ANGEL BAT DAWID

 

CHAPTER THIRTY: ANGEL BAT DAWID AT CAFÉ OTO – 8/6/20 - CANCELLED

The stage is set. The kids are down. I’ve turned the big computer on, and set up the microphone to record. I’m wearing headphones and playing around on my acoustic guitar. I’m going to make some music.

  Enter wife. She is not happy because our daughter, who I had put to bed, has been up and demanding this and that, and refusing to go to sleep, and there I am just idly strumming my acoustic guitar. “I’m going to hoover in here now,” she says, “if you don’t mind.”

  “No,” I say, “that’s-”

  “Actually,” says wife, “I don’t give a shit if you mind.”

  “No,” I say, “I don’t give a shit if I mind either.”

  “Oh, fuck off.”

  Wife walks into the kitchen which adjoins the lounge where I am sitting. I stop playing the acoustic guitar. I go and sit on the sofa. I get out my pocket notebook, which is in my pocket, and start writing down the conversation we have just had.

  “Actually,” says wife. “Do you mind hoovering, and I’ll get the mop out?”

  “Sure,” I say, “that’s fine.” I continue writing down the conversation we are having. I’m almost finished. There, I’m finished. 

  But wife has already started vacuuming. I get up. “I’m here,” I say. “I’m doing it.”

  “No,” she says, “you’re not though, are you? You’re sitting there writing in your notebook.”

  I back off, hovering (not hoovering). 

  “What was so important that you had to write it down?” says wife.

  “It wasn’t ‘so important’,” I say. “I just wanted to write it down.”

  Wife finishes vacuuming, and then starts mopping. I sit on the sofa, absentmindedly browsing the internet until I can get back to what I was doing.

  Wife finishes. “You know,” she says, “all my mental health issues, it’s all down to-”

  “It’s all because of me?” I say.

  “It’s because I live with a mental person,” says wife.

  “A mental person?” I say.

  “You’re just so detached,” says wife. 

  I nod solemnly.

  “You must know that about yourself,” says wife.

  I nod. Solemnly.

“You know, I’m really trying at the moment, but you’re just so hard to love,” says wife later, while the kettle is boiling.

  “Well, maybe,” I say, “don’t aim for loving me. Aim for not hating me, and then not disliking me, and then we can work from there.” Wife looks at me with an expression stuck somewhere between contempt and disgust. “Just take it one step at a time.”

  The kettle finishes its work. “Do you want a cup of tea?” I say.

  “No,” says wife, “I’m all right, thanks.”