His 'n' Hers (25 page)

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Authors: Mike Gayle

BOOK: His 'n' Hers
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When I return from the kitchen with the tea Jim is standing in front of the bookshelves staring intently.
‘So, you want to start with the books, do you?’ I ask.
‘It’s as good a place as any,’ says Jim. ‘Let’s just get this over with.’
12.17 p.m.
Alison takes a pile of books off the shelf and begins reading their titles: ‘
The Importance of Being Earnest
.’
‘Yours,’ I reply, and she puts it on the floor at her feet and picks up another.
‘
Less Than Zero
?’ she asks, waving the book.
‘Yours.’
She places it on her pile of one.
‘Moon Palace.’
‘Who’s that by?’
‘Paul Auster.’
‘That’ll be yours, then.’
‘Neither Here Nor There.’
‘Bill Bryson?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’ll be mine.’ I take the book from her and put it on the floor beside me.
Alison picks up another. ‘
Get Shorty
.’ She hands it to me.
I study the cover. ‘No, actually it’s yours.’
‘I’ve never read an Elmore Leonard book in my life.’
‘I know.’
‘So how can it be mine?’
‘I bought it for your birthday because it was my favourite book.’
She opens the cover and looks inside. Inside I’ve written: ‘Happy birthday, Alison, hugs and kisses, Jim.’ She hands it back to me. ‘Here, you can keep it.’
‘Why would I want to?’
‘You’ve just said it’s your favourite book.’
‘I’ve already got a copy.’
‘Well, I don’t want it, do I? I don’t like Elmore Leonard. I’m never going to read Elmore Leonard so there’s no point in my having one of his books, is there?’
‘Is it absolutely necessary that you have to be so hateful all the time?’
‘Yes. Absolutely.’ Alison sighs and picks up another book. ‘
The Black Album
by Hanif Kureishi.’ She looks inside. ‘It’s a signed copy.’
‘That’ll be mine, then.’
She picks up another book. ‘
Star Wars: A New Hope?
’
‘Mine.’
‘Actually, you’ll find it’s mine,’ says Alison.
‘You don’t like even
Star Wars
. You said it was the most stupid film you’d ever seen. Why would you buy the book?’
‘It is stupid, but this came free with a film magazine. Look.’ She shows me the cover. And, yes, it had indeed come free with a magazine.
‘Well, can I have it?’ I ask.
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘As in, no, you can’t have it.’
‘But you don’t want it.’
‘I know.’
‘So what are you going to do with it?’
‘I’m going to give it to Oxfam along with the Elmore Leonard.’
That was below the belt. I am about to retort with something equally malicious but I stop. ‘Look, I haven’t come here for a row. I’ve come here to try and sort out our stuff. And it’s taken . . . ooh, all of five minutes for us to start having a go. Can’t we just be reasonable and sort this out like mature adults?’
1.08 p.m.
‘The TV’s got to be mine,’ says Jim. ‘I spent ages looking for that TV. I trawled up and down Tottenham Court Road for an entire day playing off electrical store against electrical store until I got the lowest price. Of course it should be mine. Plus you don’t watch that much TV.’
‘I don’t want the TV,’ I inform him. ‘I think it’s too big. I said so at the time and you didn’t listen to me . . . as usual. And I think it’s ugly but the fact remains that I paid for the majority of it.’
‘That’s irrelevant,’ says Jim.
‘I think it’s very relevant,’ I snap. ‘I tell you what. You can have the TV but I want the video and the washing-machine.’
‘You can have the washing-machine but I really want the video,’ replies Jim.
‘I think it’s a fair swap,’ I tell Jim. ‘The TV cost a fortune.’
‘Fine,’ he says eventually. ‘You have it. I’ll buy myself a new one.’
1.23 p.m.
‘I think I should get the sofa,’ I tell Alison. ‘It’s the most expensive thing in the flat and, as I remember, I paid for it too.’
‘The sofa’s mine,’ says Alison. ‘You might have paid for it but it was me who walked round every furniture store in central London on my own looking for it. Every time I asked you to come along you’d cry off with some excuse about having to work late or something. This sofa is the culmination of all my blood, sweat and tears. I chose the perfect colour, I chose the perfect size, I selected every last thing about it down to the last detail. It should go to me.’
