William Walkers First Year of Marriage (14 page)

I know her. I’m sure I know her. But for the life of me I can’t remember her name. Normally, in this kind of situation, I would try to bluff my way through with lots of ambiguous questions: How are you? How’s things? What’s happening? Crowded on the Tube today, isn’t it? But before I can take the sensible route, a small voice says, ‘Just be honest. She’s probably a girl you once met at a magazine party. It would be much politer just to say you’re terrible with names and you’re sorry you’ve forgotten hers.’

‘I’m sorry, I know we’ve met but I’m terrible with names. And I’ve forgotten yours.’

‘It’s Lucy. We went to university together. We shared a house together. You once tried to have sex with me in Paris. I came to your thirtieth birthday party last month. We chatted about how important it was to stay in touch with old friends. You’re coming to my wedding on Saturday.’

Despite explaining I’d just had a severe bout of influenza after foiling a mugging, she got off at the next stop and I was left alone in a carriage of smirkers. When I tell Isabel, she says I’ve probably got prosopagnosia. From the Greek,
prosopon
meaning ‘face’;
agnosia
meaning ‘ignorance’. According to some magazine she was reading only yesterday, a housewife in Boulder, Colorado, couldn’t even recognise her own face. Whenever she was in a busy restroom, she had to twitch to know which face was hers.

Either that or I’m an idiot.

Last wedding of the season. I manage, between service and reception, mid-confetti as it happens, to smooth things out with Lucy. I mention prosopagnosia. And also that, judging by how beautiful she looks today, I’m not surprised she didn’t have sex with me in Paris. Lucy seemed to appreciate this but Isabel, who of course
overheard, didn’t. I think the whole Saskia thing has made her lose her sense of humour. Anyway, the wedding was surprisingly good, avoiding, as it did, all the usual pitfalls of weddings (e.g. making up your own vows, holding the reception at a golf club, fainting).

38/40, two better than ours. Hope their marriage is a disaster.

Bike sells for only twenty quid less than I bought it for and Isabel thinks I’m looking quite fit, despite leaving the gym.

Some nice people came to look at the flat. Loved it, said Arsehole. They’d like to make an offer.

Have to fly to New York tomorrow to interview Hillary Clinton for next month’s cover story because all the senior interviewers and correspondents at
Life & Times
are either sick, busy or recently deceased. Hillary Clinton never did interviews with
Cat World
. Johnson reckons this will be my big break. Will completely make up for killing Sandra and dunking workie. I actually manage to laugh.

Isabel not delighted but understands sudden and unexpected career opportunity, particularly in wake of tea-throwing debacle. It means, she says, that we’ll have to cancel lunch with our respective parents.

Can’t see how this week can get much better.

Upgraded!

I have a flat bed. I have proper cutlery. I have the choice of a thousand films with explosions, a thousand cocktails and a thousand different ways to adjust the lumbar in my seat, whatever that is. Even the toilet is completely different: there are moisturisers, aftershaves and a small but tasteful bouquet of orchids rather than strewn tissues, toothpaste spit and an unflushable memento from the previous occupant’s visit.

Still can’t see how this week can get much better, although the last time I said that it did, so I’m going to stop saying it. Perhaps Clinton will reveal that she slept with an intern exclusively in my interview? Or my hotel will know who I am and upgrade me to the presidential suite? Or I’ll notice a waitress has dropped her lottery ticket, pick it up for her, accept her invitation for a coffee during which she’ll check her numbers, realise she’s won the interstate jackpot, and give me half? Although that might be difficult to explain to Isabel.

I wish Isabel had been able to come with me—she’d love it.

When I reach the airport taxi rank, I shout ‘Taxi’ excitedly, even though it’s my taxi anyway. And when I get to the hotel, I can’t resist an ‘Any messages?’ Then a ‘No, okay, I’m expecting a call from Hillary Clinton’s people.’ But the receptionist is like, whatever. So I’m like, like I care. So he’s like, waddayougonnadoaboudit? So I’m like, talk to the hand, buddy. I love it.

My room is on the fifty-third floor but the lift—sorry, elevator—only takes four seconds. This is all just brilliant, I’m thinking as I walk down the corridor to my room. I’m in New York. On assignment. And I’m going to go out and order the biggest hamburger in the whole of Manhattan. And gosh, I recognise that bottom and oh God, that’s because it belongs to Saskia.

She Who Destroys Relationships.

‘What are you doing here?’ As well as being completely flabbergasted, I’m very angry, not because I have an anger-management issue but because there have been too many surprise turnings-up in the last couple of months.

‘Hello to you too.’

‘Yes hello, but what are you doing here? Are you following me?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, here you are in the room next to mine in New York a month after you miraculously turn up in the flat downstairs from me in Finsbury Park.’

‘I’m here for my best friend’s twenty-fifth.’

‘Oh, right.’

Her turn to look furious. ‘Anyway. As you may have noticed, this is my room, I arrived first and therefore you are following me. So what are you doing here? And why the hell would I follow you? Just because we had sex a million years ago, you automatically assume I’m some bunny-boiling maniac who’s decided the best way to spend my time is by following you around the world? You prick.’

‘But—’

‘But what? You think I’m so desperate? You think I don’t know you didn’t go to East bloody Timor to hunt for snake-eating orchids? Huh? You are a pathetic, snivelling bastard. You are a prick. A prick. A
prick!
’

And with that, she slammed the door. Which would have been a perfect, perfect way to leave things. Saskia hating me; Isabel loving me: that’s absolutely the way it should be. Simply leave the DoR fuming safely in her room and go and order that enormous burger.

Except she was right, I had been a prick. It wasn’t her fault she’d picked the flat I lived above. It wasn’t her fault we were both in the same hotel in New York. She’d been friendly, I’d been a prick.

I went into my room and tried to admire the amazing view of Manhattan, but I couldn’t. I felt bad. It was a million years ago, the sex. She’s had lots of sex since then, all of it probably just as exciting, possibly even more so. And it was me that finished the whole thing. I cheated on my girlfriend. Then I finished with Saskia. All pretty callous.

Of course she did phone Elizabeth and tell her everything.

But that’s just the sort of girl she is: spontaneous, strong, good at getting what she wants. Back then, she wanted to get even. Now, she wants to be friends.

I knocked at her door.

‘What?’ Still furious.

‘Sorry, I was shocked.’

‘Apology accepted. I’m just ordering drinks. Scotch and dry, right?’

Bugger.

It all happened incredibly fast.

First, I did accept the drink, but wrapped it up nice and fast.

Second, Hillary’s people called my people, well, me, to cancel the interview and my office booked me on the Sunday night flight home.

Third, I flew home un-upgraded, telling myself all the way across the Atlantic that the Saskia thing was just another unfortunate coincidence, that I had nothing to hide and that I should be completely honest with Isabel.

Fourth, Isabel was there to meet me at the airport at the crack of dawn to cheer me up because the interview hadn’t happened.

Fifth, her being at the airport meant I hadn’t had time to psych myself up to tell her I stayed in the same hotel as Saskia and that I had a drink with her so I didn’t tell her anything at all.

Sixth, I went to work kicking myself for being such an idiot because now I wouldn’t ever be able to tell her because why, then, hadn’t I mentioned it immediately?

Seventh, I called Saskia and told her not to mention New York if she was to bump into Isabel.

Eighth, she said sorry, she already had bumped into Isabel and had mentioned New York because she hadn’t thought of any reason not to.

Ninth, Isabel’s mobile was switched off.

Tenth, by the time I got back from work, Isabel was gone.

‘Marriage may often be a stormy lake, but celibacy is
almost always a muddy horsepond.’

T
HOMAS
L
OVE
P
EACOCK
,
Melincourt
(1817)

I don’t think anyone can truly understand the meaning of being in the doghouse until they have been married for six months, gone to New York for the weekend by accident with a woman they once had sex with on Hyde Park Corner, and then tried not to mention it.

