The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year (11 page)

‘I don’t think I impregnated her, either,’ said
Brian Junior. ‘She got into my bed. She was upset about something.’

They were both aware of the hysterical crying coming
from Brianne’s room. Concerned voices could be heard in the corridor.

Their father’s mobile rang eight times before the
voicemail message clicked on: ‘Dr Beaver is not available to take your call.
Please leave a message after the beep. Alternatively, email me on doctorbrian
dot beaver at leic dot ac dot uk. If I think that your communication is sufficiently
important, I will be in touch.’

When Brianne went back to her own room, she found a
small crowd of students. He was sitting on the bed, cradling Poppy in his arms.

Ho said, ‘Brianne, I think you are not a good
person! You are saying to Poppy she is slut and whore! And this day her mother
and father crash their small plane and are taken to intensive care?’

The little crowd exclaimed sympathetically, then
looked disapprovingly at Brianne.

Brianne said, ‘She hasn’t got parents. She’s an
orphan.’ Poppy sobbed louder. ‘How can you say that? They’ve been better to me
than any birth parents could ever have been. They
chose
me.’

Ho said, ‘Please go from this room, now!’ Brianne
said weakly, ‘This is
my
room, and she’s wearing my bracelet and my
mascara.’

A Korean student with a severe fringe and an American
accent rounded on Brianne, saying, ‘Poppy has had so much tragedy in her life,
and her adoptive parents are fighting for their lives and you insult her …’

Poppy struggled to be free of Ho’s arms and said, in
a little girl’s voice, ‘I forgive you, Brianne. I know you lack emotional
intelligence. I can help you with that, if you’ll let me.

16

Brian
was angrily showing a group of disabled children around the Space Centre. He
was sure that some of them were deliberately crashing their wheelchairs into
the back of his legs. Each child had a teacher with them. Before the tour, he
had addressed the children and their helpers.

‘I am Dr Brian Beaver and I work here as an astronomer
and mathematician. I compile all the statistics to do with space, such as the
distance of one star from another, and I protect you against fiery death from
the impact of Near-Earth Objects. Now, I’m not going to patronise you. I expect
there are several of you who are quite intelligent and are able to process
information. The others who can’t will just have to try and keep up as best you
can. It would be a great help to me if you could desist from waving your arms
about. And
please
try to keep your heads still. And those issuing the
strange noises, could you please stop — it’s extremely distracting.’

The teachers looked from one to the other. Should
they say something to this man, who seemed not to understand that a new
vocabulary was in use today?

Ms Payne, a teacher whose outfit included the grey
version of the ubiquitous Ugg boots and a Palestinian scarf, could not remain
silent. She said, ‘The children’s movements and noises are involuntary. Most of
them have cerebral palsy. I’m afraid that your language is completely
unacceptable!’

Brian said, defensively, ‘At the beginning, I said I
wouldn’t patronise these unfortunate children, and I won’t. But it does them no
good, madam, if you swaddle them with acceptable words. Now, shall we get on? I
have extremely important work to do after you’ve gone. ‘Ms Payne said, ‘You
should rewrite the brochure, Dr Beaver. It says school parties are
welcome.’

One of the lifts was out of order. It took over half
an hour before everybody was on the next floor.

When
Brian came home from work, he found two black children — a boy and a girl —
wearing primary school uniform, sitting at the kitchen table eating toast and
doing homework.

Brian’s first instinct was to turn round and run to
the front door — he was obviously in the wrong house. Then he saw his
country-walk coat and one of Eva’s jackets hanging on the coat hooks in the
hall. But who were these children? Was the boy a burglar and the girl his
accomplice?

Then he saw Alexander coming down the stairs. ‘Thomas,
Venus, say hello.’

The children turned round and said in unison, ‘Hello.’
Brian thundered upstairs and into Eva’s bedroom. It looked bigger and seemed to
have more light. The dressing table, chair and chest of drawers were gone, as
were the curtains.

Brian said, ‘That furniture was a family heirloom. I
wanted to hand some of it down to the twins.’

