‘I’m in the flat. Could you come round?’
‘Sure.’
Please. Please don’t prove me a bad father all over again.
‘Can you …’
You’re going to, but please maybe could you not ask me precisely … ‘Can you come round now? Would that be difficult?’
And under the train I go.
‘No, no, not at all. It wouldn’t, darling. Of course. You stay there and I’ll … I was leaving early, anyway, sort of … I mean, now I won’t, but … I mean, I will but for a different reason … Things are going on, but … I’ll come round.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I think clearly I do, though. So …’ Despising that plummet in my chest. ‘So I’ll be round in a bit. Do nothing.’ She was with him for three years. It’s not easy, losing three years. ‘I’ll bring food. I’ll bring … stuff for the bath … I mean, nice stuff — not cleaning fluid … I’ll be there. With stuff.’ And it’s also not easy being punished immediately for one’s uncharitable thoughts. ‘And call again if you need to, we can talk as I’m on the way, and I’ll stay above ground so you can.’ It’s good, though — gets it over. I hate waiting for pain.
Why I’m so conscientious — I expect disasters and therefore plan accordingly. In work as in life. If I have to wait, I’ll wait fully equipped.
‘Really, darling … Ask me to bring anything you need and I will.’
‘No, I’m all right.’
‘Well, yeah … You’re always all right. Always. I’ve always got your back. And I’m on my way. OK?’
‘OK.’
‘OK, then. A couple of things to do here, but I’m on my way for sure, for sure. And love, Becky, I’m sending love. I am. And bye-bye. Bye-bye.’
‘Bye, Dad. Thanks.’
And Jon considered it appropriate to sit for a while longer on the step and rub and rub at his face and close his eyes, because he did not want to see and see and see.
I love Becky.
He rested his head on his knees, folded over the tired and echoing nothing he cradled within, until this made him especially nauseous and he had to stop, right himself and swallow.
It’s not that late … I could pop my head in to Becky and then …
No.
I won’t make it. I can’t get up there and then back to London Bridge for six thirty … But maybe for eight thirty … Or nine. I mean, I could get away again … I mean, it’s a disaster, but not a complete disaster — for her. I’m not thinking of me. I am thinking of …
Would not seeing me be a disaster? Surely not that. Hardly that. Presumptuous of me to think it would be that.
I’ll have to call and say I’m rescheduling again. Text. I’ll send a text. I can’t do a call. I think a call would make me faint.
Pathetic, aren’t I?
I do want to go and be there — at London Bridge. I do.
All of me wants that.
So why am I also relieved now I might not have to?
Jon stood, leaning for support on the banister, watching the steps below him undulate briefly.
I love my daughter.
Maybe I shouldn’t love anyone else.
A woman sits in a café on a not unpleasant day. There may be rain later, but it’s gentle now and quite mild for October. She sits by the window reading and sipping a coffee. She is in her forties and although she seems healthy there is something slightly gaunt about her. She is carefully dressed: neat black shoes with a moderate heel, business suit in dark grey cloth with a pale blue stripe, pale blue blouse. Everything is of quite good quality but is a touch large for her, a touch out of date. It might be that she hasn’t worn this ensemble in a while, took it for granted and then discovered, too late to do better, that it wasn’t exactly suitable, or as she’d wished.
Perhaps it’s this cause for regret that lends her a noticeable tension. The woman might, equally, be expecting company. That said, she has left a black mackintosh of traditional design folded over the chair opposite and has a book with her — no one appears to be on the way.
There are two waiters on duty — one behind the counter and one with a roving commission — and both of them seem to know the woman in the sense of recognising a regular customer. They do not resent that she has ordered just this small coffee, has ignored the generous towers of brownies, heaped scones, the possibilities of hot dishes. They don’t mind that she seems in no hurry to leave.
Then again, it’s not busy now. The square outside is quiet, the afternoon is lengthening, even dimming. The day is coming to an end. The place will close soon, as it doesn’t cater to the after-work crowd, leaving that to the pub over the way, to the restaurants dotted round about. There would be no absolute harm in the woman staying put until that happens.
She looks at her watch and orders another cappuccino in a voice which is soft, maybe distracted, maybe involved with the book she reads and then does not read, instead glancing out through the window at nothing much. It may be an uninvolving book.
All of these actions on her part have a kind of weight, a significance, simply because she is the café’s only customer and therefore a focus of attention.
There is nothing significant in her lifting the new coffee to her lips, then deciding against it, standing, paying the waiter without getting change and walking outside.
Her expression, though, as she opens the door — her expression reflected in the glass panel that lets her see the wet autumn pavement opposite — her expression is one of such certainty and content. She seems to be more than she was. It is remarkable to her.
16:20
MEG HAD ARRIVED late. She had decided that rather than haunt her flat she might go into town and do what AA recommended in case of emergency.
Which is that I should pick up the phone and call someone or go to a meeting. And picking up the phone would involve speaking and I’ve been speaking a lot today — feels like a lot, feels like I am all spoke out. A meeting is just peaceful — being there in a room with members of your own species … really your own true species. You don’t need to speak when you’re that closely related.
And it was humiliating to be over forty and upset about a boy. A man. About nothing much having gone wrong in connection with a man — a man she had very rarely been in the same room with, if you wanted to think of it like that. So why miss something that hardly happens?
But he matters. And it’s pathetic that he matters, so I’d rather not mention it, thank you. I will simply sit. In the seat that I clattered into just as the speaker was finishing up, so I have no idea what she said. Everyone looks a bit thoughtful, so she was presumably sharing stuff of the momentous and spiritually insightful kind.
Quite glad I was too late for that. I was more on the prowl for something funny. Or really grim. Either would be cheering. Funny is cheering in itself and grim makes you glad that you’re only yourself and not somebody else.
My late and disruptive self.
It’s OK that I wasn’t on time, though. No one is thinking badly of me, or if they are I don’t care. You’re only ever late for your first meeting: that’s how the saying — I think it’s a smug saying — seems to go. AA has a lot of sayings. It can get a bit much — the slogans and sayings and suggestions and steps and the spiritual fucking insight — the assistance. It can irritate.