Joanna Kavenna - Inglorious

Now Rosa felt a brief pang, thinking of how her life had thinned out, how she had whittled it down to the basics. She had lost sight of Whitchurch and so many others. For a while she had missed her, and yet now she fled when she saw her. Would it be so terrible, to meet a Whitchurch, she wondered? The woman looked benign, moving purposefully, checking her watch. She was carrying a heavy bag, leaning slightly to one side. Here she came, lugubrious with her heavy limbs. Moving to her own personal pace, in her own decelerated version of a hurry, Whitchurch walked on. She nodded to Rosa and Rosa nodded back. Then they were a foot away from each other, and someone had to speak. So Rosa said ‘Hi, Sandra’ thinking it was best to start.

‘Rosa, how are you?’ Whitchurch wasn’t sure whether to kiss her or clasp her hand, so in the end she did neither and they stood with their arms at their sides.

‘Very well, how are you?’ said Rosa. She was determined to be jovial, and so she managed a smile and stood there, quite lock-jawed with the strain of holding it. Whitchurch was equally determined, her eyes wide open, nodding vividly.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Just off to a meeting. Somewhere around here. At Westbourne Studios, is it far?’

‘No,’ said Rosa. ‘You’re very close. Just a few streets further and then cross a footbridge.’

‘That’s a relief,’ said Whitchurch. ‘I’d begun to wonder if I’d be wandering around all day.’

Rosa laughed too loudly, lifting her head and catching an observant glimmer in Whitchurch’s eyes. Indeed, as she laughed, she noticed Whitchurch looking her up and down, aiming to assess her. ‘So, what are you up to?’ said Whitchurch.

With unconvincing nonchalance, she rubbed her eye with a finger. That smudged her mascara, and Rosa wasn’t sure if she should tell her.

‘Oh, you know, looking for work.’

‘Are you still living up in Kensal Rise?’

She meant it well enough, so Rosa smiled and said, ‘Yes, still with Jess. She’s been very kind. Her boyfriend is great too, very welcoming. They seem a happy couple.’ That was flannel, superfluous to requirements. She was trying to emit bonhomie, but something wasn’t right.

‘Good,’ said Whitchurch.

She screwed up her face so it cratered like the moon. She was sweating at the collar. Whitchurch was like a beast, come out to graze in the morning light. She had the thick thighs of a venerable woman, the sort of woman who does a lot of work and never has time for the gym. Rosa appreciated the ample curves of Whitchurch, and then, aware that they had both paused, silence had slung a lasso around them, she said, ‘And how are you, Sandra? How’s work?’

Whitchurch moved towards her. Now her large, friendly face was close to Rosa’s. She had healthy red skin, freckles on her nose, and a few white blotches on her neck. Her brows had been plucked into oblivion, her follicles had been purged. Her skin was lined, but the lines were soft, quite pretty, and they bracketed her mouth and set off her eyes. She was a handsome woman, but the sight of her waggling her pruned brows, smiling urgently, unnerved Rosa and she stepped back.

‘Work is great,’ said Whitchurch.

‘Why great?’

Whitchurch shrugged her shoulders. This she did with some effort, because her bag looked heavy. Rosa thought she wouldn’t stop for long.

‘Oh, everything’s going well, as ever. Lots of big clients in town this week, so it’s very busy.’

‘I should let you go,’ said Rosa.

Whitchurch glanced at her watch. ‘Oh, well, a couple of minutes will be all right,’ she said. She licked her lips, her malleable mouth. A couple of minutes — time for what? A bus moaned past, causing Whitchurch to raise her voice. That tightened her consonants, made them sibilant. Time for a quiet confession . ‘I haven’t seen you for a while, since you moved out. I felt like the messenger who got shot,’ said Whitchurch.

Well, it was true. ‘No, no, Sandra, not at all,’ said Rosa, trying to smile. ‘I’m glad you told me. At first I was surprised, but now I’m well on the way to understanding.’ Quite en route to something like acceptance, though her hands bled sweat as she talked. She understood that Grace had merely been a purgative. She had forced the issue. That was the best way to think of it, and, in her finer moments, Rosa did. There was something about it that concerned her, all the same. It was a sense of coincidence, the curious chances of their meeting, that if Rosa’s mother had never died then Rosa would never have talked drunkenly to Grace and embarked upon such an intense friendship with her, and Grace would never have come round to the flat all the time and Liam would never have fallen in love with her. It was a shocking run of coincidences, as if the fates had been conspiring. But Rosa, unsure if there were fates anyway, couldn’t unearth it, and this was what perplexed her. There were days when she thought that Liam must have been looking for a way out, to fall so deeply in love with the first new friend who came to their flat. She couldn’t work it out, though undoubtedly it lent another layer of significance to those evenings when Grace sat in their flat, telling them they were ‘fatally stuck’, that they needed a ‘swift transition, a mutual release’. Grace with her legs curled up, toying with her food, because Grace was so full of ideas that she hardly ever ate. Rosa had believed it all. She wanted Grace to tell her what she was. And Liam was just a sucker for a beautiful woman who spoke in whirling subordinate clauses.

Whitchurch was waiting, and Rosa said, ‘I’ve just been hiding out from everyone. I set myself some ambitious targets. Initially I was whipping through them, but recently I’ve had to focus on work, jobs, you know. My money ran out. The rest is ignominious.’

That made Whitchurch nod in a distracted way.

‘Good, good,’ she said. ‘Because I wouldn’t want to think you blamed me for anything.’

‘No, no, I only blame myself.’ And Liam, Grace, my parents dead and alive, Yabalon and the laws of the universe. But mostly myself. ‘Really, I’m sorting things out. Perhaps we could meet up, when everything’s less chaotic. I can explain it all in tedious detail.’

Whitchurch nodded again, and scrutinised her watch.

‘Same numbers, you know how to reach me. Are you — perhaps you aren’t — are you going to their wedding?’

‘Their wedding,’ said Rosa, aware of her voice rising, tightening, for all her efforts to suppress the signs. Shrilly, squawking like an exotic bird, she said, ‘No no, I won’t be going. They did invite me. But I have to go away on Friday. It is this Friday, isn’t it?’ she added, wanting to sound uncertain. Whitchurch nodded. ‘Well, other things to do. You know, send them my best. I have already, but you know, never hurts.’ And she laughed. She laughed as if she might be about to choke.

‘OK, of course,’ said Whitchurch. Now she was turning to leave. Whither Whitchurch, thought Rosa, and then she thought hwaer cwom Whitchurch. She had treated Whitchurch badly. It would be impossible to reignite that friendship. For death, people made allowances. But only for so long. And for the rest, the rest was chaff. Rosa’s crustacean mores hadn’t impressed them at all. She had kept herself under a rock and now they had stopped trying to prise her out.

‘You know, everyone misses you,’ said Whitchurch.

‘I miss them,’ said Rosa.

‘They feel awkward, of course.’ That was because of Liam, she thought. Really he had made the whole thing like a gladiatorial contest. She had been preoccupied and she hadn’t bothered to state her case. Meanwhile, he had conducted a briefing campaign against her. He was guilty, or angry she had wasted so many years of his life, anyway he had been telling everyone she was crazy and sad. It made them reluctant to see her. And if by chance they did see her, it made them look holy, which was what Whitchurch was doing now. Whitchurch was a font of holy-watered concern. ‘I’ve been useless, I know,’ said Rosa. ‘I’ve been out of touch with everyone.’