Inglorious

by Joanna Kavenna

  She arrived panting at Ladbroke Grove, gulping down lungfuls of Westway smoke. She stood on the edge of the pavement, watching the lights change and the day grow darker. The Arabs were standing behind her, laughing together. Now a man threw a cigarette in the gutter, and checked his phone. She counted the number of people holding phones to their ears. Dozens, and then she stopped. She counted hats and colours. With a grimace she forced Jess’s shoes back onto her feet. The tube was beginning to pour out commuters. She heard the trains clattering overhead. Nice to have the tracks above the road, she thought. Gave you a view when you went home. The westbound trains were heading out to Shepherd’s Bush and Hammersmith, edging towards the curve of the river. The shores would be dim in the dusk. Beyond was the smog of the motorway, the exit routes. This time of day there were no short cuts. The cars nestled bumper to bumper. The air was warmed by car exhausts, and the streetlights had just come on, each with its surrounding circle of light. Consider the meaning of TEMP – she thought this as she passed below the bridge and saw the word, still up there, repeated across an iron buttress. TEMP the rest, she thought. What the TEMP! The light was fading across the grey-fronted grime-dusted houses. But today the sky had dazzled her. Now the evening was crisp, the wind was swift and cold.

  In the shop on the corner they never greeted her, and she appreciated their discretion. She asked mildly if there was any semi-skimmed milk and was gestured towards a sour-smelling fridge. A radio was playing a tinny tune, something from the eighties, remixed for the present. The shop door was banging in the breeze. She scattered a few packets of biscuits in her basket, then she bought an apple and a banana and a tin of tuna and a tin of tomato soup. She saw a man with a wart on his forehead, like the eye of the Cyclops. That disturbed her, and she stood by him for a moment, watching as he dropped mushrooms into a paper bag. When he had gone she moved towards a pile of tins, each tin with a miniature portrait of peas or carrots. It was hard to know which one to choose. The fridge was full of creams and fats, and now she found there was nothing else she wanted to eat. So she stood in a queue marking time and then a bag was slung towards her. ‘Thanks,’ she said, and received a returning silence. ‘Goodbye,’ she added. The silence was rich and thick, so she took the plastic bag and walked round the corner, casting casual glances at the things of the street – the paving slabs that were chipped and cracked, the trees rooted in their small patches of earth, the shut up windows, the bolted doors.

  Now she was outside Jess’s flat. Pausing to note that the bins were still overflowing, she opened the door. Inside she kicked off her shoes and undid her coat. The bag rustled when she set it down on the kitchen table. In the flat she took off her smart clothes and exchanged them for jeans and a sweater. She wiped the blood from Jess’s shoes. She washed them carefully in the bathroom and thought they might be OK. She packed them back into their tissue paper and stashed them away. Would there be hell to pay? she wondered as she shut the door of the wardrobe. In the kitchen she ate quickly, drinking the soup and mashing the tuna with borrowed mayonnaise. She scooped everything into her mouth. When she had eaten, she washed her plate in the sink. She wrote:

  Dear Mr Bright, In reference to your advertisement for a Human Wretch (salary scale B for Blimey that’s not much), I would like to present myself. I am quite sure I am lowly and ravaged enough for the job. A starting salary of B for Barely enough for rent and food is just what I want. I am aware that, being almost entirely witless, I should expect no more. Yours ever, Rosa Lane.

  Dear Sir or Madam, I would like to ask you if you are really sure you don’t want me for the job of librarian? I am really quite certain I love books – big books, as well as thrillers and the rest – more than anyone. I would dust them lovingly and talk with faltering enthusiasm to borrowers. Surely you have a place for me? Are you sure you’re not tempted? A little after all? Yours eagerly, Rosa Lane.

  Dear Madam, I would like to propose myself as a piano instructor at your school. I can play the piano, took a few grades, I was quite good at sight-reading. I wasn’t ever going to be brilliant, you understand, however much I practised, but I was all right. The old liked to listen to me play, grandparents and the rest. My parents suffered it – my father never really liked it but my mother quite enjoyed it. It was my mother who was really musical. She had a really lovely voice. You should have heard her sing the Queen of the Night. Oh, it was really beautiful. If I listen to that music now, I weep wretchedly, I confess. But thanks to my mother, I’m good at beating time. I’m sure I could help a few children learn the basics. I would dress appropriately and never be late. I would never slam the lid on their fingers if they forgot their scales. I would not wrap their knuckles with a stick. Unlike Mrs Watson in year nine I would not tremble with ecstasy when sopranos sang. I always found it embarrassing as a child, to see her there, so surrendered and out of control. Yours, Rosa Lane.

