Inglorious

by Joanna Kavenna

  ‘Rosa, stop being crazy,’ he gasped. ‘I don’t have time, surely you understand? It will have to wait!’ And he was shouting now, in his frustration. He was frantic about the time. Always he was thinking about himself. It was surely unmeasured but she wanted to bite him. All that violence she had thought of and never had a chance to enact, really she wanted to head-butt and pummel him. He was dragging her faster along, trying to draw her down the stairs. He had ten flights to go; it was looking bad. She could see that in his fixed stare and the lonely curve of his mouth. That made her think of this discarded period of her life; she felt him as he drew her along and was transported, though the present was jarring, and this motion was making her feel giddy again. She remembered the way he smelt in the morning, the dry taste of his mouth and the warmth of his body. Though she had hated him in recent months, she recognised that. It came over her suddenly how familiar he was, and that was despite everything, the acts he had perpetrated and his all round treachery. Now she stopped struggling. Reluctantly she understood. It was all quite pointless, and besides it was the wrong time. She felt suddenly disgusted, with Liam for refusing to pay the money, and with herself for begging for it. He was scoring a last, emphatic point, even though he had smashed her to bits already. It enraged her that she couldn’t just retreat, remain aloof. So she said, quietly, ‘Fine, you’re right. I’ll walk. I’ll go.’ He dropped his arms, hopeful, and she began to walk down the stairs. He was still behind her. ‘I feel sorry for you. I really do,’ he said. ‘I feel partly responsible, of course.’

  She didn’t bother to respond.

  ‘I know you were unhappy with me, but now – now you seem much worse,’ he said wiping his face. His skin was shining with sweat.

  ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Really, you have to be less of a prig.’

  On the sixth floor, with a nervous glance at his watch, he said she was walking too slowly, and put his arm on hers again. She got free and walked away. Then, because she was preoccupied, she tripped and fell, hitting her jaw on the banisters. He grabbed her and steadied her again. ‘Rosa, are you OK?’ She pressed her hand to her mouth. Now his hand shook when he touched her. He was shaking his head at her, looking sad. ‘Rosa, I’m sorry about the way things worked out,’ he said. ‘And now you’ve hurt yourself.’

  ‘That’s fine, it’s nothing,’ she said. She could taste blood in her mouth, and she swallowed. She really wanted to cry, but it was pure self-pity. She was standing now, dabbing at her mouth, and he was holding her arms. His face close to hers. It was an intimate moment, redolent of course. Then she found she was saying something, it quite surprised her, because it wasn’t really what she had meant to say, really it hadn’t been her intention to say it at all. ‘Liam,’ she was saying, in a choked, wheedling voice that did her no favours, ‘do you have to? Maybe you don’t have to after all? Of course, she’s a great woman. A marvellous friend. But do you have to? It just seems unnecessary somehow. It’s a step too far. You know, I’m smashed already, there’s no need for another blow. I’m out for the count! On the floor, really, I’m down there, right down there, scrabbling to rise but finding this fucking wedding, this whole ritual, love-celebration, whatever you’re calling it, is too much. It’s only a particle, of course, a piece of chaff in the wind, and if I add it in with the meaning of things and the point, the perfect point, and my need for cash and all the TEMP and the rest, of course it means almost nothing. But anyway it’s too much, do you understand? Tasteless, too soon, prohibitively tasteless. Just outrageous! Staggering! Like felling someone with a ton of bricks then blowing them up as well! Don’t you see? Can’t you see how it feels if you’re quite pulverised already and then someone says, “Oh God YAH we’re getting married in a big stupid wedding with white bows everywhere and cascading arrangements of flora and the bastard crazy rest?”’ The whole thing was out in seconds, her drooling petition. Now she saw him so vaporised, so insubstantial and preposterous, preparing for his luxurious wedding – it should have meant nothing to her, yet somehow it unnerved her, and she was spilling garbage in a trembling voice. ‘What the hell has happened to you?’ she was saying. ‘What the hell happened?’ It was futile and she dried up with a sense that she might – any moment, and clearly ridiculous – start to cry. Too too solid flesh, she thought, and then she thought, Who the hell are you kidding? The time has long gone when you could have left here amicably, with a conciliatory wave. Now you just have to sidle out of here as soon as you can. Liam had his arms round her, as she stood there gulping and flushed with shame, and she remembered their former passion, or former conspiracy, a conspiracy of concern for each other, and now she was trying to pull herself away. She shouldn’t have come, of course. She had only been appalled by the discord between them, and the sense that Liam believed he was right, about the money and everything else. ‘I’ll go right away,’ she said, rubbing her mouth, which hurt. The atmosphere had certainly declined. It was the most awkward place she had been for a long time. She was trying not to look him in the eye. He would think she was mourning the loss of him, the death of love, but now she understood – some knot had been untied, and here they were, separate, entirely distinct, hardly understanding each other.

