book I gave you about finding your inner French woman.”
“Thanks, but right now I just feel like curling up and dying to be honest, with or without matching underwear.”
“Oh my darling, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know, sweetpea. You’ll have to tell the children, you know,” she adds gravely.
“What do I say?”
“You tell them that Daddy has decided to go and live in England.”
“I can’t, they’ll feel totally rejected and abandoned. Can’t I just tell them that he’s gone there for work?”
“I don’t know. You really need to talk to him about that. Call him. I’ll let you know what time my flight gets there. I probably won’t be able to leave until tomorrow. I’ll have to square it with Cruella de Ville first. I’ll rent a car, so don’t worry about collecting me. What do you want from Blighty?”
I try to think of something I am missing, apart from self-waxing legs. “No, just some girlie time,” I say. “Thanks Sarah.”
I spend most of the afternoon on my bed, alternating between sleeping and fretting. I am exhausted from the events of last night but can’t seem to switch off. I look at my clock every ten minutes, worried I will fall asleep and miss the school pick-up. At 4.15 I get up and go to collect the kids.
On our way back from school, I reflect that it is now almost twenty-fourhours since I found Cécile’s bra in my husband’s luggage and so far I have done nothing at all in terms of making decisions, breaking the news to anyone except Sarah or even considering what to do with Frank and Lampard. Maybe they could transfer to old M. de Sard’s land? As long as they don’t walk through the vineyards, that is.
But never mind the peacocks, I think; I am doing a great impression of an ostrich – except that my thighs are much fatter.
I wonder how Nick’s feeling. Nick has that very male ability to move on extremely quickly. Just about the only time I ever saw him upset for more than an hour was when Chelsea lost the Champions League on goal difference to Manchester United. That was always what I thought was one of the great things about him: his optimism and joie de vivre , as they call it down my way.
He’s one of those people who always sees the silver lining as opposed to the cloud. I imagine he would have taken being dumped in France quite well. Onwards and upwards, he would have said, leaping out of bed to face the day. Whereas there is just no way I can even imagine moving on at all. I feel like a truck stuck in the mud (except there is no mud here): my wheels are spinning but I’m not getting anywhere.
I watch the children on the way home, playing tigers, crouching and pouncing and growling at each other. It’s the kind of thing I used to play, but I was always alone. My parents divorced when I was a toddler, and although my mother remarried more often than most people change their cars, she never had any more children. I always wanted to give my own kids the happy carefree childhood I didn’t have. And until the bra-in-the-bag incident, it never occurred to me that I would do anything else.
When she gets here, Sarah will tell me that this is a good opportunity to find another man, or even rekindle an old acquaintance, like Johnny Fray. But where will I begin? And who knows what murky secrets lurk in the depths of unknown men? A friend of mine ended up unwittingly dating a man who had murdered his wife. She only started to realise when she went to his cottage in the Wiltshire countryside, which was a total mess – in stark contrast to him, who was always well turned out.
“I’ve been away a long time,” he told her by way of explanation. Then he offered to show her his “special” place in the woods. Alarm bells started ringing and she rushed off, citing a somehow-forgotten appointment at the hairdresser’s at 9pm on a Friday evening.
When she got home she Googled him, and sure enough, he had been away for a long time:
“Thanks, but right now I just feel like curling up and dying to be honest, with or without matching underwear.”
“Oh my darling, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know, sweetpea. You’ll have to tell the children, you know,” she adds gravely.
“What do I say?”
“You tell them that Daddy has decided to go and live in England.”
“I can’t, they’ll feel totally rejected and abandoned. Can’t I just tell them that he’s gone there for work?”
“I don’t know. You really need to talk to him about that. Call him. I’ll let you know what time my flight gets there. I probably won’t be able to leave until tomorrow. I’ll have to square it with Cruella de Ville first. I’ll rent a car, so don’t worry about collecting me. What do you want from Blighty?”
I try to think of something I am missing, apart from self-waxing legs. “No, just some girlie time,” I say. “Thanks Sarah.”
I spend most of the afternoon on my bed, alternating between sleeping and fretting. I am exhausted from the events of last night but can’t seem to switch off. I look at my clock every ten minutes, worried I will fall asleep and miss the school pick-up. At 4.15 I get up and go to collect the kids.
On our way back from school, I reflect that it is now almost twenty-fourhours since I found Cécile’s bra in my husband’s luggage and so far I have done nothing at all in terms of making decisions, breaking the news to anyone except Sarah or even considering what to do with Frank and Lampard. Maybe they could transfer to old M. de Sard’s land? As long as they don’t walk through the vineyards, that is.
But never mind the peacocks, I think; I am doing a great impression of an ostrich – except that my thighs are much fatter.
I wonder how Nick’s feeling. Nick has that very male ability to move on extremely quickly. Just about the only time I ever saw him upset for more than an hour was when Chelsea lost the Champions League on goal difference to Manchester United. That was always what I thought was one of the great things about him: his optimism and joie de vivre , as they call it down my way.
He’s one of those people who always sees the silver lining as opposed to the cloud. I imagine he would have taken being dumped in France quite well. Onwards and upwards, he would have said, leaping out of bed to face the day. Whereas there is just no way I can even imagine moving on at all. I feel like a truck stuck in the mud (except there is no mud here): my wheels are spinning but I’m not getting anywhere.
I watch the children on the way home, playing tigers, crouching and pouncing and growling at each other. It’s the kind of thing I used to play, but I was always alone. My parents divorced when I was a toddler, and although my mother remarried more often than most people change their cars, she never had any more children. I always wanted to give my own kids the happy carefree childhood I didn’t have. And until the bra-in-the-bag incident, it never occurred to me that I would do anything else.
When she gets here, Sarah will tell me that this is a good opportunity to find another man, or even rekindle an old acquaintance, like Johnny Fray. But where will I begin? And who knows what murky secrets lurk in the depths of unknown men? A friend of mine ended up unwittingly dating a man who had murdered his wife. She only started to realise when she went to his cottage in the Wiltshire countryside, which was a total mess – in stark contrast to him, who was always well turned out.
“I’ve been away a long time,” he told her by way of explanation. Then he offered to show her his “special” place in the woods. Alarm bells started ringing and she rushed off, citing a somehow-forgotten appointment at the hairdresser’s at 9pm on a Friday evening.
When she got home she Googled him, and sure enough, he had been away for a long time:
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