Aussie Rules Relationship Counselling

A Prequel To The Return Of The Hippy

Today I told Craig about my decision to leave Sam. Craig is the barman at the Dog & Duck, the wine bar across the road from my office. At one point it had been a real London pub. Sawdust on the floor and old men in even older cloth caps. But then The City had grown up around it and now it’s a trendy wine bar frequented by stockbrokers, bankers and Life Coaches. Craig’s an Australian and the epitome of the surf dude culture. Tanned skin, curly sun-bleached hair and eyes of an unnaturally brilliant blue. I’m sure all the women find him irresistible and probably quite a few men as well.

“You been batting away from home, mate?” he asked me as he slid my wine across the marble-topped bar.

“No,” I said. “Nothing like that.”

“Is it her then? She playing hide the balls with her tennis coach?”

“No, and she doesn’t play tennis.” I paused for a thought then, “No, I’m sure she doesn’t play tennis. She does go to the occasional bridge game at the Marsden’s house though.”

Craig looked genuinely puzzled as if he had explored the sum total of all the reasons a marriage could possibly go wrong and still come up empty.

“It’s not like that. It’s just that over the years we’ve—“

“You need to get your finger out then, mate,” Craig interrupted as he poured a pint of Speckled Hen for a man in an Armani suit.  “Get one on the go before she does.”

“I don’t understand?”

“Well, you see, if you don’t get yourself your next one on the go before she does, they’ll think she threw you over for somebody who could take care of her better.”

The man in the Armani suit ordered a pint of real cider. Craig pulled the pump attached to which a sign read ‘Real Hereford Cider made only with the finest imported Mexican apples.’

“There you go,” he said to the man. “That’ll be twelve pounds sixty.” He turned back to me as he shut the till. “Not good to have the world thinking you can’t keep your woman happy. Makes getting the quality totty that much harder.” He drifted off to the other end of the bar to serve a group of young women. They giggled at something he said.

I was beginning to think this is going to be complicated than I’d first thought.

Read more of The Return of the Hippy HERE

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