A. Kennedy - All the Rage

And then tidy up and out into the carriage. I’d suggest that we sit apart afterwards, because of what fun that would be: acting like she’d never met me, when I’m still a ghost between her legs.

Those red plush silk and shaky minutes between her legs.

I could tell her if she’s good that we’d do it again past Swindon.

Maybe not a lie.

Maybe give her my genuine number and save hers. Hook up, if we felt like taking longer and she didn’t live ridiculously far away.

Although there is much to be said for women who live ridiculously far away and the trend towards exponential fare increases for public transport. And petrol’s hardly a bargain.

We could improvise.

She would let me.

Sometimes people want nothing. It is a necessity.

But then Mark gave her an altered smile.

And this is to say that I would if I could.

And it is such a pity I can’t.

Have this instead — the sting of possibility. It’s a much neater present, a nice one: the way that your body will rouse and insist where I would have kissed it.

You know the places. You do.

Mark let his hands fall sadly and, because he considered this polite, he whispered his knuckles against the woman’s as he passed her, headed into the glare and walked to offer Pauline interwoven lies.

‘Well, you won’t believe it, but they said another twenty minutes.’

I really did go and speak to someone and serve you as you wished.

‘Sorry, darling. It’s outrageous.’

I am not 40 or 50 per cent turned on.

‘I could go back. If you want, love.’

I wouldn’t like to scream until it hurts me.

‘But I don’t think it would be much use, and the sun’s giving me a headache. I feel a bit out of it, actually. .’

I am not thumbing through random memories of working inside other women until I felt the sweat run, the insect tickle of being entirely waylaid.

‘I am sorry.’ And he kissed her, squeezed her hand in his.

She withdrew from the pressure and pursed her lips. Mark took pains to understand her point of view.

That’s sixteen years of history between us in one motion — and having no kids and her needing her glasses more badly than I need mine. Varifocals.

That’s me having, thus far, decided not to be dead yet and this causing a further difference of opinion.

Their history wasn’t uniformly bleak. Nobody’s ever was, not without significant rewriting. For three years he’d been relatively happy and as faithful to Pauline as a rescued dog. Then he had rather reverted to type and it was hugely regrettable and he did feel bad about it, but equally he’d never let her know. He hadn’t insisted they share an open marriage and hadn’t been prone to regular confessions. He hadn’t confessed at all.

Because I was nothing. So I had nothing to confess.

I washed thoroughly after them, extra soap and water for the hands, the betraying hands, and I used mouthwash and set aside a holdall of specifically adulterous clothing — like a gym bag. Salted money away for the costs. I suppressed my traces.

She didn’t know.

Not a clue about the girl I met in a hotel car park during a late-night fire alarm, the girl on an overnight train to Berlin, a woman who’d slept with Mick Jagger — him or Keith, definitely one of the Stones: being with her was like trying on a vintage coat — and a woman who’d been crying at a party, a conference waitress, multiple attendees of multiple conferences, the wife of a friend — which was stupidly risky — the wives of strangers, the assistant in a chemist’s shop after hours. During hours would have been silly.

The pin from her name badge scratched my cheek.

It was a little bit relentless.

But consistent — all nothing.

Then he’d woken on a Sunday early, been dressed and spruce at breakfast, as if he’d had an appointment. Indeed, he’d taken advantage of the day’s suggested shape and tone — it seemed spruce and forthright, somehow — and had claimed — why not — that he was suddenly needed at the office and would nip out while Pauline set forth to tend the weeds.

Plants — she tends the plants.

She kills the weeds.

As far as I’m aware, she does it that way round.

I told her a chef — controversial, but adored by female readers — had forgotten to tell us that he was dyslexic/thick/on a bender — I wasn’t listening at the time so I’m unsure of my final choice — and would fail to provide 900 pithy words about something or other I couldn’t recall. I didn’t think it related to cooking. Probably he was attempting to reposition his persona. Pauline is fascinated by B-List hubris and so this entertained her.

I said it was best to show my face, go in and deal with the minor disaster, catch up on my expenses — they’re more like begging letters now — and be the chap on hand for any further emergencies. We lived in straitened times, even then, and I needed to seem flexible and willing.

I also did honestly want some fresh air.

No, I didn’t.

I wanted to keep an appointment I hadn’t made.

He’d caught the Tube.

Piccadilly Line: convenient and it’s my favourite shade of blue.

He’d stepped into an empty carriage.

And she followed.

That was you.

That was you, Emily.

That was you.

She’d sat opposite, a tiny clumsiness in her movements that lit him, put him on alert, even though she’d been unremarkable in many ways.

Sweet Jesus, that was you.

An over-large biker jacket had made her seem round-shouldered.

As if she was shy about having breasts.

Emily.

That was sweet and you.

Her costume fought ungracefully to combine revelation with concealment. She’d made a series of unimaginative and self-punishing choices in red and mainly black: holed black tights and layers of equally wounded T-shirts, short denim shorts and high-lacing boots with industrial soles. One hand was curled intently round a can of cider.

Didn’t know your name, but that was sweet and you.

Mark had watched her face, its flickers and hints as it flirted with insecurity, or gave him little signs of pride — the happy and personal victory that was her cider, the wish to be challenging.

Lowered eyes and faking that I wasn’t there for you, but I already was. Immediately.

And then she made a small retreat into hurts, or the threat of hurts, their memory, and into some variety of fear. He’d shivered with a vast and irrational compulsion to disclose and remove every wound for her.

Sweet you.

Now and then she had the expression of someone preserved in an untouched space, of dispassionate observation. Her skin was pale as paper and not especially clean and clearly the cider was there to help her up out of the night before, to remove a disreputable pain, but there was so, so much strange purity there, too. He would come to define this sanctity and distance as her principal characteristics. That morning they simply caught him, along with the rest. She was twenty-two — not genuinely young — but the grace of childhood hadn’t faded on her.

Like all the proper ones — the real alcoholics, before they blow — she had this weird perfection, was flawless because of her flaws and made them a beauty.

She was angelic.

Stupid word.

My angel.

Shining with each of the obvious violations.