‘Right. Well, thanks,’ I said vaguely as I was still transfixed by the dog. ‘Trevor’s…clever isn’t he?’ I added feebly as he thrust his head into the washing machine again and emerged with a pink pillow case.
‘Trev’s a genius,’ she agreed. ‘But then he’s had special training. And in case you’re wondering, which I’m sure you are, I did a parachute jump and it went wrong.’
‘Oh, I…wasn’t,’ I lied as I took a proffered digestive.
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind. It’s perfectly natural so I make a point of telling everyone, then that gets it out of the way. It happened two and a half years ago.’
‘I’m…sorry,’ I said feebly. Poor kid.
‘It was no-one’s fault – just one of those things: I took a risk, that’s all – I did a jump for charity and my chute opened late – I hit the ground with a bit of a crunch. The hilarious thing though,’ she added with a good-natured chuckle, ‘is that it was in aid of a new spinal injuries unit!’
‘Really?’ I said feebly. I mean – Christ! – did she expect me to laugh?
‘Ironic or what!’ she went on gaily. ‘Mind you I raised a lot. I presented them with the cheque from my hospital bed. I had ten months in Stoke Mandeville,’ she added, ‘then I had to get on with the rest of my life. I’m okay now about it – I really am – I’m okay – because I know it could have been far worse. For a start I’m alive and not dead; I’m para, not tetraplegic; I’m not catheterised any more, plus I can live independently, and I’ve been told I’ll still be able to have kids.’
‘Do you have a partner?’
‘No. After my accident he lasted nine months. I always knew that he’d leave,’ she went on cheerfully. ‘The minute I came round from theatre, I thought, that’s it: Jeff’ll be off – and he was. I do think it was mean of him to go off with my favourite nurse – but, hey – that’s life!’
My God – all these confessions! They popped up like ping pong balls in a bingo hall. It was like being on Rikki Lake.
‘Well, I’m…sorry,’ I said again, impotently.
‘But I decided to stay put. I loved this house, and being early Victorian it actually suits me quite well. No steps up to the front door and there’s no basement. I’ve got a downstairs loo. And the stair-lift gets me up to my bedroom – I’ve got another wheelchair up there. The house has been modified a bit. My kitchen worktops are slightly lower for example; but I haven’t had the internal doors widened – hence the gloves – because I don’t want to live in a “disabled” house. But I have a roll-in shower, and I had the patio doors changed to a slide system to make it easier to get outside.’
‘You’re amazing,’ I said, awestruck by her courage. ‘But I expect people often say that.’
‘I’m just resigned that’s all. I was bitter about it, but then six months ago I got Trevor from Helping Paw. He was a throw-out,’ she added. ‘He was found on a motorway at three months.’
‘Oh. Poor baby,’ I said. ‘Poor little baby,’ I repeated softly, although, as I say, I don’t really like dogs.
‘He used to be a Guide Dog,’ Beverley explained, ‘but it didn’t work out.’
‘In what way?’
She glanced at Trevor, then lowered her voice.
‘He was hopeless at crossing the road. In fact, well, put it this way,’ she added darkly as Trev stared at the floor, ‘he’d had three previous owners before me. But being an assistance dog suits him much better – doesn’t it Trevor?’
‘Woof!’
And now I watched him gazing at Beverley, as he waited for his next command. It was as though she were a film star, and he her number one fan.
‘What devotion,’ I said. ‘He really loves you.’
‘Not half as much as I love him.’ Suddenly the telephone rang. Trevor trotted into the hall, returned with the cordless handset in his mouth, and passed it to Beverley. She spoke briefly, then hung up. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said. ‘It was the local radio station. They want to record an interview with us. I don’t mind as I’m never that busy and it helps to publicise Helping Paw. It’s a new charity,’ she explained, ‘so they need some good press. And we don’t mind, do we Trev? By the way is it okay if I have your phone number?’ she added, ‘in case of emergency.’
‘Of course.’ I gave it to her, and she programmed it in, then Trevor put the handset back.
‘And what do you do for work?’ I asked as I got up to leave.
‘Telephone sex.’
‘Really?’
‘No! Just kidding!’ she laughed. ‘I teach English over the phone to foreign students. It’s mind-blowingly boring but it pays the bills.’
‘And is that what you did before?’
She shook her head and, for the first time in an hour, her smile slipped.
‘I was a PE teacher,’ she said.
So that solves the mystery of the hockey sticks I thought as I unlocked my front door a few minutes later. I felt simultaneously drained and inspired by my encounter with Bev though I was horrified to see I’d picked up some of Trevor’s hairs. I carefully removed every single one with a brush, and then tweezers, as I listened to my answerphone.
‘Hi! I saw your ad, my name’s Susan…Hi, I’m a pharmacist and my name’s Tom…Hello, this is Jenny and I’m a single mum…’ I’d only been out for an hour and I’d already had three replies. Over the weekend I had twelve more, of whom I arranged to see five.
First was a lugubrious looking engineer called Steve. He inspected the whole house, opening all my kitchen cupboards – bloody cheek! – as though he were buying it, not renting a room. Then came Phil who sounded promising but who spent half the time staring at my legs. Then there was an actor called Quentin who was jolly, but he couldn’t stand birds and he smoked. After him came Annie, who was twenty-three, and who found everything ‘reely nice.’ The house was ‘reely nice,’ the room was ‘reely nice,’ and she worked in marketing and that was ‘reely nice’ too. After five minutes of this I wanted to stab her but instead smiled and said I’d ‘let her know.’
‘That would be reely nice.’ As I waved her off I realised that the anagram of Annie is ‘inane.’ Then there was Scott who was Born Again and who wanted to hold prayer meetings on Monday nights, and finally there was a student at the Camberwell Art School who wanted to bring her two cats. Disappointed with the respondents I went to the local gym I’ve just joined for a kick-boxing class.
‘KICK it! And PUNCH it! And KICK it! And BLOCK it!,’ shouted our instructor, ‘Stormin’ Norman’. ‘KICK it! And PUNCH it! And KICK it – and KICK it!! C’mon girls!’ As I pounded the punchbag in the mirrored studio I imagined that it was Ed. And now I visualised myself breaking down his front door with a single blow of my foot, and booting Mary-Claire Grey to Battersea. Were it not for that manipulative little Madam, Ed and I would still be married and I would not now be contemplating having to share my house with some stranger whom I’d probably hate.
‘You’re real good, Rose!’ said Norman appreciatively when the class came to an end. I wiped the sweat out of eyes with my wristband. ‘Done