Diary of an Unsmug Married

by Polly James

  I feel like a visitor from another planet in my black dress, an alien invisible to everyone except Connie – and this feeling isn’t helped by the fact that, every time I look over at Max, one or other of the shiny women is staring into his eyes and giving a very good impression of hanging onto his every word.

  They don’t seem half so interested in talking to me or Connie, so we end up sitting in the garden for most of the evening – where I smoke fit to bust and Connie nags me about my filthy habit. That’s when she’s not going on about her amazement at the behaviour of some of Ellen’s friends – who turn out to be teachers at Josh’s school.

  No wonder Josh is like he is. They’re probably the ones who taught him to play cards for money in the first place, seeing as they’ve just suggested we play a round of poker. I’m bored enough to play Snap! by then, though, so – after checking we’re not talking about strip poker – I persuade Connie we should both join in.

  It’s only after we’ve sat down at the long dining table that I realise that Max is seated at the other end, next to Ellen. If her incessant giggling and irritating amount of energy is anything to go by, she’s obviously just been upstairs for another snort.

  Max isn’t displaying any energy at all and looks totally obliterated by alcohol. I get up from the table and make him a coffee, which he refuses in no uncertain terms – so there’s nothing for it but to retire back to my seat, and to scowl at him as he accepts a large shot of frozen vodka from the tallest of the toy-boys. He downs it in one, looks at me triumphantly, then starts to slip sideways on his chair.

  I’m just considering whether I should ride to his rescue when I realise that he’s slipping towards Ellen, while wearing a beatific smile. Then, as if in slow-motion, he moves in towards her neck, upon which he plants a long, slow kiss. Suddenly, the room falls quiet, and I feel as if I have been paralysed.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, Dad?’ says Connie, breaking the spell. She stands and goes to pull Max off his chair, pushing past Ellen, who’s still laughing.

  I’m so angry and humiliated that I can’t move, until Connie gestures at me to come and help her – but even with our combined efforts we still can’t get Max to his feet, so we have to draft in help, in the shape of two of the toy-boys. They hoist Max up, then half-carry, half-drag him back to our house.

  Connie walks behind them carrying Max’s jacket, while I storm ahead wielding my keys as if they were weapons. In the hallway, Max shakes off the toy-boys, lurches into the living room, and falls onto the sofa, laughing like a lunatic. Connie throws a blanket over him, and then looks at me in disbelief. I have no words, which is most unusual.

  I have made a decision, though. As soon as Connie’s gone to bed, I’m going to email Johnny and tell him that I’ve changed my mind. Marriott County Hall, here I come.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  August

  (Which doesn’t rhyme with anything, either – except for ‘lust’ or ‘dust’.)

  SUNDAY, 1 AUGUST

  Argh. I feel like shit, and seem to have entirely lost my sense of humour. And my appetite.

  When Max finally wakes up, he staggers into the kitchen and cooks an enormous fry-up, which seems to remove any trace of a hangover. There is no justice. I can’t face eating a thing.

  I’m still feeling sick when the doorbell rings. It is Alex, Ellen’s toy-boy-in-chief, who says he wants his jacket back. Apparently, Connie picked his up by mistake during our hasty escape from the party last night.

  He sounds less than happy to have discovered that he is now the not-so-proud possessor of Max’s Primark jacket, while there’s a crumpled Armani version down the side of our sofa. They don’t look any different to me, though I don’t say so, as provoking Alex is probably a bad idea. I’ve got a feeling Ellen met him at kick-boxing or something equally violent, and he already seems quite cross enough by the time he throws the jacket onto the back seat of his car and slams the door.

  He’s still revving the engine like a maniac when Max comes into the hallway to see where I’ve got to. He seems oblivious to the narrowly averted toy-boy danger and is calmly eating a left-over sausage.

  ‘What’s up, Mol?” he says. ‘Why are you in such a mood with me?’

  ‘I should have thought you’d know what is bloody well up,’ I say, throwing his jacket at the coat stand, and missing by a mile.

