She woke again before dawn and stood by the window, staring out at the shadows. The dawn was later by the day; the year was drawing to an end. A coarse wind had ruined the trees; leaves gusted along the pavement. It was Thursday and she had wasted too many days. All through the previous day she had fleeced the clock of minutes, bartering them down. On the journey home, she had found herself thinking of the things she had to do. At Manchester she thought furniture from Liam find a place to stay get a job and as the train eased through the suburbs of Birmingham she thought explain everything to Andreas but by Luton she was thinking leave the country and that insistent thought — escape/retreat — brought her to the outskirts of London. There she watched the city seep towards her. The train ran through rising districts of concrete and steel. All around was incessant motion; she was moving against the current, heading towards the centre while the commuters were going back to the suburbs and their well-earned homes. She saw banks of glass reflecting the sunset. At King’s Cross the crowds moved beneath a giant display. Details changed, platforms were announced; the process was continuous. After she had waited in the tube, dimly aware of her reflection swimming in the darkness, she walked from Ladbroke Grove to the flat. The living room was dark and quiet.
Now she stayed in her room until Jess went out to work. She heard the assertive slam of the door and breathed more easily. When she rose and walked through the flat, she found a note on the table in Jess’s handwriting. Dear Rosa, Hope you had a good trip. Let me know if you need any help with the move. Jess. That was definitely a reminder, tactful in the circumstances, but firm enough. The day felt different. She heard a humming in the distance. It was necessary to be resolute. As she sat at the window she tried to think what to do. She crossed her legs and noted the fleeting progress of the street. As she sat there a car was revving up the scale, from gear to gear. A man stubbed his toe and hopped a step. He glanced up, his mouth rounded in a whistle. A woman walked below, holding a bag of shopping. Rosa pushed up the window and stuck her head out to breathe the air. The sky had been tousled in the night and now she saw the ragged folds of the clouds. And the street, this noisy, random street she knew so well.
She went into the bathroom and found it had been cleaned. Purged by Jess. She was an eternal swab, always dousing something, tidying something else. She opened the cabinet — its newly wiped mirror gleaming smartly — where she found a stash of painkillers. She took a couple, bending her head to the tap and scooping water into her mouth. She remembered a few cursory things, and then she remembered she had to get the furniture money from Liam. That was a certain goal, and one she was sure she could achieve. She thought it mattered for reasons beyond the fiscal — though it mattered for reasons entirely related to the fiscal too. She washed her face and blew soap bubbles at the mirror. When the bathroom was steamed over, furred up, she dried herself and walked back into the living room. In a fit of fleeting courage she dialled up Mrs Brazier, that iron bar of a woman. La Braze answered the phone in a strident voice, suggestive of self-love. That made Rosa nervous, and her hands were trembling as she said, ‘This is Rosa Lane. I came for an interview the other day.’
‘Ah yes, Rosa Lane.’ The voice was businesslike.
‘I just wondered if you had made a decision yet. Not wanting to overstep the mark,’ she said.
Fortunately Frau Braze was quick and to the point. She was sorry but she didn’t want Rosa after all. ‘I’m afraid the children didn’t like you,’ she said. ‘I thought you were fairly suitable.’ But her little darlings, the pashmina-touting infants, hadn’t wanted Rosa. Balanced in the scales, she had been judged unworthy by children!
‘Well, I understand,’ said Rosa. ‘I understand. Of course, it wouldn’t work, if the children didn’t like me. Thanks for letting me know.’ She kept her voice quite firm and relaxed. Just before she hung up she thought of saying, ‘I could try, I could try to make them like me,’ but stopped herself in time. Please ask your infant bastards to give me another chance! she thought, but instead she said, ‘Goodbye, Mrs Brazier. So nice to have met you.’
‘Yah, herum,’ said Brazier.
Then she put the phone down. She was aiming for stoicism as she snagged it on the cradle. And now the children hadn’t liked her. The mini-Brazes had seen straight through her. They knew she didn’t care a hoot about them, couldn’t care less if they lived or died so long as she got money in her hand each month. The profundity of children, she wanted to raise a glass to them, those clever kids! Anyway, they had sniffed her out. The question of money was as pertinent as ever, quite as harsh and pressing, though she had definitely had a go at solving it. She had gone along, ripped her feet to shreds, inhaled a few pints of lung death and sat there talking in a measured way. Now she took her notebook and sat down. The birds were still singing in the silver trees. The trains still shuddered on the tracks. A car stalled on the corner and was answered by a choir of horns. A cacophony of rage. Outside, the denizens of TEMP were waiting. Then the car revved up again, revved away, and the horns abated. She had to think more clearly. She had the interest to pay, she had to service her overdraft or watch as everything came crashing down on her. So she wrote a pared down list. Economy, she was thinking. The basics. These small things you can do!
Things to do, Thursday
Find a place to stay
Phone Liam and ask him to sell the furniture
Phone Kersti
Explain to Andreas
Get a job
Find the way to the truth that is concealed
Unlock the casket
Unearth the TEMP
She looked at it admiringly for a moment. It was certainly succinct, expressive mainly of the essentials. She really had to find a place to stay. She phoned Whitchurch and found she wasn’t in her office. Then she tried Jess, who was in a meeting. She was tapping her fingers and then she found she was dialling Andreas’s number. She wasn’t sure what she would say to him if he picked up the phone. Calmly and at a moderato pace, she would unfurl it all. Nothing sensational. The starting point is a place to sleep. I have options, of course. Of course I have options! And the rest, the whole rest and nothing but the rest. Much in her approach was foolish, that was plain to her. Andreas was genuinely relaxed. Of course he is. It’s only you with your tone of melodrama, trying to sweep the boy into a farce of your own devising. He doesn’t much mind! Things should be easy, if you just accept Andreas as a nice kid with a big heart and a surprisingly consistent way of being. That’s all. No need for further talk. Yet she couldn’t stop it. It was absurd to be so reticent, when the man even liked her. But he liked her because he hardly knew her. That was far from the point, she thought. Why would he care, if she was slightly in debt? Everyone was in debt. The entire world was in debt, whole countries, economies, why, the whole thing could collapse tomorrow. If she was lucky, it would. Her debt would be wiped out in an instant. Wishing for a global recession was unkind, hardly fair to those who worked so hard amassing money. But anything, thought Rosa — a lightning bolt, a fire in the vaults, the banks destroyed. A collective realisation that money was meaningless! It was a blank wall.
She thought all of this, while the phone rang into empty space and then Andreas’s voice said, ‘Hi there, leave me a message. If it’s work then call my agent on —’ She was clandestine and didn’t leave a message. She dialled another number. A few rings, and she had conjured the voice of Kersti, though it was peremptory this morning, rich in reluctance.