I’ve been ill this week. Yesterday, I remained unconscious through pretty much everything that Richard Curtis has ever done only to wake up to the fact that, while I was asleep, the world lost a TV chef, an Australian journalist/presenter, and a British writer/stage director. And these were just the celebrity deaths. Shit! What have I contracted?!

     On the other hand, having spent the last three days consuming only water and rich tea biscuits, my stomach is now completely flat. I think I can work with this.

* * * * * * * *

I’m a strong advocate of the health benefits of being ill. It cuts down on stress, for a start. Since Monday, there has been an acknowledgement by pretty much everybody that not only can I not be expected to take up my usual responsibilities, but that I must not, under any circumstances, take up my usual responsibilities. This in itself makes projectile vomiting worthwhile. In fact, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier.

     Then there’s the detox value of not being able to keep anything down (or in). Apparently, fasting has all kinds of medical benefits, from moderating sugar and cholesterol levels, to improving brain function.

     ‘That’s the last time I’ll be leaving my car keys in the microwave, then’ I say to Nat.

     She appears less confident, however. ‘We’ll see,’ she says.

     What makes vomiting so intrinsically valuable, however, is that it totally legitimises not going to work.

     ‘Yes, I understand,’ says the cover supervisor, when I phone in to explain, ‘but we’re already a teacher down in your department …’

     Thing is, diarrhoea …’ I say.

     ‘Definitely don’t come in,’ she says, and hangs up.

     Who knew that abracadabra and diarrhoea were synonyms? Two words that work like magic.

     This get-out-of-work-free card is, itself, worth a vast amount of health points and quite probably contributes to both prolonged life expectancy and anti-wrinkling. I’m only 53 but this retirement-lite taster session is bloody lovely. Imagine how much lovelier it would be if I wasn’t so regularly having to hug a toilet.

* * * * * * * *

A further advantage of being unwell is that I’m currently the sole beneficiary of Nat’s maternal instinct (which she denies having but for which I have the lolly wrappers as proof). I’m receiving regular texts from her while she’s at work, to check how I’m doing, and a phone call at the end of each day to see if there’s anything I need from the shops on her way home. This is actually quite nice, and makes me feel cared for. I don’t generally need anything but I always request something, just to see if she means it.

     The cat, on the other hand, is watching me cautiously, no doubt sizing me up in my new horizontal state. I’m maintaining eye contact with it, just to remind it that I’m still the dominant male around here. It has already decided to test this theory by throwing up in the hallway. I’ve ignored him, so he’s thrown up again. We are now laying at opposite sides of the room, silently plotting against each other. I feel obliged to keep the eye contact up, but I’m getting sleepy. This might not end well.

* * * * * * * *

The only real disadvantage with being ill is from Nat’s point of view. She has to share a bed with me. Being I’ve been asleep for most of the day, I’m probably less sleepy than her right now. This, together with the fact that my body temperature rises at night, has made me a little more wriggly than usual. This isn’t good when she has to get up at 5.45am to catch a train into Birmingham for a conference.

     ‘Will you stay still!’

     ‘Sorry … Ouch!’

     ‘What now?’

     ‘I just accidentally punched myself in the face while trying to pull the duvet up.’

     ‘Well, that saves me a job.’

     I think maybe I should drag myself and my pillows into the spare room.

* * * * * * * *

I made the mistake of thinking I was better this morning, so I had a shower and ate grapes. Lots of grapes. I’m not feeling as better as I did.

Outside my window, it’s currently sunny but zero degrees. I can hear people scraping ice off their windshields. I, on the other hand, am sat up on my bed, bathed in warm, ambient lighting, clutching a hot drink while trying to decide which movie to watch. Life doesn’t get much bet… Oh, excuse me a moment …

* * * * * * * *

 

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It’s cold outside. And wet. And grey. Did I mention grey? The decaying corpse of my lawn that scrubbed up so well last summer is now partially hidden, like a rushed burial, beneath the mouldering litter of late autumn, and sticks to my shoes like putrefying road kill whenever I make the mistake of swapping cabin fever for a breath of fresh air. I think I may have also stood in fox crap. That means there’s foxes out there. And they’re crapping on my lawn.

     ‘Bastards!’ I shout from the patio, as I hop in one shoe while trying to take off the other before re-entering the house. ‘Oh, not you,’ I add, noticing my next-door neighbour hovering near our fence.

     He says nothing, just opens his patio door and disappears inside. He’s like that. I shrug and do the same. We’ve lived within feet of each other for over thirteen years and I still don’t know his name. I doubt very much that I could even pick him out of a police line-up. Hopefully, I’ll never have to, though it wouldn’t altogether surprise me if I did.

