that she has noticed him and is watching. He is dizzy with the closeness of her. And then, just as he is almost safe, he forgets that the extremely interesting spot is purely ground-based and accidentally raises his head. His eyes bump straight into Eileen’s.

Her car door swings open and she scrambles out of the passenger seat. ‘Have you lost something, Jim?’

‘Oh hello, Eileen,’ he says. ‘I didn’t see you sitting next to me in your car.’

He can’t imagine why he has said that, since it is now clear he recognized her straight away. He tries to make a dash towards the supermarket entrance and realizes he can only hobble. Unfortunately Eileen realizes he can only hobble too. She sees everything. His plaster-cast foot. His plastic sock. ‘Jim,’ she cries. ‘What happened?’

‘N-n-n—’ He can’t say it. He can’t get the word out and it is so small. She stands and waits. And all the time he gropes for it, mouth poised, chin jabbing the air, he is wretched. It is like clawing for words his mouth can’t make.

‘How are you getting home?’ she says. At least she has not connected his foot with her Ford. ‘Do you want a lift?’

‘Mr – Mr – Mr Meade.

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