The Meltdown of a Banker's Wife

by Gill Davy-Bowker

  Flying home, she was glad that she had been too drunk to think about what had been going on around her, although she had the unshakeable sinking feeling that the party had not been very wholesome. Alan was asleep, his mouth hanging open with drool dripping out and his nose constantly running, but he appeared no different to the other party animals on the plane. Ah well, they were with friends, weren’t they?

  Poppy and Tarkers seemed particularly pleased with themselves and they were sickeningly snogging away in front of Mel at every opportunity.

  Mel felt very sad. Everyone else seemed ecstatic with the proceedings, but she couldn’t wait to get home, have a very long shower, pick up her babies and do innocent things again. She longed to snuggle her children and read them a story. Preferably a fairy story with no witches or trolls or ogres, because that would have been too representative of the company she had kept all weekend. The most interesting conversation she had had with anyone was about this one guest’s tourist trip to orbit the moon, but even this was related in such a bored fashion that it felt almost mundane and tedious. What was painfully obvious to Mel was that these people had everything anyone could possibly wish for but it was so easily available that they were unsatisfied and bored. She supposed this was why they turned to other thrills. They didn’t have to strive for anything.

  Luckily, a limousine took them back to Poppy’s place to pick up the children, as neither Mel nor Alan, Poppy nor Tarkers, were in any fit state to drive, despite avoiding the intake of any mood-altering substances for six hours. Alan, Poppy and Tarkers were apparently bosom friends by now, making vague plans about future outings and sophisticated soirées, but Mel walked on ahead to see her children.

  They were all playing happily in the garden, she was relieved to witness. At least their weekend seemed to have been pleasant and innocent. The limousine waited while she readied the children and then they were thankfully delivered to their own door. Mel would have been quite content never to mix with such people ever again and marvelled at how her hippy, socialist husband had managed to metamorphosise into this oaf. When she had first met him in Covent Garden, Alan had been a City trader, but he was tongue-in-cheek. He could see the wood for the trees. He would take the piss out of the mad environment in which he worked. That was one of the things that made him so attractive. Now though, since the arrival of the ‘American Dream’, Alan was talking bigger and louder but the vessel emitting the noise appeared empty. Mel shook her head in order to knock that thought out of her mind. After all, the whole reason she had gone with him was to try to save their relationship. She owed it to her children. She owed it to herself. Alan was probably acting out of character just to get on, she decided … he’d return to normal as soon as Brent flew back across the ‘Pond’.

  ‘How were the animals? Did they behave?’ Kelly had been babysitting Ozzie and Iggy while they’d been away.

  ‘Ozzie brought something unspeakable into your house the other day. He’d only left the feet and one kidney and I’ll swear that the mauled beast’s feet were at least adult size five with huge claws. Does he always bring in things like that? He doesn’t seem big enough to hunt down big game, let alone dissect and eat most of it! He isn’t even covered in blood!’

  ‘Yep … he does it all the time! Don’t let the cute little pink nose and innocent eyes fool you. I think he tries to make up for his small size and silly meow with his prowess as a maniacal killer. How was Iggy?’

  ‘Oh, Iggy was lovely. Very licky. He’s been for loads of walkies, haven’t you sweetie? The kids have loved having him. Maybe we should have a doggy?’ Kelly looked for affirmation from Matilda and Ivan.

  ‘Yes! Mummy! Yes, let’s get a doggy!’ they both yelled. Mel thought back to the yacht in Monaco. She was very glad she had a proper soppy, licky dog that got so excited he peed himself rather than that poor pink-dyed toy poodle with a bow on it’s head. That poor little thing wasn’t allowed to walk anywhere but was carried in a special deisgner carry case and held over the side of the yacht to wee. This excuse for a mini wolf didn’t even smell of dog. It was bathed at least twice a day in fragrant potions and even had its own dog psychiatrist. The poodle didn’t have its own animal psychiatrist, no, this supposed doctor specialised in dog psychiatry … poodle psychiatry in particular! There had been other animals on the yacht; iguanas, pandas, cougars, and each one appeared to have a flotilla of specialist overpaid attendants attached to it!

