No-One Ever Has Sex On A Tuesday: A Very Funny Romantic Novel (3 page)

Approximately eight months earlier

Matthew’s day had gone badly. It had taken two tedious hours just to get out of London that morning, followed by a further punishing three hours to make it to Leeds. His mobile had rung constantly with clients wanting blood, sweat and tears, as well as minor miracles. Being a tax advisor didn’t mean you could wave a magic wand and miraculously uncover a way of paying no tax at all, he wanted to scream at them. He could understand that all his clients had somebody squeezing their bollocks constantly for bigger profits but they should get off his case and go and make more money. It was quite simple really.

Matthew had put his phone on silent in the end, deciding that poor phone reception up the M1 was a plausible excuse for not being at everyone’s beck and call. Besides the luxury of being able to listen to Radio 5 Live on a weekday, allowing his mind a respite from his personal stresses to the possibilities during this football season’s transfer window, was too great an opportunity to miss.

He was just pondering the acquisition options for Leeds United when Alison’s name began to flash persistently on his phone screen. He found to his dismay that he hesitated before answering, frightened that he might say the wrong thing again. She had been in tears as he left that morning, the anguish of going through yet another course of fertility treatment sending her way over the edge at the slightest comment. He could tell that every drop of her energy was focused on willing it to be this time. Any distraction or diversion he attempted to provide to calm her down was met with utter disdain and a look of withering contempt. She failed to understand how on earth he could talk about anything other than getting pregnant, let alone suggest something as trivial as her travelling with him to Leeds and seeing the match with him on Saturday.

He fleetingly remembered the time when his heart would have leapt at the sight of Alison’s name flashing on his phone screen. But that was a different Alison. That Alison had mesmerised him: so cool and calm and sophisticated, and yet still interested in him. That Alison, who had made him feel like the king of the world simply by resting her perfectly manicured hand on his arm. Whose determination to get somewhere in life had slowly re-educated his chaotic take on how to go about the business of living. That Alison, who ever so gently, had encouraged him to settle into a career rather than jobbing from one company to the next, invest in his own property rather than renting with his mates, go out to dinner rather than down the pub, buy wine from the top shelf not the bottom, read the broadsheets rather than the tabloids, all the kinds of stuff that proper grown-ups did.

As for this Alison… She had had her cool, calm sophistication sucked mercilessly out of her to be pumped full to the brim of fear, doubt and a crippling sense of failure. That Alison had not tolerated failure. This Alison had absorbed the knowledge that she was not able to conceive naturally like a sponge, soaking up every negative feeling she could possibly connect to discovering her body was defective. She had become nervy, edgy and obsessive.

Deciding to start fertility treatment had briefly revived the old Alison as she sensed a whiff of regaining control. She attacked the whole thing as she would a full-time job, the relief of being able to do something practical written all over her face. She took reassurance in the fact that no-one could have researched it more than her, no-one could have prepared her body better than her, no-one was more careful than her each time they went through the process. Slowly but surely, however, the relief had faded from her face to be replaced initially with a distinct hue of disbelief followed by a constant black cloud of plain and fear as time and again her body refused to fall in line with what she so desperately wanted.

Matthew braced himself before he touched the pick-up button ready for another minefield of a conversation.

“Hiya,” he said, trying to sound as bright and breezy as possible, hoping that this would at least start the conversation off with a degree of buoyancy.

“Hi. I called to say I haven’t gone into work today,” said Alison.

“I see,” replied Matthew. “You feeling alright?” he asked hesitantly.

“What do you think? I’m a nervous wreck Matthew. I’m sitting here yet again obsessing about whether I’ll soon be thinking about how to decorate the nursery or absolutely devastated because we’ve failed again. Isn’t there any way you can come back tonight?”

“I’m really sorry Alison. You know I would but I’m the only one from the consultancy going to the match now and someone’s got to be there to look after the clients. Ian had to pull out because his daughter is singing the lead in the school play. She was the understudy but the other girl got caught in some big scandal sleeping with one of her teachers or something and was banned from appearing. Now poor old Ian has to suffer two hours of sitting next to his ex-wife listening to out of tune kids warbling The Wizard of Oz rather than the joys of corporate hospitality at the Leeds game. He’s pretty pissed off I can tell you.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

“Alison, are you still there?”

