to a crescendo. The audience, in its entirety, is with Tom. They want him to resist. He doesn’t. The cries of protest and defence of the infidel, Tom, bleat from the TV. ‘It meant nothing – it confirmed the reasons we split up.’ His girlfriend ignores his wails and punches him.’ WhoooooWhoooo.’ The audience erupts. Turning at once. Deciding within seconds who they’ll support. Who they’ll hate. They know they should be supporting people because they seem nice – they ought to prefer the sweetest personality. But invariably they cheer for the bird with the biggest tits or the guy with the cheekiest grin. They whoop and cheer and sing and goad and cry and console and condemn in the space between one commercial break and the next. The overwhelming emotion is fear.
‘It’s fascinating,’ comments Issie. ‘The men justify straying on the grounds that it’s not about love and the women that it is.’
‘I don’t find that fascinating. I find it predictable. I’d like a woman to come on the show and say she fancied a shag,’ I argue.
‘It’s unlikely though, isn’t it? You’re the only woman I know who underwent an emotional lobotomy at the age of seven.’
‘Shush.’ I’m not embarrassed by what she’s saying, but the adverts have finished and we’ll miss some of the show with her chatter.
His face is grey and his lips tight. He’s sweating from every pore. His eyes are darting left to right. He doesn’t know. He can’t be sure. Has she slept with her ex or not?
‘You know how we could improve the show?’ I ask rhetorically.
‘Pull it,’ Josh suggests.
I fling him a filthy look. ‘No. We should have two signature tunes, depending on the outcome. One for jubilation, the other for…’
‘Humiliation?’ Issie interrupts.
‘Mortification?’ Josh offers.
‘Simply desolation,’ I say.
I don’t shy away from it. I cast my mind back to Christmas Eve and Libby’s swollen, weeping face. She thought she was telling me something I didn’t know. She wasn’t. She looked just as my mother had the day my father left. I know all about desolation. I know the emotion I’m exposing on stage and I’m not frightened of it. I’m not the one creating it and I have no reason to feel ill at ease. I know that the couples with unfaithful partners are desolate, horrified, mystified, disappointed. But it won’t last. I firmly believe I’m doing them a favour. Better now than after they’ve signed the form at the registrar’s.
We finish the soup and I heat the mince pies and slice the Christmas cake. Issie groans, insists she can’t eat another bite and then asks if there’s any brandy sauce for the pud. Josh has now put himself in charge of alcohol and is as liberal with the measures as he is with his sperm. We’re filthily pissed by 9.15 p.m.
It’s brilliant.
Thanks for the socks,’ he says, kissing me on the cheek and sitting next to me on the sofa. I grin and put my arms around him.
‘You’re welcome.’ I also bought him a number of more desirable pressies: big boy’s toys such as a palm pad, a Swiss Army knife and a mobile phone that you can send pictures on. The gift he liked best was the computer headset that gives you access to your favourite website by talking to your computer. He wasn’t even perturbed when my mother asked, ‘But isn’t there a button you could push instead?’ Buying these presents reaffirmed my belief that even the nicest men are truly incapable of growing up. The socks are a joke. We always buy each other an old-married-couple-gift. We figure that this is as close as each of us will ever get. Josh bought me a perfunctory rolling pin. Not even one of those nice marble ones. He knows I’ve never had a use for a rolling pin and unless someone comes up with a creative way of utilizing one in the bedroom I’m unlikely ever to. We’ve offered Issie the chance to join in our game. After all, if Josh bought two women wifey gifts it would be even more realistic. She’s steadfastly refused, complaining that it’s too depressing a notion. I think she fears she’s tempting fate. The irony is she hopes that one day she’ll exchange such gifts for real.
‘Have you made a New Year’s resolution?’ asks Issie, squeezing her slim bum between Josh and me and wiggling a bit so that we have to move to accommodate her. I slosh some more brandy into everyone’s