Flying Under Bridges

by Sandi Toksvig

‘Betty, how many babies can there be? Isn’t it better that they’re born here with a chance than in some country where their parents might get beaten up?’

  Betty tapped the leaflet again.

  Reason 21: No medical checks on refugees — with the knowledge of their promiscuity and selling sex for money, who is to answer for the epidemic of venereal disease that will undoubtedly become rife.

  Betty jerked her head up and down like a bird with a particularly resistant worm. ‘Do you want to run the risk of one of those diseases?’

  ‘Well, no,’ Eve replied, ‘but then I wasn’t planning to sleep with any of them.’

  Mrs Hoddle looked at Adam’s wife. ‘These are facts, Eve, and you can’t get away from them.’

  ‘I don’t know what a fact is any more. My son says there are facts but we forget what they are because all facts are interpreted.’

  Betty gave a loud sniff at the very idea and turned on her heel to go back inside. A small bird flew down and landed on the edge of the bath. It stooped for a second and then flew away. Betty had forgotten to refill it.

  Pe Pe was coming up the road in her convertible BMW. Her model good looks and radiant smile in the flash car could have been an advert for success. This was a woman who never had a panty-pad that leaked. A woman whose teeth had little cartoon stars on them when she looked in the mirror.

  ‘Eve, hi!’ she beamed. ‘I was just coming to see you.’

  ‘Pe Pe, how long have I known you?’

  ‘I suppose it must be about four years.’

  ‘Do you ever frown?’

  ‘I can’t. Hop in.’

  Eve didn’t feel like going to the shop any more but she didn’t hop in. She wobbled in and they drove off. Eve had a vision of Barbie with her Mrs Potato Head friend.

  Mother was calling out when the women got in. ‘Who ha! Who ha!’ Eve tried to make her comfortable while Pe Pe just stood smiling in the doorway.

  ‘Who ha, who ha!’ yelled Mother. Eve knew she wanted the commode but she wasn’t really concentrating. As Eve moved to pull her mother up under her shoulders, Claudette the cat launched from nowhere. It was hard to know who was more shocked, Eve or Mother. The old woman weed on Eve’s new trainers and blue trousers. It wasn’t her fault. She couldn’t see a thing. Her glasses had been in her handbag and were covered in horseradish. Eve thought about getting her a plastic handbag to put food in. She thought about putting her in a home, like the woman at the party had said. She thought about a lot of things.

  Suddenly Mother stopped her howling and looked straight at Pe Pe. She pointed at her and said quite clearly, ‘Baby.’ It was the first real word she had produced since the stroke. Neither Pe Pe nor Eve knew what to say.

  Afterwards Eve sat in the kitchen just wanting to weep. Pe Pe sat looking at her sister-in-law.

  ‘Come on, Pe Pe, you’re the Queen of Self-Help. I have a mother who keeps gravy in her handbag and has managed to pee on my entire wardrobe. I have a kamikaze cat who wants at the very least to maim me and I am living in a town where everyone is either about to be mugged, burgled or infected with VD. What am I supposed to do? You must have the cure.’

  Pe Pe just sat, smiling. Then slowly, across her smile, tears began to descend from her eyes. It was bizarre. She looked completely happy, but tears just kept pouring down. Eve didn’t know what the hell was going on.

  ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s definite. William can’t have children. He’ll never have children. We had the report. I shouldn’t have opened it without him but I couldn’t wait, and now I just can’t tell him. He won’t cope. He just won’t cope.’

  Pe Pe sobbed, still smiling through her waterworks. It was like a rainbow behind a waterfall. As Eve debated what to do, John appeared in the doorway wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. He was young and had muscles you could bounce pennies off for sport. His hair was newly washed and hung in little damp curls around his head.

  ‘Sorry, thought someone might need help.’ He dripped on the lino.

  Pe Pe gasped for air and carried on smiling.

