Free The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend

front. Next to it was a scaled-down
year planner with the Christian festivals written in black marker pen:
     
    Advent
Season, Christmas, Epiphany, Shrove Tuesday, Lent, Holy Week, Maundy Thursday,
Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost, Harvest Festival, All Hallows
     
    Ruby spoke them aloud, like a litany. They were the
scaffolding of her life. She felt sorry for Eva.
    Without them, Ruby would not know how to live.

 
     
    12
     
     
     
    Later
that night, when Eva had watched two television comedies without laughing, she
got up and reluctantly went into the bathroom. It felt wrong when she put her
feet on the floor, as though the carpet were a lagoon with piranha fish waiting
to nibble at her toes.
    When Brian found her coming out wrapped in a white
towel, he said, Ah, Eva, glad to see you on your feet. I can’t get the door of
the washing machine open.’
    She sat on the side of the bed and said, ‘You have
to hit it hard, twice, with the side of your hand, as though you were trained
to kill.’
    Brian was disappointed when his wife changed into a
pair of pink gingham pyjamas and climbed back into bed.
    He said, ‘The washing machine.’
    She said, ‘The jugular.” and made a chopping movement
with her right hand.
    He said, ‘There’s no food left.’
    ‘You’ll find some in Sainsbury’s.” she said. And
when you go —He interrupted. When I go?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘when you go to Sainsbury’s. Will
you buy a large funnel, a two-litre plastic bottle and a box of giant freezer
bags? And from now on collect the plastic carrier bags for me? Will you do
that? I’ll be needing all those things to get rid of the waste.’
    What waste?’
    ‘My body waste.’
    He said, incredulously, ‘There’s a fucking en suite
next door!’
    She turned on her side and faced her husband. ‘I can’t
walk those few steps to the en suite, Bri. I was hoping you’d help me out.’
    ‘You’re disgusting,’ he said. ‘I’m not messing about
decanting your piss and dumping your shit!’
    ‘But I can’t leave this bed again, Brian. I can’t
make that little walk to the bathroom. So, what can I do?’
    When Brian had gone, she listened for a while to him
cursing and thumping the washing machine. She thought about all the problems
caused by bowels and bladders, and wondered why evolution had not constructed
something better for disposing of the body’s waste products.
    She thought for a long time and finally came up with
the most efficient system.
    The body would have to be redesigned to absorb the
entirety of its own waste. Eva thought this might be possible if somewhere in
the digestive system there was a spare organ. Apparently, the appendix was
lying around doing nothing. It had no function since humans had stopped eating
twigs and roots. Brian had told her that astronauts routinely had the appendix
removed before their first launch into space. Perhaps it could be commandeered
to help the body absorb every last drop of urine and every piece of faeces?
    She was a little vague about the nature of the adaptation,
but the adapted organ would be required to burn the waste products internally
until the body had absorbed all food and liquid. There would probably be a
little smoke, but this could be routed to the anus and absorbed by a charcoal
filter held in the pants using Velcro. There were one or two details that would
need finessing, but weren’t British scientists leading the way in biotechnology?
How marvellous it would be if the human race was spared the burden of
excretion.
    Meanwhile, thought Eva, she would have to dispose of
her waste products in a very unsophisticated manner. How would she manage to
squat over a funnel without putting her feet on the floor? There would be an
inevitable spillage in the bed, and even more complicated gymnastics would be
required to defecate into a freezer bag. She would have to get used to coming
face to face with her bodily waste, but she would still need another person to
remove the