So here it goes then, I was starting to realise my marriage wasn't what it really was, we'd just been to Thailand for the wedding and returned, to a somewhat dusty flat, but we made it back. First thing was to excitedly go and get my cat back from the neighbours place and tell her all about my adventures as a husband. The cat was rather unenthusiastc, much like my wife was becoming.
One of the first instances of my realisation that a banana skin had been thrown in was when I withdrew some cash from an ATM at the Palmers Green branch of Abbey National using a Barclays card. The ATM charged me 30 pence for the privelege.

When I got back and gave her the ATM slip she hit the roof at the 30p charge, telling me how stupud I was and how I never "save money". She told everybody at the restaurant, well all the Thais anyway. Some of them were indifferent to her attitude. Where some agreed that I was a stupid carefree farang who throws money away, some took my side in the matter, ie the Thais who were there who had been educated and brought up in London. Surprise surprise.

That night as I lay on the sofa watching ...something to pass the time, I tried to cast my mind forward a year..what would I be doing? With whom? How much more would my current situation deteriorate? I had already envisaged a break up and had to accept it for real. I gave up having too much heart in the marriage after the Thailand trip and certain events that occurred, like when we were in a Bangkok sharks fin restaurant and she wanted to show her status to the staff, so she did it, by being rude and ignorant, and when I questioned her, she cast a sarcastic smile that said "So what can you do about it? this is my country", the same smile that she gave me when she was egging me on to hit her before she finally left not that long after. A smile she knew I f**king hated with a vengence.

Back in the UK, she started again. On the phone to Thailand with the cheap phonecard, lousy reception so she would talk very loudly, and to save money she'd talk very fast. If you could imagine that for a second, it annoyed the fuck out of me, especially when she started talking to different regional Thais and using "sawadee Ja" instead of "kaa". It sounded so fucking false. Then I realised, she was being false. I'd say 75% of her existence was being false. Her workmates must have hated her at the restaurant she worked at, she could be a real spiteful bitch at times.

I couldn't go to bed never mind sleep, I was insomniac, so I went to my neighbour, Anthony's place, and for the last time I was able to convince him that I was having a happy marriage with a girl who was "up for it" and never left me wanting sexually. How I fooled him, so I thought. I used to tell him bullshit tales of being at it all night and something to do with oysters, and he loved it, until now..

"Pat" he said to me one day "Tell me the truth man" (he's Jamaican) "You ain't gettin shit are ya?" He was good at getting straight to the point.

I may as well just tell him.
"Nope and I haven't since April when we were in Thailand, and that was like having sexual relations with a large leg of beef, you know the shit you see hangin' up at the butchers...."

"Ok Pat very funny....boy, you gotta sort that shit out, man, no bitch ain't gonna play that shit with me"

"What the fuck do you want me to say? Does it not occur to you that our marriage is a sexual sham?"

"Since when?"

"Honestly, about 4 months after the first wedding in London, so almost 18 months"

"Pat man you want out of that shit don't ya?"

"You mean the dreaded "D" word?" I pretended to appear more shocked than I was.

"Well if you wanna give it a name then yes, divorce"

He stormed into the kitchen and made a cup of tea, and then threw it away when one of the biscuits he dunked in it collapsed and went into his
steaming mug. He slammed it on the sideboard.

"What you so worked up about?" I asked

"No bitch fucks with my bro', you know what I'm sayin'?"

"Chill man we'll talk later, I gotta go to Safeways to get some bin bags and bog roll"

"Ok man, I'm coming with ya" And threw his coat on.

"You see Pat, in life, girls will always come and go, but man will always be sitting on the porch chattin' about the times back in the day"

"This ain't Boyz in the Hood man, be serious" I said half jokingly.

"I am serious, that Italian gal did that same shit to me and I fucked her off, she tried to get the flat and all that but I'm smart, I know what these bitches want in life, stability and to take someone to the cleaners, that's a womans goal in life, to get her revenge on Adam for givin it to Eve up the chocolate tunnel in the Garden of Eden, just before she sucked off the snake in return for an apple"

"You believe that?" I was forced to picture the scene he just envisaged.

"Adam was black you know" He nodded as if he knew it was gospel "Kind of like a black olive colour"

"Ok Spike Lee, spare me the sermon mate"

Three days later I bought my fist bag of grass for ages, I was determined to be selfish and give myself some comforts rather than be trapped in this godforsaken arrangement. She's enjoying her life, controls the money, enjoys that too, does she think I'm enjoying mine? I don't think she gives a shit.

I flew away that night with the aid of a few cans of beer and her cackling on the phone became a distant murmur as I flew away with the cat perched on my stomach as I lay on the sofa.

I was woken startled a few minutes later by my wife screaming the words "Gan-jaa" several times out loud hysterically. She whacked the lights full on and I squinted.

"Why you smoke? it's mai dee, for guy with 'jai dam' you know, it's no good, same same very bad"

"Because I am trying to relax and I can't"

"Why?"

What a fucking nerve, after all this time with her nocturnal phone habits she has the balls to ask me that.

"You won't let me shut the living room door and all I can hear is you screaming at Thailand all night"

"It's for business, for us together in Thailand, it's important, you want that right? Or you want girl from a go-go give you hiv?"
She was obsessed with that last statemant and I counted that as the 16th time of her saying it.

"Right now I wanna be happy, that's all, and when I say now, I mean now, as in now, at 1.47am, here in my living room, I wanna relax at home and be allowed to. what about Thai men? Are they allowed to relax? Hell yeah"

I slammed the living room door shut as she left to go back to the bedroom. A small victory for yours truely. 1-0 to me so far. What was next?

As it was now October and I was preparing for the annual december slog of gigs back to back day after day, she went to Chiang Mai for the wedding of a good Thai friend we had met when he studied at St. Martins Art School in London. We had helped him with small favours like storage and loans and he always siad he'd look after us in the future.

His best man at the wedding was Thaksin Shinawatra's brother, and my wife being the person she was, had her picture taken with Thaksin himself, and that picture still to this day hangs framed in her restaurant in Nakhon Pathom. It brings in hordes of customer, coupled with the fact that her father used to be the mayor, it makes for a very high status-looking position to be in.

I had a glorious ten days at home alone or with at my neighbours, getting out of it once again like kids and talking about women and what we think they'd make good uses as. "Someone to love who'll do a bit of ironing for you" was the verdict.

To be continued.