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

Eva asked, ‘How many children?’

‘Two boys,’ replied Bella. ‘I became so frightened of him that I couldn’t relax when he was in the house. When he came home from work, the boys would go to their rooms and close the door.’ Bella was wringing her hands. ‘That’s the end of the story.’

Eva said, ‘You want to know what to do? How many strong men do you know?’

Bella said, ‘Oh no, I don’t condone violence.’

Eva repeated, ‘How many strong men do you know?’

Bella counted in her head. ‘Seven.’

‘You must phone these men, and ask them to come to your rescue. You’ll know when it’s time.’

Bella nodded.

What’s your husband’s name?’

‘Kenneth Harper.’

‘And for how much longer are you going to live with Kenneth Harper?’

Bella lowered her eyes and said, ‘I want to start the New Year without him.’ She looked at her watch and said, in a panic, ‘No! He’s in the pub, but he’s coming home for dinner at nine. It’s eight now and I haven’t peeled a potato! I’ll have to go. He won’t like it if his dinner’s late.’

Eva shouted over Bella’s panic, ‘Where are your children?’

‘At my mother’s,’ said Bella, who had jumped up and was pacing from the bed to the door.

‘Gather some men together, phone them now. Tell them to meet here.’

‘I don’t approve of vigilantism,’ said Bella.

‘It isn’t vigilantism, it’s your family and friends protecting you and your children. Imagine living in the house without him. Go on, close your eyes and imagine.’

Bella closed her eyes for so long that Eva thought she might be asleep.

Then Bella took out her phone and started to speed-dial.

When Brian came back from the off-licence with six bottles of cava, a slab of Carling Black Label, a box of rosé and two giant bags of mixed crisps for seeing in the New Year, he was astonished to find a group of men sitting on the stairs and leaning against the walls in the hallway.

He nodded and said, ‘I’m afraid you’re too early for our Open House, the house isn’t open yet.’

Their spokesman, a man in a padded plaid shirt and slurry-covered wellingtons, said, ‘My sister has asked us to help chuck her husband out of the house.’

Brian said, ‘On New Year’s Eve? Poor chap. Isn’t that a bit off?’

A younger man, whose fists were clenching and unclenching, said, ‘That bastard’s had it coming I wanted to tear his head off at the altar.’

A man with a weather-beaten face and DIY haircut said, ‘The kids are terrified of him. But she would never leave him ‘cause he threatened to top himself. I wish.’

An older man with tired eyes, who was sitting on the stairs, said, ‘When he asked if he could marry my daughter, I should have kicked him into the bloody silage pit.’ He looked at Brian, a man he assumed to be of a similar age to himself, and asked, ‘Have you got a daughter?’

Brian said, ‘I have, indeed. She’s seventeen.’

‘What would you do if you knew your daughter was being beaten up on a regular basis?’

Brian put the box of wine down on the floor, tugged his beard and thought.

Eventually, he said, ‘I would gag and bind him, put him in the boot of my car, drive him to a quarry of my acquaintance and attach him by means of nylon rope, using mariner’s knots, to a loose rock. I would then roll him and the rock over the edge of the quarry, and wait for the splash. Problem solved.’

A nervous-looking man said, ‘You can’t do that. Where would we be if we went round murdering everybody we didn’t like? We’d end up living in a cooler version of Mogadishu.’

Brian retorted, ‘This chap asked me what I’d do, and I told him. Anyway, I’ve got the Open House to organise. But if you need the sat nav coordinates for that quarry…’

The older man said, ‘Thank you, but I don’t think it’ll come to that. But if it does, we’ve got a silage pit round the back of the house, and pigs that are always hungry.’

‘Well, I wish you all the best. Have a happy New Year,’ said Brian. He barged past with the alcohol, went into the kitchen and began to unpack it on to the table. Titania was already polishing the glasses.

Brian said, ‘Every time I open my own front door, I’m presented with other people’s dramas.’

Upstairs, Bella was talking to her husband on the phone. He was shouting so loudly that Eva half expected the phone to explode. Bella’s voice was trembling. She was saying, ‘Kenneth, I’m with my family. We’re only up the road. We’re leaving for home now.’ She switched off the phone and said to Eva, ‘I can’t do it to him.’

Eva said, ‘They get away with it because they know we pity them. They play on their weakness. If you go now, he could be out of the house by ten.’

‘But where will he go?’ wailed Bella.

‘Is his mother alive?’ asked Eva.

Bella nodded and said, ‘She only lives five miles away, but he never goes to see her.’

‘Well, it will be a lovely New Year’s Eve surprise for her then, won’t it?’

Later, Eva watched from the window as the seven men and Bella talked on the pavement.

They walked purposefully down the road towards Bella’s house.

Eva knew it was midnight by the sound of church bells ringing and rockets exploding. She heard corks popping downstairs and Brian’s voice booming, ‘Happy New Year!’

She thought about all her previous New Years. She had always expected more from the night. Had waited in vain for something extraordinary and magical to happen once the long hand of the clock moved away from the twelve.

But everything had always been the same.

She had never been able to join in with ‘Auld Lang Syne’. She liked the words We’ll raise a cup of kindness’ and she envied those celebrating, but she could not link arms and dance in a circle with the others. People would break the circle and invite her in to fill the space, but she invariably refused.

‘I like watching,’ she always said.

Brian would say, as he flung himself about, ‘Eva doesn’t know how to have fun.’

And it was true. She even disliked the word. ‘Fun’ suggested enforced gaiety, clowns, slapstick. North Korean parades where ranks of synchronised children danced with a fixed smile.

Now she was hungry and thirsty. She had obviously been forgotten again.

Earlier that morning, Brian had gone up and down the street delivering leaflets inviting the neighbours to an Open House party. The leaflet had said (she had shuddered at the word ‘pop’):

Please pop in, and have some fun.

Let’s get to know each other.

Bring a bottle.

Nibbles supplied, but I suggest you eat before coming.

Well-behaved children tolerated.

Our door will be open to you from 9.30 p.m.

PS: Dr Brian Beaver will conduct a short tour of his observatory and, depending on the seeing (or, as you non-astronomers define it, atmospheric conditions/cloud cover), it may be possible to view Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and perhaps the more minor planets.

Yvonne had bought Eva a charming brass temple bell from Bali via Homebase, as a means of communicating with others in the house, but Eva had yet to ring it. There was something distasteful about summoning others to attend to her needs. She would wait until somebody remembered her and brought her something to eat. Through the wall she could hear the twins muttering and tapping on their laptops. The speed of the keys was uncanny. Every now and again there was harsh laughter, and cries of, ‘High five!’

She heard her mother and Yvonne making their way up the stairs.

Ruby said, ‘I don’t know whether to go to the doctor’s with it or not. It could be a harmless cyst.’