by Polly James
Max laughs, while I fall into a guilt-ridden slough of despond, which isn’t helped by the fact that I won’t get a reply from Johnny until Monday at the earliest.
God knows how many copies of my photo his PA will have disseminated around the typing pool by then. I will be his staff’s equivalent of Mr Beales – my buttocks might even adorn their dartboard, as Andrew’s face does ours.
This thought is so horrendous that even Max notices that I’m looking a bit stressed-out, and suggests we go and have a coffee somewhere – so we plod down to Caffè Nero, where I ingest so much caffeine that I give myself a bout of palpitations.
Max wants to know if I think The Boss will give me a pay-rise now that I can prove that I’m so badly paid in comparison to the employees of most other MPs. I say I rate my chances of that at zero, to which Max says he has now developed palpitations as well. The way our working lives are going, we’ll have to rely on Connie to keep us soon – and she’s only back at home for the summer!
Anyway, if Max’s job’s in such jeopardy, we can’t afford to buy anything other than a coffee, so we decide we may as well go home again – and I feel even more guilty about the twenty quid I spent on underwear than I already did. It’s not as if you can take that back for a refund, unlike your wife.
So now I’ve got stress hiccups, and Max and I are heading home, less than an hour after we left the house. We walk along in silence most of the way – me holding my breath and trying not to think what he’d say about the underwear if he found out about it, while he could be thinking about Ellen, for all I know – until we reach the underpass.
We’ve just passed through one of its steepish, sloping arms when we’re stopped in our tracks by a sudden loud, rumbling noise, which startles me so much that my hiccups stop. As we stand still in the central circle, a skateboarder suddenly shoots out of another of the arms, waves, spins a few times, then roars gracefully past – out into the other arm that leads in the direction of our house.
We just manage to spot that it’s Robbie, but honestly, blink, and you’d have missed him: it was all over in seconds, even though he was going uphill on the way out.
The rumbling doesn’t diminish as much as it should, though, seeing as Robbie should be a fair distance away by now, given the speed he was going. Instead, it’s intensifying, though it isn’t half as rhythmic as the earlier sound.
Unnerved, Max and I continue to stand still in the central area, in case we’re about to get taken out by a runaway trolley or something.
We seem to wait for ever until, eventually, another skateboarder appears. He’s veering all over the place, and wobbling like a maniac.
It’s Josh – and watching him is agonising.
Max and I look at each other, both close to hysteria, then back at Josh, who doesn’t acknowledge us at all. He’s too busy concentrating on wobbling his way slowly – very slowly – out of the underpass.
Just before he’s out of earshot, it all becomes too much. Max lets out an explosive volley of laughter, and I sink against the wall, shaking. I may need an incontinence pad.
‘Our son, the skateboard champion,’ says Max.
I just nod. Honestly, we are terrible parents.
SUNDAY, 4 JULY
Josh doesn’t speak to Max or I all day, but he does leave the skateboard behind when he goes round to Holly’s. Connie’s also out, with her new boyfriend, so it’s very quiet, even for a Sunday.
Max and I are sitting in the kitchen, in a fairly companionable silence, while he tightens the wheels on Josh’s skateboard to improve the steering and I read the Sunday papers – which for once don’t include a single quote from The Boss. We’re having quite a nice time, until Annoying Ellen turns up, to borrow the corkscrew yet again.
After another of her overly vocal performances late last night, I ask her whether she’s aware of how sound travels between our houses. Honestly, I’m so stupid sometimes.
She doesn’t even look me in the eye, but does a silly little giggle, then simpers – right at Max – and says, ‘Oh, sorry – it’s just that I do so love sex.’
I say nothing, while I envisage beating her to death with a blunt object. I doubt Max is picturing the same thing, though he doesn’t look any more amused than me.
‘I didn’t hear anything last night,’ he says, looking up at Ellen, and cutting his finger on the chisel he’s using to straighten Josh’s wheels.
‘Don’t worry, Max,’ she says. ‘You didn’t miss anything. Only me and some batteries.’ Then she winks at him.
