My husband thinks only of himself. He eats everything, leaving not even a crumb for the child.
Oliver, where have all the bananas gone? I call to my husband.
I ate them. I fancied some fruit.
Couldnt you have left at least one for our sons tea?
Youre making a fuss over nothing. Its not as though they dont sell bananas in the shops.
Well then, go and buy a few.
I have my football match. How am I supposed to go?
Its this way all the time in our house: the cottage cheese, the biscuits, the apples. I end up hiding the food, otherwise my son might go hungry with a father like this.
Weve been married for five years now. Our son will soon be two. We have a mortgage, of course, so its not as if were rolling in it. Oliver considers himself the familys provider, having given us a house. In reality, he sold his old one-bedroom flat to scrape together the deposit, but my parents helped out as well. My mum says Oliver is a proper egotist. Cant say I disagree.
One day, we were getting ready for our sons birthday party. I was in the kitchen, fixing treats for the guests, and he kept darting in and out, emptying the plates as fast as I could fill them. The worst was the cake. Id left it outside on the balcony, as there wasnt any room in the fridge. I fetched it into the kitchen to slice it up, only to find a small, ragged chunk left; some decorated chocolate, hacked off at the edge. I was mortified.
Its always like this. Yes, he earns a living, but surely its possible to organise things sensibly, to consider other people. He just shrugs and says, Well buy more, dont worry! Well, he might not care about me, but how can he not care about his own child? Especially as we never have quite enough money, so I count on things lasting. In a single week, we finish off food meant to last a month.
Why are you having a go at him? his mother chimes in. Hes a man; let him eat. He brings in the money. If anyones at fault, its youjust cook more.
Its amusing, really. No matter how much I cook, nothing is ever enough for him. He eats everything. Theres no question of buying more and more, not with the mortgage hanging over us and the cost of clothes and everything else for the house.
In the end, I told Oliver that if it happened again, Id file for divorce. Wed have to split the house and go our separate ways. He sulked and ran off to complain to his mum. My mother-in-law now refuses to speak to me. But Im convinced Im in the right. What do you think?
All of this feels so strange, as if Im running endlessly down corridors lined with empty plates, and all the cupboards whisper, Gone, gone. Somewhere in the kitchen, a cake always vanishes before my eyes, melting into nothing but the memory of chocolate and crumbs.
