Inglorious

by Joanna Kavenna

  *

  Now she was at the peeling door of his flat. There was a Moroccan sitting on the balcony above, smoking a cigarette. She nodded at him, and he bowed his head. A mother and child were playing in a multicoloured playground behind her. She heard childish squeals, adult congratulations. ‘Very good!’ ‘Very very good sweetie!’ A TV was on in the flat next door, and she saw the colours shifting in the glass. She waited while the day continued, and when Andreas answered the door he said, ‘ROSA!!’ and weighted the word with exclamation marks. ‘It’s so nice when you come round,’ he said, smiling and kissing her cheek. ‘How are you? And what, what has been happening?’

  ‘Nothing at all. And to you?’ That was their chaste opening, and they stood in the hall with their hands in their pockets. He was wearing the whitest shirt she had ever seen. His body felt warm, and she grasped his hands. There was the cuckoo clock behind him and she saw her face was red in the distorting mirror.

  ‘It’s so boring, but I have to go out any minute,’ he said. ‘So boring. Just to the dentist, but I have to go. I’ve waited a month for the appointment and I’m in agony. My mouth is disgusting, I’m ashamed.’ He gestured at a tooth, and made a grimace. ‘But can I walk you some of the way home? The dentist is just by Ladbroke Grove. So you see, it’s perfect, if you don’t mind going back that way? Did you have something else to do over here? Are you on your way somewhere?’ A few stories came to mind, but she said, ‘No, I just did some shopping on Portobello Road, and thought I’d drop by.’

  ‘What did you buy?’ Her hands were empty.

  ‘Oh, window shopping, nothing.’

  ‘So you’ll walk back with me? As an unexpected treat before I go to my torture.’

  ‘OK, that would be nice.’

  ‘Just wait here, wait here just a second.’

  He vanished along the corridor, and she heard him switching off a radio.

  *

  Hand in hand for a while, and then walking apart, they passed along the crescent of balconies, satellite dishes hammered up on the walls and washing floating on invisible currents of air. They neared the metal haunches of Westbourne Studios. She thought of Whitchurch at her meeting, speaking in a soft voice. She would be poised, convincing. Then she would leave, safe in the knowledge of her continued relevance.

  She said, ‘How are you?’ and he said, ‘Good, good. I’ve been thinking about you this week.’

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ she said. ‘Depending on the way in which you have thought of me, of course.’ They arrived under the concrete slur of the Westway. She saw the sign scrawled on the bricks. TEMP – it ran over and over again – TEMP TEMP TEMP TEMP – in red spray paint. Next to it were some stencils of a man walking backwards. What the TEMP, she thought. She saw the day spread out, the trees and the sky.

  ‘Oh, mostly about the curves of your ass, I’m joking,’ he said. ‘But how are you? Are you tired? You look a bit tired.’

  ‘No no I’m fine.’

  He kissed her nonchalantly. He had a hand on her back, and she could feel his breath on her skin.

  ‘I was thinking that when I have more money, we should go away,’ he said. ‘You’d love it. A weekend in Berlin. We should go when my parents are away and we can have the run of their flat. It’s a gross place, in many ways, terrible furnishings, but you’d probably enjoy it. We have a few really dreadful family portraits, painted by my sister, who has no artistic talent at all.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Rosa. But that made her laugh. ‘Well, that sounds good.’

  ‘Would you really like to come?’

  ‘Oh yes, that sounds great.’ And she thought she would.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Well, soon. Soon would be great,’ she said.

  ‘Soon, well, I’ll check my diary and see what I’m doing. Anything more specific?’

  ‘You know, I’m between jobs, I can fit in almost any time. You’re the one with the packed schedule,’ said Rosa.

  ‘Yes, I’m pretty in demand. An audition here, a phone call here, another rejection here. Though I do have a job – I’ll tell you about it later. Not now though, it’s a real yarn.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ she said. ‘A job, that’s great!’

  ‘Great!’ he said, mocking her. ‘Great!’ and now he seized her arm again. Here they were trimming the trees, and their conversation was drowned by the sound of a chainsaw. Anyway it was a very short walk, hardly supplying enough time to pose the question. She was wondering if she could slip it in. It would change something, if she said it. She wasn’t even sure how she could phrase it. Andreas, funny thing to ask. Bit of an embarrassment. Row with my flatmate. Just need a place for a few days, until I sort myself out. You can say no. But that would involve a full-on confession, revealing much that she had not yet told him, the fact that she was debt-laden and generally adrift, more adrift than he thought she was.

