The Good Divorce Guide
Cristina Odone

Harper Press

To my parents, and to Edward and Claudia, for trying to make theirs a civilised divorce.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Acknowledgements

Cristina Odone

About The Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

Five steps to take if you suspect your husband is having an affair.

1 Check the paper trail. If he told you that he was going to Woking for a conference on hair-regeneration therapy from the 9th to the 12th, but you found a Stansted-Venice boarding pass stub for the 11th-12th in his suit pocket, beware.

2 Study his reactions. ‘You’ll never believe this.’ I stood in the bathroom, brushing my hair and watching my husband in the mirror as I spoke. ‘Remember the Pearsons?’ ‘Doug and Ginnie?’ Jonathan continued methodically polishing his shoes. ‘Yup. She’s found out he’s been sleeping with their children’s French tutor!’ Jonathan looked up, surprised—but I could see no sign of a guilty conscience. ‘Poor Ginnie,’ I went on, eyes on my husband. Jonathan shrugged: ‘Yeah, she’s a sweetheart. Never liked HIM much.’

3 Provoke him. Saturday morning over breakfast: ‘Oh no, not another marriage quiz!’ I rolled my eyes, The Times in my hand. ‘OK, let’s see how we measure up. “On a scale of one to ten, how annoying is your spouse’s worst habit?”’ I studied my husband over the paper. Jonathan roared with laughter: ‘You’re not the one with annoying habits. I am.’

4 Make unexpected changes to your routine. Arrive home in the middle of the day. Pretend the film you were supposed to see was sold out and you came home early. Announce you’re off for a haircut but come back after a drive around the neighbourhood. If he gives any sign of irritation or alarm, you’re on to something.

5 Finally, taking a step I had promised never to take, a last resort I regarded as the stereotypical first resort of the paranoid wife, I check his BlackBerry for compromising messages. Even the most cunning man leaves some clues—like the ‘I wnt U2. Lst nght = hotvolcanicsex XXX’ that I found in the message inbox on Jonathan’s BlackBerry when it slipped out of his jacket pocket. I look at the sender: ‘L’. Who is ‘L’? Or is L for lover? lust? LOVE?

There he is, asleep on the sofa, The Lancet trembling on his chest, Newsnight on the telly. Here I am, standing beside him, wondering how to survive this revelation.

Jonathan, my husband of twelve years, is having an affair. After months of suspicion and covert investigation, I’ve found him out. I stand quite still as the answers to a hundred questions whirl around me: so this is why he’s had so many business trips recently. This is why he jumped when I walked in on him whispering to his BlackBerry last week. This explains his personal trainer, his new interest in what he wears, his locking his desk drawers. I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to smash his framed photo of the 1989 University Challenge team, from which he smiles, bright-eyed and long-haired.

Yet even now I cannot quite believe it. An affair. Sneaking, cheating, lying, faking…Can this be true of my solid, steady, scientist husband? I feel as if I’ve stepped out of the house on an errand, and come back to find it burgled and vandalised. Nothing is how it should be any more. How can Jonathan be having sex with someone else when only two days ago we had a fabulous marital moment that had him whistling ‘Love is in the Air’ afterwards in the shower? How can he betray me when he told me only last Saturday that we should go out for supper, a film, anything, to have some ‘us’ time? How can he cheat on me, the woman with whom he’d once said he was sleeplessly in love? I’m not saying our marriage is perfect. We can be boring, tense, uncommunicative; but we’ve never, in a dozen years, lied to each other. ‘You’re the only person I can be one hundred per cent honest with,’ Jonathan used to repeat to me. Until now.

I don’t know where we go from here. Do I play dumb and let the affair take its course? Do I confront him? Do I fight for my husband?

