Undiscovered Showcase Entry #3 – How To Be In Love With Eddie Izzard by Alison Dunne

 

Chapter One

 

Valetta came down the stairs after the client. She liked to follow them in case they looked at the back of her trousers and made judgements about her bum.

That's why I hate photos, thought Valetta, as Mrs. Theobald descended slowly in front of her on her newly treated feet. Photos show you angles that other people see, they're not like the proper arrangement of features you can organise before you look into the mirror. They catch you, gob open, chins doubled, a gormless look in your eye as you lift another Pringle to your lips.

At the turn in the stair Valetta found herself hoping Mrs. T wouldn't comment on the photograph of Eddie Izzard. People can react strangely to pictures of transvestites, Valetta has discovered. A gorgeous print of Eddie in a boa, his make up perfect, that dirty naughty glint in his eye. Valetta sighed.

'Ok dear?' Mrs. T asked.

'Oh fine, Mrs. Theobald, just thinking.'

'Oh you don't want to do that, dear,' Mrs. T advised.

Mrs. T started down the second flight.

Really if the clients became much more cronky Valetta would have to consider a Stannah.

Mrs. T's arthritic hand gripped the bannister and slid down the wood. Valleta liked wood. Proper naked wood.

Mrs. T was almost down.

Valetta executed her practised swerve. Round the client and reaching out an arm to open the tricky Yale fastening of the door.

'Now then, Mrs. T. Don't forget what I said. Treat yourself kindly the next couple of days. After the first treatment some funny old things can go on. You've got your leaflet?'

Mrs T brandished the leaflet.

Any probs Mrs. T,you just ring me. Any funny old feelings, physical or … Valetta couldn't even bring herself to mention the E word.

'Thank you so much, Valerie my dear.'

'Valetta,' said Valetta.

Chapter 2

The Hits channel was leaking out under the sitting room door. Nina would be in there.

Valetta took a deep breath, she always felt such apprehension diving into a room with her daughter. Unpredictable Nina. Jekyll and Hyde girl.

Valetta squared her shoulders and surged through the door. Nina was on the giant beanbag, as usual with the laptop on her knee. She was hunkered in, giant scarf twisted three times round her neck, her sleeves down over her hands so all Valetta could see were the ends of the bitten nails. Nina was wearing Valetta's thickest socks.

'Ok chick?'

Nina nodded.

'Cold?'

Nina nodded again, eyes flicking back to the screen. She typed like a demon. All that time on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, updating the world minute by minute. Valetta felt love flush up from her solar plexus and fill her. She leapt across the room and jumped onto the beanbag with Nina.

'Oh god,' Nina said, 'Mum, watch the wires!'

'Give us a snog,' She put her arms round Nina and squeezed, bringing the child's face near enough to cover with kisses.

'Oh you big perv!' Nina yelled.

'I love you, love you, love you,' Valetta said, punctuating each declaration with another kiss. 'You big fattie,' Valetta said, heaving and shoving her, trying to move her and get some room. Nina playfully resisted.

'YOU'RE the fattie!' Nina shrieked back.

'Shall I light the fire?' Valetta said, settling further into the beanbag.

'Other people have the heating on.' Nina observed.

'Other people can afford it.' The price of gas was appalling. And they were on a meter which meant that it gobbled money twice as fast to pay off a debt.

'But fires are lovely,' Valetta said.

Nina rested her head momentarily against Valetta's shoulder. A tiny gesture of solidarity.

'Other people have hot water!'

This made Valetta laugh.

'We have a shower,' she said. 'Anyway things'll improve.  I'm getting more clients!' She tried to up the frequency of her voice. Nina swivelled her head and looked directly at Valetta.

'Seriously, I've been thinking of ways.'

Nina shifted up a bit. Away. Independent again, degree by degree. Valetta sank correspondingly into the beans.

'I was thinking I could get a job, a proper one.'

'You wouldn't have time for feet.'

'Hmm. True.'

'You're good aren't you?'

