Growing Pains of a Hapless Househusband (28 page)

Monday 8 September

And it gets better. Laura phoned me at 8 o'clock to say
that a car would be here at midday to take me to
London. I was to be interviewed on nothing less than
Joseph and Mary
, which is THE daytime chat show to
appear on. Unreal, utterly wonderfully unreal. And the
car was no ordinary car either, but some massive top-of-the-range
Audi, complete with all of today's papers
neatly laid out on the back seat, and even a TV set with
a DVD player.

The interview went well, partly because Laura wasn't
able to sit next to me telling me what to say. It seemed
as though both Joseph and Mary were genuine fans of
the show, and they asked me a load of piss-easy
questions.

'I wish we had brought up our children with the
Holden Childcare Programme,' said Joseph.

I glowed with a very sheepish pride.

'So do I,' said Mary. 'We had all that Dr Spock
nonsense. Your system seems a lot better.'

'We just threw Spock away, didn't we darling?'

'I remember throwing it out the window one night,'
said Mary.

'Well, I hope that doesn't happen to my advice,' I
said, and they laughed a bit too much.

As soon as we were off air, Mary asked me whether I
wanted to come on again.

'We need someone like you in the mix,' she said.

'A younger man, eh, darling?' said Joseph.

'Oh shut it!'

'I'd be delighted,' I said.

'Do you think you could do a weekly slot?'

'I'd love to, although I'd better check with the TV
company to see if they're happy.'

'I'm sure they will be,' said Mary. 'Who's your agent
by the way?'

'Agent?'

'You mean you don't have one?'

'Er, no.'

'You're joking! You must have an agent! Joseph, did
you hear that? Young Sam here doesn't have an agent.'

'Lucky him,' he said. 'If you can get away with it,
don't bother.'

'But nobody will take him seriously without an agent,'
said Mary.

'I'm not sure they take me seriously anyway,' I said.

Mary scribbled a number down on a piece of paper.

'This is our agent,' she said, handing it to me. 'Give
her a call, and she can negotiate a fee with our
producer.'

So, two hours later, I had not only an agent called
Cat, but also a weekly slot on
Joseph and Mary
that will
net me £1,000 per week. Fuck me.

Tuesday 9 September

2 p.m.

Better still. I've just had a call from Toby Andrews at the
Sunday Advertiser
. They need a new weekly columnist in
their lifestyle section, and how would I feel if it were
me? I told him I'd feel delighted. He said that they
would pay me £1,500 per column. I almost fainted. In
the past twenty-four hours, I've become £130,000 per
year richer. This is on top of the £90,000 TV money.
Bloody hell. This is a lot better than being a
management consultant. This is better than winning
the lottery, because it sort of means something.

2.30 p.m.

Just phoned Sally to tell her. It was clear she was having
a (nother) shit day at work, but she more than
registered her astonishment.

'But that's amazing,' she whispered. '£1,500 per
week? Really?'

'Really!'

'I knew I was right to encourage you to do this,' she
said.

'Hey!' I went.

'I must go,' she said. 'Let's celebrate later.'

'I won't need much persuading.'

4 p.m.

Dom has just phoned me.

'Mate, are you sitting down?'

'No. Should I be?'

'Yes.'

'Has someone died?'

'Nope. Even better than that.'

'Go on.'

'You know we were talking about getting a book out
of this?'

'Oh yes.'

'Well,' he said, 'we've had a few offers.'

'Really? From whom?'

'Publishers, you twat!'

'OK, sorry, yes, not quite with it. Carry on.'

'Three are not worth considering, two are OK, but
there are another three which are not bad at all.'

'OK.'

'MacIntosh Tanner have come in with £150K. Nesbit
are at £140K. And Artemis are in at £175K.'

'Fucking hell!'

'Obviously, these are just the opening offers. And
remember, these get split fifty-fifty as per our contract.
Our literary agent should be able to beef those up to
well over £250K. She says she wants best bids by 5.30
today, so stand by your phone.'

'I will, don't you worry.'

Holy smoke, Batman. I won't phone Sally. I think I'll
present it as an afterthought later.

