Serious Sweet (38 page)

‘EXCUSE ME.'
JON
was – now that he considered himself – pushing and pushing his hands up away from his forehead and through his hair. ‘Excuse me.' The cab driver paid no heed and Jon pushed and clawed at his hair again. He cleared his throat. ‘Excuse me, but I think I would like it if you could take me to London Bridge.'

‘That's not where you said.'

It seemed Jon had found a driver of the less helpful type. ‘Yes, I know that's not where I said, but I've changed my mind. I've had a call and – that is – I will be making a call … ' Jon could feel hair actually coming loose and adhering to his fingers, then dropping off softly like insect wings or tendrils or some such against his face. ‘Which is … I just need to be at London Bridge.' He had – it would appear – sticky fingers and was hauling out his own hair by the roots.

‘It'll cost you.'

‘I don't mind. I have to be at London Bridge. Getting to Coldharbour Lane was going to cost me, anyway.' Jon not intending to snap, or to sound like an arsehole in a pricey coat, but there it was – he managed anyway. ‘It's all going to cost me.'

‘All right.'The cab driver sounded aggrieved in the way bullying men seemed bound to when confronted. ‘It's no skin off my nose.' His head shook visibly in an expression of passive-aggressive exasperation. ‘I can get you there. What time's your train?'

I swear to God, they get a phrase book they have to learn, along with the Knowledge: fastest route from Mayfair to Loughborough Junction and clichés to recite as we plough ahead.

Jon focused on being glad that the taxi's radio was only playing pallid semi-pop, rather than some kind of pretend election phone-in, or a preacher.

I couldn't stand it, not tonight. The amateur approach now indistinguishable from the professional: the magisterial generalisations, the scared mythologising, the shrill defence of whatever, whatever, whatever … ideology, faith, obsession … with fragments of last week's headlines and fragments of next week's hate …

Actually, just …

Fuck it.

‘I'm not catching a train. Is London Bridge a problem?'

‘No, no, not a problem.'

‘Then if we could do that, thanks.'

‘Yeah, we're doing that – I can't just turn here, though. I gotta wait until those lights, you know?'

‘Change of plans, you know? Change of plans.' And Jon's hands fell to his sides, resting ungracefully on the seat, this sensation about them which gave the impression they might be emptying, letting something drain away from them, something a little like sand in texture. He felt also that his shins and torso were being emptied –
socks overflowing with sand, like a POW dumping excavated earth, like a corpse being mobile, shoes dirty with grave traces.
He imagined that if he unbuttoned his coat and jacket there would be a tumble of grains – perhaps grey – which would seethe down and away from him and leave him only … He wasn't sure of what this process might achieve, how it would leave him.

Even more empty.

Light.

I could be light.

I feel …

And, of course, this was the moment when he reached his absolute zero and there was nothing left to feel. His awareness
bumped and jolted inside his vacated body, responding to the motion of the cab, and it found not a spark of any emotion.

I'm all done, absolutely – I've wasted myself away.

He'd expected some form of terror – galloping pulse – but he might as well have been sitting and planning to do nothing much, quiet night on his little futon sofa, back in his bedsit – the futon that he didn't always bother making up into a bed, because a bedsit looks much bigger without a bed and because he could sleep anywhere and sheets and pillows didn't matter, did they? No, they didn't matter.

It's quite likely that nothing matters.

So it is pressingly important to do what is necessary, anyway. One does – in the end – what one understands to be right. One does this whether it makes any difference and whether it alters anything and whether it's possible, or not.

One does this because one has to.

One does it.

And Jon raised his hand – such a weightless extremity now, it drifted up almost without him – and reached it into his inside pocket and brought out his phone and dialled a number and listened to it ring and felt as still as water, as still as the soul of water somewhere deep, as still as one 3 a.m. moment when his infant daughter had stopped crying, had been awake but settled in his arms and been alive and with him and from him, but better than him.

Which was the first time I really knew her as a person, an identity, a human being who liked being with me and warm against my chest.

And now he was still again.

The miles-away number kept on ringing.

