How to Marry Your Husband

by Jacqueline Rohen

  Was that it?

  The sign? The beginning of the end. If she had dressed up for him in the cheap, transparent lace costume, would he have been satisfied? Would he not have strayed? The tears welled once again. Was this really her fault? She allowed guilt to wash over her. Her anger was put on hold as she tried to comprehend and grasp her actions and inactions, and their consequences.

  Rachel took a quick look through the medicine cabinet; there was no trace of any blue diamond-shaped tablets. It was her instinct to twist the bottles so that the labels were facing out. However, she was careful to return them back to the angle at which she’d found them and did one last check to ensure that everything was in its rightful place. She was getting better at snooping. She turned and jumped as she saw Neville and Oscar in the doorway judging her. She bought their silence with tuna treats.

  Rachel remembered the words of Stefan Stratos. She opened their life-admin cabinet and took photos of pertinent documents on her mobile phone. The mortgage was in both their names, as were the deeds to the house. She found a bill for a credit card she knew nothing about – why was she not surprised? However, after inspecting the list of purchases (domain names and computer supplies) and extensive Googling indicating the purchases were work supplies, deemed it unworthy of further investigation. She nearly binned the Mickey Mouse ‘marriage certificate’ Stefan Stratos had declared null and void. Instead Rachel found some passport photos of David and scribbled devil horns and silly handlebar moustaches on them. She felt calmer then until she realised with a pang of irritation that, thanks to the council’s ridiculous recycling policy about printed paper, she couldn’t recycle these and deposited the defaced prints in her pocket.

  The stages of grief were wavering in Rachel. At times she was in denial about David’s betrayal, at others she felt she needed to make the obvious decision and quickly rip off the Cellotape keeping their marriage together.

  Leave the bastard. Leave the bastard. Leave the bastard.

  What Rachel wanted more than anything was a time machine. She wouldn’t use it to unsee the kiss, but to go back further to investigate why her husband had got bored of her in the first place. Or even better, to go back fifteen years to when she neglected to check if their wedding was legal.

  Rachel was desperate for some sleep, but she also wanted to know precisely what time her wayward husband returned. When she heard the front door shut, she lay in wait, her spine rigid. David always smelled of his signature aftershave. But was it different tonight? It was a blend of scents that pleasantly evoked the sea. He collapsed into bed and was asleep in minutes. Sneaking home after visiting his mistress? The man was shameless.

  When she finally drifted off to sleep, she had a dream that David had died and she was at his funeral. Rachel was fighting the redhead for the right to be chief mourner. When her mother-in-law chose the side of the mistress, Rachel awoke in a cold sweat.

  There was no way she could get back to sleep. She needed a plan. There was no marriage; ergo, there was no need for a divorce. They could divide their belongings in a civil manner. They were both grown-ups, there needn’t be too much animosity. She made a list of people to see.

  Stefan Stratos was first and foremost. She would have to tell him that she was resolved in her decision to separate from her husband and he should get the ball rolling on whatever legal steps she needed to take.

  Next it would be the estate agents: she would like to find a small cottage. She would also need a financial adviser; they had amassed various assets and the rest of the cash was accumulating in a generous pension fund. Their plan had been to retire early when David turned fifty-five.

  Rachel closed her eyes and practised meditative breathing. She silently chanted positive affirmations.

  Stupid fucking affirmations.

  12

  When the home landline phone rang, Rachel knew it would be one of two options: Norma or an automated sales call. She picked up anyway.

  ‘Please can I phone you back, Mum? I’m taking Neville and Oscar to the vet’s.’

  ‘Yes, yes, but do phone me back this time.’

  Rachel rolled her eyes. ‘I always call back!’

  Norma scoffed at this.

  ‘Bye, Mum.’

  Rachel hung up the phone and called out for David who had promised that he would go with her to the vet’s; wrangling their cats demanded back-up. David was nowhere to be seen, however. He really was proving to be the worst non-husband ever.