Worst of all is the thought of the children. Kat, twelve, and Freddy, nine, were never to have a worry in the world. Jonathan and I were as one on that score, always: we wanted the best for them, no matter what the sacrifice involved. Even when, over the past four years, I’ve had a vague feeling that I’ve been short-changed; that instead of the best I might be stuck with an ill-fitting companion; even then, I never once voiced a complaint. How could I moan about Jonathan, or trade him in, or simply dump him and move on? To do so would have upset our family. And no amount of freedom was worth that.

I study my husband asleep on the sofa. A nice face, broad forehead under brown hair (no longer long, but still plentiful), strong jaw without a hint of a double chin. But the parted lips and low rumbling of his snoring give him a slightly comical air: a sex god, he ain’t. Which is why it never occurred to me that he would find someone else. Or that someone else would choose him or chase him. Wrong.

‘Ahhhhh…I fell asleep in the wrong position.’ Jonathan blinks and winces as he starts massaging his neck. ‘Will you have a go with your healing touch?’

‘Let me see…’ Reluctantly, I knead the flesh, wondering with a kind of horrified curiosity if I might find a bite mark or a scratch there. I’m surprised at the jealousy that fills me. This man’s MINE, I want to tell the woman who texted him her lusty message. Keep your hands off him, L.

‘Hmmm…you are a genius…’ My husband beams with gratitude.

‘You are tense.’ Worn out by his double life, I reckon.

‘Work’s been non-stop.’ Jonathan gets up, stretches. ‘Tomorrow’s Tuesday, isn’t it?’ He follows me into the kitchen in his socks. ‘I’d better go through the rubbish, just so there’s no bottle caps in with the glass.’

‘Good-oh.’ I turn my back on the fussy sorting that will now take at least half an hour. Jonathan’s big on recycling, and can spend hours discussing landfill, the merits of compost, and the logic of climate change.

‘Damn, I missed Newsnight.’ Jonathan places four bottles of wine neatly in a carton that he will bring outside tomorrow morning. ‘Tea?’

‘Yes.’ I boil the kettle, set out two mugs on the counter. We stand there, sipping from our Charles and Diana Royal Wedding mugs, surrounded by children’s school books, white cabinets half-hidden by Blu-Tacked schedules, a half-opened bottle of wine and a bowl of fruit. You’d never know one of us was getting hot, volcanic, adulterous sex.

‘Ta.’ Jonathan takes the tea from me. ‘New dress?’ He gives my new Whistles wrap-around an appreciative look. ‘Nice.’

‘Thanks.’ I feel flustered: Jonathan can look at me like that while seeing someone else?! ‘I’m off to bed.’ I climb the stairs.

‘I’m off to Paris.’ Jonathan’s voice sounds flat and expressionless as he follows me upstairs. ‘On Wednesday. A conference on folliculitis.’

‘Not hair transplants? Or hair restorers?’ I ask innocently, and turn to see Jonathan start nervously: he can’t decide if he’s been caught out or I’m simply teasing him.

‘No. Definitely folliculitis.’ My husband switches off the lights downstairs and climbs up after me. ‘Definitely.’

Until recently, being married to Jonathan was easy. When friends would mock marriage as outdated or unrealistic, I’d stick up for it as the best of all possible unions. ‘Married people are healthier, and happier, than singles,’ I’d quote the latest research. ‘Married people are less likely to end up in jail, commit suicide, or go bankrupt.’ I was the marriage merchant in a world of marriage break-ups.

But am I facing a marriage break-up of my own?

Lying beside my husband on the bed, his feet hot against my cold ones, I test my reaction to this evening’s revelation as if I were a doctor trying to find the source of pain in a patient’s body. My ego is shattered, my nerves shaken, my heart in upheaval. Worse, my conscience is uneasy: have I been taking Jonathan for granted? The children, changing and growing, present a constant challenge; did I see Jonathan as something settled, someone I’d figured out? In fact, I realise with a jolt, I haven’t thought about Jonathan for years. I’ve listened to him, I’ve distracted him when things were difficult at work, I’ve co-opted him in sorting out the children’s rows. But I haven’t really engaged with Jonathan in a long time now. I didn’t feel the need to—nor did he. We talk about Kat’s homework, Freddy’s football, my mum’s pension, his mum’s prescriptions, the rise in our heating bills, the fall in house prices. Not ever about us. Somehow, I thought it a subject best left untouched. Yes, I’ve been vaguely conscious of leading life against a backdrop of mild disappointment; but I put it down to working in Dr Casey’s practice, not to marrying Jonathan Martin.

