Serious Sweet (29 page)

‘Yes.'

‘My … I never knew.'

And that was roughly when Meg had realised that she couldn't cope with this any longer, or with the post-goat silence. She was going to have to break something, or laugh, or yell, or throw a chair.

Jon had wagged his head vehemently. ‘I don't know a thing about goats.' It apparently disturbed him that he lacked goat knowledge. ‘They're all about … aren't they …? The sex thing, I mean, eating and symbols of, the impulse of … Maybe that's why – the eyes – why people associate them with …' He glanced about in what seemed to be moderate despair, clearly trying to find someone to take their order in a close-to-closing restaurant. He was blushing and clearly aware of it, of its rising round his throat.

Then he'd frowned at her briefly and she'd seen his real face, who he was when he was angry, and he'd leaned a touch nearer and said, ‘I'm sorry, this is excruciating, but – in fact – in another way – being nervous people – we're doing well, I think we're doing well, I believe that, under the circumstances, we're managing …'

And then he'd leaned back and cooled again, snapped shut. ‘I'm open-plan – when I'm in the office. Dreadful … The chosen ones who still have their own four personal walls get obsessed with floor space, size … You should see what the Home Secretary gets. Visitors have become tired and sat down to rest their horses, possibly herds of goats, during the trek across his mighty carpet. Allegedly. They fight for good furniture – the people, not the goats – they fight to be in Number 10, then they fight to be in Number 10 and close to the PM's PPS and then they fight to be in Number 10 and close to the PM … And they jaunt across the country always seeing the railway end of strangers' gardens, or regional airport cafeterias, which sours one, and they go visiting
boys' clubs, hospitals, prisons – being shown that apparently problems and ugliness are caused by everyday people, and are inevitable amongst the electorate. And, conversely, all buildings, all capital projects, are offered up in a pristine state they never quite preserve for passing trade, so why on earth the everyday people have cause to complain, or fail, or be unhappy, well who knows …' He'd breathed, fluttered into a grin that seemed ashamed of him, of his noise, his complaining. ‘The world, you see, is full of people who have to stay human in intolerable circumstances because people in exquisite circumstances can't manage to stay human at all. That's the … the thing …'

This had caused another silence during which he'd glanced at the menu as if he was extremely used to restaurants – a restaurant expert; a not everyday person – and had quickly understood that he would have linguine con vongole. ‘I like the shells – it's a craft activity for me, getting the meat out … I harbour vain dreams that somebody saves the emptied shells back in the kitchen and makes them into those table lamps one used to see in provincial B & Bs. Or in the kitchen at my parents' house. They had two – lamps, not kitchens. Sentimental value. Holiday purchases, all the way from a place called Crail. We lived in one small Scottish seaside town and would only ever visit other small Scottish seaside towns if we went away. Provincial B & Bs. Sentimental … The only thing my mother ever was sentimental about were those lamps. I don't even believe they worked.' His eyes flickered into a resurrection of something unclear and then he sighted the waitress at a point beyond Meg's left shoulder and signalled neatly for service. ‘I'm sorry that we're so … That we're late.' He was used to receiving service, was politely authoritative. ‘It's my doing, I'm afraid – the lateness. I would like the vongole and my friend will have—' He'd halted and flushed. ‘That's terrible. I didn't ask if you were ready. Or you might want a starter. I don't know what's good here, I've never been … Would you like a starter as well as a middle? I thought we could have a pudding, but we might have both … all three, that is … we might …'

Jon had offered the waitress a face suffused with the correct degree of helplessness to make her suggest that the shared antipasti platter would be excellent as a starter and Meg had found the idea of this somehow improper – it had been like letting an interloper, newcomer, barge in and make louche assumptions about them.

And thinking that made me know that I wanted to kiss him again in the way I had kissed him goodbye before he fled the café. This time we hadn't kissed hello. We hadn't done anything to say hello – not even said hello. But, even so, I would have felt strange eating with him off the same plate. He was being formal by not touching me, not starting off the ways we might do that – and I couldn't start, I can't start … I was being formal by sitting like a mostly mute idiot and avoiding sliced meat and probably olives and stuff.

