WO-MEN

A cautionary tale relating to the potential battleground of the sexes that is known as ‘going out’.

According to Noel Coward ‘certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs’. Now, modern man that I am I would never dream of indulging in such anti-social behaviour…well, ok, I might on occasion dream…but she’s bigger than me – and she packs a wicked left hook.

Why do I mention this darkly lurking desire to demonstrate my credentials for the title ‘homo superior’? Why this prehistoric hankering to caress the back of the longhaired one’s head with a heavy wooden club? Going Out that’s what!

Why is it that when we are ‘going out’ I can have a shit, shave, shower, shampoo, cut my toenails, select my clothes, polish my shoes, make (and eat) a snack, read the ‘Evening paper, do the crossword and complete a couple of chapters of my novel – while she is still agonising over which of two pairs of earrings to wear?

And then there is the make-up. I swear, Sitting Bull and the whole Sioux nation couldn’t have taken longer to prepare for their little tete-a-tete with General Custer than it takes for her to apply war paint.

‘Don’t you know that the natural look is in?’ I say.

‘Yes’, she replies, trowelling on the ninth layer of foundation cream, ‘but it takes make-up to look natural.’ This is something of a profound statement and I retire to the sofa to ponder on it.

‘Anyway you want me to look beautiful…don’t you?’ (She casts the words after me like a trout lure and sap that I am I take the bait.)

‘Yes’, I say. ‘And I would also like a fifty foot luxury yacht, a flame red Ferrari and a six bedroom Barbados beachside pad.’ Big mistake. Never use sarcasm on a woman. It’s like peeing down your trouser leg – it might give you a very brief warm feeling, but it soon turns to discomfort.

The die is cast. Skirmish lines are drawn and, sure as eggs is eggs, battle will soon commence. The opening salvo kicks off with the simple statement ‘I’m ready now’.

‘Ok’, I say, ‘let’s go.’

‘I’m not that ready,’ she mutters, picking up the hair drier. I retire to the sanctuary of the sofa. This first ‘ready’ is followed by ‘nearly done now’…‘two minutes’…‘five minutes’… ‘Right. Right. I’m ready now – almost’. These statements are made casually in response to dire and increasingly savage warnings, the essence and content of which cannot here be repeated. Finally, enough is enough.

‘Right!’ I shout, rattling the car keys at her like a witchdoctor shakes a bone under the nose of a patient, ‘I’m going – you will come!’

‘Right’, she says, ‘you get in the car, I’m coming now.’ Ten minutes later and I have raised a head of steam sufficient to hurl the ‘Flying Scotsman’ from Euston to Edinburgh at Mach 3. Finally, she comes.

‘Open the door.’
‘It is open.’
‘It won’t open.’
‘Push the fucking thing!
‘Don’t you use that language to me!’ she spits – and breaks a fingernail on the catch, reacting violently to what is, after all, an understandable response to extreme provocation.

I lean over and apply one –sixteenth of an ounce of pressure to the catch and the door swings smoothly open.
‘Look at that! She yells. ‘I’ve broke a fingernail now ‘cause you’re having a silly sulk and wouldn’t unlock the door.’

‘The door was not locked – and I’m not sulking!’
‘Yes you are. Just because it takes me a bit longer than you to get ready.’

At this juncture and faced with such a head to head - what would you the typical male do? Well, there are several options open to you:

1. You reach over and grasp her firmly by the throat.
2. You sigh, reach over, pat her on the head and say ‘Pax?’
3. You sob once, lean forward and rap your head smartly on the steering wheel.
4. You remove the bullet from your pocket that you keep for such occasions, and place it firmly between your teeth.

Option 1 will certainly bring the contretemps to a rapid conclusion, but could end up with you facing serious repercussions. Option 2 will either result in her purring like a kitten, or more likely, spitting like an alley cat because you have disturbed her hair - which she has spent the last hour teasing into shape. Option 3 will probably be interpreted as a childish tantrum. Option 4 will be put down as another attempt at sarcasm and will most likely be followed by a strained silence, the emergence of a handkerchief, a tiny sniff and a tremulous ‘you don’t love me any more.’

Word of warning: You might decide to combine Options 3 and 4. If so, care must be taken to place the bullet with business end facing forwards, as a sharp rap on the steering wheel could result in the damn thing going off and blowing half the back of your head away. This would smack of carrying chagrin too far.

Anyway, the odds are that you will arrive at the destination – let’s say it is a party – with daggers if not drawn, then partially unsheathed. Upon entering you are greeted by the hostess and her cronies. They make crooning noises over your partner’s appearance. ‘Lovely dress’…’deevine earrings. Where did you get your hair done?’ and ‘Hello John’. To which you answer ‘bmmmpphh’, because you still have the bullet between your teeth.

‘Why’, asks your hostess of your darling partner, ‘has he got a bullet between his teeth?’

