BOREDOM
Mallorca, Spain
“Hurry up, you're going to be late,” Kate yelled down the stairs to David’s basement office for the umpteenth time. The girls stood patiently by the front door. A beautiful, arched, double-fronted antique oak door with black iron studs, salvaged from a derelict church. A rare find that Kate and David stumbled across hidden in the back of one of the many antique shops they liked to frequent in the village. Kate turned to her girls and proceeded with their morning ritual.
“Homework?”
“Check.” The girls grinned in unison. This was their little game. They called it the ‘Check’ game. Kate knew it would be easier if she arranged everything herself, but she wanted them to get into the habit of being self-sufficient, and this was her genius way of turning everyday chores into something fun.
“Lunch?”
“Check.” Both girls held up their respective lunch boxes. A Barbie one for Tali and a black one for Emily, who’d insisted on trading in her matching Barbie one for something more mature. Recently, Kate noticed Emily gravitating with more frequency towards everything black and hoped this wasn’t because she herself was in the habit of doing so.
Every night before they went to bed, they’d look at the spreadsheet with magnets on the huge chrome fridge. All colour-coordinated with different activities marked for different days: swimming, horse-riding, tennis, sailing, and most recently, piano. Yes, the girls’ agendas were crammed full, but Kate wanted to expose them to everything possible. She remembered someone telling her, ‘If you throw enough spaghetti at the wall, some of it might stick.’
“Emily, you don’t have activities today, so I’ll pick you up at five, and we can head down to the beach for an hour whilst Tali is swimming.”
Emily smiled. She loved it when Tali had an activity and she didn’t, as that meant one-on-one time with her mum.
David materialised from his office, looking at his watch before glancing back up at Kate.
“Why were you hurrying me? We've still got three minutes.” David liked to live on the edge.
Kate liked everything organised. How they cohabited with such opposing characteristics was anyone’s guess.
Kate turned back to resume her checking. “Rabbits fed?”
Emily looked at Tali. Tali looked at Emily. They both looked at Daddy.
“Why are you looking at me? I haven’t fed them,” said David rather defensively.
“Me no feed wabbits.” Tali looked like she was about to cry, her bottom lip thrust out and quivering.
“Sorry, Mum”—Emily was quick to chime in—“I haven’t either.” A somewhat less remorseful response from her eldest.
David, realising an eruption was imminent, darted towards the girls. “Come on. We’ve got to go, don’t want to be late.” He ushered them out the door.
“David!” Kate’s face grimaced in disbelief. But he was already strapping on Tali’s seat belt.
“I’m not going on-site today; I’ll do it when I get back,” he said nonchalantly as he got into the car.
Kate watched them zoom down the gravel driveway, lined with red bougainvillea hedges, before disappearing into the distance. She wondered what to do next. Make the beds? Painfully boring. Tidy away the breakfast stuff? Excruciatingly boring. She might as well feed the rabbits. They must be starving, and it would be half an hour before David returned. It wasn't poor little Fluffy and Floppy’s fault that she was the only one looking out for them.
Kate grabbed the bag of rabbit food and wandered into the garden toward the bunnies. She felt increasingly unsettled. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what was wrong. Could it be that it irritated her having to take responsibility for the rabbits? Was she upset that Jamie was leaving after they’d had such an instant connection? Or did she feel that by living on the island, she was missing out on something? But what exactly was she missing? She wouldn’t swap David and the girls for Jamie’s fun-filled existence for anything, but sometimes she felt like they’d already retired.
By the time Kate reached the end of their garden, her mood had worsened. As she stood longingly, gazing at her fine sculpture of an embracing man and woman which stood proud in one corner of her little oasis, she contemplated the day ahead. She’d agreed to help Jamie pack up her flat. She was excited about seeing her, but equally sad that she was leaving. Despite being so different, there seemed to be this unconditional acceptance of one another that usually only comes after a lifetime of friendship.
Upon reaching the rabbit’s hutch, a tsunami of anxiety washed over her as she spotted the hutch door open with no rabbits in sight. Oh my god. The rabbits had escaped. Oh my god. How? Where? Her brain scrambled to make sense of how this was even possible. Perhaps the girls hadn’t locked the hutch when they’d fed them last night? The significance of the absconded rabbits fully hitting Kate. It would devastate the girls. They could be anywhere.
Kate contemplated climbing through the hedge and into the fields beyond, with the daunting task of trying to locate two little fluffy bunnies amongst the long grass.
“Floppy, Fluffy, where are you?” As she scrambled through the hedge, twigs grazed the flesh not covered by her Marks it felt like she’d been scouring the back fields for an eternity, but then David finally materialised.
“Kate, where are you? I can hear you. In fact, the entire village can hear you, but I can’t see you.” David emerged from the front of the house.
“I’m over here,” Kate yelled.
“Where’s here?”
