A. Kennedy - All the Rage

Then he let her be and managed, ‘I’ll get us a nice hotel for it. In Mayfair. Would you like that?’

She had changed and so could I.

‘I don’t mind.’

‘A big bath. We’ve never been in a bath together.’

‘I don’t mind.’ But her eyes on him and apparently glad about it.

‘And, baby. . If neither of us. . We could meet early and have a room-service dinner and we could be just us and we’d make lots of love and I’d be as nice as nice to you and you’d be as nice as nice to me and, if you could, would you be able to not drink? Baby? Could you? For me? I’d like if you could be there for me. If I was very nice? I don’t insist and it’s not a problem. . Emily? Could you be my sober girl? And we’ll talk about what you could wear and. . Could you not drink?’

As he finished, her eyes were cooler. ‘I could do that.’

She did sometimes lie to me.

Not that it wasn’t his failure as much as hers.

We had to have wine with our dinner, we are grown-ups, that’s what grown-ups do.

And we were grown-ups being as nice as nice, if not nicer.

While he took calls and checked his email she’d hold him. Occasionally she’d sip her wine.

One bottle between us and that was it. Extremely moderate.

Our perfect night.

We didn’t sleep.

Any rush about joining the protesters evaporated in a long breakfast with crumbs on the pillows and their skin. They didn’t get outside until noon and Mark’s concentration was shredded with his body’s protest, its missing her, yowling because he wasn’t naked and clasping her wants.

‘Shit, I’m not. . Do you mind if we back out a bit and get a long bead on it? We will join the parade in a while, but I’ve got to get my head straight. Okay, Sweet?’

Piccadilly was thick with marchers when Mark gazed beyond the hotel doors. He was slightly puzzled and slightly moved by the old-school brass bands passing, the embroidered union banners that kicked things back into the 1930s, or the 1970s — those little brackets between which self-respect had probably become a more widespread delusion. It was all making the hotel doormen nervous.

It wasn’t a great day to be wearing a top hat.

And ‘Not a Good Day to Wear a Top Hat’ did indeed appear as my catchline. Set the style — observant, amused, keen not to overestimate the significance of events.

Mark coaxed Emily along to Shaftesbury Avenue and scolded his mind into focus. He was fine by the time a dark knot of angsty figures ran and yelled down the pre-emptively cleared road.

If I was a serious anarchist bent on mayhem I wouldn’t dress in black and — oh, grow up — wave a fucking flag.

Police, also dressed in black, moved in sharply around the outskirts of the group and then closed. Emily seemed fascinated by the flag-waver, a skinny twenty-something with a Jesus face.

He wanted somebody to beat him up. Is that what she wanted in a man, that he should suffer? Would she have wanted to beat me?

I would have let her.

I would have begged.

The Met tested their day’s waters, locking into solid ranks. Mark found the whole situation both weirdly childish and horribly serious. It worried him.

I knew the day was going to turn at some point and eat us up. It was going to be bad.

He clasped Emily’s arm like an indulgent father squiring his activist daughter.

The solitary time I did that, played that card.

And the police cordon parted, let them through, then dissolved altogether with a carefully presented unconcern. The anarchists bolted off wildly as they might have been expected to. Mark thought their triumph unwise. He kissed the top of Emily’s head to cheer himself. Her hair smelled of hotel shampoo.

And of nothing.

‘Can we now?’ Emily pliant — even daughterly — letting him take charge in a whole new way. ‘Can we march?’

My hand around hers, around what was given completely.

She looked at me.

Someone shouting through a loudhailer, and mild chaos waiting for us to join it, but we were a couple. We were really there.

‘Yes, babe.’ And Mark anxious that he shouldn’t cry and also uneasy and too ragged to identify exactly why. ‘We’ll do it now and we’ll get all afternoon together.’ He slipped his hold to her waist and squeezed. ‘But I’ll have to make notes and be. . and then I’ll need to work, flat-out work. I should have sketched some bits down yesterday. It’s okay, though. And I’m glad I’m here, and I’m glad I’m with you and it’s a good idea.’

Stepping out from the pavement and into the road — that moment — I’d forgotten what it was like.

Hello.

This is me in the world that’s different.

This is everyone else.

And this is us.

We are us.

Real.

It wasn’t hard to lean against her and be carried, to be shaken loose into enjoying it. She’d point out good bits: a kid in a pushchair with his own hand-made sign, a bunch of blokes in amazing hats playing concertinas. He did the same: the Writers’ Guild placards — typographical humour — an old lady near the entrance to Hyde Park who was holding this kind of essay up under her chin; it was unfurled to the ground, as long as herself. It said what her name was and that she was from Tower Hamlets and not happy with the government — who was happy with government? — and Mark didn’t read the rest.

Mark had liked the energy: the cardboard tank that pumped out reggae, and he and Emily heading on while all the rage burned by them and insisted on producing a variety of elation and music and

Muzzy fellow-feeling. A consoling fantasy of change.

They all wanted an afternoon stroll to have built Utopia by Monday.

Emily pulled him into the park and there it was as he’d expected — the forward momentum pooled and sank, there was litter and dirty clothes and Quakers eating shredded vegetables out of Tupperware containers. He was no longer uplifted and it was chilly and he’d have been wiser to keep their room on for another day and look out of the fucking window — cosy and with Emily — take a nap and then knock out the story as required.

And he was exhausted suddenly, overwhelmed and achy, and then he went wrong.

I made her unhappy.

She wanted me to sit on the grubby turf with her, take in the scene, listen while the converted doggedly tried to convert the converted.

But I’d done that before.

When I was her age.

I’d already disappointed myself back then and didn’t intend to again.

So I disappointed her.

Worse.

He’d been — to a minor degree — short with her. She was laughing and lying on the grass, wriggling like a puppy, playing a game that he didn’t have time for.

‘Emily! I have to work. For God’s sake!’

I’d never shouted at her.

Older man in a bourgeois overcoat, screaming at a sweet, sweet girl, killing her smile.

I couldn’t seem to bring it back right after that and I tried.

I did.

‘No, Emily, sweetheart. I’m all messed up. I messed up. I promise. Forget what I said. I’ll stay here. If you want me to. I’ll do whatever you want.’ His clumsy, pathetic gestures wagging and losing themselves in the air ahead of him. ‘Baby. I’m sorry. I really am. .’ He wanted to cry for her, but couldn’t and knew his face was somehow outwith his control and frightening to her. She fluttered to her feet, harm apparent everywhere, and started out for the road without him. He didn’t try to touch her in case he did more harm.