Page 65 of Seven Rules for a Perfect Marriage

We arrive back at the house, and I pay for the cab, giving him a ludicrously large tip in the hope that at least he has a nice night, and then follow Jess into the house. She stops to take off her coat but I don’t bother and just stride through the house, into the kitchen, to pour myself a glass of wine.

Jess follows me and then stands in the doorway, silhouetted with her hands on her hips.

‘Are you going to say something?’ she asks, infuriatingly just as I was about to.

‘Why didn’t you tell me that you were going to have dinner with him?’ I ask. I go to the fridge and take out a bottle of wine. I don’t want a glass of wine, but I do want something to do with my hands while we talk about this, because at the moment I feel like I’m playing the role of Wronged Husband in a school play.

‘I told you, I was going to have dinner with Grace then she had a PTA emergency so I hung out with Clay,’ she explains, slowly and clearly as if I’m one of the E-number-addled kids in Raffy’s primary school class.

‘And you didn’t think you should have mentioned it to me?’ I ask.

‘Honestly? No. I didn’t. I thought you’d be vibrating with stress because you were with your parents, and I thought telling you would make things worse. You’re weird about Clay. You always have been.’

She’s not totally wrong, but I can’t accept this. ‘I’m not “weird” about him, I think he’s an arsehole, and I don’t really like that you spend personal time with someone who has ignored every suggestion I’ve ever made and clearly only values you as a source of income.’

‘You know most men would be angry in this situation because they were jealous. Because they were worried that their wife was going to be unfaithful or at least enjoy getting pissed with a good-looking male friend. But you’re too selfish to even be jealous. You don’t like me spending time with Clay because you don’t like him.’

This isn’t entirely true but there’s way too much nuance to explain, and I don’t think I’d express it well enough. ‘Does it matter why I’m angry?’ I ask. ‘You lied about seeing him because you knew I’d tell you I didn’t want you to—’

‘I understand that you don’t like Clay, but in any relationship, you have to retain the right to have your own friends, our networks don’t have to be—’

‘Stop it.’ I sigh.

‘Stop what?’

‘You’re talking like you’re writing another book,’ I tell her.

‘I’m not going to get to write another book, thanks to you.’

‘How many times do you want me to say that I’m sorry?’

‘But you’re not sorry, are you? You’re sorry that I’m upset, you’re sorry that it got in the papers. You’re not sorry that you destroyed my career because now you might get to write your tragic Martin Amis fan fiction.’

She has never, not in the entire time we’ve been together, said anything that mean to me.

‘Jesus, Jess,’ I say. ‘It’s nice to know what you really think. It’s just a shame that all that honesty stuff at the retreat was clearly bollocks. A band-aid for a bullet hole.’

‘Okay, let’s have some real honesty, then. Let’s stop this stupid “trying” thing, and tell the cold, hard, fucking truth.’ She raises her voice.

‘All right, if that’s what you want.’ I take a breath and look at her. My veins are twitching with the adrenaline of the fight. It’s been a long time since we really lost it with each other. I’m scared to hear what she has to say, but I can’t back down, and in some gruesome way I want to hear it.

‘I miss you,’ I say. ‘I miss the version of you who would stay up till four a.m. drinking and talking shit. I miss how light and fun and mad you were. I miss you being creative and having ideas. All you talk about, think about, write about, is our bloody relationship. You turned our entire life upside down so that you could get what you want, so that you didn’t have to be the girl with the job she hates in marketing. And you never once stopped to ask how I felt about it, about having to give up a job that was important to me and that I really fucking loved, all because it was a conflict of interest with your career, which consists mostly of posting photos of yourself on the internet all day.’

‘You’re right.’ She doesn’t seem to have heard anything I’ve said. ‘I wasn’t honest before. Because I knew if I was honest, I’d probably destroy our relationship and I didn’t want that, because despite your very obvious disdain for me, I was trying desperately to make us happy. But I’ll be honest with you, if that’s really what you want. You’re lazy and spoiled and entitled. You complain about a job that you hardly have to lift a finger for. I spent years working in shit jobs where people talked down to me for fuck-all money, and I did it with good grace. You’ve done eighteen months of this, so that we could buy a house, put some savings in the bank and maybe, sue me, buy a few nice things, and you’ve done it with the worst attitude possible because it doesn’t meet your exacting standards. You’re an intellectual snob who still needs his parents to think he’s brilliant, and you’ve never got over not getting into some up-its-own-arse university when you were eighteen. You decided who I am, fourteen years ago, based on the fact that I had a topless tan, and not for a single fucking second since then have you considered that I might not be quite as carefree and childish as you want me to be.’

I’m not sure what hurts more: the fact that she clearly wants to upset me, or the fact that so much of what she’s saying is – at least in part – right.

‘That’s not fair, and you know that it’s not fair. You’ve changed.’

‘People are supposed to change!’ she shouts.

‘Not this much – you were a joy, you were spontaneous, and free. Now you won’t go anywhere unless you’ve packed the right vitamins. You came to our final English exam without a bloody pen—’

‘Of course I had a fucking pen, Jack.’

There’s silence in the kitchen now. ‘What?’ I ask.

‘I had a pen. I’m not an idiot. I wouldn’t have turned up to an exam without a pen. I just wanted an excuse to speak to you.’

---