1.<\/b><\/p>\n
Rubbing soap about his body, he thought of Rose-Maria. In his mind it was her body that his hands were moving over. But not as if she were in front of him\u2014rather as if his mind were inside her body, as if his mind were pinioned on top of her body and her body below him. He began to understand his presence in the world as her presence, so that the dimensions were no longer him but her<\/i>; her naked body in the shower and his hands running over breasts and curving pelvis, touching knotted pubic hair. His fingers, moving over his own body, could almost feel the small bump of her beauty spots, one by her collarbone, one by her hip. And then, as his body, her body, relaxed into the warmth and his eyes opened, the image left him and he was returned to the clarity of this chore. He finished washing, turned off the shower and began to dry his body in the cold.<\/p>\n
Rose-Maria left an hour before. \u2018Gosh,\u2019 she had said, \u2018I\u2019m late,\u2019 and from doing hardly anything at all, had grabbed six different things, put them in her bag, dressed for the outside in a continuous glide towards the front door and was gone. And Roy still sat in bed. He\u2019d gone back to sleep for another forty minutes, the morning radio directing his now more vivid dreams so that he felt that it were he alone who was responsible for the financial crisis, that it somehow was his very body, that near but not quite unseemly thing, which was riddled by debt, as if numbers were a pathogen. He\u2019d had to tunnel up to consciousness.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
2.<\/b><\/p>\n
At the bank, he woke his computer from its sleep with a cruel tap of the mouse; got a coffee as his desktop appeared. His face felt a little thick, his mind peering at things from the back of the room. Holding his coffee-cup, his clumpy, hair-splotched hand looked for a moment (like some woman on the opposite platform seen through a moving train) to be her hand, to be Rose-Maria\u2019s slender hand, red nailed, curved about the large mug.<\/p>\n
\u2018Mr Samplen, he lives to tell the tale,\u2019 said Gary as he approached.<\/p>\n
\u2018I have quite the headache,\u2019 answered Roy.<\/p>\n
\u2018A good night,\u2019 declared Gary.<\/p>\n
\u2018Pretty good,\u2019 said Roy.<\/p>\n
Roy finished his coffee, went to his desk. He worked an acceptable day of work, returned home.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
3.<\/b><\/p>\n
\u2018Gosh,\u2019 said Rose-Maria, \u2018I thought we had cream. We\u2019ll have to do a different sauce.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Sure,\u2019 said Roy.<\/p>\n
\u2018I mean, you could pop-out if you wanted,\u2019 said Rose-Maria.<\/p>\n
\u2018Sure,\u2019 answered Roy.<\/p>\n
Roy found his hat, picked up her coat by mistake, then found his and put it on; he left the house and walked over to the garage for cream. In the queue, he unbrokenly starred at the Dairy Milk bars by the side of the counter, did not buy one. Paid in silence. He was thinking: every German, and Dutch too, he had met, say eleven or twelve, loved Cadbury\u2019s chocolate when they came to England. He wondered if Cadbury\u2019s knew this; he wondered how he could sell this knowledge to them. It is wrong, he thought, to think Europeans are more refined in their taste than us.<\/p>\n
\u2018I got it,\u2019 said Roy, and Rose-Maria took the cream from him.<\/p>\n
\u2018Thanks,\u2019 said Rose-Maria.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
4.<\/b><\/p>\n
Again, she got up before him. She was showered and gone this time before he had noticed she had left the bed. He showered at 7.30; again his body became hers\u2014mundanely he cleaned it, under his shorn armpits, over his breasts, between his legs. He got out, dried his body as if he\u2019d wrapped a towel around his head, as if a long towel were tied around his chest.<\/p>\n
At work he read nine new articles on mortgage defaults, prepared a report for his boss. It was tricky to say how things were going to go. He practised his vacillating sentences, managed, he thought, to sound authoritative and responsible, so that he would not be responsible for much. He could not change this, he thought, and he could not predict how it might pan out. His boss wanted to know how things would look at the end of the next quarter.<\/p>\n
They could look like anything, Roy thought. \u2018Better,\u2019 is what he said, and handed-over a report that was defensible even if everything was worse. He did not like such generality, he did not feel confident with general observation that moved outward from him; he was more comfortable with the specific. Looking past his boss\u2019s shoulder at a window cleaner outside, suspended forty-one stories up in his cradle, Roy thought that perhaps he should have been a window cleaner. Roy sat back at his desk. Before him was a modest unbloomed bunch of daffodils he had bought that morning outside Temple station. They looked like watercolour brushes in a jar, still and solid, as if this was their final state, as if they would never change from this.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
5.<\/b><\/p>\n
On Saturday morning Roy and Rose-Maria had sex. She on top of him; his eyes closed. She moved and leant over him. He thought that as she moved, she was moving into him. He thought that he could feel, could almost feel, how she must feel, with him inside her. He opened his legs a little further apart on the bed, raised his knees as much as he could. His body was unmoving as she moved; it felt reversed: as if it were she that was within him.<\/p>\n
