Read The Right Man for Free Online Page B
Authors: Nigel Planer
judged on their appearances so much more than men — whether we
like it or not — so I gave her an extra hour a day on. that in my theoretical
calculations. This made it necessary, after the ninety-one hour mark, to divide
us into two, according to our gender, and that’s really where the arguments
started, I suppose.
It soon
became apparent that although an hour is an hour and it lasts the same time for
everyone, some hours have different values from others — rather like a currency
— and it was virtually impossible to work out a fair exchange rate. For instance,
Liz hates cooking and sewing, so an hour doing either would, for her, go very
slowly. I, on the other hand, enjoy cooking very much and am good at it, whilst
I find sewing very difficult and frustrating. I’m crap at it. Here, Liz has an
unfair advantage over me, in that her mother taught her to sew from the age of
four. So that although she doesn’t like to do it, she could complete all of our
sewing in a quarter of the time it would take me.
Trying
to establish a fair sharing-out of the tasks became even harder when I took
actual work into account. Work is impossible to evaluate. There is work you do
because you have to and there is work you do because you want to, and
unfortunately it is usually the former which brings in the money at the end of
the week. But then, the six months or so that Liz would spend waiting for
another acting job, whilst not earning us any immediate cash, might one day
bring in a fortune if she got lucky.
It
became complicated, but I’d persevered, even writing down columns of figures.
Whichever way I juggled them, however, I ended up, in my column, with more than
the available 168 hours — an impossibility — whilst Liz usually had about six
hours a week to spare.
It was
no wonder I got headaches so often, and it would have been fair enough, I
thought, for me to develop some psychosomatic stress—related illness. However,
it was always Liz who got these. From the flakiness around her hair line to her
overwhelmingly tired and floppy stints. These attempts of mine at a Maoist
kind of equality were, I think, what used to drive her out of the room,
slamming the door so that the door handle fell off again, and into the bedroom.
She wouldn’t talk to me then for some days. I would sit there thinking of
screwing the counter-sunk lugs back on the door handle, for what must have been
the twentieth time, but decided it might be better to replace the handle
altogether with something perhaps less aesthetically pleasing, but which would
at least survive her tantrums.
I
suspect it was my reasonableness over matters like this that must have driven
her to Bob Henderson in the first place. By reasonableness, I don’t mean
understanding. I wouldn’t claim ever to have understood her. Nor do I mean that
I was easygoing or even-tempered. Far from it. I suppose I mean more the
inescapability of my logic, or at least my inability to escape from it.
The trouble was, if we had
done things her way, obeying only our feelings, bills would not be paid. Not
just because there would be no money but because she habitually left all that
kind of thing to me. Accounts, administration, insurance were activities she
looked down on. And she looked down too on my pedantic tenacity with them. No
doubt there are other more flamboyant men who can deal with these everyday
tasks with a flourish and to whom Liz would be more suited, but I am dogged
about these things and this scrapes the blackboard of her nerves.
I bet
Liz’s lover-boy, Bob Henderson, doesn’t care about things like equality between
the sexes. I bet her Bob is casual and confident in his power. I bet, being a
proper man, he would not tell her of impending bankruptcies, would not trouble
her little head with the everyday bureaucracies of their lives. I bet he is
on-line to his bank. I bet he is connected by modem to his accountant and I bet
a piece of paper only ever crosses his desk once.
like it or not — so I gave her an extra hour a day on. that in my theoretical
calculations. This made it necessary, after the ninety-one hour mark, to divide
us into two, according to our gender, and that’s really where the arguments
started, I suppose.
It soon
became apparent that although an hour is an hour and it lasts the same time for
everyone, some hours have different values from others — rather like a currency
— and it was virtually impossible to work out a fair exchange rate. For instance,
Liz hates cooking and sewing, so an hour doing either would, for her, go very
slowly. I, on the other hand, enjoy cooking very much and am good at it, whilst
I find sewing very difficult and frustrating. I’m crap at it. Here, Liz has an
unfair advantage over me, in that her mother taught her to sew from the age of
four. So that although she doesn’t like to do it, she could complete all of our
sewing in a quarter of the time it would take me.
Trying
to establish a fair sharing-out of the tasks became even harder when I took
actual work into account. Work is impossible to evaluate. There is work you do
because you have to and there is work you do because you want to, and
unfortunately it is usually the former which brings in the money at the end of
the week. But then, the six months or so that Liz would spend waiting for
another acting job, whilst not earning us any immediate cash, might one day
bring in a fortune if she got lucky.
It
became complicated, but I’d persevered, even writing down columns of figures.
Whichever way I juggled them, however, I ended up, in my column, with more than
the available 168 hours — an impossibility — whilst Liz usually had about six
hours a week to spare.
It was
no wonder I got headaches so often, and it would have been fair enough, I
thought, for me to develop some psychosomatic stress—related illness. However,
it was always Liz who got these. From the flakiness around her hair line to her
overwhelmingly tired and floppy stints. These attempts of mine at a Maoist
kind of equality were, I think, what used to drive her out of the room,
slamming the door so that the door handle fell off again, and into the bedroom.
She wouldn’t talk to me then for some days. I would sit there thinking of
screwing the counter-sunk lugs back on the door handle, for what must have been
the twentieth time, but decided it might be better to replace the handle
altogether with something perhaps less aesthetically pleasing, but which would
at least survive her tantrums.
I
suspect it was my reasonableness over matters like this that must have driven
her to Bob Henderson in the first place. By reasonableness, I don’t mean
understanding. I wouldn’t claim ever to have understood her. Nor do I mean that
I was easygoing or even-tempered. Far from it. I suppose I mean more the
inescapability of my logic, or at least my inability to escape from it.
The trouble was, if we had
done things her way, obeying only our feelings, bills would not be paid. Not
just because there would be no money but because she habitually left all that
kind of thing to me. Accounts, administration, insurance were activities she
looked down on. And she looked down too on my pedantic tenacity with them. No
doubt there are other more flamboyant men who can deal with these everyday
tasks with a flourish and to whom Liz would be more suited, but I am dogged
about these things and this scrapes the blackboard of her nerves.
I bet
Liz’s lover-boy, Bob Henderson, doesn’t care about things like equality between
the sexes. I bet her Bob is casual and confident in his power. I bet, being a
proper man, he would not tell her of impending bankruptcies, would not trouble
her little head with the everyday bureaucracies of their lives. I bet he is
on-line to his bank. I bet he is connected by modem to his accountant and I bet
a piece of paper only ever crosses his desk once.