Contents: British English spelling and grammar.
Description of house is one I actually lived in.
***
Blocked
Una broke away from her dance partner and rejoined me.
"Having fun?" I asked, passing her a red wine.
"Not really. This is more business than pleasure."
"What, dancing with a group of handsome men? Nice work if you can get it. This older chap in the grey suit will want to feel your arse soon." I nodded to a man nearby. "He's been ogling you for twenty minutes."
"Come over to this corner for a moment, miseryguts. And for Christ's sake smile. You're embarrassing me!"
"I'm embarrassing you? That's rich!"
We stood at one end of the bar where it was quiet. She smiled at me. People might be watching so I played the game and smiled back.
"Listen carefully Peter. I work in sales. My basic salary is good but my commissions are better. I'm good at my job and have nailed three of the company's seven biggest deals this year. This party is to celebrate my latest success. Fifty percent of my commission goes into the bank at the end of this month. The rest goes towards my Christmas bonus."
"I know all that."
"And here's something else you know. That bonus I get will pay for your dream holiday next year. The Pacific coast highway? Big Sur? Monterey? Whale watching? I've even made enough to hire a convertible Mustang for three weeks."
"I know that too. That's my reward for being dragged along to this boring bash. For having to watch my girlfriend flirt with a group of guys, while some old perv undresses you with his eyes. It's annoying."
"Well here's something you obviously do not know. The managers who signed the contract this week -- two, not a group of them - have each had just two dances with me. It is expected. They have not groped, touched me inappropriately, or even danced cheek to cheek."
"OK. Sorry." I said.
"And the older chap watching, is the company CEO, he insists we call him Gavin. Yes, he is most certainly watching me. He's a stickler for the firm's morality clauses. A hand on my bottom for longer than a second, and I'll be hauled into his office on Monday, and shown a yellow card. Christ, he even checks the times on our lunch expenses. And we are never allowed to go to a hotel for a business lunch; just in case we're tempted. So lighten up will you?"
"Fair enough, I will. But you realise that doesn't stop him fancying you."
If I'd wanted to get the last word in, I failed.
"Yes it does. He's gay!"
We rejoined the throng. I don't like parties much, but made up for my faux pas by dancing with Una and chatting to the managers and Gavin. And smiling a lot. I probably ate and drank rather too much too, but she seemed to be appeased. The sex, when we got home, was great. I don't know if she was horny because she'd put me in my place, or because of the big contract. Neither did I care.
Our sex life is pretty wild anyway; we've both been married before. My ex and I had two children and then she persuaded me to have a vasectomy. A year later, she asked for a no fault divorce. Thanks! She immediately hooked up with an American and took off to San Diego with my sons. There was nothing I could do about it, but at least there was no maintenance to pay; Chuck is rich. It has probably influenced my interest in the west coast of the USA; I've only managed to see my boys once in the last two years.
Una had previously been married to a guy who was insanely jealous, and virtually kept her under lock and key. Then, on a health check-up, she was diagnosed with an STI. Her husband was informed, and admitted he'd been having an affair. He in turn told the woman he was involved with, and her husband promptly beat up Una's ex. She filed for divorce on the grounds of his adultery, but he dropped dead before it could be processed. It was rumoured that the beating was a contributary factor to the stroke, but nothing could be proved. There was no life assurance, only debts. And the whole business made her sensitive to jealousy. Which is how I'd pissed her off at the party.
So, after getting married, we took on our little rented place. The plan was to recover financially and get married when we could afford to buy. Luckily Una has no interest in having children. Her bonus and sales performance entitle her to an extra week's holiday next summer, when business is slack. She's more than happy to have my kids join us on our PCH road trip. My ex has also agreed.
The following day, Saturday, Una told me more tales of her boss. He lives unobtrusively with a male partner. They are not married, and never show any affection in public. He often sends clerks out to restaurants to check who the sales reps are buying dinner for. And when they have to travel away on business, it's thought he pays various hotel staff to keep an eye on who is in which room, whether they have any visitors, and so on.
It wasn't till the Sunday morning that I realised I hadn't had a dump the day before. I'm usually pretty regular and suspected it might have been something I'd eaten at the party that had upset my natural rhythms. By Sunday night I had bellyache.