  ‘I haven’t got a clue.’ Max does seem genuinely perplexed, unless he’s been taking acting lessons from Josh. ‘What have I done? Or, rather, what’s my jacket done?’

  ‘Well, let me see – how can I sum it up for you?’ I say.

  I am so angry that I can barely think, so I buy time by throwing the jacket at the coat stand again, equally unsuccessfully.

  ‘Oh, yes – that’s right,’ I say, eventually. ‘You moved in on Ellen in front of everyone – including me. And your daughter.’

  ‘I did what?’

  I’m pretty sure Max thinks I’m joking, though God knows why. My expression ought to rule that impression out.

  ‘And then you kissed her. On the neck.’

  ‘I didn’t!’ Max starts laughing now, which is a very bad move.

  ‘Er, yes – you did, Dad, and it’s not funny,’ says Connie, who looks almost as annoyed as me. She picks Max’s jacket off the floor, and throws it at him. She doesn’t miss.

  ‘Good God,’ says Max, disentangling himself as Connie and I stalk off and both go back to bed.

  I stay there for the whole of the afternoon, trying to work out whether I’m entitled to be as angry with Max as I am, given that he was so drunk that he can’t even remember what he did, but I just can’t seem to reach a decision and stick to it.

  I do get up again in the evening, to check my email, but there’s nothing from Johnny in reply to the message I sent him last night about meeting up. I forgot – he’s travelling around Eastern Europe again this weekend, and did warn me he might be unavailable for much of the time. Something to do with patchy mobile phone coverage in Uzbekistan, I think he said.

  My inbox isn’t completely empty, though. Dad is back from Thailand and has sent me an email, snappily titled, ‘Thai adventure’. I open it. There is no text at all, just six photos. I open the first one, expecting beaches, or mountains. There’s scenery, all right – but it isn’t of the landscape variety. It’s of a young Thai woman in a bar.

  The next picture is of the same girl, next to a swimming pool. There’s no sign of Dad until the third picture, where he appears – showing more man-boob than should be allowed anywhere in the world.

  In picture number four, the Thai girl is draped around Dad’s neck, like a fresh-faced boa constrictor. By picture six, she is sitting on a bed in a hotel room, wearing nothing but a bathrobe.

  For God’s sake! I’m incredulous.

  I have to tell someone, but I am still not speaking to Max, so I call upstairs to Connie, who’s now spent almost the whole day lurking in her bedroom, out of the reach of parental strife.

  ‘Con, you won’t believe what Grandad has just sent me!’ I yell.

  ‘I bloody well will,’ says Connie, coming back downstairs at last. ‘Didn’t you notice he copied me in on the email, too?’ She makes a vomiting noise. ‘I’m mortified.’

  ‘What?’ says Josh, from behind me, much to my surprise. (I’d thought he was out with Holly – but he must have been staying out of harm’s way too.)

  I show him the photos and he starts to laugh.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ I say. ‘There’s nothing funny about sending your daughter something like this.’

  ‘You know what Grandad’s like, Mum,’ Josh says. ‘He’s just trying to wind you up.’

  ‘He’s succeeding,’ I say. ‘It must be the day for it.’

  I turn back to the computer and start typing. Then, before I know it, I press send. Now an email saying only ‘Come back, Gary Glitter – all is forgiven’ is winging its way to my father’s inbox.

  I’m going to have an early
night. I think it’s best.

  MONDAY, 2 AUGUST

  God, the nutters are out in force today, or on the phone, anyway. All the usual suspects call first thing – I think they store up their bile over the weekend and are bursting to vent it at someone by the time Monday morning rolls around.

  Miss Chambers is in full flood about her neighbours, who she still thinks are stealing her electricity. Now she claims they’ve rigged up some sort of Heath-Robinson-style construction between her attic and theirs, and she wants me to get the police to take her seriously. This would be impossible, as the woman is clearly barking mad.

  Talking of the less-than-sane, Mr Beales is next on the phone. ‘Bloody speed cameras,’ he says, without preamble.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ I say. I’m bored already.

  ‘I’ve been done for speeding!’ he says.

  ‘And were you?’ I say, while staring out of the window and wondering what the hell I am doing with my life. ‘Speeding, I mean?’

