The Queen’s Gambit and a Shrine of Piss

When my husband lost his job, we both imagined unemployment rather differently. He saw opportunity. I saw domestic bliss. He had the whole thing mapped out in his head. A few weeks to decompress. A well-earned breather before the inevitable slog of job hunting. Trips to the gym. A couple of new hobbies. Maybe learning some obscure language he’d never use. Icelandic, probably. Meanwhile, my version of events looked rather different. I’d come home from another long day on the postal grind to spotless carpets. The smell of fresh washing drifting through the house. Dinner gently bubbling away on the stove. Kitchen worktops you could perform surgery on. And, finally, the ever-growing list of DIY jobs that had quietly been judging us for years actually being crossed off. Perhaps even a husband who had finally discovered the revolutionary concept of putting things back where he found them. Maybe he’d even stop asking me where things lived when he’d been living in the same house for twelve years. The hoover might even develop Stockholm Syndrome. Reader… Neither of us got what we expected. On the first morning, he simply… sat at his desk. Not working. Just… sitting. His hand mournfully nudging the mouse every now and then, as though Outlook might suddenly burst into life and announce that this had all been an unfortunate misunderstanding and he should probably get dressed. He stared at his monitor with the quiet melancholy of someone attending the funeral of a job they’d spent years complaining about… only to realise they’d miss it when it was gone. “You don’t need to sit there anymore,” I said quietly. “I know.” A long pause. “It just doesn’t feel right sitting anywhere else.” It caught me off guard. For all the misery that job had brought him — for all the daily stories about Cunt Face and Ball Bag Chin making his life a living misery — it had still given him something. Structure. Routine. Somewhere to be. Someone to answer to. A reason to get up each morning… even if that reason was logging on purely to fantasise about logging off. By day two, he’d progressed to pacing. Not productive pacing. Existential pacing. The sort usually reserved for expectant fathers, caged zoo animals, and men who have opened the fridge five times in the last hour hoping something will have changed. He drifts aimlessly from room to room like a sad little Roomba. Opening cupboards. Closing cupboards. Standing in the kitchen for no discernible reason. Looking out of the window as though purpose might wander past with the postie. “Might go to the gym tomorrow,” he announced eventually. “Housework burns calories,” I offered. He looked at me as though I’d suggested celebrating his unemployment by taking up competitive dusting. He didn’t miss the job. Not really. He missed having somewhere he was supposed to be. Something that divided one day from the next. Something that made the hours feel as though they belonged to something. Purpose is a funny thing. You rarely appreciate it until it quietly packs up its spreadsheets and walks out the door. Which is perhaps why my subconscious decided to help. Or, more accurately, stage an intervention. Last night’s dream was essentially The Queen’s Gambit. Only with fewer drugs, considerably less glamour… and an alarming amount of bottled urine. I should probably point out that I’ve never actually watched The Queen’s Gambit. I know it’s about chess. Beyond that, absolutely nothing. For all I know, this could be the entire plot. I arrive home from work, peel off my shoes, push open the dining room doors… … and there they are. Mat. Kirsty from work. Locked in an impossibly serious game of chess. The relief is immediate. Because, let’s be honest, there are far worse things to come home and find your husband doing with another woman. At least this doesn’t require an awkward conversation. Or marriage counselling. The atmosphere, however, is no less intense. The room is silent. Oppressively so. You could cut the tension into neat little cubes and serve it with crackers. Mat is leaning so far over the board I’m mildly concerned he’ll fall in. Kirsty doesn’t blink. I’m not entirely sure she’s still breathing. I stand there for an awkwardly long time. “…Hello?” Nothing. Not even a flicker of acknowledgement. Eventually, without taking his eyes off the board, Mat murmurs, “You’re blocking the light.” Well. It’s always nice to know you’ve been missed. I assume they’ll finish shortly. They don’t. The next morning I leave for work. They’re still there. When I return home that evening… Still there. One pawn has advanced a single square. That’s the day’s excitement. Life, meanwhile, quietly carries on around them. I dust the dining room. Very carefully. Every swipe of the duster feels like I’m one clumsy elbow away from undoing six weeks’ worth of absolutely nothing. The chess pieces remain mercifully undisturbed. A small personal victory. I’ll take it. Then it’s