The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year (29 page)

‘It’s more than a crush. I love him.’

Brian lost concentration on the road, and had to
jerk on the steering wheel to bring the car back into line. He said, ‘He’s
thirty-two years older than you, Brianne!’

She said, ‘I don’t care.’

‘You’ll care when you’re wiping his ancient arse,
and his teeth are in a glass by the side of your bed. Does he return your love,
Brianne?’

Brianne looked out of the window through the snow at
the halo of tail lights ahead. ‘No,’ she said.

‘No,’ repeated Brian, ‘because you’re an infatuated
stupid teenager. You’re just a kid.’

Brian Junior leaned forward until his mouth was very
near to Brian’s ear and said, quietly, ‘And you’re a hypocrite. You’re
eighteen years older than Titania.’

Brian gesticulated despairingly as he roared, ‘Do
you think I don’t know that? For years I was terrified that she’d leave me for
a younger man.’

The car swayed from side to side.

Poppy removed her hand from Brian’s and squealed, ‘Please,
put both hands back on the steering wheel!’

Brian Junior said, ‘I want to know when exactly you
fell out of love with Mum. I want to know how long you’ve been lying to our
family.’

‘I haven’t fallen of out of love with your mum.
Adults’ lives are complicated.’ After a long silence, Brian continued, ‘We
should have stuck to “The Euro — Fight or Flight?” It does nobody any good to
pick at old scabs.’

Brianne said, ‘I love picking at scabs. It’s so
satisfying when they come away and you see the fresh skin beneath.’

Brian exploded, ‘All right! You’re both so fucking mature!
I’ll tell you exactly how it was with me and Titania! Ask me anything you
like!’

The twins were silent.

Poppy said, ‘Was it wonderfully romantic? Did you
fall for her at first sight?’

‘It was more of a slow burn. I was impressed with
her intelligence, and her brilliant research. She was like a terrier, clinging
on to what she knew to be right. She made herself unpopular, but not with me.’

The twins exchanged a mocking glance.

Poppy said, ‘How did you first get together?’

Brian smiled in the dark. ‘One night in the
University Library, amongst the Philosophy stacks …

‘In the library?’ Brianne was horrified. ‘That’s
where Mum worked! That is gross!’

Brian said, ‘Couldn’t do it now, bloody CCTV cameras
everywhere.’

Brian Junior asked, ‘When
was
this?’

‘It was around about the time of the Columbia
disaster.’

‘So, you’ve been having an affair with Titania since
2003?’

‘The disaster hit me hard, son. I was in a very
vulnerable state. Your mother didn’t seem to understand my distress. But
Titania was there, equally upset. It was Columbia that brought us together. We
found solace in each other.’

Brian Junior said, ‘Yeah, but it didn’t take you
eight years to get over a failed shuttle re-entry, did it?’

Brian turned to look at his son. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I admit
it. There was passion there, and physics. I was the unstoppable force, and
Titania was the immovable object.’

The driver of a dangerously close Scandinavian
articulated lorry sounded his klaxon. Brian braked so hard that Poppy
immediately thought of whiplash and a possible claim for damages.

When they were calm again, Brian Junior said, ‘So,
first we discover that you’re an adulterer, and now we realise that you are
intellectually bankrupt. The analogy you used, your supposed gravitational
force, could only have issued from the mouth of an intellectual pygmy. Your
pop-science analogy is misapplied and your faulty logic is as dangerous as your
driving. Millions have died because of so-called scientists like you.’

‘Go, Bri,’ said Brianne.

The ensuing argument developed quickly and raged
back and forth, reaching towering peaks of misunderstanding, until eventually
father and son found themselves on a scientific plateau, discussing
six-dimensional space.

