The Pile of Stuff at the Bottom of the Stairs (10 page)

I wake, or am woken, in the morning, take a deep breath and vow to only see goodness for this one day. Joel is groaning and I hear the familiar crackle of a couple of ibuprofen extra strength being popped out of their foil. Abstention is a habit that I never quite got out of after the eighteen months of my two pregnancies, coupled with the fact that my hangovers are now more murderous than ever, and children and a hangover is the most toxic combination nature has invented. I thus rarely drink but try not to be smug about it.

“Don’t give me that smug look,” says Joel.

“I wasn’t. It was a look of fondness.”

“Yeah, right. Don’t say anything.”

“I won’t.” And I shan’t. Not about the fact that he leaves unused analgesics lying around at child height, and worse, puts the empty foils back in the drawer so I can never find any pills when I’ve got a toothache. I shall not mention the disgusting phlegmy sounds he makes in the loo when he’s got a hangover, nor that last night’s clothes form a trail from the bathroom. God, his hangovers bug me. You know how men upgrade a cold to flu? It’s the same with bloody hangovers. According to him, it’s a pain akin to childbirth which he is most stoical to endure, rather than a self-inflicted inconvenience. I mean, if it’s so terrible, why doesn’t he just not drink?

“Poor you,” I say, stroking his clammy forehead. “Is there anything I can get you?”

He doesn’t look shocked by this uncharacteristic response, just relieved that I should finally be giving him the tenderness he deserves. “Can of Coke, please,” he croaks. If I am to get anything positive down on The List this weekend, I’m going to have to get him in recovery, and fast.

In an act of extraordinary self-sacrifice I take the boys down with me, negotiate the bacon-greasy pan and loaf of bread left out in the night so the surface has gone stale, and scuttle back with the Coke, which he accepts weakly.

46
) Gets time off when he’s ill. Only men and child minders are allowed to be ill. Mothers just have to get on with it.

Sorry, today was supposed to be the positive day, wasn’t it? I am about to throw the empty can of Coke into the bin, when I think of Joel and go the extra (carbon-free) mile to put it in the recycling.

1.
Is trying to do his bit for the environment. He bikes to work, turns the dregs of the veg box into soups that he eats when the rest of us refuse to, and gets up to turn the TV off at night rather than just leave it on standby. Is critical of Mitzi’s eco efforts, though, as he says that being green should be about
not
doing stuff—flying, driving, buying—rather than doing all the expensive things that she’s into: the new cars, the solar panels, the ethical clothing, etc. He maintains, for example, that she should just buy fewer clothes, instead of spending even more money on articles from pricey ethical fashion lines.

I pass the bathroom, which fairly hums with the stench of urine, throwing me back to having to walk past the men’s urinals in the park. I breathe out to evade its tendrils and to calm myself.

2.
Is so solicitous about the world’s resources and our children’s future that he has inaugurated an “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down” policy on household flushing, thus saving, ooh, enough water each year to fill, a bath/swimming pool/pond/lake/an area the size of Wales.

Oh, god, it’s revolting. I spend my life flushing and flipping down toilet seats. It’s so embarrassing when someone comes round and is faced with the Lucozade-like viscous goo. All pretty counter-productive, too, since the stains left behind force me to use ever more virulent chemical cleaners.

47
) Doesn’t flush the loo. There, it’s both a plus and a minus point.

And, while we’re on the subject…

48
) Believes that his quarter of an hour straining on the loo each morning is sacrosanct, that he is allowed time off from the breakfast frenzy to do his business, while I just have to fit my efforts in when I can, and as a consequence they take minutes—seconds, even—rather than this prolonged sitting at the throne of his daily bowel movement.

It’s the death of romance, isn’t it, the fact that married people insult each other like siblings about their bodily functions? Joel and I spend an unhealthy amount of time discussing shit of the
literal kind. “Big as a baby’s arm,” he’ll say proudly, or “Could have sunk the
Belgrano
.” “You’re disgusting,” I’ll reply, in what he considers to be my bourgeois manner, to which he’ll rejoin, “Well, at least my shit doesn’t float.” “That’s the sign of a healthy digestive system,” I’ll insist, desperately trying to flush it down by dousing it in bleach. “Your digestive system is costing the earth,” he’ll point out. “Put down the gun,” he’ll gesture at the limescale remover. That’s before we’ve even got onto the wonder that we express over the abnormal-colored sludge studded with undigested Lego that makes up the content of Gabe’s diapers.

