Diary of an Unsmug Married Read online

  POLLY JAMES

  Diary of an

  Unsmug Married

  Dedication

  For Mark, Daisy and Jack, with love

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One: May

  Chapter Two: June

  Chapter Three: July

  Chapter Four: August

  Chapter Five: September

  Chapter Six: October

  Chapter Seven: November

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Footnotes

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER ONE

  May

  (Or most of it, anyway. Mum didn’t give me this diary until my birthday. I think she got it in the sale.)

  MONDAY, 10 MAY

  Max has only gone and organised a surprise party for my so-called ‘big’ birthday tonight. I bet that counts as grounds for divorce. I could cheerfully kill him anyway, even though he tries to make up for it by bringing me breakfast in bed.

  ‘You’d better eat fast, Molly,’ he says. ‘And you’ll have to leave opening your presents until tonight, otherwise we’ll both be late for work. We must have had a power cut while we were asleep – the time on the alarm clock’s out by miles.’

  ‘What is wrong with you two?’ says Connie, coming into the room uninvited, and – even worse – followed by Josh. ‘You must be the only people in the universe who don’t use your phones to wake you up. Apart from geriatrics, of course.’

  ‘They’re nearly geriatric themselves,’ says Josh, whose opinion no one asked. ‘Especially you, Mum, as now you’re another year older.’

  That’s not half as funny as he and Connie appear to think it is, and I’d disinherit the pair of them if I owned anything worth inheriting. As I don’t, I decide I’d better rise above the provocation and get ready for work instead. I leave Connie and Josh fighting over what’s left of my breakfast, which seems to involve fencing with slices of bacon.

  It’s only when I arrive at work that I realise that I am wearing exactly what I will still be wearing when my stupid party starts, as soon as I get home again: an un-ironed dress, to match my equally un-ironed face. And I’ve left my make-up at home! This evening’s doomed to be a disaster, before it’s begun.

  I just hope, for Max’s sake, that he’s at least had the sense not to invite anyone younger than me … including our children.

  TUESDAY, 11 MAY

  Bloody hell, my head hurts. Thank God I’d already arranged to take today off as holiday, so at least I can lie around on the sofa this morning, groaning intermittently. I am never drinking gin again.

  Last night was as horrendous as predicted, and now Max is sulking because I didn’t look surprised enough when I came home from work to find my birthday party in full swing. So far, I’ve managed to refrain from pointing out that his decision to tell me about it in advance may have diminished the element of surprise somewhat – but I did mention that an astonished expression would be a lot easier to fake if I’d had Botox like Annoying Ellen from next door.

  Why the hell did Max have to invite her? She seemed quite nice when she first moved in, a few weeks ago, after her divorce came through – but before I’d downed my first gin, she’d already started swanning around announcing to all and sundry how much she loves sex, and how all she wants for her birthday is a man with a big you-know-what.

  Every male in the room immediately began to salivate at this bloody nonsense, presumably imagining his particular appendage as Ellen’s saviour, while we wives became ever-more invisible and murderous, particularly me. I have gone right off Ellen; and gin. Not to mention birthday surprises.

  WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY

  So there’s to be a ConDemfn1 Coalition, and the hung Parliament is finally over – a missed opportunity, if ever I saw one. I’d quite like to have hung a few MPs myself, starting with The Boss, aka Andrew Sinclair. He’s still the MP for Lichford East, by some miracle, not that he seems grateful for that.

  He spends the whole day driving Greg and me nuts, shouting about why ‘that idiot’ Gordyfn2 didn’t resign sooner, to ‘save the situation’, and moaning about the Labour Party being relegated to Her Majesty’s Official Opposition.fn3

  We can’t see what difference that’ll make – or not to Andrew, anyway – given that he’s been voting against his own party for the last decade at least. That’s probably why he didn’t lose his seat, though he puts it down to the Just for Men he applied in the run-up to polling day. I doubt he’s right, seeing as his new ‘hair’ looks as if it’s been painted on, but Andrew says it proved a much bigger asset than Gordon Brown’s ‘satanic smile’.

