Joanna Kavenna - Inglorious

‘The police?’ said Rosa. ‘What the hell would the police do? Put you in prison for stealing my furniture! Call them!’ But that fell flat. Liam looked her up and down and said, ‘Now, Rosa, don’t get upset.’ On further scrutiny, he looked careworn. She thought he might have put on weight. Apart from all that, his presence was quite superb. He was lovely to observe, with his careful gestures, his delicate eyes. He was standing there, uncertain amid all this elegance, but still he was a coward, that hadn’t changed. He was so thin-skinned and sedentary. The man was a tent, letting just anyone pitch him and set up camp in him. Tent-like, he said, ‘There’s no need for a fight. We will get you your share of the furniture money. It’s no big deal.’

There was a flicker in Liam’s eyes which Rosa couldn’t understand. For a minute or so, she waited. She eyed the bouquets on the windowsill. Deep red carnations, very fine, a bucolic cluster of them. She wondered what Grace was wearing for the wedding. She thought the bedroom must have changed too. She imagined Grace’s shoes on the floor, her clothes in the wardrobe and her books by the bed. The complete diaries of Virginia Woolf — of course she would have those, and an edifying biography or two, something about Amelia Earhart or Rebecca West. Books that said she was a strong and forthright woman. The flat was familiar and yet disconcerting, like a dream. Everything had been displaced. She turned towards the sofa and said, ‘Aren’t you going to ask me to sit down?’

Before Liam came she had been frightened, but now she was quite calm. Liam, however, was looking incensed, even stricken with rage.

‘Rosa, it’s so ludicrous, you being here. It’s so sad and strange. Can’t you understand?’ He hissed that; he couldn’t restrain himself. Was it excitement or fury? It was hard to tell. ‘You must get out,’ he said. ‘I can’t even think about this now. Whatever you want. I’ll give you some money. What do you need? Come on, they’ll be arriving soon.’

‘That’s right, I must get out! GET ME OUT!’ said Rosa, but now she was talking too loudly. She wondered who were ‘they’ and when were they coming? What did they want? Liam observed a silence, looking uncomfortable. He had his hands clasped together, and he was hunched over at the breakfast bar. More than uncomfortable, he looked agitated, as if her presence was disturbing to him. She paced towards the bookshelf, looked out over a stack of books, the combined collections of Grace and Liam, lovingly merged together. That made her fret, and so she said, lying, ‘It’s not a question of need. It’s a question of justice.’ The phrase meant nothing, and Liam shrugged. Of course he knew her well enough. He could spot her empty rhetoric as soon as she spilled it out. He said, with his hands outstretched, as if he was trying to stop her, or at least slow her down, ‘Rosa, come on, let’s try to get through this. Tell me what you want?’

She wasn’t relaxed; there was so much to see, and she kept glancing around at the exhibits, finding a shocking display on the kitchen wall, photos of Liam and Grace together in a series of places, on European holidays, in New York, standing on the Staten Island ferry with their arms around each other, in a desert, their faces oiled with sweat. There was something appalling about it, now she confronted it. Really it was tacky, quite disgraceful! It meant nothing to them, the past. They were mutable, in love with mutability, they accepted that things moved on. The essence of time is flux, the dissolution of the momentarily existent, and the essence of life is time. Absolutely, she thought, that doesn’t help at all. Now she felt tired and she sat down on the sofa. She stared up at the ceiling, wondering if they had painted that too. She picked up a book and tried to read the title. Nothing registered, and she set it down again.

‘Come on, Rosa,’ said Liam. He wasn’t relaxed at all. He was holding himself very straight, preparing to act. He walked towards her, lingering above her. Really he was quite fixed on his theme, determined that Rosa should leave. He was always monologic. ‘I just want a token payment. It’s not much,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing at all. Closure, you know.’ And she grimaced. She could see his nerves and rage. It meant little to her, that she had the power to worry him. It was a pyrrhic victory, to turn up and convince Liam just how much he dreaded her. She saw another picture of them on the mantelpiece, Grace supreme in a little red dress and Liam in cords and a blue shirt. On that one she was wearing a sparkling ring. They were a beautiful couple, of course. They were setting such store by this small thing their wedding. It was touching how much it meant to them. And for this reason, and for many others, they must be happy together, thought Rosa.

Suddenly Liam turned towards her, trying to look friendly. He had gained an air of slyness. He had always been cunning, but now it was sketched on his brow. ‘Rosa, please cut me some slack here,’ he said softly. He was leaning towards her. ‘I know you don’t want to wreck my wedding. I understand. It should never have dragged on like this. I just thought what you were asking was too much, and then I didn’t think the furniture was actually worth anything. But today — well, it’s a good day to come! Quite the best day to get me to agree to a deal! So why don’t we say I’ll send you a cheque? I’ll have a look at the stuff again and work it out. I’ll do it before I go away on the honeymoon. OK?’ He was speaking through gritted teeth. Really he wanted to bawl her out, but he was trying to coax her. He was furious, she could see just how furious he was. She wished she could have been more magnanimous. For a moment she wanted to say that she was sorry, make a pact, resolve it all. She longed to do that, to forget every slight and say she was sorry for everything. She would have blamed herself, if she could just get the words out. Still she couldn’t do it. What was it, defiance or a petty sort of pride that had such a grip on her?

‘Good to see you, so set up,’ she said. That was the best she could do, and it sounded hollow as she said it.

‘Doing fine,’ said Liam, in an embarrassed way. He clenched his fist. ‘So that’s everything settled then. I’ll put a cheque in the post. I’m sorry not to have sorted it out. Things just got hectic.’ He looked at the door. That was too prompt and final, and it made her remember that the last time she was here he had been lying fluently, preparing to sling her out. Now he was doing it again, saying anything he could think of to make her leave. It was his fixed and constant aim, and this shattered her good mood, stopped her feeling contrite. He looked at the door again. ‘Liam, no,’ she said, and suddenly she felt a sense of aversion, a rich coursing sense of disgust about the whole furniture debate, continued conversation between Liam and her, any reference to their former flat, the rest. She understood it was undignified. Kersti had been quite right. Odd, really, that Kersti had even called him up. She thought, suddenly, that Kersti must have made a joke of her. ‘Hi, Liam, had another call from poor old Rosa. Yep, still nattering about the furniture. I can’t stop her. What can you do? Can you help her?’ A collective conspiracy, they had been working together all along. It made her feel ashamed. And so you should be, she thought. More than anything she wanted to leave, but leave with an assurance, some sort of quid pro quo, rather than being pushed out again by Liam triumphant. It was childish, but she minded losing every time. It got her in the guts, made her want to spit and cry. ‘I don’t care, I’ll take whatever you want to give me. I don’t care. It has enraged me, that you’ve made such a fuss about this. But I’m sick of feeling so angry. Anything, a couple of quid, fifty, a hundred, anything. It’s better if I never speak to you again. Really, now I don’t care about the money. Just give me something, and I’ll go. Anything, a token, just to demonstrate you haven’t lost your sense of —’ She stopped. She couldn’t think what she wanted to say. Everything sounded overblown. She let the sentence drop.