Diary of an Unsmug Married (37 page)

During our conversation, she swears compulsively, and with perfect enunciation, but the rest of her conversation is virtually unintelligible, partly because she pauses every few seconds to shout highly inventive threats at someone, in a very loud voice. Presumably her son, though I suppose she
could
be aiming them at me.

By the time she’s finished, I feel like running around and kicking things, too, and I can’t concentrate at all, unlike Johnny, who’s becoming
hyper
-focused. He spends the afternoon trying to persuade me to meet him again next month, and says he’s willing to repeat the journey to Lichford, too – as long as I take charge of his hotel booking this time.

‘So I don’t end up with another crummy single room,’ he says. ‘There’ll be fewer hazards in a less confined space.’

True, but when is he going to realise that I am
not
his PA? Maybe he’d like me to remember his wedding anniversary, and send flowers to his wife, while I’m arranging a location in which to have sex with him. Or
not
to have sex, if the shambles last time is anything to go by.

Anyway, I’m not at all sure that I want to carry on with this affair, if an affair is what it is. I shall take a trip to Ann Summers instead and buy something that Max will find impossible to resist. Along with some gripe water, for hiccup prevention.

WEDNESDAY, 22 SEPTEMBER

I have never felt such an idiot in my life. And I am
never
going to Ann Summers again. What on earth are you supposed to
do
with some of that stuff?

It’s all Greg’s fault. His conference song’s becoming really tedious now, so when he asks me to go to the pub at lunchtime, ‘to wash away the sound of Mr Meeeeurghn’s malodorous voice’, I refuse. Greg’s singing is way more annoying than Mr Meeeeurghn’s screech.

‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘I’ve got to go shopping.’ I don’t say for what.

I’m not too sure myself, but I need to do
something
to get things back on the right track with Max, and to stop these bloody hiccups. I get them every time Johnny sends me an email now.

I’ve never been in Ann Summers before. I know Ellen has, because she says it’s ‘crap compared to Sinsins’, wherever
that
is. I couldn’t find it on the Lichford retail map.

Anyway, I stand outside the shop for a while, plucking up courage, and then dive in through the door when no one’s looking. I have a near-miss with a rotating display and have to stand still again for a moment to calm myself down. Then I start to look around.

Everything’s made of
luminous
plastic, like those horrible toys the kids used to insist on putting on their Christmas lists. I always ignored them and got something wooden and tasteful from the Early Learning Centre instead, but I’m not sure what the Brio equivalent of a sex toy is.

There’s tons of stuff for sale, too. So much that I get quite dizzy trying to take it all in. No wonder psychologists say we’re becoming stressed by having too much choice, not to mention a shortage of clear instructions.

Don’t get me wrong – not everything is a complete mystery. I’m not
totally
stupid, and anyway some of the things are self-explanatory, but I’ve no idea what others are for.
Or
where they’re supposed to go. I used to have my finger on the pulse!

Might as well face up to it: I’ll have to ask someone for assistance. Maybe I can pretend to be foreign, and say I’m having trouble reading the labels.

‘
Bonjour
,’ I say, as I approach the counter. ‘
Je m’appelle Marie-Louise. Pouvez-vous m’aider, s’il vous plaît?
’
^fn2

‘Why you talkin’ like that, love?’ says an all-too-familiar and excessively loud voice. ‘You’re Mr Sinclair’s secretary, aren’t you? Mrs Bennett?’

Oh,
Jesus
Christ. It’s Mr Beales. Oh, and
Mrs
Beales, too. How lovely. Their Ann Summers bags are full to bursting.

I have no idea what to do next, except run away – so that’s
exactly
what I do.

THURSDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER

I’m still getting over yesterday’s trauma when Josh ruins another shopping trip. Honestly, my son poses a serious danger to the general public. Or at least to certain people’s mental health – including mine. God knows what Holly sees in him.

Max and I decide to do this week’s food shop straight after work – at the Asda near the cinema, instead of our local branch of Sainsbury’s. I have decided that going further afield will lessen my chances of being spotted and harassed by constituents, and save me having to wear a disguise. Now I wish we hadn’t bothered.

