Colin Bateman - Divorcing Jack

Colin Bateman was born in Northern Ireland in 1962. For many years he was the deputy editor of the County Down Spectator. He received a Northern Ireland Press Award for his weekly satirical column, and a Journalist's Fellowship to Oxford University. Divorcing Jack, his first novel, won the Betty Trask Prize in 1994.

Cycle of Violence 'Fast-paced, very black and very funny: Roddy Doyle meets Carl Hiaasen' Independent on Sunday 'Terrific, mordant wit and a fine sense of the ridiculous... The writing is great' Evening Standard 'Bateman's is the ultimate word on the insanity of the Troubles: no one has done it better Scotland on Sunday
Of Wee Sweetie Mice and Men 'Fast, furious, riotously funny and at the end, never a dry eye in the house' Mail on Sunday 'If Roddy Doyle was as good as people say, he would probably write novels like this ' Arena Empire State 'Bateman on epic form in gloriously over-the-top saga' Daily Telegraph 'A hugely enjoyable novel... Blessed with a beautiful sense of irony... It's like Carl Hiaasen, Tom Wolfe, and Roddy Doyle at their best' The Herald
By the same author Cycle of Violence Of Wee Sweetie Mice and Men Empire State Maid of the Mist

COLIN BATEMAN

DIVORCING JACK

Harper Collins Publishers 77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB A Paperback Original 1995 13 15 17 18 16 14 Copyright Colin Bateman 1995 The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 00 647903 0 Set in Linotron Meridien by Rowland Phototypesetting Ltd Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk Printed and bound in Great Britain by Caledonian International Book Manufacturing Ltd, Glasgow All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

For Andrea

I was upstairs with a girl I shouldn 't have been upstairs with when my wife whispered in my ear, 'You have twenty-four hours to move out.'

If I'd broken off then, chased after her, perhaps things would have turned out very different for everyone. But I didn 't. I was lost in an erection powered by alcohol, unable to say no. The girl was aware but unmoved by the interruption. She was clamped to me like a limpet mine. We weren't even in bed. We were in my study, standing silhouetted in the doorway, the party booming beneath us, kissing, only kissing, like school kids behind the bicycle sheds. Innocent, almost.

I have never been a ladies' man. Perhaps in my private moments I liked to think of myself as a sexual wildebeest - no body as such, but a lot of horn - but it was a delusion born of marriage. Patricia was my first girlfriend, lover, my wife. I had never wandered before. Neither, to the best of my knowledge, had she. I had never considered being unfaithful, or, at least, not with anyone I had any remote possibility of getting; fantasy is the justifiable preserve of the married man. This girl was a toe in the polluted ocean of romantic betrayal.

In that moment I lost one beautiful woman and gained another, an acquaintance of a few hours who would change my life, and lose her own.

The waiter had permed hair which was turning grey. He slammed the chopsticks down on the table and said in a better Belfast accent than mine: 'This is a Chinese restaurant. No bloody knives and forks.'

I managed a weak smile for Maxwell and under my breath cursed China in general and Patricia in particular.

I have two troubles in life, and sometimes they converge. I have always had a problem with foreign food. I was brought up with Protestant tastes. Plain and simple. Nothing fancy. Of course I could see the attraction of Chinese food: the taste of the Orient, that whiff of intrigue you get in a Chinese restaurant. The same as with an Italian restaurant: you always have that thought at the back of your mind about whether they are tied up in some way with the Mafia. Were the Chinese, with their incessant gambling and bloodcurdling yells from the kitchens, really gangsters? It's a relief that they never moved into the hairdressing business. It would be difficult to take seriously threats issued by the Curling Tongs.

My problem with foreign food - sometimes I can't even manage a German biscuit - coincides with manual illiteracy. I cannot change a fuse, a tyre or a light bulb. I cannot build a wall, unblock a sink or complete a jigsaw. The reason I have my garden tarmacked is that I know if I attempted to combat the jungle that was, I would somehow contrive to cut off one of my feet in the process. Chopsticks, long silvery gripless ones, are a pain.

Maxwell looked happy enough. He was already playing with his, picking up a little salt cellar with consummate ease. He was plump, maybe edging fifty. His black blazer hung over the back of his seat. He wore a white shirt that marked him out as a bachelor: the front was ironed perfectly but the sleeves were badly creased and the collar stuck out at mad angles. His front six teeth were capped, a vanity that did not sit well on him. His accent wasn't Belfast, but it wasn't country enough to be annoying. He drank Ballygowan Spring Water. I ordered a shandy.

He looked a little surprised. 'Your column makes you out to be a hard-drinking man,' he said.

I shrugged. 'Artistic licence,' I said. 'I'll maybe go to an artistic off-licence on the way home.'

He grinned. 'Quick. I have a good sense of humour, you know. I read Punch and Private Eye.'

I nodded. Frankie Woods didn't have a sense of humour either. He was, indirectly, responsible for me making a fool of myself with a pair of chopsticks.

Frankie, God love him, spiked me. I had this idea about swapping the terrorist wasteland of West Belfast for the Guinness Brewery in Dublin. They could have our troubles and we could drink theirs. I mean, it was only an idea. I put it in writing, but Frankie killed it. He said he was trying to build up the circulation in the west of the city. I told him he paid me to write stuff like that and he said no, he paid me to write stuff that was funny. It's all a matter of taste, really. Anyway, to cut a short story shorter, Mike Magee saw me in the dumps and suggested a different way for me to make a bit of money. I liked Mike. He looked like a rugby player who'd done too much drinking at the bar; squat, with the hint of a double chin. He wore a crumpled cream sports coat with wide collars and a cream open-neck shirt. His trousers were brown cords, fading at the knees. Nike trainers. His voice was verging on BBC plummy, but he would lose that under pressure. He poured me a cup of coffee from the percolator at the back of the newsroom. It was quiet. Cleaners were moving between the rows of computer terminals. Only a couple of them glowed green. The computers, not the cleaners.

He offered me the cup. I shook my head. 'You know I never touch the stuff.'

He tutted. 'Sorry, Dan, I forgot you were a Coke and Twix man. Any joy with the Coke machine yet?'

'Blank wall. I tell them it's a health drink - says right there on the can, made with vegetable extracts - but I'm getting nowhere.'

'Don't give up, Dan, we're all behind you.'

He put both cups down. 'How's Pat?'

'Fine. Fine. Y'know. Can't live with them, can't live with them.'

'Yeah,' he said, shaking his head ruefully, 'I know the score.'

'You'll have to come to the next party.'

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