I am trying to dress myself quietly, but my wife rolls over and pulls the duvet low enough to reveal one staring eye. “What are you doing up?” she says.
“I’m a businessman,” I say.
“You always say that,” she says.
“Because you always ask the same question,” I say.
My wife navigates her world with reference to fixed points: she’s the one who gets up early, eager to seize the day by the throat; I’m the one left behind to lie in, the laggard with a pillow clamped over his head. On mornings when I’m obliged to rise first, she acts as if she’s woken up in a parallel universe, instead of accepting the cold reality of circumstance.
“Which is boring,” I say, “because it happens twice a week.”
“It happens once a week,” she says. “At most.”
Downstairs, the dog also seems perplexed by me being up this early.
“Twice a week,” I say. “Get used to it.” The dog alternates between a prostrate position and sitting up, several times in rapid succession, while emitting a low whine.
“I don’t know what that means,” I say. The dog continues its oscillation with renewed urgency.
“I’m only ignoring you because I have no idea what you want,” I say. “And I’m a businessman.”
The cat comes in through the flap and miaows. I fill its bowl. I never have any trouble interpreting the cat’s demands, but that’s probably because he only has two: Feed Me and Leave Me Alone.
“Still,” I say to the dog, “it helps to send a clear signal, so there’s no doubt as to … ” I look up, to see the dog eating the cat’s food.
My wife comes into the kitchen.
“Why aren’t you working in your office?” she says.
“No time,” I say, changing my laptop screen so she can’t see that I’m doing the Wordle.
“Have you given the dog its pill?” she says.
“Oh,” I say. “No.”
“Well, if you could, that would be great,” she says. “I’m going out, and I won’t be back for lunch.”
“Fine,” I say.
When she leaves, I open the fridge and take out the dog cheese: a block of cheap supermarket cheddar bought solely for the daily concealment of the dog’s pill, which is compressed between two small chunks of it. Crumbly mature cheddar will not serve.
This dosing usually passes off without incident, but today the dog swallows the cheese whole and then spits out the pill, like a magic trick. Eventually I get the pill to stay in the dog, but it takes a lot of cheese.
My wife comes home at six. There is no food in the house.
“We could have, like, a dog-cheese omelette,” I say.
“Let’s have a takeaway,” she says. “I’m exhausted.”
“I am also exhausted,” I say.
“And I have to get up at 6.30 tomorrow,” she says.
“And I have to get up at 6.15,” I say.
“Why?” she says. “Because you’re a businessman?”
“Because I have to go to hospital,” I say.
“Oh,” she says. “That is a better answer. I forgot you were having your wart removed.”
“It’s not a wart,” I say.
“Your mole, or whatever, cut off,” she says.
“The word you’re looking for,” I say, “is ‘biopsy’.”
“It’s not a biopsy,” she says.
“It says biopsy on the thing,” I say.
“In that case, you’d better go to bed early,” she says.
“I will,” I say.
I do not go to bed early. I stay up worrying about my appointment, largely from the perspective of transport logistics. I fall asleep past midnight. When I wake up, the sun is shining through the bedroom window, and my wife is standing silhouetted against it. I am awake, I discover, because she is speaking to me.
“What?” I say.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she says. “I thought you had to get up early.”
“I do have to get up early,” I say. “What time is it?”
“6.15,” she says.
“In that case,” I say, “I expect my alarm will go off in the next few seconds.”
We wait for a moment, the silence filled by the tweeting of birds and the distant beeps of a lorry reversing. The silence stretches further. My wife looks down at her watch.
“Oops, sorry, it’s 5.15,” she says.
