by Sue Townsend
‘Death’s not as bad as they make out,’ Ruby said. ‘You just go down a tunnel towards the golden light, isn’t that right, Doctor?’ She turned to Dr Bridges, who was preparing to take blood from Eva’s outstretched arm.
He said, as he began to draw up blood with a syringe, ‘The tunnel is an illusion caused by cerebral anoxia. Your brain’s subsequent expectational processing supplies the white light and feeling of peace.’ He looked at Ruby’s uncomprehending facial expression and said, ‘The brain doesn’t want to die. It is thought that the bright light is part of the brain’s alarm system.’
Ruby asked, ‘So, while I was in the tunnel I didn’t hear James Blunt singing “You’re Beautiful”?’
Dr Bridges muttered, ‘A vestigial memory, perhaps.’ He decanted Eva’s blood from the syringe into three little vials. He labelled each one and placed them in his bag. He asked Eva, ‘Have you have felt any pain anywhere in the last week?’
Eva shook her head. ‘Not my own physical pain, no. But, and I know this is going to sound mad, I seem to pick up on other people’s pain and sadness. It’s exhaust-ing.’
Dr Bridges was mildly irritated. His surgery was very near to the university. Consequently, he had more than his fair share of new age patents, who believed that a piece of moon rock or crystals could cure them of their genital warts, glandular fever and other maladies.
Ruby said, ‘There’s nothing much wrong with her, Doctor. It’s that syndrome. Empty nest.’
Eva threw the pillow down and shouted, ‘I’ve been counting the days until they left home from the moment they were born! It felt as though I’d been taken over by two aliens. All I wanted to do was to go to bed alone and to stay there for as long as I liked.’
Dr Bridges said, ‘Well, it’s not against the law’
Eva asked, ‘Doctor, is it possible to have post-natal depression for seventeen years?’
Dr Bridges suddenly had an overwhelming desire to be gone. ‘No, Mrs Beaver, it’s not. I’ll leave you a prescription for something to minimise your anxiety, and you’d better wear surgical stockings for the duration of your —’ he cast around for the right words and came up with ‘— holiday.’
Ruby said, ‘It’s all right for some, eh, Doctor? I wish it was me in that bed.’
Eva muttered, ‘I wish it was you in your own bed.’
Dr Bridges clipped his bag shut, said, ‘Good day to you, Mrs Beaver.” and, with Ruby slowly leading the way, went downstairs.
Eva heard Ruby saying, ‘Her dad was given to melodrama. He’d burst into the kitchen every night after work with some dramatic story. I used to say to him, “Why are you telling me stories about people I don’t know, Roger? I’m not interested.”‘
After the doctor had driven away in his four-by-four, Ruby climbed the stairs again. She said, ‘I’ll go to the chemist for your prescription.’
‘It’s all right, I’ve taken care of it.’ Eva had ripped up the prescription and placed the scraps on her bedside table.
Ruby said, ‘You could get done for that.’ She turned the television on, dragged the chair away from the dressing table next to the bed and sat down. ‘I can come every day and keep you company.’ She took the remote and Noel Edmonds appeared on the screen. He was doing something with hysterical contestants that involved opening boxes. The screaming of the studio audience and the contestants hurt Eva’s ears.
Ruby watched with her mouth slightly open.
At six o’clock the news came on. Eight- and ten-year-old sisters had been taken from outside their house in Slough by a man in a white van. A woman in Derbyshire had jumped into a swollen river to rescue her dog and drowned, the dog turning up at her house four hours later, unharmed. There had been an earthquake in Chile, thousands were trapped under the rubble. Orphaned children wandered through what used to be streets. A toddler was shouting, ‘Mamma! Mamma!’ In Iraq a suicide bomber (a teenage girl) had detonated a nail bomb, killing herself and fifteen trainee policemen. In South Korea 400 young people had been killed in a stampede when fire broke out in a nightclub. A woman in Cardiff was suing an unlicensed tattoo parlour after her fifteen-year-old son had come home with ‘HAT’ tattooed on his forehead.
