Which I want to change.
Jon seems far away.
And I do not wish to accept that.
I mean — fuck it. I can’t do it, the accepting and not accepting and changing and not changing and I would ask — I don’t know who — but I would ask what is the fucking point of having a prayer and writing it down and putting it on medallions as if it’s important and can help when all it does is make your head hurt?
Should I apply to the God I do not believe in for clarification? The razor-blade one, the faraway one, the beard-and-a-frock one, the one of some religion I’ve never tried, so I would never even have a chance …?
And then again, if God has a hurt child to help and a landslide and a cancer ward and a crashed bus full of pregnant women and jolly families to deal with and nice people who are dying — which would mean God was having a pretty quiet day — then I shouldn’t be bothering God about anything.
I could leave God out of dealing with decisions about my lapels.
Jon cares about lapels. He probably cares about mine and doesn’t like them. They probably make him sick.
And it’s a problem, all this. And worse because he’s seen this suit before — twice before. It’s all she’s got that’s even bearable. How do you explain to someone with suits and shirts and enough comfortable things that you don’t live in their world and that they’re sensible and understanding but nevertheless, somewhere in their head they must be filling out this kind of temporary visa so they can come and visit you in your ugly country, examine you and then be glad they can get the hell out again.
God grant me …
Meg let the next Tube train arrive without making it kill her. The thing opened its doors kindly and let her in and then took her away while she sat on the blue, blue seat that ran the carriage’s length and decided to remember lunch with Jon, because that made her happy.
I was in this bloody awful suit when I met him outside the PO box place. Then in this bloody awful suit when we managed to have lunch, a sort of lunch. I am now in this bloody awful suit and waiting. Again.
There’s being busy and then there’s being unwilling and then there’s being evasive and then there’s being Jon.
After Jon ran for the park it took months to fix another time with him, then change it and change it and change it — this bounce and apology and slip and apology and dodge and apology becoming part of what might be a process.
If somebody wants to meet you, then they meet you — that’s how it works.
But you still hope, because you have been told that hoping is good for you.
I will meet you.
That’s a kind of hope.
Rather than have to make any new decisions, they’d returned to Shepherd Market for a lunch which wavered and slid back to three o’clock and then four and then half past.
But in the end …
Shepherd Market had become a sentimental place — is what Jon had said.
Silly.
The train rocked her, while Meg pushed it to one remove and let Jon arrive in her mind — on a January Thursday, practically dark already and the day dead and the square quiet.
We were warm, though. We were … I think I was shaking a bit, actually, and you have no idea, at the time, that something will work out, so you worry beforehand …
He had been his formal self, talking past her. ‘A lot of people don’t have satisfaction in their work, I can see that and I realise I don’t deserve satisfaction any more than somebody else, but there are days when one sits back and considers and … For more than a century now, you see, I think, many sensible people think, Britain’s been circling nearer and nearer the drain, all Parliament does is provide a running commentary and speed the revolutions.’ And somewhere round about then, he’d properly noticed her, met her eyes, and then made this smile that was polite, or embarrassed, or upset and trying to hide it, and he’d told her, ‘Not actual revolutions, not … I do apologise, this must be very tedious for you.’ Then he’d swallowed in a way that was quite loud.
Meg tried to get what she said next right and maybe didn’t. ‘I look after stray dogs. Part-time. And I stand near my kitchen window and watch … Well, I watch the sky, trees, parakeets … I don’t mean my life just is dogs and watching trees grow and so your tediousness doesn’t seem so … You’re not tedious.’ She appeared to be waving her hands — as if somebody far away was running in the wrong direction and she was signalling they ought to turn back. ‘You’re not tedious. Sorry. This isn’t tedious.’
Jon made a strange upward nod, almost as if he were trying to catch a biscuit in his mouth, or summon something. ‘Yes, no, you said — wrote. About the dogs. And how’s the goat, by the way? The original goat. Is he happy with the new goats?’
Which wasn’t what she’d expected to be asked. ‘He’s … I’m mainly in the office. But he’s doing well, I hear. They have funny eyes. Rectangular pupils. They’re these real, precise rectangles with squared-off corners, but their eyes are the usual round shape of eyes — I can never imagine how that works. It doesn’t look natural.’
‘Rectangles …?’
‘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 …’