  ‘What was it like on your trip to Monaco then, Mel? Did you have a good time?’ asked Kelly.

  ‘Depends what you mean by a “good time” really! It’s all relative, isn’t it?’ Mel attempted to avoid giving a straight answer. It seemed rather petulant of her, rather ungrateful, to admit that the entire über-luxury weekend had been a very disturbing experience. ‘Well!? Did you have a laugh or not? It’s quite simple! How were Poppy and Tarkers?’ demanded Kelly.

  ‘I can look back and see the funny side now … sort of.’ Mel shivered but tried to smile. ‘I mean … I was pretty drunk for most of the time, I think. I’ll probably remember some fun bits later when I’ve had a bit of sleep.’

  ‘Did it help with you and Alan though? Did it bring you closer as you planned?’

  ‘Sadly no.’ Mel couldn’t keep the pretence up any longer. She felt like crying as she unburdened herself. ‘It was a total disaster. He spent his entire time snorting illicit drugs literally comparing the size of his willy with those of all the other male and sometimes possibly female morons on the boat. These people are seriously defective, Kelly.’ Mel was sobbing now. ‘We need to get away! Somewhere very different. Very basic, maybe?’

  ‘Have you thought any more about booking our group holiday?’

  Mel had forgotten about that. What a good idea. It might help heal her marriage more than counselling. It might help Rob as well. ‘We have to get this thing arranged – tomorrow!’

  ‘Yeah!’ agreed Kelly.

  40

  ‘So when are you coming up to stay with us, Melly love?’ asked her mum on the phone later. ‘Your father will be back from his birdwatching trip to Algeria on Saturday and Briony and Zeus are staying in their teepee in the back garden next week. Briony’s due in a month’s time, so it would be divine if we could all meet up next week. What do you think?’

  ‘Actually, that sounds like a bloody good idea!’ agreed Mel. There was only one more week of the school term and she desperately needed to get away and think.

  ‘OK. We’ll be with you next week!’ she enthused.

  ‘Great, darling. I’ll tell the neighbours! We can have a party!’

  Kelly, Imogen and Mel met up after dropping the kids off at school next morning and set off to the travel agents to get some ideas. Money was no object as far as Mel was concerned at the moment. It was the only positive outcome from Alan’s new devotion to the god of Ponsonby and Tosser Bank. She had tried to discuss the proposed holiday with Alan the night before, but hadn’t got much sense out of him. Alan could hardly sit still and didn’t seem bothered one way or the other about going away, so Mel thought she may as well go ahead and give Alan a fait accompli.

  After a coffee, the girls walked into the travel shop and sat down to try and get more of a coherent idea as to where they should go and what they really wanted.

  ‘What are we trying to achieve out of this holiday, Mel?’ asked Imogen.

  ‘Well, shall we list our desires and see which destination fits?’ suggested Mel.

  They took some paper and pens from the agent and started to list their ideas, ambitions, wishes.

  ‘Sun, sea, sand … is that it?’ laughed Kelly. ‘I thought we were seeking something deeper than that!’

  ‘Well, I also have a huge ambition to drink a lot of alcohol.’

  ‘That goes without saying, Immy, of course. But we could stay here for that. We need to go somewhere more exotic than Skegness or Southend-on-Sea. Why did we first decide on this expedition?’ asked Kelly. ‘The plan appealed to me because R
ob has been throwing empty beer cans at television commercials and singing scary and disturbing parodies of advertising jingles. I’m also finding it more difficult to make sense of my life and need more of a challenge than cleaning, cooking and opening a bottle of wine at four o’clock every day.’

  ‘Yes! I first thought of this when Alan reached his crossroads at Ponsonby and Tosser. It was just about the time when he decided to actively switch his brain and morals off. This planned adventure started with the arrival of Big Swinging Dick.’

  ‘So what have these triggers got in common?’ asked Imogen.

  ‘I felt that we needed to do something and go somewhere more real. Somewhere with no computers and gadgets!’ started Mel.

  ‘Yes! Somewhere with nothing to buy and nothing to sell. Where all that matters is cooperation and survival,’ continued Kelly.

  ‘Somewhere we could all be ourselves and maybe then find what makes us happy,’ concluded Imogen.

