The Happiness Competition

The Happiness Competition

Author's Note: This is a 'Becky & Bryan' story, part of a series I'm posting about the ups and downs of a marriage. In terms of continuity, this story is set at the time of 'The Domestic Equality War' (and deals with similar themes). I hope you like it.

*****

BRYAN STOOD BEFORE the kitchen sink, humming as he washed the last of the pots. Dinner was finished, he had put Tara to bed, and after this he was done with the household chores. Meanwhile, his wife Becky had spent the entire evening lounging around in the living room or upstairs in their bedroom, probably reading internet articles on her phone. Apart from joining them for dinner and kissing Tara goodnight, she had done absolutely nothing.

This was by design. When Tara was old enough for Becky to go back to work, she and Bryan had started splitting the housework and childcare fifty-fifty. There had been a few ups and downs to begin with, but a year had passed and they had settled into a routine. Part of that routine was that on weekday evenings, whoever picked Tara up from school and looked after her didn't have to cook dinner and wash up. It seemed like a fair arrangement.

But then Bryan had come up with the idea of the Weekly Night Off. His suggestion was that once a week, one of them did all the cooking and childcare so that the other could have a complete evening free. Becky was reluctant, so Bryan proposed a month's trial period just to see if it worked. Since Becky had been continually telling her husband that she never had time for herself, she felt unable to refuse but she insisted on doing the first shift. So last week, Bryan had spent a highly enjoyable Wednesday evening watching some old Star Trek episodes while Becky took care of everything. This week, it was his turn.

Bryan rinsed the large stainless-steel pot and placed it upside-down on the draining board. Two more smaller pots and he was done. He was beginning work on the larger of the two when the door of the kitchen-dining room opened and Becky came in. She wore jumper and sweatpants and walked barefoot over to a kitchen cupboard at about head height. She opened it, took out a tall wine glass and was about to close the cupboard door when she seemed struck by a thought. Leaving the cupboard open, she turned on the ball of her foot to face her husband and said:

'Bryan, would you like a glass of wine?'

'In a minute,' he said. 'I'm almost done.'

'Okay,' said Becky. 'By the way, darling. Did you notice how easy that was?'

Bryan stopped scrubbing the pot and leaned on the sink, staring at the plughole.

'Becky...' he said. 'Are you still pissed off about Sunday breakfast?'

'Bryan, the coffee pot was in your hand. There was coffee in it. After refilling your cup, it would have been the simplest thing in the world to turn to your wife and say, "Darling, would you like some?" But no... Bryan Sandford had far more important things to do!'

'Honey, I agree it was thoughtless and I said sorry at the time.'

'But why do I always have to point these things out to you?'

'Becky, I'm doing my best to be a good, little husband.'

'Don't say it like that! You make it sound like I'm trying to turn you into something!'

Bryan bit back his response. He privately believed that that was exactly what she wanted and--even worse--she wanted him to want it too. But that was not a fight he felt like having right now. Before she'd come in, he was in a pretty good mood and he wanted to keep it that way. So Bryan took a deep breath and said:

'Listen, let me finish these pots and then I'll join you for a glass of wine.'

'Well, I'm having mine now.'

'Fine. Whatever makes you happy.'

Becky gave a derisive snort, but Bryan had turned back to the sink and resumed scrubbing the inside of the saucepan. Becky scowled, closed the cupboard door and went to the fridge. She poured her glass half-full with white wine, returned the bottle to the fridge and then stood with her back to the cupboards.

Bryan finished cleaning the saucepan, put it on the draining board and then began on the third and final pot. As he washed it under a running tap, he began humming again. Becky stood like a sentinel, eyes fixed on the man, the wine glass occasionally rising to her lips. But judging by the expression on her face, she was deriving no pleasure from it. As Bryan rinsed the last pot and turned off the tap, Becky tilted her head like a beef farmer sizing up the beast she was about to slaughter.

'You know what, Bryan?' she said. 'I think I've figured it out.'

'Figured what out?'

'Our problem.'

'Oh? What problem is that?'

Becky leaned back against the counter and waved her wine glass in circles as she talked.

'Ever since I got back from work this evening,' she said, 'I've done absolutely nothing. I didn't look after Tara or cook dinner or do any washing up. Instead of our usual fifty-fifty split, I've done zero percent while you've done a hundred.'

