Jon drove himself past estate agents selling impossible apartments — pointed expressions of needlessness, the otherness of wealth.
If I’m being honest, I think Val dealt with all that. The intimacy. Not going to Dorset. But the rest. I can’t — it’s maybe some kind of shock — I genuinely can’t recall even the marriage, never mind what went before.
‘Where in Dorset?’
‘Monkey World.’ It had been best not to varnish the news.
‘Pardon?’
‘Monkey World. It’s my favourite place. Don’t laugh.’
‘I’m not laughing.’
But she had laughed, she did keep on laughing. ‘Honestly, I’m not laughing.’
Biddable electromagnetic waves had left her mobile phone, undulated over rooftops and through windows and walls and unknowing skulls — or however these things travelled — and had soaked and bounced and wriggled into him, brought the sound of her laughing, because he had in some way pleased her.
One may laugh because one finds some other person ridiculous and pathetic, but that gives the voice a quite specific tone with which I am familiar.
Meg had just sounded happy. ‘Is it actually a world of monkeys?’
‘There are many varieties of monkey and also some apes, yes.’ His voice had sounded, by this time, even more hideously adolescent.
‘If you’d enjoy that, Jon.’ The warm sound of her mouth.
‘Well, I … It’s a good place. It’s a refuge … type of thing … It’s sort of probably a bigger version of where you work, which would be dull for you … And the aim is for you to … the enjoying thing.’
We did the enjoying thing, though. Truly we did — I’m not wrong about that. This, this … It lets you rest. The fabric of … Everything lets you rest.
‘We don’t get monkeys. We get hamsters. Are there gorillas?’
‘No gorillas.’
‘That’s a shame.’
‘I know. But it’s basically a primate refugee camp, so it’s good there are no refugee gorillas … Or … They tend to be killed and have their hands made into ashtrays. Rather than staying alive to get evacuated. Maybe … I don’t have much gorilla information.’
And there’s the enjoying thing. These horrifying fucking jokes she makes.
‘You’re not just going to drive me to the countryside with your boot full of bin bags and a hacksaw.’
‘What? No. What? No, of course not … I …’
Picking her up at London Bridge in one of Findlater’s cars — SUV sort of thing named after a spice, for Christ’s sake.
There had somehow been no time for finding and hiring a car, so Findlater had loaned him the Paprika, or Habanero, or whatever.
I do get tired of useful and everyday things being given names that render them shameful. And Findlater grinning at me as if I am going to use every seat for nudities and sexual congress. Probably he’d filled the glove compartment with condoms and … wipes … I avoided ever looking.
He’d set off with his own terrible joke: ‘I hope I don’t kill us.’
But it was OK.
And she’d nudged in at once with, ‘They banned me from driving. That’s all. Speeding. Quite often. And once going over the top of a roundabout — mandatory ban.’
‘Christ. Or, I mean. Joke?’
‘No. Serious. But no harm done. Except to some daffodils. You should know this stuff … About me. In case I ever get my licence back. I’m a rubbish driver.’
Collecting information about Meg — I could do that for the rest of my life.
‘We’ll go to Monkey World and it’ll be nice and nothing bad will happen. Promise … And you’re better now.’
And positive change can be irreversible. Yes, it can.
Maybe if I’d driven today, things would have gone more smoothly.
No. It would still have been awful, but with the additional bother of having to park.
He passed a café that seemed to specialise in crêpes and hummus, which seemed an unwise combination, but it suddenly occurred to him that he should eat.
I haven’t really. This doesn’t seem to be a day for eating.
In Monkey World’s café — not too far from his favourite chimpanzees — Meg had sat and been remarkable despite having dressed a little as if she was going for a hike: almost-combat trousers, reinforced trainers and a fleece top.
Not obviously alluring — or not intentionally so.
Not an ensemble that Val would have chosen, or even known how to source.
Not anything other than beautiful.
Truthfully, it created an increase in beauty, because she seemed relaxed in those clothes, as opposed to that weird suit she’d insisted on hitherto … alcoholics being obviously — perhaps — uninterested in their appearance. Or unhappy because they can’t buy what they’d really like, having money issues.
And trying to drive with prudence along the glitter of a wet M27 I had been picturing touring Meg about and delighting her with fittings and offerings parcelled up in tissue paper and popped in those unwieldy, stiff card bags with silk rope handles which might entertain her — or else suit carriers bearing the name of a tailor that could be her tailor.
All of which I didn’t mention. And couldn’t afford.
But I’d tell her about the suit, the secret in the lining. I’d open my coat and my jacket and let her see where her letters sit. Oh, Lord, I would. St Cecilia, I would.
She’d sat beside him at a bus-party-proof table. ‘You need building up. Have another sausage roll.’
‘I … Do I?’
‘Not looking after yourself.’ Meg had delivered this with a satisfaction that was vaguely baffling.
I want to buy her shirt dresses, pleated skirts, low heels that let her walk, walk, I love her walk, blouses with a rounded collar, I want to discuss her best colours and signs of brio, sprezzatura, and I want to encourage pullovers I can hug — or those oversize jumpers that are like a wool hug in themselves.
She wants me to eat sausage rolls and look after myself.
He was beyond the hummus now — apparently it was impossible to be hungry.
By then I was exhausted by assessing too many risks — my lack of recent driving experience causing a head-on collision — the air bag coming to her defence. My adoration — fuck it — really adoration possibly lending me skills despite my legs being overfolded and my jeans — bad choice, too thick — cutting off the circulation to my legs, but still I’d manage every hazard and did manage every hazard and climbed down from the Poblano only slightly resembling a veteran of the Boer War.
I’m a born pedestrian — the faster I go, the more I’m terrified.
The houses round about him were becoming noticeably reclusive, smoothly watchful. He slipped his hands into his coat pockets.
I was wearing this coat — covert coat, slate blue. Put it across the back seat on the journey so it wouldn’t get crumpled — unlike the wearer.
I want to dress Meg when I can’t even dress myself.
I want to buy her clothes and then see her remove them.
To see and see and see.
Sweet Jesus …
Doing what I always do while we crept out of London, bloody murdering her with facts.