‘Well, we all feel that,’ said Kamen, smiling. ‘Particularly after a bereavement. You are bound to feel confused, knocked back, depressed.’
He meant it was hardly a pathology, hardly deviant at all.
‘Now I feel as if everyone speaks something else, some other language,’ said Rosa. ‘I really find I can’t raise myself to the challenge. There is something I am still failing to understand. A gap. Truth.’ Kamen nodded, perhaps impatiently. It didn’t sound any better the second time. ‘Perhaps beauty,’ she said, but that didn’t go so well. Kamen wasn’t interested in Rosa’s under-cooked theories of truth and beauty, her mixture of other people’s ideas and prevailing cliché.
‘Yes?’ said the doctor, expectantly.
‘I feel as if the real world, with its laws of time and space, its economics, politics, and even morality, has dissolved. Or I have been detached from it, and have emerged somewhere — I’m not quite sure where. But really it’s much better here, on the edge. It affords quite the best view. The only problem is debt, of course. And that’s why I need to change a little, sort things out.’
He smiled. She thought it was simple enough. There must be a reason behind it all. What did she and Dr Kamen know about the order of the universe? What could they know? Everything might be preordained. It might be part of an immaculate order, impossible for them to understand. Of course as Stoicism would have it no action that befell the individual — death included — could be bad, because everything that was part of logos was fundamentally good. In that case, her mother’s death was part of logos, and her current state must also be, and who was she to resist? If it left her quite shattered that was simply her impoverished perspective. She lacked pneuma perhaps, she was deficient in life force, but she was sure that things occurred for a reason. She was, she said to Dr Kamen, no Epicurean. ‘My mother disagreed,’ she added. She was explaining this to Dr Kamen, adding that they were a very primitive species, with very little to be proud of, while he nodded slightly. He wrote something down on a piece of paper.
‘I think,’ said Dr Kamen, straightening his tie, ‘you’re depressed. You should have a holiday. Go to see some friends, some good friends who cheer you up. I’m going to prescribe you some antidepressants and see if they might help you. At this stage of things you really just have to manage. If things get worse I could refer you to a psychiatrist. At present, try this course of tablets, and we’ll make another appointment soon to see how you’re getting on.’
‘Thank you very much. Very kind,’ said Rosa. He had her wrong, she was thinking. She wasn’t depressed at all. Earlier, she had been depressed. Now she woke each day at dawn; it was her excitement that was making her rise so early. That and the grinding of the trains. It was just her thoughts, she wanted to say. But Kamen had his eye on his watch, so she stood up. As she walked away, he said, ‘Don’t worry, your prince will come.’ It made her stop with her hand on the door.
‘My prince?’ she said. She thought she had heard him wrong, but he was smiling back at her.
‘Yes, your prince,’ he said. His face had wrinkled up and he meant to be kind. Like so much these days, it made her quite confused. She couldn’t think how to reply. Well, perhaps she appeared solitary to him — was it the deep lines in the centre of her brow, or something else about her all-over aspect, that made him think she was questing for love? She wanted to say ‘No, no, you’ve got me wrong, all wrong, that’s not the point at all’ but it got tangled up. She ended up blushing and backing out of the door.
*
Now she heard the distant chimes of a church clock. 1 p.m., and she really had to deal with the day’s events, rather than wallowing in thoughts of the past. She had three hours until her interview. She was considering the importance of living in the present when the phone rang. That made her jump and then she edged towards it. Nervously, she held her hand above the receiver. She meant to let it ring, knowing it was likely to be someone either threatening her with dissolution or offering her advice. Yet she lacked willpower. She was too lonely and eager to leave a ringing phone. There was a pause after she answered. ‘Rosa,’ said her father. ‘Rosa, how are you?’ The old rasper, on the phone again. Good God, thought Rosa. He wanted to mend her, with his rasping voice. It was with a thick throat that she answered.
‘Dad, hi. I was just about to call you. I did get your messages. Thanks so much. I wanted to call you when I had some news, but nothing so far has happened.’
‘Yes, yes. So what’s happening?’
‘I’m going for an interview later, then I’ll call you and let you know,’ said Rosa. Her father sniffed and paused. He was about to challenge her outright, and then he decided that being wry was best, so he said, ‘Excellent, Rosa, what is it for this time?’
‘Oh, something I’d like to do,’ she said. That wasn’t true, but she didn’t want the inevitable row. She didn’t like lying to her father. But the other option — being honest with him — was out of the question.
‘Well, you really do need to get a move on with it. Speed up a bit. So silly! Such a silly waste of your talents.’ He was still angry. But mostly he was confused.
‘Dad, the last thing I need is more speed. Everything’s fast enough already. Even today — the morning has just vanished.’
‘Vanished has it? Another day! Of course — because you don’t have a plan. Look at me. I’m retired. I woke at 7 a.m., learnt some Spanish, read an account of the fall of Berlin in 1945, took the dog for a walk, went for a Spanish lesson, and later I’m meeting my friend Adam for lunch, playing a round of bridge with Sarah and two of my neighbours, and finishing that account of the fall of Berlin this evening. And then my doctor tells me to take it easy!’
‘Gosh, Daddy,’ said Rosa. ‘Are you sure you shouldn’t take it easy?’
‘Yes, I’m quite sure. I feel better by the day,’ said her father. ‘Now, let’s see, I have to come to London tomorrow, to see a friend who is emigrating to America. You know, at my age, you have to mark these partings. So why don’t we have lunch? You can tell me all about the job.’
‘Let’s,’ said Rosa. ‘Thanks for the invitation.’
‘If you want to come for the weekend some time, do come down and stay with us,’ he said.
She said, ‘Thanks, thanks so much.’ Us meant him and Sarah. Sarah was new, improbable, but there was no point getting into a funeral-baked-meats frenzy about it all. She didn’t want to think about Sarah, she didn’t want to stand on the parapet mouthing Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt so she had been avoiding her father. That was unkind, when the man was like a mummy, dried out and shrivelled and really not looking his best. She ought to have been glad he had Sarah. When you were seventy you had to get along as best you could. Really, Rosa understood that. She didn’t judge him. She just found it hard to talk to him. She understood what he was doing. If he could sling it all off, mourn and then displace his wife, then she admired him. It was just Sarah’s lisp and her wide-eyed benevolence that made Rosa want to wander away yelping like an injured dog.
But now she wondered if she should just go home after all. Get a job in Bristol, and live with her father. She thought of going back to that tall cold house and imposing on his privacy, disrupting the delicate balance he had established for himself. He and Sarah in their last-stop love nest — it would hardly improve her mood. Rosa wandering down to breakfast, into their cloud of amiable grey. It was regression, or worse, but she was tempted by it nonetheless. They fixed a time and Rosa’s father said, ‘Don’t forget like last time and don’t be late,’ and then they said goodbye.