Diary of an Unsmug Married

by Polly James

  ‘From The Boss,’ he says. ‘Or from Petty Cash, to be exact. Andrew told me to buy you something to show his appreciation.’

  I’m not sure what five crushed, scentless – and almost petal-less – yellow roses are supposed to denote, but any appreciation involved seems pretty minimal.

  ‘God, they’re a bit tragic, aren’t they?’ I say. ‘And why were you hiding on your way here?’

  ‘Didn’t want Ellen to spot me,’ says Greg, shuffling his feet. ‘She’s starting to scare me a bit, she likes me so much. And stop moaning about the flowers. You’re just getting cocky because you’ve had far too many recently.’

  ‘That’s true,’ says Max, appearing from nowhere, yet again. ‘Though the red roses weren’t actually bought for Molly – were they?’

  ‘No,’ say Greg and I simultaneously, and with an excess of head-shaking, to add an air of verisimilitude. I have no idea whether it works or not – but, as soon as Max goes off to make coffee, Greg says in a whisper, ‘Is he suspicious about Johnny, Mol?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say, ‘but he’s being very nice to me if he is. So it’s a good job Johnny showed his true colours, just in time.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ says Greg, nodding furiously. He doesn’t approve of serial cheaters any more than I do, not since his last girlfriend slept with half of Young Labour. Maybe he should introduce Ellen to them, if he wants to get rid of her.

  ‘Anyway,’ he says, throwing himself onto the sofa, and dumping the Lichford News onto the coffee table, ‘shall we have a look at this?’

  Andrew’s face stares up at me from the front page, captured in the act of blowing into a breathalyser, watched by a policeman, whose face looks oddly familiar. ‘Local MP arrested for drink-driving,’ says the headline, which is huge.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ I say. ‘What a nightmare.’

  ‘Ignore that, for now,’ says Greg. ‘It’s not important. Andrew says you’re to look at the article below the one about him.’

  He points at it, while I wonder what the hell he’s talking about. How can anything be more significant than The Boss getting himself arrested – and for driving while drunk, of all the stupid, irresponsible things to do? It’s a PR-disaster, even on a good day to bury bad news, which this one clearly isn’t.

  ‘Here,’ says Greg, pointing again. ‘“A mindless act of vandalism”.’

  I look at it, then do a double-take, when I inspect the accompanying photograph – which is of a leylandii tree, or what was a leylandii tree, before it was cut down. On Silverhill Close, where the Parkers live. Oh, and where The Boss was, at the time he was arrested.

  ‘Holy shit,’ I say, to which Greg replies, ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Let me see,’ says Max, coming into the room with a tray of coffees.

  Greg passes him the paper, which he reads for a minute before looking up and saying, ‘Andrew did that?’

  ‘Yep,’ says Greg. ‘Though don’t tell anyone he did. He wanted to prove something to Molly, to make her come back. It’s lucky he was driving away by the time he was spotted, really – otherwise we’d be reading a headline about an MP being guilty of criminal damage, not just drink-driving.’

  ‘Christ,’ I say, unsure whether to laugh or cry.

  ‘Exactly,’ says Greg, again. Then we all sit in silence, staring into space, while sipping our coffees.

  ‘But how did Andrew come to be photographed while he was being breathalysed?’ says Max, eventually. ‘That was bad luck, wasn’t it? Did someone tip off the press or something?’

  ‘Good point,’ says Greg, picking the paper up, and inspecting it more closely. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  After a few seconds, he passes the paper to me. ‘Oh, for f*ck’s sake,’ he says. ‘Look at the photo credit. It’s only Edmund Bloody Beales. Talk about sod’s law! It’s the first time he’s ever got all his subjects’ heads in shot.’

  ‘Mr Beales – so that’s where I’ve seen that policeman before,’ I say. ‘He’s the one who doesn’t wear his high-vis jacket.’