Jonathan is snoring again: a low grumble, reassuring, utterly familiar in a terrifying new landscape. I venture alone into this alien world. I can see me, on my own, at a friend’s party. Me, on my own with the children on holiday in Devon. Me, without Jonathan, cooking in the kitchen, or listening to the Today programme, or swearing at the sat nav. Me, without my husband. I blink, stare at the dark shapes in our room. I won’t sleep tonight, I know. My failures keep thumping inside my head. It’s because I’m thirty-seven. It’s because I take off my makeup in front of him. It’s because I don’t know the periodic table, or why e = mc² or who edits the BMJ. What is Jonathan’s affair about? Improving his sex life, or…or satisfying his yearning for the best mate? If this is not just about sweaty grunting sex, it could mean divorce. My children robbed of their father, me robbed of my companion, all of us robbed of our peace of mind.

No, I’m not going to stand by and watch my life being kicked around. I’m going to fight to keep my husband. I must act quickly.

Within twenty-four hours, I am sitting in L’Avventura, staring at Mimi, his personal trainer, over a basket of focaccia and a bottle of mineral water. I’ve asked her to lunch on the pretext of sounding her out about taking me on as a client. I would no more hire Mimi to teach me kickboxing than go back to being mousey-brown, but Mimi is my chief suspect. Mimi has been on the scene for months now. My husband has never been thin, but he’s also never shown the slightest interest in losing weight, building his pecs, or achieving his target working heart rate. As of last winter, though, we have been getting a constant stream of ‘Mimi says my body weight:muscle ratio needs improving…’ and ‘Mimi says I need to get my heart rate up three times a week minimum.’ I noticed that Jonathan had started weighing himself with an absurd regularity, and stealing glances at our bedroom mirror. More suspicious still, his sessions with Mimi never seemed to take place around our home, but rather, near the office in Harrow. It took me three months to arrange an accidentally-on-purpose meeting with the Australian fitness freak, and I didn’t like what I saw: slim, blonde, and extremely young.

Just his type. In fact I can’t think of many men who would deploy great physical exertion to get her out of their bed—even though she moves her lips when she reads the menu, and pronounces prosciutto ‘prosecutter’.

I have a plan.

‘Sometimes,’ I begin, ‘I think it’s such a miracle that Jonathan manages anything at all. I mean’—I look full of loving concern—‘I’m so worried he’ll end up getting like his father…it was a blessing he passed away when he did.’

‘His father?’ Mimi looks bewildered.

‘Jonathan puts on such a brave front. Especially considering he’s doped up to the eyeballs half the time.’

‘Doped up?’ The waiter brings Mimi five teeny ravioli on a rocket leaf. She doesn’t look at them.

‘Yes…he is so good about covering it up. The doctors are worried, though.’ I look mournful. ‘They’re scared it might be taking a turn for the worse.’

‘What?!’ Mimi looks gratifyingly frightened.

‘It’s been hard at times, especially because of the worry about the children. It’s genetic. The doctors say any child’—here I look intensely at Mimi—‘any child of Jonathan’s will be affected.’ I taste a forkful of risotto. ‘I think we’ve got it in time. I mean, Kat did try to throttle her guinea pig and there was the incident with Freddy biting his school friend, but…’ I lower my voice, ‘with the injections they’re getting, it should all stay under control.’

Mimi, food uneaten, shakes her head in disbelief. ‘He seems so normal…’ she mutters uncertainly. ‘He wouldn’t hurt a fly. It makes him hopeless at kickboxing.’ She crosses her arms on the tabletop and I notice a heavy gold charm bracelet. On a personal trainer’s salary? I shake my head sceptically. ‘It must be so difficult for you.’

