Diary of an Unsmug Married (2 page)

I’m counting to ten, in order to avoid pointing out that, as he works in a shop, he’s therefore unlikely to encounter many incidents which would genuinely qualify as
crises
, when the phone starts to ring. It’s Greg.

‘Have you
heard
all the reports about that MP who was stabbed in his surgery earlier today?’ he says.

‘No,’ I say. ‘What happened? Is he dead?’

‘No,’ says Greg. ‘He’ll survive, luckily. But now everyone’s saying that MPs
run terrible risks, and that something has to be done to make them safer!’

‘Well, that’s true,’ I say. ‘Isn’t it?’

I do
try
to be reasonable, when the opportunity presents itself. Unlike certain other people.

‘Yes, but what about us, Molly?’ says Greg. ‘It’s ten years since a caseworker was killed
by a constituent, but no one even mentions that! We
run the gauntlet of these loonies every day: get threatened, get assaulted, but that’s all okay – because
we’re
just the little people. We’re
dispensable
!’

‘It’s worse than that,’ I say, all attempts at reasonableness abandoned. ‘It’s
our
fault we upset the nutters in the first place, remember?’

There is a noise as if Greg is being strangled, and then the phone goes dead. I call him every half-hour for the next two hours, but don’t get any reply until, eventually, he sends me a text:

“Molly, I am so filled with hatred that I am dangerous. I am therefore getting drunk enough to post dog poo through the letter-boxes of every mad constituent I can find on my way home from the pub. I may save the biggest piece for The Boss’ house.”

I’ve been trying to phone him ever since then, but he still won’t answer. Now it’s nearly midnight and God knows what he’s done. There
have
to be easier jobs than this.

SATURDAY, 15 MAY

Thank God it’s the weekend. I really need a lie-in after yesterday’s shenanigans, so of course Dad phones first thing.

After he’s given me the usual lecture on immigration – I’m sure he thinks
I’m
the Home Secretary – he finally gets to the point. He’s bought himself a laptop on special offer at PC World and is ‘planning on becoming a silver surfer’. He says that, if Max and I can use a computer, it
must
be simple.

Over the course of the day, he phones a further fifteen times, demanding to know why he can’t send me an email. Each time, I have to turn our computer on to try to replicate what it is that he says that he is doing. We get nowhere, and the whole day is wasted.

At 10.30pm, I realise that he can’t send emails because he hasn’t got an ISP.
^fn6
Bloody hell, now I have to try to explain to him what
that
is.

SUNDAY, 16 MAY

I spend the day doing the usual mundane household tasks. Then, by virtue of shameless bribery, I force Josh and Connie to make their duty calls to the extended family.

When I hear Connie earnestly explaining oral sex to Aunty Edith – presumably unasked – I decide to see if I am able to tolerate gin again. Sometimes I think we should have Connie tested for Asperger’s, but I’m not sure I’d really want to know the result.

I don’t know if Max was listening to Connie, so it
may
be a coincidence but, when we finally fall into bed, we somehow find the energy for our bi-annual shag. It’s very nice, and Max wonders aloud why we don’t do it more often. I reply that it may have something to do with his love affair with the TV, at which he laughs, as if I was joking.

Afterwards, there’s some blood on the sheets.

‘What’s this? Have you got your period?’ says Max.

‘No,’ I say, while trying not to panic. ‘My hymen probably grew back.’

He doesn’t laugh this time, and all restored closeness evaporates at one lash of my tongue. There must be a market somewhere for that kind of deadly weapon.

MONDAY, 17 MAY

Monday morning, oh joy. God knows why the public think working for an MP must be glamorous.

When I arrive at work, I’m greeted by the sight of a hideous new office-calendar bearing the logo:
Andrew Sinclair MP: Working Hard for Hardworking People.
It features The Boss grinning inanely in front of a block of flats in Easemount.

You can’t see the other block, which got burnt out just before Christmas by our regular nutter, Steve Ellington, on the basis that, if
he
was going to have a miserable festive season, then so were all his neighbours.

