She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t want to hear this. I will not be responsible for another person’s happiness. I’m no good at it.’
Alexander said, ‘I’ll look after you. We can still be together. I’ll sit in bed with you. I’ll be Yoko to your John, if you like.’
‘You have children, and I have children,’ she said. ‘And you must know that Brianne is in love with you. I wouldn’t want her as a love rival.’
‘She’s a kid, it’s just a crush. The love of her life is Brian Junior.’
‘I’ve finished the daily routine of looking after small children.’
He said in amazement, his voice going up an octave, ‘You don’t like my kids?’
‘They’re lovely, funny kids,’ Eva said. ‘But I’m finished with child-rearing. I can’t bear to watch their disillusionment when they find out what sort of world they live in.’
Alexander said, ‘Shit happens, but it’s still a fantastic world. If you’d seen the sun shining on the snow this morning… and the trees, with the ice falling off them like silver rain…’
Eva said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Can I lie down next to you?’
‘On top of the duvet.’
He took his wet boots off, and put them on top of the radiator. Then he lay down next to her.
There were no lights on, and the sun had gone down, but the luminous snow outside made it possible to see the outline of the room. They held hands and looked at the ceiling. They talked about their previous lovers, about his dead wife and her present husband. The room was warm, and the light was low, and soon they were asleep, side by side like marble effigies.
When Brianne returned from spending her John Lewis gift tokens on a bound watercolour artist’s notebook for Alexander, she pushed open Eva’s door and saw that her mother was asleep on top of the duvet.
There was a note on the pillow. She took it on to the landing to read. It was from Alexander. It said:
Dearest Eva,
I had one of the best days of my life today. The snow was magical, and lying next to you this afternoon was the happiest I’ve been for many years.
We do love each other, I know this for certain. But I will stay away.
Why is everything connected with love so painful?
Alex
Brianne took the note into her own room, ripped it into tiny pieces and hid the fragments inside an empty crisp packet she retrieved from the bin.
40
Brian and Titania were eating a late-night supper after a long session of stargazing. The conditions were perfect, and they had seen wonders and marvels in the cold cloudless sky. They never failed to be moved by the reality of what they saw through an actual telescope. The computer screens at work could not convey the true beauty of the universe.
As Brian chewed on a cold lamb cutlet he said, ‘You were rather wonderful tonight, Tit. You kept your mouth shut for most of the time, and you spotted that variable star, which I’m pretty sure hasn’t been logged yet.’
Titania forked a stuffed olive out of the jar. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d been as happy as this. She wanted Brian to go forward and do great things. His dedication to his work was total. Titania felt that, in the past, Eva had held him back by expecting him to take on his share of the child-rearing. Poor Brian had not been able to finish his book, Near-Earth Objects, because of Eva’s demands on his time. Did Mrs Churchill insist that her husband set the table before attending to the war?
She reached a hand out.
Brian said, ‘What?’
Titania whispered, ‘Hold my hand.’
Brian cautioned, ‘I should warn you, Tit, that I’m still half in love with my wife.’
Titania withdrew her hand. ‘Does that mean you’re half in love with me?’
Brian said, ‘For over twenty years, my synapses have been attuned to living with Eva Beaver. You’ll have to give them a chance to adapt to you, Tit.’
Titania thought, ‘I’ll make him love me. I’ll be the perfect lover, colleague and friend. I will actually iron his fucking shirts.’
Later, when they were in bed, talking about their childhoods and their first conscious sight of the stars, Brian said, ‘It was when I was seven, lying on my back in my grandmother’s garden in Derbyshire. It was dusk and the stars started to appear, almost one by one. Then the sky slowly turned from deep blue to black, until the stars seemed to be blazing. The next day at school, I asked Mrs Perkins what kept them up. Why didn’t they fall down? She told me they were all suns and that they were held up by something called gravity. I went into my first reverie. At going-home time she gave me a book, The Ladybird Book of The Night Sky. I’ve still got it. And I want to be buried with it – in Death Valley, Nevada.’
‘For the seeing?’ asked Titania. She was rewarded when Brian put his arm around her fleshy shoulder and held her right breast. She continued, ‘I used to take a Milky Way wrapper out into the garden and try to match the illustration with something in the night sky. I loved those chocolate bars, because they were advertised as being something one could eat between meals.’
Brian laughed. ‘On the rare occasions when the sky was clear in Leicester, I saw the Milky Way, and I was overwhelmed. I felt very small indeed.’ He went on, pedantically, ‘Although I wasn’t overwhelmed at first. That only came when I actually understood that the Milky Way is one of the spiral arms of our own galaxy.’
‘Galaxy!’ said Titania, who was emboldened by Brian’s chumminess. ‘Another delish space-nomenclature chocolate bar! But the Milky Way had the moral high ground. Our parents approved of it. The name “Milky Way” would be a good replacement for your wife’s White Pathway.’
Brian was not listening to what he called ‘Tit’s burble’. He was thinking about the Mars Bar. The war horse of chocolate bars.
Titania said, ‘Do you think she’s clinically mad, Bri? There’s the sheet to get to the loo, and she’s started talking to herself now. Because, if so, we should think about getting her diagnosed. And possibly hospitalised – for her own sake.’
Brian didn’t like Titania’s use of ‘we’. He said, irritably, ‘It’s hard to tell with Eva.’ He was loath to criticise his wife in front of his lover. He thought of Eva’s lovely face, then looked at Titania. There was no comparison in the looks department. He said, ‘She’s not talking to herself, she’s reciting all the poems she learned by heart at school.’
Brian switched the bedside light off and they settled down, ready for sleep.
Half an hour later, they were still awake.
Titania was mentally organising her marriage to Brian. She thought they would have a traditional wedding. She planned to wear ivory silk.
Brian was wondering if he could stand to live with Titania, a woman who got through a large bag of Maltesers every night. He didn’t begrudge her buying them for herself, but he hated the way she rolled several of them around in her mouth.
He could hear the tiny collisions with her teeth.
41
On the 6th of January, before their return to Leeds, the twins were sitting in the Percy Gee Building sipping Diet Coke.
‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ said Brianne. ‘You’ve never been in love.’
She and Brian Junior were waiting to take part in the out-of-term maths competition held at the University of Leicester. The Norman Lamont Cup attracted very few British entrants. The majority of the other competitors did not have English as their first language.
Brian Junior said, ‘I may not have experienced romantic love myself, but I’ve read books about it. And to be honest, I don’t think it’s up to much.’
‘It’s a physical pain,’ said Brianne.