Fantasy

In January, I spend a happy weekend surfing lovely places to stay. I book judiciously, and soon I have little entries on the calendar for April, a weekend in July, and two weeks in August. I spend the rest of the year feeling smug and I pack a perfect capsule wardrobe a precise two days before each thoroughly enjoyable jaunt.

Reality

I spend a weekend in January feeling suicidally depressed, and as a result I book a ruinously expensive holiday in Barbados in April. We go, we get stuck because of the volcanic ash and go a bit native and, because of the sheer loveliness of the holiday, and the great kindness and hospitality of the friend who had us to stay, I come back to the grey UK feeling, ho-hum, a bit down.

To cheer myself up again, I immediately start trying to book the summer holiday. Yippee, I am invited to France for the second half of August by a lovely friend. I consult with Mr X. Of course. He has already earmarked the second half of August. I could shift him, I suppose, but it would be just the latest in a long list of crimes of which I am guilty, guilty, guilty. Sigh. Bye bye lovely friend.

Instead, I make enquiries of a delightful relative we sadly only see once a year. They have a booking schedule which makes George Osbourne’s budget calculations (note the topical political reference! Don’t anyone say I can’t tangle with stuff outside my own head now and again) look like a scrawl on the back of an envelope. Reading their emails literally makes my head swim. Does any of this fit with the few days I have tentatively pencilled into the yawning chasm of the summer holidays? I seriously couldn’t tell you.

Meanwhile, another fab friend asks if we’d like to halve a week in a holiday cottage – we’d only coalesce for one crowded day, but it’s in a lovely area and as it’s only half the normal tarriff, it’s cheap. Yay! But wait a minute, I’ve just got to check with the relatives …..one of those dates could have been a clasher. Or could it?

And a weekend right at the end of August? Hmmm, that encroaches on Mr X’s time. Hang on a minute while I check with him …..

And a dear friend from Belgium would like to pop in, sometime round the middle of August. Er, hang on a second, we’d love to see you but, erm, where’s my diagram ….

OMG. I need a holiday.

Even when I was married, we rarely made it to concerts together, as Mr X travelled so much for his work. But somehow, knowing that I am nostalgic for something that never existed doesn’t make the longing any less keen. I still like Norman Rockwell’s pictures even though I’ve never sat down to one of those huge family dinners.

The concert, though, was transcendent. The church itself is beautiful – there was some debate over whether the interior is Pugin, or Pugin revival, or just Pugin inspired, but it is gorgeous. The accoustics, too, are amazing, and the girls’ sweet voices soared to fill every corner. The bill of fare was a little mixed – Chatanooga Choo Choo was in there, along with a fantastic Gloria and a melancholy Scottish air. This was, of course, my favourite – though I did keep hearing the line, ‘he stole my rose and left me only with a thorn,’ and wonder if it was entirely suitable for our precious daughters to be singing.

A lovely, if poignant, evening -  a rose with a thorn, I suppose.

It’s been a long, long slog getting the book into print. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Ok, for a week or two, I wanted to be a ballerina, but from the age of 11 onwards, I just wanted to write books. I wrote endless stories as a child and daydreamed plots as I grew up. I got a job writing – as a journalist – but was always jotting down ideas, reading enviously of other people’s literary successes, and dreaming of the day when I’d be a published novelist. 

Then I realised I’d actually have to write a book to get published. I limbered up with a couple of attempts at Mills and Boon romances when on maternity leave (the rejections were as firm as the pulsating manhoods I wrote about) and then decided to have a proper go when Child One started primary school in Belgium in 2001. I told all my friends I was going to write a novel, so that I’d have to keep going or lose face forever, and thought it would take a couple of years or so. I’ve pretty much been at it ever since.

It’s now been through many drafts and a couple of agents. I’ve even had quite a lot of working titles, before I lighted on Hot Chocolate, which I do think is a fab name. Of course, the book is now published under the title Schokohertz - symbolic of the way nothing about it  has turned out the way I thought it would. I was, I thought, happily married when I started to write it, and the book had a sad ending. Now it has a happy ending – oopsie, given that away – and I am divorced. Who’d have thought?

