by Gill Sims
‘I can’t talk about this, Ellen. I can’t discuss an eighteen-year-old girl’s sex life, it’s wrong. You’re going to have to sort it out.’
‘Me? Why me? Why do I have to sort everything out?’
‘I just told you. It’s not appropriate for me to get involved.’
‘Oh, that’s just such a fucking cop-out! What about if it was Jane? Would you leave me to sort it all out then, too? Oh, don’t bloody answer, I know you would!’
I eventually plucked up the courage to go up to Juliette’s room and explain that we weren’t entirely sure about her having a house guest just yet (house guest. Ha! Like I didn’t know he was a fuck buddy), but she was more than welcome to bring Harry round for dinner and to meet the family.
Juliette looked utterly appalled at this and muttered ‘Merde’ to my suggestion, which I took to mean that she wasn’t keen on the idea of Harry joining us for a delightful dinner en famille instead of the rampant shag fest she had planned.
She is sulking, and I fear there will be no more boeuf bourgignon forthcoming.
Monday, 27 March
I swear to God that right at this moment, I might fucking kill Simon. Literally kill him, possibly with my bare hands by tearing off his head in a Hulk-style fit of rage. The fury began with a casual email around lunchtime.
Hi sweetheart,
I’ve just found out I’m going to have to go to Singapore for three weeks, leaving on Thursday. We don’t have anything planned, do we?
See you later xxx
‘We don’t have anything planned?’ WE DON’T HAVE ANYTHING FUCKING PLANNED? No, Simon, no, nothing planned, ONLY THE TWO FUCKING WEEKS THAT THE CHILDREN ARE OFF SCHOOL AND JULIETTE IS IN FRANCE AND THAT YOU PROMISED ME, THAT YOU ACTUALLY SWORE TO ME, THAT YOU WOULD BE TAKING THE FIRST WEEK OFF, TO COVER CHILDCARE! OTHER THAN THAT, HEE FUCKING HAW!
Anger pulsing through me so strongly that I could actually feel a vein in my temple throbbing, I almost broke my keyboard hammering out my reply, which nonetheless, I felt, was extremely restrained under the circumstances, if only because both our work email servers filter out obscenities.
You can’t go to Singapore, the kids break up for the holidays on Friday, and Juliette is going home to see her family. Two weeks, I was taking one week off, and you were taking the other. They can’t ask you to go away when you’ve got annual leave booked.
He replied:
Hi Babe
Thing is, I didn’t actually book the time off yet, because I thought Juliette would be there. And I have to go. Steve Parker was meant to be going, but he’s got shingles and there’s no one else to go and oversee this part of the project. Really sorry, but I’m sure you’ll cope. Maybe you could work something out with Sam?
Xxx
FUCK OFF SIMON! He’s ‘sure I’ll cope’? That’s nice, isn’t it? I’ll just magic a fucking childminder OUT OF MY ARSE, will I? Because obviously it is super easy to just book last-minute childcare for the holidays, because it’s not like any other fucker needs holiday childcare, is it? And maybe I could ‘work something out with Sam’? Yes, Sam and I often help each other out with childcare, it’s true, but it’s still not Sam’s responsibility to step into the bastarding breach and save the day because my own twatting husband is too fucking busy and important to look after his own children! And anyway, Sam’s taking Sophie and Toby to Fuerteventura for the fortnight.
Since I couldn’t express my true feelings in an email, I waited till Simon got home and pointed all this out to him. Foolishly, he didn’t seem to think it was such a big deal.
‘Well, can’t you just take a few extra days off, or book them into a sports camp or something?’ he suggested.
‘NO,’ I shrieked. ‘I can’t “just book them into a sports camp” because all the places were filled weeks ago and I didn’t think I needed to book any slots due to us having a long conversation about how I would take one week and you would take the other. So now I can’t get a childminder or a camp or any kind of cover at all. Because you were supposed to be looking after your children!’
‘Why do you have to make everything such a drama?’ complained Simon. ‘Is it so impossible for you to take a few more days off? I really don’t see what the big deal is. Other people’s wives seem to cope with the holidays.’