And she hadn't needed bruschetta – it was a while since her life had included bruschetta, which was only messed-about-with tomato on toast, which she wouldn't fancy at any time … She hadn't fancied any kind of starter and she'd told him it was fine and she would have the pappardelle with lamb ragu, because that sounded uncomplicated – it would basically be spaghetti Bolognese, really, wouldn't it? He had solemnly agreed.

Not that you'd try spaghetti on a date – if what they were on was a date. Whatever they were on – a cliff edge, a motorway verge, their best behaviour, a date – she would have enough trouble eating without ordering something unpredictable and possibly peculiar that she couldn't manage and then seeming to be a fussy eater.

‘Do you want wine?'

‘I don't want wine, no, thank you.'

Always there was this moment when you had to say why you didn't drink real drinks. You think you have to give a reason, you can't just offer this unnatural denial of what everyone else gets to have: those hot mouthfuls of signs and wonders.

Fuck that, though. I am – as agreed with myself – better than that. If I'd drunk and he'd been there to catch the show – it would have been the last I saw of him. The least of his problems would have involved me having phoney loud opinions, over and over, and then the sweating and trying to feel his dick probably, or telling him I wanted to, or any of that, all of that, shit like that, covering him in shit like that.

He was a clean man and he met me as I am when I am a clean woman. That matters. It is not possible to overemphasise how sweet it is to be with someone and clean. It is not possible to think it without crying.

Jon had ordered a single glass of Gavi and that wasn't a wrong move on his part. She didn't want any, wasn't going to want any. She was fine. And it wasn't as if he was downing some kind of cheap red slosh – the smell of it wasn't reaching out across the table and making her uneasy. When it arrived, he only nibbled at it, anyway. Clearly he was not a drinker.

Although I didn't want him to taste of wine if we kissed.

Which I didn't especially expect, not really. The hope kept flailing for a while and then started to tire, began dropping.

The pappardelle had, as it turned out, been a dreadful choice. The pasta was huge and leathery. It was like eating bits of bandage under pretentious tomato sauce.

She tried to fold the stuff on to her fork in ways that would be controllable, while Jon dipped his head and clearly, plainly was mortified by his efforts to manage lengths of linguine without making a mess.

There was a lot of silence. This made the sounds of their eating seem very wrong.

The waitress watched.

We hadn't shared the antipasti – and so we were doomed, she could tell.

‘Oh, for Christ's sake.' Jon had sat back, hiding his chin with a napkin and breathing too fast. ‘I am terribly sorry. I eat alone at home. Or at my desk. It leads to just … My wife, ex-wife … It has been pointed out that I don't eat tidily and, of course, I would want to eat tidily on this occasion because I am attempting to make a good impression, fair impression, and to keep you entertained and … content. If possible.' He blinked at her, defeated by himself. ‘This is all there is. Of me. Is the problem. This is all there ever is.'

Jon. That was him – a man with an anxious neck above a narrowly knotted tie in solid blue, but with a texture, one that agreed with the blue of his shirt and that rested very neatly above the white stripes in that blue. Charcoal suit: sharp, careful, thoughtful, worn by someone who seemed physically unable to cause creases. A lilac lining to the suit – this little effort at suggesting he might be more than all he ever is, more unexpected. But you know he keeps the jacket buttoned mostly so that nobody will see. Slender face, tender face, pale skin, fastidiously shaved – you believe you will never touch his face and that the world is a vile place becuse of this – and hair which is brown and tawny grey. And his eyes dip glances at you, but never rest. When you catch them fully – in those tiny instants – you can see what he's hiding. You think you can see that inside he's pulling the levers and pressing the pedals and keeping himself in the game and up and working, but close to his end. His eyes make you want him to lie down somewhere – you wouldn't insist he should do that with you – you just do, you just do, you just do want him to rest for a bit and sleep.

