Terms & Conditions by Robert Glancy Page A

Cs
    My wife married me because I was brilliant.*
    * Now I’m not.
    I married my wife because she was nice.*
    * Now she’s not.
    I’m not entirely sure who came off worse in the deal. We signed a prenuptial. (Something Dad, against my will, absolutely insisted on.) But, beyond our prenuptial, and between the lines of our vows, ours – like all marriages – had unwritten, unspoken terms.
    Which were: I stay brilliant; you stay nice: everyone’s happy.
    It didn’t work out. Everyone’s miserable.
    Alice was so lovely when we first met. I was starting at my father’s law firm; she was working in a music shop trying to figure out what to do with her life.
    We loved to talk about books, music and all of our friends.
    We were young.
    We barely went out.
    We were enough for each other.*
    * That’s a big statement when you think about it.

From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]
    Subject: Pure Meow
    Frank – hi!
    Met a slow-talking American called Joe, an anthropologist researching a soon-to-be-extinct tribe in Burma. When I enquired about what he had learned, Joe said, ‘Well, like, you know, we just kinda hung out with the tribe for a while.’
    After such a comprehensive reply I felt it rude to delve any deeper.
    Joe sat all night lovingly staring into the eyes of his new Thai wife, Meow (I kid you not).
    â€˜We,’ Joe pointed to his new wife for emphasis and then to himself, ‘before we got married we got to know each other really well, we communicated a lot by email, didn’t we, my love?’
    â€˜Wha?’ said Meow.
    â€˜We,’ Joe said again, louder this time, the fingers again pointing to Meow then to him, then typing on an imaginary keyboard, ‘emailed a lot before we met. Yes?’
    â€˜Wha?’ said Meow.
    â€˜Communicated,’ said Joe, desperately this time, the show not going well. ‘We communicated.’
    â€˜Wha?’ said Meow.
    â€˜Oh never-fucking-mind,’ snapped Joe.
    Rarely have I seen such pure love.
    Love and Meow,
    Malc

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF CHANGE
    They say change is as good as a break. They lied!
    I used to adore my wife. It was as if I had sat beside Alice’s creator with a little pencil and jotted down, to my exact loving specifications, all the things she would be.
    But then Alice got a job in human resources and everything changed. It started with her hair. Once an autumnal muddle of golden-browns, it was, soon after taking the job, dyed a deep wintry black.* They advised her at the company that her hair wasn’t serious enough and if she wanted to be taken seriously she had to project seriousness. So she dyed her hair and it’s the straightest, blackest bob you’ve ever seen. It worked. I started to take her very seriously. A serious marriage is no fun. Although, just below the surface, the fine print can be amusing. For example:
    * For days after the dyeing, grey smudges stained her fingers like evidence of some ambiguous crime.
    My wife says, ‘We need to go to the Smiths’ tonight.’
    I’ll say, ‘Oh God. Do we really
need
to go?’
    â€˜Yes,’ she’ll reply. ‘We
need
to go. He’s a partner.’
    â€˜Is this like a tennis tournament where if you miss too many games you lose your ranking?’ I ask.
    My wife looks at me like I’m a moron and says, ‘What are you talking about?’
    I say, ‘I think I’m talking about tennis but I may be wrong.’
    â€˜The only thing you’re right about is that you’re wrong,’ says my wife.*
    *
My wife
. Why do I insist on calling her my wife? Her name’s Alice. I think I call her
my wife
because it fits an odd formality that’s descended on our marriage. I’ll try not to do it any more.
    My wife’s job changed her. She works for the human resources department of a management consultancy. Some jobs are just jobs. Some jobs are religions.