Eva said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Can I lie down next to you?’
‘On top of the duvet.’
He took his wet boots off, and put them on top of the radiator. Then he lay down next to her.
There were no lights on, and the sun had gone down, but the luminous snow outside made it possible to see the outline of the room. They held hands and looked at the ceiling. They talked about their previous lovers, about his dead wife and her present husband. The room was warm, and the light was low, and soon they were asleep, side by side like marble effigies.
When Brianne returned from spending her John Lewis gift tokens on a bound watercolour artist’s notebook for Alexander, she pushed open Eva’s door and saw that her mother was asleep on top of the duvet.
There was a note on the pillow. She took it on to the landing to read. It was from Alexander. It said:
Dearest Eva,
I had one of the best days of my life today. The snow was magical, and lying next to you this afternoon was the happiest I’ve been for many years.
We do love each other, I know this for certain. But I will stay away.
Why is everything connected with love so painful?
Alex
Brianne took the note into her own room, ripped it into tiny pieces and hid the fragments inside an empty crisp packet she retrieved from the bin.
40
Brian and Titania were eating a late-night supper after a long session of stargazing. The conditions were perfect, and they had seen wonders and marvels in the cold cloudless sky. They never failed to be moved by the reality of what they saw through an actual telescope. The computer screens at work could not convey the true beauty of the universe.
As Brian chewed on a cold lamb cutlet he said, ‘You were rather wonderful tonight, Tit. You kept your mouth shut for most of the time, and you spotted that variable star, which I’m pretty sure hasn’t been logged yet.’
Titania forked a stuffed olive out of the jar. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d been as happy as this. She wanted Brian to go forward and do great things. His dedication to his work was total. Titania felt that, in the past, Eva had held him back by expecting him to take on his share of the child-rearing. Poor Brian had not been able to finish his book, Near-Earth Objects, because of Eva’s demands on his time. Did Mrs Churchill insist that her husband set the table before attending to the war?
She reached a hand out.
Brian said, ‘What?’
Titania whispered, ‘Hold my hand.’
Brian cautioned, ‘I should warn you, Tit, that I’m still half in love with my wife.’
Titania withdrew her hand. ‘Does that mean you’re half in love with me?’
Brian said, ‘For over twenty years, my synapses have been attuned to living with Eva Beaver. You’ll have to give them a chance to adapt to you, Tit.’
Titania thought, ‘I’ll make him love me. I’ll be the perfect lover, colleague and friend. I will actually iron his fucking shirts.’
Later, when they were in bed, talking about their childhoods and their first conscious sight of the stars, Brian said, ‘It was when I was seven, lying on my back in my grandmother’s garden in Derbyshire. It was dusk and the stars started to appear, almost one by one. Then the sky slowly turned from deep blue to black, until the stars seemed to be blazing. The next day at school, I asked Mrs Perkins what kept them up. Why didn’t they fall down? She told me they were all suns and that they were held up by something called gravity. I went into my first reverie. At going-home time she gave me a book, The Ladybird Book of The Night Sky. I’ve still got it. And I want to be buried with it — in Death Valley, Nevada.’
‘For the seeing?’ asked Titania. She was rewarded when Brian put his arm around her fleshy shoulder and held her right breast. She continued, ‘I used to take a Milky Way wrapper out into the garden and try to match the illustration with something in the night sky. I loved those chocolate bars, because they were advertised as being something one could eat between meals.’
Brian laughed. ‘On the rare occasions when the sky was clear in Leicester, I saw the Milky Way, and I was overwhelmed. I felt very small indeed.’ He went on, pedantically, ‘Although I wasn’t overwhelmed at first. That only came when I actually understood that the Milky Way is one of the spiral arms of our own galaxy.’
‘Galaxy!’ said Titania, who was emboldened by Brian’s chumminess. ‘Another delish space-nomenclature chocolate bar! But the Milky Way had the moral high ground. Our parents approved of it. The name “Milky Way” would be a good replacement for your wife’s White Pathway.’
