Single Mother on the Verge

by Maria Roberts

  ‘That’s great.’

  ‘I’m doing it on Monday.’

  ‘You’ll feel better for it.’

  ‘Once I’ve done it, I can’t go back.’

  ‘Good, you’ll be more relaxed.’

  ‘Relaxed’, ‘bankrupt’: if I looked these words up in the Oxford English Dictionary would they share a definition?

  I also thought about giving up Rhodri because he’s turning out to be a full-time job and the benefits and working conditions aren’t always great. It was almost another of my New Year resolutions but on Tuesday when I wandered into the local estate agent’s to daydream about living in a three-bedroom semi-detached in the posh part of Jackson, the man said, ‘This is the best time to buy. Couples separate around about now because of a dreadful Christmas together. They want to shift properties quickly.’ He rubbed his hands together greedily.

  Rhodri and I are not going to be one of those statistics: we are not a couple who cannot stand to be with one another. Christmas may have been rocky, but if I hold on tight through January and stop myself doing anything drastic, like throwing his clothes out of the window or setting fire to his rucksack, I’m certain we’ll reach spring intact.

  ‘You might need to get another job,’ I tell him. ‘We’ll be losing four hundred pounds a month.’

  ‘I told you,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to work full time.’

  Monday morning, I sit down at my desk to catch up on some freelance work: finishing off a few bits of PR, updating a website and trying to get an interview with some poets for a feature for a magazine.

  Rhodri may have said he doesn’t want to work full time, but if I go through with New Year Resolution 3 and give up my job compiling entertainment listings for the what’son section in a newspaper (the most depressing job for an English graduate, ever, but very easy money), and write my play, we’ll be so broke Rhodri will have to work extra hours. Having made this radical decision, I take executive action and speak with the editor: ‘I’m going to write a play,’ I say uncertainly, ‘so I’d like to take a break for a year.’

  Camouflaging my resignation as a sabbatical is a safety net: that way I can always ask for my job back.

  ‘No problem,’ the editor says. ‘When would you like to finish?’

  My original plan was to give a month’s notice, but I may as well quit now before I change my mind. ‘At the end of the day?’

  ‘That’s fine. Just let me know when you want your job back. It’ll remain open for you.’

  Kind words. But, hopefully, I’ll never need it back. Little did I know that giving up work would feel so liberating. Suddenly I am transformed into a decision-maker. I go back to my desk and twiddle my fingers for an hour, trying to decide what to do next, battling against the desire to resign from all work completely. Now I have fewer assignments, I can devote more time to being a loving girlfriend and mum. Which is what I’ve always wanted.

  I look on curryfrenzy.com, intending to make an impressive vegan curry for Rhodri. This afternoon I will collect Jack from school and take him to a nearby fishmonger to choose a piece of fish. Then I will prepare his all-time favourite meal: baked salmon with pasta and salad.

  *

  I have collected Jack, baked his salmon, and served it up. He is now sitting happily at the kitchen table, doing his homework and experiencing the benefit of my unerring patience and assistance. Margaret No. 2 has dropped in and is sipping her tea while watching me with utter disbelief. ‘What are you doing?’ she says, scanning the piles of herbs and vegetables on the worktop.

  ‘Making mushroom dhansak.’

  ‘How long have you been making it?’

  I look at the clock. ‘About three hours now. I had to blanch the tomatoes first and make the curry massala gravy.’

  ‘You could buy it in a jar.’

  ‘Rhodri won’t eat those sauces in jars.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ she says, as I crush yet more garlic to stir into a pan.

  I spend the next hour making pillau rice, ten minutes eating, an hour washing the dishes, and am so exhausted from all that cooking I can only manage five minutes of sex at bedtime. I imagine that this is what life as a housewife is all about.

