I do have sole responsibility for stationery ordering and I’m fully in charge of planning the office Christmas party.
And another thing, I swallow my worries along with a lavish amount of sour cream dip on my crisps, I’m carrying a light store debit card debt. Nothing to worry about, just a couple of thousand.
I pull on my pink floral wellington boots and pink tracksuit. Sunday afternoons are the highlight of my week, and I’m not going to let my hangover or argument with Barry ruin that. After a twenty-minute drive, I park my car at the DSPCA animal shelter.
‘Hey, Becks,’ Tammie greets me with a hug.
‘Hey, Tams. How’s Marmalade?’
I’ve fallen in love with the orange cat that was brought in last week. Once I’ve patched things up with Barry, I’ll start working on him to agree to a flatmate for Jess.
‘Marmalade’s a mama! She had six kits after you left last Sunday.’
‘No way!’
Tammie and I muck out the horse stables and drag the heavy bags of dry dog food towards the dog section. The barking is deafening.
‘Five new residents since last week,’ Tammie points to a trembling terrier, who is huddled behind the chicken wire. ‘We’re calling him Bailey. He was in pretty bad shape.’
‘Poor chap. Where’s Major?’
I’ve been harbouring quite the soft spot for the old English sheepdog that has been here for a month now.
‘Oh I totally forgot to tell you! A young couple came on Monday, filled in the papers and took him home.’
Tammie and I have been volunteering together for six months now, and I don’t even know her last name. All we talk about is animals. It’s like taking a holiday from the real world for a couple of hours.
One day, when Barry and I are married, I’ll jack in my job and volunteer here full time. If I didn’t have to worry about money, I could be here every day, matching little fur babies with adoptive mummies and daddies, and not just Sundays. I’m pretty pants at my day job, and being polite in an office all day is exhausting. At the shelter, I get to do something important, something I’m good at.
To be honest, I’m quite happy for Barry to play the whole breadwinner role! I’d have no problem trading my grey work suit for my pink floral boots. Barry would benefit too, because I wouldn’t be so worn out from the office. I could even throw the odd dinner party to impress his important corporate types. I’d play the enchanting hostess, presenting a perfectly plump turkey from an immaculate kitchen while Barry pours the sherry and entertains the CEO. I’d laugh at his little jokes. Sure, Samantha from Bewitched makes it look easy!
All I need are a few cookery lessons. How hard can it be? Oh, and a full-time nanny if we have little ones. Now, I won’t go as far as the old pipe and slippers routine. I’m not a Labrador at the end of the day, for goodness’ sake.
Back home, I tell Jess the good news about Marmalade. The throbbing in my temples is back, so I open a bottle of white wine. Hair of the dog is the only thing left to try.
‘Jesus, Jess. If Barry and I don’t make up, we could become homeless!’
I’m imagining my bleak future without Barry. My personal hygiene has taken a sharp decline and I’ve shaved my head like Britney Spears after her split with Kevin Federline. I’m forced to shop in Argos and Iceland, and have a cunning disguise so that I can mooch around Lidl for bargains without being spotted. I have no choice but to cash my gold at some seedy pawn-style establishment, and have to hock my large collection of shoes on eBay to scrape some measly euros together. I haggle with grubby types at car boot sales over my Dolce & Gabbanas. I’m living in a sordid trailer park rubbing shoulders with ‘The Great Unwashed’. My teeth have fallen out, and I’ve been invited to appear on The Jeremy Kyle Show.
‘Good God!’
I shudder as I pour another glass of wine and consider moving back to Mum and Dad’s gaff if our relationship horribly crashes and burns. It’ll be a pride-swallowing moment, and I’ll have to resume a child–parent relationship with two people whose intentions are admittedly good but incredibly annoying. On the plus side, the grub is great. There will be lashings of tea and sympathy on tap from the old dears, with Sky Movies hooked up to the flat-screen telly and all the mod cons at my fingertips. Their legendary Sunday dinners with a heavy slathering of gravy will be good enough to make me forget my troubles. My version of events will always be morally superior to those of the ‘Man-of-whom-we-do-not-speak’.
I realise that the only alternative is that a friend allows me to sleep in their box room amongst their sad collection of dusty books and flowery wallpaper. Most of my friends are loved up, so I will end up as the gooseberry from hell clutching my earplugs as they frolic in the night through frighteningly thin walls.
‘Welcome to hell, Jess.’
Jess yawns. He is so emotionally unavailable.
We’ll have to sort our collection of CDs into cardboard boxes. Barry can keep his greedy paws off my Dirty Dancing soundtrack. The gloves are off, now – that’s a limited edition collector’s item, signed by Patrick Swayze himself (God rest his handsome soul). He hardly ever listens to it. Charitably, I decide that he can have Depeche Mode’s Greatest Hits back. I only faked an interest in that one when he produced it one Christmas in lieu of my specific request for Duran Duran. He may also keep the Karaoke Christmas. His mother bought that one. Bit of a Christmas turkey.
Will dinner parties become unbearable if our friends take sides in our vicious dispute? Will we be bitter rivals who can’t be in the same room, just like Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in The War of the Roses? Surely, they will all side with me, the victim in all of this. But will they stay in touch? Will they send Christmas cards? Will I be excluded from smug happy couple events?
Will we haggle over furniture and whose Tesco club card points are whose? The custody battle for our possessions will be like Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep fighting over their child in Kramer vs. Kramer. Of course, Meryl is way too old to play me if this all ends up in court and is splashed all over the media and then turned into a million dollar budget movie. Perhaps Reese Witherspoon would be a more appropriate casting.
I’m consuming my own weight in chocolate, flicking channels and tormenting myself with images of what lies ahead. Later, I wake up on the couch with a crick in my neck and a chocolate biscuit mashed into the cream cushion.
Emer calls to discuss the latest Jodie Marsh scandal, which is splashed all over the tabloids.
‘Frankly,’ she confides, ‘I saw it coming a mile off.’
‘Mmm.’ I can’t bring myself to muster even a mild gossip.
‘So, still no word from him, then?’
‘Not a sniff.’
‘Hang in there. He’ll call. Let him get settled in after the long journey.’
Time for a shower, I decide as I catch a whiff of myself. I’m not down and out just yet.
