Growing Pains of a Hapless Househusband

by Sam Holden

  I half-raised my glass.

  Monday 17 March

  I had a long chat with Halet this morning, and congratulated her on how well behaved the children are. I asked her about the secret of her success.

  'Just good old-fashioned parenting,' she said. 'It's not magic.'

  'It bloody seems that way.'

  Halet laughed.

  'Not at all. I use what you British call carrot and stick. It worked for my children, and it seems to work very well for yours. In my country we call it fghddskjhf and asdhkksdfh, but it is very hard to translate.'

  'It sounds impossible.'

  Halet laughed again. There was something serene about her, and it was infectious. Just being around her makes my shoulders slump slightly, and all my muscles relax.

  'You know, they are lovely children you have, Mr Holden.'

  'Call me Sam, please.'

  'I prefer Mr Holden. I am a different generation to you and I like the formality. I am, after all, your employee.'

  'But I call you Halet.'

  'That is OK – I am your servant, you can call me what you wish.'

  Gosh, I thought, I've got a servant. I'd never really thought of au pairs, nannies etc. as 'servants'. Somehow I imagine servants to be dressed in maids' costumes, the type of clothes I always want Sally to wear.

  'Anyway,' I said. 'I'm glad you like Peter and Daisy. They seem to like you very much already. Sally – sorry, Mrs Holden – and I could not be happier with you.'

  'Thank you, Mr Holden. I am happy that you are happy. And may I ask how your television programme went last week?'

  'Extremely well thanks.'

  'Oh good. I cannot wait to see it. Perhaps I shall learn a few tips?'

  Wednesday 19 March

  Dom rang to say that some of the material was better than he had hoped, and he wanted me to come in on Monday and Tuesday to do the voice-over. I'm going to be narrating the programme, apparently, which I'm happy about, because it makes me more of a star. Or something.

  Sally back late again this evening. Once again she was shattered, and looked utterly depressed. She went straight upstairs, and she was up there for so long I thought she had fallen asleep. I went up to find her kneeling next to Peter's bed, stroking his sleeping head. I eventually dragged her back downstairs.

  'Is there anything I can do?' I asked.

  'Yes. Pour me a glass of wine, cook me a nice dinner and then a great shag.'

  'In that order?'

  'Hmmm. Wine, shag, dinner.'

  It was a command I was happy to obey. After the second bit I tried to instigate a long chat about work, but Sally asked me not to ruin the evening. Fair enough, but I am still worried about her.

  Thursday 21 March

  I bumped into Emily today, who was her normal bouncy self. She was dying to hear about the filming, and she twisted my arm to go to her for lunch, and so, cravenly enough, I did.

  She asked me how it went, and I told her it couldn't have gone worse. She fell about when she heard about the arrests and the arrival of the Pimp Your Lounge man. She then wondered if I had seen her scenes yet.

  'I should see them on Monday,' I said, suddenly feeling uneasy. It wasn't that I had forgotten about THAT kiss, it's just that I'd put it to one side, and was kind of still hoping that it wouldn't get used.

  'I can't wait to see it,' she replied, handing me a bottle of wine and a corkscrew. 'I did so enjoy filming it.'

  Here we go again, I thought. Another one of Emily's thundering passes. What was she trying to do? Her flirting was as subtle as that of a drunk teenager.

  I didn't really reply and just made a few 'hmmph' sounds, which she seemed to find amusing.

  'What will Sally say when she sees it?' she asked.

  'She will probably kill me,' I said. And I meant it.

  Emily giggled and drained the penne.

  'By the way, it's Ned Holland's fifth birthday party tomorrow. Has Peter been invited?'

  'Of course – they're great mates. In fact, the whole family's been invited, as Sally's parents know Ned's grandparents.'

  'Oh good,' she replied. 'It will be nice to see you again so soon.'

  And she meant it.

  Saturday 22 March

  Sally still doesn't believe that something didn't happen. No matter how much I swear on all my relatives' graves, she is adamant that Emily and I did something on the wretched bouncy castle. It was at the end of the party, and we were all clearing up, and, horror of horrors, Emily and I found ourselves alone on the red and yellow rubber.