  ‘I really don’t think you’re being entirely honest,’ he was saying, which made her snap her head towards him. Now the sound of the saw had died away.

  ‘Why?’ she said, caught out.

  ‘I think you’re just fobbing me off, and thinking you’ll find an excuse another time. Is it my sister’s art that’s putting you off? We don’t have to look at her portraits, I promise. I know I haven’t really made the flat sound so nice. But it’s fine really.’ She realised he was joking, and smiled.

  ‘Really, it sounds fantastic. I can’t wait,’ she said.

  ‘Still not convincing. Perhaps it’s me? You’d like someone older and fatter, some ancient relic, really yellow in the gills?’

  ‘Green about the gills,’ she said, automatically.

  ‘Thanks, thanks so much.’

  So she laughed like a drain and turned away. She stared out at the patchy, greying branches of the trees, the pale washed sky.

  ‘Do you really mean it?’ he asked. ‘Would you like to go away?’

  ‘Yes, I always mean what I say,’ said Rosa. That really was a lie. With Andreas, she almost never meant what she said. It was a shame, but she had discovered that when she spoke to him she was usually incapable of telling the truth. She saw the word again, TEMP, sprayed on the stone rafters. And she saw billboards with words on them – THE KILLS: LOVE IS A DESERTER. HEY LYLA – A STAR’S ABOUT TO FALL. Vowing readily, she followed him along. Ask Andreas. Clean the kitchen. Explain to Jess. But ask Andreas. Ask him for somewhere to stay. Get a job. Read History of Western Philosophy. Read the later plays of Shakespeare. Clean the bathroom and scrub the toilet. Really, explain everything to Andreas.

  *

  At Ladbroke Grove station she felt a low sense of disappointment because she had failed to ask. Something in his cordiality prevented her. He kept it all humorous, and she was forced to play along. He made jokes and laughed loudly and she thought, A BED! Still she couldn’t summon it, and he pushed his hair out of his eyes, wrapped his arms around her and said, ‘So I’ll see you later?’

  ‘Later?’ she said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Is that why, or the everlasting why?’ he said. He had been making this joke for a few weeks, ever since she had mentioned it. Still, she laughed politely. ‘I’m proposing that we meet again later. Because I haven’t enjoyed enough of your company just now. How about it? Dinner? Something? Drink?’ He shrugged his shoulders at her.

  A place to stay? she thought. Anyway it was a reprieve. She could go round and ask him over a bottle of wine. Casually, not urgently and in the harsh daylight. So she nodded. ‘That would be great,’ she said.

  ‘Always great, this word, great.’

  ‘It is all great,’ she said, and he smiled a thin determined smile and said, ‘See you later. Any time. Drop by. I’m just learning lines,’ he said. ‘Any old time.’

  ‘OK,’ she said.

  ‘Ciao bella,’ he said.

  They kissed at the entrance of the tube, surrounded by the milling floods of people and then she turned and, like a villain thwarted, walked home again.


  Things to do, Monday

  Get a job.

  Wash your clothes

  Clean the kitchen.

  Phone Liam.

  Ask Andreas if you can stay

  Read widely in world religions

  Buy some tuna and spaghetti

  Call Jess and apologise.

  Go to the bank and beg them for an extension – more money, more time to pay back the rest of your debt.

  Read the comedies of Shakespeare, the works of Proust, the plays of Racine and Corneille and The Man Without Qualities.

  Read The Golden Bough, The Nag-Hammadi Gospels, The Upanishads, The Koran, The Bible, The Tao, the complete works of E. A. Wallis Budge

  Read Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Bacon, Locke, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and the rest

  Hoover the living room

  Clean the toilet

  Distinguish the various philosophies of the way

  Unearth the TEMP

  Collate, sort, discard your so-called papers

  Clean the bath

  Before Jess gets home – clean!