  She flicked on the television for the evening news. The friendly announcer, explaining things quietly. Today the pound rose and the dollar fell. The Bank of England announced that interest rates would go up. Fifty people died in a car bombing in the Middle East. A whole host of people left the planet, gone we know not where, and a whole host arrived. The TEMP remained unsolved. She changed channels and found a quiz show, a well-greased presenter with a fistful of cards. Two members of the public stood there, in their ordinary way. ‘Now, Wendy and David,’ said the host, smiling broadly, ‘we’ll have the Quick Fire question round. The Prize is waiting for you. Fingers on the buzzers. Are you both ready?’ ‘Yes, Dale.’ ‘Yes, Dale.’ ‘OK, Wendy and David, let’s play. Name two of the stars of the Hollywood blockbuster Titanic.’ Bzzzz. ‘Yes, David?’ ‘Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio.’ ‘Very good. Next question: who is now divorced from Brad Pitt?’ Bzzzz. ‘Wendy, I thought you might know that one!’ ‘Is it Jennifer Aniston, Dale?’ ‘Good! Next question: what are the two ways in which Hume claimed impressions come to us as ideas?’ Bzzzzzz. ‘Yes, Wendy?’ ‘Ideas of memory and ideas of imagination.’ ‘Good, good. What is the part of Kant’s treatise which is devoted to the necessary conditions for human sensibility called?’ Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. ‘Yes, David?’ ‘Oh, God I know this, I know this … Oh, the Transcendental Aesthetic!’ ‘Very good! Staying with Kant, what did Kant establish to contest the inescapable contradiction within any attempt to form “cosmical concepts”?’ Bzzzzzzzzzzzz. ‘Ah, Wendy you just got in there first. Yes?’ ‘Antinomies.’ ‘Very good Wendy! It’s neck and neck, now. So, last question. What the hell is going on?’ Silence. ‘I’ll repeat the question. What the hell is going on?’ Wendy and David, hands above their buzzers, paused and looked at one another. ‘Time’s up, both of you! Well, that was a shame. Neither of you gets this week’s prize, which was a luxury break in the Temple of Truth!’

  As she surveyed the small debris of the evening, the sheets of paper she had stained with prose, the tablecloth stained with tea, she thought she had to get out of the city. It was making her skin crawl. She tidied everything up again, thinking of Jess and the key in the door and the disapprobation of her stare. It was only dignified to run. She thought of hills and trees and then she was trying to find a number, a number she suddenly needed. She went into her bedroom and searched her address book. She was well into her notebooks, flicking past notes of great age and certain irrelevance, but she still couldn’t find it. If she could just get out of the flat, she thought, if she could just get out before Jess came home. Then she saw the number scrawled on a piece of matchbox she had taped to a section of her address book, a section unrelated either to Will or Judy. There was the sound of a phone ringing through the rooms of a quiet cottage, and Rosa imagined Judy and Will out walking hand in hand across the fields, or chopping wood for the fire, or planting herbs in their kitchen garden. The phone rang for a long time, and then Judy picked it up, sounding breathless and happy.

  ‘Judy, it’s Rosa,’ said Rosa, waiting for feigned joy. But Judy seemed genuinely delighted to hear from
her.

  ‘Rosa! How lovely! Where are you?’

  ‘In London,’ she said. ‘I was just sitting here wondering about taking a couple of days off, heading north. I thought I might come up to the Lakes. It would be lovely to see you while I’m there. I would stay in a B and B, of course, and I wondered if you had any suggestions.’

  Judy started talking, her voice teeming with kindness. That was Judy all the way. Gracious, uncontrived. ‘Rosa, we’d really love it if you came. And you must come and stay with us! I know, the kids are absolutely everywhere. But you get used to them after a couple of days.’ She laughed slightly. Rosa joined in, weakly. ‘No no,’ she said. ‘I’d really love to see the children. But I shouldn’t impose. It’s so last minute.’

