Diary of an Unsmug Married (21 page)

In fact, it
definitely
does. I shall email Johnny and turn him down, as soon as I arrive at work.

SATURDAY, 31 JULY

Gah. It’s Annoying Ellen’s birthday party tonight. I don’t know why I don’t just find the courage to refuse to go.

I’m probably afraid of falling out with her because I spend half my working life trying to put a stop to neighbour disputes, and I don’t want to find Ellen kicking the side of
our
car in, or throwing dog poo over the garden wall.
Or
stealing my husband, for that matter.

So now I’m in a total panic about what to wear.

I do the usual
pull everything out of the wardrobe while complaining I have no clothes at all
thing, but then feel as if I’ve hit the jackpot when Max spots me posing in front of the mirror in a dress that could be described as body-con, had it not been from the early ’80s, before that phrase was even thought of.

‘You still have a great body for a woman of your age,’ he says.

Wow.
Wow!
Did Max
really
just say that? I am lost in transports of joy for all of five seconds, until I realise he was being rather too specific for my liking.

Why didn’t he just say, ‘You look great for a woman of your age’? Or even, ‘You look great’? I know why – because my body might look good, but my face obviously doesn’t.

After that, I brush my hair so far forward over my eyes that Connie has to guide me on the walk round to Ellen’s, and I still manage to walk into several low-hanging branches en route.

It was Max’s idea to take Connie with us, in the hope that she could poach one of Ellen’s toy-boys, or even one of Ellen’s sons, to fill the less-than-yawning gap left by the departure of the chilli boy.

It doesn’t really work, as none of Ellen’s kids are there, and – after an hour or so – Connie decides that all the toy-boys are dead from the neck up, and so she won’t go near any of them. I’m about to point out that Russ was hardly a rocket scientist when I get distracted by wondering where Max has gone.

Connie’s sticking to me like an Elastoplast, which has freed him to wander off unsupervised – never a good thing at one of Ellen’s parties. He just can’t keep up with her drinking habits, or those of her friends, and he will ignore the fact that the reason
they
can each drink a whole case of beer is because of the vast quantities of coke they’re shoving up their noses at the same time.

By the time I manage to spot him, it looks as if he’s already had several beers and a whole bottle of wine, and now he’s found a second bottle that he’s carrying around with him as he moves from one group of people to another. He’s having no trouble fitting in with any of them – unlike me. I seem to be the only married woman here.

All the other women are divorced, highly vocal about their sex-starved status –
huh!
– and wearing very shiny tops to match their very shiny foreheads. What
is
it with women of my age? They seem to have a uniform for parties, which basically involves jeans, paired with strappy tops that reveal far too much low-slung cleavage. I bet all that beaded decoration was stitched on by starving children in sweatshops, too.

I feel like a visitor from another planet in my black dress, an alien invisible to everyone except Connie – and this feeling isn’t helped by the fact that, every time I look over at Max, one or other of the shiny women is staring into his eyes and giving a very good impression of hanging onto his every word.

They don’t seem half so interested in talking to me or Connie, so we end up sitting in the garden for most of the evening – where I smoke fit to bust and Connie nags me about my filthy habit. That’s when she’s not going on about her amazement at the behaviour of some of Ellen’s friends – who turn out to be teachers at Josh’s school.

No
wonder
Josh is like he is. They’re probably the ones who taught him to play cards for money in the first place, seeing as they’ve just suggested we play a round of poker. I’m bored enough to play Snap! by then, though, so – after checking we’re not talking about
strip
poker – I persuade Connie we should both join in.

It’s only after we’ve sat down at the long dining table that I realise that Max is seated at the other end, next to Ellen. If her incessant giggling and irritating amount of energy is anything to go by, she’s obviously just been upstairs for another snort.

Max isn’t displaying any energy at all and looks totally obliterated by alcohol. I get up from the table and make him a coffee, which he refuses in no uncertain terms – so there’s nothing for it but to retire back to my seat, and to scowl at him as he accepts a large shot of frozen vodka from the tallest of the toy-boys. He downs it in one, looks at me triumphantly, then starts to slip sideways on his chair.

