sunday morning

In my husband's London flat I sat in the bed, my husband next to me. ‘I’m sorry’, he said, ‘I think I’ve just been working too hard’. I confess that he introduced into the conversation an adjective which had not occurred to me in respect of the man at my side at that precise moment. He almost unconsciously raised his arm and pointed the remote at the VCR and as Meet me in St Louis flickered onto to the screen I wondered why even my reading aloud from the colour charts in my best seductive tones and dressing only in come hither fabric swatches didn’t seem to turn him on today. I just couldn’t think what could be the problem although I wracked my brains for what seemed like an age. ‘What are you thinking about?’ He asked, noticing my pensiveness. ‘Oh, nothing’, I replied evasively, ‘just the cottage’. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean!?’ he snapped. I’m sure I didn’t know what he was talking about so I felt around on the floor beside the bed and grasped one of his body building magazines. As I began to flick through it, trying to take myself away from this awkward situation, I wondered why despite subscribing to all these fitness magazines he had not yet got around to buying any weights himself but I reasoned it was because he didn’t want to have to transport them up north when he came to live with me and our daughters in the near future and he was just committing all those exercises and poses on the well thumbed pages for when he started his new healthy regime in the north. Yes, that must be it. Suddenly I realised he was crying. I snuggled up to him and softly told him he mustn’t get so upset, that these things happen to every man from time to time. ‘Sorry’, he said, ‘this number always gets to me’, as have yourself a merry little christmas began and he turned up the volume to allow Judy Garland to drown out his sobbing, and leave me none the wiser regarding his reluctance to come and live with me. I began fumbling around on the floor again. ‘What are you looking for now?’ He asked. ‘Somewhere to plug in my laptop’, I said. ‘I haven’t written anything on my blog for hours. I can’t just sit around here all day, my readers need me’. I had pencilled in the diary to write about sex this weekend but it looked like now I might have to make something up and I hoped that the readers of my hitherto truthful blog wouldn't notice. I felt very alone, even my friends had only rubbed salt in the wound when I'd talked about this problem. ‘All relationships have sticky patches’, said one, not realising I would give my right arm for a sticky patch in my own relationship. As I tapped on my keyboard, oh how I wished for just a simple sign from my husband, just one, to give me a single clue, to let me into that locked closet where he kept his feelings. While his attention was diverted I slipped some of his muscle mags into my handbag. I knew he wouldn't mind, what is marriage all about, after all, if not sharing? I knew though that when he moved north everything would be alright, from now on our troubles will be miles away...