A Very Nice Girl: A Novel by Imogen Crimp (2022)
A Very Nice Girl: A Novel by Imogen Crimp (2022)
Part One
Three
Things are important-I said, thinking about my parents. The objects in their house they guarded, like flames they’d cup their hands around. The decades-old clothes. The mugs with the handles glued back on. The chair with the legs that fell off. You had to make sure not to sit on it, but they wouldn’t get rid of it. It made up the set.
You can say they don’t matter-I said.-That you don’t need them. Expensive objects and lovely clothes and beautiful rooms with high ceilings. You can say they don’t mean anything, and that’s partly true, of course, but not completely. You need some things. Some things are important. They make you feel like you’re a person living, not still sealed up, packaged-
Like the Ps’ daughter’s Christmas gift set-said Laurie, prodding with her toe a never-opened body lotion collection that had wormed its way out of one of the piles.
Well, yes-I said.-Like that. Things show people who you are. You can wear clothes that express your personality, surround yourself with objects you think are pretty. Without that, you’re still a blank, not defined. You’re still sealed and packaged, waiting for the plastic to be cut off your face (34).
Four
I tried to break into him, but he wouldn’t let me. Every subject I raised, he toyed with for a bit then pushed to one side, until eventually I couldn’t think of any more words. None that would interest him, anyway. We didn’t stay out long.
Back in the flat, he poured himself a drink. I sat on the sofa, but he didn’t sit. He went over to the window. Sighed. Leaned on the glass. A heaviness between us that wouldn’t lift.
Max?-I said.-What is it?
He didn’t turn around.
What?-he said.
What is it? What’s wrong?
Wrong?
I thought he was going to say that nothing was wrong, or else say nothing at all, but then there was a dull thud-he’d hit his fist on the glass, like he was trying to break out-and he turned back towards me, exhaled loudly.
I’m just so fucking bored-he said.
I thought about the silences at dinner, my inability to hold his interest.
Bored?
At work.
Oh.
I’m fucking crushingly bored of my job-he said.-That’s what’s wrong.
Oh. Why?
Why? Well-he said-some days I can get wrapped up in the fun of it all-because it can be fun, there are parts of it that are fun-and sometimes that’s enough. But other days, days like today, I’m just so fucking bored of it. When what you’re doing doesn’t really mean anything in the real world, not to most people, doesn’t have any fucking impact on anyone. You know, I was thinking about walking out today. Genuinely. Not even quitting. Just walking out. Fuck, I mean, I was never going to do this forever. That wasn’t the plan (56-7).
Part Two
Sixteen
I was late to the rehearsal, and the Director was angry.
Bit of professionalism wouldn’t go amiss, sweetheart-he shouted as I made my way down the aisle, through the sad emptiness of the stalls, the ghosts of audiences past.
Rodolfo, Marcello, and Mimi were already onstage. My cover was there too. She went and sat in the front row, score in hand.
Tavern scene-the Director said.-Yes, that’s right. Remember what opera you’re in, dear? Well, get up there then.
The argument. We’d sketched it out a few weeks ago. We started. None of them were marking, so I couldn’t either. Marcello began to accuse me of flirting. You don’t own me-I’m meant to be saying-I can do whatever I like, but he seemed too close to me and, at the same time, much too far away. Loud, and I could barely hear him. I couldn’t hear my voice. I couldn’t hear the piano. I could control nothing. It was like those dreams where you have to run and your legs don’t work, and Marcello had his hands on my shoulders, shaking me, and then the Director was shouting-stop, stop, everybody stop.
I could see Frankie looking at me, and I avoided his eye.
Well, great acting, sweetheart-the Director said.-Great acting. But-and believe me, it really fucking pains me to say this-but this is opera, you know. The audience is here more for your pretty singing than anything else, ok? Marieke won’t like it if you compromise on that, even if it’s a fucking Oscar-worthy performance. So let’s not have that emoting thing get in the way of the voice like that, got it?
He realized at the same time as me, and with exactly the same horror, that I was crying for real.
