by Polly James
Max and I look at Josh expectantly. He says nothing, just hangs his head.
‘Go on, tell him,’ says Max. ‘We’re all waiting to hear this one.’
‘Well, it’s my sister, you see,’ Josh says to the doctor. ‘She’s just really – really – annoying. I mean really annoying.’
‘I see,’ says the doctor. ‘And?’
‘She wanted me to go away, so she thumped me.’
‘What – hard enough to break your arm?’ says the doctor. ‘What is she, some sort of prize-fighter?’
‘No-o,’ says Josh. ‘She’s a wimp. I tried to kick her back …’
‘Ah,’ says Max. ‘What sort of kick, exactly?’
‘Well, a roundhouse kick, of course,’ says Josh, the family’s self-appointed ninja.
‘So why are you here in A&E with a possibly broken arm, when you were the one who kicked your sister?’ says the doctor.
‘I missed,’ says Josh.
I’ll give the doctor his due, he doesn’t laugh out loud, though I’m pretty sure he sniggers a bit.
It’s really late when we finally get home, and Josh’s arm is in a sling to support it. It’s not broken after all, but very badly bruised. The doctor says that the injury’s probably temporarily damaged some of the nerves and that blood vessels have been affected, hence the attractive blue colour of the skin.
Connie gives Josh a big hug, which makes him wince, and then she says, ‘How did you tell them you did it, bro?’
‘Told ‘em I bloody well kicked you,’ says Josh.
‘And that you missed, and fell onto your own arm?’ says Connie. She’s enjoying this far too much, but then so are Max and I.
‘I suppose so,’ says Josh. ‘Now can you get me a drink? You’re going to have to wait on me until my arm’s better. I’ll phone you on my mobile whenever I need you.’
That wipes the smile off Connie’s face pretty effectively. And mine, once it occurs to me that we can’t possibly leave these two alone while we have a dirty weekend. They’d probably murder each other – through incompetence, if nothing else.
MONDAY, 23 AUGUST
God, Josh is getting on everyone’s nerves, with his endless requests for waitress service. Holly got fed up with it less than an hour after she arrived this evening, so she promptly went home again, and Connie’s at the end of her tether.
She comes stomping into the kitchen while I’m chatting to Max, who’s busy preparing dinner.
‘If that incompetent ninja asks me for any more “urgent deliveries of snacks for the disabled”, I’m going to kill him,’ she says. ‘And I’ll do it properly this time. He hasn’t stopped ringing my mobile for hours.’
‘You shouldn’t talk about me like that,’ shouts Josh, from the sitting room, where he seems to be having no trouble adapting to the need to use his left hand to change channels on the TV. ‘I have super-sensitive hearing, you know, and super-sensitive feelings too, since the trauma of the injury you caused.’
‘Good,’ says Connie, even louder. ‘So did you get the bit where I called you an incompetent ninja? I’ll repeat it, in case you didn’t.’
She does, several times, whereupon Josh appears in the kitchen, looking as if he’s about to risk another roundhouse kick.
‘Calm down, Josh,’ I say, stepping between him and Connie. ‘Remember – sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can never hurt you.’
Josh looks disgusted, as well he might. That platitude never works, as I am forced to admit when he says it back to me, later, after Dad calls me incompetent, in an email. Totally unprovoked!
TUESDAY, 24 AUGUST
I’m still stewing about Dad’s comment this morning, when he sends me a half-arsed apology for losing his temper with me last night, which he blames on a touch of heatstroke.
Then he reiterates his argument that we should chat on Skype in future, not just while he’s in Thailand but also once he gets home again. He says it would be much be cheaper for him to call everyone that way, seeing as he’s now retired and ‘on a fixed income’.
I mention it to Dinah when she calls just before lunchtime, to see if she thinks it’s a good idea, but she says that Dad could make much more significant savings by cutting out the trips to Thailand.
‘I wish I’d thought of that,’ I say. ‘Especially when he called me an “IT-incompetent” when he couldn’t understand the instructions I gave him for linking his Facebook account to Skype.’
