Trading Futures (16 page)

I need to know in which direction I’m headed, in which direction my life is headed. I need some certainty. That’s what I need. Certainty. No more faffing about. The one thing that
will provide certainty is to make the call.

Yet I prevaricate.

I can only assume there is some part of me that resists certainty, that is afraid of the future whatever it may be, that prefers the lantern dimly shining to the glare of a greater light. Give
light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and guide our feet into the way of slippers.

Another car seems to be following me.

I could make the call now. I could find a lay-by and make the call. I could manage without the lay-by. Who needs a lay-by?

I wish I could find a proper telephone. There ought to be a line: a fixed line that will connect this barren reach of Wiltshire, or Hampshire, or wherever I am, to a barren house in Barnet. Or
that fails to connect it. A fixed line that will tug me in one direction or the other, future or past, whichever may be which. Hang out your washing on the Siegfried Line. Plenty of dirty washing
here, I can tell you.

I could make the call now. I am quite decided. Yet it seems unseemly to act on the basis of a decision that has settled on me so recently. Is this what thirty-five years of marriage are worth? I
can hear my wife say. Actually I can’t, because she’s in Barnet. Or on the M1 perhaps. Five minutes of consideration? That is not the equation. It hasn’t been five minutes of
consideration. It’s been either a nanosecond or the whole of my adult life. But it still sounds bad, even to me, the only one to whom it will ever sound at all. So I will hold off a while.
But not too much longer, or Judy will be more likely to be home.

This makes it sound as if I have a preference as to the outcome. In fact, it makes it sound as if I’m trying to rig the outcome. That’s a ridiculous idea. You can’t choose
anything in life with certainty as to the outcome.

I could, for example, have called Judy the moment I made my decision, when she was unlikely to be home, and have found her unexpectedly there. I could now delay for an hour or two, when she
would seem certain to have returned, to find her absent, gone to the shop for a pint of milk or a packet of Maltesers, caught in the slipstream of an accident on the M1. An asteroid might strike
the earth and make the issue redundant. No: this is not a moment for calculation, but of destiny. The outcome will be what it will be, whenever I make the call.

We live in a rational age. We are supposed to weigh our options and make a calm choice between them. What if we can’t? What if we don’t have a pair of kitchen scales and John Lewis
can’t make a delivery before Thursday? What if we don’t know what to do, if we feel so hopelessly lost that a decision is impossible, if the sum total of our experience and our wisdom
is of no practical use to us? We still need to make choices. Random, arbitrary choices. And we still need to defend them, to say why we made them when Cardinal Newman asks us on the Northern Line
next Tuesday.

There are good reasons to stay with Judy, although they are not necessarily the reasons they ought to be. Judy’s love for me, her selfless support for me and our children over all these
years, her tolerance of my behaviour, of my drinking, even the vows I made to her; I’m afraid they count for nothing in this calculation. I realize this makes me sound like a shit, but at
least I’m an honest shit. This is a selfish world we have made for ourselves, and I’m as contaminated as anyone else.

The reasons for staying with Judy are venal. She will look after me. She will feed me. She will attempt to moderate me, will not put me under any pressure. She will care for me when I am ill.
She will be my memory when I no longer have one. She will scrape shit from the sheets when I am incontinent. She will bury me. No use saying that she might die first. She won’t. That will be
her greatest sacrifice. At whatever cost, she will keep herself alive long enough to do these things for me. Then she will rest, duty done.

There is a word I could use to describe this behaviour. I am not worthy of using it. The worst part is that I can accept all the comforts and reject the word that gives them meaning.

What about Anna? I’ve tried asking myself what would have happened if Anna had not been Anna, but some other woman I had started to chat up in Tate Modern. Would I be in this situation
now, driving up the A303, about to make this telephone call? Probably not, I think. Some of the rest of it, I expect. Perhaps even the visit to Somerset. Not more. And what if it had been Anna, but
I had not lost my job, was still secure in my own small corner of nothingness? I don’t think things would have happened in quite this way either.

This is no use. Circumstances are what they are. We always start from here. It is indeed Anna. And I have indeed lost my job. The interaction of these two things has set a top spinning that
hasn’t stopped spinning yet. Spin, spin, spin. Watch it spin.

