Joanna Kavenna - Inglorious

It surprised her, how weary she was feeling. And Liam was standing there, uncomprehending and distracted. Of course, the wedding! He was looking creased; he had dragon skin around his mouth. His skin was worn. Had she grown used to him when they lived together, stopped really seeing him? She had never noticed how close together his eyes were. He seemed birdlike, afraid.

Then the buzzer went.

‘Fuck,’ said Liam. ‘Fuck, that’s the others. Rosa, come on, let’s go. Definitely time for you to go. We’ll talk more as we go.’ Suddenly, he dragged her off the sofa. Then he started pulling her through the door. At first she shook him off, quite lightly, though she was confused. His touch was strange to her, redolent, of course, of long ago, but different again, like the flat. Something in the atmosphere had changed. It was the sternness of his touch that made her uneasy. All the time they had lived together, he had never touched her like that, even when everything started to slide. It felt so curious; she couldn’t quite absorb it. I am finding this a fundamentally alienating experience, she thought, with a nod to Freud. That was the sort of cant he liked. I feel I cannot integrate myself into this moment. I suspect I am emotionally arrested. Was that it? And what about you, Liam, she thought? She caught a glimpse of his eyes, staring ahead. He had her arm in his hand again, and they were moving through the door. She shook him off, but he grabbed her again. ‘Come on, Rosa,’ he said. ‘Time to go.’ Now he was pulling her along the corridor. Though she was reluctant, he was stronger and of course he had the stark motivation of his wedding, the people in the lift, his best man, his brother perhaps, all of them in smart suits, preparing their speeches. He moved her quickly along the hall. His grip was firm and quite detached. As they went she said, ‘Liam, there’s no need to be so smug. I was being quite reasonable. That was what I said. Pay me a token. A bit of cash, that’s all. Something that makes me hate you less. Otherwise, think of me festering away, cursing you. It can’t be what you want on your wedding day!’ She raised her voice. She was shouting randomly as she was pulled along and every so often she would say, ‘Come on, Liam, what about the money!’ ‘The damn money! The fucking ducats!’

‘Rosa, that’s enough,’ he was saying. Already he was out of breath. ‘Really, you need help.’ They passed the lift, and because his friends were in there he dragged her further to the stairs and banged open the doors.

Rosa was pushing at his arms. ‘Gold!’ she was shouting. ‘The fucking gold!’ For a moment she was in a blind fury; not just about the money and her sense of panic but about their wasted life together, his betrayal of her, this rage she had been trying to convert into something else but which had sapped her energy and made her hopeless, a whole host of things she had failed to manage. She was stumbling under the weight of her anger, quite reeling with it, and that gave him a chance to bump her down a few more steps while she shouted words, though she was hardly noticing what she said.

‘Rosa, stop being crazy,’ he gasped. ‘I don’t have time, surely you understand? It will have to wait!’ And he was shouting now, in his frustration. He was frantic about the time. Always he was thinking about himself. It was surely unmeasured but she wanted to bite him. All that violence she had thought of and never had a chance to enact, really she wanted to head-butt and pummel him. He was dragging her faster along, trying to draw her down the stairs. He had ten flights to go; it was looking bad. She could see that in his fixed stare and the lonely curve of his mouth. That made her think of this discarded period of her life; she felt him as he drew her along and was transported, though the present was jarring, and this motion was making her feel giddy again. She remembered the way he smelt in the morning, the dry taste of his mouth and the warmth of his body. Though she had hated him in recent months, she recognised that. It came over her suddenly how familiar he was, and that was despite everything, the acts he had perpetrated and his all round treachery. Now she stopped struggling. Reluctantly she understood. It was all quite pointless, and besides it was the wrong time. She felt suddenly disgusted, with Liam for refusing to pay the money, and with herself for begging for it. He was scoring a last, emphatic point, even though he had smashed her to bits already. It enraged her that she couldn’t just retreat, remain aloof. So she said, quietly, ‘Fine, you’re right. I’ll walk. I’ll go.’ He dropped his arms, hopeful, and she began to walk down the stairs. He was still behind her. ‘I feel sorry for you. I really do,’ he said. ‘I feel partly responsible, of course.’

She didn’t bother to respond.

‘I know you were unhappy with me, but now — now you seem much worse,’ he said wiping his face. His skin was shining with sweat.

‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Really, you have to be less of a prig.’

On the sixth floor, with a nervous glance at his watch, he said she was walking too slowly, and put his arm on hers again. She got free and walked away. Then, because she was preoccupied, she tripped and fell, hitting her jaw on the banisters. He grabbed her and steadied her again. ‘Rosa, are you OK?’ She pressed her hand to her mouth. Now his hand shook when he touched her. He was shaking his head at her, looking sad. ‘Rosa, I’m sorry about the way things worked out,’ he said. ‘And now you’ve hurt yourself.’

‘That’s fine, it’s nothing,’ she said. She could taste blood in her mouth, and she swallowed. She really wanted to cry, but it was pure self-pity. She was standing now, dabbing at her mouth, and he was holding her arms. His face close to hers. It was an intimate moment, redolent of course. Then she found she was saying something, it quite surprised her, because it wasn’t really what she had meant to say, really it hadn’t been her intention to say it at all. ‘Liam,’ she was saying, in a choked, wheedling voice that did her no favours, ‘do you have to? Maybe you don’t have to after all? Of course, she’s a great woman. A marvellous friend. But do you have to? It just seems unnecessary somehow. It’s a step too far. You know, I’m smashed already, there’s no need for another blow. I’m out for the count! On the floor, really, I’m down there, right down there, scrabbling to rise but finding this fucking wedding, this whole ritual, love-celebration, whatever you’re calling it, is too much. It’s only a particle, of course, a piece of chaff in the wind, and if I add it in with the meaning of things and the point, the perfect point, and my need for cash and all the TEMP and the rest, of course it means almost nothing. But anyway it’s too much, do you understand? Tasteless, too soon, prohibitively tasteless. Just outrageous! Staggering! Like felling someone with a ton of bricks then blowing them up as well! Don’t you see? Can’t you see how it feels if you’re quite pulverised already and then someone says, “Oh God YAH we’re getting married in a big stupid wedding with white bows everywhere and cascading arrangements of flora and the bastard crazy rest?”’ The whole thing was out in seconds, her drooling petition. Now she saw him so vaporised, so insubstantial and preposterous, preparing for his luxurious wedding — it should have meant nothing to her, yet somehow it unnerved her, and she was spilling garbage in a trembling voice. ‘What the hell has happened to you?’ she was saying. ‘What the hell happened?’ It was futile and she dried up with a sense that she might — any moment, and clearly ridiculous — start to cry. Too too solid flesh , she thought, and then she thought, Who the hell are you kidding? The time has long gone when you could have left here amicably, with a conciliatory wave. Now you just have to sidle out of here as soon as you can. Liam had his arms round her, as she stood there gulping and flushed with shame, and she remembered their former passion, or former conspiracy, a conspiracy of concern for each other, and now she was trying to pull herself away. She shouldn’t have come, of course. She had only been appalled by the discord between them, and the sense that Liam believed he was right, about the money and everything else. ‘I’ll go right away,’ she said, rubbing her mouth, which hurt. The atmosphere had certainly declined. It was the most awkward place she had been for a long time. She was trying not to look him in the eye. He would think she was mourning the loss of him, the death of love, but now she understood — some knot had been untied, and here they were, separate, entirely distinct, hardly understanding each other.