Diary of an Unsmug Married (26 page)

TUESDAY, 17 AUGUST

Oh, my God. The Boss should never be allowed on a phone unsupervised.

I pop out to buy a sandwich at lunchtime and come back to find him cosily ensconced behind my desk, talking on the phone. He’s looking a bit flustered and red in the face, but when I raise my eyebrows in enquiry, he waves me away and says into the receiver, ‘Well, I really don’t know
what
to say.’

Whole sentences instead of ‘
Ah
’s’ mean that Andrew is way out of his depth, so I kick his feet off the desk and pass him a note saying, ‘Who is it?’

He mouths back, ‘Mrs Saunders.’

God all-bloody-mighty. The last thing that poor woman needs is a conversation with The Boss, particularly not when he’s under the weather after a breakfast-lunch with Igor that apparently ended up turning into a dinner-supper as well. Liberally fuelled by Slivovitz.

I watch, paralysed with indecision, as Andrew says,‘So he didn’t manage it this time, then?’

Oh dear. Harry Saunders must have made another suicide attempt. That’s the fourth this year. And he is
not
one of our numerous half-hearted attention-seekers. Harry is deadly serious, if that’s not an absolutely terrible pun. We’re not talking taking a few tablets then phoning for an ambulance, which is Mr Ellis’ usual ploy. In Harry’s case, we’re talking throwing himself off walkways, trying to set fire to himself, and other horrors. He’s only twenty-one, and his poor parents are beside themselves with powerlessness and fear. The Boss is absolutely the wrong man for this job.

I try to pull the phone away from him but he swings the chair round so that his back’s to me, and then says, all too clearly: ‘You do realise, don’t you, that Harry’s so determined that – ultimately – he
will
succeed?’

Enough
. More than.

I run into Greg’s office, where the main ‘switchboard’ is situated, over-ride Andrew’s call and cut it off. Then I crawl under Greg’s desk and unplug the phone altogether. I seem to spend half my life unplugging phones.

‘Hello. Hello? Molly – something’s happened to the phone!’ Andrew shouts, from my office.

‘And to this one,’ I say. ‘I’ll have to report it to BT.’

‘But I was in the middle of an important conversation and—’

‘
I
can handle that, Andrew – on my mobile. Mrs Saunders, wasn’t it? I’m calling her now. There’s a sandwich for you in that carrier bag.’

It’s
my
bloody sandwich, actually, but that’s a small price to pay. I sincerely hope he chokes on it.

It takes me ages to calm poor Mrs Saunders. How can someone as apparently well-meaning as The Boss be so incredibly crass? How the hell can he lack the imagination to understand what she must be going through? I can’t even bear to contemplate how I would feel if it were Connie or Josh. God forbid, touch wood, and anything else that can be done to ward off such a terrible situation.

‘Imagine being an event planner, or a play specialist – or any job that didn’t involve dealing with people who are suffering and in distress,’ I say to Johnny in an email, later on.

‘What – suffering from lost
joie de vivre
?’ he replies. ‘Like me?’

Honestly, even when people are healthy, rich and successful, it doesn’t seem to make them happy, does it? Johnny’s been as miserable as sin ever since I said I wouldn’t meet him at Heathrow.

He sends me a total of five emails this afternoon. In the fourth one, he says he feels like he did before we ‘met’ again via Facebook – ‘old, jaded, and as if the spark is missing’ from his life. Ironic, seeing as he’s still in Moscow, where sparks are probably the last thing anyone needs.

I do know what he means, though. My fire seems to have gone out again since I decided not to meet him, and to try to damp the situation down. Life has slid seamlessly back into its rut, which is just as rut-like as it was before – not that
that
makes any difference. I still can’t think of a good reason to be at Heathrow by myself, so I tell Johnny there’s nothing I can do about it.

His fifth email arrives just before I leave the office. It says, ‘Right, woman – I can’t stand this any longer. If you can’t get to me, I shall come to you.’

Good God. An International Director of a Global Oil Company, willing to cross half the world to the dot on the map that is Lichford, just to see
me
? Well, willing to cross most of Europe, anyway. That’s still pretty impressive, even if it’s not quite as far as a trip from Dorset to Pattaya.

