There’s Always Tomorrow (34 page)

Read on for an exclusive short story by Pam …
…

Plan B

I’m wide-awake now and I’m seething. He’s done it again. He’s woken me up. One loud snort, the bed dips and I’m staring at the ceiling. Of course, he’s totally unaware of what he’s done. He’s lying on his back snoring gently. I dig him in the side with my elbow and murmuring slightly he rolls over onto his side and sleeps on. I’m destined to lie awake for hours.

This is ruining our relationship. I love him a lot but I’m seriously wondering if I can go through the rest of my life with so little sleep. I get up to make myself a cup of tea.

Downstairs in the kitchen, Judy stirs in her basket and opens one eye. She gives me a sleepy wag of her tail. She’s worn out too. This is the third time this week I’ve been up in the middle of the night and it’s only Wednesday!

I sit at the table stirring my tea and staring into the depths of the cup. We’ve had loads of rows about it already.

‘I don’t snore.’

‘Of course you do. Everybody snores,’ I told him. ‘The trouble is you do these gi-normous snorts that wake me up.’

‘Nobody else has ever complained about it.’

I skirt around that one. I’ve no wish to wander down the back roads of his past relationships. ‘Well I’m complaining about it now, so what are you going to do about it?’

It took weeks of nagging to get him to the doctor. The Doc gave him an examination and he came home with a load of pills.

‘Over twenty one quid that lot cost me,’ he said chucking three packets onto the kitchen table, ‘and they’ll only last me a month.’

I kissed him and told him he was wonderful, but a month later we both realised the pills didn’t work so I went to the chemist. The Chemist gave me some elasticated thingy to make his nostrils wider.

‘I feel like a flippin’ hippo,’ he said once it was all strapped on, and I had to turn away in case he saw me laughing. His nostrils looked big enough to park a couple of toy cars in. But after two weeks of suffering, I was still being woken up by those snorts.

I was really excited when I found the nasal spray.

‘You’ll have me snorting coke next,’ he grumbled.

‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ I snapped as I zapped his nostrils.

The spray made him sneeze for half an hour, his eyes were running and he kept blowing his nose.

‘Whaddever that tuff is,’ he said, sounding as if he had a heavy cold, ‘I’m alerdit do it. There’s no way dat I dating dat.’

I had to concede he was right, but it does nothing to solve my problem. I’ve got bags under the bags under my eyes and I even went to sleep on the bus yesterday. I wouldn’t mind but when the driver woke me up, back at the depot, I had my legs wide apart and a huge dribble down the front of my coat. How embarrassing is that?

I read in this magazine that a dried pea sewn into the back of the pyjamas is a good remedy. The pea makes them uncomfortable so they roll onto their sides and stop snoring. It took me forever to sew the thing in place but it didn’t work. After one flip around the washing machine, the pea went soggy so I didn’t bother again.

I’ve got to convince him I’m serious about all this. I guess my last resort will have to be Plan B … to go without sex until it’s sorted.

‘Frisky night on the tiles?’ my mate at work asks me later that day.

‘I wish,’ I begin and then I pour out my troubles.

‘If he won’t believe he does it,’ she says giggling uncontrollably, ‘make a tape recording.’

What a brilliant idea. Why didn’t I think of that?

So the next night I lie awake for ages waiting for him to start snoring but in the end I’m far too tired, so I set the recorder going and drift off into the land of nod.

I wake with a start. The bed has dipped and a loud snort propels me into the grey light of the morning. There! Now I have all the proof I need. Feeling very smug, I roll over to face him, but he’s gone. I can hear gentle singing in the shower and I’m left with a very uncomfortable thought running amok in my brain.

That snort. It was me. All this time, I’ve been waking myself up with my own snoring. For a second or two I chuckle to myself but then the full horror of my discovery dawns. There’s no way I can afford twenty one quid’s worth of pills every month to cure it. Supposing I’m allergic to that nasal spray? The pea in the back of the pyjamas won’t work either. You’re not supposed to know it’s there. And as for going to bed with a hippo shaped nose …

He comes back into the bedroom and leans over the bed to kiss me.

‘Hello gorgeous,’ he says. He’s all pink and damp from his shower and he smells really nice.

‘You smell delicious,’ I murmur.

He slips back under the sheet and wriggles towards me. I haven’t solved the problem yet but as he takes me in his arms, I’m really glad I never got round to Plan B.