by Polly James
‘Commendable abstinence, Molly,’ says Greg. ‘Not that it did me any good at conference. I’d have stood a better chance of getting laid if I’d been legless the whole time, like The Boss.’
He’s almost convinced me that there’s a direct link between how much you drink and how often you have sex, when Johnny sends a series of emails, which make me very glad that I’m still sober.
He says that he’s sorry for his PMT comment, but that he’s ‘losing patience’ with me.
When I ask why, he says that I am ‘teasing’ him.
Me? A tease? I wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to start – as the Ann Summers debacle showed only too clearly – but Johnny insists that this is exactly what I am doing, by refusing to commit to another meeting.
‘Well, I’m not sure,’ I say, then hesitate. Maybe it’s time to bite the bullet. ‘All right, then,’ I continue. ‘The truth is that I can’t help thinking that maybe we should both make a bit more effort to salvage our marriages, before we start planning to meet again. Don’t you?’
‘No,’ says Johnny. ‘I don’t. It’s not supposed to be a job, being married – and is it really worth it, if you have to work at it?’
Of course it’s a job. And I bet his kids would think it was worth it, even if he doesn’t. Is he on another planet, hanging out with Max’s Mormon friends, or something?
I don’t put it quite as bluntly as that in my next email, but it might have been better if I had. At least then he might have understood what I meant. Instead, his reply sends me on a frantic search for the vodka bottle: ‘Molly,’ he says. ‘It’s not as if you can help who you fall in love with, is it?’
I take several large swigs of vodka before I respond. ‘That’s what Dad said about the Thai bride, too,’ I say. ‘But really, it was just sex, and now he’s tired of her.’
There’s such a long pause at Johnny’s end that I’m just considering whether to stop waiting for an answer and go home, when his reply finally pops into my inbox.
‘I was only joking around,’ he says. ‘Sex, that’s all I want from you. You obviously know me too well to be fooled.’
I’m not sure whether the last statement is a test – or a fact. And I have no idea which I want it to be.
WEDNESDAY, 13 OCTOBER
God, these nightmares are getting worse. I had two last night, both of them insane.
In the first one, Max and Johnny were playing poker against each other. Whichever one lost, won me, as the booby prize.
In the second, they were each captaining a team on Call My Bluff, trying to persuade the other side that they weren’t in love with me. All the other members of the teams looked like Kim Jong-il.
‘Or Kim il-Loon,’ says Greg, when I tell him about the dreams. ‘Did they both have groupies like demented baton-twirlers waiting outside the studio?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘How did you know? They all looked like mini-Ellens to me.’
‘Telepathy,’ says Greg. ‘So do you think Johnny is in love with you – or was he joking, like he said?’
I don’t really want to think about it, not when I still don’t know whether Max would be pleased to win me in a game, or not. Or whether I’d want him to win, or lose.
‘I don’t know, Greg,’ I say. ‘I’ll just have to try to work it out from what he says next, I suppose. Why’s it so cold in here? I’m freezing, even though I’m wearing a ridiculous number of layers. And where’s all Igor’s warming vodka gone?’
Greg pretends that he didn’t hear the last question, but says that he thinks the boiler’s playing up. Then he tries to push me over.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ I say.
‘I wanted to see if you wobbled, but didn’t fall down,’ says Greg, ‘given your resemblance to a Weeble.’
I mention this somewhat unflattering comparison to Johnny, who asks me to send him a photo, as evidence. Greg takes one immediately.
‘Then Johnny will see that I am a man who can be relied on to give him the unvarnished truth,’ he says. ‘Which could be very useful to an International Director of a Global Oil Company.’
Even he’s started capitalising Johnny’s job title now. It’s rather worrying. I do wish I could tell Vicky about Johnny, though. It’d be nice to impress her, just for once.
‘Gosh, Molly,’ she says, when she arrives for work, three hours late. ‘You’re looking even rougher than usual today. And where on earth is that awful jumper from? Primark, or some other godforsaken place?’
I don’t answer. I don’t trust myself and, anyway, Johnny’s just responded to my Weeble photo.
