Growing Pains of a Hapless Househusband (23 page)

Wednesday 4 June

This week we're up in London with a family called the
Desmonds. Again, it seems to be going well. Children
are normally bad, and the mother, Sarah, I reckon
suffers from depression and lets them watch far too
much TV. The Holden Childcare Programme simply
involves minimising the TV watching, after which
everything has sort of fallen into place. Of course, I've
made it seem far more in-depth than that, and I think
she's fallen for it.

It feels good to have been in London, and I've spent
most evenings getting smashed with old friends. This
has meant hangovers during filming, but nobody seems
to notice.

Friday 6 June

Today I overheard another mysterious Dom phone call,
or at least the first bit of it.

'. . . I'm sure you can get used to it . . . it's not as if it's
that strange . . . don't be like that . . .'

And then he noticed that I was near and moved off. I
wonder what it's about?

Monday 9 June

I know now. Oh boy do I know now. Hahahahahahaha!
Who would have thought it? Anyway, to begin at the
beginning.

Once again I bumped into you-know-who at the
supermarket. But this time she looked really upset, and
even more keen to talk to me. Because I'm a complete
softie, and because I'm so nosy, I asked her what the
matter was.

'I've split up with Dom,' she said, clutching her
shopping list.

'I'm, er, sorry to hear that,' I lied.

'I know you're not.'

'All right, I'm not.'

It was tempting to play the hard cold fish (if such
a role can be played), but I couldn't find it in me.
In fact, I'm old enough to know that it's not actually
in me at all, so there's no real point in looking for
it.

'But I guess I'm sorry for you,' I continued. 'I thought
things were going well.'

'I thought so too,' she said.

'So why did it end?'

Emily looked around.

'I don't think I can really talk about it here.'

'Fair enough.'

'Can you come over after you've unpacked your
shopping?'

I thought about this hard, I really did. This woman
has caused me no end of fucking grief with her lies and
flirtatiousness, so why did I owe her any of my time? A
reasonable response would have been, 'Fuck you Emily,
I owe you nothing', but the actual response was:

'Of course.'

And so at 11.35 I found myself knocking on her door,
and her asking whether it was too early for a glass of
white and me saying of course not because if you've split
up with someone a glass of wine at coffee time is just
what you need and besides who cares.

'So why did you split up?'

'Do you swear not to tell anyone else, not even Sally?'

Again, this is another thing about myself that I have
given up trying to improve. I am incapable of keeping
secrets. So when people ask me that question, I now
always say 'No,' except for today when I went, 'Yes.'

Emily took a big big swig of wine.

'It's because he's weird in bed.'

'Weird in bed?'

'Yes.'

'What sort of weird?'

'Very weird.'

By now I was actually rubbing my thighs in glee.

'Come on!' I went.

'I don't know if I should tell you. Perhaps I'm being
unfair on him. After all, he can't help it.'

Jesus, I thought, how bad could this be? If it was too
racy for Emily, it must have been immensely bloody
racy.

'Stop teasing me!'

Emily took another swig.

'All right,' she said. 'But you promise promise
promise?'

'Yes, yes, yes!'

'He's got a fetish.'

'Yes?'

'It's a strange one.'

'Well, we've probably all got one of those.'

'Yes, but this isn't like asking your girlfriend to dress
up as a maid, or spank you, or tie you to the bed, or
wear rubber or high heels or anything like that.'

(That all sounded rather good, I thought.)

'OK?'

'This one's REALLY strange.'

'What is it?'

'He likes to dress as a baby.'

'WHAT?'

'That's right, and he even has to wear a nappy.'

'A nappy!'

'And a dummy. And he insists on making these goo
goo noises and asking to suck milk from my tits.'

'MILK!'

By now I was shrieking like a teenage girl who was
listening to her best friend describe giving her first blow
job. (I'm so imagining that. Maybe such conversations
take place in an atmosphere of respect and reverence
for the male member, but I'm guessing not.)

'And he wears a bonnet!'

'A BONNET? You've got to be fucking kidding.'

'I wish I was.'

'But . . . but . . . but . . .'

So many questions, but which one first?

'But . . . but . . . but what . . . what does he actually
do?'

'Well, he insists on lying on the bed dressed like that
– and he has a teddy bear by the way – and I have to talk
to him as if I were his mother, you know, sing him
nursery rhymes and things like that.'

