Julia Gets a Life

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  So. We’ve done the drinks, done the dinner, done the chit chat about the state of Welsh Politics/Rugby, avoided having the chit chat about Cardiff Bay (Howard being in the camp that believes the development of Cardiff Bay to be a terrible and mutilating act of social rape, and the end to talents such as Shirley Bassey being given to the world, and me being latterly in the camp that’s pleased to see a bit of investment in the area, particularly as lump of said investment is going the way of Fielden, Jones and Potter, Consulting Engineers, and thus securing my children’s hope of a university education). We’ve also done the argument over the bill, done the bill, done the dithering over whether to go on somewhere (going ‘on’ somewhere is a new concept for me; apart from the twenty four hour Tesco store on the A48 at Gabalfa, I wouldn’t know quite where to go on to). Then we’ve gone to his flat for a cup of coffee/foreplay/ sex (eek!) or whatever, and there it is, all before me.

  I don’t know what I expected Howard’s flat to be like. I wasn’t even conscious that I’d formed much of an idea about it. But I obviously had, because I’m so disappointed. Actually, I had formed an idea. If I’m honest I expected it to be scruffy but welcoming, to smell of old leather and moss or something, and to have empty beer bottles on the mantelpiece and empty take away cartons as ashtrays. Except that Howard doesn’t smoke, of course. But what we’ve got here is, well, prissy, quite frankly.

  I know there’s the odd person who takes the rise out of me because I like making lists of things, but this guy is so anally retentive you could tell every anal retentiveness pun you ever heard and you’d still be way short of the mark. He has everything in order. Everything. Not just the obvious things like CDs and paperbacks – the latter of which I note are carefully colour and height as well as author sorted. But things like magazines which he seems to have sorted by spine-widths. How sad can you get?

  I waft around the living room, uttering explosive little oh! and oh, no! sounds at his records, his books, his choice of co-ordinating knick knacks, knowing that at any moment he is going to return with a pair of bone china Clarice Cliff mugs and try, in no doubt equally logical fashion, to snog me. I pass the mantelpiece mirror and am arrested by the contrast between me (Meg Ryan meets pineapple and kohl pencil) and the room behind me (Homebase meets Upstairs Downstairs). Well, at least I look fine. Eye make up slightly smudgy, cheeks slightly flushed, hair tousled and looking surprisingly, well, tousled. Richard used to say that there is nothing so unsexy as a fastidiously groomed woman (which was always pretty handy) and that face powder and tights were the most wilt inducing items a woman could tarnish herself with. And just when I’ve arrived at a point in my life when I can put the theory to the test with someone other than a thinning on top engineer I sense I am in the home of someone who may feel I’m simply a trollop. A slovenly slattern who’s no better than she should be. I take another long look at my oozing-sexuality-without-trying-to image. I’ve done it so bloody well. What a terrible waste.

  I cruise back across to the other side of the room, where the only encouraging note in this crashingly loud affirmation of niceness is the higgledy piggledy pile of papers on the floor beside the sofa – work he is clearly in the middle of doing. I pick up the top one – a worksheet for his class, presumably – it entitled ‘Kool Kidneys’ and is scattered with sweet little cartoon kidneys, with street wise expressions and little stick legs. The text, hand-written in his familiar floppy hand, is accompanied by beautiful freehand drawings that explain filtration and describe how the glomerulus works. There is a packet of coloured pencils on the floor beside it with a label on them saying Mr Ringrose’s, Hands Off! This is more like it.

  It is all so poignantly touching that I find myself feeling guilty for thinking him prissy, and wanting to cry, or to hug him, or go for autumnal walks with him in Next overcoats, and sip hot chocolate huddled by the fire afterwards. Or even learn, heaven help me, to appreciate opera.

  At which point he comes in, with mugs that are heavy, cheap and reassuringly non-matching, and blushes to find me inspecting his work. Okay, I like him again. Quite a lot. Oh, the relief, the relief.

  ‘Never ends, I guess, the planning, ‘I say, replacing the sheet. And think okay, I’m ready. You can kiss me now.

  He shrugs.

