This is the first in what I hope will be a weekly series of stories, poems and memoirs to amuse during the months of self-isolation.
COVID TALES: 1 ALL MY WIVES WERE CLEVER
‘All my wives were clever.’
‘All?’ ‘Three of them, so far.’
‘Tell me, Bluebeard.’
After three months of self-isolating and working at home I thought I’d give Tele-friends a try. It was a simple enough idea. You pay a small subscription, upload a few basics about yourself - gender, age, education, interests, pet hates, that sort of thing - no pictures allowed - and you’re enrolled into a virtual club. You Skype anybody you fancy talking to from the list of members. If they accept, your initial chat is limited to twenty minutes but you can then arrange between yourselves to Skype as often as you want, or move on to someone else. It’s not a dating site, more a substitute for casual conversations down the pub or on the station platform when the train is late. You’re encouraged to pour yourself a glass of wine or a coffee or whatever, to simulate a proper conversation. I had a beer to hand but hadn’t opened it. Beth was my fourth chat, her thirteenth. The figures are on the website, along with ratings. Ratings for God’s sake! Her profile said she was 47, a graduate in Music, Green and loathed sports - a bit of a challenge in fact, but I was ready to try anything by that time. She was rated 3/5. What was that supposed to mean? If Netflix ratings were anything to go by, I should be looking for the 1/5s. I could see right away that we had different approaches to this thing. I was dressed for 1
slobbing in front of the TV; she looked set for a night out - smartly dressed, made up. I sat up straight and tried to look alert. I’d prepared a list of questions to ask, pretty pedestrian stuff, but she beat me to it - dived straight in. ‘Tell me something about yourself that I couldn’t guess.’
So that’s how I came to blurt out that about the wives. It wasn’t altogether accidental. You only get one chance to make a first impression. So be interesting, provocative even. Better to be a prat than dull. For an accountant that takes a bit of effort. It’s surprising how few people understand how interesting accountancy problems are. When I was younger I even pretended at parties that I was an embalmer rather than admit to what I did. It worked more often than you’d think as a conversation-opener, though some people were not at all reticent about sniffing me surreptitiously.
‘Well, I met my first wife, Pia, at university. We were both reading maths. She was skinny, had jet black hair and great big dark eyes; the eyes were what I noticed first. From the word go we were driven by hormones. We went at it like, well, you know. We didn’t have a lot in common. Her family was from from Lebanon and I was a naive northerner. She was incredible, everything I wasn’t – spontaneous, impulsive, absolutely sure of herself. I was besotted. We had blazing rows and blazing reconciliations. I swear we only married because it was the only way our families would let us share a bed.
‘We got married in our second year. It was a mistake from the word go. I think we were each attracted by the exotic in the other, and by being able to share maths jokes, and by sex of course. That’s not much of a basis for a long-term relationship. You can’t go on being exotic to someone who washes 2
your underwear, not that I minded washing it for her. Maths jokes were never really very funny, and even sex becomes a chore when you have to get up at 5.30 in the morning to commute. Six months after we left university, we split up, more or less amicably, and two years later divorced by consent. I’ve no idea what happened to her after that. Do you really want to hear this stuff?’ ‘Of course.’‘The big thing I’ve learned from experience is to make a different mistake next time. My second wife, Janet, was a theoretical particle physicist with a First from Manchester. I didn’t have to be an embalmer with her; she liked obscure problems with lots of Greek letters in them. Perhaps that was part of the attraction, not having to pretend I mean, not the Greek. She was a total contrast to Pia, physically and emotionally. She had red hair, masses of it, was taller than me and big-boned, not fat though, and she was very controlled - never did anything without thinking twice. The sex wasn’t so good for either of us, but the talking was great. There wasn’t anything she couldn’t think up an answer to. We’d talk about any and everything except us. She was even more analytical than I was, and more practical; she was the one who repaired the toaster and replaced the fuses – those silly bits of wire you had to fiddle with before trip switches?
‘We were married for fifteen years. We’d agreed early on that we didn’t want children. After five years we’d more or less given up on sex too. We didn’t fight, but sometimes we wouldn’t talk to each other for days after a row. In fifteen years I don’t think either of us said sorry once; we would just inch back to restoration of diplomatic relations. We could probably have gone 3
on like that even longer, perhaps still be doing it, if I hadn’t met Sue. Are you sure?This must be really tedious.’ ‘It isn't. Go on.’ ‘Sue changed my life. We met through work. I’d been recruited on a short- term contract by the Civil Service. I was helping to negotiate the UK financial contribution to the new particle accelerator at the European Particle Physics Laboratory. That caused rows with Janet; she thought I was betraying science by haggling over money; I had more hassle from Janet than from the French delegation.
‘Anyway, Sue worked in the same Department, in Human Resources. She managed my induction programme – contractors could be a bit of a problem, bringing with them all sorts of bad habits from the private sector, like taking decisions before a problem had been consulted to death, so we were nursed along a bit in the early days. Sue and I were terribly proper. We lunched together, and I took her out for dinner once or twice when Janet was away, but it didn’t go any further than that. She was divorced with two children, had a good sense of humour and talked about feelings without making me squirm. And she was bright without making a thing of it. She also had amazing legs.
‘It might never have gone anywhere if Janet hadn’t gone away for a week to a conference. We’d not been getting on well and we parted on bad terms. I’d decided on impulse to take the week off and Janet hadn’t told me she was going away so that made the atmosphere bristle. No, thank you very much, I did not want to spend the week trailing round after her at a conference for particle physicists, not even in Brighton. Would you? 4
‘After a couple of days of moping around, I thought, sod it, and phoned all the unmarried women I knew. Three of them were up for it, so I went on a binge of theatre, cinema and dining out for the rest of the week. I don’t think I was consciously interviewing for a replacement, but who knows? Sue was the third. Half way through the evening I was sitting there listening to her and I suddenly thought, I like you a lot better than I like my wife. Well that was it, the blinding flash, the moment of catharsis. We parted at Waterloo, thanked each other for a lovely evening and I went home to an empty house. When Janet got home I had it out with her: neither of us was doing much for the other, we didn’t have any children to worry about, we were each financially independent, what was the point of going on? I packed a suitcase and left.
‘My second divorce wasn’t as amicable as the first. Janet’s mother said some pretty harsh things about me and most of “our” friends sided with her. Thank God it was before Facebook and Twitter. Anyway, I paid through the nose and the divorce came through. I was grateful for Janet’s practical side. Six months later Sue and I got married. ‘We were married for fifteen years – fifteen again, what is it about the number 15? It wasn’t always easy. Her teenage sons didn’t exactly warm to me for a while. But we got through. She was pretty saintly, really, while I learned how to be a human being. It just got better and better. You know how it is when the other person doesn’t have to finish a sentence, you know what they’re going to say? That’s how it was with us. It just got better and better. Then she died. Cancer. It was all over in six months. That was two years ago.’
‘Wow. I’m sorry.’ ‘No, I should apologise. I’ve gone on a bit. What about you? Surprise me.’ 5
‘Well, the man I married is now a woman.’
‘That really is interesting.’
'But our twenty minutes is up.'
'No. Don't go. Wait and I'll Skype you direct.'