I’m just considering whether I should ride to his rescue when I realise that he’s slipping
towards
Ellen, while wearing a beatific smile. Then, as if in slow-motion, he moves in towards her neck, upon which he plants a long, slow kiss. Suddenly, the room falls quiet, and I feel as if I have been paralysed.

‘What the
hell
are you doing, Dad?’ says Connie, breaking the spell. She stands and goes to pull Max off his chair, pushing past Ellen, who’s still laughing.

I’m so angry and humiliated that I can’t move, until Connie gestures at me to come and help her – but even with our combined efforts we still can’t get Max to his feet, so we have to draft in help, in the shape of two of the toy-boys. They hoist Max up, then half-carry, half-drag him back to our house.

Connie walks behind them carrying Max’s jacket, while I storm ahead wielding my keys as if they were weapons. In the hallway, Max shakes off the toy-boys, lurches into the living room, and falls onto the sofa, laughing like a lunatic. Connie throws a blanket over him, and then looks at me in disbelief. I have no words, which is most unusual.

I
have
made a decision, though. As soon as Connie’s gone to bed, I’m going to email Johnny and tell him that I’ve changed my mind. Marriott County Hall, here I come.

CHAPTER FOUR

August

(Which doesn’t rhyme with anything, either – except for ‘lust’ or ‘dust’.)

SUNDAY, 1 AUGUST

Argh. I feel like shit, and seem to have entirely lost my sense of humour.
And
my appetite.

When Max finally wakes up, he staggers into the kitchen and cooks an enormous fry-up, which seems to remove any trace of a hangover. There is no justice. I can’t face eating
a thing
.

I’m still feeling sick when the doorbell rings. It is Alex, Ellen’s toy-boy-in-chief, who says he wants his jacket back. Apparently, Connie picked his up by mistake during our hasty escape from the party last night.

He sounds less than happy to have discovered that he is now the not-so-proud possessor of Max’s Primark jacket, while there’s a crumpled Armani version down the side of our sofa. They don’t look any different to me, though I don’t say so, as provoking Alex is probably a bad idea. I’ve got a feeling Ellen met him at kick-boxing or something equally violent, and he already seems quite cross enough by the time he throws the jacket onto the back seat of his car and slams the door.

He’s still revving the engine like a maniac when Max comes into the hallway to see where I’ve got to. He seems oblivious to the narrowly averted toy-boy danger and is calmly eating a left-over sausage.

‘What’s up, Mol?” he says. ‘Why are you in such a mood with me?’

‘I should have thought you’d
know
what is bloody well up,’ I say, throwing his jacket at the coat stand, and missing by a mile.

‘I haven’t got a clue.’ Max does seem genuinely perplexed, unless he’s been taking acting lessons from Josh. ‘What have I done? Or, rather, what’s my jacket done?’

‘Well, let me see – how can I sum it up for you?’ I say.

I am so angry that I can barely think, so I buy time by throwing the jacket at the coat stand again, equally unsuccessfully.

‘Oh, yes – that’s right,’ I say, eventually. ‘You moved in on Ellen in front of everyone – including me.
And
your daughter.’

‘I did
what
?’

I’m pretty sure Max thinks I’m joking, though God knows why. My expression ought to rule
that
impression out.

‘And then you kissed her. On the neck.’

‘I didn’t!’ Max starts laughing now, which is a very bad move.

‘Er, yes – you did, Dad, and it’s not funny,’ says Connie, who looks almost as annoyed as me. She picks Max’s jacket off the floor, and throws it at him.
She
doesn’t miss.

‘Good God,’ says Max, disentangling himself as Connie and I stalk off and both go back to bed.

I stay there for the whole of the afternoon, trying to work out whether I’m entitled to be as angry with Max as I am, given that he was so drunk that he can’t even remember what he did, but I just can’t seem to reach a decision and stick to it.

I do get up again in the evening, to check my email, but there’s nothing from Johnny in reply to the message I sent him last night about meeting up. I forgot – he’s travelling around Eastern Europe again this weekend, and did warn me he might be unavailable for much of the time. Something to do with patchy mobile phone coverage in Uzbekistan, I think he said.