Brian was not listening to what he called ‘Tit’s burble’. He was thinking about the Mars Bar. The war horse of chocolate bars.
Titania said, ‘Do you think she’s clinically mad, Bri? There’s the sheet to get to the loo, and she’s started talking to herself now. Because, if so, we should think about getting her diagnosed. And possibly hospitalised — for her own sake.’
Brian didn’t like Titania’s use of ‘we’. He said, irritably, ‘It’s hard to tell with Eva.’ He was loath to criticise his wife in front of his lover. He thought of Eva’s lovely face, then looked at Titania. There was no comparison in the looks department. He said, ‘She’s not talking to herself, she’s reciting all the poems she learned by heart at school.’
Brian switched the bedside light off and they settled down, ready for sleep.
Half an hour later, they were still awake.
Titania was mentally organising her marriage to Brian. She thought they would have a traditional wedding. She planned to wear ivory silk.
Brian was wondering if he could stand to live with Titania, a woman who got through a large bag of Maltesers every night. He didn’t begrudge her buying them for herself, but he hated the way she rolled several of them around in her mouth.
He could hear the tiny collisions with her teeth.
41
On the 6th of January, before their return to Leeds, the twins were sitting in the Percy Gee Building sipping Diet Coke.
‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ said Brianne. ‘You’ve never been in love.’
She and Brian Junior were waiting to take part in the out-of-term maths competition held at the University of Leicester. The Norman Lamont Cup attracted very few British entrants. The majority of the other competitors did not have English as their first language.
Brian Junior said, ‘I may not have experienced romantic love myself, but I’ve read books about it. And to be honest, I don’t think it’s up to much.’
‘It’s a physical pain,’ said Brianne.
‘But only if it’s unrequited, like yours for Alexander.’
Brianne banged her head on the plastic table. Why can’t he love me back?’
Brian Junior thought for a long time. Brianne waited patiently. They both respected the process of turning precise thought into clear expression.
Eventually, Brian Junior said, ‘One, he’s in love with Mum. Two, you’re not loveable, Brianne. And three, you’re not pretty either.’
Brianne said, ‘It really is annoying that you’re the one with Mum’s physical-beauty genes.
Brian Junior nodded. ‘And you’ve been given Dad’s intimidating masculinity. I’d quite like that.’
‘Why don’t you just, like, say I’m big and butch?’ said Brianne.
There was a loudspeaker announcement: ‘The participants of Level One are asked to make their way to the David Attenborough room.’
The twins remained seated. They watched as the majority of competitors shuffled towards the examination room, much as First Class passengers watch disdainfully as Economy Class passengers traipse towards the boarding desk with their cheap suitcases and grizzling children.
It was a moment the twins always savoured. They said, ‘Sick!’ and slapped a high five.
Their remaining opponents looked up nervously from their laptops. The Beaver twins were a formidable team.
Brianne asked her brother, ‘Do you think we’ll ever find some randoms to love us, Bri?’
‘Does it matter? We both know we’ll be together for life, like swans.
42
It was three o’clock in the morning. A time when frail people die. Eva was keeping watch on her territory. She saw the foxes casually crossing the road, as though they were shoppers in a village high street. Other small mammals that she couldn’t identify were out and about.
She watched as a black cab turned into the road opposite and then turned again to park outside her house. She watched the driver get out; he was a big man. He rang the doorbell.
Eva thought, ‘Who in this house has rung for a cab at this time of the morning?’
After a moment, the bell rang again.
She heard Poppy running along the hallway to open the door, shouting, ‘OK, OK, I’m coming!’
There was an altercation on the doorstep — Poppy’s high voice and a man’s deep rumble.
Poppy shouted, ‘No, you can’t come in, she’s asleep!’ The man insisted, ‘No, she isn’t. I’ve just seen her at the window I’ve gotta talk to her.’
