The Woman who Went to Bed for a Year

2

Brianne was in the communal kitchen and lounge of the accommodation block. So far she had met a boy dressed like a girl, and a woman dressed like a man. They were both talking about clubs and musicians she’d never heard of.

Brianne had a short attention span and soon stopped listening, but she nodded her head and said ‘Cool’ when it seemed appropriate. She was a tall girl with broad shoulders, long legs and big feet. Her face was mostly hidden behind a long straggly black fringe which she pushed out of her eyes only when she actually wanted to see something.

A waiflike girl in a leopard-print maxi dress and tan Ugg boots came in with a bulging bag from Holland & Barrett which she stuffed into the fridge. Half her head had been shaved and a broken heart tattooed on to her scalp. The other half was a badly dyed lopsided green curtain.

Brianne said, ‘Amazing hair. Did you do it yourself?’

‘I got my brother to help me,’ the girl said. ‘He’s a poofter.’

The girl’s sentences had a rising inflection as though she were permanently questioning the validity of her own statements.

Brianne asked, ‘Are you Australian?’

The girl shouted, ‘God! No!’

Brianne said, ‘I’m Brianne.’

The girl said, ‘I’m Poppy. Brianne? I haven’t heard that before.’

‘My dad’s called Brian,’ said Brianne tonelessly. ‘Is it hard to walk in a maxi?’

‘No’, said Poppy. ‘Try it on if you like. It might stretch to fit you.’

She pulled the maxi dress over her head and stood revealed in a wispy bra and knickers. They both looked as though they had been made from scarlet cobwebs. She seemed to have no inhibitions whatsoever. Brianne had many inhibitions. She hated everything about herself: face, neck, hair, shoulders, arms, hands, fingernails, belly, breasts, nipples, waist, hips, thighs, knees, calves, ankles, feet, toenails and voice.

She said, ‘I’ll try it on in my room.’

‘Your eyes are amazing,’ said Poppy.

‘Are they?’

‘Are you wearing green contacts?’ asked Poppy. She stared into Brianne’s face and pushed the fringe away.

‘No.’

‘They’re an amazing green.’

‘Are they?’

‘Awesome.’

‘I need to lose some weight.’

‘Yeah, you do. I’m a weight loss expert. I’ll teach you how to be sick after every meal.’

‘I don’t want to be bulimic.’

‘It was good enough for Lily Allen.’

‘I hate being sick.’

‘Isn’t it worth it to be thin? Remember the saying: “You can’t be too rich or too thin.”’

‘Who said that?’

‘I think it was Winnie Mandela.’

Poppy followed Brianne to her room, still in her underwear. They met Brian Junior in the corridor as he was locking the door to his room. He stared at Poppy and she stared back. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. She threw her arms above her head and affected a glamour girl pose, hoping that Brian Junior would admire her C cup breasts.

He said under his breath, but loud enough to be heard, ‘Gross.’

Poppy said, ‘Gross? It would be really useful to me if you would elaborate. I need to know which bits of me are particularly repellent.’

Brian Junior shifted uncomfortably.

Poppy walked up and down past him, did a twirl and rested one hand on a bony hip. She then looked at him expectantly but he did not speak. Instead, he unlocked the door to his room and went back inside.

Poppy said, ‘He’s a baby. A rude, mind-blowingly awesome-looking baby.’

Brianne said, ‘We’re both seventeen. We took our A levels early.’

‘I would have taken mine early but I had a personal tragedy…’ Poppy paused, waiting for Brianne to ask about the nature of the tragedy. When Brianne remained silent, she said, ‘I can’t talk about it. I still managed to get four A*s. Oxbridge wanted me. I went for an interview but quite honestly I couldn’t live and study somewhere so old-fashioned.’

Brianne asked, Where was your interview – Oxford or Cambridge?’

Poppy said, ‘Do you have auditory defects? I told you, I was interviewed in Oxbridge.’

‘And you were offered a place to study at Oxbridge University?’ Brianne checked, ‘Remind me, where is Oxbridge?’

Poppy mumbled, ‘It’s in the middle of the country, ‘and went out.

Brianne and Brian Junior had been interviewed at Cambridge University, and both of them had been offered a place. The Beaver twins’ small fame had gone before them. At Trinity College they were given what looked like an impossibly difficult maths problem to solve. Brian Junior went to a separate room with an invigilator. When they each put down their pencil after fifty-five minutes of frenzied workings-out on the A4 paper supplied, the chair of the interviewing panel read their workings as if they were a chapter of a racy novel. Brianne had meticulously, if unimaginatively, worked her way straight to the solution. Brian Junior had reached it by a more mysterious path. The panel declined to ask the twins about hobbies or pastimes. It was easy to tell that they did nothing outside of their chosen field.