  She was emitting some bizarre sounds, trying to say, ‘Well, let’s talk about the money soon,’ while Liam was saying, ‘Rosa, please don’t come back again.’ His cheeks creased. His eyes looked rheumy. She realised he was moved. That surprised her, because she knew he had other things to think about, his romance of the present and his special day. ‘I will sort out the money for you, I promise. I understand you should have some. Things have gone badly, I know. I’m sorry about it.’ He thought he was making a beautiful speech. That made her angry all over again, and she turned to go, shaking with mingled fury and humiliation.

  As she stepped away from him she felt she should have been more serious about everything, about her lack of discipline and the bank and her job prospects and her father. Clearly her coping strategy had failed. ‘Do you need a tissue?’ he said, politely. She shook her head.

  ‘I’ve been out of sorts,’ she said. ‘Seeing you just brought a few things back. It’s not important. I’m glad you’re happy.’ All of that came out in a rush, and now she thought of his friends upstairs with their top hats and carnations, waiting for him. ‘Rosa, promise me you will take action,’ said Liam. ‘And I promise I’ll send you a cheque. I’m aware I’ve been remiss.’ That nearly made her smile. Action! She was already busy, trying to salvage her pride.

  ‘Even the money,’ she said, aware that her voice was unreliable, her overall demeanour was letting her down. ‘You’re right. The money really doesn’t matter,’ she lied. ‘If it’s so important to you not to pay it, though I really don’t know why, then don’t pay it. You know, forget it. Forget the furniture. Take it as a wedding present. Apply whatever significance you want to it. I’ve other things to think about, frankly. Have a great wedding, you know, good luck.’ He didn’t reply. He raised a hand to her, awkwardly, as she turned away.

  Things to do, Thursday – this day you have redefined the definition of a fool, scaled new heights of foolery previously unimaginable.

  Get a job

  Find a place to stay

  Explain to Andreas

  Write the article for Martin White

  Plough a field with bulls of flaming breath

  Slay the armed men who spring into being when you sow the field. Throw a stone in their midst, to cause them to turn face to face and attack each other.

  Take the treasure and run. Legend dictates you should kill a man at this point, and throw him out. But try to escape without slaughter!

  Unlock the TEMP and unearth WHAT?

  As she walked away she was trying to look graceful. She went down the stairs, a hand over her mouth, passing the concierge who waved goodbye. She didn’t try to speak.

  Outside she stood for a moment under the shadow of the tower block. Briefly, she wondered if it was possible to
expire with shame, to be felled by a sense of embarrassment and drop into the gutter. And then she wondered if it was embarrassment or disappointment, that she had seen Liam unmasked, grappling with her for nothing, money he didn’t even want, tussling her downstairs to sustain his sense of righteousness. Indifference would have been the best response, scorn still better, yet she had failed to produce either. Now she was free to walk slowly through the evening streets, from Notting Hill towards Ladbroke Grove, past the white mansions with their doors locked, shutters down, windows barred tight. The day felt heavy and she tried to pick up her heels. Certainly morale had slipped. It had something to do with her failure to get money, even though this time she had come pretty close. Her conversation with Liam, until it declined into a pit of emotional cess, had been the best chance she had had in a long time. In this case alone she had a leg to stand on, she really did have a claim to some cash and she could have insisted, could have forced him to pay her. But she had given up, lost her ire – and why? Because she suddenly understood how ridiculous it was, how absurd she had been to enter into this contest, to allow him to sit there dispensing or withholding favours? All she wanted to do was forget him. She wanted to stop thinking about the money, about the scraps he was refusing her. That was all foolish enough, and she bowed her head. Leaves gusted on the pavement. She stepped around a puddle and heard a clock chiming in the distance. It was 7 p.m., and everything was almost over. She walked along watching the lights in the windows of the houses, those tall bright houses with palm trees in their gardens. When she looked into the rooms and saw their vivid normality she felt calmer. Still she found she was talking as she went, struggling to make sense of recent events. ‘The whole thing! So futile. What were you thinking? That he would repent? That you would calmly discuss the wrongs you had committed, and resolve a pax?’ It made her shiver. She passed a man who was coughing on the corner. A woman walked past, arm in arm with a girl who looked like her daughter. They were genetically identifiable, both with the same sling of their hips and long blonde hair. ‘And now he’s getting into his suit, quite relieved. Putting on his cufflinks, with a steady hand.’ Stay with Andreas for a day or so. Then find somewhere else to live. Write this article for Martin White. Visit Sharkbreath and beg him for compassion. Tell Yabalon you’re not afraid. Borrow from Jess – but there would be no talking to Jess now.

