Inglorious (4 page)

‘Of course, Rosa.’

And Whitchurch walked slowly onwards. Still, the sight of Whitchurch had summoned the lot of them. Liam and Grace and the rest. Liam and Grace, those servants of Cupid, kept occurring to her as she went along the road. She moved quickly to avoid an oncoming rush of people, recent fugitives from a commuter train. They seeped along the streets, towards the maze of their working lives. A man tripped her and she stumbled and stretched out her hands. That made her collide with a boy wearing headphones who slurred something she didn’t hear. And he didn’t hear her when she asked him what he meant, so they both dropped their eyes and walked on.

She had found in recent months that her thoughts were undisciplined, and tended to swirl towards the things that pained her – unless she kept her mind on practicalities and trivia. So she was thinking of that pair of beauties, Liam and Grace in the back of a mini cab, sitting very close to each other, while Rosa argued with the driver and smirked at them. She raised her eyebrows at them and they smiled back. They were all tired, coming home from a party. It was almost light, the stars were fading
in the sky. Perhaps the birds were already singing. She couldn’t remember, but there they were – legs touching? hands? – with Rosa in the front, drunk and even happy! She was oblivious to nuance. Grace was staying the night, because she lived in Tulse Hill and it was too far to go. She had stayed a few times, sleeping in their living room on the sofa bed. Really Rosa had no idea how long it had been going on for. She didn’t care to think. Still, when she remembered Grace in the living room with her hair in plaits and her lovely head on a borrowed pillow she wondered whether Liam had left their bed that night, and crept in to see Grace? She imagined their efforts to be quiet, their nerves, their excitement. They were a fine pair, physically; she had seen them both naked many times. Liam more, of course. But she knew the contours of Grace’s body too. Once their friendship flourished, they swam together a few times a week. Grace had small thighs, long arms, an elegant back. Her skin was tanned. She had a tiny, beautiful body and delightful breasts. All the right curves and shadows. She was definitely in her prime. She was a little short for some, but people admired her. Even with all of this, even with her fully realised sense of their bodies, Rosa couldn’t quite summon the vision, the final – my eyes! my eyes! – image of them in the living room, passionate and entwined. They had officially announced themselves a few weeks after she left. That left two plausible interpretations – unfaithfulness or a rebound so spectacular that it was surprising Liam hadn’t cracked his skull. Either way she had been a fool. She had noticed nothing at the time; she was preoccupied. Grace dropping round, bringing her bread and bottles of wine, had seemed like simple kindness. The suddenness of their friendship had seemed part of the bizarre pattern of events after her mother’s death. She hadn’t thought it through; her mind wasn’t clear at the time. Still, Liam’s anger and frustration suggested he had been eager for the next stage. He was tired out, perhaps bored. And Grace was waiting there, beautiful, courageous, full of vitality.

The wedding was close now, only days away. She had received an invitation a few weeks ago, an impressive gold-embossed piece of luxury card, ‘Mr and Mrs Bosworth would like to invite you to celebrate the marriage of their daughter Grace Maria to Liam Robert Peters.’
Mr and Mrs Bosworth would
like to invite you to celebrate the triumph of their conniving
offspring Grace Maria misnamed for holiness by optimistic
parents to Liam Lothario Peters.
She never liked it when the parents invited you along. It was plain tacky. All that conspicuous bumf and litter came with a set of directions to the church and some friendly suggestions for hotels in London which began ‘London, as most of you will know, is a very expensive city!’ There was even a note about presents. ‘If you would like to buy Grace and Liam a present …’ She thought she wouldn’t like to. Not really at all. Later Liam wrote her a letter. ‘Rosa, I know you are hurt. But I would really like you to be there. It’s of course up to you. Whatever you feel able to do.’ Able to do! The scandal of his lazy prose! Raging and trying to conceal it, she sent him a short email. ‘Will think about it – R.’ He wrote back with an email gush, the sort of disposable rubbish people pound out between one meeting and the next. ‘I’m so glad to hear you will. We can hardly wait to see you there. With love, as always, Liam.’ He sounded like a parody, as if he had entered a competition to sound as plastic and inanimate as he could, like a replicant pretending to be a human, but that was ages ago anyway. It had been weakness to write anything at all. At least she had pared it down, from a letter eloquent with rage.
Dear Liam, You write to me as if I
am an invalid, recovering from an unfortunate ailment.
Perhaps my belief in your steadfastness was my sickness, from
which I am mercifully cured.
It went on, a violent torrent, and if Liam was a replicant she was a failed nineteenth-century novelist, spilling out melodrama for thruppence a volume.
I
condemn you! I anticipate your doom! You are the anti-Christ!
On the day of Judgement you will be ravaged by devils!
She threw away the letter. Later she threw away the invitation.
Still, the date and time were scored into her memory.

