Flying Under Bridges

by Sandi Toksvig

  Antrobus, opposed your plans for the refugees.’

  ‘Why do you?’

  ‘It was important to you. Did he object? Was he unpleasant?’

  ‘I wish he had been. No, it was John being so damned nice that put a spanner in the whole thing. At least everyone else thought he was being nice. I don’t now.’

  We had been collecting for about three weeks. Everyone in Edenford had been helping and Adam, even though he’s not mad about people from abroad, had promised the full support of the council. Then things started to go a bit wrong.

  First, I lost the WI Flower Arranging/Candlestick Competition. No surprise there. Doris won with an extraordinary display of daisies, sprayed green and wrapped around a white candle. She called it Flame of Liberty. There was some talk that she’d cheated and used hairspray to hold the arrangement together. I felt this was rather confirmed when her granddaughter, Tasha, set fire to the wick and the entire creation went up, but everyone decided it was a freak gust from that loose window pane above the piano. Doris got her award and Tasha got rather singed eyebrows. Doris thought I had bad-mouthed her about the whole thing so she was a little tense with me in the shop each day. I think it turned her against me in the end.

  Then John turned up one afternoon with a huge bag of second-hand clothes. I think he expected all the old biddies in the shop to swoon and, of course, most of them did. He was very good-looking and he charmed everyone. It wasn’t difficult. These were women whose idea of an intimate encounter was a hair wash at Pat’s Beauty Spot.

  ‘Just a few bits and pieces,’ he chuckled, as we pulled stunning designer shirts out of his bin liners.

  ‘We can really sell these. Oh, John, you are kind,’ dribbled Doris.

  Everyone was smiling and dribbling when suddenly he reached out to steady himself against the counter.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I think I’m a little faint.’

  ‘Get him a chair! A chair!’ barked Mrs Hoddle, who had done years of service with Meals on Wheels and knew infirmity when she saw it. ‘Doris, open the door, get air, we need fresh air!’ she commanded to the very winds of the town.

  Everyone ran in all directions. Tea was made, hankies were pressed with lavender water, Helen Richler tried rescue remedy but John declined.

  ‘No stimulants, thank you.’ He smiled weakly. ‘Sorry, I’m being pathetic. I always am when I give blood.’

  ‘You gave blood!’ Emma Milton squealed. ‘That’s so wonderful.’

  John managed to speak, but quietly so that we all had to gather round.

  ‘It was just an idea I had for all the men. You know we have these little meetings.’ The women all nodded. The Centurion Club now boasted nearly every prominent man in town. ‘I thought we should all give blood. It’s the least we can do what with you ladies doing such wonderful work for the refugees. Everyone must do their bit. After all we have no idea how much will be needed.’

  There was much clucking and approving of this idea.

  ‘The man is a saint,’ was the general refrain until Helen said, ‘Blood? Sorry, why will we need blood?’

  John patted her hand. ‘Oh, I don’t know that we will need it, it’s just a precaution.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Mrs Hoddle was confused and stopped fanning him with a copy of The Lady magazine. ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘Well, it’s just that these poor, misfit people, who you quite rightly are helping, have been through a lot. They have had very little food, terrible accommodation… Who knows what infectious diseases they may have picked up. We need to be ready to help. No one would want Edenford General to be unprepared in the event of some epidemic or other…’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not that it will happen,’ he managed weakly. John recovered shortly after that and left. There was a silence in the shop that lasted some time after he had gone.

  ‘I think I’ll be off home now,’ announced Mrs Hoddle.

  ‘Yes. It is late, isn’t it?’ said Doris, looking at her wrist even though she didn’t wear a watch. It was the beginning of the end.

  I’m tired. Tell Shirley that I love her.

  Love, Eve

  Chapter Seventeen

  Eve had woken up feeling fat. She seemed to be lying on one side of the bed and her stomach on the other. When she looked in the mirror she saw that she was fat.

  The journalist from the Mail was trying to get Inge to look at herself. The feature, Why I Never Married, was to be a big spread and the writer was unhappy about doing the interview on the phone. She wanted to meet Inge.