  ‘Oh, rubbish, we’ve masses of room. Really, I’d be horrified if you didn’t stay. Promise me you’ll come. When? Come as soon as you can. Come tomorrow!’ Judy was open and honest, as always. She was standing in a rural kitchen, a cake to her left, a row of pots and pans to her right. Rosa could see her there, patting a child on the head, a symbol of nurture and comfort. A healthy woman, with glowing skin, bright eyes, glossy hair tumbling onto her shoulders.

  ‘That’s really kind. Could I? Would that really be OK? I’d only stay a night.’ Would it? she wondered. And what would happen when she arrived? The giving of presents and the taking of tea. Walks on the fells. Children at her feet. It would only help. Certainly it would calm her, and while she was there she could apply for some more jobs, ring Liam about the furniture, explain things to Andreas. There was much she could usefully do.

  ‘Of course. We’re always doing the same things. Our house is so big we could lose you in it. Promise me you’ll pack for a few days, give yourself the option.’

  ‘Judy, that’s really kind. But I do have to get back to London. I have a lot to do.’

  ‘What is it you have to do?’ asked Judy.

  ‘Just detritus, but it’s very pressing.’

  ‘Can’t you do some of it here?’

  ‘Oh, you know, possibly. But thanks so much.’

  ‘Rosa, come on, surely a rest would be much better? Just give yourself a break. A few nights won’t make a difference, will it?’

  Now, with Judy so generous and insistent, Rosa found she didn’t know what to do. That was the glaring question. The dilemma of the minute! Already breezing away into nothingness, but still, she was concerned about it. She wasn’t sure. She was still trying to excuse herself. ‘Well. I’ll do what you say. Pack for longer. But I’ll probably come back. Thanks very much. How are your kids? How’s Will?’

  ‘Oh, we’re all great. The kids are lovely. It’s mad and complete havoc, of course. Will is great. He loves them. So you’ll come tomorrow then. Stay until the weekend.’ Judy was sounding firm. She had sussed Rosa out; she understood it was only nerves that were making her reluctant. ‘You can work as much as you like.’

  It was startling but Judy genuinely seemed to want her to come. That made Rosa so grateful that she gripped the phone and started nodding. ‘I don’t want to impose,’ she said. But it was clear that she would. ‘I’d really like to do that,’ said Rosa. ‘Perhaps I can help with the kids.’ She could hear her voice and it was thin and tinny. She coughed and tried to deepen it. ‘Thanks so much for offering, you modern-day saint,’ she said, trying to throw in a joke. Judy was kind as anything, but Rosa hadn’t spoken to her in a while. Thinking of it now she reckoned it must be nearly a year. Of course Judy had heard. She had heard everything. She had doubtless been informed that Rosa was crazy and sad. This made Rosa feel embarrassed, and she was thinking she really ought to decline everything, explain she had an appointment, couldn’t leave the city after all. Judy was still insistent.

  ‘Rosa,’ said Judy. ‘That’s all great. Now, when are you coming? Do you know how to get to our house?’

  So Rosa took instructions. She said she would leave London after lunch, when she had seen her father. She was willing to be persuaded, and she thought at least this would get her away from the TEMP and the things that perplexed her. The neon-lit shop and the dusted archways and the shaved strands of twilight. And the trains that woke her before dawn. Yet even as she thanked Judy she was wondering if silence was the last thing she needed. She nodded and wrote down directions. They parted the best of friends.

  *

  Later, when she had packed a bag and checked the trains, she knocked on the door of Andreas’s flat and found he was definitely alone and quite happy to receive her. ‘Rosa, darling,’ he said, smiling and kissing her cheek. ‘It’s been a while.’

  ‘Yes, so many hours.’

  ‘And what, what has been happening? We didn’t really talk earlier. Well, I think I talked and you were mysterious, as ever. Come in, come in. What have you been doing?’

  ‘Nothing at all. And you?’

  ‘Oh, I was abused by the dentist. It was truly horrible. But it’s my fault, for being so scared I never go. Look,’ and he opened his mouth to show her something – a new set of fillings. ‘All of these are new,’ he said. ‘Terrible. It cost me so much money. I almost cried. Now I am just numb.’

