Alexander pulled out an evening dress. It was off the shoulder, black chiffon scattered with non-precious gemstones.
‘Now this I like,’ he said as he took it over to her.
‘My first Summer Ball with Brian at the university.’ She sniffed the bodice and smelled patchouli oil, sweat and cigarettes. She couldn’t make a decision as to where the dress should go.
Alexander did it for her. He folded it into the vintage bag. From then on, it was he who sorted the clothes.
There were the sundresses with halter necks that she’d worn at the seaside. There were many pairs of jeans: boot cut, straight leg, flared, white denim, blue, black. He refused to bag a cream chiffon evening gown she had worn at a dinner held in honour of Sir Patrick Moore, until she pointed out the large red stain on the bodice, caused by Brian’s clumsiness with his late-night cheese and beetroot sandwich.
Alexander said, ‘You’re too hasty, Mrs Beaver, my sister’s a genius with dye and a sewing machine. That girl can create magic.’
Eva shrugged and said, ‘Do what you like with it.’
There were the Christian Dior evening shoes Brian had bought for Eva with a tax rebate when they were visiting Paris for the first time.
‘These are too good to throw away,’ said Alexander. ‘Look at the stitching! Who made them? A gang of elves?’
Eva shuddered at the memory of having to wear a basque and stockings and parade up and down in that filthy, freezing garret on the Rive Gauche in her beautiful new shoes.
‘Perhaps I didn’t explain properly,’ she said. ‘All of my possessions have got to go. I’m starting again.’
He said, ‘eBay.’ I think,’ and continued sorting.
‘No, give them to your sister.’
‘That’s too generous, Mrs Beaver. I’m not here to take advantage of you.’
‘I want them to go to somebody who will appreciate them.’
‘You don’t want a cut of the money?’
Eva said, ‘I don’t need money any more.
After Alexander had bagged up Brian’s mostly sludge-coloured clothes and taken them on to the landing, the wardrobe was empty. He used an electric screwdriver to take off the doors and the internal fittings.
They didn’t speak at first, because of the noise.
When it was quiet enough, she said, ‘I’m sorry I can’t make you a cup of tea.’
‘Don’t worry. I only drink herbal tea. I’ve got a flask.’
She said, ‘How did Brian get hold of you?’
‘Me and my kids walked the streets, posting flyers through doors. You’re my first customer. I’m a painter -but nobody wants to buy my pictures.’
Eva asked, ‘What kind of pictures do you paint?’
‘Landscapes. The Fens. Leicestershire. I love the English countryside.’
She said, ‘I lived in the country when I was a girl. Are there figures in your landscapes?’
‘I paint in the early morning,’ he said, ‘when there is nobody about.’
‘To capture the light at dawn?’ Eva asked.
‘No,’ Alexander said, ‘people get worried when they see a black man in a field. I got to be well acquainted with the Leicestershire police. Apparently, Jews don’t ski and black men don’t paint.’
Eva said, ‘What other skills have you got?’
‘Carpentry. The usual van-man skills – painting and decorating, garden clearance, lugging stuff about. I speak fluent Italian and I was a bad boy for ten years, a wanker banker.’
What happened?’
He laughed. ‘It was good for the first five years. We lived in a big house in Islington, and I bought my mother a little house with a garden back home in Leicester. She likes to grub around in the dirt. But don’t ask me about the next five – I shoved too much stuff up my nose, my Smeg was full of stupidly expensive fizz. I wasted it and wasted myself. I missed the first five years of my kids growing up. I suppose I was dying – but nobody noticed, because we all were. I worked for Goldman Sachs. My wife didn’t like me any more.
We were going home in a car I’d only had for two days. It was too big for me, too powerful. She started to nag that I hadn’t seen the kids for over a week and that nobody worked sixteen hours a day.’ He looked Eva in the face and said, ‘I did work sixteen hours a day. It was crazy. I started to shout, she was screaming about my coke bill, I lost control, we ran off the road and hit a tree – a not particularly tall, weedy-looking tree. You wouldn’t have known she was dead. I ran home to Leicester with my kids.’
There was a long silence.
Then Eva said, ‘Please don’t tell me any more unhappy stories.’
‘I don’t make a habit of it.” Alexander said. ‘If you draw up a list of all the jobs you’d like me to do, I’ll price them up and give you a quote. The only problem might be that I have to pick my kids up from school…’ He paused. ‘Mrs Beaver, do you mind if I make an observation? There’s no coherence in your clothes.’
Eva was indignant. ‘How can there be coherence when I don’t know who I am? I sometimes wish we had to wear a uniform, like the Chinese did during the Cultural Revolution. They didn’t have to worry and dither over what to wear in the morning. They had a uniform -baggy trousers and a tunic. That’s what I want.’
‘Mrs Beaver, I know we’ve only just met,’ said Alexander, ‘but when you feel better, I’ll gladly go shopping with you, to warn you off culottes and harem trousers and anything sleeveless.’
Eva laughed. ‘Thanks. But I’m staying here, in this bed, for a year.’
A year?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve got things to do. To sort out.’
Alexander sat down on the edge of the bed. Eva moved along to give him more room. She studied his face with great pleasure. It gleamed with health and the joy of living ‘He would make the world endurable for some lucky woman,’ she thought. ‘But not for me.’ One of his dreadlocks needed re-twisting. Eva took it automatically and was reminded of how she had plaited Brianne’s hair every junior school morning. She had sent her off with plaits and ribbons. And every afternoon Brianne had slouched out of school, the ribbons lost, the plaits unravelled.
Alexander put a hand on Eva’s wrist to gently restrain her. He said, ‘Mrs Beaver, you’d better not start something you can’t finish.’
Eva let the dreadlock fall.
‘It takes more time than you think,’ he said, softly. ‘I have to pick my kids up at four o’clock. They’re at a birthday party.’
‘I still have that “time to pick up the kids” alarm in my head,’ she said.
Later, when the component parts of the wardrobe had been taken outside, Eva asked Alexander how much she owed him.
He said, ‘Oh, give me fifty pounds, on top of what your husband has already paid me for shifting that double bed.’
‘Double bed?’ checked Eva. ‘From where?’
‘From his shed.’
Eva said nothing, but raised her eyebrows.
He asked, ‘Do you want me to take the wood away? It’s solid mahogany. I could make something out of it.’
‘Do what you like with it – set fire to it, anything. ‘Before he left he asked, ‘Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?’
For some reason, both he and Eva blushed. It was a moment. She was fifty, but she was better-looking than she knew.
She said, ‘You could take the rest of the furniture away for me.’
He said, ‘Everything?’
‘Everything. ‘Well…
She laughed when she heard the van starting up. She had been to a circus once and the clown’s car had sounded very similar. She lay back on her pillows and strained her ears until there was nothing else to hear.