‘You don’t see what the big deal is?’ I hissed dangerously. ‘Why don’t you take the time off then, if it’s not a “big deal”? For years I turned down promotions and sacrificed the chance of a proper career so I could be there for the children, because we agreed, we discussed and we agreed that if we could manage financially with one of us working part-time, then that’s we should do. So that’s what I did, and now the children are older and I am FINALLY able to work full-time in a job I actually QUITE ENJOY, and that gives me some small sense of FUCKING FULFILLMENT, you still expect me to drop everything and just cover for you because you still think YOUR job is SO MUCH MORE FUCKING IMPORTANT THAN MINE?’
‘You’re overreacting, darling. All I’ve asked you to do is take a few extra days off and all of a sudden you’re ranting about how I’ve ruined your life!’
‘Because you say it’s “just a few days” but it’s always me who has to take those few days. Like it’s always me who has to arrange the childcare, keep track of the birthday parties, take time off for concerts and assemblies and sick days, while you blithely swan around like none of this is anything to do with you with you whatsoever, but THEY ARE YOUR CHILDREN TOO!’
‘For fuck’s sake, you are just ranting at me now. Just discuss things rationally.’
‘Discuss things rationally? We agreed that when I went full-time that we would share the childcare, NOT that you could abdicate all responsibilities as a father and just fuck off to FUCKING SINGAPORE at the drop of a fucking hat whenever you felt like it. We’re SUPPOSED to be a team, but you seem to think it’s only about facilitating you, because do you know, not once in all these years have you EVER taken any time off in the holidays to cover childcare. Not once!’
‘That’s not true. You’re twisting things to suit yourself. I took half-term off, remember? Half-term, so YOU could go back to work and leave me on my own to deal with the kids all week, and then I had to cope with getting the kids back from France by myself, which was a bundle of fucking laughs, let me tell you!’
‘Oh, please! It’s hardly the same. For a start, you didn’t take half-term off to help me out. You took it off to visit your parents, and THEY looked after them all week. Much like you would probably have expected me to look after them if I’d been there. And they’re not exactly toddlers that taking a car journey and ferry ride with them is such an insurmountable problem. But yes, I do know you found it very challenging because you whined like a bitch for weeks afterwards, and now you actually think your voluntary trip to see your parents, even knowing I couldn’t take the whole week off, is somehow equivalent to you trying to land me with this whole shit-show?’
‘Oh, it’s always about you, isn’t it? It’s always about how hard done by you are, how difficult you find things, how much you have to juggle, isn’t it? And what YOU want, and what YOU need? What about ME, Ellen? What about what I want?
‘NOTHING IS ABOUT ME!’ I screamed. ‘THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT! NOTHING IS EVER ABOUT ME, IT’S ALWAYS ABOUT SOMEONE ELSE. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU JUGGLE? If I want to work late, I have to ask you if you could possibly pick up the children and you act like you’re doing me a FUCKING FAVOUR, but if you want to work late, you just do it and assume someone will accommodate you! So are we only to think about what YOU want? And what DO you fucking want?’
‘I want a wife who supports me! I want a wife who is FUCKING THERE FOR ME AND ACTUALLY PUTS HER FAMILY FIRST, NOT HER FUCKING JOB!’
‘How DARE you say I don’t put this family first! When do you put US first? Or do you not have to bother because you are a MAN? Is it only a woman who is supposed to be a good little wife, and stay at home in her pinny, making sure her lord and FUCKING MASTER�
�S dinner is piping hot on the table when he gets home? Lipstick freshly applied and welcoming smile in place? And no fucking matter what SHE wants, BECAUSE SHE’S ONLY A WOMAN! So I am not allowed to have any ambitions, then? Is being a wife and mother supposed to be ENOUGH? Is “supporting your career” meant to take the place of having a career of my own? And I DID support you. I still do. I have been supporting you in your chosen career for years, and what fucking thanks do I get in return?
‘Maybe if you had ever been a bit more flexible, I could have got much further in my own career by now, instead of all those years of having everyone glaring at me because I’m leaving at lunchtime again because it’s Sports Day or I’ve had to miss a meeting because one of the kids is ill, but it’s never ever you who picks up the slack, is it? And maybe my whole career would’ve been fucked up anyway because I had kids because I wouldn’t be paid as much and I would have missed promotions while I was on maternity leave, or been passed over for fear I might go off again, but isn’t it bad enough that society is trying to fucking screw mothers over anyway, WITHOUT THEIR OWN HUSBANDS DOING IT TOO?? JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, is it any wonder that I let my colleagues think I didn’t have any children after all the years of seeing how mothers are treated in the workplace?’
