by Sue Townsend
55
When the funeral party arrived back at the house, the crowd growled its displeasure at Brian and Titania. Then, after a gesture from Alexander, they grew silent. Photographs of Yvonne’s funeral had already been posted on the internet. Some of the regulars had twittered their worries that access to the lavatory would cease with her passing.
As soon as the mourners were gathered inside the hall, they heard Eva singing a familiar tune. ‘I stood upon the shore, And watched in sweet peace, The cheery fish’s bath, In the clear little brook.’
Titania whispered to Ruby, ‘It’s Schubert, “The Trout”.’
Ruby said, ‘Why are people always telling me things I already know?’
When Eva switched to German, Ruby joined in. ‘Ich stand an dem Gestade, Und sah in süβer Ruh, Des muntern Fischleins Bade, Im klaren Bächlein zu.’
The group looked at each other and smiled, and Brianne said, ‘Yeah, go G’ma.’
Ruby said, without modifying her voice, ‘She practised that bleddy song in English and German for weeks on end. It nearly drove me mad.’
Eva shouted down the stairs, ‘Yes, and where’s my gold medal now, Mum?’
‘Oh, not that bleddy medal again! Get over it, Eva!’
Ruby said to Stanley, ‘She knew I hated clutter. She should have put it away somewhere safe.’
Stanley smiled, he was a tidy man himself.
She hobbled to the bottom of the stairs and shouted up, ‘It weren’t real gold anyway!’
Much later, when Eva asked Brianne how the funeral had gone, she said, ‘Brian Junior made a dick of himself giving the eulogy, but it was OK. Nobody cried, except Dad.’
‘Couldn’t you have squeezed a tear out, Brianne? Surely it’s only good manners to cry at a funeral.’
Brianne said, ‘You’re such a hypocrite! I thought you were all for truth and beauty, and all that nineteenth century shit.’
Brianne was angry and disappointed that Alexander had paid her such little attention. He had spent no more time with her than he had with the rest of the family. OK, so he didn’t love her. But he ought to have acknowledged that they had a close bond. She had managed to sit next to him in the church, but she could have been a sack of old potatoes for all he cared.
He had disrespected her. She was upset. She needed to tell her online friends how she felt. She went into Brian Junior’s bedroom, and fired up her laptop.
He was already online, posting to Twitter. He typed:
Gran y = worm bait. She rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ towards non-existent Jesus.
He switched tabs to the Facebook group set up in honour of his mother. Using one of his troll accounts, he began to slag off the crowd outside his house, with particular reference to Sandy Lake. He ended his diatribe by updating the troll account status to ‘Anybody got a spare grenade?’
Brianne was on the same site, using her own name. She typed:
There’s a skanky black wasteman outside my front door. He thinks he’s a doorman, but he should impose a dress code on himself cos his locks are rank like dead donkey’s tails. Cut ‘em off, granddad.
Alexander was standing on the doorstep, illuminated by the porch light. He was wearing his navy-blue Crombie overcoat and smoking a cigarette.
There were several desperate cries, people begging to see Eva before the evening deadline. She had started to give an audience to five people each day. Who she saw was determined by Alexander, who picked a surprisingly varied bunch of representatives from the crowd.
This afternoon’s consultations had included a 5 7-year-old whose mother wanted to marry a man in his seventies — how could she stop her?
Eva had said, ‘You don’t stop her, you buy her a bottle of champagne and give them your blessing.’
The second was a feather enthusiast who believed that Eva was hiding a fine set of wings. Eva had turned round, pulled her T-shirt up to her neck and showed the enthusiast her unadorned back.
There was a teenage girl who told Eva that she wanted to die and join Kurt Cobain in his crib in heaven. And there was a super-obese American man who had flown from New Orleans, having paid for two Business Class seats, to tell Eva that she was a reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe, and he would like to ‘conversate’ with her.
And, of course, there were the recently bereaved who could not bear the harsh reality that they would never see their loved ones again. They sent notes and photographs, asking Eva to speak to their dead and relay messages from them to the living. Eva worked hard to damp down the emotion in her room. She began to turn away if there were tears.
Alexander ground his cigarette out under his boot and threw it into the gutter. He spoke quietly to Sandy, saying, ‘That’s it for tonight. Listen to your good side. No shouting to Eva tonight. Have some respect. There’s been a funeral here today.’
That night, when Alexander had settled Venus and Thomas in their beds in Brian Junior’s old room, he looked out of the window before getting into bed himself. He saw that the only person left on the opposite pavement was Sandy Lake, sitting outside her tent.
She had made herself as comfortable as possible, supplementing her Karrimat with a cardboard and newspaper mattress. With the aid of a head torch, she was reading a magazine dedicated to angel-worshipping celebrities.
Alexander pushed the window sash up a little to let in some air. Sandy looked up immediately, and there was something about her stillness that disturbed him. He closed the window and locked it.
Sandy was down in the dumps tonight. Penelope had abandoned her and gone home to nurse her bronchitis. Sandy had been here for the longest, and still hadn’t had a proper audience with Eva. She needed more than a ten-minute session. Eva had been promising her another consultation, but for some reason it kept getting postponed, and Sandy was losing her patience. She needed to tell Eva her life story — how unkind people had been to her throughout her life, and how, when she went to the shops around the corner and talked to Mr Barthi about Eva and the angels, he would refuse to listen.
He had said to her recently, ‘Your nonsense is lost to me. I am an agnostic.’
It was Alexander’s fault. It was he who was keeping her from Eva. He was jealous, because Sandy had become the world’s self-appointed expert on the Eva phenomenon. Her scrapbooks had more press clippings than any of the other Eva fans, and she could recite, by heart, the highlights of Eva’s rise to celebritydom. Her iPad had links to every Eva-related site and blog, and she was proud of the efficiency of her news alerts, which constantly searched for Eva updates.
She was the main source for the dissemination of, and misinformation about, Eva’s supposed spiritual powers. Sandy was prone to exaggeration, describing a fictional audience with Eva as being, ‘In the presence of an unworldly being. She has an ethereal beauty that cannot be matched in the whole of the world. And every word she speaks is wise and true.’
When pressed by newcomers to the crowd to reveal what Eva had said that was so impressive, Sandy would wipe her eyes and say, ‘Sorry, I always mist up when speaking of Eva …’ Then, after what her audience found to be an infuriatingly extended pause, she would say, ‘Eva spake unto me and the words she did say were for my ears alone. But when I was backing out of her room, I saw her rise from the bed and hover there for a few seconds. She was giving me a sign! It was Eva’s way of telling me that I have been chosen.’
When cynics questioned Sandy and asked, ‘Chosen for what?’ the chosen one would reply, in sanctimonious tones, ‘I’m waiting for another sign, it will come from the sky.’
Sandy needed Eva to address the world and tell all the countries that were at war to stop. And to help all the kiddies who had no water or food. She was sure that the world would listen to Eva, and then there would be joy in angel heaven, and there would be no more fighting, no floods or famines or earthquakes. There would be peace and joy and love throughout the world, so it was imperative that she talk to Eva.
What could be more important?
She looked up at Eva’s lighted window, said a prayer and climbed inside her tent, where William Wainwright was sleeping like a baby on barbiturates.
It seemed to Eva that every time she looked out of the window, she saw Sandy Lake looking up at her with a beatific smile. The woman had ruined her view of the world outside.
Earlier that evening, Eva had cursed and said to Alexander, ‘Does that crazy woman never sleep?’
Alexander said, ‘Even when she does sleep, she keeps her eyes open. But don’t worry, I’m next door. Just knock on the wall if you need me.’
56
In late February, after the twins had returned to Leeds, they settled back into Sentinel Towers with relief— it was impossible to do any serious work in Bowling Green Road. According to Brian Junior, the doorbell rang on a mean average of 9.05 times per hour.
They decided that they would work together from now on. Each would help the other with their essays and assignments, leaving them more time to spend on their Special Projects.
They started with their finances and sold their mother’s gift of jewellery in a Cash Generator in the city centre. They agreed that in future they would not allow sentiment to influence their plans.
In the second week of their second term, they had successfully hacked into the university’s accommodation records and changed the status of their accounts from ‘Rent Arrears’ to ‘Rent Paid in Full until 2013’. The day after this triumph, which brought each of them an extra £400 a month, they went shopping for clothes.
They sat down on a sofa opposite the changing rooms in Debenhams and talked for a long time about their lives and what they wanted in the future.
Brianne confessed that if she couldn’t have Alexander, she wouldn’t have any man.
Brian Junior told Brianne that he would never marry. ‘I’m not sexually attracted to women or to men,’ he said.
Brianne smiled and said, ‘So, we stick together for life?’
Brian Junior agreed. ‘You’re the only person I can stand to be with for more than four minutes.’
When they had tried their new clothes on, they came out of their respective changing rooms and were astonished at how similar they could look. They were both wearing black and, after a few negotiations, and going back and forth to the rails, they ended up with a uniform. It was all black apart from a leopard-skin belt and the silver accessories on their black cowboy boots.
Mindful of their new and certain future wealth, they left their old clothes in the changing room. As they walked arm in arm through the shopping centre, they began to work on synchronising their steps.
A colourist at Toni & Guy obeyed their instructions and dyed their hair magenta red. After a stylist had given them both a severe geometric cut, they left the salon and headed to the best tattoo parlour in South Yorkshire.
When the operative asked them if they were related to the woman in the bed called Beaver, they responded, ‘No.’
He was disappointed. ‘She’s cool,’ he said.
They were given a rudimentary test for allergies and, while they waited for the results, they sat outside a coffee bar so they could smoke. Nihilists like them felt it was their duty to smoke.
They lit their cigarettes and smoked contentedly before Brian Junior said, ‘Will we ever go back to Bowling Green Road, Brianne?’
What, and have to interface with those awful people we used to call Mum and Dad? Or, as we now know them, The Great Adulterer and his wife, The False Prophet.’
Brian Junior said, ‘I used to love them when I was little — and you did too, Brianne, you can’t deny it!’
‘Little kids are idiots, they believe in the fucking Tooth Fairy, Santa, God!’