  Oscar adopted an instant air of mistrust as he saw Neville being jailed. Rachel tried to bribe him with salmon biscuits, but he was wily as a fox and just as vicious when cornered. He didn’t trust random, middle-of-the-day treats. By the time he was captured in his travel basket Rachel looked as if the Beast of Exmoor had savaged her left arm. She stood at the kitchen sink with her arm under the running tap. One-handed, she dressed her injured limb with an overabundance of bandages.

  At the vet’s, the receptionist, a young man wearing a name badge that read ‘Paul’, welcomed Rachel and her pets. Paul had a jet black Mohawk. He also had those stretching rings in his earlobes, ones she would have been able to poke a finger through. The thought made her queasy. Rachel glanced at the magazines in the waiting room. She picked one up and put it back down. The dog-centric issue proclaimed How to Get the Best Dog Selfie and What Your Dog Wants You to Know articles.

  Dr Luke Parry-Wilson entered the reception area to identify his next patient. He called out for Neville and Oscar Chatsworth. Rachel put up her hand on behalf of her pets. Luke walked them to treatment room three.

  ‘Where’s Trevor?’ she asked after her usual vet.

  ‘He’s retired to a farm in the Cotswolds.’

  Rachel thought it was in poor taste to say that Trevor Benterman had retired to a farm in the countryside. It was exactly what she had been told as a child when the family dog disappeared. Years later she’d learned the truth – that he had been run over by a brewery van.

  Dr Luke Parry-Wilson introduced himself and supplied some background information on his training and how much he was enjoying working at a new surgery. He had recently completed a PhD concentrating on the importance of play for dogs.

  ‘And who are these handsome felines?’ he asked, leaning towards the cages.

  ‘That’s Oscar,’ Rachel pointed with her non-mauled arm, ‘and this one is Neville.’

  ‘Adorable,’ he said, and flashed her a friendly smile. ‘Do you have cats, Dr Parry-Wilson?’ Rachel asked, and smiled back at him.

  ‘God, no!’ He chuckled. ‘And please call me Luke, or Dr Luke if you must. Alright, Neville, Oscar, let’s take a look at you.’

  Rachel held the cages still while Dr Luke extracted the cats, telling Rachel at length about his pair of adopted veteran military Alsatians. Apparently they had worked with the British Army and completed two tours in Afghanistan. Veteran dog-owner or not, Rachel took an immediate dislike to the new vet. She thought it plain rude to tell a woman that he was a dog man while he was handling her cats

  Dr Luke gave both animals a thorough examination, taking almost twice the time Trevor normally did. Rachel wondered if it would be double the cost. He mentioned that they were both at the top end of the weight scale and if they got any heavier they would be classified as obese. Rachel couldn’t believe Dr Luke was actually fat-shaming Neville and Oscar! They were big-boned, that was all. At the end of the appointment, however, he complimented them on their beautiful coats adding that they were clearly well looked after. The subtlety was not lost on Rachel and she was able to read between the lines that he was telling her (again) her cats were too well-fed.

  Rachel felt betrayed by Neville and Oscar as she watched them allow Dr Luke to house them in their respective travel boxes with ease and without disagreement from either cat. Her arm still throbbed from the attempt to confine Oscar.

  Rachel thanked him and there was a moment when she looked closely at her new vet. If she didn’t already dislike him, she might t
hink him attractive. He was tall and dark-haired; she guessed a few years older than her, maybe forty at a push. She wondered, if she looked at him long enough, would she be able to lose herself in the magical emerald hue of his eyes? She smiled and flushed at the eye contact, bumbling her way from the treatment room and out of the surgery. Rachel deposited the cats, still caged, on the back seat of the car and mouthed ‘sorry’ before shutting the door and marching towards the dry cleaners-cum-key cutters-cum-alterations booth at the train station.

  As David was in no rush to inform her of his intention to leave, and was going to torture her by keeping his mistress, Rachel decided to have a little fun too.