  When she got back she saw the answer-machine light was flashing, and in the hope that one of the messages might be for her, she pressed the button. Eternally optimistic, she was thinking the flashing light might save her. If she had been offered a celestial helping hand, she would have grasped it. But instead there was a computer pretending to be a man: ‘HELLO, THIS IS DAVE CALLING TO TELL YOU THAT YOU HAVE WON AT LEAST A THOUSAND POUNDS’ it said. ‘CALL THIS NUMBER TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE. MANY CONGRATULATIONS!’ The computer pretending to be a woman said ‘To listen to the message again, press one’, and Rosa pressed two instead.

  ‘This message has been deleted.’

  ‘Hello, this is Jackie from the bank calling for Miss Lane. Can you give me a call when you have time.’

  An emissary of Sharkbreath, so Delete! DELETE! Rosa instructed the friendly computerised voice, and the message vanished for ever.

  She thought she might clean the kitchen, but instead she made another call. After a few rings Kersti answered. Kersti was definitely becoming waspish. Here they were, this afternoon, this day fleeting softly towards evening, and Rosa said, ‘Hello, Kersti, it’s Rosa’ and there was no reply. No trace of friendly recognition at all! That sounded bad, so Rosa, nervous and picking up speed, said, ‘Hi, Kersti, sorry to bother you, it’s Rosa.’

  ‘Yes, Rosa, what?’

  ‘Hoping you have worked a miracle of legalese.’

  ‘Don’t you know it’s Monday?’

  ‘Monday? What happens on Monday?’

  ‘Monday is my worst day.’

  ‘Should I perhaps call later?’

  ‘I haven’t been in touch with Liam,’ said Kersti. ‘I’ll let you know when I do.’

  ‘Look, Kersti, I know you’re very busy. It’s very kind of you to help. I know it seems stupid, trivial, to be quibbling about a tacky sofa and some chairs, a second-hand bed, the rest. But my credit card is about to explode in a ball of fire, so satanic is the interest. And then there’s the overdraft, you know, it’s dull but it would really help,’ she said. ‘The furniture would help. If Liam would only do the decent thing, sell it, give me my half.’

  ‘You see, Rosa, the rest of us prefer to have a JOB,’ Kersti said, repeating the refrain. Everyone hymned it in a different way, but they all hymned it the same. It reminded her of a song someone sang when she was young. You got to have a J O B if you wanna be with me. Anything would be better, Kersti was saying, than ringing around begging her ex-boyfriend to sell her furniture. Almost anything would be more dignified.

  ‘A lot isn’t,’ said Rosa. ‘Believe me, I’ve had a look. A lot out there isn’t dignified at all.’ And after dignity, there was the getting up, getting there on time, sitting yourself down, the rest.

  ‘Rosa, I have to go,’ sighed Kersti.

  ‘It’s not lassitude that stops me.’

  ‘Rosa, I’m going now. Talk to the bank.’

  ‘The bank is proving intractable.’

  Kersti said, ‘Yes, tell him to come in. OK, Rosa, time’s up. I’ll have another go soon, OK. Now Mr Wharton is waiting.’

  ‘I do understand, absolutely. I agree, you must get on. If you could call Liam, that would be great. But I’ll understand if you’re too busy.’

  ‘Yes, thanks for your call. I’ll get back to you soon,’ said Kersti, because Mr Wharton had just come in.

  ‘Well, it’s very kind of you. I am very grateful,’ said Rosa.

  She had phoned a few too many times already. Really, it was sketchy of Liam. He was holding onto the stuff, waiting for her to succumb to madness or to marry rich. She couldn’t think why else he was delaying. Negotiations had stalled. The furniture was still in his flat. The bank sharks were getting vicious, showing a distinct sense of purpose. They really wanted the money back. Or her head on a platter. Now it was just Rosa and Kersti, trading barbs. Kersti smiling through her deep sense of frustration.

  ‘OK, Mrs Middleton, I’ll speak to you soon,’ said Kersti.

  Then the line went dead, leaving her standing with a rictus grin and a receiver pressed superfluously to her face. Tabula rasa, she thought. Hardly possible at all.