  ‘Body language is so important,’ she kept saying, but Inge insisted. The conversation did not go well. No, Inge hadn’t had a disastrous affair from which she had never recovered. No, she did not dislike men. The interviewer was relentless in pursuit of Inge’s inner life. She belonged to the nation, they owned her, they had a right to know. It was ironic that Inge was made to be so defensive about liking men. She did like them. A lot. In fact, it was because she tried to save Lawrence’s boy, Patrick, that she got into such trouble.

  After John’s appearance a few women had stopped coming to the charity shop. The appeal was still going great guns but there had been talk about disease and the ‘risk to the town’, and the Eden ford Gazette had carried an article about TB amongst refugees. Then the Centurion Club passed a motion requesting that Edenford General prioritise blood supplies for residents of no less than five years. They also petitioned for each member’s wife to be given first access to any donated blood. The request concluded, ‘We will protect our women.’ And was then signed by them all.

  ‘What diseases are we worrying about?’ Eve asked Adam.

  ‘Tuberculosis,’ he said darkly.

  ‘Yes, but you don’t need blood for that. You need… well, not blood anyway. I don’t see what all the blood is for.’

  They were both on shaky medical ground so Adam lost his temper.

  ‘Eve, it is my job to protect you and I would appreciate it if you would just let me get on with it.’

  ‘Adam, darling, of course, but we can’t possibly need buckets of blood unless the incomers arrive determined to hack us all down with some foreign machete or something.’

  Adam looked at his wife and frowned. ‘You’re right. They could be violent. We don’t know why they had to leave their country in the first place.

  ‘I didn’t mean…’

  Naturally the hospital refused the request, but then the whole thing became another steel leg in Adam’s election platform. The Gazette was behind him all the way. Councillor Marshall says —stand up for your town. Don’t let others suck your blood.

  Eve was furious. ‘I thought you were on my side, Adam.’

  ‘I am. I’m not saying those people can’t come here, you know, if that’s what you really want, but I do have a civic duty to make sure Edenford is safe first.’

  ‘It is safe. It’s so bloody safe that it’s boring the arse off me. I can’t think of anything I would like better than an intruder in the middle of the night or a quick how’s-your-father with some mugger down the bus station. There is no danger here, Adam. There never has been and there never will be. There was no mugging. Nothing happened. No one could be bothered. No one in Edenford needs blood because they are already half dead!’

  They were both rather shocked by this. Adam sat down at the kitchen table and Eve made tea as if it had never happened. Then he went to fix a new light sensor on the garage door and Eve went to see if Inge was in.

  It was raining when Eve went outside. Horrible grey, English rain. She was soaked in an instant. Wet through to the marrow. Kate answered the door. She looked thin and wore no make-up. Eve’s mother would have said she hadn’t made the most of herself, but she smiled so warmly that Eve didn’t care about that.

  ‘Eve! You’re soaked! Come on in. Inge is battling with mirrors.’

  In the sitting room, Inge was unscrewing a large mirror from above the fireplace.

  ‘Camie!’ she
shouted. ‘Just in time for a coffee, or shall we have gin?’

  Eve stood dripping on the carpet. ‘I’m sorry, I must look a fright.’

  Kate laughed. ‘You’ll never know in this house. Inge has taken down every mirror in the place.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ said Inge, heaving the mirror off the wall, ‘I am sure that part of every day is ruined by people wondering about what they look like. I am sure that a preoccupation about her appearance goes some way towards ruining some part of every woman’s day. It’s all part of the oppression that is cultivated by the media to make women feel disgusted by their own bodies, and I’m not having it.’

  Kate sat down on the sofa and looked up at Inge. ‘I don’t think there’s any oppression in having a straight parting,’ she said gently.

  Inge shook her head. She was adamant. ‘The fact is that every woman is told from the day she is born that no matter what she does with her life, if she is not beautiful then she didn’t make it. Life becomes a daily struggle against hair unwanted on major parts of our bodies and remembering what colour the stuff we do want used to be. Camie, give us a hand.’

  Eve grabbed one end of the mirror and together they lowered it to the floor.

