The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year

  Eva flushed. She was tempted to tell Yvonne that her son had been sleeping with another woman for the last eight years, but she was too weary to manage the aftermath. ‘You were very cruel to me after the twins were born, Yvonne. You used to laugh at my stomach and say, “It looks like a Chivers jelly.”‘

  Yvonne said, ‘Do you know what your problem is, Eva? You can’t take a joke.’ She picked up the dot-to-dot book and the pen. ‘I’m going downstairs to clean your kitchen. The salmonella must be rife in there. Rife! My son deserves better than you.

  When she’d gone, Eva felt as though the furniture were crowding in on her. She pulled the duvet over her head and was comforted.

  She thought, ‘No sense of humour? Why would I want to join in laughing when Brian and his mother find it hilarious that somebody has suffered an accident or misfortune? Should I have laughed when Brian introduced me by saying, ‘And this is the trouble and strife — she spends my money, but she’s mine for life.’

  She was glad that her mother-in-law had refused her request. The thought of Yvonne criticising the colour and texture of her stools was intolerable. Eva felt that she’d had a very narrow escape. She started to laugh until the duvet fell away from her and slid on to the floor.

  That night, Eva dreamed that she saw Cinderella running down a red carpet, hurrying back to the pumpkin coach. As she woke, she imagined that the carpet was white and led from her bed to the bathroom. Within a second the carpet had turned into Eva’s pure-white bed sheet, folded and draped and transformed into a rippling pathway which led from her bed to the adjoining bathroom. If she kept her feet on the white pathway she could, she thought, with a leap of imagination, still be in bed.

  She knelt on the bed and pulled the bottom sheet free, threw it on to the carpet and then brought the sides of the sheet together, tucking the ends under the mattress. She stepped out and, working carefully, brought the edges together with a series of narrow folds until the sheet was ridged, like an expensive crisp.

  The cotton pathway was a foot or so short of the toilet. Eva pulled a white towel from the rail in the bathroom, folded it and laid it down as an extension.

  She felt that if she stayed on the sheet she would be safe — though from what, she didn’t know.

  When she had finished on the toilet, she leaned across to the washbasin and washed her body down with warm water. After cleaning her teeth she emptied then refilled the basin and washed her hair. She then crept back along the white pathway and on to the safety of her bed.

  14

  On Saturday, Eva woke late and the first thing she saw was Brian placing a cup of tea on the bedside table.

  The second thing she saw was the huge freestanding wardrobe. It seemed to loom over the bed like a dark, sinister cliff face sucking air and light out of the room. Sometimes, when a heavy lorry drove by the house, the wardrobe trembled. Eva felt that it was only a matter of time before it crashed down on to the bed, squashing her to death.

  She had mentioned her fears to Brian and suggested that they buy two white louvred replacements, but he had looked at her with incredulity.

  ‘It’s a family heirloom.” he’d said. ‘My mother gave us that when she updated her hanging space. My father bought that wardrobe in 1947, and it served my parents well.’

  ‘So, why did your mother palm it off on us,’ Eva had muttered.

  Now the phone rang. It was for Brian.

  He said, ‘Alex, my man! How’s it hanging, bro?’ He mouthed to Eva, ‘It’s Alexander, the man with the van.’

  Eva wondered why Brian had affected such a strange accent. She could not tell from the following conversation what Brian’s relationship with Alexander was. She gathered that Alexander was going to call round later that day and remove something for Brian from one of his sheds. Eva wondered if Alexander would be strong enough to dismantle and remove a heavy wardrobe without assistance.

  She asked Brian to show Alexander upstairs when he had finished with him, saying, ‘There’s something I would like to move.’

  She heard the van pull up outside the house later that morning. She had heard it approaching for at least a minute. It sounded like a cartoon vehicle — as if the exhaust pipe were scraping on the floor — and there was obviously something wrong with the engine. It took four slams before the driver’s door would close. She knelt on the bed and looked out of the window.

