Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About (11 page)

Suppose there are three people in your house: your partner (urbane, sophisticated – think 'David Niven in a Banana Splits T-shirt') and two smallish children (blond, elusive, cunning). Your partner is sitting in the dining room reading a book, your children are in the living room playing a game called 'Scatter every single toy we possess across the floor and then go upstairs to jump on the bed'. After a few minutes, you wander into the dining room, sigh at the chaos and tidy up. You then go off to do something else. When you return to the living room a short time later you discover that the children have strewn the place with toys yet again.

You are William L. Petersen and you must apportion blame. Do you:

A) Get the children downstairs and tell them that if they haven't tidied up the living room within the next ten minutes then you're sending them to be raised on a farm in Iowa.

B) Go into the dining room, stand in front of your partner with your arms threateningly akimbo and roar, 'The children have messed up the dining room – again…
and you're sitting there reading a book!
'

Eh? What
is
it to be, William?

If you chose 'A' award yourself two points. If you chose 'B', award yourself 'insane'.

Now, the thing is – and, if you'll forgive me, I'll relate this to Margret a little here – one might easily put this kind of thing down to 'poor targeting'. One might think that the discrepancy between whoever is responsible for something and the person she's actually shouting at about it is merely the artifact of some kind of loss of footing on her mental walk from the crime to the culprit. The flaw in that notion, however, is that she always ends up shouting at
me
. If it were poor targeting, then – occasionally – it'd hit someone else, right? But, nope, that's not the case. If Margret had been in charge of the invasion of Iraq, every single missile would have struck me in the face. In fact, Margret is probably the only person to have attended both pro
and
anti-war rallies in the run up to the conflict. If you examine press photographs, you can sometimes pick her out – off to one side, holding a banner that reads 'Bomb Mil'.

The irony being, of course, that this
still
makes her policy less ill-considered and asinine than the one that actually advised the invasion of Iraq.

Ack – just lost the whole of the Midwest there. And I was doing so well up to that point, wasn't I?

OK, I'm off on holiday, shortly. Well, I
say
'on holiday', but we're going to the west coast of Ireland, so I probably mean 'to get thoroughly soaking wet and wind-blasted'. In any case, do not expect an update until I return. You'll all just have to do some work, I'm afraid.

………

Everyone been productive in my absence? Yep, that's what I thought, and I'm proud of you. See? You
can
 do it. Don't use me as a crutch – you have great reserves of indolence within if only you have the courage to tap them. Go up to your boss/supervisor/team leader/capo today and say in an unwavering voice, 'I am on a sponsored slack, and you're paying, and the charity is me.' You just need to believe in yourself. Let go of my hand… and fly! Nothing is beyond the power of love! Etc.!

Right, now that I've healed everyone's spirit, let me tell you about my holiday and, flowing from it, the Doctrine of Proportionality. I know many of you are high school graduates, or read the Daily Mail, or have that copy of Encarta that came with your computer somewhere in the house, and so you are perfectly familiar with the selection of notions that first began to be assembled under the heading of the Just War Doctrine by St Augustine. So, please, don't think that I'm being insulting if I explain what I'm talking about a little. It's merely to bring the stragglers up to speed – some of whom might be very young, were exposed to high concentrations of lead in the womb, or be running a large country. Basically, the DoP is a very old principle of Just War which states that acts must not be out of proportion to the provocation or the needs of the situation. A very fine concept, I know you'll agree. And how do I know you'll agree? Because you're not Margret, that's how.

I'm walking up a gravel track leading away from a beach in Ireland when I'm called back down by First Born. 'Mama's crashed,' he shouts after me – loudly, but strangely without alarm or surprise. And, indeed, crashed she has. A car was parked on the beach, and she's run into the side of it. It's the only other vehicle on about two miles of near-deserted sand. Given the desperate situation in Ireland right now (because the Americans aren't visiting since September the 11th), it's probably not far off being one of only four or five vehicles in the whole of County Kerry: and Margret's managed to hit it. Quite frankly, the precision of this makes landing a man on the moon seem very small beer indeed.

