The Dream Life I Never Had

by Terri Douglas

  ‘Oh . . . I was hoping we had enough to tide us over until I got paid.’

  ‘What! You don’t get paid until the end of the month Martin, the end of the month’ I said twice emphasising the point. ‘We’d have struggled to keep going and stretch the money for that long anyway without you helping yourself to two hundred and eighty quid of it.’

  ‘Two hundred and eighty . . . I didn’t think it wouldn’t be as much as that.’

  ‘Yeah well it was, guess the exchange rate’s not doing so well at the moment’ I quipped sarcastically. ‘What was it for anyway, why did you take out all that money?’

  ‘I didn’t want to tell you but . . .’

  ‘No I bet you didn’t’ I interrupted. ‘Well carry on what was it you didn’t want to tell me?’

  ‘The thing is . . . it’s funny really . . . well not funny exactly but sort of ironic in a funny way . . .’ Martin said pausing a lot and still not actually saying very much.

  ‘For God’s sake Martin. Look I get it okay, whatever it is that you don’t want to say I get that I’m not going to like it very much. Just tell me what this funny ironic thing is and get it over with and then we can all have a funny ironic laugh about it.’

  ‘The thing is we had to pay for our own flights and accommodation’ Martin said in a rush as if, if he said it quickly enough it wouldn’t be so painful, like pulling off a plaster.

  ‘You had to what?’ I said going almost ultrasonic. ‘So you’re telling me that this wonderful job on the other bloody side of the world, that I didn’t want you to do anyway but that you insisted was going to solve all our problems and lead to more work, is costing us money? They’re not paying you, we’re paying them for the privilege of you working there and being away from home.’

  ‘No it’s not like that’ Martin said defensively.

  ‘Really then what is it like?’

  ‘Well apparently they’ve taken on blokes before that have flown out here and not done a very good job and then they’ve taken off with debts owing and the company has been left out of pocket and having to redo all the work. So now when they take on anyone new they have to pay for their own flight and accommodation up front and then they get reimbursed at the end of the month when they get paid, well if their works alright they do.’

  ‘I don’t believe this’ I said. ‘I thought you told me the company paid for everything?’

  ‘Yes I did . . . they do. When I get paid I’ll get it all back.’

  ‘When you get paid, and what are we supposed to do in the meantime?’ I said.

  The phone went strangely quiet although I knew Martin was still there, he just couldn’t think of anything to say so maybe it wasn’t so strange.

  ‘Well what are we supposed to do, how do you suggest I feed all of us for the next three and a half weeks?’ I asked him.

  ‘I’m not the only one, there’s six of us that all started on the same day and we all had to give them three hundred and fifty euros. That’s why we were all going for a meal the other night when you phoned, none of us had eaten properly since we arrived because they said they couldn’t provide meals until the money had been paid so we had to go out to eat.’

  ‘Oh no how terrible’ I said with sarcastic sympathy. ‘But you’ve eaten now have you?’

  ‘Well yes of course I have.’

  ‘Good, I’m really glad about that because while you’re eating every day with the money you took out of our bank account, me and the children will be sitting here slowly starving to death until you get paid at the end of the month.’

  ‘I’ll phone my dad and ask him to transfer some money’ Martin said quietly.

  ‘You do that, and while you’re at it ask him if your old room’s still vacant ready for when you get back from Spain, that’s if you come back from Spain. Or you can stay over there for a year or two, either works for me’ I said and hung up.

  13

  The next few days were like being in an angry fog, on the face of it everything carried on as normal but behind the façade nothing was normal. The children went to school every day while I went to work, provided meals, tidied up and somehow got through bath time and bed time ready to start all over again the next day. But these were just the things we did, the everyday things that kept us all going; beneath the surface the normal pattern of life had scrambled into a murky mess and even the children were affected. Martin phoned every night to speak to Ben and Kate but any conversation there might have been between Martin and myself was virtually non-existent.

