The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year (25 page)

Titania, whose turn it was to answer the door,
asked, ‘Who may I say is calling?’

The woman said, ‘I live at the end of Redwood Road.
I’d rather not give my name.

Titania invited the woman to wait in the hall while
she went upstairs.

When Eva saw her, she said, ‘You’re wearing the
awful apron Brian bought me for Christmas. What else have you commandeered?’

Titania laughed and said, ‘Only your husband.’

Eva observed, ‘That drab olive green suits you,
though. You should wear more of it.’ Then she said, ‘Fetch her up.’

When Titania had gone downstairs, Eva combed her
hair with her fingers and straightened the pillows.

The
woman was in youthful middle age and had made the decision to let her hair grow
au naturel. It was grey and wiry. She was wearing a grey tracksuit and grey Hi-Tec
trainers. She looked like a pencil scribble on a white page.

Eva invited her to sit on the soup chair.

The woman announced, in well-spoken tones, ‘My name
is Bella Harper. I walk past your window at least four times a day.’

Eva said, ‘Yes, I’ve seen you taking your kids to
school.’

Bella pulled a handful of tissues out of her
tracksuit pocket.

Eva braced herself for what was to come. She had
developed a revulsion for tears. People cried too easily these days.

Bella said, ‘I need some advice about the best and
kindest way to leave my husband. This Christmas has been torture. We’ve all
been tormented by him. I feel as though my exposed nerves have been agitated by
a cold wind. I’m not sure that I can cope with any more.’

Eva asked, ‘Why have you come to me?’

‘You’re always here. Sometimes I walk around the
area in the small hours, and I often see you at the window, smoking.’

‘I’m a fool,’ said Eva. ‘You don’t want to take
advice from me.’

‘I’ve got to share my story with somebody who I don’t
know and doesn’t know me.’

Eva stifled a yawn and tried to look interested. In
her experience, nothing good came from giving advice.

Bella twisted a tissue around her fingers.

Eva prompted, ‘OK, once upon a time… would that
help?’

Bella said, ‘Yes, once upon a time there was a boy
and a girl who lived in the same village. When they were both fifteen, they
became engaged. Both of their families were very happy. One day, the boy lost
his temper because the girl could not keep up with him when he went running. He
shouted at the girl and frightened her. Then, just before the wedding, the boy
and girl were in his car. She pulled the cigarette lighter from the dashboard,
and accidentally dropped it on the carpet. The boy punched her on the right
side of her face. Then he pulled her round to face him and punched her on the
left. She lost two teeth and went to an emergency dentist. It took six weeks
for the bruises to fade. But the wedding went ahead. It wasn’t long before the boy
was hitting the girl whenever he lost his temper. Afterwards, he would beg me
to forgive him. I should have left him before the children were born.’

Eva asked, ‘How many children?’

‘Two boys,’ replied Bella. ‘I became so frightened
of him that I couldn’t relax when he was in the house. When he came home from
work, the boys would go to their rooms and close the door.’ Bella was wringing
her hands. ‘That’s the end of the story.’

Eva said, ‘You want to know what to do? How many
strong men do you know?’

Bella said, ‘Oh no, I don’t condone violence.’

Eva repeated, ‘How many strong men do you know?’

Bella counted in her head. ‘Seven.’

‘You must phone these men, and ask them to come to
your rescue. You’ll know when it’s time.’

Bella nodded.

What’s your husband’s name?’

‘Kenneth Harper.’

‘And for how much longer are you going to live with
Kenneth Harper?’

Bella lowered her eyes and said, ‘I want to start
the New Year without him.’ She looked at her watch and said, in a panic, ‘No!
He’s in the pub, but he’s coming home for dinner at nine. It’s eight now and I
haven’t peeled a potato! I’ll have to go. He won’t like it if his dinner’s
late.’

Eva shouted over Bella’s panic, ‘Where are your children?’

‘At my mother’s,’ said Bella, who had jumped up and
was pacing from the bed to the door.

‘Gather some men together, phone them now. Tell them
to meet here.’

‘I don’t approve of vigilantism,’ said Bella.

‘It isn’t vigilantism, it’s your family and friends
protecting you and your children. Imagine living in the house without him. Go
on, close your eyes and imagine.’

Bella closed her eyes for so long that Eva thought
she might be asleep.

Then Bella took out her phone and started to
speed-dial.

When
Brian came back from the off-licence with six bottles of cava, a slab of Carling
Black Label, a box of rosé and two giant bags of mixed crisps for seeing in the
New Year, he was astonished to find a group of men sitting on the stairs and
leaning against the walls in the hallway.

He nodded and said, ‘I’m afraid you’re too early for
our Open House, the house isn’t open yet.’

Their spokesman, a man in a padded plaid shirt and
slurry-covered wellingtons, said, ‘My sister has asked us to help chuck her
husband out of the house.’

Brian said, ‘On New Year’s Eve? Poor chap. Isn’t
that a bit off?’

A younger man, whose fists were clenching and
unclenching, said, ‘That bastard’s had it coming I wanted to tear his head off
at the altar.’

A man with a weather-beaten face and DIY haircut
said, ‘The kids are terrified of him. But she would never leave him ‘cause he
threatened to top himself. I wish.’

An older man with tired eyes, who was sitting on the
stairs, said, ‘When he asked if he could marry my daughter, I should have
kicked him into the bloody silage pit.’ He looked at Brian, a man he assumed to
be of a similar age to himself, and asked, ‘Have you got a daughter?’

Brian said, ‘I have, indeed. She’s seventeen.’

‘What would you do if you knew your daughter was
being beaten up on a regular basis?’

Brian put the box of wine down on the floor, tugged
his beard and thought.

