Typical Rob. It was nothing he need worry about; he knew she’d be along at some point, on her rounds, picking up and clearing up after him. That was her job. She had always hated this sorry little argument of his: she didn’t help him with his job, why should he help her with hers?
‘Domestic services,’ he called it. ‘That’s your department,’ he said, as though it was a department she had ever remotely aspired to. It was certainly a department that never closed, she often thought.
Usually she would sigh and go round shutting all the drawers and doors and putting things in the bin and the recycling box. That day, she’d had enough. She’d already thrown Rob’s shirt, pants and socks, and a coat hanger, out of the bedroom window.
She’d systematically gone round and opened every single cupboard door in the kitchen, then all the drawers. Then the fridge door, the microwave door and the oven door. Then she’d walked into the sitting room where Rob was on the sofa with the football on, tapping away at his phone with a vacant look on his face. He hadn’t even glanced up.
‘What’s on the menu tonight?’ he’d said. Frankie had stood right in front of him.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ she’d said, in a low voice. There was silence. He obviously hadn’t heard her. He didn’t look up; he didn’t stop tapping.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ she’d said. Louder.
‘Eh?’ Rob had said, glancing up. ‘Can’t do what? If you’re going to get huffy about cooking dinner tonight – again – we could always just have a salad. I’m not that bothered. I had a big lunch out. Steak.’
‘That’s nice for you,’ Frankie had said. And a salad wasn’t less work, she’d thought. There was all that chopping.
She’d raised her voice an octave. ‘I can’t do this – us – any more. The mess. The lack of respect. The whole lot. I’m done. I want us to split up.’ The words had just spilled out of her, like rubbish tumbling out of an overflowing bin or dirty pants spilling out the top of a laundry basket.
‘Oh, ha, very funny,’ Rob had said. ‘Sit down. You don’t have to make me anything. You can order us a takeaway if you like.’
‘I don’t want to sit down and I’m not joking,’ Frankie had said. ‘I need a break. I need a break from you. I want us to split up.’ She knew the look on her face was not normal; she knew she probably looked slightly unhinged. Deranged. She was shaking. She felt sick. Her voice sounded weird. She couldn’t believe she was finally saying this.
It was awful. He hadn’t believed her. When she’d tried again to explain why: the never-ending mess, the lack of help, how bloody overwhelmed she was; he had just not got it. She had resorted to screaming, ‘I’m sick of you!’ which had resulted in two things: the distant shriek of Alice, upstairs, startled by a post-bedtime argument that involved adult voices and not those of her older siblings, and a shout back from a palpably furious Rob.
‘Well, I’m sick of you!’ he had hollered, causing Alice to cry louder and Josh to exclaim from upstairs, ‘By Jove! What’s going on down there!’ He liked to experiment with different personas. The current one was a posh country gent. In previous incarnations, he’d been a barrow boy from the East End, a whiny American teenager and Julian Clary. ‘Moaning all the time, nagging all the time,’ Rob continued, his face red with anger. ‘It’s no picnic for me either, I can tell you!’
It had degenerated from there. And concluded with Rob emptying the contents of his gym bag onto the bedroom floor, refilling them with some clothes and a hastily compiled wash kit, and going to his mum’s for the night.
‘Where’s Dad going?’ Harry had said, appearing on the landing.
‘Oh, just to Nana’s,’ said Frankie. She still had the shakes. ‘He’s going to do a few jobs for her.’
‘Really?’ said Harry in mocking disbelief.
‘Yes,’ said Frankie. ‘Go and get on with your homework.’
She had watched Rob, through the bedroom window, getting into his car. At first he stepped over the clothes and coat hanger on the drive, then he opened the boot of the car, retraced his steps and shoved them inside.
She didn’t feel sad; she only felt relief. Any guilt that threatened was swept away by the thought that he was angry too. Angry rather than distraught. That made it slightly easier for her. She didn’t want to destroy him. She just wanted him to go away.
Frankie shook the horrible memories of that night from her mind. It was done, he was gone, and she now had the rest of a luxurious Sunday before her. She was going to spend much of it on the sofa with chocolate and a couple of box sets. She was going to wallow in the marvelousness of this new kind of Sunday.
