The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year

by Sue Townsend

  Titania saw the spinning wheel rolling towards her, the wooden spokes clattering as it turned. She screamed, as though the wheel were an errant heat-seeking missile. She shouted, ‘Go on! Why not kick all my lovely things to pieces! You’re nothing but a bully!’

  Brian shouted back, ‘You can’t bully furniture, woman!’

  Titania yelled, ‘It’s no wonder Eva’s mad and lives in a room with no furniture at all! You drove her to it!’

  To her amazement, Brian wove through her possessions, took a couple of boxes off the chaise longue, lay down and started to sob.

  She was bewildered by the drama of it all, and said, ‘I’m sorry, Brian, but I cannot live like this. I want to settle down in a house with proper designated rooms. Henry Thoreau may have been happy living in a shed, and three cheers and multiple gold stars for him, but I want to live in a house. I want to live in your house.’

  She was pleading now. Their honeymoon period of living together in the sheds was long over. She was looking forward to being a seasoned and contented couple.

  Brian whined, ‘You know we can’t live in my house. Eva wouldn’t like it.’

  Titania felt a switch click inside her head. It was raging jealousy kicking in. ‘I’m sick of hearing about Eva and I hate the sheds! I can’t stand to live in them for a minute longer!’

  Brian shouted, ‘Good, go home to Guy the fucking Gorilla!’

  She screamed, ‘You know I can’t go home! Guy has rented it out to the Vietnamese cannabis farmers!’

  She ran out of the shed complex, across the lawn and into the main house.

  Brian had a fantasy that Titania would run through the middle of the house, out through the open front door, and then down the street and round the corner. She would carry on running: through back gardens, on to minor roads, on cart tracks, on a winding path up the hills, down the hills and far away.

  Brian wished that Titania would vanish, just vanish.

  61

  Alexander carefully let himself out of his mother’s small terraced house in Jane Street. He did not want to wake her, she would ask him where he was going and he didn’t want to tell her.

  He was nervous about leaving the kids in her sole care — she was too frail now to pick them up and, being an old-school disciplinarian, she was not sympathetic when Thomas screamed with the night terrors or Venus cried for her mother.

  He crept along the pavement until he was out of earshot of the house, then he quickened his pace. He could tell from the cool night air and the faint smell of decay that autumn was waiting to take its place. The streets were quiet. Cars were sleeping next to the pavements.

  He had three miles in which to rehearse what he was going to say to Eva about their relationship. Although perhaps he should first establish whether or not they had a relationship?

  Back in the day, after Alexander had returned from Charterhouse with an alien upper-class accent that even his mother had laughed at, he had spent many hours in his room with an old-fashioned tape recorder, trying to minimise his vowels and slacken his jaw He kept well away from the local gangs, the Northanger Abbey Crew and the Mansfield Park Boyz. Alexander wondered if Miss Bennet would have liked Mr Darcy more, or less, had he strolled through the Pump Room with his arse hanging out of his baggy jeans, showing the label of his Calvin Klein underwear?

  Now all Alexander could hear were his own footsteps echoing in the moonlit streets.

  Then he heard a car approaching, its sound system booming out gangster rap. He turned to look as the old BMW passed him. Four white men, short hair, over-muscled. A tin of gym supplements on the back window. The car stopped just ahead of him.

  He braced himself and, hoping to appear friendly, said, ‘Evening, guys.’

  The driver of the car said to his front-seat passenger, ‘Do me a favour, Robbo, get the toolbox out the back, will you?’

  Alexander didn’t like the sound of the toolbox. All he had to defend himself with was his Swiss Army knife, and by the time he’d found a suitable blade …

  He said, Well, I’ll wish you goodnight then.’ Fear had forced him to drop his street accent, and revert back to Charterhouse.

  The four men laughed, but without humour. At a gesture from the driver, the three remaining men got out of the car.

  ‘Lovely plaits,’ said the driver. ‘How long you had them then?’

