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.