In A World Gone Mad: Saturday 30 May 2020 ...2

Max has just been into the office after sitting in the kitchen mulling since we got up. We’re okay, we’re always okay. Even at seven minutes past five in the stupid morning, we’re okay. Arthur will be up for his first cup of tea in an hour and another day gets going.  Whatever comes at us, we deal with it. I blame him for being selfish. He blames me for being uptight, and we muddle through, as couples do.

We had round two. The same arguments.  I’m a spitfire and all the fight’s gone out of him.

He’s stressed with not being at work and having his dad. The heat at night isn’t helping even with the fan on all night, mainly for the long-haired dog who’s suffering right along with us. Max isn’t sleeping enough—he gets  a damned site more than me, but it’s always broken and nowhere near what he needs. We’re both tired and tearing lumps off each other.

The sex stuff and porn isn’t the issue, I’ve lived with that for three years and accept it a lot better than I used to when it came close to splitting us up several times in the early days. It’s a bloody good job I wasn’t writing my diary then.

He was lost and lonely and miserable.  I’m whispering at him like a raging banshee and he is like a rabbit in the headlights with no clue what’s going on.

He made me see—again, that he’s suffering too.

‘I don’t watch porn nearly as much as you think I do, you know. It’s all in your head. Almost every night I do what I tell you I’m doing, just going downstairs to leave you in peace. I hardly ever watch porn these days. I just can’t sleep.’

He’s probably telling the truth, but he still does it.

I’m awake now and can be sympathetic. When I’m first up in the middle of the night it all seems very bleak and I don’t cope with it well. I’m going to make a coffee in a minute and have it in the garden, it’s daylight. The world will be better.

Once I stop being so damned angry I enjoy my nights.  Well, kind of.  I’m getting a load more done than I would working just through the day. The world is beautiful now. I’m typing in a tropical heat. Dawn has broken, the birds are singing and it’s really nowhere near as bad as it was thee hours ago.

I got about two hours sleep, in ten-minute blocks.  It’s better than nothing.

It’s killed tonight though. It’s our Saturday date night. That can go to hell. I haven’t enjoyed the last three we’ve had. I don’t want to have a drink and I’ve gone through the  motions, but all I want to do is what we do every other night. Go to bed early and mong out in front of the telly. The earlier we go up, the more snatches of sleep I get.

Max is upset.  I’ve added to his load. He’s so gentle and kind and begged me to go back to bed with him. I can’t sleep now, Arthur will be getting up soon.

Are we okay, Sarah?’

‘You know we are. We’re always all right.’

‘Do me a favour will you? Stop threatening to leave me.’

‘It’s not about leaving you. I’m not thinking about us splitting up or not helping you with your dad or anything like that. I just want somewhere to be. It’s only about getting some sleep, nothing else.’

‘Is it that bad?’

‘Yes.’

I’ll ring the doctor on Monday and see if he’ll prescribe me something to help me sleep.

We both hate the idea of him taking sleeping tablets. A short course, to re-set his clock might not be so bad. Even if we go back  to this when they’re doe, it will be like putting Arthur into respite for a week. We get a break and get to recharge for the next onslaught. My fear is that he’s going to like them—I know I would—I’d bloody love them. I’m jealous that we’ve decided he’s going to be the one to try and get them. But I’m not the one with the problem sleeping, I’m just the one with the problem being woken up.

He might not get them. If his doctor’s any good, he’ll refuse. I wouldn’t give him them. I’d tell him to go to bloody bed and re-set his body clock naturally. All he has to do is get into bed and stay there for a few nights and not lie in sleeping until lunchtime. And then get up early and keep busy all day. It would be sorted in three nights.

We’re clearing out Arthur’s house and painting it ready to be let. It means that all of his eighty-seven years of crap is coming to our house. Our own crap that was stored in Arthurs room before he moved in, is in our room. A box full of tools, one of electrics, one of bedding, one of Christmas decorations—and a tree, and a miscellaneous box. Now we have to  have more boxes in our bedroom with all of his personal rubbish.

We’ve hired a skip. Everything that he’s collected over the years is going to be dumped in it. We’ve saved his tens of thousands of photographs from his world travels, his pictures, and books. They can all go in his room, the overspill will come into ours. He has a collection of exotic mugs, his dead daughter’s Gideon’s Bible, his train set, his bike, and other things that he identifies with—all coming into our bedroom until such times as he dies, and we can dump them. All the non-personal stuff is going this week.  Max wants to bring home dinner service and kitchenware for us to use, it’s all brand new and was bought for Arthur when he moved into his new house from London ten months ago. Max can park Arthur’s kitchenware anywhere he likes, as long as it’s not in my house.

Max came home buzzing. He has found a program from the 1966 World Cup Final against West Germany. Arthur was there that day, cheering from the stands. It is signed by Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst. It’s devalued because Arthur defaced it by scribbling the goals and who scored them on it—but what a piece of history. Andy is mad on football and, as a reward for doing so well, Max has spoken to Arthur, the brothers don’t need to know about it, apparently. If they’d been there to help, they would know about it too—he might as well talk to a budgie as talk to his dad, Arthur has no capacity to make any decision—he’s given the program to Andy.

Andy will brag to Belle and Belle will go on about getting her inheritance early again—it’s inevitable.

If somebody took a photo of the de-tombing of Tutankhamun, Arthur would be holding the shovel.

The moon landing—Arthur waving from the door of Apollo 11

The Wright Brothers first flight—Arthur smiling at the camera and doing, ‘Chocs away.’

Hitler’s parade and famous speech—Arthur on the front row, showing his best side.

And when Emilie Pankhurst chained herself to parliament, Arthur will have swallowed the padlock key.

There is nowhere that man hasn’t been and nothing he hasn’t done. He’s fascinating. His photos and memories aren’t all going in the skip this time round. There was talk of getting rid of the lot, but I said to let the poor old sod die first. But his brain is where his memories will be—in a skip. It’s very sad.

I want to point out that I whinge a lot in my diary—it’s what it’s there for. I’m tired and Arthur drives me mad and I’m temporarily off sex—but I’m otherwise very happy with my life. We live in a large rented house that we pay a fortune for. I don’t have any debt—though Max does and will be paying his old life off for years. I’m more accepting of my appearance than I was when I was younger, I still hate me—but what you won’t change you have to live with.  Max is a feeder—though not in a sexual way, he likes skinny women.  But he feeds me, and I don’t complain.  I have my two families, my animals and I don’t have much to complain about—not that it’s ever stopped me.

I’m okay. Swathed in mental illness for not being able to sleep, apparently—but I’m okay.