‘Ellen, I’m not sure how we’ve got from me going on a business trip that I really can’t get out of, to society’s oppression of women on maternity leave, but – hang on! You’ve LIED to your employers about having children? What the fuck? You can’t do that! Why would you do that? HOW could you do that, why would you deny your own children? What if you get sacked?’
‘Why would I “deny” my own children?’ I said furiously. ‘You pretty much do. You don’t let them interfere with your working life, so why should I? You’re every bit as much a parent as I am, but nobody judges you, do they? So why should they judge me? And I won’t get sacked, because my boss knows I have children, but he doesn’t like people so he mainly hides in his office and only communicates by email unless he is absolutely forced into a meeting, and then he goes back to hide again. He’s actually literally the most perfect boss you could ever have. And HR know too, but they never come down to our floor. It’s only my immediate colleagues I OMITTED to mention the children to, and I’m not FUCKING SORRY, because people treat you differently when you’re a mother. They shouldn’t, but they do!’
‘And what about me?’ yelped Simon. ‘Have you airbrushed me out of the picture too? Are you some sexy single lady now?’
‘THIS ISN’T FUCKING ABOUT YOU!’ I yelled. ‘This isn’t even about whether or not people at work know about the children. This is about YOUR fucking attitude to OUR LIFE and your assumption that I will just MAKE EVERY FUCKING THING HAPPEN and all you have to think about is yourself! It’s like the way I am still doing almost all the cleaning and laundry and housework, even though we were meant to share that too when I went full-time, but you still don’t fucking bother!’
‘So get Juliette to do it!’
‘See? SEE? Why do I have to get Juliette to do it? Why can’t YOU get Juliette to do it?’
‘Well, if you don’t want to ask Juliette, get a cleaner!’ said Simon.
‘I don’t WANT a fucking cleaner!’ I shrieked. ‘Well, that’s not true, I would quite like a cleaner, but I worry I’d feel guilty about exploiting someone, and anyway, I’d still have to clean before they came so they didn’t judge me, but that’s NOT THE POINT! The point is, if we got a cleaner, it should be because we’d both decided that there was just too much for us BOTH to do with looking after the children and the house and working full-time. We shouldn’t have to get a cleaner just because YOU can’t be arsed pulling YOUR weight. And you STILL assume that it is something that I will arrange because that’s “my job”, you fucking arrogant arsehole.’
‘I really don’t understand what your problem is. You complain about childcare, we get an au pair. You complain about cleaning the house, I say get a cleaner, but that’s not good enough. What the fuck do you want, Ellen?’
‘I WANT you to take an equal responsibility for this family!’ I howled. ‘I WANT you to take responsibility for your children and share the childcare, I want you to pick up your own festering pants instead of leaving them lying around for me, I WANT you stop acting like you are somehow above all the petty fucking little trials and tribulations of life, just because you’re a fucking MAN. And I WANT you to stop assuming that you can just do what you like and I will just somehow cope. All you had to do was listen to me and book a bastarding week off work. But you fucking didn’t!’
‘No, I didn’t, did I, so it’s too late to complain about that now. If it was that fucking important, YOU should’ve made it clearer to me. I really don’t know what else you want me to do. And if I’m such a terrible parent, how come YOU’RE the one going around LYING to people about whether you even have children!’
‘Oh, go fuck yourself!’ I snapped. ‘Right now, I wish I didn’t have children. OR A FUCKING HUSBAND!’
‘Be careful what you wish for, Ellen,’ he said coldly. ‘It might just come true.’
Arrogant bastard.
It’s a strange thing, marriage, isn’t it? You meet someone, you fall in love with them, you realise you can’t live without each other, you stand up in front of all your friends and family to vow to spend the rest of your lives together, and you know that on one level, a part of your heart and soul would be wrenched out if this person were no longer in your life, but on another level, you have seriously considered googling ‘how to kill someone with a tube of toothpaste’ should the inconsiderate TWAT continue to squeeze the toothpaste in the middle instead of rolling it up neatly from the bottom LIKE A NORMAL PERSON.