  So they wrote Basic; Real; Cooperation; Happiness; Being; No Gadgets on their piece of paper and looked at it for a moment before going to look at brochures.

  ‘Can I help you at all, ladies?’ asked a travel agent.

  They could see nothing to fit the bill in the glossy brochures on the shelves. Stunning photos and five-star-rated hotels did not fit in with ‘basic’ or ‘real’.

  ‘Maybe you can,’ said Mel.

  41

  ‘Darling!’ smarmed Poppy at the school gates later. ‘How are you? Absolutely wonderful weekend, wasn’t it? What fabulous people! I haven’t felt so comfortable and in my element for years!’

  That figures, thought Mel, but said nothing.

  ‘You really must let Tarkers and me do something for you soon you know. I feel terrible that you have helped us so much and yet we’ve done so little!’ continued Poppy.

  ‘Yes, but it’s only business, Poppy. This is all in Alan and his bank’s interest as well, so you mustn’t feel indebted. Your business has helped to ignite Alan’s interest in banking again. He had been getting a bit disillusioned if truth be known,’ confided Mel.

  ‘Really? Gosh! How could anyone bore of such a fascinating subject? The people he mixes with every day … Oh! How I envy him! He must leap out of bed to greet each morning!’ enthused Poppy.

  ‘Mmm,’ grunted Mel.

  Rupert passed and said hello. As usual he was fiddling with his tightly-fastened shirt buttons. Mel watched him go and found herself wondering if he suffered from some sort of obsessive compulsive disorder. No matter what the weather, his shirt was always pristine. The collar buttons were done up stiffly and he wore cufflinks. There were some strange people around.

  ‘We’ve booked the holiday, Alan!’ Mel announced when he entered the house later. She had already told the children, but had only given them the vaguest information, because otherwise they would not have slept between now and the holiday in three weeks’ time. ‘We’re going to Madagascar!’

  ‘Madagascar?! Are you serious!’ blurted Alan. Well, that was a turn-up … Alan had actually heard her and responded in a reasonably appropriate manner. Result!

  They sat in companionable silence for the rest of the evening … dog and cat at their feet, Alan fiddling with gadgets until he started to snore on the sofa and Mel reading glossy magazines full of stories of vacuous people’s lives. There was no doubt that they needed a reality check as much as they needed some time to bond properly as a family. These magazines were so pointless and boring. Why did she buy them? Closeup pictures of bits of celebrity body ensured that no body hair or dimple of cellulite could be missed by the reader. Deeply psychologically-disturbed celebrities on drugs and alcohol destroyed their lives on the stage of these magazines. Mel shuddered. That meant that these celebrities must actually be paid for making a disaster of their lives. Otherwise, how would some of them live at all? Some of these seemed only to be famous for being complete social failures. Mel couldn’t remember why else they were über-celebrities. It was actually sick! She resolved not to buy any more of these magazines. Not only was it rather ghoulish to show interest in people’s misery, but it made Mel herself feel even less happy with her body, her skin, her life, her possessions. Oh yes, she knew the pictures were airbrushed, but really, how did that help? She kissed Alan on the forehead. ‘Coming to bed, sweetie?’

  42

  ‘Next week I am taking Amy and Michael out of school for a few days, Mrs Avery,’ Mel informed the headmistress.

  ‘But the children have important exams and topic books to finish. This isn’t a good time in their schooling careers to remove them from the learning environment, Mrs Simkins!’ Mrs Avery reprimanded.

  Mel’s usual instinctive response was to feel like a little girl again when she spoke to a teacher. Especially one like Mrs Avery, who wore horn-rimmed spectacles and was representative of the generic scary teacher of her past nightmares.

  But not today. Mel was a grown-up. She was married to a ‘Lord of the Universe’ banker with pendulous genitalia (he reckoned).

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Avery, but it is essential that we take the children out of school next week. We have an important family matter to attend to.’ How important could exams be to children of four and seven years old anyway? Michael wasn’t even in school full-time until September.

  ‘Only death or serious illness of a close relative are reason enough for the children to be taken out on leave at this juncture,’ informed Mrs Avery.

