Diary of an Unsmug Married

by Polly James

  Greg refers to Andrew as ‘Silvio’ for the rest of the afternoon, much to Andrew’s irritation. Finally, he says he needs a lie-down and is going to leave early, ‘just this once’.

  ‘He’s not as daft as he looks, though, is he?’ says Greg to me, while waving Andrew an enthusiastic goodbye. ‘He’s succeeded in raising office morale rather nicely.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Just not in the way that he intended. Now we’re all united by despair.’

  SATURDAY, 14 AUGUST

  Idiot brother Robin rang me last night, and asked me to check on Mum’s sanity.

  ‘It’s getting more like a bloody nursing home round there every time I go,’ he said. ‘What the f*ck are all those tables about?’

  He’s referring to the type of small table just big enough to hold a single cup and saucer – and when I arrive at the house, I discover he’s right: Mum has bought even more of them. They’re everywhere, their legs sticking out so far they’re an accident waiting to happen. I tip two of them over, on my way to join Ted in the sitting room.

  I’ve only just righted those when Mum comes in, bearing tea. She places our cups on three more tables, one for each of us. I try to move mine nearer to my chair, catch its leg in the rug, and tip this one over too.

  When I’ve cleaned up the spilt tea, we’re finally ready for ‘a nice chat’, as Mum puts it. Ted promptly falls asleep, which I wish I could, too. ‘A nice chat’ is code for Mum asking me how Dad is. I do wish she wouldn’t. What’s the right answer supposed to be? Fine, or totally miserable since you and he divorced?

  The latter would be a bit unconvincing, wouldn’t it, since the whole Gary Glitter thing? Best to carry on keeping that stuffed firmly under my metaphorical hat.

  ‘Another oatcake, Molly, dear?’ says Mum. ‘Plenty left, and they’re dairy-free. Oh, and I hear your father’s gone to Thailand again.’

  ‘What? He’s only just come back,’ I say, before I can stop myself. How does Mum even know he’s been to Thailand once? Did I tell her by mistake, or did Connie do it, the total dingbat?

  I’m so distracted that I drop half of the oatcake I’ve been dunking into my tea, so I stir it in and try to swallow the result. Anything to buy some thinking time. I have to get to the bottom of this.

  ‘How did you know about that, Mum?’ I say, having failed to think of anything remotely subtle. ‘And what d’you mean, he’s back in Thailand? He can’t possibly be.’

  Mum looks flustered, as well she might. ‘Oh, I must have just got the wrong end of the stick, dear,’ she says. ‘I thought someone mentioned he’d gone recently, but maybe it was a while ago now. I do get terribly confused these days.’

  Pah. Confused, my arse. Mum’s as sharp as a tack, despite the table mania – but, before I can point out that there’s nothing wrong with her memory, she changes the subject, almost as adroitly as Max does whenever I mention Annoying Ellen. Or Germany.

  ‘And how’s dear Josh?’ she says. ‘Do you think he’s done okay in his exams?’

  ‘Only if they’re giving A-levels away with packs of playing cards,’ I say.

  Mum says she’s sure I’m wrong, and I’m pretty sure I am, too – though not about Josh’s prospects. There’s something about the certainty with which she said, ‘Your dad’s back in Thailand’, that makes me think there’s much more to this than meets the eye. There usually is, where men are concerned.

  SUNDAY, 15 AUGUST

  Dinah phones first thing, waking me from a nightmare in which The Boss is trying to kiss me repeatedly while whirling me round the office to the accompaniment of a crazed Russian band. All its members look like Igor, and keep referring to me as ‘a jewel of womanhood beyond compare’.

  That last part’s surprisingly enjoyable, so my heart sinks when I pick up my mobile, and see Dinah’s face filling the screen.

  ‘Do you know where Dad is, Molly?’ she says.

  ‘Um, no,’ I say. ‘I phoned him last night, but got the answer-phone.’

  ‘God, that bloody thing.’ Dinah drags on what probably isn’t her first cigarette of the day, and continues, ‘I wish he’d take Stepmother Mark III’s name off the message, don’t you? It’s at least two years out of date.’

  ‘Well, yes, but Dinah, you just woke me up. And anyway, she’s only Stepmother Mark II to you. Can I make a cuppa, then phone you back?’

  By this, I mean Can I make three cups of tea, have a couple of cigarettes and brace myself to talk to you? – but Dinah’s unstoppable once she starts.

