How to Marry Your Husband

by Jacqueline Rohen

  ‘She’s a Francophile. Of course she is! And she owns a beret. Who does she think she is? Fleabag?! Only Phoebe Waller-Bridge can pull off a beret.’ Eva gestured for Rachel to apply some volume control and willed her to stop shouting. Lydia didn’t comprehend the gravity of the situation and was happy to have impressed Eva.

  ‘Twenty-two!’ Rachel repeated in a quieter tone. ‘She’ll be twenty-three in December. She’s a Capricorn.’ She made a yawn gesture, dismissing all Capricorns as second-rate citizens. ‘According to her Instagram, in her spare time she’s a yoga instructor. She teaches a hot yoga class a few times a week. IN HER SPARE TIME!’ Rachel continued without a pause. She noticed that photos of Amelia-Rose’s boyfriend were mysteriously absent with only the odd appendage in shot, a male arm or leg. There was one photo of a man, but Rachel couldn’t tell if it was David. He was in fancy dress, hidden behind a huge moustache and a wide-brimmed sombrero. Pain seared through her chest. What if her husband had been to a party with Amelia-Rose and her friends? What if he’d been socialising with twenty-two-year-olds? To make matters even worse, David normally hated fancy dress!

  Rachel whispered ‘twenty-two’ again, then added, ‘I’m going to bury him.’

  This got Lydia’s attention. ‘Bury who?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ Eva deflected her. ‘What’s next?’

  Lydia held the new bottle up to her eyeline: ‘VD Vanilla.’

  ‘Bring it on.’ Rachel held up her tasting glass, all the while flicking through Amelia-Rose’s various online profiles at manic speed.

  ‘How old are you?’ Lydia asked Eva, fuelled by Dutch courage.

  Eva softened her habitually harsh retort to any such query. ‘None of your beeswax, my lovely little Liver-pudlian lamb.’

  ‘Eva, you old lush, I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to Lydia! Lyds, I think Eva is a bit sloshed! Is there any cake?’ asked Rachel.

  Rachel craved cake. On her twice-weekly 5:2 fasting days, she fantasised about a life full of cake: living in cake town, working as chief cake taster in a cake factory. Right now, she needed cake. Any cake would do.

  Eva tried the biscuit tin and Lydia tried the bread bin, both coming back empty-handed. They were all out of carbs.

  Rachel found the company credit card and ordered a pizza. It was the only sensible solution: extra pepperoni, extra chilli and extra mozzarella. A worthy contender to cake.

  Eva and Lydia cheered at her decisive leadership.

  ‘What’s next?’ Rachel asked.

  Lydia tried her most sensible tone of voice. ‘Back to the beginning – VD Original thirty-nine percent.’

  ‘A second opinion?’ Eva asked.

  ‘Always a good idea to be thorough,’ Rachel confirmed.

  The hangover was a killer. Nobody beyond their teens should have to endure a Wednesday morning hangover. Rachel was tempted to phone in sick. She cajoled herself into the shower and had two coffees before she could even contemplate getting dressed. She found sunglasses, and said aloud, ‘Ahhh, that’s better.’

  She left her car in the driveway, worried she might still be over the alcohol limit, and walked to work in the beautiful spring weather. Eva and Lydia were both disgustingly chipper. Rachel pretended to work until lunchtime. She tried inhaling biscuits – chocolate, plain and garibaldi – but none of them had any effect on her mood, her blood sugar, or her ability to keep her head up straight. She gave up and pretended she would work from home. It took her a good thirty minutes to walk slowly to the local hospital. She regretted not stopping for a remedial cheeseburger and fries en route. Sometimes an unhealthy ratio of fat to carbs to sugar is the best medicine.

  Rachel knew she had put off the inevitable long enough: being tested for sexually transmitted diseases. The shame. Although there was no itch to scratch, Chlamydia and other sexually transmitted diseases were supposedly symptomless; it was impossible for her to tell whether she had been infected or not. She used to be proud of the fact that she had reached the age she had without once getting a bout of anything nasty down there. She couldn’t go to her own GP – it would be far too embarrassing.