When he came, he imagined that nothing was leaving him. It seemed almost as if she came into him. But then he awoke from this imagining, and felt a little open, a little stunned by such silly passing thoughts, and was quiet as she lay by his side.<\/p>\n
\u2018You look sad,\u2019 said Rose-Maria.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m fine,\u2019 said Roy.<\/p>\n
\u2018Gosh,\u2019 said Rose-Maria, \u2018I should shower. They\u2019ll be nothing good left at the market.\u2019<\/p>\n
At the market Rose-Maria bought three quail, five shallots, some coriander, a small cheesecake, some potatoes, 100g of Stilton, a bag of pistachio nuts, mushrooms, asparagus, then on the way back she stopped at Sainsbury\u2019s for the rest of what was needed. They were having Gary around to eat that night because Gary had been left by his girlfriend the previous week. It was not clear why.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
6.<\/b><\/p>\n
\u2018This is a lovely meal,\u2019 said Gary.<\/p>\n
\u2018Thank you,\u2019 answered Rose-Maria.<\/p>\n
\u2018Really delicious,\u2019 said Gary.<\/p>\n
Roy ate and enjoyed the meal. Drank more quickly than he would have had it been just the two of them. By the dessert he was, he realised, a little drunk, so that he began to talk less; he was not opinionated at this point, he was a studier, he was, he thought, more keenly understanding. But Gary and Rose-Maria were talkers and laughed and chatted as Rose-Maria went to the shelf for another bottle of wine.<\/p>\n
\u2018Well, she hardly needs any more dancing tips,\u2019 said Rose-Maria as she passed the bottle to Roy for him to open.<\/p>\n
\u2018No, no, but he\u2019ll give them,\u2019 said Gary.<\/p>\n
\u2018It reminds me of Thomas Jenson, do you know him? Took driving lessons with Carol for ages just to see her. Though he could already drive.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Ha! I never knew that,\u2019 said Gary. \u2018Why did he not just ask her out?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018He\u2019d separated from his wife; I think he wasn\u2019t up for that, not after fifteen years, he needed time to get to know her. For her to know him, I guess.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018And does she know?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Oh yes, he mentioned it in his wedding speech. It was a really nice wedding.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Yes, I\u2019d heard that.\u2019<\/p>\n
She was flirting. Gary may not have noticed but Roy had. Having watched Rose-Maria now for near six years he knew the actions that she did not know. She was smiling more than normal. She looked down. She played with the corner of the tablecloth. She forgot to glance at him when she talked; she talked only to Gary. It was, Roy thought, quite impossible to know her; despite their closeness, their happiness, there was that final absolute divide\u2014her specific self immensely, terrifically, alien to him. The sudden rush of this realisation held in it something of the sublime, so that his presence seemed, too, to be intensified by it, the concreteness, the solitude, of how he was sat there, eating cheesecake, which was, despite it all, fairly nice cake and worth its cost, watching his partner talking to his friend.<\/p>\n
\u2018Did you know Susie left Derrick?\u2019 asked Gary.<\/p>\n
\u2018Gosh, no,\u2019 said Rose-Maria.<\/p>\n
\u2018Took five hundred pounds from his bank account, flew back to China.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Well, I did, to be honest, think it was always going to be difficult for her,\u2019 said Rose-Maria.<\/p>\n
\u2018Though I never thought she would steal,\u2019 said Gary. \u2018You can never tell.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Well,\u2019 said Rose-Maria. \u2018It\u2019s hardly stealing; they were together two or three years. He should have paid for her flight home if she wanted to go. Having left a professional job there, to come here to be with him. Knowing Derrick\u2014well, I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if she\u2019d asked for the money and he said no.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Is that like Derrick?\u2019 asked Gary. \u2018I suppose you can never tell.\u2019<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
7.<\/b><\/p>\n
At his desk, his jam jar of daffodils had started to flower. He leaned back in his chair, stretched and yawned. There was a meeting at 9.30, the whole ratings team. The office was quiet, the occasional nervous energy starting up then dissipating quickly. Redundancies were expected.<\/p>\n
\u2018Okay, shall we begin?\u2019 said Roy\u2019s boss, at the front of the conference-room; twenty-seven people stopped talking. \u2018I want you all to know, and to know this clearly, one hundred per cent, with no ambiguity: we, Dennis, Dennis & Collzwiski, are not fucked. We\u2026are\u2026not<\/i>\u2026fucked. It is everyone else who is fucked. I want you to know this: to be confident of this. Now, there will be some redundancies\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n
But Roy survived. This is what he said to himself as he walked from the building that evening: I survived. It was as if he were walking unscathed from a burning building, from a bombsite, from some natural disaster. He felt specific; he felt special.<\/p>\n
At the pub, Gary toasted everyone\u2019s success. There were eight of them, all men.<\/p>\n
