Flying Under Bridges

by Sandi Toksvig

  ‘Who ha! Who ha!’ called Eve’s mother from the dining room. ‘Who ha! Who ha!’

  Inge leant against Eve and Eve needed that. She put her arm around her friend and rocked and rocked her. When Adam came back, the two women were still sitting there. Silent; one smiling, the other holding. Shirley and John were helping him in because he had had a few drinks. Inge looked at Eve and shrugged. Adam saw Inge’s smile and he hated her. He saw her hug his wife, his alien wife, and go home.

  ‘A triumph!’ he kept shouting. ‘A bloody triumph!’ The count was not in yet but Adam was clearly in no doubt that he had swept to victory. No one had said anything horrid. It had gone much better than expected. Adam went to get another bottle of something from the fridge when William let himself in with Pe Pe. William was not drunk but seemed even more demented than Adam.

  ‘Evie, Evie, where are you?’ he yelled, as he ran from the hall to the kitchen. He stood in the doorway beaming at his family. ‘You’re all here, how marvellous. Ladies and gentlemen… uhhum…’ William cleared his throat and announced, ‘May I present my wife, Philippa Cameron, woman of my dreams and soon to be… mother of my child.’ William stepped back and put his arm out as Pe Pe stepped into the doorway. She was also smiling. Shirley was smiling, John was smiling, Adam couldn’t stop smiling. Everyone was demented with joy except Eve. William and Pe Pe fell over each other trying to give out all the details.

  ‘I think we should have a home birth,’ declared Pe Pe. ‘Why go to hospital? It’s not as though I’m sick. People only ever die in the hospital.’

  William shook his head. ‘I don’t know, darling, I don’t think it’s safe. It can be very nice in the hospital these days. I think they even do water births.’

  ‘Shirley had one of those,’ Eve added, but no one was listening.

  John beamed. ‘What are you going to call it?’

  ‘Definitely William if it’s a boy,’ said William.

  ‘I don’t know,’ whined Pe Pe. ‘I really want something unusual.’

  Eve didn’t like to tell them that with Pe Pe’s genes that was almost certainly what they’d get. Eve knew she should be more helpful. It was what was expected. Women were pleased and did pleased things when people said they were having babies. Eve wondered if she would have felt differently if Shirley were having it. The men went off to find champagne in the cellar, Shirley went to try and tell Mother and Eve was left alone with Pe Pe. Alone and confused.

  ‘How, Pe Pe? How are you pregnant? You told me…’

  Pe Pe blinked at Eve. ‘What does it matter? Look how happy he is.’

  ‘I want to know. William doesn’t have any sperm. You told me that. What was it — a bloody immaculate conception?’

  Pe Pe put her handbag down on the counter and played with the handles. ‘Look, it’s done,’ she said.

  ‘Yes and who done it?’

  Pe Pe sighed and looked towards the cellar door where the men had disappeared to find drink. ‘Eve, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Who?’ Eve persisted. She had had enough secrets to last a lifetime. Eve thought she knew but she had to hear Pe Pe say it.

  ‘It was John.’ Pe Pe lowered her voice and whispered urgently. ‘It was his idea and he was so sweet.’

  ‘John? John Antrobus?’

  ‘He just wanted to help.’

  Shirley came in to get Mother a glass of water. She hugged Pe Pe and then Eve.

  ‘Mum,’ she said, enfolded in her mother’s arms, ‘I was going to wait but I just can’t.’ I knew, I knew what was coming. ‘John’s asked me to marry him and… I’ve said yes!’

  Eve nearly choked. ‘What about university?’

  Shirley stroked her mother’s arm. ‘It’s okay. I’m going to take another year out and then go. Maybe choose somewhere near Edenford.’

  ‘But Durham, Exeter…’

  Shirley smiled and took Mother her glass of water. Eve could hardly contain herself. She turned on Pe Pe and practically screamed, ‘You had an affair with—’

  Helpful John, engaged John, appeared carrying a bottle in one hand and Eve’s husband in the other.

  ‘Cracked his head, I’m afraid. Bit overexcited,’ explained William.