  Rachel and David didn’t use condoms and hadn’t in fifteen years, but the knowledge of his extramarital activities weighed heavily on her. She had stopped taking the pill one month earlier, when they’d had the big talk about starting a family, and now bitterly wished she had not.

  The local hospital was a maze. She had called NHS Direct and was given details for a GUM clinic within Kingston Hospital. She then had to Google what GUM stood for: genitourinary medicine. Sexy. Rachel looked around cautiously as she neared the unit. She didn’t expect to encounter anyone she knew at the hospital, but what if this was the one where Kevin’s ex-girlfriend worked? How would Rachel explain her presence if they bumped into each other? She walked behind two teenagers, hand in hand, wondering if they could be heading in the same direction. First loves, looking for birth control? She tried to follow the blue arrows, through departments, up in a lift and past some blood-testing stations. Her hunch had been correct; she found the same young couple there in front of her in the sexual health services reception area. Apart from Romeo and Juliet, starry-eyed and holding hands, the waiting room was filled with men. Was that normal? Everyone was avoiding eye contact and silently judging one another.

  When it was her turn at the reception window, Rachel was greeted by a whispering receptionist holding a clipboard. The first question was to confirm her GP’s details – she was only there because she wanted to avoid her doctor and close-knit staff knowing. She was given a form to fill in and put down the name Eva Jenkins and then crossed it out and wrote her own fake-married name – Mrs Rachel Chatsworth. She conscientiously ticked boxes (no symptoms, no discharge, no pain, no assault), and handed back the clipboard. She hadn’t experienced symptoms other than an annoying itch every time she thought about the possibility of catching something. The roomful of patients reduced gradually one by one and eventually a nurse called Rachel into a consulting room. Gemma (as her name badge announced she was called) was professionally polite. She looked through the form and then asked some intrusive questions. Had Rachel:

  Engaged in sexual activity with any foreign national? No. Engaged in anal sex? No.

  Engaged in selling sex or engaged in intravenous drug use? Yes!

  Rachel instantly regretted making the joke about it; she’d only been trying to lighten the mood. Gemma didn’t even smile.

  ‘I mean, seriously, no. I haven’t been injecting drugs. Or selling sex. Look at me.’

  The nurse looked up. Rachel was a recognisable type, a mid-thirties professional woman … but Gemma must see all sorts in this treatment room.

  ‘Sorry, but it was such an absurd question,’ Rachel continued. ‘The reason I’m here is … m-m-y husband has been b-b-b-bonking a young … Someone else. It’s okay—’

  ‘No! It’s not okay,’ interjected Gemma, ‘my advice? You need to tell that jackass where to get off.’

  Rachel let out a stifled laugh. She had found an unlikely ally in Gemma. She interrupted the serious nurse. ‘I needed to … wanted to check … I’m here because I read some things online about diseases … infections with no symptoms and what not …’ Rachel whispered. ‘And that Chlamydia can affect fertility?’ She suddenly felt very self-conscious.

  Gemma explained that because of the lack of symptoms, Rachel could administer a self-swab kit. She showed her the enlarged cotton bud and gave instructions on how to take a sample and place it in the envelope, which already had Rachel’s details printed on it.

  ‘Anything else I can help you with today?’

  Rachel shook her head. She knew that Gemma couldn’t give her what she really needed, which was:

  – to get some proper rest without pharmaceutical aid;

  – to close her eyes without the never-ending cycle of worry repeating itself;

  – not to have to compare herself to a beautiful, younger woman.


  Left alone in the room, Rachel struggled to swab her uterus, accidentally stabbing herself a number of times as she poked the cotton bud along her vaginal wall. She assumed the pain meant she had hit the correct depth.

  She added the sample to the tube provided, put it in the envelope and posted it through the letterbox by reception. She was grateful to escape into the fresh air outside.

  Rachel walked along the riverside path through the deer park, enjoying the views and the proximity of the deer. There were dozens of the handsome animals though the stags were largely absent as the females tended to their new-born fawns. Rachel picked wildflowers and basked in the last of the afternoon sun.

