Free Serious Sweet by A.L. Kennedy

keep safe otherwise.
    And he could feel the blues. Deep blues.
    Which is, naturally, not about safety. But he squared the circle and certainly circled the square.
    Jon felt that he was an orderly man and a good boss – his assessments did not undermine this belief.
    Perhaps it is the blues I am feeling.
    Jon grimaced swiftly.
Like hell. I am all square and no circle, no matter what I try.
    But I’m not a bad man. In my own way. I am not.
    This is because I keep asking myself if I’m not. And I listen out for ribbon typewriters in the night. And I do, I do, I do what I can.
    Typewriters, as we know, are these days the most secure option. They produce traceable, hard to access, discrete documents. The Russians ordered up thousands straight after Snowden. India followed. Germany. Wise beasts everywhere have shipped them in.
    Taptaptap.
    Peckpeckpeck.
    Me, too. Back at home.
    Tocktocktock.
    The sound of modern caution.
    The sound that I don’t hear at work.
    Only in my dreams.
    Taptaptap.
    I am sorry for the hotel, Becky. I am sorry that I have these blues – these uptight white overcomfortable blues … and that’s the worst kind, baby.
    But the hotel hadn’t really been his problem – not his pressing problem – the fight he started with his daughter on the plane had troubled him more. That’s what stole his sleep.
    It was so plainly imbecilic as a course of action: get your only child alone and immediately criticise her boyfriend. No, not immediately. I mentioned that her shoes were great and that she looked well and wouldn’t this be fun and that we didn’t often get the chance. Then I started in with the ill-advised comments. Just after we were allowed to unfasten our seatbelts. Idiot.
    â€˜You don’t like him.’
    â€˜I’m not … that’s not what I’m saying.’
    â€˜No, it’s what I’m saying. You’re barely civil to him. What about at my birthday party?’
    â€˜At your …? I wasn’t … Did I do something wrong at your birthday party?’
    â€˜You didn’t say one word to him.’
    This seemed unlikely. Jon scrabbled back to an afternoon of blustery wind and having a headache on Becky’s little balcony, feeling sick due to unforeseen events – lots of her friends inside and shouting. It was good that she had so many friends. Otherwise you’d worry. Loud friends. ‘I … Didn’t I? It was an odd day. I think. Stuff was going on—’
    â€˜At the office. That office eats you.’
    â€˜I’m nearly done.’
    â€˜Nobody stays as long as you have, not any more. You could have retired. You could be resting. You could be doing something you might like.’ She’d begun to change the subject and for some reason he hadn’t let her, even though stopping her was insane.
    â€˜Well, you don’t …’ A gulp when he swallowed – this was his throat attempting to prevent him from screwing up, yet on he went. ‘You don’t … It’s that when you’re with him and with me, when we’re the three of us and having a meal, or something of that sort … I notice … It’s that …’
    â€˜It’s that what?’
    And he shouldn’t ever mention this, except she is his daughter and he does, he does, he does – in his veins and in his breathing and in his blue and buried heart – he does love her and that makes her happiness matter. ‘It’s that when you’re with him you seem not to speak. You stop saying things.’
    â€˜Go on.’ Her tone a clear warning that he ought to jump out of the plane before doing any such thing.
    But on he had stumbled. ‘Darling, it’s just that I have been around, alive, for a while and seen relationships – I’m not talking about mine, this isn’t anything to do with mine –