  ‘Who’s having an affair?’ mumbled Adam, as Shirley came back into the kitchen. Even Pe Pe’s fake smile wavered.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she managed, looking at John, at William, at Shirley and finally at Eve. ‘Eve!’ she implored.

  And in that moment Eve didn’t have it in her to tell the truth. She didn’t have it in her to hurt her daughter or her brother.

  ‘No one’s having an affair,’ she said. ‘Now, shall we pour the—’ Eve reached for some wine glasses on a shelf but Adam got up and almost stumbled into her.

  ‘It’s that woman, isn’t it? That bloody dyke next door.’ He had had too much to drink. It was all a mistake. ‘I saw you… the two of you… sitting together in the garage … leaning on each other.’

  Eve didn’t know why she felt defensive. She had no reason to but she did. ‘Her partner died,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, really,’ Adam sneered. ‘So she’s free now. Free to run off with you. Is that the plan? It’s not enough for you that people talk about my own son? Now you want to run off with that… that freak. Is that it, Eve? What was she giving you that I couldn’t? Huh?’

  Eve looked at her partner, her husband, her lover. ‘You haven’t been giving me anything for some time now.’ Eve meant support but he took it all wrong.

  ‘I’ve been injured!’ he screamed. ‘You know I was injured. How dare you kick a man when he’s down? You… you slut. You slept with that pervert and now everyone knows. I can’t even look at you.

  Eve looked at him and had no idea what she was supposed to do. It was comical really. She couldn’t say anything about John because it would break Shirley’s heart, she couldn’t say anything about Pe Pe because William was so excited and he was her brother and it’s what he longed for, she didn’t want to say anything bad about Inge, she didn’t like the way Adam had jumped to his conclusion…

  It wasn’t the best family get-together they’d ever had.

  Eve was outside Hogart, Hoddle and Hooper the next morning before they opened. She stood in the High Street watching everyone go about their business and none of it was anything to do with her. There was a Sold sign up outside the Susan Lithgood shop and a notice in the window welcomed a new establishment providing Professional Dry-Cleaning. The notice was so large it gave some suggestion that until now Edenford had had no professional dry-cleaning but amateurs in the field had been a perfect pest. The first snow was beginning to fall and Eve was cold. Colder than she had ever been. John was among the first to arrive.

  ‘Eve! What a lovely surprise. I’m afraid I’ve got rather a hectic morning.’

  They stepped into reception where a young typist was busy sharpening her nails for the morning post.

  ‘I need to speak to you now, John,’ Eve said very loudly.

  ‘Love to, love to.’ He looked around a little agitated. ‘But it’s not a good time. I’ve got—’

  ‘Now!’ she commanded. ‘Or do you want to do it out here? I have one or two matters regarding my sister-in-law that you might—’

  ‘Right, right.’ He bundled his future mother-in-law away to his office at the back of the building, moving with the confidence and self-assurance of those who don’t stop to think. The place was immaculate. Apart from the bundles of papers tied in pink ribbon on top of a large wooden filing cabinet, it didn’t look like anyone worked there at all. There was a silver-framed picture of Shirley on his desk. Eve couldn’t look at it.

  ‘Now then, Eve, what’s so urgent? Something legal?’

  ‘I know you, John—’ she began.

  ‘Of course, you do. Eve, you’re upset, I can tell.’ He began to oil his way round her. ‘The others went off at the deep end last night but I can quite see how this little misunderstanding—’

  ‘No, I mean, really know
you. At first I thought it was an accident that you started the rumours around town about blood and Aids and the refugees but it wasn’t an accident, was it? You sent Horace Hoddle that leaflet from Dover. You were determined they wouldn’t come here. It was you who put all that Adam and Eve family shit in Adam’s head, all that Centurion protect-our-women bollocks. And you knew Mrs Andrews would shut Inge out—’

  John raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘Eve, you’re mistaken. I was only trying to be nice.’

  ‘You represent the bloody woman.’

  ‘Well, yes I do now, but everyone is entitled—’

  ‘You thought Lawrence would damn Kate in the hospital, didn’t you? That’s why you came. To see him give one final judgement.’

  John picked up a pencil sharpener and slowly began to work his way through a pile of new pencils. ‘Lawrence is a very forgiving man.’

