The ABCs of Love (8 page)

The trouble is, you can’t go to bed with money. It can’t hug you and stroke you and tell you that everything is going to be all right. As soon as you have it, it covers you up, so everyone expects you to take charge. To be the one to tell everyone else that everything is going to be all right. To take the Responsibility.

In fact, my solicitor is the only person who knows about the legacy. Sometimes if I try very hard, I can forget about it myself. I can even enjoy dreaming with John about how we would spend our imaginary millions. This has become one of our favorite topics of conversation. Sometimes I wonder if it is what holds us together. We have such plans that would all come true if only we had the money.

See also Danger; Jealousy; Teaching; Velvet; Yields

mustache

I had the idea to make a giant heart out of chicken wire and fill it with white fairy lights as a surprise for John. I went to the hardware shop to get the stuff but wasn’t sure what wire cutters to buy. When I asked someone, I suddenly found myself surrounded by four men offering me different advice. They were all very interested in what I was doing, and two of them even offered to come round and help me if I hit problems.

On my way home, it struck me that I had stumbled onto something important. Women spend all this time and money on finding Mr. Right. What they don’t realize is that men are there all the time, lurking in the aisles of DIY shops. All you have to do is buy wire cutters.

I think I am finally coming to understand the secrets between men and women. John was feeling around my face with his fingertips the other night. He traced the outline of my nose, pressing the end with his thumb. He told me that his mother used to do this when he was a little boy so he would have a round nose like hers and not his father’s beak.

He then rested all his fingertips over my upper lip. “I love your mustache,” he said. I felt myself go tense, especially when he leaned forward and dolloped out little butterfly kisses all over my face. Was he joking?

I pushed him away. “What’s wrong?” he asked. He really couldn’t understand.

“I haven’t got a mustache,” I said. “Men have mustaches, not women.”

“But you’ve got such a wonderful one,” John said. “It’s beautiful. You’ve no idea how it turns me on. I wish you wouldn’t pluck out the hairs like you always do.”

I couldn’t believe it. I have spent so many years trying to hide the fact that I have facial hair, and here was someone telling me it was sexy. My stomach turned over with love for John. If only men would realize that this is all women need. To be desired without boundaries, to be loved for all the things we have got wrong with us, not for what we would like to be.

See also Hair; Vacuuming; Women’s Laughter

mystery tours

My father was brought up in a cathedral city, and when he used to take Mum off for their little holidays, I would stay with my grandparents there. In the cathedral, there was an effigy of a dead body that had been carved after the body was buried and dug up. It had worms coming out from its skull. My grandmother would always take me to see it and then leave me there while she went shopping.

As another special treat, we would go to the department store where there was a cage of stuffed birds. If you put a penny in, they would come to life and sing to you. I got told off once for hitting a small boy who just stood by, watching the birds sing, while I used up all my pocket money. Maybe, my grandmother said afterward, he didn’t have any money and that was his only chance of happiness. “Don’t you feel guilty because you have so much?” she asked me.

I thought about this a lot, and even though I didn’t have any dessert that day, I was still glad I hit him.

Once she took me on a mystery tour. We had to get on a coach in the town center first thing in the morning, and we didn’t have a clue where we were going. The coach was full of old people, and my grandmother kept telling me how exciting it was. We went down so many bumpy roads, I started to feel sick, but we drove and drove and drove until we came to a pub and the coach driver got out and had a drink. My grandmother bought me a warm lemonade and some crisps, and then when I went to the loo, a wasp drowned in my lemonade. I couldn’t have another because it was time to drive back home. When I called my parents that evening, my grandmother shouted to me that I should tell them what fun we had. So I did.

For years afterward, everyone kept telling me how much I enjoyed mystery tours until I nearly believed them.

See also Dreams; Jealousy; Kisses; Underwear

N

names

My father told me that when he was growing up, there was a family on his road who called their sons by the days of the week and their daughters by the months of the year. They only reached June with the girls, but the boys went right through the week. My father’s particular friend was called Saturday Smith.

We used to talk about names a lot in our family. That’s what made me realize how much they matter. Once my father hit the dining-room table with the flat of his hand because he’d got into a blind rage about why someone would call their child James James. That’s what got me thinking that maybe your name becomes more important than something you just have dangling down from your body, like a scarf or a handbag. Your name gets into your lifeblood, so a Jane is always going to be different from a Mercedes. A Daisy from a Violet. A Kate from a Verity.

In which case, it worries me even more how many Conservative politicians are named Norman.

“How many people do you know called Norman?” I asked John one night. He said he knew no one personally.

“Now think how many Conservatives you can name,” I said. “They even marry Normas. Is this something that happens at birth, or do you turn Conservative from years of being bullied at school?”

John told me that he was at school with someone who wanted to be a spy. This boy would never let himself be photographed in case it could be used against him later. John couldn’t remember his name, even when I told him I was at school with a girl called Jackie Gotobed.

See also Codes; Surnames; Words

new men

Sally and I agree that we could never love a new man. It’s not just the sandals either. It’s the lack of juice. You want to feed them raw steak. John says that what he loves most about me is the way I desire him. He says it makes him feel real. I can’t talk about this with Sally. She’d think I was just a sex object for John.

See also Marathons; Phone Calls; Rude; Sex

noddy

John was once sitting down watching television with his wife when he remembered a joke someone had told him. He laughed so much that his wife prodded him to shut up, but John was so helpless with laughter, he rolled off the sofa and onto the carpet. He sobered up then and got back up. Neither of them referred to the incident at all. They just carried on watching the program. This has worried John for a long time, which is why I try to laugh with him at the joke; but if I’m honest, I find it sad rather than funny. This is how it goes:

Noddy was going to see his good friend Big Ears. He woke up in the morning and was very excited.

