The Archive

Book extract - Shaking the Snowstorm

The problem with going on a date with the person to whom you’ve been married for six years is that it’s not really a date at all is it?

Dating is, let’s face it, a time when you go out with someone who barely knows you and make every effort to make sure that it stays that way.

Dating is when you spend an evening portraying the person you want to be, the person you could be, or in a lot of cases, the person you suspect you should be if you made a bit more effort.

When we’re dating we remain well-dressed, shiny and clean. When we’re dating we’re thoughtful, interested and we smell nice.

And we maintain that illusion for as long as is possible. But eventually, so slowly that we don’t even notice it happening, we all make the transition from dating to a relationship. And the rules change.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad thing at all. Nobody could maintain the hygiene requirements of a date on a 24 hour, 7 day a week basis. Your skin would fall off from all the chemicals for a start.

It’s not only natural, it’s a great thing that you start to become comfortable with one another. That you still love the other person even though you’re more likely to see them in jogging bottoms than lingerie is beautiful and necessary.

But when it comes to recreating those special first dates, whilst you can put on the clothes and spray on the requisite fragrances, what you absolutely cannot recreate is exactly what made those first dates so exciting.

You can’t recreate the mystery.

And so Alicia sat opposite me and I sat opposite her and we couldn’t think of anything to say.

Still, I was determined to make this thing work out and, as the saying goes, where there’s a wine, there’s a way.

I ordered another bottle with a hand gesture, just as Alicia broke the silence.

“Are we turning into one of those couples?”


She sounded genuinely worried and I knew what she meant. Those couples who sit in the pub or at the restaurant, eating and drinking in dead silence, proving the physicists right when they wondered if two separate but parallel universes could exist side by side.

I finished my wine, “Nah,” I declared, “ We’re just a bit ring-rusty that’s all. We’ll get used to this. What’s the best thing that happened to you this week?”

“I got a letter from a client who’s dog got run over and we paid for all the surgery. She was really grateful.”

“Excellent. Let’s drink to that,” I refilled our glasses and we clinked again.

By halfway down the second bottle, the conversation was flowing freely, if a bit slurrily and it seemed like we were out of the woods. We were clearly enjoying each other’s company and it almost felt like a real date.

I was certainly doing my best to act like a man on a date, as I could hardly drag my gaze out of the beautiful cleavage that was on display.

“You know what we should do?” I suggested.

“Go on,”

“Nip to the toilets for a quickie. Like that time in the Prince Albert. That was so sexy.”

“Simon, don’t. This is supposed to be a date.”

“Well isn’t that what people are supposed to do on dates?” I countered.

“No. Well eventually yes. But there’s supposed to be a seduction. You don’t just meet someone for the first time and say ‘fancy a shag in the bogs’ do you?”

“I don’t remember. It does sound like something I’d say, though.”

“Before you met me perhaps. About which time I also remember you saying you didn’t have much success with ladies. Do you think there could be a correlation?”

“Oh well, just forget it then,” I said, quite aware that I was starting to sound like a thwarted adolescent.

“No, don’t forget it,” she replied, putting a hand on mine, “You just have to, you know, make an effort. You remember how it used to be.”

I pulled my hand away. “I remember the Prince Albert. But that apparently doesn’t count.”

Alicia folded her arms. “Ok, fine, you want all the romance of a quickie in a restaurant toilet, let’s do it,” she snapped, “Let’s go right now.”

“Oh come on, it’s not going to work now is it? I want you to be there. I don’t want a pity shag.”

“Well make up your mind Simon,” she huffed, “First you want it, then you don’t. How can I win?”

At this point, of course, she couldn’t, any more than I could. Because we’d crossed the line.

In 1777 a bunch of Irishmen drew up a list of rules for duelling the Code Duello (I don’t know why they gave it an Italian name. Maybe the Italians were particularly keen duellists).

These rules pretty soon came to be an international duelling standard. Kind of a Marquis of Queensbury for people who want to actually kill each other I guess.

Now it would seem sensible to take a look at some of these rules and see if there was anything useful we could learn about the conduct of disputes in the modern world.

To take a few examples, the first rule of the Code Duello states that a properly worded apology could eliminate the need for a duel at all.

Then there was the rule in which it is suggested that a night should elapse between the offering out of a duel and the subsequent combat, in order to give everyone a chance to cool down.

And then there is also another rule, which stated that, once begun, there should be no firing in the air or deliberately missing, on the grounds that if the beef was serious enough to warrant a duel in the first place, then it was no time for buggering around.

Guess which was the one rule I decided to follow at that moment in the restaurant?

“You could win by realising that maybe there’s a little more to being a wife than nagging. There are plenty of women out there who’d like to be with me. Do you have any idea what it feels like to be rejected over and over again by the only person in the world you are allowed to be intimate with?”

“And do you have any idea of what it’s like to feel like the person you love has no interest in you as a person and feel like you could be replaced at any moment with a pair of talking tits and he wouldn’t notice. And to have your hair done and buy a new outfit only to have him not even notice any of it?”

She had a tear in her eye and as she lifted the glass to her mouth I noticed that her hand was shaking.

According to the Code Duello, any wound sufficient to shake the opponents nerves enough to make their hand shake marked the end of the duel.

Which meant, I suppose, I’d won.

Funnily enough though, it didn't feel like that at all.

posted by Peter The Great @ 1:59 PM