by Matt Rudd
‘Well, it’s the first one. It might be like the first, you know, nappy.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s an egg.’
‘It might be all treacly inside.’
‘Poached or boiled?’
‘I can’t eat it now. It doesn’t seem right.’
Wednesday 14 August
Two interviews today for jobs on magazines about, respectively, kit cars and babies. A stopgap, really. I failed to convince the first that I have a sufficient background in engineering (I thought they were joking when they asked, then pretended I’d enjoyed physics at school, but by then it was too late) and managed to appal the editor of the second with a joke about Medised, which she would have got if she had children, but she didn’t, she just had a sanctimonious attitude to parenting.
Very depressed until I get home to find Jacob sitting.
‘He’s sitting,’ I say to Isabel, who is reading a magazine she no doubt bought from the village shop, even though I’ve asked her to boycott it, but I’m overlooking that because…‘Look, he’s sitting!’
She glances over, all matter-of-fact. ‘Yes, he is. He’s been doing it all morning.’
‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Just over seven months. Is that good? I mean, how does it compare?’
‘What do you mean?’ She knows what I mean.
‘How does it compare to the other babies in the group?’
‘He’s the first,’ she sighs. ‘But he is a month older than the others.’ Why does she have to spoil it? Why does she have to qualify Jacob’s epic achievements?
‘Well, are the others showing the slightest sign of sitting up? Or are they all just lying around?’
‘Babies learn at their own pace. It’s not a race.’ Here we go again. I’ll have to resort to the internet for proper answers.
And now I’m depressed again. Once I’ve ignored all the hippy websites urging me not to set a timetable for my child, I find one that says seven months is perfectly normal for sitting up. ‘Right on schedule,’ it says. So he’s only normal…although I still think he’s on a fairly hyperbolic developmental curve. He’ll be walking in no time. Then we’ll see if he’s normal.
I console myself with a quick flutter. So close to being up £1,000, but then Isabel walks in and I obviously look suspicious.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Checking e-mail.’
‘Again?’
‘This job’s not going to find itself.’
Isabel narrows her eyes and walks out. When I return to the casino screen, I have lost a hand. Back to £910, and my wife thinks I have an internet-porn addiction.
Thursday 15 August
Louise has laid another egg, but Thelma seems to be struggling. She has had a large red egg hanging out for the last hour. After a long and deeply unpleasant discussion about whether a first egg could be red (given that we didn’t see Louise’s first one come out and maybe there’s some sort of hymen-like membrane), we resolve to wait.
An hour later, I am on the Eglu chat forum. Nothing about red eggs, but a rather harrowing discussion about chicken prolapse. A chicken called Fenn has a bleeding vent, which the other chickens have been pecking.
‘Might be worth bathing her vent with warm salt water to clean it up,’ says another Eglu user. ‘If it’s a prolapse, it can be pushed back in very gently with a bit of Vaseline or K-Y Jelly.’
Oh, Christ.
In no mood for village silliness, I stride across the green to the village shop. ‘Some Vaseline or K-Y Jelly, please. And before you ask, it’s not for anything depraved. It’s for Thelma. She’s a chicken. Okay?’
I get halfway back across the green and turn around.
‘Because she has a prolapse. Not because I want to have sex with her. So don’t send me another letter. Okay?’
‘I’ve got the Vaseline, darling.’
‘Okay, here are some gloves.’
‘I’m not doing it. This is definitely a woman’s thing.’
‘You are doing it. She’s your chicken.’
I can’t talk about what happened next. Suffice to say that the red egg went back in – and then came back out again. Then again. Then again. If the prolapse keeps coming out again, take the chicken to the vet, says the forum. I call the vet and their offices are closed for the day, even though it’s only 4 p.m. Thelma will have to make it through the night. I offer to stay up and keep an eye on her.
By 4 a.m. I have lost £700, mainly to American housewives who seem to be a lot better at online gambling than they were last week. Either that, or the strain of Thelma’s illness and the knowledge that I can’t even get a job on a kit-car magazine are beginning to take their toll.
I am still on £210, though. Or £160, if you deduct the £50 I put in myself. I should just call it quits now. We need the money.
Friday 16 August
Two more eggs from Louise, who appears to have no tact given that her sister has an enormous red lump hanging out of her bum. Isabel agrees to cancel her ninth coffee morning of the week so we can all go to the vet.
The vet looks like Bob.
‘It’s a prolapse,’ he says coldly. To him, Thelma is just a chicken.
‘I know. Is there anything you can do?’
‘Not really. If it hasn’t gone back in by now, it requires quite a complicated operation.’
‘How much will that cost?’
‘Hard to say. Anything up to £910.’ The exact amount of money I had won gambling, up until 3 a.m. last night. If I hadn’t been such a chump, I could have paid. I could have told Isabel about the winnings, and she may have been delighted and she may have let me spend the money on saving Thelma. But now, Thelma must die.
‘How much is it to put her down?’
‘Ninety, plus VAT.’
‘That’s okay, thank you. We’ll take her home,’ says Isabel. ‘We can do it ourselves.’
And now, because of me, Thelma must die at the hands of amateurs.