  A tall, slim man with scruffy greying dreadlocks reaching halfway down his back, wearing well-fitting clothes in muted colours, was reaching for a tool bag from the rear of the van. When he turned round, she saw that he was very handsome. She thought that he looked like African nobility. He could have modelled for the sculptures in the front window of the ethnic shop in the town centre.

  He rang the bell.

  She heard Brian’s voice, loud and jovial, asking Alexander to come round the side entrance and, ‘Ignore the mess, man, the missus is pulling a sickie!’

  When Alexander disappeared, Eva raked her hair with her fingers and pushed it about, trying to give it extra height. She got up quickly, spread the sheet on the floor again and walked into the bathroom, where she applied her make-up and sprayed herself with Chanel No. 5.

  Then, after reaching her bed, she pulled up the sheet, remade the bed and waited.

  When Eva heard Alexander’s voice in the hall, she shouted, ‘Upstairs, second on the right.’

  He smiled a greeting when he saw her. Am I in the right place?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and indicated the wardrobe.

  He looked at it and laughed. ‘Yeah, I can see why you’d want to get rid of that. It’s like a wooden Stonehenge.’ He opened the doors and looked inside.

  The wardrobe was still jammed with Brian and Eva’s clothes and shoes.

  Are you going to empty it?’

  ‘No.” she said. ‘I have to stay in or on the bed.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise you were ill.’

  She said, ‘I’m not ill. I’m just retreating from the world … I think.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, we all have our own way of doing that. So, will you be staying in bed?’

  She said, ‘I have to.’

  And where do you want me to put the clothes and the shoes?’

  It took hours to empty her side of the wardrobe.

  They developed a system. Alexander got four large bin liners from the kitchen. One was for recycling, another for charity shops, a third for selling on eBay, and the last was to take to the vintage clothing shop that Alexander’s sister ran in newly fashionable Deptford. There was a separate bag for shoes.

  It took a long time because each garment evoked a memory of time and place. There was her last school uniform — a grey pleated skirt, white shirt and green blazer trimmed with purple braid, which she had worn until she left school. The sight of it shocked Eva. She was sixteen again, with the heavy hand of failure on one shoulder and a weighty bag of textbooks and folders on the other.

  It went into the eBay pile.

  Alexander pulled out an evening dress. It was off the shoulder, black chiffon scattered with non-precious gemstones.

  ‘Now this I like,’ he said as he took it over to her.

  ‘My first Summer Ball with Brian at the university.’ She sniffed the bodice and smelled patchouli oil, sweat and cigarettes. She couldn’t make a decision as to where the dress should go.

  Alexander did it for her. He folded it into the vintage bag. From then on, it was he who sorted the clothes.

  There were the sundresses with halter necks that she’d worn at the seaside. There were many pairs of jeans: boot cut, straight leg, flared, white denim, blue, black. He refused to bag a cream chiffon evening gown she had worn at a dinner held in honour of Sir Patrick Moore, until she pointed out the large red stain on the bodice, caused by Brian’s clumsiness with his late-night cheese and beetroot sandwich.

  Alexander said, ‘You’re too hasty, Mrs Beaver, my sister’s a genius with dye and a sewing machine. That girl can create m
agic.’

  Eva shrugged and said, ‘Do what you like with it.’

  There were the Christian Dior evening shoes Brian had bought for Eva with a tax rebate when they were visiting Paris for the first time.

  ‘These are too good to throw away,’ said Alexander. ‘Look at the stitching! Who made them? A gang of elves?’

  Eva shuddered at the memory of having to wear a basque and stockings and parade up and down in that filthy, freezing garret on the Rive Gauche in her beautiful new shoes.

  ‘Perhaps I didn’t explain properly,’ she said. ‘All of my possessions have got to go. I’m starting again.’

  He said, ‘eBay.’ I think,’ and continued sorting.

  ‘No, give them to your sister.’

  ‘That’s too generous, Mrs Beaver. I’m not here to take advantage of you.’

  ‘I want them to go to somebody who will appreciate them.’

  ‘You don’t want a cut of the money?’

  Eva said, ‘I don’t need money any more.

