Inglorious

by Joanna Kavenna

  ‘Rosa,’ said Grace, trying to put her hand on Rosa’s arm, but Rosa flicked her away. ‘What can I say? How can I make things better?’

  ‘There is really nothing to say. And now I’d like you to stop talking to me.’

  Now Grace – looking resolute, really determined to settle it – drank down her sherry. She set down the glass and put both her hands on Rosa’s arm. That was uncomfortable and Rosa moved away.

  ‘Rosa, come on. Don’t you think you’re being unreasonable? What, you didn’t want Liam, so no one is ever allowed to have him?’

  ‘Have him?’ said Rosa. The script was terrible. She wanted to shoot the writer. Who has produced these gutter-slinging phrases, she wondered? Were they really having this conversation? Was it really they, and not two women at some other party somewhere else entirely? She gathered herself together, she set down the glass of wine which had made her head ache and said ‘Grace, I don’t want to talk to you any more. As this room is too small for me to get as far away from you as I want to, I’m going home.’

  ‘Why don’t I walk with you to the tube?’ said Grace, with an open gesture that indicated she really thought that might be a good idea, a quick walk together would clear the air, sort everything out, Rosa’s jangling nerves and her failure to accept the justice of the case before her.

  ‘No,’ said Rosa, firmly. She grabbed her coat, whipping Grace on the cheek with it as she pulled it from under someone’s haunches. Well, it served her right for being so small, thought Rosa. She was overcome by an urge to slap her. But instead, like a slack coward, she slunk down the steps to the street.

  Grace had always been a great talker. She liked to discuss everything in depth. She found the mistakes of others mostly funny, and she never really minded if people disliked her. Rosa could imagine how entertaining she had made that encounter, how much she had trimmed and tailored it. ‘Really,’ she said to Judy and Will, ‘she’s completely exaggerating. It’s a trait of hers. It can be really amusing. It makes her anecdotes larger than life. But you can’t rely on her at all. The truth is not her main concern.’

  ‘But you must have cared,’ said Will. ‘You must have been devastated by their relationship.’

  ‘No, no, that’s not it at all,’ she said. That sent them nodding away, looking as if they knew her well. Ever she was tempted. She was feeling a rising urge; she wanted to fling the plates across the table, scream at them, tell them it was they who were mad! Surrounded by darkness on every side, rolling coursing night and still they were sanguine! They had to be crazy. Napkin at her mouth, forkful of peas in her hand, she wanted to warn them. Vapour, she was thinking. Yes, she added, that would clarify it. Just say that. Judy and Will, all is vapour. That would surely convince them. So she stayed silent.

  ‘You’re upset they lied,’ said Judy, with parched understatement. ‘That they hid it from you. But perhaps they were afraid. They saw that you were distraught. You were grieving. They didn’t want to make things worse for you. Of course, they cared about you. But they were in love. It’s very hard, isn’t it?’

  ‘They’ve been indiscreet,’ said Will.

  And they sat there nodding for a while. Silence settled over the table. There were candles burning in silver candlesticks. The tablecloth was white. Still, Rosa couldn’t finish her food, though it was delicious. She caught them glancing at each other. Halfway through the main course she had been diagnosed. It was impossible to tell if they believed her or not, and anyway it hardly mattered. Will kept massaging more food towards her and Rosa thanked him voraciously, with abandon. It was a wonderful meal, a big pile of lamb and vegetables, which Rosa knew was bound to have come from their farm, or someone else’s farm nearby, and she tried to eat. She didn’t have their appetite, but this hardly troubled her. The effort of the table was palpable. After a silence which pulsed around them, becoming acute and uncomfortable, they all started throwing each other bits of information about mutual friends, observations on the state of the nation, sprawling anecdotes. Will and Judy were delicate and practical, ladling food at her, smiling broadly when she told a joke, because now she felt obliged to be jovial, to show them just how rational she was. They both spent a lot of time patting her arm. It bemused her, the arm patting. It began to put her off. Will was patting her arm during the main course, offering her more. Judy patted her, and she couldn’t understand why. Was it an idiom? Did they pat everyone who came, or was she being treated to an intensity of pats, a concentration of reassuring gestures? Were they trying to put her at her ease? Did she seem so ragged to them? Quickly she tried to smile. She said, ‘So really, how are you both?’ She was trying for conviviality. She had her teeth gritted, her fists clenched. Conviviality or death! she thought. Pour encourager les autres.

