Page 5 of Seven Rules for a Perfect Marriage

I can see Jessica rolling her eyes from the other side of the room. She knows I don’t know what we’re doing here. God, I hope it’s a Q & A so we can just answer the questions thought up by the audience – that I can do.

‘I’ll introduce you, then we’ll have questions.’ My relief is extremely short-lived because she pauses for a breath and then continues, ‘Jessica will speak, then you’ll speak, then we’ll have the signing. Keep it quick with people; don’t let them tell you their whole life stories, otherwise the queue will get too long. Don’t sign anything other than your own book, otherwise people won’t buy them. Got it? There are just over three hundred for the talk and then you’ll have about a hundred for the signing.’

The first piece of terrible news is that I’m supposed to be making a speech, which I definitely haven’t prepared. The second is that I know without a shadow of a doubt that Jessica will have told me this, probably three or four times in the last month, and I will have told her that I’m listening and that I’ve got it sorted, all the while planning to write it in the car on the way up. I swallow some more coffee and feel the reassuring swell of anxiety which means the caffeine is kicking in.

They’ve filled the bottom level of this very large bookshop with chairs. Every single one is taken and there are more people standing at the back. I’m honestly not sure how this is going to go, but one look at Jessica, in a black polo neck and skirt, her legs endless in sort of see-through black tights and ankle boots with spikes on them, tells me I have to pull myself together because it’s happening. We step out on to the stage to raucous applause. And I allow myself a moment of amazement at what Jessica has created. All of these people are here because of her. I still sometimes find myself shocked that I’m allowed to sleep next to her with my arm between her and her pillow or slip my hand down the back of her jeans while I kiss her neck. That I’m the one who gets to hold her hair back when she’s sick or refill her wine glass over dinner. She’s magic. I know that. But it still takes me by surprise that her magic has become ... a revenue stream.

I tried to compliment her on it, a few months ago. The fact that she has such a head for this business. But it came out wrong, and somehow it turned into a weird, uncomfortable conversation about her monetising our marriage. Neither of us has mentioned it since. Anyway. Once the press tour is over, we can enjoy the money and hopefully I can gently fade back into semi-obscurity.

‘I can’t believe how many of you are here!’ Jessica says, standing at the podium, her weight more on one foot than the other. I know she’s nervous – that’s definitely one of her tells – but no one else would realise. I catch her eye and shoot her an asinine thumbs up. ‘Thank you all so much for being here. Jack and I could never have dreamed that starting an Instagram accountcould have changed our lives like this, and we really do owe all of that to you.’

She talks a little while longer about marriage, about relationships, about wanting things to last. On the face of it, she says nothing new. There’s probably very little in there you couldn’t get from other self-help books. But she’s charming and she means what she says. You can really feel how much she means it, and her earnest cheerfulness is contagious. I can see every face in the room trained towards her, absorbing her energy, radiating it back at her. When she’s finished, the audience eagerly applauds. She sits back down and there’s an excited flush along her cheekbones. She is so very, very good at this. Which makes me feel even more like a fraud.

I get to my feet and look out at the crowd. As ever, it’s almost entirely women. After all, this is the gender that puts in the effort to save the marriage rather than looking surprised when someone leaves fifteen years into a ‘happy’ relationship.

‘Hi,’ I say. My voice echoes over the speakers. ‘Thanks for coming. As Jessica says, it means a lot.’

The audience starts shifting in their seats. They can see that I’m not confident in this position, and it’s making them uncomfortable. I sense that I’ve only got a matter of minutes before I lose them entirely. I wish, not for the first time, that I were better at this. The irony is, I used to dream of doing this. Giving a talk in front of a packed audience in a bookshop. Only, in that dream it’s a novel, written by me, and I’m there as a bona fide author. Not an accessory.

If that sounds self-pitying, it’s not supposed to. I’m very aware of how lucky we are. I’m just also aware of my ownlimitations. Jessica does the legwork on Instagram. She does the videos and the ‘ask me anything’ stories. I smile in photos and write one weekly caption. I’m not the reason they’re here. She is. I’m the Charles to her Diana. Though, hopefully not in any more meaningful sense than that people are more excited to see her than me. This is not a helpful train of thought. They’re all looking at me, waiting for me to speak, to say anything.