I remember Mitzi telling me once that Michael had never seen her go to the loo. “Not even a wee?” I asked and she shook her head. “What about farts?” “I’m not sure I’ve ever consciously done that,” she said, and I thought of all those times that Joel had said, “Better an empty house than an ugly tenant” on letting out a particularly malodorous one, or I’d blamed Rufus for any smell coming from my direction.

He stumbles down half an hour later, by which time the boys’ shrieking is making me feel as though I might as well have a hangover. He kisses me with beery breath.

“You look great,” he says. “How come you look so lovely and I feel so lousy? You’ve stolen my youth and bottled and drunk it.”

“I think it’s what you may have drunk from a bottle that explains it, my darling.”

3.
Compliments me. Not so extravagantly as he did in the beginning, but even now, he manages to find ways of telling me that I am nice to look at.

“What are we doing today?”

Here we go. “Swimming and then trying to get through, I guess. It looks pretty grim outside and we haven’t got any kids’
parties or anything. Maybe one party a weekend is enough for you?”

He’s slumped over a second can of Coke.

49
) Drinks fizzy stuff and eats crisps in front of the boys. Usually just before mealtimes. I always decant my Diet Coke into a mug and hide in a cupboard to eat chocolate, in the manner of a bulimic.

I know, I know. Positive day and all that. It’s just so bloody hard when he does things like this.

“No, Rufus, you can’t have any Coke.”

“But…”

“I know Daddy’s having some, but he’s not feeling very well. You’re feeling fine.” I turn to Joel. “Did you have a good time last night?”

“It was all right. I don’t really get the point of these stand up and chat parties.”

“As opposed to what, lie down in silence parties?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Who did you talk to?” God, I speak to him in exactly the same way as I do the boys. Is he going to mumble “no one” and “nothing” at me?

“Becky…”

“A bit drunk.”

“No, she was just having a laugh. She’s great.”

“She’s your number one fan.”

“Well, someone has to be.”

“Who else?”

“Michael, though we run out of things to say to one another once we’ve done the Premiership.”

“You don’t even like football.”

“I don’t even know that he does. And all I want to ask him is how come he’s still so rich.”

“Can’t see any evidence to suggest he’s not.”

“More’s the pity.”

“Mitzi’s looking good, isn’t she?”

“Urgh, no, something weird’s happened to her face. She’s definitely had some work done.”

“What?”

“Botox, obviously.”

“Do you know, I think you might be right. That’s why she has that shiny forehead that actresses have. I just thought they must all use the same moisturizer.”

“And she’s way too scrawny.”

4.
Is good at saying other women are unattractively thin. I’m not sure I believe him, but well done him for trying. It is of particular importance to me that he should say this of Mitzi because of what happened when we met, back when the three of us worked together.

“By the way,” I say, “Mitzi’s invited us to stay over the half term, you know, the summer one, at their new place in Norfolk.”

“Did you manage to think of a good enough excuse?”

“No, of course not. Didn’t even try. It will be great to have something to do then. Everywhere’s so expensive over half term and it will be fantastic for the boys. Apparently, it’s like
Swallows and Amazons
, all sailboats and buckets and spades and identifying the different species of seagulls.”

Joel snorts. The whole of Britain outside London is a flyover state to him. Ursula would take him, occasionally, to the family
cottage in the West Country, but most of the time they’d find themselves abroad doing a term’s sabbatical in San Francisco, Hong Kong or Rome.

“Well, I’m going,” I say. “You can stay here if you want and find another way to amuse two feral children for free in overcrowded museums for a week.”

“What makes you think staying with Mitzi and Michael is free? At the very least, we’ll have to pay for it by being entertaining. That is what we’re there for, isn’t it, to entertain all their boring banker friends?”

“Well, it’s lucky that you don’t find it an effort to be entertaining then, isn’t it?” It’s true. I feel that I work really hard to cultivate friends, while Joel does so effortlessly. Yet another thing I found attractive about him that is now irksome.

