Inglorious

by Joanna Kavenna

  She started to write Dear Mrs Brazier, I wondered if you might need an interim tutor, before the real one gets started. Just for a few days? Just to get some money in my pocket … But she stopped. These letters won’t help at all, she thought. No more letters, and no more lists – she had a thousand things she thought she ought to do, but she was trying to keep herself disciplined, and she thought, You must simply make these calls. Find a solution. You’ve run out of time. Now she sat up straight. She saw the room in blurred vision, red dots danced before her eyes. She sliced the air with her arms. It was not too late; there was time. She picked up the phone and rang Whitchurch. There was no answer. She tried Jess at work. It switched to voicemail and Rosa lacked the barefaced ludicrousness to leave a message. She tried Andreas, but the man was still absent. Useless! she thought. Not there at all when you need a favour, a small spot of pedestrian salvation! She tried Kersti one more time, but Kersti had gone away. ‘She won’t be back in today,’ said Kersti’s secretary. ‘Not at all today?’ ‘Not at all.’ That was firm, and Rosa left no message. She called Whitchurch again. It was incredible; no one was at their desk. They had all bunked off, gone to walk through the dampness of the crowds and sluice themselves in rainwater. It was just downright unlucky, but today they were perpetually out to lunch, in meetings, the rest. She thought of Liam and Grace preparing for their wedding. Grace with her wedding dress stashed away somewhere. Her trousseau at the ready. Their honeymoon planned, somewhere flashy. Hoping the weather would be fine.

  She walked to the fridge and looked in it for a few minutes. At the bottom of the fridge she found a bar of chocolate, which she ate. She ran her hands under the tap in the kitchen. Then she poured herself a bowl of cereal and used up the last of the milk. She imagined Jess shaking the container in fury, noting the absence of her chocolate, counting her cornflakes at midnight. That was probably why she had stopped the deal. Too many small pilferings. She was thinking again about the thousand pounds. The unceasing quandary of the furniture. As you have pilfered so others pilfer from you, she thought. Galvanised by all the sugar she had eaten, she called Liam again and found him at his desk. Of everyone, all the other shirkers, he was there. It was strange, and Liam seemed to be finding it so. He seemed stone cold and mystified. Really they hadn’t talked for months and as she spoke Rosa found her voice was trembling. Her hands were shaking; her entire body was in nervous motion. She was gripping the phone, as if that could steady her. She didn’t quite know how to start, so she said:

  ‘Liam, how are you?’

  ‘Very well, how are you?’

  ‘Good. Anyway. I just wanted to ask, have to rush, but can you please sell the furniture? I’m just short of liquid funds at present. I’m moving flat, it’s costing a load. Could really do with the money. If you can’t sell then perhaps you could just pay me my half?’

  Liam was civil, if a little tense. His voice sounded dry. But he still had his melodic alto range. Liam had a light, soft voice. You didn’t notice how gentle it was until you heard him on the phone. He had the slightest trace of a Yorkshire accent. ‘The furniture?’ he said. ‘God, that friend of yours, Kersti.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She calls me all the time about the furniture. It’s like a joke. Could you ask her to stop?’

  ‘I’m not responsible for Kersti’s actions,’ she said. Which was wrong, considering the hours she spent begging Kersti to call him.

  ‘Look, you’ll get your share when I sell the furniture. Or when I get back from the honeymoon. I said this to Kersti. I don’t know what else to suggest. I agree we should give you some money, but a grand is a lot. I haven’t been able to think about it. I’ve had a few other things to think about.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. Your guilty conscience.’

  ‘Rosa, I will have to go if you start on,’ said Liam. She could tell he was trying to be stern with her. It was covering up. A psychic paint job if she ever saw one.

  ‘No time to discuss. I just need the money. Really, Liam, it would really help. What about an advance? A payment plan. What about I rent you the furniture?’ said Rosa.

  ‘Hardly likely.’ She could imagine him slapping the phone cord on his desk, shrugging round at his colleagues. My ex, you know, freaking out before the wedding, quite the worst time. Then she remembered someone had told her – as if she cared! – that he had recently gained an office of his own. Well, that sounded nice. She imagined him with a framed picture of Grace on his desk, a picture of his mother, a pencil sharpener and some really good pens.

  ‘Come on, Liam, just a grand or so.’

  ‘A grand! For that bunch of junk! Get a grip!’

  ‘The sofa, easily, and the rest. The bed!’

