Sticks and Stones 3

January 2006 (Since last writing, we have sold the house we bought near Toulouse and split the proceeds, in her favour, for an amicable separation.) This shows you what an unfeeling reprobate I was, and probably still am. What I’m upset about is the fact that Suzie knew what she was tangling herself up with when she met me –I’d always been honest about my past-, so why the shock horror when I fancied a quiet drink at the pub? The answer is Clara, and she had good reason to be upset with me for her alone.
I’d never been very good with Griff from the outset and the good vibe I had with Maddy, now eleven, withered away just at the time Suzie and my constant bickering gained momentum.
Ever since I’ve been an adult, I can’t remember one night when I stayed in, unless I was really ill. I just don’t have the capacity to feel at home at home. Home is for people who are comfortable in their own skin and know about boundaries. I am homeless. It’s a state of mind.
Aged forty, I find myself at the Crowne Plaza in Andorra La Vella, nursing my laptop with a fine bottle of Tempranillo.
My reason/excuse for coming here was to finally edit my short stories. As if that wasn’t enough, I had to master the camera I’d blown 2000 euros on last week in Toulouse.
It’s a hulking digital Nikon D2H, and I’m too scared to go out with it for fear of Basque hooligans swiping it.
Suzie grudgingly allowed me to go when I put on one of my tamed animal-in-a-box speeches and then added the promise of bringing back some electronic goodies for her and the kids.
‘I don’t get time for a holiday,’ she said longingly, just before I left.
‘Well, you should,’ I replied. ‘I could easily look after the children for a few days. You know that, but you won’t let me.’
But she’d always dreaded leaving me alone with her two for more than an afternoon’s shopping in Toulouse, when even then it was only Griff, who’d play his PS2 until his cut-off point, at which time he would worry about his mother and ask when she’d be back every six minutes without fail, so it appealed to me to say it, knowing I’d never have to honour the deed.
I have always resented her mistrust in me where Griff and Maddy are concerned, although, regrettably, I have usually earnt it.
Together, we’d been through the worst shit the kids would ever have to endure in their lives with their parents’ messy divorce hearings lasting two years and five appearances. We’d come out the other side in one piece.
I might smoke dope and be angry to strangers who get my goat and I might swear at nothing, but I’d never raised a finger to them and always loved them, even when they were hellbent on destroying my day, as kids tend to do, albeit unintentionally. I know it’s only because they love you.
In a way, I’ve always felt like an outsider in the family, but I have myself to blame for that.
Suzie’s too much of a control freak to see that she is one. She has to be with them at all times, unless they’re with their father in England. It’s not a healthy situation.
The two of us haven’t been out to dinner together for what must be over a year. The last time I failed to take her out I had tried to fit in a small and harmless dope deal just before leaving and got home five minutes late for our departure. She blew up, cancelled the babysitter and refused to see my side of things. I then proceeded to take myself to the bar to ponder the irreversible.
We have eaten out en famille at lunch since then, but it’s just not the same as two adults between a candle flickering, choosing for one another with tranquil certitude and the imminence of a good shag back home.
Going to Toulouse on her own to spoil herself is way too much for Suzie to handle, even when I’ve given her three hundred euros for that specific purpose, and so the imbalance of power worsens. She feels more and more resentful that she never gets any time to herself, and the more I try and drum it into her that only she can give herself that time, the more irate and uncontrollable her mood swings become.
The thing that cocks up progress more than my wayward boozing is her time of the month.
Only God, doctors and those quirky enough to be fascinated by the moon know why they have them for a particular reason, but, in my eyes, the moon has a lot to answer for.
I’m sure there would be no war or famine in the world if the moon didn’t exist. Suzie’s periods are ghastly.
It probably makes it worse for her when she sees me agonising to help her out of the pain, because she despises being at a loss, which is the feeling she gets when blood drips from her private parts. Daily routine falls by the wayside and clutter builds. When negative thinking starts to infiltrate her every thought, there is a tension in the house like no other, and it’s all down to her bleeding time of the month.
Sometimes, she’ll start her tour de farce days before the period kicks in, when the actual event becomes a breeze, and other times she’ll announce that she’s having her period and what a good job she’s doing, to which I will agree with surprise, only for the real tornado to appear days after the blood’s dried up. Either way, I’m the loser.
I can never remember when she’s about to have one, so I guess I spend half of every month walking on eggshells, wondering when she’ll cave in to the dreaded rag.
But she’s a woman and that’s what women do; they worry and they care and somewhere in between they think about a better life and what went wrong, when, in fact, it’s not that bad.
Periods aren’t the only time when Suzie is at an all-time low. When funds are down and we can see no way out of the hole we sometimes find ourselves in, Suzie is a loose cannon. She’s just not very good in a tight corner, especially when you consider that she took out loans of £25,000 during the first year her ex-husband left.
She’s been paying off five loans at £2 a month each for the last four years without interest, so no one will lend her money, and she’s too proud to ask her parents.
Having said that, we do have the most incredible knack of steering clear of further debt, although I’ve now got a loan for £25,000 as well, just to even up the tally of our modern social decay.
We’ve done pretty well by the children and have always provided them with the essentials and the wants.
Looking back, I don’t know how we managed to stay alive, let alone together.
I chose to come to Andorra for two reasons; one, because it’s cheap as chips in all departments and, two, because a friend who I’m almost positive is now dead told me about it years ago and sung its praises.
‘Seriously, mate,’ he told me. ‘Bottles of Jack for three quid and they throw fags away they’re so cheap.’
In a way, this is a homage trip to that man, who betrayed me so badly back at the tail end of the good old days we had together. I wished him dead for years after that, and now I don’t, so I’ve come to the place he told me about.
I can’t lead the life of the past, though, because I had three bottles of San Miguel in quick succession on arrival at the hotel and woke up at five in the morning with a scorching headache. Basically, my brain is lightly fried and boozing is no longer an interesting option.
I feel this might just be the beginning of a new me, forced into sobriety like a man being thrown to the lions. With death comes life, they say, and I believe them.
The hash I smoke has an unerring knack of making my heart do the most unsubtle fluttering, giving me a Crazy Frog as a ticker and a brain that’s being oiled for shutdown.
Sobriety seems imminent again. Only when all hope has been drained may the strong-willed reform.
I hope so, because I couldn’t live with the thought of dying young. That would kill me.