Eva said, ‘What a catalogue of human misery. I hope that bloody dog is grateful.’
‘They must have done something wrong.’
‘Do you think that God is punishing them?’
Ruby said defensively, ‘I know you don’t believe in God, Eva. But I do, and I think that those people must have offended him in some way.’
Eva asked, ‘Is it the old-fashioned God you believe in, Mum? Does he have a long white beard and live above the clouds? Is he all-knowing, all-seeing? Is he looking down on you right now, Mum?’
Ruby said, ‘Look, I’m not getting into another argument about God. All I know is that he looks after me — and if I step out of line, he’ll punish me in some way.
Eva said gently, ‘But he didn’t save you from losing your purse, tickets and passport when you were at East Midlands Airport last year, did he?’
Ruby said, ‘He can’t be everywhere, and he’s bound to be busy at peak holiday time.’
And he didn’t stop you from getting a cancerous melanoma?’
Ruby said heatedly, ‘No, but it didn’t kill me, did it? And you can hardly see the scar.’
Eva asked, ‘Can you imagine a world without God, Mum?’
Ruby thought for a moment. We’d all be at each other’s throats, wouldn’t we? As it is, we tick along nicely.’
Eva said, ‘You’re only thinking about England. What about the rest of the world?’
Well, they’re mostly heathens, aren’t they? They have their own way of carrying on.’
‘So, why did your God save a dog and drown a woman? Perhaps he’s a dog lover?’ Eva grabbed the opportunity to amuse herself. She asked her mother what breed of dog God would choose to keep in his celestial kingdom.
Ruby said, ‘I can’t see God with one of them snappy dogs what the Queen has. And I can’t see him with a daft little dog that you can put in your handbag. I think God would choose a proper dog, like a golden Labrador.’
Eva laughed. ‘Yes, I can see God with a golden Labrador, sitting next to his throne tugging at his white robes, nagging for a walk.’
Ruby said, wistfully, ‘Do you know, Eva, sometimes I can’t wait to get to heaven. I’m tired of living down here since everything went complicated.’
Eva said, ‘But the woman who drowned, I bet she wasn’t tired of living. I’ll bet when the water closed over her head she fought to live. So, why did your God choose the dog over her?’
‘I don’t know. The woman must have done something to incur his wrath.’
Eva laughed, ‘Wrath?’
Ruby said, ‘Yes, he’s very wrathful, and that’s how I like it. It keeps the riff-raff out of heaven.’
Eva said, ‘Riff-raff like lepers, prostitutes, the poor?’
‘That was Jesus,’ said Ruby. ‘He’s another kettle of fish.’
Eva turned away from her mother and said, And God watched his only son die in agony on a cross and did nothing to help him when he shouted, “Father, Father, why hast thou forsaken me?”‘ Eva didn’t want to cry, but she couldn’t stop herself.
When she was eight, she had fainted in assembly during the headmistress’s graphic description of the crucifixion.
Ruby collected her things, put her coat and hat on, wrapped her bright—pink scarf around her neck and said, ‘Jesus must have done something wrong. And if you don’t believe in God, Eva, why are you getting into one of your states?’
Eva calmed herself down enough to say, ‘It’s the cruelty. When he cried out, “I thirst!” they gave him vinegar.’
Ruby said, ‘I’m going home to my bed.’
Ruby’s home was a thin end-of-terrace. The front door opened on to the quiet street. It was only three-quarters of a mile away from Eva’s, but to Ruby it felt like an epic journey. She had to stop severa
l times with the pain in her hip and lean against anything that would support her.
Bobby, her svelte black cat, was waiting for her. As Ruby unlocked the door, he insinuated himself around her legs and purred with what Ruby thought was pleasure to see her.
When they were both inside the immaculate front room, Ruby said to Bobby, ‘I wish I was you, Bobbikins. I don’t know if I can cope with looking after our girl for much longer.’
