A Kennedy - Serious Sweet

Then — which I didn’t think of, or more properly which I ignored as a possibility … Then, it was predictable … Then the letters went on and the feeling also, or feelings, of usefulness, light-heartedness, content.

And these were also months — and then over a year — of increasingly vehement separation from the flesh-and-blood human being to whom he was married and with whom he lived. Then the mess of the divorce and then going off to be in the Junction. There was no absolute need for him to pick the Junction, rather than elsewhere. It had simply seemed correct to pack oneself off to somewhere hard and mortifying …

And then …

He tried an advertisement in Australia, the results of which proved uneventful, stable.

And then …

Another ad was floated out in The Village Voice . The Voice women seemed too demanding, too degrading, too often demanding to be degraded and to degrade.

And then …

He’d tried the TLS . It was closer to home and therefore, Jon hoped, less tiring and more sympathetic. He’d looked — this might really have been quite unlikely — for sympathy from readers of the Times Literary Supplement .

And then …

The vetting people found me out.

They uncovered my hobby and my — which could have seemed alarming — dead letter box. I suppose a PO box could be described as a dead letter box, mail drop, something fishy.

But that was all right.

That part of the matter was all right.

I could explain. And they didn’t even seem to be overly concerned. There were so many worse things I could have been doing. Having a mildly irregular personal life … well, Val had ensured my — by extension — irregularity for years, in her own way.

Silly that she’d been so girlishly keen I should get promoted and yet always managed to undermine my suitability. Not that I didn’t produce my own failings — a certain light missing from my eye. Or else an illumination of the wrong sort.

I was only now — as far as vetting could see — being irregular in my own right. And in a mutually consenting and adult manner.

Although money did change hands … leaves a nasty taste at certain levels … but it also reminded those concerned that we were being impersonally personal. I’d charged £120 for a dozen letters. Or $120. In fact, I ended up giving most of them a baker’s dozen for the money: that one extra lent the arrangement an atmosphere of generosity. And I donated the money to charity and retained my paperwork in that regard, although questions of paperwork didn’t arise. The operation of appropriate oversight had uncovered letters from women, clearly replying to letters from me — letters of an affectionate nature. I simply agreed that I did, yes, receive letters and that I did, yes, write back to the women, because why not?

It seemed shameful to have solicited the interaction and so I didn’t mention the ads. There were just three women in evidence, I think — they were all that was mentioned. I was dealing with five at that time, but I didn’t say — or six, in fact. Or, no — I had escalated to seven. I was sending letters to seven women at that point. Some of them were writing back, three of them were writing back, because why not?

I suppose I approve of the letters having been intercepted. I should be subject to the standard checks and safeguards intended to ensure the suitability and probity of public servants. There should always be oversight and it should be rigorous. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, how they did the deed, if they went to the shop after hours and picked the surely inadequate lock on the box — derring-do and balaclavas? Or did they compel its opening by official means — flashy badges and officially severe haircuts? Did they give that usual smug impression of actively defending the realm with every self-important breath? Or did someone insinuating have a gentle but determined word and rifle through my correspondence on an informal basis? It doesn’t matter, of course. They could find out what I was doing, because why not?

I was receiving and sending letters to women, because why not?

Lucy, Sophia and so forth: no one involved could suggest why not. No one tried to.

They interviewed me.

Without enthusiasm.

I explained that I was corresponding with women as company. That was all. I said that I was courting. Smirks from over the desk when I used the word.

Courting.

I was not indulging in physical contact. There was no possibility of blurry photos in the Sunday papers, there would be no use of the word ‘romps’ … More smirks from the desk confirming they’d never have expected romps from me — all I would be capable of was courting, harmless dicklessness.

There was no plan to use the PO box to betray — as they might have put it — my country. Nobody asked, but if they had I would have mentioned that I was in favour of saving my country.

That was pretty much it.

And so I kept on courting.

Because why not.

HR consulted thereafter.

And then Harry (the poisoned) Chalice ambled along and sat on the corner of my desk.

Was I happy? he felt moved to know. Had the divorce been a difficult time? No, really, he wanted to know — had I minimised its ill effects? Had anything conceivably to do with him created a sexual compulsive, a fantasist traitor, freak? (He didn’t quite voice the thought, but one could see it passing.) Did I feel a period of leave might be of assistance?

Humiliating, naturally, that our chat should be semi-public. Unpleasant to be thumbed through in one’s own — and only real, as it were — home.

I told him that, yes, I was happy, or at least not unhappy. I told him the divorce had been … had been a divorce. It was simple in the legal and practical sense: I got to leave Val and Val got everything else.

I had been the one to call and tell Becky I was separating from her mother and she said, during one of my pauses, ‘I’m glad.’ And I had to resist pointing out that my daughter doing this made me feel I had wasted two decades and more of my time.

Not that I’d told Chalice this.

I also didn’t raise the fact that Becky being there at the far end of my phone and inadvertently insulting me had nonetheless reassured. Her existence meant not a breath of my marriage hadn’t been worthwhile, hadn’t led to something lovely. But the combination of elements — slight irritation and tenderness — was confusing and made my voice strained. She had thought for a moment that I was crying. She was mistaken.

Chalice hadn’t much to raise about the letters per se.

The official position on courting was that if it didn’t bring a department into disrepute, or endanger the defence of the realm and so forth, then my conduct was acceptable, if odd. It would be oppressive and unjust if one’s sexual behaviour were constantly under scrutiny — there were guidelines about privacy and inclusion … Chalice flicked out the little suggestion that, nonetheless, my access to promotion would now cease. But everything about me already meant that I’d stalled. And being stalled makes me happy. Which is taken as a very bad sign, too.

(I’m still great in a crisis. That’s agreed, that’s axiomatic. I excel — as long as its somebody else’s crisis.)

Should my multiple courtships transform into multiple liaisons, then my situation would be reassessed — Chalice said. I would be revisited and supported — as if I were a sickly aunt.