I called the Mr Me on his mobile and told him that the contract had arrived. I was so excited. There it was sitting on the table with the logo at the top of the page, and numbers with zeros after them. And then I did what they warn you to beware of on the tube. I minded the gap. It was there gasping in front of me, this long sigh, this indistinct nothingness. No feeling of happiness, no feeling of achievement, just a gap.
I am forty nine years old. I have written a book. I sat down and started on page one and kept going until page five hundred. Along the way I have been humiliated by the agent who told me to give up and forget about it because I had no plot, no voice and no style, and who suggested that I should try writing a Marion Keyes (if only I could), and then hugely flattered when another editor took me out to lunch and told me I was a find. I had to put my dark glasses back on to hide the tears.
I am forty nine years old. I have written a book. I sat down and started on page one and kept going until page five hundred. Along the way I have been humiliated by the agent who told me to give up and forget about it because I had no plot, no voice and no style, and who suggested that I should try writing a Marion Keyes (if only I could), and then hugely flattered when another editor took me out to lunch and told me I was a find. I had to put my dark glasses back on to hide the tears.
Then I got my own agent and, with the passage of rejection, hope and further rejection, oh joy, someone bought it. I succeeded. But 'happiness doesn't exist unless you have someone to share it with'.
I don't know who said this - apart from me, just then, I may have found it in a Christmas cracker or heard it in a film trailer, but it struck a chord.
I waited for the husband to come back in the evening. He did. He walked in and I showed him the contract. That's great he said, in the way Osama Bin Laden would behave if you asked him if he fancied a bacon sarnie.
I said to him: you act as though I'd just told you I got a free shampoo sachet through the door.
I waited for the husband to come back in the evening. He did. He walked in and I showed him the contract. That's great he said, in the way Osama Bin Laden would behave if you asked him if he fancied a bacon sarnie.
I said to him: you act as though I'd just told you I got a free shampoo sachet through the door.
And he said; This isn't working out. I need some time on my own. I think I should leave and sort myself out.
I felt the familiar plummeting in my guts, as though somebody had gouged out my innards like a Hallowe'en pumpkin.
I felt the familiar plummeting in my guts, as though somebody had gouged out my innards like a Hallowe'en pumpkin.
I went on the Lindsay Lohan diet but without the drugs and alcohol. In one week I ate a slice of pizza, a couple of plates of salad and a bite of whatever I was making for the kids to eat. I couldn't drink, couldn't face food, and sat with my arms clenched around myself like I was freezing to death. I didn't even lose weight.
I told my eldest that there was a distinct possibility that her father was leaving. She took the news coolly. I don't think so, she said. Oh yes, so, I insisted. Oh not dad, don't be silly, she said. I can't imagine he would go. I mean it's a big step. If he leaves you, he leaves all of us.
Don't turn out like me, I sobbed in the car, hoping she would protest and tell me I wasn't so bad.
She didn't.
I made plans for my new single life. I applied for a job as a shop assistant in a local gift store. I applied for a job in the library at LSE. I sent off for a down filled mattress cover and four fat goose down pillows so that when I was alone in the bed I would feel comfortable. I rallied my few long suffering friends and took it in turns to moan to Anne, Eva, Mara, Ria, and Nel. Audrey rang from the states and told me that it wasn't the end of the world. But I wasn't convinced.
I told my eldest that there was a distinct possibility that her father was leaving. She took the news coolly. I don't think so, she said. Oh yes, so, I insisted. Oh not dad, don't be silly, she said. I can't imagine he would go. I mean it's a big step. If he leaves you, he leaves all of us.
Don't turn out like me, I sobbed in the car, hoping she would protest and tell me I wasn't so bad.
She didn't.
I made plans for my new single life. I applied for a job as a shop assistant in a local gift store. I applied for a job in the library at LSE. I sent off for a down filled mattress cover and four fat goose down pillows so that when I was alone in the bed I would feel comfortable. I rallied my few long suffering friends and took it in turns to moan to Anne, Eva, Mara, Ria, and Nel. Audrey rang from the states and told me that it wasn't the end of the world. But I wasn't convinced.
Apparently neither was the Mr Me who turned to me late in November and said "Oh, by the way - I'm not going anywhere" and after I had dragged it out of him like a breech foal from a reluctant mare he said he had decided that, after all, that he couldn't leave 'his family' of which I am a part even if I don't get a place of my own, but am merely wife part of the holy trinity that also includes children and house.
Now I don't trust the floor to bear the weight of my expectations and so I don't test it.
Now I don't trust the floor to bear the weight of my expectations and so I don't test it.
I feel so sorry for myself that it's almost a full time job leaving no time for anything else, let alone editing the manuscript which has to be finished and substantially changed by December, but since this morning I got a letter from the shop telling me that I hadn't been successful in my application for minimum wage shop assistant, while the LSE never answered at all, that's just as well.
The Mr Me walks around looking like a man who has walked across Antarctica with no coat on, his skin almost flayed from his face and took himself off to see a shrink.
The Mr Me walks around looking like a man who has walked across Antarctica with no coat on, his skin almost flayed from his face and took himself off to see a shrink.
He told me: It's strange, because he doesn't say anything. I talk and he sits there in silence.
Welcome to my world, I thought.
Welcome to my world, I thought.