‘It’s been hell.’ I shut my eyes as if the memory were too painful to bear.

How long has this affair been going on? I’ve been suspicious for about five months now—but it could have started even earlier. When I took the children to my mum’s for half-term? When Jonathan went to Glasgow for that conference on hair regeneration?

‘Poor you,’ Mimi whispers. ‘It must be hard to cope.’

‘It can all get a bit much.’ I nod, voice cracking with grief.

Mimi’s eyes are wide with sympathy. She leans across the table, puts her (beautifully manicured) hand on mine: ‘If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.’

‘Yes…’ I whisper.

‘You’ve been very brave.’

‘I have to be.’ I shrug.

‘I won’t forget what you told me, Rosie.’ Mimi looks sincere—and shaken.

I breathe a sigh of relief: I’ve pulled it off. As I turn to ask the waiter for the bill, I spot Jonathan through the restaurant window. He’s across the street, sheltering beneath an umbrella with Linda, his American colleague. They’re looking at one another and suddenly he reaches to touch her face. It’s only a second—but I know immediately that I’ve been lunching the wrong woman.

I look away, and hold the tabletop to steady myself. I wasn’t expecting this. Mimi, yes: sweet, obvious, none too bright. Jonathan would have fun with her, and nothing more. But Linda? When Linda first arrived at the lab, Jonathan had said she was ‘impressive’. ‘She knows her stuff ‘: he’d sounded admiring. She knows her stuff and is tall, dark and handsome (if you like a red pout, double-D breasts and legs that go on for ever). American, and half my age (or just looks that way).

I pay the bill and stay behind while Mimi, looking thoughtful and slightly worried, goes on her way.

I step out of the restaurant and begin walking towards the tube station.

It’s Tuesday, one of my two days off, so I’m not rushing back to work. Yet still I walk quickly, trying to put some distance between me and the sighting of my husband and his lover. Passers-by brush against me, cars whizz past, bicycle brakes screech. It’s muggy and grey—a bad beginning to the summer. I’m walking uphill, and my cotton dress sticks to my back. I breathe in slowly, with difficulty. I’m feeling uncomfortably sweaty, and keep tugging at my dress where it sticks to me. This is serious. But what do I do? Confront him? Ignore it? Talk it through in a friendly tête-à-tête?

Jonathan wakes up in his five-star hotel room in Venice. Linda stands, gloriously naked, by the balcony, looking down at his open case. ‘My love!’ Jonathan pulls off the sheet, inviting his lover back into the bed. ‘What is this filth?’ Linda throws a handful of seamy fetishist mags on to the bed. ‘You know what? You are sick!’ She snatches her clothes and runs from the room.

Scenario number two: Jonathan is in the kitchen of the little love nest he and Linda are renting from a friend of hers. He is opening a bottle of wine (Châteauneuf-du-Pape—nothing but the best for his beloved) and looking forward to the cinq-?sept he has so brilliantly organised. Suddenly he hears what sounds like sobs from the bedroom. He rushes next door to find Linda weeping, holding a letter in her hand. ‘How could you? You’re two-timing me!’ She throws the sheet of paper at him. Jonathan slowly unfolds the letter and reads, in a handwriting that looks vaguely familiar, a breathless declaration of love from someone who signs herself as T. ‘It fell from your jacket pocket…’

Or scenario number three: Linda sits, massaging rose oil into her naked body, in anticipation of an afternoon’s lovemaking. She and Jonathan are attending a conference on folliculitis in Florence. He’s in the shower. The phone rings.

‘Hello?’ she purrs.

‘Hello, this is Gould Jewellery in Hatton Gardens. Is it possible to speak with Mr Martin?’

‘Afraid not. Can I help?’

‘Oh, I don’t know…’ the woman’s voice sounds reluctant.

