Diary of an Unsmug Married (5 page)

This feels like shorthand for
I
can’t
be
bothered
to
think
about
it
, and is no help whatsoever, so there’s nothing for it but a trying-on session. Also known as a triumph of hope over experience, like all Dad’s marriages so far.

The first outfit I try is too dated, even for me; and the next causes
mutton
and
lamb
to spring to mind – simultaneously, which takes some doing – and that’s just the start of the horror. My knees seem to have become baggy overnight, so that rules out most of my dresses; half of which are also too low-cut. When did my
chest
develop wrinkles?

I keep going in the face of adversity, until I have ruled out almost everything I own, by which time all my clothes are in a heap on the bed, and we are already late. So I cobble together an outfit designed primarily for invisibility, and then slap some make-up on my face. Never experiment when you’re under pressure. A sample sachet of foundation that I found in one of Connie’s magazines causes hundreds of new wrinkles to erupt, so then I wash it off again.

Connie phones, Dad phones, and Mum phones. One eye is still without make-up, and now it’s almost 9:30pm.

‘How does this look?’ I ask Max.

He doesn’t move his eyes from the television. ‘Fine, darling.’

Oh,
honestly
! I have a large gin, and then Max looks at his watch, says, ‘Christ!’ and rushes upstairs, shouting, ‘What do you think
I
should wear?’

‘Anything will do,’ I say, as innocently as I can. ‘You
always
look fine to me.’

This is rapidly revealed to be untrue. Max puts on everything that happens to be clean, which results in a strange, multi-seasonal mix of linen, denim and wool – all in completely different shades of washed-out black and navy. He looks almost as bad as me.

It takes him a further ten minutes to find his shoes under a pile of smelly laundry. By now, it’s 10:30pm, and I decide to lie on the couch and watch television instead. I suspect my partying days are over.

SUNDAY, 30 MAY

I want to be a teenager again, especially since last night’s disaster. They have so much more fun than adults, despite their superficial angst. And it’s not just the constant sex and the taut bodies that I envy, but also the things that they think of to do –
and
have the nerve to carry out. Josh can create anarchy from the most mundane of tasks.

He decides to join me and Max when we go food shopping today and asks if his best friend Robbie can come along, too – presumably because they’re both intent upon what they apparently call ‘Shopping for Others’.

Max and I watch in disbelief as the boys spend the next hour or so happily putting things into the shopping trolleys of complete strangers when the latter aren’t looking. We don’t know what to do with ourselves when an elderly spinster heads for the checkouts with twenty packets of condoms and some Durex Play gel in hers; and a butch body-builder type looks puzzled at finding lipstick, eye shadow and tampons amidst his other purchases.

The most stressful moment comes when I notice a large leg of pork being covertly added to the contents of a trolley belonging to a hijab-clad middle-aged woman, at which point Max decides enough is enough and calls a halt. I think he secretly enjoys the whole experience as much as I do, though, because he’s still laughing when we reach the car park.

‘That’s what
we
need,’ I say. ‘More excitement in our lives.’

Max nods in agreement, rather too vigorously for my liking, but doesn’t make any suggestions as to how this laudable aim might be achieved. Then, once we’ve unpacked the shopping, he turns the television on, and is fast asleep within ten minutes.

Just the
thought
of excitement is probably enough to have tired him out, unlike Johnny
International
Director
of
a
Global
Oil
Company
Hunter, who tells me that
he’s
been away for the last few days, globetrotting across Eastern Europe again. Apparently, this wasn’t as enjoyable as it sounds, or so he claims.

He says that Johnny
hates
hotel rooms, and wonders whether I do too. I’ve only ever stayed in a really posh hotel once, and that was on my wedding night, when Dad accompanied Max and I upstairs to our room after the reception, and then waltzed inside when we carelessly opened the door a little too wide.

After he’d made himself comfortable on the bed, he proceeded to order blithely from room service, while asking our advice on how to ‘manage Dinah and her tantrums’. Max and I finally got rid of him at 3:00am, so we weren’t even earning gold stars on our wedding night, which probably should have been seen as a portent of things to come. Or not, if you’ll forgive the pun.

