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

Brian, who had not been listening, shouted, ‘Friday! That’s no good to me! I need one now!’

Eva turned over to face the window. A few golden leaves were spiralling down from the sycamore outside. She said, ‘You don’t have to wear a shirt. It’s not a condition of your employment. Professor Brady dresses as if he was in The Rolling Stones.’

‘It’s bloody embarrassing.” said Brian. ‘We had a delegation from NASA last week. Every last one of them was in a blazer, collar and tie, and they were shown round by Brady in his creaking leather trousers, Yoda T-shirt and down-at-heel cowboy boots! On his salary! All the bloody cosmologists are the same. And when they’re together in the one room, it looks like a meeting in a drug rehabilitation unit! I’m telling you, Eva, if it wasn’t for we astronomers they’d be dead in the water!’

Eva turned back to him and said, ‘Wear your navy polo shirt, your chinos and your brown brogues.’ She wanted him out of her room. She would ask her uneducated mother to show Dr Brian Beaver BSc, MSc, D Phil (Oxon) how to manipulate the simple dials on the washing machine.

Before Brian left the room she asked him, ‘Do you think there is a God, Brian?’

He was sitting on the bed, tying his shoelaces. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve got religion, Eva. It always ends in tears. According to Steve Hawking’s latest book, God’s not fit for purpose. He’s a character in a fairy tale.’

‘Then why do so many millions of people believe in him?’

‘Look, Eva, the stats are against it. Something can actually come from nothing. Heisenbergian uncertainty allows a bubble of space-time to inflate out of nowhere…’ He paused. ‘But I admit the particle side is… difficult. The string theory supersymmetry boys really need to find the Higgs boson. And the wave function collapse is always a problem.’

Eva nodded, and said, ‘I see. Thank you.’

He groomed his beard with Eva’s comb and said, ‘So, how long do you intend to stay in bed?’

‘Where does the universe end?’ asked Eva.

Brian fiddled with his beard, twirling the scraggy end between his fingers. ‘Can you tell me why you want to retreat from the world, Eva?’

‘I don’t know how to live in it,’ she said. ‘I can’t even work the remote. I preferred it when there were three channels and all you had to do was go duh, duh, duh.’

She stabbed at the imaginary knobs on the imaginary television.

‘So, you’re going to loll about in bed because you can’t work the remote?’

Eva muttered, ‘I can’t work the new oven stroke grill stroke microwave either. And I can’t work out how much we’re paying EON per quarter on our electricity bill. Do we owe them money, Brian, or do they owe us?’

‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. He took her hand and said, ‘I’ll see you tonight. By the way, is sex off the menu?’

‘I don’t sleep with Steve no more,’ said Julie. ‘He’s in the box room with his PlayStation and The Best of Guns and Roses.’

‘Don’t you miss him? Physically?’ asked Eva.

‘No, we still have sex! Downstairs, after the kids have gone to bed. We used to have to fit it in during the adverts – you know how much I love my soaps – but now we can just Sky Plus. Something had to be done, after I missed the bit where Phil Mitchell took heroin for the first time. So, why are you still in bed?’

‘I like it here,’ said Eva. She liked Julie but she already wanted her to go.

Julie said, ‘My hair’s falling out.’

‘It’s not cancer?’

Julie laughed. ‘It’s the stress of work. There’s a new manager, a woman called Mrs Damson. God knows where she’s from. She’s one of them managers what expect you to work the full eight hours. When Bernard was the manager, we hardly did no work. We’d go in at eight o’clock, I’d put the kettle on, then me and the other girls would sit around in the staffroom having a laugh until the customers started banging on the door to be let in. Sometimes, for a laugh, we’d pretend not to hear them and we wouldn’t open the door until half past nine. Yeah, Bernard were lovely to work for. Shame he’s gone. It weren’t his fault our branch never made a profit. The customers just stopped coming.’

Eva closed her eyes, feigning sleep, but Julie continued.

‘Mrs Damson had only been there three days when I broke out in one of my rashes.’ She pushed the sleeve of her jumper up past her elbow and shoved her bare arm in front of Eva. ‘Look, I’m covered in it.’

Eva said, ‘I can’t see anything.’

Julie pushed her sleeve down. ‘It’s fading now’ She got up and walked about the bedroom. She picked up the bottle of Olay Regenerist, which promised to rejuvenate the skin, gave a little laugh and replaced it on the dressing table.

‘You’re having a breakdown,’ she said.

‘Am I?’

‘It’s the first symptom – when I went doolally after Scott was born, I stayed in bed for five days. Steve had to fly back to his rig. I was worried about him in the helicopter, they’re always crashing, Eva. I wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t drink, didn’t wash my face. I just cried and cried. I wanted a girl so bad. I’d already got four boys.’

‘So, you’d got a reason for feeling depressed.’

Julie continued, ignoring Eva, ‘I was so sure. I’d only got pink clothes. When I took him out in his pram, people would look in and say, “She’s gorgeous, what’s her name?”. I’d say Amelia because that’s the name I would have given my little girl. Do you think that’s why our Scott is gay?’

‘He’s only five,’ said Eva. ‘He’s far too young to be anything.’

‘I bought him a little china tea service the other week. Teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl, two cups and saucers, little miniature spoons, very pretty, everything covered in pink roses. He played all day with it, as well – until Steve came home and kicked it over.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Then he cried and cried.’

‘Scott?’ asked Eva.

‘No, Steve! Keep up.’

What did Scott do?’ said Eva.

‘Same as he always does when there’s trouble in the house. He goes to my wardrobe and strokes my clothes.’

‘Isn’t that a bit -’

‘A bit what?’ said Julie.

‘A bit weird?’

‘Is it?’

Eva nodded.

Julie sat her large bulk on Eva’s bed. ‘To be honest, Eva, I’ve somehow lost my way with my boys. They’re not bad lads but I don’t know what to do with ‘em all. They’re so noisy and rough with each other. The noise they make when they’re running up the stairs, the way they eat and argue over the remote, their horrible boys’ clothes, the state of their fingernails. Me and Steve are thinking about trying for a girl again, next time he’s got shore leave. What do you think?’

Eva said, ‘No, I forbid it!’

Both women were surprised at Eva’s vehement tone.

Eva looked out of the window and saw a boy climbing the sycamore in her front garden. Nodding towards the window, she said casually, ‘Isn’t that one of your boys trying to climb our tree?’

Julie looked out of the window, then ran to open it. She yelled, ‘Scott! Get down, you’ll break your bleddy neck!’

Eva said, ‘He’s a boy, Julie. Put his tea set away.’

‘Yeah, I am going to try for a girl.’

As she was walking down the stairs, Julie thought, ‘Wish it was me in that bed.’

Brianne glanced at her watch. It was 1 1.35 a.m. She had been awake since 5.30 a.m., thanks to Poppy’s chronic need for attention.

Poppy had been on Brianne’s phone for nearly an hour to somebody called Marcus.