by Polly James
What kind of halfwit doesn’t know the name of his hotel – when he’s been staying in it for the last twenty-four hours?
If anyone told me that their husband had told them that, I know exactly what I’d think was going on – but I don’t want to think the same thing about mine. Though a weekend in London is starting to sound very attractive, all of a sudden.
FRIDAY, 25 JUNE
Sometimes it feels as if Fridays occur much more often than other days. It certainly doesn’t feel as if a whole week has passed since The Boss was last in the office, sitting with his feet up on my desk and helping himself to my breakfast. I do wish he wouldn’t swear so loudly while I’m on the phone to constituents. They all know it’s him, because of his Birmingham accent.
He’s being particularly demanding today, which is really saying something. ‘Molly, get me Paul Whatsisname on the phone.’
‘Andrew, you have the phone in front of you,’ I say. ‘Have you lost the use of your hands?’
‘Find me his number then.’
So much for manners maketh man – but I rise above all provocation. ‘Andrew, I have never heard of Paul Whatsisname. Who is he?’
‘I don’t know. You’ll have to write to him instead. I’ve got totally incompetent staff.’
The Boss rolls his eyes and finishes my croissant. There are crumbs absolutely everywhere, but unfortunately he doesn’t choke on any of them.
I’m starting to worry about him a bit, actually. Not just because he’s becoming so rude that someone is bound to punch him fairly soon; but why he’s got this notion that someone from the Party is spying on him, God only knows. He can’t possibly have any secrets which would make it worth the effort – given that he makes his views known to anyone who stands still for more than a second. But there’s no reasoning with him this week, at all.
He insists that we hold our usual Friday briefing in the corridor today, and that only I attend. Then next week will be Greg’s turn. The Boss reasons that, this way, Greg and I will be less dangerous if we turn out to be moles, as we will only know half of what is going on. I suspect that the person who actually only knows half of what is going on is The Boss himself, but it’s probably wiser not to point this out.
It’s an effort not to, though, when Roger Fennis comes in for his surgery appointment. Apparently he is being paid far less than his much-younger colleague, whom he trained to do the job. You’d think that would sound familiar to The Boss – but of course it doesn’t. Instead, he’s shocked to the core.
‘That’s bloody outrageous, Roger. I’m not having that. You leave it with me and we’ll get it sorted.’ He pats Roger on the back, then says, ‘Disgusting. Oh, and make sure you join the union too.’
‘I will,’ says Roger. ‘And thanks very much. I knew you’d see my point of view.’
I don’t know how I don’t push Roger out of the door when I show him out. Though I do slam it behind him, just a little.
‘Molly,’ says Andrew. ‘Get onto that case, straight away. I can’t stand bloody bad employment practices.’
Honestly, I can’t believe it. The Boss is a Marxist where other people’s employers are concerned, but a veritable Thatcherite when it comes to staff of his own. I wonder if Roger will have any more luck with his union than I’ve had with mine? I haven’t heard a thing from Martin about my latest idea to work to rule.
I don’t hear anything from Max, either, until I get home from work, at around the same time as his plane lands at Heathrow. Then he suddenly seems to recall that he is married; and begins sending a flurry of texts which give a blow-by-blow account of the rest of his journey home. He chooses that moment to share the name of the German hotel, too – now that the damn thing is bloody irrelevant.
I had been intending to keep his meal warm, but after that I burn it to a crisp by ‘forgetting’ to turn the oven down; and then I go upstairs to take an exceedingly deep bath. This ensures that Max will be both hungry and unable to have a shower, as I have used up all the hot water. I can’t take the plant back that I bought him for our anniversary, though that’s what I feel like doing – so I tell Connie where his secret stash of Ferrero Rochers are kept, and authorise Josh to drink the only can of beer that’s left in the fridge, instead.
I even go to bed before Max finally arrives. I can’t get to sleep, though, so I watch him fall over the pair of shoes I deliberately left in our bedroom doorway – and the subsequent trouser dance – through one sneakily half-open eye. Then I do a very convincing stretch and turn manoeuvre so that my back is to him, just as he tries to snuggle up.
