by Luke Tredget
‘What do you think about Greece?’ she says.
‘The country?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s one of my favourites. I’ve always wanted to live there.’
Anna laughs. Geoff asks why, and she says it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. She leans back into him and feels herself sinking, floating downwards; still standing, she falls into a sleep that is not sleep but something else drowsy and tranced, until Geoff suddenly dredges up a forgotten phrase from her childhood.
‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Time to hit the hay.’
‘My nan used to say that.’
‘Mine said “time to take you up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire”.’
She laughs, says she is from Bedfordshire, and then admits to being tired.
‘It’s been a long day. Just a moment longer.’
They continue standing, and she thinks it has indeed been a long day; its beginning feels as distant as the furthest twinkling lights, or even the stars above. But it is about to come to an end, as all days must. She isn’t sure of the precise time, perhaps it is 1 a.m. or 2 a.m., but that is irrelevant. Days aren’t measured on clocks, they are expanses of consciousness cut into shape by sleep. And this day, her thirtieth birthday, is about to end, and her youth is about to end with it. Her youth, all that fumbling and fear and self-deception, is packed away. And life – her real life – is about to begin.
3
Thursday
Mozambique has been host to many large-scale calamities, but the floods of 2013 were particularly disastrous. A prolonged rainy season and successive typhoons meant that two great rivers – the Limpopo and Zambezi – burst their banks and turned their sprawling basins into lakes the size of Belgium. Half a million people were made homeless, thousands drowned, and some unfortunate souls were eaten by farmed crocodiles that used the rising water to swim free of their cages. The UN decreed the emergency a ‘Level 3’, which means that most humanitarian agencies – Unicef, WHO, UNHCR, WFP – have to react in some way, as does a little-known branch of the UN network, the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service, or UNHAS, a fleet of light aircraft and helicopters that can be deployed to extreme disaster situations where normal infrastructure has been knocked out.
Anna stops reading to have a sip of coffee and look up at the big board. Her Sahina article is still at number six, with 5068 current readers. Ingrid is sitting next to her, with her headphones in and her foot tucked beneath her bum; the uppermost curl of the tattoo meaning ‘calm’ is just visible above the collar of her shirt, which stands in contrast to the fact she’s seemed tense and agitated all week. Across the clearing, Stuart is sitting at his desk, presumably because someone from on high, perhaps even Clem himself, has intervened to stop him using the Quiet Room as his own personal office. It is a typical Thursday afternoon, just gone 3 p.m. She has been in her thirties for almost a week.
Anna opens Instagram and finds the close-up photo of the broken name tag that Geoff told her to focus on. On Monday she tweeted the picture with a zoomed-in inset of the beginning of the emblem, and a new follower, @cloud_nine, posted a picture on the #ahardcase thread of a name tag on his own suitcase, containing a complete version of the same grey emblem, along with the UNHAS logo. ‘How many people would use UNHAS during a single disaster?’ she asked him, during the excitable follow-up exchange. ‘A few dozen, max,’ he said, and added that UNHAS probably had a record of all passengers. She had him reconfirm this, unable to believe her luck – she could now see her man standing at the carousel, clearer than ever. She can picture him at Heathrow, abandoning his suitcase and running to catch a flight to Nepal because of an earthquake, or Iraq because of a wave of displaced people, or Indonesia because of another typhoon.
Anna condenses this information into three tweets, complete with an overview of the flood that was happening in Mozambique in February 2013, and an appeal to her lovely followers to see if they are linked with anyone at the UN. After posting these she goes to the kitchen for water, where she encounters some gossip; Beatrice and Mike are in there whispering, and they happily share with Anna the rumour that Paula is set to be promoted to managing editor of the website, second only to Clem. When Anna returns to her desk she sees the number of people reading her article has increased slightly, to 5074, and these six extra readers make her feel happy and grateful, and even more pleased to have written it. Over the last week she has reread it numerous times, and on each occasion the stunted sentences seem less offensive, the clichés less clunking. Maybe her initial repulsion was due to the paranoid expectation of an angry call from Sahina’s office, demanding they redact parts of the article or else remove it completely. But the call didn’t come, and it has occurred to Anna that Sahina expected the article to demonise her; maybe she even wanted this. Her scary persona is half the reason she is talked about so much, after all; perhaps she sees the propagation of this myth as necessary for her global brand. While feeling at peace with the Sahina article, Anna is thrilled at the prospect of meeting Gwyneth Paltrow, and whoever the other eight women are; during a three-minute hallway chat with Paula, she said that Stella McCartney was in the frame, and maybe even Meryl Streep, if she comes to the UK to promote her new film. Women at the Top is a good thing, she has concluded. No, a great thing. She will finish the series and then use it as a basis to look for bigger and better things – field reporting jobs, an overseas assignment, a true crime investigation.
