The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year (30 page)

‘You told her about Brian and Titania. You said they
were living in a garden extension.’

Well, I could hardly call it a shed, could I?’

‘And I wish you hadn’t told her about the White Pathway.’

Ruby said, ‘But everybody
knows
about the
White Pathway.’

‘Everybody?’

‘Well, everybody
I
know. And I’ll tell you
the truth, Eva. Everybody thinks it’s barmy. And I’ll tell you another thing,
Nurse Spears thinks it’s barmy, an’ all.’

‘And you, Mum? What do you think? Do you think it’s
barmy?’

Ruby shook her head sadly and said, ‘I feel like I’ve
never known you, and now I never will. None of us know you, any more. We all
want the old Eva back.’

‘I didn’t like the old Eva. She was a miserable
coward.’

‘All you need is a change of scenery. You’ve had a lovely
four months’ rest. Why don’t you get up, have a shower, wash your hair with
some of your lovely vegetable stuff —’

‘Herb,’
said Eva.

‘— put some warm clothes on and we could go to the
shops. And there’s snowdrops in the park. I could borrow Stanley’s wheelchair.
You weigh nowt, I could easily push you. I want to look after you, Eva.’

‘You don’t understand, do you, Mum? Think of me as a
giant grub. I’m here, in this room, pupating.’

Ruby began to feel uneasy. ‘You’re talking daft,
stop it!’

Eva said, ‘But one day, I’ll shed my skin. I’m
looking forward to that. I wonder what I’ll be?’

‘On your own, if you carry on talking like that.’

Ruby
went downstairs and found Titania unloading the washing machine. Hers and Brian’s
clothes were tangled together. One of his shirts was enveloping one of her
nightgowns.

Ruby said, ‘So, you’re not at work?’

Titania, who thought that Ruby was one of the thickest
people she had ever met, said, ‘Obviously not, I’m here, in the kitchen, in
three dimensions. Four, including time.’

Ruby said, with a nod towards Eva’s bedroom, ‘She’s
getting worse, she’s just told me that she’s a giant grub.’

Titania’s eyes widened. ‘Are you sure she didn’t say
“I need some grub”, or “Bring me some grub”, or something similar?’

‘I know I’m getting on a bit, but I definitely heard
her say that she
was
a giant grub.’

‘As in insect?’

‘Yes.’

Titania muttered, ‘
Très
Kafkaesque.’

Ruby said, ‘Will you tell Brian, when he comes home
from work, that Eva now thinks she’s a giant grub?’

Titania said, ‘Oh yes, I’ll be delighted to pass on
that message.’

‘I’m going home now,’ said Ruby. ‘I’m feeling a bit
poorly.’ When she had put her hat and coat on, she said, ‘Titania, what would
happen to Eva if I passed away?’

Titania said, ‘We’d cope.’

Ruby checked, ‘You’d feed her?’

‘Obviously.’

‘Do her washing, change her sheets?’

‘Of course.

‘Keep her clean?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you wouldn’t love her, you and Brian, would
you?’

‘There are plenty of people who love her.’

Ruby’s voice cracked. ‘But she needs her main, and
if I went to the arms of Jesus, she wouldn’t be looked after
properly,
would
she?’

Titania said, ‘I sense Alexander loves her.’

Ruby picked up her empty shopping bag and said, ‘That’s
sex, I’m talking about love.’

Titania watched her walking down the hall, and
thought that she had visibly aged in the last week. She looked unsteady on her
feet, and her shoulders were stooped. She might suggest that Ruby swap her mid-heeled
court shoes for a pair of Merrell body-shaping trainers.

When
Brian opened the front door, he could smell curry, his favourite food. Titania
was at the stove, cooking chapattis over a gas flame. Every surface that could
be burnished, shone. There was a faint smell of bleach. All the surfaces had
been washed down. There was a small pot of snowdrops on the table, which had
been set for two, and a bottle of Burgundy was breathing. Glasses had been
polished, and reflected the lights.

He lifted the lid off a saucepan and asked, ‘What is
it — chicken?’

