The Woman who Went to Bed for a Year

42

It was three o’clock in the morning. A time when frail people die. Eva was keeping watch on her territory. She saw the foxes casually crossing the road, as though they were shoppers in a village high street. Other small mammals that she couldn’t identify were out and about.

She watched as a black cab turned into the road opposite and then turned again to park outside her house. She watched the driver get out; he was a big man. He rang the doorbell.

Eva thought, ‘Who in this house has rung for a cab at this time of the morning?’

After a moment, the bell rang again.

She heard Poppy running along the hallway to open the door, shouting, ‘OK, OK, I’m coming!’

There was an altercation on the doorstep – Poppy’s high voice and a man’s deep rumble.

Poppy shouted, ‘No, you can’t come in, she’s asleep!’ The man insisted, ‘No, she isn’t. I’ve just seen her at the window I’ve gotta talk to her.’

Poppy said, ‘Come back tomorrow’

‘I can’t wait until tomorrow,’ the man said. ‘I need to see her now.’

Poppy screamed, ‘You can’t come in! Go away!’

‘Please,’ the man begged. We’re talking life and death here. So, if you wun’t mind, get out of my way.’

‘Don’t touch me, don’t touch me! Take your hands off me!’

Eva was rigid with fear and guilt. She must go downstairs and confront the man herself but, although she swung her legs out of the bed, she could not lower her feet on to the floor. Not even to save Poppy. She wondered if she could have run downstairs if the twins were exposed to a similar danger.

‘Sorry, sorry, but I’ve got to see her.’

Eva heard a heavy tread on the stairs. She swung her legs back into the bed and pulled the duvet around her neck, like a child might after a nightmare. She braced herself for the man’s entrance.

Suddenly he was there, in her room, blinking in the bright light. He had a night-shift worker’s exhausted face. He needed a shave and his hair was lank as he pushed a few locks out of his eyes and behind his ears. His clothes looked rumpled and neglected. He was breathing heavily.

Eva thought to herself, ‘I mustn’t antagonise him. I must try to keep calm. He’s obviously in a state.’ She looked to see if he was carrying anything that could be construed as a weapon. His hands were empty.

‘You’re Eva Beaver, aren’t you?’

Eva lowered the duvet a little and asked, ‘What do you want?’

‘The other drivers were talking about you. They don’t know who you are, but they see you sometimes in the window through the night. Some of them think you’re a prostitute. I never thought that. But then one of Bella’s brothers told me that you’d helped ‘em out.’

‘Bella Harper?’ said Eva.

‘Yeah,’ said the man. ‘He said that you gave free advice twenty-four seven. He said you were a saint.’

Eva laughed. ‘Your informant was wrong.’

Poppy had run into the twins’ bedrooms and woken them up. They stumbled into Eva’s room, Brian Junior holding his old cricket bat, wide-eyed with fear. Brianne stood behind him with a martyred screwed-up expression on her face, yawning and blinking.

Brian Junior said viciously, ‘Get out of my mother’s bedroom!’

‘I’m not going to hurt her, son,’ the taxi driver said. ‘I just need to talk to her.’

‘At three a.m.?’ said Brianne, sarcastically. Why? Is it the end of the world? Or something more important?’

The man turned to Eva with such a forlorn look that she said, ‘I don’t know your name.’

‘I’m Barry Wooton.’

‘I’m Eva. Please, sit down.’ Then, to the twins, ‘It will be all right, go back to bed.’

Brian Junior said, ‘We’re not leaving.’

Barry sat down in the soup chair and closed his eyes. ‘I can’t believe I’m here.’

Poppy, who was desperately trying to ingratiate herself with Eva, asked, ‘Can I get anybody a cup of tea?’

Brianne said, ‘I sometimes think Dad’s right about this bloody country and tea.’

‘I’ll have one,’ said Eva.

‘Yeah, me too,’ said the driver. ‘Not much milk, two sugars.’

Brian Junior said, ‘Green tea, and I’ll have it in here.’ He leaned against the wall and swung the cricket bat into the palm of his right hand, making a smacking sound.

Brianne was wearing a pair of her father’s pyjamas. They fitted her well. She sat down on the bed and put her arm protectively around her mother’s waist.

Poppy said, ‘Should I tell Brian and Titania?’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Eva.

Barry looked around at the four strangers and said, ‘I don’t usually carry on like this. I’m surprised at myself. I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Mrs Beaver. Every time I’ve passed your house, I’ve wanted to stop the cab and knock on your door.’

Why tonight?’

‘I suppose I wanted to talk to somebody before I do myself in.’

