Joanna Kavenna - Inglorious

She moved slowly, looking everyone up and down. At the corner she saw a preacher with his hands full of papers. But she didn’t want to listen to him and she kept on walking. She turned onto Blagrove Road and walked under the Westway. A STAR IS GOING TO FALL. Of course, the shudder of trains, the rumble of cars. She heard the skaters in their fenced-off compound. A sign said MUGGERS BEWARE. She wondered at that and moved on. Opposite were the yellow bricks of a complex of flats. The skate kids had helmets on, and when they fell they laughed. Where the Westway seemed to curve above her, spinning its sides like a bowl on a potter’s wheel, she crossed the bridge. The underside of the Westway was still eloquent. She saw TEMP and something next to it, something she hadn’t seen before, SOPH. SOPH , marvellous, she thought. She had failed to understand the TEMP and now they had slung her another clue. That made her shiver. SOPH. SOPH. SOPH? Sophisticated. Sophistry. Sophos. It might be wisdom. Of course, she was lacking in it. They all were, wasn’t that the point? TEMP for SOPHOS — it was certainly time for wisdom. Sometime soon, she hoped. She simply couldn’t carry on in this state of foolishness for ever. And now she wondered why she was thinking about these words that some drunken man had scrawled and perhaps fallen to his death before finishing them. Abbreviated, that was all. Perhaps they meant very little in the end.

TEMP and SOPH she thought, moving on. Now a woman passed by holding an umbrella. She heard the clatter of the trains, the staccato thud of wheels on the track. She saw the rusted underbellies of the carriages and watched as they swung past her, moving out of sight. The motion soothed her; she thought of boarding a train and sleeping until she arrived — wherever, at the terminus, somewhere far away, waking to a still sky. As she walked she remembered a journey she had once made on a night train through France, and how she had seen the moon obscured by clouds, and listened to the breath of a stranger in the bunk beneath her, a polite woman who had asked her which bunk she preferred. Through the night the train accelerated and slowed again, the scream of the brakes disturbed the woman below, and her breathing changed. There was a clash of wheels on metal, and a sound of low speech and laughter, and Rosa had thought the voices sounded like people she knew. Some of them were English travellers. She remembered lying on her side so she could stare through the window. Waiting at the stations for the grinding of the wheels to start again. She saw lights in rows whipped backwards as the train moved faster. The train roaring at the oncoming blackness, emitting a low groan as it sank into a tunnel.

She had always had a passion for travel, for the steady progress of a train along a track, or better still the dream-stupor of a long-haul flight, the dimness of the cabin lights as the plane surfed on the air and blackness stretched away, the hum of the engines as the plane descended, moving towards land portioned into patterns of fields, sliced by roads. She was thinking that she must really get away, travel somewhere and start again, take a trip to mark her resolution, draw a line under this period of her life. You must get out of this square mile , she thought, you must change your mode. That was surely a good thing to do. As soon as she got her hands on a bit of money, that bit of money Liam owed her, she would take a trip elsewhere, try to start again. She walked onto the footbridge. She saw the pale sun. It looked like a theatre prop, it was so plain and perfect. Everything was still and yet as she walked she — who wandered around London all the time — felt afraid. She began to pick her feet up faster, slapping them down and trying to hurry. Her hair was blown about by the wind and she heard footsteps behind her; they rang out clearly. Rosa kept her eyes firmly on the street beyond the bridge and thought it wasn’t far now, just twenty metres or so and she would be on the other side. She kept looking up at the sun, like a beacon beckoning her on. The noise of footsteps coming closer made her heart beat faster. There was someone behind her, someone she couldn’t quite turn round to look at because she felt something might happen. Someone was right behind her, snuffling and grunting. She was almost at the end of the bridge, she could see Tavistock Crescent in front of her, and the snuffling was getting louder and now she thought she could hear words, a low murmur. She became quite rigid and superstitious, thinking she couldn’t turn round, so she quickened her step, and the steps behind her seemed to follow. She could hear them, ringing out on the bridge. And in the background, distant now, she could hear cars and trains, rattling and grumbling, and now on the arches she saw TEMP in the guttering, sprayed uncertainly, this TEMP had almost faded. A wrong turn? she thought. She saw houses silhouetted against the sky. She heard her breath quicken, and found her hands were drenched in sweat. Her skin was prickling with fear. She was trying to walk faster but her legs were stiff and heavy. She said ‘Hello?’ in a tentative voice. She turned suddenly, saw a man dragging his heels in the leaves. He was walking towards her. It startled her, and for a moment she couldn’t get her breath. When she looked at his face she saw a bloated jaw, eyes set close together. A toad-face, certainly, she thought. The same one as before? Or another one? The bridge was empty and beyond that was the quiet road. He was staring straight ahead, not seeing her at all, intent on following a straight line across the bridge. Feeling foolish she quickened her step and walked on. Behind he was still grunting to himself, muttering words she couldn’t hear. She craned her head round again and saw him staring at her, nodding his head. That was enough for her, and she turned on her heels and started to run.

A train slammed under the bridge and for a few steps she could hear nothing but the thud of wheels on tracks. She half expected to feel a hand on her shoulder, and that made her shiver and pick up speed. She kept running, determined to get to the end of the bridge. She had an idea that she would be safe then, optimistic and plainly irrelevant though it was. She was so convinced about this that when she came to the end of the bridge she breathed more easily. But she was still afraid and she kept walking until she had rounded a corner and stepped into a broad and populated street. Then she turned her head and saw there was no sign of him behind her. She only saw the trees bowing in the wind and the pale sun.

*

She knocked on Andreas’s door, preparing for an awkward pause, but he wasn’t there at all. As she waited she saw a mother and child in the playground behind her. ‘Good, darling! Good!’ She smiled at the mother, but the mother was busy with her child. As Andreas was nowhere to be found, she felt in her pockets for a pen and paper and left him a note.

Dear Andreas, Hope you’ve had a good couple of days. Me, it’s been bliss. The gyre, whirled in the gyre, something like that. Anyway, psychological onanism aside, may I have a bed for a few nights? I promise not to linger. All was black and entombed but now — but now …? Speak to you soon, Rosa.

She tore that up.

Andreas, hope you’re well. Just dropped round. You’re rehearsing, most likely; give me a call when you can. Wanted to ask you something. Love, Rosa.

She stuffed that through the door, as a compromise solution, and then she decided to go to Kensington Gardens and sit there until she came up with a plan. And if she failed then Kensington Gardens was a better place than most to abandon hope. Keeping an eye on the crowds, she walked slowly. Hordes of people were drifting in and out of organic food shops, designer boutiques. She darted round a family group, the mother with her hand on the shoulders of her children, staring into the window of a health food shop. She was walking towards Bayswater, muttering into her collar, saying, ‘These are the things you have to do. They’re all extremely simple. A fool could do them. This means you are worse than a fool. Your phobia of the telephone, your inability to ask for help, are quite pitiful. As if you can afford to be so reluctant! It’s quite simple, what you must do, and do now, today, before another night falls. Ask Andreas for a place to stay. Ask Liam to sell the furniture. Now!’ Muttering along Bayswater she turned into Palace Green and stared like a child at the high houses with their electronic gates. A few were embassies, flying flags, and the rest were the anonymous homes of the wealthy. ‘But don’t start on that theme again,’ she said. ‘No point in craving luxury. Merely desire something better than debt.’