Midlife Crisis

MRS MARGARET BARRATT, a woman in her early sixties, sits on a floral-pattern chair.  Everything about her is mutton-dressed-as-lamb.

I saw Dennis at the weekend.  I was coming out of the co-op with a bag of shopping – just a few bits, you know, because George normally runs me down to the Asda's on a Tuesday.  I looked up and there he was, my Dennis; just by the town hall.  I've never seen him happier.  He had a bit of bread, of course, and he was bobbing about like Billy Bobbins.  Poor Billy.  He had to wear those special shoes.  One leg eight inches longer than the other.  I knew his aunt.

Seeing Dennis like that set me to worrying again that it was all my fault.  I've not been able to sleep since.  

I remember when Dennis and I first met in an evening class.  It was motorcycle maintenance and they sent a couple of young officers along to do Road Safety on the last session.  Dennis was stood up the front there in his Police Constable's uniform – I can just see him now with his shiny shoes and his helmet under his arm, and the dent in his chin where the strap had dug in – going on about Blind Spots and god only knows what else.  I tried to get off with the Sergeant, of course, but it turned out he was gay so I settled for Dennis as second best.  Well, he was only a Constable at the time.

Still, he did well for himself.  Made inspector three years off his sixtieth birthday.  We'd agreed that he would stay on a bit past sixty, actually, just to bolster his pension a bit.  Well, I say agreed.  I'd suggested it and Dennis hadn't argued.  I filled the forms in for him, but then I generally deal with the paperwork side of things anyway.  A bit of extra cash coming in never does anyone any harm.

Anyway, it was the September before last, not long after Dennis' fifty-ninth.  I know it was that September because we'd not been able to get booked where we go in Cambrils and we'd ended up in an all-inclusive in Fuengirola.  It was nice enough, but the food wasn't up to par and Dennis - he was always a bit fussy with his food - he liked his meat and three veg and his fish and chips, but nothing too foreign; no rice or pasta or anything like that – anyway, he got a bit of a, well, a gippy tummy.  He made such a fuss, honestly, you'd think the world was coming to an end.  I just got him a bit of stuff from the Farmacia and went off with a group of wakeboarders from Cornwall there for a convention.  He never let me live it down.  You'd think I'd been unfaithful to him.  Me!  I mean, I've been told I'm well-preserved for my age, but...



Dennis started acting odd the minute we got back.  He moved all his things out into the shed.  We still weren't talking so that was fine with me.  I remember one night I caught sight of him from the bedroom window flapping around the garden.  I assumed he'd taken up yoga.  Well, you would.

It was not long before Christmas when Dennis told me he'd turned down the chance to stay on at work after sixty.  He said he had other plans.  I said what.  He just shrugged.  I didn't press him.  It was the first time we'd talked in three weeks, and I thought it was progress.

I woke up one night and Dennis was standing over me in the bedroom.  I was hopeful at first that... you know.  Perhaps it was a bit cold in the shed for him, I mean.  I shouldn't have to spell it out.  'Margaret', he said to me, 'Margaret, I can't keep up this pretence any longer.'

'Me neither,' I said.  'Hop in, but take your socks off, there's a love.'

'No, Margaret,' he says.  'I've felt this way for some time, but yesterday in the park I met... well, I had a revelation.  I have to tell you, it wouldn't be right for us to go on living a lie.'

You can imagine what I was thinking by this point.  I reminded him that my parents – god rest them – had lived a lie for forty-seven miserable years together and it never did them any harm.  He was having none of it, of course.

'Margaret,' he said.  'I'm going to become a budgerigar.'

Actually, it wasn't as bad as all that.  I've always encouraged Dennis his little hobbies and to be fair to him, the millet and cuttlefish weren't nearly so expensive as those bloody multi-part magazines he used to get where you could build a working model of the Murray Mint factory or whatever. He never used to get beyond half way anyway so I'd high hopes this would be the same thing.

It was a cold January, so I moved Dennis back out of the shed and into the house.  He slept on a little perch downstairs in his cage, of course, but I put a cloth over it at night time otherwise he'd be forever ringing his little bell and waking me up.  He had good days and bad days, mind you.  Some nights he still joined me in the bed.  Once or twice we, well, you know.  The bird business seemed to put him more in the mood that he had been for years, in fact.  But his whistling little tunes throughout rather put me off my stride.

We rubbed along alright for a while, me and Dennis the budgerigar.  I'd leave his cage door open every morning so he could get about if he chose.  He'd always greet me with a cheery tune when I came back from the shops.  Things went downhill a bit though.  The final straw was the day I came home and found him trying to peck a fight with his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. It was sad to see him reduced to such a state.  Never mind the state of my carpets.  I've had to have them replaced.  I think it's the millet.

Anyway, a few days later I was pegging the washing out in the back garden.  When I came back in the house he'd gone.  Just took off out through the front window and away.  I missed him, of course, but I told myself he'd be better off in the wild.

It was good to see him again, though, the other day.  I don't think he saw me – he looked busy at the time - but still.  Better on that old statue than my new carpets, that's for sure.