Ruby put three Tramadol on the back of her tongue and washed them down with a glug of syrup of figs. She went into the kitchen and took two willow-patterned mugs down from the shelf, then remembered and put one back. While the kettle boiled she looked through her wall calendar with the picture of the Angel of the North on the front. Next to it was a scaled-down year planner with the Christian festivals written in black marker pen:
Advent Season, Christmas, Epiphany, Shrove Tuesday, Lent, Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost, Harvest Festival, All Hallows
Ruby spoke them aloud, like a litany. They were the scaffolding of her life. She felt sorry for Eva.
Without them, Ruby would not know how to live.
12
Later that night, when Eva had watched two television comedies without laughing, she got up and reluctantly went into the bathroom. It felt wrong when she put her feet on the floor, as though the carpet were a lagoon with piranha fish waiting to nibble at her toes.
When Brian found her coming out wrapped in a white towel, he said, Ah, Eva, glad to see you on your feet. I can’t get the door of the washing machine open.’
She sat on the side of the bed and said, ‘You have to hit it hard, twice, with the side of your hand, as though you were trained to kill.’
Brian was disappointed when his wife changed into a pair of pink gingham pyjamas and climbed back into bed.
He said, ‘The washing machine.’
She said, ‘The jugular.” and made a chopping movement with her right hand.
He said, ‘There’s no food left.’
‘You’ll find some in Sainsbury’s.” she said. And when you go —He interrupted. When I go?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘when you go to Sainsbury’s. Will you buy a large funnel, a two-litre plastic bottle and a box of giant freezer bags? And from now on collect the plastic carrier bags for me? Will you do that? I’ll be needing all those things to get rid of the waste.’
What waste?’
‘My body waste.’
He said, incredulously, ‘There’s a fucking en suite next door!’
She turned on her side and faced her husband. ‘I can’t walk those few steps to the en suite, Bri. I was hoping you’d help me out.’
‘You’re disgusting,’ he said. ‘I’m not messing about decanting your piss and dumping your shit!’
‘But I can’t leave this bed again, Brian. I can’t make that little walk to the bathroom. So, what can I do?’
When Brian had gone, she listened for a while to him cursing and thumping the washing machine. She thought about all the problems caused by bowels and bladders, and wondered why evolution had not constructed something better for disposing of the body’s waste products.
She thought for a long time and finally came up with the most efficient system.
The body would have to be redesigned to absorb the entirety of its own waste. Eva thought this might be possible if somewhere in the digestive system there was a spare organ. Apparently, the appendix was lying around doing nothing. It had no function since humans had stopped eating twigs and roots. Brian had told her that astronauts routinely had the appendix removed before their first launch into space. Perhaps it could be commandeered to help the body absorb every last drop of urine and every piece of faeces?
She was a little vague about the nature of the adaptation, but the adapted organ would be required to burn the waste products internally until the body had absorbed all food and liquid. There would probably be a little smoke, but this could be routed to the anus and absorbed by a charcoal filter held in the pants using Velcro. There were one or two details that would need finessing, but weren’t British scientists leading the way in biotechnology? How marvellous it would be if the human race was spared the burden of excretion.
Meanwhile, thought Eva, she would have to dispose of her waste products in a very unsophisticated manner. How would she manage to squat over a funnel without putting her feet on the floor? There would be an inevitable spillage in the bed, and even more complicated gymnastics would be required to defecate into a freezer bag. She would have to get used to coming face to face with her bodily waste, but she would still need another person to remove the bottle and bags from her room.
Who loved her enough?
Eva and Ruby were reconciled the next day, when Ruby brought round a home-made ploughman’s lunch covered in cling film.
After Eva had eaten every morsel she said, ‘Mum, I’ve got something to ask you.’
When she explained her vision for the funnel, bottle and freezer bags, Ruby was horrified. She started retching, and had to run into the en suite and stand over the lavatory bowl with a pad of tissues held to her mouth.
When she returned, pale and shaken, she said, ‘Why would a sane person prefer to pee into a bottle and pooh in a plastic bag when they’ve got a beautiful Bathrooms Direct en suite next door?’
Eva couldn’t answer.
Ruby shouted, ‘Tell me why! Is it something The done? Did I toilet-train you too early? Did I smack you too hard for wetting the bed? You were frightened of the noise the cistern made. Did it give you a complex or syndrome or whatever people have these days?’