Greg has Photoshopped the picture to show a bevy of obese, naked women standing behind The Boss. They are also grinning inanely, and improve the photo no end; though it’s lucky that Andrew’s gone back to the House
^fn7
today, so I won’t have to cope with him in the flesh. There’s quite enough of
that
on the calendar.

I concentrate on opening the mail. The first letter I open sets the tone for the day:

Dear Mr Sinclair,

I am writing to you because there is a serious problem on Broad Street. I walk down there every day to my job at Economyland, (a girl needs her pin-money, after all), and what should I see at the side of the road today, but a dead rat!

This is bad enough, but what I want to know, Mr Sinclair, is what would happen if, when I was walking past one day, the rat were to be struck by a car, be hurled up in the air, and then strike me in the face? Something needs to be done before this happens.

Thanks for all you do for hardworking people.

Yours, etc.,

Pauline Harpenden (Miss)

Greg thinks it’s funny, but I despair: what the
hell
am I supposed to reply to that? There’s no one else that I can ask, unless you count The Boss – which I don’t, not even when he phones to check if we need him.

After I’ve said, ‘No, thanks,’ it turns out that he has a question for me:

‘Am I for or against cycle helmets?’ he says.

Honestly, no wonder the country’s in such a mess when MPs can’t even remember where they stand on the simplest issue. Mind you, I bet the Tories and LibDems have no idea where they’re supposed to stand on
anything
now, given all the horse-trading over the last few days. Whenever Nick and Dave pop up on the TV, they look knackered and unshaven – though at least they’re
supposed
to be able to grow a beard.
I’m
not but, when I get home, I look closely in the mirror for the first time in days, only to see hairs sprouting from my chin. I start plucking them out, but seem to grow another two for every one that I remove, and I can’t even see the damn things properly, despite the x25 magnification.

I suppose I’ll be able to work as a circus freak when Max notices them and leaves me for someone less hirsute – not that he seems to be concentrating much on me at the moment, anyway. Since Ellen’s comments at my birthday party, he’s taken to doing sit-ups, every night – much to Josh’s amusement, if not to mine.

I think it’ll take more than sit-ups, but wisely say nothing, as I am endeavouring to become an enigma. Mum, however, sadly isn’t. She phones just before I go to bed to announce her latest affliction – something to do with a painful buttock.

I endure an hour of symptom discussion before she rings off, and then I instruct Josh to shoot me if I
ever
become like my mother. He just raises a meaningful eyebrow.

TUESDAY, 18 MAY

Our phones don’t stop ringing
all
day long
. It pains me to admit it, but one of the legacies of thirteen years of a Labour Government seems to have been a huge increase in victim culture. Honestly, the amount of complaining I hear from people with minor problems is incredible.

Mr Franklin phones first thing this morning, to tell me that it’s my job to get him his emergency benefit payment ‘asap’ – as he’s going on holiday tomorrow and needs to buy new clothes to take with him. He takes the opportunity to remind me several times that he is ‘severely disabled’.

I can’t remember the last time Max and I could afford a holiday, but it
must
be more than ten years ago – and yet here’s Mr Franklin off on yet another bloody jaunt. I wouldn’t mind so much, but the
only
thing wrong with him is that he’s hugely fat. I do wish he wouldn’t talk with his mouth full, too.

God knows how many meals he consumes during today’s conversation but, eventually, I manage to get rid of him by agreeing to phone the Benefits Agency to emphasise his need for outsized Hawaiian shirts.

‘Make sure you do it today,’ he says. ‘It’s an emergency, after all.’

Then he hangs up, and the phone rings again immediately, but this time the caller is an elderly man who introduces himself as George Bradley, from Silverhill. Then he apologises profusely for ‘bothering’ his MP, but says that he wonders if there is anything we can do to help him, as he’s getting nowhere by himself. Both literally and metaphorically, as it turns out.

The poor man had his leg amputated months
ago, but the hospital seems to have forgotten to arrange ambulance transport to take him to his follow-up appointments – which means that Mr Bradley hasn’t even been able to get his prosthetic leg fitted yet.

