Inglorious (12 page)

Wiping her hands, she walked to the bathroom.
Clean the
bathroom!
she thought. She ran the tap, and watched the water whirl into the plughole. She touched the plastic of the shower curtain and saw light sliding down it. The universe was riddled with impossible elements, she thought, absurd symmetries. It was curious to her that she was presented daily with irrefutable evidence, these traces of vastness, a galaxy of stars and lights spiralling into infinity, unknown space. Faced with the moon and the stars, now visible in the rising dusk, she was briefly aware of the absurdity of considering anything at all. Reality became a meaningless piece of fabric, tugged around this cluster of humans, as they waited on their fertile rock. And yet people lived with passion, conviction. Even though they saw the stars and accepted the passage of millions of years, antiquity stamped on the surface of the planet. They lived and died for manufactured causes. She understood almost nothing of the materials of her universe. She knew of gases and solar flares, of intense variations in the brightness of the sun. When she thought of the sun she thought in lists of words, of gamma rays and optical emissions. She understood that the sun was a collective term, that the light she saw
derived from the photosphere, where gaseous layers became transparent. She dimly apprehended that the sun’s corona, alone, burned at a temperature greater than one million degrees Kelvin, she had once been told. That was the sort of fact she couldn’t process at all. They might as well tell her the earth was shaped like a dinner plate and floated on a pool of eternal water. She had her five senses, concerned as they were with basic survival, and her brain was busy with the functions of her body and something she had been taught to refer to as thought. Then she had this intimation of something else – a knowledge that if she only could – if she only could! – she would break away, break out of bondage, and stand free of it all, transcend it somehow, find the World Will, sink into the
Geist,
whatever the hell it was that she was trying to unearth – and when she read Schopenhauer she thought it was that, but she was impressionable and another book would cast her thoughts in a different light, shade them in differently. She had all of this to struggle with, and instead she thought about Grace and Liam! It was a travesty, when she could be trying to understand the sun.

She splashed water on her face. She wore her last suit and forced her hair to settle. Because her shoes were grey and weathered she borrowed a clean pair from Jess’s cupboard and forced them on. When she was dressed and ready, she took a Hoover to the living room carpet. It was goodwill cleaning, an attempt to make things up to Jess. She marshalled objects in the kitchen and hoped that made a difference. She ran a cloth round the kettle. She aimed the showerhead at the bathroom and left it like a banya. Then she took all her papers and her pen and her coat and thrust them into her bedroom. Pausing only to take an apple from the kitchen, she ran out of the flat and vaulted down the steps.

Now she was brisk and urgent. It was important not to be late, or she would lose this job, like all the others. Then Mr Sharkbreath would be angry, and her father would sound disappointed again. These were immediate concerns; the rest was indeterminate. Umbrella in hand, she walked back to the station, passing along the queue of cars. IT’S NOT ENOUGH said a billboard. TEARS ARE GOING TO FALL said the next.
TEMP TEMP TEMP TEMP
said the writing on the red steel of the bridge. She nodded and walked on. The air was damp. It had been raining earlier, and there were puddles where the roads dipped to meet the pavements. She heard fragmented conversations, and the dulled sound of music inside cars. She breathed deeply. She could walk all day, except it made her hungry. She passed a bank of adverts by the tube. Bras, beer and butter. We are meant to be cheerful. She nodded and walked on. A man was leaning against a wall, whistling. He was a tall African, his arms folded across his chest. He ignored Rosa as she passed. A gang of kids cycled past, a few of them spitting into the gutter. ‘Fucking slag!’ one of them yelled and Rosa thought,
Do they mean me?
There was a poster outside the tube, a decorative frau, legs hairless and shining. Now she carried on walking, avoiding a glittering puddle like a stranded mirror and stepping round a woman with a child strapped to her body. Everything was fine when Rosa walked. She made a steady progress along the road, threading a path from streetlight to streetlight.