  ‘Seventeen years,’ said Alexander. He was wondering if he could outrun them, though his legs had turned to mush.

  ‘Be a relief to get rid of ‘em won’t it? Nasty, dirty, filthy things hanging down your back.’

  Suddenly, as if they’d rehearsed it, the three men pushed him to the ground. One sat on his chest, the other two held down his legs.

  Alexander allowed his body to go limp. He knew from experience that any show of defiance now would bring a beating.

  He let himself into Eva’s house with the key she had given him. He took his shoes off and carried them upstairs, together with his shorn dreadlocks.

  When he got to the landing, Eva called, ‘Who’s there?’

  He walked softly to her doorway, and said, ‘Its me.’

  She said, ‘Can you put the light on?’

  He said, ‘No, I want to lie down next to you in the dark. Like we did before.’

  Eva looked up at the moon. ‘The man in the moon has had work done on his face.’

  Alexander said, ‘Botox.’

  She laughed, but he didn’t.

  She turned to look at him, and saw that his dreadlocks were gone. ‘Why have you done that?’

  He said, ‘I didn’t.’

  She put her arms around him.

  He was rigid with an old rage. He asked, ‘What’s the most important quality a person could have, something that would benefit us all? Even the bastards who cut off my hair.’

  Eva stroked his hair while she thought about his question.

  Eventually, she said, ‘Kindness. Or is that too simple?’

  ‘No, simple kindness, I’d vote for that.’

  In the early hours, he allowed Eva to level his remaining locks.

  When she was finished, he said, ‘Now I know how Samson felt. I’m not the same man, Eva.’

  Alexander had been thinking for some time about what was important.

  He said, We all of us — the fools, the geniuses, the beggars, the A-listers — we all need to be loved, and we all need to love. And if they’re the same person, halleluyah! And if you can live your life and avoid humiliation, you’re blessed. I didn’t manage to do that, people I didn’t even know humiliated me. My dreads were me. I could face anything with them. They were a visible symbol of my pride in our history. And, you know, my kids would hang on to them when they were babies. My wife was the only person I allowed to wash and retwist my dreads. But I would have let you. Whenever I thought about my old age, I pictured myself with white dreads, long white dreads. I’m on the beach, in Tobago. There’s a travel brochure sunset. You’re back at the hotel, washing sand and confetti out of your hair. Eva, please get out of bed, I need you.’

  Out of all his seductive words — Tobago, beach, sunset, confetti — the only word Eva heard clearly was ‘need’.

  She said, ‘I can’t be needed, Alex. I would let you down, so it’s better if I stay out of your life.’

  Alexander was angry. What would you get out of bed for? The twins in danger? Your mother’s funeral? A fucking Chanel handbag?’

  He didn’t wait around for her to see him cry. He knew her attitude to tears. He went downstairs and sat in the back garden until dawn.

  When he left for the long walk home, Ruby was out early cleaning the front porch and doorstep with disinfectant and a soapy mop. When she saw Alexander, she gave a delighted little scream and said, ‘A new hairdo. It really, really suits you, Alexander.’

  He said quietly, ‘It’s my late summer cut.

  Ruby watched him walk down the road.

  He had lost his easy movements. From the back he looked like a
stooped, middle-aged man.

  She wanted to call him back, she would make him a cup of that bitter coffee he liked. But when it came to it, she tried and tried but she couldn’t remember his name.

  At daybreak, Eva watched the sky change from sludgy grey to opalescent blue. The birdsong was heartbreakingly optimistic and cheerful.

  ‘I should follow their example,’ she thought.

  But she was still angry at Alexander. He couldn’t be needy. She was the one who needed support, food and water. Sometimes she had to drink out of the tap in the en suite. Her care rota had almost broken down since Ruby’s memory lapses had intensified.

  But how could she complain? All she had to do was get out of bed.

  62

  Eva was lying flat on the bed, staring up at a crack that meandered across the ceiling like a black river running through a white wilderness.