There's a dent in the door of the car, but it's nothing drastic. There's no one around, however, so, rather than risk leaving a note with our details under the windscreen wipers on a very windy beach, we start searching for the owners. Eventually we find Man, Woman and Small Girl.

Man is shirty and annoyed. 'How on earth did you manage to hit it?' he snaps, 'there was enough room.' He clearly isn't familiar with the philosophical concept of 'The bottle is already broken' as applied to my girlfriend. The more pensive of us there are calm because we are aware that, the moment that construction of a vehicle pretty much anywhere in the world is complete and it comes off the production line, then it's going to be driven into by Margret. The only question is "When?" Anyway, I'm not very taken with Man; as with all of you, I'm sure, the two things that I find very unattractive are bad manners and a superficial grasp of aetiology. He appears to have the the arrogant belief that Margret crashed into
his
car, specifically – rather than Margret crashed into his car simply because
it was there
. What state are we going to be in if
everyone
Margret crashes into takes it personally, eh? Thus, because Margret is offering to pay for the damage, and apologising profusely, and it's only a very, very minor dent, and, well, Margret is my girlfriend, I'm standing there trying to support her and meet his graceless display with quiet gravitas.

'Mil,' you may well be saying, 'you pretty much lost the option of playing the "quiet gravitas" card the day you dyed your hair fire engine red.' However, that's actually a minor issue in this case. My failure is far more spectacular. The reason I was walking back, rather than travelling in the car, was that the beach was good for surfing so I'd been body-boarding all afternoon and I am wearing a wet suit. No one, my friends, can pull off gravitas while wearing a wet suit. The simple fact is, there are only two occasions when one can be completely naked except for a black, skintight neoprene outfit into which (as everyone is unspokenly aware) you have peed several times in the past few hours – partly because a person has to pee, but also, as one must admit when one truly looks into one's soul, because (as everyone is unspokenly aware) of the delightful rush of warmth that surges throughout the suit when you do so. One of these occasions is a party at a particular private members club in London which is well-known to the police, and the other is when surfing.

My gravitas is
way
out at sea, frankly: and I'm left standing there trying to impose my dignity on an angry motorist while looking like the opening act at a gay disco.

Fortunately, however, there's Small Girl. One's children may be thought of as a person's only chance at immortality and, vicarious and tiny as it is, such a thing still comes at a terrible price. Man is pointing at scratches on his car, which are within a foot or so of the impact point, but quite clearly date back to the twentieth century. He's trying his luck, basically. 'Erm… I think those scratches were probably there already,' says Margret. Man sucks in air between his teeth. He's solemn and resolute. 'Oh,' he sighs heavily, 'I don't think so.'

At which point Small Girl tugs on his trousers and chirps up helpfully, 'Oh, yes they were, Daddy! Those have been there for ages!' He glares at her, trying – without uttering a word – to speak directly into her brain using the mystic power of parental horror. She smiles back sweetly. I see that, behind his eyes, he collapses.

The point of all this is that, at no time, do I so much as tut at Margret for driving into the side of one of only ten cars presently in Ireland. I inwardly note that the cost of the holiday has probably just doubled, but there's nothing to be done about that so there's no sense dwelling on it.

A couple of days later Margret provokes an episode that, I believe, ran something like this:

Margret: 'Ah, Second Born, you appear to be a very young and notoriously excitable child and, additionally, you are standing above a broad expanse of utterly unforgiving igneous rock… Here – let me give you your father's brand new digital camera to play with.'

I wasn't there when this took place, as Margret had ordered me to clean the shower. However, she came sheepishly into the room, and I almost instantly knew what had happened. 'Sheepish' is a look so foreign to Margret that the mere sight of it announced a truly catastrophic event had taken place: I hoped for a second that she'd accidentally poisoned to death six or seven of my friends, but deep down I knew I was clutching at straws and that really what had happened was that my brand new digital camera had been broken. She handed it to me and I held it tenderly in my hands. Its lens was wrenched off to one side at an ugly angle – like a broken neck. Like the broken neck of some delicate, beautiful bird that had shiny silver plumage, a smooth body containing both internal and SD card memory and a 4x optical zoom beak, or something.

