People Watching Part 22 - She Said No
His better half was on a
socially-distanced night out with her friends from work and for the first time
since the start of lockdown, he had the flat to himself - glorious. Opening the
fridge door, the beer he’d been chilling specially for tonight, called out to
him. He grabbed a bottle and chugged about half of it straightaway. He went to
close the door but thought he better grab a couple more. As he reached for the
beers he noticed that there wasn’t much else in the fridge….he’d need to eat
later. Problem solved – a menu from the local Indian takeaway was stuck on the
fridge door …. and they delivered!
A handful of beers, a takeaway
menu and his phone in hand he went back into the living room and slumped in the
armchair. OK what next….? Telly. The remote…..? On the TV stand. What is the
point of having remote control if you’re going to keep it next to the TV? It
wasn’t until he’d emptied the first beer that he hauled himself out of the
armchair to get the remote.
The numbers on the channel
listing went past 500 but despite all that choice, there was still nothing that
he wanted to watch - just the same old films, the usual repeats and ‘reality
programmes’. He swore there’d been a better choice when there had only been
four channels. “Reality my arse” he thought as he opened another beer. Another
trip to the kitchen was narrowly avoided by the realisation that the bottles
had twist-off caps. Phew…. Out of desperation he settled on the football. Not
because he was really that interested, but it seemed the laddish option
–sort of fitted the theme of the night.
He sat back to enjoy the beer and
then time sort of ground to a halt……..
…………he was hauled from the deep
well of his slumber by his phone. It was his missus – what did she want
at……..9:27? If she’d had words with Tracy again and wanted picking up,
there was no chance, he’d had too much to drink already. By the sounds of her
voice, she was a little worse for wear as well…he could always tell, her accent
was stronger when she’d been drinking. So much for a night in by himself.
“Hello, chick. What’s up?”
“You, that’s what” she replied,
taking him by surprise. He rolled his eyes, ‘gonna be one of those calls’ he
thought, so he put her on loudspeaker and let her have her say. Apparently,
he’d been really insensitive over the last few days … only the last few
days? They’d been cooped up in the flat together for the last three months and
he actually thought they’d done really well. They'd both gone through periods
when they felt irritated by life, the universe and everything but not once had
they been upset with each and they hadn’t had a single row in all that time.
Sure, they were very different people but he'd always felt those differences
were the glue. He did his thing, she did hers and it wasn’t suffocating - it
worked. At least he thought it worked. Seems like she had a different
take on things right now!!
Just then, the away team scored
an equalizer…half an hour to go and now the match started to become
interesting. “What’s that”, she asked? “Just the telly honey, I was watching
the match…..”. Talk about red rags......that made her even more irate. “Where
do you think we’re going?”. How was he supposed to answer a question like that?
He paused to try and think of an answer that wouldn’t dig him any deeper and
rapidly came to the conclusion that there wasn’t one. Women were so good
at asking questions in such a way that whatever answer you gave, it got you in
more trouble.
Just then his stomach rumbled…ah
yes, hunger. He picked up the takeaway menu…..fancy a biryani? He thought
better of asking....that really wasn’t going to help the situation! By then,
she must have decided she’d waited too long without an answer and shouting “I
can’t believe you can be such a prick”, hung up.
He exhaled slowly. He must make
sure he’s was in bed when she got in tonight, even if it meant pretending
to be asleep. Hopefully by the morning, things would blow over. Now, that take
away……