  Eva knew every millimetre of the crack — the backwaters, the moorings. She was at the helm of a boat as it journeyed, seeking peace and pleasure for those on board. Eva could see Brian Junior, motionless, staring into the deep water. Next she saw Brianne, trying to light a cigarette against the wind. Alexander was standing at the wheel with his arm around the shoulder of the helmswoman, and Venus was there, attempting to draw what was undrawable — the speed of the boat, the sound it makes as it pushes through the water. And look at Thomas, trying to wrest the wheel from Eva’s hands.

  She didn’t know where they were going. The crack disappeared under the plaster cornice. Eva had to turn the boat and journey against the wind and the flow of the river. Sometimes it was moored against the bank, and the passengers disembarked and trekked in the wilderness, on soft white sand.

  But there was nothing for them there.

  When they walked back to the boat, Eva gave the wheel to Brianne, saying, ‘Care about something, Brianne. Take us home and keep us safe.’

  The clouds rolled across the ceiling, the wind blew in their faces. Brianne held firm and took them home.

  63

  At eight o’ clock precisely, Eva was shocked awake by an atrocious noise from outside. She sat up and knelt at the window. Her heart was beating so rapidly she found it a struggle to breathe.

  There was a man standing on a branch of the sycamore wearing a safety harness and a hard hat and goggles. He was cutting at an adjacent branch with an electric saw. She watched in horror as the branch broke and was lowered to the ground by a rope. Other workmen were waiting to free the branch from the rope, to remove smaller branches and twigs and feed them into a racketing shredder.

  Eva banged on the window and screamed, ‘Stop! That’s my tree!’

  But such was the din outside that her voice could not be heard. She opened the sash window and was immediately hit in the face by a spray of splintered bark. She closed the window quickly. Her face was stinging, and when she touched her cheek she had blood on her fingers. She continued to shout and gesticulate at the workman in the tree. She caught his eye once, but he turned his back on her.

  She was horrified at how quickly the tree was disassembled. Soon there was only the trunk left. She had a small hope that her tree had only been drastically pollarded and would sprout new growth in the spring of next year.

  The noise stopped. The machines had been turned off. She could see into the front garden now that the branches had gone. The workmen were drinking tea.

  She knocked on the window and shouted, ‘Leave the trunk, please leave the trunk!’

  The men looked up at her window and laughed. What did they think she was doing? Inviting them upstairs?

  The machines started up again and in a short while her tree trunk had been turned into logs. The light in the room was harsh after the dappled green glow she had been used to.

  She felt cold, though she was covered in sweat. She climbed under the duvet and pulled it over her head.

  In the early afternoon, Eva heard a ragged cheer from the crowd and Peter’s ladder appeared level with the lower window frame. She straightened her camisole, put on the shrunken cashmere cardigan she was using as a bed jacket and automatically ran her fingers through her hair.

  Peter shouted through the glass, ‘Still here then?’

  ‘Yes!’ she shouted back, with forced good humour. ‘Still here.’

  Eva wondered how anybody could be so heartless. Didn’t he care that her magnificent tree was gone?

  ‘Magnificent?’ he laughed, when she said this to him. ‘It was a sycamore, they’re the weeds of the tree world.’ He added, ‘I don’t want to be cheeky, Eva, but what’s happened to your face?’

  Eva was not listening. ‘It was Brian,’ she said. ‘He hated that tree. He said the roots were coming up through the pavement.’

  ‘They were,’ Peter confirmed. He wanted to move the topic on from that bloody tree. ‘Only a hundred and twelve shopping days till Christmas,’ he said, climbing into the room.

  Eva could hear Sandy Lake screaming, ‘Eva, I’m getting cross with you now! Why won’t you see me?’

  Peter laughed. We’re getting Abigail a motorised wheelchair. Well, us and Social Services.’

  Eva asked, ‘Peter, would you do me a favour? Would you help me to board the window up from the inside?’

