LITMIR.BIZ

       JULY

       ‘The chains of marriage are so heavy that it takes two tobear them, and sometimes three.’

      ALEXANDRE DUMAS

      Friday 1 July

      She’s alive! Operation was a success. Important stuff intact. Not counting the dead-leg chair-nap, I haven’t slept a wink. Went home for a couple of hours to change pants and so forth. Tried to rest but had nightmares about being attacked by a gang of inflamed orangutans. Whoever said all men’s dreams were about sex was lying.

      Isabel releases herself mid-afternoon (like in soaps when the patient ill-advisedly tears out her own tubes and storms out of the ward), and we get home just in time for one of the idiots upstairs to start practising his new set of drums.

      I am in no mood for drums.

      As I ring the upstairs doorbell, I am a creature of crimson terror, a brooding, fearsome primeval ape-man from the dawn of time: hideous, malevolent, aggressive, coiled. I am the Incredible Hulk in shirt-splitting mid-transition. I am King Kong with hunger anger.

      The door is opened by one of the idiots.

      ‘My wife has just had a major operation on her labia,’ I roar-whisper, the way an unpredictable serial killer would. ‘She has just spent a whole night being operated on and then a whole day in an NHS ward full of moaning grannies and superbugs. She could well have MBNA. She has survived an ordeal and I. Am. Her. HUSBAND.’

      Pause for effect. I exude boiling, molten rage.

      ‘Do you mean MRSA?’

      The idiot shifts his cool, slouchy weight from one foot to the other.

      ‘It doesn’t matter what I mean. What are you going to do about it?’

      More boiling moltenness but he doesn’t look as threatened or apologetic as I had hoped. He looks a little sleepy.

      ‘Do about what?’

      ‘THE DRUMS. THE BLOODY DRUMS. Would you mind not playing your drums today?’

      Another pause. More boiling.

      ‘Or for the rest of the week?…Or, in fact, for-fucking-ever?’

      He looks at me nonchalantly. I look at him as if I’m a stick of dynamite.

      ‘I don’t have any drums,’ he says with a cool, calm shrug. ‘That’s why you can still hear drumming even though I’m here talking to you. It’s the flat next door.’

      For the rest of the day, I’m in full hand-and-foot waiting mode.

      Initially, this is an immense pleasure. My poor recovering wife needs me. I have a role. I am a man with a role. I am protecting the womenfolk. I will silence drummers and top up hot-water bottles. It is the north London equivalent of forming a defensive ring of prairie wagons, then fending off Red Indians with Smith & Wessons.

      ‘Can I have some Marmite toast?’ Of course, darling, coming right up.

      ‘Oh, can you cut it into soldiers?’ No problem, sweetie.

      ‘Can I have another cup of tea?’ That’s fine, sugar.

      ‘Oh, you’ve just sat down but I need another cushion from the bedroom. Are you sure you don’t mind?’ Your wish is my command, buttercup.

      Gradually, the novelty of being needed wears off. Yes, I’ll get your magazine, your book, your bed socks, your smelly candle. But do you really want chicken soup, dearest? We’ve got vegetable soup. Nice organic vegetable soup. It’s your favourite. No? Okay, I’ll go back to the shops where I’ve just been to buy your Purdey’s and get some chicken soup.

      By eight, it is clear that I am being exploited.

      ‘Darling, I’m sorry. Can you get my face cream, my lip balm, my hair band and some Shreddies with double cream?’ For someone who is allegedly unwell, she rattles off the list with surprising sprightliness. And she’s got a lot more colour in her cheeks. I sigh like an overworked, underpaid NHS nurse at the end of another grinding shift and go about my duties.

      Then, the TV premiere of The Bourne Identity clashes with a two-hour documentary about Rudolf Nureyev.

      ‘Aren’t you tired, darling?’ I ask hopefully.

      No.

      ‘The doctor did say you should rest as much as possible in the first forty-eight hours.’

      No.

      ‘Wouldn’t you rather watch something less taxing than a documentary? The Bourne Identity, for example, is on at exactly the same time as Nureyev: the Man, the Ballerina, and it’s supposed to be great fun. Very light.’

      No.

      SOME OF THE THINGS I NOW KNOW ABOUT RUDOLF NUREYEV

      He was born on a train going to Vladivostok, where his father served in the army.

      At ballet school, he was incredibly stroppy, perhaps because of an internal conflict over his sexuality.

      He didn’t like non-celebrities.

      He might have slept with Anthony Perkins.

      Saturday 2 July

      Alex came around early and unannounced, gushing concern like he would gush blood out of a deep arterial wound if I took an axe to him: ‘I didn’t know, I hadn’t heard, oh my God, babes, are you okay? You poor, poor thing.’

      Despite his allegedly broken arm, he has carted a bunch of flowers the size of a small tree with him, which he picked and arranged himself. And some organic chicken soup.

      ‘I know how you love chicken soup when you’re under the weather, babes. We’ll have you right as rain in no time.’

      After an interminable chat about how wonderful last night’s Nureyev documentary was, he leaves, wincing a bit to remind

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