‘No, goat,’ said Titania. ‘And before I forget, your
wife now thinks she’s a giant grub. A “monstrous vermin”.’

Brian had a delicate stomach. He replaced the lid.
His appetite waned a little. ‘A giant grub?’ he said. ‘Couldn’t you have waited
until after dinner?’

45

The
next morning, Barry Wooton turned up on the doorstep with a woman he described
to Yvonne as ‘a new friend’.

Yvonne, who was on the morning shift, led them
upstairs to Eva’s bedroom, talking as she went. Like a parlour maid in a
costume drama, she announced, ‘Mr Barry Wooton and Miss Angelica Hedge.’

Eva sat up in bed and said to Barry, You’re still
here then?’

Barry laughed and said, ‘Yeah, thanks for that.’

Eva looked at Ms Hedge, waiting to be properly introduced.

Barry said, ‘She likes to be called Angel. She was
waiting in line for a cab at the station. She said, ‘You look cheerful for a
February morning,” and I said, “Well, it’s all down to the amazing Eva Beaver.”
She wanted to meet you.

Angelica was a small, slight girl, with a no-style
haircut. Heavy make-up could not conceal her owl-like features. She held out
an unmanicured hand to Eva. Her voice was light and devoid of accent. She said,
‘It’s an honour to meet you, Mrs Beaver. I think it’s wonderful that you saved
Barry’s life.’

Barry said, ‘She’s a saint.’

Angelica continued, ‘But beware, I think it was Confucius,
or it might have been Plato, who said, “If you save a man’s life, he is yours
for ever.”‘

Barry said, ‘Well, I wun’t mind that, but I don’t
know about Eva.’

Eva gave a weak smile, and allowed her hand to be
shaken for slightly too long. She made general demurring sounds.

Angelica asked, ‘Was it your mother-in-law who
showed us in?’

‘Yvonne,’ said Eva.

‘And how old is Yvonne?’ asked Angelica.

Eva said, ‘How old? I don’t know Seventy-five,
seventy-six?’

‘And does she live here?’

‘No, she calls in three or four times a week.’

‘And your children?’

‘They’re seventeen,’ said Eva. Then she asked
herself, ‘Why does she want to know how old everybody is? Perhaps the girl is
autistic.’

‘And you, how old are you?’

Eva thought, ‘Yes, she’s autistic.’ She asked
Angelica, ‘How old do you think I am?’

‘I can never tell with older people. You could be a
young-looking sixty or an old-looking forty. Who knows now we’ve got Botox?’

Eva said, Well, I’m a fifty-looking fifty.’

‘And how long have you lived here?’

‘Twenty-six years,’ said Eva. She thought, ‘This is
going to be tiresome.’

Angelica said, ‘Barry tells me that you are
bedridden. That’s tragic.’

‘No, I’m not bedridden and it’s not tragic.’

‘You’re so
brave.
Is your husband’s name
Brian?’

‘Yes.’

‘And how old is he?’

‘He’s fifty-five.’

Yvonne came into the room and asked, ‘Would your
guests like some refreshments, Eva? We have tea, we have coffee, we have hot
chocolate and, of course, we have various cold drinks. And I think I could
rustle up a few light snacks.’

Eva could almost have leapt out of her bed, strangled
Yvonne and thrown her down the stairs, such was her rage. She thought, ‘Yvonne
has never really liked me, and now here’s the proof.’

Barry and the girl turned to Yvonne gratefully and
said, ‘Hot chocolate,’ in unison. This made them laugh, and Barry invited
Angelica to sit in the soup chair. He perched on the arm and they both stared
at Eva. Eva threw herself back on the pillows. Yvonne took her time on the
stairs, unaware that Eva was counting every second before her unwanted quests
were on the street side of the front door.

An agonising thirty-five minutes followed, during
which Yvonne handed scalding-hot mugs of milky drinking chocolate to Barry and
Angelica, who promptly dropped them when their knuckles came into contact with
the fearsome heat.

The boiling brown liquid splashed over Barry’s legs
and ran along the white floorboards. His nylon socks retained the heat and he
screamed in pain. There was a lot of kerfuffle as Yvonne tried to stem the
flow with a meagre handful of toilet tissue she’d taken from the lavatory.