‘I’m his partner.’

‘Well…just to let him know the emerald ring he wanted tightened is ready for collection.’

‘B-b-b-b-b-but what ring?’

‘The one with the engraving in the band—“For Lola with Love”.’

‘What?!!’ Linda splutters as the line goes dead.

This is how I deal with my jealousy in my imagination: I wreak revenge. I spend hours at my desk at Dr Casey’s surgery planning the different vendettas, and imagining the shock on the lovers’ faces.

‘Rosie, did you hear what I said?’ Mrs Stevens startles me. It’s always the way: Mrs S ignores me all day, pretending I’m but a speck of dust in her beloved Dr Casey’s wood-panelled offices. Then, just as I am deep in texting Jill or in a phone conversation with the children after school, she pounces, beady eyes gleaming with dislike, and exposes me for what I am: a medical receptionist and administrative assistant desperate to swap this part-time job for a full-time one as counsellor. Kat and Freddy are old enough now, and I’ve sent in my application for a four-year course. By the fourth, I’ll be allowed to have my own ‘clients’, with a qualified counsellor monitoring our sessions.

‘Did you put Mrs Morrow’s file back?’

I start rummaging through the metal filing cabinet.

‘Should be here,’ I mutter, as I search among the alphabetically arranged manila envelopes. In fact, I suddenly remember to my horror, I have left the Botox patient’s substantial file beside my coffee in the kitchenette.

‘I don’t think you’ll find it there.’ Mrs S smiles smugly. ‘My question was purely rhetorical. I found the file by the coffee machine—you managed to get a stain on it, as well.’ An eyebrow shoots up: ‘I do wish you would concentrate on the task at hand.’

With a triumphant air, she watches me turn red. Then she slaps down the file, turns on her sensible heel, and sails away. She leaves me wondering, for the umpteenth time, if I shouldn’t hand in my resignation now, rather than wait to see whether I’ve been accepted on the counselling course. I’ve been working for Dr Hugh Casey, well-known dermatologist, since Freddy was four and I decided the children would not be traumatised if I were to step back into the work place a few days a week.

When Jonathan and I met, I was twenty-two and working at HOME, a charity for the homeless. Jonathan was a pharmacologist bent on finding new drugs to revolutionise existing treatments. He yearned for the glory of being published in the BMJ—and the profits that would come in the wake of his discovery. By the time we had been going out for about a year, Jonathan had started talking about our future family; then the family was no longer just talk but a loud and needy wail from the little pink room I grandly called the nursery. I left HOME for home and soon found my daughter so engrossing, and Freddy’s arrival so overwhelming, that work languished. Jonathan encouraged me to stay with the children, taking pride in the fact that he could provide for his family.

Five years ago, though, I decided to ease my way back into work. I wanted something not too taxing, part-time, that would allow me to do what I enjoy doing most: listening to people. ‘You certainly have a knack for getting people to open up,’ my dad’s patients would tell me when, as a teenager, I earned pocket money by helping out in his GP’s practice. I soon realised that often the men and women who filed in were distressed not so much because they were ill but because they were lonely, worried, unhappy, or just a little down. I only needed to give them an opening, and they would lean on the counter and unburden themselves about the daughter who hadn’t shown up at Christmas, or the husband who had died last spring.

When I joined Dr Casey’s practice as a part-time receptionist, I looked forward to working with his patients—or clients, as Mrs Stevens likes to remind me: they might not work the land as my father’s Somerset patients did, or have priceless stories about their barnyard animals; but they would surely be eager to share similar small triumphs and secret sorrows. Dr Casey had recently cottoned on to the way he could more than double his profits by offering cosmetic treatments such as facial peel, Botox and collagen injections to his existing clients. He soon had back-to-back appointments to freeze foreheads, plump out lines and remove age spots for long queues of elderly dowagers and their daughters and daughters-in-law. Our waiting room filled with glossy women in sunglasses deep into copies of Vogue and Tatler. Most were forty—or fifty-something, but there was also a clutch of unbelievably young girls who thought they had to act now to stop time from having its wicked way with them.