I don’t know what living with Anna would be like. I’m now at peace with what happened in 1967. The hurdle of a past rejection has been removed. I can imagine some of what Anna has
needed to do to rebalance her life, because I now need to do something similar to my own. I don’t know how fragile she still is, how complete the convalescence has been. She has been greatly
damaged. I have no knowledge what further repairs, or ongoing maintenance, might be required. I may have to do for Anna what Judy would otherwise do for me. I don’t mind that. One element of
an old self-image may yet abide in me, the sole surviving element from ’67, the image of a man who wants no more in the world than to care for Anna, to love Anna. In her context, I can use
that word.

The choice might not exist, or not all at once. If the coin lands on Anna’s side in a few minutes, tails I’d think, and I find myself knocking on her door again later tonight, I
don’t know what reception I will get. In my wildest dreams, I will be admitted and will never leave. Few of my wild dreams have been realized, or any of my dreams. This might be one that
requires patience, possibly for months, possibly for years, possibly without any reward. That’s all right. I’ve done that before. I don’t mind living with hope. It’s living
without it that I can’t face any longer.

The fact that we made love this afternoon means nothing. At our age, we can screw around as if we were teenagers. When we are young, we don’t understand the emotions. When we are old, we
think we can handle them. It’s in the years between that things become complex, that everything has implications.

If Anna doesn’t welcome me back, if she makes it plain that she prizes her independence too much, or that her equilibrium is too precarious to run the risk, or that she simply
doesn’t like me a great deal, perhaps I will stay in the Blackdown Hills. I could recalibrate my affairs at arm’s length, make generous provision for Judy, and stay there. Find a small
cottage and rest up. I still don’t know what I’ll do with my time. I feel that the answers may come more readily there than in Barnet.

I really must make the call.

Aunt Lucy lives near Leicester. How far is that from Barnet? About an hour and a half, if I remember; say ten hours since Judy’s driving. Perhaps more on a Sunday evening. When would she
have left? She’ll be home to cook supper, because she’s always home to cook supper. Supper is at eight. Supper is always at eight in the monastery.

How far to the M3? Let me think. If this road is 303 miles long, which it must be, because that’s its name, and if I’ve driven 40 miles of it, to take a random number, then there
must be, there must be, well let’s say 250 miles to go. No. No. Because it started a long way back, before I got on it. Where did it start? Do you know, I haven’t the faintest idea. Not
the faintest. Back in the mists of time, I expect.

There was a tractor following me for a while. I gave it the slip after a few seconds. They’ll have to do better than a tractor if they want to follow me.

I had to stop a little way back. I needed to check if I’d left any pills in the glove compartment, but I hadn’t. I didn’t think I had. Then I checked on the floor, to see if
any had spilled out, the way they do. I did find something, but it tasted of mint. None of the other ones tasted of mint. Perhaps it’s some sort of promotional gimmick. Every tenth pill
tastes of mint. Makes you buy more.

When I set off on Friday, I left it open when I’d be back. The meetings would last most of Saturday, I said. I wouldn’t be back on Saturday night, I said. It was too far and I would
be tired. I would find a hotel and come back on Sunday, I said. I didn’t say at what time, and Judy hadn’t asked. She texted me yesterday to say that she had arrived safely at Aunt
Lucy’s and she hoped my weekend was going well. I didn’t reply. She wouldn’t expect me to.

There’s a village signposted a short distance to the right. I turn off the A303. Better to make the call in a quiet village than on that noisy road. Goodness, there’s a real
telephone box. Do they still exist? I think I’ll use it. Maybe it’s a replica. No it isn’t. There’s a real live telephone and it’s working.

I lift the receiver and call home. The answering machine will cut in after six rings. The phone rings five times.

‘Hello?’

‘Judy. You’re there.’

‘Yes, Matthew, I’m here. Where did you think I’d be? Where are you?’

‘Somewhere near Andover, I think.’

‘When will you be back?’

