‘Can I take your coat?’ asked the waitress again.
‘No, no,’ said Si, eyeing me warily.
‘Please let me take your coat,’ she said desperately.
‘No, love, I’m chilly, brrrr,’ he said, the sweat dripping off him. ‘But I think we should order.’
‘Yes, a beer for me,’ piped up my dad.
‘Oh, Mike.’
‘Lovely bit of wood, this,’ I said, pressing my hands on the table.
thirty-three
Simon went out after that lunch. He didn’t volunteer where he was going.
‘I’m off out, Sare. Not sure what time I’ll be back.’
To which I said, ‘What? Off to see if Ruth’ll help with that?’ and I gestured my head to his loin area.
I didn’t even want to say that. I wanted to say, ‘Si! What’s happening to us? Can we make it good again? Please. I love you.’ But bitter words replaced them. He didn’t respond. He just looked at me as if I was a totalled car that he’d spent a long time saving up for.
I spent that evening with two old friends: Google and cheap wine. They love each other, those two. Prior to this pursuit I was suspicious of Simon and Ruth and the nature of their current friendship. Post-Google and cheap wine, my suspicion was terrifyingly powerful, like Simon Cowell, or God, or Google itself.
I sat in my pyjamas cross-legged in bed and I typed in things like ‘signs of infidelity’, and received information like:
If your partner is receiving regular cell phone calls from a woman or he goes out unexplained at unusual times then chances are he is cheating or considering doing so.
Does your partner silence certain calls or disappear from the room to take them?
Has his behaviour changed towards you?
Does he find fault and look for arguments with you?
Does he like going out alone and protest when you suggest accompanying him?
Does he feel threatened if you change your schedule or surprise him in any way?
Has he purchased products such as Viagra?
Then I placed the mouse on headings such as HOW TO CATCH A CHEATER and I clicked.
Do not confront him until you have proof! Proof is an email exchange, a text message, a photograph, a credit card receipt, etc. The only way to get proof is to purchase surveillance equipment or hire a private investigator. Failing that you must do it all yourself . . . Watch him but don’t ever question him until you are sure . . . Talk to mutual friends to see what they think.
I called Julia.
‘Jules, quickie: did Simon seem weird to you last night?’
‘Honestly?’
‘Course.’
‘Yeah, what was with that phone call he ignored? And then one straight away to your landline that he didn’t want you calling back. Spooky.’
‘It was Ruth. I checked later.’
‘Fuck. I’m sure I saw her last night. She was walking away from your building. I think she saw me and deliberately looked away.’
‘My dad said he saw her today as well. What would you think if you were me?’
‘Bubba, I don’t know. How’s he been with you?’
‘Horrible. He seems pissed off I’m back.’
‘Oh, babe.’
‘What would you do?’
‘Go through his phone and emails. Sniff his shirts for perfume. Demand sex all the time. If they’re not up for it, they’re getting it somewhere else. Can’t think of anything else.’
‘Thanks.’
And that was that. I became a sleuth. It wasn’t a seamless Miss Marple start, though, on account of the jet lag and the wine and me falling asleep with the laptop before he came home.
thirty-four
When I woke up the next morning he wasn’t there. He stayed out all night, was my first thought. Rather than enforcing my rights as an out-of-work actress and snoozing for an hour and a half as is my normal habit, I quickly sat up on the edge of the bed and reached for the nearest of Simon’s clothes that were strewn on the floor. I loved the abundance of brilliant bummy clothes that having a boyfriend provided: outsized tracksuit trousers and T-shirts that hung or lay on any available surface, ready to be thrown on. Before Simon, I was always wrapped in a towel. It wasn’t nearly so comfortable and was a logistical nightmare if you needed two hands to carry something. So that morning I was cosy in head-to-toe Abercrombie as I fought a path into our kitchen. When I say kitchen I mean kitchen/lounge/dining room: the only room that isn’t a bedroom or bathroom. It was dark. I made out Simon’s figure curled up on the sofa. So he had come home and had decided he didn’t want to get into bed with me. I wondered whether this was because he smelt of perfume. I bashed some boxes as I stumbled towards him.
