Authors: Jim Powell
We could meet in London, though. I could suggest that she came up more often, perhaps once a month. I could pay her fare, if she would let me. I wasn’t sure she would let me: Anna seemed
to prize her independence more than anything, perhaps more than she prized herself. If any of this were to happen, I would need to tell her that we had met before. And if it disconcerted her that I
had not previously mentioned the fact, I could say it disconcerted me that she had forgotten me so easily. Or I could claim it was a game, that I had been waiting to see how long it would take her
to remember, that no form of deception had been involved, that I had been teasing.
For now, the need was to say enough about myself to make me seem worth seeing again, and no more. Over the dregs of the Chablis, I tried to do that. I didn’t mention that I was unemployed.
Technically, I now wasn’t. I was unpaid, which is different. Ask an intern.
‘Your wife seems to have a somewhat hazy role,’ said Anna.
I had played down Judy’s part in my life. What else was I supposed to do in the circumstances? However, it was also true that Judy did have a hazy role in my life, as I probably had in
hers.
‘Doesn’t that usually happen,’ I said, ‘when you’ve been married for years?’
‘Usually. It’s what puts me off marriage.’
‘It’s what puts you off permanence.’
‘Nothing’s permanent,’ said Anna. ‘No point in pretending it is. When something reaches its use-by date, you eat it or chuck it. You don’t let it
moulder.’
‘Which will you be doing with me?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Anna. ‘You haven’t reached your use-by date yet.’
‘Do I take that as a compliment?’
‘Not necessarily. I haven’t even bought the packet.’
‘What does it take to get a compliment from you?’
Anna smiled. ‘Someone who doesn’t fish for them. And now, Matthew, if you’ll excuse me, I really must be going.’
‘Can I see you again?’
‘Possibly. If you’re prepared to wait six months.’
‘I’ll be in Somerset in a few weeks’ time.’
‘You’ll be in Somerset, or you’ll be making a special journey there in the hope of seeing me?’
‘I’ll be in Somerset. Dorset in fact, but I expect I’ll have to drive through Somerset.’
‘Your satnav will probably have other ideas,’ said Anna.
‘They’re next door to each other, aren’t they?’
‘Russia’s next door to Canada.’
‘You’re trying to put me off.’
‘No. Just trying to help with your scheduling. What are you doing in Dorset? Do you have another woman there? From the National Gallery perhaps?’
‘I need to inspect a wind-farm project in Dorset, with a view to sponsorship.’
‘Art. Ecology. Is there no end to your philanthropy?’
‘No end at all,’ I said. ‘It even extends to self-sufficient smallholders.’
Anna laughed, a warm laugh. ‘I’m not sure philanthropy’s the word I would use to describe that. Unless self-interest has changed its meaning.’
‘It has. Haven’t you noticed? Self-interest is always for someone else’s benefit now.’
‘I rather feared it was.’
‘Do you want to give me your number?’
‘I’ll give you my email address,’ said Anna. She wrote it down for me in large, straggly writing. I peered at it to make sure I could read it.
‘Will I end up in your junk mail?’ I asked.
‘My software will decide that. It has excellent judgement. Much better than mine.’
‘What’s the use-by date on spam?’
‘Before the date of manufacture, I should think,’ said Anna.
We left The Fine Line slowly, walking down Bow Churchyard in the direction of Mansion House tube station, stepping past the detritus of the day’s traders. It was a chilly evening for
September. We pulled our coats more tightly about us, turned our collars up against the autumn air, two soldiers from the Great War, gazing warily over our respective trenches, eyes on no
man’s land, waiting for a whistle to blow us over the top. Or a grenade.
‘I think we’re going in different directions now,’ I said, when we were inside the station.
‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘We are. I go this way.’ She darted towards the westbound stairs before I had time to think of something smart, or something tender.
‘We’re going to Aunt Lucy’s in a fortnight,’ said Judy. ‘She’s invited us to stay for the weekend.’
My first feeling was one of irritation. It doesn’t take much to irritate me when I’m at home these days. By mutual consent, Judy is in charge of our social arrangements. I graciously
make myself available on specified occasions, of which weekends are one, and Judy acts as diary secretary. She is supposed to go through a nominal consultation process, and once upon a time she
did. Now she announces unilateral policy initiatives like a government spokeswoman.
