Six Months to Get a Life

by Ben Adams

  Tuesday 19th August

  ‘It’s a bit small,’ Amy said as we lay in bed naked.

  I think she was talking about the flat but I didn’t dare double check.

  I had succumbed and invited her round for dinner last night. Lucy was spending a couple of days with a friend in Brighton. I spent the day buying and then using a Hoover, a duster and a toilet brush. I was dusting the bedside table when the doorbell rang. I shoved the duster and polish under the bed and went to let Amy in.

  As well as cleaning the flat, I had prepared a pork and Stilton dish that my mum used to cook for the family when we were growing up. Amy seemed impressed by my culinary skills.

  It didn’t take long for us to end up in bed. I still can’t believe I am writing that. For Amy, lying in bed and looking at the ceiling was probably preferable to looking at the dirty walls and dark recesses of my sitting room. Whatever the reason for her haste to get me in to bed, I wasn’t complaining.

  After a lazy breakfast this morning and further taking advantage of there being no kids at home, Amy stayed in my flat writing an article for the magazine for bored housewives while I took the dogs for a walk (yes, I had two dogs in the flat last night despite not being allowed any pets).

  When I got back from the park, I got a bit of a shock. Amy was standing at the door dressed only in my England cricket shirt. It wasn’t that that shocked me though. It was the fact that she was talking to my ex.

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in Antigua?’ I asked as I climbed the last flight of stairs to the door.

  ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’ my ex replied, acidly.

  Introductions were duly made. My ex, meet Amy. Amy, meet my ex. Then my ex told me she had left me loads of messages on my mobile asking me to pick them up from the airport because they were coming home early. I hadn’t turned my mobile on in ages because I didn’t want my mates phoning me up and disturbing me at any vital moments.

  As Amy made a swift exit for the bedroom to get dressed, my ex started berating me for letting Sean break his foot, for ruining their holiday, ruining her relationship with Mark (Mr comb-over) who had apparently refused to travel back to England with them and for generally being crap. I decided that this probably wasn’t the best time to mention that I had reduced her maintenance payments while she had been away too.

  I said an awkward goodbye to Amy, leaving her in the flat to gather her things together, and went back to the detached house in Surrey with my ex and gave Sean and Jack a big hug. Sean told me he was glad he was home. Jack repeated his accusation that Mark is a dork. My ex, who was standing in the doorway presumably because she wanted to overhear what her son had to say about the holiday she had arranged, didn’t disagree.

  I should be careful what I wish for. I didn’t tell my ex but I am now feeling guilty that I didn’t want the boys to have a good time.

  Thursday 21st August

  The drama never seems to stop. I wasn’t present at today’s drama but I have certainly heard about it.

  Jack wanted to see Lucy after his aborted holiday. He arranged to go over and see her at her house. They were planning to go to Westfield shopping centre for some ‘retail therapy’. Personally I would need some proper therapy after spending the day at Westfield. Until now I thought Jack was the same but Lucy’s influence is changing him. Anyway, my ex offered to give him a lift to Lucy’s. I suspect my ex wanted to get a sense of who her son was seeing, and maybe meet her mother. It didn’t occur to Jack that this might cause issues.

  Needless to say, when my ex saw Amy she was bemused (that’s one word for it. Others might be ‘fuming’, ‘foaming at the mouth’, ‘spontaneously combusting’ or ‘going fucking bonkers’). Jack didn’t know the two women had seen each other a couple of days ago.

  The first I heard of this encounter was when my ex phoned me from her hands-free in the car. She ranted at me for a full fifteen minutes – the time it took her to drive from Wimbledon Village to her detached house in Surrey. As far as I could work out from her thousand-word-a-minute monologue, she made the following salient points:

  It is good to see that you and the boys have got yourselves a ready-made new family.

  Why didn’t you tell me you knew Jack’s girlfriend?

  What does Sean do when you and Jack are holding hands with your girlfriends, or is there another sister that Sean can have?

  I bet you all go there for sleepovers whenever you have the kids. What sort of example are you setting to your children?

  If you think I am accepting less maintenance from you when you are off shagging some rich bitch then you’ve got another thing coming. (Says she whose bloke owns a villa in Antigua. If, that is, he’s still her bloke.)

  I would be the first to admit that some of these points are fair enough. Why didn’t I tell her? Because I knew what her reaction would be. But I know I should have told her. I hadn’t even thought of some of the things she raised though. What do we do when it comes to sleepovers? I guess it will be difficult as I don’t want Jack to think that because I am sleeping with Amy, he can sleep with Lucy. I am not even sure he would want to yet, but that isn’t the point. And what would Sean do? I don’t think I had quite realised the full implications of mine and Jack’s relationships. To be fair to my ex, I know that if Jack had been seeing Mr comb-over’s daughter, I would have ranted too.

  Immediately after my ex finished damaging my eardrums, Amy called. She alternated from anger at the way my ex spoke to her to concern that Lucy and Jack had overheard. They shouldn’t have to concern themselves with grown-up stuff, and Jack in particular tends to feel responsibility for his mother’s welfare. In my book it is really important that our children don’t feel responsibility for their parents. They have enough to worry about being kids. Amy was naturally a bit perturbed by this morning’s events.