Despite her sense that she was quite out of synch, she was still acutely aware of the things around her. The people filing along, forming impromptu patterns then dispersing. A man in a black leather coat who was dragging a white dog along on a
lead. A woman in a burkha. Then a woman walked past, pushing a pram. She was wearing knee boots and a fur coat. Further along a man was sitting outside a second-hand clothes shop, whistling a tune. He was dressed in a smart red suit. In his gloved hands he held a cane. He had a carnation pinned to his lapel and Rosa thought of him standing in front of the mirror, fixing it there with trembling hands. All to sit on a folding chair outside his shop! It was raining softly now. But the man stayed there, stroking his cane. His eyes were turned towards the street, and she wondered what he saw. The cars slipped by. The lights changed and changed again. There was the flower shop, bouquets stacked in buckets. It always lifted her mood when she saw their forms and colours.

Suddenly the clouds moved and there was a cold bright sun shining on the street. The dog-touting man moved slowly behind her. She could hear the lead jangling. The dog was straining towards a tree. A woman was running towards her, in shorts and trainers. On a pedestrian crossing a man moved slowly. Music was coming from an open window, a radio playing a contemporary tune, something with guitars and a kid singing falsetto. At the gym she saw people sitting outside, drinking coffee. It had once been a hospital, or a lunatic asylum, she thought. She wasn’t sure which. Inside she could see people running on treadmills. There was a sign saying ‘HazChem’ on the wall.

Now she passed an ancient woman who looked like a sage, quite decayed and withered, moving slowly on her stumpy legs. Propelled by something, some inexplicable urge to go forward. Meanwhile Rosa was solid and vital, not exactly youthful but passably fit, walking towards Holland Park. The old woman was moving along, trembling with each movement, and if she was still standing then Rosa had no excuse. If she had thus far failed to release her cognition from the services of the Will, and the rest, then she really had to try harder. If there were mornings when the street appeared as an endless tunnel, drawing her into a pool of darkness, that was clearly her own
small problem. On St Mark’s Road, things were mostly seedy: a group of boys yelling and kicking skateboards off the pavements, laughing as they tripped, cars speeding through the narrow streets, crumbled bricks ornamented by graffiti. DEATH TO YOU ALL. FIGHT THE STATE. Slogans, the occasional
cri de coeur,
scrawled machismo. FUCK YOU ALL. Maxims: WE CAN DO IT IF WE TRY. Pleas: DON’T LET THE LIGHTS GO OUT. Do not go gentle into that good night. She turned away and went into a corner shop to buy some chocolate. The shop was full of faded adverts for long-vanished brands. She took the chocolate from a grinning man, and fled onto the street. She saw a man in a suit walking swiftly up the hill, so she followed him along for a while, watching the regular movements of his limbs. She stalked along behind him, matching his stride. He had soft blond hair, which curled onto his collar. She couldn’t see his face, until he turned to pull his phone from his pocket. On the corner of Clarendon Road, he stopped and said a few words to someone. She craned her neck greedily towards him, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. Then he sped up, and waved his arm for a taxi. With a slam of the door, he disappeared.

