The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year

by Sue Townsend

  Eva tried to make light of this evidence of Brian Junior’s increasing peculiarity. She was alarmed by this email. He had always been the weaker twin — slower to talk and walk — and the one who clung to her skirt when she first took them to nursery school. But she remembered it was also Brian Junior who had charmed passers-by with his smile when she took the twins out in the double buggy. Even then, Brianne had been less attractive. If somebody approached her, she would scowl and hide her face.

  Eva continued to read. She felt nothing but a sense of failure, and perhaps, for the first time, had to face the realisation that Brian Junior might have to move to Silicon Valley where he would be able to live and work with his own kind.

  I find it a matter of regret that you will not be attending your late mother-in-law’s funeral. My father is, and I quote, ‘Devastated.’ I have also spoken to Barbara Lomax, the head of the Student Psychology Service, and she assures me that the reason you are ‘unable’ to leave your bed is that you are in the grip of agoraphobia, probably as a result of childhood trauma.

  Alexander, attempting to lighten the mood, laughed and said, ‘Did you see something nasty in the woodshed, Eva?’

  She was unable to join in. She read the next few sentences to herself, not wanting Alexander to hear them and judge her.

  Ms Lomax stressed that she has known people to be cured within six weeks. However, diet, exercise, self-discipline and courage are needed. I informed Barbara that, in my opinion, you have no courage, because you knowingly allow my father to fornicate under your roof and say nothing.

  Eva could no longer control herself, and shouted aloud, ‘He’s not under my roof! He’s in his sodding shed!’ Then she continued reading to herself.

  Barbara enquired of me, ‘Do you have anger issues with your mother?’ I told her that I can hardly bear to be in the same room as my mother lately.

  Eva read the last sentence again. And then again. What had she done wrong?

  She had fed him, kept him clean, bought him decent shoes, taken him to the dentist and the optician, built a rocket out of Lego, taken him on zoo trips and cleaned out his room. He’d been on a steam train, the medical box was always at hand, and she’d hardly raised her voice to him throughout his childhood.

  She folded the email printout in half, then into quarters, then into eighths, then into sixteenths, then into thirty-secondths and sixty-fourths. She tried to make it even smaller, gave up and put the wad of paper in her mouth. It was unpleasant, but she could not take it out. Alexander undemonstratively passed her a glass of water and she began to soften the wad of paper like a cow chewing cud, until gradually it turned into a pulp.

  With her tongue, she pushed the wad into her cheek and said to Alexander, ‘I need a blind at this window. A white blind.’

  On the night before his mother’s funeral, Brian went to see Eva. He asked her to reconsider her decision to stay away from the church service and the following interment.

  Eva assured Brian that she had loved Yvonne, and would think about her while the funeral was in progress, but she could not leave her bed.

  Brian said, ‘What if it was Ruby, your own mother? Would you leave your bed for her?’

  ‘I need notice on that question,’ said Eva.

  ‘I can’t bear to think about her lying on those cold kitchen tiles,’ Brian said, tearfully.

  Eva stroked his hand. ‘She was fed up with the modern world anyway, Brian. She couldn’t grasp the fact that there was pornography on her Freebox. When she first watched the telly, the newsreader was wearing a dinner jacket.’

  ‘Do you think she had a good life?’

  Eva said, carefully, ‘As good as she could have, given that she was born into a man’s world, and that your dad wouldn’t let her wear trousers.

  He said, ‘You know those Valentine’s Day cards she got every year?’

  ‘An amazing number.’

  ‘She wrote them to herself as well.’

  ‘She must have been horribly lonely, Bri. She never got over your dad’s death.’

  Were you lonely when I was at work?’ Brian asked.

  Eva said, ‘I was lonelier when you came home, and we were sitting next to each other on the sofa.’

  ‘But we did have some good times, didn’t we?’

  ‘We must have, but I can’t remember what they were. ‘Brian said, sounding slightly annoyed, ‘The holidays abroad. Camping in Wales. Florida.’

  Eva wanted to concur with Brian, but her memories were a blur of mosquitoes, rain, mud, sunstroke, dehydration, endless driving, bickering and grudging reconciliations.