  ‘Pe Pe’s just…’ Crying and smiling Eve wanted to say but she couldn’t. John reached for a tissue on the kitchen counter and moved towards Eve’s unreal sister-in-law. Gently, he began to wipe her tears. Neither one of them said a word and Eve sat there thinking that men and women could probably do without each other if it were not for the annoying business of reproduction. After a moment’s mopping, John turned and went back to the rather critical matter, Eve thought, of putting some clothes on. Pe Pe sat sniffing and then finally went home without ever asking Eve how she was.

  Adam and John went out to bang on doors when Eve finally went along to the charity shop in the late afternoon. Eve watched Adam set off. Edenford was not that big a town. She was sure he must have visited everyone twice.

  Eve arrived at the shop determined to see the Romanian project through but Doris Turton simply wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘I must say that I am surprised at you, Eve,’ she began. ‘I would think that you of all people would know that Susan Lithgood was a very religious person.’

  ‘Well, yes, but—’

  ‘These people, they’re not Christians, are they?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, but—’

  ‘I think they may be Muslims.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I don’t think they want our help. I’ve seen them on the television and they do nothing to endear themselves to us.’

  ‘They’re not panda bears.’

  ‘They just want our benefits, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t think anybody popped over here from Romania on a whim. They need our help. We’ve got room. What about the old swimming baths? We all agreed they would be perfect.’

  ‘They’ve been sold,’ said Emma the Knit.

  ‘They can’t have been. Adam promised—’

  ‘The swimming baths are not the point,’ said Doris, sniffing. ‘This is a Christian town with a Christian tradition and we are not about to have that disrupted by people who want to come here and sit outside WH Smith with their hands out.’

  Eve left and bought a packet of light Silk Cuts, but after she’d smoked two she threw up in the sink. She wiped her face and went to sit with her mother. Mrs Cameron stared out of the window as Eve tried for the kind of conversation they had never managed to have.

  ‘What do you suppose people would fight about if there were no religions? I can’t say I’ve got time for it myself. Too many years freezing to death on a Sunday at school. Imagine not giving to children because their parents are some other religion. The shop committee has decided to write off for affiliation to the Cats Protection League. I told Tom. Did you know that bad Buddhists are either reborn in hell or the wombs of cats?’

  Chapter Eighteen

  When Kate went into hospital for more tests, Inge probably knew that they were heading for the final pass. Even taking all the mirrors away wouldn’t hide the truth. The cancer of the womb had been there for some time but now it had spread and there was no going back. Inge and Eve sat in the corridor of Nightingale Ward at Edenford General.

  ‘What do you think is next, Camie?’ Inge asked Eve, as she sat still waiting for news late into the evening.

  ‘Oh, I expect they’ll think of some more tests and then—’

  Inge looked at her chum. ‘I don’t mean that. I mean next for Kate.’ She tried to smile. ‘They say the Gauls used to lend sums of money to each other that were repayable in the next world. That’s how convinced they were that the souls of men are immortal. I don’t know. I think you have to live in this life and not the next, but Kate believes. She really does.’

  And Eve thought about that and wondered if it mattered for the next life that she hadn’t even managed to live in this.

  Adam was away and when Eve got home she lay in bed trying to read the book Pe Pe had given her at the tennis party. It was called Attitudes of Gratitude — How to
Give and Receive Joy Every Day of Your Life. It claimed to be a sourcebook for less stressful, more joyful living. The author was absolutely adamant that it was possible to be grateful even in times of pain and hardship.

  Eve kept thinking about Kate and she found the book hard going. When I first got involved with voluntary simplicity…

  What the hell did that mean? Voluntary simplicity — giving up the car? Not having a cleaner? What about restaurants and films? It turned out it was about making deliberate, thoughtful choices, about designing your life to coincide with your ideals. Eve guessed it meant that it was no good waiting around for someone else to make things better. That there was no point in blaming others if you didn’t get what you wanted.

  Adam was beside himself with excitement when he returned. The Daily Mail had picked up on his campaign. Under the headline Adam and Eve of Edenford was an article about putting the family back in the heart of the town, about the men looking after the women and a huge picture of the two of them taken at William’s party. Eve was falling towards the camera at the time and Adam was trying to stop her. Eve thought it looked as though he held her strings in his hand. The article was across the page from an in-depth report on a parrot from Berkshire who was said to speak Swahili and two pages away from a large spread on why Inge Holbrook had never married — she had been busy, she had a career, perhaps the footballer Mark Hinks (also oddly not married) had never asked her, etc.

