Life Swap

Brenda and Marjorie had a novel idea – but would their husbands agree?

SUMMAT’S up,” Bill Welch said as he settled himself on the spare chair in his best mate’s workshop. Johnny put down the feather he was attaching to a particularly complex fly ready for their next fishing trip.

“Oh, aye?” he asked. “Still, first things first. Brew?”

Bill was of the same mind.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he replied, nodding approvingly at the fly before returning to the matter in hand. “My Marjorie’s gone in to see your Brenda. There’s trouble at t’ mill”.

Bill’s wife Marjorie and Johnny’s wife Brenda had met when their children were born on the same day at the maternity home – a baby boy, Jamie, for Johnny and Brenda, and a little girl, Sally, for Bill and Marjorie.

The two couples had become firm friends, with Marjorie and Brenda swapping recipes and minding each other’s offspring, while Bill and Johnny helped each other with household repairs.

Every summer they would holiday together in a rented farmhouse on the Yorkshire coast. The wives would share the chores while their husbands fished and young Sally and Jamie played together.

All was well, until . . . “I thought as much,” Johnny said, swigging his tea. “I’m in t’ dog ’ouse. That’s why I’m out here.”

“Me an’ all,” Bill replied. “It all started when our Sally joined that new group in the village. Sal took her mum along with her a couple of weeks back and my Marj hasn’t been herself since.”

“I know all about that,” Johnny continued. “Brenda went along with them last week and I’ve not heard the end of it. I thought it was a knitting circle or something like the Women’s Institute that my old mam used to go to, but no . . .”

“Women’s Group, Sally called it,” Bill said. “They discuss issues to do with women. I’m not sure what, but ever since then Marj has been chasing me round the ’ouse, waving the tea towel at me and telling me to do the drying up.

“When I asked Sally what was going on, all she would say was that ‘Times are a-changin’!’”

Bill continued. “Well, things came to a head when I mentioned Yorkshire. I can’t understand why there’s a problem.

“We’ve all been going to the same place every August for sixteen years now, ever since our Sally and your Jamie were little ’uns. Grand, it were – a nice lie-in, cooked breakfast, then a few hours fishing by the lake.

“Then at midday we’d have a good doorstep of cheese and pickle washed down with a bottle of beer, then all of us together in the evening for our tea and a game of Monopoly before turning in,” Bill went on. “Right relaxing time it’s always been. I’ve no idea

why my Marj has suddenly taken against the idea.”

“Brenda doesn’t seem to want to go there any more, either,” Johnny added. “She said this morning it’s not a holiday for her. It’s just moving her work to another location, she says.

“What does she mean, ‘work’? Breakfast is just slapping a few rashers in a pan and cracking a couple of eggs.

“As for the packing up, the girls make such a song and dance about it with their lists and mackintoshes and their flasks. It’s just a simple matter of . . .”

“Putting a few things in a bag!”

In the kitchen, Johnny’s wife Brenda scathingly repeated her husband’s words to her friend Marjorie, pouring coffee and crossly arranging shortbread fingers on a plate.

“A few things! I ask you! Who’s he trying to kid? There’s no end of things to be packed for holiday: food for three good meals a day for four adults and two hungry kids for seven days.

“Then there’s household things, like washing-up liquid, aspirin and plasters, books, games and change for parking meters.

“On top of all that there’s clothes for all weathers, from swimsuits to waterproofs, sheets and towels. Honestly, Marj, I could have throttled him.

“Johnny calls it a home from home. Well, home for him is a place to relax, but it’s my workplace and just for once I’d like a proper holiday with someone to look after me for a change.”

“Exactly,” Marjorie agreed.

They paused to eat biscuits.

“Good shortbread,” Marjorie murmured. “New recipe?”

“Yes. A bit crumbly, though.”

“Perhaps a bit.” Marjorie dabbed at her lips then changed the subject.

“Sally’s women’s group on Tuesday was interesting, wasn’t it?” she said. “I’m glad you came along as well.

“A lot of the ideas they were speaking about, things like equality and empowerment, well, at first I thought it was just waffle, but I’ve been thinking about it and now I see it’s particularly relevant to our own Yorkshire situation.”

“Really?” Brenda said. “How’s that?”

Marjorie explained that for years their menfolk had decided the type of holiday they would take. No-one had ever asked her or Brenda what they would prefer.

When the children were small, Marjorie said she would have plumped for a self-catering holiday herself. It gave the children space to play and she and Brenda used to enjoy cooking nice meals together.

Now Marjorie felt differently. Sally and Jamie no longer wanted to come on holiday with their parents and Marjorie no longer wanted to spend her holiday cooking and tidying up.

It was time someone else did that. Just for a week or so every year. She was a liberated woman and she deserved it.

“Hear, hear!” Brenda agreed. “But what are you suggesting we do about it?”