‘You? IT-incompetent?’ says Dinah, before pausing to sneeze then blow her nose loud enough to almost burst my eardrum. ‘Has Dad forgotten that you’re the idiot who taught him to use a computer in the first place?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Clearly, he has.’
I can’t be bothered to discuss it, as I’m too busy reading an email from the Parliamentary IT help-desk man, asking what happened to The Boss yesterday, in the middle of a telephone conversation they were having.
‘I was just explaining to Mr Sinclair about how remote access to the intranet works,’ he says, ‘when he suddenly seemed to lose interest and stop listening.’
The same thing’s happening to me, now Dinah’s getting into her stride.
‘Well, I haven’t forgotten that it was your fault, Molly,’ she says, ‘and just look at the result! You can’t say I didn’t warn you, either.’
‘Well, at least Dad still wants to talk to us while he’s in Thailand, and see our faces,’ I say. ‘It’s nice to know he retains some affection for his daughters, isn’t it?’
I’m pretty sure Dinah snorts with laughter at that, though she claims it’s just another sneeze.
‘Don’t be daft,’ she says. ‘Even you must be able to see why Dad really wants Skype – for when he gets back, seeing as there’s a language barrier between him and the Thai bride. Apart from body language, that is.’
It takes ages to get over the horrible image that conjures up, as it keeps popping into my field of vision when I’m least expecting it. I’m a bit worried that the optician will be able to see it, too, when I go for my eye test at lunchtime, but luckily she doesn’t mention it.
My eyesight’s apparently even worse than last time it was tested though, but then I knew that already, given my recent inability to see any eyelashes at all in my mirror. The optician gives me the usual lecture about working on a computer all day being very hard on the eyes, and the need to take regular breaks.
‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ I say. Famous last words.
‘Well, you won’t know this,’ she says. ‘You need to make an appointment to see your GP. Look at this picture.’
‘Yuck,’ I say. ‘What is that? It looks like one of those Lennart Nilsson photos of a foetus in the womb.’
‘Put your glasses back on,’ says the optician. ‘Now look again.’
It turns out that the photograph is of the inside of my eye, and shows signs that there may be a problem with my blood pressure. Absolutely marvellous.
I tell Max about it when I get home from work, in the misguided belief he may provide some reassurance.
‘Bloody hell,’ he says. ‘What a coincidence.’
‘What d’you mean?’ I say.
‘Well, I just ran into Bob from round the corner when I was parking the car – you know, the one whose house backs onto Ellen’s?’
‘Ye-es,’ I say, trying not to wonder why Max always parks the car as near to a nymphomaniac’s as he can. ‘What about him?’
‘His wife dropped dead last week. Had a stroke. Undiagnosed high blood pressure – and she was only the same age as us.’
‘Great,’ I say. ‘Thanks for that.’
No prizes for guessing in which direction my blood pressure is currently heading. I bet my eyeballs will soon go pop.
WEDNESDAY, 25 AUGUST
Men. I’ve had just about enough of them today.
First The Boss infuriates me, when I ask him if he is going to Joan’s summer barbecue.
‘No, I am bloody well not goin
g,’ he says. ‘And neither are you.’
‘What?’ I say. ‘What on earth are you talking about? We always go to Joan’s for August bank holiday. The constituency activists expect us to.’
‘They’re all out to get me, and I’ve told you before, I do not like you socialising with any of them. If you knew where your loyalties lay, you wouldn’t even want to go.’
I do a double-take to see if Andrew is joking. He doesn’t seem to be, if his heightened colour is anything to go by. I dread to think what the insides of his eyes look like.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Andrew – get a grip,’ I say. ‘The Party staff are the people with a vested interest in supporting you. They are not spies, no matter how many John le Carré novels you may have read.’
Andrew says nothing to that and just glares at me – so I keep going. (I’ve always had a problem knowing when it’s time to stop flogging a completely dead horse, as well as watering an unthirsty one.)