Unfortunately, Dr Casey was already sixty-plus when he discovered the riches he could make from cosmetic treatments. His plump white hands might not tremble, quite, but they are not as sure as they once were; and in the trade, and among some of the less than satisfied clients, he has been dubbed the Butcher of Belgravia.

Dr Casey’s patients believe that their money entitles them not only to a timeless face but also to unending sympathy. This is where I step in: I book their appointments, greet them when they come, and above all listen, as temporary confidante, when they tell how their husbands tease them that they’re no longer spring chickens, their careers depend on their youthful looks and friends have recommended a make-over to inject a bit of wow! into their lives.

Comforting wealthy women whose faces have turned to stone, or lips to balloons, is a far cry from the cutting-edge work among drug addicts I once dreamt of. But Dr Casey is an amiable man: ‘Top o’ the morning!’ he cries cheerily in a cod Irish accent as he steps into his elegant offices. The women who flock to him stir my protective instincts. I manage to remember their names and most of their family members’, and for this they are grateful and praise me to Dr Casey, who winks at me, pleased; and to Mrs Stevens, who sniffs, unimpressed. Despite Mrs S’s best efforts, the hours are flexible and my tasks not too onerous. Getting to Hans Crescent after the school run takes twenty-five minutes max by tube.

Only Jill, now a GP, expressed disapproval of my decision to work for Dr Casey’s practice: ‘Why be with that old fraud? What about all the good work you were going to do? All those kids you were going to help?’

‘Working here suits me right now. It’s easy.’

‘Since when is easy best?’ Jill scoffed.

‘If I have to commit full time to a demanding job, I can’t look after the children, the house and Jonathan.’

‘Jonathan shouldn’t need looking after!’ Jill shook her head crossly. ‘You’ve got a gift for listening—you shouldn’t limit yourself to hearing about botched lip jobs.’

‘Oh, Jill!’ I cried, stung. ‘It’s not like I’m a paid-up member of the ladies-who-lunch club.’

‘Don’t you think it’s a bit dangerous to dumb down? I mean, I know I shouldn’t say this, but what if you and Jonathan ever split up?’

From across the room, Mrs Stevens is watching me, so I pretend to look through Mrs Morrow’s file—she’s overdue for her Botox appointment, it’s more than four months since the last one—while steeling myself for the difficult campaign to keep my marriage from collapsing.

After work, I go to Tesco’s. I come home lugging three carrier bags that would break a donkey’s back. I’m slightly out of breath as I make my way to our large kitchen. The appliances are ancient and the wooden table scarred, but I love this room with its Aga, bay window and white tiles. Jonathan prides himself on his gourmet cooking—‘the fastest way to relax outside the bedroom’ he always tells me—and sets great store by the Magimix, the collection of Le Creuset casserole dishes and Sabatier knives, plus a whole alphabet of glass jars of exotic herbs. I enjoy watching him frown as he takes up a pinch of this, a dash of that, mixing ingredients as if they were solutions in his lab. On weekends he takes over the kitchen to produce succulent cassoulet, or Thai coconut soup, or spicy salmon tartare. Weeknights are mine, though, and I cook my hearty if less sophisticated favourites. Jonathan is usually kind about my efforts—though he can’t resist sharing a tip or two: ‘That cauliflower cheese hits the spot, Rosie. But have you tried sprinkling it with breadcrumbs before you take it out of the oven?’

‘Mu-um!’ Freddy calls out from upstairs. ‘I need you to help me glue my Viking ship!’

‘Where’s the please?’ I shoot back. Even while contemplating your husband’s adultery, manners matter. ‘Let me get supper going and then I’ll help you.’