  On the way back, she noticed the church on the corner. The rays of the sinking sun had created an apt and striking halo around the belfry. She hadn’t intended to go inside. Rachel had long ago abandoned organised religion. She had found enlightenment through yoga and liked to think of herself as spiritually aligned with Buddhism, although some of her recent behaviour was at odds with its teaching, and she knew she needed to take a long hard look at herself and her actions. She realised now she sometimes missed the rituals of religion. Norma didn’t hold back from showing her disappointment that Rachel stopped attending Mass and worried aloud that her only daughter would end up in Hell. Rachel was suddenly flooded with deep-rooted guilt.

  For her, lapsed Catholicism was a void that had never been filled. Her close friend at university, Emma, fell pregnant and chose to have an abortion. She confided the details in a man of the cloth whom she’d trusted to keep her secret, but before long found herself the subject of damaging rumours and gossip. Emma was subsequently ostracised by the Church. Appalled by what she saw, Rachel gave up the Church too. She didn’t want to be part of a religion whose God refused her friend support and understanding.

  Rachel pressed down on the solid metal latch and pushed open the church’s heavy wooden door. Her footsteps echoed through the empty building. She allowed herself a few minutes of reflection, sitting in a pew next to the aisle, and felt the stress of her afternoon gradually leave her. The resentment she had once felt towards the Catholic Church melted away. She sat there for half an hour, taking in the special atmosphere of the tranquil space. She dropped a pound coin in the collection tin and lit a candle. She closed her eyes and whispered her father’s name. She hoped he was at peace.

  Rachel noticed a shadowy figure emerge from the vestry. A priest. Could he sense her estrangement from her religion? Was he daring her to approach him? Without thinking, she stepped into the penitent’s side of the confessional box. It had been nearly two decades since her last Confession. She was in desperate need of spiritual redemption. Rachel confessed all. She didn’t hold back. She admitted not only her questionable actions, but the ugliness of the thoughts she was nursing towards the man she had loved and the young woman who had tempted him away.

  After taking a moment to reflect on Rachel’s Confession, the Irish priest advised twelve Hail Marys and urged her to seek out the kindness within her heart. She thanked him and said she wouldn’t leave it so long next time. It wasn’t a lie; she’d been genuinely comforted by her visit. It was a reaffirming experience. She left the box thinking about how to change her life for the better.

  When Rachel opened the front door, she was annoyed to find that David had gone out and left every light on. Then she saw him lying asleep on the sofa and her irritation dissolved. He looked so happy as he slept, a man at peace; she found a chenille throw and placed it gently over him. Then she tiptoed out of the lounge and went to the bedroom to catch up on her own forty winks. Working from home, ha! After a two-hour nap she thought it odd to find David still asleep. She called out his name. When he didn’t respond, she shouted his name. He didn’t wake. She prodded him with her stocking-clad foot. He didn’t move. She found a pocket mirror and placed it under his nose; it didn’t register any sign of breathing. She stepped back to look at his chest. She couldn’t detect any visible movement.

  ‘Oh my God, have I killed him?’ she whispered as she punched him hard in the arm. Surely messing with his caffeine and sleep patterns couldn’t have finished him off? ‘Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead. I love you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry I was mean to you. I should have let you go. I should have given you to the ginger goddess. She can have you.’ Even in the midst of her rising panic, she gleaned some pleasure from punching him a second time.

  Rachel straddled his stiff torso and attempted to administer CPR. It had been more than a few years since she’d last undertaken a first-aid course. She found the position of his sternum and laced her fingers together. Backed up by her body weight, she pushed down hard onto his chest. She had to get into a rhythm of one hundred compressions a minute – or was it ten? She struggled to remember. The aim was not to kill someone while trying to save their life. Think. This is important. One hundred compressions or ten? Come on. Rachel, keep it together. Think. Think. Think.

  David flinched. Rachel screamed and jumped up, elbowing him square in the scrotum. He pushed her, hard, and she was thrown from the sofa onto the floor. She let go of the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding.

  ‘You’re alive! You’re alive!,’ she exclaimed as she hugged him and planted small kisses all over his face. She wasn’t going to prison after all. She wasn’t going to be a widow. She was mightily relieved, but less impressed by his grumpiness.