What he needs.

At the table, there's this ghost of holding him while he dreams. It lopes through her like a shame, like a promise, like a body in motion.

‘Jon?'

‘Yes.' He faces her then, focuses on her absolutely, although shaking his head. ‘Do you not want to do this any more, because I would understand. I am, in fact, waiting to understand that – or I already have – and if you say now we can finish what's left of this in peace and—'

‘I don't want to.'

His expression doesn't change, not exactly – it's only that the warmth dies from it as he keeps it, digs in and holds on, until he can present you with a courteous mask. And all this is done easily, as if it is a practised skill. He is extremely good at being impersonal.

Meg reaches to touch him –
fuck, I'm trying to pat his arm
 – but doesn't complete the gesture. ‘Jon, I don't want to not do this. I
do want to do this. Why would I want to not do this? I want to do …'

His eyes changed, they lit. ‘Ah.' And then they were fully themselves again: blue at the darker end of blue, a quiet shade, but something unquiet about his gaze, a fine kind of unquiet.

Meg had told him then.

The stupidest thing to say, but you do – you trust the frightened people more than anyone, you trust them like fuck, you can't help it.

She said, ‘I don't drink, because I don't drink, because I'm an alcoholic. I don't drink. You should know. I couldn't have written it down for you – I wanted you to see me when I said, I wanted …'

This made him curl his hand around his wine glass as if he should hide it, or sweep it away. He was staring beyond her while he did this, maybe studying the waitress, or the wall, or nothing visible.

‘Is that OK?'

He spoke to the tablecloth, laboriously. ‘That couldn't be OK because it would be a horrible thing for you and I would rather a horrible thing hadn't happened to you …' He nodded at that point where she was not. ‘You're an …' He picked up his glass and downed its remaining contents in one. This didn't quite work and he coughed afterwards, covered his lips with the back of his hand.

‘Are you all right?'

Jon nodded again and made sure to let her search his eyes, the wet shine of them. Another swallow and he could manage, ‘Fine.' He nodded definitively. ‘I won't have another. I wouldn't have had that.'

‘You can have whatever you like. I don't mind. It's OK.'

‘I've seen it in others – the drinking. One does. Never looks fun.' Then he smiled at her, produced this cool, unhappy grin. ‘My turn. My mother didn't like me. My wife didn't – and doesn't – like me. My daughter is occasionally ambivalent. I don't do well with female people, although I do like them. I have no excuse for this. I do not drink excessively, or take drugs, or have any vice that has broken me down and made me unpalatable. I was
apparently born unpalatable.' His eyes busy with examining hers now, checking for who knew what. ‘Probably you should give up on me now … Because I'm thinking … I'm thinking …' Jon barked out a small and unamused laugh, a lonely sound. ‘I'm actually – please don't be offended – thinking that maybe you only wrote to me and you're only here because you have some kind of …' His shoulders sank.

‘You think I'm here because I've drunk myself into brain damage, or – what – that I'm crazy? I'm some kind of moron?' The sounds of this tasted badly in her mouth – tasted of wine.

He cupped one hand over the top of his head, his forearm obscuring most of his face. ‘I know, I know … See …? I'm a terrible person.' He sounded muffled and in pain, ‘If it's any consolation, I find myself much more offensive than you do. Except, of course, that's an offensive assumption, isn't it? Because you're kind and a kind person … Oh, Christ, I'm a disaster. They should take me out back to the kitchen, shoot me and serve me up with … spring greens.' He patted at the tabletop with his free hand, as if to comfort it. ‘I hate spring greens. I wouldn't go with them. Oh …'

And what do you do when you can't write yourself out across the cream of the tablecloth and consider what you need to say for hours, before you prove to him – for sure – prove to him that you're only as much of a freak as he is and that he is nothing to hate, that he cannot be hated. How do you tell him about love?

‘
Hm?' His head appearing again, the arm dropping.