  ‘You know how we are,’ said Judy. ‘But tell us more about what you’re doing now, Rosa.’ There she was, preparing for the pat, and Rosa said, quickly, ‘Well, I have a new boyfriend.’ That was to salvage her pride. It didn’t quite work even as she said it, but she was tired of them looking so lovingly towards her.

  ‘You do?’ said Judy, quite beaming with pride. ‘You do? Rosa!’ and she delivered another pat, but this time it lingered in enquiry. ‘Tell me, tell me everything!’

  ‘He’s called Andreas. He’s German. Hilariously, he’s twenty-five. He’s an actor.’

  ‘Twenty-five! Well, how about that!’ said Judy. Will was smiling in an avuncular way.

  ‘A real whipper-snapper,’ he said.

  She laughed through her drunkenness and said, ‘Oh yes, he’s great. So young and vital and optimistic. He’s currently in a West End play.’ That sounded nervous, so she stopped.

  ‘What’s his name?’ said Will.

  ‘Will, you heard, he’s called Andreas. Rosa told us,’ said Judy, in a mock admonitory tone.

  ‘No, no, his full name.’

  ‘Oh, he’s not famous,’ said Rosa.

  ‘Go on, tell us. Or is it one of those liaisons where you don’t know each other’s full names. Each time you play a different part? Meet in disguise?’ said Judy, smiling broadly. Rosa was glad that she was entertaining them. ‘Oh, no, he’s called Andreas Beck. But you won’t find him on the credits of a film. Not yet.’

  ‘But soon, soon,’ said Judy. ‘I can picture him – is he very handsom? Blond? Gorgeous and slightly cruel blue eyes?’

  ‘No,’ said Rosa. ‘He’s not like that at all.’

  ‘Judy, you’re not being very serious. This is, after all, the new love of Rosa’s life,’ said Will, and now Rosa felt her arm once more caressed by a benevolent hand.

  ‘Rosa,’ said Judy, ‘I’m so sorry. I really am being disgraceful. Of course, I’m trivialising it. I’m so sorry. I’m just thrilled for you.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Rosa. ‘I understand the spirit of your questions. He’s not blond or blue-eyed. But I suppose you would say he is handsome. I find him so.’ That sounded pompous, so she said, ‘Anyway, most people at twenty-five have that lustre of youth.’

  ‘God, twenty-five, I can hardly remember it. Do you find he keeps saying worrying things about never having heard of The Cure, or never having watched Withnail and I, or that sort of thing?’ said Judy.

  ‘He claimed for a while only to listen to jazz.’

  ‘Jazz, oh he’s that sort of kid,’ said Will, knowingly. ‘You know, arty.’

  ‘Well, actors, they’re a pretty arty bunch,’ said Rosa.

  ‘I think he sounds lovely,’ said Judy, though Rosa had hardly described him at all.

  She nodded at the kindness. ‘Will and Judy,’ she said, because she really was drunk now. ‘I want you both to know that my attraction to Andreas is not quite merely physical, as I imagine you are both assuming.’ She saw them denying it with short sharp nods of their heads, but she continued anyway. ‘Yes, he is a marvellous lover. Really, a virtuoso. But you don’t want to know that, I imagine. Anyway, that’s not it. It’s something else, something about his naivety – well, th
at’s unfair, perhaps patronising, but essentially he represents the unthinkingness of youth, its lack of suffering, its blissful ignorance of the worst elements of life, the way in which the young live naturally, natively, they are happy in their young bodies and live without a sense of easeful death coming to snuff them out, or some of them do, perhaps it’s that. I’ve analysed it enough, and it may be nothing more than the fact that I like his musky smell and the touch of his hands. But I think it’s the aforementioned … well, whatever I was saying. He is free of foreboding. Foolishly, of course, but I’m not going to shatter his idyll. It’ll get shattered anyway.’

  ‘What you mean is, he offers escapism,’ said Will.

  There was a brief silence, while Rosa absorbed the crashing veracity of this remark.

