Indelible Acts

by A. L. Kennedy

  The first day he was due back in at work, he woke up at five in the morning with an absence lying heavy on him from the back of his throat to his balls. He thought about pride, about dignity—the way they were overrated.

  I hope that you are feeling better now.

  All the best, Brian.

  The note was lying in wait for him on his desk. He’d managed the corridor and the secretaries and the enquiries after his time away and then two sentences’ worth of ink dropped him cold where he stood. He wanted to go home and to resign and to go into Brian Salter’s office and thank him so much for caring, or beat in his fucking, prick-teasing head. But the phone rang and he let it take him into what he knew: the law and how it worked in people. He was safe, he was making do.

  Hours congealed around him: made one day, two, a week: and he learned that he need not meet Salter’s eyes and that even a wafer of air could insulate him from the bite, the lunge of Salter’s skin. He didn’t always want to retch when he moved away without making a contact, without asking for acknowledgement. But when Salter came into his room, soft shoes hushing at the carpet, hands slow and graceful when they closed the door and made them the only two there, then he didn’t in any way know what to do.

  “But I do know—you should come.”

  Resolution was shuddering loose from each of Howie’s joints. Salter seemed nervous, Brian seemed nervous, a raw edge in his face. “Come.”

  “I don’t think. I can’t. I’ve never gone.”

  “I know.” Salter flicked a glance at Howie, testing. “You’ve been missed. This year …” He drove his hands into his pockets. “It’s Christmas. People go to parties.”

  “I don’t.”

  “But you could. If I asked. Otherwise I’ll be there on my own.”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “But you will.”

  “If I … What would I … You’re not being … fair.”

  “Thanks.” Salter sent him a grin, watched it work in him, started to turn for the door and then stepped back. Howie understood he would do nothing but sit still now and let expectation lash him open while Salter walked up to his desk and then round it to find him.

  He closed his eyes, parted his lips for the kiss, not sure that it would come, but it did. And then here he was, Howie, Peter Howie, easing in the muscle of Brian’s tongue, sucking until it spoke in him, flirting and giving. It felt like the way Brian was: clever, certain, funny, irreplaceable. He was drawn forward himself then, into a perfect comfort. They sounded so loud, so unmistakably like kissing, so much like a proper couple, tailspinning off towards a fuck.

  He was aware of being happy.

  “One day,” Salter spoke into Howie’s hair, “I’ll make you so full.” Then he gentled himself away and the start of that idea arched and exploded in Howie like a Very light. He gleamed with it all week, shivered whenever he let it out to play.

  Stupid fuck. What are you doing? Have you thought what you’re fucking doing? Are you insane?

  No, I am just desperate. That’s enough.

  By the time he got there, the pub was more than full: God knew how many office parties hazing and blundering into each other. Howie stood quite near to the entrance for a while, checking faces and wondering if he should stay.

  I should go home and change. I’m all wrong.

  Tarting up for him, silly fucker. Trying too hard. No one will see you anyway, it’s so bloody dark.

  Music broiled around him like a physical force and a volley of cheering lurched up, faded. He tried to enjoy the pound of amplified percussion in his chest and knew he should leave. There was nothing he could have here, nothing he would be allowed.

  But he stepped down and started to wade forward through the barrage of bodies, because going home after coming so far would make him seem more feeble than he cared to be.

  That’s him. Shit. That’s. That was the side of his face, it was, but I can’t tell which way he’s gone. The thought of Salter bellowed through Howie, seized the muscle in his legs.

  Fuck. This is ridiculous. Pathetic. He was shaking down into a sweat, hands thumping with senseless blood. I’ll fall. And I don’t want to. People will think I’ve been drinking.

  A bed, mine. If I could take him to my bed. Once. He could do anything. There’s nothing I couldn’t take or wouldn’t want.

  A hand caught his elbow. “You made it. I am glad.” Salter. In a lovely sweater, jeans. Howie sensed himself either too heavy, or too light. He wanted to answer but couldn’t.

  Salter tilted his head to one side and let half a smile slip for the two of them to share. “I wasn’t sure if you would.”

  “Nor was I.”

  “But you’re not thinking of leaving …”

  “No.” Liar.

  “Listen, I’m in the middle of something inappropriately businesslike with Billy Parsons—”

  “That’s OK.”

  “But I’ll be back.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll be here.” Yelling into the din, this was absurd.

  “Good. Make sure you are.” Then, as he passed Howie’s shoulder, Salter breathed out a shot to the brain, to the cock, “I’ll smooth out that frown for you later. Don’t go.”

  Howie watched Salter retreating and then being taken into a ring of conversations, his hands making lazy curves whenever he spoke.

  He’s maybe not wonderful, only good; but my kind of good. Sweet. I’d take care of him, I would.

  Let me take your wife and child and make them go. Let me ruin your life, because I don’t have one. Let me love you as much as I’d like.

  Fuck, if he’s asking for it, then he must want it, mustn’t he?

  I want it.

  He made me.

  Please. I think I can do it. Please, let me try.