In a café filled with after-school children, there is snacking and mild rioting after the school day's restraint. Adults drink coffee and address each other with the practised focus of parents who are used to ignoring the din of their young. Two boys sit on the floor in a far corner, eating toasted cheese. It is clear that being on the floor and together makes everything different and more glorious.

A mother and daughter sit opposite each other, intent. The daughter – about five – is dressed to combat the outside cold: thick tights, bright pullover, little boots. Her coat – red to chime with the pink pullover – is hung on the back of her chair. The girl's hair is a wild, soft frizz of brown. Her mother's might be the same were it not bound up in an adult and responsible manner.

The girl leans forward and extends her hand in a fist, then in a blessing, then a blade: ‘Rock, scissors, paper …' And again, ‘Rock, scissors, paper.' This repetition seems to press the child full of amusement, which escapes her in smiles, shivers, laughter. Her arm wavers with giggles as she repeats, ‘Rock, scissors, paper.'

Her mother is also leaning forward and also sketching the shapes of a rock and a pair of scissors and a sheet of paper. Neither of them makes any attempt to play the game through and so no one gets to discover what might happen beyond this cycling rehearsal where stone meets stone and metal meets metal and paper meets paper. There's no competition, the two just dance their hands through the forms and grin at each other, their voices quietly reciting in unison, ‘Rock, scissors, paper.' And then the child says, ‘Again.' And they do it again.

Over by the door, a father is addressing his son: ‘That's funny, isn't it?' While the boy picks the sausages out of a sausage sandwich with apparently absolute concentration, the man goes on, ‘Yes, it's funny because Amanda was here when I had coffee after I took you to school and we've known each other for years and we're friends and now she's here again. Isn't that funny?' The sandwich is more interesting than this
strange definition of funny. ‘She's waving at us – do you see? And I …' The father stands, ‘I think I'll go and ask her if she'd like to sit with us, because that would be nice, wouldn't it.'

The boy's dad moves across the unpredictably bustling café, carefully patting heads and waving at a woman as if he is in a train, or else a black-and-white movie about leaving. The boy watches him go. The child's face flickers for a moment through an expression which belongs to adult life – he seems for an instant to have stopped indulging his father by pretending to be young and to be fooled. And then the boy returns to being a boy and making a mess of his sandwich and the sausage and the ketchup, because he is worn out after a day of lessons and is mostly only a primary-school pupil, a son, a child, someone for whom all meetings between grown-ups – married or unmarried – are much the same, someone for whom food is important. He's growing, he needs to eat.

The daughter and the mother keep on rehearsing the introduction to a game they never play. The daughter is almost savagely focused, this gleam of enjoyable secrecy in her eyes, an inrushing surprise. She says, ‘Again.' And her mother nods, perhaps slightly bored by this point and sipping from a mug. The daughter recites, louder than usual, ‘Rock, scissors, paper … VOLCANO!' She makes a little pyramid with her fingers at the last word and then bursts it apart and sways her arms high.

‘Volcano?'

‘That's when you can do anything.' The girl explains this as if she is leading her mother gently out from arithmetic to calculus, or else explaining the operation of gravity. She speaks slowly and clearly and with an energetic type of seriousness, because she is passing on important information.

Your name is Jon Corwynn Sigurdsson and you are …

Your name is Jon Corwynn Sigurdsson and you are speaking and …

Your name is Jon Corwynn Sigurdsson and and and you are not you – you are Mr August, you are Dear Mr August, you are Very Dear Mr August and you are …

Your name is Dear Mr August and you have made a phone call and she has answered, actually answered, when you didn't think she would, because you are no longer deserving and never were and always were caught in two minds, caught between your two minds and …

‘Yes, I know.'

And all you can hear is your darling's voice – your baby's, your sweetheart's, your best girl's voice. You can hear her voice.

And you can't hear yourself – only her. Warm at your cheek as kisses would be and you know enough, remember enough, of her to know about her – Dear God, Dear Mr August – to know about her kisses.

‘Yes, I know it's you.'

And she is very far away.

‘What do you want?'

And this is going badly.

‘What is it that you want, Jon?'

