Sunday 13 June 2010

Dinah's Forecast of Doom, Plus a Meditation on Anniversaries.

God, I'm feeling fragile after last night’s drinking session. This is not helped when Dinah emails me a link to an article about Derrick Bird. 


It seems to imply that he was driven to do what he did by falling for a young Thai woman, who allegedly encouraged him to send her loads of money and then dumped him unceremoniously. Dinah simply writes, 


“There goes our inheritance, and our social standing.” 


I don't bother to reply, as God knows what she expects to inherit anyway. When a man's been married as many times as Dad, there's not exactly a limited number of children and step-children to share the proceeds of one small bungalow and a (probably-fake) Rolex watch. 


My mood doesn't improve when Josh informs me that today is the day that he and girlfriend Holly celebrate their third anniversary. What is wrong with young people these days? Why don’t they make the most of their freedom? I say this to Max, who agrees rather too wholeheartedly, but out of earshot of Josh. Sometimes he's so sneaky.


I can't stop once I've started though. Since when are you allowed to even have anniversaries of when you started going out together? Anniversaries are supposed to be treats in recognition of hard labour at the coalface of marriage, not trivialised in this way! I do not say “congratulations,” and now Josh is in a mood with me. Max does and is, as usual, the favourite parent. Creep.


I assume that this craven behaviour is what Max is referring to when, much later, he sidles up to me in bed, and says that he's sorry but, as usual, I'm wrong. He's trying to prepare me for bad news, instead: that he will be away on a business trip to Germany on our anniversary. I go ballistic, but he says he doesn't have a choice, and that the company are talking about redundancies. 


He seems so worried that I don't have the heart to keep moaning. I wonder if that's why he's off sex? It seems as if Dad and MPs like Caroline Nokes are the only ones having any sex at all at the moment. Life is so unfair.

1 comment:

  1. Oh God, yes - know what you mean about proms. We had to buy Josh a suit for his. When will a teenaged incipient gang lord ever need to wear a suit again? And don't get me started on those stupid oversized limos....

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