Page 57 of Seven Rules for a Perfect Marriage

This isn’t the time to cry. ‘How’s it going at your end of the table?’ I ask, knowing that the answer isn’t going to be good. We’ve spent less time with my family, but every time we’ve been to stay, it’s been fairly awful. My dad claps him on the back a lot and tells him that it’s fine not to make much money, in a way which very clearly suggests it’s really not okay. And Karen tells him endlessly that ‘the media’ is biased and brainwashing. Last time we stayed, he genuinely almost burst a tyre accelerating away when it was time to leave.

‘Karen has told me I need to cover more stories about scammers who come over here and get on benefits,’ he sighs, ‘and your dad has said about four words. The twins are playing Candy Crush with the sound on. How’s it going at yours?’

‘Silence, a conversation about a book I pretended to have read, and some accidental food shaming from your mum.’

He looks shamefaced. ‘I’m sorry about them.’

‘I’m sorry about mine.’

‘Let’s swap seats,’ he says, as the waiter hands us a bottle of wine in an ice bucket.

‘We can’t do that. It’ll look so rude.’

‘I don’t care,’ he says, steering me towards Dad’s end of the table. ‘Go and sit next to Martin, ignore Karen and get some time with him. And when he tries to pay the bill because I make a “pittance”, smack his wallet out of his hand.’

I smile. We swap seats. And he is completely right. It’s easier. Karen tells me a long story about this cream she’s been using to make her cleavage less crepey, and actually it sounds quite good. Isay I want to get some and she says she’ll pop some in the post, which is generous. She looks down the table at Jane. ‘D’you think she wants some too?’ she grins.

I want to tell her not to be bitchy. But instead I laugh. ‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t think that’s her vibe.’

‘Nice to see my girls getting on so well,’ Dad says, coming back from the bathroom. ‘It’s going to be a top day.’ He pats my shoulder, and I know he wants to say something about Mum, and I know he can’t, and I’m sort of okay with that. At the other end of the table, the Rhodes clan are doing cryptic crossword, which Gerald has torn out of the paper and brought with him in his raincoat pocket. They’re silent, and happy.

After what feels like a really, really long time and is actually only about an hour, everyone makes their excuses. Jack walks his parents to the station. I wave my father off, feeling like the most mature adult of all time for having refused his offer to pay. ‘I know it’s tough without her,’ he says to me, gruffly, as he gets into the car. Then he presses some notes into my hand.

‘Jack and I paid!’ I say.

‘Get yourselves something nice for dinner then,’ he says. He looks guilty and sad and like he needs to spend some money to feel less guilty and less sad. And he can afford it.

When Jack reappears from dropping his parents off, I’m sitting outside the pub with a bottle of champagne.

‘We’re not going to be able to pay rent,’ he says, on the approach.

‘Sponsored by Martin. How was the walk?’

‘Fine. They’ve found a museum of Roman life half an hour down the road from our wedding venue so now they’re really excited about coming.’

I half laugh. ‘Doesn’t it make you sad? That they don’t care about us getting married?’

‘No.’ He smiles at me. ‘They don’t care about anything which doesn’t have a citation index. It’s just how they are.’

We sit in companionable silence for a few minutes.

‘I think maybe that’s the way to play it, you know,’ Jack says eventually, refilling our glasses. ‘I handle my family, you handle yours.’

‘Isn’t that the opposite of getting married? Aren’t we supposed to like, unite our houses or whatever?’

‘We both know neither set of our parents wants to be friends with the other. And we don’t want to be anything like either of them. It’d be nice if we could have a big happy Mediterranean family all living under one roof, but it’s not happening. You’re better qualified to deal with your family’s brand of mental and I’m better equipped to do mine. So let’s do it that way.’

‘It just sounds a bit selfish,’ I counter, despite longing to agree to the deal.

‘Not at all,’ he says, looking quite pleased with himself. ‘It’s prioritising each other’s happiness. Handling our own business.’

‘How would it work? If we’re in Cambridge for Christmas, you’re going to tell your dad that he has to let me watch the King’s speech even though it’s “monarchist propaganda”?’

‘Exactly. And if we have to spend the weekend with Karen and Martin, you’ll tell him that my terrible RSI means I can’t play golf with him.’

‘Don’t you think we’ll be upset if our kids do the same thing to us one day?’ I ask him.

‘We’ll have to try not to be the kind of parents who require it.’

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