  ‘I don’t mind. I enjoy it. In some ways, it’s the best and most challenging part of the job. You know, being able to teach them something in such a way that they don’t feel taught. Do you know what I mean? They seem to absorb so much more when they’re well motivated. It’s great when it works.’

  I realise that Howard is in the unfortunate (though entirely self inflicted) situation of trying to chat up someone whose child he teaches. I suspect that in the staff room all sorts of completely outrageous things are said about the children and, I’ve no doubt, their parents. But he doesn’t need to worry about me on that score.

  ‘You don’t need to worry about me on that score,’ I say.

  ‘What score?’ he asks, looking shifty.

  ‘The ultra keen, ultra critical parent score. I’m about as laissez faire as they come. I have never, hand on heart, walked into school and queried a reading scheme decision. Honest. Though that’s not to say I’m not a caring or committed parent, you understand. I worry about my kids just as much as the next mum. It’s just that…’

  He looks at me as if I’ve recently touched down in a space pod, then laughs in a really wholehearted way, big on decibels and everything.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about me on that score either.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I love the way you say ‘I’m sorry?’ You say it such a lot, too. No, what I mean is, would you have said all that if I’d been a landscape gardener?’

  Gosh, he’s sharp.

  ‘Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know.’ When can I say ‘I’m sorry?’ again?

  ‘I don’t doubt it. Shall I put a CD on?’

  ‘Why not? What have you got?’ This should be telling.

  He puts down his coffee and moves in a sort of crouch that culminates in him kneeling in front of the pine-effect CD tower. I can see a chink of hairy leg between the top of his boot and the hem of his trousers. Oh! My stomach!

  ‘How about some Puccini?’ he says over his shoulder.

  Go on. Anything. Just kiss me now.

  I didn’t get to kiss Howard, of course. Approximately ten minutes after we’d established a moratorium on our parent/teacher positions and had moved to the marginally more comfortable territory of both privately thinking about having a snog but pretending that we just wanted to chat about Madame Butterfly, my mobile chirruped. It was Emma, with the disconcerting news that there was a peculiar smell coming from Max’s bedroom and that could I come home as soon as possible in case the house burned down. Our delicate bubble of breathy abandon popped by a sharp prick of parental responsibility, I rattled straight home. Once there, I found that there was a small piece of bacon lodged on the little transformer thingy at the back of the TV. I cast it into Max’s inflatable dustbin, threw out a couple of homilies about eating in the bedroom, then stomped off to deconstruct myself.

  Then I got into bed, read a page of Lady Chatterly’s Lover, and after thrashing about melodramatically for a while, eventually fell into a fitful sleep, my king size divan feeling as big as a field.

  Chapter 11

  la la la la la la

  la la la la la hum hum hum

  la la la hum hum hum

  la la la hum hum hum hum huuuuuummmmmmm

  dum dum dum

  dum dum dum

  dum dum daaaaa da daaaaa

  la la la la la la

  la deeeeeee deee dy….....

  Yes, all right. I’m singing a lot. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Well, except if you are listening to it, of course, but then that’s your problem. I have to sing. I cannot help but sing. I sing because I am in lurve.

  Okay. I know this is patently ridiculous. I am thirty e
ight and have enough further education on board to know that this is what most (dreary, boring, unimaginative) people would consider to be a silly crush. But I just don’t care. I feel like I have a big ball of custard or cotton wool or meringue or fairy lights inside me, and that I can barely contain it. I feel beautiful, really thin, and like I don’t need lunch. I feel sexy (okay, horny) every time I think about him, and I think about him every five minutes or so. I feel, in short, precisely the way I felt the morning after the first night that Richard kissed me somewhere other than my mouth. To feel that way again is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Poor, poor Richard. Lucky, lucky me.

  Rani is unimpressed.

  ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘That snowman song. You know.’

  ‘And I’m Mother bloody Theresa. Can’t you at least learn the words and how to sing in tune, perhaps?’

  I hug Doodles to my bosom.

  ‘Hmmmm? Oh, yes….well, if it feels good do it, I say. Hum hum hum hum hum huuuummmm….’

