All the Rage

by A. L. Kennedy

  The stones underneath him were draining his heat. His mother said if he was outside he ought to keep moving and warm and not in a dream. She worried when he was without her and warned him about not getting into cars, or talking to men or women he didn’t know, about everything he wouldn’t do anyway, because he wasn’t an idiot.

  He wasn’t that kind of idiot.

  Never mind.

  Quite close by, a gull wandered and pecked into shadows, stepping as badly and stupidly as everything else. It limped on, swaying when the wind cuffed it, clinging the grubby pink webs of its feet round the stones. No one was lovely here, or fast and easy – no one but his dog.

  With a dog he would be protected.

  They both would.

  That was obvious.

  She needed a rest currently because she was a puppy and that was all right and they could keep being like they should and having a play about for another hour. Then his dad would have finished talking to his mother and would want to tell Simon goodbye and go home and be with Pauline. After last time, Sandra hadn’t come along. She’d only made not-good banana rolls for the trip and kissed his hair, which she hadn’t done before and so she was useless at it and banged his head with her chin. She’d waved them goodbye. Simon had been in the passenger seat, although he’d wanted to sit in the back beside the dog’s cage, because for his dog the cage meant a change was happening and that was mostly going to see the vet and so she’d be upset. Earlier in the morning, Simon had tried to explain that she wouldn’t be meeting the vet, she’d be meeting a different house with the sea near it. The words wouldn’t work, though – he hadn’t expected they would – and when he tried again in the car he’d been loud because of the distance and speaking above the engine, and loud wasn’t calm, it was shouting.

  He’d been hoping that if he was calm and sounded it, then she would be the same. They were often the same. Except that she was too upset to hear him. She’d howled for the whole of the journey, which was her very loudest noise, her shouting, and fair enough when she believed that he ought to come and save her. Fair enough. She wasn’t being bad. It had seemed like her own voice was causing her harm, like she was tearing. You could laugh about her, because she was being a baby, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t awful when you had to hear how scared she was. His dad yelled so that she would stop, but after that the howl got worse and really horrible.

  They’d all been a bit odd when they’d arrived.

  His mother was odd back at them and then turned round fast and headed for the kitchen. There was a silence that trailed from where she’d been standing, very thick and obvious, leading into the hall. Simon carried the cage and felt the strangeness of how it shifted when his dog moved inside. When he was close, his dog had gone quiet and he’d spoken to her gently about her being welcome home.

  Simon spent holidays and some weekends with his father, but lived mainly in his mother’s flat, which he told his dog was a house.

  Really, both his parents lived in half-houses, which made sense, because when they didn’t hate each other because of sex, they had lived in one whole house. Simon didn’t like that everything was smaller since the separation – which was what came before a divorce – and his dad had no garden and at his mother’s they had to share with the lady upstairs who owned all the flowers, which wasn’t sharing – it was putting up with someone being greedy.

  And his dad had Sandra in his halved house – up the stairs with the worn-out carpet and this is your room for when you come: wardrobe with a creaky door and sheets that smelled funny. Sandra made his dad scared. He would try and hide it, but that just meant that Simon would look and have to pretend he didn’t see when his dad’s face got frightened and sad. It was to do with kissing. After kissing. Or during. Not at first, but always it would happen. Like the fat man getting undressed and then being no use in the water, disappointing himself.

  He was finished with trying to swim – the fat man – and creeping up to his towel, most of him red with the cold and his legs perhaps not exactly doing what he expected, due to being tired.

  Simon watched.

  The man didn’t like being watched.

  Simon watched more.

  His dog snuggled and pushed, then smoothed back to stillness.

  She could be perfectly, amazingly still. The moment before he bent to lift her she would drop into this peace, would be only waiting for him and peace. It tingled his fingers.

  The man was unpeaceful, doubled over and his towel flapping round his legs as he fussed inside it and his wet trunks appearing, clinging down his shins. He’d still be wet when he put on his trousers. He hadn’t been enjoying himself.

  Adults didn’t know how to enjoy anything. They did stuff and then wondered why they’d bothered. They couldn’t decide what they wanted.

  Simon’s dad would think that they ought to all squash on the sofa in the lounge at his place and watch DVDs, but it was awkward. There’d be proper adventures and good bits in the films, but then the top man and top woman would have sex, or at least kissing. And Simon would be caught between his dad – who’d miss breaths during the kisses – and Sandra – who was made of bigness and curves and trying not to laugh. The three of them would have to stay put until the sex stopped. Then his dad would ask if anyone wanted tea, or crisps, or a can of something and he’d go off and be sort of hiding, while Simon and Sandra pretended that he wasn’t, and then he’d come back and kiss both of them on the cheek, but still be not happy.

  Simon’s dad was with Sandra because of sex.

  His mum was not with anyone because of sex.

  Simon knew sex made you scared: scared and sad. And angry as well.

  Sex made you want to go and want to stay, which was impossible. It wasn’t a way of getting enjoyment.