The big board refreshes, and yesterday’s April Fool story – about people being able to send text messages simply by thinking about it – slips further down, overtaken by an interview with Elon Musk. At the very top, with more hits than all the other stories combined, is the live blog following the European Court of Justice’s decision to uphold the Austrian High Court’s ruling, and insist that Kismet allow the heartbroken man to see his profile data. The story has been an almost constant presence on the bank of TV screens, and it is there again now, on Al Jazeera: Raymond Chan can be seen speaking at this morning’s press conference, for the first time ever not wearing a smile, the subtitles relaying his pronouncement that this is a sad day for Kismet, and a sad day for anyone who has been made happy by it. The Austrian man clearly doesn’t agree; he is seen in the next shot celebrating outside the courtroom, pumping his fist in the air.
‘Cheer up, Raymond,’ says Anna, reaching for her phone. She taps out a message – Are you free? – and a few seconds later, almost as quick as a reply in a spoken conversation, he writes back – No, I come at a very high price. She tells him that he’s not funny, and over the course of six messages they decide that she will go to his right away, as he tells her he wants to fuck her until she forgets her own name.
She shuts down her computer and puts her notepad in her bag; already her core temperature and heartbeat are rising, to think that in thirty minutes she will be naked in his bed, entangled and thrusted about, all of her senses stimulated to bursting point.
‘You’re leaving already?’ says Ingrid, pulling out her headphones.
‘I’ve done enough for the day.’
‘But you’ve been on Twitter all afternoon.’
For a moment Anna is shocked by this insight, since the slight curve of their desk means that Ingrid cannot see her screen. But then she remembers that Ingrid is a new follower – one of several hundred from just the last few days, including a Guardian journalist – and will have seen all of today’s tweets.
‘It’s getting exciting, isn’t it? The net is closing. I think we’re actually going to find him.’ Ingrid’s frown indicates that she isn’t willing to share in Anna’s excitement, that she genuinely is concerned about Anna’s work. ‘Seriously, though, I’ve done all I can for Women at the Top. The Gwyneth Paltrow interview has been pushed back until Monday, and Stuart has already approved my questions.’
‘Why the delay?’
‘It was Romont’s shout. They wanted to keep the Sahina piece for another weekend.’
‘Another weekend
?’ says Ingrid. She is clearly startled. A client deciding to extend an article is the ultimate sign of success, and a rare one at that, measured in a way that is only seen by senior management, and for which the numbers on the big board are just a proxy. Anna simply nods, and Ingrid seems to gather enough goodwill to smile and say congratulations. There has been a series of adjustments in their relationship this week, as Ingrid has become more and more of a peer, and Anna feels another crank towards equilibrium as she gracefully accepts Ingrid’s good wishes. Then her phone buzzes in her hand: Please don’t be too long. I am walking around like a tiger in a cage.
‘So I deserve the afternoon off, right? If Stuart asks, tell him I’ve got to let a plumber in, would you?’ She regrets saying this immediately; it is the sort of thing a sleazy adulterous boss would ask of his secretary. Ingrid’s face screws up, and Anna rushes to make amends. ‘In fact, don’t tell him anything. I’ll tell him myself. I’m coming in early tomorrow. Earlier than both of you.’