  The third phone call I received in the space of an hour was from Jack. He was speaking quietly so I could tell he was trying to hide his call from Lucy and Amy. ‘Dad,’ he said, ‘Mum has only given me twenty quid. I think Lucy has got fifty. Can you meet us at Wimbledon station and lend me some more money?’ He was obviously deeply affected by the encounter then.

  Friday 22nd August

  This afternoon’s big event was my latest job interview, for that council job. I got radical yesterday and bought a new suit and tie. Despite Katie’s advice to push the boat out on snappy work clothing I stuck with M&S, but did go for the next price bracket up from the bargain bin.

  So I turned up at the ugly 1960s office block that dwarfs the surrounding Morden terraced houses feeling quite dapper and inwardly confident. How hard could a council job be? All the papers say that public sector workers are over-paid and under-worked. Well, I could cope with that. As an added bonus I know a thing or two about performance management. And following a couple of days of research mainly spent reading lefty publications like the Guardian, I now know a thing or two about what councils do too. I have quite a few applications in for jobs at the moment but this one is the one I have really pinned my hopes on. It is a job I can do, and it is only based a five minute walk away from my flat. And the pay is on a par with what I was getting in my previous job. If I got this job, my rent payments would be manageable and I would have enough left over after paying the ex her slice to buy the kids the occasional treat.

  The interviews were running late so I had to wait in a reception area for half an hour. They gave me a better quality cup of tea than I ever drank at my previous job. Who says the public sector isn’t as good as the private sector?

  I was interviewed by the assistant director of something, the group manager of something else and the head of human resources, the only man on the panel. First impressions were good – I was dressed smarter than them. The bloke from HR didn’t even have a tie on.

  I think I gave a pretty good account of myself in the interview. I had worked out that it would take about twenty houses’ council tax for a year to pay my salary. Basically, at the end o
f each year, if I couldn’t demonstrate that I had helped bring about changes that improved things or saved more than my salary, then it wasn’t worth them employing me. I wasn’t sure whether I had overdone it when I outlined this theory because I could see the cogs going round in the assistant director’s head. She was trying to work out how many streets’ council tax would pay for her salary.

  They were particularly impressed with my voluntary work with the tigers and with Richard Branson being the person I put down to give me a reference.

  I am feeling quietly confident about this one. I am not on cloud nine yet though, partly because I may be wrong about my chances but also because when I phoned Amy to tell her about the interview, she was a bit distant, a bit non-committal with me. She has been a bit less warm with me since the encounters she had with my ex, first on my doorstep and then on hers. I haven’t actually met up with her since then but we have spoken on the phone a few times.

  Amy doesn’t need the hassle of more family rows and I worry that she is weighing up whether our relationship is worth the trouble. I have been doing some more thinking too. I don’t like to give ground to my ex but I have been trying to work out in my head how my relationship with Amy can work in a way that doesn’t adversely affect the kids.

  If I do spend more time with Amy, and I still very much hope I will, then I reckon I should see her more on the days that I haven’t got my children with me. But even then, Lucy spends most of her time with her mum so she will be around. What will Jack think if I am at Amy’s? He will probably want to be there too. With school starting soon, it wouldn’t be right for Jack to spend his weekday evenings at his girlfriend’s.

  Whole family sleepovers just seem totally impractical. Although Sean doesn’t seem to give a monkey’s about my relationship with Amy or Jack’s liaison with Lucy, he would probably come to resent being at Amy’s with me when Jack is spending all his waking hours with Lucy. And then there is the teenage experimentation with sex issue.

  And what about when Jack and Lucy split up? Presumably Jack wouldn’t want to see Lucy again. He wouldn’t want to go to Amy’s with me then.

  At the moment, all I have are a lot of unresolved issues.

  Sunday 24th August

  A few of the lads met up for beers in the Raynes Park Tavern last night. There wasn’t an occasion to celebrate as such, but it was a Saturday night and the sun was out so it felt like a good idea to have a drink. Us unmarried folk can do that impromptu stuff you know, at least when the kids are with our ex-other halves.

  I had invited Amy along too but I wasn’t optimistic that she would come in view of recent events.

  I got to the pub slightly later than planned because, not having much to do all day, I fell asleep in front of the telly (god, I am turning into my parents) and didn’t wake up until the pints had started flowing. So when I walked in to the pub I was slightly surprised to see Ray (the ‘hot’ one) in earnest conversation with my Amy. Notice I am getting possessive all of a sudden. The others were propping up the bar. I sidled up to Ray and asked if he had brought his new woman with him.

  ‘Evening Graham. Meet Amy, my brother’s wife,’ Ray replied. Shit, that was who Amy’s ex had reminded me of. Ray.

  ‘Ex-wife,’ corrected Amy hurriedly as she gave me a kiss.

  Ex-wife is bad enough. More tangled webs. There are quite a few fish in the sea. Even allowing for the fact that some are too young, some too old, some gay et cetera, I have to pick my mate’s brother’s ex to fall for. Still, I suppose at least she isn’t my mate’s ex.