To my enormous relief, I think of something I can say, something I still know off by heart. ‘The first time I met Jessica, we were queuing up to take our last exam at university. We’d both been there for three years, and we’d never crossed paths before. She was standing behind me, she tapped me on the shoulder and she asked if she could borrow a pen. And the first thing I thought was, how have you come to an exam without a pen, you absolute psycho.’

Everyone laughs. Thank Christ.

‘But the second thing I thought was, how weird that the most beautiful person on the face of the planet is in the same exam hall as me. I chased her out into the street after the exam, asked for her email address, and to my absolute shock, actually got it. And from then on, it was easy. But I think it was easy because we kept choosing each other over and over again. And that’s the thing about marriage.’ I pause for a moment in an attempt to try and sound profound, giving my words more gravitas. ‘It’s not just a choice you make when you propose, or when you walk down the aisle. But a choice that you make every single day. When I wake up in the morning, the first choice I make is to try to make Jessica happy. And she does the same. Everything we do is aimed at being better, kinder, funnier, sexier, justgenerally an improved version of ourselves, for each other. And that’s easy for Jessica. You all follow her – you know. She’s the perfect woman. I don’t think she even really has to try to be that beautiful, that funny, that kind. But me, I’m not perfect. I’m grumpy. My hair grows in four different directions. I don’t like sharing the crossword in case someone solves a clue I can’t get. And that’s why I need Jessica. She’s the reason I don’t lean into all my bad behaviours, all my worst choices. I want to be the kind of person who deserves to be in a relationship with her. And I spend my life trying to make that happen. Even if I did miss out on getting a first, because I spent the whole of that exam staring at her, wondering if I’d ever get to talk to her again.’

I pause and look around. They’re smiling. I look to Jessica, hoping for a thumbs up or a nod, but she’s looking at Beatrix, gauging her reaction.

‘I can’t believe that any of this has happened to me – that we have a book, that you’re all here to speak to me. But I can believe that it happened to Jessica. She’s just too special a person for it not to turn out this way. And that’s why I plan to keep choosing her, keep choosing to make her happy for as long as she’ll have me.’

I sit back down and try not to feel pleased that their applause for me is as loud as it was for Jessica.

We spend the next couple of hours sitting behind a long table with stacks and stacks of books between us.

‘I loved your speech,’ says a middle-aged woman. ‘Your account saved my marriage.’

‘I’m sure you saved it,’ I reply, signing the book and passing it to Jessica. ‘You did the hard work.’

‘Where do you find one this lovely?’ another woman asks Jessica, gesturing towards me as she hands over her book to be signed.

‘I got very, very lucky.’ Jessica smiles back. ‘And we work hard at it. Sometimes we work really hard!’

A pretty blonde woman with a baby comes to the front of the line. ‘Your advice works,’ she says conspiratorially as I sign her book.

‘Oh?’ I ask.

‘When I found your account, my marriage was on dialysis. But we followed the advice and, well ...’ She holds the baby up, like a rubber stamp of approval that she and her partner have worked it out.

I laugh. ‘I’m glad to hear it. Did you name the baby after either of us?’

She giggles and Jessica shoots me an appreciative glance from her end of the table. I hadn’t realised she was so worried I wouldn’t make the effort to chat with all the fans who’ve queued up.

My wrist is cramping and my signature starting to look comical by the time we finally finish up. They take photos of us outside the shop and with various local influencers, and then we’re bundled into a waiting Addison Lee. In the car Jessica neatly eats exactly half of the sushi Beatrix brought her and then puts the rest of it away. It’s the only thing I’ve seen her eat all day, whereas I’ve eaten three plates of the free biscuits they provided, and the very large BLT Beatrix got me from Pret. Jessica is on her phone, editing photos from the event and drafting captions. I reach out to touch her hand, but she pulls away.

‘What’s wrong?’ I say, stung. I can’t remember her ever having done that before. ‘I thought that went quite well.’

She doesn’t reply.

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