Eva apologised. ‘Sorry!’
What are you sorry for?’ asked Brian.
‘I didn’t mean to be sharp with you.’
‘Do you think a few sharp words from you are going to hurt me, when you have already destroyed my life and our marriage?’ Brian was choking on his words.
A vision of orphaned Bambi came to him, and he almost lost control of his emotions.
Eva said, ‘I’ve got one word to say to you…’ She mouthed the ‘T’, but then bit it back. She knew that she was partly to blame for the situation they found themselves in.
She had known Brian intimately for neatly thirty years. He was part of her DNA.
Eventually, Brian said, ‘I’m dying for a pee.’
He looked longingly at the en suite, but the wet paint lay between them, like half-frozen water between two icebergs. Eva pulled the cord to turn the ceiling light off, and he left to use the family bathroom.
She turned towards the window.
There was almost a full moon, shining through the skeleton of the late autumn sycamore.
Brian sat downstairs in the sitting room. What had happened to the lovely comfortable home he had once enjoyed? He looked around the room. The plants were dead, as were the flowers still standing in slimy stinking water. The lamps which had once given the room a golden glow were also dead. He couldn’t be bothered to turn them on. There was no fire in the grate, and the colourful jewelled cushions that had once eased his comfort when he watched Newsnight at the end of the day were stacked on either side of the fireplace.
He looked up at the framed family photograph on the mantelpiece. It had been taken at Disney World. They had called in at Orlando after two weeks in Houston and he had bought Single Day Tickets. He’d been disappointed at Eva and the twins’ lacklustre response when he had revealed them, and had mimed playing and singing a trumpet fanfare.
Inside the theme park, when a giant Mickey Mouse had asked in a squeaky voice if they’d like a photographic memento of their visit, Brian had agreed and handed over twenty dollars.
They had struck a pose while Brian told Eva and the twins, ‘Give bigger smiles!’
The twins had bared their teeth like frightened chimpanzees, but Eva had looked steadily ahead, wondering how Mickey Mouse could manipulate the camera with his large, gloved pseudo-hands.
After the last shot, Goofy had approached, dragging his feet on the hot asphalt. Speaking through a gap between his flying-buttress teeth, he’d said to Mickey, ‘Man, I just fuckin’ quit.’
Mickey had answered, ‘Jeez, dude! What the fuck happened?’
‘That fuckin’ bitch, Cinderella, just kicked me in the fuckin’ balls again.’
Brian had said, ‘Do you mind? I’ve got my children with me!’
‘Children?’ scoffed Goofy. ‘You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me! They look old, British man. They got teeth like broken rocks!’
Brian had said to Goofy, ‘You can bloody talk – look at your bloody teeth! They’ll be on the fucking floor if you carry on insulting my children!’
Mickey had placed himself between Brian and Goofy, saying, Whoah! Whoah! Come on, this is Disney World!’
Brian got up and looked closely at Eva’s face in the photograph. Why hadn’t he noticed before that she looked so unhappy? He took his handkerchief out of his pocket and dusted the glass and the frame, then put it back where it had stood for six years.
The house was dead now that Eva had gone.
22
Brianne was sitting on her narrow bed, staring at the wall opposite. Alexander had left half an hour earlier, leaving the bookcase and the jewellery, but unwittingly taking Brianne’s previously unused heart with him. She was filled with the most amazing joy.
She said out loud, ‘I love him.’
She wished now that she had bothered to make some friends. She wanted to ring somebody and tell them her good news. Brian Junior would not be interested, Poppy would turn news to her advantage and her mother had gone mad. There was only him she could tell.
She picked up his business card and reached for her mobile. He answered immediately and illegally – he was doing 75 mph and was in the middle lane of the M1, going South.
White Van Man.’
‘Alexander?’
‘Brianne?’
‘Yes, I forgot to thank you for bringing Mum’s stuff up. It was very kind of you.’
‘It wasn’t kindness. It was work, Brianne. I’ll get paid for it.’
Where are you?’
‘I’ve just turned on to the motorway. I’m trapped between two lorries. If the front one brakes, I’m mincemeat.’
Brianne exclaimed, ‘Alexander, you must turn the phone off at once!’
She could imagine his mangled body on the motorway, surrounded by emergency vehicles. She could clearly see a helicopter hovering above him, waiting to take him to a specialist unit somewhere.
She said, ‘You will take care of yourself, won’t you? Your life is precious.’
He did as she had asked and switched his phone off. He didn’t know the girl had such strong feelings – she had shown very little emotion when he had handed over her mother’s jewellery.
Brianne went outside and walked briskly up and down in front of the accommodation block. It was a cold night and she was not dressed for the outdoors, but she didn’t care. The possibility of love had softened her face and straightened her back.
How could she have lived so long without knowing of his existence?
All that love stuff that she had once despised: the hearts, the songs, moon/June, the flowers. She wanted him to give her a white teddy bear clutching a plastic rose. Before today she could take men or leave them, most of them were spoilt man-boys. But he – he was worthy of worship.
He looked like a black prince.
She had never allowed a man to touch her breasts, or what she called her private bits. But as she paced in the cold she could feel her body melting, dissolving. She yearned for him. She was incomplete without him.
Poppy looked out of her window and was astonished to see Brianne walking up and down in her pyjamas, her breath visible, like ectoplasm. She rapped on the window and saw Brianne look up, wave and smile. Poppy wondered which drug she had been taking. She threw on the red silk kimono she had shoplifted from Debenhams, and hurried downstairs.
23
It was the day before Guy Fawkes Night, but some premature fireworks were being let off as Brian and Titania joined a hastily convened staff meeting at the National Space Centre.
Titania’s husband, Guy Noble, known as ‘Gorilla’ to his friends, had written to Professor Brady complaining that his wife was having ‘a torrid sexual affair at work with that buffoon Dr Brian Beaver’. Titania had confessed to having sex in the Clean Room, which housed the next generation of moon probe. It was called Walkers on the Moon, after their main sponsor, a local crisp manufacturer.
All the staff were in the meeting, including the cleaners, the maintenance crew and the groundsman. It was part of Professor Brady’s (aka Leather Trousers) management philosophy that his team be ‘inclusive’. They were seated in the planetarium, which added an epic universal edge to their discussion.
Leather Trousers said, ‘I don’t care who you shag, Dr Beaver. The issue is that you chose to do it in the Clean Room. You could have polluted the atmosphere, corrupted the instrumentation and jeopardised the whole project. And ultimately defiled the surface of the moon.’
Brian asked defiantly, ‘Well, have we?’
Leather Trousers admitted, ‘No, the readings are clean. But it has taken thirty-six man and woman hours to verify – time we do not have. We are already behind schedule.’
Titania, who was hiding behind a long fringe of red hair, put her hand up and said, ‘Can I just say, in my own defence, that the sex was indeed “torrid”? But the danger was minimised – we were both wearing steriles, and it was all over in ninety seconds.’