‘If you keep on like this, you’ll make them your enemies,’ I say. ‘And I don’t want to encourage your paranoia, or make my working life any more difficult than it has to be, so I am going to the barbecue. And if you had any sense, you’d come too – and thank everyone there for all their hard work on your behalf.’
Nothing. No response. Not to me, anyway. The Boss turns his back, and looks at Greg.
‘I think I’ll do the morning briefing with you today, Gregory,’ he says. ‘Even though it isn’t your turn.’
Andrew’s disapproval is funny for the first couple of hours, but it wears pretty thin when he doesn’t speak to me for the rest of the day. He doesn’t even refer to me in that ‘tell Molly something’ way he usually falls back on, whenever he’s in a mood. He just behaves as if he can’t see me at all.
To make things even worse, he doesn’t respond when I take a call for him and try to pass the phone over, not until Greg says, ‘Andrew, Molly has a call for you.’ Then he rips the phone out of my hand, and perches on my desk with his back to me, so I have to sit looking at the back of his arse until he has finished blathering.
I wish he’d go and sit in the Oprah room instead. At least then I could put his calls through to the extension next to the sofa, and could get on with something useful myself – without having to look at his backside. Even that has a sulky expression.
I’m so fed up with his rear end by the time that I leave work that I’m actually looking forward to drinks at Max’s boss’ house tonight. At least there’ll be people there who are talking to me. And it’ll do me and Max good to escape from the realm of the incompetent ninja, too.
It does, at first, and both Max and I are enjoying ourselves, when the conversation turns to the subject of cock-ups while travelling abroad. Colin (Max’s boss) tells a couple of (rather tedious) stories about trains he’s missed, and someone else bangs on about the ‘trauma’ of being stuck in Spain on an extended holiday during the volcanic ash situation. Then Colin says, ‘And what about Max’s classic stunt in Germany? That was a good one, wasn’t it?’
‘Oh God, no one wants to hear about that again,’ says Max.
I assume that Colin’s referring to Max’s alleged inability to recall the name of his hotel – which would be bad enough – but he isn’t. It turns out that Max had another little problem while he was on his business trip. One that I haven’t heard anything about, until now.
The full story becomes clear only in stages, not that Max appears to want it to.
‘Fancy getting so pissed you didn’t even hear us banging on the door of your room,’ says Colin. ‘Even though the fire alarm was going off.’
I look at Max, who avoids looking back, so I turn to Colin, one eyebrow raised. ‘When was this?’ I say, very clearly and slowly.
‘Oh, it was on the first night, the really heavy-drinking one,’ says Colin. ‘The one where we went on those racing simulators, and then we hit the pear schnapps a bit too hard. Max had to go to bed very early.’
‘And then he slept through a fire alarm?’ I say. ‘Seriously?’
‘Yes,’ says Colin, grinning at Max, who shakes his head and rolls his eyes. ‘We thought he must have had a woman in his room.’
Everyone laughs, as if this would have been really, really funny – except for me.
‘Ah,’ I say. I can’t think of anything else.
I think everyone’s realised that this is not going well by now, so then there’s a mad flurry of trying to change the subject-itis, while I make an effort to pull myself together. I think I do quite a good job, too – until we get into the cab to head for home.
Then it’s as if the subject had never been changed at all.
‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ says Max. ‘You’ve been in a mood all night.’ He always works on the principle that attack is the best form of defence. It never succeeds.
‘What do you think’s wrong with me?’ I say.
‘I don’t know.’ Max looks at me with a puzzled expression. ‘Is it something to do with that hotel room thing?’
‘What – the hotel room that you may have had another woman in?’ My voice is rising. ‘In a hotel whose name you conveniently couldn’t recall? Why on earth would I be upset about that?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ says Max.
Then he stops speaking to me, and goes straight to bed as soon as we get home. He positions himself so close to the edge of the mattress that he almost falls off it, whenever he turns over during the night. I notice because I stay awake fretting for most of it.
Two men in a mood with me in just one day – not even counting the usual suspects. Looks as if the rest of the week may be somewhat lacking in conversation.
