Joanna Kavenna - Inglorious

At the bank they wanted the money to be deposited, used to sop up some of her debt, but she talked them into doling out cash. With the posters behind her ARE YOU MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR MONEY? ARE YOU PILING IT UP AND COUNTING IT DAILY? DO YOU DREAM OF PILES OF GOLD? she explained that she would be working again soon, and this money was required ‘to supplement my business wardrobe,’ she said, smirking and biting her nails. The kid sniffed, a new kid called Dave, and slapped the notes down. This meant her wallet bulged attractively, giving her a powerful if fleeting sense of security. She was leaving Sharkbreath far behind, but one day she would go and see him. She would walk in and announce triumphantly to the sceptical zipper-priestess Mandy that she had a deposit to make. She would clasp the toad-faces by the hand. Not now, but some time soon, and if not soon — Well, then she would consider it later, she thought.

In the Underground she thought of herself a few months ago, going in the opposite direction, having walked out of her job. It was nine months since the death of her mother. She marked that blankly, trying not to think beyond the facts. The months coursed on; she had lost a lot of time. The train was looping round towards Waterloo. She had missed the rush hour and the carriage was half full. A sign above her said LET US HELP YOU TO HELP YOURSELF and there was a picture of a woman smiling broadly. She wasn’t sure if she was running away or regaining something. She had in mind what she wanted to do, to return to a state she had previously accepted as ordinary, a state in which she could think quietly about things. It was a long way back, she thought, recalling her desperation of the night before, her drooling incontinence and plain despair. Then, she had certainly been incapable of moderation. She had failed entirely to set aside the concerns of the self. There had been that period of blankness, when she couldn’t remember what she had done at all. That frightened her a little, and she turned to stare at the man to her left, a shiny-faced man of fifty or so, wearing a shabby mac; his shoes dirty. He flicked a glance towards her, cold-eyed and indifferent, and she dropped her gaze.

