The Silent Treatment

(contains some sexual references and swearing)

There he is, having a whale of a time, and me here, miserable as sin. Course, I can’t tell him anything; they’d be down on me like a ton of bricks if I as much as opened my mouth.

The thing that really galls me, really gets my goat, really pisses me off – hmmm, my collection of ways to describe how totally hacked off I am is certainly coming along … and there’s another one! – is that this was all his idea.

“Let’s get away for the weekend!” he said, and it was the first time he’d been spontaneous since we started going out, back in the day. Back when he wanted to impress me. Back when he was after getting into my knickers.

I bet my face lit up at the words ‘away’ and ‘weekend’. I felt it did. The possibilities galloped through my mind like racehorses. Paris was first past the post – exquisite, sophisticated, romantic Paree. Second by a neck, Rome – loud, boisterous, in-your-face Roma. And a good each-way bet, London – bold, diverse, familiar London, just down the road, but we hadn’t been there for aeons.

“Fantastic!” I said, tongue lolling most probably, like an expectant puppy.

“Great,” he said, a trace of relief in his eyes. “I’ve got it all booked up.”

He rummaged about in his briefcase and pulled out a brochure. For this place. This … godawful place.

Now my face must have dropped below my knees because he started furiously bigging up The Retreat. The bloody Retreat.

“Y’see,” he said, needlessly pointing to the photos of the things he was mentioning, “it’s in this lovely old Tudor house – all authentic beams and stuff – and there’s a restaurant with a Michelin star, a pool, and acres of grounds to wander.”

He let me hold the brochure then and I swear it was shaking in my hands. I was fuming (there’s another one!) not only because he’d booked something without discussing it with me first, but also because it was in the Cotswolds. The bloody Cotswolds! Which I was sure were very lovely, but the Champs-Élysées they most definitely weren’t!

He saw what he probably thought was disappointment, so he hugged me.

“It’ll be great!” he whispered in my ear, genuinely enthusiastic. “And different.”

I know different, and a trip to the English countryside didn’t sound that different to me. I smelled a rat and pulled away from the hug.

“How so?”

He held up the brochure again and pointed to the print, which I’d been blinded to by the fact of … well … English countryside.

“Just think. A weekend without speaking!”

I was fittingly speechless. He took that as approval, I think.

“No words. No raised voices. No bickering.”

I got it now. We’d been going through a rocky patch, fruit mainly of my frustration and dissatisfaction with the lack of progression in our relationship; it was just stagnant, the same ol’ same ol’, every day, week in, week out. He seemed quite happy with things as they were, so I’d been pushing back, taking it out on him.

And here was his solution: remove my resistance by removing my ability to gripe for a whole weekend. I don’t think it passed through his mind for an instant that what we needed to do was talk about it, preferably on fresh ground – like Paris, Rome, or London. Nope. He thought that a weekend of silence would be like a useful cloth, polishing up the dusty furniture that was us.

He gave me another hug and left for his allotment, leaving me apoplectic (noted!). The actual furniture certainly took some stick that afternoon; if it had ears, it would have tried to cover them. The neighbours will have been in no doubt about how I felt, that’s for sure.

But by the time he got back from digging up his turnips, I’d calmed down and had become a bit more philosophical. Let’s go on this sodding retreat, I thought, and see what happens. Who knows, it might bring something new.

So here we are. It’s definitely ‘different’ anyway, he got that right. Even at reception, we weren’t allowed to talk; we had to use gesture and facial expressions. It was quite comical really, and it brought him and me together momentarily through the universal language of giggling.

Then we got to our room, and bugger me if he didn’t want to carry on with the silence. I protested – vociferously – but almost instantly there was a knock on the door. I went to answer it and was confronted by a man in uniform – a large bloke, very stern, with a finger pressed to his lips. Talk about Big Brother!

When I’d closed the door, I started whispering to get my annoyance across, but my silent companion held up a hand and grabbed the pen and notebook helpfully supplied by the establishment.

Let’s just go with it, he scribbled. We’ve paid for it, after all.

I scribbled back an emoji with a down-turned mouth – an essentially superfluous, faithful representation of my own face – and flopped on the bed to sulk.

He got the wrong end of the stick and smiled. It occurred to me then – as if in a revelation – that he’s always been absolutely hopeless at divining my thoughts and moods. He gestured that he was going downstairs to take a look around, and did I want to go with him. I was in the mood for sulking some more, so I shook my head vigorously. He shrugged his shoulders – more proof of his obliviousness – gave me a little wave and left.

I spent the afternoon alternately grumbling to myself – soundlessly – and crying. In between those two states, I tried to do a bit of reading: War And Peace, ironically enough, which I’d been slogging through in a personal project to read all the ‘important’ books on a list I’d seen in The Guardian.

At one point I nodded off and woke with the room in semi-darkness. It was getting on for dinner-time and he wasn’t there. I splashed some water on my face, pinned on my name badge – they didn’t even want you to ask each other for names – picked up my book and went downstairs.

I found him in the lounge with three others, halfway through a game of Risk. I went up and touched him on the shoulder, and he gave me a not-now-can’t-you-see-I’m-busy kind of look. Here I sit, then, across the room, pretending to read my book.

There’s a couple (I can tell by their shows of mutual affection, of which I’m totally envious) and a very beautiful woman who – more irony – looks Russian; from her badge, her name’s Olga. While speaking’s not allowed, laughter is; there’s plenty of that going on. But ne’er a glance my way from him.

In fact … hang on a minute. What’s Olga doing with her hand on his arm? She put it there to draw his attention to something in the game – maybe warning him against invading Irkutsk, or Yakutsk, or Kamchatka, just to extend the Russo-irony. But she’s left it there, and he hasn’t shaken it off. And now…

Bloody hell! I know that look! I haven’t seen it from him for many years, but I know what it means. It means I want to get into your knickers. The bloody bare-faced cheek of the man. He’s forgotten I’m here!

Right. That’s it. I’ve had enough. ‘Ballistic’ (there’s a final one) doesn’t begin to describe how I’m feeling now. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind, the bastard.

But I’ve got to make it good. I’ve got to make it count. I’ve got to encapsulate all my frustrations, all my grievances. Let me think.

Yep, that’s it.

I go back to the table, lay my hand on his shoulder, get the same look as before. Then I give it to him with both barrels.

“FUCK YOU, JACK!”

With the whole room gaping, and the large bloke from earlier bearing down on me, I exit, head held high. I’ll get a taxi to the station and head home to pack my things.

Meanwhile, I’m feeling positively light-headed with relief, my emotional furniture well and truly dusted clean. The silent treatment has certainly worked, but not quite the way Jack had intended. I do hope he and Olga will be happy.

But then again, maybe not.