‘But only if it’s unrequited, like yours for Alexander.’
Brianne banged her head on the plastic table. Why can’t he love me back?’
Brian Junior thought for a long time. Brianne waited patiently. They both respected the process of turning precise thought into clear expression.
Eventually, Brian Junior said, ‘One, he’s in love with Mum. Two, you’re not loveable, Brianne. And three, you’re not pretty either.’
Brianne said, ‘It really is annoying that you’re the one with Mum’s physical-beauty genes.
Brian Junior nodded. ‘And you’ve been given Dad’s intimidating masculinity. I’d quite like that.’
‘Why don’t you just, like, say I’m big and butch?’ said Brianne.
There was a loudspeaker announcement: ‘The participants of Level One are asked to make their way to the David Attenborough room.’
The twins remained seated. They watched as the majority of competitors shuffled towards the examination room, much as First Class passengers watch disdainfully as Economy Class passengers traipse towards the boarding desk with their cheap suitcases and grizzling children.
It was a moment the twins always savoured. They said, ‘Sick!’ and slapped a high five.
Their remaining opponents looked up nervously from their laptops. The Beaver twins were a formidable team.
Brianne asked her brother, ‘Do you think we’ll ever find some randoms to love us, Bri?’
‘Does it matter? We both know we’ll be together for life, like swans.
42
It was three o’clock in the morning. A time when frail people die. Eva was keeping watch on her territory. She saw the foxes casually crossing the road, as though they were shoppers in a village high street. Other small mammals that she couldn’t identify were out and about.
She watched as a black cab turned into the road opposite and then turned again to park outside her house. She watched the driver get out; he was a big man. He rang the doorbell.
Eva thought, ‘Who in this house has rung for a cab at this time of the morning?’
After a moment, the bell rang again.
She heard Poppy running along the hallway to open the door, shouting, ‘OK, OK, I’m coming!’
There was an altercation on the doorstep – Poppy’s high voice and a man’s deep rumble.
Poppy shouted, ‘No, you can’t come in, she’s asleep!’ The man insisted, ‘No, she isn’t. I’ve just seen her at the window I’ve gotta talk to her.’
Poppy said, ‘Come back tomorrow’
‘I can’t wait until tomorrow,’ the man said. ‘I need to see her now.’
Poppy screamed, ‘You can’t come in! Go away!’
‘Please,’ the man begged. We’re talking life and death here. So, if you wun’t mind, get out of my way.’
‘Don’t touch me, don’t touch me! Take your hands off me!’
Eva was rigid with fear and guilt. She must go downstairs and confront the man herself but, although she swung her legs out of the bed, she could not lower her feet on to the floor. Not even to save Poppy. She wondered if she could have run downstairs if the twins were exposed to a similar danger.
‘Sorry, sorry, but I’ve got to see her.’
Eva heard a heavy tread on the stairs. She swung her legs back into the bed and pulled the duvet around her neck, like a child might after a nightmare. She braced herself for the man’s entrance.
Suddenly he was there, in her room, blinking in the bright light. He had a night-shift worker’s exhausted face. He needed a shave and his hair was lank as he pushed a few locks out of his eyes and behind his ears. His clothes looked rumpled and neglected. He was breathing heavily.
Eva thought to herself, ‘I mustn’t antagonise him. I must try to keep calm. He’s obviously in a state.’ She looked to see if he was carrying anything that could be construed as a weapon. His hands were empty.
‘You’re Eva Beaver, aren’t you?’
Eva lowered the duvet a little and asked, ‘What do you want?’
‘The other drivers were talking about you. They don’t know who you are, but they see you sometimes in the window through the night. Some of them think you’re a prostitute. I never thought that. But then one of Bella’s brothers told me that you’d helped ‘em out.’
‘Bella Harper?’ said Eva.
‘Yeah,’ said the man. ‘He said that you gave free advice twenty-four seven. He said you were a saint.’
Eva laughed. ‘Your informant was wrong.’
Poppy had run into the twins’ bedrooms and woken them up. They stumbled into Eva’s room, Brian Junior holding his old cricket bat, wide-eyed with fear. Brianne stood behind him with a martyred screwed-up expression on her face, yawning and blinking.
Brian Junior said viciously, ‘Get out of my mother’s bedroom!’
‘I’m not going to hurt her, son,’ the taxi driver said. ‘I just need to talk to her.’
‘At three a.m.?’ said Brianne, sarcastically. Why? Is it the end of the world? Or something more important?’
The man turned to Eva with such a forlorn look that she said, ‘I don’t know your name.’
‘I’m Barry Wooton.’
‘I’m Eva. Please, sit down.’ Then, to the twins, ‘It will be all right, go back to bed.’
Brian Junior said, ‘We’re not leaving.’
Barry sat down in the soup chair and closed his eyes. ‘I can’t believe I’m here.’
Poppy, who was desperately trying to ingratiate herself with Eva, asked, ‘Can I get anybody a cup of tea?’
Brianne said, ‘I sometimes think Dad’s right about this bloody country and tea.’
‘I’ll have one,’ said Eva.
‘Yeah, me too,’ said the driver. ‘Not much milk, two sugars.’
Brian Junior said, ‘Green tea, and I’ll have it in here.’ He leaned against the wall and swung the cricket bat into the palm of his right hand, making a smacking sound.
Brianne was wearing a pair of her father’s pyjamas. They fitted her well. She sat down on the bed and put her arm protectively around her mother’s waist.
Poppy said, ‘Should I tell Brian and Titania?’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Eva.
Barry looked around at the four strangers and said, ‘I don’t usually carry on like this. I’m surprised at myself. I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Mrs Beaver. Every time I’ve passed your house, I’ve wanted to stop the cab and knock on your door.’
Why tonight?’
‘I suppose I wanted to talk to somebody before I do myself in.’
Brianne said, ‘Oh, how lovely. You must surely know, Barry, that my mother, whose heart is as soggy as Romney Marsh, will try to talk you out of it.’
Brian Junior said in a monotone, ‘You’ve no intention of killing yourself, Barry.’
Brianne asked, ‘Have you posted it online?’
‘What?’ said Barry.
‘It’s almost obligatory now, Barry. You have to go on the net and join the queue with the rest of the attention whores.’
Eva looked at her children. What had happened to them? Why were they so heartless?
Barry shifted in the chair. He felt that he could easily die of embarrassment. His tongue was huge in his mouth. He thought that he would not be able to speak again. Water started to drip from his eyes. He was glad when the weird-looking girl came in with three mugs of tea and handed one to him. He had never seen anybody dressed in such extravagant bits of cloth before. He slurped on his tea and burned his mouth, but he said nothing about the pain.
The silence was oppressive.
Eventually, Eva said, ‘Why do you want to kill yourself?’
Barry opened his mouth to speak, but Brianne interrupted him. ‘I think I’ll take myself off to bed now I cannot bear the thought of all the clichés that are presently stirring inside Barry’s head, and their imminent arrival at, and escape from, Barry’s voice box.’
Brian Junior said, ‘You’re Out of your element, Barry.’ Brianne drew her dressing gown tightly around her and went haughtily back to bed.