Flying Under Bridges

by Sandi Toksvig

  The discussion was low-key. The women had their own group now but they weren’t at all sure what to do with it. Without Martha to give them focus they floundered about in the feminist fog. Then someone suggested they needed a project. Something to get them going and it was Theresa who suggested the bypass.

  ‘It’s going to go right through the woods,’ said ferret woman. ‘We should do something.

  There were general murmurings about Mother Nature, the power of trees and what a wonderful discovery aloe vera had been. Eve promised her support but soon left them to it. She could not bear to be in that unhappy house.

  Chapter Nineteen

  20 January

  Holloway Prison for Women

  London

  Dear Inge,

  Bypassing Eden ford

  … when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you…

  (MATTHEW 6.2)

  I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to hear that Shirley has started talking to you. It sounds like you need it too. Adam won’t discuss anything when he visits. Not that he was able to before. I remember one Tuesday evening when I’d got back from one of the women’s meetings. I was sitting having coffee when Adam sidled into the kitchen. He had the same look that Tom used to have when he’d just eaten something from the coal bucket. Naughty but thrilled.

  ‘Eve, I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘Mmm,’ I replied, thinking that thinking was overrated.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about Shirley,’ Adam confided.

  ‘She’s fine. She’s having dinner with John.’

  ‘Yes. Not that Shirley. Not daughter Shirley. My Shirley. My song.

  ‘Shirley Bassey. Right.’

  ‘Eve, you know how much I admire Shirley and I want this to be “fun”, like Horace said, but I don’t want anyone to think it’s not a serious tribute.’ I nodded. Well, what was there to say? ‘So I think I’ve decided that I really can’t give the full flavour of Shirley unless I actually dress up as her.’ I stopped my reverie on root vegetables and looked at my husband. He was quite flushed and as excited as I had ever seen him.

  ‘The thing is, I would need your help. There are things I don’t know. I mean, sequins of course, but what sort of dress, and where would we get it? Shoes, I think, might be tricky, but apparently there are shops where . .

  Once Adam had broached the subject of dressing up he couldn’t stop himself. Over lunch we had endless detailed conversation about the denier of stockings and whether Shirley generally favours a pearl nail varnish or plain. We hadn’t talked so much in years. Odd that the sort of conversation I thought I might one day have with my daughter, I was having with my husband. Adam was glowing as he polished off the parsnips.

  ‘I haven’t told the committee about it. It’s going to be a surprise. I wonder if I should write and tell Shirley herself? As a tribute. You know how much I love her. We named our daughter after her.’

  We had also named our son after Tom Jones but I didn’t see Adam practising his hip swivels and stuffing socks down his crotch. That night he sat on the bed with his hands protecting his lap. The bedroom looked quite different now. Adam had stopped growing his avocado plants on the windowsill. The avocado plant which I had tried to sellotape back to life had died. Adam had been very upset.

  ‘Eve,’ he demanded one morning as he stood before his felled vegetation. ‘How could this possibly have happened?’ It was a tone of voice that ‘will be obeyed’, so I told him.

  ‘Let’s see … oh yes, I had just had a rather tense encounter with Simon the postman when a projectile speculum shot out of my vagina and shredded the plant with a single blow from forty feet away. I tell you, if I could serve like that at tennis we’d be champions at the club.’

  He gave me one of his looks and never mentioned it again. Without saying a word, he moved all the plants from the bedroom and filled up the little porch off the kitchen with them instead. I think he was too embarrassed to ask what a speculum was. He hates not to know anything, and he didn’t know. I left it lying casually on the coffee table on top of his copy of Security Monthly for ages and he never so much as commented. Somehow the plant death seemed to make Adam determined to take more charge in the house.

  ‘Eve,’ he said, while I was sorting the laundry, ‘I have made a decision. I don’t think we should have the Guardian delivered any more.

  ‘We could get a different paper,’ I said, counting out his socks. ‘No, it’s not the paper. It’s the principle. I don’t think it’s helpful having all that foreign news flooding into the house. I think it upsets you and I don’t want to pay for it any more.’

