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

Eva assured Brian that she had loved Yvonne, and would think about her while the funeral was in progress, but she could not leave her bed.

Brian said, ‘What if it was Ruby, your own mother? Would you leave your bed for her?’

‘I need notice on that question,’ said Eva.

‘I can’t bear to think about her lying on those cold kitchen tiles,’ Brian said, tearfully.

Eva stroked his hand. ‘She was fed up with the modern world anyway, Brian. She couldn’t grasp the fact that there was pornography on her Freebox. When she first watched the telly, the newsreader was wearing a dinner jacket.’

‘Do you think she had a good life?’

Eva said, carefully, ‘As good as she could have, given that she was born into a man’s world, and that your dad wouldn’t let her wear trousers.

He said, ‘You know those Valentine’s Day cards she got every year?’

‘An amazing number.’

‘She wrote them to herself as well.’

‘She must have been horribly lonely, Bri. She never got over your dad’s death.’

Were you lonely when I was at work?’ Brian asked.

Eva said, ‘I was lonelier when you came home, and we were sitting next to each other on the sofa.’

‘But we did have some good times, didn’t we?’

‘We must have, but I can’t remember what they were. ‘Brian said, sounding slightly annoyed, ‘The holidays abroad. Camping in Wales. Florida.’

Eva wanted to concur with Brian, but her memories were a blur of mosquitoes, rain, mud, sunstroke, dehydration, endless driving, bickering and grudging reconciliations.

The Beaver ancestors had bought a family plot in the shade of a small copse of dense conifers at St Guthlac’s. There was no room between the trees to drive a mechanical digger, and roots made digging new graves a trial of strength and stamina.

As the chief mourners were chauffeured up the drive of the forbidding Norman church, to the ringing of a sonorous bell, they saw two young gravediggers throwing small stones at each other. When Brian, Titania and the twins passed the youths, they heard one of them shout, ‘You twat, you nearly got my eye then!’

Brian ordered the driver of the car to stop. He got out and walked purposefully towards his mother’s unfinished grave.

The youths threw down their stones and picked up their spades.

Brian said, ‘I know that lessons in inappropriate swearing are on the curriculum at your lame-duck comprehensive, but this hole you’re meant to be digging will be my mother’s final resting place. Do not shout “twat” across her grave.’

He walked back to the limousine.

As soon as the door closed, one of the youths met Brian’s eyes, muttered, ‘Twat!’ and jumped into the grave.

Brian was about to open the door again, but Brian Junior pulled him away from the handle. ‘Leave it, Dad.’

Brian was unnerved. For three miles they had been following the hearse that carried his mother’s body. Behind them all the way was Alexander, driving his old van, with Stanley Crossley and Ruby on the bench passenger seat.

Yvonne’s sisters, Linda, Suzanne and Jean, were standing around the porch, smoking and tapping the ash into the palms of their hands. Brian thought this, and the fact that they were displaying so much cleavage, was inappropriate. He had not spoken to them for years. There had been an ‘incident’ at a family christening that had ended badly. His mother had never felt able to tell him the details – all she would say was, ‘There was too much drink taken.’ But it could explain why they were staring at him with such malevolence.

They stared even harder at Titania, checking her face, hair, black suit, handbag and shoes. She was of great interest to them. How dare Brian flaunt his knock-off in public? His crazy wife had disgraced the family by making a show of herself, and had now insulted them all by not turning up for her mother-in-law’s funeral.

They stepped aside to let Alexander, Stanley Crossley and the twins into the church. Ruby had sensed the atmosphere, and scuttled away to find a lavatory.

After everybody was seated, Ruby made a late but dramatic entrance by failing to control the immensely heavy church door. The wind dragged the handle out of her hand and slammed it so loudly that the vicar and the mourners, who were kneeling on cassocks in silent prayer, jumped and turned round, in time to see her rooted to the floor in shock. Stanley Crossley, who was wearing a black armband over his dark suit, was sitting on a back pew He got up and helped Ruby down the aisle to join her own clan at the front.

She was outraged when she saw what appeared to be a cardboard box up on a trestle near the altar. She whispered to Brian, Who left that in the church? Where’s Yvonne’s coffin?’

‘That is her coffin,’ Brian whispered back. ‘It’s ecologically sound.’

What’s that when it’s at home?’

The vicar began to tell the small congregation that Yvonne had been born into sin and had died in sin.

Ruby whispered to Brian, ‘She wanted a walnut coffin with brass handles and a puce satin lining. We looked through a catalogue together.’

Out of the side of his mouth, Brian said, ‘Her funeral policy didn’t stretch to walnut.’

The vicar looked like a badger in a surplice. He said, in his fruity voice, ‘We are gathered here today on this dreadful wet and windy morning to celebrate the life of our sister, Rita Coddington.’

There was angry muttering and stifled laughter as the congregation registered his mistake.

He carried on, ‘Rita was born in 1939, the daughter of Edward and Ivy Coddington. It was a difficult forceps birth, which left Rita with an elongated head. She was teased at school but -’

Ruby stood up and interrupted. ‘Excuse me, but what you just said is rubbish. The woman in that cardboard box is Yvonne Beaver. Her main and dad were Arthur and Pearl, and she had a perfectly normal head.’

The vicar sorted through the notes on his lectern, and saw at once that he had mixed up Yvonne Beaver’s notes with those of the next service. He readdressed the congregation, saying, ‘I can only work with the information I’m given. Before I proceed, could I check a few facts with you? First, hymns. Did you request “All Things Bright And Beautiful”?’

Brian said, ‘Yes.’

‘And “Onward Christian Soldiers”?’

Brian nodded.

‘And now popular music. Did she request “Yellow Submarine” by The Beatles, and “Rawhide”, sung by Mr Frankie Laine?’

Brian mumbled, ‘Yes.’

‘Was she a punch card operator until her marriage?’

Brian nodded again.

Brianne said loudly, ‘Look, can you just get on with it?’

The vicar announced, ‘The eulogy will be read by Yvonne’s grandson, Brian Junior.’

Those acquainted with Brian Junior watched apprehensively as he walked to the lectern.

Alexander groaned, ‘Oh, sweet Jesus, no,’ and crossed his fingers.

Brian Junior’s eulogy was the first time he had spoken in public at a formal occasion. He started well, guided by a website called funeraleulogies.com. When he had used up his conventional script, he improvised.

He spoke of the twins’ early memories of Yvonne.

‘She was hyper hygienic, and when we stayed with her overnight she would take my teddy and Brianne’s monkey and put them in the washing machine so they’d be nice and fresh for us in the morning.’

He looked around the church at the carved pillars and the signs and symbols that he could not decipher. The light outside was low but the stained glass glowed, giving a half-life to the familiar biblical figures in stained glass.

‘She took Teddy’s smell away,’ he said.