I used to write full time in Belgium. Things have inevitably been more scrappy here, as I struggle to cope with my new status as a single mother, worker, blogger and, in the odd moment that remains, novelist. But I never quite lost faith, even when, in a spooky moment, I cut a pack of Tarot cards, asking whether the book would ever be published, and TWICE the ’struggle’ card came up. And yes, I did shuffle in between. All the hairs stood up all over my body – a very odd feeling – and I gave those Tarot cards away the next day. But they were right. It’s been a struggle. It’s even been two whole years since I signed the publication deal with lovely Ullstein, after my very clever agent sold the book at the Frankfurt book fair, and then the release date was delayed by six months by the recession.

But now the book is here. Thanks to Ullstein’s wonderful efficiency, they delivered some copies to me, which I am now shipping off to my brothers and assorted relatives. Of course, none of us speak German, which is a distinct disadvantage, but though I say it myself (another tootle coming on) it is quite beautiful just as an object. Of course, I’m still dying for an English publisher to snap it up. But I have hope. As I now know for sure, dreams really can come true.

Of course, it got me thinking of my own lame claim to fame. My bathroom blind is in Mike Leigh’s best film, Life Is Sweet. It happened like this.

Once, years ago, when Mr X were living in *delicate shudder* north London, a film pantechnicon drew up, loads of techy and actory types leapt out, and before we knew it, they were filming right round the corner from us.

At the time, all seemed to be well between X and me. We both had biggish jobs, no children and, while I disliked his flat and north London, we had a laugh. Then we decided to put a blind in the bathroom.

It was a standard issue, John Lewis jobby, nothing outrageous or even mildly exciting. It was pale grey, if memory serves. Naturally, I left X to it. Where I come from (south London), putting up blinds is men’s work. Hours passed, not peacefully, and when I finally ventured into the bathroom again, the blind was crooked.

I suppose it sums up all that was wrong, without me knowing it even was wrong. I just wasn’t great at marriage. There was no teamwork, no compromise, there were expectations and there was criticism.  There was also, now, a very crap blind.

We went to see the film the moment it came out, hoping, I suppose, to see ourselves strolling by, elegantly incognito, as Jane Horrocks et al gave it their all. All we did see, looming in one scene, was the painfully crooked bathroom blind.

Although we limped on for many years, I now look at that blind as a seismic moment. It reminds me of the last part of Philip Larkin’s tremendous ‘they fuck you up’ poem, This Be the Verse:

‘Man hands on misery to man

It deepens like a coastal shelf

Get out as early as you can

And don’t have any kids yourself.’

Of course, we did have kids, thank God. And I now have curtains in my bathroom.

I suppose it’s great that people want to be so upfront about their changed status, and that they want their friends to be involved as they embark on a new phase of life. I just know that, in the immediate aftermath of my split from Mr X, there was no way I could have breezed into Debenhams to look at individual egg poachers or pots of tea for one, then urge my friends to cough up for them. For one thing, I felt too ashamed about the ending of my marriage – I had stood up in front of those people (and my husband) and promised them all I was staying until death did us part, and I had turned out to be a liar. Another consideration is that quite a lot of the ‘friends’ would have been happier to strap explosives around my tummy with duct tape and set light to the fuse than to have bought me a new pedal bin (yes, I left mine behind. Apparently everyone does. To this day, my rubbish goes into an old bucket). These ‘friends’, I hasten to add, were ‘his’  rather than ‘mine’. During the marriage, I had thought of them as ‘ours’ but it wasn’t long into the legal process before all our chums divided just as neatly as they had, once upon a time, in the church, taking seats on either the bride’s side, or the groom’s.

Chattels are the last thing you think of in the full throes of a bitter divorce. They are, however, something you will return to later on. I still have pangs about our wedding china (probably more so because a friend has the same china, which I considered terribly posh and she uses it – ouch – as her everyday service. Now that really hurts). But hell, in the end, it’s just plates. I don’t think, after getting everyone to buy the stuff in good faith all those years ago, I could really turn round now and say, well actually, I’d like the same again, but maybe in a different colour. Or could I? Royal Worcester does do Howard Blue in green ….