  ‘Shut up, Molly!’ she says. ‘Just listen, I’ll only be a minute. Are you sure Dad hasn’t gone away somewhere?’

  The sinking feeling’s getting worse, but I’m still trying to ignore it. ‘Yes, well – no,’ I say, remembering that I don’t like telling lies. ‘But where would he go, if he has?’ (Don’t mention Thailand. Don’t mention Thailand.) ‘Why do you think he’s gone somewhere, anyway?’

  ‘Because,’ says Dinah, before pausing for effect, ‘one of my mates just phoned me, and asked why Dad’s car has been parked outside the railway station for the last few days.’

  ‘Ah,’ I say.

  ‘D’you think he’s dead?’ says Dinah, who always seems to think that everyone we’re related to has kicked the bucket. I’ve no idea why, unless it’s wishful thinking.

  ‘Don’t be daft, Di,’ I say. ‘We’d have heard.’

  ‘We’re always the last to know anything about that man,’ says Dinah. ‘Tell you what: you ask everyone on your mum’s side of the family, and I’ll ask on my mum’s side, and then we’ll try his neighbours, if all else fails.’

  ‘Okay, speak to you later,’ I say, then – under my breath – unless I can think of a really good excuse not to.

  I make a cup of tea, and sit mulling over what to do next. No point asking Mum, and idiot brother Robin won’t have a clue, as Dad’s not his dad, luckily for him. I shall just do nothing. That’s usually the best option where Dad’s concerned: wait and see.

  It’s a remarkably efficient option, too. Connie and Josh have just got up, and are locked into their first argument of the day – about Josh flicking through the TV channels and saying, ‘Con – look! Look, look, look!’ every few minutes, while Connie is trying to read her emails.

  She loses her temper and walks out of the room, taking her laptop with her. ‘Mum,’ she yells, as she stamps upstairs, ‘tell that moron Josh I don’t give a flying f*ck about watching Dirty Sanchez, stupid Cribs or Pimp My bloody Ride, and get him to leave – me – alone!’

  Less than a minute later, she comes running back downstairs, slams her laptop onto my knees – sending the Sunday paper flying everywhere – and says, ‘Mum! Mum! Look! Look!’

  ‘Pack it in, Connie,’ I say. ‘It isn’t funny when Josh does it, as you well know.’

  ‘Just look,’ she says, pointing at the screen. ‘An email from Grandad.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s back in Thailand!’ Connie’s eyes look fit to pop out.

  ‘He’s what?’ I say. Oh, my God. ‘Why did he email you, and not me?’

  ‘You’d better read it,’ Connie says.

  Now I really wish I hadn’t.

  Dear Connie

  It’s your Grandad here. I’m back in Thailand. I haven’t told your mother as, when I told her about my last trip, she called me Gary Glitter, and I’m in no mood for sarcasm. I’ll send you a postcard and see you when I get home. It’s still very hot.

  Love from Grandad

  It’s only been two weeks since Dad arrived back, for goodness’ sake! I need a cigarette – or two – before I have to impart this information to Dinah, and deal with the consequences.

  I’ve only just lit the first one when my phone starts to ring and Dinah’s face appears on the screen. It looks quite scary in that photo.

  ‘Dad’s only gone back to bloody Thailand already,’ she shrieks, when I answer, reluctantly. ‘Can you believe it? Mum told me. She said he’d asked her not to tell me as
I wouldn’t approve. Damn right I don’t.’

  She pauses for breath, then goes on: ‘Fancy not telling your daughters! The man is unbelievable.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘He’s just emailed Connie. Apparently he’s upset I called him Gary Glitter.’

  ‘You were a model of restraint,’ says Dinah. ‘Compared to what I’m going to call him when he gets back.’

  I just hope it is when, and not if. Dad’s always been partial to the heat.

  MONDAY, 16 AUGUST

  I’m typing a message to Dad this morning, warning him that Dinah’s email account has been hacked by someone with Tourette’s, and so he should ignore anything she might send, when Igor walks into the office.

  He wants The Boss to help him get a job, and he’s clearly willing to flatter anyone and everyone in order to achieve his aim.

  ‘Ah, the beautiful Molly,’ he says, ‘bringing joy to men’s spirits, like the sun. And like my lovely wife, Natalia, back in Moscow, who I miss so ve-ery much. May God keep her safe – from these terrible fires, as well as the Mafia.’