  Eve was beside herself with fury. ‘Adam and Eve of Edenford! Are you quite mad?’

  ‘I don’t write the headlines, Eve. I think it’s rather a nice picture.’

  ‘A nice picture! Five seconds after that was taken I had my face in their shag-pile.’

  Adam sat drinking his coffee. He didn’t understand his wife. Eve tried to be calm. ‘Adam, what happened about the swimming pool?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Eve, it was a good offer. The council wanted to accept. I did try.’

  ‘Who bought it?’

  ‘That church over by the river. The Ten Commandments place.’

  It was Shirley’s church. Shirley’s church had taken Eve’s dream.

  Eve stopped working at the charity shop and Mrs Hoddle stopped speaking to her. In fact, she cut Eve quite dead at the wet fish counter in Sainsbury’s. It didn’t stop her deciding to get on. When Shirley asked her mother to go to the Church of the Ten Commandments with her, Eve said she would. Shirley thought Eve might find God, and Eve thought she might find out what they planned to do with the pool.

  It was a Tuesday morning and from the kitchen Eve could see the wisteria flowering on the garden wall. It was not a great day. Her mother had yet again weed everywhere, supper was going to be late and Adam was busy rehearsing his Shirley Bassey. By then his upcoming performance at the golf club had started to take over their lives.

  Adam and Eve had both had a lot of sleepless nights before he finally settled on ‘I Am What I Am’ as his piece. Eve had thought making his mind up would have a calming effect but the tension seemed to mount daily. Anyone who didn’t know about raising money for the golf club would have thought he was preparing for Covent Garden. Eve was trying to be supportive but unfortunately she had been forced to the conclusion that Adam wasn’t terribly musical. After some weeks’ rehearsal he could now sing his song backwards, and indeed much of the time sounded as if he was, but it wasn’t enough.

  Eve was peeling the parsnips, soaking Mother’s underwear and thinking about homosexuals, when Martha arrived at the back door. Since her return from Bangkok she had never visited Eve’s house so it took Eve by surprise. In fact, she hadn’t spoken to her sister since Eve had knocked her out during the self-defence class. Eve made her coffee and she sat at the kitchen table while her housewife sister got on.

  ‘Eve, I’ve been thinking,’ began Martha.

  ‘Hmm,’ Eve said. She had been thinking too. Since Inge had moved in, Eve had realised she wasn’t sure what she thought about homosexuals. She didn’t think it had ever come up before. She wasn’t sure she’d ever met one and as for the boy ones, well, it was silly, but her main question was why, if you had a penis of your own, would you want another one to play with?

  ‘I need to get something off my chest,’ said her younger sister, who had never confided anything to Eve in her life.

  ‘Of course. Eve plunged the parsnips into the bowl and straight on to Mother’s urine-soaked gusset. In just a few minutes of mindless activity she had managed to forget that they were there. Eve looked down at her handiwork and wondered what the impact of wee was on parsnips. She wondered if anyone else would ever know or if she could just serve them up anyway. She wondered— ‘Who ha, who ha! ‘called Mother. Eve knew she wanted a drink but she hadn’t the energy. Martha was oblivious. She never visited her. She never sat with what was left of Mother.

  Martha began to weep. Eve had never seen her cry. Martha had the gift of parading through life with no regrets and Eve didn’t know what to do. She just knew that somehow she would get some of the blame.

  ‘It’s about … Mother,’ Martha sobbed. ‘I can’t bear it. I should never have been made to live in that house again.’ Eve let the remark about the house go, took off her rubber gloves and sat down. Martha carried on weeping. Perhaps she was much more moved by their mother’s illness than Eve had realised.

  ‘It’s all right, Martha. I think she’ll improve. Maybe if you sat with her sometimes . .

