Will and Judy, I am more sorry than I can ever say. Words cannot express how sorry I am. They are inadequate to the task, or I can’t turn them so they would phrase a fifth of my feelings. Had I but words enough and time, I would verse you a verse – oh yes, such a verse, they would write about it for years to come – but my coat is soaked and my head is full of something – it feels like putty. I am quite aware I drank all the wine. But I don’t want you wasting any time thinking about me. Really, there’s no need. I am only sorry I lost my dignity. My bearings I lost long ago. Yours ever, Rosa.
Then she shivered violently and moved closer to the fire. She wrote:
Get a grip on yourself now. This is descending faster than you can winch it up. Your brain isn’t working fast enough. You need to be quick-witted. Contain yourself. No one is impressed by you, and Jess is furious. This wouldn’t bother you if you had managed things well for yourself. But you haven’t, that much is blindingly apparent. Now you have to:
Go back to London.
Find a place to stay
Explain to Andreas
Get a job
Match your words with actions
Get Liam to sell the furniture
Wash your clothes
Sit down with Jess and apologise for everything
Go to the bank and talk to Sharkbreath
Read variously
Detach yourself from illusion altogether
Scale the wall
Traverse the threshold
Find the TEMP
Then the taxi came.
RETURN
She woke again before dawn and stood by the window, staring out at the shadows. The dawn was later by the day; the year was drawing to an end. A coarse wind had ruined the trees; leaves gusted along the pavement. It was Thursday and she had wasted too many days. All through the previous day she had fleeced the clock of minutes, bartering them down. On the journey home, she had found herself thinking of the things she had to do. At Manchester she thought furniture from Liam find a place to stay get a job and as the train eased through the suburbs of Birmingham she thought explain everything to Andreas but by Luton she was thinking leave the country and that insistent thought – escape/retreat – brought her to the outskirts of London. There she watched the city seep towards her. The train ran through rising districts of concrete and steel. All around was incessant motion; she was moving against the current, heading towards the centre while the commuters were going back to the suburbs and their well-earned homes. She saw banks of glass reflecting the sunset. At King’s Cross the crowds moved beneath a giant display. Details changed, platforms were announced; the process was continuous. After she had waited in the tube, dimly aware of her reflection swimming in the darkness, she walked from Ladbroke Grove to the flat. The living room was dark and quiet.
Now she stayed in her room until Jess went out to work. She heard the assertive slam of the door and breathed more easily. When she rose and walked through the flat, she found a note on the table in Jess’s handwriting. Dear Rosa, Hope you had a good trip. Let me know if you need any help with the move. Jess. That was definitely a reminder, tactful in the circumstances, but firm enough. The day felt different. She heard a humming in the distance. It was necessary to be resolute. As she sat at the window she tried to think what to do. She crossed her legs and noted the fleeting progress of the street. As she sat there a car was revving up the scale, from gear to gear. A man stubbed his toe and hopped a step. He glanced up, his mouth rounded in a whistle. A woman walked below, holding a bag of shopping. Rosa pushed up the window and stuck her head out to breathe the air. The sky had been tousled in the night and now she saw the ragged folds of the clouds. And the street, this noisy, random street she knew so well.
She went into the bathroom and found it had been cleaned. Purged by Jess. She was an eternal swab, always dousing something, tidying something else. She opened the cabinet – its newly wiped mirror gleaming smartly – where she found a stash of painkillers. She took a couple, bending her head to the tap and scooping water into her mouth. She remembered a few cursory things, and then she remembered she had to get the furniture money from Liam. That was a certain goal, and one she was sure she could achieve. She thought it mattered for reasons beyond the fiscal – though it mattered for reasons entirely related to the fiscal too. She washed her face and blew soap bubbles at the mirror. When the bathroom was steamed over, furred up, she dried herself and walked back into the living room. In a fit of fleeting courage she dialled up Mrs Brazier, that iron bar of a woman. La Braze answered the phone in a strident voice, suggestive of self-love. That made Rosa nervous, and her hands were trembling as she said, ‘This is Rosa Lane. I came for an interview the other day.’
‘Ah yes, Rosa Lane.’ The voice was businesslike.
