Gill Sims - Why Mummy Doesn’t Give a ****

It was a shame, I thought pathetically to myself, that I could never go back to that very nice bar and take photos for Instagram, as it would now be forever known as The Bar Where Simon Left Me. If he was going to leave me, he could at least have done it in a dive, and not spoiled somewhere nice for me. Selfish bastard.

Friday, 6 April

I woke up in a panic, dry-mouthed and heart racing, convinced I’d slept through the alarm and that the removal men were here already. They weren’t, of course, because it was only 3.43 am, but as it was the sixth time I’d woken up like that, the chances of me actually sleeping through the alarm increased every time, and thus so did the panic. It didn’t help that in the brief snatches of sleep I’d managed in between waking up I’d dreamt that the removal men turned up but nothing was packed and so we couldn’t move, and then in another much, much worse dream, that they turned up, that everything I owned was neatly boxed up, that I was smoothly and seamlessly directing operations as they loaded their lorry, only to make the hideous discovery, while I was standing in the front garden watching two burly sorts lug out the sofa, that I was stark bollock naked, and everyone had been too polite to say anything, but there was every chance the removal men were traumatised for life by the sight of a forty-five-year-old woman standing in the street, tits jiggling, reminding them to be careful with the sideboard as it was a family heirloom.

Actually, I don’t even know why the sideboard was in my dream. I don’t have it anymore. It was Simon’s granny’s, so he’s got it. Admittedly, he didn’t really want it and had harboured an unreasonable hatred for it ever since I’d attempted to ‘shabby chic’ it up and painted it a lovely eau de nil , but I was determined to be fair, and so I insisted he took the sideboard. It was definitely fairness that made me let him have the sideboard and not a malicious amusement at thinking how pissed off he’d be every time he looked at it, nor a sadistic pleasure in thinking how it would ruin the minimalist effect he could finally achieve in his new flat but, because it was his grandmother’s, he’d be stuck with it.

After Simon’s announcement that he was moving out to ‘give us some space’, I didn’t hang around. I’ve seen too many friends and colleagues put in the same position, with their partner buggering off, assuring them it was ‘only temporary’ to give them ‘time to think’. They went off to ‘think’, and then a month down the line the joint accounts were emptied, there was a lawyer’s letter on the doormat and an estate agent at the door announcing they were there to do a valuation, because the ‘temporary thinking time’ was just a ruse to allow them to move out with minimal hassle while sorting out their financial affairs to their own benefit.

I wasn’t going to be caught on the hop like that. The next day, when I checked our bank accounts and found that Simon had withdrawn a considerable sum – apparently to cover the rent on Geoff’s flat, as it had turned out that Geoff wasn’t letting him house sit rent free, as Simon had implied – and after listening to Simon’s excuses that the joint account was ‘living expenses’ and me pointing out that it was his choice to move out into an expensive flat and why the fuck should I be part-funding that, I called the estate agents and the lawyers, removed my share from the remains of the joint accounts and got the ball rolling. Unfortunately, our house turned out to have gone up in value since we bought it, and neither of us could afford to buy the other out, so it had to be sold, all while Simon bleated on that I was being too hasty and he hadn’t meant this to be permanent.

Competitively priced family homes in catchment areas for decent schools tend to sell fast, though – rather faster than I’d expected, leaving me without much time to find somewhere for me and the children to go. And so, I find myself lying awake, staring at the ceiling, contemplating a future where I’ll not be growing old with Simon in a little stone cottage with roses round the door. However, on the plus side, I will be growing old in a little stone cottage with roses round the door. That is what I need to focus on – the positives, not the negatives. The fact is that Simon had always baulked at my visions of quaint and rustic cottages, and muttered darkly about energy efficiency, and lack of double glazing, and low ceilings (surely the low ceilings would make it easier to heat, as I used to point out). He’d tut and point out all the flaws in the survey reports of the Dream Houses I showed him, sighing over wet rot and dry rot and rising damp and crumbling pointing, crying, ‘Money pit! Money pit!’ as I cried, ‘Character and soul! IT HAS CHARACTER AND SOUL! What’s a little mildew compared with THAT?’

As an architect, Simon was always able to trump me (a mere ‘computer person’, as he used to refer to my job) on all things house by hurling technical words around and citing the terrible costs of a new roof (according to him, every house I fell in love with would need a new roof, despite the clearly functional and vintagely slated roof having done perfectly well for over a hundred years), and so, one by one, my dreams were crushed under the weight of tedious practicalities.

But now, Simonless, with no unfaithful naysayer crushing my visions of stone-flagged kitchens and mullioned windows anymore, I’ve found the cottage of my dreams, and we’re moving in today. Well, it’s possibly not quite the Cottage of My Dreams. My finances didn’t entirely stretch to that, despite a small stroke of luck in my batshit-mental ex-sister-in-law Louisa deciding her latest blow struck against the patriarchy would be to become a lesbian and move to a women’s commune with her new lover Isabel, thus finally vacating the house I’d been emotionally blackmailed into buying for her several years earlier. My lingering resentment at being forced to bankroll Louisa’s feckless lifestyle with the profits of the one financially successful thing I’ve ever achieved, my lovely app called Why Mummy Drinks , obviously in no way contributed to the breakdown of things with Simon at all . But she’s gone, her (my) house is sold, and the resulting cash injection added to my share of the Marital Home meant I was able to afford to buy a Vaguely Dreamish Cottage, with not too crippling a mortgage. Hurrah! It will be magical. If you overlook the damp. Which is probably nothing that can’t be painted over. And the fact that I didn’t have much time to wait around for the perfect house to come on the market so, to afford a house with a garden for Judgy Dog and three bedrooms for the children and me, I’ve had to move miles out of town.

But anyway. I shall have a vegetable garden, and look adorable in wellies and an unfeasible amount of Cath Kidston prints (well, probably not real Cath Kidston, as it’s very bloody expensive and I’m a Single Mother now, but I can probably find some affordable knock-offs on eBay). I’m going to keep chickens – Speckled Sussexes, I’ve decided, because I liked the name and when I googled them they were described as very chatty chickens. Who even needs a man when you have chatty chickens? I just have to hope that Judgy Dog does not attempt to eat my chatty chickens. I’ve had stern words with him to this effect, but he just gave me one of his ‘I’m paying no attention to your foolish witterings, woman, and I shall do as I please’ looks. Luckily, Judgy being my dog, having got him somewhat against Simon’s will, despite Simon coming to love him almost as much as I do, there was no question of who got Judgy in the divorce. I’d probably have let him have Peter and Jane if he’d really wanted, but I’d have fought tooth and nail for sole custody of Judgy …