The Desperate Diary of a Country Housewife Page 4

  December 15th

  Half the builders I telephone don’t even bother to return my telephone calls. The rest make appointments, and then never turn up. Can’t quite work out what I’m doing wrong.

  Fin, needless to say, has had a little more success. Somebody in London gave him the name of an Irish woman called Megan, who apparently once did some work for one of the Rolling Stones and who consequently (he’d been warned) presented herself very much as a Builder to the Stars.

  He contacted her last Friday evening, and she hopped onto her broomstick there and then, arriving at our front door, hunchback and shoulders fully relaxed, dyed black hair perfectly coiffed and stout little body positively dripping in eighties-style jewellery, within an hour of his making the telephone call. How does he do it?

  Sadly, however, we had to reject her. Or maybe she sadly rejected us. It was pretty clear from the beginning that we were singing from different hymn sheets.

  ‘I can tell you’re a woman with discerning taste,’ she muttered to me, leaning her broomstick against the porch and shimmying into our untouched, half-lit, empty hallway. I felt quite aglow for a moment—until I looked up and down and around and about and realised she had absolutely nothing, at that early stage, upon which to base the observation.

  Anyway. She took the briefest of glances round our bomb-site of a house and then, suddenly, looked at her watch and announced she had to leave. She couldn’t possibly discuss budgets or plans with us, she said, until we had inspected the property she and ‘her boys’ were currently working on in a village about twenty miles away.

  We went to look at it the next morning. A Saturday. It was a house belonging to a couple of art dealers from Seattle, neither of whom was present. Nevertheless I think she was quite put out that we tipped up with the children. It’s possible she was quite put out that we tipped up at all.

  The tour, which was made unnecessarily stressful by her rampant irritation with our fairly well-behaved children, seemed to go on forever. Fin and I were forced to admire every tap, every door handle, every eco-friendly window fastener in the building. And it wasn’t easy. Somehow, and clearly at unimaginable expense, Megan and her team of boys had transformed what was once, presumably, a perfectly pretty village cottage into something that looked more like an industrial greenhouse.

  At some point (about an hour in) she was distracted from her boasting by an improperly fitted cupboard latch, and we managed to slip away. She found us a couple of minutes later—Fin, me and the children—sardine-packed into what was meant to be her pièce de résistance: an aluminium, bean-shaped lavatory capsule, cleverly suspended above what would one day be a dining room. We were giggling quite a lot, testing out the motion-sensitive toilet flush. Or the children were. Or, no. We all were, in fact.

  I think it dawned on Megan about then that we were completely out of our depth. The art dealers from Seattle were spending on a single, motion-sensitive lavatory pod about three times what we had to spend on our entire house.

  Nevertheless, at the end of the tour we hugged each other passionately. We reconfirmed our various e-mails and telephone numbers and swore we’d speak again before the weekend was out, just to confirm budgets and dates and so on. That was over a week ago now. Obviously we’ve made no attempt to contact each other since.

  And I never even asked her about Johnny Depp. As the West Country’s designated Builder to the Stars she ought to know if there’s any truth behind the rumours. I wish I could say I forgot to ask her, but the fact is she’s slightly scary, and I didn’t quite dare.

  The good news is I now have another builder up my sleeve. He’s called Darrell and he’s coming round this evening. I saw his card pinned up in the village Co-op (as opposed to the launderette, where clearly the calibre of cards isn’t up to scratch) and he sounds lovely. Quite sexy, actually. He says he’s built hundreds of kitchens before. Not only that, he’s available to start on ours immediately.

  December 15th again

  Bit drunk. Darrell has just left.

  Darrell. Darrell. Darrell. Is about 6 foot 3 and outrageously good looking. Also he has amazingly long eyelashes. Also he’s outrageously good looking. He’s unbelievably good looking. Also—very sexy. He has a very sexy laugh. He stayed for two beers. Which he drink from the bottles. I think I knocked back five glass of wine, which I may have glugged a bit too quickly. Anyway, Darrell says he can start the kitchen on Monday. Christ. Things are looking up.

