Matt
- Cholesterol: 5.8
- Blood pressure: 155/95
- Hangover: 5 star.
Woke up on the hall floor with a blanket over me and what felt like a troupe of Irish dancers giving it the full clog-stomp in my head. No idea how I got home. Glanced at my watch. Six a.m. Crawled into the sitting room, onto the sofa and slept for another hour.
Put clothes from last night in the washing machine. As the cycle started up, I realized my mobile was still in the pocket of my trousers.
Went out to get some air, clear the cobwebs and post a letter. Only when I got home and tried to open the door with the letter did I realize that I’d posted my keys. Luckily Cait was in, though not impressed.
‘Cholesterol’s higher than we like. Blood pressure’s a bit up as well,’ said my doctor later the same morning. ‘No fry-ups. Take more exercise, cut down on alcohol and eat more greens.’
Lose the will to live, said a voice in my head, which was still pounding after last night. A big fry-up was what I needed. It was too early to return home and Cait would be around. She’d given me the silent treatment and the fish eye before I’d left for the surgery this morning, but then she’d never been good first thing. I learnt in the early years of our marriage to be quiet and avoid eye contact until at least after 10 a.m. Clearly I am in the dog house; I don’t think I saw Cait last night when I got home, but it must have been her who put the blanket over me at some point. I can’t remember much. My brother Duncan had called round early evening and insisted that we go for a drink to ‘cheer me up’, and one glass had turned into a bottle, then another, and a few shots of whisky, I don’t remember how many. Not something I do normally. Never again, I thought as a fresh wave of nausea hit me.
After seeing the doctor, for lack of anything else to do, I walked to the newsagent’s and bought a paper.
Had tea in the builder’s café. The aroma of fried bacon filled the air, so I ordered the full English and made a resolution to follow the doctor’s advice another day. Checked watch. Told myself that I must stop looking at my watch. Read paper. A headline on page four caught my eye. Divorce rates for the over-60s reaches 40 per cent year high. Great.
What happens to drive people to separation? I wondered. One huge disagreement, or the culmination of many small ones that have built up over time? A mutual decision or one unhappy party? An old mate, Richard’s wife, left him last year. He didn’t see it coming. ‘Men divorce when there’s another woman,’ he told me, ‘women do so when they’re unhappy.’ He hadn’t had a clue his wife had been planning her escape for well over a year.
Would Cait ever leave me? I asked myself. No, never, surely not, though things have been rocky lately. We don’t talk like we used to. We sleep turned away from each other. We have drifted apart. Take note, Matt Langham, I told myself, and don’t let things go further. Though I’m not sure what to do. Get away somewhere nice? But no, with our finances at the moment, sadly a romantic weekend away is out of the question. In the early days of our relationship, and many years after, we hadn’t stopped talking: books, plans, theatre, politics, religion, our boys – there was always something to say about them and we enjoyed each other’s company and opinions, which were often different. It didn’t matter, it was us against the world: we were solid.
There had been rough patches before – I could see Cait in my mind just after Jed was born, staggering out of bed at 2 a.m., then again at three and four, before finally giving up and sleeping on a make-do bed on the floor beside his cot. A little bugger he was. Another night, she just lay there on her side of the bed when the crying started, each of us hoping the other would get up. She’d gently worked her feet up onto my bum and pushed until I was falling out of the bed. ‘Your turn,’ she said as I hit the floor, then she’d laughed, turned over and gone to sleep. We’d argued a lot too at that time; or rather bickered, we were both so tired. Sex was the last thing on our minds, sleep was all we sought, but we were open about it. I remembered suggesting it one night and Cait had replied. ‘No thanks. Am already shagged out,’ before conking out. It wasn’t an issue, and things soon picked up again once Jed finally started sleeping.
Sam had been an easy baby; he’d slept through the night from the day we brought him home from the hospital. Jed was the opposite. A baby bouncing off the walls at 3 a.m. isn’t a good recipe for any marriage, but we got through it. Later, we’d argued about how to discipline the boys, what time they should go to bed, how to punish them or not if they’d been cheeky or misbehaved – but we’d always talked things through.
