William Walkers First Year of Marriage (21 page)

‘Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a
confusion of the real with the ideal never goes
unpunished.’

J
OHANN
W
OLFGANG
VON
G
OETHE

My marriage is over after only ten months (even the gay guy and the marketing bitch lasted seven).

I am thirty years old and I am living with my parents again.

If I am single, I will struggle on the singles market due to (a) receding hairline, (b) slight pot-belly and (c) fear and loathing of the opposite sex.

Absolutely none whatsoever.

‘I don’t understand what you were doing with this Saskia girl in the first place. She doesn’t sound like a nice girl.’

‘Mum, it’s none of your business and I wasn’t doing anything with her, okay?’

‘It is my business, dear. I am your mother. Now, what about this photograph?’

‘It’s not real.’

‘What do you mean? How can a photograph not be real?’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘Well, I am worried, dear. Isabel is a lovely girl and I don’t want to see her hurt.’

‘So you’re siding with her?’

‘I’m not siding with anybody. But you’re far too young to be having a midlife crisis. And even if you were, you should just go out and buy a horrible little sports car like the neighbour two up did. Sleeping around is never the answer.’

‘Mum, I don’t want to discuss it and I haven’t slept around.’

‘I should know.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing, dear. It’s between me and your father.’

‘Christ, this really is turning into the worst day of my life. I’ll be in my room.’

‘I’m afraid you don’t have a room. We turned it into your father’s studio. Didn’t think you’d be needing it, now you were married and everything. You can stay in the spare room, dear.’

‘Christ.’

I refuse to contact Isabel first this time. I am innocent. She doesn’t trust me. I will not blink first. And besides, Mum’s shepherd’s pie is great. As is tea with cow’s milk and sugar. As is a complete lack of turnips. As is…

‘Dad, hi.’

‘Your mother has asked me to have a word with you.’

‘About what?’

‘About this unpleasant business.’

‘Dad, there is no unpleasant business.’

‘Right, well, I’m glad we’ve had this little chat.’

‘Okay.’

‘Okay?’

‘Yes.’

Still nothing from Isabel. Starting to feel bad about walking out of my office. But I am still the injured party here.

‘Dear, don’t put your cup straight on the table. It will mark. Let me get a place mat.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Have you spoken to Isabel yet?’

‘No.’

‘Do you want a poached egg for breakfast?’

‘Yes.’

‘“Yes, please.”’

‘Yes, pleeeeease. God’s sake.’ ‘Language.’

Still nothing, not even a text or an angry phone message, which is a record.

‘It keeps hiding the emails. Stupid computer.’

‘Mum, it’s not stupid. It’s a computer. It doesn’t have the ability to be stupid. Just click on that button…no, you just double-clicked…’

‘What do you mean, double-clicked?’

‘You clicked it twice. Close the box.’

‘How?’

‘Click on the cross. Up. Up, up. There. Now drag that down so we can see both boxes.’ ‘How do you drag?’ ‘Click and move the mouse…no, you just double-clicked again.’

‘I’m not talking with my mouth open, Mum.’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘Am not.’

‘Don’t be childish.’

‘Am not.’

‘You’re not leaving that, are you?’

‘It’s cartilage, Dad. People don’t eat cartilage these days. Not since we defeated the Germans.’

‘It’s the best bit. Give it here.’

‘That’s disgusting.’

‘Mum, I’m going to the pub.’

‘What time will you be back?’

‘Why? I’ve got a key.’

‘You’ve got work tomorrow.’

‘So?’

‘You look tired. Don’t be late.’

‘I’m thirty years old. I don’t need a curfew.’

‘You’re burning your candles at both ends as usual. You’ll get sick.’

‘Andy? I need to sleep on your sofa for a few days.’

So things have gone from bad to worse. I am no longer a thirty-year-old sleeping in the spare room of his parents’ house. I am a thirty-year-old sleeping on the sofa of a friend. ‘The only answer, my friend,’ slurs a tramp on a bench as I slope off to work, ‘lies at the bottom of a glass.’ Even tramps feel sorry for me, but he’s right.