  Martins mum and dad transferred three hundred pounds into our account just in the nick of time as by Thursday night we’d been reduced to eating the last packet of fish-fingers that had been in the freezer far too long and was more snow-ice and soggy cardboard than cod. Then on Friday when I picked Ben and Kate up from school we went straight to Asda to replenish our supplies.

  Whenever possible I avoided taking Ben and Kate shopping, any kind of shopping but especially food shopping. Kate would get bored after the first ten minutes so I’d put her in charge of ‘getting’; I would stand with the trolley and read from my list if I had one and she would ‘get’ whatever it was off the shelf, and if I was lucky this strategy would work long enough for us to manoeuvre our way round the shop and reach the till. Ben was a different problem though, far from being bored he thought food shopping was the greatest adventure ever and delighted in row after row of all too easy to reach free treats just there for the taking. He was too big nowadays to sit in the trolley so it was a case of hanging on to him, keeping him away from the goodies on offer, and trying to push the trolley and concentrate all at the same time. Like I said shopping with the children was to be avoided if at all possible and Friday’s trip to the supermarket was no exception to that rule, if anything it only served to reinforce it.

  We’d started well enough with Kate doing the getting and Ben promising not to touch anything but the best laid plans and all that were as ever doomed to failure. I’d already got half a trolleys-worth of provisions and was anticipating the end of our ordeal when we passed an Asda lady offering free bite-size samples of some new variety of cheese. Maybe I lost concentration or maybe I was feeling so pleased with myself at having almost reached the till that I got over confident, either way I made the stupid mistake of letting Ben sample the cheese which being a bit of a cheese fanatic he thoroughly enjoyed.

  It was when we were at the checkout and I was busy trying to pack everything like some frantic game show where I was up against the clock that I realised Ben had pulled his disappearing act again. This time however I knew exactly where he was.

  I left the trolley and Kate with one of the Asda staff and walked quickly back to the cheese giveaway lady and sure enough there was Ben scoffing sample after sample of free cheese as if he hadn’t eaten for a week. Luckily for me the cheese lady thought it was funny and that Ben was quite cute and said ‘I knew someone would be back to collect him sooner or later’ and then laughingly added ‘he’s been my best customer all day’.

  ‘Ben what are you doing?’ I said. ‘You shouldn’t wander off like that.’

  ‘I was trying the cheese’ he said taking another sample and pushing it into his already full mouth.

  ‘You’re only supposed to have one bit.’

  ‘But it’s free’ he said making it sound like we were all starving and here was some free food so he was hardly likely to turn it down.

  ‘I know it’s free but it’s supposed to be so that you can try it and if you like it then you buy some to take home.’

  ‘Oh . . . but I do like it so can we buy some?’

  ‘No not today, I’ve already bought the shopping for today, maybe next time’ I said trying to grab his hand.

  ‘But I like it and you said . . .’ he began as he dodged out of my reach.

  ‘No Ben not today. You shouldn’t have wandered off and you shouldn’t have eaten all that cheese.’

  ‘But the lady kept giving it to me’ Ben said as if
the matter was totally out of his hands. ‘I said thank you to her’ he added as an afterthought.

  ‘Yes he did, he did say thank you every time’ the Asda lady said.

  ‘Well that’s something I suppose, but we have to go now’ I said making a grab for his arm again and this time succeeding. ‘Sorry’ I said to the Asda lady as I led Ben away back to our waiting trolley.

  ‘What am I going to do with you, you can’t keep wandering off like that’ I admonished.

  ‘I only wanted some cheese, you never give us cheese’ he wailed loudly and promptly burst into tears making everyone look round to see who the dreadful mother was that deprived her children of cheese and made them cry so pitifully.

  Somehow we made it out to the car park and I strapped the children in the back of the car and unloaded the shopping into the boot. I took the trolley back to the trolley point to get my pound back and then sighing deeply climbed into the driving seat. Ben continued to wail all the way home, and then wailed some more while I unloaded the shopping when we got there.