It’s not as if I even get to stay in decent hotels because of work. At conference,
^fn16
we’re lucky to get booked into a broom cupboard – so I have no experience of the high-life at all, which does rather lessen the sympathy I feel for Johnny.

He and I have nothing whatsoever in common, now I come to think of it; and, to make matters worse, he wants to know what I look like these days, and whether I still have ‘that amazing hair and those incredible legs’. I seriously doubt it, but I’m more worried by the fact that I still can’t remember who on earth he is.

He could turn out to be the human equivalent of a surprise leg of pork: a crazed internet stalker or – even worse – a constituent playing mind games. That
would
be far too much excitement, even if it would be just my luck.

MONDAY, 31 MAY

The weather’s getting warmer, so now we have to listen to Annoying Ellen’s sex-life on a regular basis. She
must
be pretending she’s enjoying it. I’ve never heard anyone make so much noise in my life.

I thought one of her toy-boys was killing her the first time she started yelling like that, but now I think she’s just doing it to get attention, especially as she’s pushed her bed in front of the window – which she makes a point of opening before she
entertains
.

Max seems to be spending a long time in the garden in the evenings, watering the plants – or so he says. He comes back indoors with a stupid, dreamy look on his face. Honestly, men are such suckers. Why can’t Ellen just die – preferably in silence?

At least she’s reminded me about the gold stars, though, so I decide to have a very early night in the hope of persuading Max that we should earn another one. My plan is going very well too until I make the fatal mistake of mentioning the stars, after we get into bed.

‘What?’ he says. ‘You’re awarding marks for performance now?’

‘No, of course I’m not,’ I say, though I’d probably have done better to omit the ‘of course’ from that sentence. Max glares at me, then waits to hear what I come up with next.

‘I’m carrying out a sociological study,’ I say. ‘Which will be of immense value to market researchers who have to assess how often the nation is having sex.’

‘For God’s sake, Mol,’ he says. ‘I bet other people’s wives don’t keep records.’

‘Probably too busy doing it,’ I say – at which Max emits an unfeasibly loud sigh, and then turns his back on me. He starts snoring almost immediately, so no stars are earned tonight for any reason.

It takes me ages to fall asleep and, even when I do, I doze fitfully for an hour before waking up in a panic.
Now
I know who Ellen reminds me of – a blonde James Blunt!

It’s a question that has been bugging me for weeks, but sometimes ignorance is bliss. If Max fancies Ellen, and Ellen looks exactly like a man, does this mean that Max is gay, and is
that
why we have no sex? Oh, my God.

CHAPTER TWO

June

(Which, appropriately enough, rhymes with ‘loon’.)

TUESDAY, 1 JUNE

Greg tries very hard to distract me from worrying about Max and the blonde James Blunt by spending the morning holding forth about how badly MPs’ staff are paid. (Some of us rather more than others, actually.) Then, in the afternoon, he proposes his latest economic theory: that every pound he pays in tax goes direct to Liverpool to be spent on shell-suits.

‘Maybe you should check that with the Chancellor of the Exchequer before you broadcast it to anyone else,’ I say. ‘Just to make sure that you’re right about it.’

‘Don’t be silly, Molly,’ says Greg. ‘I’d be accused of being politically incorrect if I did that. Which I’m not – am I?’

‘No,’ I say, not because he isn’t, but because it’s obviously the answer that is required. Never say I don’t try my best to give people what they want – unless their name is Mr Beales.

He
phones just before the office closes for the day. ‘Has your boss written my reference for the court yet?’ he says.

‘What reference?’ I say, but then wish I hadn’t. There are some things a person is far better off not knowing. Such as the fact that Andrew has – apparently – agreed to write to the judge on Mr Beales’ behalf.

‘But why?’ I say. (I can’t help myself.) ‘What on earth has he agreed to do
that
for?’

‘To confirm the excellence of my photographs, of course,’ says Mr Beales, who may be the world’s worst photographer, but who still knows far more about the subject than Andrew does.

