The Unreliable Placebo Read online

  In the remoter more outlying regions of Suffolk and Norfolk you might even be gunned down including while your back’s turned as you’ve realised your mistake and you’re trying to get away. I would say a more fitting response by an abandoned spouse would be to blow the balls off the faithless wretch before they have a chance to turn around, and then say the gun went off accidentally because you were so frightened.

  But I have no means of gunning him down, more’s the pity. I imagine he’s safe enough to let in and accordingly I scuttle back downstairs and open the door.

  “Yeeees?” I say.

  “Hello Anna,” he smiles. “Could I come in for a moment?” How can I refuse? It’s his ruddy house too! I open the door wider which is invitation enough for him and he’s in the hall like a shot. He accepts the offer of a cup of tea (he’s getting nothing stronger - I don't want any alcohol induced tantrums - and as I’ve cut down my own intake and for the time being I’m trying not to imbibe on weekday evenings, I don't see why he should be able to get merry when I can't) and goes and settles himself on one of the settees in the sitting room.

  To demonstrate that I still do have some standards and that I don't need him to bring form and order to my life, I bring the tea in on a tray with pot, cosy and everything.

  I haven't the least idea what to say to him. I haven't seen him for three or so months and I’d still seriously like to throttle him. I decide I won't make it easy for him by doling out conventional pleasantries so I pour the tea and silently wait for whatever it is he’s come to say. He looks uncomfortable which I’m very pleased indeed to see. Therefore I sit and enjoy my tea and wish I’d used de-caff as it’s already gone seven thirty and I feel sure that once he’s gone I’ll fret about whatever it is he’s come for and stay awake until the small hours, buoyed up by unaccustomed evening infusions of caffeine.

  At last the Arsehole speaks. “It’s been four months now,” he says. “I think it’s about time we thought about a divorce and sorting out the finances.”

  “Do you?” I say. I refuse to commit myself or make it easy for him though this was to be expected at some time.

  “Come on Anna! You’re a solicitor for God’s sake. You know how it goes. People want closure. They want to move on.”

  “Do they?”

  “Don't act the numbskull with me! You’re a trained mediator for God’s sake. You know people need to finalise things.”

  “Please just tell me what you want.”

  “I would have thought it was obvious!”

  “Just tell me will you.”

  “I’ve already told you.”

  “No you haven't. You haven't said how this divorce would come about or what the sorting out of finances would mean in practice. From your point of view.”

  “Well obviously you’d divorce me.”

  “Would I?”

  “Stop doing that!”

  “Doing what?”

  “Issuing these short sharp questions.”

  “It would be monumentally much easier if, as I’ve expressed a few sentences ago, you would say exactly how this divorce would come about and what you want financially.” I’m not going to do his work for him. I see no reason why I should.

  “As I said, obviously you’d divorce me.”

  “On what grounds? Humping another woman?”

  “I think the technical term is adultery. Yes. A divorce based on adultery.”

  “And what about finances?”

  “Well we’re both young,” he says. “We both have careers. We have no children. I would suggest a sale of the house and a straight split of the assets. Or if you want to keep the house, you could buy me out.”

  “Why now? Why so soon?”

  “It isn't soon. We can go to mediation if you want.”

  “OK.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. Let’s try mediation.” This is the last thing on earth I’d actually want to do but neither do I want to make any decisions right now on the spur of the moment without any time to consider. I like this house. I’ve got used to my village lifestyle and position. It’s not much but people think if you’re a solicitor you must be worth something. I might in time get asked to serve on committees, become involved in village affairs and so on. I rather like the thought of that.

  I think what I could buy with half the net proceed of sale of this place. After paying off our mortgage and even with the minuscule mortgage I could get on my income on my own, I’d get some chicken coop on one of the estates in the town where I work. I want to stay in the village. I like this house. I chose it myself as we had agreed, or I thought we had, that a place in the country would be good to bring up children.

  “Come on. You know what’s what,” says the Arsehole. “We don't need to go to mediation. A straight split of everything is all that’s required.”

  “You mentioned mediation. It’s the obvious solution.”

  “I’m not paying some crummy mediator over a thousand pounds to sit there while we agree the blindingly obvious.”

  “Why did you say we could go to mediation then?”

  “Anna. Stop being so awkward. We just split everything and that’s that.”

  “No. Why did you say we could go to mediation? You always used to do that! Make offers and suggestions and then backtrack. It doesn't make others feel confident about you and your motives or what you say. It makes people think you can't be trusted. Though fairly obviously you can't be trusted.” I want to add “you arsehole” but I don't.

  “Well at least I thought one of us should bring up the subject of divorce and moving on. We can't just drift. I should think you as much as me need to reach some resolution. It’s good for people to get some solution.”

  I sigh. “I’ll have to think about it,” I say. There’s a pause.

  “So how are you getting on? I mean generally,” he says.

  “Not too bad I suppose.”

  “Have you met anyone yet?”

  “I’ve met lots of people. Actually it’s part of my job to meet people.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Are you talking about romantic interest?”

