A Kennedy - Serious Sweet

Why Chalice with this minister? They make no sense as any kind of pair. I only like things that make sense.

This is not a good a day.

My mental condition …

And while I am thinking of shifty double acts because I can’t help it … My mother had this pair of cats — sisters — one minute they’d be licking each other with this bizarre intensity and the next they’d be giving me the clear impression that lesbian incest was none of my bloody business … There is a certain flavour of feline intimacy between our Mr Chalice and this minister who is not my minister and whom I do not wish to see.

I wish, I wish hard as a boy before Christmas, to be in yesterday and a garden and not in a room over which the ballot box looms hotly, this leading me to wonder why Milner would be an issue … Why bother with him now? He’ll be the next incumbent’s trouble, surely? The Minister for Shake-and-Bake Opinions won’t still be here, whoever wins.

And what can I do about it? What should I be expected to do about Milner? Why would they think I would want to touch Milner? Nobody wants to touch Milner. I can’t brief, not anyone, not now and not Milner and not for a minister not my own. Not even for my own …

This dragged along, fast and abrasive, like a cutting kite string through Jon’s mind while Chalice gestured towards two chairs, set emptily ready. He then promenaded round to sit side-saddle on his own and beckoned to Jon, playing the chummy colleague, the man so securely in charge he might break out into rolled sleeves and banter at any time. ‘We thought you got to know Milner slightly after that Heidelberg debacle.’ Chalice being gracefully puzzled by Jon’s non-compliance, waiting until he agreed, at the very least, to sit. ‘The Hun-in-the-sun faux pas.’ And he kept on for more agreement yet. Gentle, was Chalice. Gentle like the onset of some disease.

‘Leipzig.’

‘Really? We thought it was Heidelberg.’

Good cloth in his jacket, but I hate the London cut. He’s paid too much for a name on his inside pocket and the pinch-waisted silhouette of a man with breasts. Those cavalry-officer preferences will out. None of it indicates good judgement. Next thing, he’ll be wearing the label on his sleeve.

Chalice fixed his gaze somewhere on the wall behind Jon’s left ear and semi-whispered, ‘We need someone who slightly knows him. Uncontaminated by prior exposure and yet familiar.’

Jon’s left ear tingled in response.

The Minister continued to not speak, remaining authoritatively distant and — who could doubt it? — mulling thoughts which would be all the more impressive for going unexpressed.

Jon rubbed at his uneasy ear, coaxing it not to be foolish.

And if you don’t speak during a meeting then you can honestly confirm — if you absolutely have to later on, when asked by some passed-over backbencher, lop-eared audience member on Question Time , or so forth — that you didn’t in any meaningful sense attend the meeting, never said a word. Just offered your shit-in-a-sock.

‘I was preoccupied with family matters of a pressing nature and cannot recall the conversation, in which I took no part.’

So whatever this is about, it’s toxic. And yet he’s here …

Jon offered, neutrally, ‘Milner the journalist.’

‘That’s right.’ Chalice began to sound as if he were addressing an especially dim select committee. ‘Milner the journalist.’

‘I’m not a friend of his, to be precise, even slightly, no.’ Jon nodding and realising the Mancunian Candidate, or most probably Sansom, had reached out to hand him some Frodo or other. And I will be expected to carry my dreadful burden out across the wilderness and then Do Something Terminal About It.

‘Although I would like to help …’ The Minister’s desk — Jon was apparently staring at the desk now, so I must be downcast for some reason — the desk seemed to be of a very fine quality.

Better than in my department.

The surface has an almost mystical sheen.

And is giving me a headache.

There is an outside possibility that I am mistaken, simply experiencing a new symptom of extreme stress, but we’ll set that aside.

When I say ‘we’ I mean ‘I’, but I am in need of company and so present myself as if I am a group. I have noticed that others, when under pressure, will often replace ‘I’ with ‘you’ — as if they would rather outsource their concerns to random third parties. I think it’s a good sign that I don’t try to do that. Team player, Sigurdsson. Even if I’m a team of one.

My forearms are itching.

Jon briefly immersed himself in an opaque pause of the sort a man becomes used to producing when his wife is often indiscreet and he must therefore often be diplomatic. He imagined he could feel the heat of his phone, right there in his jacket’s inside pocket — he tried to think of it as a lifeline instead of a burden. There was a letter in there, too. Its presence made the phone and the office and Chalice and the bovine Minister seem a shade less oppressive. And even very minor improvements were always appreciated.

While Jon concentrated on yesterday and being with flower beds and secure, he said, ‘Milner was in Heidelberg, yes, that’s right. We had a drink then. One drink. If I remember correctly.’

‘And I’m sure you do. It wouldn’t be like you not to remember correctly, Jon. Unless you’re tired. Are you very tired? Been over-doing it?’

With my many women? No, I haven’t. No, I have not.

‘Come in straight from country pursuits?’ Chalice eyeing the corduroy trousers with a lack of benevolence.

‘No, not that. I was simply … And something happened to my …’ Jon breathing for a moment to find his place. ‘Milner is foreign stories, isn’t he? Not domestic. Trots off to hellholes and pretends he’s an aggressive, drunken Brit — asks immoderate questions of one and all, while they are incautiously embarrassed for him, or making fun. Manages terribly well in that regard. Then when he’s come round in the morning he notes down what he’s heard, or transcribes it, or whatever, and releases it as and when. One of the type who go about shouting from the moral high ground, or at least a good set of steps.’

Chalice produced a smile that would not occur in nature. ‘That’s the very Milner. You do remember. And his alcoholic camouflage has indeed become, shall we say, ingrained. People don’t seem to trust him on overseas assignments any more. He says things the wrong way for ITN … and his BBC boats were burned long ago …’ He paused to be happy about himself. ‘The BBC — they burn more boats than the Byzantine navy … Another man might move into books, but Milner seems to be unlucky in that regard, too. There’s the discourtesy while in his cups, that’s a factor — even publishing won’t quite put up with it. He seems to call people a cunt rather often … Which one can’t, can one? One can’t use the word cunt . A cunt out of context …’ Chalice gave Jon what was presumably space to speak with some kind of expert insight about the sexual organs of women and why they shouldn’t be used as terms of abuse, or pronounced by a Jermyn Street sociopath as if they were inevitably infectious.

Pity poor Mrs Chalice. Poor Amanda who never looks that far from screaming.

‘I never use the word myself.’

‘Secret of your success …?’

And now I do have to allow him eye contact. Plain and uncontrived — because, sod him, I was already good at this while he was still being taught how to take a salute and order Scousers to shovel horse shit and pinprick the silver polish from the fiddly bits on their breastplates. I’ve been doing this for a long lifetime and I’m still good at it. Even in my current circumstances. Even in corduroy bloody trousers which are, of course, unsuitable — I do know that. ‘I really wouldn’t know, Harry.’ I can call him Harry. It’s not inappropriate. Especially when he’s trying to be East End. ‘I’ve never used the word.’ All he knows about the East End would be from some heavily curated jaunt into Hoxton, or suchlike. ‘As a word — even in frank moments of intimacy.’