  ‘I really can’t see it,’ he said. Now he sounded as if he was smiling.

  ‘Then Grace will have to buy me out.’

  ‘Buy your share of some old furniture she hates? Rosa, come now,’ he said. She thought he was trying to josh her, be jovial. He had recovered from his surprise, and now he was thinking the best way was fake conviviality. He wanted her to see the humour in it, but as far as Rosa was concerned there was nothing funny about it at all. Had he known how serious she was he might have pitied her, and this was the last thing she needed, Liam offering her consolation. Years and years, and you end up fighting over scraps, she thought.

  Hearing his voice made her sad, and angry, and she tried to keep it back. That effort failed. She heard herself saying, ‘But don’t you think she ought to? Don’t you think it would be decent? Both of you sitting there, on the sofa I picked, the bed I even built, putting your cups on the table I found on Golborne Road, don’t you ever think – is this fair? I don’t want to have to call you at all. It’s plain humiliating, to have to call you up. For a grand! Come on, it’s nothing to you!’ And really, it wasn’t much, when she thought of what he earned. It was a figure she had once commanded herself, though now it seemed like the most decadent wad of cash, superfluous to requirements. ‘It would cost me far more to buy the furniture again. In fact, why don’t you give me the furniture? I’ll sell it and pay you your share. OK? So tell me, when will it arrive?’ She was trying to sound exasperated, but she couldn’t keep the latent whine out of her voice.

  ‘Arrive where, Rosa? Where is it you’re dossing this time?’ And now he sneered a little. She imagined him, tidy suit, tidy hair, sitting in a tidy box-like room, surrounded by papers. Polishing his pens. Did Grace buy his ties, she wondered? It was the sort of thing she might do. With irony of course, smirking prettily as she handed them over. But she would buy them all the same.

  ‘When can you bring it round? Saturday? Sunday?’

  ‘Rosa, could it possibly wait a couple of weeks?’ said Liam.

  Now he wanted to goad her, so she said, ‘Liam, let’s be rational. You have everything you want and really I just want to get away. I just want to leave the country.’

  ‘Really? Going on holiday?’ He sounded amused. ‘Sorry, Rosa, I really have to go. I’ll talk to Grace. She’s busy today, as you can imagine. But we’ll discuss it when everything is calmer.’

  ‘It’s not the money that’s important, it’s the symbolism, the symbolism is what matters!’ she said, aware that she was now shouting, but hardly bothering to control it.

  ‘A symbolic thousand, or a real thousand?’

  ‘It’s my money, you know it is!’ she said. There was a silence on the other end, then Liam, in a voice that betrayed a hint of superiority, said, ‘Rosa, no one wants you to die in a ditch.’ She was thinking that he was spoilt. He had always been indulged. Women had always rushed to indulge him. She blamed her sex, and she blamed him for lapping it all up, all this lust-based praise. ‘Just sell the furniture,’ she said. ‘Or hand it over.’ Then she put down the phone.

  And she remembered her and Liam outside a country pub on her thirtieth birthday. The day was brilliant, the air shimmered with heat. There was Liam with his hand above his eyes. The garden of the pub wo
und around with ivy and wisteria. She could still remember how much they had been in love. They were incessant in it, quite steeped in it. Forlorn, she thought that five – nearly six – years was a long time, but all experience was only that, experience in the end. The conversation had lacked a conclusion. He hadn’t committed himself, so she couldn’t quite tick the item off her list. She took a pen, finding her hands were oozing sweat, and wrote: Call Liam back and check whether he said yes or no.

  She shrugged it off, and went to the bank one more time, to try to talk to Sharkbreath. Stepping out of the flat she moved quickly along, locked in her thoughts. She passed the billboard on her left. Yes, yes, here come the tears, she thought. At the roundabout, there were cars turning the usual slow circle, the shops were sketched in their fading paints and the air was thick with petrol. Phiz had lived here, said the sign, many years ago, and now Phiz was nowhere to be seen, and Rosa passed along Ladbroke Grove with the hammer and thump of the Westway dawning above her and the sun shining through thick trailing clouds. Skeletal trees, tops to the sky. The pile of rubble and the metal grilles. A factory to her right, industrial twine around the walls. Equal People, she saw, and the celestial stairs. TEMP.