  Greg rolls his eyes at the mention of the M-word, but I’m starting to like Igor a whole lot better than I used to. First he compares me to a jewel, and now to the sun! And he’s devoted to his wife – as all men should be, including the one who’s married to me.

  I say as much to Greg, but then recall that Igor didn’t actually call me a jewel, except in a dream – which makes me feel a bit stupid, until I realise that Greg wasn’t listening, anyway. He’s too busy admiring the bribes, I mean gifts, that Igor has brought with him, to add weight to his charm offensive. Three bottles of Slivovitz and a fedora hat the same as his own.

  The Boss is vocal in his thanks for the alcohol but seems less sure about the hat. He sneaks it onto my desk, behind a pile of filing, when Igor suggests they go and have ‘breakfast-lunch’ together.

  I wait until Andrew thinks he’s got away with it and is about to go out of the door, then run after him and say, ‘Don’t forget your lovely new hat!’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, Molly,’ he says, glaring at me. ‘I’ll come back and get it later.’

  Then he tries to walk on, but Igor’s having none of it. He takes the hat from my hand, crams it onto Andrew’s head and says, ‘There, my friend. Now we look like the brothers we are – in our hearts.’

  ‘You look more like the Chuckle Brothers to me,’ says Greg.

  TUESDAY, 17 AUGUST

  Oh, my God. The Boss should never be allowed on a phone unsupervised.

  I pop out to buy a sandwich at lunchtime and come back to find him cosily ensconced behind my desk, talking on the phone. He’s looking a bit flustered and red in the face, but when I raise my eyebrows in enquiry, he waves me away and says into the receiver, ‘Well, I really don’t know what to say.’

  Whole sentences instead of ‘Ah’s’ mean that Andrew is way out of his depth, so I kick his feet off the desk and pass him a note saying, ‘Who is it?’

  He mouths back, ‘Mrs Saunders.’

  God all-bloody-mighty. The last thing that poor woman needs is a conversation with The Boss, particularly not when he’s under the weather after a breakfast-lunch with Igor that apparently ended up turning into a dinner-supper as well. Liberally fuelled by Slivovitz.

  I watch, paralysed with indecision, as Andrew says,‘So he didn’t manage it this time, then?’

  Oh dear. Harry Saunders must have made another suicide attempt. That’s the fourth this year. And he is not one of our numerous half-hearted attention-seekers. Harry is deadly serious, if that’s not an absolutely terrible pun. We’re not talking taking a few tablets then phoning for an ambulance, which is Mr Ellis’ usual ploy. In Harry’s case, we’re talking throwing himself off walkways, trying to set fire to himself, and other horrors. He’s only twenty-one, and his poor parents are beside themselves with powerlessness and fear. The Boss is absolutely the wrong man for this job.

  I try to pull the phone away from him but he swings the chair round so that his back’s to me, and then says, all too clearly: ‘You do realise, don’t you, that Harry’s so determined that – ultimately – he will succeed?’

  Enough. More than.

  I run into Greg’s office, where the main ‘switchboard’ is situated, over-ride Andrew’s call and cut it off. Then I crawl under Greg’s desk and unplug the phone altogether. I seem to spend half my life unplugging phones.

  ‘Hello. Hello? Molly – something’s happened to the phone!’ Andrew shouts, from my office.

  ‘And to this one,’ I say. ‘I’ll have to report it to BT.’

  ‘But I was in the middle of an important conversation and—’

  ‘I can handle that, Andrew – on my mobile. Mrs Saunders, wasn’t it? I’m calling her now. There’s a sandwich for you in that carrier bag.’

  It’s my bloody sandwich, actually, but that’s a small price to pay. I sincerely hope he chokes on it.

  It takes me ages to calm poor Mrs Saunders. How can someone as apparently well-meaning as The Boss be so incredibly crass? How the hell can he lack the imagination to understand what she must be going through? I can’t even bear to contemplate how I would feel if it were Connie or Josh. God forbid, touch wood, and anything else that can be done to ward off such a terrible situation.

  ‘Imagine being an event planner, or a play specialist – or any job that didn’t involve dealing with people who are suffering and in distress,’ I say to Johnny in an email, later on.

  ‘What – suffering from lost joie de vivre?’ he replies. ‘Like me?’