  ‘But you’re not, are you?’

  John sat back in his chair and for the first time looked Eve straight in the eye. ‘Since you ask me — no. Gay people make me sick. All that fucking gay pride, flaunting their fucking perversions in your face. It’s a sin and that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘So is sleeping with someone else’s wife. I know about Pe Pe, John,’ Eve said. John stopped his sharpening and looked at her. Then he picked up the framed photo of Shirley and turned it towards Eve.

  ‘Shirley and I are getting married,’ he said. ‘I intend for her to be a very prominent member of this community. What do you want, Eve?’

  ‘I want to know the name of the funeral parlour where Kate is.

  ‘I don’t think you should get involved.’ John attempted one last charge. ‘It would be a shame if those ridiculous rumours about you and Inge—’

  He never got a chance to finish. Eve banged opened the door to John’s office to make sure everyone could hear. ‘I don’t give a damn what anyone says about me and I am quite happy to tell anyone who cares to listen that you—’

  John leapt to his feet and slammed the door shut. ‘Look, I can’t give you that kind of—’

  ‘Now.’

  What Eve learnt from Inge was that her achievement of any kind of self-esteem was an incredible victory against almost insurmountable odds in the society we live in. She was utterly dignified when they went to the funeral parlour. Eve took her in her leaping, objecting car and Inge never said a word.

  The whispering funeral parlour attendant was thrilled to meet Inge. He had been a fan, he didn’t care what the papers said, she was all right by him and anyway, they wrote a lot of nonsense. He was sure she wasn’t ‘one of those’. Inge was gracious, Inge smiled.

  ‘I’m Katherine Andrews’ cousin,’ she told him. ‘I’m afraid I need to pay my respects now. I can’t make the funeral.’

  Of course he understood. She was busy. She couldn’t do ordinary things like make time in life for the inconvenient deaths of others.

  They had laid Kate out in what appeared to be a British Rail waiting-room. Magnolia partition walls separated her from the rest of the dearly departed and wailing could be heard up and down the corridor. Her face had a strange white sheen to it. Some odd make-up the funeral directors had swiped across a woman who had always liked her face free. She lay in a dress Inge had never seen before. Inge stood and stared at her and Eve realised she was afraid. It was utterly bewildering to be afraid of her beloved Kate and yet she was. She hadn’t wanted to come into the room and see her lying there. The more she looked, the less she could see her Kate. The face looked a bit like her but Kate had gone somehow. Eve knew that if Tom cut her open then her soul would no longer be there. Eve knew that Kate, of all people, had had one, she just didn’t know where it was now.

  ‘It’s a trick,’ Inge whispered. ‘She looks like some Madame Tussaud’s dummy. I don’t know that dress. I didn’t know she had a dress.’

  Eve didn’t know what she had thought would happen. That maybe Inge would fling her arms around the body and hug her tight. Now she wasn’t even sure if Inge wanted to kiss her. Inge inched her lips slowly down to Kate’s forehead. Kate’s hair looked stiff and her glasses were missing from the top of her head. A strong chemical smell leapt up from the plain, pine box. As Inge placed her lips on Kate’s head her whole body stiffened and Eve knew that even then she still felt fear.

  When they left Inge was silent. She was silent all the way home. As she got out she said, ‘She wasn’t there, was she?’ And Eve answered, ‘No,’ but neither of them knew what had happened to Kate.

  Eve had forgotten it was her birthday. Adam was supposed to come home early to take her out for dinner — two meals for the price of one at the Harvester if you ate before seven-thirty. He didn’t come but Horace Hoddle sent a note — Adam had lost the election. By one vote. And Eve knew she was guilty as charged.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  8 February

  Holloway Prison for Women

  London

  Dear Inge,

  I had the dream again last night. The one with the plane that I have to fly. This time though it wasn’t so scary. I still didn’t know how the controls worked but I liked looking at them. I ran my hand over them and I wanted to fly, I just didn’t know how.

  I tell you that to let no day pass without discussing goodness and examining both myself and others is really the very best thing that a man can do, and that life without this sort of examination is not worth living.