Lucy is her aunt, not mine. She is a disagreeable old bag – an assessment from which Judy does not dissent – whose sole virtues are substantial wealth, a lack of children, old age
and chronic ill health. So she does need to be visited, but as seldom as is consistent with our apparent concern for her. The fact that we don’t need her money is beside the point. This has
become a challenge to see if we can get it, and prise it away from the cats, dogs and other quadrupeds that Aunt Lucy believes, not unreasonably, love her more than any human being.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Can’t do it.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve got to go to Dorset.’
‘Oh. Really? What’s in Dorset?’
‘One of my whores.’
That had once been a good joke, and a useful one. When we were first married and I came home from work unexpectedly late, that was the excuse I gave. Since it was untrue, and Judy knew it was
untrue, it was funny. When it became true, it was such an established joke that Judy still found it funny, and I was spared the inconvenience of lying. At some point Judy ceased to find it funny,
and I never liked to enquire whether that was because the joke had become stale, or because she had started to suspect I might be telling the truth. To have stopped using the line would have drawn
unwanted attention to the subject, so I continued to trot it out, and Judy continued to find it annoying. Her attitude changed again, a few years ago, and again I don’t know why. Either my
claim had lost credibility with age, or Judy had become indifferent as to whether it was true or not. These days she usually ignored the remark, but not today.
‘Matthew, will you please stop saying that. It’s not funny.’
‘Oh all right. If you insist.’
‘Why do you have to go to Dorset?’
‘If you remember, we’re considering the sponsorship of a wind-farm project. Rupert wants me to run my eye over it.’
‘It seems a funny time for a business meeting. At the weekend.’
‘The people involved in the project have other jobs. I can’t see them together except at a weekend.’
‘I see. I think you might have told me sooner.’
‘It slipped my mind. Why don’t you go to Aunt Lucy on your own? It’s you she wants to see.’
‘I don’t think she wants to see anyone, except to find fault with them,’ said Judy. ‘Perhaps I’d better go, now I’ve said I will. We don’t want the old
bat taking umbrage.’
The wind-farm meeting had taken place a couple of weeks earlier. I had gone down by train on a Tuesday and come back the same day. I hadn’t told Judy. I needed the pretext for my visit to
Anna, and it needed to be for a weekend. It had been a month since the encounter at Tate Modern. An uneventful month. Lehman Brothers had gone bust. RBS and Lloyd’s had been bailed out. The
world’s financial system had collapsed. Nothing much had happened.
I felt terrific about the brouhaha. Thank goodness I didn’t still have a job, I thought. I watched Rupert Loxley and the other directors run around like headless chickens, summoning
emergency board meetings, cancelling them, rescheduling them, and decided I was well out of it. Because I was detached, my views were constantly sought. Even Rupert swallowed his pride and asked
for my advice. I said I would need to charge a consultancy fee. It was meant as a joke. Bugger me, he agreed.
People like the occasional crisis. Crises create adrenalin. They relieve boredom. They make people think that something matters, that they matter. There’s always a sense of anticlimax when
crises end. My advice may have been sought, but it was not taken. It insulted their egos. There was nothing any of them could do. They were bits of balsa wood in a hurricane. I advised locking the
doors for a few weeks and going on holiday. That was not what they wanted to hear. They wanted to be told that their input would be of crucial importance, that they alone, by doing the right thing
at the right time, could avert Armageddon. God, we’re all so stupid.
During that month, I made no attempt to contact Anna. I told myself that I was playing it cool, which was what I told myself as a teenager when I left it a good ten minutes before ringing the
latest excitement. In truth, I was having second thoughts. I wanted Anna desperately, but desperation seemed an insufficient motive for action.
At the back of my mind was a small power tool, attempting to drill a simple and unwelcome thought into my skull: ‘You’re only doing this, knobhead, because Anna rejected you in
’67 and you want to show her she was wrong.’ I had, I thought, an impressive array of arguments to convince the power tool it was mistaken, but the drill was impervious to rational
debate and persisted in boring me with its mantra. It didn’t succeed in dissuading me from my intentions, but it induced a paralysis when it came to implementing them.
Judy’s announcement of the proposed visit to Aunt Lucy offered an escape from this impasse and I seized it before I had time to think about it.