  After Alexander had bagged up Brian’s mostly sludge-coloured clothes and taken them on to the landing, the wardrobe was empty. He used an electric screwdriver to take off the doors and the internal fittings.

  They didn’t speak at first, because of the noise.

  When it was quiet enough, she said, ‘I’m sorry I can’t make you a cup of tea.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I only drink herbal tea. I’ve got a flask.’

  She said, ‘How did Brian get hold of you?’

  ‘Me and my kids walked the streets, posting flyers through doors. You’re my first customer. I’m a painter —but nobody wants to buy my pictures.’

  Eva asked, ‘What kind of pictures do you paint?’

  ‘Landscapes. The Fens. Leicestershire. I love the English countryside.’

  She said, ‘I lived in the country when I was a girl. Are there figures in your landscapes?’

  ‘I paint in the early morning,’ he said, ‘when there is nobody about.’

  ‘To capture the light at dawn?’ Eva asked.

  ‘No ,’ Alexander said, ‘people get worried when they see a black man in a field. I got to be well acquainted with the Leicestershire police. Apparently, Jews don’t ski and black men don’t paint.’

  Eva said, ‘What other skills have you got?’

  ‘Carpentry. The usual van-man skills — painting and decorating, garden clearance, lugging stuff about. I speak fluent Italian and I was a bad boy for ten years, a wanker banker.’

  What happened?’

  He laughed. ‘It was good for the first five years. We lived in a big house in Islington, and I bought my mother a little house with a garden back home in Leicester. She likes to grub around in the dirt. But don’t ask me about the next five — I shoved too much stuff up my nose, my Smeg was full of stupidly expensive fizz. I wasted it and wasted myself. I missed the first five years of my kids growing up. I suppose I was dying — but nobody noticed, because we all were. I worked for Goldman Sachs. My wife didn’t like me any more.

  We were going home in a car I’d only had for two days. It was too big for me, too powerful. She started to nag that I hadn’t seen the kids for over a week and that nobody worked sixteen hours a day.’ He looked Eva in the face and said, ‘I did work sixteen hours a day. It was crazy. I started to shout, she was screaming about my coke bill, I lost control, we ran off the road and hit a tree — a not particularly tall, weedy-looking tree. You wouldn’t have known she was dead. I ran home to Leicester with my kids.’

  There was a long silence.

  Then Eva said, ‘Please don’t tell me any more unhappy stories.’

  ‘I don’t make a habit of it.” Alexander said. ‘If you draw up a list of all the jobs you’d like me to do, I’ll price them up and give you a quote. The only problem might be that I have to pick my kids up from school …’ He paused. ‘Mrs Beaver, do you mind if I make an observation? There’s no coherence in your clothes.’

  Eva was indignant. ‘How can there be coherence when I don’t know who I am? I sometimes wish we had to wear a uniform, like the Chinese did during the Cultural Revolution. They didn’t have to worry and dither over what to wear in the morning. They had a uniform —baggy trousers and a tunic. That’s what I want.’

  ‘Mrs Beaver, I know we’ve only just met,’ said Alexander, ‘but when you feel better, I’ll gladly go shopping with you, to warn you off culottes and harem trousers and anything sleeveless.’

  Eva laughed. ‘Thanks. But I’m staying here, in this bed, for a year.’

  A year?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve got things to do. To sort out.’

  Alexander sat down on the edge of the bed. Eva moved along to give him more room. She studied his face with great pleasure. It gleamed with health and the joy of living ‘He would make the world endurable for some lucky woman,’ she thought. ‘But not for me.’ One of his dreadlocks needed re-twisting. Eva took it automatically and was reminded of how she had plaited Brianne’s hair every junior school morning. She had sent her off with plaits and ribbons. And every afternoon Brianne had slouched out of school, the ribbons lost, the plaits unravelled.

  Alexander put a hand on Eva’s wrist to gently restrain her. He said, ‘Mrs Beaver, you’d better not start something you can’t finish.’

  Eva let the dreadlock fall.

  ‘It takes more time than you think,’ he said, softly. ‘I have to pick my kids up at four o’clock. They’re at a birthday party.’