‘Alexander took it away for me. He’s going to paint
the walls, floor and ceiling white.’

Brian opened his mouth like a goldfish. Then closed
it. Downstairs, Ruby let herself into the house and screamed when she saw Alexander
buttering toast.

‘Don’t hurt me,’ she pleaded. ‘I’m a pensioner with
angina and bad legs.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Alexander. Would you
like a cup of tea?’

Well, yes.’

Ruby was staring at the children. Alexander introduced
them and she sat down heavily at the table.

‘I’m Mrs Brown-Bird. I’m Eva’s mother. Are you a “friend”
of Eva’s?’ she asked.

A new friend,’ he said. ‘I’m her man with a van.’

‘Oh,
you’re
him,’ said Ruby. ‘She told me
about you. She didn’t say you were a coloured chap.’

Alexander cut two slices of toast diagonally and
arranged the triangles on a geometrically patterned plate. He found a white
napkin and a small tray. He poured the tea into a china cup with a matching
saucer.

Ruby said, ‘It’s a bit of a kerfuffle for a cup of
tea and a bit of toast, in’t it?’

‘You gotta look after the small things in life, Mrs
Brown-Bird. There’s nothing we can do about the big stuff.’

‘That’s very true,’ Ruby said. We’re all in the
hands of fate. Look at Eva. I see her one week and she’s as happy as a sandboy.
Look at her now! Lolling about in bed like the Queen of Sheba … and she says
she doesn’t know when she’s getting up! I didn’t bring her up to be a lazy cow
My girl had to be up and dressed by half past seven on a school day and eight
sharp at the weekend.’

Alexander said, ‘It would be a boring world if we
were all the same.’

Ruby said, ‘It would suit me fine if we were all the
same.’ She sucked her teeth in, not realising that Alexander’s mother used
exactly the same non-verbal gesture to show her disapproval.

When
Alexander took the tray up to Eva, he walked into a strained silence. It was as
if Brian and Eva were fencing with invisible swords.

Brian was perched on the window sill, pretending to
look out of the window There was nothing much to see apart from a few
straggling school kids and the occasional car obeying the 30 mph sign. There
were trees, but Brian had never been much of a fan of trees. He had signed a
petition to have the trees cut down, which would have made more parking available.
He’d said to Eva, ‘Those trees are two hundred years old. They’ve had a good
run for their money.’

Now rain and low cloud were forecast, which meant
that Brian wouldn’t be stargazing tonight. This was not an unusual occurrence
in England — Brian had often bemoaned the fact that Eva would not agree to move
to an Australian desert where the skies were huge and clear, and there was no
incessant English cloud.

Alexander asked Brian if he could get him anything. ‘Tea?
Coffee?’

‘No!’ Brian snapped. ‘All I want, chap, is to see
you and your offspring leave my premises.’

Eva said to Alexander, ‘I’m so sorry, but he has had
an awful lot to take on in the past couple of weeks.’

Alexander said, ‘I’m working for Eva,’ and got back
to work, prising staples out of the carpet.

All that could be heard was Eva crunching on toast.
Brian wanted to knock the toast out of Eva’s mouth. She picked up her cup and
unintentionally made an inelegant slurping noise. Brian could not control
himself any longer. He walked up and down the bedroom floor, swerving past
Alexander, who was still on his hands and knees.

‘What is this bloody obsession with beverages? Do
you know how many units of heat energy are squandered on making a single cup
of tea? Well, you wouldn’t understand, but I’ll tell you, it’s a lot! Multiply
that by sixty-four million, which is the population of Great Britain, and it’s
even more! And don’t even talk to me about the time wasted waiting for kettles
to boil, the drink to cool down and the sipping time. Meanwhile, in the
workplace, machines are turned off, there’s nobody to fill the supermarket
shelves, lorries are parked up on their bays. And what about our trade union
brothers? Their tea breaks are enshrined in law! Who knows how many objects we’ve
missed at the Space Centre because some bloody telescope operative has turned
his back on the screen just as an important piece of space junk goes by! And
all because somebody wanted to drink an infusion of leaves or beans during
working hours! It’s a national disgrace!’