Liam and Grace
, she had written a while back,
I won’t be
coming to your wedding. It’s not that I don’t wish you well. I
hope you’ll be happy together. Really, it doesn’t matter much.
I could come along, smile and nod, wearing a hat, but I think
it would be unseemly. Frankly, I would become part of the
spectacle. They would call me ‘the ex’ and stare at me! They
would await a scene. They would expect me to cry, and whatever
I did they would say I had been crabbed and furious as
you went up the aisle. Bent-backed with rage. But you know,
I’m not angry at all. Yours, Rosa.
Grace had called her up a few times, after it all came out. Someone must have told her – perhaps it was even Whitchurch who spilled the truth – that Rosa knew. Rosa knew! Cue for thunder and lightning! Or, in Rosa’s case, because the epic was hardly available to her, slight drizzle. Grace left messages of great pertinence, pert little messages which made Rosa bite her lip. When Rosa picked up the phone – thinking it might be someone else entirely – she heard Grace saying, ‘Rosa, now, don’t hang up, can we talk? I want you to know I understand your position.’ Grace wasn’t penitent, exactly. She wasn’t nervous at all. She fundamentally believed that Rosa was suppressing her emotions. She explained this, briskly but with sympathy, as if she understood that Rosa was having trouble understanding the irrefutable truth of it all and she was trying to help her get on board. ‘I understand your position, but I am hoping you will understand mine,’ she said. Her position – it was one more piece of Gracean Ur-babble.

‘I understand you are sated with turmoil. You have run the gamut. Your spirit is almost dead. And you were clinging to something that had died a long time ago,’ Grace said. ‘You were shattered, mourning your mother. You weren’t in a state to be courageous. You still aren’t. But your relationship was dead. You knew that. I could see it, as soon as I saw you and Liam together. And I know you want Liam to be happy. He is, he really is happy. He suffered for so long, living with you.’

‘I don’t care,’ said Rosa. ‘That’s fine. Vade in Pace.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Grace.

‘Enjoy yourselves. Why not?’

‘We have to meet and talk this through.’

‘Ughghu?’ said Rosa.

‘By the end he was a counsellor for you, not a lover,’ said Grace. ‘And he’s a young, beautiful man. You wouldn’t want him to imprison himself in a moribund relationship?’

‘Dear Grace, we are all in a moribund relationship with something.’

‘Well, that’s precisely the sort of remark which makes me understand what Liam means.’

‘Means about what?’

As a concession, Grace pretended to stutter. That was a feint; she was so far from being awkward that it was a holiday humour for her. ‘Say what you like now, I understand it’s hard for you,’ said Grace. ‘But you must keep articulating. We must keep the lines of communication open.’

That made Rosa flush with a renewed sense of humiliation, and then she said, ‘Shugugug’, and put down the phone. Unplugged the phone, ripped out the cord, and explained it to Jess later.

Now she stirred and walked along again. Rosa, a handsome woman, if thinner of late and a little pale, was turning the corner, heading for the bank. Still she heard the sounds of the street. She was thinking, as she always tried to, about the day ahead. It was clear to her that she had to be more dynamic. Action was required to scoop herself up, avert the slough. She had a list in her head of things to do. She was telling herself there was a lot to be cheerful about. This was a positive thinking exercise someone had told her to do, one of those benevolent quacks she had been seeing. She was thinking how good it was that the sun might shine and how lucky she was that she was still fit, though she had been dizzy recently and suffered from headaches. Stress, she assumed. The decline of her faculties, the clash of warring theories eroding at her cortex, the human condition! Yet even now, she wasn’t down and out, not destitute at all. There was no reason to cave in yet. The earth hadn’t yet exploded in a ball of plasma. There had been no catastrophes, no meteorite showers, nothing that immediately threatened the existence of the species. She had not been productive recently, but she was sure the dam would burst. It was late in the day, but not too late. She still had a bed to sleep in, though Jess had recently stopped talking to her. That was a shame, but she was sure she could claw it all back.