  I stood looking out of the window with his clean underpants in my hand. That was when I realised. I didn’t have any money. I’d never had any money. It was not mine. It was Adam’s. It was all Adam’s. It had always been Adam’s. I couldn’t do anything unless he said. That night I couldn’t sleep. I stood in my kitchen in the dark, looking up to the woods behind the town.

  The next day the women’s group were up amongst the protesters. They brought food and blankets. They made some very nice signs in support of the woods, clean air and plants in general.

  The general consensus at the Centurion Club was that the women’s study class had to be stopped. Not just the protest. They had to be stopped from meeting at all.

  ‘It’s causing a division in the town between some of the men and their wives,’ Adam explained when he asked me to stop letting the women use Mother’s house. ‘The men feel they are getting blamed for things that are not their fault. The people of Edenford need to work together.’

  ‘And,’ I added, ‘the men are not getting a hot supper on Tuesdays.’

  ‘That doesn’t help,’ agreed my husband, surprised by my understanding. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I shan’t be in tonight. It’s my turn for escort duty.’

  ‘What?’ I swear we were speaking different languages by then.

  ‘Escort duty! I told you! The Centurions are offering escorts to young women out for the evening. Making sure they get home all right. It was—’

  ‘John’s idea,’ I sighed.

  He was everywhere. John was niggling away at every inch of our lives.

  Adam had gone out on escort service when I got word from Tom that the contractors and the police were about to make their move. I called Theresa to gather the women but she wasn’t home. None of them was home. I ran to get you, and Patrick was there and we ran, all of us, even Kate, up to the woods. Remember? All you could hear was those huge diggers and tractors moving forward. The headlights swinging into the woods and my Tom standing there in front of his tent, not moving. Nobody came to help and we weren’t enough. The earth-movers just ploughed forward. It was as if they didn’t see that anything was in their way. They wrecked everything — the bluebells, the trees and then Tom’s tent. This two-ton machine just ploughed through the tent and it was so surreal. All Tom’s animals flew in the air as the canvas ripped and shredded round the marching machine. Death flew about and we could do nothing. It was Patrick who found the box with the dead ducklings inside. They had been completely crushed. He stood there crying and Tom put his arm round him and he was crying too. And no one came to help and the man in charge said to me, ‘It’s progress, Mrs Marshall, you can’t stand in the way of progress.’ And he had legal papers to make it all right. Legal papers from Hogart, Hoddle and Hooper.

  Tom came home with me and he was desperate. Sobbing like a little boy, but I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t make it all right. He went to his old room and wouldn’t come out. I wanted to help him but I was scared. My son was broken and I couldn’t mend him. I couldn’t care for one more person and make their life whole again. I just didn’t have it in me. I was so sad for my son and so terrified that I was supposed to look after him. I felt like I was choking. Drowning. Theresa Baker finally called at about ten when she got my message. She had been out to dinner. All the members of the Centurion Club had taken their wives out to dinner. Odd that th
ey had picked that one night. And I was angry and I got angrier. You know. You were there. Kate was there. Tell Shirley. Tell her what happened. Then the phone went again and it was the police. Adam had been arrested.

  I don’t know if Shirley ever understood about that either. He had been on escort duty, waiting at the pub for any woman to phone for help but no one had. Anyway, come closing time he felt he hadn’t really done anything. He’s a good chap so he started to walk home but he was looking out for women on their own. Well, you know he’s had this trouble with his.., bits, so he was holding himself as he walked. There was nothing to it but he went up to this woman waiting at the bus stop. Anyway, it was a complete chance thing. She turned out to be a friend of Theresa Baker’s. She’d seen all Adam’s leaflets and it had made her rather wary. None of this was helped by the fact that Adam did have his hand on his trousers. She was very tense so when he came near she screamed, kicked him in the groin and called to a police car that happened to be passing.