“Underneath the hedge at the back. I’m looking for the rabbits. Shit, David, I think they’ve gone forever.”
Suddenly, David’s head popped over the hedge. “They’re in the hutch in the garage,” he said sheepishly. “I thought I saw an owl looking suspicious in that tree over there last night.” Pointing to the enormous palm tree that overhung the hutches. “I thought it would be better if they were inside until we finished their enclosure, at least.”
Kate stopped and stared incredulously. “Why the bloody hell didn’t you say anything then?”
“It’s just that …” He looked perplexed, like he genuinely didn’t understand that he’d done anything wrong. “I didn’t think of it. I told you I was going to feed the rabbits when I was back. It didn’t cross my mind.”
“I can’t believe YOU.” Kate’s rage had now reached an inferno-like fury. A small part of her brain recognised that perhaps she was being overly dramatic, but it felt fantastic to let it all out. “Do you think I’ve got nothing better to do with my time than crawl around the undergrowth in my pyjamas?” Kate shot up, dusting herself down as if to emphasise the point, before scrambling back through the hedge. Then, with a face of thunder, marched back to the kitchen and slumped herself down at the long antique pine table.
David sidled up to her and stood looking at his pretty, troubled wife. The harsh reality was there was nothing better to do than look for two rabbits that weren’t even lost. In fact, she had nothing better to do at all.
“David.” She sighed.
“Yes?”
“David.”
“Yes, you’re right, I’m sorry I should’ve told you.” Moving behind Kate, David pulled her off the chair and onto his lap, cradling her in his arms and stroking her hair.
“I know. I’m not really angry about the rabbits,” Kate whispered under her breath; now stroked and petted into submission.
“I think I’ve figured that out. So what’s up?”
“I’m bored.” Kate looked glum and felt guilty for yelling at him. “David, I’m really, really, extremely bored. We never go out, we have no social life, I’m not sure I can do this for too much longer. I feel like my brain’s gone dead.”
David initially felt relief. Not a clue this time, but the actual problem. He wouldn’t have to play a game of charades with Kate’s emotional state. However, the relief was short-lived when he considered the implications of her boredom.
“Do you want to go back to London?” he almost whispered, his face etched with disappointment.
“No, no, not at all.” She knew he was better here. The kids were better here. How could she ask that of them? No, she’d never let him know how she sometimes yearned to be back in her fold. “No, honestly, I don’t want to go back,” Kate said, not being honest at all, “but I need something more. I need to go out. We need to have more of a life here. Can’t we try to do something together?”
Kate leaned her head on his chest and felt warm and safe nestled against him, breathing in his familiar smell. She was happy that what might have been an unnecessary argument had dissipated quickly. Nothing was ever achieved when they argued; it was much better when it was like this.
“What do you want to do? Do you want to come to the tennis club with me this week?” David asked with all sincerity, having moved on from figuring out the problem mode directly into solution mode.
“No, not tennis. We need to find something new—something we’re both either good at or both useless at. It doesn’t really matter as long as we can have fun together.”
“Why don’t we get a babysitter and go out for a meal?” David was still trying to find solutions, and the best he could do involved tennis, which she was crap at, or eating, which she was marvellous at but that would only make her more depressed about her weight.
“Nah, don’t want to go out to eat. Don’t worry about it. I’m just premenstrual.” Kate launched herself from his lap and was thankful, not for the first time, for being a woman and having the most wonderful excuse of being premenstrual or postmenstrual. Besides, there was no point in putting this on David. He wasn’t responsible for making her happy. She had to figure out a solution by herself.
“I understand you’re frustrated and you’re right about finding something fun to do together. Have a think about options and I’ll go along with it, I promise,” David said with all sincerity as he got up from the table and walked towards the door leading down to his basement office.
Stacking the dirty dishes into the dishwasher, Kate wondered what they could possibly do together that might be fun? There had to be something that would take them out of the house. Perhaps a cookery class? No, that also involved shoving more food down her gob. This new activity had to be something that didn’t involve food. Yoga maybe? She was sure that she’d seen an evening yoga class advertised in the local paper, so went in search of it, wondering whether David’s promise to do anything would extend to something that involved contorting his body.
The paper was not where she’d left it, maybe David was right about moving to digital, but she liked having a physical paper other than when it went missing. Its absence irked Kate. Happy, sad, happy, sad; what the bloody hell was wrong with her?
“DAVID,” she yelled down to his office. “Have you seen this week’s local newspaper?”
“You mean the Daily Bulletin, the one you always ask me to buy but never read?” said David with the hint of dread that a person might experience having escaped the lion’s den only to find themselves dragged back in.
“Yes, that would be the one; it’s not in the rack.”
“Oh.”
Kate didn’t like the sound of that ‘Oh.’ In one simple syllable, she ascertained that David not only knew of the newspaper’s whereabouts, but that she wouldn’t like what he’d done with it.