Brianne said, ‘Oh, how lovely. You must surely know, Barry, that my mother, whose heart is as soggy as Romney Marsh, will try to talk you out of it.’

Brian Junior said in a monotone, ‘You’ve no intention of killing yourself, Barry.’

Brianne asked, ‘Have you posted it online?’

‘What?’ said Barry.

‘It’s almost obligatory now, Barry. You have to go on the net and join the queue with the rest of the attention whores.’

Eva looked at her children. What had happened to them? Why were they so heartless?

Barry shifted in the chair. He felt that he could easily die of embarrassment. His tongue was huge in his mouth. He thought that he would not be able to speak again. Water started to drip from his eyes. He was glad when the weird-looking girl came in with three mugs of tea and handed one to him. He had never seen anybody dressed in such extravagant bits of cloth before. He slurped on his tea and burned his mouth, but he said nothing about the pain.

The silence was oppressive.

Eventually, Eva said, ‘Why do you want to kill yourself?’

Barry opened his mouth to speak, but Brianne interrupted him. ‘I think I’ll take myself off to bed now I cannot bear the thought of all the clichés that are presently stirring inside Barry’s head, and their imminent arrival at, and escape from, Barry’s voice box.’

Brian Junior said, ‘You’re Out of your element, Barry.’ Brianne drew her dressing gown tightly around her and went haughtily back to bed.

Eva said, ‘Poppy, you go to bed now’

Poppy sulked out of the room.

Barry couldn’t work out whether he had been insulted or not by the tall, chunky black-haired girl. He hadn’t expected other people to be there when he talked to the woman, Eva. He had made things worse for himself, he thought. He had almost certainly been disrespected, he had burned his mouth, he’d lost fares, and he’d forgotten until now that the first high-speed train that he was planning to throw himself under didn’t leave Sheffield until 5 a.m. So he had three hours to kill.

‘As usual,’ he thought, ‘I’ve mucked everything up. I’ve done it all my life: lost stuff, broken stuff, stolen stuff, been caught with stuff.’ He felt that he had never learned the rules of life, whereas every other man, woman, kid and animal knew them. He was always lagging behind – sometimes literally – shouting, ‘Wait for me!’ He’d only ever been able to court the dregs of women that his mates had discarded.

A girl had once said to him, ‘I’m not being funny, Barry, but you don’t half stink.’

Since then, he had bathed twice a day. But it took up a lot of time without a shower, and his hot-water bill had doubled. He was earning less these days – people weren’t going out at night, or giving many tips. Sometimes he didn’t even cover his petrol costs. He had no family. After he had fought with his new brother-in-law at the wedding reception, his mother had said to him dramatically, ‘You are no longer my son. You are dead to me. ‘But, to be honest, he had enjoyed knocking that tosser on to the dance floor. Nobody called his sister a slag. But even she had turned against him. In the day, while he was trying to sleep, the fight went round and round in his head. He was so tired, but he could never sleep properly…

Eva said, ‘You look exhausted.’

Barry nodded. ‘I am. And I’ve got worries.’

‘What’s at the top of the list?’

‘How much will it hurt when the train goes over me neck? That’s my main worry. It’s bound to hurt before I die.’

Eva said, ‘There are easier ways, Barry. And think about the train driver, he’ll have it on his mind for ever. All you’d be to the passengers is an hour’s delay, while they search the track for your head and limbs. Think of a stranger swinging your decapitated head in a Tesco’s carrier bag.’

Brian Junior said, ‘Is that what they do?’

‘I saw a documentary,’ said Eva.

Barry said, ‘So, you don’t think the train?’

‘No,’ said Eva. ‘Definitely not the train.’

Barry said, ‘I thought about hanging. I’ve got a beam…’

‘No,’ said Eva, firmly. ‘You could hang there for minutes. Fighting for breath. It doesn’t always break the neck, Barry.’

‘Right, strike that off the list then. Have you got any thoughts about drowning?’

‘No. I’ve got a friend called Virginia Woolf,’ lied Eva, ‘who filled her pockets with stones and walked into the sea.’

Barry asked, ‘Did it work?’

‘No,’ she lied again. ‘It didn’t work. She’s glad it didn’t work now’

What about Paracetamol?’ said Barry.

‘Not bad,’ said Eva, ‘but if you don’t die, you could poison your liver and suffer an agonising death a fortnight later. Or have your kidneys fail and end up on dialysis. Four hours a day, five times a week, with your own blood going round in plastic tubes in front of you.’

Barry said, ‘Sounds easier to live.’ He gave a humourless laugh.

Brian Junior said, morosely, ‘I could cave your head in with this cricket bat.’