‘Wow. You look great,’ he says. ‘I’d be really proud to walk into a room with a woman who looked like that on my arm.’
‘Are you taking the piss?’ I say. ‘I am already having a very bad day, so it’s inadvisable.’
‘No,’ he says. ‘For Christ’s sake, woman, can’t you ever take a compliment? “Thank you” is the appropriate response.’
Whatever must Johnny’s wife look like, if he thinks I look good? I apologise anyway, and blame my grumpiness on the fact that I spent the night being the reluctant prize in a terrifying fight between two teams of North Koreans. (I don’t say that he and Max were their captains.)
‘Also, I’m freezing to death,’ I say.
‘North Koreans?’ says Johnny. ‘What the hell are you talking about? And have you forgotten that I live in Russia? Generally considered to be somewhat chillier than the UK, by qualified meteorologists.’
You can put a woman down, but you can’t keep her there. Not when you don’t know what you’re talking about. After a referral to the BBC’s World Weather View, Johnny is forced to admit that it’s colder in the UK today than it is in Moscow, although he’s quick to point out that it’s much worse there in the depths of winter.
‘Minus 10 is common,’ he says.
‘Good job I don’t live with you then,’ I say. ‘How on earth does your wife manage?’
‘Oh, she has a mink coat,’ he says.
The phones start ringing again then, and Vicky keeps coming up behind me and looking over my shoulder at my screen, so I don’t manage to send my anti-fur response until after the office has closed and she and Greg have left the building. Johnny is completely unimpressed by it anyway.
‘Yes, yes, nasty fur coats,’ he says. ‘Sometimes, Molly, you are so predictable, but just wait until you’ve tried a winter here without one. You’ll do a Naomi Campbell within a day.’
He obviously means, ‘You would’, and not, ‘You will’. Imagine it, though.
No more Molly Bennett, overlooked wife and under-rated MP’s caseworker. Hello, Molly Hunter, wife of an adoring (if bossy) Baron of Oil. I could spend my life dancing at embassy parties and swanning around Moscow in designer clothes.
Including a fur coat – which, even if I didn’t object to it on moral grounds, would make me look exactly like a bloody Ewok.
THURSDAY, 14 OCTOBER
I’m losing touch with reality now, thanks to these demented dreams. I spent last night playing Lara to Johnny’s Doctor Zhivago.
Sometimes Johnny resembled Omar Sharif, but then he kept turning back into President Putin whenever I was least expecting it. I secretly preferred Omar-Johnny, who was a hell of a lot more romantic than Putin-Johnny, as well as being better-looking. (Putin-Johnny kept ordering me to keep up, as I trudged interminably through the snow.)
The best bit by far was being Julie Christie. She really knows how to wear a fur coat without so much as a hint of Ewok.
The dream was so convincing that, when I wake up, I still think I’m Julie – until I look in the mirror. Then I’m distraught to find that it’s not her face that looks back at me, but mine, incipient beard and all. Now I wish the subject of Ewoks had never come up.
If I do manage to grow fur all over my body, though, at least I’ll be better adapted for cold weather. The office was chilly enough yesterday, but when Greg and I arrive today, we discover that
the boiler’s completely given up the ghost.
We have to keep our coats on all morning while I try to find a gas engineer with a free appointment before next July – unsuccessfully. Vicky says that she will ‘work’ from home, as a result. Apparently, she can’t risk low temperatures, due to her chilblains.
‘Think she’s confusing those with bunions,’ says Greg. ‘Caused by those stupid bloody shoes.’
‘She says they’re a political statement,’ I say. ‘Due to their red soles.’
‘I wish they were all red,’ says Greg. ‘Then she could click her heels, trot off down the Yellow Brick Road, and re-join the Wicked Witch of the East. When is she going to bugger off? Marie-Louise is back at work on Monday.’
Vicky doesn’t seem to have any intention of going anywhere. Now she says she’s working on something ‘highly confidential’ for The Boss, which is ‘really going to shake things up around here’.
I have no idea what her secret mission is, but it seems to involve making notes of anything anybody says about Andrew in her presence. Joan says Vicky even follows her when she goes to the loo, which I think ought to teach Joan a salutary lesson, though I rise above saying so.