  ‘God almighty,’ says Greg. ‘I need a drink.’

  He doesn’t believe me when I tell him that there’s no alcohol left in the house since Max’s party, until he checks all the cupboards for himself. Then he says he’s going to the pub, as it’s an emergency.

  ‘Will you be at work by the time I’ve had a few gins, Mol?’ he says. ‘Has Andrew done enough to convince you that he’s still one of the good guys now?’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I say, though I’ve no idea what my decision will be.

  Drink-driving: terrible. Vandalising a tree: normally, also terrible – but brilliant, if it means Mrs Parker sees the sun again before she dies. Why is nothing ever black and white?

  ‘Andrew was only just over the limit,’ says Max, giving me a hug when I groan in confusion. ‘If that makes any difference? We’re talking about degrees of guilt, you know … and whether bad behaviour can ever be justified.’

  Now there’s a profoundly uncomfortable thought.

  ‘Um, yes,’ I say, wriggling a bit. ‘I suppose we are.’

  I’d better focus on only blaming people who are definitely at fault, in future – like Johnny, who I wish would stop emailing me all the time. I can’t keep on hitting delete every five minutes, so maybe I should change my email address.

  Oh, but I can’t, can I? Not my Parliamentary one, not if I am going to go back to work. I’ll just have to mark Johnny’s emails as junk. That seems appropriate, after all the stuff he tried to get me to believe – like being in love with me. Thank God I came to my senses, just in time.

  ‘I need to deal with a few emails,’ I say to Max. ‘Urgently, but I won’t be long.’

  Then I kiss him, properly, and he kisses me back, before I stand up and walk towards the door. On the threshold, I turn around to look at him, and he smiles at me, like he used to, in the early days. I feel like a very smug married indeed.

  Epilogue

  (Oh, bloody hell.)

  From: Hunter, Johnny

  Subject: Urgent - re AIDS test.

  Date: 1 November 2010 07:12:55 GMT+3

  To: Bennett, Molly

  Molly

  See below. I have to be tested yearly, to get my work permit renewed. Ask the Russian Embassy if you don’t believe me. Not everyone tells you lies, you know. I don’t.

  Johnny

  Decree of the Russian Federation # 1158 from November 25, 1995

  ‘On Establishment of Requirements to the HIV Test (AIDS) Certificate, presented by the Foreign Citizens and Stateless Citizens upon their Application for Entry Visa to the Russian Federation for the Period over 3 Months.’

  REQUIREMENTS

  To the HIV Test (AIDS) Certificate,

  presented by foreign citizens and stateless persons upon application for an entry visa to Russia for a period over 3 months

  The certificate should contain:

  Passport data or those of the substitution document (last and first name of the person examined, date, month and year of birth, number of the passport or the substitution document; the state of permanent or primary residence)

  Indication of the intended stay in the Russian Federation

  Information about the result of the AIDS blood test (date of examination, signature of the doctor, who carried out the examination, series of the diagnosticum, with the help of which the analysis was made, stamp of the medical organization, where the examination was carried out, signature of the person examined)

  The Certificate is filled in Russian and in English and is valid for 3 months from the date of examination.

  Polly James is about to chain herself to her desk to start work on her second novel. Before she does, we thought we’d find out a bit more about her, and what the experience of writing Diary of an Unsmug Married was like.

  Are there occupational hazards to being a novelist?

  There certainly seem to be, as I became horrendously unfit during the writing of Molly’s diary.
First, I developed an inexplicable addiction to pink shrimp sweets, gained two stone and sent my cholesterol through the roof – and then I became so unfit that I tore the ligament in my right shoulder – just by typing. None of this was particularly helpful, given that I had quite a tight deadline for delivery of the book, and I’m right-handed.

  The plan for writing the next book is to stay away from the pink shrimps and to keep some time free for exercise, though I overheard my husband increasing my life assurance the other day – ‘just in case’.

