It’s late, the bar is noisy and I can’t hear my wife on the other end of the phone. I tell Jamal I’m heading outside so I can hear better. He just waves at me like it’s fine and continues sipping his whisky.

A couple of girls at the bar are staring at him. He turns to wink at them, then turns back to his drink and chuckles. I wish I had that kind of freedom. I wish I had the time to go to the gym every day and get noticed by women. Then again, it would be nice just to get noticed by my wife, and not for something I’ve done wrong.

I stand up and realise that I’ve drunk more than I intended. My leg smacks into the table and my glass wobbles across the top. Jamal steadies the table and looks up at me to see whether I’m alright. I ignore his look. I can fucking handle my drink.

I make my way outside, shoving past bodies crowded around the entrance. I can feel my head spinning from the whisky and try to focus on walking straight.

It’s raining and I hover beneath the narrow awning so my phone doesn’t get wet. A girl is leaning against the wall next to me, a cigarette threaded between her fingers while she scrolls through her phone. She ignores me as I breathe in her smoke. God, I miss cigarettes.

‘Christine?’ I yell into the phone, wondering whether she’s still there.

‘You said you’d be back by now.’ Her voice is just louder than a whisper; she’s trying not to wake the kids. I imagine her eyes, piercing and angry, like they’ve been for a while.

‘I’m sorry. I’m working. I told you I’d be home late.’

‘Don’t lie to me! You’re at a bar. You said you’d be home by 8pm.’

I glance at my watch and it’s 11pm already. I ignored her calls earlier, hoping that she’d take the hint: I didn’t want to talk to her. It’s embarrassing that she’s always calling to check up on me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I tell her again, trying not to slur my words.

Despite trying to hide it, she still knows that I’m drunk. ‘You’re pissed again! A great example you’re setting for our kids.’

I want to tell her to fuck off but decide against it. ‘I’m working. I’m with Jamal. We’re brainstorming.’

‘And drinking helps you with that?’ she asks sarcastically. ‘I don’t trust that guy.’

‘You don’t trust anyone,’ I say, immediately regretting it. I should try not to piss her off even more.

She doesn’t even trust me at the moment. Then again, I don’t know how many times I haven’t made it home on time recently. For months we’ve been arguing about how I work too much and how she rarely sees me. She doesn’t realise how hard I work to provide for her and the kids. It’s like she’s ungrateful for everything I’ve done for her; for us. She hasn’t worked for years now, not since we had our first child. I don’t want to be stuck at home every single night of the week.

‘Can you blame me?’ she asks. ‘You lied to me. Again.’

‘I’ll be home soon.’

‘Yeah, sure… I’m going to bed. Remember we’ve got parents’ evening tomorrow.’

‘Shit,’ I say under my breath. I’ve had to go to that school several times now and sit through long, boring meetings with teachers who just tell me that my both of my children are doing fine in school. It’s such a waste of time – theirs and mine.

‘So you’re not interested in finding out how your own children are doing at school?’ she criticises me.

‘That’s not what I meant,’ I tell her. ‘I forgot.’

‘Of course, you forgot. Because you’re constantly thinking about yourself all the fucking time!’

‘That’s not true.’

Silence.

‘Christine?’

I glance down at my phone. She’s hung up on me.

‘Great,’ I say to myself.

The girl next to me smiles. ‘Sounds like you’d better get home. Before she locks you out.’

Why can’t people mind their own fucking business?

‘Yeah,’ I mumble, and head back inside.

Jamal’s bought us another double each. ‘Everything okay?’ he asks.

‘Yeah, fine,’ I say. I down the dregs of my last drink then pick up my next. ‘I’ve got to get going after this.’

‘Yeah, of course.’ He looks down at his watch. ‘It’s late. Christine must have wondered where you were.’

I smile. ‘You have no fucking idea.’

Jamal’s single so he doesn’t have to worry about how long he stays out, especially on a school night. I envy him. Sometimes it’s like Christine is trying to control me, mould me into the perfect husband who obeys her every wish and command. Marriage doesn’t work like that. I used to want to come home to her every evening, but now I know I’ll just come back to another argument.

‘You okay to continue?’ Jamal asks me. He looks down at his notes. ‘We’re nearly done.’

‘Yeah, sure.’ I start sipping on my whisky. It’s been a while since I’ve had this much to drink. The alcohol hasn’t affected Jamal at all though.

‘Okay… We need to talk about the things that could come back to bite you during your campaign. You need to be honest with me. Tell me about anything you’ve done in the past, even if it’s small. Sex, drugs, stealing, fights, anything. I won’t judge. I’ve done some pretty fucked-up stuff in my time.’