Max blushes, gets up to fetch the corkscrew, then presses it into her hand – just a little more slowly than necessary, though he claims that’s because his finger’s bleeding.
I’d have drilled the damn thing right through her palm, if I’d had the chance. Then they’d both need medical attention, not just Max.
He still looks a bit flustered when Ellen leaves, though that may be due to it being rather tricky to put a plaster on your right hand with your left, when your wife says she’s too busy to help you do it.
I’m not sure if he realises ‘busy’ is a euphemism for ‘annoyed’, but things are tense for the rest of the day and I’m relieved when the phone rings, for once in my life.
It’s Mum, who says that Dad has phoned her again, and she thinks that he is flirting with her now: too horrible a thought to contemplate. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Divorced parents should know that you don’t suddenly start flirting with each other when you’re in your seventies, and when your offspring have only just come to terms with being from a broken home.
Now I suppose I’m going to have to do something about it, and God knows what Dinah will say. Or would say, as I’m not going to tell her. I’m not that stupid. I just hope Dad’s not chatting her mother up too, otherwise chaos could ensue.
What happened to women over thirty being ‘too wrinkly’? That man’s a hazard to the whole of the opposite sex, bendy willy or not. He’s basically the Annoying Ellen of Dorset – with the addition of a foreshortened penis.
I’m so worn out by all these sex-crazed divorced people that I’ve just decided to go to bed for a very early night, when my phone emits a beep. I have a new email – from Johnny! I forgot not everyone’s like The Boss, who turns his phone off whenever he can and who has been known to throw it into the Thames – along with his pager – whenever he starts feeling persecuted by the Whips. Johnny keeps his BlackBerry turned on. (I wonder if this is some sort of omen?)
He doesn’t say much, just, ‘Fabulous arse. When can I see it in the flesh? Name the date, and don’t keep me waiting too long.’
Oh, my God. I bet I’m the one who’s blushing now.
MONDAY, 5 JULY
I seem to be surrounded by compulsive liars. All male, apart from Miss Chambers. What are the odds Johnny isn’t another?
At work, the new website’s almost finished, and the designer asks for a copy of The Boss’ CV for inclusion. Greg finally finds a dog-eared old copy under a pile of photos of Andrew, all dreadful, even though he still had real hair in some of them.
I give the designer the least horrific, while Greg chooses the worst one for use on the dartboard, then reads the CV aloud. Neither he nor I can ever remember seeing it before.
Buried at the bottom of page two is the news that Andrew used to play cricket semi-professionally. For a fairly well-known team, in his home town. I don’t pay much attention at first, as I am otherwise occupied in re-reading Johnny’s email from last night; anyway, The Boss is a sports fanatic, which is why most of his jollies – sorry, fact finding trips abroad – take place at exactly the same time as major sporting fixtures. Greg is just suspicious by nature.
Before I know it, I hear him say, ‘Just wondered if you could confirm the dates that Andrew Sinclair played for the team?’
Now what the hell is he doing? I leave my office and stand in the doorway to Greg’s, raising my eyebrows in enquiry. Greg waves me away and swivels his chair so
that his back is facing me.
‘Are you sure?’ he says. There’s a pause, then he continues, ‘You’re positive there’s no mistake?’ He gestures furiously at me to approach his desk.
I wish he’d make his bloody mind up which direction I’m supposed to go in, and am about to say so, when he slams the phone down and punches the air. He looks even more like Patrick Bateman when triumphant.
‘He’s such a tosser sometimes,’ he says.
‘Who?’ I say.
‘Our lord and master, the keeper of the socialist flame and all-round good egg. That was the Secretary of the Cricket Club,’ Greg says, as if that makes everything crystal-clear.
It doesn’t. ‘And?’ I say.
‘And they have never – ever – heard of Andrew Sinclair!’
‘What?’ And there was me, thinking that all my illusions had already been shattered. ‘You mean—’
‘That’s exactly what I mean, Molly. The Boss’ CV is total bullshit. He never played for the team. Probably never did half the stuff he’s got on here.’ Greg screws up the CV and lobs it into the bin.