Half an hour later, he’s snoring like a steam train and I’m back downstairs making cocoa. I look everywhere for the Valium that Dad left behind when he came to stay after Stepmother Mark III left him, but I can’t find it anywhere, so it’s shaping up to be two sleepless nights in a row.
The phrase, ‘I don’t know the name of my hotel’ will not stop running through my head.
SATURDAY, 26 JUNE
I’m quite glad there isn’t a supermarket surgery again this week, as it allows me a lie-in and postpones the moment when I have to talk to Max.
When I do get up, he’s weirdly attentive, and jumps around making cups of tea and a cooked breakfast. He doesn’t even mention Germany. I really hate how he does that – makes me have to broach any subject that he knows is going to lead to an argument. It makes me look so confrontational.
I’m determined not to fall into that trap today, though, so I decide to get the parental phone calls over and done with instead. Mum and Ted aren’t in – probably on the first of their twice-daily visits to Waitrose. Dad is at home, but says he hasn’t got time to talk to me, because he’s about to leave on a trip: he’s going away for a few days to Cousin Mike’s.
I thought Cousin Mike was dead, but Dad assures me he’s alive and well, and living near Heathrow with his second wife.
‘I’m at the age when family becomes more important,’ he says, when I ask why he’s suddenly taking an interest in second cousins, once removed – if not departed. Then I ask for Mike’s phone number and he gives it to me, though he says he thinks they’ll be ‘out and about’ for most of the weekend.
The duty calls have taken a fraction of the time they usually take, and now the rest of the day is stretching unappealingly ahead – so I ring Dinah, just for a chat.
‘Dad’s gone to visit Cousin Mike,’ I say.
‘Thought he was dead,’ says Dinah. ‘We went to his funeral. Remember?’
‘That’s what I thought too, but Dad says that was Cousin Fred.’
‘Christ,’ says Dinah. ‘We have far too many bloody relatives, living or dead. Why’s Dad suddenly decided to visit him?’
‘He says family’s becoming more important to him,’ I say.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ says Dinah. ‘Give me Mike’s phone number and hurry up.’
Dinah is so bossy sometimes – but I don’t have to do as she says, do I? Not without question, anyway.
‘Why?’ I say, mainly because that’s the best I can do.
‘Well, Dad’s obviously up to something,’ she says. ‘God, you’re dim, given what you do for a living. No wonder the country’s in such a mess.’
I give her Mike’s number, but I don’t want to know what’s going to happen next. Why are women automatically suspicious of men? Is it because we’re genetically paranoid, or is it actually because of the stuff they get up to, if left unsupervised?
When I finally crack and ask him about his trip, Max makes his inability to recall the name of his hotel, for the whole of the twenty-four hours that he was staying in it, sound perfectly understandable. It was booked for him; the company guide had all the details; they were driven there from the airport by coach; and it was dark by the time that they arrived. Then he couldn’t read the name from the hotel signage or stationery because it was in a completely over-the-top Gothic script. Or so he says.
When I still look a little dubious, he gets cr
oss and falls back on that positively antique old chestnut: ‘If you don’t trust me after all these years, then what the hell is the bloody point?’
The ‘after all these years’ bit is the point, but I’m now so confused that I drop the subject. I almost wish there had been a surgery today. I know exactly what to do to help constituents with their problems.
SUNDAY, 27 JUNE
Max still isn’t talking to me after the ‘after all these years’ conversation, so I spend the day helping Connie with some job applications. She’s decided she’d be better off in a call centre job, as she wouldn’t be able to tell whether people had thin hair and poking-out ears over the phone.
I can’t believe the hourly rate that some of them pay – it’s almost as much as Max gets, since the two pay cuts he’s had to accept during the last year; and yet he is twice Connie’s age, if not more. I sometimes wonder if we wouldn’t be better off if we separated, especially as all my single parent friends manage a holiday at least once a year. I have no idea how they do it.
