William Walkers First Year of Marriage

by Rudd, Matt

  My appetite for a morning croissant is ruined.

  Frustration three

  When I call Isabel, mid-afternoon, Alex is there. He has taken the afternoon off work because his arm is too painful and he thought they could convalesce together. Isn’t that sweet?

  Tuesday 5 July

  ‘Barry? Barry? Barry?’

  I haven’t even switched my computer on yet.

  ‘This is a bad line, Barry. Can you hear me, Barry? I wondered whether you were free on Sunday?…Free…On Sunday! No, Sunday…I’ve bought a lamb…Not a lamp.

  ‘A lamb. From the nice place in Wales where we went last summer…No, a lamb. It’s cut up and in the fridge…No, I’m fine, Barry. I said the lamb’s cut up and in the fridge. I’m going to do the shoulder on Sunday. Wondered whether you’d like to come? No, a lamb. I’ll call you back.

  ‘Not a lamp. It’s Sandra. No, I’ll call you back. I’ll call you back.’

  This conversation is repeated throughout the day. The woman is organising a Sunday roast with a group of deaf or stupid people.

  I wish a piano would crash through the ceiling and kill either her or me, I no longer care which.

  When I tell Isabel I wish a piano would crush either me or Sandra, she says I should be more tolerant.

  Wednesday 6 July

  ‘…and I walked in and he was just lying there, in the hallway…’

  This sounds better than the lamb.

  ‘…I thought he might have just been resting, but when I touched him, he was cold. His body was stiff. He was gone. Gone forever. I should have done something. I should have noticed his suffering sooner. He didn’t deserve to go out like this. I should have put an end to it all. But I let him go on. I let him fight on bravely. To suffer. All for my own selfish motives. And now this. Now this…Dying alone…Alone…On the floor…In the hall.’

  Hacking, racking, sloppy sobs. I’m guessing a husband. A lucky husband who’s taken the easy option: slow, painful death in a hallway rather than slow, painful life with Sandra.

  ‘I picked him up, wrapped him in kitchen towel and flushed him down the loo. He meant so much to me.’

  A goldfish? A bloody goldfish? I have to listen to all that for a bloody flipping goldfish. Surprised it wasn’t her husband. I’d have killed myself long ago if I’d been married to this. Or just killed her.

  The managing editor ushered me into his office later in the day and pointed out that since Sandra had been recently widowed, it was somewhat tactless to go on about it. I said I had no idea about the widowing and that I hadn’t been going on about it. He said I had. I said I hadn’t. He said I’d been overheard ranting about how I’d have killed myself if I’d been married to Sandra. Or at the very least killed her. I said I’d only thought that, I hadn’t actually said it. He said I had. I said I hadn’t. Unless of course I had been thinking out loud, which sometimes happens. This didn’t seem to make him any happier. He said he’d have to put it in my record. I said fine but that Sandra was really annoying.

  Thursday 7 July

  Isabel’s magical dissolving stitches aren’t dissolving. By the time I get home, Isabel is lying spread-eagled on the kitchen table, clutching a pair of sterilised eyebrow pluckers.

  ‘Darling, we must get them out now. They’re itching.’

  ‘But shouldn’t we go to hospital?’

  ‘No, Mummy said it was easy. It’s not worth the schlep back there.’

  ‘What about the GP?’

  ‘It can’t wait.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Now call Mummy.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Call her. She’s going to instruct you.’

  ‘Your mother is going to instruct me to remove your stitches?…From your—’

  ‘Come on. I’m getting cold.’

  Clutching the pluckers, I call her.

  ‘Right, William. Are the pluckers sterilised? Good. Are your hands washed? Good. Are Isabel’s legs open? William? William? No time to be squeamish now, William. None of us was born yesterday. Now, you see the labia majora?’

  Oh God.

  Friday 8 July

  Isabel is staying with her parents for the weekend to recuperate further. I don’t have to stay with her parents for the weekend because Arthur Arsehole has lined up some ‘very keen’ prospective buyers. I am charged with being present but not present. I must vacuum. I must plump cushions. I must keep the flat spotless, keep our drummer/party animal neighbours silen-t/-ced, and have the bread machine wafting suitable aromas at prescient moments. But whenever Arsehole opens the door, I must be gone.