‘Where’s the negotiation in that?’
‘There is none. It’s mine.’
1.45 p.m.
‘I’ve cut you out of all our holiday photos,’ I tell Jim defiantly.
‘You did what?’
‘I cut you out of our holiday photos. You’ve been erased from Crete, summer 1996, the Lake District, summer 1998, and New York, 1997. I took all the piles of mini-yous and set fire to them. It was very therapeutic. It’s a shame, actually, because I was telling a friend of mine, Lucy, in the art department at work, what I’d done and she seemed to think that she could’ve Photoshopped you out on her computer and put someone much nicer in your place – she suggested Keanu Reeves in a wetsuit like in
Point Break
, but I said if I was going to do it I’d sooner have a golden retriever because they’re more faithful.’
‘Do you know what’s the worst thing about that?’ says Jim angrily. ‘It’s not that you’d swap me for a dog – that doesn’t surprise me in the least. It’s the fact that they weren’t your bloody photos. They were mine! Taken on my bloody camera. With my bloody film!’
‘Your photos, my photos, what does it matter?’
‘This is stupid. Stupid and pointless. We’re getting nowhere very slowly. So far all we’ve managed to do is sort out a few books and a few CDs and you’ve ruined our holiday photos. We’ve got a whole flat to do.’
3.03 p.m.
I’m on the phone to Jane.
‘How did it go?’ she asks.
‘Not well,’ I reply. ‘We didn’t manage to get much sorted at all. He just wasn’t in the right frame of mind and neither was I. Part of me even thinks that Jim’s deliberately dragging his feet over all this separating business and making it a bigger deal than it needs to be. All he has to do is claim what’s his so that I can claim what’s mine, and then we can get round to deciding the fate of what’s ours.’
‘Did you manage to sort out who’s getting Disco? I know you’re worried about that.’
‘He didn’t mention her once, but I can tell he’s been dying to. He adores her. And she thinks he’s the best thing since sliced bread.’
‘I thought men weren’t supposed to be into cats. At a push they’re allowed to like dogs or dangerous animals like snakes, venomous spiders and sharks – basically animals that will kill or maim you given the opportunity – because they’re manly. Cats aren’t manly. They’re the girliest animal in the book.’
‘I know, but Jim loves Disco. And Disco loves him right back. Given a choice of laps to sit on, she’ll take his over mine any day of the week. Not that she doesn’t love me too. But it’s like this: their love is unspoken. While I make the biggest fuss over her at any given opportunity, Jim will try his best to ignore her and she’ll do her best to ignore him, but at the end of an evening in front of the TV they always end up together. It’s like a perfect match.’
Sunday, 21 March 1999
7 p.m.
It’s the weekend again and we’ve really made some progress. Jim came back to the flat at midday and, though it took a while, we’ve sorted nearly everything, even some of the deal-breakers.
The living room no longer looks like a living room. It looks like the place that Walkers’ crisps boxes go to die. There are boxes everywhere: on the sideboard, on the coffee-table, on the two armchairs and the sofa. And they are all full of our stuff. The stuff that Jim and I have collected during our relationship. And each and every one of the items has a sticker on it that reads: ‘His’ or ‘Hers’. Originally the stickers were going to read ‘Jim’s’ and ‘Alison’s’, which was my idea, but Jim said it would be easier if we just wrote ‘J’ on his stickers and ‘A’ on mine. I wasn’t happy about that for no other reason than that he had come up with the idea. So in the spirit of compromise I suggested ‘Mine’ for me and ‘His’ for him because it made him suitably anonymous. His counter-offer was the ‘His’ and ‘Hers’ that we have now, and although I didn’t like it I reasoned that I was too tired to argue any more over something I really didn’t care about. The stickers are on our things because some of the items are too big for Jim to take back to Nick’s, where he’s still living, so we’ve agreed that most of the stuff will be left in the spare room of the flat until we’ve sold up.
The only ‘thing’ we’ve got to decide about is currently circling the boxes that we’ve spent all afternoon labelling and sniffing the corners suspiciously.
‘So what are we going to do about her?’ I ask, as Disco rubs her body against my ankles.
