The Woman who Went to Bed for a Year

48

Eva watched Derek and Jo walk to the Mercedes van in silence. She kept watching until Jo had driven the van out of sight.

She quickly laid out the White Pathway. Every time she took a step on it, she imagined herself walking along the Milky Way, far beyond the earth and its complications. After peeing and washing her hands, she reached for her make-up. She wanted to look as good as she could. The expensive, shiny black pots and brushes she had accumulated over the years were talismans – the discreet gold logo protected her from harm. She knew she was being exploited, she could have bought the same contents for a sixth of the price, but she didn’t care, the overpricing had made her feel edgy and reckless, as if she were a circus performer about to traverse the high wire without a safety net.

She sprayed herself with the perfume she had used since she was a young librarian, and could not afford it. She had been very taken by the story of Marilyn Monroe who, when asked, What do you wear in bed?’ had replied, ‘Chanel No. 5.’

‘It probably wasn’t true,’ thought Eva now. Nothing was true for long. In time, everything was deconstructed. Black turned out to be white. The Crusaders were rapists, looters and torturers. Bing Crosby thrashed his children. Winston Churchill hired an actor to broadcast some of his most famous speeches. When Brian had told her all these things, she had said, ‘But they should be true.’ She wanted heroes and heroines in her life. If not heroes, people to admire and respect.

After making up her face, she returned to bed, pulled the white sheet up like a drawbridge, folded it carefully and put it under her pillows. She was proud that she had never once strayed from the White Pathway in nearly five months. Part of her knew it was a contrivance, but she felt that if she fell off the pathway and on to the wooden floor, she would spiral out of control, spinning, following the earth as it journeyed around the sun.

Halfway up the stairs, Alexander stopped. He shouted, ‘Is it OK to come up?’

Eva shouted back, ‘Yes.’

When he walked up two more steps, he could see Eva sitting on her bed. She looked very beautiful. There was flesh on her bones and the deep hollows in her cheeks had been filled.

He stood at her bedroom door and said, ‘You look well.’

She said, ‘What’s that under your arm?’

‘It’s a painting, it’s for you. A present. For the bare wall facing you.’

She said, softly, ‘But I like the bare wall, I like to watch the light move across it.’

‘I froze my bloody arse off painting this.’

Eva said, ‘I don’t want anything in here that interferes with my thinking.’

The truth was, she was very frightened that she might not like his work. She wondered if it were possible to love a man whose artistry she did not admire? Instead, she said, ‘Did you know that we haven’t said hello to each other yet?’

‘I don’t need you to say hello to me, you’re always with me. You never leave.’

‘I don’t know you,’ Eva said, ‘but I think about you constantly. I can’t take the painting, but I’d love the bubble wrap.’

This wasn’t what Alexander had hoped for. He’d thought she would be wild about the painting, especially when he pointed to the tiny figure of Eva on the brow of a hill with her blob of yellow-blonde hair. He’d seen her flying into his arms. They would kiss, he would cup her breasts, she would gently stroke his belly. At some stage, they would climb under the duvet and explore each other’s bodies.

He didn’t expect to find himself sitting on the side of her bed, popping little transparent mounds in the bubble wrap. He said, between satisfying pops, ‘You need a gatekeeper. Somebody to decide who’s allowed in the house and who isn’t.’

‘Like Cerberus,’ she said, ‘the three-headed dog who guarded the entrance, to the cave where somebody – I can’t remember who – lived. There was something about a pomegranate and a seed, but no… I can’t remember.’

There was a timid ringing of the doorbell.

Eva froze.

Alexander said, ‘I’ll go.’

After he had left, Eva thought hard about the first time she had heard of the dog Cerberus.

She was in a classroom, rain was battering the long windows. She was worried because she had forgotten her fountain pen again, and at any moment the class would be asked to write something down. Mrs Holmes, her English teacher, was telling thirty-six twelve-year old girls a story.

Eva could smell the teacher’s scent – it was a mixture of Evening in Paris and Vicks vapour rub.

Alexander reappeared. ‘There’s a woman downstairs who read about you on the internet and is desperate to see you.

‘Well, I’m not desperate to see her,’ snapped Eva.

‘Her daughter has been missing for three weeks.’

‘But why would she come to me? A woman who can’t get out of bed?’

‘She’s convinced you can help her,’ said Alexander. ‘She’s driven from Sheffield. The kid is called Amber, she’s thirteen years old -’

Eva cut in, ‘You shouldn’t have told me her name or her age, I’ve got the child inside my head now’ She picked up a pillow and screamed into it.

Alexander said, ‘So that’s a no, is it?’