I shall buy a copy of
Glamour
magazine on my way home. Sod
Woman and Home
. Maybe glamour’s not as irrelevant to my life as I’ve always thought.

WEDNESDAY, 18 AUGUST

I am going to starve if I keep buying sandwiches for lunch. I never get to eat the damned things, as The Boss always does, either without my knowledge, or as part of an emergency diversionary tactic.

Today’s no different, as Mr Beales phones at lunchtime ‘for a chat about the European Union’. By the time I’ve got him off the phone, Andrew’s eaten both my lunch, and Greg’s.

‘Nice one, Mol,’ says Greg, when he arrives back from a meeting at Easemount parish council. ‘You were supposed to be keeping an eye on him. He hasn’t even wiped the crumbs off his beard, again.’

He accepts my apology surprisingly quickly, though. ‘Oh, well,’ he says. ‘Suppose it wouldn’t do me any harm to lose a bit of weight.’

That’s exactly what Max says when he arrives home tonight, and mentions that he’s thinking of joining a gym. So much for the sit-ups falling by the wayside.

‘Ellen says that you have much more energy when you do regular exercise,’ he says.

Energy for
what
? I don’t like the sound of that – at all – so I suppose now I’m going to have to get fit, too. Maybe Max and I could bond over a new-found shared interest in exercise, buy matching gym wear, and post pictures of ourselves on Facebook, looking manically happy while doing extreme sports, not including hoovering.

Inspired by this prospect, I decide to experiment with the exercise ball Connie bought for Max a few years ago but, when I finally find it hidden in the cupboard under the stairs, it’s gone completely flat and, by the time I’ve pumped it back up, I’m exhausted. Then, when I try to sit on it, I promptly roll off backwards and end up stuck between the ball and the wall, while Max tries not to laugh. He fails.

‘Stop laughing and help me,’ I say. ‘I can’t get any purchase with my feet. This bloody ball keeps moving around.’

‘Can’t,’ he says, ‘I’m on the phone. Oh, hi, Sam. How are you, mate?’

Oh,
hell
. I could be here all night if I can’t get a grip – which is not something that’s easy to do while stuck on top of a giant purple ball. It won’t stay in one place long enough for me to gain any equilibrium, and I’m still wriggling around ineffectually when Josh comes into the room.

After he’s done his share of laughing and pointing, he finally comes to the rescue and pulls me to my feet. I’m quite touched by this, until he says, ‘Mum, aren’t you too old to be starting an exercise programme without seeing your doctor first?’

‘No,’ I say, though now I’m not so sure. Knowing my luck, I’ll break a hip next time I fall off, or tear all my stomach muscles simultaneously. Once I can actually
find
the buggers.

It’s probably safer to do some research first – so I get my laptop and join Max on the sofa, which has the added advantage of allowing me to eavesdrop on his conversation with Sam.

‘What?’ he says. ‘You want
Molly
to do it? Are you sure that’s wise? You know how truthful she is.’

I feel a bit bad about that, partly because I’m not quite sure it’s one hundred per cent accurate any more, not since Johnny made an appearance, anyway, but mainly because of Max’s obviously negative view of telling the truth.
Everyone
should try it, once in a while – especially husbands, and nymphomaniacs.

I glare at Max, but he just waves at me dismissively, and continues: ‘And are you
sure
you want to keep going with this online dating thing? You know you’re a loony magnet. Mol and I watched that programme about it on Channel 4 last night, and those women scared the
shit
out of me.’

Max is telling the truth about
that
, anyway. He went white when the women using the websites started talking about how they cyber-stalk their dates, and even paler when one of them – a woman who blogs about her dating experiences – said that she was ‘immediately’ suspicious of her new boyfriend because he ‘had sixteen female friends on Facebook’.

Max kept repeating, ‘Only
sixteen
?’, and Josh just sat there muttering at the blogger: ‘Yes, well,
you
can’t get a long-term relationship out of this – can you? Seeing as it’s your
job
to write about internet dating. You’d make yourself unemployed.’

