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

‘This is what I’ve got to say. Fuck off out of my house!’

‘I’m not happy with this,’ Jo said. ‘You’re bullying her, Derek, and I may have to inform Human Resources.’

Derek said, ‘It’s OK, we can lose anything you’re not happy about in the edit.’

‘But I’m not involved in the edit. All I’m allowed to do is point a camera.

‘You weren’t so high-minded when we doorstepped that grieving widow last week.’

‘Which one? There were two grieving widows last week.’

‘The one whose idiot husband fell into the industrial bread mixer.’

‘I wasn’t happy.’

Derek grabbed Jo by the shoulders and said, ‘But that was such an artistic end shot you took – the tears running down her face, that kind of rainbow effect you got.’

Jo said, ‘I shot her tears through a crystal vase. I’m not proud of it. I’m ashamed.’

‘We’re all ashamed in television, deary, but it doesn’t stop us doing it. Never forget, we give the public what they want.’

Derek dropped his voice and murmured to Eva, ‘By the way, can I say how sorry I am that your husband’s about to leave you? You’re probably devastated, aren’t you?’

Eva said, ‘Do you know the meaning of the word “devastated”?’ She didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘It means, “destroyed or ruined, shattered into a thousand pieces”. But here I am, sitting up in bed, in one piece. Now, please close the door behind you.’

As he stamped down the stairs, Derek said, ‘This is why I loathe working with women. They can’t think further than their fanny.’ In a falsetto voice that was meant to be female, he said, ‘Oh dear me, I’m getting emotional and my hormones are taking over and everything must be ethical and from a woman’s point of view!’

They heard a key turn in the lock, and Alexander walked in carrying a large framed painting covered in bubble wrap.

‘Is it you who’s bothering Eva?’ he asked.

Derek said, ‘Are you the Alexander Mrs Brown-Bird’s been telling us about? Friend of the family, eh?’

Alexander said, firmly, ‘Please leave immediately, nobody wants you here.’

‘Look, sunshine, this is a big story in our neck of the woods. It’s not every day we find a saint in suburbia. We’ve got close-up shots of her in the window, we’ve got an interview with the mother, and Barry Wooton has told us his very boring, but very tragic story. All we need is Eva. Just a few words.’

Alexander gave a broad smile, reminding Plimsoll of the pregnant crocodile they’d recently filmed in Twycross Zoo.

‘You interviewed me at the opening of my first exhibition,’ he said. ‘I think I know your introduction by heart. “This is Alexander Tate, he’s a painter, not of the ghetto, not portraits of gang members, not edgy depictions of urban decay. No, Alexander paints watercolours of the English countryside…” Then cue the harpsichord music.’

Derek said, ‘I thought it was a nice little piece.’

Jo said, ‘Derek, you were patronising Alexander, and implying that painting watercolours was an unusual activity for black people.’

Derek said, ‘It is.’

Jo turned to Alexander. ‘My life partner is black. Do you know her – Priscilla Robinson?’

Alexander said, ‘No, funny that. I really ought to know the ten thousand black folk toiling in Leicester’s cotton fields.’

‘Don’t lay that shit at my door, Uncle Tom!’ Jo said, angrily.

Derek Plimsoll sat down heavily on the stairs and said, ‘This is the last time I do house calls. In future, everybody comes to me in the studio.’

Alexander looked down at Derek’s hairline. The white roots would need touching up soon, he thought. It was pitiful.

Eva watched Derek and Jo walk to the Mercedes van in silence. She kept watching until Jo had driven the van out of sight.

She quickly laid out the White Pathway. Every time she took a step on it, she imagined herself walking along the Milky Way, far beyond the earth and its complications. After peeing and washing her hands, she reached for her make-up. She wanted to look as good as she could. The expensive, shiny black pots and brushes she had accumulated over the years were talismans – the discreet gold logo protected her from harm. She knew she was being exploited, she could have bought the same contents for a sixth of the price, but she didn’t care, the overpricing had made her feel edgy and reckless, as if she were a circus performer about to traverse the high wire without a safety net.

She sprayed herself with the perfume she had used since she was a young librarian, and could not afford it. She had been very taken by the story of Marilyn Monroe who, when asked, What do you wear in bed?’ had replied, ‘Chanel No. 5.’

‘It probably wasn’t true,’ thought Eva now. Nothing was true for long. In time, everything was deconstructed. Black turned out to be white. The Crusaders were rapists, looters and torturers. Bing Crosby thrashed his children. Winston Churchill hired an actor to broadcast some of his most famous speeches. When Brian had told her all these things, she had said, ‘But they should be true.’ She wanted heroes and heroines in her life. If not heroes, people to admire and respect.

After making up her face, she returned to bed, pulled the white sheet up like a drawbridge, folded it carefully and put it under her pillows. She was proud that she had never once strayed from the White Pathway in nearly five months. Part of her knew it was a contrivance, but she felt that if she fell off the pathway and on to the wooden floor, she would spiral out of control, spinning, following the earth as it journeyed around the sun.

Halfway up the stairs, Alexander stopped. He shouted, ‘Is it OK to come up?’

Eva shouted back, ‘Yes.’

When he walked up two more steps, he could see Eva sitting on her bed. She looked very beautiful. There was flesh on her bones and the deep hollows in her cheeks had been filled.

He stood at her bedroom door and said, ‘You look well.’

She said, ‘What’s that under your arm?’

‘It’s a painting, it’s for you. A present. For the bare wall facing you.’

She said, softly, ‘But I like the bare wall, I like to watch the light move across it.’

‘I froze my bloody arse off painting this.’

Eva said, ‘I don’t want anything in here that interferes with my thinking.’

The truth was, she was very frightened that she might not like his work. She wondered if it were possible to love a man whose artistry she did not admire? Instead, she said, ‘Did you know that we haven’t said hello to each other yet?’

‘I don’t need you to say hello to me, you’re always with me. You never leave.’

‘I don’t know you,’ Eva said, ‘but I think about you constantly. I can’t take the painting, but I’d love the bubble wrap.’

This wasn’t what Alexander had hoped for. He’d thought she would be wild about the painting, especially when he pointed to the tiny figure of Eva on the brow of a hill with her blob of yellow-blonde hair. He’d seen her flying into his arms. They would kiss, he would cup her breasts, she would gently stroke his belly. At some stage, they would climb under the duvet and explore each other’s bodies.

He didn’t expect to find himself sitting on the side of her bed, popping little transparent mounds in the bubble wrap. He said, between satisfying pops, ‘You need a gatekeeper. Somebody to decide who’s allowed in the house and who isn’t.’

‘Like Cerberus,’ she said, ‘the three-headed dog who guarded the entrance, to the cave where somebody – I can’t remember who – lived. There was something about a pomegranate and a seed, but no… I can’t remember.’