  ‘Well, he sounds great,’ said Judy. ‘In the circumstances, I think whatever works for you is a good thing.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Rosa. Now she was embarrassed she had brought up the subject anyway. She felt guilty and as if she had sold Andreas into slavery, or prostitution. Certainly she had been disloyal. ‘Anyway, that’s enough about that. How the hell are you?’ she asked again, determined to change the subject. She clinked her glass awkwardly at theirs, trying to toast them, but she clinked it too hard and there was a profound crack. One of the glasses broke. Wine gushed onto the tablecloth and there followed a flurry of apologies and reassurances. They all raised their voices to assert their benevolence. Rosa was really yelling her contrition, and Judy and Will were shouting back their lack of concern. ‘Old glasses, very cheap,’ said Judy loudly, and Rosa said, ‘God, I’m so sorry. I’m such a fool’, and Will was bellowing, ‘It had to happen soon enough. Got them from a garage.’ But of course they hadn’t. After that ruckus, after the wine had been mopped up and Judy had found another glass and filled it, Rosa said, again, ‘I’m so sorry. So, tell me how you really are.’

  ‘Oh us, us,’ said Judy, touching Will’s hand. ‘We’re just fine.’

  ‘Well, you certainly seem to be,’ said Rosa.

  ‘More lamb?’ said Will. Will with his thick hair and his look of health. A shank of meat at his elbow. As he handed some more lamb onto her plate, ladling vegetables after, Rosa was trying to formulate a thought, but discovered she was too drunk to finish it. There was no doubt that Will was hardworking. But he was blessed with fortune, all the same. His mother and father had bought this farmhouse for him, a fantasy playground, a breeding-ground. He had obliged them with a lovely brood; he was a worthy addition to the family line. She was happy for them, of course she was ecstatic, agog with delight, but something lurked beneath it. She was thinking of grandfather Tom, who had lived and died not far from here. At fourteen, his father told him to get a trade. He obeyed; the rest was compromise, happy enough, but hardly the dream. He always said he was fortunate to have been born in such a beautiful place – not Barrow itself, but the countryside around. He went walking in the hills at the weekend. He had never travelled the world; he had never gone far from home. He worked long days, brought home money for his family, played sport, walked a little and he had written comic poems. That wasn’t a bad effort, thought Rosa, as she accepted another spoonful of vegetables. She shrugged it off and tried to think lovingly about her hosts. Nothing more than this, she thought. From now on, nothing else, just kind thoughts.

  She said, ‘I have this Platonic phrase in my head, is it Platonic? It runs something like if one person desires another, or loves them passionately, they would not desire them or love them passionately or as a friend unless they somehow belonged to their beloved either in their soul or in some characteristic, habit, or aspect of their soul. Where’s that from?’

  ‘What are you saying, Rosa?’ said Judy.

  ‘But this food is staggeringly lovely. Thanks very much.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s true, what you say,’ said Will.

  Suddenly, there was a scream from upstairs, and Judy instantly leapt up and left the room.

  ‘That we are beholden to those we love, and accept their claims on us,’ said Will.

  ‘Santé,’ said Rosa.

  ‘You should try a bit more,’ said Will. He was smiling again, in that ready way he had. It was easy for him to be convivial.

  ‘Should try a bit more to do what?’ said Rosa. The remark seemed to apply to a spectrum of things.

  ‘No, no, try a bit more of the lamb shank. Try it, it’s excellent,’ said Will, tipping it onto her plate. Rosa was like a plotter in a melodrama presented with the simple goodness of the heroine. She was there in her cape, whispering away, soliloquising madly, and Will was reaching towards her with his lily-white virtuous hands. Offering her lamb shank. She was too ashamed to say thank you. There was another pause, while Rosa racked her brain for anecdotes, witticisms, anything to entertain her host. Now they had dealt with Liam and Grace, set up their stalls, it was time to say something light and vague. Will, she was thinking, you are very good. And useful to your family. That is to be admired. Then why, she wondered, am I beginning to fear him? It was his eager line in understatement, she thought. His unceasing kindness. It affected her chemically, as if it was alkaline to her acid. I’m like a leech, she thought, that has been treated with salt. Or was it fire? She couldn’t remember how the Moses you treated a leech and realised her simile had been ill-judged. So she turned to her host and forced a smile.

  ‘So, Rosa, what’s the plan?’ said Will, slicing his lamb neatly and putting a piece in his mouth.

  ‘The plan, for what?’

  ‘Well, for the future,’ said Will, with a waving gesture, as if signalling the time to come.

  ‘Whose future?’

  Will laughed. ‘Yours, Rosa, your very own future. Your recovery, if you like.’

