Getting present for your Ex

By Philip Last Christmas would be indelibly written on the mind of Martha for a very long time. Married for over ten years, she said she was sure her marriage wouldn’t last till the next Christmas.  According to her, “Our marriage was in a terminal decline. There had been no sensational rifts, no throwing of plates and no hysterics. We’d just fallen out of love with each other and were going through the motions. It just needed one of us to have the guts to call time on the whose charade, then both of us could get on with our lives. May be if one of us had an affair, I thought, it would bring about the split.  But I wouldn’t and I doubted Yemi, my husband would either. He’s no Casanova and I couldn’t imagine him indulging in an illicit tryst.

“Every Christmas, we went to my in-laws for the traditional lunch Yemi’s brother, Ade, would be there with his annoyingly `perfect’ wife, Justina and their two `perfect’ children.
It’s hard to do justice to how smug and self-satisfied this family is. Of course, Yemi’s parents dote on them all and I’ve tried to bite my tongue off when I’ve heard his mother wish out loud that Yemi and I could be more like Ade and Justina. She’s convinced it’s our not having kids that is the problem. As things were, I thank my lucky starts we’ve not brought kids into this unhappy marriage. “My immediate problem was what to get Yemi for Christmas. What do you buy a husband you don’t love?  In the end I got him a decent pair of slippers a colleague brought to the office to sell.  At least they’d come in useful. I never gave a thought to what he would get me. To be honest, I didn’t care. Come Christmas morning and Yemi greeted me with a peck on the cheek. There was no real feeling in it.  `Happy Christmas he said.  I handed him his Christmas present. I’d wrapped the slippers in Christmas paper. `Oh, thank you’, he said after he’d unwrapped them, `they’re really … useful’. READ ALSO: It’s boring when one is normal – Angela Okorie Yemi handed me my gift. It was a shallow box, about a foot square, beautifully wrapped. Chocolates, I thought. He knew I was a chocoholic, but there was no rattle like you get from a box of chocolates and, besides, it was too light. Raising an eyebrow, I unwrapped the gift, Inside was a pale pink box with a black ribbon and the words ‘Agent Provocateur’. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I looked at Yemi. He had a strange, sickly expression plastered on his face like he’d swallowed an oversized lump of eba. Why on earth was he buying me sexy undies?  We’d not have sex in months. “I opened the box. Inside was an air of red silk knickers and an equally red, silky bra. My disbelief turned to realisation in a flash as it suddenly dawned on me. Yemi knows I hate red undies and I detest the feel of silk on my skin. Unless he was giving me a present he knew I’d dislike – which wasn’t his style – there was only one explanation.   They were meant for someone else.  He was caught out and he knew it.  “These weren’t meant for me, were they?”, I asked him. ‘No’, he mumbled, embarrassed.  ‘I’ve got the presents mixed up’.  ‘Who were they meant for?’ I asked. I was genuinely interested.  ‘I’d rather not say’, he said.  ‘I find out on Christmas Day, that my husband is having an affair and giving his mistress undies that would make a street ‘take-away’ squirm. The least you can do is tell  me who she is”.  I was actually enjoying myself at this point. He looked really sorry for himself as he mumbled the word, ‘Justina. I laughed out hysterically.  ‘Justina?  Your brother’s wife?  Prim and proper Justina?’ I was vaguely delighted. Yemi looked really uncomfortable. Perhaps, I should have been more upset by my husband’s betrayal but, as I said, I didn’t love him any more – and the feeling was mutual. This was better than African Magic any day! “We cried off Christmas Day lunch with Yemi’s parents by telling them I’d developed a bad migraine.  That afternoon, he and I got really smashed in the living room and enjoyed each other’s company for the first time in years. As friends we worked well together – as a married couple, we were a disaster. But our mess was nothing compared to that which befell my in-laws. Yemi and I started divorce proceedings in the new year. We agreed to keep it simple and not involve anyone else. That suited me fine – I just wanted out. “Unfortunately, Justina had `confided’ in one or two friends of the affair she was having and one of them told her husband and all hell broke loose. Mercifully, I was able to stay out of the melee, but I genuinely felt sorry for Yemi. He’d been as unhappy as I was in our marriage but he’d sought solace with just about the worst person he could have picked – his brother’s wife. And all this came out because my husband mistakenly gave me a pair of red pants for Christmas!”  This is hoping you readers will have a tangle free Christmas!