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

What waste?’

‘My body waste.’

He said, incredulously, ‘There’s a fucking en suite next door!’

She turned on her side and faced her husband. ‘I can’t walk those few steps to the en suite, Bri. I was hoping you’d help me out.’

‘You’re disgusting,’ he said. ‘I’m not messing about decanting your piss and dumping your shit!’

‘But I can’t leave this bed again, Brian. I can’t make that little walk to the bathroom. So, what can I do?’

When Brian had gone, she listened for a while to him cursing and thumping the washing machine. She thought about all the problems caused by bowels and bladders, and wondered why evolution had not constructed something better for disposing of the body’s waste products.

She thought for a long time and finally came up with the most efficient system.

The body would have to be redesigned to absorb the entirety of its own waste. Eva thought this might be possible if somewhere in the digestive system there was a spare organ. Apparently, the appendix was lying around doing nothing. It had no function since humans had stopped eating twigs and roots. Brian had told her that astronauts routinely had the appendix removed before their first launch into space. Perhaps it could be commandeered to help the body absorb every last drop of urine and every piece of faeces?

She was a little vague about the nature of the adaptation, but the adapted organ would be required to burn the waste products internally until the body had absorbed all food and liquid. There would probably be a little smoke, but this could be routed to the anus and absorbed by a charcoal filter held in the pants using Velcro. There were one or two details that would need finessing, but weren’t British scientists leading the way in biotechnology? How marvellous it would be if the human race was spared the burden of excretion.

Meanwhile, thought Eva, she would have to dispose of her waste products in a very unsophisticated manner. How would she manage to squat over a funnel without putting her feet on the floor? There would be an inevitable spillage in the bed, and even more complicated gymnastics would be required to defecate into a freezer bag. She would have to get used to coming face to face with her bodily waste, but she would still need another person to remove the bottle and bags from her room.

Who loved her enough?

Eva and Ruby were reconciled the next day, when Ruby brought round a home-made ploughman’s lunch covered in cling film.

After Eva had eaten every morsel she said, ‘Mum, I’ve got something to ask you.’

When she explained her vision for the funnel, bottle and freezer bags, Ruby was horrified. She started retching, and had to run into the en suite and stand over the lavatory bowl with a pad of tissues held to her mouth.

When she returned, pale and shaken, she said, ‘Why would a sane person prefer to pee into a bottle and pooh in a plastic bag when they’ve got a beautiful Bathrooms Direct en suite next door?’

Eva couldn’t answer.

Ruby shouted, ‘Tell me why! Is it something The done? Did I toilet-train you too early? Did I smack you too hard for wetting the bed? You were frightened of the noise the cistern made. Did it give you a complex or syndrome or whatever people have these days?’

Eva said, ‘I’ve got to stay in bed – if I don’t, I’m lost.’

‘Lost?’ queried Ruby. She touched her gold – earrings first, then the chain and locket around her neck, finishing with her rings – straightening and polishing. It was a genuflection, Ruby worshipped her gold. She had ten krugerrands sewn into a pair of corsets in her underwear drawer. If England were invaded by the French, or by aliens, she would be able to keep the whole family in food and firearms for at least a year.

To Ruby, invasion by aliens was a likely scenario. She had seen a spaceship one night as she’d been taking her washing off the line. It had hovered over her next-door neighbour’s house before moving off in the direction of the Co-op. She’d told Brian, hoping he would be interested, but he said she must have been at the brandy she kept in the pantry for medical emergencies.

Now Eva said, ‘Mum, if I put one foot on the floor I’ll be expected to take another step, and then another, and the next thing I know I’ll be walking down the stairs and into the front garden, and then I’ll walk and walk and walk and walk, until I never see any of you again.’

Ruby said, ‘But why should you get away with it? Why should I, seventy-nine next January, be expected to baby you again? To tell you the truth, Eva, I’m not a very maternal woman. That’s why I didn’t have another kid. So, don’t look to me to cart your pee and pooh around.’ She picked up the plate and the screwed-up ball of cling film and said, ‘Is Brian the cause of this?’

Eva shook her head.

‘I told you not to marry him. Your trouble is, you want to be happy all the time. You’re fifty years old -haven’t you realised yet that most of the time most of us just trudge through life? Happy days are few and far between. And if I have to start wiping a fifty-year-old’s bum, I would make myself very unhappy indeed, so don’t ask me again!’

When Eva paid a late-night visit to the lavatory, it felt as though she were walking on hot coals.

She slept badly.

Was she actually going mad?

Was she the last to know?

The sycamore outside the window was hurling its branches about in the wind. Yvonne was sitting on the dressing-table chair, which she had dragged to the side of the bed.

She had brought an advanced dot-to-dot book for Eva, ‘To pass the time.’

Under duress, Eva had finished the first puzzle. After fifteen tedious minutes she had joined up ‘The Flying Scotsman’, complete with a village railway station, a luggage trolley, booking office and a station master with whistle and a raised flag.

Eva said, ‘Don’t think you have to stay.’

Yvonne sniffed. ‘You can’t be on your own when you’re poorly.’

Eva raged inside. When would they accept that what she told them was true – she wasn’t ill, she simply wanted to stay in bed?

Yvonne said, ‘You know it’s a symptom of being mental, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Eva, ‘and so is an adult filling in a bloody dot-to-dot book. Madness is relative.’

Yvonne snapped, ‘Well, none of my relatives are mad.’

Eva couldn’t be bothered to respond, she was weary and wanted to sleep. It was exhausting, listening and talking to Yvonne – who, it seemed to Eva, wilfully misinterpreted most conversations, and lived from one grudge to another. Yvonne was proud of her straight-talking, though other people had described her as ‘obnoxious’, ‘unnecessarily rude’ and ‘a total pain in the arse’.

Eva said, ‘You know how much you value straight-talking?’

Yvonne nodded.

‘I’ve got something to ask you… it’s difficult for me…’

Yvonne said, encouragingly, ‘Come on then, cough it up.’

‘I can’t use the en suite any more. I can’t put my feet on the floor. And I was wondering if you would help to get rid of my waste.’

Yvonne paused, computing the information, then gave a shark’s smile and said, Are you asking me, Eva Beaver, to dispose of your wee-wee and poopy? Me? Who’s fastidious about such things? Who gets through a giant bottle of Domestos a week?’

Eva said, ‘OK. I asked, and you said no.’

Yvonne said, ‘I warned Brian not to marry you. I foresaw all this. I saw at once that you were neurotic. I remember when you and Brian took me on holiday to Crete and you would sit on the beach wrapped in a big towel, because you had “issues” with your body.’