After the twins had turned the offer down, Brianne explained that she and her brother would follow the famous professor of mathematics Lenya Nikitanova to Leeds.

‘Ah, Leeds,’ said the chairperson. ‘It has a remarkable mathematical faculty, world class. We tried to tempt the lovely Nikitanova here by offering her disgracefully extravagant inducements, but she emailed that she preferred to teach the children of the workers – an expression I have not heard since Brezhnev was in office – and was taking up the post of lecturer at Leeds University! Typically quixotic of her!’

Now, in Sentinel Towers student residence, Brianne said, ‘I’d sooner try the dress on in private. I’m shy about my body.’

Poppy said, ‘No, I’m coming in with you. I can help you.’

Brianne felt suffocated by Poppy. She did not want to let her inside her room. She did not want her as a friend but, despite her feelings, she unlocked the door and let Poppy inside.

Brianne’s suitcase was open on the narrow bed. Poppy immediately began to unpack and put Brianne’s clothes and shoes away in the wardrobe. Brianne sat helplessly on the end of the bed, saying, ‘No, Poppy. I can do it.’ She thought that when Poppy had gone, she would arrange her clothes to her own satisfaction.

Poppy opened a jewellery box decorated in tiny pearlised shells and began to try on various pieces. She pulled out the silver bracelet with the three charms: a moon, a sun and a star.

The bracelet had been bought by Eva in late August to celebrate Brianne’s five A*s at A level. Brian Junior had already lost the cufflinks his mother had given him to commemorate his six A*s.

‘I’ll borrow this,’ Poppy said.

‘No!’ Brianne shouted. ‘Not that! It’s precious to me.’ She took it from Poppy and slipped it on to her own wrist.

Poppy said, ‘Omigod, you’re such a materialist. Chill out.’

Meanwhile, Brian Junior paced up and down in his shockingly tiny room. It took only three steps to move from the door to the window He wondered why his mother had not rung as she had promised.

He had unpacked earlier and everything had been neatly put away. His pens and pencils were lined up in colour order, starting with yellow and finishing with black. It was important to Brian Junior that a red pen came exactly at the centre of the line.

Earlier that day, once the twins’ belongings had been brought up from the car, their laptops were being charged, and the new Ikea kettles, toasters and lamps had been plugged in, Brian, Brianne and Brian Junior had sat in a line on Brianne’s bed with nothing to say to each other.

Brian had said, ‘So,’ several times.

The twins were expecting him to go on to speak, but he had relapsed into silence.

Eventually, he cleared his throat and said, ‘So, the day has come, eh? Daunting for me and Mum, and even more so for you two – standing on your own two feet, meeting new people.’

He stood up and faced them. ‘Kids, make a bit of an effort to be friendly to the other students. Brianne, introduce yourself, try to smile. They won’t be as clever as you and Brian Junior, but being clever isn’t everything.’

Brian Junior said, in a flat tone, ‘We’re here to work, Dad. If we needed “friends” we’d be on Facebook.’

Brianne took her brother’s hand and said, ‘It might be good to have a friend, Bri. Y’know, like, somebody I could talk to about…’ She hesitated.

Brian supplied, ‘Clothes and boys and hairdos.’

Brianne thought, ‘Ugh! Hairdos? No, I’d want to talk about the wonders of the world, the mysteries of the universe.’

Brian Junior said, ‘We can make friends once we ye obtained our doctorates.’

Brian laughed, ‘Loosen up, BJ. Get drunk, get laid, hand an essay in late, for once. You’re a student, steal a traffic cone!’

Brianne looked at her brother. She could no more imagine him roaring drunk with a traffic cone on his head than she could see him on that stupid programme Strictly Come Dancing, clad in lime-green Lycra, dancing the rumba.

Before Brian left, there were some badly executed hugs and backslaps. Noses were kissed instead of lips and cheeks. They trod on each other’s toes in their haste to leave the cramped room and get to the lift. Once there, they waited an interminable time for the lift to travel up six floors. They could hear it wheezing and grinding its way towards them.

When the doors opened, Brian almost ran inside. He waved goodbye to the twins and they waved back. After a few seconds, Brian stabbed at the Ground Floor button, the doors closed and the twins did a high five.

Then the lift returned with Brian its captive.

The twins were horrified to see that their father was crying. They were about to step in when the doors crushed shut, and the lift jerked and groaned itself downstairs.

‘Why is Dad crying?’ asked Brian Junior.

Brianne said, ‘I think it’s because he’s sad we’ve left home.’

Brian Junior was amazed. ‘And is that a normal response?’

‘I think so.’

‘Mum didn’t cry when we said goodbye.’

‘No, Mum thinks tears should be reserved for nothing less than tragedy.’

They had waited by the lift for a few moments to see if it would return their father again. When it did not, they went to their rooms and tried, but failed, to contact their mother.