'How much,' she said, 'will you give me if I find it?'
OK, so this operates on two levels. The first is simple sadism. Margret knows the agony it would cause me if — after my prolonged, stomping insistence that it isn't there — she calmly walks over and places her hand immediately on it. Tauntingly, she knows that just the possibility of this happening is quite probably enough for my nerve to crack. She is well aware that if, just one more time, my frustrated raging of, 'The nail scissors aren't here. See? They're not bloody here. Do you understand? Not… Here… Look! Go on! You try to find them then! Go on! Where are they then? Eh?' receives the near-instantaneous reply, 'Here they are,' and a pair of nail scissors, then I'm simply going to have to run away to sea. Can you see the other level, the one which ties it in kind with the 'Shut up' affair, though? Have a think.
That's it, well spotted: monetary gain. If I've maintained that something isn't somewhere until I've had to jump up and down, hold my breath and squeal that she's not my real mom, then simple, human decency should compel Margret to say, 'Yes, you're right,' rather than go there and find it. Going there and finding it is what you'd expect a Colombian Death Squad to do. What separates Margret from a Colombian Death Squad — perhaps the only thing that does — is subtlety. She's awfully keen to make that bet about finding things, isn't she? Now… why could that be? Well, obviously, it's because she's rigged the deck. The reason I can't find what I'm looking for is that she's previously spotted what I'm looking for, and moved it.
I have innate positioning instincts, you see: like a salmon returning thousands of miles across unmarked oceans, right to the stream where it was born. In exactly the same way, when I've finished using it, I will place a screwdriver on top of a bedroom radiator and — when I need it again, perhaps eighteen months later — unerringly return to that spot to retrieve it. Frequently, to discover that Margret has, maddeningly, taken it upon herself to transfer it to somewhere else. My instincts, moreover, are incredibly precise. If I'm looking for a pair of trainers that my astonishingly accurate positional memory remembers putting down in the bottom left of a cupboard, then I'm not going to notice them if some fiend has moved them to the bottom right of the cupboard during the intervening four and a half years, am I? That'd be stupid. What's the point of having a gift for such specific location if your visual perception is so vague as to wander around all over the place? Eh? What's more, I place things logically. Where are you most likely to need carpet tacks and a hammer, for example? Precisely. So leaving them on the stairs is simple ergonomics.
However, for some reason, Margret is unable to respect my filing system. She spends her day roaming the house, wilfully moving things from where I've deliberately placed them. And that's why she's keen to make the bet. She's hidden my stuff, and now she wants me to pay for her to retrieve it. It's basically a form of extortion, isn't it? Let's call a spade a spade: Margret has kidnapped my stuff and is holding it for ransom. Really, ladies and gentlemen, it's a sad state of affairs when your girlfriend abducts your favourite underpants.
75
Simply odd. Odd. We're writing Christmas cards at the moment, and Margret asked if I'd print out a family photo to include with them. (I have many photos of us, taken during every season and in numerous different locations — all, however, show precisely the same pose: Margret — beaming smile; Mil — solemn resignation; First Born — looking down at a Game Boy; Second Born — tongue out at camera, fingers pulling up to expose inside of nostrils.) Now, I'm aware that including a family photo with a Christmas card is not at all unusual in America, and I don't want to appear to criticise this: I'm sure it's perfectly lovely when an American sends such a card to another American. It's simply a tradition and no more a cause for comment, in its context, than any other of the fine customs unique to that country, like… um… like pie eating competitions, say, or religious snake-handling. As an English person, though, the notion of sending out pictures of ourselves strikes me as narcissistically brash. I mentioned this to Margret and, though she had sympathy with the concept that (non-American) people who send out photos of themselves might reasonably be assumed to be utterly dreadful, she said she thought that sometimes it was nice to get a picture. She thought it was nice for a very specific reason. '…because then you can see what size they are.' Now, this is clearly nonsense — 'Oh, look — they're 8"-by-4".' — unless people are sending out photographs of themselves next to an item of known dimensions. A bit like those kidnap photos where the victim is holding the day's paper: Bill, Emma, Helen, Matt and Blackie ensure that they're posing by a regulation, roadside telephone CAB box, with their arms linked to avoid tricks of perspective. More pertinently, though — what the hell? 'So you can see what size they are'? What on earth does that mean? Am I expected to open a card, splutter out my mouthful of tea in shock and call out, 'Quick! Take Ted and Sarah off our list — I've just found out they're bleeding midgets!' It is, as I say, 'simply odd'.