‘Tea?’ I asked, bending down to near his neck and trying silently to sniff it. He wafted me away like a wasp.
‘What you doing? Going to suck my blood?’
‘No,’ I said defensively. ‘I was going to give you a kiss good morning.’ And I plonked a little cold kiss on his cheek. I couldn’t smell anything untoward. I wandered over to the kettle. I flicked the switch and wondered how I could look in his wallet to check his receipts from the night before and check his phone for texts.
‘How come you slept out here?’ I asked, but, in accordance with the website’s instructions, not in an accusatory way. Simon didn’t answer. I turned to look at him. He’d started shaking his head as though he was in pain. I assumed it was the sight of my face that did it. I’m not at my best two minutes post-waking after a bottle of wine and some heavy-duty American infidelity websites.
‘Babe, you’ve got to do something about your snoring.’
‘Si,’ I laughed. ‘I don’t snore!’
‘No, Sare, you do snore. I got into bed next to you last night. It was like King of the Beasts.’
‘Baby, no one’s ever complained about my snoring. It can’t be that bad,’ I told him emphatically. The website had said that guilty parties start finding new faults in their partners. Simon had never mentioned my snoring before.
I put the teabags in the cups and started pouring the water. But a loud noise of workmen drilling outside made me jump.
‘Ow, fuckit!!!’ I screeched as the boiling water splashed over my hand. I jumped back and a box of Cockaconga landed on my foot.
‘Shit, babe, are you OK?’ The noise stopped and Simon started navigating boxes to get to my side.
‘That bloody noise outside made me jump,’ I muttered as I ran my hand under the tap.
‘Er, Sare, that wasn’t from outside. That was your snoring.’
‘Huh?’
Simon held up the dictaphone I had used to help with my accent exercises. He pressed Play. There it was again. The sound of an industrial pneumatic drill cutting through concrete.
‘Fuck,’ I said. Well, I had to shout, actually, to be heard above the racket. ‘Why didn’t you say anything before?’
‘I did. You were in denial,’ he shouted back.
‘Yeah, all right, you can stop it now,’ I humphed.
‘Sleeping with you is a bit of a nightmare.’
‘Oh thanks, Si, rub it in. I’ve just burnt my hand.’
‘And you like to sleep with one leg out like this and one arm out like this.’ He demonstrated the position. It looked like he was doing a difficult ballet pose. ‘And you take all the duvet as well. You clutch it to you so I can’t get at it.’
‘All right. Calm down, grumpy.’
‘I’m not grumpy. I’m tired!’
I stared at him sadly.
‘Come on, baby. It’ll be all right. You’re just not used to sleeping with someone else,’ he said. I gasped. Then I nodded.
‘Oh, but you are. Ruth would only take up a corner of the bed . . .’ I heard myself speaking in a horribly toxic voice. I remembered what Mum said about not speaking in the heat of the moment. But I couldn’t stop myself. ‘Why don’t you go back to that bendy bitch then, if she’s so wonderful? You don’t need to sneak around.
Just go back to her. She’s probably outside now anyway. She seems to be hanging eerily about the flat at the moment. And you just popping out. Go on. Bugger off back to her. Do your sodding yoga, take photos of her in her pants, have crazy loud sex on 114 Viagras. Just please leave me alone.’ I’ve never before sounded so hysterical. I was shrieking. I sounded like a psycho nutter woman. My awful words were flying round the room like bats.
I managed to stop there. I tried reversing out of that dangerous place but I got stuck in mud, changing gear.
He stared back.
‘We can’t do this,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m going to get dressed. I’ll see you this evening. We’ll talk then.’
He walked exhaustedly out of the room and then out of the flat. All I could think was:
1 he hadn’t said where he was going
2 he hadn’t denied the Ruth charges
So I put on my pair of rarely worn trainers and followed him. I didn’t know which way he’d gone but assumed it was in the direction of the Tube. I turned out of my road and there he was, standing on the corner, iPhone pressed to ear.