  This morning I cycled with Jack to school with the promise that tonight I will read to him in bed. He kissed me in the playground and said, ‘I love you, Mum.’ New Year Resolution 1 is on course for success. Meanwhile Rhodri enjoyed his curry and his bowels are in top working order this morning. New Year Resolution 2 would also have been well on its way to success – had I not checked my emails this morning and found a message from Toga:

  I’ve just plugged in my old phone and found lots of rude texts I sent you last year. Ah, the memories… How you? How is the New Year treating you so far? X

  So, of course, I had to reply:

  Bear, Might visit London next month to see a play. What are you up to? Busy? I have to book a visit in with you really early. Anyways, when you coming here and wooing me? Am getting bored. X

  To which Toga replied:

  Yes, it’s been a while, Baby Bear. [He sent me a link to a YouTube video of some bears.] When you say ‘woo’, do you mean what I think you mean?

  Toga thinks ‘woo’ means ‘shag’, but I actually mean ‘romance’.

  I’m up soon for work. I’ll be staying at the Hilton Hotel, and you can visit me in my room on a professional basis if you like. Quite fancy a play some time, yes, then some slap and tickle. X

  What does Toga think I am? An educated hooker?

  Can I visit and stay, and when? X

  If I were to stick to New Year Resolution 2, I should not be drawn in by the promise of hot sex at a luxury hotel. Although, as a firm believer in change for nourishment not punishment, I don’t go in for needless self-denial and, lucky me, because of this open-relationship business, I don’t have to. Also, I like spending time with Toga. He makes me laugh, and the sex (when we get that far, and we haven’t for about a year now) is great: none of this romance interspersed with the it’s-your-turn-to-wash-the-dishes-love business. In bed we’re like two frustrated animals, caged up together, tearing pieces out of one another. Grrrr.

  I should start dieting now if I’m signing up for bed Olympics at the Hilton in a few weeks’ time. How much weight can I lose in two weeks? About four pounds. I’ll still be fatter than I was the last time Toga saw me.

  This whole exchange has given me an idea. If Rhodri won’t work extra hours in a pub, or sign up for extra shifts at a home care agency, maybe… ‘Rhodri?’ I call, because it’s his day off and he’s reading the newspaper in the living room.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Rhodri?’

  ‘Yes, love?’ He wanders into the kitchen and opens the cupboards in search of pumpkin seeds and nuts. He may have been a squirrel in a former life.

  ‘I’ve come up with a way for us to make some money.’ Rhodri groans. He thinks I’m going to suggest a real job. ‘You could be a male escort.’ As he doesn’t object immediately, I carry on: ‘You could earn loads of money dating women – you’d be perfect.’

  ‘What would I have to do?’

  ‘Take rich women out, eat meals, put them in a taxi home.’

  ‘What if the women want to have sex?’

  ‘You don’t have to say yes.’

  Rhodri looks disappointed. In light of this I try a different approach. ‘Would you like to have sex with them?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ He shrugs, smiling. ‘It would depend on the woman.’

  ‘That’s why it’s perfect. You go out to posh places for dinner, have sex, don’t pay for any of it and earn loads. All our money problems will be solved.’

  ‘How much would I get paid?’

  ‘A couple of hundred pounds per night – even per hour.’ Rhodri is a handsome man. He’d easily earn four hundred pounds a night.

  ‘I’d only have to go on one date a month…’ he begins, while I’m calculating how much we’d rake in if Rhodri went out three t
imes a week: £400 x 3 nights = £1200 per week, approximately £4800+ per month, which is circa £57,600 per annum. Then I deduct half that sum for national insurance, income tax, clothes, hairstyling, designer stubble, condoms, etc. I think we’re on to a winner here. Rhodri can still do the good thing during the day, looking after elderly people with Alzheimer’s and so on, but a very bad thing at night. If I had any spare time, I’d offer to become an escort too.

  ‘How would I go about it?’

  ‘Sign up with an agency.’

  I pull up a couple of websites on the computer for Rhodri to look at. He’s far handsomer than those jokers. ‘You’d get so many more bookings than these men,’ I assure him, pointing at the computer screen. Rhodri would make an ideal male escort just as long as he didn’t – ‘You wouldn’t be able to start ranting about veganism and the environment to your paying ladies.’

  Come to think of it, he’d be a cheap date. He’d only eat a salad.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Just be polite, talk about their jobs, kids, et cetera, don’t get too drunk and so on.’ How exciting – our money worries could soon be over. Oh, but what if Rhodri were to fall in love with one of these women? He might leave me, an eco-barrel-scraping single mother, for a new life as an international playboy financed by a fifty-year-old billion-airess. I wouldn’t like that.