‘We’ll pick Josh up once he finishes work, and then shop together as a family,’ says Max. ‘Then no one can argue about what we have for dinner.’

This sounds reasonable, but the trouble starts when Josh doesn’t finish work on time and, then, when he does finally get into the car, he claims that he’s far too exhausted to traipse round a supermarket.

‘It’s tiring, standing around for four-and-a-half hours, bored out of your head,’ he says. ‘And with people being rude to you.’

Apart from the fact that I’m full-time and sit down to work, after today I know exactly how he feels, and I can’t face doing the shopping either. It’s quite snuggly here in the car, with the seat reclined – and peaceful, too.

‘I suppose I’ll have to go in by myself, then,’ says Max. ‘While you two lazy buggers stay in the car and lounge about.’

I feel a bit guilty, but still very snuggly – until Josh suddenly opens the car door and lets in a gust of cold air.

‘Shut the door, Josh. It’s freezing,’ I say, then, ‘Where do
you
think you’re going?’

‘Ssh,’ he says, then rushes over to the photo booth machine that’s situated just outside the shop.

I watch as he fumbles around in the slot where the photos come out, before he comes running back to the car, yanks the door open and throws himself headlong onto the back seat.

‘Got it,’ he says. ‘He can’t outwit
me
by changing his schedule.’

Before I can ask
what
he’s got, or who he’s talking about, I see a man pull back the curtain of the booth and step out onto the pavement. He goes to the slot and removes what is presumably a set of photos, looks down at them, then jerks his head up and starts scanning the car park. He doesn’t look very happy at all.

‘Who is that man, and what’s he doing, Josh?’ I say.

‘Shut up, Mum, and tell me when he’s gone.’ Josh seems to be fumbling about and trying to put something into his wallet.

‘What have you got there?’ I say, at the same time as I make a grab for it. Call it maternal instinct, but I
know
when Josh is up to something.

I turn on the interior light, to find myself looking at a photograph of a man. The same man that I can see out of the car window. It’s a single photograph, not the usual set of four, and has two very neatly torn edges.

‘Josh,’ I say. ‘What
is
this? Why have you got a photograph of that man over there?’

‘He’s the photo booth repair man,’ says Josh. ‘I just really like his funny face.’

‘Why?’ I say. The man doesn’t look like a bundle of laughs to me. In fact, he looks very grumpy indeed.

Josh explains that he and his new work colleagues are regulars at Asda, where they buy their snacks after work. (Josh says only idiots pay cinema prices for food.) Then they hang around in the car park outside, eating and gossiping, and watching the man who services the photo booth.
This
man.

‘He comes quite often,’ says Josh. ‘I suspect he thinks there’s a major problem with the workings of the booth.’

‘Why are you giggling, Josh?’ I say. I can’t see anything amusing about a man who’s just trying to do his job, against all odds. I know exactly how he feels.

‘I’m
trying
to tell you,’ says Josh, who’s still laughing, ‘if you’ll just shut up for a minute. He gets into the photo booth, starts fiddling around with the machinery, and then he takes some photos of himself.’

Josh pauses while he sits up cautiously, peers out of the window, then ducks down again, very fast. The man is still standing where he was five minutes ago, still looking around him for something or other. He still doesn’t look very funny, either.

Josh wriggles around on the back seat, trying to find somewhere to put his legs, and kicks me with the foot of his dodgy one.

‘Ow,’ I say. ‘That hurt. Stop fidgeting, and sit up sensibly. You shouldn’t be bending your damaged knee like that.’

‘Can’t sit up,’ says Josh. ‘Sorry, Mum. I might be seen, but there’s no room to lie properly flat in here. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. So, then he carries on working inside the booth for a while – with the curtain still drawn across the front. When he’s finished, he comes out, and picks up his photos, to check whether they’ve printed out okay.’

‘And your involvement in this is …?’ I say, though now I’m not sure that I want to know.

‘Well, as soon as the photos come out, one of us rushes over, and grabs them out of the machine,’ says Josh. ‘While the man’s still inside the booth.’

‘You take his photos?’ I say, appalled. ‘That’s
theft
, you know.’

‘Not
all
of them,’ says Josh. ‘We just tear one off, and then we put the others back into the slot. Really confuses him.’