I buy a bottle of whisky on the way home from work and drink it.

I love her. I love her so much. I’ve been so stupid. I love her. I love her. I laaaaaaave her. I laaaaaaaaaaaaaaave her. Laaaava. Laaava. Lav lav lav. Give me the phone. Give me the phone.

‘Ibosel. I laaaaave you. I laaaaaaaaaave you so much. Laaaaaaaaave.’ ‘Who is this? Who are you? Why are you calling me?
Why are you calling me?
’ ‘I called you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’ve got the wrong number. I woke you? I’m sorry but, you see, I love her. I laaaaarve her. Laaaaaaaaaaa—

Hello? Hello? Is anybody there?’

Threw up at work today. In the toilets at least. Then I had a drink with Johnson at lunch. Then Johnson went back to work and I had another drink with the tramp in an attempt to make myself feel better. Turns out his wife left him too. Ran off with the television-repair man, the bitch. Except she didn’t, that was just a movie. He can’t remember who she ran off with.

‘But I know why she ran off,’ says the tramp.

‘Why?’

‘Because she was a bloody woman. Still is, for all I know. And you can’t trust a woman as far as you can throw one. And believe you me, mister, believe you me, that was not very far as regards my wife. Not very far at all. Not given the size of her arse.’

None of this made me feel better. I hope tomorrow will be another day.

It is another day. But a terrible one. Even more terrible than all the other days so far this week.

Before I even sit down at work, it is announced that Anastasia the work experience is coming back to
Life & Times
. Except she won’t be a work experience any more, she will be associate editor (features). This means that she is more senior than I am. Johnson suggests that I probably shouldn’t pour tea over her any more. I suggest he should piss off.

Then he says, look, just call Isabel. Straighten it out. You love her. She loves you. There’s no point in being miserable.

This is so out of character that I do what he says. And Isabel tells me to piss off. Forever. So I drink half a bottle of vodka and decide
to go clubbing. Johnson won’t come with me on account of the fact that he’s under the thumb and he’s not convinced clubbing is the right way of dealing with my issues. He is beginning to sound like Andy so I call Andy who agrees with Johnson until I start doing vodka-crying. We go clubbing.

The first three clubs have a terribly strict door policy. You must not be wearing trainers, you must have a collar and you mustn’t be blind drunk. The fourth one lets anyone in.

I find myself in a low-ceilinged room dancing to ‘It’s Raining Men’, which it is. There are literally hundreds of them to every girl, all sweating profusely and doing sleazy man-dancing. Most of the few women there look as if they’ve just realised what a terrible mistake they’ve made and have begun to plot a strategy of escape. The rest are too blind drunk to notice that they’ve been encircled by gyrating men.

‘Can we go now?’ Andy isn’t getting into the spirit of things.

‘In a minute. I like this song.’

‘You like “It’s Raining Men”?’

‘Yes, I like “It’s Raining Men”. Look, there’s a woman.’

‘We’re going home.’

Andy has gone to Rwanda. I am alone in his flat. I am alone in this city, this lonely city. I am alone in the world. I am never going out again. I am going to sit in my dressing gown drinking vodka and no one’s going to stop me and no one cares.

Note to self: microwave hamburgers are much, much nicer than you’d think. Who needs bloody organic food? Or Fairtrade? Or vegetables? I don’t. You can keep them. You can keep all of them. I’m not even going to recycle the box the burger comes in. I’m just going to chuck it on the floor and leave it there. How do you like that? Ha.

Call in sick. First time ever. Don’t care. They can get some work experience to do my job. Oh sorry, they already did. Oh no, sorry, not my job. A better job. Ridiculous.

I can’t go to work ever again. I can’t bear it.

‘Good morning, Mr Walker. How have we been this month?’

Anger-management classes really do have a knack for good timing.

‘Great, absolutely great. You?’

‘Fine. Now, today we are…what are you doing, Mr Walker?’

‘I’m making some notes, just like you.’

‘Right.’

‘See, you’re making a note now so I thought I’d make some too.’

‘Fine, Mr Walker.’

‘Are you making a note that I’m making a note?’

