The Woman who Went to Bed for a Year

cakes because Brian preferred the home-made to the shop bought. She would not be cutting grass.’ weeding.’ planting and sweeping paths or collecting leaves in the garden. She would not be painting the new fence with creosote. She would not be chopping wood to light the real log fire that Brian sat next to after he came home from work in the winter months. She would not be brushing her hair, showering or hurriedly applying make-up.

Today she would not be doing any of those things.

She would not be worrying that her clothes were uncoordinated, because she could not see the time when she would be wearing clothes again. She would only be wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown for the foreseeable future.

She would rely on other people to feed her, wash her and buy her food. She didn’t know who these people were but she believed that most people were longing to demonstrate their innate goodness.

She knew she wouldn’t be bored – she had a great deal to think about.

She hurried to the lavatory, washed her face and under her arms, but it felt wrong to be out of bed. She thought that with her feet on the floor she would easily be lured downstairs by her own sense of duty. Perhaps in future she would ask her mother for a bucket. She remembered the porcelain potty under her grandmother’s sagging bed – as a child, it had been Ruby’s job to empty the contents early every morning.

Eva lay back on the pillows and quickly fell asleep.’ only to be woken by Brian asking, What have you done with my clean shirts?’

Eva said, ‘I gave them to a passing washerwoman. She’s going to take them to a babbling brook she knows and pummel them on the stones. She’ll have them back by Friday.’

Brian, who had not been listening, shouted, ‘Friday! That’s no good to me! I need one now!’

Eva turned over to face the window. A few golden leaves were spiralling down from the sycamore outside. She said, ‘You don’t have to wear a shirt. It’s not a condition of your employment. Professor Brady dresses as if he was in The Rolling Stones.’

‘It’s bloody embarrassing.” said Brian. ‘We had a delegation from NASA last week. Every last one of them was in a blazer, collar and tie, and they were shown round by Brady in his creaking leather trousers, Yoda T-shirt and down-at-heel cowboy boots! On his salary! All the bloody cosmologists are the same. And when they’re together in the one room, it looks like a meeting in a drug rehabilitation unit! I’m telling you, Eva, if it wasn’t for we astronomers they’d be dead in the water!’

Eva turned back to him and said, ‘Wear your navy polo shirt, your chinos and your brown brogues.’ She wanted him out of her room. She would ask her uneducated mother to show Dr Brian Beaver BSc, MSc, D Phil (Oxon) how to manipulate the simple dials on the washing machine.

Before Brian left the room she asked him, ‘Do you think there is a God, Brian?’

He was sitting on the bed, tying his shoelaces. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve got religion, Eva. It always ends in tears. According to Steve Hawking’s latest book, God’s not fit for purpose. He’s a character in a fairy tale.’

‘Then why do so many millions of people believe in him?’

‘Look, Eva, the stats are against it. Something can actually come from nothing. Heisenbergian uncertainty allows a bubble of space-time to inflate out of nowhere…’ He paused. ‘But I admit the particle side is… difficult. The string theory supersymmetry boys really need to find the Higgs boson. And the wave function collapse is always a problem.’

Eva nodded, and said, ‘I see. Thank you.’

He groomed his beard with Eva’s comb and said, ‘So, how long do you intend to stay in bed?’

‘Where does the universe end?’ asked Eva.

Brian fiddled with his beard, twirling the scraggy end between his fingers. ‘Can you tell me why you want to retreat from the world, Eva?’

‘I don’t know how to live in it,’ she said. ‘I can’t even work the remote. I preferred it when there were three channels and all you had to do was go duh, duh, duh.’

She stabbed at the imaginary knobs on the imaginary television.

‘So, you’re going to loll about in bed because you can’t work the remote?’

Eva muttered, ‘I can’t work the new oven stroke grill stroke microwave either. And I can’t work out how much we’re paying EON per quarter on our electricity bill. Do we owe them money, Brian, or do they owe us?’

‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. He took her hand and said, ‘I’ll see you tonight. By the way, is sex off the menu?’

5

‘I don’t sleep with Steve no more,’ said Julie. ‘He’s in the box room with his PlayStation and The Best of Guns and Roses.’

‘Don’t you miss him? Physically?’ asked Eva.

‘No, we still have sex! Downstairs, after the kids have gone to bed. We used to have to fit it in during the adverts – you know how much I love my soaps – but now we can just Sky Plus. Something had to be done, after I missed the bit where Phil Mitchell took heroin for the first time. So, why are you still in bed?’

‘I like it here,’ said Eva. She liked Julie but she already wanted her to go.

Julie said, ‘My hair’s falling out.’

‘It’s not cancer?’

Julie laughed. ‘It’s the stress of work. There’s a new manager, a woman called Mrs Damson. God knows where she’s from. She’s one of them managers what expect you to work the full eight hours. When Bernard was the manager, we hardly did no work. We’d go in at eight o’clock, I’d put the kettle on, then me and the other girls would sit around in the staffroom having a laugh until the customers started banging on the door to be let in. Sometimes, for a laugh, we’d pretend not to hear them and we wouldn’t open the door until half past nine. Yeah, Bernard were lovely to work for. Shame he’s gone. It weren’t his fault our branch never made a profit. The customers just stopped coming.’

Eva closed her eyes, feigning sleep, but Julie continued.

‘Mrs Damson had only been there three days when I broke out in one of my rashes.’ She pushed the sleeve of her jumper up past her elbow and shoved her bare arm in front of Eva. ‘Look, I’m covered in it.’

Eva said, ‘I can’t see anything.’

Julie pushed her sleeve down. ‘It’s fading now’ She got up and walked about the bedroom. She picked up the bottle of Olay Regenerist, which promised to rejuvenate the skin, gave a little laugh and replaced it on the dressing table.

‘You’re having a breakdown,’ she said.

‘Am I?’

‘It’s the first symptom – when I went doolally after Scott was born, I stayed in bed for five days. Steve had to fly back to his rig. I was worried about him in the helicopter, they’re always crashing, Eva. I wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t drink, didn’t wash my face. I just cried and cried. I wanted a girl so bad. I’d already got four boys.’

‘So, you’d got a reason for feeling depressed.’

Julie continued, ignoring Eva, ‘I was so sure. I’d only got pink clothes. When I took him out in his pram, people would look in and say, “She’s gorgeous, what’s her name?”. I’d say Amelia because that’s the name I would have given my little girl. Do you think that’s why our Scott is gay?’

‘He’s only five,’ said Eva. ‘He’s far too young to be anything.’

‘I bought him a little china tea service the other week. Teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl, two cups and saucers, little miniature spoons, very pretty, everything covered in pink roses. He played all day with it, as well – until Steve came home and kicked it over.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Then he cried and cried.’

‘Scott?’ asked Eva.

‘No, Steve! Keep up.’

What did Scott do?’ said Eva.

‘Same as he always does when there’s trouble in the house. He goes to my wardrobe and strokes my clothes.’