The press eagerly pounced on this nugget of new Eva information. The Daily Mail, who were about to go with ‘Eva is ex-librarian’, scrapped their front page and replaced it with ‘ESP Eva finds runaway’.
52
At noon on Valentine’s Day, Brian and Titania came into Eva’s room.
She could tell that both of them had been crying. She was not too alarmed – it seemed to her that British people had long ago stopped puffing themselves together, they now cried habitually in public and were applauded for it. Those who didn’t cry easily were labelled ‘anal’.
Brian said, with a sob, ‘Mummy’s dead.’
Eva said, when she was able to breathe, ‘Your mum or mine?’
‘Mine,’ he wailed.
‘Thank God for that,’ she thought. She said to Brian, ‘Bri, I’m so sorry.’
‘She was a wonderful mother,’ Brian cried.
Titania attempted to take him in her arms, but he pushed her away and went to Eva, who felt obliged to pat his back. She thought, ‘This display from a man who “didn’t see the point” of buying his mother a birthday present, on the grounds that “she doesn’t need anything”.’
‘She fell off her stepladder trying to reach her emergency cigarettes,’ said Titania, her voice breaking and tears welling in her eyes.
Eva was not to know, but the real reason that Titania was crying was because Brian had not given her a Valentine’s Day card or a box of Turkish delight, as he had every year since their affair had begun.
Brian said, ‘Another casualty of smoking. She’s been dead for three days. What kind of society do we live in when an old lady can lie on her kitchen floor dead for three days before anybody notices?’
Who found her?’ asked Eva.
‘Peter, the window cleaner,’ said Brian.
‘Our Peter, the window cleaner?’ said Eva.
‘He rang the police and they broke the door down,’ explained Titania.
‘Yes, and Peter can bloody well pay for a replacement door. He knows very well we keep a spare key here,’ said Brian.
Titania said, ‘He’s in shock.’
Brian shouted, ‘He’ll be even more shocked when I give him the bloody bill for a new uPVC triple-glazed door with a state-of-the-art mortise lock!’
‘No, you’re in shock,’ pressed Titania.
‘She was the best mother a man could have,’ said Brian, with a quivering lip.
Eva and Titania exchanged a surreptitious smile.
The doorbell rang.
Titania looked at Eva in bed and Brian weeping, and said, ‘I suppose I’ll have to go.’
When she opened the door, she received her usual reception. Shouts of ‘Adulteress!’, ‘Sinner!’, ‘Slag!’ Try as she might, she could not get used to the abuse she received whenever she was exposed to the crowd.
A woman in a green tabard was holding a huge bouquet of mixed white flowers, wrapped in white tissue and tied with a white satin ribbon. As Titania searched through the flowers, in anticipation of finding a card addressed to herself from Brian, the post van drew up in the middle of the road.
When the florist and the postman passed each other on the path, they exchanged sympathetic small talk.
‘Nightmare day!’ she said.
He replied, ‘Nearly as bad as Christmas!’
She said, ‘Still, I’m being took out tonight, for a slap-up meal.’
Titania winced at ‘slap-up meal’.
‘Does your husband know?’ said the postman.
Titania was amazed at the volume and duration of their laughter. They could not have been more amused had Peter Kay himself appeared at the end of the path and launched into a new routine.
Titania found the little card. ‘To Eva, my love.’
She yelled at the two delivery people, ‘Why do you do your fucking jobs, if you hate them so much?’
The postman said, What’s up… nobody love you?’ He handed her a large pack of letters and cards bound in an elastic band. ‘Just before I left the depot, I seen another big sack for Eva come in. I’ll need a trolley tomorrow’
Titania said, fiercely, ‘Valentine’s Day is yet another example of how the market commodifies socio-sexual relationships, transforming love from a state of “being” to a representation of “having”, and ultimately degrading us all. So, I’m proud that those who love me have not fallen into the “card ‘n’ chocolates’’ trap.’
She went inside and slammed the door, but she could still hear the postman’s mocking laughter. Perhaps she should have used simpler language, but she refused to patronise uneducated people.
Why shouldn’t they rise to her level?
When Eva had the white bouquet thrust into her arms, she knew at once who it was from. It was written in Venus’s neat handwriting, and she deduced that Thomas had drawn the wobbly kisses on the bottom of the card.
She said, ‘If I were in charge of Interflora, I would make it company policy that chrysanthemums were not allowed in bouquets. They smell of death.’
Brian was slumped in the soup chair, talking about identifying his mother. ‘She looked as though she was sleeping,’ he said. ‘But she was wearing those bloody kangaroo slippers that Ruby bought her for Christmas. They’re death traps, I did warn her. It’s no wonder she fell off that stepladder.’ He looked at Eva. ‘Your mother is directly responsible for my mother’s death.’
Eva kept quiet.
Brian went on, ‘Rigor mortis had set in. The doctor had to prise a packet of Silk Cut from out of her dead fingers.’ He wiped his eyes with a balled-up tissue. ‘She’d made a jelly for herself, in a small pudding basin. It was still on the kitchen table. It was covered in a thin layer of dust. She would have hated that.’
Titania said, ‘Tell Eva about the letters.’
‘I can’t, Tit.’ He started to sob, loudly.
Titania said, ‘She’d written letters to herself, love letters. Like in the song, she sat right down and wrote herself a letter. And there was an envelope in her handbag, addressed to Alan Titchmarsh.’
Brian wailed, ‘Should we put a stamp on it and post it for her? I don’t know the etiquette surrounding death and the postal system.’
Eva said, ‘Nor do I – and personally, I don’t care if the letter to Mr Titchmarsh is posted or not.’
Brian said, sounding a little hysterical, ‘Something has to be done with the bloody thing. Do I carry out her wishes or not?’
Titania said, ‘Calm yourself, Bri. It’s not as though Alan Titchmarsh is expecting a letter from your mother.’
Brian wept. ‘She never, ever sent me a letter. Not even to congratulate me on my doctorate.’
Eva heard Alexander’s voice under the window, and felt huge relief. He would know what to do with the bloody, stupid Titchmarsh letter. After all, he had been to public school. She felt herself relax. Then she heard her mother’s voice. She looked out and saw Alexander supporting Ruby, who was dressed entirely in black, including a felt hat with black netting halfway down her face.
Titania said, ‘I feel we ought to gird our loins.’
They waited – in silence, apart from Brian’s sobs – for Ruby and Alexander to make their way upstairs. They heard Ruby asking him, Why has God punished me, by taking Yvonne away?’
He answered, ‘Isn’t he meant to move in mysterious ways, your God?’
As Ruby came into the room and saw Brian, she said, ‘I thought God would take me first. I’ve got a mystery lump. I could be dead in a week. A gypsy told me in the year 2000 that I wouldn’t make eighty. Ever since that day, I’ve been living on borrowed time.’
As Brian vacated the chair for her he said, furiously, ‘Could we concentrate on my mother d’you think? After all, she is, actually, dead.’
Ruby said, ‘It’s made me poorly, Yvonne dying like that with no warning. My lump is throbbing. Yvonne was going to take me to the doctor’s. Being as my daughter won’t get out of bed.’ Ruby touched her breast and grimaced, waiting for someone to question her.