  ‘Enough Ben’ I said sternly as I sat him down at the table and put a drink of juice in front of him.

  ‘I want Daddy’ he said through his sniffles.

  Kate sat herself at the table and sighed the sigh of someone whose troubles were great indeed.

  ‘You can talk to Daddy later when he phones’ I said to Ben not quite so sternly.

  ‘I don’t want to talk with the phone, I want my Daddy.’

  ‘I know Ben’ I said wearily ‘but Daddy’s working hard in Spain so he can’t be here’.

  ‘I want my Daddy’ Ben howled and burst into a new wave of tears.

  I pulled my chair closer to his and put my arm round him. ‘Well what would Daddy say if he was here? He’d say stop that crying Ben, he’d say big boys don’t cry wouldn’t he?’

  ‘I know what he’d say’ Kate said looking at me meaningfully.

  ‘Yes he’d say Ben Ben we are men, we never cry, we never lie, we like pie till the day we die’ I mimicked in my best caveman voice.

  Almost against his will Ben smiled a little through his tears at my pathetic attempt at the caveman chant, so I said it again even gruffer and this time Kate joined in which miraculously seemed to do the trick and made Ben smile properly.

  Glad though I was that Kate and I had cheered him up and was able to stop him crying, by the fifteenth chant that Ben was happily joining in with now, I was heartily sick of saying it and talking like a prehistoric fool. I shooed them both into the front room to watch some telly while I made dinner and so that I didn’t have to say it for a sixteenth time.

  In the dream life Martin would phone and I’d explain what had happened and how upset Ben had been and how miserable Kate was, and Martin would be mortified at how much his children were suffering. He’d say ‘I’ve had enough of this I can’t do it anymore Soph I’m coming home’. He’d say ‘I miss you all so much and I can’t bear to think of the children being so upset’. He’d tell me he was missing me most of all and how much he loved me and that no job was worth being separated from the woman he loved, and then as soon as he hung up he’d quit his job and catch the next flight home to the waiting arms of his loving family.

  Martin phoned at half past six soon after we’d finished our late dinner and about half an hour earlier than his usual time. As I wasn’t expecting his call at this time so wasn’t listening out for it, it was Kate who picked up the phone. I’d told her time and time again not to answer the phone but she still did anyway. I have to say she had got the whole thing down pat and would politely say hello and ask who it was, then if it was someone she didn’t know she’d pass the phone straight over but with no details as to who the caller was even though they’d only just told her, and if it was someone she did know like the grandparents she’d chat away happily without even considering passing the phone over.

  Anyway Martin phoned and he and Kate had been talking for a while before I who was still in the kitchen realised that the phone had even rung. She eventually passed the phone to Ben and he gave his usual monosyllabic responses for a few minutes before passing the phone to me.

  Martin politely asked if I was alright and if his dad had transferred the money, and I politely said ‘yes thanks everything’s fine’. I explained how Ben had eaten a mountain of free cheese and how upset he’d been when we got home and Martin said ‘aah poor little chap, bet he was put out at having to leave all that cheese behind’.

  ‘No Martin he wasn’t upset about the cheese, well he was a bit, he was upset because you weren’t here. Kate and I had to sing him your Ben song’ I said.

  ‘Well he seemed alright when I spoke to him’ Martin said as if I might have made the whole thing up.

  ‘What do you mean he seemed alright, he only said about three words?’

  ‘Yeah but he wasn’t crying or anything. I’m glad you sorted it out and were able to cheer him up’ Martin said patronisingly.

  ‘You selfish bastard’ I said. ‘You don’t care at all do you?’

  ‘I do care, but Ben’s always crying about something. And if I didn’t care I wouldn’t be here would I?’

  ‘What kind of logic is that? If you cared you wouldn’t have gone.’

  ‘It’s because I care that I went. To earn money, you know that thing you’re always telling me we don’t have enough of.’

  ‘You could have tried to get a normal job’ I shouted.

  ‘I did’ Martin said and I could hear him grinding his teeth.