  (Socrates, Apology 382)

  Socrates was put to death for the crime of examining with a truly open mind the most cherished beliefs of the day. I think it could happen to anybody.

  We are closing in on the end. The shrink looks at me, the lawyer looks at me.

  ‘Did you? Did you?’ they want to know. ‘Did you sleep with your neighbour?’

  No one actually has the nerve to ask me but it appeals to the gossip in them all. Even the educated think there must be some tabloid explanation. They have not been listening. Not really listening. It is just a soap opera. I think the shrink has replaced his hopes of my case turning into a learned book with the idea that it might become a made-for-TV movie. Tom says the Hindus call this kālīyuga — it is the age of blackness in which people become increasingly incapable of discerning right from wrong and the beautiful from the grotesque.

  Now we can begin to focus on the reasons for my crime. Was I mad or not mad enough? Was I sexually indiscriminate or promiscuous? Had I failed as a wife or mother? How much domestic responsibility did I carry out? Did I mind? Or say that I minded? Do I look like a woman? Talk like a woman? Was there anything about me that suggested I wasn’t a ‘normal’ woman? Could I be treated? Perhaps it would be best to plead guilty. Get it over with. Don’t allow the publicity to damage my family and neighbours. They are the ‘real’ sufferers. They are the ones betrayed by me. They could not be the source of my misery, I am a hapless, guilt-ridden victim of my own uncontrollable impulses.

  We have found some excuses: I’m middle-aged, I had my mind on other things, I had no previous convictions, I am needed to run my home … I am a wife and mother, therefore I deserve understanding and sympathy and, of course, leniency. I am respectable, middle class, therefore I must be so sensitive that I will be reformed by a minimum of punishment or perhaps no punishment at all. My husband can help, my children will help. I don’t need the help of the justice system if I have them at home.

  I hate the lawyer most of all. It isn’t about justice. It isn’t about justice at all.

  Fact — a married person may inherit property without paying inheritance tax. They have automatic rights of survivorship over their partner’s estate. They have legal, financial and psychological benefits on the death of their loved one, which are sanctioned and affirmed by the state. Without the status of legal next-of-kin, a partner may get shut out of medical decisions or, ultimately, funeral arrangements.

  It wasn’t right what happened to you. It wasn’t right at all. I’m so glad that Shirley sees that now. Maybe she will come
out the other end. Maybe she’ll be okay. The lawyer wants me to be quiet in court. To sit quietly and seem as ‘normal’ as possible. Don’t talk publicly about the case ever. I need to compensate for my unfeminine criminal behaviour by presenting myself as domesticated, sexually passive and constitutionally fragile.

  What if I am wicked? Maybe I am greedy. Greedy for my daughter’s attention. Maybe I should be punished not treated. Perhaps I deserve contempt. I must be mentally ill, emotionally disturbed or in some way abnormal or it never would have happened. I am not to say that I felt there was no choice. That if I had been a man I would probably have given John a good hiding. I would have punched him, kicked him, wrestled him to the ground. If I were a man I would not have killed him.

  Tom came to visit me in prison. He sat with me and we talked about silly things. He’d walked. It’s a long way but Tom doesn’t like transport.

  Fact — a young, fast-growing tree can recycle about forty-eight pounds of carbon dioxide per year. Carbon dioxide is the principal gas in the ‘greenhouse effect’. If you burn one gallon of petrol that equals twenty miles and twenty pounds of carbon dioxide. Drive forty miles in a car and you produce roughly the amount of carbon dioxide a young tree can recycle in a year.

  I told him I’d been trying to read the Bible to get some help. To find some wisdom. I told him I had learnt a lot of the passages by heart but he shook his head.

  ‘That’s not wisdom, Mum. Buddha says that a servant of the king may hear the king’s words and repeat them to others but simply repeating his words would not make the servant a king. Repeating the words of a wise man doesn’t make you wise.’

  Tom brought me something. He had been clearing out Mother’s house and thought I might like a memento. He put it on the table. It was the Pope John Paul’s head that lit up. The Calvinist Prince of Darkness — the corruptible man who could pass off his own thinking as the inspiration of an incorruptible supreme being. What had I learnt? I learnt that no one has any simple solutions to the human condition. That there may not be any solutions at all.