‘I just wondered if you had made a decision yet. Not wanting to overstep the mark,’ she said.
Fortunately Frau Braze was quick and to the point. She was sorry but she didn’t want Rosa after all. ‘I’m afraid the children didn’t like you,’ she said. ‘I thought you were fairly suitable.’ But her little darlings, the pashmina-touting infants, hadn’t wanted Rosa. Balanced in the scales, she had been judged unworthy by children!
‘Well, I understand,’ said Rosa. ‘I understand. Of course, it wouldn’t work, if the children didn’t like me. Thanks for letting me know.’ She kept her voice quite firm and relaxed. Just before she hung up she thought of saying, ‘I could try, I could try to make them like me,’ but stopped herself in time. Please ask your infant bastards to give me another chance! she thought, but instead she said, ‘Goodbye, Mrs Brazier. So nice to have met you.’
‘Yah, herum,’ said Brazier.
Then she put the phone down. She was aiming for stoicism as she snagged it on the cradle. And now the children hadn’t liked her. The mini-Brazes had seen straight through her. They knew she didn’t care a hoot about them, couldn’t care less if they lived or died so long as she got money in her hand each month. The profundity of children, she wanted to raise a glass to them, those clever kids! Anyway, they had sniffed her out. The question of money was as pertinent as ever, quite as harsh and pressing, though she had definitely had a go at solving it. She had gone along, ripped her feet to shreds, inhaled a few pints of lung death and sat there talking in a measured way. Now she took her notebook and sat down. The birds were still singing in the silver trees. The trains still shuddered on the tracks. A car stalled on the corner and was answered by a choir of horns. A cacophony of rage. Outside, the denizens of TEMP were waiting. Then the car revved up again, revved away, and the horns abated. She had to think more clearly. She had the interest to pay, she had to service her overdraft or watch as everything came crashing down on her. So she wrote a pared down list. Economy, she was thinking. The basics. These small things you can do!
Things to do, Thursday
Find a place to stay
Phone Liam and ask him to sell the furniture
Phone Kersti
Explain to Andreas
Get a job
Find the way to the truth that is concealed
Unlock the casket
Unearth the TEMP
She looked at it admiringly for a moment. It was certainly succinct, expressive mainly of the essentials. She really had to find a place to stay. She phoned Whitchurch and found she wasn’t in her office. Then she tried Jess, who was in a meeting. She was tapping her fingers and then she found she was dialling Andreas’s number. She wasn’t sure what she would say to him if he picked up the phone. Calmly and at a moderato pace, she would unfurl it all. Nothing sensational. The starting point is a place to sleep. I have options, of course. Of course I have options! And the rest, the whole rest and nothing but the rest. Much in her approach was foolish, that was plain to her. Andreas was genuinely relaxed. Of course he is. It’s only you with your tone of melodrama, trying to sweep the boy into a farce of your own devising. He doesn’t much mind! Things should be easy, if you just accept Andreas
as a nice kid with a big heart and a surprisingly consistent way of being. That’s all. No need for further talk. Yet she couldn’t stop it. It was absurd to be so reticent, when the man even liked her. But he liked her because he hardly knew her. That was far from the point, she thought. Why would he care, if she was slightly in debt? Everyone was in debt. The entire world was in debt, whole countries, economies, why, the whole thing could collapse tomorrow. If she was lucky, it would. Her debt would be wiped out in an instant. Wishing for a global recession was unkind, hardly fair to those who worked so hard amassing money. But anything, thought Rosa – a lightning bolt, a fire in the vaults, the banks destroyed. A collective realisation that money was meaningless! It was a blank wall.
She thought all of this, while the phone rang into empty space and then Andreas’s voice said, ‘Hi there, leave me a message. If it’s work then call my agent on –’ She was clandestine and didn’t leave a message. She dialled another number. A few rings, and she had conjured the voice of Kersti, though it was peremptory this morning, rich in reluctance.
‘Yes,’ said Kersti. ‘Yes, Rosa, don’t you know it’s Thursday?’
‘And Thursday is?’
‘The worst day, after Monday. Full of disorganised fools who should have called me earlier in the week.’