1. The loo seat remains down at all times. Unless, of course, your children are boys, in which case I suggest you allow your ex-husband to have custody so they can all live in a horrible, caveman-like, seat-up environment.

2. If you should ever ask, ‘does my bum look big in this?’ as you get ready for a dinner party, there is a satisfactory lack of an answer, which any sane woman can take for a resounding ‘no’. That can be a lot more reassuring than having a frank rear view conversation with a husband, which may very well be the reason why you got divorced in the first place.

3. You lose the in-laws! I needn’t tell you what bliss this can be – though there can be collateral damage, as you also bin all those nice brother- and sisters-in-law that were the only saving grace of family Christmases.

4. And, talking of Christmas, divorce will very efficiently half your Christmas card list! Just from the point of view of the God-awful writer’s block which seizes every year when faced with penning something ostensibly cheery, yet with just the right level of toxic undercurrents, for the mother-in-law, this is truly a boon.

5. Likewise with presents – worry no longer about how to buy your father-in-law something less foul than the Marks and Spencer cardi, circa 1964, which has been velcroed to his nasty Tattersall check shirt for the past 15 years. And you need never turn Hamleys upside down to find something, anything, which just might shut up your husband’s feral pack of nephews for a scant half -hour on Boxing Day.

6. You don’t have to hear the same old jokes time and time again and maintain an interested expression. Believe me, many a woman in Dulwich has resorted to Botox just to withstand her man’s favourite witticisms.

7.You can shamelessly enjoy really crap programmes on telly, without having to pretend you were just surfing idly before coming across Strictly, the X Factor, What Katie Did Next, Peter Andre Has His Turn and anything else rubbish yet dangerously addictive on telly. Plus tune in to bonnet shows galore – I’m watching Emma twice nightly on Catch Up at the moment, loving it so much. I saw Lost in Austen three times. There’s no way I could have got away with that before the Decree Nisi.

8. You can damn well put your telly in a cupboard if you feel like it. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is not to have to pick a moment, gently drop the idea in, nurture it lovingly for a few weeks, negotiate the builders and the price, only to have to cancel at the eleventh hour because the husband says we can’t afford it. Oh yes we can – and we did. The telly is in the cupboard. Ha!

9. The World Cup? Euro 2010? The Olympics? The Four Nations? Crickety nonsense? You won’t have to watch a single minute. Love it.

10. And now we come to the difficult one …The one true, unsung benefit of divorce is free babysitting from a trusted carer once a fortnight. However much one loves one’s children, however dedicated a mother one is …. it is good not to have to get up at the crack of dawn every single Saturday to ferry my treasures to ballroom dancing. I miss them madly, but they are having a lovely time with their Daddy, so I can fill the bed with toast crumbs and read, with guilty pangs but yes, with pleasure too. 

Yes, we might all have cried buckets over the break-up, but the odd lie-in is a benefit of divorce that’s not to be sniffed at.

Not quite such yippee, they are bringing exactly 42kg of dirty washing with them.

Though a smidgeon of clothes washing was achieved at their first holiday stop, all that good work, brought about by constant drilling from me that they might mention to Mr X the concept of the washing machine, without him getting wind of the importance of the issue and going into reverse, they have since moved on to holiday destination number two, where there is no washing machine, and they have worn absolutely everything, they told me cheerfully.

And we are leaving the day after tomorrow for my holiday with the children. Which means that either I turn into a washing whirlwind the moment they get through the door, and resign myself to packing damp or frankly wet stuff that will smell, crease and probably do its damndest to go mouldy, or I accept the fact that I will be loading 42kgs of grubby kit onto a plane, only to have to wash it when I get on ‘holiday’.

The washing frenzy is something I am not much inclined to contemplate; after 14 child-free days, I am in a strange grown-up zone where I think nothing of popping out for an impromptu drink or going to the movies on a week night and without organising a babysitter. I am not in a manic, washing-till-dawn, mode. I am laid back, I am zen.

Well, that’s all a lie. I am, actually, just much too fat to rush around washing, as I have been stuffing peanuts night and day and now resemble nothing so much as one of those lovely bags of flour they used to have on Trumpton (I think) as milled by Windy Miller. There were four little ear-type protuberances, one at each corner of these sacks, which are like my limbs, standing out proud and useless from the enormous, round, peanut-rammed belly. Yum. There’s no way I can get upstairs to hang out the washing, even if I could muster the energy to stuff it into the machine. Which I can’t, so there.

