Chapter 10
10
She knew Drew almost certainly thought she was being churlish. Three days had passed and not once had he even tried to apologise. They had gone through the whole weekend in a stalemate type of tension. He probably didn’t even think he had done anything wrong. He never did. But the fact of the matter was, his silly little remark had made her feel even worse than before, and given her current state of mind, that was no small feat.
True, it wasn’t like she worked at Home Crew even if she did feel like she knew the business inside out from all the evenings Drew had talked about it. And maybe there were some legal grey areas with her typing stuff up, but that had never bothered him before. There had been plenty of times throughout the years where he had asked her for help. Maybe not writing reports but reading out numbers so he could input them faster, checking spreadsheets, that type of thing. It had never been a problem all those other times. It was the way he looked at her. Like she was deluded and incapable of following some basic dictation. Not even worthy of secretary status.
‘He’s a wanker, of course. But it’s genetic. You can’t blame him entirely.’ Nelly’s way of comforting her was nothing if not blunt. Sarah hadn’t planned on imposing on Nelly, she hated interrupting her work day, but she was still seething and snapping at the kids for nothing beyond the ordinary level of mayhem.
‘Being a wanker is genetic?’ Sarah asked.
‘Being male is. It’s his way of nesting. You know, before the babies are born, women go into nesting mode, tidying the house, sorting the nursery?—’
‘I stocked up on frozen burritos and cheese strings.’
‘Okay, well, lots of women do the whole tidying thing. Men’s brains act differently. They go into this whole caveman must provide , macho mentality.’
‘Is that what Jeff did?’
Nelly plucked the drink from the coffee machine. ‘Jeff hired a bloody great chainsaw and nearly put a tree through our roof, but in a manner of speaking, yes.’
Sarah inhaled. As much as she didn’t like to admit it, it made sense. After all, it wasn’t like this was normal behaviour for Drew. ‘So you don’t think I should let it get to me?’
‘Is it going to change anything if you do?’
The high road hadn’t been an easy one to take, especially after three days of internal festering, but take it she would. After coffee, Eva had been in one of her limpet moods, where she clung to Sarah’s leg all afternoon, and any attempt at separation ended up with screaming loud enough to rupture her eardrums. Usually, it meant she had a cold or something coming, and Sarah would have had a little sympathy. However, when she finally got away for two minutes to go to the toilet, she discovered that at some point in the morning, Eva had lodged one of her plastic ponies into the bottom of the bowl. That in itself would have been a mild irritation had it not been for the fact that Sarah only noticed after she had done her business and gone to flush it away. The whole contents – sans pony – floated up to the top and started to run down the sides. Of course, the plunger hadn’t worked on the toy, and she had been forced to lower her hand inside – with no rubber gloves – and pull out the offending equine.
She was still trying to scrub the stench from her arm when Drew came in from work. With the children already in bed, he had barely even said hello before he was back, tapping away at his computer.
‘Do you want to watch a film?’ Sarah asked an hour later when she had done enough channel hopping to cause carpal tunnel syndrome. ‘You can put a horror on?’
‘What’s that?’
‘A film? Do you want to put one on?’
With a sad sense of nostalgia, she thought back to those few weeks when he was reading. Maybe if he sat on the sofa with her so that they could watch a bit of telly while he worked, she would have felt better about it, but he insisted on hiding himself away in the corner of the room, laptop hidden in the shadows like he didn’t want her to see what he was up to. When no reply to her original question was given, she tried a different approach with her screen-possessed spouse.
‘I’m going to go into town and grab a couple of Christmas presents tomorrow,’ she said.
Once again, all she received from Drew was a grunt of response.
‘Is there anything you want me to pick up for your sister and her kids?’ she added. ‘They’ve got one of those discount bookshops.’
‘Sorry, what?’ His eyes came momentarily up from the computer.
‘I said I was going into town tomorrow. I thought I’d head to the cheap bookshop and get a few bits and pieces for Christmas.’
A crease formed in Drew’s brow. ‘You know it’s only just November, don’t you?’
‘I am aware, yes, thank you. But if I wait till next month, everything will have gone up in price. And this is the only day your mum and dad could do before they fly off to France.’
‘It’s a Mum and Dad day tomorrow?’ Drew asked, the furrow deepening.
‘It is.’
‘That’s come around fast. Do you really need to use them again so soon? If you’re just going shopping, surely you can take Eva? How hard would it be?’
‘How hard could it be?’ And just like that, Sarah felt herself careen off the high road, down through the trees, and come crashing onto the low road.
His word choice was probably less than ideal. But in his defence, she was the one who insisted on making conversation when he was clearly working. The book was going so well, and the last thing he wanted to do was lose momentum. He was already onto chapter five and had gone back to the beginning just to have a read through and check that there weren’t any glaring errors. This last page had been his fastest yet; with a little bit of luck, he’d have the whole thing finished in another fortnight.
Halkidiki was still proving a good setting, at least in Drew’s version of the island. Secret beach-front caves, remote huts on cliff edges, and rooftop bars and luxurious hotel rooms with whitewashed walls and canopy beds. He had thousands of places that his air hostess could partake in a little bit of naughtiness. The possibilities were endless. The hard part was just trying to find time to write them all down.