  For ten or fifteen minutes, people Howie worked with came up and threw words at him. He listened with such small attention, he felt sure they would be offended and move away, but they smiled and milled around him, as if they were entirely satisfied. He had to go.

  “No, you don’t.” Mrs. Carstairs, patting his shoulder. “You can’t leave now. I’ve come to fetch you.”

  “What?”

  “To fetch you. I’m being a good secretary. Even if I am off duty.” She offered him a hoarse, off-duty laugh. Perhaps a bit of a goer, Mrs. Carstairs.

  “Fetch me?”

  “No questions. Come on.”

  So he let her tug him between knots of talk, glistening faces, daytime acquaintances relishing their annual chance to slur into lechery. Naturally, Salter had sent her and was waiting, neatly ready to give her the Christmas peck on the cheek, his eyes finding Howie while he kissed.

  “Just a thank-you would have been fine.” Was she blushing? Howie thought she might be.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll be back to normal after the break.” Salter the genial boss, tolerant of humour, but ultimately serious.

  She’ll go and we’ll be alone.

  Mrs. Carstairs giggled. “Don’t remind me. Well …” Howie knew she’d rather not kiss him and shook her hand before she had to try.

  And I’ll leave soon, because I have to. We’ll leave.

  “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Carstairs. Mary.”

  Please.

  “Merry Christmas, Mr. Howie. You’ll be fine now.”

  His body stammered while he tried to understand her. “I’ll be …?”

  “You wanted to go early. Brian—Mr. Salter—is leaving early, too. You can share a cab. That’s why I …” She let her explanation drift away. “You know. You’ll work it out.” Howie realised she was quite drunk. “Night, night. Merry Christmas.”

  Salter scooped him in with an arm round his shoulder.

  I can’t.

  “The wonderful thing about Christmas …” Their hips met. Beautifully. “It lets men be mates.” “Please.”

  Please.

  “Sssh. We’ll go out and hail a taxi. Get you home.”

  “I—”

  Please.r />
  “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? To go home.”

  Tell him now, tell him. You have to be sensible, have to stop.

  “Isn’t that what you want?”

  No. No. No.

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Hot little word.

  Not Anything to Do with Love

  I wouldn’t want to say so, but it’s freezing in here. I suppose most people usually don’t notice, not wanting to take their coats off, and being preoccupied, God knows: or this could even be an intentional chill, I mean, the last thing you’d want to consider right now is heat. Still, it doesn’t seem a sign of kindness—a cold crematorium—more like forcing the bereaved to do their mourning inside a bad joke.

  And, if I think of that, the possibility of giggling does tickle very briefly, but I frown against it, I resist. I do almost always laugh when I shouldn’t, in fact because I shouldn’t. Not that I’m cruel, I don’t feel cruel, I’ve only decided that, since bad things happen without my permission, I will refuse to let them also make me sad.

  I can’t help it, either, the laughing: solemn gatherings, slow ballads, pompous orations, any person or occasion that assumes I’ll offer my unreserved respect: I tend to find them all hysterical in the end. Especially if someone similar is there to set me off. They don’t have to do much: I recognise what it looks like when somebody’s composure starts to strip itself away. They’ll maybe cross their arms with that twitchy, shaky, tension, or they’ll grab down little wheezes of embarrassed air, or they’ll simply hood their face under their palm, trying to hide how fast they’re slipping: how fast we’re slipping, because I’ll be weakening with them by then, I’ll be just as lost, pulled equally tight against the moment when we both stop caring and let it disgrace us—when we laugh.

  I’m sombre though, this morning: on my own and therefore less likely to go astray.

  The man with the 50s suit and the heavy glasses, he notices me frowning and nods, understanding of a grief that I don’t have, because there is no real reason for me to be here. I met the deceased perhaps five times: each one completely unremarkable. He is no more to me than a lanky, softly variable recollection, the after-image of a friend of friends. He will have had qualities, I’m sure, but I don’t know them.

  Over by the door, the taller woman with the reddish hair—I think she’s the sister—she hinges forward and catches at a teenage boy, hugs him in viciously while she faces something unknowable over his head, robbed eyes still fighting, puzzling. She ought to be somewhere more dignified than this. The cemetery outside seems all but abandoned and, inside, decades of cheap, municipal gloss have drowned out the contours of each moulding, every window frame; there’s nothing for her to see that isn’t faintly grubby and miserable with soaked-in nicotine.

  In fact, being in this building is depressing, which is tautological—the people you’d expect to come here will already be depressed.

  Me, I’m quite chipper, personally, but I would prefer it to be much easier for me to stay that way.

  So I worry through the murmuring clusters and out to the corridor where I end up studying, once again, the tiny black pin board on which today’s schedule is unevenly displayed, the white plastic letters fixed into a list of surnames and starting times—the current gathering is second out of six. And although everybody possible has surely already arrived, there are still fifteen minutes left to wait. We all, for our various reasons, have turned up too soon and the room behind me is now unsteady—even I can feel—with the concentration of involuntary hope, a habit nobody has shaken yet: the one that expects a final, impossible guest.

