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

Now all Alexander could hear were his own footsteps echoing in the moonlit streets.

Then he heard a car approaching, its sound system booming out gangster rap. He turned to look as the old BMW passed him. Four white men, short hair, over-muscled. A tin of gym supplements on the back window. The car stopped just ahead of him.

He braced himself and, hoping to appear friendly, said, ‘Evening, guys.’

The driver of the car said to his front-seat passenger, ‘Do me a favour, Robbo, get the toolbox out the back, will you?’

Alexander didn’t like the sound of the toolbox. All he had to defend himself with was his Swiss Army knife, and by the time he’d found a suitable blade…

He said, Well, I’ll wish you goodnight then.’ Fear had forced him to drop his street accent, and revert back to Charterhouse.

The four men laughed, but without humour. At a gesture from the driver, the three remaining men got out of the car.

‘Lovely plaits,’ said the driver. ‘How long you had them then?’

‘Seventeen years,’ said Alexander. He was wondering if he could outrun them, though his legs had turned to mush.

‘Be a relief to get rid of ‘em won’t it? Nasty, dirty, filthy things hanging down your back.’

Suddenly, as if they’d rehearsed it, the three men pushed him to the ground. One sat on his chest, the other two held down his legs.

Alexander allowed his body to go limp. He knew from experience that any show of defiance now would bring a beating.

He let himself into Eva’s house with the key she had given him. He took his shoes off and carried them upstairs, together with his shorn dreadlocks.

When he got to the landing, Eva called, ‘Who’s there?’

He walked softly to her doorway, and said, ‘Its me.’

She said, ‘Can you put the light on?’

He said, ‘No, I want to lie down next to you in the dark. Like we did before.’

Eva looked up at the moon. ‘The man in the moon has had work done on his face.’

Alexander said, ‘Botox.’

She laughed, but he didn’t.

She turned to look at him, and saw that his dreadlocks were gone. ‘Why have you done that?’

He said, ‘I didn’t.’

She put her arms around him.

He was rigid with an old rage. He asked, ‘What’s the most important quality a person could have, something that would benefit us all? Even the bastards who cut off my hair.’

Eva stroked his hair while she thought about his question.

Eventually, she said, ‘Kindness. Or is that too simple?’

‘No, simple kindness, I’d vote for that.’

In the early hours, he allowed Eva to level his remaining locks.

When she was finished, he said, ‘Now I know how Samson felt. I’m not the same man, Eva.’

Alexander had been thinking for some time about what was important.

He said, We all of us – the fools, the geniuses, the beggars, the A-listers – we all need to be loved, and we all need to love. And if they’re the same person, halleluyah! And if you can live your life and avoid humiliation, you’re blessed. I didn’t manage to do that, people I didn’t even know humiliated me. My dreads were me. I could face anything with them. They were a visible symbol of my pride in our history. And, you know, my kids would hang on to them when they were babies. My wife was the only person I allowed to wash and retwist my dreads. But I would have let you. Whenever I thought about my old age, I pictured myself with white dreads, long white dreads. I’m on the beach, in Tobago. There’s a travel brochure sunset. You’re back at the hotel, washing sand and confetti out of your hair. Eva, please get out of bed, I need you.’

Out of all his seductive words – Tobago, beach, sunset, confetti – the only word Eva heard clearly was ‘need’.

She said, ‘I can’t be needed, Alex. I would let you down, so it’s better if I stay out of your life.’

Alexander was angry. What would you get out of bed for? The twins in danger? Your mother’s funeral? A fucking Chanel handbag?’

He didn’t wait around for her to see him cry. He knew her attitude to tears. He went downstairs and sat in the back garden until dawn.

When he left for the long walk home, Ruby was out early cleaning the front porch and doorstep with disinfectant and a soapy mop. When she saw Alexander, she gave a delighted little scream and said, ‘A new hairdo. It really, really suits you, Alexander.’

He said quietly, ‘It’s my late summer cut.

Ruby watched him walk down the road.

He had lost his easy movements. From the back he looked like a stooped, middle-aged man.

She wanted to call him back, she would make him a cup of that bitter coffee he liked. But when it came to it, she tried and tried but she couldn’t remember his name.

At daybreak, Eva watched the sky change from sludgy grey to opalescent blue. The birdsong was heartbreakingly optimistic and cheerful.

‘I should follow their example,’ she thought.

But she was still angry at Alexander. He couldn’t be needy. She was the one who needed support, food and water. Sometimes she had to drink out of the tap in the en suite. Her care rota had almost broken down since Ruby’s memory lapses had intensified.

But how could she complain? All she had to do was get out of bed.

Eva was lying flat on the bed, staring up at a crack that meandered across the ceiling like a black river running through a white wilderness.

Eva knew every millimetre of the crack – the backwaters, the moorings. She was at the helm of a boat as it journeyed, seeking peace and pleasure for those on board. Eva could see Brian Junior, motionless, staring into the deep water. Next she saw Brianne, trying to light a cigarette against the wind. Alexander was standing at the wheel with his arm around the shoulder of the helmswoman, and Venus was there, attempting to draw what was undrawable – the speed of the boat, the sound it makes as it pushes through the water. And look at Thomas, trying to wrest the wheel from Eva’s hands.

She didn’t know where they were going. The crack disappeared under the plaster cornice. Eva had to turn the boat and journey against the wind and the flow of the river. Sometimes it was moored against the bank, and the passengers disembarked and trekked in the wilderness, on soft white sand.

But there was nothing for them there.

When they walked back to the boat, Eva gave the wheel to Brianne, saying, ‘Care about something, Brianne. Take us home and keep us safe.’

The clouds rolled across the ceiling, the wind blew in their faces. Brianne held firm and took them home.

At eight o’ clock precisely, Eva was shocked awake by an atrocious noise from outside. She sat up and knelt at the window. Her heart was beating so rapidly she found it a struggle to breathe.

There was a man standing on a branch of the sycamore wearing a safety harness and a hard hat and goggles. He was cutting at an adjacent branch with an electric saw. She watched in horror as the branch broke and was lowered to the ground by a rope. Other workmen were waiting to free the branch from the rope, to remove smaller branches and twigs and feed them into a racketing shredder.

Eva banged on the window and screamed, ‘Stop! That’s my tree!’

But such was the din outside that her voice could not be heard. She opened the sash window and was immediately hit in the face by a spray of splintered bark. She closed the window quickly. Her face was stinging, and when she touched her cheek she had blood on her fingers. She continued to shout and gesticulate at the workman in the tree. She caught his eye once, but he turned his back on her.