Despite what Sarah believed, work really was crazy too. The build-up to Christmas meant having to employ hundreds of extra staff to work in the warehouses as pickers, getting all the food ready for home delivery. Then there was the need for the extra delivery drivers and vans too. And while none of those were Drew’s direct responsibility – he was in charge of what and how much they stocked of certain products – all the other managers needed his input on things to make their departments run smoothly. Several lunchtimes that week had to be given over to actual work, as opposed to finishing his book. As such, his evenings had become precious writing time. Hence the less than perfect reply to Sarah’s comment.
‘All I thought is that maybe you and Eva could go together. Have a girly day.’
‘What, because the other 364 days a year where it’s just me and her don’t count? And what do you mean, it’s come around fast? The last time your parents had them was at the start of October. Is one day off a month too many now?’
A thin vein protruded along her forehead. Normally, there were stages: shorter, terse sentences, lip-smacking, deep inhales that flattened her nostrils to the side of her nose. The vein – a clear signal that she was about to explode – was normally stage four. Very rarely did it appear without some prior warning. And yet, there it was. Drew’s stomach churned as he pushed his laptop lid all the way closed.
‘I didn’t mean that.’ He pushed back his seat so he could at least look his wife in the eye. He tried to dig himself out from a different angle. ‘I just meant that if you’re dropping Eva off at Mum and Dad’s, and you have a whole day, then maybe you wanted to do something a little more productive with your time than shopping.’
‘A little more productive?’ Her eyebrows were arched and butting her hairline. ‘I guess I could mow the lawn? Re-plaster the bathroom? I do about every other sodding job in this house; I might as well add those to the list.’
‘Sorry,’ Drew said, more than a little taken aback from the sudden explosion and not-too subtle insinuation that he did nothing around the house to help. ‘Did I miss something?’
‘Miss something? You mean other than me having to fish Eva’s pony from a pool of my own shit?’
‘And I was supposed to know about that, how?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, you could have asked about my day to start with.’
A grating sound buzzed through his skull as he tried to stop himself from grinding his teeth.
‘I’m at work all day, Sarah. I come home, and I do more work.’ He pointed at the laptop, feeling entirely indignant despite the fact he hadn’t really done any Home Crew work on it for nearly two weeks. There was very little point when his work desktop was so much faster, even for writing the book. Still, this was not the time to bring that up. Instead, he pulled his most outraged face. ‘I barely get any time to myself as it is. What more do you want me to do?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, some parenting?’
Baby hormones or not, Drew could feel his own vein twitching. He twisted his lips as his feet took a firmer plant on the carpet. ‘You don’t think I parent?’
Sarah was still standing up, hands on her hips. ‘I think you do the fun parenting part. You come in late, read them bedtime stories, get to take George for a kick around at the park?—’
‘Deal with the tantrums. Bath Eva when her nappy explodes. Have you forgotten that one?’
‘One time, Drew. She’d had diarrhoea for three days. Three days. And you dealt with one explosion. Congratulations. I guess your Dad of the Year Award got lost in the bloody post.’
‘How am I meant to do more? I’m at work?—’
‘I’ll go to work, Drew. If it’s that much of an effort, then I’ll get a job. You can stay here day in, day out.’
His back molars ground together so hard that he could feel the vibrations buzzing all the way through to his skull. He flexed his fingers and took a long, deep inhale. This was his wife, he reminded himself. He loved her dearly. She was just going through a hard transition with the baby on the way. As much as he wasn’t one of those men who like to use the word hormones as a blanket reason to cover his wife’s changing moods, he couldn’t help but feel that this time, it was bang on point.
‘Look. If what you want is a bit of time, maybe we should look at putting Eva into nursery for a couple of days a week, then?—’
‘And where the hell would we find the money for that? Honestly? You go for your Monday fry up every week, your Friday donuts, or whatever the hell it is, and I’m here working out how the hell I can make dinner out of three wilted carrots and a bag of pasta every night.’
‘Now you’re being ridiculous. It’s not like we’re on the breadline.’
‘No?’ The vein was well and truly popping now. ‘Then why the hell have I not had a night out in the last year? Why was the last time I got a new pair of jeans or a new top before Eva was born?’
‘Then go out and buy something for yourself. Who’s stopping you? I’m not. That’s the whole point of a credit card, Sarah.’ He hated raising his voice. He hated getting angry, but it felt like she was living in a parallel universe.
‘It’s more debt, Andrew .’
‘Everybody uses credit cards. If you’re that worried, I can get another job. There are plenty of evening picking positions going at warehouses. And delivery drivers. Maybe if I go straight from the office to the warehouse, it would give you less time in the day to be pissed off with me.’
‘Maybe I’d be less pissed off with you if you just once asked me how my day had been when you got in each night.’
‘What are you on about? I always ask you. Every day, I talk to you.’
‘Really? Because I barely feel like I can remember what you look like, your face has been so damn glued to that computer.’
‘For a week.’
‘And the rest.’
‘No.’ He was putting his foot down on this. He knew exactly when he’d started working on the book, and today marked day eleven. It was close enough to a week to pass in his consideration. ‘One week I’ve been working on my computer at night. One bloody week, Sarah. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I have to do work when I get in. I’m sorry you have to stay at home and be with Eva and take George to school while I have to sit in an office listening to people drone on for hour after hour. I’m sorry I can’t afford a massive house and a nanny like Justine, or that I’m not exciting enough to paint my fence like a stupid rainbow. But this is me, Sarah. This is who I am. And if you don’t know that by now, then maybe we have a bigger problem than me being on the laptop in the evening.’ And with that, he smacked his lips together, took three defiant strides from the table to the hall, and headed straight out the front door.