Flying Under Bridges

by Sandi Toksvig

  Tom shook his head. ‘No. Winter’s coming and that’s okay. People don’t live with the weather any more. They make it hot inside when it’s cold out and cold when it’s hot. It doesn’t make sense.’ I put down the coffee and Tom took my hand. He never really touched me so I was rather shocked.

  ‘Mum, you will mind John, John Antrobus, won’t you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just be careful.’

  ‘He’s all right. I mean, we don’t see eye to eye but he…’

  Tom let go of my hand and turned back to Claudette’s empty eyes. ‘Shirley thinks I waste my time,’ he said, shoving some Blu-Tack in the eye socket. ‘But I don’t. I am safe here.’

  ‘Safe from what?’

  ‘The Bala-puthijjana — the masses of foolish people.’

  I watched Tom working for a bit. I knew Adam blamed me. Tom wasn’t the things he was supposed to be. He wasn’t a Centurion — strong, tough, assertive, aggressive, competitive…

  Was it because I had been soft on him? Or did Adam despair because he showed no inclination to spread his seed? He made stuffed babies not real ones.

  Tom was whistling softly while he moulded Claudette back to life. His hands defied their design. They were intended as grasping instruments for man but he made them bring life to the dead. I watched his mouth — teeth, tongue, lips so obviously intended for eating but now whistling one of my favourite songs. A lot of people in town had been busy saying what things were contrary to nature and I understood none of it.

  I was drowning, drowning in the desert, but I had things to do. Adam was walking round and round the kitchen in his new high heels. He was getting in a positive lather about his number. Taking it much too seriously. He had reached the stage where he couldn’t seem to do anything without doing huge hand movements and looking very wide-eyed.

  I went out into the garage to sort my things. Another two bags of stuff had just arrived from Bernice, who was well known in town for her interesting jumble. I needed to get them sorted into my different boxes. I think I could have done a survey on what people have spare in their food cupboards. Nearly everyone seems to have an unopened jar of black olives, one of those flat tins of sardines and an awful lot of rice pudding. Our garage was quite full now and people had even started dropping round, quite out of the blue, with bin liners of old sweaters. The lease on the charity shop had run out and no one really had the energy to find somewhere else, so my garage was one of the few places in Edenford that would take unwashed jumble. I must confess I found the collecting rather thrilling. There was even talk of me being interviewed for the Eden ford Gazette. I’d only ever been in it once before when the Duchess of Gloucester opened the spectacle factory and I happened to be passing her left shoulder when the picture was taken. Not that I was doing this for myself. The garage was nearly full now with some amazing things.

  ‘All for the refugees?’ Adam asked.

  ‘Well, partly to give to them and partly to sell to raise money. Although I did think the two skateboards would probably be best going to the scouts.’

  It was amazing what people threw away. What they had spare.

  Fact — the United Sates contains eight per cent of the world’s population and yet uses twenty-five per cent of its resources. Prosperity and comfort of the few at the expense of the many.

  Of course, Adam was not happy. He knew Horace had been round to ask me to stop. He said it looked very bad but I didn’t care. I was determined. He had his singing with Shirley and I was having my refugees. I was very preoccupied with my work. I had seen on the news that there was a problem with transporting the refugees from Dover and it had kept me awake. I tried various organisations but they all seemed very expensive and then I thought of Stuart Packer, who does small deliveries and cheap home removals. He’d not married and since his mother had died he hadn’t got much to do. He got quite excited about getting involved but said his truck had developed an odd clunking noise and he was worried about it breaking down.

  Well, it was like a light bulb went on over my head. My book from the AA and my free socket set. We spent a lovely couple of hours with our heads under the bonnet and fixed the old girl up straight away. We agreed that as soon as I had a place for the families we would be on our way.

  ‘I never thought I’d be doing something important,’ grinned Stuart, with bits of grease all over his face. It was lovely. We were both so pleased.