  Greg and I don’t argue with him, as we’re just relieved that we still have jobs, for what they’re worth – which is a lot, according to The Boss. Apparently, the country can’t run without MPs’ staff, ‘especially not those promoted to senior caseworkerfn4 in a moment of weakness’ (i.e. me).

  ‘So we’ll have no more self-indulgent holidays taken to get over birthday hangovers, Molly,’ he says at lunchtime today. ‘All hands are needed on deck from now on – at all times – for The Fightback.’

  Andrew is on his way out of the office when he makes this last statement – en route to his favourite watering hole – so I ask him how he can afford to take time off. He doesn’t have an answer to that.

  THURSDAY, 13 MAY

  I’ve been so busy planning Ellen’s murder in my head all day (ever since she waved to me and Max this morning, while wearing very little) that now I’ve smoked a bloody cigarette, without realising I was doing it. So that’s my post-birthday no-smoking resolution up in smoke.

  ‘Bugger it,’ I say, as I stub the cigarette out, and look around to check if anyone has caught me in the act.

  ‘Bugger what?’ says Connie, appearing from nowhere, as teenagers so often do. ‘What have you done now, Mum?’

  ‘I had a cigarette, by mistake,’ I say. ‘I need to pull myself together. What shall we do this evening?’

  ‘Let’s go late-night shopping,’ says Connie – so off we go into town, where I take back almost all my birthday presents, as usual.

  Maybe one year Max will buy me something I actually want, rather than whatever comes to hand in M&S at the very last minute. I do keep Connie’s present, though – a copy of Bridget Jones’s Diary. It’s bloody funny, but I really can’t see what Bridget thinks married people have to be smug about.

  Especially not when they’re parents, too. Connie insists that we go to the Topshop sale, and persuades me to spend all my refunded birthday money while we’re there. I feel quite cool and trendy – until we get back home, when I try my new clothes on, only for Josh to look up from stalking everyone he knows on Facebook and say, ‘Mum – you do realise you didn’t get any years back for your birthday?’

  I smoke four cigarettes in a row and turn all the mirrors to the wall. Max asks whether there’s been a death in the house, and I say, ‘Yes. My self-esteem,’ but he’s already turned the television on, and isn’t listening to a word I say.

  FRIDAY, 14 MAY

  I wish The Boss would bugger off to Westminster and annoy the London staff for a change. Thanks to the election, he’s been here constantly for at least a month, using my computer and causing havoc in the process.

  When I switch it on today, up comes a notification: 79 print jobs pending. Andrew just can’t seem to grasp that we connect to the Parliamentary system by remote access, the stupid man.

  All you have to do is accept that there’s often a delay between issuing a command and its implementation, but no – that’s bey
ond his comprehension. He just keeps on clicking away, swearing furiously, until the system crashes; at which point he stomps off, leaving me to sort it out. And his is one of the brains we rely on to run the country – or did, until a few days ago!

  Anyway, while I’m cancelling seventy-eight of the seventy-nine print jobs, Frank Dougan phones to demand an ‘emergency’ appointment at today’s constituency surgery.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Mr Dougan,’ says Greg, sounding almost as if he means it, ‘but I can’t give you an appointment, emergency or not. Since you moved house, you don’t live in the Lichford East constituency any more, so now you’ll have to see your new MP.’

  Greg manages not to add that, even if that wasn’t the case, Frank is a dangerous loony that we don’t want anything more to do with – and whose absence from this afternoon’s surgery ensures that proceedings are blissfully nutter-free, for once. We even manage to finish on time, and then The Boss goes straight off for a meeting at the Council, so it looks as if the rest of the day is going to be quite peaceful as well.

  Famous last words. I am just gathering my notes together and straightening the chairs, when who should walk in, but Frank. My joy truly knows no bounds.

  ‘Oi, you!’ he says. ‘Where’s your boss? No more bloody excuses – I need to see him. Now.’

