Growing Pains of a Hapless Househusband (3 page)

Monday 14 January

Left a message with Dom this morning. Didn't get a
reply. I expect he's incredibly busy. Most people in TV
are.

Tuesday 15 January

Left two messages with Dom, and then sent an email – I
guessed his address from his company's website. No
replies. When Sally got in (late) she asked me whether
I had heard anything. I was tempted to lie, but couldn't
do so because a) I'm thoroughly decent and trustworthy
and don't lie to my wife (often) and b) she'd see
through me if I did.

'What did I tell you?' she said. 'It was just one of those
drunken dinner-party conversations.'

'But this was before we got drunk,' I pleaded. 'This
was one of those rare sober dinner-party conversations.
In fact, it was before we had any dinner at all. Honestly,
Sally, he really liked the idea.'

'
Wonderhubby
? Are you sure he wasn't winding you up?'

'The name was my idea.'

An arched Sally eyebrow.

'How's work?' I asked, changing the subject. 'Is the
world going to explode?'

'Who knows?' she replied, before pouring herself a
large glass of wine.

Her tone sounded in no way light-hearted.

'And frankly,' she continued, 'who cares?'

This smacked slightly of self-pity and I told her so.

'I'm sorry, I'm not being much fun, I know.'

'No need to apologise,' I said. 'Everybody goes
through crap stages at work.'

We hugged and then kissed and then went to bed
with the rest of the bottle of wine.

Thursday 17 January

Still nothing from that ponytailed tosser. Sally was right,
it was just one of those conversations. I now feel utterly
let down and rather sheepish. Mooted the idea of
finding another TV producer to Sally over a (late)
dinner, and she looked unimpressed.

'Sweetheart,' she said, 'don't you think this bloke
Dom may have just been making conversation with
you?'

I chewed it over, along with my slightly-too-tough
pork chop. (Why can I never cook pork just right? I
must have some porcine blind spot.)

'No, I don't think so,' I replied, genuinely worried
that Sally might have been right. By now, I was
imagining what I could do with a pair of scissors and
Dom's ponytail.

'Anyway, I think you should concentrate on getting
some more consultancy work,' Sally said.

She was right. That's the thing about Sally – she
usually is. And, even when she's right, my pigheadedness
won't allow me to acknowledge it.

'Just you see,' I said.

Sally rolled her eyes backward. We dropped the
conversation.

Wednesday 23 January

Oh my God. I can't believe she's back – Emily the
Jodhpur Mum; Emily of the voracious threesome-with-two-Greek-fishermen-in-a-beach-hut;
Emily who tried to
instigate some swinging with Sally and me; divorced
Emily who had fled the village. This morning, when I
dropped Peter and Daisy at school, I caught a glimpse
of
those
jodhpur-clad legs and derrière from the other
end of the high street. Just to confirm, I rang her at
lunchtime, and she answered. I put the phone down
immediately, thanking God that I had remembered to
withhold my number.

I mean, it's not that I fancy Emily, it's just that life is
so much less complicated without her around. Clearly,
after THAT evening last summer, in which Emily tried
to jump into both our pants, Sally despises her.
However, that was never an issue, because when she and
Jim got divorced, it was Emily and the children who
moved out of the village. But now she's here, and one
of these days, I'll bump into her. I can just see myself
coming over all 'osh–gosh' and sweaty and nervous.
Idiot.

However, even though I know she's trouble, Emily is
good fun, and Peter and Thomas (her youngest) used
to get on really well. Frankly, I could do with some good
company, and Emily is certainly that. After all, how
many other people round here open up a bottle of wine
at eleven in the morning?

I don't think I'll tell Sally. At least not yet. We've sort
of been here before, I know, and I should learn from
my previous mistakes. But, as it is, Sally's got enough on
her plate at work, and I don't want her being distracted
by thoughts of her husband and the village vamp having
cute 'playdates' together.

Still nothing from Dom. Have just sent one last email,
risking what feeble amount of dignity I have left.