76
I'm off to Germany for a few weeks. Apologies if my absence results in your doing any work.
77
Except, I have to pop back briefly to tell you what just happened. I'm about to cycle into town and Margret stops me as I'm setting off. 'Will you bring back that filing cabinet from Argos?' she asks. Can you, ladies and gentlemen, imagine a person cycling two miles through Christmas traffic on a mountain bike carrying a filing cabinet?
Margret can.
Right, I really must get packed for Germany now.
78
Right, I've just got back from Germany so I have a huge backlog of stuff to get sorted — the inevitable result of a short break away hissing around the Allgäu, past numberless gasping locals, all swooning, 'Incredible! He skis like some kind of god!' You'll be happy to know, however, that Christmas this year went very well. As I think we've established by now, providing Margret with Christmas presents that evoke joy — rather than massive, brutal retaliation — is something that must be bought at a terrible cost. The fearful, Faust-blanching price of this ability is to — quite literally — listen to everything that Margret says throughout the previous year. I mean, Kung Fu monks (according to the omniscient well of knowledge that is popular 1970s television) only had to do a decade or so of training then carry a red hot metal bowl for a couple of meters with their bare forearms. I have to listen to everything Margret says throughout the entire year. Endless, endless, endless hours of stuff about the comparative aesthetic merits of different Ikea storage units, just so I'm there — prickling with alertness — on those occasions when she slyly drops in a hint about what she might like as a gift when the trial of buying one for her confronts me again. As I say, though, last year, twelve months worth of intelligence gathering paid off. This Christmas morning she was so thrilled that she stared at me — literally unable to form her thoughts into words — for quite the longest time imaginable after unwrapping her presents of a barometer and one of those 'Make Your Own Will' kits.
79
Oh, as you ask, I had a pretty uneventful time over in Germany. Skiing, visiting friends, waiting for the figure to turn green at pedestrian crossing lights even though there quite plainly isn't any sort of moving vehicle within a mile and a half, being shown photographs of my girlfriend naked, etc., etc.
The Old Timers among you will be well aware that pretty much every household in modern Germany contains at least a couple of photographs of my girlfriend naked, and also that this is a) "Not sexual. Tch — what the hell's wrong with you?" and b) very much My Problem. So, I'm sitting in a living room and — after tea and cakes — out come the photographs of Margret naked. I hold one of the pictures in my hand and sit there, radiating heat. Alerted, perhaps, by the grinding sound I'm involuntarily making with my teeth, Margret looks across at me and lets out a long, weary sigh.
'Oh, for God's sake,' she tuts, 'OK — so I'm naked. But you can't see anything.'
I glance pointedly at her, pointedly at the photograph, and then back at her again — pointedly. She lets out a
n even wearier sigh and rolls her eyes.
'OK…' she shrugs, '…apart from that.'
80
In what I can only assume was an impromptu but gutsy attempt at the World Irony Record, the other day Margret started to lecture me on how I could become calmer. I mean, really, eh? It's like being pitched Al Qaeda's Little Book of Love. Her spontaneous proselytising was conjured from her now going to yoga one evening a week.
'It's really relaxing when I'm there,' she says.
'Yes, it is,' I reply. (You see what I actually meant there, right? Lord, but I'm arch.)
'Why don't you come to a session?'
There's a sucking, cultish gleam in her eye. The kind of, 'Join us! Join us — the spaceship awaits!' look that you see on the faces of Moonies or people who are telling you about homeopathy.
'No thanks.'
'But you really lose the tension.'