  She arrived at the Westway with blisters and a bloody mouth. She walked quickly, scuffing her shoes on the street. The evening was cold and still. She hadn’t eaten for a while, but she wasn’t hungry at all. She felt her lip, which was slightly swollen. She wondered if one of her teeth was looser than usual; she pushed it with her tongue. At the corner of her street she sat on a crumbling wall. She was crying a little and she had sweated into her shirt. She watched the windows of the houses, imagining successive lives. Tomorrow they wouldn’t be quite the same. An imperceptible change would have occurred, some small shift in their cells. She put her hand in her bag, checked she had her papers and her passport. She turned the key in the door and walked into the darkness of the stairs.

  *

  She came round; it was as if she had returned from a deep trance. She found she was sitting in Jess’s flat, in the pink living room, with her face to the wall. She was confused for a moment, and she wondered whether Jess was there too. Then she remembered it was the night before Liam’s wedding and that Jess was at the rehearsal dinner. She was beside herself and didn’t know what to do. She must have been crying for a while, sobbing like a child or a fool, because her eyes were stinging and she had a thick headache. She allowed herself another bout of tears, but it hardly helped and she began to writhe at the sight of herself, sitting in a borrowed room crying about what? Her sense of time wasted? The whole thing was absurd, she thought, pressing her hands to her eyes. She was acting like a sap! The most sap-like she had been in months, and that made her shudder with shame. She was adrift in a small room, and she felt alone and despised this sense of solitude. She thought of the rehearsal dinner, everyone in a pool of light, smiling and shouting greetings to each other. But that was ignominious; she understood it was too predictable that she would sit there sobbing to herself while Liam and Grace got themselves hitched in a whirl of bows and satin. Even in her confusion, she despised the cliché, the sense that her life was playing itself out in so generic a fashion. She was fodder for a silly story, a basement piece in the middle of August, a missive from the world of nothing. And that made her stir herself. With her hands trembling, she wrote to Martin White. Thanks again for the commission. I’ll try to have the article with you by the end of the week. He hadn’t even set a deadline. That was fortunate, though she had to force herself to write. You must galvanise yourself. That’s really the thing. She called Andreas, and he picked up the phone, half asleep.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his voice muffled.

  ‘Andreas, hi, it’s Rosa,’ she said.

  ‘Rosa, dear girl, it’s the middle of the night.’

  ‘I’m very sorry. Very sorry indeed. I forgot the time,’ said Rosa. And he was right, she saw it on the clock, 2 a.m. blinking a reproach at her.

  ‘Well, tomorrow. Talk then. I have to rehearse all day. Evening. Speak evening.’

  He was friendly, but exhausted. He could hardly speak. Fundamentally, he was asleep.

  ‘OK, speak to you then,’ she said.

  ‘OK,’ he said, and she thought of him dropping the phone and reclining again. He would be asleep in a second, and she counted him down, thinking of him drifting into sleep, falling, and now, Andreas was unconscious, she thought. Then she kicked the phone cord out of the socket, went to her room and whined herself to sleep.