The point of all this is that, at no time, did I so much as tut at Margret for devising and, using Second Born as a patsy, executing a plan that resulted in the murder of a digital camera that was yet scarcely a week old. I inwardly noted that the cost of the holiday had taken another leap towards my having to run heroin out of Singapore to pay for it, but there was nothing to be done about that so there was no sense dwelling on it.

Seconds – and I mean
seconds
– later, Margret steps into the bathroom and then almost immediately steps out again grasping a fury to her face. 'I thought you were cleaning the shower?' she fumes.

'I have cleaned it.'

'No you haven't.'

'Yes, I
have
.'

She disappears inside for a second and reemerges clutching a small amount of hair between her fingers – partly in anger, partly in triumph: like holding up for display the scalp of a conquered enemy. 'And what's this then?' she roars, shaking the scalp.

'I didn't see that.' (Well, I
didn't
. Anyone can miss a few hairs in the shower, for God's sake – especially if they really, really don't want to be cleaning the shower in the first place.)

'You…' Margret begins to lay into me, but then catches herself. She looks at the tiny scalp. I see her remember that I didn't make any kind of an issue at all about her crashing into a big, red stationary car that was practically the only other motor vehicle in an area reaching from the shores of Wales to the east coast of America. I see her remember that I didn't express anything except fatalistic acceptance just moments ago when she announced how she'd been instrumental in destroying my pristine digital camera when the boundless promise of its whole life lay ahead of it. She looks at the tiny scalp once more.

'Considering things, I really shouldn't be going on about this, should I?' she says, quietly.

I click my teeth and shrug in reply.

She sighs reflectively. And then really lays into me for ages and ages and ages about leaving the hair in the shower. For, you see, the Doctrine of Proportionality is not something Margret recognises. The only two levels she has any time for are 'Sitting having a nice cup of coffee' and 'slamming a fist down on the nuclear button'. A tea towel left damp on a work surface is not a tea towel left damp on a work surface, but a crucial representative of a whole range of issues and concerns – some of which will possibly include England, something I said three years ago and my mother. I admire someone always committed to giving 100% like that; I respect that level of unjudgmental intensity. So, if at any point in the future a hooded figure is seen tipping Margret's drugged body over the side of a ferry, then that person will certainly not be me.

Before I leave our holiday completely behind, let me just mention one other thing. We set off to drive down to Swansea to get the ferry to Ireland in a car stuffed by Margret with pretty much every article of clothing our family owns. This is Margret's way: if I take the kids out to the park, I will take the kids; if Margret takes them, she will also take along four extra pairs of shoes, 'just in case'. (And while, during my trip, they will be careful, during hers they will fall knee-deep into a fetid duck pond six times.) Anyway, in the back seat, wedged in between all the garments, are First Born and Second Born. First Born is hunched over his Game Boy, his thumbs twitching, Second Born is peering excitedly out of the window. Margret reverses off our drive, goes to the end of the road, and turns left. Second Born, having held it in long enough to attain a new personal best, now says, 'Are we there yet?'

'No,' replies Margret. 'We have to drive for two and a half hours.'

'
Two and a half hours
?' Peter gasps, incredulous. 'What are we driving two and half hours for?'

'Knowing Mom,' First Born says, without looking up from his Game Boy, 'it'll be to visit a garden centre.'

Sometimes, ladies and gentlemen, there is simply no need for blood tests to know without
any doubt whatsoever
who a child's father is.

Right, I've returned from Sweden and, quite apart from everything else I have to do, I naturally have nearly a thousand emails to deal with – having indolently not dealt with any new ones that arrived while I was running around Stockholm and Gothenburg for four days. (My Swedish publishers were charming beyond words, incidentally, so I'd like you all to buy the Swedish version of TMGAIHAA –
on view here
. Even if, in fact, you don't speak Swedish.) The email backlog is my fault, clearly, but I do have to try to make some impression on it before I leave again. Not for Stockholm this time, but, even more excitingly, for Poole. I'll update you Mailing Listers with extra Swedish tales when I get the chance, obviously, but let me just quickly pop by to mention this: