Serious Sweet

by A. L. Kennedy

  Passed mistress.

  Still, it truly doesn’t hurt any more. It does not hurt me. I think. As far as I’m aware, the pain isn’t waiting, or boxed, or numbed. It has departed. It has upped and left – in this, as in all things, my pain preceding me.

  He’d undergone a sort of nerve death, obviously, over the years – the same pain repeating consistently and therefore disappearing in almost every way, if one were to discount all its more lateral symptoms.

  And this isn’t any kind of pain I’m feeling.

  Strange to have one’s grief lifted when one no longer minds if it’s gone or not. And to find that I simply feel as if I’m wearing slightly better shoes. I wouldn’t have wished so hard to be free if I’d known it was this unimpressive. Assuming that I am free. Not sure. Does being divorced equate with emancipation?

  The phone chimed and shuddered against his chest, indicating a volley of texts and – no doubt – emails, very probably from Sansom. No one else should have any reason to be in touch. The department was no more or less besieged than usual, not in any real sense.

  And Sansom’s reasons for trying to reach him would not be real. Sansom wasn’t real.

  He’s like the hen-night version of his profession – not that I’m familiar with hen nights. Went to a stag night once – for twenty minutes. Sansom is as convincing as the lady who appeared and pretended she was a policewoman to no avail, before disrobing. He’s like a pre-striptease phoney fireman. I believe that hen nights have firemen. I’d imagine that fake male nurses would give out a number of mixed messages with regard to sexual orientation and the onset of diseases … And military uniforms might suggest PTSD. Who would want that? Would that be sexy? I can’t say.

  I can say that Sansom is a Hen-Night Special Advisor. Or a Stag-Night Special Advisor. Both. He’ll swing in whatever direction is necessary. Loyal as a tick.

  He closed the wardrobe doors. Then decided to leave just one open – so she’d be sure that he’d been there. She always closed her doors – afraid of moths.

  No spare suit means I’ll have to trail back home and then change before work. Can’t be observed in disreputable trousers. We don’t stand on ceremony, but even so … I can’t proceed in unhappy trousers, not with hard-to-identify mishaps having left signs on the inner thigh, for God’s sake. And my shirt’s an irritation … but, even if the sleeves were long enough, I couldn’t wear the shirt of a debt-happy child, or a dick-happy failure or somebody lurking behind a moustache. That can’t happen, not today.

  I cannot contentedly wear the shirt of some man who’s been making love to my wife. My ex-wife. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable position.

  And then the phone butted in again, ringing. Jon was old enough to remember when being away from the office actually involved being away from the office.

  It was Sansom.

  The concept of deferred gratification was unknown to Sansom.

  Jon reached out the mobile and pondered it.

  What? What is it? What could I possibly do for you? And why?

  Which wasn’t a permissible attitude and Jon would have to do better, but the scent of Valerie’s perfumes, their weird mingling of discordant notes and the threat of past occasions – they were combining to throw him off.

  I’m not sad. Not injured. It’s equally clear that I’m not delighted, not even content … I’m uncomfortable, I do know that … Is it nostalgia …? Neuralgia …? Indigestion …? Delayed shock after the struggle on the patio …?

  And here was Sansom’s name in annoying, shiny letters on the caller display.

  Apologies Mr Sansom – Andy – for my failure to maintain the high performance standards we always do seek to achieve. I will be with you shortly. I am currently experiencing an unwilling recollection: the temperature of the interior of my wife’s mouth – you know how it is. Quite possibly you know exactly how it is.

  No. She would only have tried Sansom to make a gesture and she and Jon had moved beyond the stage where any gesture could be necessary almost a year before Sansom had even taken up his post.

  Or, more precisely, I believe this to be the case, but could be mistaken.

  Dear God, I feel weird. Am I just tired? I don’t sleep. I should be tired. End of the working week – early start to get in here and then leave again on time, because I’ll have no chance in the evening … I’ve a right to be tired.

  Seeing him there in the corner of rooms – embedded and feeding. Why is a thing like a Sansom necessary?

  He pressed the appropriate key, lifted the phone to his ear, let himself pour Sansom’s hectoring whine into his head.

  Yes, here it was, the usual tepid rush. Like spittle. Like drool. Another’s mouth infecting yours.

  Her mouth … all those movements … and the words … mine, too, as well as hers. She felt contagious and I volunteered to be infected.

  Sansom continued. And you had to reply, because that was your duty in most situations, both professional and private. You were the replying type of man, you were of service – or if you weren’t and an informal resolution of your perceived failings was not possible and your customer was still dissatisfied then they might apply for an independent internal review by contacting – please God – someone other than you. ‘Sansom, what can I— Well, I—’ Sansom was forcing in a drumming pelt of injured something or other. There were shades of accusation.

  I haven’t failed you, though. I don’t fail in that context. I do the job. I am relentlessly effective in that regard. That is what I am for. Sansom is not what I am for.

  Jon fended him off, ‘But that’s not my, not strictly … not broadly my—’

  Apparently, the Member for Wythenshawe, Frodsham and Lymm had, once more, gone astray. The man seemed to have been preprogrammed by forces of such exquisite and bizarre malignity that Jon could only ever think of him as the Mancunian Candidate.

  When I imagine her mouth, when I imagine her at all … or my living here … it’s hard to say …

  Sansom was whining at speed. Like a mosquito, perhaps sandfly, even. Definitely an arthropod kind of man is Sansom. And, according to Sansom – which was no guarantee of reliability – there had been a mishap late last night at the barrel-scraping end of some standard hotel jolly. Which was the reverse of being anything to do with Jon, particularly now.

  The point is, my issue is … that I am – to a degree – feeling something. This sensation …

  Jon tried to summarise and, by doing so, move on and away from bloody Sansom, ‘So he was verbally unwise, yes? That’s not really news … Your Honourable Member generally—’

  The Honourable Member is generally a fuck-up. What was it the last time, the last incident? The man is a walking Fat Finger – a soft, thick accident waggling about and sure to thump itself against what it should not …

  Ah, yes – I remember – ‘Beware the Hun in the sun.’ The last time had been in Leipzig. Fact-finding trip for comparison of this with that, or that with this – heaven forfend that MPs should achieve the same result by exchanging emails, phone calls, Skypeing, no one should ever be caused to miss an excursion. You could tell the Mancunian had prepared it – his bon mot – hooked it out as suitable for the occasion and therefore gone heartily off-piste in an address to several hundred sophisticated polyglot Europeans whose water glasses knew more about social grace and twentieth-century history than Mr Manchester ever would, even after some type of wholesale brain transplantation. The paper coasters under their water glasses could have beaten him at chess.

  Chess … what am I thinking? Anything – animate, or inanimate – could beat him at chess. The coasters could have beaten him at rock, scissors, paper – at hangman – at snap.

  He’s got the right idea in a way. Voters are justifiably scared of clever politicians. They’ll never like or trust you, never respect you – but if they can laugh at you, whether fondly or despairingly, you may prosper. Be a buffoon. But not too much of a buffoon. Don’t bury yourself in the part. There i
s a line it’s possible to cross. And Parliament’s gift to Timperley would usually cross it, because he wasn’t faking – he was both a genuine moron and stridently addicted to attention. One of the little-boy types who says what he hopes will earn him a spanking, because spanking is attention of a kind.

  And God save us from a sly buffoon, we have no defence against that.

  ‘Sweet Jesus, really? Baby’s got back. He actually said that. And this woman was …?’ Jon tried to enjoy hearing a problem that was not his problem. And to enjoy reciting it back even more. ‘So to summarise, in the run-up to a general election, a white, male Parliamentary Undersecretary of State has insulted a black, female— Yes, it was an insult, that’s why it was taken as an insult, it could hardly not have been … Because it was grotesquely discourteous, why else? And—’

  Two things about Sansom – he wouldn’t let you draw breath and he lied to the wrong people. Which is to say, he lied all the time. The ends of his sentences didn’t even match their beginnings, so hard and fast did he reshape the narrative of each trouble that beset him. You couldn’t help a person if they wouldn’t acknowledge reality – reality was all you’d got and, left unplacated, it would inevitably bite you. Swearing on your mother’s grave that the world did not have teeth and wouldn’t harm you made no difference. The hot and manly thrust of your sadomasochistic ambition went all for naught.

  If I knew what I was feeling … One can’t have nameless emotions, surely … They must eventually declare themselves – neither vague, nor trifling, nor tendered in a spirit of mockery. Surely …

  ‘Sansom, you wouldn’t be calling me if it hadn’t been taken as an insult. So white, male and so forth has insulted a black, female activist who works for his own party and is … substantial in mass as a person … which was ungallant … And is this true, anyway – what’s your source?’

  Sources … if one can trace things to their sources, they must surely then become identified, identifiable …

  So is the source of my emotions my wife?

  Ex-wife. She’s my ex-wife.

  That would be the important question. Does my, as yet, unclassified emotional disturbance derive from her, or has it flown in from elsewhere?

  ‘He was recorded doing it …? Well, isn’t everyone? Isn’t everyone now recorded while doing everything …? He at least wasn’t overheard by a sober off-duty policeman of impeccable reputation, decorated former serviceman and tirelessly devoted to a number of charities …’

  Jon ambled down Valerie’s staircase as he spoke, its skewed angles marking it out as original. If anything lasted long enough, it got twisted.

  Always makes you think you’re falling, or about to.

  And, as his telephone reception became exquisitely weak, he peered at his image, caught in the shine of the living-room door. Original again – oak, two-panelled – polished by centuries of various substances until it had a deep and browny-goldy finish, the subtly uneven surface further enhancing the impression that it was a slab of very tranquil, well-aged liquid set up on end and then graced with a doorknob.

  The one thing I miss about this place – the doors.

  I can picture myself being desolate about the doors.

  Although I’m not.

  Emotions were like pine needles in your carpet – you’d think they were cleared and then another would work its way up and sting you, then another.

  But you can look at a needle and see it for what it is. The bloody things are explicable.