  ‘I can’t,’ sobbed Martha. ‘I can’t.’

  Adam poked his head into the kitchen. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s Martha,’ Eve aid.

  ‘Ah,’ he replied, as if that explained everything and went away again. Eve got Martha some loo roll from the downstairs cloakroom and waited for her to settle. The crying slowed and finally she blew her nose very loudly and said, ‘It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Mother had—’

  Martha banged her hand down on the table and shouted, ‘Will you listen?’ She had always had a temper as a child, so Eve thought she probably would. Martha took a deep breath.

  ‘Do you remember when I got into all that trouble at school? In the fourth form?’

  Eve did remember because she could have died at the time. Eve was in the fifth form. Inge Holbrook was Head of the Year and Games Captain. Eve was not the brightest, not the best, but doing all right. What she didn’t need was a sister causing trouble below her. Martha was fifteen at the time. She had always been promiscuous, but when she was found giving the games class sexual instruction in the sports-equipment room, using herself, a girl from the third year and a hockey stick, things blew up badly. Mr and Mrs Cameron were called to the school immediately and rumours flew across the playgrounds. Everyone was sure that Martha would be expelled, but she wasn’t.

  She never told Eve what happened. Until then. Her parents went into the head’s office, where the headmistress, Mrs Hintle, was beside herself. Martha related the story.

  ‘She was furious. I knew I would be chucked out and I just couldn’t be. It would have been too awful. Mrs Hintle sat behind her desk and said to Mum and Dad, “Although Martha is one of our brightest pupils, I have no choice but to expel her from the school. Martha, do you have anything to say?” So I asked to see her on my own. I thought it would be confidential. I thought it would get me out of it. You have to understand how desperate I was. It mattered to me. You weren’t academic, it was different for you.’

  Eve looked at her sister, her flesh and blood, and realised she knew nothing about her. ‘What would get you out of it?’

  ‘I told Mrs Hintle… that I needed help. That I was so interested in sex because … because—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Because Dad.., interfered with me.’

  ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘I told her it was confidential. I told her not to tell anyone. I just thought she would be sympathetic. I never thought she would do anything. Just let me stay.’

  ‘
But it wasn’t true?’ Eve demanded. Martha hung her head.

  ‘No. I was just trying to get out of trouble. Everyone wanted an explanation, so I gave them one.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Straight away she called Mum and Dad in and started telling them everything. Dad went pale and had to sit down, and Mum started yelling at him. Mrs Hintle said of course she would get me help and I wasn’t to be blamed. Mum wouldn’t speak to Dad and it went on for weeks until I couldn’t stand it. Finally, I told Mum the truth. That he had never done anything. Never touched me, and he came in while I was telling her. She listened and then she said, “You’re my daughter and I believed you. I would do anything for you. You’re my daughter.” And I felt terrible and they never recovered. That’s why Dad hated her. Because she believed me and not him. He stayed for you but he hated her from then on. That’s why he left her nothing, that’s why she…’

  Martha began to cry again and Eve sat. Her mother had chosen Martha over her husband. Would she have done the same? Would she choose Shirley over Adam? After a while Martha calmed and wiped her eyes.

  ‘Thanks, Eve. I feel better now. I had to tell someone.’ She stood up to leave. Then she told Eve she was going back to Bangkok. That she had thought she could make a go of it back here but she couldn’t. She reached out to hug Eve, who just sat there motionless. The sisters touched briefly and then Martha was gone. She left behind the burden of her past, which Eve had known nothing about.

  That evening Theresa Baker phoned. She said even though Martha had gone, the women still wanted to hold the study classes and would it still be all right to have them in her mother’s house? Eve went to let them all in and Theresa, bless her, was really trying to keep the thing going. It made Eve so mad with Martha. She had started something. She had made the women think, and now they didn’t know what to do about it.

  ‘Why don’t we watch a video of me giving birth?’ Theresa asked as soon as they had sorted the food and drink, to which Eve replied, ‘Well, mainly because you’re all eating.’ They were having an Italian night provided by Fran, and Eve doubted anyone would have kept the lasagne down.