  ‘As long as you don’t fall in love,’ I add.

  ‘I won’t fall in love with anyone else,’ he says, incredulous that I could imagine he might. Not incredulous, though, at my efforts to encourage him into a life of prostitution. ‘I don’t think I’d have sex with a client.’

  ‘Best to leave these options open,’ I say pragmatically. ‘You might be on a date with a foxy lady and find you quite fancy her, and that she’s prepared to pay a thousand pounds for the pleasure of a night with you. And,’ I plead, ‘we need the money.’

  Rhodri hates it when I beg. When I do he always says, ‘No’ to whatever it is I want. He needs a motive other than money.

  ‘It might do you good to sleep with someone else,’ I say, because if he’s going to marry me one day he should have some fun with the ladies first, and if it means we can pay the bills, I’ll turn a blind eye to just about anything.

  ‘Hm… maybe,’ he says, picking up a newspaper. ‘Maybe if I fancied her I’d have sex. I have got some catching up to do.’

  A few days later we’re using the white walls of the living room as a blank canvas for Rhodri’s photo-shoot. ‘Is this shirt okay?’ he asks.

  ‘You look gorgeous,’ I oblige.

  ‘With the jumper or without?’

  ‘Let’s try both.’ I stand on the sofa snapping away with the camera. If I take a picture from above I can capture that ‘come hither, wench’ look. Rich women out there will love it. ‘I think you should wear the dark jumper,’ I advise. ‘You’re vanishing into the walls with that pale shirt.’

  Rhodri pulls it on. That’s better. He looks more defined now.

  ‘Smile,’ I command, snapping away. ‘Look sexy. Look moody. Look manly. Now look gentle and caring.’

  ‘I’ve decided upon an escort agency,’ he says, leaning alluringly against the wall. ‘I’ll need an escort name.’

  ‘Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. What name do you fancy? How about Max?’

  ‘Not Max.’

  ‘We can think about it.’

  ‘My mum won’t be very happy when she finds out.’

  His mother is open-minded. I can’t see why she’d complain.

  ‘You wouldn’t be doing anything wrong, simply looking after ladies who need some safe male company. Think of yourself as a modern-day knight in shining armour.’ There’s no one safer than Rhodri. I recommend him personally. If there were a Michelin-star equivalent in the world of male escorts, I’d give him three.

  Photo-shoot over, we lean against the wall flicking through the pictures on the digital camera. ‘I still fancy you,’ I whisper.

  ‘And I still fancy you,’ smirks Rhodri.

  11

  I should give up trying to be the ‘best girlfriend ever’ because it’s hypocritical. The ‘best girlfriend ever’ probably wouldn’t want to pimp her boyfriend to pay the gas bill. I have, however, achieved three out of four New Year resolutions and it’s only the last weekend in January. Maybe I’m not doing too badly after all.

  Tonight is yet another Friday night when I look around me, thinking, At what point did we move into a potting shed? There are gardening tools and seeds and pots everywhere. I open the cupboard under the stairs to search for my slippers only to find strings of onions dangling between coat sleeves. Potatoes are chitting in Jack’s chest of drawers. A trail of dirt runs through the house from the patio doors, across the kitchen and up the stairs. I need help with this. I can’t cope. I want to cry. I want to escape somewhere.

  ‘Is anything planned for this weekend?’ asks Rhodri, pouring two glasses of red wine.

  ‘No. Why?’

  I hope he’s going to swoop me off to the Lake District for some adult fun. Or maybe he, Jack and I are going for a weekend activity break. I’d even settle for a drive out for Sunday lunch.

  ‘I’ve arranged a protest at a supermarket tomorrow.’

  ‘But I’m away next weekend,’ I tell him. ‘In Yorkshire, on a scriptwriting course. Remember? I told you months ago.’

  ‘That’s next weekend,’ he says, clearly hoping to end the argument.

  ‘But I’m working all week so we need to wash the clothes and do the food shopping and tidy the house and clean the rabbit hutch this weekend.’

  ‘The protest is already arranged. Why don’t you come along?’

