Flying Under Bridges (30 page)

‘What
do you suppose people would fight about if there were no religions? I can’t say
I’ve got time for it myself. Too many years freezing to death on a Sunday at
school. Imagine not giving to children because their parents are some other
religion. The shop committee has decided to write off for affiliation to the
Cats Protection League. I told Tom. Did you know that bad Buddhists are either
reborn in hell or the wombs of cats?’

Chapter
Eighteen

When Kate went into
hospital for more tests, Inge probably knew that they were heading for the
final pass. Even taking all the mirrors away wouldn’t hide the truth. The
cancer of the womb had been there for some time but now it had spread and there
was no going back. Inge and Eve sat in the corridor of Nightingale Ward at
Edenford General.

‘What
do you think is next, Camie?’ Inge asked Eve, as she sat still waiting for news
late into the evening.

‘Oh, I
expect they’ll think of some more tests and then—’

Inge
looked at her chum. ‘I don’t mean that. I mean next for Kate.’ She tried to
smile. ‘They say the Gauls used to lend sums of money to each other that were
repayable in the next world. That’s how convinced they were that the souls of
men are immortal. I don’t know. I think you have to live in this life and not
the next, but Kate believes. She really does.’

And Eve
thought about that and wondered if it mattered for the next life that she hadn’t
even managed to live in this.

Adam
was away and when Eve got home she lay in bed trying to read the book Pe Pe had
given her at the tennis party. It was called
Attitudes of Gratitude
—
How
to Give and Receive Joy Every Day
of Your
Life.
It claimed to be a
sourcebook for less stressful, more joyful living. The author was absolutely
adamant that it was possible to be grateful even in times of pain and hardship.

Eve
kept thinking about Kate and she found the book hard going.
When I first got
involved with voluntary simplicity…

What
the hell did that mean? Voluntary simplicity — giving up the car? Not having a
cleaner? What about restaurants and films? It turned out it was about making
deliberate, thoughtful choices, about designing your life to coincide with your
ideals. Eve guessed it meant that it was no good waiting around for someone
else to make things better. That there was no point in blaming others if you
didn’t get what you wanted.

Adam
was beside himself with excitement when he returned. The
Daily Mail
had
picked up on his campaign. Under the headline Adam and Eve of Edenford was an
article about putting the family back in the heart of the town, about the men
looking after the women and a huge picture of the two of them taken at William’s
party. Eve was falling towards the camera at the time and Adam was trying to
stop her. Eve thought it looked as though he held her strings in his hand. The
article was across the page from an in-depth report on a parrot from Berkshire
who was said to speak Swahili and two pages away from a large spread on why
Inge Holbrook had never married — she had been busy, she had a career, perhaps
the footballer Mark Hinks (also oddly not married) had never asked her, etc.

Eve was
beside herself with fury. ‘Adam and Eve of Edenford! Are you quite mad?’

‘I don’t
write the headlines, Eve. I think it’s rather a nice picture.’

‘A nice
picture! Five seconds after that was taken I had my face in their shag-pile.’

Adam
sat drinking his coffee. He didn’t understand his wife. Eve tried to be calm. ‘Adam,
what happened about the swimming pool?’

‘I’m
sorry, Eve, it was a good offer. The council wanted to accept. I did try.’

‘Who
bought it?’

‘That
church over by the river. The Ten Commandments place.’

It was
Shirley’s church. Shirley’s church had taken Eve’s dream.

Eve
stopped working at the charity shop and Mrs Hoddle stopped speaking to her. In
fact, she cut Eve quite dead at the wet fish counter in Sainsbury’s. It didn’t
stop her deciding to get on. When Shirley asked her mother to go to the Church
of the Ten Commandments with her, Eve said she would. Shirley thought Eve might
find God, and Eve thought she might find out what they planned to do with the
pool.

It was
a Tuesday morning and from the kitchen Eve could see the wisteria flowering on
the garden wall. It was not a great day. Her mother had yet again weed
everywhere, supper was going to be late and Adam was busy rehearsing his
Shirley Bassey. By then his upcoming performance at the golf club had started
to take over their lives.

Adam and
Eve had both had a lot of sleepless nights before he finally settled on ‘I Am
What I Am’ as his piece. Eve had thought making his mind up would have a
calming effect but the tension seemed to mount daily. Anyone who didn’t know
about raising money for the golf club would have thought he was preparing for
Covent Garden. Eve was trying to be supportive but unfortunately she had been
forced to the conclusion that Adam wasn’t terribly musical. After some weeks’
rehearsal he could now sing his song backwards, and indeed much of the time
sounded as if he was, but it wasn’t enough.

Eve was
peeling the parsnips, soaking Mother’s underwear and thinking about
homosexuals, when Martha arrived at the back door. Since her return from
Bangkok she had never visited Eve’s house so it took Eve by surprise. In fact,
she hadn’t spoken to her sister since Eve had knocked her out during the
self-defence class. Eve made her coffee and she sat at the kitchen table while
her housewife sister got on.

‘Eve, I’ve
been thinking,’ began Martha.

‘Hmm,’
Eve said. She had been thinking too. Since Inge had moved in, Eve had realised
she wasn’t sure what she thought about homosexuals. She didn’t think it had
ever come up before. She wasn’t sure she’d ever met one and as for the boy
ones, well, it was silly, but her main question was why, if you had a penis of
your own, would you want another one to play with?

‘I need
to get something off my chest,’ said her younger sister, who had never confided
anything to Eve in her life.