Alexander said to Brian, ‘So, I take it you
don’t
want a hot drink?’

Eva said, ‘There’s more to a cup of tea than hot
water and leaves. You’re such a reductionist, Brian. I remember the night you
said, “I don’t know why people get so hot and bothered about sex. It’s only the
insertion of a penis into a nearby vagina.”‘

Alexander was gathering his tools together and
laughed. ‘Nice to know romance ain’t dead. Shall I still come tomorrow, Eva?’

‘Please.’

Eva
waited until she could hear Alexander’s laughter in the kitchen, then said, ‘Brian,
do you still love me?’

‘Yes, of course I do.’

‘Would you do anything for me?’

Well, I wouldn’t wrestle a crocodile.’

‘No, but I’ve been wondering if you would sleep in
your shed for a while.’

‘How long is “a while”?’ asked Brian aggressively.

‘I don’t know,’ said Eva. ‘It could be a week, a
month, a year?’

‘A year? I’m not sleeping in the bloody shed for a
year!’

‘I can’t think with you in the house.’

He said, ‘Look, can we stop fart-arsing around? What
have you got to think about?’

‘Everything. Do elephants sweat? Is the moon a construct
of songwriters? Were we ever happy together?’

Brian said, softly, ‘I’m the Mensa member. I can do
your thinking for you.’

‘Brian, I can hear you breathing through the wall.’

He said, coldly, ‘So, if you won’t get out of bed,
how will you feed yourself? Because I’m not feeding you. Are you hoping that a
fluffy mummy bird will keep you supplied with worms, if you cheep loudly
enough?’

She didn’t know who would feed her, so she said nothing.

He combed his beard and then left the room, banging
the door so loudly that the frame shook. When he reached the bottom of the
stairs, he could no longer hold on to his temper, and shouted, ‘You’re bloody
mad! You need medication! I’m ringing the surgery for an appointment! It’s
time they heard my point of view’

A few minutes later, the smell of frying bacon stole
up the stairs.

Eva’s mouth watered. Brian knew her weakness for
bacon, it was the reason she was a lapsed vegetarian. She had gone as far as
buying bacon by post from a prestigious pig farm in Scotland. There was a
little speech she gave whenever somebody found out that Eva paid for bacon by
direct debit. She would say, ‘I don’t drink or smoke [a lie] and I spend
nothing on myself [untrue], so I think I’m entitled to a few rashers of bacon.’

She lay in bed, watching the light fade, and noticed
one dying leaf still attached to a branch of the sycamore. She came to the
conclusion that she wouldn’t make the bacon speech again. It was banal and
boring — and it wasn’t true, anyway.

Downstairs in the kitchen Brian confronted Alexander.
Will you please stop feeding my wife? You’re encouraging her to stay in bed.
And I can tell you now, it’ll end in tears.’

Venus and Thomas looked up from their homework.
Ruby, who was at the sink, turned, alerted by the confrontational tone in
Brian’s voice.

Alexander held his arms open and said, quietly, ‘I
can’t leave her hungry and thirsty, can I?’

‘Yes! Yes, you can!’ shouted Brian. ‘Perhaps then
she would drag her lazy arse downstairs and into the kitchen!’

Alexander said, ‘Hush, keep your voice down, man, my
kids are here.’ He continued, ‘Eva’s on a sabbatical. She needs to think.’

Well, she’s not thinking about me, is she? I don’t
know what’s happened to her. I think she’s going mad.’

Alexander shrugged and said, ‘I’m no psychiatrist. I
drive a van, and I’m taking your wife’s carpet up tomorrow.’

‘You’re bloody well not! If you try to come back to
this house, I’ll call the police!’ said Brian.

Ruby said, ‘Steady on, Brian. We’ve never had a
policeman cross this threshold, and we’re not starting now’ She said to the
children, ‘If I were you, duckies, I’d put your coats on. I think your daddy’s
ready to go.’