  ‘Well … yes … Gertie has died,’ mumbled Mel.

  ‘Oh … in that case, please go ahead. You have my deepest sympathies, Mrs Simkins.’ Mrs Avery reined in her scrawny neck and looked a little ashamed.

  ‘Yes … she shall be sadly missed,’ finished Mel.

  Gertie the guinea pig had been stuffed and mounted by a taxidermist years ago when Mel was a child. The loss of Gertie had been Mel’s only brush with mortality in her own family. She came home one day when she was six and ran out to greet her pet in the hutch, to find the trusty guinea pig lying flat on her back, eyes staring upward and four feet stuck ramrod straight in the air. Well, Gertie had been real. She was only bending the truth a little bit and the trip to her parents’ seemed suddenly to be a matter of life and death. Or at least sanity and insanity.

  Ozzie and Iggy came to Mel’s parents’ house for the week as well. All the way, the car sounded like a menagerie. The cat wailed and meowed in his box and the meowing rose to a crescendo as he was forced to defecate on the cat box’s papered floor. Mel drove around a corner and Ozzie did an impression of a fish trying to swim upstream in his attempt to clamber away from the mess. It was easier with Iggy. They could put him on a lead at the service station and he’d do his business just at the right time. Quite unusual for him really, because he normally dragged Mel along as if he were an ox and it all happened at just the wrong moment, but he was on his best behaviour, much to everyone’s relief. The rest of the time he spent with his nose pressed against the back window and his tongue lolling out dripping everywhere. Mel always put him in the back with a dog guard up because Iggy really wouldn’t have enough sense not to jump through the moving car window after some other dog, cat, small beetle or microscopic morsel of chip. She was always amazed and slightly perturbed when she saw other people driving along with liberated animals bouncing around the car, totally unharnessed or when she saw dogs with their forepaws and head sticking out of the window. There were all these laws to ensure that people were securely fastened in their seats, but the lawmakers seemed oblivious to the fact that a dog or cat is just as much a mortal and as affected by the laws of physics as your average human being.

  She spoiled the kids with fast food and sweets at the service stations and bought them little soft toys. Needless to say, they were very excitable and energetic as they arrived at her parents’ house. The hippy camper van, painted with large brightly-coloured flowers being eaten by rather sinister black blobby things with teeth, was already parked outside on the gravel driveway. Her parents c
ame out to help with the bags, the children and the animals while Briony and Zeus lurked darkly by the door. She always felt as if she had done something terribly wrong whenever she met up with her sister. The couple hated the ‘bourgeoisie’, as they described people like Mel. They went on every protest march against global capitalism and she was sure that she’d seen Briony, heavily pregnant, on television recently having some sort of altercation with the police in the middle of the City of London.

  ‘The neighbours are coming for the barbecue tomorrow evening. Mrs Elford is making her special raspberry and apricot pavlova because you’ve always loved that and Miss Timpkins has made some fairy cakes and a chocolate tart.’

  ‘Ooh, lovely!’ said Mel. It was just so nice to be with people who spoke to her for a change. Briony and Zeus were rather broody and dark, but maybe that was normal for these gothic hippy types. The children ran around to the back garden into the teepee and the animals were relieved to be free, although she would have to harness Ozzie to take him out to the loo. She had brought the cat litter, but she really couldn’t envisage Ozzie of the Bengal Forest staying indoors the entire time without causing substantial damage. He already had a mad look in his eye and he’d only been incarcerated in his cat box for two and a half hours. He had spent a quarter of an hour doing a splattered star cat impression on the living room curtains as soon as they’d entered the house. Iggy went straight out into the garden and marked ‘his’ territory. Obviously there was some dispute over that, from the resident ‘wolf’ and ‘tiger’ (Doily the border collie and Ermintrude the cat). Ozzie hadn’t noticed them at first, then Doily made his entrance and Ozzie had transformed into the guise of Spikey Toilet Brush Cat and made a low growly noise for a while. No, Mel was definitely going to have to take her animals out for a relaxing constitutional before they settled for the night.

  ‘Hi Briony! Zeus! Lovely to see you!’ called Mel, determined to break the dark and ominous atmosphere surrounding the couple.