Saving Agnes

by Rachel Cusk

  ‘But there must have been a ringleader,’ Merlin insisted. ‘Someone who never got it in the neck. You must have had a leader on your terror campaigns.’

  ‘You’re right, we did. Her name was Christine Poole.’

  ‘You shivered as you said it!’ Merlin said gleefully. ‘I saw you! Christine Poole. Creepy name. Does she haunt your dreams?’

  ‘I suppose she does.’

  ‘Let’s go and find her!’ cried Merlin. ‘Let’s go round and do her over, shall we?’

  ‘I don’t know where she lives,’ said Agnes, smiling weakly.

  This was actually a he. Agnes knew perfectly well where she lived. It was in an unremarkable terraced house in their local town at home. Once, when she was home from university, she had seen her walking down the street. At first she hadn’t recognised her. She seemed so much smaller and drearier. She had permed hair and a haggard face, and she was pushing a pram. They had almost collided on the pavement, as if thrown together by the fugal force of their shared past. A flicker of recognition had passed between them. Agnes had thought of all the times she had dreamt of this meeting. It was to be a form of revenge. She had planned to be beautiful and successful, maybe with a man on her arm. She had even thought of clever vicious comments and cutting remarks. In the event, however, the girl had shunted the pram off the pavement to let her pass and they had gone their separate ways without a word. Agnes had glimpsed her feet as she passed, crammed into cheap stilettos.

  At the time she had felt sorry for her, and pity had assuaged her vengefulness. Christine Poole, after all, had got what she deserved. Now Agnes was not so sure about things. Now, if she went to visit her, as Merlin suggested, she didn’t know what would happen. Now she was the one with failure written all over her. She was not so certain of defeating Christine Poole. She thought of Nina, and it occurred to her that nothing might have changed.

  ‘Where’s Jean?’ said Agnes as she arrived in the pub, where they had planned to hold an editorial meeting to discuss the latest issue of Diplomat’s Week.

  ‘With born-again Dave,’ Greta replied. ‘The rave from the grave.’

  She drained her glass and set it down on the table. Agnes took off her coat and sat down heavily beside her.

  ‘Great,’ she said. ‘Marvellous. And do you think she’s going to find the time between – between hopping in and out of bed or whatever it is she’s doing to put in an appearance?’

  ‘Jean dates for Jesus,’ said Greta laconically. ‘She’s got all the time in the world.’

  Agnes picked up the copy of the magazine which was lying on the table. It looked much better; in fact, it was quite good. She turned to the article she had written on women in politics and saw that the byline read ‘By Agnes Hay’.

  ‘Who cares?’ she said, flinging it back on the table. ‘No one else seems to. Why should I? I don’t want to talk about work anyway.’

  ‘Aw, honey, what’s up? Don’t tell me your industry pill has worn off.’

  ‘Well, someone has to do it! We can’t all just be – be mooning around about men the whole time.’

  ‘You too have mooned,’ observed Greta. ‘In fact, you were pretty much a full-time mooner until a few weeks ago. Let the old hag have her fun, sweetie.’

  ‘It just annoys me that women have to fall to pieces every time a man shows any interest in them.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I mean, I know because it happened to me.’

  ‘My name is Agnes Hay,’ Greta cackled. ‘I am a Woman Who Loves Too Much.’

  Agnes went to the bar and bought two vodkas with tonic.

  ‘Why does everyone have to criticise me the whole time?’ she said when she got back. ‘It seems to have become obligatory. It seems to have become a bloody national pastime.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Greta, pronouncing the phrase as one word. ‘Gee, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I was just playing around.’ She raised a concerned hand to her own forehead, as if suspecting a tropical fever might have gripped her unawares. ‘Gosh, I’m really sorry. You’re the best, really you are. God, that was so mean.’

  Agnes could not argue with so comprehensive a display of remorse.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘You’re probably off-loading anger about something else.’ It sounded stupid, so she added: ‘I mean, we all do that sometimes, don’t we?’