Isabel strode in at one o’clock this morning after presumably getting a pep talk from the bridesmaids. I left the requisite number of explanatory messages (eight) and thought it would be a good, martyrish idea to stay up, despite the overnight flight and long day at work. When I heard her unlocking the door, I adopted a haggard
pose on the sofa, then looked over mournfully, ready to begin my apology. Before I could start, though, she fixed me with a paralysing glare, much like a python fixes a guinea pig. In low, monotonic tones, she spelt out the cruel size and shape of the doghouse: ‘I’ve listened to your messages and I’d like you to sleep on the sofa.’ For a delightful second, I thought she was joking—‘Get me a cup of tea or you’re sleeping on the sofa’ was her favourite line when we were playing at newlyweds. When she stormed into the bedroom, a sheet and pillow flying out soon after, all turned to despair again.

I but-, but-, but-ed through the door for a bit then decided to accept my lot and bed down for the night in the living room.

It took hours to get to sleep. When I woke, she had already left. A text message declared that she would be out again tonight.

A second night on the proverbial and actual sofa. My tactic tonight was to be asleep on her return because I was bound to look uncomfortable, she was bound to feel sorry for me and she would wake me up. It failed. I woke at 6 a.m. and the bedroom door was resolutely closed. So I decided to play hard to get and left before she woke. This meant great personal sacrifice—I had to wear the same clothes as yesterday, but it would be worth it just to be able to talk to her.

It worked. Well, it did and it didn’t. For the first time in three days she called, which is good because it means the silent treatment is over, but bad because she was just calling to say she was staying with the fat bridesmaid tonight, that she would be away for the weekend and did I have a problem with that? I said I didn’t but we really should talk. She said, ‘What, about you and your floozy? I don’t think so,’ and hung up.

Saskia popped her manipulative, twisting, untrustworthy head out of her unbelievably badly located front door to ask, in a butter-wouldn’t-melt purr, whether everything was all right.

‘Fine, thanks,’ I lied.

‘Anything I can do to help?’ she offered, unhelpfully.

‘No thanks. Isabel still isn’t talking to me because of whatever it was you helpfully said last time.’

‘All I said was that it had been a nice surprise to meet up in the Big Apple and catch up on old times.’

‘Oh, great. No wonder she’s so angry with me.’

‘She’s very uptight, isn’t she, your wife? Doesn’t trust you an inch.’

‘Well, that might be something to do with you. You put other women on edge. You’re that sort of person.’

‘Thank you, darling. You know where I am if you need or want anything.’

I hadn’t meant it as a compliment, and what I want you to do, you treacherous evil harlot with your legs and your blonde hair and your skirt and your legs, is to go and live on the southern end of Stewart Island, where even you couldn’t ruin a perfectly decent relationship. Unless of course you manage to upset some penguins.

Upstairs, I put my sad-lonely-bastard pizza in the you-idiot-what-have-you-done oven, and settled in for another evening alone.

Day three of attempt to escape the doghouse, this time with Steve McQueen-on-a-motorbike panache: romantic dinner à deux to greet Isabel when she gets in from work. Left work early, fought lots of fellow panic-buyers to the rocket salad, garlic
bread, salmon roulades and filet mignon at Marks & Spencer, then raced home to tidy flat, draw a big sign saying ‘I’m sorry’, put on soothing, unantagonistic music and scatter lots of tea lights.

Isabel arrived just as one of the candles ignited the ‘I’m sorry’ sign, which in turn set the highly flammable plastic magazine files on the sole surviving highly flammable bright-blue bookshelf on fire. I ran from the kitchen and began patting the uncomfortably large flames with my hands. Patting, I quickly realised, is the same as fanning, so I stopped and looked around for Isabel, who had just vanished. As the smoke alarm belatedly kicked in, I yelled out to her, ‘Call the fire brigade.’ At which point she emerged from the bathroom with a soaking towel and threw it over the bookcase. The fire was extinguished, the flat saved and I was still in the doghouse.