  Simon felt his dog shift again. He looked at her and she looked back, gave a broad yawn. Before she could close her mouth again he set his thumb between her teeth and so she gave him a tiny, hot, secret bite. They did that – it had a meaning for them.

  She coiled, uncoiled and scrambled until she was set and organised and on her feet, ready for goings-on, braced. Simon stood – his legs cold where she wasn’t any more – and threw her ball, saw her leap into a half-spin and pursue it. They were heading away from the fat man and his troubles. Simon decided to hate him and gave him a farewell stare. The man stumbled. Simon wondered if being ignored would make someone stumble as much as being stared at, but didn’t check.

  Next he wondered why people would be naked with each other and do what they did when they were so ugly. Or, after the first time, it wasn’t clear to him how they’d keep on. Simon knew that he’d never be able to, wouldn’t want to. He wouldn’t be that kind of idiot, either.

  He rubbed his hands together. In movies and on telly, people did that to show they were cold.

  He was.

  Forgot his gloves.

  Like his own kind of idiot.

  It would take twenty minutes to get home, which wasn’t long. He could add another ten or fifteen minutes with dodging about, but there wouldn’t be much point.

  Up ahead, birds were fretting in a mob not far offshore. Simon slipped and trudged closer until he could see they were mainly terns – the spiky, small ones, sharp wingtips – hovering and peering and then throwing themselves into the water like something angry. Like being furious. They would spring up to the surface again with thin silver trembles of fish in their beaks. So there must be a shoal trapped underneath and they were raiding it, killing. Bobbing by itself was a tall, round-headed bird, pale and noticeable. Simon wasn’t sure what it was until it started a long, clumsy flap across the wave tops and then eased into the air: mournful, winding upwards, huge and slow. A young gannet. Which shouldn’t be here. They were for cliffs and up-high places. Its problem was that it was young and didn’t know what it should do.

  The dog rattled up and dropped the ball, which Simon threw without caring about where, so that it splashed into the shallows.
He was concentrating on the gannet as it wheeled in a long, cream reach. He saw the wings hinge, swing and tuck themselves back until the bird was brought to a clean point before it sleeked into the sea and disappeared. It stayed under for ages, was better than the others and strong against the current and okay.

  His dog was snapping at the waves, baffled, eyeing the ball as it wagged and teased, floating. She didn’t want to get her feet wet: she’d never had wet feet before.

  Some of the terns grew anxious.

  The gannet emerged to sway on the waves and eat. It belonged in the water and in the air. It was an expert. Simon and his dog were just land things, which seemed limiting, although Simon could think better than a bird’s thinking. He could think that he was fast in the brain and cleverer than any type of animal probably. He made plans. Which was why he knew he had to tell his parents about the gannet. It would rescue everything. Simon would stand here as he was against the salt wind and he would concentrate and teach himself how to get correctly excited about the bird and how to pass on wildlife information. Then he would go home and be what got their attention. His dad was interested in nature and his mum wanted him to have the benefit from lots of good experiences, and the gannet story would satisfy them both.

  But his dog wanted the ball, worried at the shoreline, yipped and pounced, and either this or his coming to make her quiet lost him the gannet. It stretched and pounded back into flight and turned from them both, whiter and whiter as it shrank, left.

  So there wouldn’t be enough to say.

  This was his dog’s fault, but Simon’s, too.

  His dog scampered to him, put her paws against his shins to greet him and he shut his eyes for a moment. Then he looked at her, found her, let her find him. She whined, because he wasn’t rubbing her ears, or fussing at her yet. He drew back a step and she let him go, before sitting – perhaps surprised – in front of him, liver-and-white and brave and wonderful.

  He kicked her.

  Never mind.

  The worst thing he had ever done.

  Never mind.

  The one short cry she made hit into him and then she was quiet and crouching and batting against him and her head dropped and her tail uncertain and she touched him and touched him and touched him and he knelt and held her and whispered he was sorry and held her more and rubbed his face next to hers and let her lick it.

  Never mind.

  His one hand was cupped under her ribs, and the whole of who she was and would be was in there and was moving and was all for him. She would let him do anything and was his.

  Never mind.

  And he was hers.

  And he would take her back home with nothing to defend them and nothing to break his mother’s attention and to stop her explaining that his father should never have bought a dog and that presents as big as that should be discussed and they couldn’t keep it, they couldn’t afford it – vet’s bills, food, mess, equipment – and his father couldn’t afford it, either. And his father would agree. His dad wasn’t steady and would fall when his mother pushed.

  A dog wasn’t possible. It would be decided. His mother wouldn’t give them a chance, wouldn’t spend the evening with his dog and be patient and find how they could be.

  Simon had known this.

  Never mind.

  He’d been right when he didn’t give his dog a name.

