Handbags at dawn over secret signals
THE Royal Family have always left me cold – excluding Princess Diana, obviously – but this week I’ve done a 360. Turns out the Queen is not just amazing, she’s clever too.
She’s a social boy scout, always prepared for any public situation, because she’s armed with a secret code.
If she shifts her handbag from one hand to the other, she’s had enough of whoever she’s talking to. At dinners, if her handbag is placed on the table, it means she’s outta there. And then, just when you’re fully focused on her handbag, a discreet twist of her wedding ring also means she’d liked to be moved on from a conversation quickly.
This is brilliant. It’s foolproof – it simply cannot fail… unless the person having to pick up her signals was my husband.
In that case, game over (and probably a little eczema on Her Majesty’s ring finger, from so much frantic twisting over time).
I have been trying to train him in this area since pretty much the day we met, but he remains immune. When we were first together, back in the olden days of yore landlines, he answered the phone to someone who shall remain nameless because I was desperate not to speak to them. I let him know this subtly, by gesticulating wildly and mouthing “NOOOOOOOOO !!!! ” while shaking my head violently. “Hang on,” my husband told the caller, “She is here, but she’s waving her arms about. Not sure why…” He also knows full well that I am terrible with names while simultaneously managing to forget that I am terrible with names. And so if we bump into someone and I pointedly don’t introduce him, he won’t cover for me – by, say introducing himself – he’ll just stare at me, and then them, and then me, and then them. When the agony is finally over, as we walk away, he’ll realise too late, laugh, and say, “You couldn’t remember his name, could you?” just a little too loudly.
After countless episodes where he “didn’t see” the crazy-eyed stare I’d fixed him with and accepted an invitation on both our behalves, and the excruciating like, I decided I needed to be more direct.
On the way to a party one night, I schooled him… the theory was, it would all be fresh in his mind when we arrived. If I needed to be rescued – for either my own good or that of the person I was talking to – I would pull my left earlobe.
Unoriginal, I know, but I wanted to keep it simple, like him.
Half an hour later, my left earlobe was basically resting on my shoulder, so long and hard had I tugged it. My husband hadn’t noticed at all, but the person I was stuck with had, of course, which didn’t exactly improve conversation.
It was after this that I became resigned to the fact my husband is simply unable to pick up signals. I don’t even get angry or frustrated any more. It’s like how some people can just naturally raise one eyebrow and some can’t – he was born oblivious. This is how I have to think to stay married and not turn into a murderer.
And how else could I think, really? I mean, the only other option is that he’s ignoring my desperate pleas for help on purpose, for his own amusement.
Anyway, the next logical step – I need Ladies in Waiting, urgently.
I just wanted to keep it simple – like him