time to hoover. “Feet up.” Without taking their eyes off the board, they both obediently lift their feet. I manoeuvre the hoover beneath the table inch by cautious inch. “Cheers.” Feet back down. As I pull the hoover back, I accidentally clip one of the table legs. Not hard. Just enough to produce a tiny wobble. I freeze. Mat freezes. Kirsty freezes. For one horrifying second, I genuinely think this is how I die. Thankfully, nothing moves. The game resumes exactly where it left off… despite never actually stopping. Days drift into weeks. Weeks quietly become months. The clocks change. I put up the Halloween decorations. Then take them down again. By December, Kirsty has become less of a guest and more of a permanent dining room fixture. She even joins us for Christmas dinner. I use the word “joins” very loosely. Technically, she’s just… there. She’s wearing a paper crown. Someone spoon-feeds her turkey between moves. Mat absent-mindedly offers her a pig in a blanket without ever looking up. She politely declines. “Mid-game,” she murmurs. Fair enough. At this point, I’d stopped questioning anything. By Easter, I’m starting to wonder whether Jesus returned before this bloody bishop did. I’ve started measuring time less by the calendar and more by whose move it is. The chessboard hasn’t moved so much as six inches. People occasionally ask who’s winning. Eventually, I stop saying, “I don’t know.” Instead, I simply tell them, “They’re both still alive, so I assume it’s close.” The post lady never knocks anymore. She lets herself in, drops the parcels beside Mat’s chair, gives the board a quick glance to see if anything’s happened… and leaves again. Even she has accepted the dining room is now his natural habitat. Then, one afternoon, I notice Mat starting to squirm. Oh, I know that squirm. His knees are pressed together. His shoulders are tense. His eyes never leave the board. Finally, barely above a whisper, he says, “…Bottle.” Oh. Right. We’ve reached this stage of the hobby. I head to the kitchen and return with an empty Lucozade bottle. Not because I’ve thought this through. Simply because this is, apparently, my life now. Without breaking eye contact with Kirsty, he performs what can only be described as an astonishing feat of concentration, balance, and complete social collapse. The game never pauses. Neither player flinches. Kirsty doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. This, apparently, is perfectly acceptable tournament etiquette. A minute later, he gives the bottle a cautious side-eye, his other eye still firmly fixed on the board. “Another bottle.” I sigh. Swap them over. No “please.” No “thank you.” Just quiet, unspoken confidence that I’ll sort it. Marriage really is a beautiful thing. After that, the bottles begin breeding. One becomes three. Three becomes six. Six becomes… enough that I stop counting. They gather around the chair like little plastic monuments to questionable life choices. Eventually, they resemble some sort of sacred shrine. Not of victory. Not to strategy. Just… piss. Every Thursday, I dust around them. Carefully. I’d hate to knock one over. The cat starts weaving between them without incident. Visitors stop asking questions. They simply step carefully around the shrine as though it’s an entirely normal feature of a house. One guest even complimented my cleaning. I decided not to ask which bit. Human beings can adapt to almost anything, it turns out. Finally… after what feels like several geological eras… a piece slides quietly into place. Silence. Then, in perfect unison, they both lean back in their chairs. Exhausted. Finished. I practically sprint into the dining room. “Well?” Mat stretches. Kirsty yawns. “So… who won?” They exchange a look. Kirsty shrugs. “Nobody.” “…What do you mean, nobody?” “We just finished.” That’s it. Months. Three seasons. A dining room rendered completely unusable. Enough bottled urine to irrigate a small allotment. And absolutely nothing to show for it. I woke up laughing. But over breakfast, I found myself thinking less about chess… and more about Mat. Perhaps the game was never really the point. Perhaps my brain had simply wrapped the whole thing up in the most ridiculous metaphor imaginable. For all the grief that job gave him, it also gave him somewhere to be. Somewhere to belong. A reason for Monday to feel different from Tuesday. When that disappeared, it left a space. And we’re funny creatures, really. We don’t like empty spaces. We rush to fill them. Sometimes with work. Sometimes with hobbies. Sometimes with something that quietly grows until it becomes all we can see. The trick, I suppose, isn’t just finding purpose. It’s remembering not to disappear inside it. Because while we’re busy making our next move, life quietly makes its own. Although… If Mat ever becomes so obsessed with a hobby that I find myself alphabetising a shrine of Lucozade bottles full of piss… I’m putting in a one-star review for Hobbycraft.