  ‘Well, yeah – but I wouldn’t have been done for it. Not if a bloody policeman hadn’t been hiding in a bush!’

  Oh, for God’s sake. I have absolutely no patience with people who complain about being caught speeding. As far as I’m concerned, it’s simple – if you don’t want to be caught, then just don’t do it.

  ‘I should pay the fine and have done with it, if I was you,’ I say. ‘Now, was that all?’

  ‘No – of course it isn’t all,’ says Mr Beales, somewhat predictably. ‘The policeman wasn’t wearing his luminous jacket!’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ I say, without really caring about the answer, though I’m certainly not expecting the one that I get:

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t have hit him if I’d seen him, would I?’

  That’s not the only thing I don’t see coming today. At lunchtime, Johnny replies to the email I sent him after Max’s stunt at Ellen’s party. He’s only gone and booked us rooms (plural) at the Marriott County Hall, for the week after next! Oh, my God.

  Our dirty mid-week ‘weekend’ suddenly seems a horribly real prospect, and I want to change my mind, until I recall Max moving in on Annoying Ellen’s neck like a predatory, if semi-conscious, slug. Then I reply, saying, ‘Send details, and see you then.’

  I still can’t decide where Max’s offence rates on the scale of marital infidelity, though. How much does something count when you’re so drunk that you probably don’t know what your own name is, let alone whether you’re married or not?

  Talking of names, and not knowing them, the landline is ringing when I open the front door to let myself into the house this evening. Josh is ignoring it, and Connie and Max are still not home. Connie’s got a lot of flexi-time hours to make up, but Max is probably just avoiding me.

  I sigh, then pick up the phone.

  ‘Are you Bonjour Freight Shippers?’ says someone whose voice I don’t recognise at all.

  ‘Um, no—’

  ‘Well, this was the number I got from 1471.fn1 I checked the last caller after I got your answer-phone message, as your man forgot to leave his number.’

  ‘Er, sorry – who is speaking, please?’ I say. I still have no idea.

  ‘Mr O’Nyons,’ says the man.

  He pronounces it exactly as you would expect: Oh – Nye – Ons. I have never heard of him.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘but I have no idea what you are talking about. There must be some mistake.’

  ‘No,’ says Mr O’Nyons, speaking very slowly, as if I am a halfwit. ‘The man who left the message said that you had a large shipment of onions that you’d been asked to deliver to me, and that you wanted to confirm my address.’

  Oh. Oh, Christ. Onions. O’Nyons. Bloody hell.

  ‘I’m very sorry, but I have never heard of Bonjour Freight Shippers, and I can only assume that there must have been an error at the exchange,’ I say, after an over-long pause. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a family emergency to attend to.’

  I put the phone down, take a deep breath, and go upstairs. Josh is lying on his bed, laughing his head off.

  ‘You are grounded,’ I say. ‘For the next ten years. And don’t you dare touch that phone again while I am at work.’

  ‘You’ve got to admit it was funny, Mum,’ says Josh. ‘O’Nyons! What a muppet. I did mean to put 141 in first, though.’

  I don’t reply. I am married to a Botox-Queen-snogger, I have Gary Glitter as a father and I am raising a juvenile delinquent. I see nothing whatsoever to laugh about.

  TUESDAY, 3 AUGUST

  This evening, Dad replies to the email I sent him on Sunday by saying, ‘Women never understand.’

  My reply is equally terse: ‘Women understand only too well.’

  Now I’ll have to wait and see what his next move is.

  It doesn’t take long to find out. Dinah phones less than half an hour later. ‘Why have you upset Dad?’ she says. ‘There was no need for that.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ I say. ‘What’s wrong with you? You’re usually the first to go nuts about the way he behaves. Remember the Peyronie’s thing?’

  ‘I know – that was disgusting – but calling him Gary Glitter, for no reason?’ she says. ‘Bit strong, wasn’t it?’

  Ah. I think I know what’s happened now. ‘Dinah, has Dad actually sent you his holiday photos?’ I say.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ll see. Just check your email in a few minutes, when all will become crystal-clear.’