She was moving through the furtive morning of the city, saturated clouds hanging over the high-rise buildings, human
currents coursing along the streets. It was winter and dawn came later by the day. She was outside a burger bar, chrome seats housed in an art deco building. She noticed bricks and fluting; at her side she found a row of shops – a jewellers, an Indian Fusion shop, a Chinese medicine shop, Middle Eastern restaurants, a Plant Essences House, whatever that was, a shop advertising BIG BIG SAVINGS! She stamped her feet as she walked and kicked up dust. The pavement was spotted with litter. The post office had been closed down, said a sign. It was being turned into luxury flats. She nodded and passed under a red canopy which was fluttering in the wind.
Very
deep is the well of the past. Shall we not call it bottomless?
and then she thought, That hardly helps. She had been living in untruth, that much was true.
Yes, yes, elegant as anything,
your thoughts.
The untruth of the true. The truth of the untrue, discuss, with reference to some philosophers you have been taught to trust! She was one of those that can bear no grief and desire but to bathe in bliss. That was a quote, though she couldn’t remember the source. She sniffed, wiped her nose on her sleeve, said to herself,
One who has no god, as they
walk along the street headache envelops them like a garment.
Did it have to be so melancholy? Since sadness had got such purchase on her, how could she bash it away without developing her illusions again? To live free from illusions, but content. Impossible! she said, aloud. Insane! Now a shop grill rattled up behind her. A man passed her, with a dog at his side. Then there was an early morning pensioner, dragging a bag on wheels. She passed a renovated church, sandblasted, and in a garden she saw a forest of miniature trees. A line of cars crept past her and she stood at a crossing, wondering whether she should walk or wait for the lights to change.

She saw spray-painted letters spelling
TEMP
– she had been seeing this around for months. A lonely word, splashed on bridges; she had once seen it on the side of a train, blurred by speed.
TEMP
– a cry from the secretarial classes, or those who worked in the constant peril of a short-term contract, she
thought, passing it by. Or an unfinished word:
Tempo, Tempus fugit,
like a warning, or an elegy,
temps perdu
. It seemed to be important, but she wasn’t sure. She felt it was a hint, something she should try to follow. She saw the trains snorting towards Paddington, their noses on the tracks. She understood that everything was accelerating. She had thought that diving out of the office would make the days go slower, but it seemed like they were speeding up, racing towards a conclusion she couldn’t anticipate. She saw things in quick-step, like an old-fashioned film played on modern equipment. Quick march Rosa went, along the street, as if there was a prize for getting to the bank first. She skirted round the news-stand and started running under the bridge. The cars pounded above her. A car honked and she crossed and waved a hand.

As she walked she thought that she must definitely wash her clothes. And clean the kitchen. She should certainly – today, having failed to do so yesterday – call up Liam and ask about the furniture. It would help if he sold it, or gave her the money. She should call Kersti – though Kersti was sometimes frosty, if you caught her at the wrong time. But before, Kersti had offered to help; Kersti who was a lawyer had said she would write a legal-sounding letter to Liam.
Dear Mr Peters, Our
client Rosa Lane expects the return of her furniture or a financial
agreement. Failure to comply will result in another such
letter, phrased in a more baroque dialect. Then we will whirl
you into the abyss of legalese.
As well as that she should really get a job. That was clearly a priority. Reading
History of Western Philosophy
was not immediately necessary, but it might help her with the basics. There was much she had to read, but she also had to
buy some tuna and spaghetti. Sit
down with Jess.
The bank
– she had been putting that off for days, but a quick personal appearance might still win them round.
Shakespeare, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and sundry others
– if she had time.
Hoover the living room
and most important of all –
clean the bath and toilet.
And now she really had to write to Whitchurch. She felt bad now, that she hadn’t apologised.
She should have thanked her. Though for what, precisely? The beer, the consolatory shandy? That had been kind, the carrion hunting vulture. She thought of calling her up.
Hi, Sandra, sorry to bother you at work. How are you? I wanted
to call to say I’m very grateful for all your kindness. Let’s meet
again soon.
She thought of Whitchurch in her office, biting her pencil, totting up accounts. Truly, she was blameless.
Dear
Sandra. Great to see you. Thanks so much. Thanks so very
much. Soon you’ll be ashes, or bones. Yours,
Rosa
. If she had an hour before bedtime she could consider the lilies, sort through her papers and phone her father. Now she could hear the sound of birds singing. They were perched on the branches of the trees, and for a moment she thought how beautiful. The colours were pristine in the morning – the cold white sky, the white buildings dappled with sunshine. Everything was scrubbed and pure, the streets were clean.