Thursday 24 January

Well, I was right. I did come over all sweaty and nervous.
Was it because she was wearing her jodhpurs? Or was it
because I couldn't shake out of my head the image of
her being spit-roasted by Pavlos and Kyriacou? Or, yet
again, was it the memory of her rubbing herself against
me at that dinner? Whatever it was, I stammered and
spluttered like a teenager, or rather, like I used to when
I was a teenager – i.e., a LOT. In fact, I think I actually
went 'osh–gosh' when she said her absurdly flirtatious
'well, hello' outside the school gate.

'Hi,' I then managed to say, my voice making me the
lead chorister I never was. 'So, are you, um, you know,
back here?'

Emily grinned. Not a great grin to be honest, a bit
gummy, but nevertheless, still quite saucy.

'No,' she replied, 'this is just a ghost.'

I looked gormlessly at her.

'Ha ha,' I eventually sort-of-laughed when my dim
brain eventually clicked into gear.

'He's grown,' she said, looking down at my midriff.

Jesus, I thought, right here, right now, at 9.05 outside
the school gate. Now she was divorced, she was even
more insatiable. I wasn't aware that 'he' had in fact
grown, and I started to curse my priapism. I remained
muted in shock.

'It's amazing how fast they grow,' Emily continued as
she looked down. 'I bet the girls just love him!'

She then knelt down, the fabric of her jodhpurs
stretching tightly over her frankly pretty damn perfect
legs.

'Really Emily, I um . . .' I stammered.

'Can I give him a kiss?' she said.

Moments before winning the fool of the year award,
it occurred to me that she wasn't talking about my
groin. To my utter relief, she was talking about Peter,
who was standing silently by my side, sucking his thumb.

'Of course you can!' I said in a falsetto.

Emily proceeded to give Peter a large hug and a
smacker on the cheek, and she then did the same to
Daisy, who chuckled appreciatively from her buggy.

'Say hello to Emily Peter,' I said, forcing his thumb
out of his mouth.

'Hello to Emily Peter,' he said.

'Do you want to come round and play?' she asked
him. 'Thomas has missed you.'

'Yes,' said Peter.

'Yes
please
,' I said to Peter, who had already shoved his
thumb back in his mouth.

Emily stood up.

'And how about his daddy? Would he like to come
round and play soon?'

Sometimes I am amazed at my self-control. Today,
however, was not one of those times.

'Well, um, yes. When?'

'Tomorrow morning?'

'Er, OK!'

I feel such a rat. And I'm certainly not going to tell
Sally. I feel like an adulterer, but so long as I don't do
anything (which I won't), then my conscience should
be clear. There's no point in telling her, because it will
only upset her. So, in a way, it's a kindness.

I still feel like a rat, though.

Friday 25 January

This time, much to my disappointment (and slight
relief) Emily did not offer me a glass of wine when I
turned up with Daisy at 11 o'clock (no playgroup on
Fridays, which is probably just as well – Daisy makes a
great 'shield'). Instead, it was instant coffee and a
packet of bourbons. ('Sorry, since the divorce I can't
afford real coffee, and I'm not the type of hausfrau who
bakes her own biscuits.') Leaving Daisy to play with
some of Thomas's Transformers and Power Rangers,
Emily and I sat down and we caught up with each
other's news. She told me that the divorce had been
hideous, but quick, and Jim had done the decent thing
and let her keep the house, although she had to pay
him rent for his 50 per cent. Jim was now living up in
London, and already had a new girlfriend, called Emily
coincidentally. ('At least when he moans out my name
in a moment of passion, he won't be caught out.') I
then told Emily about the Great Flood, and how work
for me had dried up.

'That's awful,' she said, leaning forward, one hand
stretched out as if to touch my knee. Thankfully, I was
too far away for any such flirtatious contact, and I kept
it that way.

'I know,' I replied. 'Bit of a bummer.'

'That's an understatement! So what are you going to
do?'

I shrugged my shoulders in a slightly dejected fashion.

'Dunno,' I said, sounding like a teenage loser.

'Can you do some freelancing?'

'I could, but there's not a lot of work about.'