And what you want is horrible, horrible, wonderful, really obvious, dreadful, too much and it's in you, inside you and working changes, breaking out in ripples, in waves that lash from cell to cell to cell.

‘You should have called me. If you wanted me to stop. If I'm supposed to stop. When you hadn't said that you wanted to stop. You said you were happy. Why would I want to be something that doesn't make you happy? Why would I want to bother with …'

And she does not say
a waste of time like you, an ugly fuck-up like you,
but she is audible all the same.

‘You don't say goodbye in a text. If you want to go, I can't stop you – you do what you want. You do what you fucking want, but
you tell me, you bloody tell me. You call me and you tell me – at least that. You should tell me to my fucking face. Fuck.'

And you like this about her, love this, anger being a form of passion and therefore she had passion and this passion is still for you, about you – double-minded and pathetic and useless Dear Mr August, she still has this passion of hate that's for you.

‘I though you were—' And her voice fraying with this fury you have given her. ‘I thought you were a human being. You're just a fucking man.'

And you want her to shout more vehemently. You are of the opinion that her doing so would help you both.

And you have this heartfelt …
like a cup of hot metal rocking there under the ribs.
You really are wishing that you could tell if you're shouting back – you don't think so.
Not sure.
You imagine that you would hear it or have the sensation of it in your chest …
with the spill of metal.

You think that you are praying –
sort of
 – and whispering –
Sigurdsson, don't mumble. You are not in bloody Fishertown now
 – and you are maybe smoothing –
I hope –
smoothing your voice towards her, smoothing it like sheets, like almonds and milk and the sheets of a fresh-made bed, like altar cloths and the silk skin at her wrists, like the sheets of a fresh-made bed when you have pulled back the coverlet and are getting ready.

All of these things which are so very clean and so very sweet and so …

‘Well, I do! I fucking do! I never said that I didn't!'

And here it is – she's shouting. You like the way this hurts you, are contented by it, warmed in your bones.

‘I'm tired!'

And it's so good, all good.

‘I'm fucking tired!'

And once it is done –
please, please
 – you can start again. You will be able to start again. You will, won't you?

‘Jon, I'm tired!'

And this is true and you are too and this is only fair.

‘That's not fair! You're not fair and I … Look, OK. OK.'

And you understand –
ridiculous at my age
 – you have come to this kind of fundamental understanding after all this time you've wasted in being alive, but not really alive, and in knowing so many other, useless things. All of a piece and sudden, you can see that love, that loving, that being in love is a fundamentalist's occupation. Your beloved is your beloved and there can be no other, not like her, like this. And the world must love her also and always, for ever, and if it does not then the world is wrong.

‘You won't be there, Jon. No, you won't be. You're going to make me go there and wait for you and then you're not going to come. You won't.'

And you don't do ideology, never have.

‘OK.'

But now you have your articles of faith. Deep.

‘OK.'

But now you are not hollow. You are burning, you are filled with burning. Your metal heart has spilled and turned you molten and your creed is screamed and lashing in you, it is like rage and like wine.

‘Jon.'

But now you have the love you chose – the love that chose you back – the love which is a blessing in your body and upon your body and which excuses it.

‘Jon, goodbye … Goodbye. I know. Goodbye. I have to go. I will. I'll be there.'

But …

But …

There is this possibility that opens up as soon as you can tell yourself, your world, your love, darling, sweetheart, treasure, your sweet, your serious sweet – when you can tell everything. ‘But …'

You want her not to go, not quite yet –
dearsweetmybaby –
and you do wish that you could have heard –
allthatIcould
 – what you managed to tell her –
allthatIam
 – you really do wonder the words you could have picked and offered, the ones which let her no longer hate you when you deserve to be hated. You are all unsure.

But you think most of what you said was just the one word –
please.

And also the other word –
but.

But and then please.

Please.

Please.

And you hear it like Stealers Wheel singing ‘Stuck in the Middle with You' – that's the song you were thinking of before – Gerry Rafferty singing
Plee-ee-eease, Plee-ee-eease
in this high, long dog howl of need. It's like that.

And it's like sweetness and like fury.