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

There was a shout of laughter, and Alexander hid his face in his hands. When he looked through his fingers, he saw Brianne mouthing, ‘I love you.’ He shook his head and quickly looked away.

Brian said, ‘I see that you managed to eat the turkey, Venus.’

Thomas adjusted his nurse’s cap and, speaking for the first time, said quietly, ‘She threw the turkey under the table.’

There was another burst of laughter.

Alexander was surprised and horrified to realise that he had forgotten Eva. Lately, she seemed to be constantly on his mind. ‘Did anybody feed Eva?’ he asked.

There was scandalised laughter as each of them realised they had forgotten her. There were only a few leftovers. Even the turkey had been well picked over. But Alexander managed to gather enough to make a decent plateful. He placed it in the microwave and turned the dial to three minutes. Then he made some fresh gravy, poured it into a little jug and went in search of another box of crackers that Brian said were in the house somewhere.

The other guests were reluctant to move from the table. More drinks were poured and conversation was easy. There were frequent outbursts of laughter. Even Stanley and Brian were talking.

Brian was just saying, ‘Yes, Stanley, I think a five-tog duvet is all anyone needs for winter,’ when the kitchen door burst open and Poppy almost fell into the room, announcing in the little-girl version of her voice, ‘They’re dead. Mummy and Daddy are dead!’

The laughter stopped.

Ruby said, ‘Your main and dad have died?’

Yvonne said, ‘You poor kid! And on Christmas Day.’

Brianne sneered, ‘Yeah, well, I’ll believe it when I see the death certificate.’

Yvonne said, ‘Brianne, what a thing to say! I’m ashamed of you.’

Poppy looked at Brianne defiantly and said, ‘Well, it hasn’t been issued yet.’

‘Until I see an official death certificate, I’m not going to show you the slightest bit of sympathy, OK?’ said Brianne. When did they die? Yesterday? Today?’

Poppy said, ‘This morning.’

‘And you were there?’

‘Yes, I was with them until the end.’

‘They died at precisely the same time, did they?’

‘Yes,’ said Poppy. ‘I was holding both their hands.’ Brianne looked around the table at the fascinated audience and said, ‘Now, that is the most amazing coincidence I’ve ever heard. That is spooky.’

Poppy declared, with the spasm of a triumphant smile, ‘Their machines were switched off at the exact same time, at my request.’

Brianne ploughed on. At what time did they die?’

‘At ten o’clock this morning,’ said Poppy.

‘In Dundee?’ checked Brianne.

‘Yes,’ said Poppy.

‘So, how did you manage to get from Dundee to Leicester by six thirty on Christmas Day? There’s no public transport, is there?’

‘No,’ said Poppy. ‘I caught a cab.’

Brianne, sounding increasingly like Inspector Morse, said, ‘In deep snow? There are blizzards up there. Whiteouts.’

Poppy said, ‘We must have been lucky with the weather.’

‘Did you stop to eat?’ Brianne hectored.

‘No, I’m starving,’ said Poppy. ‘I feel quite faint.’ She gave a little stagger and sat down on a vacant chair at the end of the table.

Brianne said, ‘What did you really do with the money my parents gave you to fly to Dundee?’

Brian snapped, ‘That’s enough now, Brianne!’

The microwave pinged.

Alexander took Eva’s plate of food out and put it at the end of the table, then turned to find a tray. Poppy pulled the plate in front of her, reached for a clean knife and fork and said, ‘Thank you.’

Everyone watched in horrified silence for a moment, as she began to cram food into her mouth, then they all shouted at once that it was Eva’s food. Poppy picked up the plate and hurried out of the kitchen.

Alexander shouted after her, ‘I hope you’re taking that up to Eva!’

Brian Junior said quietly, ‘Why did she come back? She’s going to spoil everything again.’

Alexander ran upstairs.

Eva was lying with her face to the wall. She turned to him and, seeing he was empty-handed, turned away again and said, ‘I’m so hungry, Alexander. Have I been forgotten?’

Alexander sat on the edge of the bed and said, ‘Not by me. I think about you all the time. Feel my heart.’ He took her hand, placed it over his white shirt front and said, ‘Hear the rhythm? It’s saying “Eva”.

Eva said, trying to lessen his intensity, ‘I could eat your heart right now – with ginger, garlic and chillies.’ She thought, ‘Oh no, now there’s a situation, and I’ll have to manage it.’

He turned her hand over and kissed the palm.

She examined his face, noting the age spots around his eyes and the grey stubble on his cheeks. She said, ‘All I can think about is food.’

He got up abruptly. ‘Turkey sandwich?’

When he got downstairs, he saw Poppy in the sitting room. She was cramming the last of the food into her mouth with her fingers.

At lunchtime on Boxing Day, Brian laid a big wooden tray on Eva’s lap. On it was the Beavers’ traditional Boxing Day meal.

He said, ‘It’s like fucking Groundhog Day down there. Same faces, only the food is different. They’re all Billy No Mates with nowhere else to go.

Brianne had invited Alexander and the children back, despite Brian’s disapproval, and Alexander had accepted because he wanted to spend as much time with Eva as possible before he went to visit his ex-mother-in-law.

Stanley was there at Ruby’s invitation. She said it made a change to have a gentleman in the house.

Only Poppy was missing. She had left early in the morning to ‘feed the poor’, she said, at a warehouse run by Crisis at Christmas in the city centre.

Brian said, ‘That kid has got a heart of gold.’ The twins had simultaneously put their fingers down their throats.

Eva said, ‘This salad looks lovely.’

‘My mother pillaged Sainsbury’s this morning,’ said Brian. ‘There was no flesh left on that turkey.’

Eva looked down at her plate, which was layered in cold meats. ‘It all looks very pretty.’

‘Your mother was fart-arsing about with it all morning,’ said Brian, contemptuously.

There was a small bowl of salad arranged in concentric alternating circles of tomato, cucumber, beetroot, large radish and bumper spring onions. In another bowl was a huge steaming baked potato, cut with a cross, revealing in the centre a quickly melting slab of butter. A small oval dish held a tiny peaked mountain of grated orange cheese. Two slices of pork pie were flanked by carrot sticks and crooked half-moons of green pepper. An egg cup was full of HP sauce. Her napkin had been folded into a fan. Eva was pleased to see a large glass of rosé wine.

Brian said, ‘Alexander’s boy is wearing a pink tutu, but nobody has mentioned it yet.’

‘Your mum told me that after you’d seen The Wizard of Oz you wanted a pair of Dorothy’s red shoes,’ said Eva.

Brian said, in a resentful tone, ‘But I didn’t get them, did I?’

When Brian went downstairs to join the others, Alexander asked him, ‘Eva all right?’

Brian said, ‘Why shouldn’t she be all right? She’s waited on hand and foot. If she’s not careful, she’ll lose the use of her limbs.’

Yvonne put a wafer-thin roll of ham in her mouth and said, ‘Now, I don’t agree with most of what you have to say, Brian, but I’m in full agreement with you about Eva. It’s sheer laziness. What would happen to her if we stopped feeding her? Would she starve to death, or would she come downstairs and feed herself?’

We ought to try it,’ said Ruby.