  Also Dora says she left her swim kit somewhere. I called up, but nobody knews shag all about anything downethere.

  Nametags tomorrow. Nametags nametags nametags nametags nametags namtags namtags namtagnametag-gssnamteags

  Goodnight xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

  December 17th

  The prospect of the children’s Christmas holidays, looming ever closer, has finally spurred me to get down to work. Written and filed the wedding piece, to resounding silence; which, I’ve decided, is a good sign. Also been asked to write a piece about my attitude to Advent calendars. Do I have one? I think not. Never mind. Most importantly, the Novel’s finally moving along OK and I’ve even managed to write the first of my dummy country columns. I’m going to offer it around to newspapers next week. See if anyone bites.

  Sooperdooper.

  Wonder if Darrell and Co. want a cup of tea?

  We’ve decided we’re going to spend Christmas in Andalusia after all. Dad’s still a bit ropey, but Sarah’s pretty much adamant she wants us to come out and try to cheer him up a bit. I’ve told her we’ll stay at the B&B in the village and she put on a very good show of saying no, but I think she was relieved when I insisted.

  It means the great Christmas tree tradition (planting/replanting, etc.) will have to be postponed until next year. I’ve slightly gone off the idea anyway. Too many slugs. In any case, truth be told, I’m looking forward to a bit of sun.

  Fin’s in London again. Has been all week. I don’t think I’ll bother to mention my anonymous column to him, even if I sell it. It may inhibit what I want to write about him at a later date.

  COUNTRY MOLE

  Sunday Times

  January

  We did it. We made the break. We sold the place in Shepherds Bush and left the Big Smoke behind us. It took us years to make the decision, months to organise the move, but we escaped, finally, on July 4th 2005.

  Seventeen days later one Hussein Osman (a.k.a. the Shepherds Bush Bomber) used our ex-neighbour’s garden to hide out from the police, and our street was evacuated for three days. So, you see, while our children were gambolling among the daisies, befriending wild hedgehogs, filling their rosy cheeks with organic vegetables and so on, their old London muckers were camping out in a community hall somewhere in Acton, waiting for the bomb detectors to allow them back into their homes. It is impossible to communicate how smug that made us feel. How smug it continues to make us feel. And I need to hold on to that.

  Because here we are, now, in our West Country idyll. Or here am I, to be more precise. The children are at school, the husband’s in Soho, working. My friends and colleagues are all in London, chatting away. And here I am in my West Country idyll, lungs bursting with fresh air and good will—and nobody to share it with. Except you. Reality is beginning to bite.

  It’s mid-morning. I’ve done the school run. I’ve admired the view from the sitting-room window; I’ve taken a turn around the utility room, and felt the usual little surge of pride. I’ve even ventured into the garden, albeit briefly. (It was a bit cold. Plus there was a slug.) I’ve checked the answer machine for messages. None. And the e-mail. None. I’ve taken another turn round the utility room, which, after nearly twenty years of hanging clothes on the banisters, never fails to soothe. And I’ve looked at my watch. Many times.

  But heck, it’s awful quiet around here.

  And it will be, I suppose, until around lunch time, when the builders come. One of whom, by the way, is truly exorbitantly good looking. They—the handsome one and another one—
are building us a kitchen in what used to be the second sitting room, and I keep popping in there in case the handsome one needs biscuits. Which he might, one time. He’s always saying no. Yesterday morning I was sitting at my desk pretending to write, ears on stalks, biscuits at the ready, but he must have tiptoed into work extra quietly. The bastard. I never heard him come in.

  Anyway, the point is, just because the handsome builder—and the other one—are more or less my only contact with the adult world these days, it doesn’t mean I have nothing better to talk about. I do. I certainly do. Slug repellant, for example. According to my handsome builder, this little corner of the West Country is a national slug hotspot, with approximately 300 slugs for every square metre of earth. I’ve told him I have grand plans to make our own garden a one hundred per cent slug-free zone; I hinted I might even get Mr Osman and his bombs down here, if that’s what it needed. I don’t think he knew what I was talking about.