5.35 p.m.

It's gone to Nesbit for £285,000. Half of that is mine. Oh
my God. For once, I am speechless. It's looking like a
£300,000 year. And that's not counting a second series.
This is almost too easy. No, not almost, it really is too
easy. I have this idiot permagrin on my face, and I just
don't want to tell Halet about it, because it seems
vulgar. Heading to the off-licence in a jiffy to buy a lot
of champagne.

Wednesday 10 September

Sally was more than a little happy. I needn't go into
detail here, because I'm not likely to forget. Suffice to
say, at one point we actually held hands and jumped up
and down. And then I fell over and things got more
champagney and amorous.

My feelings now are 'finally, finally'. I sort of feel, and
I would only dare admit this to my diary, that I deserve
all this, that I deserve lots of money and success. It's how
I'm wired, how I've been brought up. And what's so
nice about it is that I don't have to be some chippy
bloke in my mid forties who watches all his friends get
richer and buy big houses and cars, etc., because I'll be
one of them. At this rate, I'll be the richest of the lot.

Friday 12 September

Sally and I had a long chat last night about her stopping
work. I know this has been my refrain all year, but surely
now is the time for her to stop torturing herself? Her
response was just as I had feared.

'Now would not be a good time to give up,' she
replied. 'I know that you are going to be earning tons
and tons, but who knows how long it will last?'

'I have no idea,' I said. 'But even if it all fizzles out
after a couple of years, I'll have made enough money
for us to really think about what we want.'

'Maybe,' she said.

'We'll have the freedom to choose. We could pay off
the mortgage and stay here, and sort of live the good
life. Or we could push ourselves and buy a bigger house.
Or we could sell up and move to the South of France
where we could buy an enormous chateau with a pool.'

'Who do we know in the South of France?'

'Nobody. But who cares? It's mainly British anyway.
We'd find friends, no problem.'

'But they'd all be retired.'

'Hmm . . . I gather quite a few young people are
moving out there these days.'

'Rubbish,' she said.

'OK, you're probably right. But you get the gist.
We're free to choose. All that's holding us up is your
job.'

'But my job is secure, Sam.'

'It doesn't sound it. The last thing you told me was
that it looked as though it was on the line.'

'Well, things are looking up in that department.'

'Oh?'

'I'm sorry, I just haven't had a chance to tell you in
amongst all your good news. They think it may not be a
mole, but possibly a hacker, or some sort of
communication intercept. Whatever it is, it looks more
likely to be something electronic at fault rather than
some human.'

'Blame the IT department?'

'Exactly! Even in my world IT always takes the rap!'

'My point still stands, though,' I said. 'I wish you
would give it up. Would you give it some serious
thought?'

'Of course,' said Sally.

'You promise?'

'I promise,' she said. 'But don't forget, it wasn't that
long ago that you agreed to be a househusband, and
now look at you. You only did it for five minutes. And if
you're asking me to give up work, you're asking me to
become a housewife again.'

'Was it really that bad?'

'I don't find it as fulfilling as some women do.'

'Fair enough,' I said. 'But by next September the
children will both be at school, and so you'll be able to
do something part-time.'

'Maybe, but it never quite works out like that, does
it?'

'Doesn't it?'

'Tons of women who say they're going to go back to
work once the children are at school never do.'

'Yes, but you're different from them.'

'Perhaps, but with your vast income, maybe I won't
have the imperative to work. That's probably why I'm
sticking with the Ministry, because the imperative is not
about money.'

'So what's it about then? Making the world a better
place?'

Sally nodded.

'Yes, frankly.'

I couldn't really argue with that.

Anyway, I'd better stop writing now, because episode
two is about to come on. It'll be cool to watch it air
across the country, in amongst the adverts for soap
powder and tampons.

Saturday 13 September

Lots and lots of phone calls today from people saying
they loved part two. It was the one featuring Suzie and
Maureen, and many people thought I was quite the
action hero busting the door down. Luckily there was
no footage of me bruising my shoulder at the first
attempt. That would have taken the
Wonder
out of
WonderHubby
and somehow
Hubby
doesn't quite cut the
mustard as a TV programme. Sounds like some
interminable Israeli soap opera. Set on a kibbutz.