I don’t know what to say, so I return to my desk and delete the email I’d started to draft in reply to Johnny’s. I don’t feel like flirting with him now – not when all I know about him is what he’s told me himself.
‘A drinkypoo at lunchtime?’ says Greg.
I nod. Vigorously.
After lunch (one G&T for me, three for Greg), we pop into WH Smith, at Greg’s insistence, where he buys a large, red box file and some new labels – and pays in cash. When I point out that we already have folders and labels in the stationery cupboard, he says that his purchase is ‘for personal use’.
When we get back to the office, he retrieves the balled-up CV from the bin, smooths it out as best he can, then shoves it into the new folder. He winks as he does so. (I do wish people wouldn’t keep doing that.)
The rest of the afternoon’s not too bad, at least from a constituent point of view. Miss Chambers rings, but only once – to complain about a letter she’s received from the local Council, telling her that their staff have been instructed not to take her calls any longer, and to insist that she writes in with her complaints instead. The hearing of Council staff is obviously much more important than mine.
Anyway, I’m deafer, but quite calm when I close down my computer and prepare to go home – until I spot Greg, who’s precariously balanced in the depths of the archive cupboard, his feet straddling two of the shelves, half-way up. (There’s a certain amount of wobbling going on, which reminds me of Josh.)
‘Give me a hand, Molly, before I break my neck,’ Greg says. ‘Pass me that new box file, will you?’
I pick it up from his desk. It now bears the label ‘Staff Insurance Policy’.
What on earth are we becoming?
TUESDAY, 6 JULY
Mum rings me at work. Her preamble is not promising.
‘Sorry to bother you at work, dear. I just wanted to ask you whether you’d noticed my eyelid last time you saw me?’
‘What eyelid?’
I am trying to scroll through my inbox, which already contains two hundred and twenty-seven emails received overnight.
I have no idea why the House of Commons spam filter picked up an email in which I described a local councillor as ‘disappearing up the arse’ of a certain MP, when it seems incapable of removing the forty-eight adverts for Viagra I receive daily, not to mention those for fake watches and penis enlargements.
‘My right eyelid. I’ve been looking at it in the mirror, and it looks a bit droopy,’ continues Mum.
‘Was that the twenty-five-times magnifying mirror like mine?’ I say.
‘Well, ye-es. But it definitely looks a bit odd to me.’
‘I think the best thing you can do is to stop looking in the mirror, Mum – especially that one. Twenty-five-times magnification is not good for the self-esteem. I’m sure it’s fine and you just need to find another interest.’
‘Oh, well – if you didn’t notice anything, maybe it’s okay,’ says Mum. Then she hangs up, without even remembering to say goodbye.
I’m as blind as a bat, but Mum just doesn’t get that the whole purpose of your sight deteriorating as you age is so that you have no idea how truly hideous you’re becoming. At least she wants to talk to me, though, unlike Josh.
As soon as I get home, he says he’s off to Robbie’s for the evening. That’s the only thing he does say, actually, as he’s still not speaking to Max or me since the incident in the underpass.
Connie more than makes up for her brother’s silence, now that she doesn’t have to compete for parental attention. She goes on about her new job, non-stop, for hours, while Max and I try to look as excited by the idea of flexi-time as she still seems to be, though God knows why. It’s a struggle, so we’re quite relieved when – eventually – she too goes out, to meet her boyfriend at the cinema.
Now for a cup of tea and, finally, some peace and quiet.
Famous last words. As soon as the door closes behind Connie, Max says, ‘Talking about work …’
‘Yes?’ I say, in my MP’s office voice. I don’t like the sound of this already.
‘I have to go abroad again – next week.’
Max busies himself in the depths of his briefcase, while I stare at him, open-mouthed. No business trips at all – ever – and then two. In a month? This is pushing credibility.
‘What?’ I say. ‘Another trip? Why?’
‘Business,’ he says.
‘But I thought the company was struggling,’ I say, trying to stop my voice squeaking like Mr Meeeeurghn’s. ‘I’m always reading that furniture sales are down. Massively.’