  The truth is we’ve plopped ourselves in this beautiful corner of the world for all the right reasons; clean air/great schools/green fields/utility rooms. But—handsome builders aside—we don’t know a soul. Our only hope of contact with the local world is at the school gate—the very place, for lots of meanspirited reasons, I have always taken great care to avoid.

  But beggars can’t be choosers, can they? And there’s a limit to how many nights a person can spend watching DVDs of The West Wing. I’m assuming. So come three o’clock (which, incidentally, is exactly three hours and twenty-one minutes away) I’ll be slapping on my Stepford Grimace and standing at that school gate just like the rest of them: Desperately Pretending to be nicer than I am. Desperately Seeking a Social Life.

  And it’s going to be fine. In fact it’s going to be better than fine. It’s going to be thrilling. It’s a whole new adventure.

  Next Friday night, for example, the husband and I are booking a babysitter. We’re getting ourselves all togged up in black tie and ball dresses, and heading off to our son and daughter’s annual Parents’ School Dance. Imagine the fun. If you will.

  And I’m seriously looking forward to it.

  January 15th

  The tickets cost £50 each, including dinner, and the party took place in a room that looked and smelled a bit like my old school houseroom: the same mismatched, pastelcoloured walls, scuffed around the edges, and a pervasive stench of stale air, instant coffee and saliva. Actually it was the old town hall. One of the mothers, kind and welcoming as ever, had made enormous efforts to squeeze us onto her table and so I sat, adding to the festive odour, I suspect, with my very own hint of mothballs. I was underdressed in a strange pink rayon skirt and shirt ensemble, which has languished at the back of numerous wardrobes and storage boxes since I got it nearly twelve years ago. I have often wondered what possessed me to buy it in the first place—or why I ever insisted on keeping it. At least now I know that I’ll never wear it again.

  Fin and I set off for the party full of hope and good will. Fin caught an early train down and we arrived in perfect time. There was no milling about before dinner, which was good, really, since we neither of us had anyone to mill with. We were led straight away to our designated table. And things went pretty much downhill from there.

  On either side of me sat a couple of men whose faces began to merge as the evening wore on. Both had moved with their families down from London (Chiswick) within the last ten years.

  One worked in the City. He spent the week in a small flat in Hammersmith, and the weekend at home, catching up on some ‘much-needed kip’, and—presumably—having his shirts laundered for him by his wife.

  ‘We find it works very well,’ he said to me. ‘It suits us. The kids are settled. We love the school. We love the lifestyle…I can really get my head down during the week. Which is super. And of course Katie’s got her hands full with the kids!’

  He asked me what my husband did for a living.

  He had sandy-coloured hair and sandy eyelashes, a heavy metallic watch with sandy hairs encroaching, and an unyielding, incurious, slightly pudgy face. As, I’m pretty sure, did the man on the other side. But memory can play funny tricks. It’s been a couple of days since I wrenched myself from their company, and I must admit I’m having some difficulty now distinguishing between the two.

  The other man (I think) did not spend all week in London. On the contrary, he came down from his City job on Thursday nights, and spent Fridays working from home.

  ‘We find it works very well,’ he said to me. ‘It suits us. The kids are settled. We love the school. We love the lifestyle…I can really get my head down during the week. Which is super. And of course Sarah’s got her hands full with the kids!’

  He asked me what my husband did for a living, and his goldfish eyes glazed over before I had time to reply.

  I’ve never been very good at small talk. The truth is by the middle of the main course I had pretty much given up trying. One or other of the Sandy Men, in flirtatious mode, uttered a sentence which ended with the words ‘ladies and all things technical!’ and that was when I officially retired. The supreme pointlessness of our attempting to communicate any further became altogether overwhelming. My cheeks had lapsed into paralysis. My tongue had turned to lead. My heart was filled with resentment and boredom and I was thoroughly depressed. I had almost forgotten—if I’d ever even been aware—that men so unreconstructed actually existed. So I sat back and let them burble across me until coffee was served. They talked about Mercedes cars—their own and other people’s—for the rest of the night.

