Angela pursed her lips and began to re-evaluate who was currently her least favourite Cleverley.
‘So what will you do now?’ she asked. ‘For work, I mean?’
‘As it happens, I’ve already got another job.’
‘You have? That was quick.’
‘Well, I have to pass a physical and take a written examination. But I think I’ll be fine. I’m quite healthy, really.’
‘And what are you going to be?’
‘A policeman.’
‘And why a policeman, if I might ask?’
‘Because I was dressed as one when I met Shane, and he thinks I’m in training. So I have no choice but to put in an application.’
Angela poured herself a glass of water, which she drank slowly as she thought this through.
‘Have you ever wanted to be a policeman?’ she asked.
‘Oh no. I don’t like fights and I imagine there’s an awful lot of pulling people to the ground and shouting at them to put their hands behind their backs.’
‘So let me see if I have this right, then. You’ve met a man and fallen in love—’
‘Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m in love. But I daresay it’s only a matter of time. I’ve definitely fallen in like, if that helps.’
‘And because he thinks you’re a policeman, you’ve quit your job and are signing up to a career that frightens you, just so he won’t realize that you only wore the uniform to feel confident around women, a sex that you say no longer interests you.’
Nelson considered this for a moment before nodding his head. ‘Yes, that’s about the long and the short of it. What do you think, are you proud of me?’
DELETE CONTACT
After Nelson left, Angela rose from her seat and walked towards the window, watching through the net curtains as he exited the building and turned right in the direction of the Tube station. She looked utterly miserable, like Melania Trump on date night, and put a hand to her stomach, holding it there for a few moments, feeling tearful for the baby that she’d believed herself to be carrying but which her doctor had told her that morning was nothing more than a phantom pregnancy, brought on by stress, depression and an unhealthy diet. Her periods had stopped, her stomach had grown bloated, and she needed to change her lifestyle entirely if she was not to fall seriously ill.
It wasn’t that she had particularly wanted a child – in fact, motherhood wasn’t something she’d ever felt a great pull towards – but now that the possibility had been taken away from her, she felt the loss of what might have been. And, she had to admit, she’d hoped that a baby might induce George to leave Beverley and start a new life with her.
She picked up her phone and scrolled through her contacts, stopping at C, before picking out his name. Then, taking a deep breath, she pressed ‘Delete Contact’.
AND THIS WILL MAKE YOU MISERABLE
Although the day had started well, it went downhill quickly after breakfast when Elizabeth learned something so deeply upsetting that by the time she met Wilkes in his favourite coffee shop, the Fair Trade Equality Place for All Love, she was in a state of heightened anxiety. Understanding the need to remain calm at such a troubling moment, however, she did her best to take comfort from the nettle-grass tea she ordered, and when he eventually arrived, her disquiet was not eased by his shambolic appearance.
‘Good God, Wilkes,’ she said as he sat down. ‘You look terrible.’
‘I’m on the turn,’ he said, ordering a goat’s-urine banana smoothie from a passing waiter whose nametag read I Don’t Believe in Names (they/their).
‘You’re going through the menopause?’
Wilkes shook his head. ‘I wish,’ he said. ‘It’s so discriminatory that only women get to experience that. Women are really lucky, when you think about it. Cis women, I mean. It’s part of their privilege.’
‘I suppose you’ll have to blame God for that,’ said Elizabeth.
He frowned. ‘You know I don’t believe in God,’ he said.
‘I know. Sorry. I just meant that, if there was a God, then it would be His fault.’
‘If there was a God,’ he replied with a deep sigh. ‘I very much doubt that He would be a He anyway. Speaking of which, I woke up feeling binary again this morning, so, for now, will be referring to myself as I.’
‘That didn’t last long,’ she said, rolling her eyes. She really wasn’t in the mood for his nonsense today. ‘So when you say you’re on the turn,’ she asked, sitting as far back in her chair as she could in order to avoid the stench of effluent that was seeping from his person; it was at moments like this that she missed the days of social distancing. ‘What are you referring to, exactly?’
‘The hygiene turn. It’s now been ten days since I last washed, so my body is starting to release its own essential oils. I’m incredibly sticky all over, my boxer shorts are practically stuck to my crotch, and the strange thing is, I find it really arousing. You don’t fancy coming back to mine to peel them off me, do you?’
‘I don’t,’ she said slowly as I Don’t Believe in Names (they/their) left Wilkes’s smoothie on the table. ‘It’s a lovely offer, but no.’
‘Thank you,’ said Wilkes, looking up with a smile. ‘I appreciate you.’
‘I appreciate you too,’ replied I Don’t Believe in Names (they/their). ‘And I appreciate your appreciation.’
‘I appreciate your appreciation of my appreciation.’
They walked away wearing a serene expression on their face and Elizabeth stared into her boyfriend’s face. There was something not quite right going on there.
‘You look …’ She hesitated, not wishing to sound rude. ‘I don’t quite know how to describe it, but it’s almost as if you sprayed yourself with suntan lotion and then went for a ten-mile run in the blistering heat.’
‘It’s my pores,’ he explained. ‘All the poisons in my bloodstream are escaping.’
‘Through your face?’
‘Well, not just through my face, no. Through my hands, my legs, my feet, my back. Everywhere.’
She bit her lip, wondering whether it would be wrong to go into the ladies’ toilets, light a match and hold it up to the smoke detector in the hope that the sprinkler system might activate and give him, at the very least, a rudimentary wash.
‘Are you sure what you’re doing is healthy?’ she asked.
‘Joaquin Phoenix did it for seven months.’
‘Is he really who you want to model yourself on?’
Wilkes shrugged and reached for his smoothie but, in his desperate attempts to get a firm grip on the glass, it slipped from between his sweaty fingers and Elizabeth had to reach out to grab it before it spilled mushed banana and goat’s piss all over them both.
‘Probably best just to use the straw,’ she suggested, and he did so, bobbing his head up and down as he filled his body with bacteria derived from animal waste.
‘God, that’s absolutely disgusting,’ he said happily. ‘What’s up with you anyway? You look upset about something.’