  *

  Now she heard the dry speech of the commentator, releasing the latest. Today the war continued. The police caught a man trying to board a train with a bomb. The prime minister announced that global warming is a serious threat, perhaps the most serious our civilisation has faced. Interest rates went up. The archbishop said that abortion laws should be revised. England lost at sport. And, breaking news, Rosa Lane distinctly failed to pass the guardians of the gate and unearth the thing that lies within. Yes, that’s right, initial reports are confirming that Rosa Lane – thirty-five and quite a lot, creeping towards the end that awaits us all – is still steadfastly failing to cast off the manacles, mind-forged or otherwise – and gain the pearl beyond price! We’ll be following that story through the evening but now let’s go back to the war. The clock in the corner was like a metronome. It steadied her nerves. She found some pieces of paper on Jess’s desk, and a black fountain pen in a silver box. She sat down to write. She wrote to her father, telling him not to worry. Things were fine. The furniture was well in hand. The furniture is definitely going to come good. The cash is mine, daddy, all mine.

  She wrote to Liam. Dear Liam, Please can you sell the furniture. I need my half. Or could you buy your half from me? It is quite urgent. Thanks, Rosa.

  She wrote: Dear Mr Martin White, I have never written for your publication. I wrote for years for the Daily Rag. I was a mediocre but fairly successful journalist. I wondered if you might be interested in a few ideas I have. An article perhaps about graffiti and its significance, the mythic suggestiveness it contains? I promise you, there is ancient lore being spelt out on the streets, prophecies of the future. I can’t unravel them, but I can see they are there. Or, perhaps, a piece about elective destitution – an inexcusable squandering of one’s job and training, a burgeoning refusenik cultural movement? That was Rosa, she knew no others. Devastating to those who have struggled to support you. Clearly ungrateful. Prompted by something difficult to treat, apparently, some lurking sense of WHY BOTHER? I have many more ideas, and look forward to talking to you. Yours ever, Rosa Lane.

  Then she wrote: Plot scenario. Rosa Lane is saved. Flights of angels sing her to her supper. She is carted away from the weariness, the fever and the fret. Ahem.

  She meant Amen, but it was so long since she had written the word she had forgotten how to spell it.

  ‘Oh God,’ she said to the room. She tore up the piece of paper and dropped it on the floor. Then she wrote: We live in the conviction that we are masters of our lives, that life is given to us for our enjoyment. But this is obviously absurd. Surely we can be happy in the knowledge of our mortality? Surely we must be? There is no eternal substance in the universe. Even the stars are subject to flux. Eve
n the sun must fade. If we look around we understand that mutability is the inevitable state. So why not a religion of the mutable, rather than the eternal? Worshipping the ceaseless tendency of things to alter? This is my philosophy … She tore up that as well and threw the pieces away. She whistled guiltily and thought about giving Liam a friendly call. At least then she could wish him luck and check on the furniture. It seemed odd that he would marry so soon, but there was nothing she could do and she wanted him to know that she was glad, really, ultimately she was happy he was so well. He had jumped, head first, into the consoling barrel, the malmsey marriage butt. And here she was in the great loneliness, trying to keep her nose in the air. She aimed to smile, but found she couldn’t summon it. She was confused, thinking about food and money and the death of love. She found she remembered so many small things. Things of life. The almost invisible backdrop. Years flooding past her. Only a few years ago she had been young and it seemed like there was a lot of time. Doubtless she had wasted far too many days. Of course she had always surrendered hours to the simple business of stuffing her belly. But that was inevitable. Eros agape and amor, she thought. Now she remembered an evening when she and Liam had sat together in a restaurant. She had it clear in her mind – both of them tired, in smart clothes, having come there straight from work. It seemed an age ago, an eon back, in a misty past when she was the suave owner of an array of A-lined skirts and smart jackets, and wore them elegantly, with a scarf around her neck. She tied her hair up, clipped it into a chignon. Then she and Liam looked well together, her clicking in high heels, and Liam in a sensible suit and a pastel-blue tie. Each of them with a glass, sure of themselves.

  On their table was a flower standing in a slender vase. There were photos on the walls, patched pictures of forgotten celebrities. The place was subdued, a little seedy, but the pasta was edible, caked in cream. They were both labouring over their plates. When they were no longer hungry, they fought half-heartedly about a crisis Liam was having at work. Liam was fighting a rearguard action against Rosa’s insistence, her pointed questions. She was asking him to try harder. ‘Go back and renegotiate,’ she was saying. ‘Tell them you won’t take it. Threaten to walk out.’