  ‘Do we? That’s really smart.’

  Agnes didn’t think it was that smart. She would have preferred people to keep their emotional goods on board.

  ‘Why can’t I say things like that?’ Greta continued. ‘I can’t explain things to save my life. You have a way with words.’

  ‘Do I?’ said Agnes, feeling at a loss for them.

  ‘Sure. Hey, I had a dream about you last night. It was really weird, you were standing on the edge of the ocean chucking these things into the water.’

  She paused as if to signal the completion of her narrative, and Agnes experienced a moment of frustration at this early proof of her friend’s recently proclaimed defect. In general Agnes disliked the incessant fascination of others with their own dreams, analysing them like works of genius thrown up by their dormant imaginations. For her own part she rarely dreamed; such bizarre and wishful fantasies as her mind manufactured were indistinguishably fused with the reality of waking life, broadcast in daylight like an unwatched television set in a corner. The images which visited her in the night were but the residue of her conscious censors, from which she woke sweating and tortured.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘What things?’

  ‘Well, they were these really beautiful things, kind of like glass but lots of different colours. Each one was different, they were all different but part of the same thing if you see what I mean. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you just throwing them into the water because they were getting all ruined and I was shouting for you not to do it, but you kept chucking them in. It was like you didn’t care, you know? So anyway, I promised myself then that I’d tell you when I saw you. Not to do it, that is.’

  ‘Not to do what?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Greta grinned. ‘Not to ruin the damn pieces of glass, I guess.’

  ‘Do you often dream things like that about other people?’

  It seemed strange that she should have been discovered standing alone by some desolate ocean in someone else’s mind. It was almost as if she remembered it herself.

  ‘Oh, sure. Once I dreamed this friend of mine’s father was going to die in this horrible car crash, and then next day he did.’

  ‘And had you told him?’ said Agnes, aghast.

  ‘Of course not! Would you want to know a thing like that?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ said she, feeling rather chilled. ‘I wouldn’t want the responsibility of having to decide, though. Didn’t you feel guilty?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Well, perhaps you could have prevented it.’

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Agnes felt horrified that she should have said such a thing. What if Greta took it to heart? What if, filled with remorse, she should go off and inflict some terrible damage upon herself?

  ‘Well, I thought of that,’ said Greta, apparently unperturbed. ‘But then I decided, well, if that’s his destiny, what difference would it make? My telling him would be included in it, if you see what I mean. I guess I was just unlucky to tune in to his future. Most people ignore things like that anyway, like in that play – you know, the one where that fortune-teller says to the Roman guy that he’s going to get knifed if he goes to the meeting but he goes anyway?’

  ‘Julius Caesar.’

  ‘Right. Like that, anyway. I just kind of carried it around with me. Other things too.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, mostly about myself. Feelings I have, kind of like premonitions. At the moment, say, I’ve got a feeling about that guy.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘London Transport, you know. About him. Weird.
’

  ‘Why on earth don’t you do something about it?’ cried Agnes.

  ‘What could I do? That’s not how it works. I’m just spooked. It doesn’t change the way things are. My grandma was the same.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘She went crazy.’ Greta rolled her eyes and laughed. ‘Well, she was always kind of crazy.’

  ‘But what you said to me the other day, about not letting your sadness show, remember?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Well, couldn’t it just be that? I mean, it isn’t as if you’re jinxed or anything.’ Agnes was growing uncomfortable. She felt herself edging away.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Greta. ‘It’s not infectious. What I said to you, well, that may be true. People are pretty much self-fulfilling prophecies. The premonitions are different, though. That’s more like remembering things that haven’t happened yet. It stinks.’

  Agnes thought about this for a while.

  ‘But where does it come from?’ she said finally. ‘It’s not as if you make the things happen just by seeing them. And why is it always bad things?’

  ‘Don’t ask me.’ Greta shrugged. ‘This mystic lady once told me I had the evil eye. She was a bitch. I said to her, lady, if I had the evil eye, I’d be watching you squirm.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Agnes faintly.

