Titania said, ‘We could have been good friends.’
‘I’m not good at friendship.’
Titania peered through the slot and thought she could see a small shining light and, below it, a prone white figure. She said, ‘I came to say how sorry I am for those eight years of lies. I’m here to ask your forgiveness.’
Eva said, ‘Of course I forgive you. I forgive everybody everything. I even forgive myself.’
Titania had been surprised at the awful state of the house. It appeared that most of the machines had broken down. Ominous cracks had appeared in the kitchen walls. The drains were stinking.
Titania said, ‘Look, let me take this door down, Eva. I want to talk to you face to face.’
‘I’m sorry, Titania, but I’m going to sleep now’
Eva could tell from the lack of light on the wall that it was dark outside. She was hungry, but it was her own rule now that she would not ask for food. If people wanted to feed her, they would come.
When Titania went downstairs, she found Ruby making a pile of sandwiches. Titania was shocked at how much Ruby had aged.
68
Ruby apologised to the two doctors and the nurse for the unswept dead leaves in the front porch. ‘As soon as I sweep ‘em up, others blow in.’
‘It is the nature of things,’ said Dr Lumbogo. When they had congregated at the bottom of the stairs, Ruby said, ‘I can’t remember the last time she ate anything hot. I chuck food in to her.’
Nurse Spears said, ‘You make it sound like the lion house at the zoo.’
Ruby said, ‘My memory lets me down now and again. And anyway, I can’t get up the stairs easy now I’m still waiting for that new hip!’
She looked at Dr Lumbogo, who said, ‘You are on the list, Mrs Brown-Bird.’
Dr Bridges asked, ‘Do we know if she’s likely to harm herself or others?’
Ruby said, ‘I’ve only seen her violent once, and that was at a woman dragging a kiddy along on its knees.’
Nurse Spears said, ‘There has been an aggressive undercurrent in all my dealings with Mrs Beaver.’
‘But no overt aggression?’ queried Dr Bridges. Nurse Spears said, ‘I wouldn’t turn my back if I was alone with her.’
They climbed the stairs and stood around outside.
Eva’s door. Eva was huddled in a corner of the room against the bedhead and the outside wall. She hadn’t washed for days and she could smell an earthy pungent odour that was not unpleasant to her.
She was so hungry that it felt as if her flesh were melting away. She lifted her white nightgown and felt her ribs – she could have played a melancholy tune on them. There was food next to the door. Local people had posted sandwiches, fruit, biscuits and cakes, but she wouldn’t get out of bed to pick them up. In desperation, Ruby had thrown apples, oranges, plums and pears, hoping to hit the bed.
When Eva was asked who the Prime Minister was, she replied, ‘Does it really matter?’
Dr Lumbogo laughed. ‘No, they are all blockheads.’
Dr Bridges asked, ‘Have you ever harmed yourself?’
Eva said, ‘Only when I have a bikini wax.’
When asked if she had thoughts about harming others, she replied, ‘Nothing really matters, does it? Not compared to infinity. Look at you, Dr Bridges, you’re composed of a mass of particles. You could be in Leicester one second and an eighth of a second later be on the far side of the universe.’
The two doctors exchanged a complicit glance.
Dr Lumbogo whispered to Dr Bridges, ‘Perhaps a rest in the Brandon Unit?’
Nurse Spears said, ‘You’ll need an approved mental health professional, and may I suggest a Section Four?’
Later, when the doctors had gone, Ruby put her hat and coat on and went to Stanley Crossley’s house.
When he opened the door, she said, ‘They’re taking Eva away.’ She couldn’t bring herself to say Mental Health Unit. There was something about the word ‘unit’ that chilled her.
He steered her through the books in the hallway and sat her down in the neat sitting room, where the books were in stacks against the walls.
Stanley said, ‘She isn’t mad, I’ve known mad people. I’ve been mad myself.’ He laughed, quietly. Then he asked, ‘Does Alexander know about this?’
Ruby said, ‘I’ve not seen hide nor hair of him. Brian’s never in, now that Tit woman has gone. Yvonne’s in a better place, and we haven’t heard from the twins in months. I feel as if I’m on my own.’
Stanley put his arms around Ruby and felt her yield against him. She was gloriously soft and squashy, he thought.
He asked, ‘Doesn’t my face bother you, Ruby?’
Ruby said, ‘When I look at you, I can see the face you used to have. And anyway, by the time you get to our age everybody’s face is buggered up, i’n’t it?’
Now that there was no chance of an audience with Eva, her acolytes drifted away until only Sandy Lake and William Wainwright remained.
The two of them had many long conversations. They kept their voices low out of consideration for the neighbours. They both agreed that Prince Philip had murdered Princess Diana, that the first moon landing had been filmed in a studio lot in Hollywood, and that George Bush had ordered the Twin Towers to be destroyed.
Sandy had made cocoa for them on her Primus stove. While they were sipping the hot liquid, William told Sandy about the slaves who processed the cocoa beans.
Sandy said, ‘I can’t sleep without my cocoa!’
William said, ‘We’ll nick the next tin, right?’
He put his arm around her broad shoulders. She pressed her cheek against his prickly five o’clock shadow. An owl screeched behind them. Sandy jumped in alarm and William tightened his grip, pulling her towards him.
He said, ‘It’s only a owl.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘a owl.’ They sat together and talked until the moon bathed them in a milky warm light.
69
In the early hours of the 19th of September, Eva woke to darkness. She immediately broke into a cold sweat. She was afraid of the dark. The house was quiet, other than the small noises that all houses make when their occupants are out.
She tried to control her rising panic by talking to herself, asking why she feared the dark. She said aloud, ‘There was an army greatcoat on a coat hanger on the back of my bedroom door. It looked like a man. I lay awake all night, staring at the coat. I thought I’d seen it move – imperceptibly, perhaps, but it definitely moved. I felt the same terror when I walked by Leslie Wilkinson’s house. When he saw me coming, he would stand in my path and demand money or sweets before he let me go. I would look towards his house for help, and saw and heard Mrs Wilkinson singing as she washed up at the sink. Sometimes she would look up and wave while I was being tormented.’
Eva told herself the story of how she had fallen into a deep ditch lined with ice and snow and couldn’t escape. How her friend had gone home and left her there most of the night, still trying to find a foothold that would enable her to clamber out. It had taken three blankets and two counterpanes before she stopped shivering.
The day a man, a stranger, had called her ‘a big ox’ when she trod on his toes in the scrum of Christmas shoppers outside Woolworths. She had taken his voice with her into every changing room since.
Once, she had found a decomposing human hand in the reeds of the canal bank. The school had not believed her and had punished her for being late and, again, for lying about the hand.
