I bet he’d like to see my Omar Khayyam.
I went back to the house to cook our big Sunday lunch as usual, since I thought it might soften Mal up a bit, but we ate it in silence so I wished I hadn’t bothered. After that I was in two minds whether to iron the shirts he would need to pack for tomorrow, but in the end I slammed the iron over them a few times, producing creases in strange places, then hung them up in the wardrobe.
Mal was holed up in his study with his stamps by the time I’d finished, so I went back to the studio and drew an Alphawoman comic strip with a blacker than usual storyline, because I had long stopped feeling upset and apologetic and started feeling angry.
Then he took the wind right out of my sails by coming up to the studio, which he practically never does, and saying he’d been thinking it all over and he could see that he was partly to blame for the situation because he had never asked me who Rosie’s father was!
‘Were you telling the truth about it being a total stranger?’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said firmly (which was true…sort of). ‘Mal…do you still love me?’ That just sort of slipped out—I hadn’t meant to sound needy.
‘I suppose so, but it’s all been a shock,’ he said, looking handsome, noble and tragic (but sounding like Eeyore), and I noticed that he didn’t ask me whether I still loved him.
He’d forgive me, I knew he would, he just needed a little time.
But will I forgive him for needing him to forgive me, that’s the question?
Cayman Blue
Monday morning I woke up feeling more positive, sure Mal would soon see reason and realise my past didn’t make any difference to what we had now, except in so far as it had shaped me into the woman he fell in love with.
I crept out of bed so as not to wake him and went out with a coat over my dressing gown and wellies to let the hens into their run and toss them breakfast, before taking my shower.
I was standing under the warm spray softly singing ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head’ while idly shampooing my hair when it occurred to me how very small and fragile my skull was! I mean, I could hold it in my two hands like a little round gourd, and there didn’t seem enough room in there for an intellect, though since I seem to function on impulse drive I probably don’t need one. Or maybe it’s Improbability Drive, like that spaceship in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?
I still have more hair than wit, though at the rate Carrie’s chopping off the ends the ratios could change at any minute.
‘Do you think my head is abnormally small?’ I asked Mal when I emerged with my hair in loosely ravelled wet curls.
He gave me a long-suffering look and finished buttoning up a crisply ironed shirt the same intense deep blue as his eyes—and I do wish he wouldn’t buy linen, since he just doesn’t seem to grasp that it’s supposed to look crumpled, so there’s no point at all in pressing it.
I was just thinking he wasn’t going to answer, when he said very coldly, ‘No, it’s the rest of you that’s got much bigger by comparison.’
Staring at him, his words whirled around my head like dark portents of marital doom. He’d always been inclined to be critical and fussy, and admittedly he’d had a bit of a shock over the weekend (hadn’t we all?), but it was unlike him to be cruel.
Finally getting my dropped jaw back into position, using both hands, I said in a tone of sweet reason that I certainly wasn’t feeling, ‘Look, Mal, it was your idea I diet, and while you were away I tried two, but they simply don’t work. They left me feeling starving and ill—and, what’s worse, I put on weight after each one! On my birthday I was just a bit plump and curvy, but now I’m definitely a good half-stone heavier and fed up with the whole idea.’
‘You lack willpower, Fran, that’s all,’ he said, knotting his silk tie into a tight, silver-grey nugget.
Maybe I should try that, and then the food couldn’t actually slip down my throat. Or tighten his until he stops breathing.
‘Oh, I lack willpower—is that all it is? Well, that’s all right then,’ I said sarkily, all the sweet reason going out of the window.
‘And motivation—you used to be so slim and pretty that I was proud to be seen out with you, so couldn’t you lose weight to please me?’ he asked, smiling winningly just like the old Mal I knew and loved. But it was way too late, now that I’d spotted the monster within.
Come back, Dr Jekyll, all is forgiven.