  Neither of us said anything after that and for a couple of minutes there was just dead air between us until eventually Martin said ‘I’ve got to go’.

  ‘Yeah of course you do’ I said sulkily.

  ‘Look it’s hard for me too you know, how d’you think I feel working in a strange place and not seeing any of you?’

  ‘Then come home’ I said.

  ‘I can’t just come home; I have to stay at least until payday.’

  ‘You must have earned enough by now to pay off the three hundred and fifty euros they blagged out of you. Come home we’ll manage somehow.’

  ‘I can’t Soph. I know it’s hard but I have to do this.’

  ‘Yes’ I said defeated. ‘I suppose you better go then’.

  ‘Okay, I’ll speak to you tomorrow’ he said and hung up.

  In my new dream life I was working abroad in Italy or the south of France, or maybe I’d be working on a first class world cruise ship. My haircuts were renowned and women were booking weeks in advance for my skilled attentions to their outdated poorly managed hairstyles, in fact some of the women had only booked the cruise for the chance to get their hair done by me. I’d only work two days a week but the cruise line still wanted me and thought themselves lucky I was working for them at all. Martin would be at home looking after the children and cleaning his precious mower once a week. I’d send him a few quid now and then just to keep things ticking over but no more than that so he’d have to budget everything and live off beans on toast four nights a week. In the school holidays the children would come and stay with me in some exotic place or other and Martin would beg me to come home but I’d say ‘sorry I’m afraid I can’t, too many people need me to sort their hair out for them’. I’d say ‘don’t worry you’ll manage’ and then I wouldn’t phone him for a week making him wonder what I was up to.

  I very much liked the sound of this new dream plan even if it was all a load of tosh.

  14

  I’d arranged with my mum to look after Ben and Kate for the day on Saturday which was good and bad. Good because it meant I could still go to work and as an added bonus the children got to spend some quality time with their grandparents. But bad because the children spent the day with their grandparents and consequently were thoroughly spoiled for eight hours so that when I picked them up they were still hyper and had no intention of quieting down any time soon. The added not such a bonus being that both Ben and Kate would spend the next two days at least admonishin
g me and telling me ‘Nanny Mallons always lets me’ or ‘that’s not how Nanny Mallons does it’. So just like that Saturday came and went almost without trace.

  I’d intended Sunday to be a quiet day, you know chill out a bit, spend time with the children albeit quietly, just rest and recuperate with not much else on the agenda. Ben and Kate though had other ideas.

  We got off to a bad start when Ben came into my room at six o’clock in the morning crying because he’d wet the bed; he hadn’t wet his bed for nearly a year and was mortified that he’d done it again. I reassured him that it was just an accident and that sometimes these things happened, I cleaned him up and got him dressed then speedily stripped the bed. Thankfully I was still using a plastic sheet so the mattress didn’t get wet, but it was a close run thing as only the week before when I’d been changing the beds I’d been an inch away from not bothering with it anymore.

  Of course by this time Kate was wide awake so the one day I usually had a lay in if you could call it that at six thirty instead of five thirty, and a more leisurely breakfast than the rest of the week, well my chill-out Sunday morning had been pretty much demolished. I pushed Ben’s quilt cover and bottom sheet and his pyjamas into the washing machine and switched it on while telling Ben ‘there now all cleaned up and nothing to get upset about’. I settled the children at the table with a cup of juice and their cereal, and finally got to make myself a cup of tea.

  By lunchtime Ben and Kate were bored and wasted no time in telling me just how bored they were, interspersed with little anecdotes about how Grand-Dad had played a game with them or Nanny had given them an elevenses treat of milkshake and a Kinder egg each, yeah cheers for that Mum. And their boredom of course meant the inevitable arguing with each other and my severe hair loss from pulling it all out.

  We had lunch, without the benefit of Kinder eggs, and I decided to take them both to the play-park to hopefully run off a bit of steam and to prove that Nanny wasn’t the only one that could give special treats, and just for good measure I bought them an ice cream each from the van.