Poppy said, ‘Come back tomorrow’
‘I can’t wait until tomorrow,’ the man said. ‘I need to see her now.’
Poppy screamed, ‘You can’t come in! Go away!’
‘Please,’ the man begged. We’re talking life and death here. So, if you wun’t mind, get out of my way.’
‘Don’t touch me, don’t touch me! Take your hands off me!’
Eva was rigid with fear and guilt. She must go downstairs and confront the man herself but, although she swung her legs out of the bed, she could not lower her feet on to the floor. Not even to save Poppy. She wondered if she could have run downstairs if the twins were exposed to a similar danger.
‘Sorry, sorry, but I’ve got to see her.’
Eva heard a heavy tread on the stairs. She swung her legs back into the bed and pulled the duvet around her neck, like a child might after a nightmare. She braced herself for the man’s entrance.
Suddenly he was there, in her room, blinking in the bright light. He had a night-shift worker’s exhausted face. He needed a shave and his hair was lank as he pushed a few locks out of his eyes and behind his ears. His clothes looked rumpled and neglected. He was breathing heavily.
Eva thought to herself, ‘I mustn’t antagonise him. I must try to keep calm. He’s obviously in a state.’ She looked to see if he was carrying anything that could be construed as a weapon. His hands were empty.
‘You’re Eva Beaver, aren’t you?’
Eva lowered the duvet a little and asked, ‘What do you want?’
‘The other drivers were talking about you. They don’t know who you are, but they see you sometimes in the window through the night. Some of them think you’re a prostitute. I never thought that. But then one of Bella’s brothers told me that you’d helped ‘em out.’
‘Bella Harper?’ said Eva.
‘Yeah,’ said the man. ‘He said that you gave free advice twenty-four seven. He said you were a saint.’
Eva laughed. ‘Your informant was wrong.’
Poppy had run into the twins’ bedrooms and woken them up. They stumbled into Eva’s room, Brian Junior holding his old cricket bat, wide-eyed with fear. Brianne stood behind him with a martyred screwed-up expression on her face, yawning and blinking.
Brian Junior said viciously, ‘Get out of my mother’s bedroom!’
‘I’m not going to hurt her, son,’ the taxi driver said. ‘I just need to talk to her.’
‘At three a.m.?’ said Brianne, sarcastically. Why? Is it the end of the world? Or something more important?’
The man turned to Eva with such a forlorn look that she said, ‘I don’t know your name.’
‘I’m Barry Wooton.’
‘I’m Eva. Please, sit down.’ Then, to the twins, ‘It will be all right, go back to bed.’
Brian Junior said, ‘We’re not leaving.’
Barry sat down in the soup chair and closed his eyes. ‘I can’t believe I’m here.’
Poppy, who was desperately trying to ingratiate herself with Eva, asked, ‘Can I get anybody a cup of tea?’
Brianne said, ‘I sometimes think Dad’s right about this bloody country and tea.’
‘I’ll have one,’ said Eva.
‘Yeah, me too,’ said the driver. ‘Not much milk, two sugars.’
Brian Junior said, ‘Green tea, and I’ll have it in here.’ He leaned against the wall and swung the cricket bat into the palm of his right hand, making a smacking sound.
Brianne was wearing a pair of her father’s pyjamas. They fitted her well. She sat down on the bed and put her arm protectively around her mother’s waist.
Poppy said, ‘Should I tell Brian and Titania?’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Eva.
Barry looked around at the four strangers and said, ‘I don’t usually carry on like this. I’m surprised at myself. I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Mrs Beaver. Every time I’ve passed your house, I’ve wanted to stop the cab and knock on your door.’
Why tonight?’
‘I suppose I wanted to talk to somebody before I do myself in.’
Brianne said, ‘Oh, how lovely. You must surely know, Barry, that my mother, whose heart is as soggy as Romney Marsh, will try to talk you out of it.’
Brian Junior said in a monotone, ‘You’ve no intention of killing yourself, Barry.’