\u2018It had to be done,\u2019 said Gary, \u2018in all fairness those fucks had to go.\u2019 And everyone cheered.<\/p>\n
\u2018If you don\u2019t pull your weight, your going to get tossed,\u2019 said George, \u2018simple as that. When the tide goes out the boats are full up pretty quickly.\u2019<\/p>\n
They were drinking pints of larger and vodka shots. There was a scale model of stacked empties in the middle of the table, like some proposed new business park.<\/p>\n
\u2018I could most definitely get me into that,\u2019 said Brian, eyeing a woman walking passed. \u2018Indeedy, indeedy.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Another round, sirs?\u2019 asked Len.<\/p>\n
\u2018Yep, those fucks deserved it,\u2019 said Gary, still thinking his earlier thought.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
8.<\/b><\/p>\n
After showering, he lay naked on the bed. Rose-Maria had gone to the Saturday market. He ran his hands along his sides, parted his legs, moved his fingers between them. When he came, nothing left his body, all stayed within, electric and self-contained, hidden and specific.<\/p>\n
He stood and dressed. Rose-Maria arrived home.<\/p>\n
\u2018I thought I\u2019d unpack the shopping,\u2019 she said, \u2018and then maybe we could go for a walk in the park.\u2019 She moved into the kitchen and looked out of the window. \u2018Oh gosh, looks like its going to rain. Maybe we can just go for a drive.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Sure,\u2019 said Roy. He looked at her mouth as she spoke of where they might go, as if by looking he might sense her mind\u2019s voice. What might it be like, he thought, to be her, right at this moment, what was it to be her?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
9.<\/b><\/p>\n
\u2018Those mother-fucking fuckers,\u2019 said his boss, a copy of the FT in one hand, a coffee in the other. \u2018I knew it, I thought I didn\u2019t but I did.\u2019<\/p>\n
He dropped the paper on Roy\u2019s desk and went back to his office. Roy looked down to see an advert from a competitor announcing a new sub-prime product. It was to be expected, he thought.<\/p>\n
Roy\u2019s boss opened his office door. \u2018We need to react to this before the end of the quarter. We need to attack them. Kill them.\u2019<\/p>\n
At lunch, he and Gary sat with Alison from HR in the Pret next door.<\/p>\n
\u2018We should already have had something,\u2019 said Gary. \u2018With more people we would have been on top of this.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Don\u2019t look at me,\u2019 said Alison. \u2018I\u2019m not involved,\u2019 and she took a too big bite of an all-day-breakfast sandwich, cress sprouting from between her lips as she chewed.<\/p>\n
\u2018Well,\u2019 said Roy, \u2018we can be on top of it now. We have enough time to think it through.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018We should be aggressive,\u2019 said Gary. \u2018There\u2019s money to be made that we\u2019re not making.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I need to head back,\u2019 said Alison, having finished the first half of her sandwich and taking the rest with her.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Not too bad,\u2019 said Gary, looking at Alison as she walked out the door, \u2018though she could do with loosing a bit of weight.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018You could give her a break,\u2019 said Roy.<\/p>\n
\u2018Jesus,\u2019 answered Gary, \u2018what\u2019s got into you?\u2019<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
10.<\/b><\/p>\n
Rose-Maria had bought a large bouquet of flowers in full bloom. They looked quite nice in the vase on the windowsill. Lilies and chrysanthemums, he guessed, with some foliage. She had been to the market again. She went every Saturday morning. What kept her going with such enthusiasm? She got out of bed so easily. Even the explanation for this simple volition was kept from him.<\/p>\n
She had bought a paper but he did not pick it up. He did not want to read of more problems, of more ill forecasts, of more reports of conspicuous bonuses; these reports had once excited him, amused him, even, but not anymore.<\/p>\n
\u2018I thought I\u2019d maybe head into town, do some clothes shopping. You don\u2019t have to come along,\u2019 said Rose-Maria.<\/p>\n
\u2018Sure,\u2019 said Roy.<\/p>\n
\u2018Thought I might get something nice, for spring.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Yes. That\u2019s fine. I mean, that\u2019s a nice idea.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Good,\u2019 said Rose-Maria, and she left.<\/p>\n
He put on the T.V. and sat in his armchair, unattached to the day; he wandered without due purpose over the channels, watched a cookery programme; watched a nature programme; watched a sitcom he had already seen.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
11.<\/b><\/p>\n
He was in his boss\u2019s office. His boss was sat on the corner of his desk, his hands cupping a knee.<\/p>\n
\u2018You\u2019ve definitely kept your head recently, Roy. I\u2019ve noticed. You have that leadership skill in you, I can tell: keeping your head when all about are loosing their heads. That\u2019s Kipling. Do you know Kipling?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Yes, a little, well, a little bit.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018He\u2019s good, Roy. Here take this copy. You should read it,\u2019 and the boss took a hardback book from his cabinet and handed it to him.<\/p>\n
