I arrive first. This is always the case. Thank goodness for the Daily Mail website to look at on my phone whilst I’m waiting. Ella texts; Charlie is having a tantrum so they’re running late. At three he shouldn’t be having these hissy hits so often. Ella needs to be more organised. Frank texts. He is also late – drama at one of his sisters’ houses, washing machine regurgitating foam all over the place. He is so handy and helpful, but I think this might make him very late, so I will order a glass of wine. He doesn’t like it if I start before him. He calls this “getting a head start”. As well, he says I always take more from a shared bottle than anyone else. Except he can’t say this when we’re with Ben and Ella. He says they are total lushes which is a bit harsh, but at least with them it means I don’t get a Frank frown when the waiter tops up the glasses and mine needs the biggest refill!
Ella and Ben arrive and they are only fifteen minutes late, so dear little Charlie can’t have been having much of a tantrum after all.
“Hola, amigo!” This is Ella. She always tries to use the language of the restaurant we are eating in. Should it be amiga? Anyway, she definitely got a head start in the wine department.
“Hasta luego!” This is Ben. I think his head start started this afternoon. Why is he wearing a Swans shirt? Frank will be mortified. You don’t wear football shirts out to dinner.
“Did I marry an imbecile? That means goodbye.”
“Cheer, cheer, the red and the white! Where is Frank? Did you have a fight?”
This is Ben to the Sydney Swans tune. Whilst poking me in the ribs. He is not nearly as funny as he thinks he is.
“Stop it, Ben! Frank is on his way. I didn’t think it was AFL season?”
“His whole tragic life is an AFL season, Jos. Like I said – I married an imbecile.”
“I’m a good root, though!”
This is also not that funny, but they seem to think it is. Ella kisses Ben on the top of his head, and Ben grins, looking a little, it has to be said, imbecile-like and excessively pleased with himself.
“Whoa, top time this afternoon, Jos! Charlie was having a nap so me and Mrs had a bit of action!’
“The man’s a stud, Jos. A total stud. What can I say?”
Too much information. Really, way too much.
We order the wine and finally my man arrives. He looks less than happy. I stand up to kiss him but he kisses me back a bit tersely.
“Wine breath,” he mutters quietly.
I smile apologetically. “Sorry.”
“Are they pissed?”
“Very.”
“Make sure you don’t go the same way.”
So the night proceeds. Ella and Ben get drunker, and Frank and I stay sober. Ella goes from mildly drunk post coital contentment to quite significantly drunk complaint mode. “Why can’t we move back to London? Or go to Africa to do some voluntary work? Why does it take the offer of afternoon sex to get you away from the re-run of the 2005 Grand Final?”
Ben starts singing again. He is using one of the empty wine bottles as a microphone. “Sky rockets in flight... afternoon delight... oh yeahhhhh baby...”
Ella snorts. I can’t help laughing too. Frank gets the bill and makes sure Ella and Ben pay for most of the wine.
Ella
Genuine Australian. Not a UK visa blow in like the others. Made in the land down under.
How did I end up in a book club with three poms? God.
Ella. Thirty-seven. Jos says Jen is online dating! Can you put your profile on a site for married people who will offer sex in exchange for housework? Buxom Ella, curvy, looks a bit like Dawn French but not that fat (yet). Ella goes like a train and gives great head in exchange for you cleaning her oven. Would I have the energy, though? Last Saturday afternoon’s session was exhausting and I couldn’t help thinking when I was going to get the ironing done, even when Ben was up to his best tricks.
I think I am permanently exhausted. Fed up with a husband who can never be arsed to move from in front of the TV on Saturday afternoons. Oh, the AFL-free London years when Ben was not on his bum with the boys in the red and white. How I bloody miss them. And as Josie said, it isn’t even AFL season. Never fear. There are DVDs of this crap you can watch all summer. Ben actually gets a bit weepy watching re-runs of last year’s final when the Swans won. Such a nail biter. But the lads got there. Oh joy. Then he started watching the 2005 Grand Final. That’s when I lost it and offered sex to make it stop. It isn’t normal to be so addicted to watching a sport. If he’d chosen an eight-year-old match over the (highly unusual) offer of sex with me I would have filed for divorce. Bless the old stick, he chose me. Phew.
Speaking of boys and phew... do I detect the smell of a lugger ours has laid in his nappy? So foul-smelling a can of Glen 20 disinfectant the size of a fire extinguisher would not vanquish it? My beloved remains still couched with Swanies re-runs in footie oblivion, pretending he can’t smell it when they can probably smell it in the next suburb.
Funny, on book club nights Ben manages to change nappies perfectly well, but when I’m around he miraculously has no idea. As a thank you for caring for his child, every book club night, Ben gets some. Mind, I think I am also expressing my appreciation he isn’t Frank. And we’d have heard far too much about Frank at book club as per bloody usual.
Anyway, today being Sunday we are heading south to have lunch with Mum and Dad. I can have a good old catch up with my dear old ma.
Charlie is finally changed. Ben straps him into his car seat (to be fair, he is good at that. Charlie’s loathing for being strapped into his car seat is immense). Ten minutes into the drive to the Shire and he is fast asleep. The car is like a baby sleeping pill. Ha. Ben and I always have a good catch up heading to Ma and Pa’s on the Princes Highway.
“If you could be anyone for a week, Ben, who would you be?”
“Adam Goodes! Brilliant player. Indigenous heritage. I’d be a proud first Australian footy legend. Who would you be?”
“Jen.”
“The one with the house? I get that.”
Jen is the only one of us who has a house. Buying a house is a distant dream for Ben and me. We’ll never earn enough money, and the Sydney prices are crazy expensive. But it isn’t just the house.
“I’d have a week of freedom. I’d lie in bed on Sunday mornings reading the papers, watching telly, and eating toast. I’d book a holiday. To Goa. Or maybe Guatemala. Then I’d go shopping for my holiday. And after my holiday I’d do some voluntary work at a women’s refuge or something.”
“That’s a busy week, babe.”
“Well, you know, if it were my life that’s what I’d be planning. I’d have lots of freedom to plan to do stuff.’
“Can I be Jen with you?”
“Thought you were Adam?”
“Jen’s life sounds more fun.”
Jen
Not that I expected him to, or wanted him to, but bearded crystal-burying man never called again. Kelly asked, “Why do you care? He was an idiot.”
I said, “That isn’t the point. I don’t know why he didn’t like me.”
“Maybe he only likes idiots like him?”
I know it makes no sense to feel rejected when I would have rejected him anyway, but I just feel discarded somehow. Like I put my best self out there and said,