‘Oh, just ignore him, he’s just got one of his silly childish heads on’, says your dear heart. And they do. You now command as much attention as a dung beetle scuttling across the path of a pride of overfed lionesses. What now? Now you go looking for Linda Lushbody. Every party has a Linda Lushbody. She is a divorcee in her middle thirties. She is almost wearing a little black number. She has two very large swellings on her chest, which jiggle enchantingly as she laughs at your scintillating witticisms. Her chuckle is rich and dark, like a mixture of brown sugar and Guinness. She is a black widow spider – and you are her oh so willing prey. At least you are until she suddenly stiffens in mid chuckle; the jiggling stops and your eyes are drawn reluctantly upwards towards her face. She is looking over your shoulder. You turn and discover the new object of her interest. It is Bruce Stallone. He is something in films. He is a millionaire. He is built like the Colossus of Rhodes – only bigger. You are ignored again.

The evening takes the inevitable downward spiral so you massage your bruised libido with a couple of ‘stiff ones’; and then, mercifully, it is time to go.
‘Call a cab.’ She says.
‘Why?’ You ask.
‘Because you’ve had too much to drink!’ she hisses eyes flashing dangerously – she’d spotted your performance with Linda Lushbody.

‘I’m driving.’ You assert.
‘Fine.’ She retorts. ‘You drive. Get me a cab!’ So you do. And then, sat on your own, in your little island of peace and tranquillity, your face bathed in the soft green glow from the instrument panel, you trundle sedately off into the night. On your own, yes, but certainly not lonely.

‘Who needs ‘em! You say to your uncomplaining, responsive, shapely little metal lady.

‘You an me girl; we could just roll on like this forever…’ Only you couldn’t, because no sooner do you say it than some drunk steps out from the curb and you have to take violent evasive action. You turn to question this person’s parentage – and suddenly your forward momentum is dramatically arrested by shuddering contact with the tailgate of a cruising cop car.

Back at the station you are asked to empty your pockets. No problem, except that as you do the bullet rolls loudly along the desktop and comes to a stop in front of the charge sergeant. The tableau freezes – then bursts into life. You are roughly spread-eagled against a wall; heavy hands pat and slap you in the most intimate of places… while the flak-jacketed anti-terrorist squad introduce you to the barrels of a bevy of pump action shotguns.

‘Okay where’s the guns!’ yells their leader.
‘What guns!’ you shriek. ‘I haven’t got any fucking guns!’
‘Bang him up!’ says the desk sergeant. ‘And strip his car!’

Three hours later you are brought, a total wreck, from the cells. They have accepted your story and you are free to go. One little problem though, your beloved little metal lady is in four separate piles in the yard.

‘No thank you’. You reply imperiously, as they offer you a lift home. ‘I will make my own way’. Another mistake. You are fifty yards from home when you are stopped and engaged in a brief conversation with three large young men. Next thing you know you are lying on the pavement gazing up at the fading star filled firmament, sans watch, wallet and wits. Bruised, bloody and not a little bewildered, you reach your front door – and discover that your key is on the same ring as your car keys – back at the nick. You knock…and you knock and finally she appears.

‘I’ve been mugged…’ you whimper. ‘And mistaken for a bloody terrorist…’ her cold cream covered face is deathly impassive. Her hair a nest of snakes a la Gorgon . She speaks not, but turns and stamps her way back upstairs. You follow; you tail well and truly between your legs. You are so busy trying to explain to her stiff retreating back that you stumble on a stair and catch your nose a meaty smack on the last riser.

‘Drunken pig!’ She throws over her shoulder, as you lurch into the bathroom to staunch the flow of claret.

Running repairs complete you enter the bedroom (cautiously). ‘Darling’, you say softly. ‘You awake?’ There is no answer, but the temperature in the darkened room seems to drop another ten degrees. There is, you swear, a half inch of frost – on the inside of the window. You shrug your aching shoulders and begin to struggle out of your clothes; but they, like everything else in your life at present, conspire to frustrate your intentions. Your trousers trip you up. Your shirt sticks to you like a perverse sheet of cling film. You lose it.

‘Arrrgghh!’ You scream, ripping off all the buttons – except for one cuff that defies all your demented attentions. Defeated, you stumble towards the bed dragging the remains of your powder blue dress shirt in your wake. The sweet soothing arms of Morpheus beckon. You reach out and grasp the top blanket – only to be greeted by a warning hiss.

‘Don’t you think you’re getting into my bed you drunken pig!’ You freeze; then slowly, deliberately, you reach down with your free arm and begin to twist the remnants of your shirt into a neck tourniquet. The red mist slowly fades; you shrug your shoulders again and turn to make your way towards the spare bedroom. It is then that your attention is captured by a stray moonbeam that drips through the frost covered window and onto her dressing table, where, in its fitful light two identical pieces of discarded jewellery gleam dully. Revenge! Your superior brain has just kicked in and provided you with the dagger that will pierce her to the heart. You reach for the door handle, draw yourself up to your full height, smile thinly, and in your best Rhett Butler voice say: ‘And anyway, quite frankly my dear, those earrings looked bloody stupid with that dress.’

© Peter Clayfield, November 2005

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