Inglorious (28 page)

That’s the bell, Sharkbreath is coming!
‘OK, Dad. But thanks again. And you know, I understand what you were saying.’

‘OK, good,’ he said, and rang off uncertainly.

Her brow was damp. She put her head down to the clammy tip of the phone. A monotone confirmed that her father had gone. Of course, she thought. He has to play tennis and prepare his body for dispersal. Really there’s no point expecting him to dole out money. He doesn’t have much, and what he has, well, he needs. Of course he does! He needs it to bribe the ferryman, all the rest. She hovered by the phone for a moment, thinking of calling him back and leaving a message.
Daddy dear, the dough is all yours. You enjoy it,
you old cricket. Splash out, buy Sarah a new wig. Thanks so
much, Daddy. Thanks.
Instead she called Kersti again, risking her thundering wrath. This time Kersti was out. ‘Would you like to leave a message?’
Tell her the guardians of the
laws are angry. Tell her I have failed to unlock the secrets of
TEMP. That a star is about to fall. The Kills are abroad. Tell
her I still believe in the possibility of perfection and I wonder
if she feels the same.
‘No, no message,’ said Rosa. ‘I’ll try again later.’

Rosa put down the phone. Again she was smiling. Her moods were shifting from one extreme to another. There was this lurking sense of despair and as if her own personal eschaton was nigh but she was trying to ignore it, quash it at least. Then the phone rang again and Rosa, hoping it was Andreas, said,
‘Jawohl?’

‘Hello, can I speak to Rosa Lane?’

‘Yes, speaking,’ she said.

‘Martin White here, from the
Daily Post,’
said a happy elegant voice.

‘Hello,’ said Rosa uncertainly.
Well, this is a surprise,
she thought. She sat on the folding table and nearly slid off it, steadied herself and said ‘Hello’ again.
Encore,
she thought.

‘Good idea, your idea for the piece. Good idea. Nice sound to your style. Good enough. A little manic, perhaps you could tone it down. Just send it in, a little calmer,’ he said.

‘You really liked it?’ said Rosa.

‘Yes, yes, quite a good idea. Elective destitution. Good. A bit odd, just what the readers like,’ said Martin White. ‘Not really your largest demographic, I mean I can’t imagine there are so many of them, but I like the bit about blaming the baby boomers. Good idea. Give it a go. Send it to me whenever you can. About 600 words. Sorry not to give you more. You know, in plain English for the general reader. OK?’

‘Thanks, thanks very much,’ said Rosa.

She put the phone down and, because this was the best news she had had in ages and the first sniff of money for a long while, she cried. She wasn’t sure why she started gushing like a sap. It was an over-reaction. As she stopped crying she felt a sense of great joy, but then she wiped her eyes and realised that Martin White’s intervention, which had seemed so fortuitous just a few seconds earlier, so much like manna from heaven, didn’t really solve her immediate problem. Even if he took her article, she wouldn’t get the money for weeks. And, anyway, wasn’t it precisely her inability to write that was the problem? And now she thought she was saved, because someone had
asked her to be a journalist again! ‘Shog,’ she said aloud. ‘Bloody shog!’

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 wound 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?’