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

Brian laughed and said, ‘You must admit, Brianne, that he does sound and behave like minor royalty by way of Scarborough, Tobago.’

Brianne shouted, ‘He was adopted by an English couple who sent him to Charterhouse. He can’t help the way he speaks!’

Brian was trying to move a juggernaut into the middle lane by the use of his lights and tailgating. He shouted over the crashing of gears, ‘Methinks she doth protest too much. You sound as though you’ve got quite a crush on him.’

‘It’s more than a crush. I love him.’

Brian lost concentration on the road, and had to jerk on the steering wheel to bring the car back into line. He said, ‘He’s thirty-two years older than you, Brianne!’

She said, ‘I don’t care.’

‘You’ll care when you’re wiping his ancient arse, and his teeth are in a glass by the side of your bed. Does he return your love, Brianne?’

Brianne looked out of the window through the snow at the halo of tail lights ahead. ‘No,’ she said.

‘No,’ repeated Brian, ‘because you’re an infatuated stupid teenager. You’re just a kid.’

Brian Junior leaned forward until his mouth was very near to Brian’s ear and said, quietly, ‘And you’re a hypocrite. You’re eighteen years older than Titania.’

Brian gesticulated despairingly as he roared, ‘Do you think I don’t know that? For years I was terrified that she’d leave me for a younger man.’

The car swayed from side to side.

Poppy removed her hand from Brian’s and squealed, ‘Please, put both hands back on the steering wheel!’

Brian Junior said, ‘I want to know when exactly you fell out of love with Mum. I want to know how long you’ve been lying to our family.’

‘I haven’t fallen of out of love with your mum. Adults’ lives are complicated.’ After a long silence, Brian continued, ‘We should have stuck to “The Euro – Fight or Flight?” It does nobody any good to pick at old scabs.’

Brianne said, ‘I love picking at scabs. It’s so satisfying when they come away and you see the fresh skin beneath.’

Brian exploded, ‘All right! You’re both so fucking mature! I’ll tell you exactly how it was with me and Titania! Ask me anything you like!’

The twins were silent.

Poppy said, ‘Was it wonderfully romantic? Did you fall for her at first sight?’

‘It was more of a slow burn. I was impressed with her intelligence, and her brilliant research. She was like a terrier, clinging on to what she knew to be right. She made herself unpopular, but not with me.’

The twins exchanged a mocking glance.

Poppy said, ‘How did you first get together?’

Brian smiled in the dark. ‘One night in the University Library, amongst the Philosophy stacks…

‘In the library?’ Brianne was horrified. ‘That’s where Mum worked! That is gross!’

Brian said, ‘Couldn’t do it now, bloody CCTV cameras everywhere.’

Brian Junior asked, ‘When was this?’

‘It was around about the time of the Columbia disaster.’

‘So, you’ve been having an affair with Titania since 2003?’

‘The disaster hit me hard, son. I was in a very vulnerable state. Your mother didn’t seem to understand my distress. But Titania was there, equally upset. It was Columbia that brought us together. We found solace in each other.’

Brian Junior said, ‘Yeah, but it didn’t take you eight years to get over a failed shuttle re-entry, did it?’

Brian turned to look at his son. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I admit it. There was passion there, and physics. I was the unstoppable force, and Titania was the immovable object.’

The driver of a dangerously close Scandinavian articulated lorry sounded his klaxon. Brian braked so hard that Poppy immediately thought of whiplash and a possible claim for damages.

When they were calm again, Brian Junior said, ‘So, first we discover that you’re an adulterer, and now we realise that you are intellectually bankrupt. The analogy you used, your supposed gravitational force, could only have issued from the mouth of an intellectual pygmy. Your pop-science analogy is misapplied and your faulty logic is as dangerous as your driving. Millions have died because of so-called scientists like you.’

‘Go, Bri,’ said Brianne.

The ensuing argument developed quickly and raged back and forth, reaching towering peaks of misunderstanding, until eventually father and son found themselves on a scientific plateau, discussing six-dimensional space.

Poppy was bored. To pass the interminable time (they were only at the junction for East Midlands Airport, for God’s sake) she allowed herself a fantasy, imagining herself as Brian’s child bride. Standing at the altar, she would look spectacular in her white lace next to his bulky, bearded self. She would make him sell the house, with Eva in it, finish with prune-face Titania and buy a loft apartment in the middle of town. She would charm his faculty into realising his ambition of a full professorship. She would insist that he fork out £3 50 to have his hair and beard trimmed by Nicky Clarke. After fitting him out with a casual academic uniform (corduroy trousers, suede brogues, soft tweed jacket, horn-rimmed spectacles), she would act as his agent, get him television work, and they would eventually move in celebrity circles. She had always wanted to meet Katie Price and the Dalai Lama. She would insist on Brian having a vasectomy. She would charge him for sex, and later – when he was frail, or starting to lose his marbles – she would put him into a home. Although there was always the possibility of a mercy killing. She would wear deep black at the trial, and a modest little hat. She would clutch a white linen handkerchief and occasionally dab her eyes. When the foreman of the jury pronounced, ‘Not Guilty,’ she would faint very prettily in the dock. By the time they reached the Ikea turn-off, she had married, reconstructed and buried Brian.

He drove on, oblivious to his fate.

Poppy came out of her reverie to interrupt Brian Junior, who was droning on about something she could not and did not want to understand.

‘It’s obvious to me that your father was deeply in love with Titania. She must have been beautiful then. Was she, Brian?’

Brian hesitated. ‘Not beautiful, not even pretty. And I wouldn’t have called her handsome either. But she understood my passion for my subject. If I arrived home late, Eva showed no curiosity in what I’d been doing. She would barely look up from her sodding embroidery.

Yes, if the world was about to end, there she’d be… stitch, stitch, stitch.’

Brianne said, sadly, ‘All those lies, Dad, for all those years.

Poppy shifted round in her seat to face Brian. Her Shantung silk skirt fell away. Brian caught a glimpse of her pale-green French knickers.

They travelled a mile in silence.

Brian said, ‘Time for music.’

He pushed a button on the CD player and the Nelson Riddle Orchestra filled the car. This was torture for his children, but it became worse when Brian and Poppy started to sing along with Sinatra to ‘Strangers In The Night’. Brian sang with a pseudo-American accent, and Poppy’s falsetto was painfully out of tune.

The twins put their fingers down their throats and clapped their noise-cancelling headphones firmly on to their ears. By the time the car passed the sign for the Leeds turn-off, Brian and Poppy were serenading each other with ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’.

As soon as Brian had dropped them outside Sentinel Towers, the twins headed towards the lift, to put their Christmas presents from their family on eBay – the second-hand iPad is were laughably out of date and irrelevant to their needs. The iPads lay at the bottom of a black plastic bag together with the scarf Ruby had knitted for Brian Junior and the Tony Blair autobiography, inscribed on the title page: ‘To Brianne, Happy Christmas from Grandma Yvonne’.