‘I thought that was what I was trying to do, Mal! I’m sure as hell not doing it for me,’ I snapped. ‘Why can’t you just love me as I am, not want me back the way I was? You can’t turn back the clock, and while we might both be older I don’t love you any the less just because you’ve got one or two grey hairs and some irritating habits.’
‘What irritating habits?’ he demanded, looking stung. ‘I don’t have any habits!’
This was good coming from the man who spends hours putting all the ornaments in the house at exact right angles to each other, straightening the pictures and picking up imaginary specks of fluff.
‘How about that hoarse cough you’ve got first thing in the morning, barking away like a seal in the bedroom? Sometimes I don’t know whether to get the throat syrup or throw you a fish.’
‘It’s just a dry throat, and you’re exaggerating,’ he snapped. ‘And speaking of annoying habits…’
But by now I’d tossed on a lilac velvet and lace patchwork top and jeans, and was heading hastily for the door. ‘Let’s not—if I don’t get breakfast going now you won’t have time to eat it before you set out.’
I am delighted that someone else will have the pleasure of coping with his breakfast while he is in Manchester. Although I’m an inspired cook when left to do things my own way, can I soft-boil his damned egg to his exacting taste in the mornings? Can I hell!
Still, in the interests of marital harmony I’ve always done my best to soothe the savage beast first thing in the morning before abandoning him for the rest of the day with almost indecent haste. So I zipped downstairs, placed his neatly folded newspaper on the breakfast table, put the egg in the pan and set the timer, brewed the tea and got out the juice—you know, all that stuff his mother used to do for him and his first wife told him to do himself, she was busy.
After we were married the realisation slowly and incredulously dawned that he thought I’d entered into an unspoken pact whereby I was to be the Angel in the House but was also allowed to be the Artist in the Shed whenever it didn’t impinge on his comfort! Of course, once I’m in the shed I totally forget about the house, so short of a character transplant this was never going to happen—and he now knows I’m no angel, in or out of the house.
I found I was singing that song about a man opening a magazine to find the centrefold was the angelic girl he’d once worshipped, and bit the last word off mid-warble. Whoa—inappropriate lyric alert! But suddenly all these brilliant ideas for cartoons came cascading like bright sparks of light into my mind as my subconscious picked over the dark issues lying stunned and unacknowledged at the back of my skull. My teeny, tiny, shrinking skull…
‘I’d like to do a painting of the inside of one,’ I decided aloud, hastily shoving bread into the toaster as Mal came in, shaved, fragrant and svelte. ‘A sheep skull would do and, goodness knows, there are enough of those lying around, all bleached clean by the weather.’
‘Can we not discuss sheep skulls over breakfast?’ he said, sitting down and picking up The Times. ‘And the egg timer pinged two minutes ago, I heard it.’
‘An offence punishable by a hideous and painful death,’ I said lightly, but he was carefully opening and folding back the paper.
He’d be wanting me to iron the damn thing next, I could see it coming, and you know what will happen then? Yes, I’ll forget to clean the print off the iron, and headlines will be emblazoned across every shirt he owns, and serve him right too.
Well, laid back I am, but Stepford Wife I most certainly am not…which gave me the idea for yet another
cartoon. What a deeply worrying (but very productive) morning this was turning out to be!
The letterbox rattled and I went to fetch the post, most of which was for Mal, as usual.
Apart from the sort of ‘Dear Occupier’ letter I only open if desperate for any correspondent, I had one other, from a magazine I submitted some cartoons to so long ago I’d nearly forgotten they had them.
Dear Ms March,
Thank you for your most recent batch of cartoons. We particularly liked your ‘Famous Book Jackets Revisited’ series, especially ‘Ms Crusoe builds a washing machine’ (very Heath Robinson!) and would like to see more of these, and perhaps make them a regular feature of the magazine…
‘I’ve sold some more cartoons, Mal,’ I said, looking up. ‘About classic book jackets—and they might make it a regular feature! Great, isn’t it? I’m doing really well!’