  ‘Oh, Will, you know, it’s only a very tiny crise. Nothing major. Just a freak out. Better to have it now than in ten years, I say! We are all quashing the freak-out, do you not think? The freak-out lies coiled in the heart of being, like a worm. It’s not remotely important,’ said Rosa. ‘If you need a farm labourer, or a spinster governess for your children, you might think of me. My values are quite sound. I believe in truth and beauty, something like that, and I am sure there is such a thing as a good person.’

  He laughed and patted her on the arm. I must look desperate, thought Rosa, as she held the fork to her mouth and tried to eat something. Now she thought she should never have come. The thick stone walls, the roaring fire, the farmhouse itself were too redolent of the places she had stayed as a child. The spectre of the past was lurking in the whitewashed rooms. The stacked-up books, the board games for a rainy afternoon, the fresh-faced lovely children; it was all making her think of when she was a child herself, forlorn in these draughty stone houses, fearful of going upstairs on her own, troubled by thoughts of immaterial things, conjurings. In one Lakeland house they stayed in, not the professor’s, a year when her mother wanted a change, there were big ancient portraits on the stairs, a man and a woman clad in Puritan garb, and Rosa hated them. She couldn’t pass them on her own and their eyes gave her nightmares. The shadows of the rooms disturbed her, and the creaking and rattling of old timbers. Her mother was always there, holding her hand. Now, what was she afraid of? As she and Will ate, and as she moved her mouth in pleasantries about the quality of the lamb, making light phrases, she realised. It was her mother! She was in the stone walls and the smell of the rain. She was treading softly in the garden. She was a distant reflection at the window, lurking behind the silence of the evening. Gently reproaching Rosa, for being so bound to the self, bound up in her selfishness. It had been a mistake to come, she thought. ‘Yes, yes, the lamb,’ she said, sounding desperate. ‘And what are your plans for Christmas?’ she asked. Will started to reply; he was always loquacious. She could rely on a full few minutes while he talked of in-laws and the logistics of driving children round the country. The Land Rover was apparently better. There was something about presents. Yet she faded him out, sat there nodding and thinking
that she just had to tussle it all down again, push it back. She wanted to drop to the floor, grovel and wallow, beg them to send her mother back, but that was hardly appropriate. It was the stone and the smell of the rain, she thought again. Better still when she had confined herself to raging about Liam. Far better. More productive and possible to endure. Will was talking about Judy’s parents, and how tricky they were. Too generous, it seemed. Tendency to spoil the children. What do you do? What on earth do you do? Then there was a pause and when she looked up again she saw that Will was staring at her strangely. He had a hand in his orange hair; he looked like an attic frieze, expressing distraction. And she thought, there was the hand again, on her arm, but this time it wasn’t quite patting, more stroking. He was stroking her arm and saying ‘There, there, Rosa, really, it’s OK.’

  Judy, who had just reappeared, was there in an instant. ‘Rosa, are you OK?’ She put her arm round Rosa. It was odd but she seemed to have caused a scene. She had started to cry. She couldn’t remember what had begun it but she was weeping into the lamb shank.

  *

  Later they went to bed, Rosa clattering along the corridor, quite ashamed even in the stew of her drunkenness. She had one hand to her head, in the other she held a pint of water. Judy had insisted. ‘You might need it in the night.’ She might need it when she woke, ravaged by embarrassment, that was the idea. She had developed a coursing headache, which seeped across her forehead and ebbed around her eyes. Her head was pounding and in a fleeting moment of lucidity she knew she had drunk all the wine.

  Sobered by the coldness of her whitewashed room, she sat for a while staring at the floor, then she pushed open the jalousies and breathed in the night air. She could hear the sound of the ghyll spilling down the mountainside. It was a beautiful clear night. The sky was almost cloudless; the stars were brilliant in the sky. With the air bringing her round again, she knew she had behaved badly. She had started out well enough, but the wine had smashed her resolve. For a while she had perhaps convinced them, but her loss of control had done nothing for her cause. By the end they suspected her. They had been trying to help her, and that made it even worse. Whatever she might whisper, they had enough to think about already. Anyway, she had come to exploit them. She had come knowing that she could rely on them to host and understand her. She had only expected tolerance. They had once admired her, she thought, vanity seeping through her drunkenness. ‘Well,’ she said aloud, ‘they don’t now.’