Inglorious (17 page)

Later she turned off the shower and towelled herself down. She dressed quickly, putting on her jeans and sweater. She slung a few changes of clothes into a bag. She borrowed some books that might yet goad her into action. She took a notebook, an apple and some painkillers. She felt like a child, running away. In this spirit she made herself a cheese sandwich and wrapped it in paper. She took out the rubbish and slammed it into a bin outside, noticed the bins were overflowing but walked straight past them. The smell of rotten food was briefly pungent, whipped away by the wind. She was nervous as she walked down the steps. She was briefly devastated that Jess would be so pleased she had gone. She felt a low sense of melancholy about her small, rootless life. It was a shame, when you left a place and people were glad. But she was anomalous, the day was moving swiftly and a mass of people moved along the road. Above the clouds were grey, drifting across a pale sky. She was drawn into it all, the gliding shapes of cars and people.

She went to the shops, fearful of arriving empty-handed. Portobello Road was awash with people buying lunch. Crowds hung around the stalls, people holding multicoloured bags of fruit. She saw a green patch of park, gated off from the street. With her neck craned, Rosa saw the shops were full of winter cuts, big boots and long coats, clothes for dressing up in. The windows glinted in the sun, though the day was cold.

Wrapped in a thin coat, the wind gusting at her, Rosa stepped through the crowds. In the first shop she came to she bought bath salts and in the next some costly chocolates in a scenic box. She added in a couple of children’s books, splashed with cheerful colours. She had a small spasm when she handed it over, her ravaged credit card. The presents looked fine; the shop assistant wrapped them in pink paper, and wrapped
a ribbon round them. There was a label which Rosa filled in.
With love from Rosa.
That was because she couldn’t remember the names – or ages – of Judy’s children. She was quite sure they would have everything they needed. But she stacked up presents anyway, eager to show willing. At noon she saw she was late, so she ran along panting like a hound. The street was flooded with people. With the inevitable bad luck of the furious, Rosa missed the bus. It passed her as Rosa ran up to the stop, and she saw no sign of another bus, 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. She went along fast enough, enjoying the wind on her cheeks, admiring the dextrous way she danced around other people, but then she turned onto Kensington Park Road and the street started winding uphill, which slowed her down. She passed a brasserie with fake flaming lamps and a yellow-stoned church like a piece of textured mustard and when she was at the top, sweating and muttering under her breath, she stood for a moment and watched three buses pass her. That made her curse but she was on a downhill slope now and she picked up speed towards Notting Hill. Then the crowds destroyed her momentum, it was impossible to get round them quickly, however dextrously she danced, and she was forced to slow down, raise her hands, make offerings to angry people. Apologising for everything, she kept running. She couldn’t look at the time because she knew she was late. She was sweating like a dog, but this had its advantages, she thought, at least her father would understand she had made an effort, really stubbed her toes on the kerbstones getting there.

She stood at the lights wheezing and marking time, and when they changed she passed quickly across the road, stumbling on the corner. She was gasping for breath as she ran. Antique shops in Victorian village style, and some of the buildings were older still. There was a pub garlanded in flowers. A bright blue house, she passed it swiftly, noting how clean it was. Polished windows. It was wrong to say the city was
grimy. There were parts that surprised you; they were kept so clean. Here she was, avoiding a man with his hand outstretched, and finally she found the door and pushed it open. She arrived in a breathy state of panic, thinking that she must usher on lunch and be sure to catch the train. Across the restaurant she saw her father sitting – slouched – and stood there for a moment, paralysed by guilt. She was stock still and weighted down with it. It held her, until she saw his head turn, and found him not so sad and old from a different angle.

Her father had never really liked Liam. When she called him up and explained it all, he was sanguine. He was restrained and didn’t say, ‘I always disliked that untrustworthy man.’ That might have been the truth, but her father never said these sorts of things. He almost never said what he thought. He was an inscrutable man. It wasn’t that he was dishonest; he just hated to hurt anyone’s feelings by presenting them with something so unwieldy as the truth. So he dissembled, constantly, and no one had really known him except Rosa’s mother. Well, and Rosa knew him a little, though he rarely told her the truth either. It was an indication of how things had turned that he had been so honest recently. Rosa knew she was like him. She was ruder than her father, but she still had bouts of politeness, moments of insane performance, more stressful than an argument. It was like clamping a brace onto yourself, it left you with a sense of pressure, a dull ache.

