Stand by Your Man
Page 1
Stand By Your Man
GIL McNEIL
For Joe
Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman
— Tammy Wynette
Contents
1. January
The Wrong Trousers
2. February
Tea with Mussolini
3. March
Dig for Victory
4. April
The Long Good Friday
5. May
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme
6. June
Singing in the Rain
7. July
La Dolce Vita
8. August
Mad Dogs and Englishmen
9. September
If You’re Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands
10. October
Hickory Dickory Dock
11. November
Rocket Man
12. One Year Later
Jingle Bells
Acknowledgments
A Note on the Author
By the Same Author
1
January
The Wrong Trousers
Garden Diary
The gardening book Mum gave me for Christmas says that vital garden tasks for January include cleaning all garden tools, ordering seeds, digging over all beds and borders, planting rhubarb and pruning everything in sight, especially wisteria and fruit trees.
I try to wash the mud off the filthy old spade in the shed, but the nozzle comes off the hosepipe and fills my wellies with freezing-cold water. Alfie thinks this is fabulous. Decide to have a go at a bit of digging instead, but the ground is frozen solid, so I end up balancing with both feet on the spade in an attempt to get it into the ground. Fall off and land in a bush with prickles, some sort of bramble possibly, or a very large thistle. I give up and move on to a nice spot of pruning, and since I’m not completely sure what wisteria looks like I hack away at the rambling climber thing covering the fence. Mum tells me later that it’s a spring-flowering clematis, and all the bits I chopped off were the flowering bits. Marvellous.
‘What unusual sexual characteristics does the Patagonian hare have?’
‘Christ, Molly, I thought you said the questions were going to be easy.’
‘Well, how did I know they’d be so competitive?’
That’s the trouble with Village Quiz Nights. The rest of the village gets to see just how stupid you really are.
‘It’s going to be really embarrassing if we don’t get a single question right.’
‘Where did Frank and Pat go for their honeymoon in EastEnders?’
‘Bugger, we haven’t answered the last one yet.’
‘Who invented obstetric forceps?’
‘That’s easy. A total bastard.’
‘Shall I write that down?’
‘Definitely.’
I’ve got a feeling total bastard isn’t actually going to be the answer, but I write it down anyway.
‘How many degrees are there in each internal angle of an octagon?’
‘Come on, Alice, you should know this one. Didn’t you do angles at architect school?’
‘Sort of.’
‘What did Wonder Woman’s lasso always make people do?’
‘Beg for mercy?’
‘Molly, we’ve got to get at least one question right. Look, you write the answers while I work out the angles thing.’
‘In golf what is the term for one under par for a hole?’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Which country invented the duffel coat?’
‘Oh good, I know this one. It’s Belgium.’
Molly looks very pleased with herself.
‘I organised a school trip to Belgium a few years ago and I had to do the worksheets.’
‘I bet that was a lovely trip.’
‘Oh it was. We lost two year-nines on the ferry coming home and the deputy head nearly had a heart attack. We had to get an ambulance and everything. But he was fine – I think he was just putting it on so no one could blame him if the kids had gone overboard.’
‘And had they?’
‘No, shame really. One of them was Wayne Tompkins, and he’s a nutter. He Super-glued a supply teacher to his seat last week in DT.’
‘Well, at least we’ll get one question right.’
Actually, we manage six in all. Out of thirty. Which isn’t great, but we’re both so drunk by the time they’ve worked out all the scores that we don’t really care. Molly is bracing herself for sarcastic comments about teachers not knowing as much as you’d think, but luckily nobody seems to have the time to come over and be patronising because they’re too busy bickering about their own scores. And at least we now know Patagonian hares are completely monogamous. Bless. And Pat and Frank went to Hawaii. Although the woman on the table near ours is still trying to convince one of the judges that it was Spain. Some of the teams are taking it all very seriously and all the judges have gone bright red. But the really good news is we’ve failed to get through to the next round, so technically we can go home, having done our bit for village funds, and rescue Dan from looking after two three-year-olds who didn’t look very tired when we left.
‘Shall we go then?’
‘No way. I’ll get some more drinks and we can see who wins.’
‘Great. I was hoping you’d say that.’
Molly gets the drinks in, which takes ages because the pub’s completely packed.
‘I got triples – I thought it’d save time.’
‘Good thinking. Blimey, that’s strong.’
I can feel the vodka sort of softening the edges a bit. Perhaps I should put some more tonic in. Although on second thoughts it’s quite nice, actually.
‘How’s work?’
‘Crap. And we’ve got a trip to the Natural History Museum next week. Thirty-two stroppy fourteen-year-olds on a coach – I might as well alert the emergency services now. What about you?’
‘Double crap. I’ve got a barn conversion for a client who hates barns, and more kitchen jobs than bloody IKEA.’
‘Nice.’
‘I mean what the hell’s the point of buying a barn to convert if you hate them?’
‘Can’t you just knock it down and start again?’
‘That’s not really the point, Moll, and anyway it’s listed – the planning boys would have a fit. And the chairman of the local Parish Council lives right opposite, and every time I go round there he’s lurking behind a bush.’
