Sue Townsend - The Woman who Went to Bed for a Year

He went to his sheds every night at eight thirty and every weekend afternoon.

Brianne had once said to Eva, ‘For years I thought Dad was going to a place called Inished.’

Only recently – without Eva’s knowledge – Brian had knocked two of the smaller sheds through and installed a new, supremely comfortable king-sized bed, two armchairs, a fridge and a small dining table, making a compact but stylish garden flat.

Titania often joined him, unlocking the garden gate that led on to the jitty at the back of the house, and tiptoeing through the open door of one of the sheds. The twins and Eva knew never to disturb him when the red light went on above the mother-shed doors and he was ‘working’.

Now Eva lay awake in the dark.

‘Working,’ she said to herself. ‘All those hours, all those years, and he chose to spend them with a stranger called Titania.’

Brian Junior was waiting outside the seminar room where Professor Nikitanova was due to meet her new students.

Brianne had just said, ‘Butch up, our kid. Promise me you won’t run away when I’ve gone.’

Brian Junior said, ‘Our kid? Why are you talking like a Coronation Street actor?’

Brianne said, lowering her voice and turning away from the other students, ‘Bri, we’ve got to normalise. Use a few more colloquialisms. You know? Like “cool.”, “random”, “chill out”, “dude”, “you guys”, “devastated”, “amazing”, “sick’,…’

Brian Junior nodded.

When Brianne tried to leave for her own tutor meeting, he grabbed the leather sleeve of her jacket and said, ‘Brianne, stay with me, my hands and feet have gone numb. I think I may have compromised my nervous system and suffered permanent neurological damage.’

Brianne was used to this manifestation of Brian Junior’s anxiety when faced with a new experience. She said, ‘Do your primes, Bri, and try to relax.’

There was a confusion of noise and people at the end of the corridor. Professor Nikitanova strode towards her students on peacock-blue five-inch heels, followed by the Vice Chancellor and her team of teaching assistants.

Brianne took in the bouncy blonde hair, the black jumpsuit, the scarlet mouth from which hung a forbidden lighted cigarette, and marvelled. She had met the rest of the Astrophysics faculty. It was headed by Professor Partridge, a man in a cardigan his wife had knitted with hair belonging to various family pets.

Nikitanova gave Brian Junior the keys and, while he fumbled at the lock, she said, ‘Darling, slow down! Two years we have together, unless I tire of you.

She laughed, and Brian Junior remembered the internet rumour – that Nikitanova’s husband was a cultured oligarch who had ex-KGB Special Forces operatives guarding his brilliant, beautiful and good-natured wife. The operatives knew that should anything – anything -untoward happen to her, then they would die screaming (but grateful that their ordeal would soon be over).

Later that night, Brian was lying on his bed trying to find a solution to a problem Nikitanova had given her group -’To give exercise to the brains’ – when somebody rapped on the door.

It was Poppy.

She started talking before she was even in the room. ‘I can’t sleep, so I’ve come to dialogue with you… sweet Jesus, it’s hot in here?’

She was wearing a winceyette nightgown, similar to the one traditionally worn by the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. To Brian Junior’s alarm she dipped down, took hold of the hem in both hands, peeled the nightgown off and threw it into a corner.

The only naked women Brian Junior had seen before were in pornographic magazines and internet videos, and the bodies in these were the colour of lightly roasted chicken and devoid of body hair, so it was a shock to see the wild black thatch of hair between her sinewy white thighs and the tufts under her arms.

Brian Junior sat on the side of his bed and began to run through the potentially infinite list of prime numbers in his head:

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97, 101, 103, 107, 109, 113, 127, 131, 137…

Poppy’s breasts were thin and pendulous as she roamed around the tiny room, moving his toiletries and the equipment on his desk.

Brian Junior could not think of a single word to say. He wanted to climb back into bed and go to sleep. He felt that something very terrible lay ahead.

She came and sat cross-legged on the floor at his feet. ‘You’re a virgin, aren’t you, my darling?’

Brian Junior scooted to the end of the bed and began to straighten the desk, lining up pens, pencils and high-lighters. Alongside his laptop and notebooks his hand moved over a transparent box of paper clips, wondering where to place them satisfactorily. He tipped them out of their box and started to group the paper clips together in lines of ten.

Poppy crawled up to him, wrapped her arms around his legs and began to cry. ‘I loved you the moment I saw your face.’

Brian Junior was left with a single paper clip. This was bad. One paper clip could not be allowed to exist. It did not fit in with the groups. It grabbed all the attention – it was selfish, thinking only of itself. Brian Junior looked at his face in the mirror above the desk. He knew he was unusually handsome. It was very annoying He also knew that Poppy had stolen and misquoted her declaration of love from a song by Roberta Flack. It was one of his mother’s favourites. She had sung it to him and Brianne when they were little kids.

He looked down at her and said, ‘Ewan MacColl composed it in 1957. Roberta Flack recorded it in 1972. Coldcut used the Joanna Law a cappella in 70 Minutes of Madness. Mixed with Luke Slater and Harold Budd.’

Poppy wondered when he would stop going on and on about the stupid record.

He looked down at her again and said, with some animation, ‘It’s the greatest mix tape ever made.’

Eventually, she lifted her head, took his hand and placed it over her left breast. She looked into his face and said, ‘My love, it’s like the beating throat of a cag-ed bird.’

Brian Junior was repulsed and quickly removed his hand. Some of her hair was stuck to the snot above her top lip. He could not bear to look at it. He took the strands and tucked them behind her left ear.

She said, ‘I think our joy will fill the earth and last till the end of time.’

Brian Junior said, ‘I know it won’t.’

Poppy asked, ‘What won’t?’

Brian Junior said, ‘Our joy. We have no joy to fill the earth and last till the end of time. In addition, both of these things are impossibilities. Joy cannot fill the earth. And neither can joy last till the end of time. Since time can never end.’

Poppy mimed an extravagant yawn.

He wanted to ask her to leave but didn’t know how He did not want to hurt or offend her, but he was desperate for escape and sleep. He got up, extricated himself from her and picked up her nightgown. It was cold and damp.

He handed it to her and said, ‘I want to show you something.’

Poppy stopped crying.

He held out a hand, pulled her to her feet and indicated the rows of paper clips, then picked up the single one and said, ‘Where would you place this?’

She stared down at the paper clips, then back up at his face. And then, in a voice he had not heard before, she said, ‘I’d stick it up your fucking arse!’

She let herself out into the corridor, still naked.

Brian heard her banging on the door of the next room where Ho, the Chinese boy, lived. Brian had exchanged a nervous smile with Ho that first afternoon, when they were unpacking their food into the large fridge and their allocated cupboards. Now he heard him open the door, then he heard Poppy sobbing.