Joanna Kavenna - Inglorious

‘Well, they’re still around,’ said Whitchurch. ‘You could go and see them sometime.’

Rosa said, ‘Oh yes, that. I see,’ and smiled faintly. ‘Yep, I’ll go round and see them sometime.’ The conversation was fading fast and she let it fade.

‘Anyway, in the interim, tell them I said hi,’ she said.

‘Who?’

‘Liam and Grace, when you see them. And anyone else who … you know, you’d like to tell I said hi,’ she said.

‘That’s confusing,’ said Whitchurch, smiling. ‘But I’ll try my best. Now I really have to go.’

‘Yes, of course. Oh, and, Sandra,’ she said, urgently, as Whitchurch turned away.

But Whitchurch was glancing at her watch. ‘Yes?’

And she wondered what she wanted to say. I’m sorry? Thank you? Or perhaps she really did have a message to give her, something to tell Liam and Grace as they walked down the aisle to the altar. I wish you all the luck in the world. I love you both, in an eternal and profound sense. I forgive everything. I hope you forgive me. Unlikely, she thought. Highly unlikely. I damn you to hell! The pair of you! Cowards and traitors! Unlikely she would say that either. So she stopped and wheezed gently for a moment. Instead she said, vaguely, ‘Good to see you. Hope your meeting goes well.’

‘Of course, Rosa.’

And Whitchurch walked slowly onwards. Still, the sight of Whitchurch had summoned the lot of them. Liam and Grace and the rest. Liam and Grace, those servants of Cupid, kept occurring to her as she went along the road. She moved quickly to avoid an oncoming rush of people, recent fugitives from a commuter train. They seeped along the streets, towards the maze of their working lives. A man tripped her and she stumbled and stretched out her hands. That made her collide with a boy wearing headphones who slurred something she didn’t hear. And he didn’t hear her when she asked him what he meant, so they both dropped their eyes and walked on.

*

She had found in recent months that her thoughts were undisciplined, and tended to swirl towards the things that pained her — unless she kept her mind on practicalities and trivia. So she was thinking of that pair of beauties, Liam and Grace in the back of a mini cab, sitting very close to each other, while Rosa argued with the driver and smirked at them. She raised her eyebrows at them and they smiled back. They were all tired, coming home from a party. It was almost light, the stars were fading in the sky. Perhaps the birds were already singing. She couldn’t remember, but there they were — legs touching? hands? — with Rosa in the front, drunk and even happy! She was oblivious to nuance. Grace was staying the night, because she lived in Tulse Hill and it was too far to go. She had stayed a few times, sleeping in their living room on the sofa bed. Really Rosa had no idea how long it had been going on for. She didn’t care to think. Still, when she remembered Grace in the living room with her hair in plaits and her lovely head on a borrowed pillow she wondered whether Liam had left their bed that night, and crept in to see Grace? She imagined their efforts to be quiet, their nerves, their excitement. They were a fine pair, physically; she had seen them both naked many times. Liam more, of course. But she knew the contours of Grace’s body too. Once their friendship flourished, they swam together a few times a week. Grace had small thighs, long arms, an elegant back. Her skin was tanned. She had a tiny, beautiful body and delightful breasts. All the right curves and shadows. She was definitely in her prime. She was a little short for some, but people admired her. Even with all of this, even with her fully realised sense of their bodies, Rosa couldn’t quite summon the vision, the final — my eyes! my eyes! — image of them in the living room, passionate and entwined. They had officially announced themselves a few weeks after she left. That left two plausible interpretations — unfaithfulness or a rebound so spectacular that it was surprising Liam hadn’t cracked his skull. Either way she had been a fool. She had noticed nothing at the time; she was preoccupied. Grace dropping round, bringing her bread and bottles of wine, had seemed like simple kindness. The suddenness of their friendship had seemed part of the bizarre pattern of events after her mother’s death. She hadn’t thought it through; her mind wasn’t clear at the time. Still, Liam’s anger and frustration suggested he had been eager for the next stage. He was tired out, perhaps bored. And Grace was waiting there, beautiful, courageous, full of vitality.

*

The wedding was close now, only days away. She had received an invitation a few weeks ago, an impressive gold-embossed piece of luxury card, ‘Mr and Mrs Bosworth would like to invite you to celebrate the marriage of their daughter Grace Maria to Liam Robert Peters.’ Mr and Mrs Bosworth would like to invite you to celebrate the triumph of their conniving offspring Grace Maria misnamed for holiness by optimistic parents to Liam Lothario Peters. She never liked it when the parents invited you along. It was plain tacky. All that conspicuous bumf and litter came with a set of directions to the church and some friendly suggestions for hotels in London which began ‘London, as most of you will know, is a very expensive city!’ There was even a note about presents. ‘If you would like to buy Grace and Liam a present …’ She thought she wouldn’t like to. Not really at all. Later Liam wrote her a letter. ‘Rosa, I know you are hurt. But I would really like you to be there. It’s of course up to you. Whatever you feel able to do.’ Able to do! The scandal of his lazy prose! Raging and trying to conceal it, she sent him a short email. ‘Will think about it — R.’ He wrote back with an email gush, the sort of disposable rubbish people pound out between one meeting and the next. ‘I’m so glad to hear you will. We can hardly wait to see you there. With love, as always, Liam.’ He sounded like a parody, as if he had entered a competition to sound as plastic and inanimate as he could, like a replicant pretending to be a human, but that was ages ago anyway. It had been weakness to write anything at all. At least she had pared it down, from a letter eloquent with rage. Dear Liam, You write to me as if I am an invalid, recovering from an unfortunate ailment. Perhaps my belief in your steadfastness was my sickness, from which I am mercifully cured. It went on, a violent torrent, and if Liam was a replicant she was a failed nineteenth-century novelist, spilling out melodrama for thruppence a volume. I condemn you! I anticipate your doom! You are the anti-Christ! On the day of Judgement you will be ravaged by devils! She threw away the letter. Later she threw away the invitation. Still, the date and time were scored into her memory.

Liam and Grace , she had written a while back, I won’t be coming to your wedding. It’s not that I don’t wish you well. I hope you’ll be happy together. Really, it doesn’t matter much. I could come along, smile and nod, wearing a hat, but I think it would be unseemly. Frankly, I would become part of the spectacle. They would call me ‘the ex’ and stare at me! They would await a scene. They would expect me to cry, and whatever I did they would say I had been crabbed and furious as you went up the aisle. Bent-backed with rage. But you know, I’m not angry at all. Yours, Rosa. Grace had called her up a few times, after it all came out. Someone must have told her — perhaps it was even Whitchurch who spilled the truth — that Rosa knew. Rosa knew! Cue for thunder and lightning! Or, in Rosa’s case, because the epic was hardly available to her, slight drizzle. Grace left messages of great pertinence, pert little messages which made Rosa bite her lip. When Rosa picked up the phone — thinking it might be someone else entirely — she heard Grace saying, ‘Rosa, now, don’t hang up, can we talk? I want you to know I understand your position.’ Grace wasn’t penitent, exactly. She wasn’t nervous at all. She fundamentally believed that Rosa was suppressing her emotions. She explained this, briskly but with sympathy, as if she understood that Rosa was having trouble understanding the irrefutable truth of it all and she was trying to help her get on board. ‘I understand your position, but I am hoping you will understand mine,’ she said. Her position — it was one more piece of Gracean Ur-babble.