‘Listen, babe, no! All right, I’ll see what I can do . . .’ he was saying. He most definitely said the word ‘babe’. At least, I most definitely thought he said the word ‘babe’. He saw me. ‘Better go, speak later,’ he said quickly and guiltily into the receiver.
‘Sare, are you following me?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m just going to . . .’ I had been going to say ‘get milk’ but I didn’t have any money. ‘Go for a run.’
‘Good,’ he said, unconvinced. ‘You could do with some exercise.’
I had to jog until I was out of his sight. It was very uncomfortable and embarrassing as I didn’t have a bra on and had to hold my breasts with my cupped hands. When I turned round he’d disappeared. So I wheezed my way back home.
thirty-five
I spent the rest of the morning recovering. The phone rang three times. I was sure it was Ruth but I couldn’t be certain because she’d started to withhold her number.
‘Hello,’ I said tentatively into the receiver on the fourth ring. These calls were so unnerving I could no longer muster up sex references.
‘Sare, you all right?’
‘Jules, do I snore?’
Julia snorted.
‘Yeah, like a bloody train.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yeah, that’s why I always have to get off my tits when I stay at yours. To sleep through it.’
‘You never said.’
‘Sare, I’ve told you like about a thousand times. You always go, “I don’t snore.”’
‘You should have told me seriously.’
‘Poor Simon. Has he realized it would be quieter to sleep with a digger? How’s it going on that front?’
‘Awful.’
‘I’ve had an idea.’
‘Go on.’
‘Kill him with kindness.’
‘Huh?’
‘I spoke to Carlos. He was saying that if I started going all snoopy and accusatory, he’d probably end up having an affair. But if I was all lovely, he’d feel guilty and stop it.’
‘Oh, interesting.’
‘So do something nice. I would say cook. But I’ve tasted your cooking.’
‘Jules, I can cook.’
‘What’s his favourite dinner?’
‘Dunno. Chicken something.’
‘Oooh! Boss! Fuck, gotta go. Ah! I’m painting my nails as well.’
I called Simon’s mum and she told me that his favourite dish was roast chicken. So I went all the way to the big Sainsbury’s and bought a chicken. But not just an ordinary chicken, oh no; an organic chicken, which is four pounds more expensive than an ordinary chicken. It was reared to classical music. I worried it would think it was slumming it coming back to mine, so I put on Classic FM.
I had always believed that spending hours concocting something that was going to be consumed in a few minutes was a pointless use of my time. However, I enjoyed the day I spent preparing Simon’s dinner.
I didn’t have a clue what to do with the cultured bird so I called my mum twice and Simon’s mum twice. Simon’s mum did overreact when I told her that I chopped up the potatoes and chucked them in the oven to make roast potatoes. She seemed to think that everyone knew you had to boil them first. But I blamed the title. They’re roast potatoes. As I pointed out to her, I’m roasting a chicken. I didn’t boil it first. She saw my point. Eventually.
And then I found myself waiting for my man to come home after a hard day at the office. It was so 1950s. I’d laid the table with a tablecloth (well, sheet), napkins (all right, toilet roll). And if he was able not to trip over all the crap that used to be on the table and was now on the floor along with hundreds of boxes of Viagra, then I believed we would have a very pleasant evening. I even put lipstick on to greet him. And I had made, wait for it (I found this quite disturbing myself) crudités to start with.
‘Hello, baby, in here!’ I sang when I heard Simon letting himself into the flat.
My little darling came in, slammed the door and started bashing around in the bedroom.
‘I’ve rustled up a little dinner,’ I shouted, pouring him a glass of wine and sitting at the table as though it had all been effortless instead of a whole day’s worth of shopping, preparing and delving up a chicken’s bottom.
‘See you later, Sare,’ he shouted, putting his head round the door.
‘Wher . . .’
‘What the fuck?’ he said, walking into our multi-purpose living space and taking in the scene. He was wearing his football outfit. Undeniably sexy but UNBELIEVABLY inappropriate for dinner. Then he said, ‘Have you got people coming over?’ and bent down to do up his trainers.