  ‘He isn’t here,’ I say. ‘Surgery has finished and, anyway, you aren’t a constituent any longer, so you need to see your own MP. As my colleague has already told you.’

  Rational argument is sometimes grossly overrated, not to mention ineffective. When Frank finally accepts that The Boss isn’t in the building, he gets me by the throat and backs me against the wall – yet again. That’s the third time that he’s done it this year.

  I have to stand very still, look calm and try to talk him down – not easy when you can hardly breathe – until Greg finally comes to see where I’ve got to, and catches Frank by surprise, which causes him to lose his grip, thank God. I bet I’ve got broken veins all over my face.

  Before Frank can re-group, I wriggle free and run out of the room, closely followed by Greg. We’ve only just managed to close the security door in the corridor when Frank starts banging on the glass and shouting, but we don’t listen, and we don’t look back.

  We’re too busy staggering upstairs to the office, where we collapse at our desks. I don’t know which of us is the more freaked out, but Greg’s voice has definitely gone up a couple of octaves.

  ‘You’ll have to phone The Boss to tell him what’s happened,’ he says. ‘I can barely talk, I’m so out of breath.’

  ‘You can barely talk?’ I say. ‘I’m the one who was nearly strangled. And you’re miles younger than me, so you should be fit enough to handle a few flights of stairs.’

  At this, Greg first points out that the Labour Government sold off the playing field at his old school, and then pretends to have lost his voice entirely, so there’s no choice but for me to phone Andrew and explain Frank’s latest failure to manage his anger.

  Andrew waits until I’ve finished, and then asks me what I did to upset Frank.

  I hang up on him. It’s closing time, after all, and there’s only so much lunacy a person can take in the course of one day before it starts to become contagious. As it is, it takes me ages to get home from work, as I have to walk sideways to make sure that Frank isn’t sneaking up on me from behind.

  He isn’t, thankfully, so I arrive home in one piece, to find that Max is already there. I’ve only just begun telling him about my day when he interrupts to tell me all about a ‘bunk bed emergency’ he had at work, and I never get to finish my story. I’m sure Max thinks being a furniture inspectorfn5 puts him on a par with paramedics.

  I’m counting to ten, in order to avoid pointing out that, as he works in a shop, he’s therefore unlikely to encounter many incidents which would genuinely qualify as crises, when the phone starts to ring. It’s Greg.

  ‘Have you heard all the reports about that MP who was stabbed in his surgery earlier today?’ he says.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘What happened? Is he dead?’

  ‘No,’ says Greg. ‘He’ll survive, luckily. But now everyone’s saying that MPs run terrible risks, and that something has to be done to make them safer!’

  ‘Well, that’s true,’ I say. ‘Isn’t it?’

  I do try to be reasonable, when the opportunity presents itself. Unlike certain other people.

  ‘Yes, but what about us, Molly?’ says Greg. ‘It’s ten years since a caseworker was killed by a constituent, but no one even mentions that! We run the gauntlet of these loonies every day: get threatened, get assaulted, but that’s all okay – because we’re just the little people. We’re dispensable!’

  ‘It’s worse than that,’ I say, all attempts at reasonableness abandoned. ‘It’s our fault we upset the nutters in the first place, remember?’

  There is a noise as if Greg is being strangled, and then the phone goes dead. I call him every half-hour for the next two hours, but don’t get any reply until, eventually, he sends me a text:

  “Molly, I am so filled with hatred that I am dangerous. I am therefore getting drunk enough to post dog poo through the letter-boxes of every mad constituent I can find on my way home from the pub. I may save the biggest piece for The Boss’ house.”

  I’ve been trying to phone him ever since then, but he still won’t answer. Now it’s nearly midnight and God knows what he’s done. There have to be easier jobs than this.

  SATURDAY, 15 MAY

  Thank God it’s the weekend. I really need a lie-in after yesterday’s shenanigans, so of course Dad phones first thing.

