Believe it, money is still the root of all evil

Some lottery winners were babbling on ecstatically the other day about how the stress had now been completely removed from their lives. Their relationship was suddenly perfect. It’s true, I thought. I would really love my husband if we were incredibly rich. I mean, he’s funny, he’s good looking, a wonderful father. He’s got lots of things going for him.

On the other hand, he’s got a lot of things going pretty heavily against him. ‘Darling, pack your bags, we’re going to Rome for the weekend – my mum’s looking after the children,’ he doesn’t say. ‘Diamond earrings for you my angel – just for being a wonderful wife this Thursday.’ Nope. ‘Put this on – I know you like Max Mara – we’re eating out.’ Not him.

What he does do, of course, is rummage angrily around the house in the morning, trying to scrabble together the tube fare to work. No lunch for him again. ‘When are you getting paid for that piece about why large breasts are so sexy/small breasts are so in/breast size shouldn’t matter/why I’m considering a boob job/why the word ‘boob’ is a feminist issue?’ he will ask, scowling. ‘How the hell should I know?’ I spit and he storms out.

‘Have you got any money?’ he wants to know fifteen times a day. ‘Fancy taking me out to dinner tonight?’; ‘Can you buy me a suit?’ he often wonders. And out loud at that.

The trouble is, it just isn’t very sexy. I’m not asking to be supported or anything (not that it wouldn’t be nice), but taking me out for a Valentine’s dinner and then asking me to contribute a tenner because he’s ordered the lobster, just makes my stomach sink.

All very English, this equality, but give me some Russian bloke who over tips the waiter, buys the whole bunch of individually cellophane-wrapped roses so as not to look cheap (and, obviously, make all the blokes who just bought the one cringe in embarrassment) and then helps you on with your fur coat – if you haven’t got one, never mind, he’ll buy you one.

Oh, of course, nobody cares about money when they are still staying up all night, telling each other about how upset they were when their first pet died, and squealing with delight because Crime and Punishment is his favourite novel, too (it isn’t actually – he lied. It’s some teen wanking thing like Catcher in the Rye). But years (or in some cases weeks) later, money is always the one thing that splits you up.

Well, apart from infidelity. Even then, there’s usually a money angle: he only slept with someone else because they said they liked him poor and arty, and she only slept with someone else because they said they were rich. I once went out with someone who would go off to work in the morning and leave a hundred dollars under the clock for me to spend that day. I never touched it and I even ran being insulted up the flagpole, but I miss it now. Can’t believe I didn’t just save them up and buy a car.

Because money matters. It’s awful that it matters. We hate ourselves for letting it matter. It is unworthy, distasteful, vulgar and depressing that it matters. But each partner always thinks they spend less and provide more than the other. As a woman, I think female nervousness lies in the fact that in a serious relationship, we are, at some stage, probably going to need to be supported. There is some sort of primal terror of having to earn money and keep everything going at the same time as being pregnant, being in hospital having babies and wandering around afterwards for up to a few years with small children.

When my husband came into hospital, two days after my second Caesarean in two years, and asked me how we were going to pay the mortgage that month, I knew that was it. It wasn’t of course. Here we still are, rowing about money and, intermittently, having a lovely time whenever we don’t have to think about it.

It has, somewhat unpleasantly, become the symbol of what keeps a relationship going. It might once have been the number of wild boars speared, or potential for fathering/mothering healthy children. Now it’s money. And I would like some please.