Ingrid smiles thinly, and Anna says goodbye and leaves. Even as she walks across the clearing, Anna can sense that Ingrid’s smile will have been replaced by her typical agitated scowl. These past days Anna has noticed, for the first time, that when Ingrid works she is bristling with stress – if you watch her closely you can almost see her buzzing. The tattoo meaning calm, Anna has realised, isn’t so much a boast but an aspiration, an elaborate note-to-self. This is one of several revisions she has made to her view of Ingrid; it is almost like some enhancing filter has been removed. She has also noticed how lonely Ingrid seems without her boyfriend, and senses the arguments and bitter resentment that must underpin his three-month stints in the jungle. Her online galleries appear different to Anna as well. The images of her friends on Facebook – this week on a walk around Victoria Park – have an irrefutable performative quality, and raise the question of why they feel it necessary to publish so many photos of themselves having fun. What are they trying to prove, exactly? And why? It feels like Anna can see the real Ingrid for the first time – complete with her frailties, anxieties – and as she waits for the lift Anna decides to be nicer to her. With each passing day she becomes more convinced that soon she will leave this place for good, and it would be a shame not to do so on a high.
*
Fifty minutes later she is lying beneath the duvet, her limbs feeling as slack as a pile of cut rope. She is watching the floor-to-ceiling window as if it is a cinema screen, the view of the city – which appears to her on its side, with the sky to the left – holding her attention as much as the most riveting film. She hasn’t yet had a chance to test the theory that she could gaze like this all day without getting bored, but she has learnt that the view is indeed better during the day than at night. The city is spread out like an intricately woven carpet, a complex of greens and reds and greys and blacks, that partially makes up for this being the most boring stretch of London, barren of all landmarks, with nothing but bland suburbia between here and the shallow green hills on the horizon. More interesting than the buildings and neighbourhoods is the weather; from this height it is possible to watch the dark heavy clouds roll in from the southwest, bringing with them rain and wind and what feels like a premature twilight. But Anna likes it when rain smatters the glass wall – as it is doing now – since it enhances the cosiness of being in bed within a room where the temperature is perfectly consistent throughout, as if an ambient warmth is filling every nook and cranny like a liquid.
Geoff pushes the door open with his foot and carries a dainty silver tea tray into the room. He is wearing a thin gown with oversize cuffs that reminds Anna of a kimono, but is apparently from Istanbul.
‘Your bedroom is on the wrong side,’ says Anna.
‘I beg your pardon?’ he says, setting down the tray on the bedside table. She tells him that there is nothing interesting to look at, apart from the nice colours and the clouds, and he baulks at this suggestion.
‘I’ll have you know that some of the most important political developments of the twentieth century happened just beyond this glass,’ he says, pouring green tea into two cups and passing one to Anna, who props herself on an elbow to receive it. ‘The other side – St Paul’s and Westminster and all – they’re just distractions, that isn’t where the real action happens.’
‘Here we go,’ she says, rolling her eyes, as if in protest at the impending lecture, but she knew her statement would elicit such a response, and wanted nothing less. He goes to the window and begins pointing at landmarks and giving a potted history of why they are significant – the Brixton riots, the Putney debates, the Stockwell shooting. His gown has fallen open and his soft penis is visible between the two hanging flanks, appearing to nod along with his talk.
‘You know I can’t see what you’re pointing at,’ she says, between tiny bird sips of the scalding liquid. ‘My eyes need to be in alignment with your finger.’
‘It’s the stories that matter, anyway,’ he says. ‘Stories of rebellion, of the fringes challenging the establishment. My favourite kind of stories. I have always felt a solidarity with the fringes. The rebels. The dispossessed.’
‘Is that why you live in such modest surroundings?’
He smiles at this, says touché, and then a darkness comes across his eyes and he says, in a dastardly way, that it’s all the better to keep an eye on the enemy. Anna laughs out loud and says he doesn’t have any enemies. While dropping his gown and getting into bed behind her – his hairy chest feels like a carpet tile pressed against her back – he explains that his fellow residents of Strata SE1, who only live so high so they can pretend to have nothing to do with Elephant and Castle, are the enemy, or close enough.
‘They bring out the worst in me. Every time I see them in the lift or the lobby, I sense their self-satisfaction. They are the ultimate disciples of the prevailing ideology, and this building is the culmination of everything they’ve worked towards.’ Maintaining an entirely serious tone, though Anna listens hard for signs that he’s joking, he adds that he sees them walking out of the station, looking like a different species to the brown and black workers in the market. ‘And eventually they probably will be, since the human race will evolve into two subsets: those able to pay £20 a month for Kismet, and those who aren’t.’