  ‘The best one was this old witch from Regina who told me I was experiencing karmic grief from another life.’ She snorted with laughter. ‘Maybe I need to be born again. Maybe I should hook up with Dave.’

  A mad person accosted Agnes on her way home, accusing her of being a spy for the social services. She got off the train and walked back to Highbury.

  Chapter Twenty

  AGNES was in a bar in Islington, a place where people sipped Italian coffee served by French waiters as if they had never lived any other kind of life. Agnes drank beer from a bottle and waited for Merlin, who was coming there straight from work. They were going to see a film together; perhaps something with subtitles, Agnes thought, to fit in with her mood. She contemplated the grey marble moon of the tabletop, with its folded newspaper and elegant foreign bottle. It was almost convincing. She could live another kind of life; could go to a place where such things were details of a more extensive canvas, rather than lonely still-lives against a background of dirty streets and cold cloudy skies. Perhaps she would accrue depth there, like a foreign film, with the mere fact of difference lending her a certain mystery.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ said Merlin as he arrived. ‘I’ve been terrorised. Bomb scare.’

  He took off his coat and put it on a vacant chair. The smell of damp wool pervaded the air. It reminded Agnes of congested buses and discomfort. He didn’t look very well, she noticed; not exactly ill, but with that pinched, worried look she had begun recently to notice in her own features. She wondered what was wrong with him.

  ‘Shall I have something with a lime?’ he was mumbling, scanning the menu. ‘Or maybe something with caffeine. Coffee with a lime. What are you drinking?’

  Agnes turned her bottle around so that the label showed. She had begun to feel less ingratiating of late, especially towards men. It had occurred to her that emanation generated a certain type of vulnerability. It made one a known quantity, and thus easier to injure. She wanted to be more reserved and hence tougher, like Nina.

  ‘Does that come with a lime?’ Merlin inquired.

  She nodded and then shrugged to suggest that the citrus feature was optional.

  ‘Will it talk to me?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ Agnes allowed.

  ‘Well, don’t shrug, then. I’ve had a horrible day. I can’t cope with shrugging.’

  Agnes realised she had perhaps chosen the wrong moment to experiment with her new style of gender relations. Merlin was staring fixedly at the menu.

  ‘What time does the film start?’ he said, looking up. ‘Try and answer that with a shrug, baby.’

  ‘Baby?’ Agnes precipitantly replied, all concessions for the moment abandoned in the light of this new outrage. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Generic term, ironically employed. No offence intended.’

  ‘None taken,’ she conceded gallantly. ‘Besides, you underestimate me. Eight and a half shrugs, in answer to your question.’

  ‘Right.’ He tried to flag down a waiter and failed. The sleek-haired, black-clothed minions cut sneeringly through the crowded tables like sharks, unapproachable. ‘These people are the end,’ he sighed. ‘Talk about power-broking. We should have them all deported.’

  Agnes was moved by his views on immigration to stare at him.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she inquired.

  ‘Apart from being temporarily invisible, yes. How about you? You seem a little – on edge.’ He contemplated her wearily. ‘Hey, what’s happened to your face?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Agnes put her hands to her face, searching for hitherto unnoticed deformities.

  ‘Your mouth is missing,’ he baldly replied.

  Agnes glared at him, speechless.

  ‘Thanks a lot!’ she burst out finally. ‘Thanks a bloody lot, Merlin. I’m just not wearing any make-up, okay? Is that a problem? Look—’ She glanced an old plastic bag fortuitously discarded at her feet and held it aloft. ‘Look, I can wear this over my head if it offends you!’

  ‘Agnes, hang on a minute, will you?’ he interjected. ‘I was only joking, honestly. I like it. It suits you.’

  ‘Well, that’s okay, then. As long as the men are happy.’

  ‘Oh, Agnes, you know I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Shall we talk about something other than my cosmetic arrangements?’