At 2p.m., whilst enjoying Grey’s Anatomy and a bar of Dairy Milk, she was rudely interrupted by a text.
Rob.
This is hell.
Tell me about it, she texted back. (She had a silly urge to add ‘stud’, for old time’s sake, but decided that was madness.)
Blimey, it’s hard work.
Tell me about it, she texted again, then switched her phone off. Single for a year? Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Make it a lifetime.
Rob brought them back late by half an hour. Despite having the time off, she was really happy to see their little faces. He said he couldn’t find his car keys. He said after much frantic searching they were eventually found inside Alice’s shape-sorting pot. How they’d laughed, he said.
Frankie didn’t laugh. ‘You need to be more responsible now.’
The smile on his face faded and he looked angry. It had obviously been a long weekend.
‘I shouldn’t have to be more responsible! You should be doing all this! You should be being my wife!’
‘Tough – now maybe you’ll appreciate what I did for you.’
‘What? Ruin my life?’
The children looked slightly stricken. Frankie hugged them all fiercely in turn, then bundled them in and up the stairs to watch a DVD, leaving her and Rob to pull stony faces at each other on the doorstep.
He sighed. ‘I’m moving into one of my brother’s empty buy-to-let flats next week, for the foreseeable. It’s about ten minutes’ drive away.’
‘How nice.’
‘Can I come back the weekends that I don’t have the kids, and work on Kit?’
Rob was building a kit car. It was a sort of giant yellow Meccano car, which he kept in the garage and added bits to when he could afford them. When it was done, it was going to be a flash-looking sports car with one of those noisy, throaty engines and one day, presumably, he would just drive off in the bloody thing, alone – it only had two seats. Frankie had always been quite resentful about Rob and Kit. She didn’t have time for a hobby! Imagine if she locked herself in the garage every weekend, only coming out to demand bacon sandwiches and cups of tea.
‘No,’ Frankie said. ‘I just want to be left alone.’
‘But you won’t see me! You don’t see me for hours at a time when I’m in there.’
‘Quite. So no, you’re not doing it. Sorry.’
‘You’re being a bit of a bitch, you know, Frankie.’
‘Maybe I am. Maybe I’ve been pushed to it.’
His next sentence was said with a kind of venom. ‘I’m actually wondering if you might be slightly mentally ill.’
She laughed, loudly. ‘Ha! That would be convenient! Well, don’t think about sending me off to some sanatorium, Sue Ellen style.’ He looked blank. He hadn’t been a Dallas fan, as a kid. He didn’t watch much telly, in the eighties; he was always out on his bike or doing Airfix in his room. ‘Then you’d have to have the children full-time. You’d have to give up your job!’ He didn’t look suitably chastened, so she decided to get herself on a roll. ‘Don’t forget, you’ve only been allowed the luxury of that lovely job all these years and have children, because I’ve been supplying the childcare and the –’ she sneered ‘– domestic services.’
‘What?’ Rob’s face was a picture. A picture of a man who’d been told something totally outlandish. �
�Don’t be ridiculous. My job has allowed you to be a nice little housewife and mum and swan round all the time!’
‘Swan round! I’ve been bringing up your children and making sure your life runs smoothly. What a bloody cheek!’
Rob looked flabbergasted. ‘You choose this life; you chose to be a mum and housewife!’
‘I didn’t choose to be a baby-making slave! We were supposed to be a team. But we haven’t been, have we? Not at all. I may as well have been a single mum!’ An indignant, Ready Brek glow was turning her face all red, but she didn’t care. ‘So now I’m going to be one. And…and how dare you use a word like “housewife”!’ She spat it, with scorn, as though it were the worst insult he could throw at her. ‘Nice little housewife? That really says everything I need to know.’
‘What’s wrong with the word housewife?’ Rob asked, in all innocence, and she could have killed him. ‘You really are losing the plot, Frankie! You’re a nutter.’ He shook his head, as though she were an errant child who needed a nice sit down with a drink and a biscuit. Then his voice softened. Oh, here it comes, she thought. ‘Perhaps you just need time,’ he said. ‘Some headspace. More chill-out time.’