I once thought that the longer we lived together, the less Simon’s ‘little foibles’ would annoy me, but if anything they have become more irritating over time. Not to mention that part of being married is knowing someone so well that you know exactly what buttons to push to wind them up, like when Simon tuts and rolls his eyes and makes his ‘I am a saint to put up with this’ face, when I ask him for the eleventy fucking billionth time to take the bins out and I contemplate where in the woods behind the park would be the best place to dig a shallow grave.
Maybe it’s just that all the little things add up – all the unreplaced loo rolls, all the overflowing bins, all the pairs of pants left tangled up inside the legs of his jeans for me to remove, because I obviously have no other fucking things to do. So many little things, over the course of a lifetime, that mean the love of your life is also the most annoying fucker you have ever met. No one told me it would be this hard, skipping up that aisle, ready for a life of married bliss, completely unaware that most of marriage consists of trying to remember that prison is not very nice, and you are probably too middle class to ever make ‘Top Dog’ and be allowed the trouser press.
APRIL
Wednesday, 5 April
Well, after all the ranting and raving furiously about me YET AGAIN being the one who either has to call in favours or take yet more annual leave, along with outrage about why I am always the one who has to arrange the childcare, after frantic googling and phoning round, I managed to get the children booked into an all-day sports camp for the first week of the holidays – i.e., the week that BASTARDING SIMON was supposed to take off, and since he had fucked off to sunny Singapore, instead of entertaining my precious moppets for the second week of the holidays that I had so carefully booked off months ago, I decided that when it came to the rage and stress, I would simply chuck it in the fuck-it bucket and I have booked a last-minute trip to Lanzarote for the children and me, which to be honest costs about the same as a week’s worth of cinema/Laser Quest/McDonald’s trips to keep them happy.
Also, we are even staying in a hotel, which Simon will never countenance because People and also because he apparently ‘has enough’ of hotels because he stays in them for work all the time. Oh, to be given the chance to ‘have enough’ of hotels! I can but dream. No
t only that, but I just booked the hotel because it looked nice and didn’t even consult TripAdvisor. Simon worships obsessively at the Oracle that is TripAdvisor – we are not allowed to go anywhere with less than a five-star rating. And even if a place has five stars, and eleventy fucking billion good reviews, woe betide them if in 2013 one person left them a two-star review. That is the establishment immediately crossed off Simon’s list as sub-par. It is very fucking annoying.
In the meantime, in his absence, we are happily living on pasta (not considered by Simon to be a Proper Dinner, unless it is bastarding lasagne) and my (never very high) standards have become somewhat lax – the children were quite delighted to be permitted to eat their pesto pasta (pesto carefully blitzed to within an inch of its life so there were no offending ‘bits’, because they will only eat bits in Juliette’s cooking – my ‘bits’ taste funny, apparently) and bought-in garlic bread (Simon will only eat homemade garlic bread) in front of their tablets tonight, which is something they are NEVER allowed to do when Simon is at home. Although the main reason for this is that it meant if they were slumped in front of mind-numbing electronics, then I too could pleasantly pass the time with a glass of Pinot Noir and a spot of Facebook stalking, instead of refereeing World War III, explaining yet again to Peter that really, it would be nice if he could refrain from cramming his food into his mouth so fast that he managed to bite his own finger, and listening to Jane wittering like a demented budgie about how Tilly lent Milly her Smiggle ruler and Milly lost it, and then Milly said Tilly had never lent it to her anyway and so Tilly said Milly, etc., etc., etc. Also, in Simon’s absence there are no rows about whether the dog can or cannot sleep on the bed.
I feel bad sometimes that life seems to be easier without Simon, and I know it’s just a temporary sensation, and that if I were on my own with the children full-time it would be very, very different to coping without him for a week or two, or likewise if he were away doing something dangerous in Afghanistan or somewhere that he might not come back from, instead of titting around the world being bored with hotel rooms. And I will probably miss him eventually, of course I will, but we have been married for so long now that actually, other than the massive bastarding childcare issue, it’s quite nice when he goes away and then when he comes back it’s like things are a bit more exciting again, instead of him just lolling on the sofa in front of Wheeler Fucking Dealers (I swear to God that I thought he was going to cry when Edd China left, and now he refuses to watch any of the newer episodes that don’t have Edd, which means I have now seen every single wretched episode at least five times, even though there are ELEVENTY FUCKING BILLION of them).