Good Husband Material (12 page)

‘“Nutthill Nutria,” she says.’

‘B-but surely …?’ I stammered, startled.

‘Just goes to show what weak, untrustworthy creatures men be.’ Mrs Deakin fixed me with her bright eye. ‘Even the ones what look most steady, like Reg.’

‘Not all, though!’ I assured her, smiling, for even if he had the time, James would not have the inclination. If you sliced him up you would probably find ‘Good Husband Material’ running all the way through, like a stick of rock.

‘You have to watch them all the time,’ she assured me darkly. ‘Even if the spirit’s willing, the flesh is weak!’

I thought with sudden unease of Vanessa the secretarty, then firmly pushed the idea out of my head.

Mrs Peach would be very bored if she watched James all the time now he’s hooked on amateur radio. All sorts of stuff arrives for him with each post. He must have answered every ad in the ham radio magazine, hence all the holes I found cut out of it. He has also joined a nationwide club for enthusiasts and is going to a meeting of the local branch next week, plus some sort of evening class.

If he is so busy that he can’t even take me out for a meal, how come he can fit this in? And what about the cost?

Still, perhaps it will be one of his shorter crazes. Photography lasted ten hellish weeks, during which I couldn’t move a muscle without appearing in deathless, glossy colour. And he wanted to take pictures of me without my clothes on! But I soon told him what I thought of
that
and added that if he wanted a hobby he should start getting the garden straight, though I have come to the conclusion that he only enjoyed reading about self-sufficiency. When it comes down to rain and muddy wellies he isn’t interested.

But we’re well into April, after all, and someone has to make a start, so on the first reasonably clement day I went out, notebook in hand, to draw up a plan of campaign.

The front garden didn’t take long:

1) Cut hedge
.

2) Dig over front garden and returf
, I wrote and then, as I turned for a last look, it struck me that what the front of the cottage cried out for (besides repainting) was:

3) Rose, climbing
.

Satisfied, I went round the side of the house, soon to be partially blocked by an Instant Garage, and stood, daunted, on the brink of the waist-deep sea of weeds that formed the back garden, already springing back to life after a short winter’s nap.

No trace remained of the path I had once beaten to the fence, and I never had found the dustbin. A new plastic one stood forlornly on the edge of the wilderness like the Last Outpost of Civilisation.

I could hear the cackling of Mrs Peach’s hens, and when the breeze changed direction, smell them.

Girding up my wellies, I waded out to the garden shed and found it surprisingly complete apart from one cracked and starred window. Inside was a great quantity of cobwebs, with and without occupants, a heap of broken plant pots, a rake with three prongs missing, a heap of mouldering sacking that might contain anything, and the china pot out of the commode. Clearly a job for James.

4) Clear out shed, mend window (James).

5) Scythe weeds. (Or sickle weeds? Is there a difference?)

The long, fenced sides of the garden are covered by small, flattened, spreading trees, forming a dense mass of intertwining branches, which look a bit like the espaliered fruit trees I’ve seen in books. If so, I only hope they aren’t as ancient and dead as they look.

It was all very daunting and would take a lot of hard work and yet more money before it became the pretty cottage garden I longed for.

The contrast with the smooth, well-nibbled turf of the park was revolting.

A few days later, when I popped into Mrs Deakin’s to buy dried figs, she told me that the Hall had finally been sold, but she hadn’t managed to find out who to. Workmen have moved in, but they’re not local, and she’s further hampered in her investigations by the main entrance and lodge to the house being on the far side of the park in Lower Nutthill. I suppose I’ll soon have to stop exercising Bess in the over-grown rear drive, which is a nuisance.

The house is called Greatness Hall, though Mrs Deakin says it was once Great Ness (which makes even less sense to me).

‘Some say it’s been bought by one of them foreign opera singers,’ suggested Mrs Deakin hopefully. ‘That Monster Rat Cavaliero.’

‘Greatness Hall would certainly sound like the right address,’ I agreed, puzzling over who the Monster Rat could be. Then it clicked: Montserrat Caballé.