  I told Adam and I can’t say he took it well. He and I had one of his ‘long talks’. He kept saying things like, ‘As sure as eggs are eggs this whole thing is a mistake,’ and I kept wishing he wouldn’t use expressions like that. I mean, what else are eggs going to be? I couldn’t concentrate and kept thinking if he so much as mentioned that something was ‘cheap at half the price’, I was going to hit him.

  I think that was how we got on to the money. Adam wanted to know how I was planning to pay for the petrol for Stuart’s van. Well, I realised I hadn’t even thought about it and Adam must have seen me go all blank because he leant across the table and spoke firmly at me the way he does with new sales staff. ‘In all good conscience, I can’t let you have a penny for this nonsense.’

  I looked at Adam and I wondered what he wanted from me. One minute I was supposed to let him make all the decisions, and the next I was supposed to cope with Tom, Shirley, Mother and the house. A sort of blend between a fragile poodle and a Rottweiler. Adam knew I was unhappy and he was not an unkind man. He reached over and stroked my shoulder.

  ‘I tell you what, you stop this charity thing for me and as soon as I’ve won the election we’ll go on a lovely holiday. Spend some time alone.’

  Great idea, I thought. We could go to Romania. There’s hardly anybody living there any more.

  Adam got up to deal with his avocado plants. I sat looking at the pot plant on the kitchen windowsill. The speculum had reappeared. He’d used it to mend the spout on his indoor watering can. Now he tended his beloved plants with it. I didn’t like to tell him where it had been. Soon Adam went off to practise in the spare room. Music soared down the stairs. Weeks and weeks of Shirley Bassey just so the golf club could raise money for some driving-range mats. I was tempted to pay for them myself except, of course, I didn’t have any money.

  I knew I ought to put Adam first. It was my duty. It was what I did — putting everyone else first. Adam didn’t want me to be subservient, that’s what he would tell you. He just thought I should do it his way. Women are subservient to men because they made men disobey God. Bloody Eve. Bloody, bloody Eve.

  I turned on the television news and there was some war where at ‘The Front’ soldiers had been raping the wives of their former neighbours and friends. Why would they do that? I suppose it takes a war or a crisis really to know what you think about anything. I sat watching and I couldn’t think why. Why did the BBC keep telling me what was going on? What was I supposed to do with all that news? I wrote to the Foreign Office, I wrote to my MP, no one said they would sort it out. What was I meant to do with all that terrible information? I couldn’t start Live Aid. I didn’t know anyone. I’m not anyone. I couldn’t just sit and listen any more. I thought if everyone loaded up one van and took some people home then… Why did they keep telling me about it if there was no point? What did they want me to do?

  Reverend Davies from the Virgin Church came round in the afternoon and stood watching me in the garage. He was very awkward.

  ‘I’m tho thorry, Eve, ith very thad,’ he lisped and sprayed over perfectly good food in a box. ‘I haf to think of my congregation.’

  He had come to punish me. I was off the flower rota. Doris Turton had been to see him. There had been complaints about what I was doing to the town. About my relationship with ‘those women’. He left and I sat amongst my things. No one wanted me to do this. They were happy to clear their houses of junk but no one wanted actual foreigners.

  I shouldn’t say it but I think there’s some of that in the Bible. I mean the
Jews longed for a messiah but not just any messiah. They were desperate for a Jewish king who would, with the help of God, rid the homeland of foreigners. Once more bring Jewish home rule under divinely inspired law. A place where the old covenant with God could be replaced with a new one and the old Israel removed for the new. Very like the British Labour Party really.

  I had tomato salad for lunch but I couldn’t eat it. I kept cutting them open and looking for some message inside. I had become my mother.

  Holiday Mood

  Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your ass may have rest, and the son of your bondmaid, and the alien may be refreshed.

  (EXODUS 23.12)

  I thought about Adam’s offer of a holiday. All my married life the holiday’ had been a rather strange concept for me. I used to find the whole thing made me quite tense as I knew I was supposed to RELAX! and that there was a LIMITED AMOUNT OF TIME to achieve this strange state and I’d better hurry up or I would SPOIL IT FOR EVERYONE and, anyway, it had all been rather EXPENSIVE so what was the point if I didn’t RELAX and GET OUR MONEY’S WORTH. Meanwhile, the children were usually playing near the deep end of the pool or the high balcony of the hotel or the balcony over the pool and something unsavoury had taken up residence in the bath. That kind of thing. It was all very draining.