  In his opinion, she had gone downhill fast — in the old days, they would have had a cup of tea and smoked a fag together. ‘Sure,’ he said.

  Peter had learned, in his twenty years of window cleaning, that the customers on his round were a bit eccentric, not one of them was normal. The clothes people wore in bed! The unexpected squalor of their houses! The weird stuff they ate! Mr Crossley — who had so many books he could hardly walk between the rooms for them!

  Barricading a window from the inside was no big deal to Peter. He had suitable materials in the back of his van. He was often asked to board up a window after a domestic or a football had shattered the peace. He went back down the ladder to an ironic cheer from the crowd.

  When Peter went to his van, Sandy Lake hovered around the tailgate and interrogated him about Eva.

  ‘Can she hear me in her bedroom?’

  Peter said, ‘She can hear you all right.’

  Sandy thumped the side of his van and yelled, ‘I have this very important message! It’s appertaining to the future of our earth!’

  He turned his back to assemble the chipboard and tools he would need. Sandy Lake saw her opportunity. She dashed across the road and climbed up the ladder like a fifteen-stone mountain goat.

  When Eva saw Sandy’s weather-beaten face in the window, she pulled a pillow towards her as though it were a shield.

  Sandy stared at Eva and said, Well, now I’m really cross! What happened to you? You’re just an ordinary woman! You’re not special at all! You shouldn’t have any grey in your hair or crow’s feet around your eyes — and they’re not laughter lines!’

  She tried to clamber over the sill, but the ladder moved slightly. Sandy looked down, and further down, and then further down still. Some say that Sandy swooned and fell, others that she caught the hem of her maxi skirt under the heel of her ankle boot. Peter thought he had seen a pale hand push the ladder away from the sill.

  Eva imagined she felt the house move slightly when Sandy fell into the overgrown lavender bush that Eva had planted years before. There were screams of horror and of excitement. Sandy had landed in an ungainly position, and the anarchist hurried to pull the maxi skirt down from around her waist, where it had bunched. William sort of loved Sandy, but he had to, obviously, kind of, be honest and tell it like it is and admit that the sight of Sandy’s naked lower regions was totally inappropriate.

  Sandy wasn’t dead. As soon as she recovered consciousness, she rolled away from the spiky lavender and lay flat on her back. The anarchist took off his leather flying jacket and put it under her head.

  When the ambulance arrived, the female paramedic chided her for climbing a ladder in a maxi skirt and high heels. ‘That’s an accident whimpering to happen,’ she said, in di
sgust.

  Eva and Peter started to board up the window, to the sound of the crowd’s cheers and shrieks of excitement and dismay. Now they could see Eva in her nondescript clothes, with her unbrushed hair and bare face, they could not hold on to their previous belief in her.

  PC Hawk shouted, ‘If she was a true saint, she’d be perfect in every way!’

  A man with binoculars shouted, ‘She’s got sweat patches under her arms!’

  A woman wearing a man’s suit and a dog collar said, ‘Female saints do not sweat, I think that Mrs Beaver has been posturing.’

  PC Hawk had been ordered to get rid of the crowd. He shouted, ‘She’s been taken over by an evil spirit, and the spirit is in the holy chapatti!’

  Some followed him to view the chapatti, which had been painted with preservative, varnished and was being exhibited in the local library. Others started to pack their belongings. There were emotional leave-takings, taxis came and went, until there was only William Wainwright sitting inside Sandy Lake’s tent. He might try to visit her in hospital tomorrow — but then again, he might not.

  He was an anarchist, wasn’t he? And nobody could pin him down.

  64

  The twins were working on Brianne’s newly acquired desktop computer. They were exploring the labyrinthine corridors of the Ministry of Defence, after a failed attempt to destroy their father’s credit rating. It was hot in Brianne’s room and they were sitting in their vests and pants. Flies buzzed over half-eaten sandwiches.