  ‘Of course I’m alive.’ She pushed him for answers. He said he’d been exhausted but couldn’t sleep, so he took one of Rachel’s strong tranquillisers that she’d been prescribed for her fear of flying. It had left him disorientated. She lambasted him for making her think he was dead and questioned the number of pills he’d swallowed. In a huff David went upstairs to finish his sleep in the comfort of their bed.

  ‘They’re not bloody sweets!’ she shouted after him.

  David

  31

  David woke up suddenly to find Rachel pressing down on his chest. She counted with each compression: ‘One, two, three …’ Squashed under her weight and with his arms pinned under her thighs, he couldn’t breathe. Panic set in. He tried to access the oxygen needed to breathe and let out a loud strained cough, which scared Rachel. She punched him in the balls and he doubled over in pain, accidentally shoving her off him. Was this a horrible dream? No, his balls were truly pounding with pain.

  David was groggy and downright confused as Rachel demanded answers from him. As he stumbled upstairs, she called after him, ‘They’re not sweets, you know.’ He wasn’t listening properly as she continued shouting, something about going to Norma’s for dinner.

  David couldn’t get back to sleep. But he couldn’t get out of the hazy fog that immobilised him either. He tried a cold shower. Under the freezing water, he had an idea; he would ask Norma’s permission to (re)marry Rachel before proposing, especially as no such courtesy was paid the first time. That would get him into both Norma and Rachel’s good books. When he heard her shout goodbye through the bathroom door, David regretted remarking he’d rather stick pins in his eyes than ever go to his mother-in-law’s.

  ‘Wait! I’m coming!’

  Rachel told him not to bother.

  ‘I said I’m coming! Give me a few minutes.’ David quickly dried and dressed.

  They left the house together and had already double-locked the front door when David said he had to go back inside.

  Rachel looked at her watch. ‘We’re going to be late.’

  He ignored her, unlocked the front door and ran to the kitchen. He packed a chilled bottle of Champagne into a cool bag. Then he ran upstairs to the office and grabbed the hidden turquoise ring box and slipped it into his pocket.

  Norma was surprised to see David on the doorstep with Rachel. Her first thought was she hadn’t enough food for tea. She pointedly told her son-in-law she had only been expecting Rachel and Kevin. She had defrosted four pork chops and would struggle to make them stretch to five. She told him it wasn’t fair, and n
ow it meant she was unprepared, it was very selfish of him to show up unannounced. David reminded her that, with God’s help, everything was possible.

  ‘Look at Jesus – he knew how to feed a crowd.’

  Rachel slapped his arm and told him to behave, then placated her flustered mother. David asked Norma if he could put a bottle in the fridge. She flapped her hand towards the kitchen without so much as a glance at the bottle.

  The proposal was already not going to plan. David’s strategy relied on getting Norma firmly onside. He hovered in the kitchen and offered to help her, but she didn’t want his assistance and kept brushing him out of her way. He tried to make polite conversation about Bridge Club (an unpopular topic as Norma ranted that Annie had lost her game since meeting her new man, Sandra ‘forgets’ to pay her way, and Jeremy is hopeless). When Norma complained again about the rationing of pork chops (which of course was his fault), David offered to ease the problem by making an omelette for himself, an idea she dismissed outright. As a last resort, he mentioned the recent nice spell of hot weather (the sun had dried out her herb garden while she was in Bath for the weekend). When he asked about her weekend away, Norma told him to mind his own business.

  He had a speech prepared about how much he loved Rachel and his plans for the rest of their lives. How he was going to look after his wife. He wanted Norma to see he wasn’t the bad egg she’d always viewed him as. The thought of Amelia-Rose suddenly plagued him. He was a bad egg. He tried to dismiss memories of all the times he had upset Rachel over the years. He couldn’t erase her lip quiver from his mind. It was the few seconds’ notice that she was about to cry. Her bottom lip would droop of its own accord before she gave way to her misery.

  Roger appeared from upstairs. He shook Kevin’s hand with his Lancashire sausage fingers and held Rachel’s shoulders as they hugged. Finally he shook David’s hand.

  ‘Good to meet you.’ David thought the handshake was on the soft side but Norma and Roger made a presentable couple.