A horrible night. I’d been allowed back into the bedroom after a fairly edgy supper but Isabel had cold-shouldered me from the outset. In many ways, the in-bed cold shoulder is worse than the sofa cold shoulder. On the sofa, you can accept your fate and go to sleep. In the same bed, you are reminded with every breath and fidget of the trouble you are in. Is she asleep? Is she awake? Should I pretend to sleep? Should I pretend to be awake? Should I try to put an arm across her arm? Should I roll sleepily across and hug her? No, obviously not.

In the morning, while she is brushing her teeth, I decide to broach the subject again. I opt for a speed-talking approach. ‘Look, I’m sorry about New York. I went for a drink with Saskia because I’d been rude to her. I was going to tell you but—’ And dammit, she interrupted there, halfway through the tooth-brushing, just
when it still sounded all guilt-ridden and excuse-y rather than honest and record-straightening.

‘I am gow going away for ger weekend. I want you goo gink garefully agout what you gink gis garage geans gooyou. Now geegme alone. G.’

So I left her alone, even though I already knew what this marriage meant to me. I would spend the weekend pretending to re-evaluate. Then everything would be all right on Monday.

After a tedious morning repainting the burnt bit of the ceiling, throwing out the crappy bright-blue bookshelf (whose manufacturers really should be reported to Health and Safety) and putting the unsinged books into storage, I go to the pub with Johnson and Andy. Johnson applies reason and judgement to my marital difficulties and concludes that I am not at fault and it is Isabel who is being unreasonable.

I did not know Saskia was going to be in New York +1

I was initially confrontational with her +1

I then apologised and accepted a drink—5

I had the drink and left without being lured +5

I didn’t tell Isabel about the drink—5

I called Saskia and asked her to cover up—2

I slept on the sofa for two nights +5

I made dinner with candles and a sign +2

I nearly burnt the flat down—3

I have had to handle all the solicitor’s house-move stuff on my own +2

I have been in the doghouse for five days which is ages considering I was not lured +5

TOTAL +6

Andy doesn’t apply reason or judgement, choosing instead to remind me of his suggestion to hole up on a tropical island with Isabel. I leave the pub for once convinced that Johnson is right. New tactic: a big fight.

When Isabel gets back, I tell her she has been unreasonable. She explodes. I explode back. I explode that she gets mad when I even so much as allude to the possibility that Alex might have designs on her but that they go out all the time. She explodes that that’s because they’re friends and didn’t have sex on Hyde Park Corner. I explode that there was some covering up of breast-touching and whatever else. She explodes that at least Alex isn’t a slut. I explode yes, but he is a stalker who keeps following me and heavy-breathing down the phone.

We retreat to the red and blue corners of our flat. Then yet another night of in-bed silent treatment. I am beginning to wonder whether I should have been unfaithful anyway. Couldn’t possibly be any worse than this.

Just as I am deciding whether it would be easier to get the Tube home or jump off Tower Bridge, I see Isabel across the street from my office. She is smiling in a nice way, not a white-with-molten-burning-cutting-off-testicles-rage way, and she is also holding a gleaming new mountain bike with a ribbon wrapped around it.

‘I’m sorry. You were right. I overreacted.’

Spot the trap, William. Don’t fall in it. Don’t agree with her.

‘No, you didn’t. I was wrong. I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. I was an idiot.’

‘It was just a shock. It seemed so implausible that you should be in the same hotel as Saskia.’

Another trap. Keep going.

‘I should have said something. I was going to say something. I’m an idiot. I’m such a big idiot. I’m such a big, fat, stinking idiot.’

That’s enough. Don’t over-egg the self-flagellation pudding.

‘Anyway, I’ve got you a little present: part-apology, part-country-house-warming.’

Like a phoenix from the ashes of the world’s hairiest doghouse, I rise again. Forgiven. Apologised to. An owner of a very cool mountain bike.

I shall never try to hide anything from Isabel ever again.