Eventually, he said, ‘I would gag and bind him, put
him in the boot of my car, drive him to a quarry of my acquaintance and attach
him by means of nylon rope, using mariner’s knots, to a loose rock. I would
then roll him and the rock over the edge of the quarry, and wait for the
splash. Problem solved.’

A nervous-looking man said, ‘You can’t do that. Where
would we be if we went round murdering everybody we didn’t like? We’d end up
living in a cooler version of Mogadishu.’

Brian retorted, ‘This chap asked me what I’d do, and
I told him. Anyway, I’ve got the Open House to organise. But if you need the
sat nav coordinates for that quarry…’

The older man said, ‘Thank you, but I don’t think it’ll
come to that. But if it does, we’ve got a silage pit round the back of the
house, and pigs that are always hungry.’

‘Well, I wish you all the best. Have a happy New
Year,’ said Brian. He barged past with the alcohol, went into the kitchen and
began to unpack it on to the table. Titania was already polishing the glasses.

Brian said, ‘Every time I open my own front door, I’m
presented with other people’s dramas.’

Upstairs, Bella was talking to her husband on the
phone. He was shouting so loudly that Eva half expected the phone to explode.
Bella’s voice was trembling. She was saying, ‘Kenneth, I’m with my family. We’re
only up the road. We’re leaving for home now.’ She switched off the phone and
said to Eva, ‘I can’t do it to him.’

Eva said, ‘They get away with it because they know
we pity them. They play on their weakness. If you go now, he could be out of
the house by ten.’

‘But where will he go?’ wailed Bella.

‘Is his mother alive?’ asked Eva.

Bella nodded and said, ‘She only lives five miles
away, but he never goes to see her.’

‘Well, it will be a lovely New Year’s Eve surprise
for her then, won’t it?’

Later,
Eva watched from the window as the seven men and Bella talked on the pavement.

They walked purposefully down the road towards Bella’s
house.

38

Eva
knew it was midnight by the sound of church bells ringing and rockets
exploding. She heard corks popping downstairs and Brian’s voice booming, ‘Happy
New Year!’

She thought about all her previous New Years. She
had always expected more from the night. Had waited in vain for something
extraordinary and magical to happen once the long hand of the clock moved away
from the twelve.

But everything had always been the same.

She had never been able to join in with ‘Auld Lang
Syne’. She liked the words We’ll raise a cup of kindness’ and she envied those
celebrating, but she could not link arms and dance in a circle with the others.
People would break the circle and invite her in to fill the space, but she
invariably refused.

‘I like watching,’ she always said.

Brian would say, as he flung himself about, ‘Eva
doesn’t know how to have fun.’

And it was true. She even disliked the word. ‘Fun’
suggested enforced gaiety, clowns, slapstick. North Korean parades where ranks
of synchronised children danced with a fixed smile.

Now she was hungry and thirsty. She had obviously
been forgotten again.

Earlier that morning, Brian had gone up and down the
street delivering leaflets inviting the neighbours to an Open House party. The
leaflet had said (she had shuddered at the word ‘pop’):

Please pop in, and have
some fun.

Let’s get to know each
other.

Bring a bottle.

Nibbles supplied, but I
suggest you eat before coming.

Well-behaved children
tolerated.

Our door will be open to
you from 9.30 p.m.

PS: Dr Brian
Beaver will conduct a short tour of his observatory and, depending on the
seeing (or, as you non-astronomers define it, atmospheric conditions/cloud
cover), it may be possible to view Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and perhaps the more
minor planets.

Yvonne
had bought Eva a charming brass temple bell from Bali via Homebase, as a means
of communicating with others in the house, but Eva had yet to ring it. There
was something distasteful about summoning others to attend to her needs. She
would wait until somebody remembered her and brought her something to eat. Through
the wall she could hear the twins muttering and tapping on their laptops. The
speed of the keys was uncanny. Every now and again there was harsh laughter,
and cries of, ‘High five!’

She heard her mother and Yvonne making their way up
the stairs.

Ruby said, ‘I don’t know whether to go to the doctor’s
with it or not. It could be a harmless cyst.’

Yvonne said, ‘As you know, Ruby, I was a doctor’s
receptionist for thirty years. I can tell a cyst from something nasty.’

She heard them go into the bathroom together.

Ruby sounded uncertain of herself, for once. ‘Should
I take my corset, vest and bra off?’

Yvonne replied, ‘Well, I can’t tell anything through
layers of cloth, can I? Don’t be shy, I’ve seen thousands of titties in my
time.’

There was silence, which was broken by Ruby gabbling
nervously, ‘Do you think Eva is having a nervous breakdown?’

Yvonne instructed her, ‘Put your arm above your
head, and keep still… Yes, she’s had a breakdown. I said it from the first
day.’

There was silence again.

Then Eva heard Yvonne say, ‘Put your clothes back on.’

Ruby asked, ‘Well? What do you think?’

‘I think you ought to have an X-ray. There’s a lump
the size of a walnut. How long have you known about it?’

‘I’m too busy to hang about at the hospital.’ Ruby
lowered her voice. ‘I have to look after
her.’

Eva
wondered if she
was
having a breakdown.

A few years ago, Jill — a colleague of hers at the
library — had suddenly started to talk to herself, muttering that she was
unhappily married to Bernie Ecclestone. She then started to throw all the books
with red covers on to the floor, saying that they were spying on her and
relaying messages to MI5. When anyone approached her, she had screamed at them
that they were agents of The System. Some fool had called security and tried to
drag her out of an emergency exit. She had fought them off like a wild animal,
all teeth, fingernails and snarls, and had run towards the public park that
bordered the university grounds.