\u2018Thank you,\u2019 said Roy.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m going to let Gary go, Roy,\u2019 said his boss, \u2018see if we can\u2019t consolidate things.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I see.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I need you to talk to him.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I see. Though isn\u2019t that something for HR?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018We\u2019re not letting him go until the end of the day. I need you to have a meeting with him now, for as long as it takes. I need you to get all the information on his customers, everything we need to know that\u2019s in his head that can\u2019t be found in the files: personal numbers, special contacts, future ideas that he has. I want everything.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I see. But how do I do that?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Find a way. Just ask him for it. Say he\u2019s being considered for promotion.\u2019<\/p>\n
Roy spoke with Gary for more than two hours. Gary acquiesced for the most part; occasionally he seemed surprised by the detail of Roy\u2019s questions\u2014I don\u2019t understand why you need to know all this, he said. They want me to check that you\u2019re on top of things, said Roy, it\u2019s all fine, just keep on, everything you can remember, all is good. Very well, said Gary, very well. I have no problems with it, don\u2019t mind being looked at, the boss will be amazed at how on top of things I am.<\/p>\n
Roy left before the end of the day. When he came to work on Monday, he was given a promotion to Manager of Asset Research. All his flowers were in full bloom, although his desk remained in the same place. Mostly, he felt no different than he had before.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
12.<\/b><\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m going to the market,\u2019 said Rose-Maria, standing over him, beside the bed.<\/p>\n
\u2018I hadn\u2019t notice you get up,\u2019 said Roy.<\/p>\n
\u2018I won\u2019t be long,\u2019 said Rose-Maria.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019ll come along,\u2019 said Roy.<\/p>\n
\u2018Gosh,\u2019 said Rose-Maria. \u2018Okay, that\u2019s fine. But you need to be quick.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I won\u2019t shower,\u2019 said Roy, \u2018I\u2019ll get dressed straightaway. I\u2019ll be five minutes.\u2019<\/p>\n
At the market he felt a little unclean, a little groggy, so that he was a step removed from his surroundings. He was more an observer. She looked quite beautiful as she moved, an unadvertised, ordinary beauty. She seemed untroubled. She bought sweet potato, and cauliflower, which she put into plastic bags that she had balled in a canvas bag over her shoulder. She bought a loaf of apple and rosemary bread. The stall holders seemed to know her, greeted her by name. It was strange for him to see her this way. Roy thought that maybe he too could be this way. And yet he felt quite uncomfortable in offering friendliness to strangers, to stall holders, to waiters, indeed, even to the people he worked with each day. It had always seemed false to him.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
13.<\/b><\/p>\n
That evening, after eating, he sat with a bottle of beer in his armchair. Rose-Maria had driven to her friend\u2019s house in Milton Keynes; the next day she was driving her friend, who could not drive, up to Leeds to see her sick mother.<\/p>\n
What might I have been, thought Roy, the T.V. on in front of him, if I\u2019d not been this? He turned the channel over, settled on the middle of a police drama set in Liverpool.<\/p>\n
\u2018A white male,\u2019 said the detective, \u2018he\u2019s raped three already and he\u2019ll act again.\u2019<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t pretend that it mattered what happened to Gary, thought Roy. Why should it matter? Into his mind came a fantasy that sometimes played to him. He was a sniper, on some high ground far away, firing into the city at a target. The target was never clear to him. Only the feeling was clear, that feeling of control, of the tap of the trigger, of releasing a bullet out into the world. He lent into the daydream so that he was immersed within it, almost as if it were a dream, and he sleeping, until the T.V. flicked to the noise of adverts and he awoke, near ashamed, though he did not wholly sense this.<\/p>\n
As if to wash away the thought, he got up and showered. After drying he looked into the smudge-steamed mirror at his body. He looked for a long time. Gosh, he said. Gosh, gosh, gosh, gosh, he said, quietly, repeatedly, the word losing meaning but keeping its gentle comforting sound, his lips pursing and relaxing each time he said the word until the word became an incantation, until he saw a beauty spot appear by his collarbone, and one by his hip, until his pelvis widened, and his skin smoothed, becoming in the mirror a changed thing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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1. Rubbing soap about his body, he thought of Rose-Maria. In his mind it was her body that his hands were moving over. But not as if she were in front of him\u2014rather as if his mind were inside her body, as if his mind were pinioned on top of her body and her body […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[304,303],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n