‘Yes, you go on your own,’ I said. ‘Excellent idea.’
‘Very well,’ said Judy. ‘Although she’ll be disappointed not to see you. Are you playing golf this afternoon?’
‘Yes. Unless you have other plans.’ This was a symbolic remark, symbolizing nothing.
‘I thought I’d go to the garden centre. It’s nearly winter, after all, and I really must get something for that bed under the ornamental cherry for next spring.’
‘Good idea,’ I said.
‘And don’t forget the Carsons are coming to lunch tomorrow.’
‘The Carsons?’
‘Oh, Matthew, do pay attention. I play tennis with Jezzy Carson. Her husband’s this year’s chairman of the Rotary. You met them at the fork supper for the
Conservatives.’
‘I was under a general anaesthetic that night,’ I said. ‘Have you really got a friend called Jezzy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Amazing. Please say her husband’s called Ahab.’
‘He’s called Brian. And she’s Jessica really.’
My sixtieth was nearly five months ago now. I couldn’t honestly say it had been forgotten. I was reasonably sure, for example, that if I ever reached my seventieth, it would be celebrated
differently. Life had returned to what passed for normal. Judy had granted a conditional pardon. My children were talking to me, although, now I come to think of it, I hadn’t seen either of
their partners in the interim. However, Judy was still not issuing social invitations to the friends present that night, possibly because we weren’t receiving any from them. She was therefore
reduced to entertaining people who were even more distant acquaintances than the acquaintances who passed for friends. Ahab and Jezebel were two of them.
‘Remind me what Ahab does when he’s not rotating,’ I said.
‘He’s senior partner at a firm of accountants in Potters Bar,’ said Judy. ‘Jezzy knows you work in the City. She says Brian’s itching to talk to someone who’s
in the eye of the storm.’
If it was nearly five months since my birthday, it must have been more than four since I’d lost my job. Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself? I had more or less
persuaded myself that I was still in work. Somewhere, at the back of my mind, I must have known that I was deceiving myself. Surely I knew that I was out of work and would never work again,
didn’t I? I must have realized that I would have to tell Judy at some point, that the longer I left it the worse it would be, that those dread thoughts of a barren future would have to be
confronted. Hadn’t I? I ask, not rhetorically, but because I don’t know the answers. I fear that I had believed my own delusion. I don’t know how long one has to live a lie before
it starts to feel like the truth. Perhaps not for very long.
I had no idea what I was going to say to Ahab about life in the City during la-la time. When I used to tell people I worked there, they assumed I must be a banker of some sort, as Ahab probably
did. I always bridled at the assumption. That had little to do with the present reputation of bankers; everything to do with how I imagined myself when I was growing up. Our generation was meant to
be different. We invented sex and music, and freedom and peace, and all sorts of things that turned out to be unpatentable. We invented ourselves, in fact. And we didn’t invent ourselves in
order to become bankers or accountants, to work in a nine-to-five job until we were sixty-five, collect a gold watch and a pension, and die shortly afterwards. We were not planning to die at all.
We would be immortal.
I don’t think we considered who was to do the banking and the accounting that we were not proposing to do ourselves. I think we hoped that these careers would prove redundant in the future
we were about to create. They had to do with the movement of money, which was deeply boring. Money existed. That was the secret we knew and our parents didn’t. They thought that money was
illusory, that you had to slave all your life to make it real, and not spend it in case it became illusory again. We knew that it simply existed, and that its purpose in life was to be spent. That
was how it reproduced itself. That was why it existed in greater quantities every year.
Our life’s work was not to shuffle this stuff around. Our life’s work was to change the world and to reinvent human nature: modest ambitions that we felt to be well within our
compass.
I’ve now spent most of a lifetime sitting in an office off Leadenhall Street, shuffling the stuff around. I consider myself a failure and a hypocrite. I have always told people, and more
especially myself, that I work as a gambler, because that sounds more rakish, more subversive. Since it has been revealed that bankers are gamblers too, that the entire City is an offshore offshoot
of Ladbroke’s, it is thought neither rakish nor subversive, but greedy and seedy. I note that our corporate brochure, which once portrayed the art of buying futures as the epitome of
daredevilry and flair, now emphasizes prosaic research-based virtues.