Flying Under Bridges (36 page)

Tom sat
up and wiped his nose on his sleeve. A boy never fully grown. ‘I don’t really
care,’ he said. ‘The real sodomites in our time are those whose greed and quest
for power have brought war and poverty to millions of innocent people. They are
destroying the planet and there is nothing I can do about it. Mum?’

‘Yes?’
said Eve, who could not help him.

‘Would
you wash my hair for me?’

It was
a simple task but so lovingly done. She washed and trimmed his hair and then
put him to bed. Her boy, her beloved son.

Chapter
Twenty-three

Inge couldn’t cope any
more. Kate was dying and there was nothing she could do. She sat night and day
by her partner’s bed until Kate finally thought of some trinket or other she
wanted from the house. She sent Inge to get it. She sent Inge to get some air.

A
silver Volkswagen Golf was sitting outside the house when Inge got home. A
tall, blond woman and a photographer got out. Before Inge was halfway out of
her car the photographer was snapping at her. Her instinct was to hide but
perhaps for once in her life she had had enough.

‘I know
you’ve been sitting here. I know. I’ve seen you,’ she said to the woman who
stood notepad at the ready. ‘Why don’t you get a proper job? Write something
useful?’

The
woman reporter wasn’t listening. She eyed Inge and held up the article about
her not being married.

‘I just
wanted to follow this up. I just wanted to check a few things.’

‘Well,
don’t,’ spat Inge. ‘I’m gay, okay? I didn’t marry because I don’t want to. I am
a lesbian. Okay? Are you happy now?’

The
woman shrugged. ‘Sure. That wasn’t what we came about.’

‘It
wasn’t?’

‘No. Paul
Roe’s statement.’ Inge looked blank. ‘The BBC have issued a statement saying
they’re updating their image and no one who has presented for them in the past
will have their contract renewed. We just wanted your comments.’

‘So why
have you been watching me?’

‘We
thought Mark Hinks might be here. The footballer. Everyone said you were
secretly going out.’ The reporter suddenly felt with a rush that Christmas and
Easter had arrived on the same day. ‘Is he gay too?’

Barry
confirmed the news.
Don’t Even Go There!,
the new panel game where
people taught their pets to perform impersonations, was about to be announced.
As part of their
New Talent
search the BBC was releasing a thousand
silver balloons from their premises across the country. The first person to
catch one and phone in would be taking the chair. Jenny Wilson, Creative
Controller of the BBC Talent Team, was waiting for the call. Inge’s contract
would not be renewed.

It was
Eve’s second trip to Edenford General in a year. She never went to the
hospital. She didn’t even go when the babies were born. Both her children had
been born at home. Kate was on Rachel Ward but in a private room. Eve brought
some flowers. They had been for the church but now there didn’t seem any
point. The little room was lovely. It had the standard hospital view over a graveyard
but otherwise it was very calming. Inge sat in a small winged chair with a
plastic covering in case of accidents. She looked dazed and did not speak.

‘You
flash thing, Kate,’ Eve said, as she popped the flowers in an inappropriate
vase. ‘Going private, eh?’

Perhaps
Inge was just exhausted. She had slept at the hospital every night since Kate
had been admitted. ‘Hardly,’ she said.

‘It’s
the rumours,’ explained Kate.

‘Rumours?’

‘Yes,
apparently it’s sweeping the town… Inge, could you provide a drum roll
please?’ Inge smiled a little and banged on the end of the bed with her hands
as Kate announced, ‘I have Aids.’

Eve
felt panicked for a second but was too polite to leave. ‘I thought you had..,
cancer,’ she faltered.

‘Relax,
Eve, I do, but that doesn’t stop a good rumour. It’s been doing the rounds ever
since that article came out with Inge’s rather bold statement. I killed Patrick
and now God is killing me with Aids.’ Kate smiled at her partner who sighed.

