Flying Under Bridges (26 page)

Everyone
looked at her and, really, she had no choice but to get up. Fran stood opposite
Martha and tried to be helpful.

‘I’m
just walking down the street?’ Martha nodded. ‘Okay.’ Fran started walking and
then stopped.

‘Sorry,
Martha, where am I going?’

‘I don’t
think it matters.’

‘No, it’s
just that I walk different paces depending on where I’m going. You know, fast to
the coffee shop but slow to the dentist, that sort of thing.’

Everyone
started to agree and contribute their own paces in relation to location until
Martha couldn’t stand any more.

‘All
right, all right.’ The room settled down. ‘You’re going shopping.’

Fran
set off again across the carpet and Martha began to move towards her. Fran
stopped again.

‘Sorry,
Martha, what am I going to buy?’

‘It
doesn’t matter.’

This
made her cross. ‘Look, you may know all about attacking people in the street
and all that but I do know about shopping and—’

‘Shoes,
you’re going to buy shoes.’ Fran was a sport and held her hands up to accept
this.

‘Fine.
I don’t need shoes but it’s fine.’ Fran began to walk again while Martha snuck
up behind her. Just as Martha was about to strike, her potential victim turned
to face her and began speaking very loudly.

‘Six
ounces of cheese, three celery sticks, one onion finely chopped and two pints
of chicken stock.’

‘What
the hell is that?’

Fran
looked hurt that no one had recognised it. ‘It’s part of a soup recipe.’

Martha
was incredulous. ‘Someone is going to attack you in the street and you defend
yourself by quoting a soup recipe?’

Fran
was indignant. ‘It’s Jamie Oliver and it worked, didn’t it?’

Martha
was losing it. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. Eve, what would you do if a man came at
you?’

Eve
thought about it for a minute. She really did want to be helpful.

‘I don’t
know,’ she said. ‘I think I’d probably comment on his hair.’

‘Why?’
exploded Martha, exasperated.

‘Well,
men are funny about their hair. He comes at me and I say, “Your hair’s looking
a bit funny at the front.” He goes like that,’ Eve reached up with both hands
to brush her hair back, ‘and I knee him in the groin while he’s got his hands
up.’ There was general murmuring of approval at this idea but Martha was having
none of it.

‘This
is disastrous. Now let’s just try some basic self-defence techniques, okay?
Fran, I’m going to attack you from behind.’ Martha was impatient now and didn’t
wait for anyone to agree. She simply leapt behind Fran and grabbed her. ‘Got
you,’ she yelled menacingly.

Fran
leant back in Martha’s arms and sniffed. ‘What is that perfume? It’s lovely.’

Everyone
sniggered, which was a mistake because Martha was now beside herself. ‘Will you
take this seriously? This is important. It could save your life.’

There
was a silence. Everything had gone too far for a decent women’s study group.

‘Look,
Martha,’ Eve said, feeling some responsibility as a family member. ‘I know it’s
important. I just don’t want to think about it. It makes me so furious. Why
should we walk around thinking we have to defend ourselves at every minute?’

Martha
nodded. ‘That’s good, Eve, get mad. Come on.’

‘I’m
not angry,’ continued Eve, ‘I just want to know why I can’t simply walk in the
park and enjoy it without looking over my shoulder.’

Martha
began bobbing up and down close to her sister. ‘And it makes you furious.’
Martha reached out and jabbed Eve on the arm. Eve spun round. She was beginning
to get drawn. ‘Why does it happen, Eve, huh? Huh?’ Martha poked her again.

Eve
clenched her jaw in irritation. ‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ she said. ‘I
think a lot of it is a conspiracy. I think it’s a load of men who write
newspapers, blowing these stories up out of all proportion to make us
frightened and keep us in the house. Well I’m not having it. I will not be
afraid.’

‘So
come at me! Come at me!’ shouted her sister, punching at Eve and then spinning
round behind her. Eve was mad now. Eve was mad about a lot of things. She didn’t
stop to think. She spun round, took one single punch and knocked Martha clean
out.

Chapter
Sixteen

18
January

Holloway
Prison for Women

London

My dear Inge,

The
Joys of Sex

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify

the desires of the flesh.

(GALATIANS
5.16)

I think the psychiatrist
believes that we are getting down to the nitty gritty.

‘Do you
and Adam have a good sex life?’ asks Big Nose, who thinks nothing of poking his
big nose in anywhere, willy-nilly, as it were.

‘I don’t
know,’ was my answer. ‘I think so. I mean, till his… accident.’

We seem
endlessly to stray on to the subject. I don’t know if I had a good sex life. I
never had sex with anyone except Adam. He wasn’t very demanding after the
children came along. I think he was happy. I mean, he made all the moves.

‘I
suppose it must be hard for him to take all the responsibility for sex in your
relationship.’

‘Yes,
well, I just never really thought of it. I mean, it was always up to him. It’s
like that with men, isn’t it? You sort of think they can’t help themselves, don’t
you? That’s what everyone tells you. That it’s not their fault. They’re driven.
That’s why they have all those magazines, even in petrol stations where the
most I’m ever looking for is a mini Scotch egg from the cold cabinet.’

‘And
what did you want?’

What
did I want? It was a question that never came up. I wanted to sleep alone in
clean, white sheets. Egyptian cotton ones from the linen specialist. Anyway, I
knew he wanted to … have an early night… ever since the big party. You
know, because of Pe Pe looking so splendid and him not getting the job from the
mall and his injury and then him getting ready to save Edenford and everything.
He had a lot to prove to himself.