Eva was shouting, ‘Cold water! Put your feet in cold
water!’

But nobody was listening.

Above Barry’s cries of pain, and Angelica’s little
squeals, Yvonne raged at Eva, shouting, ‘Don’t blame me, there’s nowhere in
this room to put anything down! Why did you have to get rid of your furniture?’

Eva tried to lower the metaphorical heat, saying
with a smile, ‘A tip, Yvonne, when handing out mugs of boiling liquid try
supplying asbestos gloves beforehand.’

Yvonne shouted, ‘A
tip,
Eva? Here’s one for
you! People lolling in their beds, admiring their navels, should not try to
ridicule people who are walking about actually
doing
things! I should be
at home. This is not even my day for looking after you,
Ruby
should be
here! But, guess what? She’s having one of her convenient “heads”. And I’m
expecting a parcel from Amazon! It’s Alan Titchmarsh’s
When I Was a Nipper,
and
they’ve been kind enough to track down a signed first edition for me. It will
make a complete set. I’ve left a note on the front door, asking the courier to
put it in the coal bunker — but that’s supposing he can read English!’

Angelica said, ‘What is a coal bunker?’

Yvonne snapped, ‘It’s a bunker for putting coal in.’

Eva said, ‘Don’t you want to know the age of the
coal bunker?’

‘Well, how old
is
it?’

‘It will be sixty next birthday.’

There followed a great palaver as the floor was
mopped, clothes were removed and scalded skin was cooled with unguents that
Yvonne brought out of her large handbag. While Yvonne found a dressing gown big
enough for Barry, and was washing his socks and trousers, Angelica engaged him
in conversation.

She started with, ‘How old are you, Barry?’

‘I’m thirty-six,’ said Barry. ‘Don’t tell me I look
older, I know I do. It’s the nights. I can’t sleep in the day. I’ve got Massive
Attack on one side of me and summat classical on the other. I’ve asked them to
turn it down but they’re both bastards. I’ve got high heels above me and a
bloody barking dog below. Never move to a modern flat. It’s no wonder I was desperate.
If I hadn’t knocked on Eva’s door, I would’ve had my head in a Tesco’s carrier
bag, i’n’t that right, Eva?’

Eva said, faintly, ‘Possibly.’

‘I’m telling you, this woman is a saint. Who else do
you know who’d open their door to a desperate man like I were?’

Eva muttered, ‘The Samaritans?’

Barry carried on. ‘It’s just knowing that there’s
somebody in this world who’ll give up their sleep to talk to a stranger in the
night.’

Eva said quietly to Angelica, ‘I had no choice. He
forced his way in.’

Angelica said, ‘Exactly what time was this?

Barry said, ‘It was three twenty-seven a.m.’

‘And how did you feel when this stranger forced his
way into your bedroom? Alarmed, shocked, terrified?’

Eva said, ‘Well, I was certainly surprised.’

Barry said, ‘She should get a medal or something.’

‘So, would you say that you were a compassionate
woman?’

Eva thought for a moment. ‘Not particularly.’

Every nerve in her body was taut with irritation.
She felt her temper stirring, like a bear waking from hibernation. She tried
to disassociate herself from the present and attempted to think of other
things. She began to walk on the beach of a Greek island. The sparkling Aegean
Sea was to her left, and her rented villa was a few steps to her right. But
after a few moments, she lost the struggle and was back in the bedroom with her
tormentors.

Barry was droning on. ‘I’ve made some friends on the
computer. They’re people like me what want to kill themselves. They’re a lovely
bunch, we had a right laugh.’

Angelica said, ‘I’ve often felt that life is not
worth living. Have you got the web address?’

Barry rummaged in his jacket pocket, and brought out
a little red diary. He spelled out the address laboriously. ‘It’s topurselfuk
dot org.’ Then he turned to Eva and asked, ‘Is Brian Junior in? I’d like to
thank him for his help, an’ all. Would you mind if I gave my new friends your
address?’