He nodded and said, ‘I’m afraid you’re too early for our Open House, the house isn’t open yet.’
Their spokesman, a man in a padded plaid shirt and slurry-covered wellingtons, said, ‘My sister has asked us to help chuck her husband out of the house.’
Brian said, ‘On New Year’s Eve? Poor chap. Isn’t that a bit off?’
A younger man, whose fists were clenching and unclenching, said, ‘That bastard’s had it coming I wanted to tear his head off at the altar.’
A man with a weather-beaten face and DIY haircut said, ‘The kids are terrified of him. But she would never leave him ‘cause he threatened to top himself. I wish.’
An older man with tired eyes, who was sitting on the stairs, said, ‘When he asked if he could marry my daughter, I should have kicked him into the bloody silage pit.’ He looked at Brian, a man he assumed to be of a similar age to himself, and asked, ‘Have you got a daughter?’
Brian said, ‘I have, indeed. She’s seventeen.’
‘What would you do if you knew your daughter was being beaten up on a regular basis?’
Brian put the box of wine down on the floor, tugged his beard and thought.
Eventually, he said, ‘I would gag and bind him, put him in the boot of my car, drive him to a quarry of my acquaintance and attach him by means of nylon rope, using mariner’s knots, to a loose rock. I would then roll him and the rock over the edge of the quarry, and wait for the splash. Problem solved.’
A nervous-looking man said, ‘You can’t do that. Where would we be if we went round murdering everybody we didn’t like? We’d end up living in a cooler version of Mogadishu.’
Brian retorted, ‘This chap asked me what I’d do, and I told him. Anyway, I’ve got the Open House to organise. But if you need the sat nav coordinates for that quarry…’
The older man said, ‘Thank you, but I don’t think it’ll come to that. But if it does, we’ve got a silage pit round the back of the house, and pigs that are always hungry.’
‘Well, I wish you all the best. Have a happy New Year,’ said Brian. He barged past with the alcohol, went into the kitchen and began to unpack it on to the table. Titania was already polishing the glasses.
Brian said, ‘Every time I open my own front door, I’m presented with other people’s dramas.’
Upstairs, Bella was talking to her husband on the phone. He was shouting so loudly that Eva half expected the phone to explode. Bella’s voice was trembling. She was saying, ‘Kenneth, I’m with my family. We’re only up the road. We’re leaving for home now.’ She switched off the phone and said to Eva, ‘I can’t do it to him.’
Eva said, ‘They get away with it because they know we pity them. They play on their weakness. If you go now, he could be out of the house by ten.’
‘But where will he go?’ wailed Bella.
‘Is his mother alive?’ asked Eva.
Bella nodded and said, ‘She only lives five miles away, but he never goes to see her.’
‘Well, it will be a lovely New Year’s Eve surprise for her then, won’t it?’
Later, Eva watched from the window as the seven men and Bella talked on the pavement.
They walked purposefully down the road towards Bella’s house.
38
Eva knew it was midnight by the sound of church bells ringing and rockets exploding. She heard corks popping downstairs and Brian’s voice booming, ‘Happy New Year!’
She thought about all her previous New Years. She had always expected more from the night. Had waited in vain for something extraordinary and magical to happen once the long hand of the clock moved away from the twelve.
But everything had always been the same.
She had never been able to join in with ‘Auld Lang Syne’. She liked the words We’ll raise a cup of kindness’ and she envied those celebrating, but she could not link arms and dance in a circle with the others. People would break the circle and invite her in to fill the space, but she invariably refused.
‘I like watching,’ she always said.
Brian would say, as he flung himself about, ‘Eva doesn’t know how to have fun.’
And it was true. She even disliked the word. ‘Fun’ suggested enforced gaiety, clowns, slapstick. North Korean parades where ranks of synchronised children danced with a fixed smile.
Now she was hungry and thirsty. She had obviously been forgotten again.
Earlier that morning, Brian had gone up and down the street delivering leaflets inviting the neighbours to an Open House party. The leaflet had said (she had shuddered at the word ‘pop’):
Please pop in, and have some fun.
Let’s get to know each other.
Bring a bottle.
Nibbles supplied, but I suggest you eat before coming.
Well-behaved children tolerated.
Our door will be open to you from 9.30 p.m.
PS: Dr Brian Beaver will conduct a short tour of his observatory and, depending on the seeing (or, as you non-astronomers define it, atmospheric conditions/cloud cover), it may be possible to view Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and perhaps the more minor planets.
Yvonne had bought Eva a charming brass temple bell from Bali via Homebase, as a means of communicating with others in the house, but Eva had yet to ring it. There was something distasteful about summoning others to attend to her needs. She would wait until somebody remembered her and brought her something to eat. Through the wall she could hear the twins muttering and tapping on their laptops. The speed of the keys was uncanny. Every now and again there was harsh laughter, and cries of, ‘High five!’
She heard her mother and Yvonne making their way up the stairs.
Ruby said, ‘I don’t know whether to go to the doctor’s with it or not. It could be a harmless cyst.’
Yvonne said, ‘As you know, Ruby, I was a doctor’s receptionist for thirty years. I can tell a cyst from something nasty.’
She heard them go into the bathroom together.
Ruby sounded uncertain of herself, for once. ‘Should I take my corset, vest and bra off?’
Yvonne replied, ‘Well, I can’t tell anything through layers of cloth, can I? Don’t be shy, I’ve seen thousands of titties in my time.’
There was silence, which was broken by Ruby gabbling nervously, ‘Do you think Eva is having a nervous breakdown?’
Yvonne instructed her, ‘Put your arm above your head, and keep still… Yes, she’s had a breakdown. I said it from the first day.’
There was silence again.
Then Eva heard Yvonne say, ‘Put your clothes back on.’
Ruby asked, ‘Well? What do you think?’
‘I think you ought to have an X-ray. There’s a lump the size of a walnut. How long have you known about it?’
‘I’m too busy to hang about at the hospital.’ Ruby lowered her voice. ‘I have to look after her.’
Eva wondered if she was having a breakdown.
A few years ago, Jill – a colleague of hers at the library – had suddenly started to talk to herself, muttering that she was unhappily married to Bernie Ecclestone. She then started to throw all the books with red covers on to the floor, saying that they were spying on her and relaying messages to MI5. When anyone approached her, she had screamed at them that they were agents of The System. Some fool had called security and tried to drag her out of an emergency exit. She had fought them off like a wild animal, all teeth, fingernails and snarls, and had run towards the public park that bordered the university grounds.
Eva and the security men had followed her. The overweight security men were soon out of breath. It was Eva who caught up with her. Jill had thrown herself face down on the grass and was holding on to the tufts, saying, ‘Help me! If I let go of the grass, I’ll float away.
Eva thought the kindest thing would be to sit on Jill’s back and pin her to the ground. When the panting security men approached, Jill had started to scream and struggle again. A police car had driven across the park at high speed, with its siren screaming. Eva could do nothing more to help her friend. The policemen and the security men finally managed to restrain her, and the car had taken Jill away.