I frown as I think. ‘I gave up smoking five years ago,’ I tell him. ‘I smoked a bit of weed at uni. Only a few times. My mates bought it. That’s it, I think.’

‘That’s it?’ he asks doubtfully. ‘There’s nothing else? You’ve never done anything stronger than weed?’

‘No. I always tried to be good as a kid. Mainly because my dad scared the shit out of me. And most people left me alone knowing who he was.’

‘You started dating Christine when you were 15. You didn’t have under-aged sex?’

‘No! It took her a while to… Sorry, that sounds shitty… We didn’t have sex until university.’

‘So you’ve only ever slept with Christine?’

I’d almost forgotten. ‘There was someone else. A one-night stand. Years ago, at uni, before I was engaged to Christine.’

‘Who?’

I’ve never told anyone about this before. ‘Her name was Julianne. We were both drunk; it didn’t mean anything. I haven’t seen her since.’

‘Okay, not a big deal. You were dating Christine then?’

I pause. This makes me sound like a complete bastard. I hate myself for what I did that night. ‘Yes. I felt guilty afterwards though… And Christine doesn’t know.’

‘Don’t worry. This is only between us,’ Jamal reassures me.

I down the rest of my whisky. I feel sick; I’ve had too much. I need to get home. ‘Are we done? I’ve got parents’ evening tomorrow,’ I tell him, rolling my eyes.

Jamal smiles and polishes off his glass. ‘Rather you than me. Yeah, we’re done.’

We get up and make our way outside. ‘I can’t believe how busy it is in here,’ I say to him as we edge our way around strangers and finally make it out of the door.

‘It’s always busy,’ Jamal tells me. He pauses. ‘Think some more about anything else that you’d rather leave in your past. Sometimes people forget things, small things that can turn into bigger problems later on. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

He pats me on the shoulder and heads off down the street. I get my bearings straight before walking in the opposite direction. I’m not far from home; it’s only a short walk. I could call for a taxi but I need to walk off the drink.

Cold rain trickles down the back of my neck and absorbs into my grey suit. I wish I had an umbrella or at least a coat. I’d kill for a cigarette between my lips right now. I miss the taste of smoke blending with the residue of old whisky.

The moon peers out between sombre clouds, the stars invisible above the smoggy city. The streets are empty in suburbia, Victorian terraced houses lining both sides of the quiet road. Some homes are fully cast into darkness, but from others a single light shines in a bedroom or living room. I peer curiously into a window where the curtains haven’t been drawn across and watch a man typing away at his computer then sit back and sip his coffee.

I turn down another road, the houses set further back, small front gardens brimming with flower pots and tall hedges. Parallel-parked cars are crammed down the street, streetlights sparkling across their metal roofs. I yawn loudly, the cold night’s air filling my lungs.

The sound of sex fills my ears: a girl panting, her bed creaking. Her moans get louder, or I get nearer to her house. I miss having loud sex. I try to pick up my pace and hurry past, feeling as if I’m intruding, guessing it’s the house with the partially-open window and curtains hastily drawn across. Suddenly a woman appears around the curtain, topless, and slams shut the window before turning back to her lover and laughing. She doesn’t see me, the Peeping Tom staring up at her, wishing I was home having heated sex too.

Christine’s been avoiding having sex with me. The last time we tried she told me that she was tired halfway through, and before that she lay there motionless, like she was wishing she could be sunbathing on a tropical island instead. Her face showed no emotion, as if I was fucking a corpse.

Maybe that’s too harsh. Maybe it’s the alcohol swimming around in my head. But what happened to our relationship – where did the romance go? How did we end up like this, disliking each other and who we’ve become? I wonder whether this happens to every middle-aged couple.

I think back to what I told Jamal; how the only two things I’ve ever done to rebel were smoke weed and have a one-night stand. I’ve never taken huge risks, never truly rebelled, rarely wanted to do something different and walk down an unexpected path. I don’t know how to think outside the box because I’ve never broken outside of the bars of normality. I’ve always been reliable, never wanting for money, never knowing what it feels like to succeed or fail. Christ, I’m fucking boring.

I don’t know whether I want to follow in my father’s footsteps either. He came to me a few months ago and told me that I should enter politics like him, that now would be a good time; now that I was established in business and the kids were old enough. I was an ideal candidate and he could introduce me to certain acquaintances, get the ball rolling.

I didn’t have time to think about whether I wanted to become a politician, whether I’d be good at representing my constituency. It just happened: I met with people, filled out forms, went to interviews, then was selected to represent the party. It felt similar to how he helped me to get my first job, and how he introduced me to Christine; how we didn’t plan on immediately having children after we got married. Everything just happened before I had a chance to think about what I wanted in life.