  The police cleared it all up, but it caused talk. You know what people are like, saying there’s no smoke without fire. When I went to collect him he could hardly look up.

  ‘Oh God, Eve, what will people say? What will they say?’

  And I think about that. I think maybe I stopped caring what people would say.

  Love, Eve

  PS I found this for you and I really like it.

  Behold, I am toward God as you are:

  I too was formed from a piece of clay.

  (JOB 33.6)

  Funny that it’s giving me some comfort.

  Fact — 220,000 gay people were killed in the German concentration camps of the Second World War. It was the second largest group after the Jews. When the war was over all survivors of the concentration camps were treated generously and given reparations. Everyone except the homosexuals. They were told that they were ineligible for compensation as they were still technically ‘criminals’ under German law. Fearing further discrimination the survivors found they had to keep their identity secret so none were able to protest publicly.

  I didn’t know.

  Chapter Twenty

  The morning after the death of Bluebell Wood and Adam’s arrest, neither father nor son emerged from their rooms. The Daily Mail kept phoning to speak to Adam until Eve had to take the phone off the hook. She found herself alone downstairs with no idea how to heal the hurts in the house. She had nothing to occupy her but chores and more chores. She took the newspapers out to the recycling box in the garage. Adam’s election posters and paints were all over the floor. He had spent weeks of his life on this so he could call himself ‘councillor’ and tell everyone about family life, and now, perhaps, it was ruined.

  Eve stood looking at his campaign materials and in that moment she made up her mind. She would never work at Susan Lithgood’s again. She didn’t like cats. Snooty creatures. Eve spoke out loud to the empty room, ‘You can’t imagine them starting a shop for us if we were in trouble, can you?’

  However much the women of the community were behind the Cats Protection League, Eve knew she wasn’t about to sort other people’s smelly old clothes to sell for ten pence to buy KiteKat for stray animals who’d savage a bit out of your leg as soon as thank you. Eve opened a great tin of red paint. If Susan Lithgood could start her own charity then so could she. Eve Marshall’s Mission to the Children was on its way and it was partly the mission that drove Eve to Shirley’s church.

  The Church of the Ten Commandments was very modern, very Scandinavian. It looked like a religious franchise in William’s shopping mall. It was very large with banked seating in a three-quarter circle rising high above a central stage of light wood. The place was packed. There must have been several hundred people there when Eve went. She wore her blue dress because it was church and it was Sunday, but she stuck with the trainers. She really liked her trainers and was less and less interested in what anyone else thought. Eve stood outside waiting to go in. A very modem sculpture dominated the front entrance. It was made of white stone and showed Jesus smiling and holding out his arms to a small group of children. It should have been lovely but it had a slightly sinister look to it. In defence against the ever-present pigeon population of Edenford, the church elders had had the sculpture made bird-proof. Three-inch spikes of clear plastic stood in relief over the entire edifice. They stuck out from the top of Jesus’s head and his hands, from the clothes and shoulders of the children. Suffer the children, thought Eve, especially if they fell on the sculpture.

  She was surprised to see Kate and Inge heading towards the church. Kate leant on Inge’s arm. She looked pale under her tan and thin, very thin. Eve didn’t say anything. She hated the idea that people might think she was friends with Inge because she was famous. Inge had no such inhibitions. Meeting Eve again had been one of the best things that had happened lately.

  ‘Morning!’ called Inge. Kate smiled and waved.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ grinned Eve.

  Kate whispered to her. ‘I thought I’d better introduce myself to God before I meet him in person.’

  Inge laughed. ‘Yeah, yeah. Actually Patrick asked us. His dad’s the priest. Not your regular haunt, is it?’

  ‘No, my daughter, Shirley. I think I told you — she’s been saved.’

  Kate was about to say something when a woman in a dress fresh from a Sunday supplement advert swept over.

  ‘Inge Holbrook! Inge Holbrook! It is, isn’t it?’ She almost pushed Kate aside in her desire to get to Inge. ‘I can’t believe you are here. Well, I can. I mean, it doesn’t surprise me that you walk with us, but I can’t believe we will actually worship together. This is thrilling. Will you stay for coffee?’