‘It’s
God’s punishment on gay people. It’s what we all get, all gay people, except,
irritatingly, lesbians.’ Inge poured Kate some juice as she spoke. ‘So either
God is a lesbian or he just doesn’t care.’ She gently lifted her lover’s head
and helped her to drink.

There
was that word again. Lesbian. Eve didn’t like it but she did like Kate. She
didn’t know why. She just did. She watched them together. It was kind. It was
love, and that was all that mattered.

Kate
lay back on her pillow as Inge wiped her mouth. ‘I’m glad you came, Eve,’ she
said. ‘I need to ask you something. I need you to be Inge’s friend. There won’t
be anyone else.’

Inge
tried to shush her but they both already knew that Kate on a roll was
unstoppable.

‘I want
you to help her organise the funeral.’

‘What
about your family?’ Eve asked.

‘They
won’t come. I want something simple and my mother is very ‘High Church’ — you
know, Catholic without the pope, that kind of thing. She’s a warden in her
parish and there’s a constant whiff of candles and incense about her. She
wouldn’t approve. Anyway, she doesn’t see me. Not since she found out about
Inge.’

‘That’s
sad,’ Eve said.

Inge
laughed. ‘Sad but not surprising. This is a woman who refused to visit for two
months after Kate decided not to have velveteen curtains in the lounge.’

Kate
nodded. ‘Despite all the guarantees of them wearing well.’

It was
another world to Eve. People abandoning their children like this. ‘What did she
say to you? About Inge?’ she asked.

‘She
said I must choose between her and “that dyke”. You wonder how a woman from
Surbiton knows a word like that.’ Kate looked at Eve. Inge was holding Kate’s
hand and stroking her face when the nurse came in. Eve thought something had
happened because in an instant Inge let go and moved away from the bed to look
out of the window.

Eve
didn’t understand. ‘Why did you tell your mother? I mean, she didn’t need to
know. I didn’t know.’

Kate
smiled. ‘It mattered to me that my parents knew how much I love Inge. That they
approved, that they understood.’

Inge
sat down and shut her eyes. ‘There was no excuse for them taking it so harshly.
They didn’t even know me,’ she murmured.

Kate
smiled at Eve. ‘I do think perhaps it was a mistake to tell them on the day of
the Royal Wedding.’

‘Which
one?’ Eve asked, as if it mattered. She had watched them all with her own
mother.

‘Fergie
and what’s-his-name. You should have seen the palaver. Mother had decorated the
whole front room with bunting made of red, white and blue napkins from Tesco’s,
hung over strings from the tomato plants in the garden. I hadn’t really wanted
to go but Inge was away working and… anyway, we were watching telly — me, Mum
and Dad in total silence. Mum’s very royal. It was a great event. The presenter
was droning on…’

‘And
there she is. The golden carriage at last coming into view of the cathedral,
bearing the fairy-tale bride to meet her prince. She goes in plain Sarah
Ferguson and will emerge in the sunlight a duchess.’

‘Isn’t
it wonderful?’ Mrs Andrews said, brushing crumbs of sausage roll from her
husband’s front. ‘True love.’

Kate
coughed. ‘Mum. I wanted to have a word about me and Inge. You know, Inge, my
flatmate. The thing is…’

Kate
thought at first that her mother hadn’t heard. The organ music swelled so loud
as she explained how she felt about Inge, how happy she was and how wonderful
it was, that she felt sure only the progress of the virgin bride had taken her
mother’s attention. Nothing was said until well after the final wave on the
balcony. The fairy-tale couple went off to live happily ever after.

Mr
Andrews had risen to turn off the television. Kate’s mother had slowly put the
hand-knitted cosy on the teapot and risen to her feet.

‘Come
along, Harold,’ she had announced, ‘Mrs Bentley has invited us for sherry to
toast the royal couple. Say goodbye to Kate. She won’t be coming again.’

Kate’s
father had stood still for a moment and then left the room. Kate thought he had
stroked her arm as he left but she couldn’t be sure.

‘Mum,
don’t do this,’ Kate had protested. ‘Talk to me.’ Her mother put on her
cardigan and picked up her bag.