‘It’s not
all
bad,’ he says. ‘The grandchildren love it when I fall over, but it is making caring for my wife a little tricky. She’s got Alzheimer’s, you know.’

Honestly, first Mr Bloody Franklin describes his lack of holiday clothes as an emergency, and then someone like Mr Bradley is embarrassed to have to ask The Boss for help. Sometimes I think the world is going mad. How much people complain seems to be in inverse proportion to the severity of the problems that they face – and this includes The Boss, who’s doing nothing
but
today.

He phones every few minutes to moan about everything: having to sit on the ‘wrong’ side of the Commons Chamber;
^fn8
the Speaker ignoring him, and the fact that he still hasn’t managed to persuade the Commons authorities to move his office out of Portcullis House,
^fn9
and back into the HOC
^fn10
itself.

He even starts complaining that the girls in the London office take up too much room, because their legs get in his way. As far as I can remember, it was primarily the length (and shape) of their legs that persuaded him to employ them in the first place, so I don’t exactly have much sympathy, especially when he makes it sound as if they should get
their
legs amputated to avoid causing him further inconvenience.

‘You should think yourself lucky your office hasn’t been moved into a broom cupboard,’ I say. ‘Given the Party’s less-than-resounding success in the general election.’

‘Well, that’s where that bloody idiot Gordy’s new office should be, then,’ says Andrew, who never hesitates to apportion blame. ‘And, anyway, I can’t spend all day talking to you. I have a cunning plan to disrupt the Coalition.’

When he explains that this involves nothing more than giving disorientated new MPs misleading directions, I congratulate him on his maturity – and he hangs up on me.

‘Hopefully, he’s the
only
delinquent we’ll have to deal with today,’ I say to Greg, who replies, ‘Don’t tempt fate.’

Ten minutes later, I get a call from Josh’s tutor, who says that Josh is to be in detention this afternoon, ‘for leaving class mid-lesson for no reason, and being obstreperous when told off’.

I demand an explanation from Josh when I get home from work, whereupon he informs me that the teacher is a ‘f*ckwit who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “emergency”’.

‘Tell me about it,’ I say, which Josh misinterprets as a sign that he should continue to explain.

Apparently, he had ‘no choice’ but to rush out of the classroom when he noticed the words ‘
Josh Bennett is gay
’ written in large letters on the wall outside the window; and he obviously considers this slight on his heterosexuality to have more than justified his impromptu exit. He is incredulous that anyone should have found a reason to object.

‘I went straight back to class, anyway,’ he says. ‘As soon as I’d finished painting it out.’

Painting
it out? Am I raising a member of the underclass? Why would Josh even
possess
a can of spray-paint, let alone keep one in his rucksack for so-called emergencies? On this evidence, my son could be a vandal, or involved in a gang war – not that Max is any help with either scenario.

‘Can you please deal with your son?’ I say, at which he laughs, and pats Josh on the shoulder. Things are rather frosty after that, until Max falls asleep on the sofa, and I begin to check my emails.

Greg has sent me a link to an old article about the cost of air-lifting an extremely obese man from his home, to enable him to attend a hospital appointment. ‘This’ll be Mr Franklin next, Molly,’ he says. ‘And we taxpayers will be the ones paying for it!’

Oh, good God. Are Greg and I becoming fascists, or worse, Tories? It’s
very
worrying indeed.

WEDNESDAY, 19 MAY

I risk the country being unable to cope without me and leave work early, because I have to go to the doctor’s for a smear test on my way home.

How on earth are you supposed to make conversation in a casual, relaxed way with your knees apart and your bits on display? I chat about the weather for a few minutes, but then my voice just trails away to nothing, while I try to pretend that I am not talking to someone while wearing nothing at all on my bottom half.

I don’t think this is what the nurse is referring to when she asks me whether I’ve noticed anything unusual, though – so I decide I’d better mention the blood last time Max and I had sex. I suppose I could have just mentioned the
sex
, but that doesn’t occur to me at the time.