  I forward Dad’s pictures to her as soon as she hangs up and, thirty seconds later, she sends me a text. It just says, ‘Holy shit!’

  The sweet sound of vindication.

  WEDNESDAY, 4 AUGUST

  I’m telling Greg about Dinah’s reaction to Dad’s photos, when I get a call from the policeman who’s dealing with Miss Harpenden’s stolen identity.

  ‘Can we have an off-the-record conversation, Molly?’ he says. ‘I can call you Molly, can’t I?’

  ‘Um, yes,’ I say. ‘To both questions, I suppose.’

  Another outing for the good old dual-purpose answer – though I probably should have chosen a version that contained the word ‘no’. I’d have been much better off not knowing what the officer tells me next.

  ‘Well, Molly,’ he says, ‘there’s a reason we don’t seem to be doing anything to help Miss Harpenden, though there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes. To put it bluntly, we suspect that her long-term boyfriend’s the one committing the identity fraud, and we don’t yet know if she’s in on it, too. So we need more time … to find out.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ I say, once I’ve got over the shock of Miss Harpenden having a boyfriend, let alone a long-term one. (Greg’s always been convinced that she’s lonely and a lesbian.) ‘I’m sure the poor woman has no idea – what am I going to tell her if she phones?’

  ‘Just try to fob her off, until our investigations are complete,’ says the policeman. ‘In the meantime, it’d be best to pretend you know nothing at all.’

  Oh, brilliant. That’d be no problem for The Boss, but a) he often does know nothing, and b) he’s far better at lying than I am. I’m absolutely hopeless at it. And, anyway, I’m sure Miss Harpenden hasn’t got a clue that it might be her boyfriend who’s stolen her identity, or she wouldn’t have reported it in the first place, would she?

  What a piece of work he must be, if he isn’t being unjustly accused. I can’t get over it.

  ‘It’s hard to believe that anyone could do that to a loved one, isn’t it?’ I say to Max, later, as he’s cooking dinner.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I was concentrating on chopping these onions, sorry. What can’t you believe someone could do to a loved one?’

  ‘Make them think that you’re entirely innocent, when you’re not,’ I say. ‘And let them jump to all the wrong conclusions as a result. Imagine being cruel enough to do that to someone you’ve spent years living with!’

  ‘Ow,’ says Max, as he t
ips the onions into the wok too fast, and splashes hot oil all over his hand.

  Third-degree burns seem a bit of a drastic way to change the subject, and I can’t imagine why Max would need to, anyway. Unless he thought we were talking about Ellen, not Miss Harpenden, of course. I can’t think why he would.

  WEDNESDAY, 4 AUGUST (THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT)

  Dinah’s insomnia’s getting out of hand. So is mine, seeing as I keep forgetting to turn the sound off on my mobile when I go to bed.

  I’ve just got off to sleep (difficult enough while trying to work out if Max burned his hand on purpose or not), when ping! goes my phone, to tell me that I’ve got an email. Dinah has sent me the same article about the man who killed all those people as she did before, the bloody idiot.

  I’m about to delete it without reading it when I spot that this email has a different subject line to the previous one. It says, ‘Check the photo, Molly – see if you can spot the difference.’

  The picture is of the man’s Thai girlfriend, who is alleged to have used a false name, and to have conned him out of thousands of pounds, before dumping him for someone else. She looks exactly like the girl pictured sitting on what was presumably Dad’s hotel bed – while virtually naked.

  Dinah’s only other comment is :o, which I imagine my expression closely resembles. Is nothing ever as it seems?

  Max may say my job’s made me too cynical but, after today’s goings-on, I’m obviously far from cynical enough.

  THURSDAY, 5 AUGUST

  As part of his mission to collect every disaffected non-constituent within a 300-mile radius and add them to our workload, now The Boss has brought Igor back into the fold.

  He looks astonished when Greg and I bang our heads on our desks simultaneously when he says, ‘Our friend Mr Popov may pop in, in a minute.’ (Try saying that after a couple of vodkas. The Boss obviously found it a struggle.)