‘You
may be very clever and book learned but even you cannot expect us to talk to
the dead.’ And with that Kate’s parents walked from her life.

Eve,
Inge and Kate sat in silence for a while after Kate finished telling her story.
Eve saw that both the women were exhausted and she needed to think. Why had
Kate told her that story? Why had she told her mother? Perhaps you never stop
thinking you can always turn to your mum. What could her children do that would
make her walk away from them? What could she do that would make them walk away
from her? At that moment Eve knew that she didn’t understand Shirley’s life but
that that would change. She would try harder.

Eve
looked up and saw Pastor Lawrence standing in the doorway with John. John raised
his hand and said quickly ‘Now, Eve, don’t get upset. Both Lawrence and I were
distressed about what happened and we’re here to put it right.’

Lawrence
moved towards the bed and looked down at Kate.

‘Hello,
Kate.’

‘Lawrence.
So you finally saw things my way, eh?’

‘No,
but I was in the area and I wanted to see you were still fighting.’

Kate
grinned at him. ‘Sure.’

‘I
understand you asked Reverend Davies to visit you,’ he said.

‘Yes,’
Kate said evenly. ‘I believe he was busy.’

‘Did
you want to see a priest?’

‘Yes,
yes I did.’

‘Will I
do?’

Kate
looked up at him. ‘Why, Lawrence, why?’

‘Because
he’s your God too.’

Eve,
John and Inge left Kate and Lawrence together for about half an hour. John and
Eve sat silent in the corridor while Inge fell into an instant deep sleep. At
last the door opened and Eve could hear quiet conversation.

‘Give
my love to my son and remember, try not to give St Paul too hard a time. Bless
you, Kate.’

‘Thank
you, Father.’

Lawrence
shut the door behind him and stood looking at us. Inge awoke to find him
weeping uncontrollably. No one said anything and he left.

‘Thank
you, John, thanks for that,’ Eve said. It had been a good thing. She could see
that. Good for both of them.

John
shook his head. ‘Oh no, that was Lawrence’s own idea. I didn’t do that but I
did phone the Andrews.’ Neither Inge nor Eve were quite sure they had heard
what he said. ‘Kate’s parents. You remember when I was there at your house that
night,’ he nodded at Inge, ‘Kate said she hadn’t seen her parents in some time?
Well, I was sitting in my office yesterday looking out the window towards the
pub. There were these two little girls waiting endlessly outside in the street
for their mum to come out. They had been there for hours when their mother
finally stumbled out, yet they hugged her with abandoned affection and I
thought about Kate. I mean she is her parents’ child. I thought, you know,
whatever the issues were in the past they deserved the chance to say goodbye. I
thought her parents should know. I thought they should know before she went. I
thought it was best.

Kate’s
mother came on her own the next day. Kate had deteriorated rapidly. Eve was
changing the water for the flowers when she arrived. She knew it was Mrs
Andrews, as she had Kate’s Caribbean complexion and she never stopped crossing
herself and muttering psalms all the way down the corridor. Inge didn’t want to
let her in but Kate was really too weak to protest. The cancer had grabbed her
and now the tubes and monitors that relayed her life held her in place ready
for the end. Inge wanted Kate to find peace so she didn’t argue.

‘She
said I was dead years ago,’ said Kate with a sigh, reaching for her lover’s
hand. ‘It can’t make any difference. Let her make her peace.

Inge
had left the small, private room and gone out in the corridor to prepare Mrs
Andrews for her child’s deterioration. It had been years since she had last
seen her. Inge had lived with the changes in her lover on a daily basis but the
photographs in their house showed a different Kate from the one Mr and Mrs
Andrews had turned away. The hospital corridor was dark with just a single
slant of light from the small window above the intensive care sign. Kate’s
mother sat on a plastic chair clutching her handbag.

All
Inge managed was ‘Mrs Andrews?’ and then the onslaught came from nowhere. Mrs
Andrews was a tall woman and she rose and launched herself at Inge.