After a month of calm, things are happening in the new house. Cupboards are being constructed. Light fittings are finally unpacked. Painters are due to start in a week.
My wife decides this is the ideal time to go to Croatia. Listening to her make arrangements on the phone, it becomes clear that her plans do not include me: she is going with three friends.
“When are you leaving?” I say.
“Tomorrow morning,” she says. “Which is when the electrician is coming, so you need to mark the spots on the ceiling where the kitchen lights go.”
“We need to decide where the table goes first,” I say.
“Let’s do that now, shall we?” she says.
We spend half an hour pushing the kitchen table at each other, in a bid to determine an optimal position between the sink and the wall. It gets a little bad-tempered in a way that’s not really about the table. “Don’t just move the top,” I say.
“I’m not,” she says.
“Move the legs,” I say. “The top is not attached to the legs.”
When she goes upstairs to pack, I measure the table lengthways and draw a line midway across it with a pencil. I draw more lines from corner to corner in the two halves, then I climb on the table and hang a plumb line from the ceiling until it dangles over the spot where the diagonals cross.
My wife walks in with her passport in her hand.
“You need to approve my ceiling marks,” I say.
She looks up. “They’re a bit close together, aren’t they?” she says.
My jaw sets. “I’ve arrived at them through a highly scientific process,” I say, “which I’m happy to explain.”
“There’s pencil all over the table,” she says.
“I’m going to sand it down and re-do it, anyway,” I say.
“Oh yeah?” my wife says. “When?”
“At some point,” I say.
The next day, I’m left with a list of talking points for the electrician, who doesn’t turn up. The house is silent except for the whine of a circular saw in the front garden.
In the afternoon, I go out to buy food and some things I think I might need to refinish the kitchen table. By the time I return, the oldest one has turned up from somewhere and is smoking by the open back door. “Are you in or out tonight?” I ask.
“Not sure,” he says.
“I need to know,” I say. “There’s a chicken.”
“What are your plans for it?” he says.
“I thought I might spatchcock it,” I say.
“Intriguing,” he says, exhaling.
“Other people spatchcock chickens all the time,” I say. “Why not me?”
“Go for it,” he says.
The middle one walks into the kitchen, opens a cupboard and shouts, “Food!” The oldest one’s friend turns up on a bicycle. The youngest one appears, then disappears. The oldest one’s girlfriend arrives with an overnight bag. In my wife’s absence, my local reputation as a soft touch is quickly re-established.
The next morning, the oldest one’s girlfriend comes downstairs, which I know is no harbinger of his imminent rising. “Are you sanding this today?” she asks, pointing to the table, which is piled high with dirty plates and glasses.
“I can’t sand it like that,” I say.
“No,” she says.
I look in the fridge. “Where’s all the food?” I say. “I can’t believe I need to get more food.”
My wife rings as I’m walking down the road. “Can I help you, caller?” she says.
“You called me,” I say.
“Did I?” she says.
“What have you been doing?” I say.
“What haven’t we been doing,” she says. “Dancing, crashing scooters. We went to a trance festival last night. And you?”
“I’m standing outside Morrisons,” I say.
“He’s standing outside Morrisons,” my wife says. In the background, I hear the laughter of at least four other people.
“So, anyway,” I say.
“Gotta go – lunch,” she says. “I’m not as pissed as I sound, honestly. Shit! Ow, bye.”
The phone goes dead as I step through the supermarket doors, fishing in my pocket for a pound coin for the trolley.