  Much was the same at the bank, the same neon flickering lights above her, and the same acrylic carpeting that gave her a mild electric shock as she entered. The walls were touting helpful mantras: ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT YOUR PENSION PLAN? DO YOU WANT A BETTER DEAL ON YOUR MORTGAGE? DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO THE CROCK OF CRAP? A quick enquiry at the desk returned the information – unfortunate, if a relief all the same – that Sharkbreath wasn’t there. Instead she got another lowly zipper-mouth, not Mandy but another one called Jude. ‘Mr Rivers isn’t here today,’ she said, and her zipper was fastened. No smile at all.

  ‘Where is he?’ said Rosa.

  ‘He’s gone to a management programme meeting,’ said Jude.

  ‘A what?’

  Jude shrugged and tossed her hair. She had a low hairline, and her fringe cuffed her eyes. She had tucked her face into a frown.

  ‘I wonder, could I possibly see someone else?’ asked Rosa, reasonably enough she thought, but Jude frowned some more.

  ‘What’s it concerning?’ asked Jude, clicking her pen.

  ‘About my overdraft. I just need to talk about my debt.’

  ‘If you wait a while we might just about be able to get you in to see Justin.’

  ‘Who is Justin?’

  ‘He’s the deputy to our overdraft repayment advisor.’

  It was a remark ripe for satire, but Rosa had lost her mettle. ‘How long will he be?’

  ‘Let’s have a look, well, we have Mr Brick who is due in now and then Mrs Watson and so he could see you in half an hour?’

  It made her nervous, but she said, ‘Yes, thanks, half an hour.’ She took a seat and, defying anyone to question her, picked up the Financial Times and waited.

  Get a job

  Phone Liam and ask him to sell the furniture

  Unearth the TEMP

  Speak to Andreas

  Article for Martin White

  Find the way to the truth that is concealed

  Then she found she was shaking her head. Get a job. Go to see Liam. Andreas. Simply you must act. JUST ACT! She was trembling as she waited, wondering if the bank might finally grant her a reprieve. But Justin was nothing more than a thin-bearded official, younger than her by many years. He had other appointments scheduled; he hadn’t much time. At first this made him efficient. He slammed the door behind her, shook her hand quickly, and sat her down. He had her details on the screen in an instant. He spun his chair and said, ‘And what is it you wanted to discuss?’ He was wearing a grey suit that was too short in the legs and shiny black shoes. He had lank hair, tendrils of it falling over his ears, and a faceful of compelling moles.

  Frankly, without any introductory flannel, no sort of prolegomena at all, to begin with the beginning and not to exceed the bounds of your patience, well, really to start, to render the inchoate accessible and splendid, well, Justin, if I may call you by your first name? I come in fear and trembling to ask you in your munificence if you could help me. She swallowed hard and said, ‘I’m trying hard to get a job, to pay off my debts, but this mounting interest saps my resolve. I realise it really ought to have the opposite effect, it should really give me a sense of urgency, but I find it makes me feel the whole thing is impossible.’

  Justin stared at her for a moment, then said, ‘What exactly can I help you with?’

  Lucidity! she thought. The Grail, the crock of celestial energy! The human divine! ‘Justin,’ she said, leaning forward. ‘I’ve banked here for years. Most of that time I wasn’t in debt. It’s only in the last few months that I’ve been racking it upwards. The credit card was the first thing – the credit card I couldn’t pay off, and the interest on that is pretty dirty, and then there is the overdraft. Initially Mr Shark – Mr Rivers – was quite happy about the overdraft, because I have been such a solvent customer for so many years, but then I racked that up too. Now there’s no more overdraft, and this haemorrhaging credit card. I have work, but I won’t earn enough to pay off the debt for a while. So I wondered if we could come to an agreement. If we could stop the interest from rising at such a startling level each month. I don’t want more debt to wallow in, not much more anyway, just for the interest to stop going up.’

  Justin shrugged. ‘We have to service the debt. You know the rules when you take a credit card.’ He looked at the screen again. She wondered, did it have a special note to bank staff? This woman has been cast out. Do not give her mercy. Ignore everything she says. Sharkbreath will deal with her. Of course he saw it all on the computer, her history of former solvency and recent fraud. She had been promising she would soon have a job for months. She imagined it looked bad on his side of the screen. Still she pressed on.

  ‘Yes, but do you think you could possibly reduce the interest on one or the other, or just stop the interest altogether? Or extend my overdraft so I could pay off my credit card? You know, I’ve been with this bank for years, and while I understand the rules, I wondered if you could possibly cut me some slack?’

