‘Pardon?’ Laura was already adopting a wounded air because now she expected an outright refusal, or else a smart-arsed comment.
I use humour to deflect something or other, or everything, or I don’t know what, in tense situations. That’s what they say — sounds complicated. I use jokes to get away from stuff when I can’t run — that’s also what I’m told. But who wouldn’t? Or maybe I’m running and handcuffed to the humour and it’s happy to gallop along, escaping alongside me — it’s seen me undressed and unhappy — we’re chums.
But not this time.
Meg cleared her throat and concentrated on sounding soft. She pretended, to be honest, that she was talking to one of the dogs. ‘No, I was wondering, that’s all … Only … I can find out later. I bet worts are good. Saints are good … were good, that would be the point of saints. So a saint’s wort … Laura …’
Shut up and just say you’ll have the tea.
‘I’ll have some of that tea, thanks. Yes. Get the stress levels down. And tell me about the sinus thing, again. Could you? Is that for stress, too?’
She’ll run with that for ages and I needn’t listen. I can just think of what will be my appropriate visualisation, my happiness: no bones, no rags, no dusty engagement rings that have outlived their engagements.
I will meet you.
Not lunch. Last week he said he couldn’t do lunch. And not this evening — earlier. At three. Not quite teatime. I’ll be hungry before then, maybe. I’ll have a biscuit. An unbroken biscuit.
The nerves will mean I’m not hungry.
I should even head off fairly soon, or I’ll be late. London — it takes forever to get anywhere …
Having not quite tea far away from here will save the day.
This will save my day.
I will meet you.
There’s no harm in enjoying the thought of that.
14:38
JON COULDN’T QUITE place himself. He seemed both unwilling and unable to even try. Had he been asked to express a preference, he would have been anxious to recall yesterday’s evening in an absolute sense, to wake it and wind it back and put it on again, snug. He would also have requested a dispensation from being inside today’s early afternoon. This exact present moment, he would have liked to keep strictly at bay.
Although it was, in a way, his job to make plans, none of his current arrangements were absolutely working. Others’ intentions were clambering and sliding and butting in.
Force majeure.
Is what I never am, as it turns out.
I am here and now and would very much rather not be, which is an impossible goal and is therefore causing me distress.
And yet it could be argued — perhaps not by me, preferably not by me — that facilitating government decision-making should — in essence — involve one’s impossible goals only ever harming strangers. One should be safe.
I wouldn’t say that.
The call from Chalice — one never does want a call from Chalice — had come through at ten-past noon. There wasn’t an option to simply ignore him and pretend that one had lost one’s phone, or else the use of both arms, for a brief but vital period.
He cultivates this unconvincing air of menace, but has enough genuine power to make it real in any case. It’s like being threatened by a pantomime actor and having to like it. I would rather be bullied by someone with a personality. Although I have no particular regard for my preferences, really, in the matter.
Chalice had asked, in one of his consciously forceful murmurs — which don’t work well on the phone, I often want to laugh … a cross between a cut-price hood and the daughter’s dodgy boyfriend — he had asked if Jon wouldn’t mind just dropping round to see him and the Minister for Somewhere Outwith Jon’s Responsibility. In the Minister’s office. No rush. They’d be free for him at any time. Any time now. It wasn’t far for Jon to come. Just round the corner. They wanted to chat about Steven Milner. Jon knew Steven Milner, didn’t he?
Just round the corner. And one has to go. One has to.
‘No, I don’t think I do.’
‘We thought you did.’
Inside the office, Chalice had been poised by the Minister’s shoulder, somehow consciously arranged. It was possible to imagine that he’d intended to appear both physically and mentally agile, alert — this whispering demon balanced at the ear of power. The effect was more disconcerting than authoritative — as if a middle-aged man had appeared wearing leather trousers and was waiting for a positive comment on his choice, hips cocked.
Chalice and the Minister for Something Else (lateish reshuffle appointment, never expected to do anything) had looked up as Jon peeled open the nicely heavy door, offering him the same just-interrupted-but-oh-hello expression once so popular with children’s television entertainers.
That was back in the balmy days when no one would ever assume what had been interrupted was wholly loathsome.
And here and now — unavoidable — their attention was nipping at him, weaselling in to throttle away the shreds and rags left of a kind idea, the thought of a garden, the possibility of dipping one’s hand into water nicely and breathing soft.
They strap one’s breath, this pair. If one is already out of sorts, they can steal the air right out from you. The Minister’s handshake — it’s like being handed a warm shit in a sock. Only on a good day can one resist their extraordinary unpleasantness.
Why Chalice with this minister? They make no sense as any kind of pair. I only like things that make sense.
This is not a good a day.
My mental condition …
And while I am thinking of shifty double acts because I can’t help it … My mother had this pair of cats — sisters — one minute they’d be licking each other with this bizarre intensity and the next they’d be giving me the clear impression that lesbian incest was none of my bloody business … There is a certain flavour of feline intimacy between our Mr Chalice and this minister who is not my minister and whom I do not wish to see.
I wish, I wish hard as a boy before Christmas, to be in yesterday and a garden and not in a room over which the ballot box looms hotly, this leading me to wonder why Milner would be an issue … Why bother with him now? He’ll be the next incumbent’s trouble, surely? The Minister for Shake-and-Bake Opinions won’t still be here, whoever wins.
And what can I do about it? What should I be expected to do about Milner? Why would they think I would want to touch Milner? Nobody wants to touch Milner. I can’t brief, not anyone, not now and not Milner and not for a minister not my own. Not even for my own …
This dragged along, fast and abrasive, like a cutting kite string through Jon’s mind while Chalice gestured towards two chairs, set emptily ready. He then promenaded round to sit side-saddle on his own and beckoned to Jon, playing the chummy colleague, the man so securely in charge he might break out into rolled sleeves and banter at any time. ‘We thought you got to know Milner slightly after that Heidelberg debacle.’ Chalice being gracefully puzzled by Jon’s non-compliance, waiting until he agreed, at the very least, to sit. ‘The Hun-in-the-sun faux pas.’ And he kept on for more agreement yet. Gentle, was Chalice. Gentle like the onset of some disease.