TOM JACKSONNicola and I snatched a few days in France
not long ago. The phrase “holiday home” is
increasingly becoming a misnomer in the case
of our place in the Lot, the trip consisting of the
now customary dawn to dusk hard horticultural
labour. Weeding. Sweeping. Pruning. Raking.
Digging out ditches after minor mudslides.
And so forth. Although I did compensate with
steak and chips four nights in a row.
We did find time to visit some new friends- Bob and Scotty the firemen, plus Rob the
copper. Top blokes all of them. Bob has a house
not far from ours; Scotty and Rob were visiting
for a boys’ weekend. We played table tennis - somehow I wasn’t surprised that firefighters
and police officers can boast a pretty high
standard of ping-pong. I held my own.
We used to do the extra luggage, priority
boarding, allocated seats, “We’re middle class,
let’s pretend we’re not on Ryanair” malarkey.
This time we – that is to say, Nicola – decided
the extra cost and bureaucracy weren’t worth
it so we packed light and sat separately. We
parted on the tarmac at Stansted, Nicola
joining the queue for the rear seats, me
staying in the one for those up front.
“Don’t talk to any strange men,” I said.
Then I found my seat, buckled up and
straight away fell asleep, very much in need of
a post-breakfast nap. We’d had an hour in the
Escape Lounge before the gate was called and
those freebie sausage and bacon rolls won’t eat
themselves, you know.
Next thing I know we’re in the line for
customs at Bergerac and Nicola is telling
me all about this nice fireman, Scotty, she’d
sat next to on the plane. How he was really
friendly and they’d swapped numbers and,
oh look, there he is a few places back. Smiles
and waves are exchanged.
“So you made friends with a fireman?”
I asked. “Yes.” “A fireman?” “Yes.” “Great. I
suppose he’s coming over to shoot a topless
calendar or something, right? Hunk of the
month? Take a look at my massive hose, that
kind of thing?” “Hah hah.”
On the drive to our house, Nicola told me
that she – and Scotty – had lucked out with
their seats, positioned in that row of just two
next to the emergency exit with extra legroom.
Extra legroom Nicola does not, frankly, at
5ft 1in, require. This is the woman who used
to love visiting Japan when she worked in the
City, partly because when she sat on a train for
once her feet would actually touch the floor.
Usually they’re dangling about in mid-air.
It also emerged that nice Scotty, on
discovering his neighbour’s husband was
elsewhere on the plane (and, what’s more, that
he, ie me, was at that very moment squashed- albeit in a comatose state – in a middle seat)
had kindly offered to swap so Nicola and
I could sit together. With extra legroom.
“But I told him you’d be fine,” said Nicola
airily. Harumph, I said. Or something similar.
The next day, after a series of Scotty-
Nicola-Scotty texts, we drove over to meet the
guys. “So where exactly do Pugh Pugh Barney
Mcf***ing Grew live?” I asked grumpily on the
way. Not very grown-up, eh?
Then again, a little old-fashioned jealousy is
probably a sign of good health in a long-term
relationship. Although to be accurate, the
jealousy in our particular long-term relationship
is entirely one-way. I get jealous; Nicola doesn’t.
She has never been in the slightest bit
possessive. This worries me on occasion, her
sweet reasonableness about past girlfriends,
office crushes and celebrity lust objects
often striking me as perilously close to total
indifference. When I once asked her if my
sleeping with the relevant local government
clerk could result in our climbing the list for a
beach hut in Kent, would she mind, she said if
I could get a name, she’d fluff up the pillows
and turn down the bed.
I’m the opposite. At various times over our
32 years together, and before that (not always
without good reason) when I was pursuing
her from the cold wastelands of what is now
called the friend zone, I have fretted about:
handsome lairy lads in the year above us
at school; chisel-jawed public schoolboys;
silver-tongued Irish charmers and plausibly
soulful Latins parading around the
Mediterranean basin in the early to mid-
Eighties. The usual suspects, in other words.
In more recent years, as Nicola’s priorities
have matured, the focus of my romantic
anxieties has shifted towards capable, reliable
blokes, specifically those with the practical
skills I lack. Obviously, it’s worse when
they’re good-looking – a twinkly-eyed
plasterer called Lee gave me cause for concern
for a while – but nowadays in my darker
moments I worry Nicola will trade me in for
any halfway presentable chap with a decent
set of City & Guilds.
Not that she would. But if she did, I’m not
entirely sure I’d blame her. n
[email protected]‘I used to get jealous
of handsome lairy
lads; now I worry my
wife will trade me in
for the plasterer’
Beta male
Robert Crampton
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