The silence continued until he heard a sniff and he knew she was crying.

“At least Ian has a daughter he can go and see in a school play. I would trade that for a million afternoons in stupid bloody corporate hospitality. Does he have any idea how lucky he is?” she spat out.

“Oh Alison, I’m sure he does. It’s just sod’s law isn’t it, that it all happens on the same day.”

“Sod’s law that he gets a daughter he can’t even be bothered to go and see in a school play and we get nothing.”

“Hey, come on, it might work this time.”

“But what if it doesn’t? I can’t even think about how I will cope. I just don’t think I’ll be able to pick myself up again and carry on.”

“Alison, it doesn’t do you any good to think like that. We will cope because we will have no choice but to cope. Look, why don’t you call Karen and see if she wants to meet you for lunch, take your mind off it for a while?”

He hoped this would get her off the phone. He felt guilty but he had lost track of how many times they had had a similar conversation and it was grinding him down. Yes he wanted a child too but he hated what it was doing to them both. Before all of this it was Alison who had kept their lives on track, always somehow knowing the right thing to do. But that Alison had long gone and he was now the one desperately trying to hold it together for both of them and he suspected he was failing dismally.

“Christ Matthew, you never want to talk about it do you? Why can’t you be grown up enough to just talk to me about it?” she sobbed.

He closed his eyes briefly. It killed him when she said things like that as it bought out all his insecurities. That he wasn’t good enough for her. That he didn’t impress her with his desperate attempts to be the kind of guy he thought she wanted him to be with his career in financial consultancy, his company car and his expense account. That underneath he was still the chancer he was when she had met him.

“I try Alison, believe me I try, but you have to get this in perspective somehow. Look nobody died did they?”

The moment the words had left his mouth he knew it was possibly the most idiotic thing he had ever said.

“Well that just says it all doesn’t it. You have absolutely no idea.”

Call Ended
blinked up on his screen.

All he could feel was relief. He knew he should call her back but he would get it wrong all over again. Where was the manual for dealing with a wife who had changed out of all recognition the minute she started struggling to have a child?

The radio cut back in and he listened to the guys ringing in, airing their views on which players should go to which teams. He wished he was as free of worry as them, with time to rant on national radio that they were the only people who really knew what to do about the trials and tribulations of the state of British football, and if it wasn’t for the day job they could have been the best manager the country had ever known.

He was late when he finally got to his meeting at the Leeds office. His colleagues based there could not resist the usual jibes reserved for anyone based in London.

“Get lost did you? Forget that England does actually exist outside the M25?” asked Ian.

“Funny,” Matthew replied. “The fact that I am born and bred Yorkshire and you are a southern wuss masquerading as a tough northern bloke seems to escape your memory.”

“Southern wuss?” exclaimed Ian, getting up and grabbing his discarded tie from the coat stand. “And there’s me busy telling the client you are the shining star coming all the way up from the big smoke to give them some dazzling PowerPoint action.”

“I hope you haven’t built me up or anything,” said Matthew, starting to feel nervous.

“Not at all. I just told them that your bar charts inspire the same awe in finance directors as art lovers experiencing a Van Gogh for the first time and your little jokes about hedge fund tax will have them rolling in the aisles.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate that,” replied Matthew gloomily.

“Anytime my friend. Anytime. Still up for a few cheeky beers later?” Ian asked. “I need to drown my sorrows seeing as I’ve been denied coming to the match with you tomorrow.”

“Absolutely. You have no idea how much I need it too,” replied Matthew.

Ian was talking nineteen to the dozen but Matthew had switched off momentarily. The beer had done its job and painted the world a sunnier colour. He smiled a little smile, feeling relaxed and almost carefree, a feeling that had become a stranger of late. He had called Alison when he got to his hotel room. The conversation had been short and terse. He had promised that he would drive back straight after the match tomorrow which rather put a dampener on the free booze he could have been drinking.