‘I believed in them,’ lamented Brian Junior. ‘I believed they’d always do the right thing. Tell the truth. Control their animal desires.’
Brianne laughed. ‘Animal desires? You’ve either been reading the Old Testament or D. H. Lawrence.’
Brian Junior said, ‘Disneyland hurts me. The thought that while we were queuing with Mum for the It’s a Small World ride, Dad was back at the hotel paying for a prostitute with his credit card.’
Brianne said, ‘We’ll say a final farewell to them, shall we?’
Neither of them had a piece of paper. Who used the stuff these days? Together they erased every parental reference from their laptops. Then, Brianne put a virtual fire on screen, and typed in ‘Eva Beaver’ and ‘Brian Beaver’. Brian Junior put his index finger on top of Brianne’s, and together they pressed the key that would cause their parents’ names to burn, and eradicate their memory for all time.
They discussed the tattoo they would each have.
It would be two halves of an equation that together made one perfect sum.
After they left the tattoo studio, they attracted a great deal of attention — but nobody, not even the lowlife who hung around town in the middle of the day, dared to comment.
Brian Junior drew strength and confidence from his sister. In the past, he had walked down the street with his gaze on the pavement. Now he stared straight ahead and people moved away, out of his path.
57
Eva had watched the leaves of the sycamore unfurl. For the first time, it was possible to have the window open. She was on her back doing exercises on her bed, slowly raising two legs until she could feel her abdomen tightening. She could tell that Alexander was on the door from the wisps of cigarette smoke drifting up through the open window.
She had heard him arguing with Venus and Thomas earlier that morning. Neither of them knew where their school shoes were. Eva had laughed when she heard Alexander ask, ‘Where did you put them last?’
He was following the unofficial parents’ script, she thought.
For how many thousands of years had children been asked the same question? When did children start to wear shoes, and what were they made of? Animal skin, or woven vegetation?
There were so many things she didn’t know.
She had also heard Alexander say, ‘Finish your food, there are children starving in Africa.’
It had been Chinese children starving when she was a girl, thought Eva.
He had answered Thomas’s question, ‘Why do children have to go to school?’ with the terse reply, ‘Because they do.’
If it hadn’t been for the crowd opposite, she would have liked to watch them leaving the house, Alexander dreadlocked and elegant in his navy overcoat, the children in their red and grey uniforms.
Her mother had complained to her that the children’s paintings and drawings were ‘taking over the bleddy house’. She had added, ‘I wouldn’t mind, but they’re all rubbish.’
Eva could tell that her mother was baking today. The room was full of the sickly sweet smell of the cakes that Ruby would sell later to the crowd.
Eva had asked her not to do this. ‘You’re encouraging them to hang about, and you’re exploiting them.’
But Ruby had bought herself a new living-room carpet with the proceeds of her tea and cake sales. She had refused to stop, saying, ‘If you don’t like it, get out of bed. They’ll soon go away when they see that you’re just a very ordinary woman.’
Eva turned her head during her neck exercises and saw a pair of magpies fly past with bits of straw clamped in their beaks. They were nesting in a hollow in the sycamore trunk. She had been watching their comings and goings with great interest for a week.
‘Two for joy,’ she thought.
She wondered if it were possible for a man and a woman to be completely happy together.
When she and Brian had, at his insistence, thrown dinner parties, the married couples had usually begun the evening with conventional good manners. But, by the time Eva was serving her home-made profiteroles, there was often one couple who were transformed into bickering pedants, questioning the veracity of their partner’s anecdotes and contradicting them in tedious detail. ‘No, it was Wednesday, not Thursday. And you were wearing your blue suit, not the grey.’ They left
early with faces as set as Easter Island statues. Or stayed on and on, helping themselves to strong liquor, and falling into a drunken morass of depression.
Eva smiled to herself, and thought, ‘I’ll never again have to throw another dinner party, or attend one.’
She wondered if the magpies were happy — or was happiness only a human perception?
Who had insisted on including ‘the pursuit of happiness’ in the American constitution?
She knew that Go ogle could supply the answer within seconds of her asking, but she was in no hurry to find out. Perhaps it would come back to her, if she waited.
Alexander knocked. ‘Are you ready for a long-distance lorry driver with two families? One in Edinburgh, one in Bristol.’
Eva groaned.
Alexander said, ‘It gets worse. It’s his fiftieth birthday next week. Both wives are throwing him a big party.’
They laughed, and Eva said, ‘It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to…’
Alexander said, ‘I haven’t seen you cry yet. Do you?’
‘No, I can’t cry.’ Then Eva asked, ‘What am I doing here, Alexander?’
‘You’re giving yourself a second chance, aren’t you? You’re a good woman, Eva.’
‘But I’m not!’ insisted Eva. ‘I resent them disturbing my peace. I can feel their misery clogging up my system. I can hardly breathe. How can I be a good woman? I don’t care any more. I’m bored by the people I see. All I want to do is lie here without speaking, without hearing. Without worrying about who’s next on your list.’
Alexander said, ‘You think my job is any easier? I stand in a cold doorway freezing my balls off, talking to mentalists all day.’