  ‘There.’ Inge dusted her hands and began to put away the ladder. ‘Gin and tonic, I think.’

  ‘Just tonic, thanks,’ called Kate, as Inge headed for the kitchen. Kate settled back on the sofa. She was thin, very thin and pale. It was sort of frightening and for a minute Eve couldn’t think of anything to say. Kate beckoned her to come closer and then whispered, ‘She’s lying to you.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Inge… about the mirrors. She doesn’t give a damn what she looks like. She just doesn’t want me to see myself wasting away. Do you want to sit down?’

  Eve didn’t know if she did or not. She wasn’t sure what was happening. She felt uncomfortable and didn’t know why. ‘I’m very wet,’ she managed. Eve looked around for something else to talk about. She had been to Inge’s house before, of course, but they had always sat in the kitchen. The sitting room was nice. Sort of terracotta colours with one whole wall covered in photographs of deserts. Acres and acres of sand and dunes and windswept horizons.

  ‘Did Inge take these?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I did. It’s what I do… did. I’m a photographer. Travel pictures mainly.’

  Things started to click with Eve. ‘With Inge’s writing. She writes articles sometimes. I’ve seen them.’

  ‘Yes.’

  How wonderful to travel to the desert together and bring it back for people who couldn’t go. ‘I’d love to go the desert. I hate the rain. I hate being wet. I’d love to travel.’ Eve ran her hand over a photograph of rich, golden sand.

  ‘I once knew a young man who hated the rain. He hated it with such a passion that he began to be afraid of it, afraid of getting wet.’ Kate began a story, and like a child Eve found herself sitting down and listening. ‘He ran away to the desert and tried to live like a nomad. He wandered the sands and learnt about the birds and the plants. Then one night when he was sleeping, with no warning a flash flood came. It poured through the desert valley in the blink of an eye.’

  ‘He drowned,’ Eve gasped.

  Kate nodded. ‘I know, strange, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is that true?’

  Kate shrugged and they sat silent, looking at the photographs. A small carriage clock on the mantel ticked quietly. Inge came in with the drinks. She had no tray but carried them any old how under her arm and in her hands.

  ‘Hello, who set the room temperature to gloomy in here?’ she enquired.

  ‘You did when you came home,’ laughed Kate.

  Inge bowed to her friend. ‘I am the Queen of the Grump.’ She handed Eve her drink.

  ‘I shouldn’t really,’ Eve said feebly. ‘Not at lunchtime.’

  Kate looked at Inge and replied, ‘You never know how many lunchtimes are left.’ Eve didn’t know, so she bumbled on asking Inge why she was grumpy.

  Inge plumped down next to Kate and smiled at her old friend. ‘Oh, it’s nothing. Bloody press driving me mad. Keep asking the wrong questions.’

  ‘The wrong questions? What do you mean wrong?’

  Kate looked at Inge and nodded for her to go on. Inge smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘It’s nothing. They want to know why I never married and I never know what to say.’

  ‘Tell them the truth,’ replied Eve in all innocence.

  Inge blushed, but looking straight at her oldest friend said quite clearly ‘I can’t, Eve. If I tell them I’m gay they’ll take me apart.’

  Gay. Eve was sure no one had mentioned the word to them at school. She thought about Susan Belcher and the cobblestones and how innocent it had all been then.

  ‘Right,’ she said, and they carried on with their drinks. Perhaps it should have been uncomfortable but it wasn’t. Inge wasn’t Inge Holbrook to Eve. She was her friend. She was the girl who had carried triumph as captain of the netball team while Eve stood at the side and cut up the oranges for the break. She now knew that Inge, her friend Inge, was a lesbian.

  When she left she kept saying it to herself. She didn’t think it was a very nice word — lesbian. Eve looked down the street at the other houses on the estate and realised the place could be full of them and she wouldn’t know. It had never occurred to her. She had thought you could tell by looking but you couldn’t. She had seen them both wearing skirts sometimes. Kate and Inge were a lesbian couple. She wondered how that worked with no man. Who was in charge? Then she wondered if that meant she thought Adam was in charge, which was silly. There was no reason why Kate and Inge couldn’t manage perfectly well. You don’t need a penis to take out the rubbish. What was it that had made Inge who she was? Had she had some bad experience with a man? That couldn’t be enough. If all the women who had bad experiences with men became lesbians, there’d be a lot more of them.

