Читать книгу William Walker’s First Year of Marriage: A Horror Story - Matt Rudd - Страница 81

Isabel is staying with her parents for the weekend to recuperate further. I don’t have to stay with her parents for the weekend because Arthur Arsehole has lined up some ‘very keen’ prospective buyers. I am charged with being present but not present. I must vacuum. I must plump cushions. I must keep the flat spotless, keep our drummer/party animal neighbours silen-t/-ced, and have the bread machine wafting suitable aromas at prescient moments. But whenever Arsehole opens the door, I must be gone.

This is the first time I have been alone since we got married. Isabel says this is probably a good thing: what with wishing a poor widow at work dead, I could do with some time on my own to relax and recuperate from what is clearly a stressful time of my life.

Hahaha, I say.

The overwhelming sense of freedom is intoxicating, as is the whisky I down naughtily the moment I get in from work. I don’t know why I was so excited…I’m very happy being married. I love Isabel. Isabel loves me. Sure, the honeymoon is over (the honeymoon that dare not speak its name, complete with its constant diarrhoea and its inescapable taxi drivers and its long-haul economy class syndrome, and I thought honeymoons were supposed to be relaxing and, yes, it’s still too raw to talk about). But even in this post-honeymoon phase, where it’s all got a bit trouble and strife and ball and chain, I don’t know what I’d do without her.

Well, actually I do.