  *

  She was woken by the buzzer. It jolted her into consciousness. She waited for Jess to take it, thinking she should stay as still and quiet as possible. She sat hunched on the bed, her chin on her knees, then the buzzer disturbed her again. There was no sign of Jess as she walked through the living room and found the intercom in the half-light. She pressed the button.

  ‘Delivery for Rosa Lane,’ said a voice. It was so unexpected that she didn’t know what to do. She paused before she answered. A delivery? A book from her father? There was a danger it might be. A guide to being. Something benign and essentially unhelpful. Another of his articles, stapled in a neat folder? Or something else, some sort of punitive measure? A summons from Sharkbreath! Perhaps it was today she would be set upon by Sharkbreath’s gang, toad-faces the lot of them. Still, she pushed a button and heard the door click open. She saw the messenger’s head vanish inside. Then there were footsteps on the stairs, and after a while he hammered on the door. My God, she thought. And she felt entirely resigned, really they could take her, she didn’t care any more. It’s all become quite too much, she thought. Existentially, she had become supine. Besides she was half-asleep and her face was stiff from all her sterling efforts of the night before. She found a jumper on the sideboard and put it on. Then she switched on the light. Opening the door she was surprised to see a courier, wearing leathers. He had a slim envelope in his hand, which he held towards her.

  ‘What is it?’ she said.

  Of course he didn’t know. ‘You’ll find out when you read it,’ he said, with a friendly nod of his head. You’ll find out later, all of it, she thought. Then he went away and she heard him thumping down the stairs.

  Uncertainly, she opened the envelope. There was a piece of paper, a note in Liam’s writing. Written in haste, it said: Dear Rosa, Here it is, and that really has to be all. Sorry, and love as ever, Liam. And there was a cheque for five hundred pounds. That made her sit down suddenly on Jess’s sofa. For a while she held the cheque and couldn’t understand it at all. She kept looking at the cheque, then looking again at the note. She read love as ever again and found it was an odd thing to write. Really he had stopped loving her long ago. But he was sentimental. The cheque proved that. She hadn’t turned to look at him as she walked away, but something in that final scen
e made him rush for his wallet. It was his guilty conscience that made him sign, or perhaps he was paying her off, bribing her not to cause any more trouble. It was for Grace’s health; he saw it as an investment. Money was nothing, for that sort of thing. He wanted to cleanse himself, enter the holy state of matrimony absolved of his sins! He signed it in a hurry and sent it over, because he was late. While he was tying his cravat he asked his best man – who was that? Lorne? Or some friend of his from school? – to phone the courier. ‘Bit of trouble at work,’ he said, lying into his top hat. Well, it was characteristic. He wanted her tidied up, the swine. Still, he didn’t want to pay what she had asked, and he couldn’t resist a self-righteous flourish. That really has to be all. Who said so? Liam, and no doubt Grace too, if she knew about it. Both of them so reasonable, they thought, gatekeepers of the rational world. That made her angry for a while, and she thought of a dozen ways to spite him. She screwed up the cheque – but not too much – and threw it on the floor. She stood and walked to the tap, drank down a pitcher of water, dribbled most of it out because her lip was swollen and her tooth ached, said, ‘The cunning cunt’, and then she sat down on the sofa again. Then she bowed her head suddenly because she thought it might be compassion. She read Sorry, and love as ever. Sorry for what? Sorry it wasn’t more? Sorry for everything? Sorry that she had made such a fool of herself, one last time? Of course things had been bad between them. She had loved him, and now the old sense of him came coursing over her; she was quite aware of Liam as she had known him and longed for him daily, and this made her want to cry out. She understood that things had become bitter. He was so closely associated with it all, her lost mother, the blankness that descended and a lot of accompanying mental debris. She had focused it on him, weighted him down with it. They had both been imperfect, hopeless. She couldn’t know for certain. Then she thought if it was so easy for him to do it now, why had he waited so long, why had he forced her to produce a haphazard entreaty? Once she had emerged, humiliated herself, he scrawled a cheque. The note was scribbled, too; she knew his writing well enough. He had been in a frantic hurry. For a moment she thought of the heroic gesture; she had a full-bodied, fleshed-out vision of herself marching to the church, tearing the cheque up on the steps, throwing it in with the confetti, then she picked up the cheque, smoothed it out and put it in her bag.