  She gives me one of those looks which are designed to make you feel stupid and self conscious but which never do, of course, because your consciousness is wrapped up in a little bubble of happiness and won’t allow anything that isn’t fluffy or lovely in. Which is why teenagers don’t feel embarrassed about sending each other padded Valentine cards that are four feet high and have cartoon puppies on, I suppose.

  ‘Anyway, your next family is here.’

  ‘Hmmm?’

  ‘And look comfortably off. Next, Gap, M and S and Will & Wanda’s Baby Boutique bags…’

  ‘Hmmm?’

  ‘And the children, of which there are three, are all sitting on the sofa with their hands in their laps and not shouting, scowling or hitting each other.’

  ‘Hmmmm?’

  ‘And Howard Ringrose called. Would that be he? I said you were busy and would call him back later.’

  ‘WHAT?’

  God, I really hate Rani sometimes.

  11.00 ‘I’m sorry, he’s teaching at the moment.’

  11.37 ‘Sorry, he’s teaching. The bell goes at twelve. Shall I ask him to call you?’ NO!

  12.01 ‘I’m sorry, he’s out on the field. Lunchtime Cricket club. Try at a quarter to one. He’ll be in for his lunch then.’

  12.46 Clients. Damn!

  12.59 Clients still. Damn, damn!

  13.07 ‘I’m sorry, Mr Ringrose is in class. If it’s urgent I could…’ NO!

  14.31 ‘Oh, dear. Playground duty, I’m afraid. Then he’ll be in class till the end of the day, sorry. Is that Mrs Potter, by any chance?’ Damn!

  15.45 ‘Helo! Mae Ysgol Gynradd Cefn Melin nawr ar gae. Oes I chi yn dewis gadel neges…...’ Damn, sod, sod, damn.

  17.12 Usher out clients, turn off lights, sling Milo, Izzles, Doodles et al. into toy box, chew nails. Go into ladies powder room (yes, they do still call it that. This is some department store) in preference to hiking two kilometres to staff toilets, sit on loo and feel stressed. Must really get a grip. Must also re-familiarise self with primary school timetable, staff rotas etc. Emerge from loo to find Rani putting on chocolate coloured lipstick, swathes of blusher and new tights (after-work date with unsuitable Caucasian again).

  ‘Oh, you’re here!’ she says. ‘That Howard just called again. I told him you’d gone home.’

  Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow.

  All in all, a bit of a night.

  I got home, late, and in a complete strop, having realised, in a single gut wrenching moment on the A48, that I did not have Howard’s home number. What to do? What to do?

  Once I got there I was greeted by;

  a)Emma announcing that she was going out with her friend (plus prefix, three letters, first letter B) and would not therefore be available to have a Chinese take away at her dad’s flat (as per plan which was democratically arrived at and with her full and enthusiastic support) and could I let him know because he wasn’t in his office when she tried to ring him and she couldn’t get him on his mobile and she really couldn’t wait any longer as the friend would be waiting on the corner by the bus shelter and thinking she had decided not to come.

  (The natural conclusion to which would be that he would decide he didn’t want to go out with her any more and would take up with someone else from their class and both would refuse to speak to Emma ever again etc. If he was a boyfriend, which, of course, he most definitely wasn’t.)

  And b) a really odd sounding message from Lily on the ansafone saying she needed to speak to me urgently and would come over tonight about nine-ish if she didn’t hear from me otherwise. I was just playing it back for the second time (just in case there was also a message from Howard which had inadvertently got corrupted or something) when Richard arrived to pick up Max.

  ‘Which reminds me, ‘ he said confrontationally, stepping on to the inside doormat without so much as a by your leave or invitation from me to do so. ‘The Outgoing Message. What have you done to it?’

  ‘I’ve re-recorded it. So what?’

  ‘Why?’ Terse.

  ‘Because it was your voice. You don’t live here any more, do you? It confuses people.’

  ‘Confuses who, exactly? Everyone we know knows who I am, don’t they?’

  He had a face on. That petulant look that he would often get on Friday nights. The look that said ‘don’t mess with me, I’m in a foul mood; I’ve had a bitch of a day’. The look that said ‘will you please tell the kids to bugger off and leave me alone for a while’ and shut itself in the lounge with a beer and the TV remote control while I tootled round obediently and cooked dinner. Well, tonight he had Max, X-Men 2 on video and the Wing Wey Happy House set meal B. And he had to do his own washing up. Well, har bloody har. SHR!