  “Well, yes. Have you….you know!”

  “No I don't know!”

  “You know what I’m talking about. Anyone serious?”

  “You mean has any male member of the species crossed my threshold yet?”

  “Why do you have to put it like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like some sort of sordid joke. You always do that. Like nothing is serious. Everything has to be a joke with you doesn't it?” He sits there looking sulky.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Oh come on! Your silly little quips. You almost never say anything serious. Even when we were slogging away trying to have a baby for God’s sake, you made a joke of everything. You kept coming out with all these daft innuendoes and plays on words and stuff that goes on in your mind. All the bloody time!”

  “No I didn't.”

  “Yes you did! I was screwing for England for the last two years and you cheapened it with all the dross you come out with.”

  “So anyway, why do you care? You weren’t interested in me getting pregnant. Not one little bit.”

  “I don't know how you can sit there and say that. I did want a baby. I had to perform to order every bloody night.”

  “Yeah right. How terrible for you! All you were interested in was having your end away. End-Away-Arsehole. Sorry End-Away-Alfie.”

  “What d’you mean arsehole. Did you just call me an arsehole? Is that another one of your little word-play mind-game things?”

  I try to avoid explaining about that. “Look, you wouldn't try any means of assisting the process. Like getting tested or in vitro or anything like that.”

  “What just so that you could make a big joke out of every single stage. Me having to produce the goods by wanking off on a regular basis to a background of tittering and lewd comments! No thanks. I fel
t bad enough as it was, with it not working for us.”

  “Actually I don't think you have to keep on doing it over and over again. Isn't there enough sperm in one teaspoonful to populate the whole of the Western bloody world!”

  “There you go again! Flippant remarks. All the f-ing time!” I’ll give the Arsehole that. He doesn't like to use the F word on a regular basis as some men do.

  “Of course I wouldn't have made a joke of it. I was desperate to get pregnant! I don't know how you can say that.” I stop there. I feel terribly emotional. I don't know what he’s going on about. I start to cry actually.

  “You haven't any idea what it’s like for a woman,” I wail. “We’re supposed to have these careers and be ultra-tough,” (like the Backside probably though I don't say this) “dump our deepest emotions and our most basic needs and earn lots of cash and progress up the career ladder and then at the drop of a hat, we’re supposed to open our legs and become mothers. Just like that. Pop! What goes in, must come out! Except we leave it too long and then an enormous backside comes along and steals the whole thing from under our noses.”

  I sniff and get out my hanky. The Arsehole moves towards me, I think to comfort me but I recoil.

  “Stay away from me!” I say warningly. Men in this day and age know what that means. Transgress a certain point and it means an assault charge at the very least if he’s lucky. If he’s not it’s a sexual assault charge, if not an attempted rape charge.

  He backs off, sits down again and I calm down a bit.

  “Why,” I ask him, “don't you impregnate the Backside then. She’s a lot younger than me and the odds must be a hundred times better.” And she certainly needs some ballast at the front to counter-balance her enormous rear quarters, but I don't say this.

  “Don't call her that.”

  “What?”

  “The Backside. It’s horrible”

  “Well you won't tell me her name.”

  “I did tell you. It’s Perdita.”

  “Oh come on. It can't be! I thought you were making it up.”

  “Well I wasn't.” I’m still not sure I believe this.

  “OK, maybe. Anyway why don't you try and knock up the Backside if you want one so much apparently?”

  “I’m not prepared to discuss it with you,” he says primly. “You’ll just make fun of it.”

  This is quite probably true. “And yet,” I say, “you want to know what I’m getting up to in the bedroom department! Well it’s none of your business. And I’m tired and I need to make a few phone calls and then probably go to bed early.” I decide to lie. “I’ve got a headache so perhaps you’d like to leave.”

  He starts to get belligerent. “This is still my house. I don't have to leave if I don't want to. I can move back in if I want to.”

  “I’m sure the Backside would be interested to hear that,” I say, having of course no reliable means of communicating it to her.

  He gets up. “Well I hope you’ll think about what I said earlier.”

  “Yes,” I say tersely. “I’ll think about it.”

  “And you’re not looking after my plants properly.” He glances at the wilting, anaemic-looking specimens in the large bay window alcove. “I left them here so that when we sell, which we do have to, they’d make the house look good.”

  And blessedly he leaves.

  Actually I’ve deliberately neglected the plants since the Arsehole left. It was his fault I reason. When going to fertilize them recently, I felt supremely irritated due to the Arsehole having labelled up the plant fertilizer according to its pH level. Though he’s a scumbag London commodity broker now, his actual degree is in chemistry and he doesn't want anyone to forget it. It’s so pathetic. I wasn't sure what container to use on which plants so I didn't fertilize any of them. Or water any of them. I hope they all die and have to be thrown out.

  AS SOON AS he’s gone, I call my friend Sharon and ask her if she thinks I’m too flippant, don't take things seriously enough.

  “I’ve never thought about it,” she says. “I wouldn't say so really but odd things do sometimes seem to happen to you.”

  “Do they?”

