Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37

She keeps Amos's replacement for a week. They are not on good terms, and the air in the house is tense, or would be if she cared; as it is, the air around him is tense and the air around her is expansive and new. She talks to him the bare minimum, makes her own food, sleeps in the bed and some nights he joins her and some nights he's in the spare room making snippy comments and she just doesn't care.

The house is in order, nothing in awkward piles, nothing half-painted, but she misses her huge plant buddy, and on the second day she goes to the shop and buys him again with her replenished bank account. She does not go to work, or call in sick, or answer their calls when they phone her.

That weekend she decides to go away on her own, not to Denver or to Felix's village or anywhere else where she might meet a husband, but instead to the seaside, where she expects to walk along blustery sands but instead stays in her impersonal Ibis hotel room and rewatches two seasons of Gossip Girl.

She finally calls Bohai, her evening, his morning.

"So," she says, "you're engaged?"

"I know," he says, "embarrassing, right?" but she can hear how happy he is.

"Good for you."

"How'd you get the husband back in the attic?"

"Oh," she says. "Cried a lot and bled on him."

"Wow," he says. "Strong work."

"Didn't like it. Won't do it again."

○○

The next husband, call him 203, is blond and angular and the flat is almost empty, walls painted to rental magnolia; presumably they let it out and live elsewhere, and are momentarily between tenants. No. She's not going to turn landlord and give up access to an infinite supply of husbands for a guy in a polo neck. With 204, they're enormously in debt; the husband's friend is staying in their spare room to help with the bills, and that's okay, she's had plenty of housemates, but after work the husband uses his friend's motorbike to do deliveries while she does user testing for websites. She likes the guy so she sticks with it for a few days to prove to herself that she's not shallow, even when Nat pops round one night with a bunch of groceries, We're going on holiday, we'd just be chucking these out. She has brought no useful articles about, say, clever ways to repurpose charity-shop finds, and how fucked must things be if Nat's in no-advice mode? Lauren is relieved when she finds out that the debt is from their stupid wedding , which she of course doesn't even remember and which she has, she thinks, no obligation to try to pay off; she can send the husband back without feeling even a little bit bad.

205 doesn't trim his nostril hair. No.

206 is wearing a hat with a little brim even though he is sitting and watching television on his own sofa. No.

207 is angry because he has an important meeting and no clean shirts, and perhaps this is fair of him, perhaps they have negotiated an equitable division of housework and the laundry has fallen to her and she has let her side of the agreement slide, but: no thank you.

She sends back grumpy husbands, husbands she doesn't like the look of, husbands who are not hot enough, a husband who is too hot (there must, she thinks, be a catch).

The process is, compared to the apps, an absolute joy.

She has a husband once who is big on Twitch: he plays video games and talks to teenagers about it, and makes a surprisingly good living. He has to take off his wedding ring before he streams, not because he is a particular heart-throb but because it doesn't do to remind his viewers that he is so much older than they are. He is obliged to keep up with young people's slang, which he uses in day-to-day life with an air of irony that does not in any way make it less annoying. She sends him back.

She is, she thinks, serious about this, she is in it for the husband, and there's no point pretending to herself that she might keep someone when she knows in her heart that she won't.

"I'll weed your garden," one husband is always saying, turning innocent phrases into double entendres. She hates it. There's no lustful intent, it's just a constant drip of a not-joke. "I'll order your burrito." "I'll boil your eggs." "I'll take your ice cream out of the freezer." I'll send you back into the attic, she thinks as she pulls the ladder down.

The next husband prods her and says "citation needed" whenever she says something he considers doubtful.

The next husband doesn't like it when she reads, will lean over and get between the book and her face, looking earnestly into her eyes. "I can be your book, all you need is me." It's a joke but it does also make it difficult to keep reading, so it's not only a joke. She has a fancy e-reader in this world and he will sometimes pry her hand away from it and put it on himself. "I, too, am waterproof and touch-operated," he will say. This is worse than nostril-hair husband but not as bad as "citation needed" husband.

One husband texts her updates on his bowel movements, big one this morning fucking hell .

One husband carries empty cups using his mouth, placing the cup over his mouth in its entirety, using suction to keep it in place, which stresses her out no end.

One husband appears and immediately makes her a coffee, which is good, but he does it while putting on an accent and making up words, "Vostre caffe con milk-io," which is bad, but if she sends him up right away the coffee will disappear. She takes it out to the garden.

Toby is weeding on his side.

"How's that going?" she calls over the fence. "Gonna put some new flowers in?"

"Nah, just getting ready for an inspection," he says. "Landlord's coming round to take photos and make sure we haven't bashed in the walls or forgotten to clean the skirting boards."

She watches for a moment, then finishes her coffee and goes upstairs and exchanges the husband. In the next life, Toby is in their living room eating biscuits, and when she looks through the kitchen window she sees the weeds have sprung back up, his chore still ahead of him.

One husband talks about his masculine energy and the natural anger of men in the modern world.

One husband likes to lie on the ground and grab at her ankles as she passes.

One husband, she discovers, likes to bully teenagers online. He will search out forums where young people are asking for advice and send messages telling them it's their fault, that they should feel bad, that they're ugly, fat, unlovable, weird, to blame for their parents' divorce or their sister's illness. To her he is a loving and diligent spouse; he makes pancakes every Saturday morning.

She can't quite take it in, has to talk it through with someone, and things are still a bit weird with Bohai after the Amos incident, so she calls Elena.

"God," Elena says when they meet in a cocktail bar and she shares the news, "is that a crime? Should you report it? Are you sure it's him, could it be a mistake?"

"I'm sure." Lauren's tone is light but she is genuinely shaken up.

"Oh, sweetheart," Elena says, "I'm so sorry. I'll get some more drinks in." Is Lauren taking advantage of her friend, who is anticipating the logistics and trauma of a real divorce? Maybe, but the cocktails will be unbought soon enough.

She sends the husband up when she gets home. In the next world she finds one of his usernames and screenshots half-a-dozen comments and sends them anonymously to his work email account, I know this is you and I will tell everyone if you don't stop , to who knows what effect, but either way the message is wiped out when she resets again.

One husband wakes her up in the morning by sitting astride her and spraying her in the face with the plant mister (plastic, from the gardening shop, this time). She struggles and splutters, shocked, but assumes that it must be normal, a thing they do, so she controls herself quickly and tries to cover the anger with a laugh.

"Wow," the husband says, "I should do that more often, I thought you'd hate it."

Not just a thing they do, then. She sends him back.