Still you must get a job. Find somewhere to live. Talk to Jess –
perhaps you can beg her! Talk to Liam. Beg the bank. Collate
your papers. Read the comedies of Shakespeare, the works of
Proust, the plays of Racine and Corneille and
The Man Without Qualities.
Read
The Golden Bough, the Nag-Hammadi Gospels, the Upanishads, the Koran, the Bible, the Tao,
the complete works of E. A. Wallis Budge. Read Plato,
Aristotle, Confucius, Bacon, Locke, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft,
Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and the
rest. Get to the bottom of this TEMP.
She ducked into Holland Park tube and stayed quiet and thoughtful on the platform. She heard voices from the tannoy, injunctions, exhortations.
Do not travel without a ticket. Buy a Season Saver. Do not
stand at the edge. Do not hurl yourself on the tracks. Do not
take the tunnels as a metaphor. Do not despise your fellow
commuter. We are all human, only human. Each separate
thing, regarded in and for itself, dissociated from the temporal
flow of casual laws becomes, when so regarded, an epiphany
of the whole, equivalent to the entire unending manifold of
time. Mind the doors.
There was a busker playing Bach on a flute, the music cracked and beautiful. The platform was grey and stain-daubed. The walls were spotted with mould. Above she saw lines of neon lights, and everywhere she was surrounded by useful objects, fire alarms, signs telling her the way out, should the platform burst into flames.
You cannot take
the tunnel as a metaphor. Because there are no fire alarms and
hammers encased in glass to help you through your own private
tunnel, this metaphysical corridor you think you’re in.
Not a single miniature mallet to smash a way out. Not a single
mallet!
Now a train rocked along, scattering the mice and rats to their tubeside hideouts and Rosa positioned herself by a man with a T-shirt saying ‘THE REAL THING’ and read a poem on the wall (poetry on the Underground), which said ‘I am trapped in time/ Living without a purpose/ Waiting for the end’ – Of course not! As if they would put that sort of rubbish on the walls, thought Rosa. That would certainly demoralise commuters, as they stood crushed together, sweating onto each other. Instead, the poem said, ‘We are feverish and then we fly/ All is gracious in the sky/ Like angels blazing higher and higher/ Into a celestial fire/ Oh God – my God, your Allah, your Buddha – you understand our prayers/ They are for peace and for celestial stairs/ To reach the place beyond all cares.’
Beyond all cares.
It sounded like the perfect destination. Caring was precisely the problem. She shivered and stared round at the passengers. All of them innocuous enough.
Beyond all cares
, she thought. She wanted to imagine her mother in a transcendent state, lyre in hand, or somewhere, in some sentient shape, but instead she thought of her mother as scattered dust, wafted across the Mendips on a windy day, having been shaken from an urn by her daughter – tightlipped,
quite unaccepting – and her husband – shuddering with horror and in tears. It wasn’t too bad, to be scattered dust in the wind. That really wasn’t so terrible at all. Better than a lot of options, the circles of hell, eternal torment, reincarnation at the bottom of the wheel and the rest.
Feel Your Inner
Purity
said an advert for Japanese beer.

As the train went through the tunnel Rosa saw the headline on a paper. MODEL, 17, FOUND MURDERED. The platform vanished and she saw blackness and her own reflection, mingled. A poster above her head saying ‘Millions are happy with our insurance!’ Another said ‘Simply inspired’. The heating was on too high in the carriage, and Rosa’s hands were sweating. If the train stopped she would be late, but the train kept running steadily along the tracks. For this she gave thanks to the driver and all the functionaries of the Underground. At Shepherd’s Bush she saw the platform sliding towards her as the train uncoiled itself from a tight corner and came to a sudden halt. The platform had been ornamented with green and red pillars. In the tunnel she heard three men talking about football, and she passed a crowd of women in burkhas holding bags from Harrods. A sign said
MILLIONS.
They kept on with the bombardment, until you capitulated. They wanted you with your hands up, saying ‘Yes, yes, I’ll buy it! Whatever it is!’ As she stood on the escalator going upwards she saw the face of a celebrity, she couldn’t remember her name.
If You Can Imagine It You Can Achieve It
said a poster for a motivational agency. But that was clearly untrue, thought Rosa. It was precisely the problem; there was much she could imagine but couldn’t achieve.
Dream the dream the
dream the dream
…

When she came up into the sunshine she waited for the lights to change. There was a sign in a shop saying MORE FOR SALE. More and more and more. The water tower stood like a totem. Ritualistically, the cars circled it, lucid strings of red and blue and silver. A man was running quickly towards her, followed by a man with a broom. She stepped aside and
let them pass. The lights changed and she crossed in a group, losing the others at the other side. Now she was walking swiftly, realising she was late. There was a brown high-rise block and an immaculate white shopping centre. She passed a jeweller’s and a shop selling Aussie Pies. There was a queue at the bus stop, and a formidable block of banks.
Still you haven’t
managed to see Sharkbreath
, she thought.
Plain reprehensible.
They have certainly tried to help you.
The bank had been sending her sympathetic offers, suggestions for repayment plans, and really it was only recently they had brought on Sharkbreath. It was unfair to demonise them, those legions of lenders and their zipper-mouthed minions. So they had taken an axe to her credit cards? What did she expect? Why would they entrust them to her any more, when she was so clearly incapable of paying them off? She understood the rules, they had been explained clearly to her, and if she was incapable of abiding by them – ‘Well, then you get Sharkbreath,’ she said aloud.