‘But I did call you earlier.’
‘Not you, Rosa. I can never complain about you failing to call me.’
‘You sound a bit spun out.’
‘You know, Rosa, it was strange, yesterday the birds were singing, the sky was blue, I felt a great sense of joy and couldn’t work out why. And now I realise, it was because I hadn’t heard the word furniture for the whole day.’
‘I went away for a night,’ said Rosa.
‘Sounds nice,’ said Kersti.
‘Though perhaps you mean undeserved?’
‘I mean I really don’t have time to talk. Yes I’ve phoned Liam. Yes the guy’s busy. Yes he’s getting married tomorrow. He says, and I understand his point, can’t it wait? He appreciates you want to sort it out. But it’s a load of mouldy old furniture. He’s not going to sell it, so you have to come to an arrangement. He thinks a thousand is probably too much. So he says when he’s finished with the wedding chaos he’ll talk to you.’
‘Oh yes, I’d forgotten,’ said Rosa. ‘I’d forgotten the wedding was tomorrow.’ But those words sluiced down the phone, saturated with improbability.
‘OK, Rosa, I’ll call you if there’s anything to say. So you’re not going to the wedding, I assume?’
‘No, not,’ said Rosa.
‘Well, speak to you later.’
‘Sorry. Thanks for everything. Goodbye.’
Rosa put down the phone. Now she was gritting her teeth, feeling a sturdy sense of her impotence. Her moods were shifting from one extreme to another. She had returned with a sense that she must progress somehow, that she had finally plumbed the depths and formed a resolution – desperate, tenuous, but a resolution all the same – to reach, if not the surface, then a point less deep than the depths. But the waves were strong and she couldn’t break the water. She was struggling with this heaviness, weight of water, something was pulling her down even as she struggled. At the surface you’ll breathe better. She stood by the radiator and thought how fine it was to be inside on a day like this, casting a glance at the window which was slurred with rain. Bent trees beyond, a dancing row. Green and grey, the slick sky flooded with clouds. She had failed to have breakfast, so she ate a bowl of cornflakes and drank one more cup of tea. The stuff keeps you happy, she thought as she drank. She rang Liam at work. He wasn’t there. ‘He’s gone to a meeting,’ said a secretary. She was determined and so she left a message asking him to sell the furniture. The secretary said, ‘What?’ and Rosa said, ‘The furniture. F-U-R-N-I-T-U-R-E. Tell him thanks. From Rosa.’ Still she was sounding reasonable, even as she dictated the sentences. She couldn’t quite explain about her cash-flow crisis. It was definitely none of his business, and she hardly thought he would reach into his pockets. Would he? Sudden hope, and then she thought it was impossible. Call up Liam and ask for money! It would never happen. Better call up Grace and – and she wondered – could she? – but that was a poor idea. She had to come up with something much better than that.
So she called her father. She heard the phone ringing through the rooms of his large house, and she imagined him setting down a piece of work, a Spanish translation or something in the garden, or apologising to his bridge partner and rising from the table.
‘Father,’ she said, when he answered.
‘Rosa, my dear. How are you?’
‘Thanks very much for lunch the other day.’
‘That’s fine. It was good to see you.’
‘I wondered if I could ask something?’
‘Yes, of course. I’m just here with some friends, and we have to go to play tennis now. Will it take long?’
‘I’m not sure. Depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On your response.’
‘I see. Well, now you’ve whetted my appetite, come on, be quick now. Bernard will be round any minute and I have to feed the dog before I go.’
‘How is the dog, Dad?’
‘The dog is very well. Is that what you wanted to ask?’
‘No. You know it isn’t.’ She laughed, but there were days – today one of them – when her father’s jocularity seemed like nerves. Keep cracking the gags, Dad, that’s just fine. That’ll steel you nicely against the inevitable.
‘The thing is’ – her father was clearing his throat impatiently and so she said, ‘I wondered’ and cleared her throat back at him. That made her think of their shared genes; she could sense them working away in her reluctance to come clean.
‘Rosa, come along, dear,’ he said, kindly but briskly.
‘OK, Dad. Well,’ she said.