  Where do you work and is there anything distinctive about your workspace?

  In theory, I work at a beautiful desk that my husband bought me as a gift, and which is in our spare bedroom (though I won’t allow the room to be called that, as I still haven’t accepted that my daughter really has moved out for good, even though she left for university in 2005 and hasn’t come back yet).

  The desk would look great in front of a window, but I daren’t put it there because I’d get so distracted by what my neighbours or passing strangers were up to if I did. (I love people-watching, and am very nosy.) Instead, it faces a blank wall, which should serve to keep me focused on writing.

  It doesn’t, because I’m not working at my desk at the moment. Instead, I’m sitting slumped on the sofa in the living room, in an attempt to find a position in which I can type without using my right arm, because of the aforementioned shoulder injury. This means that I can be distracted by anyone and everything, and often am.

  What do you keep on your desk and what is the view?

  No view, as mentioned earlier … other than of what’s on the desk itself. If I turn round, though, I can then see straight out of the window, and right across the small square on which I live, to a street of perfect Georgian houses situated on the other side.

  If I wrote historical fiction, this would be a great help as – every time I see that view – I find myself imagining people from the Georgian era coming out of their houses and going about their daily lives (as long as I ignore the pub on my street … and the coffee bar … and the mini-mart).

  On the desk itself, I have a gigantic computer screen a supportive ex-employer gave me to help me with writing the book, as my eyesight’s so awful that I was struggling with the small screen on my laptop. Now I just plug that into the big screen, add a keyboard and mouse, and off I go.

  That combination takes up almost half of the desk and I tend to use the other half as a dumping ground, so it’s often drowning under piles of books, until I lose patience and put them all back into the bookshelves for a while. There are only two books that are allowed to stay on the desk permanently: a copy of ‘Elements of Style’ and one of ‘The Right Word at the Right Time’. (Both are highly recommended.)

  Next to those are two index card boxes (which I always intend to use to help me plot things and then forget about completely), and a set of three filing trays labelled ‘Book one’, ‘Book two’, and ‘Other’. The ‘Book two’ tray looks worryingly empty at the moment.

  There’s also a pen pot containing loads of pens (none of which ever seem to work); a box of eye drops (for dry eye, the curse of those who spend all day in front of a screen, however large); a copy of my invitation to the Orwell Prize award dinner (to remind me that I can write well enough to be short-listed, if I try); and a towering stack of notebooks, yellow legal pads and used envelopes.

  I’ve scrawled ideas on all these things at one time or another, but not in any ordered way, so now none of my notes make any sense, even before I catch the pile with my elbow and send the whole lot crashing to the floor. (This happens at least twice a day.)

  Despite the gargantuan proportions of the paperwork pile, and the huge computer screen, the most noticeable thing on my desk is a shocking pink sticky note stuck squarely in the middle of it. On it is scrawled, ‘Never sell another book that you haven’t already written, you bloody, bloody idiot’.

  Molly’s always worrying about tempting fate, but are you superstitious, too? If so, what superstitions do you have?

  My first reaction was, ‘No, I’m not’ but I have a horrible feeling that I am, now I come to think of it – and I definitely was when I was a child.

  I used to do all that jumping-over-the-cracks-in-the-pavement stuff, throw salt about with gay abandon (alternating shoulders as I could never remember which one I was supposed to throw it over), and try to befriend every black cat in the neighbourhood, only to then reject them when I realised I wasn’t entirely positive that they weren’t unlucky.

  When I reached my teens, I decided to fight back by becoming a compulsive risk-taker, so I would deliberately walk under ladders, cross paths with people on the stairs, and put shoes on tables just for the hell of it.

  I then became the world’s most accident-prone adult, so now I’ve gone back to being careful – or superstitious, if you prefer to call it that!

  What can’t you live without?

  My husband, my children, earplugs, thermal underwear and piles of books. Oh, and an inexhaustible supply of cups of tea. (I’d have added pink shrimp sweets to the list, but I refuse to let them control me any longer.)