  ‘It’s not the point,’ I persisted, particularly irritated by his aggressive manner, given the compassionate thoughts I’d bestowed upon him earlier. ‘No one’s going to be leaving messages for you here in any case.’

  ‘They might. Not everyone I work with is fully conversant with my personal life, you know. And it might be something important. The whole point of the OGM was that it gave people my mobile number so they could contact me urgently if they needed to.’

  ‘So? I’ve got a larynx. I can give them your mobile number. Or you theirs. Or tell them to ring you at Malachite Street. Is it such a big deal?’

  ‘Yes it is, frankly. It doesn’t sound very good, does it?’

  Neither, I thought, does ‘I’m sorry but my husband doesn’t live here any more on account of his disgraceful infidelity etc’, which is what Richard was really worrying about. But I’ve moved on from petty point scoring, so instead, I said,

  ‘Then you’ll just have to get another ansafone then, won’t you?’

  ‘I should have that one.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you can’t even work it properly.’

  ‘Yes I can. I changed the OGM, didn’t I?’

  ‘No you can’t. You’re always cocking it up. It always goes wrong if you touch it.’

  ‘Bloody cheek! No it doesn’t.’

  ‘Yes it does. And anyway, it’s mine.’

  ‘No it isn’t.’

  ‘Yes it is. I bought it.’

  ‘For the family.’

  ‘For me.’

  ‘For the family. So that the children in particular could get in touch and leave a message if they needed to let us know they were going to be late or something and we were out. Actually.’

  ‘But you’re never out in the evenings.’

  ‘I might be.’

  ‘Pah! And stop bringing the bloody kids into things all the time, like you’re some big paragon earth mother and I’m just some…’

  ‘Unfaithful husband?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake! What is it with you?’

  ‘Nothing. I just don’t like you pushing me around.’

  ‘Me? Push you around? That’s rich! Here I am, kicked out of my own house and
forced to live like a hermit in some grotty flat while you swan around lapping up the sympathy. I think you’re actually enjoying this…..God!’

  ‘Hi Dad.’ Max.

  ‘Oh. Er, Hi Max.’ Dad.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘have a lovely evening, you two. Emma won’t be coming, I’m afraid, as she is out with her friend. She did try to get hold of you but (master stroke!) your mobile was switched off. So sorry. Good night. Take care. See you later.’

  *Note. Confront daughter re. her recent tendency to be uncharacteristically shifty looking re. male acquaintances. Hmmm. Older? Unsuitable? (if so, in what way?) Smoker? Bad lot? Swansea City fan? All of the above?

  I stood in the hall for a few minutes after they left, making rude gestures with my fingers and sticking my tongue out. Well, he could sod off.

  Then I felt really guilty about him living in a grotty flat when he had worked so hard for so many years to get us the (really quite nice) house we were all still living in. Then I felt cross with myself that I should feel guilty about that at all. Had it not been for Richard’s career machinations, I would doubtless still be living in London; still pursuing the career that I’d never quite started. Being a mother, certainly, but someone for whom a man’s largesse, or lack of, was not the controlling force in my life. And then I felt guilty about feeling like that about Richard because it was with my entire support and enthusiasm that he took the offered partnership in Cardiff in the first place. Had I ever once signalled a moment of indecision? Of wanting to be anything other than a wife and mother? Of wanting more than what he had so amply provided? And had I wanted more? Really? Hand on heart kind of stuff? And then I felt guilty about the flat once again.

  Which was something I recognise I have avoided addressing as it questions the integrity of my whole stance as wronged wife with two kids who needs a house (or at least a reasonable amount of space) to live in, and brings into focus the female response to infidelity generally. In some ways (oh, really, Julia? Come on) it would be better if he was less sorry and remorseful and desperate to mend his marriage, and went off with Rhiannon De Laney, full stop. Then I wouldn’t need to bother about the question of forgiveness and reconciliation at all. Which would suit me fine, because I’m in love with Howard now. Which was why, I suppose, I was feeling guilty in the first place.