Would Like to Meet. Polly James
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Huh. Dan’s still sleeping in the spare room and doing that “no-talking” thing the rest of the time, even though New Year’s Eve was days ago. How can you have a row so bad that you decide to separate, then fail to mention it ever again? That’s just bloody typical. He obviously didn’t mean a word he said, which is really annoying, as I haven’t slept a wink for the last three nights.
I’m like a sleepwalking zombie when I go back to work this morning, which doesn’t escape the notice of my boss, the Apprentice wannabe better known as the Fembot. At lunchtime, she writes my stats on the whiteboard in much larger writing than she uses for anyone else’s.
“Hannah’s having trouble keeping up with us young ones today,” she announces to anyone who’s listening, at the same time as rising up on her toes and twirling around to show her arse off to its best advantage. What sort of dingbat wears hot pants to work, for goodness’ sake?
“I’m sorry,” I say, when it becomes apparent that eye-rolling is insufficient, and some sort of verbal response is required. “I’m not feeling well. I’ve got a bit of a stomach upset, to tell the truth.”
“I see,” says the Fembot, in the tone of voice that means, I don’t believe a word of it.
I go to the loo four times in the next forty-five minutes, just to prove her wrong. Then, when she leans over the back of my chair to ask if I realise that I’ve been “spotted leaving my desk four times in the last forty-five minutes”, I tell her that there’s a highly-contagious bug going around.
“Joel’s been ill with it for days,” I say. “He looks like shit. I hope none of you will catch it.”
It’s only a small lie, given that Joel has had a three-day hangover since he overdid the drinking on New Year’s Eve, but it serves its purpose very nicely: the Fembot moves away as if she’s been electrocuted. She’s got a date tonight.
“Go home, Hannah,” she says. “Right this minute.”
“Are you sure?” I say, standing up and following her across the room, getting as close as I can and breathing heavily down her neck. I cough a couple of times, for good measure. Now she’s put the idea in my head, I really fancy an afternoon off – preferably spent sound asleep.
“Yes, I’m positive,” says the Fembot, glaring at me. “You can work from home instead.”
I hate modern jobs. In the olden days, when you were too ill to go into your place of work, no one expected you to work at all. Now you do everything on a computer or a mobile phone, you’d have to be dead and buried before you could get away with claiming to be unfit to work.
I particularly hate my modern job.
It isn’t the type of thing I thought I’d be spending my working life doing when I met Dan at art school all those years ago. Then we both thought we were headed for fame and fortune, or for something creative, anyway. Instead, Dan got such a boring job at the Council that he can’t even be bothered to explain to people what it is, and I ended up as a graphic designer for HOO, a question-and-answer site. (Officially, HOO stands for Helpful Opinions Online, but staff know it better as Halfwits’ Opinions Online, or Halfwits for short.)
“Ahem,” says the Fembot, who’s obviously noticed that I’m no longer listening to whatever it is she’s going on about. “As I was saying, Hannah, you can email me that artwork from home tonight, but don’t forget it’s very urgent.”
Only the Fembot would use the word “urgent” to describe a stupid “thumbs-up, happy face” icon. It’s not half as urgent as dealing with a husband who does his wife’s head in by saying something terrible that he doesn’t mean, then taking a vow of silence afterwards. I’m going to make Dan talk to me tonight, as soon as he gets home, and sod the Fembot’s bloody icon.
* * *
Oh, my God. Dan says he meant what he said the other night. He really did. Twenty-seven years of marriage down the drain, just like that.
He comes home just as I’m waking from my nap, but doesn’t say a word until Joel goes out to meet his girlfriend. Then he takes a deep breath and hits me with it. (Not the breath, obviously.)
“So,” he says, turning off Netflix and putting the remote control out of reach. “I guess we should talk about what we’re going to do. I’m assuming you haven’t told Joel yet?”
“Told him what?” I say, annoyed at missing the last five minutes of Breaking Bad.
“That we’re splitting up,” says Dan, as if it should be obvious. “I haven’t said anything about it so far, as I didn’t see the point in stressing him out until we’d got it organised.”
Oh, brilliant. Dan’s worried about stressing Joel out – Joel, who’s oblivious to almost everything once he’s smoked a joint to celebrate finishing work for the day. And what about my stress levels? I could have a heart attack at any second, at my age.
I think I might be, actually. Having a heart attack, I mean. My breathing’s gone all funny and now I feel genuinely sick. I’ve got pins and needles in both my arms as well, though I suppose that could be because my fists have suddenly clenched so tight.
Dan doesn’t seem to notice there’s something wrong with me. He’s too busy looking down at his hands, which he’s fiddling with in his lap.
“If we’re getting on each other’s nerves so much,” he says, inspecting his fingers as if his life depends on it, “then it seems the only sensible thing to do. Doesn’t it?”
Well, if that’s how he feels, it obviously does.
“Yes,” I say.
Then I run upstairs to the bathroom, and am sick. I never believed it when people in films threw up after they’d had a shock. Now I know it happens in real life too.
When I finally come back downstairs, still shaking and clammy, Dan glances up at me, then says,
“You okay? You don’t look good.”
I forgot that was the explanation, or rather, I must have blanked it out. Dan said he doesn’t fancy me any more the other night, didn’t he? And you can’t make someone fancy you again, once they’ve stopped. At least, I don’t think you can … and what’s the point in being married to someone who doesn’t want to be married to you, anyway?
I reach for the remote, and turn the TV back on.
“I’m fine,” I say, staring back at Dan without blinking, so he’ll believe I’m telling the truth.
I’m not going to cry. I am not. Not when the only thing left to salvage is my dignity.
* * *
Well, my no-crying resolution didn’t last long. I’m standing by the coffee machine this morning, when the Fembot starts holding forth about her date last night.
“I don’t usually fancy older men,” she says, “but I think I’ve been missing out on something. They really know what they’re doing in bed, and they appreciate younger women, too. Probably because the ones their own age are so bloody hideous. They give up bothering about how they look, once they’ve been married for a while.”
She means women like me, doesn’t she? And men like Dan. I hadn’t thought of that. Now Dan’s probably going to start dating a hot-panted child, while I’ll be stuck on my own, consigned to the scrapheap just in time for my fiftieth birthday.
“I think your coffee’s ready,” says someone behind me, so I make a grab for the cup, catch it against the top of the machine, and then drop the damn thing on the floor, narrowly missing the Fembot’s feet – which is a tragedy when she’s wearing her favourite pair of Louboutins.
My legs are covered in hot coffee, though I’m not too worried about that. I’m more concerned about