The Look Of Love

My wife has a look. It’s like a patronising pat on the head and a kick in the nuts all at the same time and the look includes unspoken words that usually say something along the lines of:

‘You are an idiot. I told you not to do that but you persisted and ignored my advice and now you only have yourself to blame. The fact that you made an idiot out of yourself is never a boon for me either as it reminds me of the fact that I married an idiot which reduces me to the level of partner of idiot. The fact that you also ignored my advice will be noted down for further use and I will take my revenge at some unspecified point in the near future when you are at your least wary. It could be when you’re just dropping off to sleep in bed or it could be when you’re quietly sat on the sofa watching the telly. It could even be in the next 20 seconds as I could be stood behind you. Bet you haven’t checked have you? But rest assured that retribution will come and it will be painful...’

I may be slightly misrepresenting my wife here but the look rarely acts as a precursor to anything good. Even more wonderful the boy has now also perfected his own look which simply says ‘Idiot’ and should I ever be on the receiving end of both looks at the same time I may well just cede the last scrap of self-respect I possess and leave home to dwell in a cardboard box and eat crisps for the rest of my life while smearing myself with my own excrement.

I got the look from the missus this morning when she asked me what time I got in the previous night as I’d been at a county pool game playing like an idiot against Berks. My usual gambit with this is to knock an hour off so a 3am return becomes a 2am return but I’ll call it 1.45am as it sounds earlier and technically that’s a whole other hour we’re into so it may as well be 1am or, at a push, even midnight. But I heard someone go to the toilet when I arrived home and couldn’t be sure if it was the boy or the missus so my usual tactics went for a burton and I adopted a new approach. Honesty.

‘I got into Victoria at midnight,’ was my opening gambit.

She looked interested then confused. The two-hour time lapse was obviously registering.

‘But I didn’t make it home until 2am...’

Bizarrely I wasn’t lying. The trouble was I got a little impatient waiting for night buses at Victoria so I decided to ‘save’ some time by getting a bus from a stop near Victoria to a place near home. Cue two hours of jumping from one night bus to another coupled with a trek across W1 until I eventually found the stop I wanted – and caught the bus I’d originally intended to get.

I explained this to my good lady wife hoping for sympathy. But none was forthcoming.

‘You should have got a cab.’

Then I got the look. My days are numbered...