‘Umph?’ he said absently, while opening a large envelope and extracting glossy, expensive sheets of paper; but then he’s never taken a real interest in my artwork and considers my studio the realm of Mess and Disorder, where I reign as Queen of Chaos.
Probably just as well since he would certainly not be amused by my cartoons should he take a good look at them. What funny bone he used to have seems to have atrophied, apart from what passes for levity among men after a drink too many at the yacht club following a Sunday spent scraping the barnacles off their bottoms, or whatever it is they get up to down there.
I realised I’d spent too long dreaming at the kitchen table when the toast exploded half singed from the toaster. Not only was trying to scrape the burned bits into the sink behind Mal’s back without making a noise a lost cause in itself, but by now his egg had been sitting going rubbery for ages, though it still looked much more inviting than my breakfast of grapefruit and coffee.
Suddenly I felt self-conscious eating anything in front of him after that nasty dig, not to mention the insinuation that I now look such a dog he doesn’t want to be seen out with me. And, thinking back, the last time he literally swept me off my feet he had to put me down again, because he felt a twinge in his back, so I must be so much fatter than I realised—positively gross! But that still didn’t excuse him being so nasty about it.
Mal removed the top of his egg and peered into it as though it might contain the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything, although we already know the answer, post-Douglas Adams, is forty-two. ‘How many minutes?’ he demanded sternly.
‘Four exactly,’ I assured him. ‘But I think it’s Dolly’s, and she always lays eggs much bigger than Shania or even Sheryl, so that might make a difference.’
With a long-suffering sigh he abandoned his unsatisfactory breakfast and became absorbed in reading the last of his mail. One dark eyebrow was raised and a touch of colour tinted his high cheekbones, signs of excitement I certainly hadn’t managed to induce in him for a long, long time…since before Christmas, in fact, now I came to think of it. Oh dear, how happy and uncomplicated life seemed then, with the Wevills only starting to claw at the edges of our happiness and no resurgent old lovers!
Mal was now smiling, so I presumed he had received a really good job offer—but then, being a sort of freelance virus-busting, problem-solving IT expert speaking several languages, most of them computer, he is much in demand.
‘Good news?’ I prompted.
‘What?’ He looked up and slowly focused on me. ‘Oh, yes. I’ve got an interview at the end of the week for a six-month contract in Grand Cayman! I’ll have to go down to Swindon for the day.’
‘Where’s Grand Cayman?’ I asked, puzzled—geography never was my strong point.
‘The Caribbean, Fran, that string of islands the other side of the Atlantic just before you get to America?’
‘Oh, right. But did you say six months?’ I stared at him. ‘You’re never away for that long.’
‘Not usually, no, but when I heard about it I thought it was too great an opportunity to miss, and somewhere I’ve always wanted to go.’
‘What do you mean, when you heard about it?’
‘Someone told me about it in Swindon, so I applied.’
‘You might have told me rather than doing it behind my back, Mal,’ I said angrily.
‘I didn’t mention it because I really didn’t think I’d get an interview, but I’ve told you now, haven’t I?’
‘But you should have discussed it with me before you applied. Six months is a hell of a long time to be away!’ A thought struck me. ‘I suppose for a contract that long, I’ll be able to come too?’
He was shaking his head. ‘I’m afraid not—it’s a single man’s contract, it won’t pay for two people’s travel and expenses, though you could probably come out for a couple of weeks’ holiday if we can get a cheap flight.’
‘Gee, thanks!’
‘There’s no need to be sarcastic. I’d take this contract even if we didn’t need the money—which we do—and perhaps a bit of space between us would be a good thing at the moment.’
‘Yes, but not six months’ space!’
And if he wasn’t so increasingly addicted to expensive hobbies, fine wines, new cars and all the other trappings of a consumer-driven lifestyle, we could manage just fine!