‘I don’t know,’ replies Jim. ‘I’ve been sort of avoiding that one. I’d like to take her with me but she’s your cat. I mean . . . I did give her to you, after all.’
‘But she’s really our cat, isn’t she? Maybe we could have joint custody like they do with kids?’
Jim laughs, for the first time in what feels like years. ‘You know what cats from broken homes are like – they’re sneaky,’ he says. ‘She’ll play us off against each other.’
‘But what about it?’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I don’t see why not.’
His face falls. ‘Because it’ll mean that you’ll still be in my life and I’ll be in yours.’ He stands up. ‘I think it’s probably best if you keep her. I’ll go and say goodbye to her now.’
And as he picks her up and walks into the kitchen with her, I can’t stop the tears as I think.
This is how much he doesn’t love me.
Saturday, 3 April 1999
10.57 a.m.
Jim’s and my official separation is beginning to gain momentum. Terry Mortimer from Merryweather estate agents is here because I’ve arranged to have the flat valued. As I let him into the flat it strikes me that he is approximately twelve years old. And the fact that he’s wearing a pinstripe suit and is trying to grow a goatee beard makes him seem even younger. I have tidied up in preparation for his visit and now all the boxes that Jim and I have sorted out are in the spare room, the carpet is free of fluff and I have even dusted. Terry visits all the rooms in turn and writes things down on his clipboard. He tells me he likes what I’ve done in the kitchen, the bedrooms are a great size (although the second bedroom could do with being emptied of the boxes), the bathroom is ‘pristine’ and, overall, the flat is in first-class condition.
I’m pleased with his verdict, I suppose, because it’s always nice when someone says something complimentary about your home even if it’s a home you’re selling under difficult conditions. His comments make me feel moderately well disposed towards him so I ask if he wants a cup of tea. He asks if I’ve got any coffee and I tell him only decaffeinated and it’s been in the cupboard for ages. We both examine the jar to spot the sell-by date but it seems to have disappeared altogether. He tells me he doesn’t mind if it’s gone off a bit so I open the jar and scrape away at the solid contents within until I have sufficient chippings for a mug of coffee. We stand in the kitchen staring at the kettle waiting for it to boil. I’ve run out of conversation and for a moment, I think, so has he.
‘Can I ask why you’re moving?’ he asks.
‘I’m splitting up with my husband,’ I reply.
It’s strange to witness first hand but Terry’s eyes light up magically, as though the first thing I’m going to do with my freedom, following the end of the longest relationship of my life, is have a torrid affair with a cocky teenage estate agent.
‘You don’t look old enough to have an ex-husband,’ he says smoothly.
‘You don’t look old enough to be selling my flat for me. How old are you by the way?’
‘Twenty-two,’ he replies. ‘I’ve got a baby face. How old are you?’
‘Old enough to be your big sister,’ I tell him.
Tuesday, 6 April 1999
10.58 a.m.
I’m just about to go into a meeting when my phone rings. I think about letting the voicemail get it but then I wonder if it’s the journalist from
The Times
I’ve been trying to get hold of for the past few days who wants to do a feature on one of the cookery books I’m working on. I pick up the phone.
‘Hello, Publicity.’
‘Hello, I’d like to speak to Alison Smith, please. It’s Terry from Merryweather estate agents.’
‘Hello,’ I say brightly. ‘It’s Alison here.’
‘How are you?’
I look at my watch. ‘Fine.’
‘I just thought you’d like to know that we’ve valued your property.’
I hold my breath and listen. He then proceeds to tell me a figure that I would never have imagined our flat to be worth. I’m too shocked to speak.
‘How does that sound?’
‘Are you sure?’ I ask. ‘That seems very high.’
‘Properties in your area are selling very well indeed and, given the A1 condition of the flat, I actually think I’m being a little conservative. Would you like us to start marketing the property?’
I tell him yes, and suddenly tears are streaming down my face. I wipe them away, sniff deeply and glance around the office to see if anyone has noticed. ‘I’m sorry, Terry, I have to go.’
‘Oh,’ he says disappointedly. ‘Can I just ask one thing before you do? I know this is very unorthodox, and I would never normally do this in a million years, but I can’t help but feel there’s some sort of connection between us.’

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