  The machinist, a small Greek man, welcomed her. He put down his newspaper, happy to have a late-morning visitor. She handed him a bag of trousers and shirts, explaining that for the trousers she wanted an inch taken in from the waist and an inch from each leg. And for the shirts, she wanted the chest taken in an inch. She stopped at a small pharmacy on the corner, not her usual one near the GP’s where Rachel knew the pharmacist by name. She produced the snaffled Viagra prescription and waited for the pills to be dispensed. The gaudy women’s magazines distracted her while she waited to pay. This was what she needed – vapid celebrity gossip. She wanted nothing more than to read a slew of articles about beautiful famous people whose marriages were also falling apart. It didn’t have to be true, it only needed to be entertaining tittle-tattle. Beacon of Hope for Jen with a picture of Brad Pitt holding Jennifer Aniston’s arm at a recent award ceremony. And the Z-list celebrities’ Circle of Life: one normal-sized woman puts on weight and loses weight, supplemented with obligatory pushed-out-stomach before pictures and glamorous Photoshopped-to-an-inch-of-their-lives after pictures. My Husband Married Both My Sisters & Then My Mother. Seriously, where did they find these people? The bottom cover story caught her attention: 10 Reasons Your Man Cheats. She folded the glossy magazine and added it to her shopping. On her way back home, her attention was drawn to a chocolate cheesecake – David’s favourite – in the window of a bakery. She was going to buy a slice but opted for the whole dessert.

  Before David returned home, Rachel went to the bedroom and removed one sock from each pair and threw them directly into the large wheelie bin outside. Then from the kitchen she collected a side plate and located the spice she needed: ground chilli. In the bathroom, she opened David’s expensive musky face wash. She emptied the cleansing paste onto the plate and added a dusting of chilli powder, mixing it until the powder dissolved. She unscrewed the lid and spooned the mixture back into the tube. She pumped a little paste onto her finger, to check it didn’t look or smell tampered with. And for the finale, she added one scoop of hair lightening bleach – reserved for her lady moustache – to his shampoo and one scoop to his conditioner. She stopped short of contaminating his shower gel with hair-removal cream, however tempting it was.

  Finally, she put the cheesecake in the fridge and started to prepare dinner.

  David was very regimented about what they ate. He was a creature of habit and had a weekly preferred menu he liked to live by:

  MondayPro-greens salad (no wine)

  TuesdayFish (with wine)

  WednesdayChicken (no wine)

  ThursdayVegetarian (no wine)

  FridayTakeaway (with up to three, preferably European, beers)

  SaturdayItalian (with wine)

  SundaySunday Roast – a rotation of lamb, chicken, beef, chicken (with wine)

  He liked to have at least three days a week without alcohol, mainly to prove he could. Cocktails didn’t count apparently! It was a Wednesday evening and Rachel had prepared an organic chicken breast. She thought of their fixed routine. When did they slip into their roles? Rachel did cooking and washing, David did bathrooms and gardening. She wasn’t at all surprised their marriage had stagnated. She allowed sadness to wash over her and then anger once more replaced her melancholy. She wished he had said something. She would have joined him in a quest to be more spontaneous and exciting. What if she wasn’t the boring one? Good luck to the second Mrs C., having to conform to David’s strict routine.

  His behaviour had muted Rachel. She no longer felt like the sexy young wife; she was the downtrodden, forgotten old wife, and realised she had started to dress accordingly. Her blouse showed no cleavage and her skirt hovered below the knee. She looked like Old Mother Hubbard; all she needed was a shawl and a cotton mob-cap. Rachel would normally have changed out of work clothes for dinner, but not tonight. What was the point?

  She had to up the ante. She vowed to keep the fridge stocked with at least one of David’s favourite desserts at all times, knowing he couldn’t help but indulge. It seemed he had no willpower for anything that was right in front of him. She swapped sugar for his sweetener. She switched his low-fat yoghurt for a full-fat version and started adding cream to his coffee. She told him it was organic skimmed milk prepared with an electric milk-frother and he hadn’t questioned it. David was oblivious to the fact she was on to him. The idiot deserved everything he got.