  ‘Actually I’m with my friends.’

  The woman looked Kate and Eve up and down. ‘Yes, well, I suppose they could come too.’ The woman took a good look at Eve. ‘Mrs Marshall, isn’t it? Very funny piece in the Mail about your husband.’ Before Eve had a chance to reply the woman took Inge by the arm and began to lead her towards the church. ‘I wonder if I might take this opportunity to talk to you about an event we’re having…’

  Inge looked back helplessly at Kate and Eve, abandoned on the path. Kate smiled and shook her head. She turned to Eve.

  ‘You will help her, won’t you, Eve? She can’t manage. Everyone thinks she can run the world but she really can’t. She’ll need you.’

  Eve took Kate’s arm and they moved into the church together and sat down. A handsome man with greying hair was walking amongst the congregation, shaking hands and hugging as he went. Inge had been placed in a prominent position right in the middle of the main seating. The man made his way to her and shook her warmly by the hand. By the time Kate and Eve arrived to sit beside her, Inge felt she had met the entire six hundred people in the building.

  ‘You all right?’ whispered Kate.

  ‘I told you I didn’t want to come,’ hissed Inge, still smiling at everyone.

  The handsome man stopped at the front row where a woman and Patrick were sitting together. Patrick had cleaned up for the service and looked quite a different boy. He wore a brown suit and tie and looked much more the nearly man that he was. The greying man smiled at the woman and then pulled Patrick into a long embrace. The congregation settled down and the man stepped up on to the stage. In his hand he held a well-worn Bible and a sheaf of notes.

  ‘My name is Lawrence.’ His voice boomed from a bank of speakers behind the congregation. It was the very voice of God. ‘My name is Lawrence, Lawrence Hansen. I am the pastor of this church and I am so glad you all came. So glad!’

  There was a slight whoop from the audience as Lawrence opened his arms to welcome everyone. ‘Now, if anyone is new,’ he said, ‘I would like to introduce you to my family… this is my wife, Joan…’ Joan stood up and waved at everyone. ‘And this is my son, Patrick.’ Patrick was less keen on the waving but managed a nod from his seat. Lawrence stood looking at the boy for a moment and then looked up at th
e assembled ranks. ‘And I would introduce you to the rest of my family, but there are hundreds of you so I don’t think there’s time!’

  This familial inclusion got a little round of applause, to which Lawrence gently held up his hand both to acknowledge and stop.

  Patrick turned in his seat and searched the crowd for Kate’s face.

  When he found it, they exchanged a little wave and the boy turned back to his father.

  ‘So I am here with my family,’ continued the sermon, ‘but why have we come together? It’s a lovely summer’s day: What are we doing inside?’

  ‘I was beginning to wonder myself,’ Inge whispered to Eve. Eve wasn’t listening. Her eyes were fixed on Shirley. Her daughter was now a big part of the church. She had joined the choir and sat angelically in white robes near the front to one side. John faced her in his dark blue suit. He was ready to do service. He was near Shirley. Eve hadn’t made the robes, she hadn’t heard her rehearse, she hadn’t helped her join. None of it was anything to do with her. Between mother and daughter a huge divide of people sat listening to the pastor.

  ‘I’ll tell you. I am here, we are all here, to share the good news. Good news! Isn’t that great? Couldn’t you all do with good news?’ There was a general murmur in the rather young crowd. Yes, good news would be nice. He held up his small bundle of notes. ‘I have here the sermon I planned to preach today. I think it was a good sermon. I shouldn’t say that but however hard I try the Lord doesn’t seem to have purged me of all my vanity.’ Lawrence smiled at the vast congregation and the regulars laughed. He smiled again. ‘I think it was a good sermon but I am not going to share it with you.’ Lawrence took the papers and slowly shredded them on to the stage. The word of God snowed down on the pine floor. There was some general whispered discussion at this but Lawrence held up his hand.