I love my kids, but I’m not sure whether I’m in love with Christine anymore. Perhaps she feels like me, trapped by the life that we’ve created for ourselves. I hate our shitty routine: getting up at the same time each day, putting on a suit and tie, eating the same breakfast, commuting, downing coffee at my desk, sitting in on repetitive work meetings, going round in circles as we decide what to do each month, dealing with old clients, more coffee to keep myself awake in the afternoon, paperwork, coming home, talking with the kids about what they did at school while we wolf down another tasteless dinner, putting the kids to bed, mindless TV then sleep. Surely there’s more to life? But what? This is the life we chose for ourselves.

I miss being able to use my brain. The corporate world removes your creativity and ability to think clearly. I miss messy sex and being able to travel the world, exploring different countries with Christine like when we were twenty and travelled around Europe. I miss learning, heated debates with old school friends, philosophical drunken ramblings in the early hours of the morning, the ambitions of my youth.

My head is spinning and I wretch onto the pavement, clinging onto a recycling bin as my stomach empties itself. Fuck, I had far too much to drink. I wretch again and the foul stench of regurgitated whisky and my dinner of greasy chips fills my nostrils. It’s too dark to see whether I’ve been sick down my suit or on my shoes. I try to hide behind the bin, crouching down in the front garden where it’s positioned just in case someone sees me.

When I’m done throwing up, I hurry down the street and hope that no one saw me. Christine’s right: a great example I’m setting for our kids. And a great example I’m setting as a political candidate, being sick on a constituent’s garden path then running away.

Perhaps the rain will wash away everything by the morning. I wish it could wash away the shitty hangover I’m sure to have then too. My head feels clearer as I start jogging down the street, wanting to be out of the rain and home safe in bed. I want to curl up next to Christine and forget the arguments of the past that lie between us.

I run down the dark alley that leads to our small road, the noise of my thudding shoes echoing around me. At the end of the alley I see my home, the lights off, the front door that Christine painted black over the old pillar-box red, the sash windows that stick in the heat of summer. Bedrooms where my little family slumbers, my daughters sleeping like cherubs on soft white clouds – or rather the expensive memory-foam and pocket-sprung mattresses that I bought for them.

Christine will be upstairs curled up in her designer Egyptian cotton sheets. She chose pink roses for the bedding, despite my protests. Her skin will be scrubbed clean of makeup and she’ll smell of her usual mixture of potent night creams, in case her skin wrinkles like her decrepit 65-year-old mother. She’ll be wearing pyjamas so I can’t feel the warmth of her skin when I hug her body close to mine.

I slip my keys out of my pocket and fumble with the lock, trying to prise the front door open. The door sticks against the frame, swollen by the rain, so I kick the bottom and it shudders open. Inside, I lock the door again and put on the latch, then scrabble through the dark towards the kitchen.

I flick on the light and look at myself in the mirror. There’s brown sick down my tie. Fuck, I look a mess. My eyes are bloodshot. I look down at my shoes: at least the rain washed them clean. I sit down and undo my laces, kick off my shoes, then slip off my clothes and throw them in the washing machine, so Christine won’t judge me for being sick down myself like a baby.

I fill up a glass of water and swill my mouth out, spitting into the sink, then down the rest of the water quickly, and wash my mouth and hands. Glancing at myself in the mirror again, I look a bit more presentable; less like a drunken tramp.

I creep upstairs and into our bedroom, the floorboards creaking with every other step I take. I carefully put down my keys, wallet and phone on the bedside table.

‘Christine?’ I whisper, but receive no reply.

I head into our en suite to brush my teeth in the dark, pushing the door to so I don’t wake her, although I think she’s pretending to be asleep. Mint toothpaste tastes much better than bile and whisky. I rinse out my mouth again, have a piss, then steal back into our bedroom and gently slip under the covers.

‘Christine?’ I whisper again, spooning against her back.

‘Get off! Go to sleep,’ she says, wriggling away from me.

I sigh and roll onto my back, gazing up at the ceiling, blank and colourless with strips of light from outside streaming around the edges of the curtains. My head has stopped spinning at least.

I don’t need to set my alarm: it’s already pre-set, like it is every day, primed for another thrilling day of ordinary routine. Maybe I can get out of work early tomorrow, use the parents’ evening as an excuse to slip away, come home and surprise Christine with flowers – an apology for wanting to drink instead of coming home to her. Tomorrow is a new day. Maybe life gets better than this.