What on earth? This wasn’t 1990, the Second Summer of bloody Love! It had been one of his favourite eras. Did he think she just had to put on some Happy Mondays and sit in a field with a load of people waving glow sticks and she’d be fine?
‘You used to be such a laugh,’ he said. She had been, she knew. They’d both been such a laugh. Had such a laugh. He still was, probably. Except now he laughed on his own.
‘Maybe I don’t find anything funny any more.’
‘No.’ He grimaced. Yes, it was an actual grimace. He hates me almost as much as I hate him, she thought. ‘Maybe you’ll let me come home when you come to your senses.’
She shut the door on him. ‘Maybe I already have.’
Chapter Six: Grace
‘Happy Valentine’s Day!’
‘Happy Valentine’s Day!’
The women clinked their glasses together.
‘Pretty good way to spend it,’ said Imogen. ‘Better than being knee to knee with fifty other couples at a restaurant, all paying over the odds for beef in a pink sauce and heart-shaped cheesecake!’
‘Oh absolutely!’ declared Frankie. ‘Or sitting at home staring at your joke Valentine’s card, which depicts you as a cartoon harridan in curlers, and wondering where it all went wrong.’
Grace smiled and nodded but she didn’t share their sentiments. She was not relieved to be single on Valentine’s Day. She was not happy to be out with the girls instead of at home in the warm with James, a huge bouquet of flowers in the silver crackle vase on the sideboard, a card professing his undying and everlasting love on the mantelpiece and a Marks and Spencer’s Meal Deal for two on the coffee table in front of them. He would have run her a bath with candles and Jo Malone; she would be in a perfect dress and heels and ready for a kiss. It was always perfect. She would have done anything to be stuffed in a restaurant with loads of other couples, even if most weren’t speaking to each other. She would have done anything to just have her nice husband back – the one who hadn’t yet cheated – but he was now doing lovely Valentine’s stuff with another woman.
She’d had to be dragged out. Imogen had popped round the other night and told her that as Valentine’s Day was on a Friday this year, they should have a girls’ night on the town. Stuff all the happy couples and all the saccharine rubbish, she’d said, they should celebrate being single and fabulous. Grace had muttered something non-committal about it sounding lovely, but hadn’t planned on actually going. She didn’t want to celebrate being single; she hated it. She missed having a man and missed being in a relationship. But Frankie and Imogen had her sussed and had turned up at six o’clock tonight, in their going-out finery and a bottle of plonk, and had practically pushed her out the door.
Now here she was, in a bar festooned with red balloons, while a DJ played a souped-up version of ‘Love is in the Air’ and a load of singles who had no one to go with dinner with pretended they were about to enjoy themselves.
‘Well done, girls,’ said Imogen. ‘One month single! And it’s been a walk in the park, hasn’t it? I’ve absolutely loved it,’ she sighed happily.
‘Hear hear,’ said a grinning Frankie. ‘It’s been bliss.’
Grace grinned too but she wasn’t feeling it. All she could think about was James in a nice shirt, feeding her a mouthful of M & S scallops over a flickering vanilla flame and some Norah Jones. She couldn’t bear it.
‘Right,’ said Imogen, taking a large sip of her bubbly. ‘Remember what I said. We’re implementing a Don’t Talk to Men rule. The first rule is, if a man approaches and tries to talk to you, you do not respond. You turn your back if you have to. Got it?’
‘Got it!’ said Frankie.
‘Grace?’
‘Yep,’ said Grace miserably.
‘The second rule is, we all help each other to enforce the rule. The third rule is, if a group of men approach, we deflect them en masse and send them on their way. If we’re going to be single for a year, we have to be serious about this. Clear?’
‘Clear!’ shouted Frankie, as though she were doing CPR in an episode of ER.
‘Yay,’ said Grace, weakly.
‘Come on, Grace,’ entreated Imogen. ‘Get with the programme! We don’t want men, remember? We’re going to be single for a year and love it!’