Everything was going well enough, until at Waterloo she suffered a moment of indecision. She stood under the clock, watching the lines of people moving across the forecourt and she thought of going home to her father, and then she thought of leaving the country. Andreas was in her mind, too. She saw these choices like paths in a forest, and she was unsteady for a while, not sure which way to turn. She had her bag behind her, her pared-down possessions, and she felt suddenly tired and as if she could hardly stand. She wanted to lie down and sleep. She was being scuffed and buffeted by the crowds, people moving past her, constant motion, and each person who pushed past glanced back at her, as if her stasis was a crime. The condition of everything is flux, she thought, and then she shook her head. She thought of calling Andreas but then she remembered she had woken him, left obscure messages, hoping he would supply her with something, a bed for a few nights, another temporary solution. Anyway, it was too much to ask; he was a kind, loving man, but he wanted to act and he wanted to enjoy himself, be young, live well. She couldn’t go back and lean on Andreas, assuming he even wanted to serve as a crutch. She was banged hard in the shoulder as a man rushed past her, hurrying to catch a train. He was late and he didn’t turn back. She was a rock in the current, she thought. You couldn’t stay here for ever. Eventually they probably winched you out, or poked you with a cattle prod. She was standing there, martyring herself to the ebb and flow, still nervous and undecided, when she saw a billboard high above her saying TEMPERANCE. That made her crane her neck and stare. It summoned something, another strand she had failed to develop. It was noon and Rosa was thinking of Liam and Grace and the whispering church. TEMPERANCE, she thought. Was that the meaning of TEMP? TEMP means Temperance, that was what the taggers had been saying. And then what about SOPH? And she thought of the vicar and the church and ‘Do you?’ ‘I do.’ ‘Do you?’ ‘I do.’ Well, that was it, rings exchanged, a kiss, the rest. They would be delighted, of course. Everyone, and she thought of Liam’s mother wiping tears from her frosty cheeks. Flowers — of course there would be a lot of flowers. The altar would be decked. Garlanded the pews. She could imagine a fine bucolic row of them, chosen by Grace’s mother. It would all be sublimely tasteful. Beautiful, if you liked that sort of thing. She wondered at it all, and then she stopped and thought, But perhaps that’s it. Perhaps , she thought, TEMP could be Temperance . SOPH would mean Sophrosyne which meant temperance, or moderation. Wisdom in moderation. The right way to live — moderately, temperately — she remembered it now — it was Socratic, and came from ‘Charmides’, she thought. She was standing in Waterloo station as the crowd swelled around her, realising she had forgotten about Zalmoxis. How could you have banished Zalmoxis from your mind? she thought, Zalmoxis who said that temperance is a great good, and if you truly have it, you are blessed. She gripped her bag and with her swollen mouth she said, ‘Sophrosyne’ loudly to the air around her. ‘And to you too,’ said a commuter with a flushed face, as he pushed past her and descended into the scrum. That gave her another jolt, and she tried to remember what she had been thinking. Temperance, she thought again, but she wasn’t sure. Was that it, she thought? It was impossible to know for certain. Well, she thought, if it was SOPH or something else altogether, how the hell was she to know? She had been worrying away at those signs, the TEMP and the SOPH, and now she thought she would take Sophrosyne as the meaning, or decide that was what it meant today. She didn’t have to know it objectively; she only had to reach a compromise, a solution that meant something to her. The debate had only ever been hers anyway; there was no one begging her to give them an answer. Civilisations were not hanging by a thread, awaiting Rosa’s pronouncement on the definitive meaning of TEMP. She looked up at the sign again. Still she was tired, and if there had been a bed for her somewhere, she would have retreated back to it. TEMP meaning temperance or something else altogether. SOPH meaning Sophrosyne or nothing at all. Something to her alone. A small signal. Be moderate. Well, it was a mantra she needed well enough. Of course she should be more moderate, and she thought of the people around her colliding and smashing a way past each other, going somewhere, she didn’t know where. For a brief moment as she looked across this seething tide of people going to work, wearing their smart clothes, abandoned to the immutable system of money and the city, it seemed to make a sort of sense. Moderation, of course, she thought. The world kept on going and she only had a small part to play. She saw the Ferris wheel turning slow circles beyond the hangar of the station and the crowds flowing towards a train and she stepped onto an escalator, her heart thumping in her breast. And she thought to herself, TEMP means you are going to take the train. SOPH means you are going to leave the city. There wasn’t really anything else to do.

With a low feeling of relief, she bought a ticket for the first train that was leaving the country, and that train was going to Paris. She would have gone to Brussels or Ghent, or wherever they sent her. She didn’t mind. Now her heart was thumping; her nerves were on edge. Her tooth was definitely loose, but she would see to that later. She filed along the platform, finding her seat, arranging her bag in the luggage compartment. She was so tired she hardly noticed her surroundings, and when the train pulled out she turned to the wall and slept. She slept deeply, until she was woken as the train began to pick up speed. Stirring in her seat, she turned to the window and saw the sky was wreathed in clouds. There was a plane moving through the sky, weaving a trail of smoke that coiled and floated and then disintegrated slowly. The day had been dull earlier, but now the sun was shining faintly. Trees were moving gently in a low wind, swaying towards the tracks. It was almost winter and the hedgerows were bare. The train was moving towards the outskirts of the country, where the land met the sea. Swiftly, it was passing steel containers. She saw the shapes of hills, grey-toned, shadowed by clouds. They passed a railway junkyard full of bits of track, rubbish, piles of concrete, and a ruined engine. There was a mound of rubble by the side of the track, moss at its tip. The automated voice was telling them all that smoking was not allowed on the train. She saw lines of cars and steel fences. She had left her notebook and pen on the table, a table she was sharing with a man who was reading Le Monde. She took her pen in her hand. Now she saw the sea ahead, glinting in the sunshine.