Rachel Cusk - Saving Agnes

‘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.

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.