‘Yes,’ said Kersti. ‘Yes, Rosa, don’t you know it’s Thursday?’
‘And Thursday is?’
‘The worst day, after Monday. Full of disorganised fools who should have called me earlier in the week.’
‘But I did call you earlier.’
‘Not you, Rosa. I can never complain about you failing to call me.’
‘You sound a bit spun out.’
‘You know, Rosa, it was strange, yesterday the birds were singing, the sky was blue, I felt a great sense of joy and couldn’t work out why. And now I realise, it was because I hadn’t heard the word furniture for the whole day.’
‘I went away for a night,’ said Rosa.
‘Sounds nice,’ said Kersti.
‘Though perhaps you mean undeserved?’
‘I mean I really don’t have time to talk. Yes I’ve phoned Liam. Yes the guy’s busy. Yes he’s getting married tomorrow. He says, and I understand his point, can’t it wait? He appreciates you want to sort it out. But it’s a load of mouldy old furniture. He’s not going to sell it, so you have to come to an arrangement. He thinks a thousand is probably too much. So he says when he’s finished with the wedding chaos he’ll talk to you.’
‘Oh yes, I’d forgotten,’ said Rosa. ‘I’d forgotten the wedding was tomorrow.’ But those words sluiced down the phone, saturated with improbability.
‘OK, Rosa, I’ll call you if there’s anything to say. So you’re not going to the wedding, I assume?’
‘No, not,’ said Rosa.
‘Well, speak to you later.’
‘Sorry. Thanks for everything. Goodbye.’
Rosa put down the phone. Now she was gritting her teeth, feeling a sturdy sense of her impotence. Her moods were shifting from one extreme to another. She had returned with a sense that she must progress somehow, that she had finally plumbed the depths and formed a resolution — desperate, tenuous, but a resolution all the same — to reach, if not the surface, then a point less deep than the depths. But the waves were strong and she couldn’t break the water. She was struggling with this heaviness, weight of water, something was pulling her down even as she struggled. At the surface you’ll breathe better. She stood by the radiator and thought how fine it was to be inside on a day like this, casting a glance at the window which was slurred with rain. Bent trees beyond, a dancing row. Green and grey, the slick sky flooded with clouds. She had failed to have breakfast, so she ate a bowl of cornflakes and drank one more cup of tea. The stuff keeps you happy, she thought as she drank. She rang Liam at work. He wasn’t there. ‘He’s gone to a meeting,’ said a secretary. She was determined and so she left a message asking him to sell the furniture. The secretary said, ‘What?’ and Rosa said, ‘The furniture. F-U-R-N-I-T-U-R-E. Tell him thanks. From Rosa.’ Still she was sounding reasonable, even as she dictated the sentences. She couldn’t quite explain about her cash-flow crisis. It was definitely none of his business, and she hardly thought he would reach into his pockets. Would he? Sudden hope, and then she thought it was impossible. Call up Liam and ask for money! It would never happen. Better call up Grace and — and she wondered — could she? — but that was a poor idea. She had to come up with something much better than that.
So she called her father. She heard the phone ringing through the rooms of his large house, and she imagined him setting down a piece of work, a Spanish translation or something in the garden, or apologising to his bridge partner and rising from the table.
‘Father,’ she said, when he answered.
‘Rosa, my dear. How are you?’
‘Thanks very much for lunch the other day.’
‘That’s fine. It was good to see you.’
‘I wondered if I could ask something?’
‘Yes, of course. I’m just here with some friends, and we have to go to play tennis now. Will it take long?’
‘I’m not sure. Depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On your response.’
‘I see. Well, now you’ve whetted my appetite, come on, be quick now. Bernard will be round any minute and I have to feed the dog before I go.’
‘How is the dog, Dad?’
‘The dog is very well. Is that what you wanted to ask?’
‘No. You know it isn’t.’ She laughed, but there were days — today one of them — when her father’s jocularity seemed like nerves. Keep cracking the gags, Dad, that’s just fine. That’ll steel you nicely against the inevitable.
‘The thing is’ — her father was clearing his throat impatiently and so she said, ‘I wondered’ and cleared her throat back at him. That made her think of their shared genes; she could sense them working away in her reluctance to come clean.
‘Rosa, come along, dear,’ he said, kindly but briskly.
‘OK, Dad. Well,’ she said.
Then there was a pause, while Rosa experienced a brief moment of illumination, a glowing, flushed with dawn colours realisation that there was something else stopping her tongue, something more than native cowardice. Her father was a crumbling column, succumbing to the elements; she wouldn’t rely on him any more. And finally, at the age of thirty-five, deep in the forest, profoundly lost in the thicket, you decide that your father isn’t the man with the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx or your cash-flow crisis, or any other problem. And that, she thought, with a nod to Dr Kamen, could be a step forward. She saw that it wasn’t a question of genes or any such thing, but that coming clean to her father was not part of the process. She had hardly helped him at all, this bereaved and antique father of hers, and this was one thing she could do. She could keep it all quiet, omit to tell him any of it. That was something she could do for him. This made her feel much better, though it hardly helped her. She was uncertain if this was her best conspicuous rationalisation yet, as she said, ‘I just wanted to say how good it was to see you, and how glad I am you are happy with Sarah.’
‘Well, thank you, Rosa.’ He sounded hesitant, as if he suspected something else might be coming. Then she heard a bell in the background. ‘That’s Bernard,’ he said.
That’s the bell, Sharkbreath is coming! ‘OK, Dad. But thanks again. And you know, I understand what you were saying.’
‘OK, good,’ he said, and rang off uncertainly.
Her brow was damp. She put her head down to the clammy tip of the phone. A monotone confirmed that her father had gone. Of course, she thought. He has to play tennis and prepare his body for dispersal. Really there’s no point expecting him to dole out money. He doesn’t have much, and what he has, well, he needs. Of course he does! He needs it to bribe the ferryman, all the rest. She hovered by the phone for a moment, thinking of calling him back and leaving a message. Daddy dear, the dough is all yours. You enjoy it, you old cricket. Splash out, buy Sarah a new wig. Thanks so much, Daddy. Thanks. Instead she called Kersti again, risking her thundering wrath. This time Kersti was out. ‘Would you like to leave a message?’ Tell her the guardians of the laws are angry. Tell her I have failed to unlock the secrets of TEMP. That a star is about to fall. The Kills are abroad. Tell her I still believe in the possibility of perfection and I wonder if she feels the same. ‘No, no message,’ said Rosa. ‘I’ll try again later.’
Rosa put down the phone. Again she was smiling. Her moods were shifting from one extreme to another. There was this lurking sense of despair and as if her own personal eschaton was nigh but she was trying to ignore it, quash it at least. Then the phone rang again and Rosa, hoping it was Andreas, said, ‘Jawohl?’