  David

  13

  David’s first love was Lieutenant Stephanie Holden, Bay-watch’s very own goody two shoes. He liked her short hair and small pert breasts and was distraught when his mother wouldn’t let him have a poster of her in a high-cut swimming costume for his bedroom wall. Instead, he kept a small photo of her in his wallet, cut from the Radio Times.

  In real life, he had four, what one could call proper, girlfriends before he met Rachel. Lisa was his first. They lost their virginity together and were inseparable during A-levels, and only broke up when they were accepted into different universities at opposite ends of the country.

  At university David met Fiona during Freshers’ Week and spent the rest of his undergraduate years with her, much to his best friend’s chagrin. Barry said it was sad to see a man go down so early, but at least it left the rest of the ladies free for him, Aaron and Jim. Dating in his twenties had been easy for David. When he moved to London there was no shortage of girls in bars, pubs and clubs. This was at a time before the Internet managed romantic engagements. David was shy and geeky, but that only seemed to endear him more to women. He didn’t set out to have one-night-stands, but it was easy pickings. Barry was wingman extraordinaire when they were out to ensnare the ladies, his rough and tumble presentation highlighting David’s tall physique, sharp sense of humour and blue eyes. His friends called him the accidental monogamist. He liked love, he liked being in love, but most of all he disliked the unknown. He was hopeless at the rules. Could he call? Should he call? How long to wait to call? Why couldn’t he say how he felt? Why did everything feel like a trick or a test?

  David was single for three weeks after his graduation before he met his next girlfriend. He met Emily at a party. She was spectacular. He was sure he didn’t stand a chance with the likes of her, so was able to talk to her like a normal human being rather than a tongue-tied lothario. Emily had trained as an actress. After years of stereotypical thespian struggle she was disheartened by the theatre world. The relationship ended amicably when she moved to New York for the chance to work on Broadway.

  And, finally, there was Karen. They were at secondary school together and she was his first kiss with tongues. Twelve years later they ran into each other on their respective annual Christmas visits to their hometown. Over drinks, they reminisced over old times, teachers they’d shared and the school bullies they hoped had received their just deserts. The relationship went sour after a few years when one Saturday morning Karen proclaimed she wanted children and according to her calculations they should start trying at her next ovulation, which was in six days’ time.

  David had ambitions to set up his own business. He’d saved enough money and had registered a company name. He wasn’t sure he wanted children. At twenty-nine years old he wasn’t ready for them, emotionally, mentally or financially. He was still discovering the man he wanted to be; still enjoying living the way he pleased. He’d booked
tickets to Glastonbury, for God’s sake. David simply hadn’t given a thought to settling down. He asked Karen for a little time to consider, but it was no use. And for months after that he tried gently to extricate himself from her, while all the while his penis felt under siege and he feared that at any moment there’d be the announcement of a happy accident resulting in a bundle of joy. In the end Karen left, and though David had been pretty devastated at the time, he understood that she was doing the right thing.

  David was a serial monogamist. Less than one month after finding the balls to tell Karen how he felt, he picked Jojo up from her halls of residence and spied her room-mate, Rachel. She was no longer his sister’s quiet little shadow; she’d turned into a beautiful swan. The ghost of Karen still haunted him. Why didn’t he want to settle down with her? Why had he run away from commitment? Anyway, Rachel was too good for him. She was young, she was happy, and she was gorgeous. He’d never wanted a woman like he wanted Rachel.

  Rachel

  14

  Rachel’s daydreams preoccupied her. Eva talked and Rachel nodded along but wasn’t really listening. She was preparing an alibi for when the police questioned her about crimes against marital harmony. These fantasies usually resulted in David being incarcerated for relationship fraud. She’d take on the role of prison wife, visiting him fortnightly at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.

  Eva interrupted her reverie. She was complaining that Terry the Fireman didn’t like black-and-white films or those with subtitles. Rather than agree that he was a complete philistine, as Eva wanted her to do, Rachel suggested she introduce him to Raging Bull and expand his horizons. What with Martin Scorsese’s fight scenes and Robert De Niro at his finest, Terry probably wouldn’t notice the movie’s lack of Technicolor.