‘You have man flu!’ I said unsympathetically.
Simon moaned pathetically. ‘I think it might be Zika virus,’ he whimpered.
‘How can you have Zika virus? You haven’t been anywhere with Zika!’ I pointed out briskly.
‘I was in London last week. There was a woman on the Tube who kept coughing. That could be where I caught it.’
‘No, darling, you did not catch Zika on the Tube, because it is not an airborne virus. It is spread by the special Zika mosquitoes. And anyway, Zika is only serious if you are a pregnant woman, and last time I looked, my love, you were neither a woman nor pregnant! So I think perhaps you might be malingering a little and making something of a meal out of the fact that you are suffering from a common fucking cold!’
‘I’m sure I have a fever,’ Simon mewed, still tapping away at Dr Google. ‘Can you take my temperature? Ebola is airborne. Maybe I’ve got Ebola. The first symptoms are a fever, a headache, joint and muscle pain, a sore throat and severe muscle weakness. I have all of them! Oh God, I have Ebola. I’m going to die. Don’t you even care? You are so unfeeling. Please take my temperature.’
‘If you did have Ebola, why would I want to come anywhere near you?’ I said. ‘But you don’t. You have a severe case of hypo-fucking-chondria, that’s all.’
‘My poor nose is so sore,’ sniffed Simon. ‘Why don’t we have any of the special Balsam tissues?’
‘Because they cost twice as much as ordinary tissues.’
‘Why are you so unsympathetic?’ he whimpered.
‘Because you have a cold. A fucking cold! Man the fuck up!’ I snapped brusquely.
‘But I feel so ill. It must be more than a cold. Please take my temperature.’
‘You know the most reliable way to take a temperature is rectally …’ I said evilly.
‘What? No! You’re not putting it up my bum! Just put it under my arm or something.’
‘That gives very inaccurate results …’
‘I just want a bit of love and sympathy from my wife. Is that too much to ask for? Just a little bit of nurturing, but instead you are threatening to violate me with a thermometer. Why are you so cruel?’
‘I am sympathetic. I made you a cup of tea when I got home from picking up the kids and made no comment whatsoever on the bloody mess you made in the kitchen while I was gone, while apparently being too sick to get off the sofa!’
‘I was just trying to keep my strength up,’ whispered Simon feebly.
‘Well, now you have fortified yourself, you need to look after the children and keep them QUIET, because I have this phone interview at 5.30 p.m. Do you think you can do that?’
‘What? Who has a phone interview at that time?’ scoffed Simon.
‘One of them’s in America.’
‘So?’
‘The time difference? I can take the call upstairs, if you can just keep the kids down here and out of my hair so I can actually concentrate and hear myself think. Please, Simon, this is important!’
‘But I feel awful,’ groaned Simon. ‘What am I supposed to do with them? Can’t you just tell them to play quietly or something?’
‘NO! Someone needs to be supervising them, because otherwise, the minute I am on the phone their radar pricks up and they immediately start causing havoc and barging in and screaming and bellowing. Don’t you remember a couple of years ago when I tried to have a work call at home and we ended up in A&E because Peter managed to get a pea stuck up his nose?’
Simon looked blank. ‘Did he?’
I sighed. ‘No, of course you don’t remember. You weren’t here. You were on yet another trip, which was why I was dealing with everything by myself, yet again, which is why it would be nice if just for once you could help me out and keep the kids out of the way.’
‘I’m just saying, I’m not well,’ complained Simon. ‘Yet I’m supposed to look after the kids. You know, my mother would never have expected my father to look after us.’
‘What the fuck does that have to do with it?’ I snapped. ‘You are not your father and I am not your mother and this is the twenty-first fucking century, so just get with the programme and LOOK AFTER YOUR CHILDREN because I am going to get ready for my call!’
‘But what about dinner?’ Simon wailed plaintively after me. ‘Am I expected to do that too?’
‘I’ll make dinner when I’ve finished,’ I shouted over my shoulder. ‘Just keep the kids QUIET!’
The call started well. Max, the very important boss man, turned out to be American as well as being in America, so he did that lovely American thing of being very jolly and positive and polite. Ed still did not say much, and mostly was a slightly disturbing heavy-breathing presence on the line while Max and I chatted. After about twenty minutes there was a screech from downstairs. I tensed. Shortly afterwards there were thunder footsteps on the stairs, and I braced myself, while seething with fury. Then the hammering on the door and the bellowing began.
‘Is everything OK, Ellen?’ asked Max kindly. ‘There seems to be kinda a funny noise coming from your end?’
‘Yes.’ I said desperately. ‘It’s, err, it’s a crossed line, I think.’
‘A crossed line?’ said Max in confusion. ‘Isn’t this your cell phone though? I didn’t think you could get crossed lines on a cell. Heck, I didn’t think you still got crossed lines at all!’
‘It’s, um, it’s a British thing.’ I improvised as the screaming increased, and I thanked my lucky stars that at least the bedroom door had a lock so the little fuckers couldn’t get in. ‘We still get them because our networks … errr … the war … you know?’
Ed made what could have been a snort of derision, or possibly just a snore because he had fallen asleep, having not said anything for the last fifteen minutes, and Max said, ‘The war? Um, OK, I didn’t know that, that’s interesting.’
I tried desperately to concentrate and sound calm and professional for the brief remnants of the rest of the conversation, but I think the damage was done by my frantic babblings about the war. Everyone knows you Don’t Mention the War. I know almost every episode of Fawlty Towers off by heart, so why the FUCK would I mention the war instead of just apologising and explaining that it was my delinquent hell-fiend children?
I stormed downstairs afterwards to find Simon sauntering out of the loo with a self-satisfied expression on his face.
‘What the fuck do you think you were doing?’ I yelled. ‘You just had to keep the kids quiet for a bit. That was all. Where were you?’
‘I had to go for a shit,’ said Simon indignantly. ‘I TOLD you I wasn’t well. I’m all out of sorts. Usually I only shit in the mornings – I’m very regular – but clearly the Ebola has affected my digestion.’
‘And you couldn’t wait? You couldn’t hang on till I was off the phone, so I could actually have what is possibly the most important call of my life in peace without the children fighting outside the door because apparently Peter has taken some fucking keyring of Jane’s and so her honour was impugned and she had to scream the house down about it, despite neither of them having a key to put on it? You couldn’t have just left it for a FEW BASTARDING MINUTES?’
‘When you have to shit, you have to