‘Maybe he’s a flasher.’
‘Probably. That’d be just my luck. If we so much as touch a single brick he’ll have a heart attack. And it could be so beautiful – if the client wasn’t such a total pillock. Anyway, what’s so crap about school at the moment? Apart from the coach trip, I mean.’
‘Oh just the usual. Too many kids, not enough drugs. That sort of thing. Nothing special, it’s all right really. And some days it almost feels like I’m making a difference, you know. It’s home I can’t cope with. Give me a load of dysfunctional teenagers any day. But persuading Lily that she can’t wear her party dress to playgroup again, forget it. It took me nearly three-quarters of an hour to get her dressed this morning.’
When I met Molly when we first moved down here I thought Lily was going to be one of those children who make you feel very bitter about life. You know the type, she’s sort of the opposite of Alfie really. She always looks immaculate, and she’s very polite and likes things nice and tidy. But then I realised that the thing she really likes best is annoying her mother, so that cheered me up a bit. Molly’s a dungarees and Birkenstocks kind of mum, organic, vegetarian and a bit of an old hippy, but in a nice way, without any chanting or joss sticks. Lily on the other hand will only wear pink, or other pastel shades
at a push, preferably with sequins, and wouldn’t be seen dead in a pair of trousers. She’s a bit like a mini Dame Edna Everage.
‘How was Janice today?’
‘New lacy tights.’
Janice is Molly’s childminder. She takes Lily to the same playgroup as Alfie, and collects her at lunchtime. She’s always wanted a little girl, but got three sons instead, so she makes do by dressing Lily up in My Little Princess outfits, and knitting things in peach, or sometimes an unpleasant shade of aquamarine.
‘Oh and I haven’t told you the latest. She’s started cleaning.’
‘Who?’
‘Lily. She trots round with a duster, and she’s really into standing on a chair by the sink and doing the washing up. Janice has got her a little mop.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘I know. But she loves it. It’s so humiliating. It makes me feel like she’s judging me. I just don’t get it – how come I’ve ended up with a post-feminist three-year-old who likes having a good go-round with a duster? Dan thinks it’s hysterical.’
‘Is it post-feminist then, to like cleaning?’
‘Yes, it bloody is. And I’m fed up with it. I’ve just about got Dan to realise it’s not my job to rush round after him with a dustpan and brush, and now Lily’s letting the side down.’
Molly is very anti post-feminists. She thinks they’re a Disgrace.
‘Maybe you should hire a cleaner? Or is that not allowed?’
‘Oh no. Exploiting women poorer than you is timeless really, and if you pay them properly I suppose it’s all right – redistribution of wealth and all that bollocks. But we haven’t got the money, and even if we did no cleaner in their right mind would work for us. Dan’s started on the fireplace downstairs now, so there’s a load of old bricks and bits of plaster piled up in the corner, and a great big hole in the wall where the old one used to be. I wish he’d finish one room before he starts demolishing somewhere else. It’s driving me crazy.’
Dan’s a builder who does mostly renovations: which means he can spend hours choosing the perfect plaster moulding for a cornice, but he’s not terribly good at actually finishing boring jobs at home.
‘Handy Lily likes dusting then, isn’t it? You can drop her round with me any time, you know, for a session with the Pledge.’
‘I might take you up on that. Oh, and that reminds me, Janice says she saw the new people moving into the big house today. The woman was getting into a Range Rover outside the shop, with two kids. All tinted windows and black leather, apparently. So you’ll have to go up and say hello, and then report back.’
‘I can’t just march up there and nose about.’
‘Yes you can, you’re their nearest neighbour. Take a cup of sugar or something.’
‘Alfie would eat it before we got out of the door.’
‘Well, a bottle of something then, as a housewarming present. Look, I need to know. I told Janice you’re bound to have met them. I have to have info soon or she’ll think I’m crap. Well, more crap than usual.’
‘I’ve got a bottle of wine somewhere, I think, but it’s not very posh. What if they’re über-snooters and laugh at my plonk?’
‘Oh go on, please, I’ll owe you one.’
‘OK, but only if you promise to come round next weekend when Patric’s here, and help me annoy him.’
‘Pleasure.’
‘He’s bringing Cindy.’
‘Wanker.’
Patric is Alfie’s dad. Sort of. I mean technically he is, but since he left us when Alfie was five months old he doesn’t exactly win a Father of the Year award. Patric with a C, but no K, unlike in prick, as my brother Jim points out whenever he gets the chance. Sometimes when Patric’s actually in the room.
We met at college, and he said he liked independent women, and marriage was bourgeois. Children were better off being brought up in a family based on trust and equality, which sounded quite good at the time, until he left me for his secretary, Cindy, who wears very tiny fluffy jumpers and has a collection of soft toys on her desk. And they all have names.
We’d just moved into the cottage: Patric thinks all children should grow up in the country. So there I was, stuck in a cottage that needed doing up, not knowing anybody in the village, in the twilight zone. Alfie wasn’t sleeping much, and neither was I. Meeting Molly in the village shop was a lifesaver.
‘I was thinking about him last night, actually.’