  54

  The Beaver ancestors had bought a family plot in the shade of a small copse of dense conifers at St Guthlac’s. There was no room between the trees to drive a mechanical digger, and roots made digging new graves a trial of strength and stamina.

  As the chief mourners were chauffeured up the drive of the forbidding Norman church, to the ringing of a sonorous bell, they saw two young gravediggers throwing small stones at each other. When Brian, Titania and the twins passed the youths, they heard one of them shout, ‘You twat, you nearly got my eye then!’

  Brian ordered the driver of the car to stop. He got out and walked purposefully towards his mother’s unfinished grave.

  The youths threw down their stones and picked up their spades.

  Brian said, ‘I know that lessons in inappropriate swearing are on the curriculum at your lame-duck comprehensive, but this hole you’re meant to be digging will be my mother’s final resting place. Do not shout “twat” across her grave.’

  He walked back to the limousine.

  As soon as the door closed, one of the youths met Brian’s eyes, muttered, ‘Twat!’ and jumped into the grave.

  Brian was about to open the door again, but Brian Junior pulled him away from the handle. ‘Leave it, Dad.’

  Brian was unnerved. For three miles they had been following the hearse that carried his mother’s body. Behind them all the way was Alexander, driving his old van, with Stanley Crossley and Ruby on the bench passenger seat.

  Yvonne’s sisters, Linda, Suzanne and Jean, were standing around the porch, smoking and tapping the ash into the palms of their hands. Brian thought this, and the fact that they were displaying so much cleavage, was inappropriate. He had not spoken to them for years. There had been an ‘incident’ at a family christening that had ended badly. His mother had never felt able to tell him the details — all she would say was, ‘There was too much drink taken.’ But it could explain why they were staring at him with such malevolence.

  They stared even harder at Titania, checking her face, hair, black suit, handbag and shoes. She was of great interest to them. How dare Brian flaunt his knock-off in public? His crazy wife had disgraced the family by making a show of herself, and had now insulted them all by not turning up for her mother-in-law’s funeral.

  They stepped aside to let Alexander, Stanley Crossley and the twins into the church. Ruby had sensed the atmosphere, and scuttled away to find a lavatory.

  After everybody was seated, Ruby made a late but dramatic entrance by failing to control the immensely heavy church door. The wind dragged the handle out of her hand and slammed it so loudly that the vicar and the mourners, who were kneeling on cassocks in silent prayer, jumped and turned round, in time to see her rooted to the floor in shock. Stanley Crossley, who was wearing a black armband over his dark suit, was sitting on a back pew He got up and helped Ruby down the aisle to join her own clan at the front.

  She was outraged when she saw what appeared to be a cardboard box up on a trestle near the altar. She whispered to Brian, Who left that in the church? Where’s Yvonne’s coffin?’

  ‘That is her coffin,’ Brian whispered back. ‘It’s ecologically sound.’

  What’s that when it’s at home?’

  The vicar began to tell the small congregation that Yvonne had been born into sin and had died in sin.

  Ruby whispered to Brian, ‘She w
anted a walnut coffin with brass handles and a puce satin lining. We looked through a catalogue together.’

  Out of the side of his mouth, Brian said, ‘Her funeral policy didn’t stretch to walnut.’

  The vicar looked like a badger in a surplice. He said, in his fruity voice, ‘We are gathered here today on this dreadful wet and windy morning to celebrate the life of our sister, Rita Coddington.’

  There was angry muttering and stifled laughter as the congregation registered his mistake.

  He carried on, ‘Rita was born in 1939, the daughter of Edward and Ivy Coddington. It was a difficult forceps birth, which left Rita with an elongated head. She was teased at school but —’

  Ruby stood up and interrupted. ‘Excuse me, but what you just said is rubbish. The woman in that cardboard box is Yvonne Beaver. Her main and dad were Arthur and Pearl, and she had a perfectly normal head.’

  The vicar sorted through the notes on his lectern, and saw at once that he had mixed up Yvonne Beaver’s notes with those of the next service. He readdressed the congregation, saying, ‘I can only work with the information I’m given. Before I proceed, could I check a few facts with you? First, hymns. Did you request “All Things Bright And Beautiful”?’

