My wife is dictating a shopping list to me in the kitchen. “Lemons,” she says. “A cucumber. No, wait – we have lemons. Dye remover for your shirt.”
At first I think she’s talking about the new white shirt that turned blue in the wash weeks ago and caused me to stop speaking for a day. But I can tell from the way she’s clamped her hand over her mouth that she’s actually talking about the shirt I bought to replace the ruined one.
“You didn’t really…” I say.
“I didn’t mean to!” she says.
I throw the pen on to the table and lower my face into my upturned palms.
“That is a complete overreaction,” my wife says.
I don’t say anything, but I think: how am I supposed to write a column about my life if the same things keep happening over and over?
That night, some friends come to dinner. Our friend Pat arrives an hour before everyone else, because he introduced me to my wife 25 years ago and views our married life as a dystopian soap opera laid on for his entertainment.
“What’s been happening?” Pat asks.
“I hope you’re not too shocked by the way he treats me,” my wife says. “He threw a pen at me today.”
“I did not,” I say. “She turned my shirt blue.”
“I read about that,” Pat says.
“I know,” I say.
“Look at his face,” my wife says. “Look at the rage.”
The next morning, the youngest one comes into my office while I’m searching for my keys.
“You owe me five quid,” he says, referring to a longstanding arrangement under which I pay my sons £5 each time I quote them directly. The economic viability of this scheme depends on them never reading anything I write.
“You weren’t quoted,” I say. “I was careful.”
“You made me look like a fool in print,” he says.
“Also online,” I say. “But you missed your plane and I had to buy a new ticket. You owe me a quote a week for the rest of the year.”
By evening, it’s apparent that I have not just mislaid my keys, but I have lost them. Actually, I’m pretty certain my wife has lost them for me, but it’s too soon after the shirt thing to frame an accusation. Also, I’ve written about my wife losing my keys before. It’s an exhausted subject.
“I can’t seem to find my keys,” I tell her the next morning. “Is there a chance you might have picked them up and then maybe forgot you…”
“No,” my wife says, “I haven’t touched them.”
I spend the day searching all the likely places, then all the unlikely places. Finally, after searching the likely places again, I go downstairs and stand directly in front of the Leicester-Arsenal match.
Ranged before me are the oldest one, his girlfriend, the youngest one and four of his friends. One of the four friends, I notice, has a large cock drawn on his face of which he is evidently unaware. He smiles, while the rest of the group regard me with expressions of studied composure. I consider the situation for a moment before speaking.
“There is a serious reward for finding my keys,” I say, sounding stern.
“Haven’t seem them,” says the youngest one, fixing me with a grave look. “Did you check under the bins?”
“Why would I…”
I stop, turn and walk out of the front door. Under the recycling bin, I find my keys mashed into the wet gravel, where they have lain since my wife put them out for the middle one two nights earlier without telling me, or remembering.
I go back inside and give the youngest one five pounds.
“You said serious,” he says.
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