  This is the first time I have been alone since we got married. Isabel says this is probably a good thing: what with wishing a poor widow at work dead, I could do with some time on my own to relax and recuperate from what is clearly a stressful time of my life.

  Hahaha, I say.

  The overwhelming sense of freedom is intoxicating, as is the whisky I down naughtily the moment I get in from work. I don’t know why I was so excited…I’m very happy being married. I love Isabel. Isabel loves me. Sure, the honeymoon is over (the honeymoon that dare not speak its name, complete with its constant diarrhoea and its inescapable taxi drivers and its long-haul economy class syndrome, and I thought honeymoons were supposed to be relaxing and, yes, it’s still too raw to talk about). But even in this post-honeymoon phase, where it’s all got a bit trouble and strife and ball and chain, I don’t know what I’d do without her.

  Well, actually I do.

  FIVE QUICK AND EASY STEPS BACK TO BACHELORHOOD

  Step one: find note from Isabel. ‘Will miss you, darling. Vegetables in fridge need to be used. And there’s still some quiche left. Love you. Call later.’

  Step two: feel quite tired. Can’t face cooking or eating of vegetables. Have a Scotch and dry. And another. Decide to have a curry. Fortunately, the curry house number is still on speed-dial seven, right between the video shop and the laundrette. I am asked if I’ve been on holiday when I give my name and ask for the usual. ‘No, no, just married,’ I reply. ‘Ahh,’ comes the reply. ‘Extra poppadums for you, sir.’

  Step three: leave the flat and walk down the street to the curry house. It is the walk of a free man. Nelson Mandela had his Long Walk to Freedom. I have my Short Walk to Memories of Bengal. Put vegetables and leftover quiche (evidence) in bin between flat and curry house.

  Step four: video store adjacent to curry house. To kill time while waiting for chicken madras (‘hot like in the olden days, sir?’), nip in. Plan is to rent one film with explosions and car chases, but they have a Rent Two, Get One Free offer and it’s only 7.45 p.m. So I rent two films with explosions and car chases and a PlayStation zombie shoot ‘em up.

  Step five: I have absolutely no idea how it got to 4 a.m. Still playing zombie shoot ‘em up. Still haven’t switched the light on. Have escaped the underworld prison and am in the zoo, fighting zombie elephants. Have finished all the beers and almost all the whisky. Definitely don’t want any more to drink but because I am free, free as a bird, I have another one anyway.

  Step six: room spin. I love Isabel so much. I love her. I love her. I love her. I don’t want to be alone any more. This sofa is comfortable. I might just lie down for a minute before going to bed.

  Saturday 9 July

  Doorbell. Then, a second later, a key in the door. Then, another second later, Arthur Arsehole and two blond people (in trouser suits even though it’s Saturday) standing in my living room. I am still lying in my living room in my clothes from yesterday. Shoes and everything. As I struggle to sit upright, I follow the trouser-suited gaze over beer cans, curry trays and other squalid bachelor detritus. From the look on their executively blond faces, it could have been tin foil, teaspoons and encrusted heroin resin. Or a leper colony.

  I smile nervously.

  They smile nervously.

  I apologise.

  They mutter no, no, noes.

  Arthur Arsehole looks as furious as an estate agent
can look.

  The aroma of leftover madras and stale beer is not as effective a sales tool as freshly baked bread. Still, the blonds go through the motions: they point at our stainless-steel cooker hood, caress our heated towel rail and tape-measure our bedroom. Meanwhile, I struggle to tidy myself and my living room up.

  It is as the church bells across the road ring a painful 10 a.m. that the shock of unexpected expected guests subsides enough for me to notice that I have a dreadful, dreadful hangover. Beer then wine, fine. Beer then whisky then beer then whisky then whisky, then beer, whisky, whisky, whisky, Drambuie, Pernod—not a chance.