  Honestly, even when people are healthy, rich and successful, it doesn’t seem to make them happy, does it? Johnny’s been as miserable as sin ever since I said I wouldn’t meet him at Heathrow.

  He sends me a total of five emails this afternoon. In the fourth one, he says he feels like he did before we ‘met’ again via Facebook – ‘old, jaded, and as if the spark is missing’ from his life. Ironic, seeing as he’s still in Moscow, where sparks are probably the last thing anyone needs.

  I do know what he means, though. My fire seems to have gone out again since I decided not to meet him, and to try to damp the situation down. Life has slid seamlessly back into its rut, which is just as rut-like as it was before – not that that makes any difference. I still can’t think of a good reason to be at Heathrow by myself, so I tell Johnny there’s nothing I can do about it.

  His fifth email arrives just before I leave the office. It says, ‘Right, woman – I can’t stand this any longer. If you can’t get to me, I shall come to you.’

  Good God. An International Director of a Global Oil Company, willing to cross half the world to the dot on the map that is Lichford, just to see me? Well, willing to cross most of Europe, anyway. That’s still pretty impressive, even if it’s not quite as far as a trip from Dorset to Pattaya.

  I shall buy a copy of Glamour magazine on my way home. Sod Woman and Home. Maybe glamour’s not as irrelevant to my life as I’ve always thought.

  WEDNESDAY, 18 AUGUST

  I am going to starve if I keep buying sandwiches for lunch. I never get to eat the damned things, as The Boss always does, either without my knowledge, or as part of an emergency diversionary tactic.

  Today’s no different, as Mr Beales phones at lunchtime ‘for a chat about the European Union’. By the time I’ve got him off the phone, Andrew’s eaten both my lunch, and Greg’s.

  ‘Nice one, Mol,’ says Greg, when he arrives back from a meeting at Easemount parish council. ‘You were supposed to be keeping an eye on him. He hasn’t even wiped the crumbs off his beard, again.’

  He accepts my apology surprisingly quickly, though. ‘Oh, well,’ he says. ‘Suppose it wouldn’t do me any harm to lose a bit of weight.’

  That’s exactly what Max says when he arrives home tonight, and mentions that he’s thinking of joining a gym. So much for the sit-ups falling by the wayside.

  ‘Ellen says that you have much more energy when you do regular exercise
,’ he says.

  Energy for what? I don’t like the sound of that – at all – so I suppose now I’m going to have to get fit, too. Maybe Max and I could bond over a new-found shared interest in exercise, buy matching gym wear, and post pictures of ourselves on Facebook, looking manically happy while doing extreme sports, not including hoovering.

  Inspired by this prospect, I decide to experiment with the exercise ball Connie bought for Max a few years ago but, when I finally find it hidden in the cupboard under the stairs, it’s gone completely flat and, by the time I’ve pumped it back up, I’m exhausted. Then, when I try to sit on it, I promptly roll off backwards and end up stuck between the ball and the wall, while Max tries not to laugh. He fails.

  ‘Stop laughing and help me,’ I say. ‘I can’t get any purchase with my feet. This bloody ball keeps moving around.’

  ‘Can’t,’ he says, ‘I’m on the phone. Oh, hi, Sam. How are you, mate?’

  Oh, hell. I could be here all night if I can’t get a grip – which is not something that’s easy to do while stuck on top of a giant purple ball. It won’t stay in one place long enough for me to gain any equilibrium, and I’m still wriggling around ineffectually when Josh comes into the room.

  After he’s done his share of laughing and pointing, he finally comes to the rescue and pulls me to my feet. I’m quite touched by this, until he says, ‘Mum, aren’t you too old to be starting an exercise programme without seeing your doctor first?’

  ‘No,’ I say, though now I’m not so sure. Knowing my luck, I’ll break a hip next time I fall off, or tear all my stomach muscles simultaneously. Once I can actually find the buggers.

  It’s probably safer to do some research first – so I get my laptop and join Max on the sofa, which has the added advantage of allowing me to eavesdrop on his conversation with Sam.

  ‘What?’ he says. ‘You want Molly to do it? Are you sure that’s wise? You know how truthful she is.’

  I feel a bit bad about that, partly because I’m not quite sure it’s one hundred per cent accurate any more, not since Johnny made an appearance, anyway, but mainly because of Max’s obviously negative view of telling the truth. Everyone should try it, once in a while – especially husbands, and nymphomaniacs.