Diary of an Unsmug Married (29 page)

Now I’m more confused than ever. If Johnny
could
have his pick of women, probably all much younger and more attractive than me, then why on earth does he want to fly half-way across a continent – to see me? It’s a mystery.

FRIDAY, 27 AUGUST

Gah. Only one more week of Recess to go, thank God – though a week’s going to feel like a year if The Boss keeps me in Coventry for much longer. Metaphorically speaking, of course. The real Coventry must be a whole lot more fun than Lichford is at the moment – at work,
and
at home.

Max is still only communicating in monosyllables. He even wrote me a note to tell me that David called to say we can’t borrow his holiday cottage this weekend, because he and Susie are using it themselves.

It’s probably a good job, as they’re more likely to have fun in it than Max and I would be, given how things are between us. We’ve never really been into arguing-and-making-up sex, which is a pity, since we seem to be arguing most of the time. Maybe I should suggest we give it a go?

I ring Max at lunchtime to see what he thinks of my idea but he doesn’t answer his phone, so I eat my lunch at my desk, quickly, before The Boss can swipe it. Then Greg asks me to cover a meeting with some of the local councillors, as he doesn’t feel he’s up to it – despite apparently having taken over my role as Andrew’s randomly-designated
Goldenballs
. ‘It’s a tricky situation we’ll be dealing with,’ says Greg. ‘And tact is not always my forte, you know.’

It’s not Andrew’s, either. He glares at me when I tell Greg that I’ll do it, but he doesn’t actually forbid me to attend. Unfortunately, as things turn out.

The meeting’s been requested by Jimmy Barton, Leader of Lichford Council, who is complaining that The Boss is poaching cases that local councillors should be dealing with. He brings several councillors with him to back him up.

Things get off to a bad start, as Andrew’s first response is that, if councillors did their jobs properly, then constituents wouldn’t approach their MPs in the first place. This goes down about as well as you’d expect. Then he makes things even worse.

‘The whole problem is that, since all these corruption scandals in local politics, we can’t attract any decent candidates to stand for election,’ he says.

I don’t know if The Boss doesn’t notice the expression on the newly elected councillors’ faces, or whether he doesn’t care – but he looks set to carry on like this for the rest of the meeting if someone doesn’t do something to stop him. I guess that someone will have to be me.

‘I’m sure what Andrew
means
is that perhaps we need to have better communication between this office and you guys,’ I say. ‘And that maybe there’s a training issue for
new
councillors, too?’

‘Rubbish,’ says Andrew, in a loud voice.

Jimmy Barton looks at him, then back at me. I think it takes a moment to work out that
I
am the target of that hostile statement – but then his expression softens, and he takes the olive branch I’ve offered him.

‘Well, Molly, girl,’ he says. ‘There might be a grain of truth in that. What d’you suggest we do?’

I’m so relieved to have averted any further conflict that I launch into a series of suggestions about what Greg and I could offer new councillors to help them find ways to manage their case loads. The councillors join in, and it’s all going really well until the discussion is interrupted by a snore. A really loud, stagy snore.

All heads turn to look at Andrew, who is sitting slumped in the corner of the sofa, wide-awake, and staring at me.

‘I think that’s enough, Molly,’ he says. ‘We don’t want to bore Jimmy and the others to death, do we, now?’

I am
not
going to let him make me cry. I
am
not. I never have, and I never will.

I excuse myself and leave the room. As I pass Greg, he tries to stop me to find out what’s wrong, but I just shake my head and keep on going. When I get outside, I stand around for a while, smoking and ordering myself to get a grip so I don’t give Andrew the satisfaction of knowing that he’s managed to upset me.

On the second cigarette, I finally start to calm down – but then there are noises in the lobby, and someone pushes open the main door a few feet from where I’m standing.
Shit
. They must all be leaving. And they’re going to walk right past me, when they do.

I move towards the door, but then I hear something.

‘Wasn’t that awful?’ says a familiar voice.

‘God, yes,’ says another. ‘That poor woman. He made her look a complete idiot. I’m bloody glad
I
don’t have to work for him.’

There’s nothing for it, but to face them anyway. I’ll have to do it some time, after all.