  I dream of travelling. The filing cabinets have gone and I am only ever flying my plane. I want to travel on ‘a post horse attached to a heavy berlin’ even though I don’t know what that is. I want to breathe pure, invigorating mountain air. I want to have travel clothes. Clothes just for travelling. Perhaps something old-fashioned. A dress of light woollen material — carmelite or alpaca. A long, voluminous dress with small rings sewn inside the seams and a cord passed through them so that I can draw the whole thing up instantly and stop it knocking stones when I run downhill.

  I shall know how to make a bivouac, how to find just the right sheltered nook with a panoramic view where I shall eat alfresco and see ‘the distant mountains free from a trace of cloud’ or hear the ‘roar of the stones which pour from time to time down the cliffs of the Matterhorn’. I shall stroll through deep meadows and uncut flowers, hear waves break on a rocky shore, climb through hills of powdery snow to a view never seen before and come across the egg of a wild ptarmigan. I will hear church bells ring high up in the still air, cross wooden bridges, go to a fiesta by accident with a blue carpet of gentians underfoot. Ahead of me there will be a whole army of distant peaks. I want my mind to be out of breath as I put my face to the heat of a scorching African sun. I shall ride a camel amongst scented yellow mimosa, large fields of sweet lilac vetches and patches of tobacco in full flower. Perhaps I might lodge for a night in an empty tomb. Eat bread and cheese from saddle bags and read the ancient Estrangelo alphabet. I shall stand atop Mount Sion at dawn and see Egypt and Palestine, the Red Sea and the Parthenian Sea, to Alexandria and the vast lands of the Saracens. I shall be an object of curiosity. A white woman who drinks caravan tea flavoured with mint and the faint aroma of ambergris. There will be domes and minarets, the pinnacles of the Holy Sepulchre and the great Mosque…

  ‘Think about it,’ called Adam from the bedroom window as I headed out. ‘We could go abroad… Jersey maybe. Ten days.’

  The bell is calling me for dinner. I don’t cook any more. I do like that. Hugs to you both.

  Love, Eve

  PS Now that Shirley is reading my letters, will you show her this? I read it in the paper.

  Fact — to the outside world, Richard Cohen was a very lucky man. He had been Tina Sinatra’s first husband and had about £62 million, which was one million for every year he had been alive. I call that lucky. He was lucky enough to live in Beverly Hills and lucky enough to be invited to a very smart dinner party. It seemed that Richard’s only real misfortune was that he was allergic to nuts. Still, most people can live with that. He went to the dinner party and didn’t have the nuts. He did, however, have steak. Perhaps Richard was lucky enough to sit next to a beautiful woman. Anyway, something may have stopped him paying proper attention to his chewing because he choked on his steak. Luckily enough there was a doctor at the party and, even better, the doctor knew how to do the Heimlich manoeuvre. He put his arms around Richard from behind and jerked hard to dislodge the food. It didn’t work the first time so the doctor tried again. Luckily the doctor was strong and this time the manoeuvre worked. Unluckily he was so strong that he broke Richard’s rib, which punctured his lung. Fortunately the doctor knew about mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Unfortunately the doctor had been eating nuts. Richard died and his wife got the money.

  Life’s like that, isn’t it? I mean, sometimes things happen and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  More and more Eve felt like she was acting in a play. A play where she was never allowed to read the next scene before she had to act it. A play where things happened to her character that were never quite what she expected. Eve needed a miracle. She had spent the afternoon with Inge helping her sort Kate’s things. Journalists never left Inge alone for a minute. They phoned with sympathy, they wrote with sympathy, they even yelled sympathy through the letterbox. Everyone wanted an exclusive. One last chance to wring some fame out of Inge Holbrook before she was finally hung out to dry for good. Inge Holbrook was consumed with grief and everyone wanted in on it. They wanted to know the truth about her private life, her festering secret. Eve made tea, sorted things, helped where she could and Inge wept and wept, tears sliding down where there had once been a famous smile. She wept for Kate but she also wept for herself. For all the years of fear and stupidity.