Josh is such a cynic; I can’t think
who
he gets it from. I was quite enjoying the whole bunny-boiling thing, myself, as I figured it might make Max far more grateful for what he’s got: i.e.
me
. I don’t think he made the connection, though, so then I had to point it out to him – which somewhat diluted its effectiveness.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘
Those
women were probably on a site called
mentally-disturbed-dating dot com
– but I’m sure they’re not typical of
all
single women.’

(I didn’t like how positive Max seemed to be about
that
at the time, and I
still
don’t like it. It sounded far too much like the voice of experience.)

I’m just about to ask him what he meant when he hangs up the phone and announces that he’s promised that I’ll write Sam’s profile for the latest dating site he’s decided to join. And that I’ll have it finished
this
evening, before I go to bed.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I say. ‘Why have I got to do it
tonight
? What’s the urgency?’

‘Sam says he hasn’t had sex in ages,’ says Max. ‘Not for weeks, if not for months.’

‘Perhaps he’s finally ready for marriage, then,’ I say.

If Josh hadn’t got me off the exercise ball when he did, I’m pretty sure Max would have left me there all night.

THURSDAY, 19 AUGUST

This year’s A-level results come out today. Josh has been up all night worrying, and he looks very twitchy when I see him before I go to work.

It seems to have just occurred to him that Robbie and the others may have been being economical with the truth when they said that they weren’t doing
any
work for their exams, as apparently they didn’t sound half as worried as he was when he spoke to them last night, after rescuing me from the exercise ball. (I
kept
telling him they were talking rubbish, and that
of
course
they were studying at least some of the time, but no one ever listens to me.)

Connie’s got no sympathy for Josh, as he always called her a teacher’s pet when she was at school, but he looks so anxious that he starts to make me fret, too – so I make him promise he’ll phone me at work as soon as he gets the results. He nods, but doesn’t say a word, which is even more unnerving.

I’m still fretting about him when I get to work, and my concentration’s totally shot, so badly that The Boss notices and asks me why. When I tell him that I’m worried that Josh may not have done very well in his A-levels, he’s quite reassuring, though Greg
really
isn’t.

He says that Josh is going to end up as a NEET,
^fn4
who will still be living off me and Max when he’s thirty. Considering that Greg’s almost thirty himself, and still lives with
his
mother, I’m not sure what he’s trying to prove, so I answer the phone to avoid the need to respond.

It’s Miss Chambers, who almost breaks the sound barrier.

‘British Gas,’ she screams. ‘I sent you a copy of the bill – what have you done about that overcharge?’

‘If you stop shouting at me, I’ll be able to tell you,’ I say.

‘I’m not shouting,’ she says, shouting.

I wait for the irony of that to sink in, then try again. ‘Right, then,’ I say. ‘If you’ve finished shouting now, look at your copy of the bill. That £13.48 that you said was an overcharge?’

‘It
is
an overcharge. How many times do I bloody well have to tell you people?’

The volume’s increasing again, for God’s sake. I take a deep breath, then say, ‘It is
not
an overcharge. It is a
credit
.’

‘What do you mean?’ she says, going up another few decibels.

‘They’ve given you some money
back
,’ I say. ‘That’s why it says “credit” on the bill. Okay?’

‘Well, why the
hell
didn’t they say so?’ she shrieks, before slamming the phone down on me.

What do they teach these people in school, when they can’t even tell a credit from a debit? If I ever get time, I’m going to learn voodoo, and then spend every evening sticking pins into effigies of that stupid woman.

I tell Greg about my plan.

‘Good idea, but she obviously hasn’t finished yet,’ he says, as the phone starts to ring again.

‘Yes?’ I say, cautiously, holding the phone well away from my ear.

‘Hurrm.’

‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’ Is this Miss Chambers’ idea of a joke? First full volume, then garbled whispering?

‘Mum.’ It’s Josh. A very quiet Josh. Oh,
hell
.

‘How did you do, darling?’ My voice is so optimistically bright and brittle, it even manages to annoy me. Josh doesn’t seem to notice, though.

‘Crap,’ he says.

‘What do you mean,
crap
?’ I say. ‘It can’t be that bad, can it?’

‘Well, I got a D in Film Studies,’ he says, as if that is meaningless – which it could be, for all I know. What exactly
is
Film Studies, when it’s at home? Now’s probably not the time to find out, judging by Josh’s tone of voice.