* * * * * * * *

There’s a lot to be said about Christmas – and most of it is far too positive. This season of obligatory fun and mandatory wallet-rape, all thinly wrapped up as ‘good will to all men’ (and, presumably, women), is just another poke in the face after they’ve gone and made night time turn up half way through the day by screwing with the clocks again.

     ‘Stop moaning!’ says Nat. She apparently likes what she so casually refers to as ‘the seasons.’

     I’m not ok with them. I’d much prefer one perpetual summer. If it wasn’t for the fact that we’d all probably float away, I’d suggest doing away with global rotation and just park the planet up nicely against a rational season. Like summer. There’s nothing cosy about the damp British coldness that clings to your bones and traps you indoors. And did I mention the perpetual grey? And just as you’ve worn yourself out coming to terms with ‘the seasons’, the threat of Christmas happens at you.

     ‘For goodness’ sake, where’s your festive spirit? The house down the road already has its Christmas tree up.’ I think Nat is getting tired of me following her around the house, whinging.

     I don’t feel that this even deserves an answer. On the other hand, I can’t help myself. ‘Take a look at your watch,’ I say. ‘It’s November. In fact, It’s barely half past November. Christmas might be a tradition, but do you know what tradition is? Do you?’

     ‘Go on …  and on … which I’m sure you’re about to.’

     ‘Tradition is merely peer pressure from dead people; that’s what tradition is.’

     ‘I think you’ll find that Christmas is all about the little baby Jesus,’ she says.

     “But why on Earth did they make him a Capricorn? Everybody knows that Leos make the most enigmatic leaders. Look at Mick Jagger.’

     ‘… Nope, I have nothing,’ she says, and leaves the room.

* * * * * * * *

The first hint of Christmas slapped me in the face the day after Bonfire Night, when I heard Paul Mc – shut the hell up – Cartney inviting me to have a ‘Wonderful Christmas Time’ through the sound system of my local Next store. ‘You’re shitting me,’ I said to the shop assistant, as I pointed at the speaker in the ceiling. ‘I know,’ he said. Next lost a customer that afternoon.

     I’m told Christmas is ‘cosy-up’ time with family, but most of us know that trying to coordinate a family Christmas is like trying to drag a full drum kit up a car park stairwell. Ok, Christmas doesn’t smell of wee (we tend to get a real Christmas tree) but the point, along with the frustration, remains the same.

     And then there’s the usual festive racism: ‘We can’t even call it Christmas anymore, for fear of offending someone’ is now the annual Daily Mail reader’s chorus of choice, which has become every bit as traditional over recent years as ‘Good King Wenceslas’, as it pours into and bounces off every corner of social media. This claim isn’t remotely true, of course, but why let truth get in the way of perfectly good bigotry. Most disappointing in my opinion is that these people are still allowed to vote. But as Churchill is quoted as saying, ‘The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter’.

     To add insult, I’ve just received an email falsely describing me as ‘a valued customer of Christmas Letters from Santa’.

     ‘I think they might have mixed you up with a different idiot,’ says Nat, as she begins to read my email. ‘Hey, you can get a whole £1.00 off your Santa’s letter if you order before 18^th November,’ she says. ‘“You can also include with your letter a token certificate for an extra 50p, which rewards your child for good behaviour and being kind to others. Another great keepsake from Santa Claus himself!”’

     ‘You mean I’ve got to pay Santa in order for him to write to me? It’s true what they say, absolute power really does corrupt absolutely.’

     ‘Poor Santa,’ says Nat, ‘Perhaps he’s suffering from the falling pound and the burden of corporation tax.’

     ‘Then perhaps he should register his business in the United Arab Emirates, and his domicile in Estonia, just like any other self-respecting tax exile, instead of reverting to charging for autographs.’

     ‘That reminds me,’ says Nat, reaching for a faded note that is sticking out of the back of the letter rack, ‘Remember this?’ She holds it up. ‘I found it stuck to the fridge door last Christmas morning when I got up.’

     I try to take it from her but she’s too quick. ‘And I quote,’ she says, ‘“Dear Santa, I’m writing to you to let you know that I’ve been naughty this year, and that it was worth it, you fat judgmental bastard”. Do you have anything to say about this?’

     ‘I think the note speaks for itself,’ I say.

* * * * * * * *

In the meantime, my local supermarket has already moved the easy to grab wine from the front of the store to make room for Christmas cards and Twiglets.

     ‘Who on earth buys Twiglets?’ I ask.

     ‘Everybody,’ says Nat.

     ‘But who on earth eats them?’ I ask.

     ‘Nobody,’ she says.

 

Still, it could be worse, it could be … oh, it is. I reach for my umbrella.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

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     ‘Explain yourself,’ says Nat, taking off her coat as she closes the front door behind her.