Talking of single parents, Dinah phones in the evening – to discuss the one she and I are lucky enough to share. ‘Dad was up to something, the bastard,’ she says.
‘Why?’ I say. ‘How d’you know?’
‘I phoned him on his mobile at lunchtime – pretended I’d just remembered it was Father’s Day – but he sounded a bit flustered, and didn’t try to guilt-trip me. At all.’
‘Unusual, I grant you, but what’s your point?’
I want to finish waxing my upper lip, and I’m a bit worried the strip won’t ever come off if Dinah doesn’t hurry up.
‘Well,’ she says, taking a deep breath as if in readiness for a very long explanation. ‘He said he was in the pub having lunch with Cousin Mike, so I said, “Put Mike on, then, so I can say hello.” Then Dad says, “I can’t, because Mike is in the loo”!’
‘Still clear as mud,’ I say. ‘Mike’s allowed to go to the toilet, like the rest of us.’
‘Shut up, Molly! You don’t know what you’re talking about. Just stop interrupting and listen for a minute!’
Honestly, unreasonableness runs in the family but, even so, no one ever manages to interrupt Dinah, so that is really, really unfair of her. Not that she’s bothered – she just carries on: ‘So I get off the phone to Dad, and then I phone the number you gave me for Cousin Mike’s house and—’
‘Oh, God,’ I say, as Dinah shrieks, ‘It’s Mike who answers!’
Sometimes Dinah is so tiring. Now she’s not speaking to me, because she wants me to phone Cousin Mike and ask to speak to Dad, and I just can’t be bothered. We’ll know eventually if we’re going to get a Stepmother Mark IV, seeing as the whole family always has to attend Dad’s weddings. The most recent one was when I last saw Cousin Mike, now I come to think of it.
Max seems to find the whole thing funny when he overhears me telling the kids about it, but Josh doesn’t, much to my surprise. He’s disgusted by his grandad’s carryings-on. Maybe I should ask him what he thinks about Max and the mystery of the hotel without a legible name?
Oh, but parents can’t do that sort of thing, though – can they? Their relationships are supposed to be rock-solid, as well as entirely platonic, so I’d either just worry Josh or make him squirm with revulsion. And anyway, I can’t do it at the moment. I’ve still got to get that wax off my face somehow or other.
MONDAY, 28 JUNE
Today sees the arrival of the first contender in The Boss’ long list of summer interns, who usually fall into one of three distinct categories: purely decorative additions to the scenery; sixth-form leavers with their sights set on PPEfn7 at Oxford and then government; and/or those representing favours to Andrew’s mates who want us to babysit their recalcitrant teenagers.
Today’s is one of the PPE batch: James. He’s expected to get five A*s at A-level, and appears to be quite without a sense of humour. This may be because he expected the constituency office to be a little more impressive than it is.
I think he was hoping for something less depressing than a view of the YMCA, not to mention his encounter with the bus driver from South Park, also known as Joan who works in the Labour Party office. She does take a bit of getting used to, but there was no need for James to demonstrate such an exaggerated startle response.
I always get saddled with inducting interns, though I’m not sure why. Greg’s far closer to them in age, if not degree of earnestness – but much better than me at getting out of things. So it’s down to me to obtain James’ signature on the usual confidentiality agreement, and then to explain the security measures.
Which wouldn’t take long, if I only mentioned those that The Boss has put in place but, of course, I don’t. I am far more responsible than that – and I have kids of my own, so I always feel obliged to look out for other people’s too.
First I explain that you never exit the security door before checking that there isn’t anyone lurking to either side of it; then I move on to Special Branch’s advice that we always look under our cars before getting into them, and check for people following us either to or from our homes. James starts looking a little concerned at this point.
I’ve just begun to detail the various personalised arrangements for handling the usual suspects when I’m interrupted by the phone. It’s Miss Chambers, so James is exposed to the risk to hearing issue rather more quickly than I’d intended. When I glance up at him, he’s already copying Greg, who has both hands pressed against his ears. I’m impressed. This kid learns fast.
