thousands of people are now calling her, “The Saint of Suburbia”. I was invited into the house by a Mrs Brown-Bird, Eva’s mother, but Eva is a shy, nervous woman who has requested that her face should not be filmed.
Jo’s viewfinder showed a hump under the white duvet.
Eva shouted from under the duvet, ‘Are you still there, Mum?’
Ruby said, ‘Yes, but I can’t tackle them stairs for a bit.’
She plumped herself down in the soup chair. ‘I’ve been up and down like a bleddy pogo stick. I’m seventy-nine. I’m too old for this carry-on. I’ve got a cake downstairs I’m neglecting.’
Derek shouted, ‘Mrs Brown-Bird, we’re trying to film here! Please do not talk, whistle or sing.’
Ruby got out of the chair and said, ‘I’m not staying here, if I’m not wanted.’
She staggered to the banisters on the landing and leaned heavily against them until she felt able to go downstairs to the kitchen, where she began to look for Eva’s phone book. Alexander’s name was the first number in it, in his own handwriting. Ruby sat down at the kitchen table and laboriously pressed buttons on the phone.
He answered immediately, saying, ‘Eva?’
‘No, Ruby. She wants you to come round. There’s some television people here and she wants them gone.’
‘What? She wants a bouncer?’
‘Yes, she wants you to come and chuck them out of the house,’ said Ruby, expanding on Eva’s instructions.
‘Why choose me? I’m not a street-fighting man.’
Ruby said, ‘Yes, but people are more frightened of black men, aren’t they?’
Alexander laughed down the phone. ‘OK, I’ll be there in five minutes. I’ll bring my deadly paintbrushes, shall I?’
Ruby said, ‘Good, because I’m fed up with all this argy-bargy. I’m going home.’
She placed the phone carefully in its charger, put on her hat and coat, took her shopping bag from the back of the kitchen door and went out into the cold afternoon.
Eva had persuaded Jo to switch the camera off and was sitting up in bed with her arms folded, looking – in Derek’s eyes – like a modern Joan of Arc.
Derek said, ‘Now, are you going to be sensible, and give me a face-to-face interview in your own words, or do I have to speak on your behalf? If so, you may not like what I have to say.’
‘This is what I’ve got to say. Fuck off out of my house!’
‘I’m not happy with this,’ Jo said. ‘You’re bullying her, Derek, and I may have to inform Human Resources.’
Derek said, ‘It’s OK, we can lose anything you’re not happy about in the edit.’
‘But I’m not involved in the edit. All I’m allowed to do is point a camera.
‘You weren’t so high-minded when we doorstepped that grieving widow last week.’
‘Which one? There were two grieving widows last week.’
‘The one whose idiot husband fell into the industrial bread mixer.’
‘I wasn’t happy.’
Derek grabbed Jo by the shoulders and said, ‘But that was such an artistic end shot you took – the tears running down her face, that kind of rainbow effect you got.’
Jo said, ‘I shot her tears through a crystal vase. I’m not proud of it. I’m ashamed.’
‘We’re all ashamed in television, deary, but it doesn’t stop us doing it. Never forget, we give the public what they
Derek dropped his voice and murmured to Eva, ‘By the way, can I say how sorry I am that your husband’s about to leave you? You’re probably devastated, aren’t you?’
Eva said, ‘Do you know the meaning of the word “devastated”?’ She didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘It means, “destroyed or ruined, shattered into a thousand pieces”. But here I am, sitting up in bed, in one piece. Now, please close the door behind you.’
As he stamped down the stairs, Derek said, ‘This is why I loathe working with women. They can’t think further than their fanny.’ In a falsetto voice that was meant to be female, he said, ‘Oh dear me, I’m getting emotional and my hormones are taking over and everything must be ethical and from a woman’s point of view!’
They heard a key turn in the lock, and Alexander walked in carrying a large framed painting covered in bubble wrap.
‘Is it you who’s bothering Eva?’ he asked.
Derek said, ‘Are you the Alexander Mrs Brown-Bird’s been telling us about? Friend of the family, eh?’
Alexander said, firmly, ‘Please leave immediately, nobody wants you here.’
‘Look, sunshine, this is a big story in our neck of the woods. It’s not every day we find a saint in suburbia. We’ve got close-up shots of her in the window, we’ve got an interview with the mother, and Barry Wooton has told us his very boring, but very tragic story. All we need is Eva. Just a few words.’
Alexander gave a broad smile, reminding Plimsoll of the pregnant crocodile they’d recently filmed in Twycross Zoo.
‘You interviewed me at the opening of my first exhibition,’ he said. ‘I think I know your introduction by heart. “This is Alexander Tate, he’s a painter, not of the ghetto, not portraits of gang members, not edgy depictions of urban decay. No, Alexander paints watercolours of the English countryside…” Then cue the harpsichord music.’
Derek said, ‘I thought it was a nice little piece.’
Jo said, ‘Derek, you were patronising Alexander, and implying that painting watercolours was an unusual activity for black people.’
Derek said, ‘It is.’
Jo turned to Alexander. ‘My life partner is black. Do you know her – Priscilla Robinson?’
Alexander said, ‘No, funny that. I really ought to know the ten thousand black folk toiling in Leicester’s cotton fields.’
‘Don’t lay that shit at
Derek Plimsoll sat down heavily on the stairs and said, ‘This is the last time I do house calls. In future, everybody comes to me in the studio.’
Alexander looked down at Derek’s hairline. The white roots would need touching up soon, he thought. It was pitiful.
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
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
