I am sitting alone in the garden on what may be Britain’s nicest day, not speaking to my wife. I am also trying to read the paper while the tortoise tries to bite my toes.
I am armed with a small handful of cherry tomatoes; every time the tortoise gets too close to my feet, I roll one across the patio and he turns and goes after it. Once he’s eaten the tomato, he returns to my toes, and I roll another one. It’s a bit like playing catch with a dog, but much, much slower.
I reflect on the reason I am not speaking to my wife. It’s one of the five Saturdays in the year when twin hairdressers Kelly and Hayley come to the house to do all our heads for a bulk price. This time Hayley couldn’t come, saddling Kelly with the additional role of colourist. I feared the mnemonic I use to distinguish between the twins – Kelly cuts, Hayley highlights – would be thrown into confusion, but that is not why I am not speaking to my wife.
Earlier that morning, with Kelly already at work on her head, my wife decides she would like a glass of fizzy water.
“We don’t have any fizzy water,” I say.
“I know,” my wife says. The implication – that I should run out and get some – strikes me as presumptuous, and I also feel she is preying on my need to seem like a good person in front of Kelly. But that is not why I am not speaking to her.
“Of course,” I say, heading for the door. I walk to the shop, return with the fizzy water, pour my wife a glass, and make a coffee for myself and Kelly.
“Two sugars, please,” Kelly says.
“Certainly,” I say. But there’s no sugar in the bowl, or in the cupboard. It’s clear that when even the icing sugar ran out, my children used up all the honey and then resorted to pouring maple syrup into their tea. Unwilling to be an agent of disappointment, I slip from the room, jog back to the shop and buy a bag of sugar. On my way home I think: you actually are a good person.
Ten minutes later, my wife announces that she has run out of nicotine gum. She gives me a meaningful look, which I return. Then I point.
“Shop’s that way, missus,” I say.
“I can’t go like this!” she says. Her head, I see, is a full helmet of foil flaps.
“Yes, you can,” I say.
“Please,” she says. I walk to the chemist and get the gum, feeling put-upon in a vaguely ennobling way.
“Here you are,” I say, handing my wife the box. “Chew your brains out.”
“Thank you,” she says. “I forgot to say that you need to get Kelly’s money.”
This is why I am not speaking to my wife: she has overdrawn on my stores of forbearance by one fool’s errand. To be fair, she didn’t know about the secret sugar run, but still: I could have accomplished everything in a single trip, had she only enough regard for my time to coordinate her desires. Plus, I had to nurse my fury through a whole haircut.
I look down to see the tortoise eyeing my big toe and I roll my last tomato. It occurs to me that my wife may not know that I am not speaking to her.
I find her in bed, reading. She puts down her book and looks at me, her hair short and lightly streaked.
“It’s Britain’s nicest day,” I say. She returns her gaze to the book.
“I’m not speaking to you,” she says.