I take hold of the door and say, ‘Excuse me’ to Jimmy, who looks startled, but then moves out of my way. The other councillors turn towards me, and smile rather too sympathetically – like those hushed-voice types who always annoy me so much when I encounter them at meetings of the Mental Health Trust.

‘Good to talk to you all,’ I say, as I walk away. ‘Look forward to seeing you at Joan’s barbecue.’

Then I go back to work. It is a very good thing that The Boss is still not speaking to me, as
I
am now not speaking to
him
.

I bet this isn’t how International Directors of Global Oil Companies treat their staff – and
they
probably speak to their wives, as well. Thursday week can’t come soon enough.

SATURDAY, 28 AUGUST

Connie and the other interns have found a house and are moving in this weekend – so it’s back to testosterone hell for me. Once she’s gone, I shall again be the only woman in the house. No doubt this will cause a dramatic increase in facial hair, and I shall soon be fairground material.

In the meantime, Max and I have been nominated to ‘help’ Connie with the move, so now we’re
having
to talk to each other, like it or not.

Josh has escaped being drafted in, partly due to his arm injury – the one that he’s still milking for all it’s worth – and partly because he’s gone off to the coast with the boys, to stay at the beach house belonging to Robbie’s parents.

I had no idea they were so well off. Imagine owning a beach house, for goodness’ sake! Maybe Max and I could have arranged to borrow
that
. Then we could have gone there this weekend, instead of running around like maniacs, trying to fit what seems to be enough stuff to equip three houses into one smallish car.

Connie must be the world’s most useless packer, too. She persuaded Max to pick up loads of boxes from the supermarket yesterday, but God knows why he bothered – she only seems to have used about ten of them, into which she’s packed the most random selection of stuff I’ve ever seen. There’s half a ton of make-up loosely scattered inside saucepans and bowls, and her pot plants have been nestled inside her jumpers. There’s soil
everywhere
.

If she’d taken her time, she might have made a better job of it, but she seemed incapable of any activity while
Big
Brother
was on, and didn’t even start packing until about 11:00pm last night. The result is that the bulk of her belongings are in bags. Not bin bags – which would have been embarrassing enough – but carrier bags.
Hundreds
of the damned things. And Connie is even worse at unloading than she is at packing.

When we get to the new house she stands next to the car, ‘directing’ us – until Max notices, and suggests she might like to join in when she’s ready. She scowls as if this is unfair, so I start counting how many trips Max and I make to and from the house – but give up fairly quickly when I run out of energy. Why is it always impossible to park anywhere near a student house on moving-in day? (Well, actually, I
know
the answer to this – it’s because no student can ever get it together to obtain a parking permit in time for their poor parents to be able to use it – once they’re been conned into helping their child move in. Or
Connied
, in this particular instance.)

Our
precious little con-merchant carries only two carrier bags on each of the very few trips she makes. I have seen far more dynamic slugs. Then she takes a bag of food into the kitchen, and that’s the last we see of her – though we’re so busy that we don’t miss her for about an hour, at which point we find her sitting at the kitchen table with the other interns, all having a really good chat.

It’s almost 8:00pm by now – and the car is
still
full of stuff.

When I mention this, Connie says that she and the others think it would be nice to go for a drink ‘to get to know each other’. She asks Max to lock up when we’ve finished unloading, and to post her keys through the door.

A brief hug and a kiss, and off she goes – before I’ve even started weeping. (I cry whenever we take Connie back, but she always stays resolutely dry-eyed. You’d think she’d at least
pretend
to be a bit sad, but she never does. She’s just ecstatic to escape from life with Josh; I suppose it’s not all
that
surprising.)

This
is
a nice house, though. I’m almost tempted to suggest Max leaves me here for a few days, but he might agree too readily – and, anyway, I shall be needed at home, to prevent Josh from turning Connie’s bedroom into a gym.

I overheard him and Robbie discussing
that
idea the other night. They were planning on calling it ‘Bonjour Better Body’ and charging admission. Josh said he’d already persuaded Greg to sign up.