I was desperate to tell her about
Wonderhubby
, but I
suspected she would just laugh at me. For a while, we
kind of marked time with talk about children and news
about the locals – all pretty anodyne stuff, which we
were clearly both finding a little dull. It felt like – and I
really hope it wasn't – the sort of vapid meaningless
conversation you have with someone before you kiss
them for the first time. You both know what's in the air,
and you both know that you should be doing something
else with your mouths rather than talking, but neither
of you have yet found the guts to just get on with it. Of
course, vapid meaningless conversation can occur
without any sexual chemistry, and it would be an error
to stick your tongue down the throat of every woman
who was a crap conversationalist. I have made this error
on several occasions.

So, out of desperation, I decided to bring up
Wonderhubby
, largely because I had run out of things to
say. I told Emily all about how the programme would
work, etc. She just smirked the whole way through my
'pitch'.

'So what do you think?' I asked. 'Your face tells me
that you think it's a load of crap.'

'Quite the opposite,' she replied.

'Really? I suspect you're only saying that to humour
me.'

Emily shook her head, and the gesture looked
sincere. Her eyes opened wide, strengthening the
impression of truthfulness. (I get the feeling that Emily
in fact does a lot of lying.)

'Not at all!' she said. 'I really like the idea, I really do.
It's so much better than half the crap that gets on the
TV these days.'

'You really think so? Honestly?'

'Absolutely. After all, you've got nothing to lose, have
you?'

I didn't know whether I should be insulted by this, so
I decided not to be.

'Quite,' I replied.

'One thing,' said Emily.

'Yes?'

'Will Sally be up for appearing in it?'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, obviously, if you're going to present yourself as
the perfect househusband, you're going to need to
show how blissfully happy you are as a family, you know,
show the viewers the benchmark which they should be
aiming towards.'

There was a trace of bitterness in the way Emily said
'blissfully'. But she had a point – Sally would have to be
involved. And, if I know my wife well enough, it's the
last thing she'd want to do.

'I'm sure she'd be absolutely fine with it,' I said.

'Really?'

'Of course. Anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves
here! After all, I'm just a bloke sitting in a village in the
middle of England with a crackpot idea for a TV
programme and a TV producer who won't return his
emails. There must be hundreds of people like me.'

I couldn't believe how sensible I was sounding. It was
as if Emily's enthusiasm had forced me to become more
realistic. Now I know how Sally feels when she talks to
me. No wonder she sometimes calls me Tigger.

I'd prefer 'tiger', frankly.

Sunday 27 January

Went to Sally's parents for lunch today. I had caved in
to Sally's insistence that it was unrealistic that I would
never see them again, and that soon the children would
ask questions, and there would never be a good time to
see them so why not now, etc. etc. Jane was on her
typically acidulous form, and carried on dropping hints
about my lack of employment. Despite Sally's protestations
that looking after the children and running the
house was a form of employment, Jane persisted in her
usual tirade. Still, she can be witty, much to my annoyance.
While we were getting to the end of the roast
chicken, Jane and Peter pulled the wishbone. Jane won,
and judging by her technique, she certainly cheated.

She then made a great palaver of waving the bone
over her head and mumbling silently.

'What are you wishing for?' I asked.

'I can't tell you that, Sam,' she replied. 'Don't you
know how it works?'

'How what works?'

Jane tutted.

'If you tell someone what you're wishing for, then it
will never come true.'

'Oh.'

(How come I have never heard this before? Is it just
me?)

Jane put the bone down on her plate.

'So then,' I continued, 'do you think it will come
true?'

She fixed me with her Margaret-Thatcher-like stare.

'Well, you're still here, aren't you?'

I smirked sarcastically back at her, frustrated at my
inability to think of a witty response quickly enough.
Jane smirked too, in a repellently smug sort of way, like
a poisonous nine-year-old girl who has eaten the last
sweet in the packet and is crowing about it. I wanted to
ram the wishbone down her throat, shouting, 'Wish on
that, bitchface!' but instead I just asked if I might have
another roast potato.

'Certainly not,' Jane replied. 'Those are for the dog.'

I know my place.