‘You never said you were playing football.’
‘It’s Wednesday.’
‘But you said, “See you this evening.” We were going to talk about stuff.’
‘Aw, Sare, is this for me? Smells bloody amazing.’
‘I made you your favourite dinner.’
‘Oh fuck. Babe. Fuck.’
‘Do you have to play?’
‘Babe. I can’t let the boys down.’
I tutted. Now, I know I’m not a big fan of tutting, but I was so disappointed it just came out. And he had never mentioned football.
Then he tutted!
I was so disappointed I couldn’t even speak. So I tutted again. Then I sighed. Then he left. Then his phone rang. It sat buzzing on the kitchen surface. I rushed to grab it and chased after him.
‘Si,’ I shouted. ‘Your phone, it’s . . .’ I looked down at the screen as I was moving. It was Ruth calling.
‘Urgh. It’s that bitch on the phone again!’ I said as soon as I saw her name, and I stopped moving with a jolt.
What happened next is a matter of dispute between Simon and me. I can confidently say that it was the combination of the slippery iPhone bodywork and the loose grip I had on it that caused it to fly out of my hand at this moment. Simon, however, maintains that I hurled it directly at his head. This of course is ludicrous. I wouldn’t have thrown anything at his head. Because I loved him.
Whatever, the outcome was that Simon ducked and the mobile ricocheted off the front door and landed in three pieces at his feet.
‘SARAH, STOP BEING SO MENTAL!’ he screamed at me.
‘Well, at least you can’t call your other girlfriend now,’ I replied at the same volume. He turned his back on me and walked out of the door.
I did what any sane woman would. I drank a glass of wine very quickly while crying, then I called Julia to arrange to meet her at a club where Carlos was playing.
thirty-six
The next morning my mouth felt like I’d been licking a cow’s bottom all night. Then I remembered. I wasn’t far off it. I’d eaten a burger from a kebab shop. The definitive gauge of drunkenness is if a mank burger smells good on the way home. If it smells disgusting you are not too bladdered. If it smells tast
y you are a disgrace. If you eat a dirty burger in that state you will be full of two things the following day:
1 remorse
2 smelly wind
And I’d done something to my neck. I suspected it was a move I tried to copy off a young girl in the club. I opened one eye. I was on the sofa, completely clothed, although I’d managed to take one boot off. Simon was smiling at me and holding his nose. He had a chicken leg in one hand and with the other he took my other boot off, then lifted my legs and sat under them on the sofa.
‘I’m not going to come too close, babe, because you’re a little bit stinky.’
I smiled.
‘Was it a good night?’
‘I don’t know whether it was a good night. But it was definitely a night.’
‘Sorry you went to all that trouble with the chicken, Sare.’
‘It had giblets.’
I always do this when I’m hungover. Talk random and complete nonsensical gibberish.
‘My mum makes gravy with hers.’
‘Hmmm. She told me in graphic detail.’
In hindsight it was foolish to start a conversation about giblets when that hungover. I think Simon sensed that because he leant over and touched my cheek.
‘What’s happening to us?’ I whispered sadly.
‘I dunno. But I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry too,’ I said with a half smile. ‘Have I been mental?’
‘Yeah, a bit. But I’ve been a cock. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Soz. Sorry.’
I nodded and smiled.
‘I would say lots of “sorry”s too but I think it might make me a little bit dizzy.’
‘I would kiss you now, Sare, but there are fumes emanating.’
He picked up a foot and moved his mouth towards it. ‘There’s nothing between me and Ruth.’
‘But she keeps calling you! She’s been hanging around!’
‘I know. I know how it would look. But I’ve no idea why she’s popped up. I was just so pissed off you thought I’d cheat on you. But I swear to you. I haven’t spoken to her. She left a message the other night. She wants to meet up. I haven’t called her back. I was going to talk to you about it. I won’t see her if you don’t want me to. But I was thinking that maybe you could come too. We could all go out for a drink. Then you’d know there was nothing to be worried about.’
The (Im)Perfect Girlfriend Page 13