WEDNESDAY, 2 JUNE

I am reading the local paper for references (favourable or otherwise) to The Boss, when I come across the wedding photographs section. There are twelve photos, mainly of plumpish, blonde-streaked women marrying shiny-faced, gel-haired men. Four couples are, however, headless.

I look at the picture credits. Sure enough, the decapitated newly-weds are attributed to one Edmund Beales, so I photocopy the page and fax it to the House of Commons – marked for the urgent attention of The Boss – together with a copy of the draft reference for Mr B. I scrawl, ‘Re-think advised’ across the top.

Then Greg takes the original page from the paper, masks out the credits with dollops of Tippex, and sticks it onto the wall. He says that, from now on, our team-building activity will no longer be darts, with a photo of The Boss denoting the bull’s-eye, as this is ‘too dangerous to hardworking people’. (Greg’s eye-patch is still in place.) From now on, the game is to be:
Guess
which
Photos Are the Work of Mr Beales?

After the next five people to visit the office identify the correct photographs without any hesitation, Greg admits defeat, and heads for the pub for a medicinal gin. Upon his return, he decides to avoid further references to the abject failure of the Mr Beales game by decreeing that we will watch PMQs
^fn1
online.

The whole Commons Chamber is already full of MPs hoping to appear dynamic in front of their constituents on live television. We can’t find The Boss, though, until I finally spot him half-way along the opposition benches. He is sitting slumped in his seat.

‘Oh, Christ,’ says Greg.

We both know all too well what usually happens next, so I send Andrew a text saying, ‘Sit up straight!’

Within the next five minutes Mr Beales, Miss Chambers and Miss Harpenden all phone to complain that The Boss is not taking his duty to the taxpayer seriously, as he is ‘obviously taking a nap’. Miss Harpenden adds that, in such an old building, there could easily be rats running around his feet while he sleeps, putting him at risk of plague.

Meanwhile, there is no reply at all from Andrew to my text, so I send another five in quick succession. They all say the same thing – ‘Wake up!’ – but have no discernible effect, as he sinks lower and lower in his seat, and the calls from disgruntled constituents continue.

After half an hour or so, I’m pretty sure I can see a trickle of drool on The Boss’ chin. That man’s becoming more of a liability by the day, though there are people far more dangerous than him on the loose. While the Prime Minister has been taking questions, a man armed with a shotgun has run amok in a small town up north, and has already killed several people, and injured considerably more.

‘Greg,’ I say, ‘we have to wake The Boss up now. It looks terrible when he sleeps through an event of national significance.’

‘Ssh, Molly!’ Greg waves at me to go away. ‘I am waiting to see if the new Minister to the Treasury is going to use the question I proposed he should ask the PM. He invited suggestions on Twitter, you see.’

‘Let’s hope The Boss never starts doing that,’ I say, refusing to budge. ‘And, anyway, Greg – you don’t even live in the Minister’s constituency, so what did you want him to ask on your behalf?’

‘I merely required specific details as to the percentage of my tax that is spent on shell-suits,’ says Greg. ‘I changed my mind about wanting to know. It’s an important issue, after all.’

He leans forward and turns up the volume on his computer, as a subtle hint that I, less subtly, refuse to take.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Greg,’ I say, ‘Don’t you think today’s terrible events should take precedence over clothing?’

‘I bet the man with the gun is wearing a bloody shell-suit,’ says Greg, to whom the concept of political correctness is becoming ever more alien by the day.

THURSDAY, 3 JUNE

What on earth do the girls in the Westminster office
do
? Are they
completely
hopeless? Just before lunchtime, I receive an email from Carlotta saying that she’s booked Mr Beales in for tomorrow’s surgery, as Greg and I aren’t answering the phone.

Wrong, you dingbat. Greg and I are
screening
the calls – which is a completely different thing – with the sole aim of avoiding having to give Mr Beales yet another surgery appointment so soon after the last one.

We do try to leave the odd slot free for people with
real
problems, but it’s a constant battle, even without the ‘help’ of the girls in London. Not that Carlotta accepts that this is the case. She says she is going to complain about us to The Boss – for abdicating our responsibilities.