He thought it okay to come home twisted. He scraped along the hall wall and into the living room where he pissed into the yucca plant by the french doors, stumbled at the final shakedown sending the last few piss bullets down his jeans, then hovered there, with a slightly arched back, belt still undone, breathing through his mouth. In front of him hung the wonky shelf he put up angry, like all his DIY done in the doghouse, anything to avoid dealing with his wife. Every picture frame shared their faces. He looked at her through the years, how the face gargoyled, the hair strained to tin strips, how the eyes clouded over. Heaven is a moment kept short to preserve its beauty. He lives in a comet trail of bliss, close, but not quite, the real thing. He thought he would stand there in the dead of night with a life partner. Instead, he thought, she’d be spitting venom upstairs for being awoken again by his day sesh reaching last orders to lock-in.
He thought she’d forgive him lingering in a Spoons toilet and toeing the flush as he took bumps off his house key. Just another white pearl and another flush to hide his snorts, and those entertaining the no splash no gash lucky lucky man by the sinks thought he’d dropped logs to block the u-bend. He thought she wouldn’t care, anyway. Where’s the Scarface buzz and godlike immortality? It only stops him getting tired. She’d forgive that, he thought.
He thought there would be more kissing, more cuddles, that he’d be little spoon on birthdays and wedding anniversaries. There should be handholding and walks to nowhere, the crests of fells and lavalamp sunsets. Zealous bear hugs the moment he walks through the door, a determined fight to smack lips on lips, determined backdoor boogies to neck off in alleyways, to recapture the youth at the moment they first came together, the moment he bragged about to his boys after finger blasting on the dancefloor. He thought they would jointly hold their memories as sacred, elevate them to hallowed unspoken kinks shared in wry smiles and winks at family gatherings. He thought he could whisper in the ear of a kindred soul and transport her back the decades to a year she can’t even remember, while he still smells the Mugler Alien, sees the glimmer of a Lipsy dress, hears the klok of crocodile skin stilettos, unbranded.
Instead, he took what she offered. He thought it was marriage chat when they discussed the metaphorical one lay (her words) permitted, a celebrity, but he didn’t hear that part, and said, “A black girl” and she asked, “Any black girl?” He saw he done wrong but not a wrong he acknowledged, a wrong he believed she felt as real as the empty wineglass in her hand. He shelled up and let her stew. Let her bubble in silent rage and he thought she would forget it all and he wouldn’t have to worry about how he disappointed her this time.
He thought once-a-week sex would be the lowest point of an expected drop-off but it became once a fortnight, once a month, quarterly with the water bill, until he’s left to fantasise over the wedding night when he shot his load twice (twice!). His boys had bets on holiday nookie quantity with food-based codenames so the womenfolk don’t catch on. Lamb Shank is a blowjob. Roast Beef anal. Carvery is double dipping. Caesar Salad is another week of lying in bed pretending to be asleep, facing the blank walls away from each other, close enough to feel the warmth, but they couldn’t be any more distant.
He thought it normal to drop seven hundred sheets on a Polish girl who kept telling him her name, where she’s from, her dream career, but he was too drunk to notice, too enamoured by the smell of her skin. One boy got a bump off another girl’s breasts; his bestie got dragged out by bouncers for undoing his belt in a private booth but he’s a scrapper with a chin of granite and he’ll take that good news as another good story, a grafting night in back alleys of kebab wrappers and puddles of piss, loose teeth and dried blood in his beard. He thought, I’m better behaved than those two, more respectful. She’d like that.
He thought she’d be understanding, or perhaps at least expectant, when he’s with the lads lads lads and he displays his other side, the boy’s side, the beer-soaked animal soul, who dropkicked the homeless guy asleep in a tent in the WH Smith doorway, asked the disabled man why he walks so funny, told the overweight girl at Mr Sizzle she should’ve ordered the salad instead of the dub quarter pounder with extra cheese. He mineswept club booths, booed DJs for cocking up the drop of Faithless’ Insomnia, craved someone make that move on his girl so he could show his lionheart. She knew all this. Married all this. He thought she’d wrap her arms around his neck and whisper into his ear when he’s mired deep in the melancholy of regret.
He thought she’d take his side when out with her work colleagues and he’s the spare part in need of propping up, but one mention of vomin up jaeger with the boys and he’s secluded, end of the table downing pints and waiting to cover their eighth of the bill, tipping the waiter for taking the glasses away too early. He thought they were all men and women of the world, modern, enlightened metropolitan townies, fashionistas, seen it all and nothing can come as a shock. Until he opened his mouth. And she closed hers and looked down at her breaded garlic mushrooms.
He thought he’d creep upstairs. Crawl into bed without her knowing. He entered their room to find the bed vacant, the cupboard doors open and their interiors empty, just a few stray hangars left on the rail. The dressing table bare, drawers half-cocked, and lipstick across the mirror reading simply: FUCK YOU.