Flying Under Bridges

by Sandi Toksvig

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Eve … it’s about your little … idea.’

  A dim light began to burn at the end of the corridor of my mind. ‘Oh, my mission, you mean.’

  ‘Is that what you’re calling it? Yes.’ Horace looked for inspiration in his cup of instant. ‘It’s not a good plan.’

  ‘Well, not yet. You see the pool was sold before I realised but I will think of somewhere else and—’ Horace didn’t let me finish.

  ‘Eve, you are a good woman. A good member of this community. Adam has had a tough time. It was all most unfortunate because he was doing important things for Edenford. Give him a chance to come back. Don’t spoil it.’

  Horace stood up and put both his hands on my upper arms. He looked deep into my face and pulled me towards him. I thought he was going to kiss me and I wasn’t at all sure what I would do. His moustache looked prickly and rather unpleasant but I was too polite just to say, ‘Get off.’

  Horace swallowed hard and you could see the effort run down his throat. It was like facing a pelican with a free fish supper.

  ‘I am using all my will power to stand by Adam,’ he managed. ‘Now you need to do the same. We must restrain ourselves for him.’

  Horace gulped another salmon-size lump and left with his words of wisdom hanging in the air.

  The women’s group were still trying to meet on Tuesdays, although the heart had gone out of it since the débâcle with the bypass. I didn’t stay for the chat any more. Just went over and let them into Mother’s empty house.

  ‘You’re friends with that Inge Holbrook, aren’t you?’ asked ferret woman in a tone that I just knew meant trouble. Not that I wouldn’t defend you, Inge. It’s just that I didn’t want the need to arise in the first place. Everything was doing my head in. Being in the house I grew up in, Mother’s house. Being at a group that Martha had started and not finished. Martha, who fought for women’s rights but who had destroyed the life of my father. I couldn’t bear it but the minute I turned to go I could hear the women in the room start gossiping.

  ‘Anyway, I hear there’s going to be a legal case brought against Inge Holbrook for her partner’s assets. Hogart, Hoddle and Hooper are handling it. That nice young man, what’s his name?’

  ‘I can’t help it. I don’t really like lesbians. I don’t even like the word. It makes me think of hairy old women with cats.’

  Hairy old women with cats. I’m a hairy old woman with a cat, I thought.

  When I got home, Claudette was waiting for me. She took one last feline spring at my shoulders and landed in my arms. The cat was dead.

  As far as I can find out, there are no references to cats at all in the Bible. No lesbians and no cats. There’s plenty about dogs, a lot of sheep and birds and even some dragons, but no cats. They are utterly ignored by God.

  Labours of Love

  And as they went along the road they came to some water and the eunuch said, ‘See, here is water! What is to prevent my being baptised?’

  (ACTS 8.36)

  ‘Do you know about Blaise Pascal?’ I ask the psychiatrist. He frowns at me and looks up from his notes.

  ‘He invented the syringe,’ he says rather smugly.

  ‘Yes, and the first digital calculator.., in 1644 … and the hydraulic press. I don’t know what that is but it was important.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know why. I suppose it was needed.’

  ‘What’s this got to do with anything?’ The closer we get to the trial the more short-tempered my helpmate gets.

  ‘Tom told me about his wager and I like that. It’s called the Pascal Wager and it was a sort of bet he had in life. He said that nobody can really prove that God exists, right? I mean, you’re clever and you can’t. No one knows for absolute certain that Jesus or anyone was able to make up for our sins by dying or if miracles really do happen. So the trick is, if you’re not sure, just get on and believe anyway. Basically it’s better to believe than not. I think it makes sense. If you believe and it turns out there is a God and a lovely afterlife and all that, then you’re not disappointed when you die. You might even get something for having all that faith. Of course, if you die and there’s nothing, just oblivion, then you’ll never know you were wrong in the first place.’

  I’d like to invent something.

