thing they can do about it, but that doesn’t stop them from trying, whether it’s shagging anything that moves or listening to early Bruce Springsteen and buying a top-of-the-range motorbike (a BMW K 1200 LT usually, thus considerably upping their chances of meeting death even earlier than anticipated). Then there were the guys who found themselves in the rut of routine alcoholic tedium—the lost and lonesome highway of your average beta male (his father’s way). And then there was Jackson’s own chosen path that led to the everyday Zen of a French house with its white stucco walls, geraniums in pots on the windowsills, a blue door, the paint peeling because who gives a damn about house maintenance in rural France?
He had parked in the shade but the sun had moved higher in the sky now and the temperature in the car was becoming uncomfortable. She was called Nicola Spencer and she was twenty-nine years old and lived in a neat ghetto of brick-built houses. The houses and the streets all looked the same to Jackson, and if he lost his bearings for a moment he ended up in a Bermuda Triangle of identical open-plan front lawns. Jackson had an almost unreasonable prejudice against housing estates. This prejudice was not unrelated to his ex-wife and his ex-marriage. It was Josie who had wanted a house on a new estate, Josie who had been one of the first people to sign up to live in Cambourne, the purpose-built Disneylike “community” outside Cambridge with its cricket pitch on the “traditional” village green, its “Roman-themed play area.” It was Josie who had moved them into the house when the street was still a building site and insisted that they furnish it with practical modern designs, who had rejected Victoriana as cluttered, who had thought an excess of carpets and curtains was “suffocating,” and yet now she was inhabiting Ye Olde Curiosity Shop with David Lastingham—a Victorian terrace crammed with antique furniture that he’d inherited from his parents, every available surface swathed and draped and curtained. (“You’re sure he’s not gay then?” Jackson had asked Josie, just to rile her—the guy had professional manicures, for heaven’s sake—and she laughed and said, “He’s not insecure with his masculinity, Jackson.”)
Jackson could feel the ache in his jaw starting up again. He was currently seeing more of his dentist than he had of his wife in the last year of their marriage. His dentist was called Sharon and was what his father used to refer to as “stacked.” She was thirty-six and drove a BMW Z3, which was a bit of a hairdresser’s car in Jackson’s opinion, but nonetheless he found her very attractive. Unfortunately, there was no possibility of having a relationship with someone who had to put on a mask, protective glasses, and gloves to touch you. (Or one who peered into your mouth and murmured, “Smoking, Jackson?”)
He opened an out-of-date copy of
Le Nouvel Observateur
and tried to read it because his French teacher said they should immerse themselves in French culture, even if they didn’t understand it. Jackson could only pick out the odd word that meant anything and he could see subjunctives scattergunned all over the place—if ever there was an unnecessary tense it was the French subjunctive. His eyes drifted drowsily over the page. A lot of his life these days consisted of simply waiting, something he would have been useless at twenty years ago but which he now found almost agreeable. Doing nothing was much more productive than people thought; Jackson often had his most profound insights when he appeared to be entirely idle. He didn’t get bored, he just went into a nothing kind of place. He thought sometimes that he would like to enter a monastery, that he would be good at being an ascetic, an anchorite, a Zen monk.
Jackson had arrested a jeweler once, an old guy who’d been fencing stolen property, and when Jackson came looking for him in his workshop he’d
He had parked in the shade but the sun had moved higher in the sky now and the temperature in the car was becoming uncomfortable. She was called Nicola Spencer and she was twenty-nine years old and lived in a neat ghetto of brick-built houses. The houses and the streets all looked the same to Jackson, and if he lost his bearings for a moment he ended up in a Bermuda Triangle of identical open-plan front lawns. Jackson had an almost unreasonable prejudice against housing estates. This prejudice was not unrelated to his ex-wife and his ex-marriage. It was Josie who had wanted a house on a new estate, Josie who had been one of the first people to sign up to live in Cambourne, the purpose-built Disneylike “community” outside Cambridge with its cricket pitch on the “traditional” village green, its “Roman-themed play area.” It was Josie who had moved them into the house when the street was still a building site and insisted that they furnish it with practical modern designs, who had rejected Victoriana as cluttered, who had thought an excess of carpets and curtains was “suffocating,” and yet now she was inhabiting Ye Olde Curiosity Shop with David Lastingham—a Victorian terrace crammed with antique furniture that he’d inherited from his parents, every available surface swathed and draped and curtained. (“You’re sure he’s not gay then?” Jackson had asked Josie, just to rile her—the guy had professional manicures, for heaven’s sake—and she laughed and said, “He’s not insecure with his masculinity, Jackson.”)
Jackson could feel the ache in his jaw starting up again. He was currently seeing more of his dentist than he had of his wife in the last year of their marriage. His dentist was called Sharon and was what his father used to refer to as “stacked.” She was thirty-six and drove a BMW Z3, which was a bit of a hairdresser’s car in Jackson’s opinion, but nonetheless he found her very attractive. Unfortunately, there was no possibility of having a relationship with someone who had to put on a mask, protective glasses, and gloves to touch you. (Or one who peered into your mouth and murmured, “Smoking, Jackson?”)
He opened an out-of-date copy of
Le Nouvel Observateur
and tried to read it because his French teacher said they should immerse themselves in French culture, even if they didn’t understand it. Jackson could only pick out the odd word that meant anything and he could see subjunctives scattergunned all over the place—if ever there was an unnecessary tense it was the French subjunctive. His eyes drifted drowsily over the page. A lot of his life these days consisted of simply waiting, something he would have been useless at twenty years ago but which he now found almost agreeable. Doing nothing was much more productive than people thought; Jackson often had his most profound insights when he appeared to be entirely idle. He didn’t get bored, he just went into a nothing kind of place. He thought sometimes that he would like to enter a monastery, that he would be good at being an ascetic, an anchorite, a Zen monk.
Jackson had arrested a jeweler once, an old guy who’d been fencing stolen property, and when Jackson came looking for him in his workshop he’d
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