My inbox isn’t completely empty, though. Dad is back from Thailand and has sent me an email, snappily titled, ‘Thai adventure’. I open it. There is no text at all, just six photos. I open the first one, expecting beaches, or mountains. There’s scenery, all right – but it isn’t of the landscape variety. It’s of a young Thai woman in a bar.

The next picture is of the same girl, next to a swimming pool. There’s no sign of Dad until the third picture, where he appears – showing more man-boob than should be allowed
anywhere
in the world.

In picture number four, the Thai girl is draped around Dad’s neck, like a fresh-faced boa constrictor. By picture six, she is sitting on a bed in a hotel room, wearing nothing but a bathrobe.

For
God’s
sake!
I’m incredulous.

I have to tell someone, but I am still not speaking to Max, so I call upstairs to Connie, who’s now spent almost the whole day lurking in her bedroom, out of the reach of parental strife.

‘Con, you won’t
believe
what Grandad has just sent me!’ I yell.

‘I bloody well will,’ says Connie, coming back downstairs at last. ‘Didn’t you notice he copied me in on the email, too?’ She makes a vomiting noise. ‘I’m
mortified
.’

‘What?’ says Josh, from behind me, much to my surprise. (I’d thought he was out with Holly – but he must have been staying out of harm’s way too.)

I show him the photos and he starts to laugh.

‘What are you laughing at?’ I say. ‘There’s nothing funny about sending your daughter something like this.’

‘You know what Grandad’s like, Mum,’ Josh says. ‘He’s just
trying
to wind you up.’

‘He’s succeeding,’ I say. ‘It must be the day for it.’

I turn back to the computer and start typing. Then, before I know it, I press
send
. Now an email saying only ‘Come back, Gary Glitter – all is forgiven’ is winging its way to my father’s inbox.

I’m going to have an early night. I think it’s best.

MONDAY, 2 AUGUST

God, the nutters are out in force today, or on the phone, anyway. All the usual suspects call first thing – I think they store up their bile over the weekend and are bursting to vent it at someone by the time Monday morning rolls around.

Miss Chambers is in full flood about her neighbours, who she still thinks are stealing her electricity. Now she claims they’ve rigged up some sort of Heath-Robinson-style construction between her attic and theirs, and she wants me to get the police to take her seriously. This would be impossible, as the woman is clearly barking mad.

Talking of the less-than-sane, Mr Beales is next on the phone. ‘Bloody speed cameras,’ he says, without preamble.

‘Oh, yes?’ I say. I’m bored already.

‘I’ve been done for speeding!’ he says.

‘And
were
you?’ I say, while staring out of the window and wondering what the hell I am doing with my life. ‘Speeding, I mean?’

‘Well, yeah – but I wouldn’t have been
done
for it. Not if a bloody policeman hadn’t been hiding in a bush!’

Oh, for God’s sake. I have absolutely no patience with people who complain about being caught speeding. As far as I’m concerned, it’s simple – if you don’t want to be caught, then just don’t do it.

‘I should pay the fine and have done with it, if I was you,’ I say. ‘Now, was that all?’

‘No – of course it isn’t
all
,’ says Mr Beales, somewhat predictably. ‘The policeman wasn’t wearing his luminous jacket!’

‘What’s
that
got to do with it?’ I say, without really caring about the answer, though I’m certainly not expecting the one that I get:

‘Well, I wouldn’t have
hit
him if I’d seen him, would I?’

That’s not the only thing I don’t see coming today. At lunchtime, Johnny replies to the email I sent him after Max’s stunt at Ellen’s party. He’s only gone and booked us rooms (plural) at the Marriott County Hall, for the week after next!
Oh, my God.

Our dirty mid-week ‘weekend’ suddenly seems a horribly real prospect, and I want to change my mind, until I recall Max moving in on Annoying Ellen’s neck like a predatory, if semi-conscious, slug. Then I reply, saying, ‘Send details, and see you then.’

I still can’t decide where Max’s offence rates on the scale of marital infidelity, though. How much does something count when you’re so drunk that you probably don’t know what your own name is, let alone whether you’re married or not?

Talking of names, and not knowing them, the landline is ringing when I open the front door to let myself into the house this evening. Josh is ignoring it, and Connie and Max are still not home. Connie’s got a lot of flexi-time hours to make up, but Max is probably just avoiding me.