  ‘What are you protesting about?’

  ‘The introduction of ID cards.’

  ‘I like the idea of ID cards,’ I say. ‘It’ll be handy having all my details in one place.’ I’m always losing my personal belongings. ID cards sound a great idea to me.

  ‘No, Maria!’

  Why does Rhodri have to say my name in that tone, instantly turning me into a four-year-old? He uses the same berating version of ‘Maria’ my father used when I melted custard creams by the fire.

  ‘ID cards are BAD,’ drills Rhodri. ‘They are an invasion of our privacy.’

  ‘Some people might agree with ID cards,’ I venture. ‘It’s more practical than carrying a driving licence, passport and bills to prove who you are.’

  ‘Those people don’t know what they’re talking about.’

  Rhodri includes me in the people-who-don’t-know-what-they’re-talking-about Venn diagram etched in his head.

  ‘I need you at home to help me.’

  My argument is pointless: as far as Rhodri is concerned, Britain is one step from becoming a totalitarian state and urgent action is required.

  ‘This is more important. The government plan to introduce ID cards and people need to know that they are being duped.’

  I spend the rest of the evening ironing. I used to go to clubs. I used to have friends. I used to have rampant sex on Friday nights with Rhodri. Now we lie in bed bickering about what shit-hot idea the Labour Party will come up with next.

  On Saturday morning I switch on the computer to check my emails. Toga has become reticent about the luxury night in a top hotel. I don’t think it’s going to happen. Now he’s talking about staying at a windmill instead. When do I have time to stay at a windmill? I could do the Hilton – it’s only a train ride away. I idly click my way through the links he sent me, one of which leads to a weekend break in Norfolk. And now I’m romanticizing about Thai massages in cornfields, followed by sensual nookie to the tick of a windmill.

  An old schoolfriend called me with the news that Damien is likely to go to prison for some petty crime. And nothing’s happening on Project SUFFR (Save Us From Financial Ruin) because Rhodri is wrapped up in a greater cause than our income crisis. All he’d have to do is dally with a couple of strangers and our bank accounts would be stable for months. T
his morning I asked him, ‘Have you sent that application form and picture off to the escort agency yet?’

  ‘I will do,’ he said, then added guiltily, ‘I haven’t had the time.’

  But he’s had heaps of time for concocting plans to disrupt shoppers at the supermarket on a busy Saturday afternoon.

  ‘What do you think?’ He parades proudly in his protest gear around the garden. My head is in the rabbit hutch, and I’m scraping out urine-soaked sawdust.

  I scowl at him. ‘I think you should help me.’

  ‘Do what?’ he argues.

  ‘Do things. Grocery shopping and so on.’

  ‘I told you what I’m doing today.’

  ‘What if you get arrested?’ I bite back. ‘What about us?’

  ‘That’s a risk,’ he admits. ‘But I have to do this.’

  ‘What about…’ I begin, then stop myself continuing because he’ll only say that I’m wrong.

  Rhodri has been arrested in the past. He was one of the protesters blockading the road at the G8 summit in Scotland. He didn’t catch a train there, or drive, or take a coach: he cycled from Manchester to Wales to meet a friend, then cycled on to Ireland to meet another friend, and then from Ireland he cycled to Scotland where he stayed on a self-erected campsite for protesters. I didn’t see him for three months, and we barely spoke on the phone because he demolished his mobile by snapping the sim card with his teeth. During his journey to Scotland and back to Manchester he slept under a sheet of tarpaulin strung between trees in dense woodland, and when he returned to my house he was scabbed from head to toe with bites where midges and tics had feasted on him. His muscles were something to behold, though, and he had a wild and sun-burnished look about him, which was incredibly attractive. I’d thought that that break would get all this eco-antagonism out of his system, but it seems to have spurred him on.

  Rhodri points to his chest and the T-shirt he’s made for the protest. Across the front he has drawn a super-sized barcode. If only I had it in me to praise him. ‘It’s a barcode,’ he explains, thinking I haven’t got it. ‘I’m going to wear it on the protest, climb onto a conveyor-belt at the supermarket with a megaphone and yell, “SCAN ME,” at the checkout girl.’