'Yes.' There was conviction there. Valetta heard it in her own tone. No excuses. She was good.

It was just a matter of waiting for the client base to build. For word to get around. For money to start coming in a bit more. Once people knew …

'Mum?' Nina jerked her out of her thoughts. She looked round at her daughter. It made her heart flip over like a fish sometimes to just look at her. 'You can't get a proper job. You've got to stick it out.'

'Even though your Dad thinks I'm an airy fairy loser?'

'Oh balls to what he thinks,' Nina said.

Then as Valetta wiggled her tickling fingers into Nina's armpit making her scream and kick she felt thankful that she had Nina and this house. She was lucky. Then, slowly she realised what she had. This daft old house. This draughty nonsensical Victorian heap. That was her asset. She stopped tickling.

'This is it,' she said.

'What?' Nina was breathless, subsiding.

'The house!' Valetta tried to sit up on the beanbag.

'You can't sell it!' Nina sounded a bell of panic in her voice.

'No,' said Valetta. Lodgers!

Chapter Three

'I've found something,' Nina said, wandering into the kitchen with the laptop. Holding it in front of her like a tray.

Willy, at the table drinking wine, peered at her,

'Wireless. How modern.' Nina pulled a face at Willy.

'Shut up you,' she said, sliding in next to him. 'What you doing here anyway?'

'Giving your mother advice,' Willy said. Nina looked doubtful.

'Look Mum,' Nina swivelled the laptop round to face Valetta who slid her glass of wine out of the way just in time. She looked at the screen.

'RuralRoomies?'

'Kinky,' said Willy, drawing out the second syllable.

Nina gave him her best withering stare.

'Mum's going to get a lodger,' she said carefully, accentuating each word as if speaking to someone foreign.

'What?' Willy looked stricken. 'Oh darling, that's ghastly. A stranger in your lovely house? Wandering about in their dressing gown? Putting vile items in your fridge?'

'Not all lodgers are like that, Wills,' Valetta pointed out, valiantly.

'I was thinking  - a nice earthy woman. Ideally another therapist who might share the treatment room.'

'What do you sound like?' Willy said, pulling an anxious face.

'I don't know.'

'You sound like someone dreary and sensible.' The worst thing in Willy's book.

'I've got to get some extra money in, Willy. Things are getting really bad.'

Willy looked distressed. Nothing upset him as much as the thought of grinding poverty.

'It's good Mum,' Nina interrupted. They'd had a card in the post office window for a week now with no response.

'It's the students,' Mr. Gupta had pointed out when she'd asked if there'd been any interest.

'What students?'

'Exactly!'

'All you do it register, it's simple, look. And you don't have to pay or anything. It's for people who want to lodge but don't want to live in cities.'

'The fools!' Willy said.

'You can search on counties,' Nina pointed out. 'Do you want me to set us up?'

'Oh, why not,' Valetta said. She had a bothering notion that anyone you came by via the internet must be creepy and flawed. A pale nocturnal typing type. Gollum with a keyboard.

'It won't necessarily be a freak,' Willy said. Mindreader.

'You've had plenty of men off there, Willy.' Valetta said for reassurance. She saw Willy and Nina trade a look.

'Well, yes,' Willy said. His expression was no comfort.

Nina, who found the idea of sex appalling stalked off with the laptop.

'Honestly Ettie, it could be utterly dreadful,' Willy said, laying a hand over hers and giving her such a look of pity she almost imagined he cared. 'But anyway,' he said, patting her hand twice and then reaching out for a refill from the wine. 'Let's have a dollop more of this vile vinegar and I'll tell you everything!'

An hour or so and the bottle later as Valetta and Willy were reminiscing about the time when he lived with them, having been thrown out by Theatre Boy (a major regional director) Nina wandered back in again.

'We've got a reply,' Nina said.

'Already?' Valetta could hear her voice was high and wine bright. She was tipsy. Bad Willy.

'It's bleedin' freezing in here,' Willy said.

'That's why we're getting a lodger, duh!' Nina said to him.