Then there was a pause, while Rosa experienced a brief moment of illumination, a glowing, flushed with dawn colours realisation that there was something else stopping her tongue, something more than native cowardice. Her father was a crumbling column, succumbing to the elements; she wouldn’t rely on him any more. And finally, at the age of thirty-five, deep in the forest, profoundly lost in the thicket, you decide that your father isn’t the man with the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx or your cash-flow crisis, or any other problem. And that, she thought, with a nod to Dr Kamen, could be a step forward. She saw that it wasn’t a question of genes or any such thing, but that coming clean to her father was not part of the process. She had hardly helped him at all, this bereaved and antique father of hers, and this was one thing she could do. She could keep it all quiet, omit to tell him any of it. That was something she could do for him. This made her feel much better, though it hardly helped her. She was uncertain if this was her best conspicuous rationalisation yet, as she said, ‘I just wanted to say how good it was to see you, and how glad I am you are happy with Sarah.’
‘Well, thank you, Rosa.’ He sounded hesitant, as if he suspected something else might be coming. Then she heard a bell in the background. ‘That’s Bernard,’ he said.
That’s the bell, Sharkbreath is coming! ‘OK, Dad. But thanks again. And you know, I understand what you were saying.’
‘OK, good,’ he said, and rang off uncertainly.
Her brow was damp. She put her head down to the clammy tip of the phone. A monotone confirmed that her father had gone. Of course, she thought. He has to play tennis and prepare his body for dispersal. Really there’s no point expecting him to dole out money. He doesn’t have much, and what he has, well, he needs. Of course he does! He needs it to bribe the ferryman, all the rest. She hovered by the phone for a moment, thinking of calling him back and leaving a message. Daddy dear, the dough is all yours. You enjoy it, you old cricket. Splash out, buy Sarah a new wig. Thanks so much, Daddy. Thanks. Instead she called Kersti again, risking her thundering wrath. This time Kersti was out. ‘Would you like to leave a message?’ Tell her t
he guardians of the laws are angry. Tell her I have failed to unlock the secrets of TEMP. That a star is about to fall. The Kills are abroad. Tell her I still believe in the possibility of perfection and I wonder if she feels the same. ‘No, no message,’ said Rosa. ‘I’ll try again later.’
Rosa put down the phone. Again she was smiling. Her moods were shifting from one extreme to another. There was this lurking sense of despair and as if her own personal eschaton was nigh but she was trying to ignore it, quash it at least. Then the phone rang again and Rosa, hoping it was Andreas, said, ‘Jawohl?’
‘Hello, can I speak to Rosa Lane?’
‘Yes, speaking,’ she said.
‘Martin White here, from the Daily Post,’ said a happy elegant voice.
‘Hello,’ said Rosa uncertainly. Well, this is a surprise, she thought. She sat on the folding table and nearly slid off it, steadied herself and said ‘Hello’ again. Encore, she thought.
‘Good idea, your idea for the piece. Good idea. Nice sound to your style. Good enough. A little manic, perhaps you could tone it down. Just send it in, a little calmer,’ he said.
‘You really liked it?’ said Rosa.
‘Yes, yes, quite a good idea. Elective destitution. Good. A bit odd, just what the readers like,’ said Martin White. ‘Not really your largest demographic, I mean I can’t imagine there are so many of them, but I like the bit about blaming the baby boomers. Good idea. Give it a go. Send it to me whenever you can. About 600 words. Sorry not to give you more. You know, in plain English for the general reader. OK?’
‘Thanks, thanks very much,’ said Rosa.
She put the phone down and, because this was the best news she had had in ages and the first sniff of money for a long while, she cried. She wasn’t sure why she started gushing like a sap. It was an over-reaction. As she stopped crying she felt a sense of great joy, but then she wiped her eyes and realised that Martin White’s intervention, which had seemed so fortuitous just a few seconds earlier, so much like manna from heaven, didn’t really solve her immediate problem. Even if he took her article, she wouldn’t get the money for weeks. And, anyway, wasn’t it precisely her inability to write that was the problem? And now she thought she was saved, because someone had asked her to be a journalist again! ‘Shog,’ she said aloud. ‘Bloody shog!’
Inglorious Page 23
