by Matt Rudd
This would have been the right time to tell her what happened, but they both look so pleased to see me, so delighted that the breadwinning hero has returned, that I say, ‘Fine,’ instead.
Idiot.
Saturday 29 June
Tell her. Tell her. Tell her. Tell her.
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.
Sunday 30 June
I mean, what are you going to do? Are you going to live a double life? Are you going to dress for work each morning, leave the house, get the train and sit in a coffee shop all day? She’ll notice. Women always notice, not least when there’s no money in the joint bank account any more. And anyway, you have to tell her. This isn’t one of those weird marriages where nobody ever tells anybody anything.
Tell her, tell her, tell her.
Here goes.
‘What?! Please tell me you’re joking…’
Why did you tell her? Idiot.
‘…you can’t just resign. We have a baby. You have responsibilities.’
She has an expression on her face that I haven’t seen before – and I really thought that after two years of marriage and six months of motherhood, I’d seen all her expressions. It is 70 per cent incredulity, 20 per cent sadness, 10 per cent betrayal. I explain how there comes a point when a man can’t take it any more. That I was being driven out of the job. That it was making me miserable. That I would rather be penniless and happy than rich and miserable. Which is precisely what Isabel always says.
‘I don’t want us to be rich, but we need to pay the mortgage on the house we can’t live in. I mean, this is ridiculous. Could you not have waited a few more months? Could you not have taken it for a little bit longer? Could we not have at least discussed it before you did it?’
So I explain that it was only a matter of time before I was fired, anyway. She says nonsense. I take the letter from Anastasia out of my bag. Exhibit A.
As she opens it, I notice her hands are shaking. I haven’t seen her hands shake since she was standing in front of me at the altar. This is slightly different. I feel sick. Why have I done this to her? Why am I putting my family through this?
‘Dear William,’ she reads, her voice strained but measured. ‘Despite recent problems, I just want to say that I am delighted that you have chosen to get behind the magazine’s drive into online business. Your blog, though controversial, is exactly the sort of thing we need if we’re going to move forward.
‘It is crucial to our continued success in an increasingly competitive marketplace. I hope that we can now put our issues behind us and that you will continue to contribute so positively. I have completed the review of staff performances this year and I am pleased to say that there will be an across-the-board bonus of 3 per cent. Best wishes, Anastasia.’
Damn.
JULY
‘People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one.’
LEO J. BURKE
Monday 1 July
Pinch, punch, first day of the month. Punch, smack, kick in teeth. I’m an idiot. After twenty minutes of honest reaction from my beloved wife involving the sort of swearing I really don’t think a six-month-old should be subjected to, Isabel remembered that she was a romantic hippy at heart and told me everything would be all right (it won’t), that we have enough money in her parents’ emergency ISA account to last us (we don’t, it would run out in three months and, anyway, I felt quite insulted that they set it up for her in the first place and swore to myself we would never need it), and that we could always move to a Welsh hovel (we couldn’t, not after last year’s misguided dry-stone-wall-building adventure in Llllanlleydolloo).
Then she went out for a very long walk with Jacob and hasn’t said much since. This is even worse than when she was shouting. Now she’s trying to put on a brave face to support her flaky husband but is so stressed that she has to go for long walks and can’t really talk to me. I go to bed cursing myself, but I awake with new resolve: I shall find a new job within the week.
Isabel attempts a smile when I offer her a cheery-despite-the-situation morning’s greeting. ‘Seeing as you’ve elected to become a house husband,’ she says, ‘Jacob thought you might like to join him on his first swimming lesson.’
‘But I’m off to get a job.’
‘It’s his first ever swimming lesson.’
‘Okay.’
Just like kick boxing, I am the only man present at the water-babies’ class, and this feels even weirder. Teresa has already cornered the instructor by the time we arrive, checking over what will and won’t be achieved over the six-week course. Annabel is even later than we are.
The theory goes that you teach your children to swim while life as a submerged fetus is still fresh in their minds. The theory also goes that they will automatically hold their breath when underwater. So less than five minutes into the class, each mum takes it in turns to dunk her child. If you landed from another planet, you would assume this was some sort of ritualised torture because the babies don’t appear to be following the theory. They come up spluttering, a look of total astonishment on their faces, as if to say, ‘How could you betray my trust like that?’
Isabel asks the instructor if it’s right that Jacob should be coughing and spluttering like a drowning baby. The instructor says it’s perfectly normal. Uncertain, Isabel passes Jacob to me. When I dunk him, it’s worse. He takes ages to recover. Teresa is dunking twice as often as everyone else, increasingly frustrated that her child refuses to hold her breath. One of the older babies is laughing so much with relief at having survived the first dip that he completely fails to prepare for the next one and comes up crying.
I can’t believe this is the sort of thing mums get up to when dads are working. They are water-boarding their children. I look down at my poor defenceless little cherub and he looks up at me with the same mournful look. We have a sudden and profound understanding of our respective predicaments. We are both drowning at the hands of a cruel and insensitive world. All we want is to be left to prosper at our own pace. Is that too much to ask?