First of six monthly anger-management meetings. Too happy to let the pointlessness of it get to me. I say everything they want me to say and nothing more.

To dinner with Lucy, who I’m still having to pretend to be best friends with after the whole forgetting thing, even though we went to her annoyingly perfect wedding. She is up from Marlborough for the weekend with her new husband, Tarquin. He is an archaeologist with a special attachment to Stonehenge. She is an expert in Chinese art at Sotheby’s. Which means that, unlike me, they have found some way of applying their degrees to actual life. That, again unlike me, they are making some use of their brains. I don’t mind being married to someone who has to make use of her brain, but I don’t want to be friends with people who do as well. It is too much.

And at least Isabel doesn’t read academic books to further explore the subjects she studied at university. ‘It’s amazing how much more interesting everything is now you know you don’t have to do an exam at the end of it,’ enthuses Tarquin. ‘Yes, it’s a true delight. Truly,’ agrees Lucy. They both chortle as only smug, nauseating people can.

Back at home, I panic-Amazon the following books:

1215: The Year of Magna Carta

The Evolution of the British Welfare State

The Long European Reformation: Religion, Political Conflict and the Search for Conformity, 1350-1750

Cook with Jamie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook

Got the survey for the house today. Waste of bloody money. Ten pages of fence-sitting, arse-covering, commitment-phobic mumbojumbo.

‘It was not raining at the time, so we were unable to comment on the effectiveness of the rainwater fittings.’

‘No comment can be made as to the adequacy or otherwise of the roof structure or roof timbers without the opening up of the aforementioned timbers.’

‘The walls may fall down, the roof may leak, the foundations could be made of jelly, the whole thing could be a disaster. We’re not sure because we couldn’t lift up the carpets. That’ll be £840 please.’

Our solicitor says we should relax. The buyers of our flat are so excited to be moving to Finsbury Park that they had no complaints about their survey either. Presumably it didn’t say, ‘Tossers upstairs, nymphomaniac downstairs, murderers, rapists and dognappers outside.’ Looks like we’ll exchange tomorrow.

Can’t exchange today. Someone at my mortgage company forgot to sign something although we’re not sure who or what. Books have arrived, but too stressed about house to read them.

Still can’t exchange. The thing someone was supposed to sign has been signed by the wrong someone so we have to get another thing altogether and get it signed by someone else.

Called the assistant allegedly handling the process of getting the someone to sign the something at the mortgage company.

‘Carmen, it’s William.’

‘Hello, William,’ giggle giggle. ‘Can I just take your surname?’

‘It’s Walker. I’m the person who called you seventeen times yesterday.’

‘Can you spell that?’

‘W-A-L-K-E-R.’

‘Oh right, yes.’ Giggle. ‘Was it about a mortgage?’

‘Yes, we’re waiting for someone to sign something.’

‘Oh right.’ Giggle. Long pause. ‘Well, have they?’

‘I don’t know, that’s why I’m calling.’

‘Oh right. Silly’—giggle—‘me. Hold on a sec. I’ll find out.’

Cue
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
. Five minutes.

‘Hello?’

‘Who’s that?’ It’s a man’s voice.

‘William Walker. I was talking to Carmen.’

‘Oh sorry, sir, I must have picked up the wrong line. I’ll transfer you back.’

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
. Five minutes. Then cut off. I call back.

‘Can I speak to Carmen?’

‘Sorry, she’s just had to pop out to lunch. Canyoucallbackinan-hourandanarf?’

Started
1215: The Year of Magna Carta
but only reached page four. Then dreamt of petrol-bombing Carmen’s mortgage office, her
house, her parents’ house and all her friends’ houses, shooting anyone who tried to escape.

Exchanged. We’re moving on Saturday. Got to page eleven of
Magna Carta
and fell into such a deep sleep that I woke with a shock at eight, face down with my arms crossed underneath my body. Both of them were completely dead so I had to rock myself back and forth with my nose and my knees until they started coming back to life. Isabel thought I was having some sort of stress-related fit.