'So where's the problem?'

'The problem, Bryan,' said Becky glowering, 'is that even though you've done all the work, I'm still more stressed out than you are!'

She waved her wine glass in his direction.

'I've been standing here watching you,' she said, 'and it's very clear to me that you're okay with everything! With this house! With this life! You've got this inner okayness which I don't have! One might even say you were happy!'

'And that pisses you off?'

'Of course it pisses me off! We're supposed to have an equal relationship and you're taking a big, fat dump over it!'

'Becky, I have quite literally done a hundred percent of the housework this evening!'

'Yes, but that doesn't give you the right to hoard a hundred percent of the happiness! We should be equally happy! And we're not! And you don't give a shit!'

'Becky, I can't give you fifty percent of my "inner okayness"!'

'Can't? Or won't?'

Bryan stared at Becky in disbelief. Becky glared back, then tipped the rest of her wine down the sink and slammed the glass onto the draining board.

'Here!' she said. 'Another piece of washing up for you!'

And she turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

***

Becky ran upstairs and into the marital bedroom. The double bed was still covered by the colourful chequered bedspread, looking a bit like a great picnic blanket. Becky had been treating it as a picnic blanket too, sitting cross-legged on it as she read stuff on her phone or watched YouTube videos. She had had a thoroughly boring evening.

'Bryan and his fucking "Weekly Night Off"!' she said.

She sat back on the bed, cross-legged as before, and picked up her phone. Then she shuddered and tossed it aside, sick of looking at it--or rather, sick at herself for looking at it. Becky was hearing a lot about the addictive side of smartphones and she was beginning to understand why.

The problem was that when she wasn't distracting herself with the phone, that's when the thoughts would come. Bryan rhapsodised about the virtues of 'peace and quiet' but Becky hated it. When the noise stopped, fears and insecurities would fly out of the shadows of her mind like demon birds, flapping and pecking, wrecking her peace of mind.

Her latest agonies stemmed from a comment her daughter had made from the back of the car. Tara's best friend was a girl at the same school called Sally, and Becky and Dee--Sally's mother--would often play host to one another's children. However, the last time Becky picked Tara up and was driving her home, the little girl had sighed and said:

'I wish I could live at Sally's. They've got a much nicer house than we do.'

Becky felt like she'd been stabbed through the heart with a dagger made of ice. She kept telling herself that Tara was just a child and that children said stupid shit without meaning any harm, but that didn't stop it from hurting like mad. To make matters worse, Bryan seemed totally oblivious to his wife's pain. He had been making a roast dinner when she and Tara got home and he seemed unable to hit the pause button long enough to notice that Becky was upset about something. The end result was that Becky didn't say anything to Bryan about Tara's comment.

As Becky sat on the bed thinking, she began to see how angry she was with her husband. The old breadwinner Bryan would have noticed something wrong and coaxed the truth out of her. In fact, his ability to sense her moods without her having to say anything was one of the reasons Becky married him. But the more recent Bryan seemed to have lost his masculine intuition. This version of Bryan was obsessed with keeping track of the fifty-fifty thing, as though Becky was going to accuse him of not doing his fair share at any second... which, admittedly, she did all the time. But Becky also felt like Bryan was deliberately not using his masculine intuition as a punishment for her wanting equality in the first place.

Well, that wasn't going to fly! Becky decided that it was about time to have it out with him. Plus, she wanted to tell him what she really thought about his Weekly Night Off idea: that he only suggested it because that's what he wanted, not because he gave a shit about her. Becky reckoned that if a man wanted a night off, he should just have the balls to tell his wife instead of coming up with some weasel plan to keep it within the fifty-fifty 'thing'.

Slipping her phone into her jeans pocket, Becky went downstairs and entered the living room. No-one there. She went next to the kitchen-dining room, but Bryan wasn't there either. He couldn't be in the bathroom as she would have seen the light on behind the door's frosted glass panels. Was he in the downstairs toilet?

'Bryan?!'

No answer. Becky slid her phone out of her pocket and called his number. After a moment, she heard the 'buzz-buzz' of his phone on a shelf in the kitchen. She was struck by a sudden intuition and she ran to the front door of the house and opened it.