The green was clad in trees, branches defined against thick clouds. She walked down Shepherd’s Bush Road, where every shop was selling cut-cost bargains, and picked a path through slow-moving children and men like Elde and the disconnected variety of the crowds. A man was shouting at an intercom. She turned left and found herself in quieter streets, so idyllic that the houses had a sense of smugness to them. There were geraniums in the gardens and ivy on the walls. There was a penguin statue on the steps of a cottage. That was a tidy gimmick, she thought. Her footsteps rang out as she picked up speed. She saw a car sticker saying ‘Experience the Meaning of Life’. She turned at a corner where a man with a white beard was brushing the pavement, and a woman was saying
‘C’est catastrophique’
to her friend as they stood in the garden of a cottage.

At Brook Green she was late and trying to run. Hindered by her stacked-up shoes, shoes made for self-mutilation, she hopped and skipped along the street. There were people playing
tennis though the day was cold. She passed them quickly, and ran up Bute Gardens. To the sound of dogs barking she rounded another corner, nearly collided with a group of kids singing, saw the blank glass of an office block and stepped onto the main road. Hammersmith was a woven mass of cars, steady at the lights. Trees, glass, marble and old white stones. A pattern of materials, she picked them out against the cold sky. Behind stood the old shopping centre and the sign of the Underground.

Now she was cursing as she ran, staring down the lights while they ambled on red, slalom-racing along the road, twisting out of the way of other people. Her hips ached, and she found herself panting along the river, past the backs of quiet pubs. Her head was still sore and she wondered what was ague and could she have it? She thought she might. At the prospect of an interview she felt a mingled sense of joy and death come quickly. She wanted to be saved but the taste was bitter. Acrid air around her and a swelling on her heels. She should stop borrowing Jess’s shoes, she thought, they didn’t fit at all. Then she found she was lost. She was frantic for a few moments, scrambling around dirty streets, finding herself in a housing estate which had a map like hermetic code and she was spitting mad when she found the path again. But other than that it was a fine day. Her suit was tight and she had sweated liberally, but the water glinted in the sunshine. The big old muddy river was tranquil in the afternoon and the sky was clear above it. So she walked more slowly, trying to catch her breath. On the iron bridge a dozen cars coursed along, crossing into the south.

There were lions by the gates, grim-faced, chipped by age. She stepped past them, her heart thumping. She saw pebble borders containing sumptuous flowerbeds and a big wooden door. She adjusted her shirt, tucked it into her belt, noticed she had scuffed Jess’s shoes, blew her nose on her hand and wiped her hand on a hedge. She saw a gargoyle doorknocker and used it. There was a pause, and then Rosa found she was being
drawn inside by a woman with long thin hands and a bony face. She was admitted to a long grey corridor where the walls were decked with portraits. It was clear that Mrs Brazier had been a handsome woman until she had her skin tightened. She had shining auburn hair, in abundance, and her face had been stretched behind her ears. Her breasts were made of marble, or some modern equivalent. She looked pretty surprised about all of this, but that didn’t help her much. She had an ironical voice to match her ironical face, and she never smiled. Insistently thin, she had made herself still more angular by squeezing everything into jodhpurs and stiletto boots. Her hair was curly and she looked like a Corinthian column. This unnerved Rosa, and she stumbled as she went to shake hands. Rosa said, ‘Hello’, and Brazier said, ‘You must be Rosa.’ She had a cool, manicured hand. Anointed with expensive oils. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Rosa, smudging sweat onto la Braze’s pearly hand. Further platitudes followed, which Rosa failed to commit to memory. Mrs Brazier wanted a tutor for her children, who were small and apparently gifted. Rosa wanted a shot of adrenalin and a large gin and tonic, but she sat there nodding politely, raising her accent with every syllable.