  I could tell from the look in her eyes that she meant business. I could also tell that she was smashed, and even if she weren't standing on a bouncy castle, I expect she would have been just as unsteady on her feet. She sort of swayed/lurched/boinged towards me, and I swiftly fled but managed to corner myself beneath a turret.

  'Emily!' I hissed. 'What are you doing?'

  She let out a pissed giggle, her head slumped against her right shoulder in what she must have hoped was a coquettish way. In fact, it just made her look more drunk.

  'There's no one here,' she slurred.

  'They'll be back in a minute,' I replied. 'They're just putting the children in the car.'

  I tried retreating further, but it was impossible. Red and yellow rubber walls stopped me – this really was a well-fortified castle.

  Emily kept boinging towards me.

  'C'mon,' she said. 'I want to bounce with you.'

  'Um, er, er, I don't um think that this is the right time,' I stammered. 'Aren't we a little too big for bouncing?'

  'The bigger the better.'

  Until that moment I had doubted Emily's claim that it was three Greek fishermen, but now I could see it had to be true. In fact, the only part I now questioned was whether it was just three fishermen. Emily took my hands and started bouncing up and down. I did my best to stay still, but it was impossible. Her movements were causing the castle wall to thud against the back of my head, and I was in severe danger of losing my balance and toppling over on top of her.

  'Bounce!' she insisted.

  This was very bad. Sally and her parents were just outside. In a matter of seconds they would be witnessing their husband/son-in-law frolicking on a bouncy castle with a woman wearing a skirt that seemed to be working its way upwards with every b'doing.

  'Bounce!'

  I sort of lifted myself up on the balls of my feet.

  'You can do better than that! C'mon, bounce!'

  And then I had a genius idea. I would bounce, and bounce hard. With any luck it would cause Emily to let go and fall over, whereupon I could make my escape from the castle of marital death. I therefore jumped up as high as I could (which is not very high) and bounced.

  'That's better!' said Emily.

  After a few more bounces I had built up a pretty good momentum, and was causing Emily to stumble and wobble. I bounced harder and harder, and soon my head was clearing the top of the rubber ramparts. As I glanced over them, I could see Sally and Jane making their way to the front door of the hall. I had literally seconds in which to make my escape. I gave it one more huge bounce, and then . . .

  POP!

  Followed by a huge farting hiss.

  Followed by rapid deflation of bouncy castle.

  Followed by massive pissed giggles from Emily, who lost her balance and pulled me down with her. I was drowning, drowning under a tide of red and yellow rubber that reeked of children's feet and rancid cheap cocktail sausages. Soon we were both enveloped, and I found myself lying on top of Emily, whose arms were firmly clasped around me. In the dim latex gloom, our eyes met, and she gave me a look that would have attracted every Greek fisherman within 250 miles.

  'Sam!'

  I closed my eyes. It was Sally. Just behind her stood Jane, her arms folded like a sumo wrestler at the weigh-in. (If that's what sumo wrestlers do.)

  'Sam! What are you doing?'

  It seemed to take hours to extricate myself from the collapsed c
astle and the sprawling Emily. It didn't require much imagination to put myself in Sally's sensible shoes in order to see how bad this looked. I got to my feet and smoothed my hair in a pathetic attempt to seem dignified.

  'Sorry darling,' I began, 'we were just, you know, bouncing.'

  Sally held up a hand to stop me.

  'I can see that,' she said.

  A collapsed wall started to rustle behind me, and out of it emerged a pair of long legs, some knickers, and a skirt wrapped around a waist. A gasp from Jane.

  'You're going to pay for this, Sam,' said Sally.

  'What?' I asked. 'The castle? Of course I will pay for it.'

  Daggers flew out of Sally's eyes.

  'Not the bloody castle, you fool.'

  It is now 10 p.m. and I'm in the spare room. I've never been in a bigger dog house, and no matter how much I plead my 100 per cent genuine innocence, the kennel just gets larger.