“I think there’s something weird about Michael.”

“I know you don’t like him. You’re always going on about how much you don’t like him, to such an extent that you’re the one who’s being a bit weird. I don’t know why, he’s not that bad.”

“He is. There’s definitely something a bit evil about him.”

“Like what?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I don’t know him well enough, but he’s a bit Stepford. He’s such an alpha male, with the City swinging-dick job and the kite surfing and the extreme sports, but I’ve never actually seen him behave in a recognizably human manner.”

“Maybe Mitzi got him made in a lab to order. He’s just what she always said she was going to end up with. Do you remember how she used to say that you don’t love money, you just love where the money is?”

“Horrible bars in the City, as it turned out.”

I shiver. “Do you remember that silver place with all the Russian girls? It was so blatant.”

“But were they any more whorish than Mitzi is?”

I blanch, which Rufus takes as a sign that something is wrong. “Has Daddy said a rude word?”

“A bit, yes.”

“Which one?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“I wouldn’t use it anyway. Some boys at school say ‘fuck’ and I think it’s really silly of them to.”

“Good for you, darling.” I turn to Joel. “Why don’t you look at the half term in May as an opportunity to stake out Michael? An interesting bit of fieldwork.”

5.
Is very perceptive about people. Likes to observe then share his observations, and I find them endlessly interesting, except I wish he’d lay off Michael. This isn’t really working, is it? It’s not really the moral equivalent to leaving a tea bag out. His good points are too amorphous and vague, his bad points all too specific. Am I going wrong with The List or is he going wrong with his behavior? The latter, I’m sure. He doesn’t do enough specifically good things. And that is why he drives me mad and why we’ll end up divorced.

I yawn. Then I yawn again in case he didn’t notice. Please, I say to myself, I’ll call off The List, I’ll never nag again, just turn to me and say, “Darling, you look a bit tired, why don’t you go back to bed and I’ll take Gabe along when I take Rufus swimming?” I watch him in anticipation.

“I suppose you want me to take Rufus swimming,” he says, instead.

I shrug, unable to speak.

“It’s just that I think the chlorine will make me feel sick. You know how sensitive my stomach is.”

“OK, I’ll take him.”

“Do you mind taking Gabe with you?”

The List is back on.

I continue making pacts with myself at the swimming pool. If he hasn’t done anything to tidy up the breakfast stuff by the time I get back then I’m not even bothering with The List and six months’ grace. It’s over—right here, right now. And even if he’s tidied up, if I discover that he’s read all the sections of the paper already, and done that thing where it looks like he’s spread them across the bed and rolled over them, then I’m certainly not going to bother with writing down his paltry collection of good points.

“Can’t you even pull up your own trousers, Rufus? You’re five years old.”

“But Mom, I’m sick of doing everything. Gabe does nothing.”

“Gabe’s younger.” And incompetent. But possessed of more natural charm than his elder brother. “I’m sick of doing everything, too.”

Rufus gives me a look. It’s a look that isn’t even to say, “But that’s your job.” It’s a look that says, “You? You have feelings?”

“Come on,” I chivvy. “Let’s get going. I don’t have time for this.”

I walk home with almost a thrill of anticipation. Decisions about our marriage don’t need to wait six months; let’s make them now. Let’s make them on the toss of a domestic coin; say, whether he’s put the cereal away.

I come back to find the kitchen clean, ish. It’s not to my standards, he never wipes surfaces, but the breakfast things have been put away and a path burrowed through the felt-tips and Play-Doh tubs scattered across the floor.

6.
Is good at doing the occasional manic tidy. He argues that he does just as much tidying as me, which isn’t true anyway, but even if it were, it doesn’t take into account that I’m much better at avoiding creating a need for tidying up—the washing of pans as I go along, the feed-wipe routines, the one toy in, one toy out policy. But when he does tidy, I admit, he does so with some efficiency. Until he finds something, a newspaper or an old toy, that sets him off on some reverie. It doesn’t matter if something is left half tidied, you see, because someone will be along later to finish the job. The transparent cleaner-mother-wife person who Rufus looked at so oddly when she dared to express some dissatisfaction.