Brianne asked, ‘Have you posted it online?’
‘What?’ said Barry.
‘It’s almost obligatory now, Barry. You have to go on the net and join the queue with the rest of the attention whores.’
Eva looked at her children. What had happened to them? Why were they so heartless?
Barry shifted in the chair. He felt that he could easily die of embarrassment. His tongue was huge in his mouth. He thought that he would not be able to speak again. Water started to drip from his eyes. He was glad when the weird-looking girl came in with three mugs of tea and handed one to him. He had never seen anybody dressed in such extravagant bits of cloth before. He slurped on his tea and burned his mouth, but he said nothing about the pain.
The silence was oppressive.
Eventually, Eva said, ‘Why do you want to kill yourself?’
Barry opened his mouth to speak, but Brianne interrupted him. ‘I think I’ll take myself off to bed now I cannot bear the thought of all the clichés that are presently stirring inside Barry’s head, and their imminent arrival at, and escape from, Barry’s voice box.’
Brian Junior said, ‘You’re Out of your element, Barry.’ Brianne drew her dressing gown tightly around her and went haughtily back to bed.
Eva said, ‘Poppy, you go to bed now’
Poppy sulked out of the room.
Barry couldn’t work out whether he had been insulted or not by the tall, chunky black-haired girl. He hadn’t expected other people to be there when he talked to the woman, Eva. He had made things worse for himself, he thought. He had almost certainly been disrespected, he had burned his mouth, he’d lost fares, and he’d forgotten until now that the first high-speed train that he was planning to throw himself under didn’t leave Sheffield until 5 a.m. So he had three hours to kill.
‘As usual,’ he thought, ‘I’ve mucked everything up. I’ve done it all my life: lost stuff, broken stuff, stolen stuff, been caught with stuff.’ He felt that he had never learned the rules of life, whereas every other man, woman, kid and animal knew them. He was always lagging behind — sometimes literally — shouting, ‘Wait for me!’ He’d only ever been able to court the dregs of women that his mates had discarded.
A girl had once said to him, ‘I’m not being funny, Barry, but you don’t half stink.’
Since then, he had bathed twice a day. But it took up a lot of time without a shower, and his hot-water bill had doubled. He was earning less these days — people weren’t going out at night, or giving many tips. Som
etimes he didn’t even cover his petrol costs. He had no family. After he had fought with his new brother-in-law at the wedding reception, his mother had said to him dramatically, ‘You are no longer my son. You are dead to me. ‘But, to be honest, he had enjoyed knocking that tosser on to the dance floor. Nobody called his sister a slag. But even she had turned against him. In the day, while he was trying to sleep, the fight went round and round in his head. He was so tired, but he could never sleep properly …
Eva said, ‘You look exhausted.’
Barry nodded. ‘I am. And I’ve got worries.’
‘What’s at the top of the list?’
‘How much will it hurt when the train goes over me neck? That’s my main worry. It’s bound to hurt before I die.’
Eva said, ‘There are easier ways, Barry. And think about the train driver, he’ll have it on his mind for ever. All you’d be to the passengers is an hour’s delay, while they search the track for your head and limbs. Think of a stranger swinging your decapitated head in a Tesco’s carrier bag.’
Brian Junior said, ‘Is that what they do?’
‘I saw a documentary,’ said Eva.
Barry said, ‘So, you don’t think the train?’
‘No,’ said Eva. ‘Definitely not the train.’
Barry said, ‘I thought about hanging. I’ve got a beam …’
‘No,’ said Eva, firmly. ‘You could hang there for minutes. Fighting for breath. It doesn’t always break the neck, Barry.’
‘Right, strike that off the list then. Have you got any thoughts about drowning?’
‘No. I’ve got a friend called Virginia Woolf,’ lied Eva, ‘who filled her pockets with stones and walked into the sea.’
Barry asked, ‘Did it work?’
‘No,’ she lied again. ‘It didn’t work. She’s glad it didn’t work now’