  After he’s given me the usual lecture on immigration – I’m sure he thinks I’m the Home Secretary – he finally gets to the point. He’s bought himself a laptop on special offer at PC World and is ‘planning on becoming a silver surfer’. He says that, if Max and I can use a computer, it must be simple.

  Over the course of the day, he phones a further fifteen times, demanding to know why he can’t send me an email. Each time, I have to turn our computer on to try to replicate what it is that he says that he is doing. We get nowhere, and the whole day is wasted.

  At 10.30pm, I realise that he can’t send emails because he hasn’t got an ISP.fn6 Bloody hell, now I have to try to explain to him what that is.

  SUNDAY, 16 MAY

  I spend the day doing the usual mundane household tasks. Then, by virtue of shameless bribery, I force Josh and Connie to make their duty calls to the extended family.

  When I hear Connie earnestly explaining oral sex to Aunty Edith – presumably unasked – I decide to see if I am able to tolerate gin again. Sometimes I think we should have Connie tested for Asperger’s, but I’m not sure I’d really want to know the result.

  I don’t know if Max was listening to Connie, so it may be a coincidence but, when we finally fall into bed, we somehow find the energy for our bi-annual shag. It’s very nice, and Max wonders aloud why we don’t do it more often. I reply that it may have something to do with his love affair with the TV, at which he laughs, as if I was joking.

  Afterwards, there’s some blood on the sheets.

  ‘What’s this? Have you got your period?’ says Max.

  ‘No,’ I say, while trying not to panic. ‘My hymen probably grew back.’

  He doesn’t laugh this time, and all restored closeness evaporates at one lash of my tongue. There must be a market somewhere for that kind of deadly weapon.

  MONDAY, 17 MAY

  Monday morning, oh joy. God knows why the public think working for an MP must be glamorous.

  When I arrive at work, I’m greeted by the sight of a hideous new office-calendar bearing the logo: Andrew Sinclair MP: Working Hard for Hardworking People. It features The Boss grinning inanely in front of a block of flats in Easemount.

  You can’t see the other block, which got burnt out just before Christmas by our regular nutter, Steve Ellington, on the basis that, if he was going to
have a miserable festive season, then so were all his neighbours.

  Greg has Photoshopped the picture to show a bevy of obese, naked women standing behind The Boss. They are also grinning inanely, and improve the photo no end; though it’s lucky that Andrew’s gone back to the Housefn7 today, so I won’t have to cope with him in the flesh. There’s quite enough of that on the calendar.

  I concentrate on opening the mail. The first letter I open sets the tone for the day:

  Dear Mr Sinclair,

  I am writing to you because there is a serious problem on Broad Street. I walk down there every day to my job at Economyland, (a girl needs her pin-money, after all), and what should I see at the side of the road today, but a dead rat!

  This is bad enough, but what I want to know, Mr Sinclair, is what would happen if, when I was walking past one day, the rat were to be struck by a car, be hurled up in the air, and then strike me in the face? Something needs to be done before this happens.

  Thanks for all you do for hardworking people.

  Yours, etc.,

  Pauline Harpenden (Miss)

  Greg thinks it’s funny, but I despair: what the hell am I supposed to reply to that? There’s no one else that I can ask, unless you count The Boss – which I don’t, not even when he phones to check if we need him.

  After I’ve said, ‘No, thanks,’ it turns out that he has a question for me:

  ‘Am I for or against cycle helmets?’ he says.

  Honestly, no wonder the country’s in such a mess when MPs can’t even remember where they stand on the simplest issue. Mind you, I bet the Tories and LibDems have no idea where they’re supposed to stand on anything now, given all the horse-trading over the last few days. Whenever Nick and Dave pop up on the TV, they look knackered and unshaven – though at least they’re supposed to be able to grow a beard. I’m not but, when I get home, I look closely in the mirror for the first time in days, only to see hairs sprouting from my chin. I start plucking them out, but seem to grow another two for every one that I remove, and I can’t even see the damn things properly, despite the x25 magnification.