The Pile of Stuff at the Bottom of the Stairs by Christina Hopkinson Read Free Book Online

concentrating on drawing a series of stacking cubes onto the window’s condensation.
    “What about it?”
    “Do people get divorced because their houses are a mess?”
    Becky laughs. “No, not generally. I suppose if it were symptomatic of some sort of wider malaise. What’s this about?”
    “A program we might be doing, a bit like Wife Swap ,” I say.
    “I knew you weren’t talking about you and Joel. Your house is always immaculate.”
    “Yeah, right,” I say. “It’s a disaster.” But I feel a burst of womanly pride that somebody has been fooled by the brief frenzy of tidying that goes on before we have visitors. “You only say that because you’re like my mother-in-law in your belief that cleanliness is next to gormlessness.”
    “Ursula is a marvelous woman,” Becky says with a frown. “I wish I lived with her instead of Cara.”
    “How’s that going?”
    “Fine. Sort of. She’s just so anal. Everything’s just so and tasteful and perfect. Everything has to be exquisite , do you know what I mean? She has a DustBuster—you know, one of those minivacuum cleaner things and she uses it around my chair before I’ve even finished eating.”
    “I do that a bit, with the children.”
    “Exactly. With. The. Children. And that’s not all. It’s a bloody Philippe Starck DustBuster. All polished chrome. Even the bloody DustBuster has to be the world’s most tasteful DustBuster. I’m only allowed to put my stuff, you know all my vases, ornaments, presents that people have given me, things that mean something to me, in the spare room. She has a computer program for working out which art should go on which wall space. She’s a gay man trapped in a lesbian’s body.” She frowns some more and then contradicts herself. “Except she doesn’t have a lesbian’s body as it’s far too gym-toned and hairless. It’s a gay man’s body.”
    “Right, a gay man trapped in a gay man’s body?”
    “Who fancies women,” corrects Becky.
    “So a straight man, then,” I say. “Except she fancies lesbians.”
    “Not strictly true,” Becky says. “Cara’s always had a thing for turning straight women gay. Especially the married ones.”
    “Really?” I feel a surprising charge.
    “Yes. Haven’t you noticed how much more femme I’ve got over the last year?”
    True, ish, I thought; Becky had become a little less Weimar Republic lesbian of late and now made the occasional uncomfortable foray into dresses.
    “So Cara’s a gay man trapped in a gay man’s body, but with boobs and stuff, but who’s like a straight man as she fancies straight women…”
    “I think this analogy’s run its course,” Becky says with a full stop.
    “Indeed. You were telling me, about divorce and housework, is there a link?”
    “Not unless it’s a reflection of something else. A deep inequality in the relationship, I suppose. Are they really doing a program about housework?”
    “No,” I say mournfully. “It’s Joel. He’s driving me mad.”
    “So you’re going to divorce him.” Becky laughs.
    “I’m serious.”
    She looks at me. “Oh my god, don’t you think you’re over-reacting?”
    I shake my head. “No. It would be an over-reaction to kill him. Which I have thought of doing.”
    “Come on, Mary. It’s not like he hits you or anything.”
    “Every time he leaves the sodding milk out, or his bloody socks on the floor, or drops his coat as he comes in, or a tea bag in the sink,” I say, “it feels like a little blow to my head. A small, well-aimed punch in my stomach.”
    “Really worth divorcing him over, then. Perhaps you and I should do a wife swap: you come and live at our palace of clean and I can go and luxuriate with Joel in the warm gunk of your place. Joel is wonderful. You’re so lucky.”
    I look over to the corner of the café, where three women, as pregnant as each other, are sitting and having a no doubt decaffeinated coffee together. Everything about them says first-time mothers.