Day Three: But then everything changes

But shortly afterwards, my wife and I split up.

But shortly afterwards,  my wife and I split up. 

Now… It wasn’t directly because I’d travelled across the world,  for a day of skiing.  To be fair, my (ex)wife was less immediately concerned about the carbon debt – more the actual debt,  since my day’s skiing,  the return flight out,  the extra flight  home,  the extra flight I accidentally booked cos I panicked in my desire to escape Jewel before all flights went,   plus the two hundred quid renting skis and ski clothes – all that cost me at least two and half grand. 

It puts it all in a different light,  doesn’t it?

When I got home,  a week after the skiing,  I was painfully aware,  I’d blown a lot of money.

And I needed money.

But just then I got some good news.  My book Rory Branagan had been voted Best Kids Book,  in the Waverton Awards.   Waverton,  to be fair,  is not one of the Big Awards. It’s not the Guardian Prize,  not the Carnegie Medal…  It’s three schools in Cheshire where Year 5 and 6 between them read the thirty best kids’ books from the top publishers… So it’s not a big award,  BUT…  Those kids had between them read thirty books,  and discussed them,  and argued for the merits of each…. and they’d voted mine best.   I felt those kids needed to see my fullest support and gratitude.  Plus…  Waverton were also paying five hundred quid,  and inviting me to do some shows.  I was up for it.

See… I’m rubbish at pretty much everything,  but as a provider of entertaining Author Visits,  I’m pretty much unmatched.  I do a funny show called The Seven Secrets of Storytelling,  which I’ve done,  all over the world. It makes kids laugh,  and then gets them to make up their own stories,  and then gets them to write.  This is me,  just finishing up,  in The Apple School in the United Arab Emirates.

The picture’s quite blurry of course - deliberately so.  But two things you can still see,  however (1)  I’m clearly quite hot and red in the face;  meanwhile (2)  those kids seem to be having a great time.  I’m like the Lawrence Olivier of the school dinner hall.  Catch me in a room scented with Turkey Twizzler and stuffed,  with eager,  chortling kids,  you’ll see a performer giving his all,  in the work he does best.

So…

I went to Waverton, and did three days of extra joyous shows.  I made the kids laugh.  I did one show where I improvised a jungle story with Lee in Year 2,  which involved his headmaster,  riding,  berserk around the hall,  on a giant cockroach,  which then got SPLATTED by the head of PE.  I mimed the head being splatted.  The kids all did the noise of the SPLAT. 

The trip to Waverton was a blast,  and as I drove back home, with my phone filled with thankful messages from teachers and headteachers and parents whose child had already read one hundred pages of my book,  I had that drunken, elated feeling that the middle-aged man so infrequently knows:  I felt I’d done a good day’s work.  I’d got a cheque for 500 quid, and a glass paperweight prize,  and I’d sold at least six hundred quid’s worth of books.  As I careered through the front door of home,  bank notes were spilling from the pockets of my dirty suit, as if I was very exuberant tramp, who’d just done remarkably well on the horses.  Here I am,  counting up the takings,  photographed by one of the girls…

BUT… in the kitchen after the girls had gone to bed,  I continued to boast of my adventures.  And that’s when my wife, however, struck a note of caution.    

‘Yes,’  she said,  ‘but you’re still not earning very much money,  are you?’  and I went silent,  because I must confess that one rather hit me,  like a poison dart to the chest.

It was the oldest,  deepest grievance,  between us,  you see.   My wife (a successful corporate lady)  could accept that I did childcare,  picked up kids from ballet,   and made tea for them.  It still bugged her,  though, that,  I was actually earning about… well,  not massively more than the amount earned by the typical modern British author:  about eleven grand a year – about half what you earn in your first year of being a teacher.  (Yes,  recently I’d diversified into property investment,  but that wouldn’t really earn money,  till the investment homes were sold).   So… as my wife said,  ‘You’re still not earning very much money,  are you?’ – I knew she had a point.

There was NO WAY I was admitting that of course. 

But in the most secret bank vault of my scared, middle-aged man’s head,  I thought…

‘Right.  I will get a job.  (But I will also leave this marriage).’

I’m a man though.  I didn’t act on that thought.  I kept it to myself for three months.

Question 1:  why does your partner get annoyed with you?

Question 2:  can I ask,  secretly,  between ourselves: do they have a point?

Question 3:  what,  if anything,  are you going to do about it?