|
Shorter Story by Rishi Coupland |
I won't bore you with the story of how we got the wand, I'll cut to the chase: My girlfriend and I sweating - well I am - nervously as we prepare to, in our own way, break the first law of long-term relationships. In old wives speak it is: "You can marry them, but you can't change them" or "love the one you're with", in modern talk it is all about "respecting the individual." Kulwant goes first. She takes the wand and closes her eyes. Her hands are comically arched, unknowingly theatrical, but I see that her face is calm and I realise, just before the pain hits, that she is more ready for this than me. Don't be like this, I think: calculating, more prepared than I am. And of course it is thoughts like this that explain why we have the wand in the first place. That is all I have time to think before - BAM! - the muscles around my knees, thighs and lower back explode together like a standing ovation: I am glad that she got me to bite on a tea towel. But the pain is just instantaneous and that's it, I'm two inches taller, taller than she is now. I take a deep breath and. Shit! New lungs! I don't know why, but it feels like the first breath of my life. Maybe, because I'm taller. So, more oxygen demand? Sickened dizzily for a second, I imagine new capillaries racing through my flesh like questing sperm. I'm breathing heavily, she has her eyes open now and she's breathing heavily so either of us can talk. Good. I want to do this before I change my mind. I hold, I point, I think - we both think, that's how we've been told to do it - and it is done. Her change is more subtle. All she wants, to begin with, is to be more toned. I can't honestly tell myself that she looks greatly different but she is feeling her arms and going 'oooh' so I guess it worked. She drags herself away from her tightened skin and looks me in the eyes. 'Sure?' she says. The next bit is delicate. See, we had agreed not to change faces and genitals but I have always envied her knack with languages. I nod. Now I'll feel like less of a prick on holidays. This is the point where it goes hazy for me. I'm on the floor. I'm naked, certain parts of my anatomy that we had talked about not changing have changed and I'm a lawyer. God! I'm a lawyer! I don't know how I know,but I know! I put my hands to my face. My face has changed! I thought she liked my face! But, mainly: I'm a lawyer! Some big-shot city wanker no doubt! 'So my job wasn't good enough for you?' I say and something seems to catch in my throat. To give her her due, she looks shocked. I snatch the wand from her in anger and I then get an idea of just how much trouble that wand is. It is wrist-bendingly alive in my hands. Everything I really want in a girlfriend jumps to the front of my mind. Notasteinmusictooserioustoohungrysometimesnotblonde is what I remember of it. BAM! She is crying. She is also naked. I feel awful and want to hold her immediately, but can't because, (and here is the main thing), she is Cameron Diaz. She is Cameron Diaz's face on Cameron Diaz's body. Obviously, all the physical elements are there: 5'11" tall, the latin-like body, the wide and open face. But apart from that I know she is Cameron Diaz, as well as still being Kulwant. She has starred in Gangs of New York. She has even recently returned from holidaying in Guadelope and has the tan to boot. And at the same time she is also my girlfriend, who cooks muttar paneer badly, is a member of the RSPB and who secretly bites her own toenails. Weird. We have the mother of all rows (I christen my new face with some tears of my own), but are deadlocked as to what to do next. We are no longer ourselves. We aren't nobodies: we are half-different people. Not that my empathy with Kulwant/Cameron's position stops us rowing. I remember once my anger at my parents when they tricked me into drinking hated milk by adding syrup to it. Now, my girlfriend and me berate each other with the same hang-on-for-dear-life effrontery in the face of naked facts. The most naked fact being that half of each of us wants us to stay how we are. Even as I am calling my girlfriend every name under the sun, I know it is thanks to the stamina of my new tar-free lungs (I realise now why that first breath felt so different). Of course, the realisation eventually comes as to what we should be saving our energies for: panicking. Panicking about the details: How do I get a new passport? Will I have an inhuman urge for muttar paneer? How will she avoid being recognised everywhere she goes? In the months that follow, I see nothing of Kulwant /Cameron. It doesn't matter, because every attempt I make to worm my way back into my old life is doomed. I guess you could say my heart isn't in it. I don't want to be just the old me. The old me wanted to change people. The new me is too busy working out if all along I just wanted to change my life. It is a milestone for me when I cave in and walk into the law firm, where apparently I have worked for several years. No one questions my 'absence' and my colleagues' acceptance clothes me like a stripper's Velcro pants in reverse. Of course, I know my trade inside-out as soon as I walk through the door: I am an ambulance chaser, a personal claims specialist, something I have always detested, but I am surprised to find that I now enjoy. There is something about sticking it to big institutions that appeals to my old sense of perverseness. At parties, when people make unconsciously negative faces at me, I say that because of people like me no bureaucrat can ever shrug their shoulders and say 'That's just the way it is'. Those smug gits can't ignore the smallest complaint nowadays, and if so-called 'undeserving' people profit from this, well so what? We can't have everything in life exactly as we want it, I say. Like most converts I am evangelical and, as a result, do well. Life outside London is sweet when you have enough money, I find. It is easy, even without trying, to track Kulwant /Cameron. As I suspected, she isn't just a clone: she is the real thing. Like me she seems to accept her fate, so I catch inch high fragments of her life in the tabloids, especially when her new film comes out. I flatter myself that I at least picked a fairly good fit for my hybrid ex-girlfriend, because she copes well with the transition, using the actress's well known capricious and kooky side to stay away from publicity as much as possible. But I am surprised when she calls me: She is visiting London and wondering if I want to meet up. Not in our old stamping ground (Kenton) but in Holland Park, for a meal. My mouth is suddenly dry, before I say. 'yes'. Of course, it is very predictable: We are very nearly made for each other. At the end of the meal I say: "You've got it all, and I've got it bad." A cheesy line, of the kind that she had never previously owned up to liking, but obviously did. We move in together a couple of months later, very much in love. We had metaphorically as well as physically thrown away the wand a long time ago: More than any other couple we know not to meddle with each other, and so we have an idyllic love life. I'll tell you what though, you wouldn't believe how much of a slob Cameron Diaz is around the house sometimes. Toenail clippings in the bath! We'll have to put a stop to that. |
|
To discuss this story please visit our forum and put the message under the Tell Tales format section for response. |
||