It’s even colder in both the toilets than it is in the rest of the building, and Greg says his ‘Private Member’s Bill’ may drop off if I don’t do something to get the boiler fixed by the end of the day.
‘Can’t you ask Max to have a look at it?’ he says, wrapping himself up in a layer of the local paper. He’s positioned the front page photo of Andrew’s face right over his nether regions. At the back.
‘Well, I don’t know,’ I say. ‘He’s still not very happy with me for comparing him to Mehmet Osman.’
‘But he wouldn’t want you to freeze to death, though, would he?’ says Greg. ‘Or me. He’s fond of me.’
‘He tolerates you,’ I say. ‘Because your Imodium obsession amuses him.’
Greg pulls a wounded face, then tries again. ‘But you told me he fixed Ellen’s boiler,’ he says. ‘The other day.’
‘Re-lit it,’ I say. ‘Not fixed it. Not the same thing at all.’
Not when one’s a repair, but the other could all too easily be a euphemism. That’s only just occurred to me.
FRIDAY, 15 OCTOBER
I don’t know what Vicky’s doing for The Boss, but it can’t all be bad, even if Joan did think she saw them standing rather too close to each other in the car park this morning.
Anyway, not only has Andrew managed to fix the boiler by ‘jiggling something that looked a bit loose’, but he also seems to have got his mojo back. I’d forgotten how likable he can be, sometimes. Unlike people with leylandii trees.
Greg and The Boss have just gone off to do today’s surgery, when I get a call from a Mr Parker. He’s elderly, immensely polite, and in tears because his wife is dying. At home, in bed, and in the pitch dark.
This isn’t because their electricity has been cut off, or because she is blind, but because their neighbour’s monster tree has now grown so large that it blocks all light from reaching the Parkers’ house.
Mr P wants his wife to be able to see the sun on the rare occasions that it shines, but the absentee neighbour refuses to respond to letters, and the Council have said there’s nothing they can do to help. I promise to see what I can do, and Mr Parker thanks me profusely before ringing off.
Once he does, I look up the regulations governing leylandii only to discover that they don’t apply to single trees, no matter how large they are. Then, for some reason, I start to cry, so I kick the desk and put my head in my hands.
The picture Mr Parker has painted of his sick wife, stuck in her bed and with no view from her window, is almost viscerally clear in my mind’s eye.
Then The Boss walks in and surprises me. ‘What’s up, Molly?’ he says. ‘You okay? Are you crying?’
Bloody hell. This is the first time he’s spoken to me properly for weeks. Or maybe even months.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m not crying. A constituent’s situation just got to me a bit, that’s all. I’ll be fine, in a minute.’
‘If you say so,’ says Andrew, patting me on the shoulder. ‘Tell me about it, anyway.’
So I do. He genuinely seems to want to know, for once.
‘Ring Mr Parker back,’ he says, as soon as I’ve finished telling him what the problem is. ‘And ask if I can go and visit him and his wife this afternoon.’
‘Are you sure?’ I say. ‘You’ve only just finished surgery and your diary’s been manic for the last few weeks. You’re looking a bit knackered, too.’
‘I’m not knackered, I’m just old – but not that bloody old,’ says Andrew. ‘And, anyway, this is what my job is supposed to involve. Helping people.’
So, just after lunch, off he goes to see Mr and Mrs Parker, while Greg and I look at each other in disbelief. (Vicky says nothing, and just looks disapproving, but we take no notice of her. We’re far too happy to care what she thinks.)
‘Christ,’ says Greg.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘This is more like it.’
Two hours later, Andrew phones. ‘Know anyone with a big saw, Molly?’ he says.
He sounds very emotional, and nearly starts me off again.
‘Not sure,’ I say. ‘Max might have one. Why?’
‘Never seen anything like this f*cking tree.’
So it really is that bad. I look at the view out of the window, and try to imagine what it would be like to be able to see nothing at all.
‘How was Mrs Parker?’ I say.
‘She looked tiny in that bed,’ says Andrew. ‘I had to put the damned light on to see her properly.’
