‘Arrive where, Rosa? Where is it you’re dossing this time?’ And now he sneered a little. She imagined him, tidy suit, tidy hair, sitting in a tidy box-like room, surrounded by papers. Polishing his pens. Did Grace buy his ties, she wondered? It was the sort of thing she might do. With irony of course, smirking prettily as she handed them over. But she would buy them all the same.
‘When can you bring it round? Saturday? Sunday?’
‘Rosa, could it possibly wait a couple of weeks?’ said Liam.
Now he wanted to goad her, so she said, ‘Liam, let’s be rational. You have everything you want and really I just want to get away. I just want to leave the country.’
‘Really? Going on holiday?’ He sounded amused. ‘Sorry, Rosa, I really have to go. I’ll talk to Grace. She’s busy today, as you can imagine. But we’ll discuss it when everything is calmer.’
‘It’s not the money that’s important, it’s the symbolism, the symbolism is what matters!’ she said, aware that she was now shouting, but hardly bothering to control it.
‘A symbolic thousand, or a real thousand?’
‘It’s my money, you know it is!’ she said. There was a silence on the other end, then Liam, in a voice that betrayed a hint of superiority, said, ‘Rosa, no one wants you to die in a ditch.’ She was thinking that he was spoilt. He had always been indulged. Women had always rushed to indulge him. She blamed her sex, and she blamed him for lapping it all up, all this lust-based praise. ‘Just sell the furniture,’ she said. ‘Or hand it over.’ Then she put down the phone.
And she remembered her and Liam outside a country pub on her thirtieth birthday. The day was brilliant, the air shimmered with heat. There was Liam with his hand above his eyes. The garden of the pub wound around with ivy and wisteria. She could still remember how much they had been in love. They were incessant in it, quite steeped in it. Forlorn, she thought that five — nearly six — years was a long time, but all experience was only that, experience in the end. The conversation had lacked a conclusion. He hadn’t committed himself, so she couldn’t quite tick the item off her list. She took a pen, finding her hands were oozing sweat, and wrote: Call Liam back and check whether he said yes or no.
She shrugged it off, and went to the bank one more time, to try to talk to Sharkbreath. Stepping out of the flat she moved quickly along, locked in her thoughts. She passed the billboard on her left. Yes, yes, here come the tears, she thought. At the roundabout, there were cars turning the usual slow circle, the shops were sketched in their fading paints and the air was thick with petrol. Phiz had lived here, said the sign, many years ago, and now Phiz was nowhere to be seen, and Rosa passed along Ladbroke Grove with the hammer and thump of the Westway dawning above her and the sun shining through thick trailing clouds. Skeletal trees, tops to the sky. The pile of rubble and the metal grilles. A factory to her right, industrial twine around the walls. Equal People, she saw, and the celestial stairs. TEMP.
Much was the same at the bank, the same neon flickering lights above her, and the same acrylic carpeting that gave her a mild electric shock as she entered. The walls were touting helpful mantras: ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT YOUR PENSION PLAN? DO YOU WANT A BETTER DEAL ON YOUR MORTGAGE? DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO THE CROCK OF CRAP? A quick enquiry at the desk returned the information — unfortunate, if a relief all the same — that Sharkbreath wasn’t there. Instead she got another lowly zipper-mouth, not Mandy but another one called Jude. ‘Mr Rivers isn’t here today,’ she said, and her zipper was fastened. No smile at all.
‘Where is he?’ said Rosa.
‘He’s gone to a management programme meeting,’ said Jude.
‘A what?’
Jude shrugged and tossed her hair. She had a low hairline, and her fringe cuffed her eyes. She had tucked her face into a frown.
‘I wonder, could I possibly see someone else?’ asked Rosa, reasonably enough she thought, but Jude frowned some more.
‘What’s it concerning?’ asked Jude, clicking her pen.
‘About my overdraft. I just need to talk about my debt.’
‘If you wait a while we might just about be able to get you in to see Justin.’
‘Who is Justin?’
‘He’s the deputy to our overdraft repayment advisor.’
It was a remark ripe for satire, but Rosa had lost her mettle. ‘How long will he be?’
‘Let’s have a look, well, we have Mr Brick who is due in now and then Mrs Watson and so he could see you in half an hour?’
It made her nervous, but she said, ‘Yes, thanks, half an hour.’ She took a seat and, defying anyone to question her, picked up the Financial Times and waited.
Get a job
Phone Liam and ask him to sell the furniture
Unearth the TEMP
Speak to Andreas
Article for Martin White
Find the way to the truth that is concealed
Then she found she was shaking her head. Get a job. Go to see Liam. Andreas. Simply you must act. JUST ACT! She was trembling as she waited, wondering if the bank might finally grant her a reprieve. But Justin was nothing more than a thin-bearded official, younger than her by many years. He had other appointments scheduled; he hadn’t much time. At first this made him efficient. He slammed the door behind her, shook her hand quickly, and sat her down. He had her details on the screen in an instant. He spun his chair and said, ‘And what is it you wanted to discuss?’ He was wearing a grey suit that was too short in the legs and shiny black shoes. He had lank hair, tendrils of it falling over his ears, and a faceful of compelling moles.
Frankly, without any introductory flannel, no sort of prolegomena at all, to begin with the beginning and not to exceed the bounds of your patience, well, really to start, to render the inchoate accessible and splendid, well, Justin, if I may call you by your first name? I come in fear and trembling to ask you in your munificence if you could help me. She swallowed hard and said, ‘I’m trying hard to get a job, to pay off my debts, but this mounting interest saps my resolve. I realise it really ought to have the opposite effect, it should really give me a sense of urgency, but I find it makes me feel the whole thing is impossible.’
Justin stared at her for a moment, then said, ‘What exactly can I help you with?’
Lucidity! she thought. The Grail, the crock of celestial energy! The human divine! ‘Justin,’ she said, leaning forward. ‘I’ve banked here for years. Most of that time I wasn’t in debt. It’s only in the last few months that I’ve been racking it upwards. The credit card was the first thing — the credit card I couldn’t pay off, and the interest on that is pretty dirty, and then there is the overdraft. Initially Mr Shark — Mr Rivers — was quite happy about the overdraft, because I have been such a solvent customer for so many years, but then I racked that up too. Now there’s no more overdraft, and this haemorrhaging credit card. I have work, but I won’t earn enough to pay off the debt for a while. So I wondered if we could come to an agreement. If we could stop the interest from rising at such a startling level each month. I don’t want more debt to wallow in, not much more anyway, just for the interest to stop going up.’