I consider mentioning that she always seems to find it again pretty quickly once she gets back — maybe she might think about getting a yoga instructor who 'loses her tension' by some method other than 'hiding it in our house', but I keep hold of this card for a while.
'I don't need to,' I say, 'I can achieve perfect relaxation by sitting here and watching a Buffy DVD.'
'That's not the same.'
'Yes it is.'
'No it isn't: when you're watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' (I promise you these are her exact words that are coming up now), 'you're straining your mind.'
My face briefly collapses under the effort of trying to map the internal reasoning of a psychology that could incubate such a concept, but it's the logical equivalent of falling infinitely into the Mandelbrot set and I pull back, palsied and afraid. Instead, I reach for my ace.
'Well, whatever, the point is — this yoga is only relaxing you for the precise amount of time you're doing it. Once you get back home you're just the same. In fact, you've been moaning even more than usual for the last few weeks.'
'No I haven't.'
'Yes, you have.'
'No, no — I haven't been moaning,' she says, rolling her eyes and tutting. She reaches forward and ruffles my hair. 'I've just been moaning at you.' With that, she gets up and breezes from the room.
You know… I've been thinking about it for several days now, and I still can't figure out who won there.
81
Romance Masterclass.
It's Wednesday the 12th of February. It's early evening. Margret and I are sitting in the living room. Margret has asked me to do something the following day.
Mil: 'I can't, I'm afraid. I'm going into town.'
Margret: 'Why? What do you need to go to town for?'
Mil: 'Oh, I have to get some stuff.'
Margret: 'What stuff?'
Mil: 'Just some stuff… things.'
Margret: 'What things?'
Mil: 'Various things.'
Margret: 'What things?'
Mil: 'What does it matter?'
Margret: 'What things?'
Mil: 'It's not important what specific things, is it? I have to get things or I wouldn't be cycling into town, would I? All that's relevant here is that I have to go, not the details of the individual items I need to get — there's no point wasting time giving you a big list, when the only significant point is that I need to go to town .'
Margret: 'What things?'
Mil: 'Oh, for Christ's sake… Pizzas. I need to buy some pizzas, OK?'
Margret: 'We've got pizzas.'
Mil: 'We've got a pizza.'
Margret: 'So? How many do you need?'
Mil: 'Several. I want to have several in the fridge.'
Margret: 'Why?'
Mil: 'So that we have a stock of them.'
Margret: 'Why?'
Mil: 'So that we don't run out, obviously.'
Margret: 'What would happen if we ran out?'
Mil: 'I'd have to go to town.'
This flings itself out of my mouth while my higher brain is still racing along behind it frantically waving its arms and shouting, 'Wait! Wait!'
Margret responds with just the tiniest movement of her eyebrows. Absolutely minuscule. Sufficient in size, however, to make me wonder if I could get a UN resolution to have her bombed.
Mil: 'I have to get other things too.'
Margret: 'What things?'
Mil: 'What the bloody hell does it matter? Why can't I go to town if I want to, for God's sake?'
Margret: 'Why are you being secretive? What are you up to?'
Mil: 'I'm not up to anything.'
Margret: 'Yes you are.'
Mil: 'Like what?'
Margret: 'I don't know.'
Mil: 'Because there isn't anything.'
Margret: 'Yes there is — I can tell.'
Mil: 'There isn't.'
Margret: 'You bloody liar.'
Mil: 'You bloody mad woman.'
Margret: 'Tell me.'
Mil: 'Stop talking now.'
Margret: 'Tell me.'
Mil: 'I…'
Margret: 'Tell me.'
I think we've both risen to our feet by this point (it allows for better voice projection).
Mil: 'OK! OK! You want to know why I need to go up town, you relentless harridan?!'
Margret: ''Yes! You lying swine!'
Mil: 'So I can get your Valentine's Day card! So I can get your bloody Valentine's Day card and post it to here — so it'll arrive as a nice surprise through the post!'
A tiny flicker. It's the merest stutter of hesitation, though, then she's back on track before the beat is really lost.