‘Jesus,’ says Anna. ‘You really are a paranoid fucker.’
‘Maybe I’m exaggerating.’
‘Living here to keep an eye on the enemy?’
‘Let’s also not forget that this was a snip. And it’s a shortterm arrangement; I won’t be here long.’
This statement lands with a thud. In the ensuing silence Anna wonders what ‘here’ means in this context. This flat? This city? This country? It would be too bold to ask directly, and she searches for a tactful way of teasing out the information.
‘Sometimes I think of leaving London, too,’ she says. He doesn’t contradict her, just begins rubbing her left shoulder. ‘I’d like to live somewhere with more space, light, warmth,’ she continues. Geoff hums in agreement, and she leans her shoulder into his rubbing fingers, which are forceful and systematic. She is tempted to elaborate on her last statement by saying that she would like to live in southern Europe – maybe an Italian or Greek island – and that in the vivid fantasies that have illuminated her most recent bouts of insomnia, he is always there beside her. But she suppresses the desire to say this, as she does when the urge to ask him to switch off Kismet rears up within her, usually following a particularly amusing conversation that culminates in the number 81 flashing above his head. Anna isn’t one to conform to gender roles, but for some reason – maybe because Geoff is significantly older – she feels the suggestion of switching off Kismet has to come from him. In fact, she already feels she has said too much, and decides to backtrack.
‘I shouldn’t move abroad though. My brother moved to Australia and it would be too hard on my mum. He thought of it first.’
‘How selfish of him.’
‘Youngest child,’
she says. ‘But maybe I don’t need to move anyway, it’s just wanderlust; perhaps I just need a weekend away.’
This makes Geoff laugh.
‘It’s a tough decision: moving away for good, or going away for the weekend. Perhaps do the latter first: it will be like watching the trailer before seeing the film.’
‘Exactly.’
‘How about a spa break?’ he says, pushing her shoulder so forcefully that she is rolled onto her front. Then he jumps up to straddle her arse, and begins chopping and slapping her back.
‘Owww!’
‘Go with the pain. Don’t fight it, it’s a wave. Go with it.’
‘Get off me, you hippy.’
His genitals are resting on her bum like a sack of loose skin, and she wonders if they will have sex again. Surely not: for one thing, Geoff has a meeting about his project at 7 p.m. But the pads of his fingers press into her side ribs, then reach around to her breasts, pinching and pushing in a way that is just the right side of pain. She can feel the sack of skin resting on her bum changing shape, coming to life like a timelapse film of a flower blooming, and the spit in her mouth thins to a sweet water, knowing that they will.
*
Forty minutes later, Anna is standing at the bus stop opposite Elephant and Castle station, waiting for the 148 to Kilburn. Further along from the station is the beginnings of the market, and she watches three older women of unclear ethnic heritage – they could be Latino, or Russian, or Asian, or some modern hybrid of each – packing up their stall. One of them looks up at Anna, as if sensing her attention, then glances down again. What did she see? Just another white English girl waiting for a bus? Or does she know, perhaps in a way that is beyond her conscious awareness, that Anna has had three orgasms in two hours? It seems impossible that she doesn’t look different to the grey commuters around her, or to how she looked a few weeks ago; it feels she should be glowing slightly. The 148 trundles to the stop, and its appearance makes Anna realise how much fun she is having, or, more accurately, how much fun she is having compared to the prospect of going home. She watches a few people step off, some others get on board, then the doors close and the bus drive off, while she stands still. The information board says that two other buses are due imminently, the 136 and the 341, and she goes to the big map in the bus shelter. Her finger follows the squiggly orange line of the 136 to Lewisham and then the southeastern hinterland, names she’s never heard of: Lee, Eltham, Bexleyheath. This reminds her of a game that she and Zahra and Hamza and Caz used to play when they first moved to London. They would pick a random place in the city that none of them had been to, and then go there on a Saturday afternoon with the intention of exploring – though usually getting no further than the first half-decent pub they stumbled across. Tube map lottery, they called it. Her heart swells with nostalgia, and it feels like fate when her finger follows the purple line of the 341 right up to Islington. She thinks of another person and responsibility that she has been putting off, which she now resolves to avoid no longer: Zahra.