‘Mu-um,’ Kat looks over the banister, ‘Molly’s here. She needs advice.’ Molly’s head pops up beside her. Molly Vincent lives next door but can be found here most afternoons, munching biscuits and telling us about her difficulties with her boyfriend, her teachers and her mum. ‘What should I do, Rosie?’ she always moans, picking at the chipped black polish on her nails. At twelve, she’s the same age as Kat—but mercifully my daughter seems about five years younger. Carolyn Vincent is always apologetic about her daughter ‘bending your ear,’ but I don’t mind—or rather, I didn’t. Now I wonder if I should confess that I’m in no position to advise anyone about how to lead their lives.

‘I’d love to, girls, but Molly’s mum just texted me that she wants Molly over for supper now.’

‘Oooooooooh noooooooo!’ Molly’s dramatic disappointment is followed by her sloping down the stairs, with Kat disappearing back into her room before I can ask her to give me a hand in putting away the groceries.

‘Bye bye, Kat. Bye, Rosie. Goodbye, Mr Martin!’ Molly waves over her shoulder. ‘See you tomorrow.’

‘Goodbye.’ Jonathan, sunk into his favourite armchair, doesn’t look up from his paper. Then, to me, ‘Hullo!’ The sight of my treacherous husband infuriates me: he sits there, waiting for me to cook, pour him our 6.30 glass of wine, chit-chat as if nothing was going on. I start unpacking, slamming doors, banging drawers shut.

‘A hell of a day…’ Jonathan comes into the kitchen.

When did we stop greeting each other with a kiss? He takes a bottle of Rioja from the wine rack he and Freddy built for my birthday present last year. ‘I think old Bill really is getting past it. He was practically snoring during the CostDrug presentation.’ My husband shakes his head over such a lapse. ‘What’s for supper?’

‘I’ll tell you what’s NOT for supper,’ I burst out, as I slap the haddock fillets on to a baking tin. ‘Hot volcanic sex!’

Chapter 2

Jonathan blinks at me, mouth open. ‘Wh-wh-wh-what…?’

‘You heard.’ I stare at him across the table where we have shared meals, card games and late-night discussions about us, the children, our friends, the world.

‘You’ve been spying on me!’

‘You’ve been cheating on me!’

I wonder if the children can hear us upstairs. But Kat is bound to be glued to her mobile, and I can hear the rhythmic thud of Freddy’s computer game. So I let rip: ‘You thought you had it all worked out, didn’t you? Me here, her there—you would have kept the whole thing going for years if I hadn’t caught you out!’ My voice breaks, but I go on: ‘How could you? Sex with someone in the office—it’s so…squalid!’

Jonathan looks as if he’s about to shout back, but then he breathes in deeply and issues a slow sigh. ‘It’s not squalid. She’s not squalid. She’s beautiful, she’s kind, she’s…clever.’

The word hits me and I jump back, as if it had been a splatter of grease from a frying pan.

Jonathan sees my reaction and looks pained. He draws nearer, and starts to put his hand out towards mine, before letting it fall. ‘I’m sorry. I know this hurts. You deserve better.’ He shakes his head. ‘We’ve been working side by side for a year. She’s been involved in the hair follicle regeneration project. It was bound to happen.’

‘Bound to happen? You’re shameless!’

‘Stop it, Rosie.’ Jonathan speaks quietly, patiently, the embarrassed husband of a fishwife from the backstreets of Naples.

‘How long has it been going on for?’

‘I…’ Jonathan looks sheepish. ‘I realised she was interested in everything I was interested in back in January. But’—here he looks proud of himself—‘it didn’t start until three months ago.’

‘You’ve lied to me!’

‘I was going to tell you,’ Jonathan replies quietly as he sits on the bar stool at the counter.

‘What? That you’ve been cheating on me?’ I’m standing, hands on hips. ‘That you don’t love me any more?’

‘Don’t pretend you love me any more,’ he snaps back.

I gasp. ‘How can you say that?!’

My husband looks at me unblinking: ‘It’s true.’