  Fact — in the early 1900s the Los Angeles city fathers were concerned to make accidents in the street less harmful to their victims, so an upholstered couch was fixed to the front of the local trains. The intention was to ‘scoop’ up hapless pedestrians who got in the way of the public transport. Unfortunately it had the reverse effect and knocked more people to the ground than any tram ever did. I’m not surprised. I mean, you’d stop in the street and stare if you suddenly saw a large piece of stuffed Dralon coming at you. Beware things that are meant to protect you.

  I couldn’t seem to talk to anyone any more. Tom looked quite different with his hair washed and cut. He hardly spoke and all the life seemed to have gone out of him. It was a Samson haircut and I regretted it. He sat with me in the kitchen and didn’t seem inclined to do anything. Sometimes some of the construction workers would drive past our house towards the woods and tears would come to his eyes. I had managed to persuade him to come down for lunch one day when Shirley came over with John. They were holding hands and beaming the beam of the chosen.

  ‘Mum,’ trilled my daughter, ‘Lawrence is going to be doing baptisms at the pool next week. He’s brought the whole thing forward to help bring the church together.’

  John smiled at my beloved child. ‘Everyone is so devastated about Patrick that they could do with some good news, and Shirley is to be among the first!’

  ‘That’s nice.’ It was all I ever said to my daughter now. ‘That’s nice.’ Everything was nice. My daughter was to be born again. Among the many things I had planned for her over the years, this had not been one of them. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Was there an appropriate response? Should I suggest a party? Were there Hallmark cards for the event?

  ‘Eve, we’d very much like it if you would be there,’ beamed John. He’d like me to be there? My daughter was getting born again and she wouldn’t need her mother? ‘And Tom as well, of course.’

  I wanted to be supportive but I was a bit lost. ‘I don’t really understand,’ I said. ‘What’s it about?’

  Tom played with the salad cream while he answered. ‘It’s a ritual, Mum. They all have the same purpose. They’re used to make outsiders of the rest of us and to make the participants feel superior. You should be careful, Shirley. Once you feel superior to others then it’s a small step to thinking another human being is worthless and a tiny leap from there to thinking that really they ought to be got rid of.’

  This incensed Shirley. ‘That is not true, Tom. It’s absurd. I love everyone.

  Tom looked up from his examination of the chicken quarter I had planned to eat. ‘Then why do you need to do this?’

  There was a short pause around the breakfast bar.

  ‘Shirley…’ prompted John squeezing her hand.

  Shirley looked at her brother. ‘Because God has called me.’

  Tom looked at her. ‘How do you know that?’ he asked.

  ‘Well…’ Shirley looked to John who nodded for her to continue. ‘I’ve prayed and I have been shown the way.’

  Tom thought about this and then said, ‘Okay, so show me.’

  John laughed. ‘You have to pray, Tom. We’d be happy to pray with you.’

  Tom shook his head. ‘No, I don’t want to be born again. I just want you to show me how God called you. Just prove it to me so I can see.’

  Shirley was getting annoyed. ‘Tom, don’t be ridiculous. Mother, Tom’s being ridiculous.’

  ‘We can’t show you unless you believe,’ explained John.

  ‘Aaah,’ said Tom, angry with the world and winding his sister up. ‘So, this being born again is unreasonable?’

  ‘It is not unrea
sonable!’ Shirley was piqued now. The beam was faltering. Tom smiled at her.

  ‘Not to you, Shirley,’ he said, ‘but scientifically. What you believe has happened to you has no reason behind it.’

  ‘Tom!’ I warned, knowing we were heading for trouble.

  ‘No, Mother, it’s interesting. You see, if you give up reason then you can believe in anything, depending, of course, on your personal taste. Instead of looking for what is true then what one would like to be true will do. And if you feel pushed to justify that belief then that’s easy. You just make it a mystery. Shirley is immune from rational attack because we don’t understand what has happened to her. Those of us who disagree are, by the very fact that we disagree, proven incapable of making contact with the mysterious source of truth. What Shirley is telling you, Mum, is that she is now better than us and there’s nothing we can do about it unless we stop thinking and just believe.’