He had once taken Liam down to the pub and they had, according to Liam, talked about the history of the railway and its effects on tourism in Bristol. They had also discussed the origins of dog racing. Liam had said it was all most informative. But they were never good friends. They shook hands readily; on special occasions they extended themselves to a mutual slap on the back. They gave each other suitable books at Christmas. It never quite sparked. Liam was a practised adept, good at putting people at their ease. He spilled words into pauses as if he was following instructions. Rosa’s father was silent for much of the time, shy and undemonstrative,
except when he disagreed really violently with someone. Still it was clear to Rosa that they didn’t enjoy talking to each other. With Rosa’s mother, Liam was gracious and respectfully flirtatious. That was wily, though at the time it was most likely well intentioned. Perhaps sincere. He had always kissed her mother when they met, warmly, with conviction. It seemed so at the time.

Rosa’s father was tall and thin, with gaunt cheeks and large pale eyes. He had looked old for decades, perhaps because of his predisposition to overwork and smoking. One side of his family had been Flemish, some of them merchant seamen who arrived in Britain in the seventeenth century. They settled in Bristol, but little was known about them. There were odd relics: some fine pipes, a seaman’s trunk which Rosa’s father said his great-great-grandfather found floating in the harbour at Bristol. Rosa never believed him. The men of that famly went to sea; the women stayed on land. Neither sex had written memoirs or poems, and they had receded like the tide across the mudflats. Rosa’s father tried to be active, to play up to his nautical heritage, but he was hardly robust. He swam a little, and he played occasional games of tennis. In the autumn he sometimes liked to roam through the forests along the Avon Gorge, whistling out of tune. But really he was natively sedentary: he was a historian, he taught for a while at the university, and he had his own private archive of dusty books, their pages spotted with age. The shelves of his study were layered with ancient manuscripts in rolls, file cards, folders, neat boxes, drafts of his writings. For years he had written about local history and the Arthurian legends. Once her parents had a fight and Rosa’s mother told him to sell his books, his manuscripts in coils. ‘A waste of a life,’ she said. Then she was pale and penitent for a week. Perhaps as a result, his great work on the Round Table remained unfinished. For a while Rosa entertained a fear that it would be left for her to edit after his death. Now she thought Sarah could do it – Sarah with her scholarly air and round glasses, who taught him Spanish when he was
trying to rebuild his life, as his friends had told him to – her father who took advice better than Rosa and was determined to salvage something. He met Sarah and Rosa hardly wanted to imagine the rest. Sarah was scented; she smelt of floral perfumes and she wore Omega workshop prints and sandals. That made it hard to love her. She told stories about everyday things, pleasing, convivial stories that Rosa might have liked, had her mood been better.
But why,
she thought, panting at the door,
why the hell am I thinking about Sarah?

She was eager to see him, though she knew why he had come. The thought of him caused her a mixed sense of love and pain. Or a sense that she was causing him pain. As she said hello he stood and kissed her. He had been hopeful for a while and now he was searching and intent. It was clear that he had come to berate her. He had come there in an old pair of cords and a worn jacket, with a blue shirt that made him look paler than usual. She saw his hair was passing from grey into a more brittle whiteness. It was like fluff, or as if spring blossom had drifted onto his head. His eyes were tired, darting glances around the room. He kept fiddling with his knife. In short, her father seemed on edge. They sat under the wings of a fan, which beat a circular progress above their heads. For a while Rosa couldn’t talk, and then she got her breath back and her father said:

‘How are you? What are you doing at the moment?’

She had the menu in her hand. She understood his point. Because it was only in doing that you could prove your commitment to being. Being, alone, was insufficient. Being was a state of idle passivity – anyone could ‘be’. To ‘do’ was the thing.
We do, therefore we are.
And onwards, she thought, turning to her father.

‘You look tired,’ he added, when she didn’t reply.

‘So do you.’