  Bloody Emily. This is the last thing I needed. I really felt Sally and I were turning a corner, and now this. How the hell do I get out of this one?

  Sunday 23 March

  I've been debating all day whether to tell Sally that Emily is my on-screen 'wife'.

  The reasons for telling her now are:

  1. She can't get any more angry;

  2. It will look better if I tell her now than wait for her to see it on-screen;

  3. It will bring the whole Emily thing to a head, we can have one final row about it, and then it will all be over.

  The reasons for not telling her:

  1. I'm a coward;

  2. Not much else really.

  Today has been as awful as I expected it would. Hardly any conversation, and refusals of small olive branches such as cups of tea etc. After the children went to bed I tried to have it out with her, but Sally said there was nothing to discuss, and that if I wanted to fool around with Emily, then I would have to take the consequences.

  'I wasn't fooling around with her!' I said. 'And besides, what consequences?'

  'I don't know,' she said ominously.

  Of course, the first thing one thinks of when one's wife says things like that is the dreaded 'D' word, but surely not? But then again, maybe, just maybe. I mean, it's not as though we're much of a team at the moment, is it?

  Perhaps this is paranoia talking. I just can't see Sally giving up on 'us' that easily. Aren't these troughs here to make one's marriage grow stronger? They had better.

  Tuesday 25 March

  The voice-over day did much to chase away my blues, and for a while I totally forgot about the disastrous bank holiday weekend.

  Until I saw the footage of Emily kissing me.

  The first thing I noticed is that I have a double chin, perhaps even a treble chin. In short, I look seriously ungood when I kiss. Naturally, I then thought what I might look like at more intimate moments (with Sally of course), and I suffered an immense feeling of self-revulsion. Some of our friends – Nigel and Clare particularly – video themselves having sex, but I just can't see the appeal. Unless it's well lit, you don't have an ounce of body fat, you have a great tan, and it's shot from side on, then home-made porn is a very bad idea. (I would have thought.) Otherwise, it's just grainy footage of one's hairy bum, and not even the most ardent hairy-bum fetishist would find a video of me in action a turn-on.

  The next thing I noticed – or rather felt – was an acute sense of horror at what I was watching. It must have shown on my face, because Dom went, 'You've gone as white as a ghost. Are you OK?'

  'I'm fine,' I lied.

  We sat in silence as we watched the many takes.

  'Does she normally kiss you like this?' Dom asked.

  'No,' I said, which was true. 'She was clearly playing up to the camera.'

  'You're telling me.'

  'Do you think they're too, you know, passionate to use?' I asked hopefully.

  'Not at all. I think the raunchier the better.'

  Fuck, I went to myself. Not the answer I wanted to hear.

  'Do you really think so?' I asked. 'I mean, viewers might think it a bit unlikely for your average morning kiss.'

  'Let's face it, there's a lot in this programme that viewers may find a bit unlikely.'

  He had a point, and I was stymied. I didn't want to admit that I had failed, and that I couldn't even persuade my wife to appear on my own television programme.

  'And besides,' said Dom, 'if you don't mind me saying, Sally is really hot. It would be nice to get her more involved if and when we make the series.'

  'Thanks,' I said. 'Yes, she, um, looks great.'

  'You don't think so? Sounds like you've been married too long!'

  'Not at all. No, I think she's great. Great tits and arse as well!'

  Dom looked at me curiously. As soon as I had made that last observation, I knew that I had over-egged the pudding, or perhaps had even put in eggs that weren't required.

  'Interesting thing to say about your wife,' said Dom.

  'Well, you know, it's like, you know,' I blustered. 'I lust after my wife the same way as I did the day we met.'

  Dom nodded slowly.

  'Well, as you say, she looks great. And I think she could become a more integral part of the show.'

  This was so not what I wanted to hear.

  'How? I mean isn't the show meant to focus on me?'

  'We'll work something out. Anyway, we should really get back to doing all the voice-over stuff.'