‘They say the Dower House once stood where your cottages are, but the lady what lived there went mad and set fire to it and perished,’ she was blithely continuing.

‘How exciting! The surveyor did say that one or two parts of the house walls looked much older than the rest.’

‘A touch of Greatness!’ she giggled. ‘Now, dear, here’s your dried figs. Do your insides a world of good.’

‘Actually, I’m making fig and sesame seed chewy bars.’

‘Doesn’t matter what you do with them – clean your tubes out a treat, these will.’

The fig and sesame bars are tasty, but not only do they have the texture of sand-filled sandwiches, they look like something Bess does when she’s constipated. I gave Toby a bit and he loved it, but Bess gulped a dropped piece down and then looked as if she wished she hadn’t. I sincerely hope they don’t clean
her
tubes out.

James came home even later than usual, smelling of beer, and admitted he’d called in at the Dog and Duck for a quick pint.

‘If I’d known, I could have met you there!’ I said, hurt.

‘I didn’t plan it,’ he said irritably, ‘I just felt like a pint on my way past.’ He poked around in his curry, then looked up, frowning. ‘I can’t seem to find the meat in this.’

‘There isn’t any – it’s vegetable.’

He put the fork down. ‘Is there any cheese?’

‘Don’t you like the curry? I thought it came out rather well. And there’s protein in the peas and the brown rice, you know.’

He pushed back his chair. ‘Never mind, I’m just not hungry. I had a pasty at the pub – corned beef and onion.’

‘There doesn’t seem much point in my cooking dinner if you are going to spoil your appetite before you even get home!’ I snapped. ‘Not that I ever know when you’re going to deign to arrive these days anyway.’

‘I can’t help having to work late,’ he said sulkily.

‘You can help stopping off at pubs on the way home, though!’

‘I need to unwind after a hard day at work. And if there was something more appetising than vegetable curry waiting for me when I got back, it might give me a bit more incentive to rush home.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with vegetable curry! And how do you expect me to cook anything Cordon Bleu when it’s got to be kept hot for hours on end waiting for you to get back? I— Where are you going?’

‘Out for another pasty!’ he said, and slammed off before I could even mention the fresh fruit salad.

I’d gone to bed (with a headache) before he returned, and when I came down next morning discovered that he’d been brewing beer in the kitchen from a kit he’d bought from the supermarket months ago. From the look of it, he’d been drunk when he got the idea.

The top of the cooker was covered in sticky brown goo, with about a pound of coagulated sugar heaped and drifted all over it. In the sink were two of my best, expensive, cast-iron enamelled casseroles in which the goo had hardened to a tight, brown skin, and coiled around them was the run-out hose of the washing machine, also sticky and revolting.

The place smelled like a brewery and the floor stuck to my slippers.

Why doesn’t he ever clear up after himself? And when I complained about the mess he went all hurt, and said he thought I’d be pleased that he was making home brew since I didn’t like him going out to drink beer.

‘When you used to make beer before, it didn’t stop you going out drinking as well!’ I said without thinking, and he slammed off to work in a rage, and without kissing me. (And God knows, it’s our only physical contact these days!)

It took me ages to clean everything up, and I’d only just finished and was sitting down with a cup of coffee before finally going upstairs to get on with my writing, when Bess decided to empty her entire stomach contents in the middle of the clean kitchen floor.

Mornings never used to be like this.

Later, the inevitable flowers arrived, but this time a spring arrangement of daffodils in a basket, which was actually quite nice.

It probably smelled good too, except that the mingled scents of burned malt and dog vomit had permanently invaded my nostrils.

Fergal: April,1999

    
‘IN THIS ISSUE: an exclusive pin-up of the man you all voted for –

    
as you’ve never seen him before!’

Trendsetter
magazine

I’ve
never seen me like that before, either. Where did they dig that one up from? I don’t have any hang-ups about nudity, but still!

Maybe it’s an old picture from my early days with Goneril? I can’t honestly say I remember everything I did during that first tour. Or maybe it’s some clever computer mock-up?

And that bear rug’s a definite cliché. I’m not surprised it’s wearing an anguished expression.