“Erm.” Came next. She liked that even less.
“Where is it then? There’s an ad I want to look at. I’ve got an idea for our new activity.”
David groaned. “It’s in the garage, inside the rabbits’ hutch.” No doubt in the absence of hay, the Daily Bulletin seemed a good enough alternative.
Too tired to have another moan, Kate went in search of the paper. With any luck, it would be retrievable. Wandering down to the garage, she felt quite excited at the prospect of learning something new, like yoga. But upon reaching the rabbits’ hutch, Kate gasped. Floppy, the innocent little white fluffy thing—who Kate realised was far from innocent or floppy at this precise moment, was now perched on top of Fluffy—the poor innocent little black fluffy thing—humping away!
Kate ran back into the house to alert David to the new rabbit drama and shouted down to his basement office, “DAVID, DAVID, COME TO THE GARAGE, QUICKLY.” He’d promised her that the rabbits were both male. It was one of the very first questions she’d asked, as she’d envisioned an army of bunnies bouncing all around her immaculate home, creating carnage and dropping their little bunny poos in their wake. Not waiting for a reply, she headed back to the garage and didn’t have to wait long for David to join her.
“What’s the matter?” David came scurrying up, alarmed by Kate’s dramatic outburst.
“Our bunnies are HOMOSEXUAL.”
David stood staring at the rabbits and laughed.
“Why is this funny?” Kate was clearly suffering a complete sense of humour bypass.
“You’ve got to stop them. I thought you said they were both males?”
“Well, technically, I said I thought they were both males. They’re too young to tell, but I guess we know now,” he said, stating the obvious.
“I’ll have to take Floppy to the vet and get his bits chopped off, and I’ll have to take Fluffy as well, in case she needs an abortion,” Kate said, now with a note of purpose in her voice. “We need to separate them immediately. Can you take Floppy back to the hutch in the garden, and Fluffy can stay here until I can get them both to the vet, and let’s pray Fluffy isn’t pregnant already.”
Kate watched David head back to the garden, holding Floppy in the palm of his hand. Maybe she was being ridiculous; they were still so tiny. Turning her attention back to the hutch, she spied the paper, and reached in to retrieve it. Uff, disgusting. It was soaking wet. Dropping it immediately, she resigned herself to abort her mission. But then she noticed another sheet of the paper, which appeared to be urine-free. Just a little perfectly round poo pellet. Could she? Her eagerness to search the classifieds for their ‘new activity’ overcame her disgust at the poo. It was only a little poo, and without thinking further, she just flicked it off and successfully retrieved the paper. Scanning it like a professional proofreader, her brow furrowed with concentration until she found what she was looking for. Grinning and feeling excited. This was it. She had it.
* * *
“David?” Kate tried to contain her excitement as she entered his office, his refuge.
“Yes, hun?” David didn’t look up from his plans.
“Sweetie pie,” she said, at which point he looked up. Now he was worried.
Minutes earlier, she’d been in a foul mood that the rabbits hadn’t been lost and that the Daily Bulletin had been. Yet now she was calling him ‘sweetie pie.’ This was not a good sign. David knew she was coming to him with their proposed ‘fun activity.’ The likelihood of it being something he wanted to do was as remote as West Ham winning the league! It irritated David that he’d offered himself up like a sacrificial lamb, and now he was on his way to the slaughterhouse, faster than you could say chop chop.
Taking one look at David’s disgruntled face, Kate decided timing was the key to broaching this request. “Just wanted to know if you wanted a cuppa, my darling?”
“Don’t beat around the bush; go on, hit me with it. What’s this new activity that you’ve found for us?”
“Well, I’ve given this some serious consideration,” she said.
“I only just suggested you look for this supposed activity five minutes ago. Don’t tell me you’ve given it serious consideration, just tell me what it is.”
“Well, first I thought about a cookery class …”
David’s face lit up. Cookery classes, what a great idea. That would involve food, and he loved food.
“And then … then I remembered I’d seen an ad for yoga classes,” Kate said as David visibly slumped lower onto his desk.
“And then …”
A hint of relief swept across David’s face.
“The rabbit peed on the yoga ad.”
David’s relief was now replaced with genuine confusion.
“But darling, guess what? They only did a tiny poo on another part of the ad section,” she said, not waiting for him to actually guess. “They have Salsa classes on a Tuesday in Palma Nova.” Kate finally concluded, looking very smug and extremely pleased with herself.
David gawked at her with total bewilderment.
“It was a sign,” she clarified. Her face a picture of innocence.
The confusion showed no signs of ebbing.
“Salsa classes? A sign? What sign?” he spoke slowly, as if he’d misheard.
“Yup, and you said anything. Shall I make you that cuppa now darling?” Kate said, all sweetness and light, running up the stairs before David had time to voice his discontent.
“Better make it a bloody brandy.”