'Oh my god, you're going to use it for fuel?' Willy threw his hands up in mock horror. 'Get a fat one,' he said waggling one long finger toward the laptop, 'you can boil it down for oil lamps.'

Nina clicked a little envelope and a message opened:

'Hello there,' Valetta read aloud,

'Electronic mail is so informal,' Willy grumbled.

'Hello there,

I'd be very interested in seeing your room/s.'

'Room slash rooms?' Willy frowned.

'Room/s,' Valetta continued. 'I'll be taking up a job teaching art at the Secondary school at the beginning of term and will need lodgings while I sort out a more permanent arrangement.

I'll be up and down for meetings and so could come around …

then there's a list of dates.

Signed Nat Harper.'

'She sounds nice,' said Valetta. An art teacher. Immediately she began to imagine the kind of vaguely hippy yet up to minute clothes, the clot of curly hair caught up in an eccentric bun and secured with a 3B pencil. She'd wear nice boots, Nat Harper. Rough suede and up to the knee. Maybe some tassels.

'I think someone creative would be a good influence on this house,' Valetta announced. She heard Nina sigh.

'Mum,' she said, 'there's only one secondary school in this town.' Valetta was puzzled. 'This is going to be my art teacher. Ms. Davis is leaving remember? To have the twins?'

'Oh god, yes, did we tell you about that Willy? Ms. Davis and the turkey baster …'

Willy raised his hand. He paled. Tales of conception always had this effect on him.

'What sort of a suck up will I be living with a teacher for godsake?'

'What if she's a nice cool teacher.'

'Mum, don't.'

'Well, don't rush into anything darling. There are bound to be others just queueing madly to lodge here. Young, beautiful men for example, who might need the guidance of an older and wiser, though no less good looking, mentor.'

Nina raised her doubting eyebrow.

Willy prised the cork out of another bottle and it gave that satisfying bloop that Valetta loved so much.

'Chin chin darlings,' Willy said as he poured a glass for Valetta and then himself.

Valetta noticed through the haze that Nina was glowering something awful.

Chapter Four

Clients came and went and still there were no responses to Valetta's plea for a lodger. Other than that one from Nat Harper.  

God. Thought Valetta, What was Nat Harper thinking? Coming to this one horse town? Thinking about Nat Harper gave Valetta a tiny prick of guilt. She'd just drink this tea and then she'd answer her.

Valetta pressed the power button on the laptop and waited for all the things to load that had to load before you could get onto the internet. She suspected that Nina was the cause of this slowness, downloading things, willy nilly. Music tracks, illegally probably.

Finally there was Valetta's inbox, a disappointing catch of three new. One advertising products for the discerning therapist, one, flight offers and one from Marny. Valetta decided she wouldn't be distracted by reading Marny's mail, always an entertaining catalogue of disasters involving men and sex. It would take too long.

Valetta clicked the RuralRoomies site and there was the message from Nat Harper. On its own. Valetta re-read it. Room/s. She wondered what that meant. Nobody else was interested in being Valetta's Rural Roomie. No wonder really. Imagine the smell of a rural room. Valetta, with her country childhood would forever associate first passions with the smell of cow dung at young farmer's discos in far flung barns. That's where she'd met Nige, holding himself aloof from proceedings, staring down with distaste at straw bales and people disporting themselves, snogging to the sound of Dexy's Midnight Runners. Come On Eileen indeed.

'Dear Nat,'

Willy was right. The internet made everything so informal.

'Please do come and view.'

She nearly wrote room slash rooms out of badness but resisted. She took up her appointment diary and measured it against the dates Nat had offered. She picked a couple and typed them in. She wrote a little description of how to get to the house and how the front door was a garish pink. An art teacher would surely appreciate that? She signed off

'looking forward to meeting you!'