Of course, it’ll all be different when I actually get on holiday, when all my energy will come zipping back. It’ll have to. The cherubs have had a fantastic time, going to sweet factories, kayaking, frolicking in Tuscan vineyards and the like. I shall have to get off my peanut-engorged arse and show them a good time if it kills me. Not that Mr X and I are in mortal combat over who gives the best holiday, or anything. Much. Actually, I really am thrilled that he’s found them some great things to do, even though it sets the bar so high I can barely see over it.

Anyway, think of me on Saturday, when the nice BA check-in girl will ask me at Heathrow if I packed all the bags myself and if I have any toxic substances to declare. No, I didn’t pack the offsprings’ bags and, frankly, I wouldn’t want to handle any of the contents even with tongs. And I certainly have no toxic substances to declare – oh, unless you count the 28 pairs of rancid socks, of course.

Am I the only one who finds all this a little sad? And not just, I would add, because I haven’t had a Happy Divorce party all of my own. It’s not that, really it isn’t. I’m not yearning to live it up. I’m not a big party girl and haven’t been for years. Even my hen do, long ago, was curiously sedate – I went to the Sanctuary with my two best friends and we sat in fluffy robes drinking green tea. The wildest thing we did was to swim in the nude (which does feel curiously decadent – it’s amazing what a difference taking off a teensy bit of lycra makes). In retrospect, I wonder if all this restraint meant that my heart wasn’t in the whole thing even then – I was 26, for God’s sake, and really should have been out getting hammered wearing a fake bridal veil and L plates from Claire’s Accessories, like any normal girl.

I think it just disturbs me that anyone can see divorce as a result to be celebrated. It is not, surely, what either party went into a marriage for. I can understand the wild sense of liberation as the shackles of an unhappy marriage fall with a great clank to the floor. But that moment – remember Nicole Kidman punching the sky after her divorce from Tom Cruise – doesn’t last all that long. Divorce, just like marriage, is for life.

There seem to be many stages to divorce. After that euphoria comes moments of sadness, attacking as random happy memories which are rendered suddenly painful. If you have children, the unexpected moment when they look, or sound, or even walk, like the former spouse, can be exquisitely difficult.

I’m trying to picture myself at a place in this divorce business when I can, like the model illustrating the Sunday Times article, wear ‘Just Divorced’ knickers with pride. I think it’s going to take many years. And a crash diet, liposuction and lashings of Vaseline on the lens, of course.

And nor will I be taking up their other suggestion, of getting my engagement, wedding and eternity rings remodelled into merry divorcee gee-gaws. Yes, things went pear-shaped with the actual husband. But the jewellry I’m still attached to, thank you.

I have many advantages as a stunt guest. I have a full wardrobe of suitably swanky outfits, acquired Abroad and scarcely worn. I know my lobster crackers from my asparagus fork, and rarely, if ever, mistake the finger bowl for a particularly watery chinese soup. And, most importantly, like Red Adair, I can be airlifted into the most dangerous inter-guest situations and get them under control in moments. Marital discord threatening to errupt over the nibbles? No problemmo, I’ve seen it all and I’ve got the injunction. Political differences leading to raised voices over the starter? I can change the conversation quicker than the hostess can change a nappy. Widespread gloom over housing prices casting a pall over the entire proceedings? My amusing tale of how I sold up for peanuts will have everyone enjoying the warming glow of schadenfreude (there, and I always say I know no German!).

A few samples of my recent conversational wares will give you a fuller feel for my suitability for this role. ‘Isn’t it awful about this credit crunch. They say chemists in the city have run out of neurofen, there are so many people taking overdoses. Ah …. you’re in hedge funds, are you?’ ‘It’s always such a shame when children have to leave their schools when the parents can’t afford the fees any more. Oh, so yours are starting at the local comprehensive in September? I’m sure they’ll just love it’.

Is it any wonder that my diary is fully booked until ….oh. But then, it is the holidays, isn’t it?