  John’s smile wavered but stayed intact. ‘We could help you, Tom. Suppose, just suppose, you’re wrong. What will you do on Judgement Day when you are called before God?’

  Tom stood up and stared at his sister. Then he turned to John. ‘I shall look him in the eye and say, “Sir, you gave me insufficient evidence.”‘

  So my daughter was baptised… for the second time. The first time had been at the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin of Edenford followed by tea and a selection of fondant fancies. This time it was at the old swimming baths. Adam had to work so he couldn’t come but he and Tom sent a card with some flowers on the front. When I got to the baths, John opened the card because Shirley was busy getting ready. Adam’s message read, ‘Have fun, love Dad,’ while Tom had scribbled, ‘Sapiens nihil affirmat quod non probat,’ which John told me meant a wise person says nothing is true that he has not proven. John said he would give her the card later but I doubted it.

  It was no wonder the council had closed down the old municipal swimming baths. They were not in a good state. I was told to sit downstairs by the side of the pool in the public seats on the ‘away’ side for swimming galas. No one on that side had been saved. We were just related. The woman on my right kept crying so I tried to calm her.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I mean, it’s not like the Moonies. At least they’re not going away to live in some farmhouse on a moor.’ But she carried on sobbing.

  Across the water, on the ‘home’ side, were the members of the congregation who had already been done. John sat there chatting and laughing. I thought they all looked rather smug. Lawrence was moving among them in a white robe. I hadn’t seen him since the hospital. He looked tired and pale. After a few moments, the two doors to the boys’ and girls’ changing rooms opened and the ‘about to be born again’ people appeared in two single files of men and women. Another mother bustled in late and sat on my left.

  ‘Have I missed it? Have I missed it?’ she demanded breathlessly. I reassured her.

  ‘No. It’s just starting.’

  ‘I was trying to finish the cake,’ she whispered. Cake, I thought. Should I have made a cake?

  ‘Oh, don’t they look lovely?’ she said. The participants were all in white robes. ‘I made six of those,’ hissed the woman. ‘Not easy. All those lead weights.’

  I knew I was out of my depth. ‘What lead weights?’

  ‘In the hem,’ said the woman. ‘You know, to stop the gowns floating up during the immersion. I think it’s the boys who worry. My son said to me, “Mum, you don’t want to get halfway through the thing and suddenly show the gallery who the Lord has been kindest to in the ‘private endowment’ department.”‘

  I looked down at the lines of nervous men and women shuffling towards the shallow end. I think some of the mothers had overdone it with the weights because the gowns appeared to be something of a burden. Everyone rather had to drag their feet out of the changing room.

  Lawrence climbed down into the water and stood with his arms spread wide. ‘Who does the Lord call next?’ His voice echoed across the white and aquamarine tiles. There was a short silence as no one, weighed down as they were with modesty lead, seemed to be able to move very fast towards him. I thought the air of reluctance it gave to the proceedings was unfortunate. Lawrence stood unmoved in the shallow end, looking relentlessly holy while the converts pulled and dragged their frocks behind them like hunchbacks of Notre Dame clanking their way to the Lord. It gave the visiting crowd time to pick out our loved ones. Shirley was about halfway down the line of women. Most of the converts had their locker key on a red rubber band around their wrist, which I thought was a nice local touch but it got a bad mention in the paper.

  I think the municipal people, who had run the baths for years, had handed the place over on the understanding that all the usual rules should apply. Not that there was any danger of anyone running along the side of the pool in those frocks, but the church had retained old Lionel Stone to stand in as lifeguard. The trouble was that I don’t think anyone had really explained to Lionel exactly what the event was. Not that there would have been much point. He was so old and extremely deaf. I think they’d tried to fire him twice but he didn’t hear a word they said. Anyway, everyone had clunked forward and got into the shallow end. They stood in a large semi-circle around Lawrence waiting for their moment.

