pecker whatsoever. But only after he’s hung up.
Tuesday 28 June
Andy has been around to Alex’s again to help make him dinner. ‘What’s the point in arguing? Alex is a nice guy,’ he tells me. ‘You’re a ridiculous hippy,’ I reply. Of course, he always has been a ridiculous hippy. The first time we met, in Freshers’ Week at university, his hair was down to his shoulders, his trousers were stripy and he smelt. Since then, he has learned to wash, bought new clothes and cut his hair, but the hippy still lurks within.
And you can never rely on a hippy to understand that an evil maniac is trying to ruin your marriage.
Wednesday 29 June
The only reason I went back to Astrid’s sweaty room in Holborn is because of the whole Alex buggy-crash debacle. I suspect Alex, with his broken arm, is winning the charm offensive. I need to be seen in Lycra again, just so Isabel will stop giving me that look every time anyone mentions the race.
It is just as sweaty as last week but I make sure we get there early and that I bagsy a place right at the front. This means I get told offby Astrid for yawning but sweaty Lycra guy has to spend the whole lesson staring at my clenched buttocks and not vice versa.
I think he likes it.
Thursday 30 June
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Isabel sent straight from doctor’s appointment to hospital. Something gynaecological. Something about an operation…
She called me from the hospital, sounded very shaky. Couldn’t talk because mobiles are banned and she’d run out of coins. Just starting to explain what was wrong when the beeps started. Cut off saying, ‘Hopefully the doctor will…’ beep, beep, beep.
Took ages to get from work to the hospital because of the sodding Northern Line. Absolutely the worst hour of my life. I love her so much. Realised by King’s Cross that if I lost her I would never recover. Wouldn’t want to. Realised by Camden Town that I even loved her for her goat’s milk and her ridiculous yoga. Promised by Archway I would never argue with her again.
Three a.m. now. She has a Bartholin’s cyst, which means her bits, or more specifically one bit, has swollen like an orang-utan’s bottom. They wheeled her away an hour ago just like they do in Casualty , which was dreadful. Wanted to follow her through the flappy doors but the big, scary nurse-bitch wouldn’t let me. Nice little nurse has let me stay in the ward with the groaning old ladies. One is on morphine, in and out of consciousness, muttering wildly.
Will buy Isabel an enormous bunch of flowers tomorrow.
Assuming I can get to the flower shop, what with the dead leg that won’t go away. Apparently, I was asleep for a whole two hours in the metal chair by Isabel’s bed. Couldn’t feel my leg at all when I woke up. Actually thought I might have permanently paralysedmyself, it took so long to recover. Is that possible? Will check on Wikipedia.
Isabel was very worried. ‘Poor you,’ she said when I woke. ‘You look so tired.’
She’s amazing. Not even Florence Nightingale would have been worrying about my dead leg if her private parts looked like a monkey’s arse.
JULY
‘The chains of marriage are so heavy that it takes two to
bear them, and sometimes three.’
A LEXANDRE D UMAS
Friday 1 July
She’s alive! Operation was a success. Important stuff intact. Not counting the dead-leg chair-nap, I haven’t slept a wink. Went home for a couple of hours to change pants and so forth. Tried to rest but had nightmares about being attacked by a gang of inflamed orangutans. Whoever said all men’s dreams were about sex was lying.
Isabel releases herself mid-afternoon (like in soaps when the patient ill-advisedly tears out her own tubes and storms out of the ward), and we get home just in time for one of the idiots upstairs to start practising his new set of drums.
I am in no mood for drums.
As I ring the upstairs doorbell, I am a creature of crimson terror, a brooding, fearsome
Tuesday 28 June
Andy has been around to Alex’s again to help make him dinner. ‘What’s the point in arguing? Alex is a nice guy,’ he tells me. ‘You’re a ridiculous hippy,’ I reply. Of course, he always has been a ridiculous hippy. The first time we met, in Freshers’ Week at university, his hair was down to his shoulders, his trousers were stripy and he smelt. Since then, he has learned to wash, bought new clothes and cut his hair, but the hippy still lurks within.
And you can never rely on a hippy to understand that an evil maniac is trying to ruin your marriage.
Wednesday 29 June
The only reason I went back to Astrid’s sweaty room in Holborn is because of the whole Alex buggy-crash debacle. I suspect Alex, with his broken arm, is winning the charm offensive. I need to be seen in Lycra again, just so Isabel will stop giving me that look every time anyone mentions the race.
It is just as sweaty as last week but I make sure we get there early and that I bagsy a place right at the front. This means I get told offby Astrid for yawning but sweaty Lycra guy has to spend the whole lesson staring at my clenched buttocks and not vice versa.
I think he likes it.
Thursday 30 June
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Isabel sent straight from doctor’s appointment to hospital. Something gynaecological. Something about an operation…
She called me from the hospital, sounded very shaky. Couldn’t talk because mobiles are banned and she’d run out of coins. Just starting to explain what was wrong when the beeps started. Cut off saying, ‘Hopefully the doctor will…’ beep, beep, beep.
Took ages to get from work to the hospital because of the sodding Northern Line. Absolutely the worst hour of my life. I love her so much. Realised by King’s Cross that if I lost her I would never recover. Wouldn’t want to. Realised by Camden Town that I even loved her for her goat’s milk and her ridiculous yoga. Promised by Archway I would never argue with her again.
Three a.m. now. She has a Bartholin’s cyst, which means her bits, or more specifically one bit, has swollen like an orang-utan’s bottom. They wheeled her away an hour ago just like they do in Casualty , which was dreadful. Wanted to follow her through the flappy doors but the big, scary nurse-bitch wouldn’t let me. Nice little nurse has let me stay in the ward with the groaning old ladies. One is on morphine, in and out of consciousness, muttering wildly.
Will buy Isabel an enormous bunch of flowers tomorrow.
Assuming I can get to the flower shop, what with the dead leg that won’t go away. Apparently, I was asleep for a whole two hours in the metal chair by Isabel’s bed. Couldn’t feel my leg at all when I woke up. Actually thought I might have permanently paralysedmyself, it took so long to recover. Is that possible? Will check on Wikipedia.
Isabel was very worried. ‘Poor you,’ she said when I woke. ‘You look so tired.’
She’s amazing. Not even Florence Nightingale would have been worrying about my dead leg if her private parts looked like a monkey’s arse.
JULY
‘The chains of marriage are so heavy that it takes two to
bear them, and sometimes three.’
A LEXANDRE D UMAS
Friday 1 July
She’s alive! Operation was a success. Important stuff intact. Not counting the dead-leg chair-nap, I haven’t slept a wink. Went home for a couple of hours to change pants and so forth. Tried to rest but had nightmares about being attacked by a gang of inflamed orangutans. Whoever said all men’s dreams were about sex was lying.
Isabel releases herself mid-afternoon (like in soaps when the patient ill-advisedly tears out her own tubes and storms out of the ward), and we get home just in time for one of the idiots upstairs to start practising his new set of drums.
I am in no mood for drums.
As I ring the upstairs doorbell, I am a creature of crimson terror, a brooding, fearsome
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