Christ-he said.-Let’s take five. Take five and pull yourself together. My rehearsal room isn’t a safe space, sweetheart, ok? I’m not going to make this safe for you. I frankly don’t have fucking time, ok? Anyway, any art that feels safe isn’t worth creating.
Mimi looked delighted. Frankie put his arms round me. I tried to hide my face from the light.
Any art that feels safe isn’t worth creating-the Director said again, ponderously, after a pause.-That’s good. You can write that down if you want.
***
The rest of the rehearsal happened and then it was over. I couldn’t remember much about it, because when we started up again, the fear-the fear that was stopping me, I’d thought, from getting inside my voice, from reaching that thing in the center of me that gave it weight and color and meaning-gave way to something far more frightening. I suddenly thought-this indefinable thing at my core-this thing I’ve always believed about myself-well, maybe it doesn’t exist. And then there I was, standing on stage, singing-and I must have been singing something, though God knows what, because no one had stopped me-pulling off and discarding layers of myself, trying to get hold of this thing of value, finding nothing (220-21).
Anna-he said.-Do you honestly think I don’t care? About your career? You think it’s ok to say that to me? Really? That I don’t care about whether or not you do well? Maybe think about that for a second. Remember how exactly you’ve had the time to do all this in the first place, why you’re not doing that shitty bar job anymore, hm?
I felt like I had in that rehearsal, like I was dissolving.
I’m sorry you’re having a bad time-he said.-I really am. But, frankly, you want me to believe how much you love singing, how it’s a vocation and you do a vocation for joy not money, etcetera, etcetera. But I look at you now and I don’t see a happy person. You want to know what I think? Do you? Really? Well, I think you’re miserable. I think that if you have to pull out and if that apparently means, as you insist, that that’s the end of this whole endeavor, well-you want to know what I think? Really?-I think that’s maybe not the worst thing in the world (225).
Part Four
Twenty-Three
At the weekend, Laurie got a Christmas tree. No one wanted to invest in decorations, though, so we improvised, hanging its branches with necklaces and bangles and cutlery tied onto pieces of string. Sash cooked a vegan Christmas dinner, and we spent the evening together, bickering about climate activism and Instagram feminism and whether Ella was cheating at Articulate. Mil’s experiment in communal living had worked, Laurie said. We were exactly like a big family, with all the dysfunctional squabbling that entailed. I thought we might descend into a proper argument then, an ending-the-evening sort of argument, but everyone got sentimental instead.
It’s four days till Christmas, and they’ve all gone home now. Frankie’s going this morning too. He’s often away-singing work-he’s doing well-and when he’s not here, I don’t really think about him, but I’m always happy when he’s back. He lives in a huge house with other singers, more than I can keep track of. They reuse teabags and no one ever does the washing up, and Frankie has a sheet pinned over his window because the curtain rod broke and he doesn’t want to pay to replace it and so, in his room it’s always a grubby sort of dusk. He tells me he loves me when he’s drunk, which is often, and I don’t say anything, because I don’t love him-or not in the way I used to understand love, anyway. He doesn’t come near my inner life. Is that love, if he can’t hurt me? If he can’t reach in and grab hold of that essential part of me, squeeze it in his fist so that he’s all there is? Can this be the stuff of centuries’ worth of poetry, films and opera, tears, suicide-going to the supermarket together and watching TV in bed when we’ve got the day off and arguing about where I leave my shoes and why he recounts my anecdotes at parties as if he was there too when he wasn’t?
He’s still asleep next to me. I find my phone, scroll back in my gallery. The picture I’d taken of the bank statement, address at the top. I’d considered this before, dismissed it as impossible. The house has taken on mythic proportions in my fantasies, like a medieval castle, high walls, moated, unbreachable. I decide I’ll go there. I’ll see him again. I’ll fix a final image of him in my head and it will be one that won’t haunt me. His real context-no potential for deception-he can’t hide from me there (310-11).
Then he says-look, do you want the truth? I had to see you. That’s why I came to the bar. I’d started thinking about you again. Couldn’t stop thinking about you, actually. When I heard you were with someone else, I, well, I don’t know-he says.-I’m sorry.