Marjorie began to explain.

“Well, Bill often says there’s no work involved in going on a self-catering holiday. ‘Just a question of putting a few things in a bag,’ he says. Well, if that’s all there is to it, he won’t mind doing it himself, then, will he?”

“Oh, Marjorie, that doesn’t seem quite fair, though, putting all the packing and cooking on to them boys.”

“Ah, now, what I am suggesting,” Marjorie explained, “is that we swap roles for a week. The boys do what we’ve always done on holiday and we do what they’ve always done.” Brenda looked puzzled. “But I don’t like fishing!” she said.

“I don’t mean we spend our time fishing, you daft thing. What I’m suggesting is that we spend our holiday doing what they’ve always done, which is doing what we want to do, not what they want us to do.

“That will mean shopping, having coffee out, perhaps looking round a stately home . . .”

“And then coming back for a nice tea cooked by them!” Brenda finished her sentence for her.

“Yes, and in return we do what they’ve always done when we’re on holiday, which is mostly the driving.”

Brenda looked hesitant, but Marjorie continued.

“I know you don’t drive, but I do. I drive to the supermarket every week and I’m sure I could manage to get us to Yorkshire if you help with reading the map.

“It’s only just over a hundred miles from Derbyshire, after all, and we probably wouldn’t go about that much when we’re there anyway.”

“It does sound lovely,” Brenda replied, “but would they wear it? Suppose they don’t agree?”

“Then there will be no holiday!”

The latch on the kitchen door clicked and the door opened, letting in a draught of cold air.

Marjorie turned to Brenda with a smile.

“Will you tell them, or shall I?” she asked.

After Marjorie had finished explaining her proposal, the two men looked at each other. It was clear that their wives were adamant.

If this was the only way they were going to get their fishing break, then so be it. After all, as Johnny had said, all they would have to do was put a few things in a bag – that and prepare a couple of meals a day.

Then they would have the rest of the time to themselves to fish, eat their sandwiches and drink their beer. There was nothing to it. It would be easy.

The men nodded their assent.

“You’re on,” they said.

Three days later the two couples and their grown-up children were again seated round Johnny and Brenda’s kitchen table. Sally was in between her parents, Marjorie and Bill, and Jamie in between Johnny

“I’m suggesting we spend our holiday doing what we want to do”

and Brenda.

They all looked glumly at the large brown pot of tea brewing in the centre of the table, surrounded by six mugs and a plate of chocolate digestives.

“How much did you say the damage to the car will cost?” Marjorie asked Bill.

“About two ’undred,” Bill replied tetchily, “give or take. The insurance should cover most of it, of course, but before they cough up I’ll have to write a cheque and I’ve lost my no claims bonus. Twenty-two year now I’ve been building that up.”

He turned to upbraid his wife.

“I really don’t know what you were thinking, Marjorie, turning that gurt big Cortina round in a muddy field when you couldn’t see properly what was behind you.

“No wonder you ended up in the ditch. And another thing, you should know by now not to pay any attention to Brenda’s map reading. Not her thing, maps.”

Brenda glared at her friend’s husband.

Sally tried to soothe their wounded feelings.

“At least no-one was hurt. That’s the main thing,” she pointed out.

“Yes, it could have been much worse,” Jamie added. “It must have been a very alarming situation.”

“Yes. We were very frightened, especially when it started to get

dark and no-one came by on the road. We were very lucky that that nice policeman was passing and stopped to help us . . .”

“Once he stopped laughing, that is. Cheek of it!” Brenda finished Marjorie’s sentence for her.

Brenda thought back to the first day of their holiday. Marjorie had driven the car from their Derbyshire village to the farmhouse in Yorkshire with only one slight detour when Brenda had misread the map.

Fortunately Bill had intervened and had pointedly informed them that as they were travelling straight into the setting sun, they must have been heading west for Wales rather than east into Yorkshire, so it would be prudent to turn the car round.

When they got to the farmhouse, Brenda and Marjorie had dropped their husbands off with the luggage and bags of food before setting off again in the car for a look round the local town.

The wives didn’t want to get talked into cooking dinner for everyone.

This time when Brenda made another mistake with the map, she quickly realised what had happened and shrieked for Marjorie to stop.

Tired and rattled, Marjorie tried to reverse, crashed the gears and nearly had a heart attack when the rear axle dropped two feet into a ditch.

PC Wetherby of the East Riding Constabulary had been riding his motorbike home after his shift when he saw the car, its bonnet pointing towards the darkening sky and two ladies “in a right daft panic”, as he later told his sergeant, waving a torch and calling for him to help them.

He stopped, radioed for assistance and stayed to guide the truck towing the damaged Cortina back to the farmhouse, where Bill and Johnny were anxiously waiting.