'Holy cow. But why did you agree to do it?'

Emily chewed her bottom lip, and then drained her
glass. I quickly refilled it, hoping it would make her
even more indiscreet, although as this was the most
indiscreet conversation that has ever taken place, more
alcohol hardly seemed necessary. She thought for a bit
longer and then:

'Well, I think everybody has their "thing", you know?'

'I do.'

I briefly thought about my 'thing'.

'And I think one should be tolerant of people's
things. Because people's things are important parts of
their sexuality, and so long as it's not illegal and doesn't
involve shit, then I'm pretty much game. I had one
boyfriend who liked to be spanked with sausages.'

'Raw or cooked?'

'Gosh, what a strange question. Um, raw. He liked
them in a string, you know.'

'And did you eat them afterwards?'

'God no!'

'It's only because I have a thing for sausages as well,'
I said.

Emily studied my face.

'You're taking the piss, aren't you?'

'Of course!'

'Fuck! I totally believed you for a second.'

'Anyway, you were talking about "things".'

Another mouthful of wine. She was really putting it
away.

'Well,' she said, 'I really respected him for telling me
what his thing was. It can't have been easy. So I went
along with it, partly out of curiosity. But the problem
was, after we had done our first session with him as a
baby, I just couldn't take him seriously at all. All I could
see was this gangly figure on the bed, wearing his nappy
– God knows where he got that from – and with his
bonnet and dummy and teddy bear and making all
these goo goo noises.'

'And would you . . . you know?'

'What? Have sex?'

'Er, yes.'

'Yes we would. I had to go on top and he would go
goo goo as we did it.'

'Jesus.'

We both took glugs of wine. This was huge news.

'But what I don't understand,' I said, 'was what made
you split up? I mean, it sounds as though you'd taken it
all on board.'

Emily looked me in the eye.

'Are you sure you want to hear this?'

'Probably not.'

(I was trying to sound cool about it. Yeah, right.)

'Well, it was about our third or fourth baby session,
and about halfway through, before we got to the actual
sex bit, he asks if I can change his nappy.'

'What? Had he wet it? Ha ha! How rank!'

But Emily had gone quite solemn.

'Worse than that.'

Cogs whirred in my brain. They didn't have to whir
that much.

'YOU'RE JOKING!'

'I wish I was. I can't tell you how utterly disgusting it
was. He kept going, "Mummy, change nappy," and the
smell was something else.'

I started to feel physically sick. Unfortunately, I am
very good at visualising things, and the sense of nausea
was very real. I took another swig of wine to try to mask
the virtual stench that was wafting over my olfactory
nerves.

'You didn't change it, did you?'

'Fuck no! I walked straight out there and then! It was
the grossest thing I'd ever seen!'

'That's saying something.'

'What do you mean?'

'Sorry, sort of came out the wrong way.'

Emily let it go.

'Anyway, I told him the following day that was that,
and he pleaded and grovelled and begged. You know
what you men are like. But as I said, I don't do shit, and
what really annoyed me is that he KNEW that, because
I told him before we had our "what's your thing"
conversation.'

'Jolly rude of him.'

Emily giggled.

'Stop it. It's not that funny, you know.'

I tried not to laugh, but I couldn't, and soon we were
both in hysterics. After we recovered, Emily swiftly
became somewhat maudlin.

'So now I'm single again.'

Uh-oh, I thought.

'And,' she continued, 'I said some beastly things
about you.'

I got up from the chair.

'Yes you did,' I said. 'And despite all this laughter
about Dom, I'm really angry with you for telling him a
pack of lies. You know he tried to blackmail me with
them?'

'I do, yes.'

'Well, it was fucking unpleasant.'

'Believe me Sam, I'm so terribly sorry. I really am. It
was foul of me to have said those things. I guess I was
annoyed at not being on the programme, and a whole
load of other things as well.'

'What other things?'

'Oh, they're not important.'

'No go on, what other things?'

Emily got up and fetched her handbag, out of which
she extracted a packet of cigarettes.

'Would you like one?'

'Go on then.'

We lit our cigarettes and remained standing. Emily
started picking at a scab on her arm.

'Other things,' she said gently under her breath.

'I'm all ears.'