  Amy pulled a face that said something like ‘well, if my daughter is snogging his son, and if I have to deal with his ex shouting at me, then how much more hassle can it be to have him knowing my ex’s brother?’ Or it might just have been saying ‘for fuck’s sake’. I didn’t really get the chance to talk properly to Amy all night. We still have to work through the various complications of our relationship. The fact that she bothered to turn up at all tonight was a good sign though.

  Ray also looked a bit awkward when he realised I was with his brother’s ex. My other drinking mates just thought it was highly amusing. When we told them about Jack and Lucy, we spent a good couple of rounds (time is measured in rounds rather than minutes when you are drinking) working out what family relationship there would be between Ray (Lucy’s uncle) and me (Jack’s dad) if Lucy and Jack tied the knot.

  As the evening progressed, I eventually gave into temptation and cornered Ray.

  ‘Why did they split up then?’ I asked.

  ‘I think it had something to do with a Spanish au pair,’ replied Ray. ‘Or maybe it was because my brother got jealous every time he saw Amy talking to another bloke and ended up putting the guy in hospital.’

  I think he was joking about the jealousy thing but I am not sure.

  Bryan turned up later in the evening so the conversation quickly moved from my relationships to what Tracey was like in bed (still noisy but now also a bit too dominant for Bryan’s liking). There was one slightly awkward moment when Bryan called Amy Julia but I think I got away with it as Amy just thought he was pissed.

  Wednesday 27th August

  I got the job! The assistant director of something or other phoned me up today and offered it to me. She was impressed with my application and slightly worryingly, she told me my answers to the interview questions show that I can think outside the box.

  The next step before they formally offer me the job is that they take references. The woman from Merton asked me how I came to know Richard Branson. ‘Oh, I met him whilst saving the tigers,’ I told her. I am beginning to wonder whether putting Branson as my referee was such a good idea now.

  There is just under a month until my birthday and dare I say it, things are going OK. I am becoming a bit more self-confident, I have a fairly decent social life, I am in a relationship albeit a complicated one, I have a flat and a new job subject to references. My relationship with the kids is good despite Sean’s broken heel.

  Today I even started giving some thought to my birthday party. I am mulling over two options. I could splash out and hire a local club for a disco. I am not sure I am ready to subject Amy to my dancing skills though, so at the moment I am favouring just hiring the function room at the Morden Brook and putting on a buffet. Hopefully the karaoke Elvis will be on in the main bar for some added entertainment.

  Thursday 28th August

  My sister Hills just phoned to tell me that she and Donna are having a baby. Them both being women, I didn’t know what to say. I dismissed ‘How is that physically possible’ as too intrusive; ‘Aren’t you a bit old for that?’ as a bit rude and ‘Haven’t you had enough already?’ as even more rude. In the end I opted for, ‘How nice. When’s it due?’ February apparently.

  It has only just occurred to me that I don’t know which of them is actually having the baby. Still, I shouldn’t concern myself with the details.

  Saturday 30th August

  Sean hasn’t visited my flat since the accident as it would have taken forever for him to have managed the three flights of stairs. But today both boys came round as Sean is getting more nimble on his crutches. His plaster comes off soon – ironically about two days after the last cricket match of the season.

  The boys hadn’t been here for five minutes when I walked in to the front room to find them reading a scrunched up piece of paper.

  ‘Is that Lucy’s mum, dad?’ Jack asked, holding out the paper. I took it from him. It was the article Amy was writing when she stayed here a couple of weeks ago. She must have printed it off but forgotten to take it with her in her haste to leave when my ex turned up.

  Sex after marriage

  Once upon a time I remember loving sex, but then I got married and had a baby. Overnight my husband and I went from sex toys to cuddly toys and from ‘raw sex’ to ‘making love’. We progressed fairly rapidly from ‘making love’ to ‘not tonight dear I’ve got a headache’. In short, I became a bored housewife. Sex be
came a birthday treat. We didn’t even do it at Christmas because by bedtime alcohol had taken its toll.

  But at least I had a husband who didn’t abuse me; who was a good dad to our daughter when he eventually got home from work; and who provided for us financially. I was in my comfort zone even if my erogenous zone wasn’t seeing much action.

  As my regular readers will know, I used to dream about good sex. Let’s be honest, I used to dream about any sex. Would I ever rediscover a love of sex again? I used to wonder whether there could be such thing as sex after marriage. I worried about this in the same way that other people ponder the existence of life after death.

  One morning when my golf coach cancelled on me, my husband showed me in glorious technicolour that there is such a thing as sex after marriage. I came home to find him and the au pair in flagrante, in the act, in the buff, on my Italian leather sofa. He was enjoying sex after marriage (our marriage officially stopped when I walked in on them) ergo sex after marriage must exist.

  That was a year ago. The au pair has long since gone back to Spain leaving my ex on his own (shame) and I have started rebuilding my life.

  Without actually drawing up a project plan and going about it with military precision, I have spent some of the last year rediscovering my love for sex. And as it happens, I have achieved my goal. In my last article for this magazine (I am no longer a bored housewife), I want to share the three steps I took with you as you may find them useful in your situation.