  I need some space.

  My breath is visible, even before I step completely beyond the front doors. They are awkwardly stiff and really must trouble the progress of pall-bearers, or biers. That’s what I’d guess: I have no intention of loitering until the hearse pulls up just to prove myself right. Me there: a stranger waiting on the doorstep: it would look odd. The whole facility, anyway, is plainly not funeral-friendly, there’s no need for additional evidence. Serve them right, if people start making their own arrangements: dumping off their relatives in rivers, or allotments, or the more accessible beauty-spots.

  It’s not in good taste to think so, I realise that. But then it’s not exactly tasteful to add inconvenience to pre-existing grief—if anyone’s being insensitive, it’s not me. I should complain. I should write a letter to the relevant authority.

  The driveway’s shameful, too: all pitted. I have to be quite careful where I walk. And I mustn’t consider the fine particulates, the vapours, drifting down from the grey, unsubtle smokestack: gathering in potholes, frozen puddles.

  Out under the open, I clap my hands together for the sake of warmth and causing a disturbance, showing proof of life, and then I regret it—too loud. A single blackbird flicks over the grass, its little chips of alarm disappearing, muffled in the frost. I could head back to my car and leave this. No one would notice my absence. I’m not needed.

  Which is, perhaps, what will make me stay.

  To ease the minutes by, I pace out a slow, wide circle over the grass, set an ice dust melting on my shoes. When I pause first, I can see a small disturbance of colour, reddish flowers propped against a stone. Another pause, and I can watch the white depth of new mist unpicking the detail from the trees. Another, and I could see the car park if I felt so inclined, but I do not—there’s nothing in it for me.

  Back indoors, then: I might as well.

  Yes, I might as well go back indoors. I do have other options, but I have no need to choose them, since I’m already here.

  God, look at the place—it’s inexcusable.

  Sometimes I wish that my mind would, for once, stop talking, stop telling me what to do.

  Back indoors it is, though. Why not. Up the steps, a strong tug, and then through.

  And, at once, I can feel the difference, I can tell—I’d hoped this wouldn’t happen and I’d hoped it would, and now, whatever my wishes, it has—Paul’s here.

  I haven’t seen him, but I know: while I was walking and not thinking of him and not searching out his car: while I wasn’t looking, in he came. Same as ever, without my permission, in he came.

  He has no more excuse for attending than I do. We swapped pleasantries with the dead man together, just those four or five times: we neither of us ever knew his birthday, or his middle initial, or if he enjoyed his job—if he had a job. We’re here for each other, to do ourselves harm.

  Which would, of course, hardly matter, if we hadn’t once been kind, better than kind.

  I mean, I can no longer remember when I first realised that I could tell where Paul was without looking, without being told. Maybe it’s a scent thing, like moths finding each other, or turtles—turtles can smell their home from miles away. At the start it was only good: easing through doorways and drawing in while all I could touch was his touch: in the nudge of other bodies, the curves of forward motion on my skin, the warm lean of the walls towards me, the shifts of my mind: everything, him.

  This morning is still much the same, reality turning seasick and raw, but when we meet we’ll give each other nothing but offence.

  I step into the side room, anyway: deeper and deeper: and find, by himself beside the empty fireplace, the man that I used to agree with and who used to agree with me.

  Paul’s expecting me, that’s obvious—his back turned preemptively away from the open door, his shoulders wary. I think he’s gained weight, only a little. The trousers I’ve never seen before, but that’s a jacket I was very used to—for some reason seeing it hurts—and it won’t keep him warm enough, not today, it isn’t practical. Slip your arm inside it, though, and there will be heat, held close at the small of his back. It was something worth finding, I remember that.

  His hands: something else I remember. Even across this distance, they’re changing the space between my fingers, making it ache. He’s fussing in and out of his pockets and,
if he’s shaking, I’m not close enough to tell. I’m also unwilling to look down at my own hands. We do both tremble too easily and this will be much harder if either of us seems moved, or weak.

  I would like to pay no attention to his head, the back of his head, his hair. I’d say that he’s just had it cut. I’d say that I have the feel of it, singing in my palm like the ghost of some old injury.

  Then, walking between us, comes that man with the heavy glasses again, which he now removes softly and rubs with the end of his tie. Next, he peers about and shows the room how the frame has impressed little grooves in the bridge of his nose and the flesh at his temples.

  Must be too tight. Or maybe his eyesight’s perfect, but he had to buy some glasses to fit his grooves.

  A year ago, if I hadn’t said it, then Paul would—that’s the way we’re made. It wouldn’t have been meant unpleasantly: the thoughts occurred and we allowed them and they were ours. They only seem unpleasant to think without company.

  The man slips back into his glasses and moves on and, before I can be ready, Paul moves too, swings round gingerly, as if his body has become uncooperative now, or unsafe. Then, with a yard or so left between us, we both stop and I was expecting this, but still it catches me like a slap: his expression of vehement weariness and contempt, there just for me. Under it, are the traces of what he can’t control: there in the mouth, the eyes, the honest places: his absolute anger, his fear, his pain.