  ‘Fine.’ Merlin’s face betrayed an emotion which resembled suppressed laughter. ‘Um – work. How’s work?’

  ‘It’s fine. Everyone’s in a funny mood, though, especially Jean. She’s got a new boyfriend.’

  ‘Jean has a boyfriend!’ laughed Merlin with relish. ‘The crone of Finchley Central! The scourge of leisured people everywhere! That’s really funny.’

  ‘Why?’ said Agnes coldly. ‘Does she have to be young and pretty and submissive to deserve a man?’

  ‘That’s not—’

  ‘Let’s just hope she knows how lucky she is, Merlin. Heaven forbid that she should take it for granted that a member of the hallowed sex finds her attractive.’

  ‘Agnes, you know I didn’t mean it like that. I thought Jean was official material. I was only trying to make you laugh. Come on, tell me about it. Tell me how she met him.’

  Unfortunately for Merlin, his wheedling tone reminded Agnes of John, who had used to treat her enraged outbursts with precisely that same indulgent manner, which, in her view, should be reserved for fractious children and pets.

  ‘Don’t condescend,’ she said.

  ‘What? I wasn’t! What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Does there need to be something “wrong”? Would it make you feel better if I said I was suffering from pre-menstrual tension?’

  Merlin looked at her. Other people in the café appeared to be looking at her. If there had been a mirror handy Agnes would have looked at herself, but there wasn’t. The phrase ‘pre-menstrual tension’ appeared to be echoing around the tables.

  As the first heroic flush of her blitzkrieg passed, she began to grow rather uncomfortable. Merlin continued to stare at her in amazement. Suddenly he started to laugh. His shoulders shook and tears began pouring from his eyes. After a while, it became clear to Agnes that he was actually crying.

  ‘I think we’d better leave,’ he gasped.

  They waded through the suddenly heavy silence in the café and stumbled out into the rain on Upper Street. Tall buses sped by in ebullient sprays of water. Agnes walked as close to Merlin as she dared without actually touching him. He had stopped crying and in fact seemed quite cheerful.

  ‘Never in my life,’ she announced as they approached Highbury Corner. ‘Never in my life have I made someone cry.
’

  This was almost a lie. John had once cried like a crocodile for her – over something she’d conveniently done when he’d already decided to leave her, which action his tears consequently justified – but that didn’t count.

  ‘Look!’ he had said, pointing to a single drop which crawled down his cheek like a snail, leaving a silvery mark. ‘Look what you’ve done – you’ve made me cry!’

  He had seemed rather proud of it, and Agnes had not had the heart to suggest that this effusion might be owing to that summer’s exceptional pollen-count, rather than her own cruelty.

  ‘Well, I was laughing, really,’ Merlin confessed. ‘But it sort of metamorphosed.’

  Agnes decided this was probably not the time to take issue with the laughter, certain as she was that in this case she really had precipitated it, and furthermore that she had done so for reasons which were looking less favourable from her own point of view with every passing moment.

  ‘Anyway, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I suppose I was rather excessive.’

  Merlin laughed.

  ‘Yes, I had noticed a certain – what shall we say? – a certain defensiveness in your manner these days. Do I take it that the aforementioned hallowed sex are not your favourite gender at the moment?’

  ‘No,’ she said crossly. ‘And can you blame me?’

  ‘I suppose not. I’m just being selfish. I like you the way you are – I don’t want you to go changing on me. You were going to be my comfort in old age.’ He took out a tissue and blew his nose. ‘But apart from that minor consideration, you’re free to wield your spear anywhere you want. You didn’t really make me cry, anyway. I’ve got other things on my mind.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Agnes, trying not to feel offended. ‘So what’s wrong, then?’

  ‘Woman trouble, I suppose.’

  They crossed the road and turned into Highbury Fields. Dark trees dripped heavily around them and the rain grew misty over the grass. Agnes didn’t like the thought of Merlin having woman trouble. It wasn’t the sort of trouble he was supposed to have.

  ‘So who’s the woman?’