  The sudden onset of pain and nausea is almost unprecedented. My head throbs so alarmingly that I have to check to see if the throbbing is visible in a mirror. If I lie back on the sofa, it subsides slightly, but then comes the urge to vomit so I must sit up again. By the time the blonds return from their tour, I am considering gouging my own eyes out with the coffee spoon. As they mutter goodbyes, I stand up and try to apologise to them again. This sudden movement coincides with a full-frontal waft of Arsehole’s aftershave, and I have no option but to retch. I throw up mostly in my mouth, a tiny bit on one of the trouser suits. They leave. I throw up again.

  It takes three hours to recover enough to become mobile. During this time, I develop a surprisingly ferocious self-loathing. Without Isabel, I am a sad, lonely man who gets drunk pointlessly and still plays computer games at the age of twenty-nine and thirteen-fourteenths. I eat junk food and fail to ablute properly. If I was American, I would live in an Appalachian trailer park, shout ‘Jerry, Jerry, Jerry’ at the television and cultivate maggots in the folds of my stomach.

  As I lie in a foetal position, clinging desperately to the base of the toilet, I hatch an extensive plan to restore my self-respect. The minute, the very minute, that I feel better, I shall shower and change and clean the flat and go for a run and write a letter to my godmother and start reading Dickens and go out and buy a present for my sister and change the Hoover bag and stick the bit that’s fallen off my backgammon board back on.

  Sadly, the very minute comes at the same time I remember I haven’t watched the second movie. And a small voice says, ‘Why don’t you just watch the film, my precious? Isabel won’t know. There’s still time to tidy.’ And then it says, ‘Bloody Mary will help, my precious. Drinking in the daytime is good. Write letter to godmother another day, my precious. Play more computer. Play more. Play more.’

  It’s 4 p.m. and the doorbell goes again, and it’s Arthur Arsehole, amazed that I’m still loitering, gobsmacked that the flat is still looking like a Glaswegian squat. He has in tow a nice couple who smile and introduce themselves. I stand and stumble on legs shot through with pins and needles. I offer a gnarled and clammy gamer’s claw. They umm and aahh their way around the mess: ‘Umm, you’ve reached level forty-seven. Aahh, we’re not buying a flat from someone who drinks vodka in the daytime.’

  Andy calls. He’s back in the country. Am I free for a couple of beers? No, I explain through tears of anguish. I must stay in and tidy.

  I stay in and play the zombie game. I am horrendous.

  Sunday 10 July

  Isabel returned today. We had a lovely evening watching her programmes and eating vegetables. I didn’t even flinch when she mentioned that her mother had found a suitable house for us in her village. And that we could have a look at it on the way to Francesca’s wedding next Saturday.

  All I said was, ‘But I thought you weren’t sure about moving out of London just yet.’

  And all she said was, ‘I know, but it does look very spacious. And you’re right about growing vegetables. It would be marvellous.’

  And all I then said was, ‘Okay, not a hundred per cent on your mum’s village but worth having a look.’

  And all she said, ‘So how did the viewings go?’

  And all I said was, ‘Fine.’

  THINGS I DON’T WANT TO BE DOING WHEN I’M 50

  Playing PlayStation

  Behaving like a bachelor in any way whatsoever

  Wearing jeans

  Waking up on a sofa at 3 a.m. in a dark room lit by a flickering TV

  Wearing the same underpants two days running

  Only ever eating anything green when someone forces me to.

  Monday 11 July

  Another bad start to another week. It was Isabel’s turn to make breakfast, which means soggy cereal. What she does is go into the kitchen, get the bowls out, pour the cereal in, pour the milk in, then put the kettle on, wait for it to boil and make the tea. The proper way to do it is to go into the kitchen, put the kettle on, do whatever you like while you wait for it to boil except pour the milk in, and then, right at the end, pour the milk in.

  I hate soggy cereal. She loves it.