  Brian said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘And “Onward Christian Soldiers”?’

  Brian nodded.

  ‘And now popular music. Did she request “Yellow Submarine” by The Beatles, and “Rawhide”, sung by Mr Frankie Laine?’

  Brian mumbled, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was she a punch card operator until her marriage?’

  Brian nodded again.

  Brianne said loudly, ‘Look, can you just get on with it?’

  The vicar announced, ‘The eulogy will be read by Yvonne’s grandson, Brian Junior.’

  Those acquainted with Brian Junior watched apprehensively as he walked to the lectern.

  Alexander groaned, ‘Oh, sweet Jesus, no,’ and crossed his fingers.

  Brian Junior’s eulogy was the first time he had spoken in public at a formal occasion. He started well, guided by a website called funeraleulogies.com. When he had used up his conventional script, he improvised.

  He spoke of the twins’ early memories of Yvonne.

  ‘She was hyper hygienic, and when we stayed with her overnight she would take my teddy and Brianne’s monkey and put them in the washing machine so they’d be nice and fresh for us in the morning.’

  He looked around the church at the carved pillars and the signs and symbols that he could not decipher. The light outside was low but the stained glass glowed, giving a half-life to the familiar biblical figures in stained glass.

  ‘She took Teddy’s smell away,’ he said.

  Brianne said, from a front pew, ‘And Monkey’s.’ Brian Junior wiped his eyes using the sleeve of his jacket, and continued, ‘I know some of you are worried about the apparent flimsiness of Gran’s coffin, so I researched the decomposition cycle of the human body. Given her height and approximate weight, and allowing for the variables of climate and temperature, I reckon that her coffin and corpse will last for —’

  Brian called out, ‘Thank you, Brian Junior! Step down now, son.’

  The vicar hastily took possession of the lectern and, before Brian Junior had reached his place in the pew, had signalled to the organist for the first hymn to be sung: We plough the fields and scatter’

  Stanley and Ruby sang lustily, neither of them needed a hymn book.

  Ruby glanced at Stanley’s face and thought, ‘It’s amazing what you can get used to, given time.’

  Eva was luxuriating in the silent house. It had stopped raining and she could tell by the light on the white walls that it was approximately eleven o’clock.

  It was quiet outside. The downpour had sent most of the crowd looking for shelter.

  She thought about Yvonne, who she had seen at least twice a week for twenty-five years. She dredged out memories.

  Yvonne at the seaside, shaking sandy towels into the wind.

  Yvonne with a child’s fishing net, trying to catch tadpoles with the twins.

  Yvonne in bed, crying with arthritic pain. Yvonne helpless with laughter at Norman Wisdom on television.

  Yvonne’s teeth clicking as she ate her Sunday dinner.

  Yvonne arguing with Brian about creationism.

  Yvonne dropping cigarette ash into a casserole she was serving.

  Yvonne’s horror in a restaurant in France, when her steak tartare turned out to be raw meat.

  Eva was surprised to find that she mourned Yvonne’s death.

  Back in church, the vicar, who was trying to be relevant to the community, led the congregation on the last verse of ‘Yellow Submarine’.

  When it was finally over, he said, ‘You know, life is like a banana. The fruit is inside, but the skin is green, so you leave it to ripen …’ He paused. ‘But sometimes you leave it too long, and when you remember it again, the skin has turned black, and when you finally remove it, what has happened to the good fruit?’

  Brian Junior said, from the front pew, ‘The banana has produced ethylene, and will eventually oxidize and break down into a new gaseous compound of equivalent mass.’

  The vicar said, ‘Thank you for your contribution,’ and carried on. ‘Eventually, Yvonne’s body will decompose, but her soul will attain everlasting life in God’s Kingdom, and will forever remain in your memory.’

  Brian Junior laughed.

  The vicar asked the congregation to kneel again while he read them a passage on resurrection from the King James Bible. Only Ruby remained standing. She pointed to her knees, mouthed the word, ‘Knees!’ to the vicar, and shook her head.

