William Walker’s First Year of Marriage: A Horror Story. Matt Rudd

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      ‘Yes, they have, I had it on the Tube and that bloke opposite looked shifty.’

      ‘So you were pickpocketed?’

      ‘Yes, he must have followed us.’

      ‘Thought you said you were like a coiled spring when you were travelling, a coiled anti-pickpocket spring.’

      ‘Yes, well…’

      ‘That if anyone tried it on with you, there’d be a blur, a flash and a whimper.’

      ‘I—’

      ‘That they’d be picking up their teeth with broken fingers.’

      ‘Shut up and help me look in these bags!’

      ‘Don’t snap at your wife.’

      ‘Yes, well, my wife is being incredibly unhelpful, the flight’s about to leave and someone’s run off with my passport.’

      ‘Is it at home?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Have you left your passport at home?’

      ‘Of course I haven’t.’

      ‘You always leave something at home.’

      ‘Don’t.’ ‘Do.’ ‘Don’t!’ ‘Do.’ ‘Don’t!’

      ‘What about Paris?’

      ‘That wasn’t a passport. That was the tickets.’

      ‘Stop frowning. You always frown.’

      ‘Hardly a surprise with you nagging all the time.’

      ‘You’ll get wrinkles if you scrunch your face like that. You were doing that right through the whole wedding.’

      ‘I was nervous.’

      ‘You looked like you were about to be tortured.’

      ‘You told me not to look at you affectionately because you’d start blubbing.’

      ‘Yes, but not for the whole day.’

      ‘Well, I was nervous. It’s much easier for a bride.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘It’s easier. All you have to do is smile, look nice and walk up and down an aisle. I have four tests. I have to do the vows, I have to do a speech, I have to lead a dance, I have to have sex.’

      ‘Have sex? That’s difficult, is it?’

      ‘It is when all your bridesmaids are placing bets on it.’

      ‘Don’t be stupid.’

      ‘You don’t be stupid.’

      ‘You don’t be stupid.’

      ‘You don’t be stupid.’

      ‘You don’t be stupid.’

      ‘You don’t be stupid.’

      ‘Last call for flight BA One-seven-eight to Delhi.’

      ‘You don’t be stupid.’

      Tuesday 3 May

      The passport was on the mantelpiece.

      Still, another night at home recovering from the wedding was a blessing in disguise. At least, that’s what I suggested to Isabel, who didn’t seem to see it that way. Will make it up to her in India …

      ‘Darling, I’m sorry. I am an idiot. I will make it up to you in India.’

      ‘It’s okay, darling, I love that you forget things.’

      ‘I love that you love that I forget things.’

      Ahhhh.

      Why I married Isabel

      There was never really any question about it. Until Isabel, I had always assumed I would simply marry the girl I happened to be going out with when it was time to get married, i.e. thirty-two. That’s how it worked for Johnson and every other bloke I knew. You spend your twenties trying to extricate yourself from any relationship that looks like it’s getting too heavy (anything more than two years is dangerous), the first two years of your thirties bracing yourself, then the rest of your life as monogamous as possible.

      Isabel changed that. I suddenly got it. Even though I was only twenty-nine, I knew immediately that she was someone I’d be glad to spend the rest of my life with. Mainly because she’s different from all my other girlfriends.

      In that she’s beautiful rather than somewhere between pretty and elephantine. She has short dark hair with red bits in it. She is tall but not alarmingly so. She has freckles in the summer. She has a cute dimple where she used to have a nose ring. And she would have had a cute dimple where she used to have a nipple ring but she sobered up before it was her turn in the Mexican nipple-piercing shop.

      [No, that’s too shallow. It’s not about looks.]

      In that she’s funny.

      [Still no. Sounds like something you’d write in a personal ad (Must have GSOH).]

      In that she does things impetuously. She isn’t on the conveyor belt. She’s lived in Paris and Buenos Aires; she’s spent a year teaching in the Andes and three months as a beer wench in Munich; she quite fancies showing me her favourite bar in Quito one day; she wonders if the campervan we will one day drive to Bangkok should be a classic rust-bucket or one of the rather nifty new ones. Now, she works for a charity and she loves it. But next year she might decide to become a policewoman. Who knows? She’s spontaneous.

      [Still no. And I hope she doesn’t become a policewoman.]

      In that we were mates within five minutes of meeting, that it felt completely natural when we moved in together, that the thought of her and me getting hitched seemed like the most exciting idea in the world ever without any question, and that I can’t wait to get on with married life. Johnson is wrong about women and I didn’t completely understand that until I met Isabel.

      Friday 20 May

      Back from honeymoon, which I don’t want to talk about. Ever. Except to say India wasn’t my idea. Just so pleased to be home, even if home is a one-bedroom flat at the wrong end of the mean streets of Finsbury Park.

      Marmite toast, tea, hot bath, bed, sleep, lovely sleep.

      Wake to a message left on the answer machine from Alex. ‘Great you’re back, Izzy СКАЧАТЬ