‘Okay, yeah!’ said Grace and punched the air in a salute. She knew Imogen would only keep going on if she didn’t swear her allegiance to the cause. Frankie grabbed her raised fist and shook it triumphantly.
‘Good girl!’
‘Yes, that’s my girl!’ said Imogen. She made them chink their glasses again and down their drinks in one.
It was quite funny at first, when the men were bald and ugly idiots with not an ounce of charm between them. It was easy to send them packing. A man would approach. He’d be ignored or told to go away and he’d go away. It was no loss to anyone. Certainly not to Grace. Then a really gorgeous man started looking at her from across the bar.
Tall. Dark blond hair. Lovely eyes. Nice white shirt. She looked back; he looked back. He looked over; she looked over. Eventually, he walked across to them. He stood directly behind Grace and tapped her lightly on the shoulder. Imogen, like a hawk, spotted his hand and slapped it down.
He scowled at Imogen but was undeterred. He tapped Grace on the shoulder again and said, ‘All right?’
‘Hello,’ Grace said, smiling at him.
‘We’re not talking to men,’ said Imogen, cutting in and planting her face in front of his. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to bog off.’ This man was obviously not used to such treatment. He cocked his head to one side in amusement and apparent disbelief then pulled at Grace’s arm, trying to get her out of the circle. Imogen had to step it up.
‘She’s not interested. Crawl back to your hole, there’s a love.’
His face was a picture. It was not a picture Grace liked.
‘Lesbians!’ he said, shaking his head at Grace as if to say, ‘Your loss’, then he walked back to his mates, in a bowling gait he hadn’t employed on the way over. She saw him laughing with his friends and immediately scouring the bar for fresh prey; he wouldn’t be wasting any more time.
Grace plastered a bright smile on her face.
‘Thanks, Imogen,’ she said, but internally she sighed a deep, highly disappointed sigh. She was gutted. Okay, he was a bit of a wally saying that about lesbians, but he was gorgeous. And just her type. Tall, dirty blond hair, a naughty grin. How unfair!
She tried to tell herself Imogen was right to dismiss him so smartly. That he was a man and it could only end in disaster. What would be the ultimate best that could happen? He would be wonderful, they would date, fall in love, he would ask her to marry him, then, eventually, he would cheat on her… Still, she wished Imogen hadn’t.
No other man dared approa
ch. After plenty of vodkas had been consumed and they hit the dance floor, they were a ring of steel. Many a man tried to infiltrate and many a man was repelled; Imogen had somehow acquired the dual superhero powers of elbows of titanium and a threatening stiletto heel. Frankie once laughingly tried to have a little boogie with an eager young pup in a suede jacket but he was shot down in flames.
‘It’s only a laugh!’ shouted Frankie.
‘Never give in! Never surrender,’ Imogen yelled back, over Calvin Harris. And she was almost unbearable when Beyoncé’s ‘Single Ladies’ came on – wagging her finger, wiggling her backside, giving it all that. Grace just went along with it. Imogen was right, though, she thought, looking round the packed dance floor. These men were all no-hopers: men who hadn’t got a valentine either, who were out on the prowl, on the pull, to see who they could get. She still hated being single, though.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ a man suddenly said, from her right. He was young. White T-shirt. Floppy hair. Killer smile.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Why not, gorgeous?’
‘I’m not interested.’
He laughed. ‘I’m not used to women saying “no” to me.’
‘Well one is now.’
He shook his head, still laughing. ‘I suppose a shag’s out of the question then?’
‘Please go away.’
And he was gone, with that killer smile and a shrug, moving on to try someone else.
Her hangover wasn’t too bad. Daniel was at James’s this weekend so she didn’t have the full-on Saturday packed with activities she now did to make up for the weekends she missed with him. She’d spend the day watching trash TV and nibbling on things.
It was 8p.m. Grace poured herself a glass of wine – a little hair of a small dog would help no end – and got down the laptop from the bookshelf. She popped some Adele on the music system, stretched her legs out in front of her and placed the laptop on top of them. Time for some mindless surfing.
Year of Being Single Page 5