A Kennedy - Serious Sweet

Not that she has left off. Not that I am presently left on.

Jon was far from the river by now, had passed — surely and inevitably had passed — the usual priggishly well-trimmed Chiswick hedges and lopped trees at a pressing but sustainable speed. Which was to say, he did have to assume he must have done that. He was no longer on his wife’s pavement, was able to realise that he’d travelled quite a way …

I started by passing the brewery — that recollection is clear — Valerie still gets a ration of free beer to make up for the ambient scent of brewing. Not that she’s a beer drinker, of course. Unless terribly pressed. I think she sometimes cooked with it.

Then after the brewery there must have been streets … There were, are streets … houses … mature magnolias … anal-retentive privet and masonry apparently covered with royal icing …

His head shook, perhaps only internally, as if he’d been dunked in water and was trying to rid himself of some flowing, cloying burden, the way it filled his ears.

Chiswick High Street is a bit of a walk from Val’s, it takes … usually not as long as it seems to have taken … But I am, at present, in the high street.

But something, lots of somethings, come before that …

But I can’t recall them …

Which is too many buts again.

But I’m here … The laws of physics dictate that Chiswick must therefore have existed as I passed through it, but was somehow unaware.

He couldn’t quite explain how this had happened, but his head — and the rest of him, all the way down to his feet, his totality — was already in the high street and this change of location had taken place apparently in one blank instant and yet — he examined his watch again, as if it would be helpful and informative, when in fact it was only scary — his journey had also definitely taken far too long. He had significantly misplaced himself.

I … I should be feeling concerned perhaps … I’m not that, though. I’m not that, either …

He flagged a cab, resigned to the fact that the traffic would murder him and only compound his problem, which was lateness, rather than the problem with his interior, which he couldn’t identify, and the problems with his exterior which were … They were just …

Their name is legion. Their name is Rebecca and Lucy, Sophia and … Christ.

His heart pattered. ‘Tothill Street, please.’ And he set his fingers to the cab’s door handle almost as if he doubted it would be there.

The driver nodded a consent and Jon climbed in, his limbs more unruly than necessary, right hand clutched around his briefcase as if it were a safe support.

Like gripping the armrests on your seat when your plane hits a storm front — you’re holding on to what may drop and kill you. Something to do with our history as apes — we used to be fine if we hung on tight, so we keep on clinging to ease our tensions.

Of course, if the entire tree was ruined and dropping with you, then you’d be better off letting go …

‘Actually, sorry … I have to get some trousers.’ No one but Jon needed to know that and the back of the driver’s head seemed to reflect this truth eloquently. ‘That is … I’ll … if you can stop when we see somewhere … Damn … no, there won’t be anywhere open … Unless … you don’t know somewhere …? An early-morning trouser …? Provider …? I mean, that’s … thanks. Tothill Street.’

Jon forced his spine, his intentions, to stop craning forward. He could get there for half-past eight — behind schedule, but before nine — and this would pass and would be OK, if imperfect. He preferred to be in before the busyness, but it would be fine. He was a professional of some rank — he could have done better after all these years, but had a not unnoticeable rank and could deserve the confidence of those with whom he dealt. That was understood. He would overcome the trouser issue. It was not unethical to ask a staff member, maybe, to go and purchase … No, it had overtones. Could one tell a female subordinate the length of one’s inside leg? Or outside leg for that matter?

In my proper context, I can make decisions. But I’m not in context, I’m in a cab.

Could one ask, then, a male staff member, someone with trouser experience from a male point of view …? No, it wasn’t a prudent use of public funds.

Civil servant squanders man hours on fashion-buying jaunts.

Deputy Director experiences … what? Wildlife mishap. Midlife mishap. Late-life mishap. Trouser debacle.

Deputy Director Jonathan Sigurdsson suffers ambulant blackout in Chiswick — cause for concern.

He couldn’t work out how he’d ended up in the high street.

That was surprising. He didn’t like to be anywhere surprising.

It’s not to do with women, though.

No, not that.

St Martin’s Lane, near Wyndham’s Theatre: a purple balloon is carried by light breezes over the heads of pedestrians and then moves safely across the busy road. As it goes it drifts lower, rolling softly over the bonnet of a passing car. It finally drops almost perfectly by the feet of a man in his thirties, quite formally dressed, who is standing at the kerb. He picks up the balloon. He straightens and stands, holding it between both palms. He smiles. He smiles so much.

JON LEANED HIS cheek flat to the cab window as London stuttered by beyond it. He was halfway to the office, but no further. Matters were conspiring, according to the cab driver, who also found himself unable to comment on whether they’d be lucky, or crawling and stalled for another half an hour, if not longer. Cunning and manful dodging along alleys had resulted only in their being trapped by the apparently psychotic helmsman of a large delivery van in a space within which only bicycles or mice could possibly manoeuvre.

‘Smug, aren’t they?’ the driver remarked.

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Times like this they get smug — the cyclists. Not so smug when a lorry hits ’em. I’d make them take a test and earn a licence. For their own good.’

‘That’s certainly an opinion.’ Jon let his eyes close and carefully made himself think of Berlin earlier this year and seeing Rebecca.

Nice. A consolation. Necessary. And important to spend time.

A holiday for them both. One day, the Sunday, he’d bought them a boat tour on the Spree — bundled up for the cold, the quite kindly March cold — and he’d leaned his cheek flat to the barge’s chill window as they passed by the Bode Museum, the building fixed in the water, right at the edge of Museum Island like a high round prow, an impossible vessel. Waves patted the stonework at its foot, sneaked and rolled and faltered prettily.

Light in blades on the water, bridges menacing only softly overhead and then a broad European sky. The Fernsehturm spiking up into crisp blue — looks like Sputnik after an accident with a capitalist harpoon, a speared ball, a penetrated curve, although remarkably asexual, unsexual … then again, stainless steel and concrete aren’t notoriously arousing. Never were — not even for Young Pioneers.

I’m not obsessed with sex. Other people are obsessed with my being obsessed with sex.

The Berlin TV Tower — prop for some never-made Bond movie, as fatally dated and inappropriate as everybody’s visions for their futures turn out to be . Für Frieden und Sozialismus — as if either was possible anywhere. Few things say 1960s East Germany like the Fernsehturm, still laden with suggestions of circular ripples emanating from its globe, expanding rings of peaceful and anti-fascist socialist know-how that pushed nobly — with appropriate self-criticism — through the brown-coal-scented air — that particular Braunkohl bitterness — broadcasting the one true faith and a kids’ show about the Little Sandman who sent boys and girls off to sleep. Instead of picking them up in Stasi vans and sending them off to other, less pleasant places. Or inviting them to variations on a theme of suicide.