I knew what she was going to say.

'Oh godammit Sam, are you really so thick? Can't you
guess what it is?'

'I think I can,' I said. 'But if it's what I'm thinking,
then it would feel somewhat arrogant to assume it.'

'In that case you're thinking the right thing.'

'I am?'

Emily's eyes looked watery as she stared at me.

'Yes you are, because you must already know that I
love you very much.'

My hand shook as I took a drag of my cigarette. I was
totally blindsided by this. Even though I had no
intention of acting upon Emily's declaration (how Jane
Austen that sounds) it still felt like a big moment. Here
was somebody declaring their love for me. (To think
that I just thought that she fancied me.) The last person
who had done that was Sally, and that was many moons
ago. (I'm not referring to all the subsequent I Love
Yous, I'm talking about the first one, the really BIG one
which feels like such a risk when you say it, because
there's always that little bit of you that worries whether
a rather big bit of them doesn't really love you that
much, and that the whole thing has just been about
fondness and sex.) I didn't know what to say. Normal
procedure is to say 'I love you' back, but this was not
normal, and neither would I have been telling the truth.

'So,' she said. 'There it is. I love you, Sam Holden. I
have for a long time, because you are a wonderful man.
You're kind and thoughtful and funny and not bad-looking
at all . . . and I really really want to know what
your thing is.'

I laughed nervously.

Another drag of my cigarette. More wine. It felt like
the type of talk one should be having twelve hours later,
not in the middle of the day. And, funnily enough, now
that the air was cleared, there seemed very little to say.
It almost felt anticlimactic.

'You must understand, Emily, that I love Sally. Only
Sally. You do realise that?'

She nodded.

'And I'm one of those boringly monogamous types,
as you've probably worked out.'

'More's the pity.'

I know what she wanted to ask me. Just because I
loved Sally, that didn't mean I couldn't love someone
else. But the fact is, even though I think you can love
two people, I just don't love Emily. But I thought the
kindest thing to do was to lie.

'And I'm also one of those people who can only love
one person at a time.'

Emily nodded ruefully.

'You don't even love me just a teensy bit?'

I shook my head.

'I'm sorry,' I said. 'Perhaps it would be different if I
were single or in another life, you know. But this is who
I am, and I love Sally. That's not to say that I don't think
that you're great fun and that you're attractive . . .'

'But you just don't love me. I'd rather you found me
boring and ugly and yet loved me. Do you get that?'

'Yes I do.'

(No I didn't. Because I'm a man probably.)

I flicked my cigarette into the fireplace, where it
smouldered. I watched the smoke curl up, and I tried to
attach some symbolism to it, but I couldn't be arsed.

'Well, there it is,' said Emily.

She looked at the fireplace.

'Yes, there it is,' I agreed

'I love you and you don't love me. And I shall just
have to get on with it. As you can probably guess, I'm
somewhat used to getting my own way in this
department, and I'm not very good at coping with
rejection.'

'But Emily, it's not really rejection. That kind of says
I'm throwing you away. You should think of it as, I don't
know, running into some kind of force-field or barrier.
There's a point you can't get past. But that point is not
throwing you back. You can stay at that point for as long
as you need, and if you choose to walk away, that's your
choice.'

'OK.'

'Do you see?'

'I think so. But what I want to know is this. How close
is that point, this force field or whatever, how close is
that to your heart? I know that sounds very soppy, but I
need to know for sure.'

I looked at her directly. I wanted her to be convinced
that my response was completely sincere.

'Emily, that point is miles away from my heart. Do you
understand?'

Her eyes looked puffy, and she wiped them with the
back of her hand.

'Yes,' she whispered.

'I'm sorry.'

And I felt it. I felt really sorry for her. Sorry because
she had been so honest. Sorry because she was now
feeling hurt. Sorry because she had nothing to look
forward to. And sorry because I felt protective of her,
some sort of skewed paternal thing when confronted
with a woman crying.

Normal procedure at this point is to put a comforting
arm around the woman in this position. This is a
massive error, and can only result in exploratory, tender
tear-salted kisses, which then leads on to absolutely
amazing sex, and then a declaration of love from the
man, and then him regretting it twenty-four hours later,
and then being too cowardly to ring her and say that it
was a mistake, and her (rightly) feeling that he has just
used her.