Then wondered if that jaunty exclamation mark made her sound too suburban and keen. So she deleted it and put three dots in its place. Leading the eye forward. Making you think …

Marny's mail tempted her again but she had to tidy the hall. She never let clients past the hall. Strictly up the stairs and into the treatment room. All doors on the landing were closed too, allowing no furtive glimpses into the knicker strewn bedrooms beyond. This meant that Valetta had only to keep the hall stairs and landing and the treatment room clean and clutter free and hoovered. Oh and the loo. They gave the impression, Valetta hoped, of calm and good organisation, cleanliness. They were the tinkling of wind chimes, the peaceful toot of nose flutes, the restful aromas of lavender and geranium. Not the clatter of a pile of dishes and a row about loading the dishwasher, not homework and cd's strewn across the floor in a tangle with cast off socks and empty yoghurt pots with the spoons still in, glued upright by sloth.

10 a.m Mrs Theobald back for her third treatment. Not bad. If they kept coming.

Mrs T was a good one. She'd phoned two days after that first appointment to say that she had flu and had been weepy.

'Healing crisis,' Valetta had said. A good sign.

Appointment three was often the one where she got deeper in. Started shifting the undercurrents, the dark emotional stuff that people stored up and layered over with distracting symptoms. Peel off asthma and eczema, sciatica, headaches, sore throats and you will inevitably find what lurks beneath,

Leaving the laptop to hum away to itself, promising a nice cup of tea and an unhurried read of Marny's scandalous mail after Mrs. T had gone, Valetta busied herself in the hall. She opened the dining room door and hurled shoe after shoe through it. Somehow they always reappeared here, as though they danced by themselves back to their spiritual home like an Eastern European cartoon with its disturbing off key soundtrack.

Then she went upstairs, straightening Eddie Izzard unnecessarily, fondly, as she passed and inspected the landing. She dusted the top of the little bookcase with her sleeve. Otherwise this looked liked the landing of a perfectly normal person. She pulled shut Nina's door on the dark mystery of teenagehood throbbing within.

She opened the door to the treatment room and felt the customary rush of pleasure. A deep calm. The couch stood there, its pale cover, its plumped clean pillows, its little sheath of couch roll. Five sheets lying perfectly.

Valetta bent and switched on the aromastone.  A drip of lavender and one of rose blend. She put on the fan heater. She clicked on the CD player and the room filled with gentle wind instruments. At this point Valetta always had to resist climbing onto the couch herself to just lie there, meditating, pretending the world of shoes and crumpled knickers and financials didn't exist.

She went into her bedroom and pulled out her therapy uniform. White,  comfortable trousers and neat top with its mandarin collar. People expected that pseudo medical experience. She slotted her feet into the white clogs. Bent to look in the mirror while she put up her hair. Nails, check. Short and clean.

She felt the part. She was a healer, a modern day medicine woman.

The doorbell dink donked. The battery flattening. She looked at the clock on the bedside table. Twenty to ten. It wasn't like Mrs. Theobald to be early.

Maybe she'd got herself confused. Maybe it was the postie. Valetta didn't like unexpected rings at the doorbell with their uncomfortable suggestions of someone after money. This was the difficulty with having debts, you felt burly chaps in overcoats might happen by any minute to claim your telly.

She clattered down the stairs in her clogs, giving Eddie a quick, anxious smile on the way past. Behind the glass panels of the front door she could see a shape and it wasn't Mrs. T. It was a man, tall and broad and in a dark coat. Valetta felt herself swallow nervously. The man lifted his hand and dink donked again. Then turned away from the door, waiting.

Oh bollocks, thought Valetta, I can't avoid everything forever.

'Hello?' she said as she whipped open the door. Catching him still facing outward. He turned and she saw him make his face into a smile. It didn't get as far as his eyes. He had a head of unkempt hair and under his dark coat he was wearing a jumper that looked distinctly handknit. He held out his hand. Valetta instinctively knew he wasn't some kind of heavy, after her backpayments.

'Hello,' he said.

'Umm,' said Valetta, wondering if she was supposed to know him.

'Nat,' he said, taking her hand and shaking it. She could feel his nerves jangling through the grip.

'Nat Harper.'

'Oh,' said, Valetta. 'Oh.'