Saturday 17 August
Still can’t believe Isabel did it. Stamping on a broom held across the neck of poor Thelma. Could she not have dreamed up a less barbaric method? No, apparently it is quick and painless. She saw it on a BBC 4 documentary and if we weren’t prepared to deal with the realities of poultry farming, then we shouldn’t keep chickens or eat chicken or anything, she said. Fine, I said, but was she absolutely sure the whole minute Thelma spent running around in ever-decreasing circles, her neck lolling, a look of surprise on her little chicken face, before collapsing and breathing her last, was absolutely painless, because it wasn’t particularly quick?
‘Yes,’ said Isabel and we haven’t spoken about it since.
Sunday 18 August
Brenda out walking the replaced whippet. Me out walking Jacob to give Isabel her weekly lie-in. Neither of us in the mood to take diverting action, so we have no option but to walk past one another.
And she smirks. She bloody smirks.
‘What are you smirking at?’ I ask, and she says, ‘Oh, nothing,’ still smirking, and, even though we haven’t spoken directly for months, I remember immediately how much I dislike her.
‘No pointless, picky, small-minded little letters from your little gang of jumped-up councillors for a while,’ I say, which wipes the smirk off her face.
‘Sorry to hear about your chicken,’ she says, which wipes the smirk off mine.
‘No such thing as vet-patient confidentiality in this place, then?’
‘Bob’s cousin likes to keep us abreast of developments in the area.’
‘Is that a chicken joke?’ I say, but she looks blank.
‘Will you be staying in our village for much longer?’ she asks. ‘Only, you said in your letter that you were leaving soon.’
‘We’ll leave when we’re good and ready, thank you.’
‘Well, let’s hope the other chicken doesn’t have any…accidents…in the meantime.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Chickens a
re vermin. They shouldn’t be in people’s gardens. They attract rats.’
‘You touch that chicken, and there will be hell to pay.’
‘What, you’ll punch me in the face again? When I’m not looking? You wouldn’t stand a chance. Don’t forget, I finished the kick-boxing course.’
And with that, she storms off. Which takes ages because she has such tiny legs.
To cool off, I gamble. By the time Isabel wakes up, I have only £1. So I’m down £49. And a chicken. I fake a headache to get out of going to lunch at her parents’ house and, by the time she gets back, it’s more like minus £150. Or £200, if I’m being honest.
Monday 19 August
My birthday. Thirty-two years old. Unemployed. Unemployable. Spending money we don’t have on a gambling addiction rather than on a beautiful son and a terminally ill chicken. This is the worst day of my life.
And it soon gets worse. Mum phones to wish me happy birthday, tells me in excruciating detail, like she always does, how my birth was horrendous (‘This time thirty-two years ago, I was in a coma brought on by the size of your head’) and then tells me a friend of hers is doing very well selling aloe-vera products door to door. She can find out the details if I like.
Isabel has listened to my stern warnings about not buying me anything extravagant for my birthday because we don’t have the money, and I don’t want anything, anyway. So she got me some marmalade and a very large mug.
Even though this is a good thing, I can’t help but look disappointed.
‘You told me not to spend any money,’ she says anxiously.
‘Yes, but you didn’t have to take that quite so literally,’ I reply, spreading the birthday marmalade on toast.
‘But I thought you’d be pleased. Living sustainably. Self-sufficient. Escaping the tyranny of the industrial-military complex. Yada-yadayada.’
‘How would you feel if I got you a jar of marmalade for your birthday?’ I ask, knowing full well that no man has ever got away with birthday marmalade.
‘I would be upset because I would have known you were really buying it for yourself. But if you’d bought me jam, I would have been delighted.’
This is not true, but I am not in the mood to argue. I need to win back that money. And, no, I don’t want to have a birthday picnic.
Tuesday 20 August
I’m £250 down. I have spent the night of my birthday losing more money. Briefly, it was only £150, but I panicked and now it’s £250. I must just cut my losses and stop. I must cancel my account, cut up all my credit cards or take up some other, less destructive addiction, like injecting heroin. Or I must calm down, convince myself that although I’m down now, I could be up to where I was last week in a matter of hours. And then I’ll stop.
Wednesday 21 August
I am £780 down and I haven’t slept for days. The double life is becoming unsustainable. I told Isabel that Life & Times had asked me to do another piece, which is why I am spending so much time at the computer. But Isabel keeps wanting to read it. And I keep saying it’s not ready. So in order to keep this whole nightmare secret, I have to win back the money I’ve lost and write an article that Life & Times doesn’t want. Because I can’t tell her now. This all started because I have to support my wife and child, who depend on me to be responsible and breadwinning. And it’s turned out to have quite the opposite effect – who would have bloody guessed? I have to make it better. And I have to do it without anyone ever finding out.
Thursday 22 August
£1,200. Shouldn’t there be some sort of limit in place? Shouldn’t the credit-card company step in and tell my relatives that I am spiralling hopelessly out of control? Shouldn’t my luck change at some point?