Margret: 'You don't need to get me a bloody Valentine's Day card!'
(I can't imagine what makes her think she's going to get away with this move — she must be getting old.)
Mil: 'Too bad! Because I'm getting you a Valentine's Day card! And I'm posting it to you! Tomorrow! When I go to town! '
Margret: 'THERE'S NO BLOODY NEED!'
Mil: 'WELL IT'S GOING TO BLOODY HAPPEN — GET USED TO IT!'
And, indeed, I do go to town, buy her a card, and post it. Inside I write, 'Surprise!' She gets it on Valentine's Day and says, 'Thank you,' to me, through gritted teeth. (She gets me one too, by the way — it reads, "I'm not interested in a nice, normal relationship… I like ours better.")
Odysseus and Penelope? Pah — lightweights.
82
So, the thing was, I'd cut this picture of PJ Harvey out of a magazine (yes, the 'Lick My Legs' one, of course the 'Lick My Legs' one) and I was framing it to put on my wall here. 'Who's that?' asked First Born.
'That,' I replied, 'is PJ Harvey.'
'Who's PJ Harvey?' he said. (Bless.)
'She's a singer and a songwriter,' I explained. Adding, as I'm sure most people would, 'I used to go out with her. You know — years before Mama and I met.'
Now, you'll never guess what happened next. Incredibly, Margret goes through the roof. No, I'm not kidding — she goes through the roof and starts ranting that I shouldn't say I used to go out with PJ Harvey. Can you believe that? I mean, for one thing, I don't tell her that she can't watch gardening shows on the TV or go swimming or whatever, so how come I can't tell people that I used to go out with PJ Harvey? There has to be give and take in a relationship, right? The main issue, though, is why on earth she should object in the first place. Surely, if anyone is well placed to take issue with my going around saying that I used to go out with PJ Harvey, then who is that person? Damn right. It's PJ Harvey. And her record company, maybe. Also, possibly her legal representatives have good grounds to intervene, perhaps in a manner that leads, ultimately, to some kind of court order against me. So, yes, all those people seem to be perfectly justified in stepping in — but my girlfriend? God — it's getting so I can't do anything.
83
Now, this is slightly scary and unsettling. I know I'm inclined to say that quite a lot, but what am I supposed to do about it? This is slightly scary and unsettling. You're going to get to the end of this and say, 'Ooo —
that's slightly scary and unsettling, Mil,' that's just the simple fact of the matter. OK?
The other evening we had some friends round. We were all sitting in the living room and I was recounting something Margret had done a couple of days previously. Unfortunately, I can't remember what this thing was now, but I do recall it had happened in the car. So, given Margret and I stepping into a car together immediately invalidates our insurance (a Zen branch of homologous algebra states: Mil + Margret + Car = Small Child + Hammer + Land Mine), it could have been pretty much anything up to and including some kind of western movie-style showdown where — instead of being atop a train — Margret and I scrambled for control of a Colt .45 on the roof of our Vauxhall Corsa, as it careered, driverless, down the A5. As I say, I can't remember. Anyway, whatever it was, it was certainly (a) utterly outrageous and (b) utterly down to Margret. This is borne out by the look of numb, stunned disbelief that trembled on our friends' faces when I'd finished telling them the story. One of them turned to Margret and, incredulous, gasped, 'Did you really do that?'
'Yeah,' Margret laughed back, with a shy, 'you know how it is' shrug. Then she became pensive and her nose twisted a little in thought. 'But,' she continued, half to herself, 'I don't know if I'd have done it in real life.'
"In real life"?
What?
WHAT?
You're going 'Ooo — that's slightly scary and unsettling, Mil' now, aren't you?
84
A question I get asked a lot is… Um, actually, a question I get asked a lot is one I get asked by those Litigations R Us-style firms — the ones that encourage you to sue everyone you've ever met so they can have a share of the settlement. Every single time I walk through town one of their salespeople will leap out in front of me:
Things my girlfriend and I have argued about (online version) Page 6