  When he’d finished the passage, the vicar looked at the congregation. They were shifting from foot to foot, glancing at their watches and yawning. He thought it was time for the Commendation and Farewell. He cleared his throat, turned to the coffin and said, ‘Let us commend Yvonne Primrose Beaver to the mercy of God, our Maker and Redeemer.’

  Brian Junior said, very loudly, ‘Maker? I think not.’ He added, as if he were in an advanced tutorial, ‘Variation plus differential reproduction plus heredity equals natural selection. Darwin one, God nil.’

  The vicar looked at Brian Junior, and thought, ‘Poor chap, Tourette’s is a cruel affliction.’

  Alexander thought, ‘When will this end? When will this dreary tight-arsed ceremony be over?’

  At the last funeral he’d been to, there was a gospel choir, steel drums and dancing. People had swayed their hips and raised their arms above their heads, as though they were truly joyful that the departed one would soon be in the arms of Jesus.

  When the vicar said the words, ‘We entrust Yvonne to your mercy, in the name of Jesus our Lord, who died and is alive, and reigns with you, now and for ever,’ the congregation said, ‘Amen,’ as though they were truly thankful that the ceremony had finally ended.

  Four undertakers walked solemnly up the aisle, lifted the eco-box coffin on to their shoulders and, to the accompanying sound of ‘Rawhide’, walked back down the aisle, out of the church and towards the poorly dug fresh grave.

  The mourners followed.

  Brian sang along quietly with Frankie Laine. He cracked an imaginary whip and envisioned himself herding stampeding cattle across the Texan plains.

  When the cardboard coffin was carried to the grave-side, some of the angel worshippers from the Bowling Green Road crowd joined the procession. At their head were Sandy Lake and her friend, the anarchist William Wainwright.

  Sandy was carrying a single lily she had bought from Mr Barthi’s shop. He had not wanted to split a ready-made bouquet of six stems, but she had been so tenacious that he had eventually given up, telling his wife later that he was thinking of retiring and starting a new business where he wouldn’t have to interact with people.

  His wife had scolded, ‘Ha! So, now you are playing with robots? You are going back to university to do a degree in electronics and then a masters in
robotics? By then you will be seventy years old, you fat fool! And I will be dead of starvation, and our children will be sweeping the gutters!’

  As he stacked the instant rice, Mr Barthi wished fervently that he had not spoken so openly to his wife. It was already a sad day for him. Mrs Yvonne Beaver was a good customer and an interesting conversationalist, unlike her son.

  He also missed Mrs Eva Beaver. He used to buy a crate of Heinz tomato soup from the cash and carry especially for her. She ate a bowl for her lunch every day. Nobody else in her family liked it, they had their own favourites.

  Back in Bowling Green Road, there were shouts and insults being traded by opposing groups in the crowd. The vampire worshippers were berating the Harry Potter faction.

  In an attempt to block out the noise, Eva had set herself the task of remembering all her favourite songs from childhood to the present day. She had started with Max Bygraves, ‘I’m A Pink Toothbrush’, then moved on to the Walker Brothers, ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore)’, and was presently struggling to remember Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back To Black’. She knew she had a good voice, with perfect pitch. It offended her when professional singers strayed from a note.

  Miss Bailey, her music teacher at school, had entered her into the County Music Festival. Eva was to perform a solo classic, Schubert’s ‘The Trout’, to a panel of weary judges. At the end, she had looked at their smiling faces, automatically assuming they were laughing at her, and had run from the platform, down long corridors and into a garden with benches where the other contestants were eating their packed lunches. They had all stared at her.

  At school assembly on Monday morning, the headmistress, Miss Fosdyke, announced after prayers that Eva Brown-Bird had won the Gold Medal at the County Music Festival. Eva was shocked, and she found the thunderous applause unbearable. She had blushed and lowered her head. When Miss Fosdyke called for her to come up on the stage, she pushed her way along the rows of girls and escaped through the nearest door. As she walked towards the cloakroom, she heard loud laughter from the hall. Finding it impossible to stay in the school, she had collected her coat and satchel and walked in miserable drenching rain around the area where she lived, until it was the legitimate time to go home.