  Which five people, living or dead, would you like to invite to a dinner party?

  This is a bit of a tricky question as, if you invited a whole load of big personalities to dinner at the same time, that would just be asking for trouble – so theoretically, I should pick some guests who are listeners, not talkers, except no-one’s likely to have heard of them.

  Also, I know you’re probably supposed to choose people who’ve made a massive contribution to the welfare of nations, or who are really saintly and good, but what if they turned out to be tediously boring? Then someone might notice what an appallingly-bad cook I am.

  I clearly need to give this careful thought.

  Priorities for dinner guests:

  Must be good conversationalists, to divert attention from the food.

  At least one or two should be dead or fictional. Then I won’t have to feel guilty if I poison them, and can concentrate on keeping a close eye on the ones who were alive when they arrived.

  Prioritising’s always so helpful, isn’t it? Now I’ve almost completed my list:

  Dorothy Parker, writer

  David Mitchell, comedian

  Niles Crane from Frasier, psychiatrist (played by David Hyde Pierce, but he has to attend in character)

  Clive James, writer and critic

  I’m stuck on the fifth guest, though, so maybe readers could help me decide who that should be? Here are the candidates:

  Fran Lebowitz, writer (‘Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he’s paying.’)

  Karl Pilkington, moaner and philosopher (‘The Elephant Man would never have gotten up and gone,’ Oh God. Look at me hair today.’)

  Nora Ephron, writer (‘When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.’)

  Stephen Wright, comedian (‘If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.’)

  Paul Merton, comedian (‘My school days were the happiest days of my life; which should give you some idea of the misery I’ve endured over the past twenty-five years.’)

  Basil Fawlty, hotelier (‘A satisfied customer: we should have him stuffed.’)

  We thought we’d also include some suggestions for points of discussion for reading groups, so we asked Molly Bennett what she most often asks herself, and then reproduced her questions below.

  (She’s even had a try at answering them – in brackets – but says your opinions are much more likely to be right than hers.)

  Love and Marriage

  Long-term Marriages

  What happens when a marriage is stuck in a rut? (Nothing. That’s the point.)

  How much sex is everyone else having? (Much, much more than me. Definitely.)

  Is love cyclical, i.e. can married people recapture their feelings for each other? (God, I hope so.)

&n
bsp; Which is preferable: excitement or contentment? (I must admit, excitement can be very tiring.)

  Do you see the person you’re married to as others see them?

  Just because he doesn’t talk about it, does this mean he doesn’t love you? (It’s hard to remember that this may be true.)

  Is everyone cheating? (It bloody well seems that way.)

  How often do married people imagine being with someone else? (More than they admit.)

  Is an affair ever worth it? (Not sure, but my guess is no.)

  Is it still love, or just hard labour at the coalface? (How can you tell?)

  Divorce

  What are the effects of divorce and stepfamilies on the children, including in their adulthoods? (See Philip Larkin, then multiply by ten.)

  How does divorce affect you: as a child, as a parent, as a married person? (Ditto.)

  Is it ever worth it? (That depends on who you ask.)

  Is it too easy to get divorced? (As above.)

  Is divorce a selfish act? ( “ )

  Discuss toy-boys, trophy wives and Thai brides amongst yourselves. (I myself have nothing to add.)

  Internet dating

  How realistic are people’s expectations? (Do I really need to answer this?)

  Are men trying to find love, or sex? (I’ll let you know when I find out, though early indications suggest the latter.)

  How do participants judge suitable candidates? (A picture speaks a thousand words.)

  Does anyone tell the truth when internet dating? (Of course not.)

  Does it really matter if you have shared interests? (D’uh. No.)

  Family Matters

  Sibling Rivalry

  Why do children agree that their parents are guilty of outrageous favouritism, even though they cannot agree on which one of them their parents prefer?