I am woken by a sort of alarm – the sound of the dog’s strangled barks as it dreams about chasing something while asleep at my feet. I poke my big toe into its ribs and it stops; the equivalent of hitting snooze.
I fall back asleep and have one of those tedious dreams that amounts to a practice run for the day ahead – a dream about waking up, going downstairs and finding out there’s no milk.
A bit later, I find myself intruding on an argument between a married couple. She wants to separate; he does not. He pleads, his voice raw with emotion. I open my eyes. Their argument continues.
I roll over. My wife is awake and sitting up in bed. The man suggests counselling, but the woman is adamant: he must leave. They start shouting.
“Where is that coming from?” I say.
“My phone,” my wife says, holding it up. “Go back to sleep.”
“Is this, like, a channel that you subscribe to?”
“I’m just getting some tips,” she says. “Good, isn’t it?”
Time passes. The man moves out, and the couple begin to navigate an agonising course toward an amicable split, their voices coolly civil as they discuss the children. A little later, the woman is tortured by the possibility that the man is seeing someone else.
“Wait a minute,” I say. “She kicked him out!”
“She wasn’t happy,” my wife says.
“She’s less happy now!” I say.
“Sometimes change is painful, but necessary,” she says. “That’s the message.”
“No,” I say. “The message is, change is stupid.” I get up and go downstairs to make coffee. There is no milk.
Eventually my wife comes downstairs, boots in hand. She sits down and begins to pull them on. “Here’s what’s happening today,” she says. “First, I am going to buy dahlias. You are not invited on that trip.”
“Fine,” I say.
“Second, I am going to some sort of fair, where a friend of mine has a stall. You are invited to that.”
“OK,” I say. It actually sounds boring, but I am psychologically susceptible to the extended invitation.
An hour later, we are in the car, driving towards a train station my wife insists I’ve been to before. “I’ve never been here,” I say. “I don’t even understand where here is.”
“We’ve had lunch with people who live in that road,” she says.
“This whole bit since we drove over the lights,” I say. “I never knew it existed.”
“Oh dear,” she says. “You’ve gone mad.”
We take the train across the river and walk to the fair, which is laid out in a small park. We wander from stall to stall, picking things up and putting them down. We find a man selling vintage workwear and buy matching tops, so we look like two people employed in the same greenhouse. The whole excursion feels to me like a dress rehearsal for old age, until it occurs to me that rehearsals are over – this is the actual run. My wife says something.
“What?” I say.
“Over there,” she says. “Are you deaf as well?”
We find her friend’s stall, where a woman is examining some handmade tiles. My wife and the woman look at one another blankly for a moment.
“Hello, familiar dog person,” my wife says.
“Hello, other dog person,” the woman says. I think this means they recognise each other from walking their dogs on the same bit of scrubland over many years, but are otherwise strangers.
“Sort-of neighbour,” the woman says.
“Unnamed park lady,” my wife says.
The stall is busy and sociable. I am introduced to another woman, who seems to be helping out.
“I’m a big fan of your column,” she says.
“Oh, really?” I say. “That’s very kind of…”
“But I’m an even bigger fan of her,” she says, pointing to my wife, who is haggling over something at the back of the stall.
“Yeah, a lot of people say that,” I say.
“She’s my hero,” the woman says.
“Twelve pounds for a fucking soap dish?” my wife shouts.
“She just comes across as so great,” the woman says.
“Thank you,” I say. “That’s where the real work is.”