I stare at him. I can’t think of anything to say, and so he starts to talk.
It was when it got cold again, he’s saying, when autumn came. That’s when he started thinking about it. Regretting what had happened, how it had ended. Not his finest hour, he says, with work and with the divorce and, well, with everything. He behaved badly, he says, he knows that. But when it started to get cold again, something about it being the time of year when we’d met maybe, and-
His voice went on and on, smooth and soothing, teasing my defenses out of my fingers. He could always do this. Articulate suddenly, entirely unexpectedly, what I’d been thinking, and I’d never imagine he’d think it too. Because it’d been the same for me, when summer ended, when autumn came, looking back and thinking, that was a year ago-and wondering if it would be like this always-if this time of year always would be infused with his color. Thinking, this is useless, useless, this nostalgia which makes beautiful forever times you know were complicated, a mess, that made you unhappy-it serves no purpose, surely, you think, this longing always for the past.
He looks right at me, his eyes into my eyes, and I remember what it’s like, when nothing else matters but this second, and then this one, and then this one. And what’s the point, anyway?-he says.-In doing- what?-the right thing? In doing the right thing? What does that even mean? What is the right thing anyway? Isn’t being with the person you want to be with the right thing? Because what’s the point otherwise?
I don’t know-I say.
I wanted to see you again-he says.-That’s all.
Well, now you have.
Yes, now I have.
There’s a moment where we both look at each other, and I think, this is why I came, isn’t it? He’s right. If I stay very still, if I just stay still, it will happen.
But he breaks it. He looks down at the envelope on the table.
Anna-he says.-Honestly, I had no idea I’d given you that much money. I didn’t notice it. It hasn’t made a difference to me. You should keep it. I don’t need it.
The window’s black now, his face hollowed out by the light of the fire, but the room is unexpectedly cold.
Take it-I say, and my voice sounds oddly detached, not like my own.
Take it-I say again.-Please. Take it. I want you to take it.
He looks down at it.
Ok-he says.-I’ll take it.
But when he reaches for me, he leaves it, lying there between us (320-1).
Part One
Three
Things are important-I said, thinking about my parents. The objects in their house they guarded, like flames they’d cup their hands around. The decades-old clothes. The mugs with the handles glued back on. The chair with the legs that fell off. You had to make sure not to sit on it, but they wouldn’t get rid of it. It made up the set.
You can say they don’t matter-I said.-That you don’t need them. Expensive objects and lovely clothes and beautiful rooms with high ceilings. You can say they don’t mean anything, and that’s partly true, of course, but not completely. You need some things. Some things are important. They make you feel like you’re a person living, not still sealed up, packaged-
Like the Ps’ daughter’s Christmas gift set-said Laurie, prodding with her toe a never-opened body lotion collection that had wormed its way out of one of the piles.
Well, yes-I said.-Like that. Things show people who you are. You can wear clothes that express your personality, surround yourself with objects you think are pretty. Without that, you’re still a blank, not defined. You’re still sealed and packaged, waiting for the plastic to be cut off your face (34).
Four
I tried to break into him, but he wouldn’t let me. Every subject I raised, he toyed with for a bit then pushed to one side, until eventually I couldn’t think of any more words. None that would interest him, anyway. We didn’t stay out long.
Back in the flat, he poured himself a drink. I sat on the sofa, but he didn’t sit. He went over to the window. Sighed. Leaned on the glass. A heaviness between us that wouldn’t lift.
Max?-I said.-What is it?
He didn’t turn around.
What?-he said.
What is it? What’s wrong?
Wrong?
I thought he was going to say that nothing was wrong, or else say nothing at all, but then there was a dull thud-he’d hit his fist on the glass, like he was trying to break out-and he turned back towards me, exhaled loudly.
I’m just so fucking bored-he said.
I thought about the silences at dinner, my inability to hold his interest.
Bored?
At work.
Oh.
I’m fucking crushingly bored of my job-he said.-That’s what’s wrong.
Oh. Why?