I'd been putting in a lot of late nights at work. There was a serious glitch in the computer system. It had taken me six months to work my way back to the roots of the fault; the original error occurred a year ago, and had escalated like a slow avalanche. I'd been in constant touch with our subsidiary in San Francisco, who operated a parallel system. Hence the increasing fascination with their tales of the Pacific coast highway, which I'd seen in so many movies. They tended to be sarcastic because our 'British system' was frequently crashing, while theirs was error free. But the end of the problem was in sight, so I had no option but to take my bellyache to work on Monday.
Una and I live in an old terraced house. The rent is low and was all we could afford when we first hooked up. There is a tiny hallway, from which you can go straight up the stairs to the two bedrooms, or into the open-plan living room and kitchen. Between them is a small breakfast bar with a huge potted plant on it. We don't entertain much.
The door at the rear of the kitchen leads into a weird lobby. It's about three feet square with a door on all four sides. One leads back into the kitchen of course. The next is a shelved space where the water heater is housed; my mum always called it the airing cupboard. Then the door into the bathroom, built onto the back of the house. Looks like an afterthought, and stems from the days when people washed in the kitchen sink and the toilet was down the end of the garden. There's a small shed out there now, and it still has an old hip bath hanging in it. Finally, on the side of the house, is the 'back' door, facing the wall between us and next door. Out there, to the left you pass our bathroom on your way to the enclosed garden.
I still had bellyache when I got home Monday. But Una did not report anyone else suffering after the party. I'd forsaken lunch and dinner, and finally unloaded that night. Don't you hate those sessions where you just wipe and wipe afterwards? Half a toilet roll later I'd done, and gave it the last flush. Except it wasn't, because it didn't all go. I waited and tried again, but the lavatory filled up alarmingly. I thought it was going to spill its murky contents over the floor. Plunger time.
Like most people I dislike this chore, but I wanted it cleared before Una had to go. Some vigorous action got it to flow again and all was well. There was a shower over the old bath and the head just reached the toilet. A minute of hot water helped me scrub the bowl clean, and rinse the plunger. I washed my hands, and went and made myself a sandwich. I was starving.
Tuesday found my routine back on track. "Shit, shower and shave." as my old granddad used to say. And my workday was a triumph. We tested the system and it was error-free at last. Right across the company's departments, every computer function got slicker and quicker. My boss, Cliff, was delighted, and made vague murmurings about a bonus.
I'd have preferred a promotion of course and, to that end, had trained up an assistant, Eric, during the job. He was now as good as me at fault finding and correcting. Well, almost. I took Una out to dinner that night. But I didn't mention the success at work. I thought it would be better to wait, and see if any extra money was on the horizon.
When we got home, we settled in front of a tv movie.
"Just got time for a quick crap." she said, as the opening credits rolled.
Una is one of those people who likes to announce her bodily functions. 'Gotta pee!' is a fairly standard conversation opener. She returned as the movie started.
"Sorry Pete. The toilet's blocked and you're the plunger man. Be a love and see to it, would you?"
"Sure. I'll go in the first commercial break."
"But I'm not comfortable leaving it like that. Please?"
So I went and did my lavatory duty again. It took several plunges, three flushes and a quick shower spray.
Friday morning it blocked again, so I rang our landlord from work.
"Look Peter, this is covered by your rental agreement but I'm rushed off my feet at present, and can't get round till the end of next week. How do you feel about doing it yourself?"
"I'm not crawling down the sewers, Len."
"You don't have to. I saw what caused this last time it happened. It isn't pleasant, but not at all difficult."
"Go on."
"Outside your back door, there's a square inspection cover. It serves you and next door; theirs runs under the dividing wall. Your toilet flushes into a sewage pipe that runs straight to that access. Under the cover, there's a small concrete shelf at the end of each pipe. That's where the blockage usually gathers. What's surprising is how near the surface it is in those old houses. What you flush away runs just inches under the path."
"OK, I'll have a go."
"Thanks, let me know how you get on. By the way, there's a long metal pole in the airing cupboard, stashed behind your water heater. It lifts the cover and can also scrape out the, er, blockage."