James seems to be making more of an effort to come home earlier, or at least tell me when he is going to be late, so I’m rewarding him with boring old meat and two veg meals with apple crumble and custard to follow, the kind of thing he really likes. I can see I will have to introduce Healthy Eating more gradually.

He’s taken me down to the pub a couple of times, too, for Dogfish Tail in a Basket. (Scampi, according to the menu – isn’t that illegal?)

But he still needs kick-starting before he helps me do anything to the house, and I began to feel like a prize nag before I got him to agree to spend all of the long Easter weekend sorting out the front garden, but it had to be done.

In a moment of inspiration I hired a mini skip and had it delivered to the front of the house, where it proved a magnet for the whole village.

Although we never saw anyone, for they moved under cover of darkness, strange rubbish appeared in the skip every morning – though, to be fair, all sorts of things disappeared as well, from lengths of rotting timber to clapped-out wellies.

We hacked down the privet to a reasonable, though still private (privetcy?) height, and cleared the front garden for returfing.

It was back-breaking work, and I have blistered hands, but the difference already is amazing!

James spent hours afterwards soaking himself in the bath, because he said he would be permanently fixed into a Hunchback of Notre-Dame posture otherwise. He used all my expensive pine bath oil
and
all the hot water, leaving me to wait nearly an hour for it to heat up again. I tried pointing this out through the bathroom door, but he had the radio on in there full blast and pretended not to hear me, the selfish pig.

Although I’m glad the garden is taking shape, James turned something that should have been hard work but fun into a kind of penance I forced on him, and even when I assured him that all that would be needed when it was finished was a little lawn-mowing and some hedge-trimming, he didn’t seem much cheered, so I haven’t dared to mention the back garden.

While he was still marinating there was another of the silent phone calls, too – the first for quite a while. It never seems to be James who answers them.

On the Tuesday morning James was still hobbling about groaning, and said work would be a nice rest after all that digging, but I felt quite invigorated by the fresh air and exercise.

For once the postman managed to deliver the mail before James left for work, and among the one and a half tree’s worth of junk mail was my invitation to the SFWWR Awards Dinner in June.

‘James, do you want to come to the SFWWR dinner this year?’ I enquired. ‘It’s at the Fitzroy Tower Hotel, so the food will be wonderful!’

I didn’t really think he would want to, because the only time he did come he didn’t enjoy the experience of being just Marian Plentifold’s husband – a mere appendage – at all.

‘You don’t need me,’ he muttered sulkily, buttering toast. ‘You always go off with your friends, talking about books.’

‘That’s what it’s for, James – the chance to get together with other people with the same interests. I haven’t even been able to go to the ordinary meetings since we moved here, and I really miss them.’

He leaned over suddenly and twitched the invitation out of my fingers, like a Victorian papa scenting a love letter, and let out an indignant howl as he saw the price (very reasonable, I thought). Then he glanced down at the names of the award winners.

I was
so
hoping he wouldn’t do that.

‘I see! So that’s why you’re so keen to go! Fergal Rocco is to receive the award from
Trendsetter
magazine for The Man Their Readers Would Most Like To –!’

He looked up, baffled and suspicious: ‘Most Like To
what
?’

‘Use your imagination, James!’

‘That’s disgusting!’

‘I think it’s funny. And anyway, Fergal won’t be there.’

‘How do you know that?’ he snapped, eyes narrowing suspiciously, and the little warning vein in his temple beginning to twitch.

‘Because he’s currently on a world tour – you showed me the newspaper article yourself! He’s hardly going to fly back from Japan just to receive the
Trendsetter
award!’

‘Japan? How do you know where he is?’

‘For goodness’ sake, James! I just said the first country that came into my head! What on earth has got into you?’

It turned out that he’d kept the newspaper article, and unfortunately Goneril
were
due to appear in Japan at about that time. But at least he was reassured that Fergal would not therefore be present to receive his award. (And so was I – I wouldn’t have gone if I’d thought there was any possibility of meeting him again.)

James slammed off to work, late and in a filthy temper (but that’s his problem), and I phoned Peggy Mulvaney and suggested we sit together at the dinner.