  In the end we worked late, and I'm staying at Dom's house. Funny being in a bachelor pad, reminds me of all those years ago. Some of the similarities are eerie – the same heap of clothes next to the bed, the unwashed mugs, the high-tide mark around the bath, the scores of empty wine bottles waiting to be magically transported downstairs etc. etc. None of it is particularly scuzzy in that Young Ones kind of way, although the sheets on my bed don't look hotel smooth.

  Called Sally, and she was brusque.

  'Enjoying yourself up in London?' she asked.

  The question was loaded with jealousy and accusation.

  'I'm staying at Dom's – we worked late.'

  'All right,' she said. 'I'll see you tomorrow I expect.'

  She made my return sound as if I were an annoyance.

  Wednesday 26 March

  Finished off all the voice-over. It's amazing how quickly you get accustomed to hearing your own voice. Normally, whenever I hear it on home videos, I think I sound awful, but in fact it's not too bad. Dom thinks it works well because it's 'well spoken but classless'. I said that made it sound as though it were boring, which he denied rather too vigorously. Certainly some of the longer passages, especially the one about 'Harmonising the Context', sound a little dull, but Dom for some reason thinks they're great, as do the Emmas. One of them – I forget which – then said that I had the type of looks that would appeal to a 'certain type of housewife'. When I asked her to be more specific, she merely gave the other Emma a knowing stare.

  When I got back home at 6ish, Halet was giving the children their supper.

  'Daddy Daddy!' they both went, and then they asked Halet if they could get down so they could hug me.

  Halet assented, and while I was being covered in kisses I couldn't help but think that I didn't want Peter and Daisy to be the type of children who needed to ask permission before hugging their mum or dad. That's the real price of having someone looking after them, I thought. It wasn't so much the not being with them, but the fact that they were being exposed to values that were not your own.

  Halet said that they had been very good, and showed me what they had been up to since school/playgroup. Peter had been practising his letters, and very good they looked as well (so long as you looked at them in a mirror), and Daisy had been drawing what she insisted were flowers. Once again, more wistfulness. I never felt like this when I was at work and Sally was at home, but now I do. I think it's because now I know what I am missing. It's what Sally feels, and she feels it very acutely.

  Talking of Sally, w
hen she got back she seemed to be in a better mood. As a result, we managed to discuss the Bouncy Castle Incident (hardly the stuff of a Robert Ludlum novel) in a sane manner over supper. She agreed that it was highly unlikely that I was trying anything on, and she took my word for it.

  'But,' she said, 'that doesn't mean that she wasn't trying it on, and that you weren't deliberately exposing yourself to her.'

  'Exposing myself? What, you mean flashing my willy?'

  Sally laughed.

  'No! I mean putting yourself in a vulnerable position. You know perfectly well what I mean.'

  I did.

  'Yes, but isn't this all rather similar to the Nick situation?' I asked. 'I seem to recall that you said you were entitled to see who you liked, and if Nick fancied you, then that was his problem, not yours.'

  'True,' said Sally. 'But the difference between that and this is that I know Emily fancies you, whereas I knew that Nick was gay, and didn't fancy me.'

  'But who else am I supposed to see?'

  'There are plenty of people around – Lorna, Louisa, Lily.'

  'Any who don't begin with an "L"?'

  'Yes – Kate.'

  'OK – Kate. OK, Kate. You're right, I should see more of Kate. But she probably thinks I'm a little too foulmouthed.'

  'Well, she'd be right,' said Sally. 'So don't be.'

  'OK, OK – sorry! So there's Kate. Anyone else?'

  'What do you think I am? A playdate agency for househusbands?'

  'Now there's an idea!'

  Sally playfully flicked a pea at me.

  'And don't you go flirting with Kate,' she said. 'She's my best friend round here.'

  'Honestly, who do you think I am?'

  'A rogue who is making a ridiculous TV programme who I miraculously still love.'

  'I love you too. And my TV programme is not ridiculous.'

  'I bet it is,' said Sally. 'I can't wait to see it.'

  Tick tick tick went the time bomb.