“Well, you two didn’t fare much better, did you?” Marjorie snapped, smarting from the criticism of her driving and Brenda’s map reading.

Brenda began to chuckle. “Yes, let’s start with the food you two packed for us for the week. The whole week, I might add. Where was the bread, the bacon, eggs, milk and the chicken pieces for our dinner?

“Where were the vegetables or any fruit? No wonder there didn’t seem to be very many bags of food. What exactly did you pack?”

Marjorie weighed in. “Yes, what exactly? If I remember correctly, there was a bottle of vanilla essence. A tub of custard powder, I think, and an economy-size pack of dried mixed peel. What were you planning to make – a Christmas cake? How on earth did you manage to choose such odd things to pack?” she asked.

Bill explained that they had gone round the kitchen cupboards in turn, taking out anything that might be useful – only they forgot to check the fridge, freezer, bread bin and vegetable store.

“They didn’t forget the beer, though, did they?” Brenda added witheringly.

“No, they didn’t, did they?” Marjorie nodded. “Two twelve-packs of bitter – and no tea bags or instant coffee.”

The wives looked pityingly at their husbands, who now began to grin themselves.

“Still, we all had a good dinner in the King’s Head that night, didn’t we?” Bill pointed out. “Steak pie, chips and peas, followed by home-made jam roly-poly. Almost as good as your home-made, Marj. Went down a treat, that did.” Marjorie agreed. “And we didn’t have to wash up afterwards.” Jamie chipped in. “Well, it certainly sounds like you had an eventful time.”

“That’s not all,” Marjorie continued. “That night, about one in the morning, we were all asleep when there was a noise, like someone opening the kitchen door.”

“What happened?” Sally asked, intrigued.

“Well,” Marjorie went on, “I nudged your dad. Fast asleep, he was, so I had to nudge again to wake him up. ‘There’s someone downstairs,’ I said. ‘Get up.’”

“I thought this was a role reversal holiday, so I told your mum to go down and see about it,” Bill continued. “And she said that I was the man and it was my job. No sign of role reversal now, you see! Anyway, I got out of bed, put my slippers on, then my dressing gown . . .”

“Get on with it,” Marjorie urged.

“I was up by then, as well,” Johnny put in, “so we bravely went downstairs to see what was happening.”

Brenda took up the reins, finishing the story for him.

“Well, it turned out that it was this other couple, Mr and Mrs Williams from Kent. They’d booked the farmhouse, but were late arriving on account of their long journey and getting stuck in traffic for part of it.

“They’d found the key that they’d been told was hidden round the back of the outhouse and they’d let themselves in.

“When we’d arrived earlier we’d found the door open, so we just walked in. We’d been there that many times we just thought the owner had left the door open to welcome us.

“As it turned out, it was a mistake and she’d just forgotten to lock the door, but we didn’t realise that at the time,” Brenda continued.

“Also, we knew from previous holidays that there would be a second key hanging up in the kitchen, so we used that to lock the front door when we went to bed.

“Anyway we were in the middle of sorting things out with the Williamses when there was the sound of a motorbike, and who should walk in but PC Wetherby.

“Mrs West had seen the second car arrive, thought it was burglars and called the police! When we’d explained it all, PC Wetherby was grinning like a Cheshire cat. Oh, the embarrassment of it. I didn’t know where to look.”

“What had happened?” Sally asked. “Had the other couple come to the wrong house or something?”

“No, it wasn’t them. It was us,” Marjorie explained. “When we agreed this role reversal thing, we didn’t discuss properly who was to do what and we assumed that the men would arrange the booking, but they assumed we would do it. So we hadn’t booked the farmhouse at all and Mr and Mrs Williams had!

“Luckily they offered to kip on the sofa bed for the night, and we had to leave the following morning. We just spent one night in the King’s Head and then came on home.”

“I enjoyed that,” Marjorie confessed. “The King’s Head was very comfortable and the breakfast was excellent.”

“It was – especially as someone else had cooked it,” Brenda agreed.

“We shall do that another time,” Marjorie said in a determined voice.

“Oh, well,” Sally said, “it was a very memorable holiday at least. You’ll all be able to laugh about it in the future.”

“And I expect you’ve learned something as well,” Jamie added.

“Aye, we have that,” his father agreed, raising his mug in a toast. “It’s simple. Women can’t drive, nor navigate, neither, and men aren’t made for cooking.

“That’s the way we were created and that’s the way things should stay. Makes no sense trying to change things. It doesn’t work and we’re the livin’ proof of it.” He raised his mug. “Here’s to our next holiday together, wherever it may be. Cheers!”

As the others raised their mugs in return, Sally winked at her mother and Brenda.

“You wait,” Sally whispered. “In forty years’ time things will be completely different. Just give it time.”

But her father had heard her.

“Fat chance, my girl!” n