Poppy was bored. To pass the interminable time (they
were only at the junction for East Midlands Airport, for God’s sake) she
allowed herself a fantasy, imagining herself as Brian’s child bride. Standing
at the altar, she would look spectacular in her white lace next to his bulky,
bearded self. She would make him sell the house, with Eva in it, finish with
prune-face Titania and buy a loft apartment in the middle of town. She would
charm his faculty into realising his ambition of a full professorship. She
would insist that he fork out £3 50 to have his hair and beard trimmed by Nicky
Clarke. After fitting him out with a casual academic uniform (corduroy
trousers, suede brogues, soft tweed jacket, horn-rimmed spectacles), she would
act as his agent, get him television work, and they would eventually move in
celebrity circles. She had always wanted to meet Katie Price and the Dalai
Lama. She would insist on Brian having a vasectomy. She would charge him for
sex, and later — when he was frail, or starting to lose his marbles — she would
put him into a home. Although there was always the possibility of a mercy
killing. She would wear deep black at the trial, and a modest little hat. She
would clutch a white linen handkerchief and occasionally dab her eyes. When the
foreman of the jury pronounced, ‘Not Guilty,’ she would faint very prettily in
the dock. By the time they reached the Ikea turn-off, she had married,
reconstructed and buried Brian.

He drove on, oblivious to his fate.

Poppy came out of her reverie to interrupt Brian Junior,
who was droning on about something she could not and did not want to
understand.

‘It’s obvious to me that your father was deeply in
love with Titania. She must have been beautiful then. Was she, Brian?’

Brian hesitated. ‘Not beautiful, not even pretty. And
I wouldn’t have called her handsome either. But she understood my passion for
my subject. If I arrived home late, Eva showed no curiosity in what I’d been
doing. She would barely look up from her sodding embroidery.

Yes, if the world was about to end, there she’d be …
stitch, stitch, stitch.’

Brianne said, sadly, ‘All those lies, Dad, for all
those years.

Poppy shifted round in her seat to face Brian. Her
Shantung silk skirt fell away. Brian caught a glimpse of her pale-green French
knickers.

They travelled a mile in silence.

Brian said, ‘Time for music.’

He pushed a button on the CD player and the Nelson
Riddle Orchestra filled the car. This was torture for his children, but it
became worse when Brian and Poppy started to sing along with Sinatra to ‘Strangers
In The Night’. Brian sang with a pseudo-American accent, and Poppy’s falsetto
was painfully out of tune.

The twins put their fingers down their throats and
clapped their noise-cancelling headphones firmly on to their ears. By the time
the car passed the sign for the Leeds turn-off, Brian and Poppy were serenading
each other with ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’.

As
soon as Brian had dropped them outside Sentinel Towers, the twins headed
towards the lift, to put their Christmas presents from their family on eBay —
the second-hand iPad is were laughably out of date and irrelevant to their
needs. The iPads lay at the bottom of a black plastic bag together with the
scarf Ruby had knitted for Brian Junior and the Tony Blair autobiography,
inscribed on the title page: ‘To Brianne, Happy Christmas from Grandma Yvonne’.

But Poppy lingered and tried to convey by the use of
her eyes that Brian was the most fascinating man she’d ever known and that she
could not bear to drag herself away from him.

At
3.30 a.m. Brian Junior heard Poppy’s door open and her shower start.

She was singing, ‘I’ve got me under my skin.’

It enraged Brian Junior. He thumped on the wall with
his fist and frightened himself by thinking, ‘I could actually kill her.’

He knew from his research on the deep web that it
was possible to ‘disappear’ someone and never be caught.

44

Nurse
Spears ordered Eva to remove her nightgown. She wanted to examine her body for
bedsores.

Eva covered her nakedness as much as she could with
the duvet.

Nurse Spears said, ‘I’ve known people die from
bed-sores, Mrs Beaver. If unattended, they can lead to infection, ulceration —
and, eventually, amputation.’ She lifted Eva’s ankles and stared at her heels
critically. She then moved to Eva’s buttocks, and finished by checking her
elbows. She seemed almost disappointed to find no angry sores. ‘You’ve
obviously been using a good barrier cream.’

