The Woman who Went to Bed for a Year

Dr Bridges suddenly had an overwhelming desire to be gone. ‘No, Mrs Beaver, it’s not. I’ll leave you a prescription for something to minimise your anxiety, and you’d better wear surgical stockings for the duration of your -’ he cast around for the right words and came up with ‘- holiday.’

Ruby said, ‘It’s all right for some, eh, Doctor? I wish it was me in that bed.’

Eva muttered, ‘I wish it was you in your own bed.’

Dr Bridges clipped his bag shut, said, ‘Good day to you, Mrs Beaver.” and, with Ruby slowly leading the way, went downstairs.

Eva heard Ruby saying, ‘Her dad was given to melodrama. He’d burst into the kitchen every night after work with some dramatic story. I used to say to him, “Why are you telling me stories about people I don’t know, Roger? I’m not interested.”‘

After the doctor had driven away in his four-by-four, Ruby climbed the stairs again. She said, ‘I’ll go to the chemist for your prescription.’

‘It’s all right, I’ve taken care of it.’ Eva had ripped up the prescription and placed the scraps on her bedside table.

Ruby said, ‘You could get done for that.’ She turned the television on, dragged the chair away from the dressing table next to the bed and sat down. ‘I can come every day and keep you company.’ She took the remote and Noel Edmonds appeared on the screen. He was doing something with hysterical contestants that involved opening boxes. The screaming of the studio audience and the contestants hurt Eva’s ears.

Ruby watched with her mouth slightly open.

At six o’clock the news came on. Eight- and ten-year-old sisters had been taken from outside their house in Slough by a man in a white van. A woman in Derbyshire had jumped into a swollen river to rescue her dog and drowned, the dog turning up at her house four hours later, unharmed. There had been an earthquake in Chile, thousands were trapped under the rubble. Orphaned children wandered through what used to be streets. A toddler was shouting, ‘Mamma! Mamma!’ In Iraq a suicide bomber (a teenage girl) had detonated a nail bomb, killing herself and fifteen trainee policemen. In South Korea 400 young people had been killed in a stampede when fire broke out in a nightclub. A woman in Cardiff was suing an unlicensed tattoo parlour after her fifteen-year-old son had come home with ‘HAT’ tattooed on his forehead.

Eva said, ‘What a catalogue of human misery. I hope that bloody dog is grateful.’

‘They must have done something wrong.’

‘Do you think that God is punishing them?’

Ruby said defensively, ‘I know you don’t believe in God, Eva. But I do, and I think that those people must have offended him in some way.’

Eva asked, ‘Is it the old-fashioned God you believe in, Mum? Does he have a long white beard and live above the clouds? Is he all-knowing, all-seeing? Is he looking down on you right now, Mum?’

Ruby said, ‘Look, I’m not getting into another argument about God. All I know is that he looks after me – and if I step out of line, he’ll punish me in some way.

Eva said gently, ‘But he didn’t save you from losing your purse, tickets and passport when you were at East Midlands Airport last year, did he?’

Ruby said, ‘He can’t be everywhere, and he’s bound to be busy at peak holiday time.’

And he didn’t stop you from getting a cancerous melanoma?’

Ruby said heatedly, ‘No, but it didn’t kill me, did it? And you can hardly see the scar.’

Eva asked, ‘Can you imagine a world without God, Mum?’

Ruby thought for a moment. We’d all be at each other’s throats, wouldn’t we? As it is, we tick along nicely.’

Eva said, ‘You’re only thinking about England. What about the rest of the world?’

Well, they’re mostly heathens, aren’t they? They have their own way of carrying on.’

‘So, why did your God save a dog and drown a woman? Perhaps he’s a dog lover?’ Eva grabbed the opportunity to amuse herself. She asked her mother what breed of dog God would choose to keep in his celestial kingdom.

Ruby said, ‘I can’t see God with one of them snappy dogs what the Queen has. And I can’t see him with a daft little dog that you can put in your handbag. I think God would choose a proper dog, like a golden Labrador.’

Eva laughed. ‘Yes, I can see God with a golden Labrador, sitting next to his throne tugging at his white robes, nagging for a walk.’

Ruby said, wistfully, ‘Do you know, Eva, sometimes I can’t wait to get to heaven. I’m tired of living down here since everything went complicated.’

Eva said, ‘But the woman who drowned, I bet she wasn’t tired of living. I’ll bet when the water closed over her head she fought to live. So, why did your God choose the dog over her?’

‘I don’t know. The woman must have done something to incur his wrath.’

Eva laughed, ‘Wrath?’

Ruby said, ‘Yes, he’s very wrathful, and that’s how I like it. It keeps the riff-raff out of heaven.’

Eva said, ‘Riff-raff like lepers, prostitutes, the poor?’

‘That was Jesus,’ said Ruby. ‘He’s another kettle of fish.’

Eva turned away from her mother and said, And God watched his only son die in agony on a cross and did nothing to help him when he shouted, “Father, Father, why hast thou forsaken me?”‘ Eva didn’t want to cry, but she couldn’t stop herself.

When she was eight, she had fainted in assembly during the headmistress’s graphic description of the crucifixion.

Ruby collected her things, put her coat and hat on, wrapped her bright-pink scarf around her neck and said, ‘Jesus must have done something wrong. And if you don’t believe in God, Eva, why are you getting into one of your states?’

Eva calmed herself down enough to say, ‘It’s the cruelty. When he cried out, “I thirst!” they gave him vinegar.’

Ruby said, ‘I’m going home to my bed.’

Ruby’s home was a thin end-of-terrace. The front door opened on to the quiet street. It was only three- quarters of a mile away from Eva’s, but to Ruby it felt like an epic journey. She had to stop several times with the pain in her hip and lean against anything that would support her.

Bobby, her svelte black cat, was waiting for her. As Ruby unlocked the door, he insinuated himself around her legs and purred with what Ruby thought was pleasure to see her.

When they were both inside the immaculate front room, Ruby said to Bobby, ‘I wish I was you, Bobbikins. I don’t know if I can cope with looking after our girl for much longer.’

Ruby put three Tramadol on the back of her tongue and washed them down with a glug of syrup of figs. She went into the kitchen and took two willow-patterned mugs down from the shelf, then remembered and put one back. While the kettle boiled she looked through her wall calendar with the picture of the Angel of the North on the front. Next to it was a scaled-down year planner with the Christian festivals written in black marker pen:

Advent Season, Christmas, Epiphany, Shrove Tuesday, Lent, Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost, Harvest Festival, All Hallows

Ruby spoke them aloud, like a litany. They were the scaffolding of her life. She felt sorry for Eva.

Without them, Ruby would not know how to live.

12

Later that night, when Eva had watched two television comedies without laughing, she got up and reluctantly went into the bathroom. It felt wrong when she put her feet on the floor, as though the carpet were a lagoon with piranha fish waiting to nibble at her toes.

When Brian found her coming out wrapped in a white towel, he said, Ah, Eva, glad to see you on your feet. I can’t get the door of the washing machine open.’

She sat on the side of the bed and said, ‘You have to hit it hard, twice, with the side of your hand, as though