There’s a long pause, while both of us process what he’s just said. Then Andrew clears his throat and says, ‘I’m thinking about becoming an amateur tree surgeon. Want to come and help?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
Part of me’s hoping he’s deadly serious. The other part – the one that has to deal with the consequences of his actions – really isn’t.
SATURDAY, 16 OCTOBER
God, Greg and I shouldn’t have gone out drinking last night to celebrate The Boss’ redemption. I’ve got a terrible hangover, and Dinah’s phone call doesn’t help.
‘I am ringing to tell you that I am never speaking to you again,’ she says. ‘Fancy telling Dad he was coming to mine for Christmas! What the hell got into you?’
I can’t tell her what Dad said to his neighbours to make me do it, or she’ll be even crosser than she is already, so I claim that I disassociated for a moment, due to stress.
‘You understand the funny things that can make you do, Di,’ I say. ‘What with your HPD and all.’
‘I suppose you’re right, for once,’ she says. ‘Seeing as I understand stress better than anyone. But don’t think you’re getting off the hook that easily. You’ll have to have him for the next two Christmases, to compensate.’
That thought really doesn’t help my headache, or the nausea, so I take a huge swig of coffee and almost choke on it.
‘He might be in Thailand by then anyway,’ I say, once I am finally able to speak again. ‘We don’t know he’s gone off the idea permanently.’
‘Oh, he has,’ says Dinah, who didn’t even ask if I was okay while I was choking to death. ‘Definitely. He’s sounding more settled every time I speak to him. It’s not just the DIY – he’s having a new kitchen and bathroom fitted, and he’s even taken up fishing now.’
I don’t believe the last bit, until Dinah orders me to check my email. She’s sent me Dad’s latest set of photographs – all of fish.
‘See?’ she says. ‘And that proves there’s no point in me running the book on what’s going to happen with the Thai bride any more, either. No one put a stake on nothing, so I’ll give you all your money back.’
I hope she’s not running another book on what’s likely to happen to me and Max. I wouldn’t have a clue what to bet on that. Especially after what happens next.
&nb
sp; I’ve just gone out into the garden to get some fresh air, when Ellen appears. She’s obviously one of those morning people.
‘Dee dah, dee dah dah,’ she says – or rather hums – very loudly, while hanging out even more sets of sexy underwear.
I wince, both at the volume, and the sight. Presumably audibly, as Ellen spots me after that.
‘Hi, Molly,’ she says. ‘Isn’t it a lovely morning? Makes you feel like singing, doesn’t it?’
‘Not so as I’ve noticed,’ I say, before I remember that I don’t know she’s having an affair with Max, so I do still have to try to be polite. ‘But then I’ve got a hangover, so don’t let me stop you enjoying it. Carry on.’
Politeness is a curse, as she takes me at my word. ‘Dee, dah, dee dee dah; dee, dah, dee dee dah,’ she sings, wiggling about as if on a podium, surrounded by spectacular knickers and bras. ‘Don’t you just love Take That? Especially in their Robbie Williams days?’
‘Not especially,’ I say, ‘though what are you singing? It sounds familiar.’
‘“Relight My Fire”,’ says Ellen. ‘Ooh, which reminds me, can you thank Max for getting my boiler lit? It hasn’t gone out again since he sorted it. Used to do it all the time before.’
I know I mocked synchronicity the other day, but I may have to eat my words. That was no coincidence.
‘Want to pop round for another coffee, Molly?’ says Ellen, who has stopped humming at last. ‘Now you’ve spilled the one you’re holding?’
‘No, thanks,’ I say. ‘I’ve got to go and organise Max’s birthday party.’
As I turn away and start to walk back towards the house, I don’t even realise what I’ve done.
‘Oh, I’ll look forward to that,’ says Ellen. ‘See you there!’
Bloody brilliant, Molly. Well done in the not-inviting-Ellen stakes. I think it’s time to tackle Max.
He’s only just got up, and seems in a fairly good mood, so I take a couple of deep breaths, then say, ‘Max, I need to talk to you about something important.’