Bryan's car was gone.

***

Bryan drove into the city centre and parked in the main multistorey car park. He took the elevator down and walked through the mall to the multiplex cinema. The shops were all closed, but the restaurants and pubs were open and it was surprisingly busy for a weekday evening. Arriving at the cinema, he saw only one film he might be interested in seeing and that had already started. In the end, he decided that he may as well go home and face the music.

Sitting in the car, winding his way back onto the ring road that would lead to home, Bryan shook his head and swore. What the fuck was he going to do about that bloody woman? Right now, he felt close to hating her. She continually complained that she never had enough time for herself, yet when he tried to do something about that, she threw it back in his face.

He was also incensed at her lecture on equality. When they had made their fifty-fifty agreement, Bryan was very careful to get Becky to specify exactly what her expectations were and 'Equality of Happiness' was not on the list. Yet it was so typical of her to want to change the rules when it suited her, even though they were her rules in the first place! Besides, you can't have Equality of Happiness because happiness doesn't work like that! What was Bryan supposed to do? Make himself miserable when Becky was miserable so that she didn't feel 'unequal'?

Bryan let out long, slow breaths as he drove into his street. He had so many things he wanted to say to Becky and yet he knew it would be pointless. She didn't care what he wanted. She only cared about herself, about her own precious happiness. He pulled into his driveway, parked and got out of the car. Going up to the front door, he saw that the living room curtains were closed, but there was light visible from behind them. He went into the house, hung the keys up on the hook, then he took a deep breath and went into the living room.

Becky was sitting with her feet up on the couch, her arms tightly folded, watching an episode of something. She didn't move when Bryan entered the room, but stared pointedly at the giant flatscreen. Bryan knew that she expected him to initiate the interaction, whatever form it was going to take, and that pissed him off even more. 'Fucking hypocrite!' he thought. 'She claims to want equality and yet she still wants me to treat her "as a woman"!' He felt like turning on his heel and walking back out.

Except he'd done that before and it didn't achieve anything in the long run. Fights like these were like batteries full of bad energy and what worked was to somehow drain the juice without getting electrocuted in the process. And because he was the man, Becky expected him to be the one to risk electrocution.

'Well,' thought Bryan. 'Here goes nothing.'

He went to sit on the carpet next to the couch, keeping his arms to himself so that Becky wouldn't think he was trying to touch her. He sat in close proximity and started to watch the drama on the flatscreen. He had seen a couple of episodes with Becky, a series about a big city woman moving to a small town after a divorce. Her ex-husband was a complete tool, of course, and she was...

Becky froze the programme with the remote. She turned her head to look at the man leaning against the seat of the couch.

'Where did you go?' she said.

'Just out for a drive,' said Bryan. 'I needed to cool off.'

'You didn't go see a movie?'

'There was nothing on.'

'So the reason you're here talking to me is because none of the movies appealed to you?'

Bryan laughed.

'I walked into that one,' he said. 'One-nil to you.'

'This isn't a game.'

'Isn't it?'

Bryan looked at his wife. Despite her beauty, he felt no desire to kiss her. 'My goodness,' he thought. 'I really am angry with her.' Meanwhile, Becky was wearing an expression of stern displeasure, like a queen let down by her chamberlain. She gave a tiny shake of the head.

'My god, you really don't get it, do you?' she said.

'If you mean this whole "Equality of Happiness" thing, then no, I don't. And I don't think it's my job to get it either.'

'What do you mean?'

'Look, everything to do with Equality is your department.'

'Why? Because I'm a woman?'

'Because you're the one who wants it!'

Bryan lifted himself up and sat on the edge of the couch. Becky moved her legs aside, sitting up and glaring at him like an interloper.

'Listen, do you know what I want?' said Bryan. He held up two fingers. 'Two things: One, a decent cup of coffee in the morning. Two, to spend at least one hour a day doing something I enjoy. And so long as I get those two things, the world can be as unequal as it likes and I'll put up with it. I'll figure out my own way to get what I want.'

'Well, that's easy for you to say! You're a man!'

'Oh, right! So because I'm a man, I've never experienced inequality? I've never been passed over or ignored or made fun of? Everything has always gone my way?'