If I was honest, when I was working, once I reached the office, work was all consuming and I let it be so. If there were problems in the home, or even in the world, they were soon forgotten as I got pulled into whatever the latest TV series proposal was and lost myself in research, timings, production costings. Back at home, I was sure of my role, and that Cait would always be there. I was pretty certain that I’d know if she was thinking about leaving. She’d never been good at keeping things in. I’d probably get a list, like that movie – Ten Things I Hate about You. It would be there on a piece of paper in her neat handwriting on the island in the kitchen. I almost think I’d prefer that to this atmosphere back at the house now. This is different to previous standoffs. We’re not shouting at each other, taking out our mutual irritation or lack of sleep on each other. It feels quieter, more ominous, with silences that are loaded with the unspoken. Is it me? Am I the problem? Taking out my frustration on her in a passive-aggressive way, not giving her the benefit of a good air-clearing row. Maybe I should make more of an effort, starting by having a shave seeing as that seems to bother her so much.
I stared out of the window at rain splashing on the pavement. I’d been gone an hour. How much space would Cait need? Longer than this, I decided as I got up to order another mug of tea.
*
Home. Cait’s gone out. Phew. Got out my list of my contacts. Emailed the few left that I haven’t been in touch with, not that I hold out much hope. I’ve been emailing and phoning every day since I was let go and no one’s got back to me so far. Can they smell the scent of need in cyberspace? Has word got around? Matt Langham’s out of the game. They must know I’m out of work, been cut loose. I’d never emailed any of them when I was working. Didn’t have the time. I remembered when I was headhunted, wanted, flavour of the month, the golden boy of programme ideas. Oh the fickle friend, that illusion that is success. Truth be told, my best years were back in the late 1980s, a long time ago. The industry has changed since then: more competitive, smaller budgets, a younger man’s game. I’d survived, nevertheless. In the last decade, I’d worked as a producer on some contemporary documentaries, but my niche was history. I had a reputation. My programme ‘The Women Who Made Cromwell’ had won an award in 2000. I could deliver on a brief. I had good ideas, could oversee a project from conception to completion. Surely that must count for something?
Called Brian Fairweather.
‘No one’s hiring,’ he said. ‘Sorry, other phone’s going. Let’s get together for a beer next time you’re in town.’ I have said these very same lines in the past to people needing a job. It hurt being on the other end of it. Cait’s friend Debs would probably say it’s karma: what you sow, so shall you reap.
Next was Peter Smith. We’d always got on and he, at least, sounded pleased to hear from me. ‘Matt Langham. Still in the programme-making business?’
‘Keeping my hand in.’
‘So what can I do you for?’
How do I put it without sounding desperate? I asked myself. Deep breath, sound energized. ‘I’ve gone freelance—’
‘I thought you always were?’
‘Yes but I’ve made some changes and separated from my old company. Things have been a bit slow there so I’ve got some time on my hands and wondered if you were in the market for—’
‘Ah. Sorry, mate. Nothing for you here. You know how it is, full on or nothing, feast or famine. It’s a tough business, never been tougher or more competitive. If I were you, I’d enjoy the time off before the next round of deadlines hits, take up golf.’ Subtext, you’re past your sell-by date, mate.
Tried Richard Simpson then Ronnie Nash. No joy.
One more to try. Maria Briars. She’d tried to headhunt me once. I dialled her number.
‘Hey, Maria.’
‘Hey, Matt. How’s it going?’
I couldn’t be bothered with the pretence. ‘Slow, to be honest. I’m looking for work.’
‘No. God, if you’d only called last week, I was looking for someone – but then maybe it wasn’t for you. Anyway, it was a done deal really. My boss insisted I take on his nephew. He started on Monday, only a kid, quite brilliant though. I am sorry.’
‘No problem.’ A kid. Ouch, I thought.
‘I’ll be in touch if I hear anything.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You OK?’
‘Top of the world.’
‘Chins up.’
‘Chins up.’
I hung up the phone and crossed off her name. I am not putting myself through that humiliation again.
So, to my den in the garage to listen to Radio Four. I’ll compile another list tomorrow. Or not. Have I had my day? Time to let the younger ones have their hour in the spotlight. In which case, what next? I could have a shave, but why? I’m not going anywhere. Not that I’m going to grow a beard, but after forty years of shaving every day, it’s bliss not to have to, liberating. I know Cait doesn’t like it, so I’ll do it every fifth day. In the meantime, I’m having a shaving man’s holiday. There have to be some perks to this retirement business.