‘They are,’ says Max. ‘So, if the company wants me to go on a sales course, what choice have I got?’
Outmanoeuvred. Yet again. Why does my bullshit detector desert me the minute I get home? If I listen very carefully, though, I’m sure I can hear the sound of a faint, though horribly familiar tune.
WEDNESDAY, 7 JULY
The quality of the letters sent to The Boss isn’t getting any better, just like the quality of certain husbands’ excuses for taking mysterious ‘business trips’.
Today’s contender for F*ckwit of the Week reads as follows:
Dear Mister Sincler
Tony Blair kept on about wanting people to have lots of kids. I done what he wanted and me and the wife have 5, but we don’t get NO HELP AT ALL.
I work 16 hours a week and we have to live on benefits and tax credits but the goverment won’t pay for someone to take my 3 oldest kids to and from school. My wife can’t do it, not with the 2 little uns at home.
What I want to know is what you and your party are going to do to stand up for hardworking parents now that Cameron bloke’s in charge. I’m disgusted your lot told me to have all these kids. Now look at the mess I’m in.
Disgusted
Mark Betts
PS I’m so disgusted I’ve sent copys of this letter to the paper and I’m going to deliver 300 more all round the town.
Greg and I work out what Mr Betts’ total income would be – assuming minimum wage for sixteen hours a week – and it’s more than mine. Quite a lot more, if you take his Housing and Council Tax Benefits into account. Now I’m positive that Greg’s earning more than me, as he isn’t half as pissed off as I am, though he does say some awfully politically incorrect things about the people he’s keeping with his taxes.
At lunchtime, he buys a packet of five condoms and puts them into a House of Commons envelope with a compliment slip. He marks it, ‘FAO Mr Betts, Father of the Nation. Try these and do us all a favour.’
The afternoon isn’t very busy, but I’m so distracted by Max’s business trip announcement that I get half-way home before I realise Greg and I have forgotten to remove the ‘letter’ to Mr Betts from the post tray. It has therefore been posted, along with the rest of the mail. Oh, shit, shit, shit!
I have to run all the way back
to the office and stand in wait next to the postbox outside. Then I have to humiliate myself again – as if the arse photo wasn’t bad enough – by begging the postman to give me the letter. (Actually, I have to slip him a fiver and, even then, he won’t give me the damned thing until I’ve shown him my business card and pointed out the House of Commons crest.)
Bloody, bloody Greg. In fact, bloody men, full-stop.
THURSDAY, 8 JULY
I am too depressed to even think about doing any work. I’ve just realised there are only twenty-one days left until Recess.fn2 Twenty-one! I’m tempted to throw myself off a tall building right now. (I could even join Mr Ellis, invite The Boss and make it a media event.)
That’d probably be bad karma, though – wouldn’t it? Not that Buddhists seem to worry about that much – or idiot brother Robin doesn’t, anyway. Mum says he gave her a book on preparing for death for her birthday last week. I had no idea he’d done such a stupid thing!
No wonder she’s been so obsessed with her buttocks and eyelids, and everything else in between – and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, she says Robin also suggested that he and she go to Paris this summer, so that he ‘will have something to remember her by’.
I must try to be more sympathetic towards her in future – and kill ‘caring Buddhist’ Robin, as soon as I get the chance. Why are supposedly sensitive people so unbelievably crass when it comes to other people’s feelings? Robin’s so busy ringing his bell and saying, ‘Om’, he hasn’t a clue anyone else exists half the time.
Even if I told him off, he still wouldn’t feel any guilt about it. Not like me. I’m riddled with the stuff since I sent Johnny that stupid photo of my arse, especially as his emails have become so much more frequent ever since, along with my hiccups.
He says I’m teasing him because I still won’t agree to let him see my backside in the flesh, and he’s sending me messages about it so often that he can’t possibly be concentrating on his job. If this keeps up, we’ll probably hear about another giant oil spill soon. Then I’ll feel guilty about that, too, when all those poor fish die and loads of fishermen starve.
