Matt Rudd - William Walker’s First Year of Marriage - A Horror Story

‘Come on then,’ Andy and I say in unison, ignoring, as we always do, the fact that Johnson’s hard-working, sensible, intelligent, patient and long-suffering wife Ali has almost certainly had a harder time putting up with ten years of the infant Johnson than he has putting up with her.

‘It’s not traditional,’ he offers at last.

‘Said that.’

‘How’s a piece of jewellery going to make any difference whether you’re faithful or not?’

‘Said that too.’

‘If you’re going to shag someone, a ring won’t stop you. You could just take it off.’

‘Yep, didn’t say that.’

‘And besides, there’s a certain type of woman who goes for men because they’re wearing wedding rings. Predatory women who want sex. Terrible women, these. They come at you in a bar, you’re sitting there having a drink, minding your own business, wearing your wedding ring, and they strike. These wanton, brazen, ravishing women with their short skirts and their stockings and their completely amoral attitude to fornication. The wedding ring is no defence. “Look, I’m married,” you say. “I don’t want a relationship, you sexy, sexy man,” they purr, running their filthy-temptress fingers down your tie. “I want you. And I want you now.”’

Johnson is running his fingers down my chest seductively.

‘I’ve got the idea.’

‘And before you know it, you’re waking up in the wrong hotel room with some brazen harlot in some filthy negligée ordering postcoital petit déjeûner .’

Andy says a ring to him is like a symbolic chattel, a sign of ownership—a ring-cuff, if you will. Love, if it’s true, doesn’t need symbols of repression. I point out that Isabel has a wedding ring. Andy nods sagely and, not for the first time, I wonder why I ever bother asking my two best friends anything.

Nevertheless, it is worth one more try. I wait until Isabel is brushing her teeth before mentioning the brazen, harlotish, fornicating women in bars. She says she’s prepared to take the risk, then spits for effect.

Getting a ring next week.

Johnson is an expert in the art of handling the opposite sex by virtue of the fact that he is older than me and Andy. He likes to use the standard line on this. ‘Ten years, man, ten years—if I’d killed her instead of marrying her, I could have been out on parole by now.’

Before Johnson ‘went soft’ and came to work on Life & Times magazine with me, he was a hard-bitten crime reporter on the Manchester Evening News . Somewhere along the line, he has muddled his time working the sink estates, covering stories of social decay, organised crime and young lives wasted with marriage. He sees them as the same thing.

‘I know what makes women tick,’ he says. ‘You can’t trust them. Not ever. They will stab you in the back the moment you think they’re your friend.’

‘Are you talking about women or inner-city drug dealers?’

‘Same thing, my son. Same thing.’

He thinks Isabel is the best thing that ever happened to me and can’t understand why I had to ruin it all by marrying her.

Andy, meanwhile, is an expert in the art of handling the opposite sex by virtue of the fact that he has handled an awful lot of them. The only problem here is that he has never handled them for any length of time. He isn’t a womaniser, he is an optimist. He travels the world falling in love when he should be representing Her Majesty’s Government. Then, inevitably, visa issues, flight schedules, language barriers and, occasionally, husbands get in the way. He has now concluded that love transcends the boundaries of time and space. He thinks Isabel is the best thing that ever happened to me but that marriage is nothing more than several signatures on a meaningless piece of paper. ‘True love transcends time, space and institution,’ he says.

‘So how is that waitress from the cupboard?’ I reply.

‘She will always have a place in my heart.’

‘You’re not moving to Manly?’

‘And leave you two? All married and alone? I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.’

Isabel wants to know what Johnson, Andy and I always talk about at the pub, besides brazen, harlotish women in bars.

‘Stuff,’ I say.

‘What stuff?’ It’s not the first time she has asked but this time she says she has a right to know.

‘I am your wife. You shouldn’t be going out with them any more. Not without telling me what you talk about.’

This is the sort of thing Johnson has been warning me about. I must nip it in the bud.

‘Well …’ I begin with a sharp, scandalised intake of breath.

‘I was joking,’ she says. ‘It’s only that you never seem to come back from the pub with any news about the two of them. I was curious about how you pass the time.’

This could easily be a trick. If I was a better chess player, I’d be able to work out the various permutations before I opened my mouth. I don’t think she’s trying to trick me. She’s simply making conversation. She likes talking to me when we get back from work. She likes it more than watching television. This is obviously a compliment but it does mean I am no longer up to speed with The Bill . It could also still be a trick.

‘Well, you can come.’

‘What?’

‘Come to the pub.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Er, yes.’ Suddenly, I’m not. I should have just moved the pawn. That would have been fine.

‘Okay, but you have to talk about the things you always talk about. No chatting about art and poetry and horse-riding just for my benefit.’

These are the things she really does like to talk about, which is sometimes a problem. I don’t know very much about art but she does, on account of her highly arty family upbringing. The poetry of the Romantic Period was her special subject at university and, unlike everyone else who went to university, she still remembers it. And made me go to several poetry recitals when we first met just because she really, really wants to share the joy of it all. I almost got it. I almost did. I could see why she loved it and why I was a useless philistine for not loving it as much.

Horse-riding, though. That’s where we really come unstuck. She loves horse-riding. When we’re tired of London (about five years) and we’ve won the lottery, she wants to move to somewhere remote and horsey like North Wales. She wants to ride and muck out stables and give out carrots and blow in horses’ nostrils because they love it. She likes smelling of horse.

We’ll never see eye to eye on the joy of horses.

I phone Andy and Johnson, both of whom are suspicious, even when I tell them we don’t have to talk about poetry. Reluctantly, they agree to meet me and Isabel in the pub on Friday—and pretend she’s a bloke.

Woke up with absolutely no idea of the eureka moment about to occur in the bathroom. Bath, teeth, flossed a little bit, nothing out of the ordinary. Attempt to shave, but last razor is on last legs. I’m busy hacking away like a tired peasant in a cornfield when, out of the corner of my eye, I spot another option lying provocatively on the shelf: Isabel’s pink leg-razor. Isabel is still in bed and what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Amazing. It’s all over in a flash, a clean shave, my skin all silky smooth. Pink girly razor: the best a man can get … I put it back, so no one will ever know. Skip to work, delighted that the years of hacking away and patching up cuts with bits of loo roll might be over.

Isabel found dark stubbly hair in her razor. Firmly told not to do it again or she’ll tell Johnson.