  “You know there was that thing just after Alfie left.”

  I realise what she’s talking about. “Well I wasn't to know he only had one testicle.”

  “Has any more come of that?” she asks.

  “Not to my knowledge. I really couldn't take it any further in the circumstances.”

  “Well I don't think it’s so much that you’re not a serious person,” Sharon says, “but that non-serious things seem to happen to you. I’m sure you’ve got your antenna set to “serious” but it veers off and the unusual and the unlikely just overtake you without you intending it.”

  I can hear screaming and splashing in the background and I realise that she’s bathing the kids.

  “You take your mobile into the bathroom?” I ask.

  “`Course. Trust me, when you have kids, you’ll do the same. You cease to be a human being. You become a mother instead and that’s totally different. So I cart my smartphone round with me the whole time so that I can retain some link with the real world, so that it won't slip away from me completely. Perhaps some kind person will call me when I’m in the middle of bathing the kids, or reading to the kids or cooking for the kids or taking the kids to school or collecting them or helping with homework, etc, etc. and for the short time the call lasts, I’ll become a real human being again.”

  “Do you want to go out one evening?” I ask.

  Of course she does and we discuss it and that’s as far as I get trying to find out if I’m an air-head with no serious substance. I’ll have to quiz her some more when we’re out.

  Chapter 6 Ordeal by Flunitrazepam

  THERE'S A SCHOOL of thought that says that you have to try to make things happen yourself, that nothing will occur if you don’t do anything that might bring it about and that thinking about something a lot really can make it more likely to materialise. My horoscope suggested the same thing this morning i.e I've got to take active steps to further my object.

  Ordinarily I don’t take much notice of horoscopes. In fact I think they have no rational basis at all any more than reading tea leaves or telling the future from crystals. I mean astrology can't have any real authenticity. For a start when you look up into the sky, the stars in the constellations aren't really in those positions. Some of them are much further away than others. It's just the order in which you see them from the position in which you're standing. It's a matter of perspective. If you were able to travel to a planet billions of miles from earth, and looked up into the sky at the very same stars, then you wouldn't see them in the same formations at all. Even down in the southern hemisphere, you can't see Ursa Major at the pole. You see the Southern Cross instead.

  And while we're talking about hemispheres, most if not all of the astrology that you hear about must have developed in the northern hemisphere because it's all about the constellations as we see them from Europe etc and there were no civilisations that left written records behind in the southern hemisphere. Nothing like Greek or Roman from which our own language developed; who named the Gods and dreamed up the mythologies that for example had the mortal Castor being allowed by Jupiter a place in the heavens with his brother Pollux to form the constellation Gemini or the beautiful youth Ganymede being whisked away to the heavens by a lovesick Jupiter to serve forever as Aquarius, cupbearer to the Gods. So doesn't that mean that people in the southern hemisphere can't have horoscopes because they couldn't have been born when Taurus, say, was visibly in the ascendant or been born under the sign of Capricorn for example, could they?

  No it's all tosh. A Tory MP said recently that astrology had a role to play in healthcare. He apparently was born under the sign of Capricorn himself. He also mentioned homeopathy. He's a member of the Science & Technology Committee which is supposed to ensure that government policy and decision making is based on good scientific and engineer
ing advice and evidence according to www.parliament.uk. Should I be worried by this? Because it is a little worrying. Prof Brian Cox had plenty to say about it on an Australian chat show with Robin Ince.

  Still, if my horoscope says I should be proactive (it doesn’t say about what leaving that tantalising possibility that whatever I apply it to, if positive results come about, then I may think that horoscopes really do work) then I should at least give it a go and I stretch to reach my smartphone on the bedside table trying not to knock over the glass of Baileys (my chosen comfort drink tonight). In my current circumstances an innocent diversion that does no harm has to be grasped and indeed embraced. I often find that if my horoscope says anything remotely earth shattering any day (as opposed to mere bland generalisations that could apply to just about anyone on the planet as they mostly do) I can't help going back to it time after time and later taking it to bed with me with a large glass of some sort of tipple and weaving all sorts of intricate fantasies around it.

  I reckon I'll phone Simmsey. Why not? I don’t fancy him in the least. He really is the epitome of my good old pal with whom I could never have any kind of serious relationship, not even a serious friendship because we could never be serious about anything. It would always be a complete usually drunken hoot. On the scale of just good mates versus someone with whom one could have a serious romantic relationship with JGMs being 1 and SRRs being 10, I find I'm fairly relieved to mentally place Dennis at a good 8 at least if not a 9 or even 10. Simmsey of course would never make it past 1 but I wouldn't mind spending an evening with him just for the entertainment value.

  I have his card on my bedside table next to the phone but as I touch the phone, it starts to vibrate and I draw back momentarily. Then I pick it up and it displays a mobile number I don’t immediately recognise. Still nothing ventured and with my horoscope and proactivity in mind I press to connect and wouldn't you know it; it's Simmsey. I'd recognise those laid back tones anywhere, especially not having very long previously been fed into a taxi by him after we jointly scared off my date for the evening.