“Thank you, bed,” he said, “for letting me sleep so well so I can be wide awake to see my good friend Big Ears.”

And then he went to the bathroom.

“Thank you, bathroom,” he said, “for letting me use you so I can be well prepared to see my good friend Big Ears.”

And then he went to have some breakfast.

“Thank you, kitchen,” he said, “for being there so I can prepare food to give me energy to see my good friend Big Ears. Thank you, food,” he said as he ate, “for filling me up so I can see my good friend Big Ears. Thank you, floor,” he said as he crossed the room, “for taking me to the door so I can see my good friend Big Ears. Thank you, door,” he said as he went outside, “for letting me out of the house to see my good friend Big Ears.”

He went to his car. “Thank you, car,” he said as he got in, “for taking me to see my good friend Big Ears.”

He drove along. “Thank you, tarmac; thank you, pavement; thank you, traffic signals; thank you, map; thank you, road directions; thank you, thank you, thank you, everyone who is helping me see my good friend Big Ears.”

He parked outside his friend’s house. “Thank you, road, for letting me leave my car so I can see my good friend Big Ears. Thank you, gate, for opening so I can go and see my good friend, Big Ears. Thank you, path, for taking me up to the house of my good friend Big Ears. Thank you, doorbell, for letting me ring to alert my good friend Big Ears.”

He waited until he could hear footsteps coming down the stairs inside the little house.

“Thank you, stairs,” he whispered, “for bringing my good friend Big Ears closer and closer to me.”

At last, Big Ears opened the door.

“Fuck off, Noddy,” he said.

See also Doors; Houses; Liqueur Chocolates; Youth

normals

Last summer Sally and I were on a train when we noticed that the two men in the seats across the aisle had not looked at us once.

This was puzzling.

I thought they must have been trainspotters, but Sally listened to their conversation for a bit. It turned out that what they actually spotted was the stations. They rode on trains every day, choosing lines that took them through the most number of stations. Then they wrote the names down in a big book.

We couldn’t stop laughing. Every time we thought we’d got it under control, the train would glide past some deserted platform with one of those swinging signs, and we’d hear the shuffle of papers opposite us and we’d be off again. We were crying and making little squeaks like baby pigs. Sally’s nose was starting to run.

The men did look at us then. One of them even shrugged and spat out the word
normals
.

I asked Brian about this the next day. He said that a friend of his who sometimes liked to go trainspotting— well, anyway, this “friend” had heard that people who didn’t like trainspotting were called “Normals.” I couldn’t explain to Brian why I found this insulting. I just did.

He told me then that naturists—and another “friend” of his apparently has been known to go to nudist beaches—called people who wore clothes “Textiles.” He kept on about this for the rest of the day as if it were a joke both of us shared.

“How are you doing, Textile?” he’d shout across from his desk.

The trouble with Brian is that he doesn’t know when he has taken things too far.

See also Bosses; Firefighting; Glenda G-spot; Words; Zero

nostrils

Sophia found me crying in the ladies’ room at work. Of all the people to see me at my worst, she would be one of the last people I’d pick. It’s not just the fact that she is the company accountant. It’s her nostrils. They’re more on show than anyone else’s. It’s as if she’s put two fingers up her nose and turned it inside out. Her nostrils are long and stretched, and the skin’s boiled red inside. It’s difficult to look at Sophia and think of anything else. I would hate to see Sophia with a cold. Just the thought of it makes me feel physically sick.

Sophia took me by the hand and led me into her office. She put me in a chair in the corner of the room and just ignored me. Eventually, I stopped sobbing and stood up.

“It won’t be the last time it happens,” she said, barely looking at me. “And every time it does, you will think this really is the end, that this time you’ll never get back with each other, and your heart will break again and again until you don’t think you can bear it anymore. But I promise you that you’ve a long, hard journey ahead. You won’t be able to leave each other alone, and it will hurt just as much each time one of you decides that you must part.”

“How did . . .”

“Oh, I don’t know the details of your particular relationship,” she said. “But I do know about pain indexes, believe me. And men. He won’t be worth it. They never are.”

Then she handed me a mirror before going back to her columns of figures.

“You’d better freshen up,” she said. “You look a mess.”

I stared at my reflection. My eyes were puffy and red, but who was she to call me a mess? At least I have always been lucky with the shape and size of my nostrils.

See also Friends; Kindness; Wrists

nursing

If I could change just one thing about John, it would be the way he is always complaining about being ill. Last Monday, for example, he was moaning about a pain in his arm.

“It is either a strain from all the gardening Kate made me do over the weekend or the last stages of a cancerous tumor,” he whinged. I tried to take his mind off it, but I noticed he kept rubbing the spot and looking worried, as if he might die at any minute.

I told Sally about it. I shouldn’t have done that because she kept mocking John, rubbing her forehead and saying that either she was bored with talking about him or she was in the last stages of a terminal tedium. But then she had a good idea.

Now, whenever John complains about being ill, I am incredibly sympathetic. I tell him he should tell Kate to massage him gently for a long time or to cook him special meals or to go buy him expensive and elusive medicines.

“Do you think so?” he asks, hopefully.

“I do,” I say. “I think this is something she needs to take very seriously indeed. I would, if I were her.”

See also Illness; Stationery; Teaching; Women’s Laughter