‘Oh god, don’t tell me you and Mork are getting back together again. I’ll have to stab you or something.’
Molly, for some reason best known to herself, calls Patric and Cindy Mork and Mindy. Even my brother Jim’s started doing it now.
‘Christ no, I’m not completely mad, no. I was just thinking about how stupid I must be, to have spent so long with someone who’s such a total wanker. And I never knew, while I was with him, I mean. So I must have been mad, and maybe I still am, mad, I mean, and I just don’t know it. It sort of makes you worry, you know. There should be a course you can go on, maybe a night class – Manky Men and How to Avoid Them. My name is Alice and I’m a mankoholic.’
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself – we’ve all been there.’
‘Yes, but not as bad as Patric.’
‘Oh I don’t know about that. The man I was with before Dan was pretty special. He said monogamy was a patriarchal plot, and then shagged half my friends. And I just let him get away with it because I thought he was a free spirit.’
‘Nice.’
‘Yes, and then I got drunk one night and snogged one of his friends, and he went tonto. And I was really shocked, you know. It was like I’d been wearing the wrong glasses, and suddenly I’d got the right ones and could see clearly what a total prick he was.’
‘Just like Wallace and Gromit.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You know, The Wrong Trousers.’
‘Oh, right. Well, yes, if you put it like that, yes, we’ve all had our fair share of boys in wrong trousers. And any woman who hasn’t is a total Stepford Wife.’
Molly divides women into Proper Women and Stepford Wives, and I think she’s right. Proper Women have crumpled clothes, are late for playgroup, and don’t know how to make meringues. Stepford Wives always look immaculate, are never late for anything, and make their own mayonnaise.
‘Patric used to have a pair of leather trousers, but his legs are too thin. They sort of flapped round the ankles. He looked completely ridiculous.’
‘I bet he did. But it’s character-forming, you know. Shagging retards. It makes you a proper woman.’
‘Good. Well, that makes me mega proper then. I’ll drink to that. To men in the wrong trousers.’
‘Or no trousers at all.’
By the time the winner of the quiz is announced, and presented with a rather squashed-looking box of chocolates donated by the village shop, we’re all completely pissed. One of the judges looks like he’s passed out, and Elsie Thomas is singing a medley of very rude songs from the Second World War. Molly’s having a long chat with Mrs Pomeroy, who runs the local Garden Society and is very bossy, and I’ve been on the verge of nodding off while Ray Jenkins tells me all about his career with the Water Board.
Molly’s at the bar when I make my way back from the loo, which is proving more difficult than you’d think because my boots have gone all wobbly. I don’t normally have any problem walking in them, but for some reason tonight they’re proving a bit tricky.
‘Um, Moll. Wasn’t one of us supposed to stay sober, so they could drive home?’
‘Bugger.’
‘I know.’
‘Shall we ask someone to give us a lift?’
‘All right, but not Ray Jenkins. There’s only so much drainage a girl can take.’
‘He’s very keen.’
‘He’s also very bipolar.’
‘We could walk.’
‘It’s nearly two miles.’
‘Yes. But it’s not that cold. It’ll do us good.’
‘Well, pick someone else then … Ooh. He’s all right. Where did he come from? I haven’t seen him before.’
A tall blond man is standing at the bar, quite near to Molly, wearing nice jeans and an old leather jacket.
‘He’s got a lovely arse. He’s definitely not wearing the wrong trousers.’
‘Molly. He’ll hear you, stop it.’
The man turns round, and goes bright red.
‘Great. He did hear you.’
‘I don’t care. He has. Men needs compliments too, you know, Alice.’
‘If a man said you’d got a lovely arse, you’d smack him in the mouth.’
‘Well, yes. Stictly spleeking, I would. Possibly.’
‘Spleeking? I think we must be quite drunk, you know, Moll.’
‘I know. It’s lovely, isn’t it? He has, though. And look, he doesn’t look too frontal-lobe or anything, not like poor old Ray. Go on, go up and ask him if he’ll give us a lift home. Go on.’
‘I can’t just walk up to a perfect stranger and ask him to drive us home.’
‘Why not?’
Oh God. He’s coming over. He walks towards us, and hesitates, and goes bright red again and sort of smiles, in a rather sweet, apologetic kind of way. He doesn’t look like the sort of man who’s used to being told he’s got a gorgeous arse by women in pubs. Maybe he’s going to come over and say something: or maybe he’s going to make some kind of formal complaint to the committee. Oh god, how embarrassing. We’ll be hauled up before the Parish Council for making dodgy comments in a public place. But in fact he walks straight past us, and out of the door.
‘Oh. Well done, Batgirl. You really reeled him in. Nice to know we’re going to be driven home by a handsome stranger.’
‘I didn’t notice you saying anything.’
‘I was leaving the field open for you. I don’t think Dan would like me bringing home strangers with nice bottoms.’
‘Probably not. So, it looks like we’re walking then?’
‘Oh bugger it, I’ll ask Mrs Pomeroy. She won’t mind. She’s been telling me all about the Garden Society, and she’s really keen on new recruits. So I told her we’d join – there’s a meeting next week. That should be worth a lift home.’