Why? Well-he said-some days I can get wrapped up in the fun of it all-because it can be fun, there are parts of it that are fun-and sometimes that’s enough. But other days, days like today, I’m just so fucking bored of it. When what you’re doing doesn’t really mean anything in the real world, not to most people, doesn’t have any fucking impact on anyone. You know, I was thinking about walking out today. Genuinely. Not even quitting. Just walking out. Fuck, I mean, I was never going to do this forever. That wasn’t the plan (56-7).
Part Two
Sixteen
I was late to the rehearsal, and the Director was angry.
Bit of professionalism wouldn’t go amiss, sweetheart-he shouted as I made my way down the aisle, through the sad emptiness of the stalls, the ghosts of audiences past.
Rodolfo, Marcello, and Mimi were already onstage. My cover was there too. She went and sat in the front row, score in hand.
Tavern scene-the Director said.-Yes, that’s right. Remember what opera you’re in, dear? Well, get up there then.
The argument. We’d sketched it out a few weeks ago. We started. None of them were marking, so I couldn’t either. Marcello began to accuse me of flirting. You don’t own me-I’m meant to be saying-I can do whatever I like, but he seemed too close to me and, at the same time, much too far away. Loud, and I could barely hear him. I couldn’t hear my voice. I couldn’t hear the piano. I could control nothing. It was like those dreams where you have to run and your legs don’t work, and Marcello had his hands on my shoulders, shaking me, and then the Director was shouting-stop, stop, everybody stop.
I could see Frankie looking at me, and I avoided his eye.
Well, great acting, sweetheart-the Director said.-Great acting. But-and believe me, it really fucking pains me to say this-but this is opera, you know. The audience is here more for your pretty singing than anything else, ok? Marieke won’t like it if you compromise on that, even if it’s a fucking Oscar-worthy performance. So let’s not have that emoting thing get in the way of the voice like that, got it?
He realized at the same time as me, and with exactly the same horror, that I was crying for real.
Christ-he said.-Let’s take five. Take five and pull yourself together. My rehearsal room isn’t a safe space, sweetheart, ok? I’m not going to make this safe for you. I frankly don’t have fucking time, ok? Anyway, any art that feels safe isn’t worth creating.
Mimi looked delighted. Frankie put his arms round me. I tried to hide my face from the light.
Any art that feels safe isn’t worth creating-the Director said again, ponderously, after a pause.-That’s good. You can write that down if you want.
***
The rest of the rehearsal happened and then it was over. I couldn’t remember much about it, because when we started up again, the fear-the fear that was stopping me, I’d thought, from getting inside my voice, from reaching that thing in the center of me that gave it weight and color and meaning-gave way to something far more frightening. I suddenly thought-this indefinable thing at my core-this thing I’ve always believed about myself-well, maybe it doesn’t exist. And then there I was, standing on stage, singing-and I must have been singing something, though God knows what, because no one had stopped me-pulling off and discarding layers of myself, trying to get hold of this thing of value, finding nothing (220-21).
Anna-he said.-Do you honestly think I don’t care? About your career? You think it’s ok to say that to me? Really? That I don’t care about whether or not you do well? Maybe think about that for a second. Remember how exactly you’ve had the time to do all this in the first place, why you’re not doing that shitty bar job anymore, hm?
I felt like I had in that rehearsal, like I was dissolving.
I’m sorry you’re having a bad time-he said.-I really am. But, frankly, you want me to believe how much you love singing, how it’s a vocation and you do a vocation for joy not money, etcetera, etcetera. But I look at you now and I don’t see a happy person. You want to know what I think? Do you? Really? Well, I think you’re miserable. I think that if you have to pull out and if that apparently means, as you insist, that that’s the end of this whole endeavor, well-you want to know what I think? Really?-I think that’s maybe not the worst thing in the world (225).