  A Thing Unheard-of

  THE THING IS, you know they’ll be thinking much the same. They will be planning some version of your plan and it’s only a matter of time and so forth before they get into action, begin taking steps. And their steps will be very similar to your steps, the ones which you would take, so you’re fully forewarned and yet still vulnerable, because they’ll have many plans, some more and some less dreadful, and you’ll never be able to guess which one they’ll pick. You can’t pre-empt that kind of galloping inspiration and perhaps you shouldn’t. And perhaps you’ll agree with their final decision – it might turn out that you can’t distinguish it from the one that you would have deployed, had you got in first. Your opposite number is, you’re wholly certain, in general and in the particular not your opposite, which is an issue, a real trial. You know what they know and vice versa, and your mutual knowing cannot be undone and your anxieties and counter-measures therefore escalate as theirs undoubtedly do, too. You feel at risk from them, as they must do from you, which means they will act and therefore so must you, because their risks will generate actions which cause your risks, or your fears will cause actions which will summon their duly risk-propagating response. It’s all very unpredictable, but also guaranteed. It could be nothing else.

  And, most likely, you’re now both thinking in total unison – I will make conversation when we meet and I will say, ‘The coffee here’s good.’ That’s what I’ll begin with. Straight after good morning or good afternoon, or whatever is appropriate.

  Morning would be best: it’s the least emotionally charged time of day and will be brighter and have a sense of moving on, of futures and being uplifted.

  Although it can also produce an atmosphere of having just left one’s bed. That scent. The good one.

  But afternoons could get cantankerous and evenings are too mellow and unfurling and nights are clearly a threat.

  The coffee here’s good.

  The coffee here’s good this morning.

  But why would you decide to say that? Why on earth? Who would that mean you’d become? It would turn you into somebody misleading, casual, and a person who’ll seem cruel in retrospect. You don’t want that. You’re not cruel.

  They’re not cruel, either.

  You have faith they wouldn’t choose to be.

  But they might, nonetheless, have found it necessary.

  Anyway, you’re fussy about coffee and haven’t been somewhere with a really good brew available in years, not with coffee worth a positive mention, so remarking upon it randomly in some mediocre venue would be weird, if not laughable, and this won’t be an issue even, because, as you consider it thoroughly, a meeting at a café would be inappropriate. You’ve enjoyed that sort of niceness before, but you shouldn’t again. It could lead you astray. Once you’d arrived, you might start relaxing, even though you’d be feeling lousy, and then you’d brush fingers while you chat with them and share opinions and none of it would end at the intended end. So you won’t go to a café in the first place.

  And visiting each other’s homes would be an act of violence.

  You can’t.

  You won’t.

  You couldn’t.

  You won’t go anywhere.

  You won’t meet.

  You are unable.

  You shouldn’t trap yourself in a position where you see their mouth, study their mouth and the movement of their lips and the terrible softandgentleness of everything: the dark and lovely, clever softening.

  It would be a disaster.

  Hi.

  Likewise, every possible form of address – any speaking when you’re together – would be wrong.

  How are you?

  What does that mean?

  What are the implications?

  You’re a person who weighs implications and so are they, and that’s a factor to consider while you plan. Despite the unfortunate circumstances, you want to be kind and do this right. They will do too. And there’s the question of respecting the other party who’s also involved and who has no way to alter this and neither can you.

  I just can’t.

  I’m not sure any more.

  I was never sure.

  But I’m sure I can’t.

  And meanwhile you, there’s you and you were, you really, you absolutely – I absolutely – in all of the ways I would like to – in all of the ways I would like

  But I

  But I

  But I

  But I

  Phone would be better.

  Getting clear of the same room, or building, or street would seem better, easier.

  Much.
>
  Much worse, if you’re being frank. Only a moral bankrupt would attempt to make this tidy over the phone.

  Only a moral bankrupt would view this in terms of being tidy, and you’re not that. Your terminology was a mistake. The permanent grief that you have in the muscles along your forearms since you can’t remember when is destroying your vocabulary and you scramble for phrases as if you’re abroad somewhere inexplicable and scary. Sometimes your head is stuffed with no more than noises and you’re afraid that, if you tried to speak, an animal mess would be the best you’d manage. You’d squeal and be undignified. There’s also a long, anxious tendon, or connective something, a strained nerve, that stings when you reach to the left, or roll over at night – your sleep is, naturally, ruined – and there’s a sense that when you swallow you come inappropriately close to drowning.

  I’m not drowning.

  I don’t want to.

  Your mind is unworkable and over-full.

  Perhaps theirs is equally busy with aches and scrambles.

  I could make a call, though. I could write down the points I should cover and be reassured and then deliver them presentably.

  But if you phone, you’ll hear them breathing, precisely as they might when they’re skin-tight to your cheek and they find out the secrets along your neck and are warm and dense and interesting – they fit so much motion against you, demonstrate such a burden of potential, even when they’re at rest. There are other people who are communicative as fence posts when you hold them: truly numbing, somehow. As if they had gone and left something dead, propped up in the space behind them. Or there are those who are peculiarly, or almost unnervingly, a horrible shape when touched. They’re like badly packed duffel bags with absurdist contents. You don’t like them. They are acquaintances. Or less.

  Your life has uncomfortable requirements, one of them apparently that you should hold the unholdable as part of many low-grade social interactions. Comprehensive contact is the fashion currently. How this has come about is beyond you. You didn’t ask for it.

  You ask for very little.