SUNDAY, 29 AUGUST

Max and I are knackered when we finally get back from Connie’s. No sooner has Max said, ‘I am never moving Connie again’, than he falls asleep – though not for long.

The phone rings at 4:00am. It’s Robbie’s dad, John, who needs Max to join him in a rescue mission. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up.

It turns out that the much-hyped ‘beach house’ is a hut – where staying overnight is prohibited. Upon his return, Max explains what happened.

Apparently, Robbie, Josh and the others dug an enormous fire pit, which then got a bit out of control and eventually caught the attention of the guy who supervises the beach, as well as the car park.

‘This guy said he went to investigate and found all eight boys stacked up, one on top of the other,’ says Max. ‘In a
tiny
hut, fast asleep. He said he might have missed them, if their feet hadn’t all been sticking out of the door.’

The boys were ordered to leave, immediately, but were all too drunk to drive, hence the calls to the parental emergency service. The one from which you never get the option to resign.

Josh seems to have sobered up a bit by the time Max brings him home, although his relief at being rescued appears to be based solely on having escaped from Robbie’s snoring, which he says prevented him from getting any sleep.

‘Join the bloody club,’ says Max.

‘Well, it’s not my fault,’ says Josh. ‘I was still awake when the supervisor arrived, but I was stuck under Jim and Robbie, and couldn’t wriggle out. Otherwise, I’d have slept on the beach. Robbie’s snoring’s almost as bad as yours.’

‘I’d shut up about my snoring, if I were you,’ says Max. ‘I’m not really in the mood.’

‘Sorry, Dad – I’m just tired. It’s been a stressful night.’

‘Stressful? I think you ought to count your lucky stars I got rid of the supervisor before sunrise,’ says Max. ‘If he’d seen that giant sand phallus you lot built, you’d have been in even more trouble than you were already.’

Josh chokes with laughter, then yawns, and sets me off too.

‘So how big
was
this beach house?’ I ask Max. ‘I mean hut?’

‘About six foot by six foot,’ he says. ‘For Christ’s sake. Those boys all need their heads testing.’

‘Being so cramped made my broken arm a bit sore,’ says Josh – who never knows when to stop.

‘It’s not broken,’ says Max. ‘Or not
yet
,
it
isn’t. But it could be arranged if you ever pull any more stunts like this. I’m going back to bed.’

That sounds like a damned good idea to me so I follow suit – but we seem doomed not to get any sleep this weekend. As soon as we’ve both snuggled back down – temporarily united by despair at being the parents of an idiot – my mobile starts to beep. I can’t ignore it, not now that Connie’s no longer at home. It could be her: cue instant panic.
Now
what’s happened?

I blunder around looking for my glasses. It’s such a pain not being able to read texts without them. When I can finally see, I realise the text is from Dinah, not Connie –
oh, the
relief
– although that’s only momentary.

Dinah’s message says, ‘Oh. My. God. Guess what the Thai bride’s name is?’

‘What is it
now
?’ says Max, his voice muffled by the pillow he’s pulled over his head.

‘Dinah,’ I say. ‘She wants us to guess the name of the Thai bride.’

‘Yung-Fuk,’ says Max, from the depths.

I text this suggestion to Dinah. ‘It’s a good guess, but it’s not right,’ she replies. ‘Was that one of Max’s? Try again.’

Who
does
she think she is? Roy Walker? ‘Dinah, I can’t be bothered to play
Catchphrase
. It’s the middle of the night. Just
tell
me what the Thai bride’s called!’

‘Porn!’ is her reply. ‘Though you probably don’t spell it exactly like that.’

Christ almighty. I’m in the middle of telling Max, when he lets out an enormous snore. I’ve had quite enough of
that
this week. In fact, I’ve had quite enough of this week, full stop.

MONDAY, 30 AUGUST

Oh, good grief. The world’s gone mad, or rather, Andrew has.

Today is Joan’s famous Bank Holiday Labour Party Barbecue – the one Andrew banned me and Greg from attending – so, of course, we fully intend to go.

Max comes too, as moral support, as I’m not looking forward to seeing all the local councillors again after Friday’s events, but I can’t wriggle out of going now. I’ve already promised Joan I will.