     ‘Well, I’m quite simple, really,’ I say, ‘albeit in a convoluted sort of way.’ I’m standing at the bottom of the stairs with an armful of laundry. ‘I’m the usual bag of delightful contradictions that one might associate with post-industrial man. Of course, I mostly put this down to having had to untangle myself psychically from the belief systems of the 1970s, which, in many ways, can be said to be the font of my general ineptitudes. Can you believe that we once thought that orange shirts with brown collars and cuffs were something we shouldn’t be put to death for …?’

     She’s standing there waiting for me to stop talking, her body language and expression confused in equal measure by what even I am realising to be my directionless monologue. ‘I was looking to be more specific,’ she says.

     ‘Go on.’

     She reaches into her bag. ‘You’re a man; explain this.’ She slaps a copy of today’s newspaper onto the hallway table.

     I read the headline looking up at me from the front page. ‘Paul Gascoigne?’ I say.

     ‘Yes. Paul Gascoigne. …Well?’

     I’m not sure how to respond. So, I don’t.

     Nat picks the newspaper back up and quotes at me: “The ex-England star, who denies sexual assault by touching, told police he had “kissed a fat lass” to give her a “confidence boost”, jurors were told.”

     ‘Wow!’ I say.

     ‘Not good enough,’ says Nat, accusingly, ‘Explain yourself.’

     ‘What? Why me? What have I got to do with this?’

     ‘You’re the only man in the room, so you’ll have to do.’

     ‘Wow!’ I say again, but for very different reasons this time.

     ‘Any insights at all into why men are so batshit stupid?’

     And then it comes to me. ‘If I had any insight into this type of ridiculous male outlook and behaviour,’ I say, ‘I very much doubt you’d want to be with me.’

     With that, Nat’s expression softens and she leans over to kiss me. ‘I’m very lucky,’ she says.

     ‘Nailed it!’ I say. ‘Totally nailed it.’ But I only say this in my head. Only in my head.

* * * * * * * *

Later that evening, Nat and I are in the living room, watching TV. Or rather, she is watching Master Chef, while I’m busy ignoring it with a magazine.

     ‘Why do you have your fingers in your ears?’ she asks, looking over at me.

     I don’t want to say that I’m currently thinking something very loudly and don’t want anyone to hear. ‘Hmm?’ I ask.

     ‘Is there something wrong with your ears?’

     ‘Oh, them. Yes. Itchy.’ I take my fingers out and pretend to scratch them.

     ‘Are you thinking loud thoughts again?’ she asks.

     ‘No! … A bit!’ I say.

     ‘…And?’

     I think for a moment. ‘Well,’ I say, reluctantly, ‘that Paul Gascoigne story …’

     ‘Go on …’

     ‘If the woman in the article hadn’t been non-consensually kissed by a northern drunk but had instead been kissed by a proper celeb – say, David Beckham, or Matt Damon – might she still have considered it an assault?’

     Nat instantly turns down the volume on the TV, which is never a good sign. ‘Do you not understand the word consent?’ she asks.

    ‘Yes, but if, say, Johnny Depp walked across a room and kissed you? No ‘Hi, how/who are you?’ If he just kissed you because he thought you might like it, would you really be all ‘See you in court,’ about it?

     ‘Well that’s not a fair question,’ she says.

     ‘Why not?’

     ‘Because it’s Johnny Depp. The consent is implied.’

     ‘And right there is the slow puncture in your feminist stance,’ I say.

     ‘No, it’s not.’

     ‘Of course, it is. Same scenario, but if he happens to occasionally dress like a pirate, it’s suddenly not assault? It’s one rule for Johnny Depp and another for Captain Birdseye.’ (I’m not sure if my argument is technically still on point at this juncture, but I think my overall theme is still intact.)

     The pause that follows results in Nat turning the TV volume back up. I’m off the hook. Or ignored. Or both.

* * * * * * * *

A few days later, the BBC news informs us that randomly kissing strangers on trains is not actually sexual assault if you are a wealthy ex-footballer and can come across to a jury as adequately stupid.

     ‘And there you have it,’ I say, ‘a jury cannot prove the guilty mind element when the mind in question hardly exists at all.’

     ‘Disappointing,’ says Nat. ‘We’re clearly still living in the Middle Ages as far as women’s rights are concerned.’

     ‘I don’t think I’d have got away so easily with kissing women on trains,’ I say.

     ‘To be honest, I doubt your case would even get to court.’

     ‘Why not?’ I ask.

     ‘Because I wouldn’t be reckless enough to bury your body where it might be found.’

     Though the world outside my front door might still be considered a patriarchy in many ways, in here I’m happy to allow the matriarchy to continue. It just seems easier that way.

* * * * * * * *

 

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IF YOU ENJOYED THIS ARTICLE, PLEASE CONSIDER SHARING IT ON YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES FOR OTHERS TO ENJOY TOO.  (Even us poor writers have to eat!)

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