At first, because she was travelling in a different time zone with a flexible itinerary, and since we didn’t know when she or I would be able to take, or make, calls to each other, my wife suggested that for the duration of the month she was away, it would be best if we stayed connected via email. This seemed like a good idea, even though it remained a puzzle whether to sign on with a ‘good morning’ when it was night here, or sign off with a ‘good night’ when the sun was rising over the horizon there. Later, when she was back, but still not at work, her jet-lag seemed in danger of becoming a chronic condition, so she’d be sleeping when I was at work, and pottering around at night while the rest of the household slept. And that is why, in close to two months, we had been bereft of any real conversation.
It seemed a good way to be, also since my wife had decided that email was just fine by way of staying in touch. “Please write out cheques for the electricity, telephone, milkman and newspaper vendor’s bills,” she’d email, no doubt at some point of the witching hour — instructions I’d follow faithfully since the mornings before I left for office seemed to stretch languidly long and lovely. But, on the other hand, if I were to proposition that she might want to rush the insurance cheques across the following day, the response was likely to be curt: “I don’t know any office that stays open at night,” she’d respond, “you’ll have to do it yourself, luv.”
Even in her sleep, as she controlled the strings of our relationship and called the shots, that word, luv, entered her daily lexicon. Would I be a luv and order the groceries? Sorry luv, but she wouldn’t be able to handle visitors for dinner, would I just take them out? And, “Thanks for dinner, luv” when, returning at her breakfast and my dinner time from a launch, I decided to grab a bite at a coffee shop en route, a meal she slept through so I had to have it doggy-bagged for her.
I couldn’t make out if it was affectionate or plain irritating to log on in office and be greeted by a ‘Welcome to office, luv’ message blinking on the monitor — something even HR had not been able to achieve — followed, always, by a fresh round of instructions: Our daughter had a cold, so would luv organise the medicines?
Did luv know that the air-conditioner in the guest bedroom needed to have its gas filled? Why was luv not eating his fruit? Did the diminishing liquor in the decanters imply luv was having one too many, or was luv entertaining the neighbours?
Luv, however, was at the end of his tether: Fairytales about Sleeping Beauty are all very well, but to have one actually at home was becoming a problem. When was the staff to sweep and dust the bedroom when it was occupied by serial sleepers? What was the cook to serve at dinner — biryani or scrambled eggs and toast? What clothes was the maid to lay out in the morning — daywear or nightwear?
A month since her return, we’re no closer to a solution. She’s still emailing instructions: I am to pick up a jar of the jam she likes, along with the pancake mix my daughter prefers; the mangoes I bought the previous day weren’t sweet enough; her car needs to be serviced; I need to take her card to the ATM to withdraw cash on her behalf; and was I mad or what to have delayed paying her mobile bill? Worse, I’m not even her luv any more!