This isn’t the plan. I know there isn’t meant to be a plan, but this isn’t the plan. Judy isn’t supposed to be there. It’s raining, so this should be a day for
buying coffee. God has broken the rules. No, not god. What did I decide it was earlier? Gate. That’s what I decided it was. Gate has broken the rules. But two can play at that game.

‘I’m not coming back.’

‘What do you mean, Matthew?’

‘I’m not coming back, Judy. I’m leaving you.’

There is a long pause. I think we may have been cut off. That would be quite convenient. What else is there to talk about, for goodness’ sake?

‘Judy? Can you hear me?’ I shouldn’t have said that. Should’ve hung up.

‘Yes, Matthew. Only too well.’

‘It’s not working, Judy, is it? For us. You know that.’

‘There’ve been better times,’ says Judy. ‘But life goes up and down. You have to expect the bumps.’

‘It’s been one long bump for ages.’

‘If you say so. That’s not how I feel.’

‘Well, it’s how I feel,’ I say. ‘It’s time to stop pretending.’

‘Coming from you, Matthew, that’s a bit rich.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Do you think I don’t know what’s been going on since June?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Why do you think Rupert Loxley has allowed you to go on sitting in your office?’

‘Because he’s a moron.’

‘No, Matthew, because I asked him. You hadn’t felt able to tell me you’d lost your job. You were still pretending to go into work every day. I thought it would take some of the
pressure off if you still had an office to call your own.’

‘Wait a minute,’ I say. ‘Wait a minute. How did you know I’d lost my job?’

‘Rupert gave me a pretty broad hint of what was coming at your birthday party in May.’

‘How dare he! He didn’t give me any hint.’

‘He felt he had, but that you were ignoring it. He’s very fond of you, Matthew. I know you don’t want to believe it, but he is. I think he feels guilty about you. He was trying
to help you. We understood each other perfectly without needing to say much. I asked him to call me if he ever felt it was impossible for him to keep you on. He rang me the morning he let you go.
I’ve known all along. And I’ve done my best to encourage you to tell me, but you wouldn’t.’

‘Do you know what this is, Judy? It’s a conspiracy, that’s what it is. A stitch-up.’

‘Yes,’ says Judy. ‘It’s been a conspiracy to save you from yourself. And it’s worked quite well up until now, all things considered. I knew it would go wrong this
weekend.’

‘Why on earth should you think that?’

‘Because your wind-farm meeting happened several weeks ago, so whatever you’ve been up to in Dorset, if that’s where you’ve been, it wasn’t that. I thought it would
be good for you to have one or two things that felt like real work. When you seemed to be behaving yourself at the office, I asked Rupert if he couldn’t think of something for you to do. And
this is how you repay me.’

I can’t think of anything to say. What a cock-up. Completely lost control of the situation here. My fault. I’ve changed the plan. You can’t delegate to Gate and then start
cheating it.

‘Matthew, darling, you’re not a well man. You’re in no fit state to be making these sorts of decisions. We’re all worried about you. Not just me and Rupert. Sarah and
Adam too. I went to see Dr Little and she kindly gave me the name of someone who might be able to help. I talked to him on the telephone. He was very pleasant. Of course he couldn’t say much
without seeing you. He did say that it sounded as if you’d had some sort of a breakdown. You need help, darling. So why don’t you come home and we’ll see about getting
it.’

I put the phone down.

There is a small supermarket near the call box, still open on a Sunday evening. I buy twenty cigarettes and a bottle of Scotch and go back to sit in the car. I stopped smoking ten years ago.

I don’t know why I changed the plan. That’s not true. I know exactly why I changed the plan. I might not know my mind, but I do know my heart. My brain was scrambled with indecision
as to whether to go back to Judy, or to go back to Anna, but when the phone started ringing, before that fifth ring, before Judy answered, my heart was as clear as a ewe’s bell on an Alpine
slope.

Leaving Judy was never likely to be easy. Had she been a woman to say, ‘Well fuck you, you bastard,’ or to go through the wardrobe and slash my suits, or to throw my belongings into
the street and set fire to the house, it would have made things easier. Any tendency to doubt or guilt would have been subsumed into self-righteousness. I could have convinced myself that I was the
injured party, married to a harridan.