‘Give me your wallet,’ I say. ‘
Now
, or you’re grounded.
Hand it over!
’

‘Killjoy,’ says Josh, glaring at me, as he does as he’s told.

‘Joshua,’ I say, looking inside it in disbelief. ‘There are twelve
different
photos in here. How long has this been going on?’

‘A few weeks,’ says Josh. ‘Ever since I started work. He’s getting crosser every time it happens.’

I don’t blame the poor guy. I am, quite clearly, the parent of a juvenile delinquent.

FRIDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER

The Boss graciously allows me to do surgery with him today, as Greg is otherwise engaged in frantically trying to make last-minute changes to Andrew’s schedule for the Party conference, for which Marie-Louise has now abdicated
all
responsibility. You’d swear she knew I’d implicated her in the Ann Summers incident.

‘Greg will need to know where Andrew is supposed to be when he’s in Manchester, more than I will,’ she says, when I phone her to ask why she’s not handling the conference diary. ‘And I hear
he
is going instead of you, this year –
c’est vrai?
’

‘Yes,’ I say, ‘it
is
true. Greg is the new
Goldenballs
– but you should still have warned him not to let The Boss make any entries into the diary himself, for God’s sake. Now Andrew’s double-booked all over the place.’

I’m pretty sure Marie-Louise stifles a laugh when she says, ‘
Mon Dieu!
’

Greg’s language skills are limited to saying, ‘
Shit!
’ and ‘
F*ck’s sake!
’ for most of the day, as he tries to re-schedule all the appointments that Andrew claims to have already ‘arranged’. The stress seems to have made him forget all about his attempt to expand the nation’s vocabulary.

‘The Boss probably caused all this confusion on purpose, so that he can lose me once we get there,’ he says. ‘Seeing as he didn’t want a minder interfering with his plans.’

‘Maybe we could fit him with a GPS tracker,’ I say. ‘Perhaps Officer Sexy could help with that?’

‘Too late now,’ says Greg, ‘I’ll just have to stay on duty twenty-four hours a day. It’s going to be
hell
.’

His mock-despair is totally unconvincing, as he’s still really over-excited about conference, and I’m tired of it now. Especially as he’s cost me and Max our chance of a hotel room
à deux
.

‘It’s not going to be
that
much fun at conference, Greg,’ I say, in another mean-spirited effort to rain on his parade (which is where that stupid hat he’s still wearing looks as if it belongs).

Greg disagrees, and then says that he’s decided to stay teetotal throughout so that he can keep his wits about him. I assume that this is because he wants to stand the best possible chance of keeping up a politically correct facade, but he says that’s
not
the reason.

‘I don’t want to put the ladies off, by getting in a state,’ he says. ‘Not while I am in such great physical shape, thanks to my programme of exercise.’

Then he jogs off to the bus stop, and I walk home, in the opposite direction.

I’m quite out of breath when I get there, as I tried a quick bit of jogging en route, just in case it does help your sex-life, so now I’d better put my feet up for the next hour or so, and phone Connie for an update on Dr Snuffleopagus.

I need to take much better care of myself, seeing as I have such a stressful job – especially as I’ve just remembered that I’ve forgotten to make an appointment with the GP about my blood pressure, which I’m positive isn’t going
down
.

Josh’s is probably even higher than mine, though – and his face is green when he finally comes in from work, close to midnight.

‘Good God,’ I say. ‘What on earth’s the matter, Josh? You look
terrible
.’

‘I
feel
terrible,’ he says. ‘You won’t believe what I found, when I was on clearing tonight.’

‘Clearing?’ I say. It must be a technical cinematography term.

‘Cleaning up after all the punters have left,’ says Josh. ‘I picked up a large Coke cup from under one of the seats and – oh – my – God.’

‘What’s so bad about a Coke cup?’ I say. ‘Am I missing something?’

‘I wished
I’d
missed the bloody thing,’ says Josh. ‘There was a
huge
poo inside it.’ He adds that, when he told his manager about it, she didn’t even seem surprised.

‘She just told me to get rid of it,’ he says. ‘Behaved as if it was perfectly normal, so God knows how often the same thing’s going to happen.’