  ‘I can’t authorise anything,’ said Justin, who had clearly not been listening to much of what she said. ‘I see that Mr Rivers has been corresponding with you about this. I suggest you talk to him.’ He was friendly enough, but he raised his hands towards his sparsely bearded chin and said, ‘There’s nothing I can do.’

  ‘I’ve tried to talk to Mr Rivers. He’s simply never here! It’s quite impossible,’ said Rosa. She was gripping the table, holding on as if that would help.

  ‘Mr Rivers is of course here regularly; he just happens not to be here today. But I can make you an appointment with him,’ said Justin. ‘Perhaps next Monday?’

  We can do you a stripping of the self on Tuesday, a moment of epiphany on Wednesday, a spot of time on Thursday, but Monday – Monday we have to see Sharkbreath.

  ‘Well, fine, next Monday. Fine,’ she said, weakly. ‘Good, count me in for Monday.

  Justin rustled through his papers and gave her a piece of card.

  ‘These are the contact details for our debt management counsellor,’ he said. ‘I suggest you talk to her. Or to Mr Rivers. Try him first thing on Monday.’ He nodded her away, and started typing on his computer as she said goodbye.

  She grabbed her coat and a scarf and left the building. When she was on the street she ran along panting like a hound. The bus passed as Rosa ran up to the stop, and she saw the road behind was clogged, so she clenched her fists and carried on. LYLA, said the sign. A STAR REALLY WILL FALL. And soon. THE KILLS were still celebrating the launch of their single. Looking up at the sky, she walked along the street where everything moved too slowly and the cars got wedged in queues, and the buses shambled through it all, creaking and groaning. She was passing a herd of diggers breaking up the road, and a grey house with a view of the shattered street. She was passing the late-night sh
op and the funeral parlour and the cars were queuing at the lights but now there was a sense of elegy to it all because she knew she was leaving soon. The departure made her mark time. Nearly three months since she had come here. She shook her head. Celestial Stairs. Equal People. Pink and blue houses. Sketchy cab company. Handsome trees. Demoralised fast food restaurant. Crumbling high rise. Factory wasteland. Metal grilles. Pile of rubble. And the billboard and HERE COME THE TEARS. Her head ached, and she wondered why she was going back to Jess’s flat. To do what? she thought. She stopped on the street, uncertain, panic making her guts churn. If she went back, what would she do? Make calls, stare at the street, commit resolutions to paper. It was better to stay outside, she thought. And she thought she should go to see Andreas. No conceivable reason why not, she thought. He told you not to go away. He could be pleased to see you. Go and ask him. She gritted her teeth, clenched her fists. It was of course necessary. A simple question, and then she would earn, she hoped, a reprieve. She was bold and if not resolute then at least she was moving again, cutting away from Ladbroke Grove, turning onto quieter streets. How well she knew these shadow-brushed streets, her refuge in the evenings. She told them off, one by one – Chesterton Road, Oxford Gardens, Cambridge Gardens. On a corner she passed two lovers, kissing and holding hands. Then she saw a woman standing at her front door, waving at a friend who was walking away. A man parked a car, laboriously, tugging it backwards and forwards. It had been raining and there were still puddles on the roads. The cars splashed through them, dispersing water. Rosa said, ‘You’ve really been handling things badly,’ quietly, keeping her face behind her scarf. Then she said, ‘No more fooling around. You have to find a place to stay. You have to get a job. In the short term, you have to get that money from Liam. You don’t want it? Of course you don’t. You don’t want anything! But I insist you go and get it. You’ll have to be very calm and quite purposeful, and there’s no point trying to scuff your shoes like that, dragging them along in such a childish way, because that won’t make any difference at all. You’re just slowing yourself down – of course you want to miss out again! I insist you turn up there, prepared to give it your all. Otherwise, what will you do? Do you have a plan B? There’s no fairy godmother preparing to save you. No one will help you! You have exceeded the proper bounds of debt. That’s the brutal truth of it …’ and now she dropped her voice, because she was passing a woman and some children. They all walked up the steps of a house, and disappeared inside. ‘They won’t help you either,’ she said. ‘No point staring over at them. You understand the situation, don’t you?’ A taxi went past her, and to her left was a large church. Her limbs were heavy. If she could just sit down, if there was just a bench she could sit on, she thought. A quick rest and then she would go and sort everything out. She would do everything she had to, happily, after a pause on a bench. ‘No way,’ she said. ‘Come on, no tricks. It’s too late. Remember?’