“Are you listening mate? Christ you were miles away. I was just saying that Chris is leaving and you should go for his job. Get yourself back up here.”

“Sorry, I was listening really. Yeah maybe. Not sure Alison could cope with a move at the moment though. Besides it might feel a bit weird coming back to where I grew up. I was invited to a school reunion tonight as it happens but I thought it would feel a bit strange. Full of all the tossers I never talked to anyway, telling everyone how well they are doing.”

“School reunion? Did you say school re-union? You mean to tell me we’ve been out all this time with me trying to drag a smile onto your pathetic down-trodden face when I could have been pouncing on the easy prey of thirty-something women who have been married just long enough to realise that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be?” Ian leant back in his chair, put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “I can see it now. There’ll be hundreds of them gagging for it. All hoping for a snog from their childhood crush who will transport them from their domestic hell to the fairy tale life they were promised by Enid Blyton. Of course they will be gutted because dream boy will have grown an enormous gut by now clearing the way for a poor, recently divorced, charming young man like me to console the desperate young ladies.”

He opened his eyes again and looked at Matthew with a serious expression on his face. “Hopefully of course they will have piled on the pounds too, and be a bit depressed about it making them very grateful for some male attention.”

Ian sprang up from his chair.

“So what are we waiting for?” he asked Matthew, starting to put on his coat.

“You didn’t even go to the school,” protested Matthew.

“Aw bollocks to that. I’ll pretend I joined in the fourth year. No one ever remembers the late comers. Come on, let’s go.”

“No really, I don’t want to go.”

“Why? It’ll be a laugh, and you get to dance to Spandau Ballet with some old girlfriends. Or is that the problem? Did you go out with some right mingers you’re too embarrassed to let me meet? I bet that’s it isn’t it?”

“Actually I only went out with one girl at school. That’s the problem really; we didn’t exactly finish on good terms,” said Matthew, surprised to find his cheeks starting to feel hot.

“Oh come on, how long has it been? Nearly twenty years? She’ll be married, fat, stretchmarks up to her ears, flashing photos of her little darlings to all and sundry. She won’t give a damn about some long forgotten school fling.”

Ian dropped to his knees and clutched at Matthew’s arm.

“Don’t deny me this chance of a shag mate, I might never forgive you,” he pleaded.

Matthew had to laugh at Ian’s sheer optimism. He wasn’t exactly god’s gift although he did seem to have the gift of the gab. Sod it, he thought. Who knows when he would next get the chance for a night out. And Ian was right. If Katy was there it had all happened so long ago that she would either have forgotten about him or at the very least forgiven him for how it ended. Not that he had ever really forgiven himself. His stomach still lurched when he thought about it, which was surprisingly often as he was frequently reminded of Katy for some reason. Silly things like catching a glimpse of Mickey Mouse on the TV. Katy had a slightly irrational hatred of Mickey Mouse. “Smug bastard who should learn to speak properly,” she had often shared with anyone who was or wasn’t interested in her opinion of the diminutive superstar.

“OK then, we’ll go. But if it’s crap we leave. And don’t show me up,” he said finally, getting up.

“Fantastic. Move closer, move your body real close until iiiiiiiiiiiiit feels like we’re really making love…….woh…woh…..woh.” Ian sang the eighties, classic smooch song whilst pretending to be in a clinch, groping some poor desperate imaginary woman.

“I really think I am going to regret this,” Matthew muttered under his breath.

Chapter 4

The school was less than a twenty-minute cab ride away. The erratic driving of the taxi driver was making Matthew feel slightly woozy. He hadn’t had this much to drink in a while since Alison had insisted they both cut down to virtually nothing to increase their chances of conceiving.

Ian had sung Matthew his entire repertoire of favourite eighties songs during the journey along with a run-down of what he associated with each one. A re-occurring theme appeared to be which girl he was having sex with at the time and what kind of sex.