  ‘I still have that “time to pick up the kids” alarm in my head,’ she said.

  Later, when the component parts of the wardrobe had been taken outside, Eva asked Alexander how much she owed him.

  He said, ‘Oh, give me fifty pounds, on top of what your husband has already paid me for shifting that double bed.’

  ‘Double bed?’ checked Eva. ‘From where?’

  ‘From his shed.’

  Eva said nothing, but raised her eyebrows.

  He asked, ‘Do you want me to take the wood away? It’s solid mahogany. I could make something out of it.’

  ‘Do what you like with it — set fire to it, anything. ‘Before he left he asked, ‘Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?’

  For some reason, both he and Eva blushed. It was a moment. She was fifty, but she was better-looking than she knew.

  She said, ‘You could take the rest of the furniture away for me.’

  He said, ‘Everything?’

  ‘Everything. ‘Well … arrivederci, Signora.’

  She laughed when she heard the van starting up. She had been to a circus once and the clown’s car had sounded very similar. She lay back on her pillows and strained her ears until there was nothing else to hear.

  The bedroom was huge now the wardrobe was gone. She looked forward to seeing him again. She would ask him to bring some of his paintings.

  She was curious to know whether they were any good or not.

  15

  Poppy was sprawled on Brianne’s bed, applying black mascara to her stubby lashes. Brianne was sitting at her desk, trying to complete an essay before the 2 p.m. deadline. It was 1.47 p.m.

  Poppy dropped the mascara brush and it rolled across her white T-shirt. She growled, ‘Fucking fuckety fuck! Why don’t you buy a decent fucking mascara?’ She gave a little laugh — she knew she couldn’t go too far. She had very few friends left on her corridor. There had been incidents concerning the theft of food and cigarettes.

  Brianne was staring out of the window, trying to find the final paragraph and equations to complete an essay her lecturers had entitled ‘Infinity: An Endless Conversation?’ Her view from the window was of identical accommodation blocks, young trees and rain clouds the colour of gunmetal. She had been there for two weeks, and she still missed her mother. She didn’t know how to make herself comfortable without all the small things Eva had done for her for as long as she could remember.

  Brianne
said, ‘My mother bought me these cosmetics, but I’ve never used them.’

  ‘You should,’ said Poppy. ‘You’re a proper minger. It must piss you off big time that your brother is actually beautiful. How cruel is that? Did nobody ever mention plastic surgery?’

  Brianne’s hands froze on the keys of her laptop. She knew she wasn’t pretty, but she hadn’t thought that she was an actual minger.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘nobody has ever mentioned that I need plastic surgery.’ Her eyes welled with tears.

  ‘Don’t go all emo on me. I believe in being cruel to be kind.’ Poppy laid an arm across Brianne’s shoulders. ‘I’ll tell you what you need.’

  The essay deadline came and went while Poppy listed the defects that were going to ruin Brianne’s future, unless she ‘went under the knife’.

  Poppy said, ‘No man gives a toss how clever a woman is. Well, no man worth having. All they care about is what we look like. How many guys have I slept with since the first day of uni?’

  ‘Loads,’ said Brianne. ‘Too many.’

  ‘Don’t be so fucking judgemental!’ shouted Poppy. ‘You know I can’t sleep on my own — not since my body was violated by that monster.’

  Brianne was not curious about the ‘monster’. She knew he didn’t exist.

  Poppy flung herself down on the bed and began to wail like a Middle Eastern grandmother at a freshly dug grave.

  Brianne had thought that she was only mildly fond of her mother, but she desperately wanted to speak to her now. She went outside into the corridor and phoned Eva’s mobile, but all she got was the dead tone. She let herself into Brian Junior’s room.

  He was sitting at his desk with his hands over his ears and his eyes closed.

  She said, ‘Mum’s phone is dead! I need to speak to her about Poppy.’

  Brian Junior opened his eyes and said, ‘I need Mum, Bri. Poppy is pregnant, and she says I’m the father.’

  The twins looked at each other, then leaned forward and embraced.