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

She had very little sense of humour, he thought -though he had often heard her laughing with other people in the next room.

He and Titania were always laughing. They shared a love of Benny Hill and The Goons. Titania could do a side-splitting impression of Benny singing ‘Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)’. She hadn’t minded being thrown in the reservoir at Rutland Water either. She’d laughed it off.

Now Ruby was asking him how much wonks cost.

He guessed and told her, ‘About forty pounds.’

She shuddered and said, ‘No, I might not get the use out of it, I’m living on borrowed time as it is.’

Brian took out Eva’s shopping list. He showed it to Ruby and they both laughed. Eva had written:

2 croissants

basil plant

large bag mixed nuts

hand of bananas

box of grapes (seedless if poss)

6 eggs laid by free roamers

2 tubes of Smarties for Alex’s kids

Red Leicester cheese

1 bag mozzarella

2 firm beef tomatoes

small sea salt

1 black and red pepper pot

4 large bottles of San Pellegrino (H2O)

2 cartons grapefruit juice

serrated-edge knife

bottle extra virgin olive oil

bottle balsamic vinegar

1 large bottle vodka (not Smirnoff)

2 large bottles diet tonic (only Schweppes)

Vogue

Private Eye

The Spectator

Dunhill Menthol cigarettes.

After crying with laughter, Ruby needed to mop her tears. Neither of them had a handkerchief but, as they were walking down the toilet roll aisle, Ruby opened a packet of Andrex and took out a roll. She failed to find the end of the tissue, so Brian took it from her and located the end, which was infuriatingly stuck to the other sheets underneath. After a few moments’ struggle, he bellowed his frustration, then tore a wad of paper out of the roll and stuffed the rest back on to the shelf.

Ruby laughed for a long time when they found the San Pellegrino, and even longer when she saw the extra virgin olive oil. ‘I used to pour olive oil in Eva’s lugholes when she had the earache,’ she said. ‘And now she’s pouring it on her salad.’ She was scandalised in the news and magazine section, when she saw the price of Vogue. ‘Four pounds ten? I can buy two bags of oven chips for that! She’s havin’ a laugh, Brian. If I were you, I’d starve her out of bed.’ The croissants provoked another outburst. ‘They’re nothing but a few flakes of pastry and air!’

‘She’s always been a snob about food,’ Brian said.

‘It’s since she went to Paris with the school,’ said Ruby. ‘She came back full of hers elf. It was all merci and bonjour and, “Oh the bread, Mum!” And she had that little woman with the voice that grates on you playing night and day.’

‘Edith Piaf,’ said Brian. ‘A frog I’m very familiar with indeed.’

‘She went back after she left school,’ said Ruby. ‘She worked in a chip shop doing double shifts for her ticket to Paris.’

Brian was amazed. ‘She didn’t tell me this. How long was she there?’

‘It were exactly a year. She came back with a Louis Vuitton case full of the most beautiful clothes and shoes.

Handmade! And the perfume! Big bottles. She’d never talk about it. I think some rich French ponce broke her heart.’

They were blocking the aisle. A young woman with a toddler sitting in the trolley crashed into them. The toddler shouted, ‘Again!’

What did she do in France?’ asked Brian. ‘And why didn’t she tell me about this Paris jaunt?’

Ruby said, ‘She was a secretive girl, and she’s turned into a secretive woman. Now, where’s this bleedin’ sea salt when it’s at home?’

Eva gave Brian instruction on how to assemble a tomato and mozzarella salad.

She said, ‘Please don’t add or subtract any of the ingredients, and I beg you to keep to the quantities.’

She told him which plate to use and which napkin. This precision made Brian even more cack-handed than usual.

Had he overdone the extra virgin oil? Did she say to tear the basil, or cut? Should he add lemon and ice to her vodka and tonic? She hadn’t said, so he left them out.

She could smell the basil and tomatoes before he pushed the bedroom door open with his foot.

He placed the tray on her lap and stood by the bed, waiting for her approval.

She saw at once that the tomatoes had been cut thickly with a blunt knife, that the stalks were still on the basil and that it obviously hadn’t been washed. Despite her strict instruction not to add anything else, Brian had improvised a pattern around the edge of the plate with dried oregano.

She managed to contain herself, and when he asked, ‘All right?’ she answered, ‘My mouth is watering.’

She was truly grateful to him. She knew how difficult it was to run a household and keep down a full-time job.

And she suspected he was missing Titania.

It was six thirty in the morning. Hoar frost had decorated the trees and shrubs overnight, giving an ethereal glow to the Space Centre car park as Mrs Hordern approached. It was obvious to her by the positions of the randomly parked cars that something big had happened. Normally, each member of staff parked strictly in their designated places. In the past, there had been fist fights over trivial infringements of the Conditions of Use (which were displayed behind glass in a slender cabinet on top of a wooden stake in a far corner of the car park).

Mrs Hordern met Wayne Tonkin coming out of the Research Block as she was going in.

What’s up?’ she asked, nodding towards the car park.

Wayne said, ‘I hope you’ve not booked yer ‘olidays, Mrs Hordern, cos we’re all being burned to a crisp next week.’

What time?’

‘High noon,’ he said, making an effort to pronounce the aitch.

‘So, I needn’t bother buying a Christmas tree then?’ She gave a little laugh, expecting Wayne to join in.

‘No,’ said Wayne.

When Mrs Hordern went inside, she saw that the staff had come straight from their beds.

Leather Trousers was in a pair of pale-blue silk pyjamas. For once, he did not give her his Hollywood smile.

What’s goin’ on?’ she asked.

‘Nothing, nothing at all,’ he replied. ‘The earth is still turning.’

Mrs Hordern went into the staff cloakroom to hang her coat and change out of her boots into the Crocs she wore at work. She heard sobbing coming from a lavatory cubicle. She knew it was Titania because Dr Clever Clogs often went to the cloakroom to cry. Mrs Hordern knocked on the lavatory door and asked Titania if she could help in any way.

She was rebuffed when the door opened and Titania shouted, ‘I think not! Do you understand the Standard Model of particle physics and its place in the space-time continuum, Mrs Hordern?’

The cleaner admitted that she did not.

Well, butt out then! My problem is entirely related to my research, which I will now never complete. I’ve given my life to those particles!’

As Mrs Hordern walked the corridor, pushing the floor-washing machine in front of her, she thought, ‘Things are not right.’

When she passed the door labelled ‘Near-Earth Objects’, Brian Beaver burst out and shouted, ‘For Christ’s sake, turn that fucking machine off! We’re trying to think in here!’

Mrs Hordern said, ‘That may be so, but this floor’s not going to clean itself, is it? No need to swear. I won’t have it at home, and I’m not having it here!’

Brian retreated to his desk, where banks of computers were displaying rapidly scrolling numbers and a flashing red trajectory that intersected with a large spherical object. The room was crowded with people silently watching the screens. Several of his colleagues jostled closer and peered nervously over his shoulder as his fingers flew across the keyboard.