  His face, wavering in the sombre woodwork, was definitely grinning. He didn’t look remotely annoyed.

  And not bad for fifty-nine. Seen worse. Possibly. Any unbiased observer might be kind. Any kind observer might be … willing to look away.

  His arms – spidery – were distorted, his body’s long outlines flickering as he moved. But it wasn’t disturbing.

  I never truly got the benefit of being tall. And yet people say it’s a good thing. I was told recently that it’s good.

  ‘I was joking, Sansom … No, I was joking … I made the policeman up … He does not exist … He is a fiction…. You know about fiction … Audio, or video …? Magnificent. The Internet loves camera phones, where would we be without them … You know I can’t help you.’

  I don’t want to help you, but I also can’t. My loyal and effective service may not be inhibited by the taint of comprehensive commitment to any particular interest or philosophy. We don’t even share a minister. Be your bloody age.

  My dad would say that – be your bloody age. Another tall man, Dad – not a clue what to do with it, either.

  First time I came back from school – home for the holidays – and he’d decided to be short around me. My own father. I made him stoop. That could never have been right. I should have said so. One can’t, though, can one?

  Jon slotted himself down the steps again, jogtrotting.

  Is that what I feel? Rushed? Am I thinking of all of the everything I still have to do?

  ‘Sansom, you know that especially now I can’t help you. And I have to make that very clear. If you are not satisfied with my response, I genuinely regret that, but there’s no more I can do. By which I do mean precisely that there’s no more I can do. This wouldn’t alter if we were in the same room. And you shouldn’t have texted me and I hope that you haven’t emailed or that if you did, you bore the clarity of my position in mind.’

  The Honourable gentleman currently under discussion is of a party and I cannot be of a party. The Honourable gentleman is subject to nervous difficulties, but that’s none of my business in the sense that you require. The Honourable gentleman once made a moderately painless speech to an audience of which I was a member, that’s all. The Honourable gentleman’s dogged insistence that my subsequent presence on other occasions would ensure smooth sailing and the free flow of elegant locutions is based on a false assumption. He believes that every time he opens his mouth in public and precipitates a catastrophuck it’s because I wasn’t there. This is untrue. He doesn’t fail because I’m never there, he fails because he always is.

  ‘To repeat, I can’t help. I can’t … But I can’t. Particularly now. We’re deep in the period of sensitivity and everyone has to be unimpeachably well balanced. Like a Toledo blade, as I used to be told. Acting as your Parliamentary Undersecretary of State’s lucky gonk isn’t being impartial, now is it …? We’re in purdah. At least, I am. And I can’t just be there when he makes obeisance before the press … I have my work to do … As a suggestion, it’s untenable in the particular and in principle and as a request. And beyond which, if he gets a gonk they’ll all want one.’

  And since when did a Parliamentary Undersecretary of State get anything much beyond the headed stationery?

  I am here to serve, of course, I am a servant … It becomes, though, difficult … It becomes, in an environment where change-bunching is a concept and we have to believe in and pander to such a thing as the garden-fence effect and cascade is deployed as a serious verb … It becomes difficult. I think I reached my tether, its end, became aware that I was tethered and did not like it, when I encountered my first zero-based review. I do not wish to be involved with the thing which is a zero-based review. Zero is an ugly word. The name of the Greek philosopher of all things lost to despair should be … Nemo Zero who lived in a burning barrel, close by the Abode of the Crows … I should mention him at some point – see if anyone admits they’ve never heard of him.

  I think I should do that. I think so.

  But then again, I can’t hear myself think. On occasions.

  And then again, I don’t like it when I can. On occasions.

  ‘Sansom … Sansom … Sansom, would you like to explain yourself to my minister who is currently a little busy, what with that … that whole, what was it …? Yes, that whole upcoming general election distracting him from his usual devotion to your well-being and that of every other special advisor, no matter their department. Regards, by the way to your minister, I thought he d
id terribly well the other night and it was a tough situation for him.’

  Always be nice about a special advisor’s minister. Their minister is the nipple at which they suck – he, or even she, will bring out the mammal in them – and they can’t help being fond.

  The Mancunian is, perhaps, Sansom’s minister’s ugly and wet-brained child, the one they couldn’t sell to the circus – which is to say, not to a circus other than the one he now calls home: not to a proper circus that insists on its staff having skills – like tumbling, or eating live rats. All of which is not to be pondered.

  ‘Talk to him, to the Honourable Member … Then talk to him again … Don’t talk to me … Talk to someone who can help you. Please. Not me. I’m someone who can’t. Deep breaths, take deep breaths … I’m so sorry … Yes, you could ask my minister and if he were to tell me that I should assist, then I would try to see how we could do that.’

  But he won’t, because he isn’t insane. I know there was something of a precedent set in Scotland, but purdah really should be purdah – I mean, it does matter a little, to democracy and so forth.

  ‘No, deep breaths, Sansom.’

  It had been a while since he’d hung up on somebody who was swearing.

  It felt good.

  He paused at another door. His reflection bowed slightly and flexed its knees.

  He nodded to it, watchful, but it didn’t take offence. He winked.