‘And one, two, three, under!’ cries the instructor, a big-armed woman with waterproof lipstick and a swimming costume that’s gone bobbly. She looks a bit like the postman, too, but I’m not going to ask. I know what I have to do.
‘Come on, Isabel, we’re leaving,’ I whisper because even if I am Michael Douglas in Falling Down, the woman with the waterproof lipstick scares me.
‘I was about to say the same thing,’ she replies, and in spite of everything that’s happened in the last few days, we are united again. I make some pathetic excuse about feeling seasick and we leave. Teresa looks smug as we do. Her baby has won, even if it is turning blue.
Wednesday 3 July
After I have spent two whole days trying to find a job without luck, Isabel suggests I have a meeting with Anastasia and explain that it was all one big misunderstanding. We have an argument about whether or not male pride can be directly attributed to all the suffering of humanity through the ages. I win. She says this proves her point and storms off to yet another coffee morning with the baby group.
I give up looking for a job and watch adverts for baths with doors in them.
Then I have a cheeky daytime beer.
Then I watch some more adverts.
Then I have another beer because the fruitless search for employment in difficult economic times can make a man self-destructive.
Then I have another beer.
Then Isabel comes home and is furious that I have achieved nothing domestic.
‘I have been looking for a job,’ I reply impertinently.
‘In the bottom of a beer can?’ she replies, and suddenly we’re making our own version of EastEnders.
Thursday 4 July
Independence Day for America – and for me. Let us not forget that I have escaped the chattels of labour. For the moment, at least, I can do what I want. As long as what I want to do is help with the washing (does this babygro really need washing? He’s onl
y been wearing it for two hours and it’s not that damp), the ironing (are we still bothering to iron the muslins?) and the rocking to sleep (could we not just leave him to cry himself to sleep? He’s six months old, for goodness’ sake).
Friday 5 July
‘Hello, can I speak to Anastasia, please?…It’s William…Walker…William Walker. The bloke who used to sit in the seat two along from the one you’re sitting in now, you silly bint…No, I was only joking. No, look, sorry, can I—Hello? Hello?’
Saturday 6 July
‘No, Dad. William wasn’t enjoying his job…yes, it was a good job, but there was a personality clash…no, she was…no, she didn’t…yes, we’ll be fine…two months…no, he’s got several options.’
I feel sick. I feel useless. I feel tired.
‘You can’t go to sleep now. We have to go to Teresa’s barbecue.’
This doesn’t help. Pete, the haunted husband, is already being physically abused by the time we arrive. ‘I…told…you…we’d…need…more…Pimms,’ Teresa shout-whispers at him, prodding her nasty finger further and further into his chest. The whole family is dressed in matching outfits and, from the extent of the spread, they must have been up all night making intricate finger foods. There are platters of canapés that would embarrass an African dictator. There are champagne glasses so pretentiously tall, it is virtually impossible not to knock one over. And there’s no room for sausages on the barbecue: it’s all crayfish and asparagus and lightly grilled new potatoes.
‘This must be what it’s like to have lunch with a premiership footballer,’ whispers Annabel’s husband. I laugh, but not too much because Teresa is looking over at us from behind a fruit pyramid. You would think she’d be in her element, but beneath a very thin veneer of calm, she is obviously stressed. Her right eye is twitching alarmingly.
‘Great party, Pete. Amazing food. You haven’t got any beer, have you?’ asks Annabel’s husband.
‘Not allowed,’ replies Pete nervously. ‘She says beer wouldn’t go with the lobster. Sorry. How’s work?’
When it gets to my turn to answer that question, I find myself stuck for words. The two of them are waiting for a bland Saturday afternoon response and I could give it to them, but then I’d be lying. I could be honest but that might spoil the lobster more than a rogue beer and then Teresa might stab me to death with a barbecue prong. No, it would be best to grumble a bit about the commute, whisper conspiratorially about how at least it was easier than being at home with the baby and then move on to another equally inane topic like nappies.
‘I’ve resigned.’
I said it a bit louder than I’d planned. And a bit more defensively. Pretty much everyone at the barbecue stopped their conversations and turned to stare.
‘I’ve resigned,’ I repeat, but more to myself this time. And all I can hear now is the babbling of unattended babies, the burning of unattended lobster tails and the smash of crystal on patio one second after Teresa drops her champagne glass in horror.
I should have run off with a secretary. Much more socially acceptable.
Monday 8 July
After another fruitless day scouring newspapers for non-shitty jobs, I behave yet more irresponsibly by going all the way to London to drink beer with Johnson and Andy. I had started negotiating for the trip on the basis that two coffee mornings equals one beer night but that got me nowhere, so I did some begging. I don’t know why I bothered, given Andy’s choice of conversational opener.
‘Is it possible to have too much sex?’
‘Oh God, Andy. I don’t want to know about you and bloody Saskia. I’m unemployed in the middle of a recession and my family needs feeding. I’m having a life crisis here.’
‘I’m having a life crisis, too, okay? I think I might have a condition. Some sort of sex addiction.’