‘No. Now—you’re making another note, Mr Walker?’

‘Yes, I’m making a note that you might be making a note about me making a note.’

‘That’s just juvenile.’

‘Finished. Please continue.’

‘So, this is the penultimate—’

‘Can I just interrupt for one second?’

‘Yes, Mr Walker.’

‘Well, just to say that since I last saw you, my marriage has ended because I was caught having a nonexistent affair. I have started drinking in the mornings and I haven’t been to work this week because I can’t face an office full of people on swivel chairs judging me. So it appears you were right, I did have a bigger issue to be angry about. So thank you. Thank you very much.’

‘Right, well, I’m—’

‘But there’s a problem.’

‘A problem?’

‘I’m still more pissed off about what you call the little things.’

‘You are?’

‘Yes, Harriet. I am. This morning, I am angry that they can crash-land a spaceship on Mars but they can’t design a bathroom mirror that doesn’t fog up when you shave; I am angry that my whole train journey was interrupted by a guard telling us that first-class seats are for first-class passengers only; I am angry that the two sections of the pedestrian crossing outside are out of sync so you have to wait on an island in the middle for about an hour before the traffic stops again; I am angry that everything seems to be designed to make life harder, not easier.’

‘You need a stress ball, mate.’

‘Piss off, Lycra-boy.’

‘You piss off.’

‘That’s enough, gentlemen. And thank you, William. I think we’ve made some real progress. You have now accepted you have transference issues.’

Aaarrrgghhhhhh.

Is it possible to drink a whole bottle of vodka in one day? Yes, it is.

The managing editor called. Wants a doctor’s note. I tell him I was lying about being sick. He asks why I haven’t come in, then. I tell him it’s because my grandmother has died and she was like a mother to me. He asks if I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that my wife became the second woman in one month to storm into the office and tell me it was over. I say the first one didn’t say it was over and no, it’s definitely the deceased grandmother. He asks why I didn’t say that in the first place instead of pretending I was sick. I say because I preferred to wallow in grief privately. He says he thought my grandmother died last year. I tell him it’s the other one and that I’m at the funeral now and I can put her on if he doesn’t believe me, except, oh no, sorry I can’t because she’s dead and the coffin’s locked and you’re not being very sympathetic. We agree that I can have a few more days if I need them.

This is not the way to progress a career, I think to myself, as I open another bottle of vodka.

Andy’s back from Rwanda. Thinks I should get a grip. Just because his flat is full of empty bottles and unrecycled burger boxes, he assumes that I’m wallowing in self-pity. Johnson calls and agrees. ‘It’s been two weeks now. Call her, fix things up, stop being an idiot.’

Trouble is, I have been calling her and she doesn’t want to know.

And I don’t either.

Stop hassling me.

The tramp understands.

‘Bloody women, they just don’t listen to reason. All the time, they’re accusing you of not listening, but it’s them that don’t.’

‘And you can’t trust ‘em.’

‘Exactly.’

‘They’ll be accusing you of this and that, and then suddenly it’s them doing the shagging of the lifeguard and the plumber and what have you.’

‘Exactly.’

‘You can’t trust ‘em as far as you can throw ‘em. Which in my wife’s case was only an inch, given—’

‘—the size of her arse.’

‘You know her?’

‘No, you just mentioned that last time.’

‘Yours got a big arse, then, I bet?’

‘No.’

‘Let herself go a bit, did she, now she had you hook, line and sinker?’

‘No, she’s still as beautiful as the day I met her.’

‘What?’

‘She’s still as beautiful as the day I met her.’

‘Well, what are you doing sitting here on a bench with a useless old tramp, then?’

‘I thought you said women can’t be trusted.’

‘I didn’t mean it. I only say that because it makes me feel better. You should get her back.’

‘I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried. It’s too late.’

‘It’s never too late. I wish I’d tried harder. Now she’s off with some tree surgeon or dentist or bloody fireman. Another tin?’

‘No, I have to be going.’

‘Good on you, mate. Give her one from me.’

The tramp was wrong. It is too late. She won’t even answer the phone.