Part Four
Twenty-Three
At the weekend, Laurie got a Christmas tree. No one wanted to invest in decorations, though, so we improvised, hanging its branches with necklaces and bangles and cutlery tied onto pieces of string. Sash cooked a vegan Christmas dinner, and we spent the evening together, bickering about climate activism and Instagram feminism and whether Ella was cheating at Articulate. Mil’s experiment in communal living had worked, Laurie said. We were exactly like a big family, with all the dysfunctional squabbling that entailed. I thought we might descend into a proper argument then, an ending-the-evening sort of argument, but everyone got sentimental instead.
It’s four days till Christmas, and they’ve all gone home now. Frankie’s going this morning too. He’s often away-singing work-he’s doing well-and when he’s not here, I don’t really think about him, but I’m always happy when he’s back. He lives in a huge house with other singers, more than I can keep track of. They reuse teabags and no one ever does the washing up, and Frankie has a sheet pinned over his window because the curtain rod broke and he doesn’t want to pay to replace it and so, in his room it’s always a grubby sort of dusk. He tells me he loves me when he’s drunk, which is often, and I don’t say anything, because I don’t love him-or not in the way I used to understand love, anyway. He doesn’t come near my inner life. Is that love, if he can’t hurt me? If he can’t reach in and grab hold of that essential part of me, squeeze it in his fist so that he’s all there is? Can this be the stuff of centuries’ worth of poetry, films and opera, tears, suicide-going to the supermarket together and watching TV in bed when we’ve got the day off and arguing about where I leave my shoes and why he recounts my anecdotes at parties as if he was there too when he wasn’t?
He’s still asleep next to me. I find my phone, scroll back in my gallery. The picture I’d taken of the bank statement, address at the top. I’d considered this before, dismissed it as impossible. The house has taken on mythic proportions in my fantasies, like a medieval castle, high walls, moated, unbreachable. I decide I’ll go there. I’ll see him again. I’ll fix a final image of him in my head and it will be one that won’t haunt me. His real context-no potential for deception-he can’t hide from me there (310-11).
Then he says-look, do you want the truth? I had to see you. That’s why I came to the bar. I’d started thinking about you again. Couldn’t stop thinking about you, actually. When I heard you were with someone else, I, well, I don’t know-he says.-I’m sorry.
I stare at him. I can’t think of anything to say, and so he starts to talk.
It was when it got cold again, he’s saying, when autumn came. That’s when he started thinking about it. Regretting what had happened, how it had ended. Not his finest hour, he says, with work and with the divorce and, well, with everything. He behaved badly, he says, he knows that. But when it started to get cold again, something about it being the time of year when we’d met maybe, and-
His voice went on and on, smooth and soothing, teasing my defenses out of my fingers. He could always do this. Articulate suddenly, entirely unexpectedly, what I’d been thinking, and I’d never imagine he’d think it too. Because it’d been the same for me, when summer ended, when autumn came, looking back and thinking, that was a year ago-and wondering if it would be like this always-if this time of year always would be infused with his color. Thinking, this is useless, useless, this nostalgia which makes beautiful forever times you know were complicated, a mess, that made you unhappy-it serves no purpose, surely, you think, this longing always for the past.
He looks right at me, his eyes into my eyes, and I remember what it’s like, when nothing else matters but this second, and then this one, and then this one. And what’s the point, anyway?-he says.-In doing- what?-the right thing? In doing the right thing? What does that even mean? What is the right thing anyway? Isn’t being with the person you want to be with the right thing? Because what’s the point otherwise?
I don’t know-I say.
I wanted to see you again-he says.-That’s all.
Well, now you have.
Yes, now I have.
There’s a moment where we both look at each other, and I think, this is why I came, isn’t it? He’s right. If I stay very still, if I just stay still, it will happen.
But he breaks it. He looks down at the envelope on the table.
Anna-he says.-Honestly, I had no idea I’d given you that much money. I didn’t notice it. It hasn’t made a difference to me. You should keep it. I don’t need it.
The window’s black now, his face hollowed out by the light of the fire, but the room is unexpectedly cold.
Take it-I say, and my voice sounds oddly detached, not like my own.
Take it-I say again.-Please. Take it. I want you to take it.
He looks down at it.
Ok-he says.-I’ll take it.
But when he reaches for me, he leaves it, lying there between us (320-1).