‘It happens,’ says Johnson with a weary sigh. ‘Medically speaking, there is no risk. Psychologically, it can be a problem.’
‘I know. You have all the sex you could ever possibly wish for. Then it just starts to become something you can’t function without. Then, before you know it, you’re constructing your whole day around it. And it’s no longer fun or exciting. It’s just sex.’
‘Give it another few weeks. It will wear off,’ says Johnson.
‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ says Andy.
‘Look, can we stop talking about all the sex? I am having almost no sex and I’ve lost my job.’
‘You resigned,’ corrects Johnson.
‘Thank you, yes. I resigned.’
‘I think you did the right thing,’ says Andy. ‘Too often, we continue in jobs we hate for money we don’t need. Saskia always says—’
‘I’m sorry. Can we leave Saskia out of this for one minute? And I didn’t do it because I was making some proletarian stand against the industrial-military complex.’
‘Why did you do it?’
‘I don’t bloody know.’
‘You did the right thing,’ Johnson says into his pint. ‘The magazine is going to pieces. It was the right time to leave.’
Tuesday 9 July
Johnson calls to tell me that his original advice was wrong.
‘What, I didn’t do the right thing?’
‘No, you can develop medical problems if you have too much sex. Women are fine with too much sex, but according to the internet, it’s different for men. If the penis tissue doesn’t rest up and receive new oxygen, the erection can swell beyond safe limits. It can lead to pain and/or numbness.’ He’s worried that Saskia is some sort of black widow. First, she tried to destroy my marriage with her sexual prowess. Now, she’s trying to kill Andy with the one weapon she really knows how to use.
‘Don’t you think you should do some actual work rather than fantasising about Saskia?’
‘No, it’s fine. Anastasia’s out today. She’s preparing for some sort of award thing we’ve been nominated for.’
‘I thought you said the magazine was going to pieces.’
‘Well, er, yes. You know, what do these award ceremonies really tell you?’
‘Bye, Johnson.’
Wednesday 10 July
Isabel and Jacob are at the Wednesday baby-group coffee morning. This is distinct from the Tuesday afternoon one, the Friday morning one and the alternating Thursday lunchtime one. It gives me three clear hours to concentrate on job-hunting. After twenty minutes, I have determined that there are no jobs in my sector. I decide to treat this whole minor blip in my career as an opportunity. Maybe I should change careers altogether.
After a further twenty minutes browsing the wrong bits of the job section (could I be a car-damage appraiser or a lead functional consultant or a senior obsolescence engineer?), I give up altogether and watch some more adverts for walk-in baths. Then I make some toast. Then I update my Facebook status: William is looking for a job:(
Isabel still won’t be back for two hours, so I decide to get some fresh air. I walk past the pub. I walk past the village shop. I go home again. Still more than an hour. I check Facebook. Predictably, the girl I played clarinet with when I was fourteen has responded. Is she somehow permanently plugged into her computer? She tells me she makes good money selling aloe-vera products from home. I type, ‘I don’t want to sell bloody aloe bloody vera,’ but I delete it before I click ‘send’. No point in taking it out on an ex-clarinettist.
I’m watching a repeat of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? when Isabel returns. ‘How are you, darling?’ she asks.
‘Fine, I’m trying to work out if it’s even more pointless watching a repeat of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? than it is watching the original. It shouldn’t be – it’s the same level of suspense, the same stake, the same questions. It’s not as if I’ve seen it. Or if I have, I can’t remember it. To all intents and purposes, it is completely new to me, so it should feel the same. But I’m sitting here thinking that this bloke, this idiot who is struggling to guess whether a cantaloupe is a type of elephant or a fruit, already
knows how things went for him. He may be driving round Stoke in a Ferrari. Or maybe he’s in Benidorm in some horrible condominium because I can’t see him making it past £5,000 and that’s probably enough for a deposit, don’t you think? Or maybe he’s sitting on his sofa right now, watching this as well. Kicking himself that he said elephant, thinking that if he’d said fruit, he might be in Benidorm right now.’
After a long, bemused pause, Isabel says, ‘Can you bring Jacob in from the car? He needs a nappy change.’ I walk out to the car and, even though I’m fully clothed, an old lady walking along the pavement noticeably quickens her pace when she sees me.
I walk back in and I was right, he said ‘elephant’.
Thursday 11 July
Lathered up for a shave and then realised there was no point. And besides, blades are expensive. And besides, what’s the point in anything?
Again, I gravitate towards the television. Neighbours. Loose Women. Alex and Geoff ruining someone else’s house. I should write an exposé. The truth behind A and G: how the camera always lies on makeover shows.
Friday 12 July
This has officially been the longest week of my life. The most exciting thing that happened today is that the revolutionary aloe-vera anti-wrinkle cream I ordered from Louise arrived with a smirk from the postman (is he opening my post?).
Sunday 14 July
I’m out with Jacob, giving Isabel a lie-in. My world has shrunk to the size of a village, a village in which I am not welcome. And there’s Pete with a pram, his eyes deeper set, his feet shuffling like a man resigned to a lifetime of misery and toil. Teresa must have been extra cruel to him last night.