I spent this afternoon writing my column. (That's a
nice sentence to have written.) Toby said it was great,
although when he emailed it back to me an hour later
it was unrecognisable.

'It was great,' he said again when I called him, as
though great were the lowest form of praise. 'We've just
got to get you to write in our house style, and then it'll
be fine.'

'So is "fine" better than "great"?' I asked.

'Much better,' he said. 'If your piece is fine, then
you've almost won a press award.'

'Is there anything better than fine?'

'I once told someone that their piece was really quite
nice.'

'Wow, high praise indeed. Who was that?'

'Martin Amis.'

Monday 15 September

Oh fuck. I think I have a stalker. Just as I suspected,
Emily's begun to go off, badly off. I now know that all
those 'chance'meetings in the supermarket were entirely
deliberate. How do I know this? Because I saw her in her
car in the supermarket car park waiting for me.

I turned up at around 9.30 a.m., my usual time, and I
noticed her just sitting in her green Peugeot estate.
However, she hadn't seen me, and I parked a few spaces
behind her and waited. And waited. And waited. In all,
I waited for twenty minutes, and still she sat there. Then
I decided to drive round in front of her car, and
pretended not to see her as I got out and walked to the
entrance. When I got there, I hid behind the
Postman
Pat
kiddy ride-on van and watched her walk in.

I then followed her into the supermarket at as great a
distance as I could manage. Sally would have been
impressed by my sleuthing skills. Strangely, however,
Emily wasn't putting anything into her trolley, and
instead she seemed to be looking around. I knew what
she was searching for: me. Was I being paranoid? I
don't think so. Nobody sits in a supermarket car park
for twenty minutes, and the fact that she got out only
after she had seen me was suspicious as hell. And now,
here she was, wandering around the store with an
empty trolley, patently looking for something other
than fruit and bog roll.

I followed her for a few minutes, and then decided to
surprise her.

'Hello Emily,' I said, tapping her on the shoulder.

She jumped a little.

'Hi! Gosh, you gave me a fright there!'

'We always seem to be bumping into each other
here,' I said. 'What a coincidence!'

'Quite! Well, I always find Monday morning a good
time to go shopping.'

I looked down at her trolley.

'Nothing that takes your fancy?'

'What?'

She looked extremely distracted and somewhat
frazzled. Not only that, her hair was greasy and
unkempt, and she had bags under her eyes. In fact, she
looked like a poster warning teenagers of the dangers of
drugs.

'Your trolley, it's empty.'

'Yes, I've only just got here.'

I knew this was bullshit, and she must have known,
because we were two-thirds of the way round the shop.
I, on the other hand, had been cunning, and had put
things in my trolley, into which Emily was now looking.

'I didn't know you had a dog,' she said.

'I don't.'

'So why have you got dog food in there?'

I looked down, and there it was. Perhaps my cover
was not so watertight after all. Sally would not be signing
me up as a spook any time soon.

'It's for Rachel next door,' I said, after a probably not
very convincing pause.

'Oh,' she went, because let's face it, there's only so
much conversational mileage you can get out of
discussing a neighbour's canine's dietary requirements.

'Did you see my programme on Friday?' I asked.

'No, I'm afraid I missed it,' she said. 'I was out.'

She was scratching the back of her neck, which we all
know means that someone is lying. Why was she lying?
Was she trying to make out that she wasn't interested?
Answer: Yes. Why? Answer: Because she's trying to make
me hungry for her, pay more attention to her. Will it
work? Answer: No.

'Well, you can catch me on
Joseph and Mary
this
afternoon,' I said.

'OK,' she said, trying to sound uninterested, but I
could tell she was feeling the opposite.

The conversation petered out, and although we came
across each other once or twice as we trundled round,
that was pretty much the extent of the meeting. I was so
distracted I actually bought the dog food in the end. I
must go round and give it to Rachel.