  When I complain, she gets angry: ‘I’ve got up and made breakfast and brought it to you in bed and all you can do is complain.’ When I say I’m only saying so for next time and that I hardly think it’s worth enduring a lifetime of soggy cereal just to avoid a minor altercation, she says there isn’t going to be a next time and that I can get my own damn breakfast.

  Then, like a stupid wildebeest that climbs into the river right next to that big crocodile-shaped log, I say, ‘You don’t do toast right either.’

  A flash of powerful jaws, a crunching death roll, a last desperate antelopian gasp for air and I’m dragged to my death in the Zambezi that is my marriage.

  This seems unfair. I have, after all, been bent to Isabel’s will on tea (goat’s milk, no sugar) and baths (none, especially hot ones, except if she’s in a good mood on a Friday). Surely I can lay down some rules on breakfast?

  RECIPE FOR MARMITE TOAST

  2 x slice of white bread, one day past sell-by date

  Butter, must be pre-softened

  Marmite

  Place the bread in the toaster. Start the toaster. Get butter ready. Get Marmite ready. Get ready. The split second the toaster pops, Go! Go! Go! Semi-spread butter for both pieces on first piece, then place second piece on top of first piece to create bread furnace. Count to four. Remove second piece. Spread melted butter on both pieces. Then the Marmite: not too much, not too little. Race to bedroom and eat.

  This whole process should take no more than twenty seconds. Your butter-knife movements must be Zorro-like. If there is any delay once the toast has popped, discard cold, hard, useless, horrible toast and repeat as above.

  No sign of Sandra at work. Her desk is empty; her phone is in its cradle. I’m hoping the lamb was off.

  Pub with Johnson and Andy for advice on toast stand-off.

  Johnson understands the toast thing. He says Ali used to add fish sauce at the last minute to stir-fries so the whole thing tasted of the floor of a shabby fishmonger. When he finally plucked up the courage to complain, she came right back at him with overcooked poached eggs. In his defence, he said he couldn’t stand any clear bits in an egg, not since Edwina Currie. She said a yolk had to be runny and she’d risk clear bits.

  Then things began to snowball.

  He said he liked the skin left on cucumber. She said she’d prefer her Sunday omelette with less cheese. He said capers don’t go with chicken. She said oranges don’t go with beef. He said that only happened because the butcher didn’t have any duck. She said she didn’t like pepperoni on her pizza. He said fine, we’ll just have different pizzas. So she got a pen and a piece of paper.

  By the end of the argument, Johnson and Ali had drawn up an extensive agreement to disagree and now prepared most meals separately. ‘That’s the secret to a happy marriage, mate. Negotiate hard, never give anything away for nothing in return, and don’t whatever you do let them cross the line. My line was fish sauce. Yours is cold Marmite toast.’

  Andy doesn’t understand the toast thing. He is now in love and therefore spending the rest of his life with an ambassador’s daughter who lives in Kenya. She is a vegetarian so he is a vegetarian too. Actually, the diet is very healthy. Actually, t
ofu isn’t that bad at all. Actually, Andy feels a lot better since he became a vegetarian, yesterday. And no, he won’t have any pork scratchings, thanks very much. ‘That’s the secret to happy marriage. No red lines. Total harmony. Who cares if your Marmite toast is cold?’

  Isabel is asleep when I get home. A note reads: ‘Hi darling. Exhausted after yoga session. Arsehole left message: no luck with weekend viewings because of curry. What curry? Don’t wake me. X’

  It’s the first time she’s ever written me a ‘Don’t Wake Me’ note.

  Tuesday 12 July

  Still no Sandra. Just the dull hum of computer radiation, the occasional squawk of the sandwich woman and the hammering and drilling of workmen in the office above. Thank the lord for the killer lamb.

  Wednesday 13 July

  Sandra has been found dead at home with a man called Barry. She had been poisoned. Police are treating the circumstances as suspicious. I know this because the police are waiting to interview me when I arrive at work. The managing editor summons me to his office where two men from CID eye me suspiciously.

  ‘Routine inquiries at the moment, sir. You’re not under caution. Apparently, you had a problem with this poor widow?’

  ‘No, not really. She just rabbited on a lot.’