Friday 23 August
£1,900. I don’t care any more. My life is over. I have to tell Isabel. Secrecy is all fine if you have some hope of fixing things, but I don’t. Honesty is now the least bad option, but she will have to leave me. And I won’t accept that because I will have become a hopeless, desperate alcoholic online gambler. I will turn up in the middle of the night outside her house and cry like a big girl. She will have no option but to take a court order out against me. I will be banned from seeing Jacob and will have to dress up in Bananaman costumes and climb cranes in protest. Jacob will grow up without a father figure. He will have no competitive instinct. He won’t learn to walk until he’s four. He will throw like a girl.
‘Hello, this is Cat World.’
‘Hi, it’s William…William Walker. I used to work there. Here. Yes. Could I speak to Janice? I’m just wondering if there are any jobs available at the moment…yes…Janice…Hi, how are ya? How are the cats? Yes, I know…ahhh, he’s such a little tinker…really. They’re so clever, aren’t they? Sometimes you think they understand everything you say…Now, look, I’m just wondering if there’s any chance you have any jobs going at…what? Really. No, no, that’s fine…Yes, I can. Yes. Okay. No. See you Tuesday.’
Old job back. A stopgap. But I can’t have the ‘Good enough to eat?’ column any more. Janice is now doing that herself.
Saturday 24 August
Isabel can’t understand why I’m going back to Cat World because (a) I hated it and (b) I don’t need it because I seem to be working so hard on articles for Life & Times. I spend the whole day not going into the same room as the computer. Then I become concerned that Saturday might be the day that the non-professionals play. So I have a quick go…ten minutes at the most…and four hours later, I’ve missed another of Jacob’s bedtimes on the pretence of work. And lost another £100.
Monday 26 August
It was our turn to host the baby-group barbecue on an all-important bank holiday Monday and apparently what happened was all my fault. In my defence, I was stressed because I was burning everything and we were only doing sausages, anyway, not lobster and lamb racks and champagne fountains like at Teresa’s, and I was exhausted and it was really, really, really humid. And Teresa said something like, ‘Oh, Jacob’s sitting at last. We’ve been sitting for two weeks now, haven’t we, coochikins, and we’re only six months old. Don’t they grow up fast.’
And I said something like, ‘I’ve got a good idea, Teresa. Let’s have a standing race. See which child can manage first. I’ll put my child in leg splints. You can construct some sort of puppet harness for yours.’
And Annabel sniggered. And even Pete, Teresa’s haunted, harried husband, smirked.
And Teresa said, ‘Piss off, Annabel. And piss off, William.’
And then burst into tears because apparently she is a lot more fragile than she lets on.
And now the baby group has properly split in two. Isabel is angry with me because, while it’s fine for me to make enemies all round the village, she and Jacob spend 24/7 here and would prefer to have friends. This is a problem because I was going to tell her about the whole gambling thing tonight and now I have to continue living a lie a bit longer.
And I’ve lost another £250.
Tuesday 27 August
Nothing has changed at Cat World. It still smells of cats. The people who work there still love cats. They are still totally opposed to dogs.
£2,312 down.
Wednesday 28 August
I have to sit there while Janice eats cat food for the ‘Good enough to eat?’ column. It was my column and it was supposed to be a joke. But whereas I used to have a tiny, tiny bit, then wash my mouth out, then make up the stuff about it having gooseberry overtones with an aftertaste of rabbit lips, she eats the whole tin instead of lunch. And her column is all deadly serious, with nutritional paragraphs and chat about the quality of the meat used.
£2,619.
Thursday 29 August
Today, I interviewed a woman who breeds very rare chinchilla Persians about how to keep a cat’s coat shiny. To think, I once (nearly) interviewed Hillary Clinton.
£3,221.
Friday 30 August
Some readers brought in their cats today, and nobody did any work becaus
e they were all so excited about the cats. Someone emptied old cat litter into the bin near my desk. This is not a humane or hygienic place to work. And I keep gambling away more than I make.
£3,412.
Saturday 31 August
Ahh, the weekend. No cats. No cat interviews. Just me, my wife, my wonderful son and Louise, our highly efficient egg-layer.
Except Isabel makes me go over to Teresa’s house to apologise. And rather than accept my apology graciously, Teresa says, ‘Oh, that? I was only joking. I’m not bothered at all. Thanks for the sausage rolls.’
And then, when I get home, Isabel is as white as a sheet.
‘Has something happened to Jacob?’ I shout before realising that she has opened the credit-card bill. And seen the total. Oh, Christ.
‘Fourteen hundred pounds?!’ she exclaims before I can start explaining. And I don’t reply because I’m thinking, Thank God, she’s only seen the transactions up until last week. She’d be furious if she knew how it has snowballed since then. But I really should reply because…
‘On LiveBetPoker? Are you insane? Is it not enough that you’ve just swanned out of your job and made us homeless? Now, you’re gambling all our money away. Not even our money…my parents’ money? Who have I married? What have I done?’
‘I’m sorry, darling.’ I can’t believe it says LiveBetPoker on the credit-card statement. About a hundred times. Couldn’t they pick something less damaging, like RedHotHousewives?
‘Is this what you’ve been doing every night? When you said you were working? You’ve been gambling?’