A. Kennedy - All the Rage

And the brothers and sisters might have pitched in and stopped me if I laid hands on her — nothing more judgemental than a revolutionary. They despised me.

But I beat them to it.

‘Let me, please let me be with you.’ Remembering he’d said this as he slipped the key card into the lock of their first hotel room. It was a revelation — how abject he had sounded. ‘Emily.’ Not as abject as today. ‘Christ, please.’ The fracture in his voice presumably what slowed her and let him reach and hold and find and kiss her better, surely better.

The comrades approved. Solidarity giving rise to love.

Love.

Which was what you would battle to save, and Mark didn’t love the unfriendly world, or impractical ideas, or people, he loved Emily. He had marched for Emily and she had made it beautiful for him and he should let go and appreciate that.

And I did. I partly marched again and partly strolled with her back west until the demonstrators coalesced into a stolid mass: rumours and shifting and then cheers.

I stood with everybody else, I stood with Emily — got to keep Emily — got to keep Emily safe — and I watched a bunch of arseholes climbing the front of Fortnum’s and I cheered.

They were up there with coloured chalk for scrawling and a painted bed sheet for unfurling — more cheers — and I wouldn’t have put it past them to stage some agitprop on the shop’s canopy instead of simply swanning about while the staff peered out through the windows, amused and curious.

There were rumours — correct — of others storming the entrance.

Storming a tea room.

A — rumours again — non-tax-paying tea room.

Barging inside a posh tea room while badly dressed and singing some songs. Anarchists in the queen’s grocer’s.

A redefinition of storming.

Emily had cheered, too, and made Mark call out louder until he could feel her voice in his chest. He raised his hands above the press of bodies as apparently most people had — taking pictures full of raised hands holding cameras to take pictures — and a kid was writing TORY SCUM on Fortnum’s wall in what was pretty close to the store’s famous shade of green.

I did wonder if that was intentional.

Eventually Mark slipped round to Emily’s back, embraced her until she was snug and they fitted and were in triumph.

More cheers.

Mark preferred not to wonder why the Met hadn’t closed and confined the whole pack of them. The marchers were effectively kettling themselves. The police he’d seen along the route had been chatting in gaggles, lounging, steadily denying they could exert any kind of control. A paint-cannon had fired in the distance throughout the morning — a low threat of sound — windows had been broken, landmarks were defaced with no reaction.

Mark tried not to guess that night would fall on indulged transgression with no good marching comrades left between it and a hard reassertion of the law.

It would be dreadful.

He wanted to bring Emily into the office and write with her there — she’d be out of harm’s way and close and fine — but he wouldn’t have got down a word with her about, he had to be realistic. And every passing bastard would have wanted to hear who she was.

I wasn’t ashamed of her.

She’d checked in the day before looking like an upmarket secretary — I’d thought that would play well — but when she left the hotel in the morning she was dressed for the demo: fatigues and boots and an ethnic hat — crazy tweed jacket. But it only seemed crazy because it was so big — because it was mine.

Beautiful baby.

On both days.

Sexy.

She’d have knocked the office over and I’d have adored it.

In theory.

‘Baby, sweet baby, though. I’ve gotta go.’ His syllables against her neck, being sweet as he could to match her sweet. ‘Come with me as far as the Underground. Would you?’

‘Don’t we have some more time?’

‘I can’t. Work.’

‘I could sit in your office while you work.’ She was able to say this, because she’d been close enough to hear his thinking. Naturally.

He’d kept his plans vague and persuaded her to edge herself free with him and to pick their way, slower and slower, until they found an operational and fairly uncrowded Tube station. Covent Garden again. ‘I don’t want to leave you, sweetheart. Emily. I don’t want to. You’re my wife. It’s killing me.’ At the top of the stairs, he’d ricocheted through his goodbye. ‘I’ll make it better. Soon. I’ll make us all better, just fine.’ He’d spoken unwisely.

Holding her head — everything she thought of me — between my hands.

The touch spoke in my palms for hours afterwards. She was there, she was sheathed between the tendons. It made me clumsy. For five- and ten-minute spaces I couldn’t type.

By the time he’d hit his deadline, the predictable spasms of violence were breaking out on the streets — resistance against resistance — and he could end the article with a riff on youthful altruism versus betrayal, anger and nihilism and the British tradition of blahblahblah. He’d let the newsier pieces do the rest.

The risk of Emily reading it was low, but I could still feel her being somewhere and frowning at me.

It was a grim trip home — cab driver full of aggressive certainties. Then he’d slipped in beside Pauline after an arduous shower. She mumbled and turned, became still.

He’d wanted to sleep for a decade.

Or just until Monday and then call Emily and work out how to do this again.

He’d left his clothes in a heap by the bedside cabinet.

In my dreams, I unreeled the day, had it again. I sat folded behind Emily in the bath and washing her hair. I made sure the soap didn’t get in her eyes.

When Pauline rattled him awake, he struggled to surface.

And I was angry.

I’d been awake for thirty-six hours, high-profile piece to finish under the gun, on my feet, on my back, on my mind — too much for a Burroughs boy.

I was very angry.

And having this knowledge that sometimes a sweet thing can be exhausting.

I was outraged.

Pauline had waited until Mark had opened his eyes.

Then she’d hit him.

A slap.

Just one.

Passed me my phone, which I hadn’t turned off to preserve my privacy and hadn’t tucked away.

I’d been too tired to be sensible.

Only that once.

Which was enough.

More than enough.

As he took the phone from Pauline, he’d understood who would be calling.

Emily.

Very drunk.

Emily.

Very explicit and drunk.

Emily.

In hospital for reasons she couldn’t make plain.

Emily.

She couldn’t make much plain.

Emily.

She told me she loved me.

Emily.

Almost inaudible.

Emily.

She told me she wanted to be my wife now.

Emily.

Almost inaudible.

Emily.

I couldn’t go and get her.

Emily.

Almost inaudible.

Emily.

I couldn’t do what she wanted.

Emily.

Almost inaudible.

Emily.

I couldn’t explain.

Emily.

Almost inaudible.

Emily.

She ought to have understood.