Bryan got to his feet.

'Fine, Becky,' he said. 'You keep believing that! I work my fucking arse off to comply with your standards and because I--'

'They're not "my" standards!'

'Yes, they are! Equality is your thing!'

Becky leapt to her feet, eyes blazing.

'That's a lie!' she cried. 'We decided for an equal relationship!'

'No, you wanted an equal relationship and I complied. There is a difference!'

Becky's mouth opened and shut, staring at Bryan as though he'd just told her he'd murdered her parents. She seemed almost overwhelmed by a feeling of betrayal. Bryan stepped up to her and looked her in the eye.

'I've always told you,' he said, 'that I believe in Fairness, not Equality.'

'But they're the same thing!'

'And that right there is the problem. Because I couldn't disagree with you more.'

Becky was breathing hard. She lifted a hand to ask Bryan to give her a moment. Bryan relaxed his stance and waited. He knew she was trying to find a way to regain the upper hand rather than address the issue, but what the hell... at least they were talking. Eventually, she said:

'Look, I know there are differences. I'm not saying Fairness and Equality are identical.'

'You just said--'

'I know what I said, Bryan! God, you take everything so literally!'

'Oh, right...' said Bryan. 'So when you contradict yourself, it's not your fault for choosing the wrong words? It's my fault for being pedantic?'

'Oh, fuck you, Bryan! I can't talk to you!'

Becky stormed out of the room. Bryan heard her feet as she ran upstairs, followed by the slam of their bedroom door. He wondered whether this would wake Tara up. Yup... there came the sound of a child crying--starting small and slowly building. He left the room, but by the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, he heard the bedroom door reopening, shortly followed by Becky's voice comforting their crying daughter.

Bryan stood for a moment, his hand on the baluster, feeling bittersweet at how the soothing voice upstairs and the harsh staccato he'd just endured came from the same woman. Then he went back into the living room and closed the door.

***

'Dee, what should I do with my dickhead of a husband?'

Becky and Dee had been dropping off their children at school at the same time, and Dee instantly saw that something was up. As neither woman had to be at work that morning, Dee spontaneously invited Becky for coffee at her house--an invitation gratefully accepted. Okay, walking into Dee's lovely home did sting somewhat after Tara's remark, but once the two women were sat at the kitchen table with cups of espresso coffee laced with cream, Becky was in her element. She gave Dee a blow-by-blow account of the fight with her husband while Dee nodded and made sympathetic noises.

Finally, Becky posed her question and Dee pondered over a second cup of coffee.

'Look, you and Bryan still love each other, right?' said Dee.

'I suppose so,' said Becky. 'It's hard to tell when we have one of these fights.'

'Yes, but you always find a way through, don't you? You always find your way back to... oh, what would you call it? The "love space" that you two have when things are going well.'

'To be honest, that feels like a distant memory.'

'Yes, but isn't that always the way?' said Dee. 'I have the same thing with David. He can be so pompous sometimes and I wonder why I married him. But then there are other times when it's crystal clear.'

Becky resisted the urge to gaze around the house and nodded in sympathy as she sipped her coffee. Dee leaned forward and spoke in hushed tones.

'Becky, I know you're angry with Bryan,' she said. 'But I've also seen you look at him like he's the best thing that's ever happened to you.'

Becky's eyes teared up. It caught her by surprise and she had to put her cup back onto its saucer. She went for her bag to get a tissue, but Dee was already holding one out.

'Thanks,' said Becky, wiping her eyes.

'Tell me,' said Dee. 'What is it you're really fighting about? What's stopping you and Bryan just saying, "Let's agree to disagree" and getting back to loving each other?'

Becky sat and stared out of Dee's kitchen windows, pondering the question.

'I just hate the inequality,' said Becky. 'I feel like Bryan is making himself happy at my expense.'

'How?'

'I don't know!' said Becky. 'But he always seems to manage it! When I first had Tara and was stuck at home looking after the baby, it was obvious that he was happier than me. But whenever I made him look after Tara himself, he really enjoyed it and he was still happier than me! And when he was the breadwinner and I was the housewife, he loved being the Man of the House! But now that we're doing things fifty-fifty, it's obvious that it's really working for him and he's still happier than me!'