  John was just running up to the house when Eve came out. He saw her leaving Inge’s and waved as he got to the driveway.

  ‘Eve,’ he called.’ ‘Looking lovely.’

  She was looking wet.

  ‘Isn’t that Inge Holbrook’s house?’ he asked, looking across the drive. Eve nodded. ‘Quite the celebrity. Not your sort I would have thought.’

  Eve didn’t feel like a chat. ‘What are you doing running in this weather?’ she asked, looking at his tracksuit soaked in sweat and rain.

  ‘Every day without fail. Good for you, you know. If I have the time I run three or four hours a day.’ He patted his flat stomach. ‘I’m adding ten years to my life, you know.’

  ‘Maybe, but you are spending them running.’

  John frowned at her reply for a brief second and then laughed. ‘Very good, yes, very good.’ The laughter stopped as if turned off and he was serious again. ‘Listen, Eve, I’m so sorry about the whole blood thing. I do think it’s got out of hand but I hope you know I was just trying to be helpful. I had no idea people would react the way they have.’

  ‘You could stop your wretched club passing silly motions,’ Eve said irritably.

  John took her hand and held it as he looked her straight in the eye. ‘Oh no, I can’t. I may think they’re wrong but the men need to make these decisions for themselves. It’s because men today feel so powerless that we need groups like the Centurions. It’s done William so much good. You wouldn’t want me to take that away from him, would you?’ Before Eve could answer he added, ‘Can I borrow a towel?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I’m working with Adam, and I thought I’d just freshen up first.’

  ‘Right. In the airing cupboard.’

  John went into Eve’s house to shower.

  Eve decided to walk to the shop to get some exercise. The rain had passed and it was turning into a nice afternoon. The route into town meant she passed the Hoddle house. Horace and Betty had the largest house on the estate. It was built in a hacienda style a
nd was apparently identical to their one in Spain. Perhaps having two houses exactly the same stops you getting confused in the night. Mrs Hoddle was in the front garden cleaning out her bird bath. It was a massive affair. More of a bird health spa really. She was very particular about it.

  ‘Afternoon, Betty,’ Eve called cheerfully. It was summer and it was sunny. Apart from being fat, Eve did feel quite cheerful. The town would get over its obsession with blood and they were doing very well with raising the money for the pool. She thought about Inge and Kate.

  ‘Ah, Eve,’ Mrs Hoddle muttered, while her rubber-gloved hands scraped away at any suggestion of actual bird occupation in the bath. Soap suds flew from her fingers.

  ‘Bird bath looks good.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, pleased. ‘Well, it’s the least I can do.’ That in fact turned out not to be true. Providing a bath for passing flocks of feathered friends was the most she could do. She stood up and snapped shut the lid on her Jeyes cleaning fluid. ‘Eve, I shan’t be coming to the shop today.

  ‘Why? Are you ill?’

  ‘No. Horace and I have had a long talk and I just can’t support you on this any more. I love this town and it’s too big a risk.’

  ‘Look, the blood thing has got out of hand—’

  ‘The blood is merely a side issue, although why people can’t say where their own blood is to go… Have you seen this?’ She held up a leaflet. The world had gone leaflet mad. Eve thought for one horrible moment it was yet another one of Adam’s. ‘It was sent to Horace by someone from Dover. They know about refugees. It’s where they sneak in, you know,’ she said darkly.

  The leaflet was entitled Dover the Land of Plenty and subtitled Refugees — 33 reasons why we should send them back and close the door.

  Betty stabbed at the brochure. ‘Look at Number thirteen and have another think,’ she exclaimed.

  Reason 13: Pregnant refugee mothers only want brand new equipment for their offspring. Are these infants entitled to hold a British passport to success now that they have been born in our local hospitals?