Page 10 of Seven Rules for a Perfect Marriage

Lily leans forward. She’s still nervous, clearly. I don’t blame her. One of the broadsheets called her Pinocchio the other day, suggesting that she’s unacceptably wooden. ‘And in a moment we’ve got the UK’s happiest married couple here with us. It’s the authors of new bookSeven Rules for a Perfect Marriage, Jack and Jessica Rhodes. They’ve been together for fifteen years, they’re still head over heels for each other, and they’re going to be answering your questions and helping you fix any little niggles in your relationship.’

Jack is leaning against the wall, staring up at the cavernous studio ceiling and looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here.

‘Are you okay?’ I hiss.

‘Just tired.’

‘Please try to look a bit happier,’ I whisper.

‘I’ll smile when we’re on.’

‘It’s not just about acting happy when we get on set. Everyone is watching us. All the fucking time.’ I smile through gritted teeth as I say it, brushing my hand against his arm. I hate myself for doing it, for putting on a show like this. It’s completely mad. I know that. It probably doesn’t really matter if the runner who gets our coffee sees us bickering. But we’ve got a suffocating mortgage and a pretty empty pension fund, and the publishers have poured staggering amounts of money into advertising and marketing. If we can make at least some of it back for them, then they might want to publish more books with us. It would just take one credible comment about our marriage being under strain and the whole premise of our brand falls apart. Surely one more morning of pretending to be cheerful isn’t that much to ask in exchange for financial security?

‘Touch-ups?’ The make-up artist dashes back on set, her kit packed into a plastic bag around her waist. ‘Jack, love, can I pop a bit of powder on you?’

‘Yes, please,’ he says agreeably. ‘As much as possible, I want to look as beautiful as my wife.’

My shoulders relax by about half a millimetre. I try to catch his eye, to silently thank him. But his gaze is straight ahead, at the set.

‘Time to go!’ announces the runner. ‘You’ll be amazing!’

The lights on the set are always brighter than is entirely comfortable. I settle on to the sofa, trying to look relaxed while sitting up straight so that I don’t look bigger than I actually am. The whole thing about the camera adding ten pounds is more than true for me. Even as my body has shrunk over the last months, from the various (probablynot very scientific) fertility-enhancing diets I’ve read about online, I always wince when I look at the screenshots afterwards, painfully aware of the softness of my upper arms. Jack always seems to look exactly the same as he does in real life, handsome and lean and perfect.

He slides his arm around my waist, and my heart rate steadies. I feel a little wave of gratitude towards him. He’s always so warm. I can feel the heat radiating through his jumper, through my dress, to my skin.

‘Thanks for joining us.’ Graham beams before introducing us. ‘With us in the studio now, we have Jessica and Jack, relationship influencers and marriage experts. They’ve taken the internet by storm, with over a million followers on social media, and now they’ve got a new book to share the secrets to making a relationship work.’

‘It’s calledSeven Rules for a Perfect Marriage,’ Lily reads, slightly stilted. ‘Wow, a perfect marriage, that sounds pretty amazing! Is it actually perfect?’ She laughs. The cameras all move around and I can see myself on the screens. I try very hard not to look. Jack and I both do a sort of half laugh.

‘We do our best,’ I say.

‘Well, I think a lot of us could do with some tips!’ Graham smiles. ‘Shall we get started with some questions?’

‘Yes, please.’ I nod.

Lily stares at her cue cards. ‘First up, we’ve got Sandra from Barry in Wales. Hi Sandra!’

Sandra’s voice is piped in over the speakers.

‘Hi Jack and Jessica,’ the voice crackles. ‘I love your posts and I can’t wait to read your book. But my question is: how do you avoid arguing?’

Jack laughs. ‘We’re not superhuman, Sandra!’

She says she loves our account but I’m pretty sure that she hasn’t read any of my posts because we’ve got an entire highlights section about positive arguments – a very good theory which I realise, as I consider my answer, we’ve been ignoring ourselves lately. Shit. That’s probably not good.

‘We absolutely don’t avoid arguments,’ I add, leaning into Jack’s body a little. ‘No one does! Show me a couple who say they never disagree and I’ll show you two people who aren’t telling the truth – or who are repressing their feelings a lot of the time.’

‘Research shows that it’s actually far healthier for a couple to express their frustrations with each other than to bottle it up,’ Jack adds.

‘The important thing,’ I say, ‘is to make sure that you’re arguing in a positive, proactive way. See the problem as the enemy, and you both as a team. It’s not you versus your partner, it’s you versus the issue at hand. And remember – one of ourSeven Rules for a Perfect Marriage– go to bed on an argument. Our first rule is actually that you should never stay up arguing – get some sleep and come back to the issue fresh in the morning.’ Someone in the gallery cuts Sandra off before she can ask any follow-up questions, leaving viewers to assume that she was satisfied with our answer. I hope she was. I wonder if we can make sure that everyone who called in gets a follow-up. Or at least a signed copy of the book?

‘Well, I have to say, I’m relieved to hear that a bit of marital argy-bargy is normal!’ Graham chuckles. Everyone knows that he’s a complete shit. He keeps his wife at their country pile so that he can entertain a series of twenty-something mistresses at his enormous Londonhouse. A few months ago Jack and I went to his Christmas party, with five hundred of his closest friends. It was our first big showbiz invitation and I was more shocked than I wanted to admit that we’d been asked (in fact, I made Clay check it wasn’t an accident). Jack kept telling people that my best Christmas present was seeing celebrities getting drunk and doing coke off every single shiny surface, and he was 100 per cent right.

The next call comes from a very sweet-sounding older lady. ‘I’m Janice,’ she says, her voice crackling, ‘and I’d like to know what you’d recommend for dating apps for older people, and if you think it’s ever too late?’

Jack and I exchange impressed looks. ‘I have to admit,’ Jack says, ‘Jessica and I met in the bad old days when you had to just approach people in person, so we’re not app experts.’

I simultaneously love how charming he is and want to pinch him for forgetting the media training where Clay told us never to remind people that we’ve been together so long we know nothing about modern dating.

---