A Kennedy - Serious Sweet

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.

Meg reaches to touch him — fuck, I’m trying to pat his arm — but doesn’t complete the gesture. ‘Jon, I don’t want to not do this. I do want to do this. Why would I want to not do this? I want to do …’

His eyes changed, they lit. ‘Ah.’ And then they were fully themselves again: blue at the darker end of blue, a quiet shade, but something unquiet about his gaze, a fine kind of unquiet.

Meg had told him then.

The stupidest thing to say, but you do — you trust the frightened people more than anyone, you trust them like fuck, you can’t help it.

She said, ‘I don’t drink, because I don’t drink, because I’m an alcoholic. I don’t drink. You should know. I couldn’t have written it down for you — I wanted you to see me when I said, I wanted …’

This made him curl his hand around his wine glass as if he should hide it, or sweep it away. He was staring beyond her while he did this, maybe studying the waitress, or the wall, or nothing visible.

‘Is that OK?’

He spoke to the tablecloth, laboriously. ‘That couldn’t be OK because it would be a horrible thing for you and I would rather a horrible thing hadn’t happened to you …’ He nodded at that point where she was not. ‘You’re an …’ He picked up his glass and downed its remaining contents in one. This didn’t quite work and he coughed afterwards, covered his lips with the back of his hand.

‘Are you all right?’

Jon nodded again and made sure to let her search his eyes, the wet shine of them. Another swallow and he could manage, ‘Fine.’ He nodded definitively. ‘I won’t have another. I wouldn’t have had that.’

‘You can have whatever you like. I don’t mind. It’s OK.’

‘I’ve seen it in others — the drinking. One does. Never looks fun.’ Then he smiled at her, produced this cool, unhappy grin. ‘My turn. My mother didn’t like me. My wife didn’t — and doesn’t — like me. My daughter is occasionally ambivalent. I don’t do well with female people, although I do like them. I have no excuse for this. I do not drink excessively, or take drugs, or have any vice that has broken me down and made me unpalatable. I was apparently born unpalatable.’ His eyes busy with examining hers now, checking for who knew what. ‘Probably you should give up on me now … Because I’m thinking … I’m thinking …’ Jon barked out a small and unamused laugh, a lonely sound. ‘I’m actually — please don’t be offended — thinking that maybe you only wrote to me and you’re only here because you have some kind of …’ His shoulders sank.

‘You think I’m here because I’ve drunk myself into brain damage, or — what — that I’m crazy? I’m some kind of moron?’ The sounds of this tasted badly in her mouth — tasted of wine.

He cupped one hand over the top of his head, his forearm obscuring most of his face. ‘I know, I know … See …? I’m a terrible person.’ He sounded muffled and in pain, ‘If it’s any consolation, I find myself much more offensive than you do. Except, of course, that’s an offensive assumption, isn’t it? Because you’re kind and a kind person … Oh, Christ, I’m a disaster. They should take me out back to the kitchen, shoot me and serve me up with … spring greens.’ He patted at the tabletop with his free hand, as if to comfort it. ‘I hate spring greens. I wouldn’t go with them. Oh …’

And what do you do when you can’t write yourself out across the cream of the tablecloth and consider what you need to say for hours, before you prove to him — for sure — prove to him that you’re only as much of a freak as he is and that he is nothing to hate, that he cannot be hated. How do you tell him about love?

‘ Hm?’ His head appearing again, the arm dropping.

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘Oh.’ And a smile which was faintly a real smile, an admission of some unfathomable kind, Jonahed away in the deeps of him, behind his restraint and all of his needs which are clearly there and pressing, but not defined.

He does want something. I could swear to that. But maybe not me.