‘I’d rather live on less money and have you here,’ I said forlornly, but he wasn’t listening again. His eyes had gone all remote and that excited colour was back in his cheeks.
‘I might even come across a Cayman Blue out there in the Caribbean,’ he said dreamily, and I got up and left the kitchen by the back door, which I slammed, and made my way blinded by tears towards my shed, watched by a trio of hens.
Clearly, the Paradise train has been seriously derailed.
Faint sounds of life came from beyond the stone wall as the village awoke to prepare for another day of work and visitors to St Ceridwen’s Holy Well and Teapots, as good a reason to detour from the main road as any, and after a while I heard the angry snarl of Mal’s Jaguar leaving for Manchester.
He hadn’t bothered coming out to say goodbye before he went, but perhaps while he was away this week he would realise just how much he would miss me if he took such a long contract. And with things a bit rocky between us, I don’t think being apart for six months is a good idea. We should work through this together like all the other rough patches in our marriage.
Yes, once he’s actually had a chance to think about it, even if he gets the contract he will turn it down and our life will resume its normal course. He’ll probably say something like: ‘Fran, darling, I realised I couldn’t bear to leave you for so long after all! And it doesn’t matter who Rosie’s father is—I love you!’
And then he’ll tell the Wevills to go and infest someone else’s marriage and pretty soon everything will be coming up roses again.
I picked up a pencil and started to sketch, dreaming of paradise regained while softly singing ‘This Could Be Heaven’, now the music police was well on its way to Manchester.
Later I went round to Teapots to give Nia and Carrie a graphic description of the meeting with Tom, only to find that the whole village has already got the basics from the elderly couple who were our only audience. Current rumour has it that I’ve been having an affair with Tom, and Mal found out.
‘They saw Mal hit him, put two and two together and made a big scandal, but of course they don’t know what it was really all about,’ Nia explained.
‘Well, now Mal knows all about my murky past, and he doesn’t like it.’
‘Barely murky, one slight slip.’
‘One slight slip and a pregnancy,’ I sighed. ‘It just seemed easier to let him think it was Tom’s baby, like Ma did, but in retrospect I should have Revealed All while he was mellow with the first flush of love. Now he’s talking about leaving me for six months and saying we need some space between us for a while!’
Nia pointed out that even some of the contracts Mal has been offered fall through, and with six months’ work in the Caribbean as lure, he’d prob
ably be killed in the stampede for the job.
‘That’s true, I hadn’t thought of that! He was really disappointed when the one in California didn’t come off. Or he might think better of it anyway once he realises what it would be like to be apart for so long, don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ she allowed, sounding unconvinced.
‘Of course he will, Fran,’ Carrie said comfortingly. ‘Naturally, the news about Rosie was a shock to him, but you never actually lied to him, did you?’
‘No, I just didn’t talk about it at all. Let us hope that he never discovers who Rosie’s father really is…though probably he’d think I was imagining it or something. Both he and Tom seemed to be harbouring doubts about my mysterious stranger, and Mal’s got poor Rhodri lined up as first reserve father!’
‘Well, half the village already suspect that anyway—the stupid half. I think he’s being totally unreasonable about something that happened years before you met, and he should get over it and stop being such a plonker,’ Nia said incisively.
‘I thought he was getting over it on Sunday afternoon, but then he woke up in a foul mood this morning.’
I told them what he’d said about my weight and not being proud to be seen out with me any more. ‘And it was as though the mask of the man I loved slipped for a minute and this horrible monster looked out of his eyes! Do you think it was a temporary aberration or do all men have a touch of the Jekyll and Hyde about them?’
‘I think they’re all two-faced monsters,’ Nia said positively, ‘and the stronger, nastier Mr Hyde takes over more and more the older they get. Look at Paul: I’d known him for years and I thought if he was one thing he was a man of honour, a man I could trust. Only that was just half the man. The other half was a lying, cheating scumbag who made a mockery of the life we’d had together.’
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