‘No,’ said Eva, ‘but I know about bedsores, I just
keep moving and changing position.’

When Eva was dressed, the nurse took her blood
pressure and frowned at the result, even though it was in the normal range. She
stuck a thermometer in Eva’s ear and, again, frowned at what she saw. She put
the thermometer away and asked, ‘How are your bowels?’

Eva said politely, ‘Mine are fine, how are yours?’

‘I’m delighted that you are able to be so
light-hearted, Mrs Beaver, considering your circumstances. I understand, from
your mother downstairs, that your husband is living with another woman in the
garden extension.’

‘It’s a shed.’

‘Your mother also tells me that when you need to use
the bathroom facilities, you construct what you call a “White Pathway”, which
you seem to think is an extension of your bed. Is this true?’

‘Yes, it’s true. It
is
an extension of the
bed. If I fired a bullet at your skull and it blew it apart, Nurse Spears,
would the bullet that did so be a property of itself or the gun?’ She half
remembered this from overhearing a conversation one morning at breakfast,
between Brian and Brian Junior about quantum physics, which had only ended when
the marmalade jar had slipped through Brian’s hands and fallen on to the floor.

Nurse Spears was writing on Eva’s notes.

Eva said, ‘I’d like to see what you’ve written.’

The nurse said, moving the notes out of Eva’s reach,
‘I’m afraid your notes are confidential.’

Eva said, ‘You’re mistaken, Nurse Spears. The law
allows patients to read their notes.’

‘I have made a judgement that you are not mentally
strong enough to read your own notes. It could set off another psychotic
episode.’

‘I am physically and mentally well.’

‘It is quite common for psychotic patients to think
themselves well.’

Eva began to laugh. ‘So, you win both ways?’

Nurse Spears said, ‘There’s a touch of paranoia in
that question.’

Eva asked, ‘Are you trained in mental health diagnostics?’

‘Trained, no, but it is a special interest of mine.
There was mental ill health in my own family, it’s nothing to be ashamed of,
Mrs Beaver.’

Eva felt a chill, a physical sensation of fear. ‘Of
course, you’re implying that I have a mental illness?’

Nurse Spears said, ‘I will go back to the surgery
and inform your doctors that, in my opinion, you are having a breakdown of some
kind. Again, Mrs Beaver, you need not be frightened. Some of our most notable
men and women have suffered, like you. Think of Churchill, Alastair Campbell,
Les Dennis.’

Eva insisted, ‘But I’m not mentally ill!’

We have moved on since poor Mr Churchill suffered
from his “black dog”. We have some miraculous drugs now, and within a few weeks
you will be feeling your old self again. You will be able to get out of bed and
re-join the rest of us.’

‘I don’t want to join the rest of you.’

Nurse Spears put on her navy-blue mac and carefully
threaded the belt through the brown leather buckle. ‘I’ll call again, of
course. Goodbye, Mrs Beaver.’

When
she heard her mother’s voice in the hall five minutes later, and then the
sound of the front door slamming, Eva shouted, ‘Mum!’

It took longer than usual for Ruby to climb the
stairs, and she was breathless when she arrived at the side of Eva’s bed.

Eva did not want to upset her mother, but she needed
to talk frankly with her. She asked, ‘So, you had a good talk with the nurse?’

‘Yes,’ said Ruby. ‘She was telling me about Dr
Bridges. He’s been off work for three days. He did some bad damage to his nose
with a pair of animated nose clippers.’

Eva corrected irritably, ‘Automatic. And she shouldn’t
be gossiping about the doctors.’

‘She doesn’t like that dark doctor, Lumbago, she
says he’s lazy. Well, they are, aren’t they?’

Eva said, ‘No,
they
are not.’

‘I wouldn’t have her job for the world. The things
she has to do. She told me about some of her worst cases. It’s disgusting what
that poor woman has to work with.’