Oliver Reed and The Valley Girl

"Hi honey, I'm home." He stooped through the door in a wrinkle of
pink shirt and battered raincoat. "I've had the most awful day." She
came to meet him, taking his coat and leading him to the sitting room
in a single action of efficiency. "Toothache," he grimaced for dramatic
effect, sinking into his favourite armchair. "And, I've just come face
to face with the grim reaper on the tube."

"Yes, a real near death experience." He explained as she stood over
him, something like amusement dancing around her rigid face. "There was
a guy in my carriage, kept staring at me. So I got off and moved to
another carriage, but he followed me. Then when I got off to... bla bla
bla bla..."

She tuned out, went into the kitchen and poured a glass of water, took
two asprin from the packet and returned as he was finishing. "So in the
end I ran into the toilets at Kings Cross and hid there for twenty
minutes, terrifying really."

"Jesus, David. That is not a near death experience. A near death
experience is being dangled from a tall building by your feet when you
know that your shoes are too big." She handed him the pills with an
angry slant to her mouth.

"Thank you, poppet. You are an angel." He gave his wife the most
endearing bunny rabbit face his aching jaw would permit.

"You know what David? You sound more like a valley girl
everyday."

"Sorry, love." He knew what was coming and cowered inside his
head.

"What did we decide? Who were you to be like?" One eye was cruel, the
other pitiful.

"Oliver Reed?" He followed her voice to the kitchen, wary.

"Yes, Oliver Reed." She barked, facing him like a drill instructor.
"What did we say we would write on your tombstone?"

"Er... 'Here lies David Barton, much more like Oliver Reed than a
Valley Girl." He tried to sound hard but it came out as a
question.

"That's right. Now do something about it."

He knew better than to answer, sloping off to the fridge to pour
himself a glug of Chardonnay. She heard him return to the living room
and twiddle with the music system.

"Not Dido, David," she warned from the doorway, then went back to the
regiment of vegetables she was preparing for dinner.

They ate in silence, David staring at his plate, his wife breathing
heavily as she chewed each mouthful the prescribed number of times.
After the News at Ten she stood. "Bedtime."

He knew the drill on occasions like this (Thursdays). His wife would go
to bed and perform her exhausting routine of ablutions. He would make
himself a cup of cocoa (although the instructions said whiskey) and
join her ten minutes later.

* *

They lay under the duvet. She performed a gentle type of press-up over
his milky flesh. In the gloom of the suburban bedroom he could just
make out the perfect outline of taught biceps and tight neck. He
circled his hands around it and pulled her face towards him. If only he
could make it relax, yield to him. She resisted but as she did so he
found that he couldn't let go. He held it tighter, and then tighter,
more and more and then... finally she softened and fell towards him on
to the pillow.

* *

On Tuesday, at the cemetery,

the grave stone simply read,

"Now I bet you wished you'd married

Oliver Reed instead."