‘Well, that’s the prerogative of the nearly dead. But you’re young.’

‘You’re not nearly dead.’

‘I feel half so.’

‘Half nearly dead, that doesn’t sound too bad. Sounds quite far from the final snuffing out to me.’

‘Who can say, my dear child, who can say,’ said her father.

They smiled at each other. There was a brief pause.
Would
they like wine,
asked the waiter. Oh they thought they would. A nice bottle of house wine, said her father, looking at the price list with an eyebrow raised. An order was dispatched, and the waiter departed. Then her father got straight back to the bone, gnawing on. For a few seconds she pitied him, this old man, consigned to a house which must be – no matter how much Sarah talked and splashed her skin with floral potions – steeped in the past. At least Rosa was away from all of that, those synecdochical horrors, everything in her mother’s taste. She hardly visited him at all, for reasons of cowardice. He had come to London, a journey of several hours, and she pictured him sitting on the train with the paper, ruination on his weathered cheeks.

She said, ‘How have you been, Dad? How’s your health?’

‘Oh not too bad at all. The doctor says there’s not much to worry about. That’s a vagueness I positively encourage. I don’t want them giving me a sentence. So I see the doctor as seldom as possible, and he stays away from me. He’s told me I can drink a bit, in moderation, and that’s much better. Horrible when you have to eat yoga bars and dry biscuits. Quite takes the pleasure out of things,’ he said. His brow creased and he was smiling very slightly. These things embarrassed him.

‘That’s good,’ she said.

They ruffled their napkins and sipped their drinks. The restaurant was over-lit, and the roof was high above them. It made the place like an airport lounge. It was far too fashionable for her father. Simply a bad choice, thought Rosa. He would have been happy in a pub, with a pint of lager, a steak and kidney pie. He was pawing gently at the tablecloth, brushing crumbs onto the floor. He had been well, he explained. ‘And how is Liam?’

‘He’s getting married, I told you.’

‘Oh yes, when is that?’

‘Friday.’

‘And who’s the bride to be?’

‘Grace, you never met her. I told you all this, Father.’

‘Yes, yes, I remember.’ Of course he remembered. ‘Well, and you’re going to the wedding? Or staying well away?’ He was trying to be jocund. She understood why he adopted this insouciant tone. That particular quagmire was nothing. He had dealt with much worse. He had been ill when her mother died, distraught and abandoned. Of course it had been bad for her, but for her father – her rage and despair were nothing compared to her father’s grief. For some time he been alone, just the neighbours and a few old friends for company. He had his tennis friends and a crowd of local historians. But they could hardly fill the gaping void left by his wife. So Rosa always felt guilty when she saw him because she couldn’t help him, and, still worse, she had started to worry him. For months she had been causing him pain. It was clearly unfair. She should be taking care of him. Honouring him, even.

‘I’m going to stay with friends today,’ said Rosa. ‘There’s no point discussing Liam. I’m pretty much indifferent.’

‘Indifference seems unlikely in this situation,’ said her father.

‘That’s why I qualified it with “pretty much”,’ said Rosa, pertly.

‘Yes, I understand.’

‘How is Sarah?’

‘Oh, she’s very well. She’s redecorated the kitchen. And she likes teaching the neighbours Spanish.’

‘What are you doing now, father? Are you writing things?’

‘No no, not at the moment. But I have an idea. I wanted to write a history of the Avon Gorge, from the first settlers to the Suspension Bridge and then perhaps even to the present day.’

‘That would be interesting,’ said Rosa.

Perhaps it was something about authority. Her father never
really had any. Still, here they were, in this smoke-strewn room which Rosa had inexplicably chosen. He had come to see her, finding his way here. Probably he had printed a street map off the Internet, an X marking the spot. He had brought her an article of his to read, a piece on local shipping which had been printed in an obscure journal. He had neatly stapled the pages and put them in a plastic folder. He had stapled the pages and packed them to show her. Oh God, thought Rosa. There was no need to pity him. Her father was fine. On the brink of death, so old his hands trembled when he grasped the handle of a knife, but he was fine. It didn’t work; life simply couldn’t wander along if you assumed everyone was in despair. So she took the folder and said it looked enthralling.