THURSDAY, 26 AUGUST
Max still isn’t speaking to me this morning, though I’m not entirely sure how he’s managed to cast me in the wrong. I stick my tongue out at him as he leaves the house and am rewarded with a reproving glance from Connie and an outrageous ‘How juvenile’ comment from Josh.
I somehow resist the temptation to explain exactly why the frosty atmosphere is entirely down to Max and stomp off to work instead, where I am greeted by Greg, who informs me that he is definitely on a diet.
Apparently he came to this decision while he was watching How to Look Good Naked last night – which he has re-titled Help Me, Gok – I’ve Eaten Too Much.
He starts doing press-ups while I make the coffee, but has to give up as soon as The Boss arrives.
Andrew greets Greg and ignores me completely, even though I say hello to him twice. There are plenty of other people who do want to speak to me, though, including a complete nutcase who says he’s the ruler of the Channel Islands. He wants to be recognised as such by the British Government, so I put him through to The Boss as a small act of revenge.
This enables me to concentrate on reading Johnny’s latest email. He’s back in Moscow now, but wants me to recommend a hotel in Lichford for the Thursday after next. In the meantime, he wants more photos of my arse, and of ‘any other parts of my anatomy that may also be of interest’.
I can’t think of any parts of me that would look good naked, but I’ll have to try – especially as it’s just occurred to me that, if Johnny simply wanted to get laid, or to have some variety in his sex-life, he must have a world of opportunity.
After all, he’s away from home more often than not, stays alone in luxury hotels, and earns a fortune. He could afford some seriously high-class call girls, and I bet there are loads of ambitious female staff who wouldn’t be averse to his attentions, either. Just look at the inexplicable effect even the Boss’ rather pathetic semblance of power has on almost every female that he encounters – though admittedly those don’t include his staff.
Now I’m more confused than ever. If Johnny could have his pick of women, probably all much younger and more attractive than me, then why on earth does he want to fly half-way across a continent – to see me? It’s a mystery.
FRIDAY, 27 AUGUST
Gah. Only
one more week of Recess to go, thank God – though a week’s going to feel like a year if The Boss keeps me in Coventry for much longer. Metaphorically speaking, of course. The real Coventry must be a whole lot more fun than Lichford is at the moment – at work, and at home.
Max is still only communicating in monosyllables. He even wrote me a note to tell me that David called to say we can’t borrow his holiday cottage this weekend, because he and Susie are using it themselves.
It’s probably a good job, as they’re more likely to have fun in it than Max and I would be, given how things are between us. We’ve never really been into arguing-and-making-up sex, which is a pity, since we seem to be arguing most of the time. Maybe I should suggest we give it a go?
I ring Max at lunchtime to see what he thinks of my idea but he doesn’t answer his phone, so I eat my lunch at my desk, quickly, before The Boss can swipe it. Then Greg asks me to cover a meeting with some of the local councillors, as he doesn’t feel he’s up to it – despite apparently having taken over my role as Andrew’s randomly-designated Goldenballs. ‘It’s a tricky situation we’ll be dealing with,’ says Greg. ‘And tact is not always my forte, you know.’
It’s not Andrew’s, either. He glares at me when I tell Greg that I’ll do it, but he doesn’t actually forbid me to attend. Unfortunately, as things turn out.
The meeting’s been requested by Jimmy Barton, Leader of Lichford Council, who is complaining that The Boss is poaching cases that local councillors should be dealing with. He brings several councillors with him to back him up.
Things get off to a bad start, as Andrew’s first response is that, if councillors did their jobs properly, then constituents wouldn’t approach their MPs in the first place. This goes down about as well as you’d expect. Then he makes things even worse.
‘The whole problem is that, since all these corruption scandals in local politics, we can’t attract any decent candidates to stand for election,’ he says.
I don’t know if The Boss doesn’t notice the expression on the newly elected councillors’ faces, or whether he doesn’t care – but he looks set to carry on like this for the rest of the meeting if someone doesn’t do something to stop him. I guess that someone will have to be me.