Even so, I’m not sure what to do with him for the rest of the day, as we don’t have a spare computer and now he seems oddly reluctant to answer the phones. The Boss never thinks about this sort of thing when he accepts applications – but James looks to be an intelligent person, so it should be safe to entrust him with some filing. Not that he seems any more impressed by that than he does by the office. Or by Joan, for that matter.
He seems even less keen when he sees the number of live files that we have; and the sight of the archive cupboard makes him blanch. But he gets on with it without complaint, though he does seem to go to the loo an awful lot – which may be due to the weird healthy tea he brought with him in a Tupperware box.
On that basis, I can’t help feeling he’d be better off at the Council. The staff there all drink fruit tea which, along with the wearing of Ecco sandals and long swishy skirts, is an accurate predictor of woolly-headed liberalness and Council employment, at least in the case of women. Or so Greg says, anyway.
While James is filing, I check my email, only to find a message from Johnny. He’s back in Russia, but wants us to meet the next time he’s in the UK. Then he asks whether I have any more photos I can send him, preferably ones with my eyes open, to ‘keep him going’ until then. (Going where, he doesn’t say.)
My arse would take a much better photo than my face, but that’s hardly helpful, is it? Someone once told me that, after forty, you can either have a great face or a great arse, and I fall into the latter category – which does make sending anyone a flattering, but non-pornographic, photo rather challenging. Like a fool, I mention this in my reply.
Johnny’s response arrives with indecent haste – he would be ‘very happy to receive a photo taken from whatever I deem the most flattering angle, and of any body part I think he’d appreciate’. Now what the hell have I done?
At least someone doesn’t object to looking at me, though – unlike Max, who’s avoiding all eye contact this evening. One minute his explanations for his hotel name amnesia ring true, but then the next minute I think I must be insane to believe them. I’m just about to google ‘How to tell if your husband is being unfaithful’ when I’m distracted by yet another call from Dinah.
‘He’s f*cking incredible,’ she says, without preamble.
She can only mean Dad – so there’s probably no need to respond.
‘He was up to something, as usual! Visiting Cousin Mike, my arse.’
‘Up to what,
though?’ I say. It could be almost anything.
‘He was on a date,’ says Dinah. ‘With my friend Annie’s mother! He spent the entire weekend shagging her, the bloody hypocrite – she’s one of the ones he said was too old when I first gave him her number.’
‘So what happened?’ I say.
I may as well know the worst, I suppose. Max obviously wants to, seeing as Dinah’s yelling loudly enough for him to hear every word.
‘This morning, Dad told her he didn’t think it was meant to be, and just got into his car and left,’ says Dinah, taking the volume up a notch. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to face her, I’m so embarrassed. Apparently she thought he was the one.’
‘Good God,’ I say. ‘Poor woman’s obviously unwell. What does Dad say about it? I assume you’ve asked?’
‘He still says he was at Cousin Mike’s. Denies absolutely everything.’
‘That man wouldn’t know the truth if it jumped up and bit him on the arse,’ I say, staring hard at Max.
He remembers that he needs to clear out the loft – urgently – and disappears. It’s a startle response worthy of James.
TUESDAY, 29 JUNE
Honestly, I can’t bloody well believe it. What kind of f*ck-witted, supposedly-A*-pupil thinks that you only file by the first letter of someone’s name? It’s going to take months to find anything now.
Once I’ve stopped swearing under my breath, I ring The Boss and demand that he finds James something totally harmless to do – so he thinks up a ‘special’ project: something to do with finding out how many teenage pregnancies there have been in Lichford in the last ten years. James brightens up for a minute at the prospect. He probably thinks this will gain him access to my computer, but I send him to the library instead, much to Greg’s relief. At least they’ve got more than one male loo.
I tell James to be back in time for a meeting I’ve arranged with a local manager from the Mental Health Trust, on the basis that it will be educational. He reverts to looking distinctly unenthusiastic, and becomes more so once the meeting starts.