  They walked along the corridor greeting each other. ‘Good,’ said Andreas, apropos of nothing much. ‘Good. Come in, come in,’ he said again. The flat was warm, and she was aware she was sweating, out of breath. ‘You ran?’ he said. ‘Eager to see me?’

  ‘Yes, yes, couldn’t wait,’ she said, smirking at him. And it was true, she had run, because the evening was cold.

  ‘I like my women to come panting to the door,’ he said. She laughed indulgently, and he said, ‘Anyway, you have perfect timing. I’m just trying to digest the terrible food I made.’ They walked along the hall, which he had adorned with antiques – a grandfather clock, china figurines and the cuckoo clock on the wall. There was a Bavarian hat hanging on a peg, with a green feather in it.

  ‘That’s new,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, it’s vile,’ he said. ‘My grandfather sent it, to remind me of my roots or something. I think I will throw it away soon.’

  ‘So you have a grandfather?’ she said.

  ‘I have four grandparents.’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ she said. ‘I have none.’

  ‘Well, that’s a shame.’ And he pouted at her, trying to stop her from being too serious.

  They walked past the mirror which distorted their reflections, so old the glass, and into his kitchen. That was a place of solid wooden chairs and a big old table which smelt of sap. He pushed a chair out for her. There was a plate of food on the table, a book open next to it. ‘I’ve been trying to learn my lines,’ he said. ‘I’m in rehearsal at the moment. I told you – I have a real job. Fortunately I hardly have any – lines that is. My best line is “Fuck you fuck you all you fucking fools, you wasted shits and fuck you all.” You can imagine it’s a real task getting the fucks in the right sequence.’

  ‘Who is the playwright?’ said Rosa, as she followed him admiring the contours of his legs and the strong line of his shoulders. She wanted to put her hands on him, but he was setting a place for her.

  ‘I don’t know, I’ve no idea. It doesn’t concern me. The play is so terrible that I really don’t want to know. Imagine if I met them, one day, I would have to fight them! “I’ll fuck you so you cry and I’ll fuck you so you want to die you bitch you bitch get down there and I’ll fuck you” – there’s another bit I get to say. All these beautiful lines, and just for ME!’ And he slapped his chest, in mock pride. That made her laugh, quite genuinely.

  ‘Wow, it sounds like the play really taps into the zeitgeist,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, you know German,’ he said, putting a fork in her hand. ‘Anyway I get paid. Really, I actually draw a cheque each week, and it’s going to be running for several months. It’s on south of the river in an experimental theatre, of course. I’ve always hated experimental theatre, but now I find they pay you to do it, so who cares? I am a convert. You should come and see it, if yo
u want to experience something truly horrible. I’ll get you some comps. Bring your friends. I am on for literally three minutes. The play goes on much longer, all will say too long. They are hoping it will run for months, though. But I can imagine we’ll be playing to a house of five each night. So the more the merrier. Anyway you can imagine how pleased my mother is. She’s even saying she will come over from Berlin to see it.’ He smiled slightly, cracked his knuckles, and looking more closely she thought he was tired. His face was more shadowed than usual.

  ‘Is she really pleased?’ asked Rosa.

  ‘Oh yes, she’s delighted. Do you want ketchup with your melted cheese?’ He had a bottle in his hand.

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘I’d have it. Otherwise the cheese is quite monotonous.’

  ‘OK, thanks.’

  ‘Anyway, so you’ll come to my terrible play, yes?’ he said. ‘You can meet my mother.’

  By now she was sitting at the table, while he stood at the cooker, stirring some food in a pan. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said. There was a gentle pause, while he turned to the pan and pretended to sniff the air like a chef. She smiled at him. Then she said, ‘So, have you been burning the wick?’

  ‘Burning the wick?’

  ‘You know, staying up late?’

  ‘A little, at the bar,’ he said, putting down the book again. ‘I’ve been rehearsing all day and then working at the bar. In a few days I’ll have to quit the bar. They won’t keep my slot open while I do my Art.’ And he laughed again. Still, it was clear that he was becoming industrious. A glimmer of success, and he started trying. Perhaps he would never be more than a bit-parter. Perhaps he would go from one minor play to another, stating the lines of bad playwrights. But he would throw himself into it, all the same.