  At some point I looked across the table at Finley. He was faring better than I was, which wasn’t really saying much. Some jolly old bird, squeezed into a strapless ball dress she should have chucked out back in 1983, was leaning across the table towards him, pressing her discodusted boobs together while he held out a light for her cigarette. She was having the time of her life, poor girl, oblivious to the scatter-gun approach of Fin’s delightfulness, and glowing beneath his fantastic care. As he held out the flame she rested one of her hands on his arm. Her nails were freshly painted for the ball, I noted: dark plum, just like Uma Thurman’s in Pulp Fiction, all those years ago. I caught F’s eye. Noticed, beneath all the layers of delightfulness, an inescapable gleam of desperation there. It cheered me up enormously.

  We danced after that, Fin and I. To a deafeningly loud and intermittently off-key rendition of FYC’s ‘She Drives Me Crazy’. And—it was kind of lovely. London seemed a long, long way away.

  January 18th

  The carpet layer is here. He shouldn’t be, of course, because we still have a lot of building work to do; but he said he needed to shift the carpets quickly (storage space problems, apparently) which meant we either had to fit them this week or not fit them at all, and since his quote came in at £2,000 under everyone else’s ‘this week’ seemed like the way to go. No doubt we shall come to regret it.

  He’s an obvious crook, by the way. Or he looks like one. Darrell suggested him. Darrell specifically advised me not to be put off by his appearance, but it’s hard not to be. He has shifty eyes, one of which doesn’t open properly, numerous studs and hoops in both ears, and a large, shaved head with a small swastika tattooed on top. Not that I care, so long as we get the carpets in, but his villainous appearance clearly troubles him. Every time he hears my feet in the hall he comes rushing out from whichever room he’s measuring, and delivers another homily on integrity/importance of: especially in carpet layers. I nod like a puppy, of course. Nobody mentions the swastika.

  In any case he’s brought four teenage boys with him today, all of them a little damaged, by the look of things. Between them they have now removed all but one door in the house. There’s a teenager calling himself Stewart, who doesn’t seem to go in for eye contact, nor for the spoken word. But he obviously gets a hell of a lot of text messages, because for the last hour or so, while I’ve been working, he’s been standing outside the hole where my office door used to be, deleting them one by one
. And each time he deletes, it goes ‘tring’, like he’s waving a magic wand.

  Which is of course reassuring, because at least it’s proof that someone, somewhere, at some point, has been communicating with him. And not just once, but thousands and thousands and thousands of times. It means that maybe someone out there actually likes him. Or he’s a drug dealer, of course. In any case he has a relationship with the world, and that has to be something to celebrate. Maybe he’s not quite so damaged as he appears.

  January 19th

  Hatty called—for the first time in ages. I was giving the children a bath and I didn’t get to the telephone on time. She left a message, sounding high as a kite, and not saying anything of any consequence really, except that her and Damian’s five-minute film Goodbye Jesus, which has already won three minor awards at little film festivals around Europe…

  Has just been nominated for an Oscar.

  January 20th

  Darrell stayed late this afternoon—late enough for me to offer him beer instead of the usual tea and biscuits. Fantastic, as Fin would say, while texting his location manager in Bucharest.

  So I offered Darrell some beer, and he said yes! Fantastic. I think he fancies me. Maybe. A bit. Not nearly as much as I fancy him, obviously. But a little bit. Perhaps. Or he might do. I don’t know.

  Anyway it was just him and me, that’s the thing. His partner (Ralph, I think30? He’s OK but he has a nobbly head, like a bad potato; also, I suspect, beneath the friendliness, a simmering rage against toffs: both of which traits, for obvious reasons, I find a little off-putting. ) His partner ‘Ralph’ had already left. Ditto the carpet layers. Ditto Mark the painter. Ripley and Dora were in the playroom entertaining themselves—and Fin is away. (Actually he’s with his location manager in Bucharest, so no need for texting tonight. No need for worry either. Not on this occasion. She’s young, but she’s no beauty. Also, unusually stupid. I took the children to visit one of Fin’s film sets a couple of years ago and we were introduced. ‘H-E-L-L-O, M-U-M-M-Y!’ she said to me, V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y. And that was it. Amazing.)