It’s a
funny business, sex, isn’t it? Maybe not for you. I mean, I wouldn’t know.
Perhaps it was all more … sympathetic for you. You were with someone who must
have felt what you felt. I mean, I imagine. I sometimes think the worst thing
that ever happened to us is that Adam read an article about foreplay in
Cosmopolitan
while he was waiting at the dentist’s. He brought it home and put it on the
kitchen table.

‘This
business here, Eve,’ he said, poking a finger at the magazine article. ‘I do
work at making you…’ Well, he could hardly say it,’… satisfied?’ Of course,
I nodded. I mean he does work at it. Endlessly.

He’s
absolutely scrupulous about the entire operation. Starts at the top, kneading
and twiddling my breasts like he’s tuning the radio and keeps it up until I
give a moan that suggests he’s found the right frequency. Then he works his way
down as if he were visiting the stations of the cross until finally he can’t
stand it any more.

‘Here comes
the train into the tunnel!’ he shouts, as if I might not have expected it and
then there’s two short blasts of the whistle and he passes on into the night,
leaving me still standing on the platform.

I kept
thinking about the wrong things. About what I read in the launderette, about
what was said at the charity meeting, about what I heard on the news, about
Martha’s classes. I lie on my back when Adam makes love to me. Not because we
haven’t tried more exciting things, but I’ve put on weight and I am getting
older. I think if I lie flat out then gravity spreads things back on the bed
rather better. I mean, I think I must look better being bored down on rather
than coming at him from above. I don’t know if you would understand. It
matters. It’s a buyer’s market. If Adam goes off me he could still find
somebody else but what the hell would I do?

Cosmopolitan
says it’s important to stay sexually active when
you get to a certain age. Apparently regular sex stimulates the blood flow into
the vaginal area thus reducing dryness. Who finds these things out? Anyway, the
fact is the muscle contractions during orgasm promote the health of the
vagina. You must have sex or get a sick vagina.

I didn’t
want to be thinking about those things. I didn’t want to be thinking about
anything. I wanted it to be different. Different like in a romance novel. I
wanted harmony, to melt together, no one making any sacrifices or making them
and not minding. Neither one of us having to disappear for the other. I wanted
to be swept up in masterful arms, to be protected from the horrors of the
world, to have Adam’s lips bring rapture. Martha says women have to hold out,
not for orgasm but for ecstasy. Mostly I just hold out for us to finish. That’s
not to say that there wasn’t a surprising amount of smut in my mind, yet
whenever Adam suggested we have an ‘early night’, I couldn’t seem to be
bothered. Oh, I know relationships go through stages and it can’t ever be as
exciting as that first time up against the pickled eggs in the larder. It was
like that then. Like riding your bicycle over cobblestones. Now I just lie
there wishing we had a remote control for the telly so I could at least change
channels while Adam builds up his ‘head of steam’ as he calls it. And then
sometimes I do feel like it but I’ve only just changed the sheets and by the
time I’ve decided that I can be bothered to wash them again, Adam’s got
engrossed with his avocados or something and the moment’s gone. I shouldn’t be
telling you these things. It’s just that I’ve got no one to talk to. I’m
drowning in still waters. Susan Belcher’s a chiropodist now. I don’t really
like feet. I always think of them as the frayed edges of the body. Actually I’m
not overly keen on the body in general. Especially mine. I eat too much
chocolate.

‘What
do you do afterwards? After your.., intimacy?’ asks the shrink.

What
did we do? ‘Nothing really. He’s a good man, Adam, but he doesn’t really… he
puts his head on my shoulder and says, “Was it all right for you?” and I always
think, How can you ask me that? I mean, weren’t you there?’

I don’t
think any of this matters. Adam and I didn’t have sex after his injury and then
he got arrested for molesting that woman, which was all a misunderstanding but
it really did him in and…

I look
at the shrink and wonder what he is getting from all this. We spend so much
time together that my sewing is coming on a treat. He looks at me as if he
knows I have something to add. So I do.

‘Why do
you suppose it is that the initial on the lid of a tube of Smarties is never
your own?’ I say, but he doesn’t answer.

Fact
—
you are statistically more likely to be bitten by a shark than
you are to be arrested for impersonating a police officer at an airport.

I was
cleaning the downstairs loo when Horace Hoddle came round unexpectedly. Adam
was furious because there was an empty loo roll in the hall. He wrestled a bit
with the security gate to let Horace in while I went to put coffee on. The two
men were deep in conversation when I came back.

Adam
was doing confident acting. ‘No problem, Horace.’

Horace
smiled a thin-lipped affair at me. ‘Coffee. How delightful, but I don’t, thank you.’
He patted his trim stomach. ‘Got to watch the caffeine levels.’

I put
the useless tray down on the table.

Adam
was beaming. ‘Good news, darling, the golf club committee are doing a musical
revue at the end of the year.’

Horace
smiled. ‘Yes, indeed. It’s a charity event. We’re raising money partly for the
hospice and also for new driving mats, which are desperately needed on the
practice range. Adam has very kindly agreed to take part.’ Horace lowered his
voice although there was no one else around. ‘I have high hopes for your
husband, Mrs Marshall. I think he could well make captain.., at some point..,
and I think it would do him a lot of good if the members saw what fun he can
be. We all know he is hard working but we need to see the club leader in him.
Fun, eh, Adam, that’s what we want.’

Horace
stood up. With his black suit and pinched face he looked like the grim reaper
at a coffee morning. Fun? It seemed unlikely. We all gave cheerful goodbyes and
he departed, leaving Adam on a cloud.

‘Eve!
Captain! I know we hoped but…’ His forehead creased, ‘Fun? What can I do that’s
fun?’ I had several interesting suggestions but there wasn’t time for those.

‘You
could sing or…’ I was going to add walk on water, both of which seemed
equally remote as possibilities, but it was too late. Adam had seen the future
and seized it.