  As Lawrence raised his hands again and called for a ‘Sign From The Lord’, Lionel leant forward and switched on the wave machine. For a brief moment it was rather lovely as the water swirled around all those white dresses, but then the machine rather gathered momentum and things got out of hand. Quite a number of the believers went down in the uneven battle with their fish weights and Lawrence was lost from view entirely until a freak wave suddenly swept him forward and up under the lowest diving board. It took a while to restore order after that and I did feel the ceremony was a bit rushed in the end.., after the paramedics left.

  Shirley looked lovely but I can’t say I was really impressed. I mean, she may have gone into the water with the Lord but she came out with a verruca. They don’t burn them out any more like Matron used to at school. Verrucas. Apparently they’re caused by a virus and they just let them fester.

  ‘You haven’t got children, have you?’ I say to the barrister. Clearly nothing could be further from her ambitious mind.

  ‘No,’ she says firmly.

  It’s a funny feeling watching your life’s work walk into the shallow end away from you. I had had such dreams for Shirley. I’d have dug escape tunnels with my bare hands if it would have got her out of Edenford. Oh, not that it’s a bad place, it’s just that I wanted her to do all the things I’d never dared. Travel the world and not just a week in Devon on full board with a guaranteed menu. It’s my fault really. I kept telling her that we only come this way once and she must look for something special. I wanted her to get swept off her feet but not by a wave machine. I longed for her to fall so desperately in love that she could hardly bear to tell me, her own mother. All those years I sat in peeling corridors listening to the ballet music or the drama lesson muffled behind closed doors and I didn’t mind because it was worth it. Because her life was going to mean something. And, of course, it did. I mean, Shirley was very popular at the church. You have to tell her how proud I am of her. It’s just that I kept looking at her that day and trying to think ‘That’s my girl’, except it wasn’t. It was some young woman with a vacant glare in her eye, weighed down by fish weights and contracting a pedimental infection. I was trying to do something with my life but I had a son who talked to the animals, a daughter living for the afterlife and a husband devoted to the Estée Lauder counter at Boots.

  We went for a drink at the Crown and Anchor.

  ‘John and I are moving in together,’ announced my wet-haired child. I had another drink.

  Under Suspicion

  A friend loves at all times.

  (PROVERBS 17.17)

  There is a new line of enquiry from everyone. It’s about my friendship with you, Inge.

  ‘You spent
a lot of time with her, didn’t you?’ enquires Big Nose.

  ‘She was my friend.’

  ‘And you were very fond of her …’ We leave my fondness hanging in the air. It is what everyone wanted to think. Any woman lacking economic and emotional dependence upon a male must be deviant. It cannot be right. If I am to ‘get off’ then I must be feminine. I must be rehabilitated to the heart of my family. The female heart of my family. Being a criminal is a boy’s thing. Female criminals are either not women or not criminals. I think they are beginning to think I am bad, so now perhaps it would be best if I were not a real woman.

  I don’t say so but I am beginning to think that psychiatry is nothing but a con trick. You go along to the learned to get help because you feel upset or confused or unhappy, and the Big Nose you’ve been assigned beavers away until he finds that the cause of the problem is you. Not the world. It’s you and that’s because it’s much easier to try to change you than to change the way things are.

  Tom took Claudette from me when she died and took her upstairs. He spent night and day working on her, returning her to the feline poses of her past. I was pleased that it gave him something to do but I didn’t go up to his room for ages. I never liked the cat but I couldn’t stand to see her splayed open all over a work mat. Tom was fixing her eyes in when I took him coffee one morning.

  ‘Where do you suppose cats go in the afterlife?’ I asked him.

  ‘I don’t know but they go somewhere,’ replied Tom confidently.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because a soul is the energy and fire of a creature and you can’t destroy energy. That’s basic physics. I cut all my animals open and I look and look and the one thing I never find in any of them is their soul, but I know it used to be there. It has to have gone somewhere, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It’s cold for you in here,’ I said, because I was his mother. ‘You should shut the window.’