‘Of
course. Eve plunged the parsnips into the bowl and straight on to Mother’s
urine-soaked gusset. In just a few minutes of mindless activity she had
managed to forget that they were there. Eve looked down at her handiwork and
wondered what the impact of wee was on parsnips. She wondered if anyone else
would ever know or if she could just serve them up anyway. She wondered— ‘Who
ha, who ha! ‘called Mother. Eve knew she wanted a drink but she hadn’t the
energy. Martha was oblivious. She never visited her. She never sat with what
was left of Mother.

Martha
began to weep. Eve had never seen her cry. Martha had the gift of parading
through life with no regrets and Eve didn’t know what to do. She just knew that
somehow she would get some of the blame.

‘It’s
about … Mother,’ Martha sobbed. ‘I can’t bear it. I should never have been
made to live in that house again.’ Eve let the remark about the house go, took
off her rubber gloves and sat down. Martha carried on weeping. Perhaps she was
much more moved by their mother’s illness than Eve had realised.

‘It’s
all right, Martha. I think she’ll improve. Maybe if you sat with her sometimes
. .

‘I can’t,’
sobbed Martha. ‘I can’t.’

Adam
poked his head into the kitchen. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked.

‘It’s
Martha,’ Eve aid.

‘Ah,’
he replied, as if that explained everything and went away again. Eve got Martha
some loo roll from the downstairs cloakroom and waited for her to settle. The
crying slowed and finally she blew her nose very loudly and said, ‘It’s all my
fault. It’s all my fault.’

‘Don’t
be silly. Mother had—’

Martha
banged her hand down on the table and shouted, ‘Will you listen?’ She had
always had a temper as a child, so Eve thought she probably would. Martha took
a deep breath.

‘Do you
remember when I got into all that trouble at school? In the fourth form?’

Eve did
remember because she could have died at the time. Eve was in the fifth form.
Inge Holbrook was Head of the Year and Games Captain. Eve was not the
brightest, not the best, but doing all right. What she didn’t need was a sister
causing trouble below her. Martha was fifteen at the time. She had always been
promiscuous, but when she was found giving the games class sexual instruction
in the sports-equipment room, using herself, a girl from the third year and a
hockey stick, things blew up badly. Mr and Mrs Cameron were called to the
school immediately and rumours flew across the playgrounds. Everyone was sure
that Martha would be expelled, but she wasn’t.

She
never told Eve what happened. Until then. Her parents went into the head’s
office, where the headmistress, Mrs Hintle, was beside herself. Martha related
the story.

‘She
was furious. I knew I would be chucked out and I just couldn’t be. It would
have been too awful. Mrs Hintle sat behind her desk and said to Mum and Dad, “Although
Martha is one of our brightest pupils, I have no choice but to expel her from
the school. Martha, do you have anything to say?” So I asked to see her on my
own. I thought it would be confidential. I thought it would get me out of it.
You have to understand how desperate I was. It mattered to me. You weren’t
academic, it was different for you.’

Eve
looked at her sister, her flesh and blood, and realised she knew nothing about
her. ‘What would get you out of it?’

‘I told
Mrs Hintle… that I needed help. That I was so interested in sex because …
because—’

‘What?’

‘Because
Dad.., interfered with me.’

‘You
didn’t!’

‘I told
her it was confidential. I told her not to tell anyone. I just thought she
would be sympathetic. I never thought she would do anything. Just let me stay.’

‘But it
wasn’t true?’ Eve demanded. Martha hung her head.

‘No. I
was just trying to get out of trouble. Everyone wanted an explanation, so I
gave them one.’

‘What
happened?’

‘Straight
away she called Mum and Dad in and started telling them everything. Dad went
pale and had to sit down, and Mum started yelling at him. Mrs Hintle said of
course she would get me help and I wasn’t to be blamed. Mum wouldn’t speak to
Dad and it went on for weeks until I couldn’t stand it. Finally, I told Mum the
truth. That he had never done anything. Never touched me, and he came in while
I was telling her. She listened and then she said, “You’re my daughter and I
believed you. I would do anything for you. You’re my daughter.” And I felt terrible
and they never recovered. That’s why Dad hated her. Because she believed me and
not him. He stayed for you but he hated her from then on. That’s why he left
her nothing, that’s why she…’

Martha
began to cry again and Eve sat. Her mother had chosen Martha over her husband.
Would she have done the same? Would she choose Shirley over Adam? After a while
Martha calmed and wiped her eyes.

‘Thanks,
Eve. I feel better now. I had to tell someone.’ She stood up to leave. Then she
told Eve she was going back to Bangkok. That she had thought she could make a
go of it back here but she couldn’t. She reached out to hug Eve, who just sat
there motionless. The sisters touched briefly and then Martha was gone. She
left behind the burden of her past, which Eve had known nothing about.

That
evening Theresa Baker phoned. She said even though Martha had gone, the women
still wanted to hold the study classes and would it still be all right to have
them in her mother’s house? Eve went to let them all in and Theresa, bless her,
was really trying to keep the thing going. It made Eve so mad with Martha. She
had started something. She had made the women think, and now they didn’t know
what to do about it.

‘Why
don’t we watch a video of me giving birth?’ Theresa asked as soon as they had
sorted the food and drink, to which Eve replied, ‘Well, mainly because you’re
all eating.’ They were having an Italian night provided by Fran, and Eve
doubted anyone would have kept the lasagne down.

The
discussion was low-key. The women had their own group now but they weren’t at
all sure what to do with it. Without Martha to give them focus they floundered
about in the feminist fog. Then someone suggested they needed a project.
Something to get them going and it was Theresa who suggested the bypass.

‘It’s
going to go right through the woods,’ said ferret woman. ‘We should do
something.

There
were general murmurings about Mother Nature, the power of trees and what a
wonderful discovery aloe vera had been. Eve promised her support but soon left
them to it. She could not bear to be in that unhappy house.

Chapter
Nineteen