Barry laughed again. ‘No, I think I’ll leave it, thank you.’

Eva said, ‘You might as well live, Barry. What’s the second worry on your list?’

‘How to make some real friends,’ said Barry.

Eva asked, ‘Do you smoke?’

He shook his head. ‘No, it’s a disgusting habit.’

‘You should take it up, and then you could join all the little groups standing outside their pubs and clubs. You’d be part of a despised minority, with a great sense of solidarity. You’d soon make friends. And you wouldn’t actually have to smoke the fags, just light them and hold them between your fingers.’

Barry looked dubious.

Eva said, ‘Don’t like that idea?’

‘Not really.’

Eva snapped, ‘OK, so buy a dog.’

Brian Junior said, ‘Have you got a computer, dude?’

Barry was thrilled to be called ‘dude’. It had never happened to him before. ‘Yeah, I gotta laptop, but I only use it for DVD s.’

Brian Junior was scandalised. ‘Don’t tell me that! It’s like only putting a toe in the water instead of swimming There’s another world, Barry. And I’m not talking about the deep web. Even a beginner can access amazing things, things that will change your life. There are millions of dudes like you online, you could connect with them. A couple of days and you’d have an entirely different perspective on your life. There are people out there who want to be your friend.’

‘I wouldn’t know where to start,’ Barry said. ‘I’ve got the book that came with the computer, but it’s all a load of gobbledegook to me.’

Brian Junior encouraged him, ‘It’s easy! You just press a few keys, and there it is – the internet, the world, laid out in front of you.’

‘Which keys?’

Brian Junior was growing tired of Barry’s obduracy. ‘I can give you some guidance, a few sites, but don’t ask me to get involved with any of that emo suicide crap. I’d help you, man, but I’m so bored with hearing the same story. Fat, bad teeth, no friends, no girl at the prom. The end.’

Barry ran his tongue over his derelict teeth.

Eva said to Barry, ‘Ignore Brian Junior and his sister, they live in a very small world called the internet, where cynicism is the norm and cruelty has taken the place of humour.’

Brian Junior agreed, ‘It’s undeniably true.’

Eva said, ‘I can give you some practical advice, if you want it.’

Barry nodded. ‘I’ll take anything that’s going.’

When you’re in the bath,’ said Eva, ‘wash and rinse your hair properly and use a conditioner. And go to a barber’s and ask for a modern cut. And your clothes… don’t wear such childish colours. You’re not a presenter on kids’ TV.’

Barry was leaning forward with his mouth slightly open, listening carefully.

Eva continued, ‘Find a good NHS dentist and get those teeth fixed. And when you talk to women, remember that conversation is like ping pong. You say something, she says something. Then you respond to something she’s just said, then she bats it back. You ask her a question. She replies. Do you get the idea?’

Barry nodded.

‘Get a good twenty-four-hour deodorant. And smile, Barry, show her those new teeth.’

Barry said, ‘I should be writing this down.’

Brian Junior was enjoying his role as an IT guru. ‘No need. There are websites for shut-ins. There’s a sort of guidebook for losers. Lots of useful information. For instance, it tells you how to walk down the street without scaring people: no direct eye contact with approaching women, and never walk behind a woman at night. Food: don’t choose spaghetti on a first date. Clothes: what colour socks to wear with brown shoes. Never wear grey shoes at any time. And stuff about sex, and so on.’

Barry half smiled. ‘I’d better go home and chuck all my grey shoes out then.’

Eva checked, ‘So, you’re not going to the railway line?’

‘No, I’m knackered. I’m gonna go home and get some sleep.’

Brian Junior said, ‘The best website is basementdwellers dot org. It’s got an American bias, but ignore all the stuff about how to behave at a baseball game.’

Barry admitted, ‘I’m not much good at reading, but I’ll give it a go. Thank you.’ He got to his feet and said to Eva, ‘I’m sorry for turning up like that. Can I come back at a proper time?’

‘Yes, we want to know how you get on, don’t we, Brian Junior?’

Brian Junior said, ‘I have very little human curiosity, Barry, so I’m not especially bothered, but I know my mother would appreciate another fleeting visit. Perhaps when your teeth are fixed? I’ll show you downstairs, give you some internet basics and the web address.’

At the door, Barry turned and flashed a smile at Eva. His mouth looked like the Colosseum without the cats.

For a few minutes, there was a low mumbling from the hallway. When she heard the door slam, Eva moved to the window and waved Barry off.

He started the engine, then did a three-point turn… and another… and another.

She realised eventually that Barry was doing the taxi drivers’ equivalent of a victory roll.