Eva said, ‘I’ve got to stay in bed — if I don’t, I’m lost.’
‘Lost?’ queried Ruby. She touched her gold — earrings first, then the chain and locket around her neck, finishing with her rings — straightening and polishing. It was a genuflection, Ruby worshipped her gold. She had ten krugerrands sewn into a pair of corsets in her underwear drawer. If England were invaded by the French, or by aliens, she would be able to keep the whole family in food and firearms for at least a year.
To Ruby, invasion by aliens was a likely scenario. She had seen a spaceship one night as she’d been taking her washing off the line. It had hovered over her next-door neighbour’s house before moving off in the direction of the Co-op. She’d told Brian, hoping he would be interested, but he said she must have been at the brandy she kept in the pantry for medical emergencies.
Now Eva said, ‘Mum, if I put one foot on the floor I’ll be expected to take another step, and then another, and the next thing I know I’ll be walking down the stairs and into the front garden, and then I’ll walk and walk and walk and walk, until I never see any of you again.’
Ruby said, ‘But why should you get away with it? Why should I, seventy-nine next January, be expected to baby you again? To tell you the truth, Eva, I’m not a very maternal woman. That’s why I didn’t have another kid. So, don’t look to me to cart your pee and pooh around.’ She picked up the plate and the screwed-up ball of cling film and said, ‘Is Brian the cause of this?’
Eva shook her head.
‘I told you not to marry him. Your trouble is, you want to be happy all the time. You’re fifty years old —haven’t you realised yet that most of the time most of us just trudge through life? Happy days are few and far between. And if I have to start wiping a fifty-year-old’s bum, I would make myself very unhappy indeed, so don’t ask me again!’
When Eva paid a late-night visit to the lavatory, it felt as though she were walking on hot coals.
She slept badly.
Was she actually going mad?
Was she the last to know?
13
The sycamore outside the window was hurling its branches about in the wind. Yvonne was sitting on the dressing-table chair, which she had dragged to the side of the bed.
She had brought an advanced dot-to-dot book for Eva, ‘To pass the time.’
Under duress, Eva had f
inished the first puzzle. After fifteen tedious minutes she had joined up ‘The Flying Scotsman’, complete with a village railway station, a luggage trolley, booking office and a station master with whistle and a raised flag.
Eva said, ‘Don’t think you have to stay.’
Yvonne sniffed. ‘You can’t be on your own when you’re poorly.’
Eva raged inside. When would they accept that what she told them was true — she wasn’t ill, she simply wanted to stay in bed?
Yvonne said, ‘You know it’s a symptom of being mental, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Eva, ‘and so is an adult filling in a bloody dot-to-dot book. Madness is relative.’
Yvonne snapped, ‘Well, none of my relatives are mad.’
Eva couldn’t be bothered to respond, she was weary and wanted to sleep. It was exhausting, listening and talking to Yvonne — who, it seemed to Eva, wilfully misinterpreted most conversations, and lived from one grudge to another. Yvonne was proud of her straight-talking, though other people had described her as ‘obnoxious’, ‘unnecessarily rude’ and ‘a total pain in the arse’.
Eva said, ‘You know how much you value straight-talking?’
Yvonne nodded.
‘I’ve got something to ask you … it’s difficult for me …’
Yvonne said, encouragingly, ‘Come on then, cough it up.’
‘I can’t use the en suite any more. I can’t put my feet on the floor. And I was wondering if you would help to get rid of my waste.’
Yvonne paused, computing the information, then gave a shark’s smile and said, Are you asking me, Eva Beaver, to dispose of your wee-wee and poopy? Me? Who’s fastidious about such things? Who gets through a giant bottle of Domestos a week?’
Eva said, ‘OK. I asked, and you said no.’
Yvonne said, ‘I warned Brian not to marry you. I foresaw all this. I saw at once that you were neurotic. I remember when you and Brian took me on holiday to Crete and you would sit on the beach wrapped in a big towel, because you had “issues” with your body.’