  By the time Eve got home, her need for a miracle had become too intense to bear. She needed one for Inge, she needed one for her mother and she needed one for herself. As she turned up the drive, for one brief moment, one happened. Eve could see that the garage door was open but she couldn’t see inside. The whole entrance was obscured by a great plume of dust. Inside a single light burned and a man appeared brilliantly lit from behind. He was surrounded by cloud and light. Eve couldn’t see who it was but he seemed to hold his hands out to her. Mesmerised, Eve walked towards him. There was snow in the air and behind her the last wisteria faded on the garden wall. She didn’t know what she thought but for that moment, at least, Eve believed. Slowly the dust settled and the man walked towards her. He came out of the gloom with a broom. It was Adam. He had been sweeping because that’s all there was to do. There was nothing but room to sweep. Behind him the clouds settled and Eve could see that the entire space was empty. The place had been full to overflowing with boxes of clothes, shoes, games, kitchen equipment, food… and now it was empty. There was absolutely nothing left.

  ‘Hello, Eve.’ He smiled. Everyone smiled. Everyone smiled all the time even when there was nothing to smile about.

  ‘Adam?’

  He looked down and found something fascinating to sweep near his wife’s feet.

  ‘Yes… look, it was for the best. The thing is, it would never have worked and I didn’t want you to be disappointed…’

  ‘This has nothing to do with me being disappointed,’ Eve said.

  ‘I wanted to protect you,’ he pleaded. ‘No one wanted those damn refugees and it would have caused you such grief.’

  Eve looked at her mortified husband. The man who would be king in his community. The saviour of the people. ‘Wouldn’t have done you much good either, would it?’

  ‘I was trying to protect you. People were beginning to say bad things.’

  ‘Where is it? Where is everything?’ Eve managed.

  ‘John got Stuart Packer to take it away … to the dump. Anyway, I heard on the news. The government has agreed to the detention centres. There was no one to come anyway.

  Eve sat in the empty garage for ages. It had been pathetic. Thinking she could do something. It was the day of the local election. Adam’s day when the people would choose. F
inally it would all be over. Adam got dressed in his best suit and sat in the car waiting for his wife but she didn’t move. Eve was supposed to be at Adam’s side for the ‘count’. Tonight was the night the Marshalls once more took on the mantle of Adam’s civic responsibility. Eve didn’t know what came over her. She never moved. After a while Adam left on his own and Eve stayed in the garage. She never voted. She didn’t go and vote for Adam. She meant to but she couldn’t seem to get up from the floor. She didn’t go anywhere.

  Night fell and Eve sat. After several hours Inge came round and she too sat on the garage floor. They didn’t speak for a while. Inge’s crying had wrung out her body and she had no conversation left. Finally she handed over a letter from the hospital authorities for Eve to read. Inge had been refused permission to know which funeral parlour Kate had been taken to. As she had no legal claim on the body the hospital refused to give out any information other than to immediate family. The authorities referred her to Mrs Andrews’ solicitors — Hogart, Hoddle and Hooper. The solicitors had the facts. It was all legal. It was all correct.

  ‘You must have some rights,’ said Eve.

  Inge shook her head. ‘No. None. We weren’t married. We couldn’t marry. I’m nothing.’

  Eve looked at her friend, sitting in shock on the floor of the empty garage. They had known each other for over twenty-five years. They had been young and optimistic together. They had had good hair and no cellulite. They had raced their bicycles over cobblestones never knowing the life they raced towards. Never knowing they would end up imprisoned. Eve knew what some people in Edenford thought. That whatever Lawrence might say in the future, Inge and Kate would always be blamed for Patrick’s death. That to some of the town Inge stood as proxy for all that is evil. They hated her and wanted Eve to feel the same. It was a litmus test for being a normal person.