I swallow hard. I look away from the man in front of me. Do I love him? Of course I do. Don’t I? What else has kept me by his side for twelve years? I’ve given him two children and given up a job. I’ve put up with his parents’ dislike and his colleagues’ condescension. I’ve put up with his constant sharing of such riveting facts as an elephant defecates twenty kilos a day and the longest river in China is the Yangtze. I’ve reassured him when he thought his colleagues were being promoted above him, supported him when he had to work 24/7, cheered him on when he was ready to give up on his great invention, or buying this house, or building Freddy’s Lego castle. For twelve years I’ve worn pastel blue because it’s his favourite colour and Diorella because it’s his favourite scent. If that’s not love, what is?

‘Look,’ Jonathan brings his hands up to cover his face, ‘I don’t want a row.’ His voice is quiet, convinced. ‘We were both growing bored and giving less.’

Growing bored? Well, yes, it can be a bore to be shush!-ed when we’re driving back from a party, while my husband yells ‘The Congo!’ and ‘Elizabeth I!’ and ‘Tin!’ in answer to Brain of Britain. And yes, Jonathan gets on my nerves when he turns our friends’ incipient baldness into an opportunity to plug his invention—‘I think Ted’s coming along nicely. He’ll soon be asking me about Zelkin’; or ‘Sam’s grown incredibly thin on top, have you noticed? I wonder if I might not tell him about Zelkin…’ And I remember how boring he gets when he insists on updating his files with newspaper clippings on everything from ‘Chinese restaurants’ to ‘children’s museums’. But it doesn’t amount to grounds for divorce. At least, not in my book.

‘We both deserve better,’ Jonathan continues.

Do we? It’s true that when I spot our lovey-dovey neighbours, the Vincents, patting one another on the bottom or cooing at one another over a barbecue in the garden, I feel that I too deserve someone with whom I can be in tune, rather than in denial.

Our marriage, then, could be better. Yes, I do sometimes think that the elastic has given way, and what was once a support that made us the best we could be, now hangs loose, feels uncomfortable and risks dropping altogether, making us look ridiculous and shoddy.

I look down, to see whether my marriage is round my ankles.

‘You’re only cross,’ my husband is telling me, ‘because I beat you to finding the Right One.’

I know when I’m beaten. I draw up the second bar stool and perch on it, across from my husband. ‘I trusted you.’

‘You still can.’ Jonathan looks earnest. ‘I’ll look after you and the children, no matter what.’

‘What does “no matter what” mean?’ My voice trembles: I’m scared now, as well as angry. ‘You can’t seriously be saying that you’re going to risk upsetting our family for a bit of nookie with some…some…slut!’

Jonathan draws himself up, and a familiar expression, but not one I have seen him wear for years now, comes over him: ‘Take it out on me, Rosie. I understand. You’re angry and hurt. But don’t call Linda a slut.’ I breathe in sharply: Linda! The ‘L’! But Jonathan ignores my reaction and goes on: ‘She tried to fight this for months. She was ready to get out of hair and get into skin. She almost took a job in California to get away.’ He shakes his head. ‘She has been worried about you and the children from the start. She wants to meet you, you know, she wants to explain herself…Will you?’

‘Oh please, Jonathan!’ I cry. ‘You can’t expect me to be ready for a tête-à-tête with your lover.’

‘No, no, of course not.’ Jonathan looks sheepish. ‘Not yet.’ He shoots me a look. ‘But you will, won’t you, at some point? It will make everything so much easier.’

I’ve suddenly recognised the expression that has altered Jonathan’s features: love.

‘What happens now?’ I ask, defeated.

Jonathan doesn’t answer.

I bite my lip. The only way I can see him putting this behind him is if the children and I are not on tap. Once he starts missing us, I doubt Linda stands a chance. I study my husband’s dazed, faraway expression. I remember it from sunny afternoons when we lay, exhausted after lovemaking, on our bed. Jonathan doesn’t stir. I’m damned if I’m going to sit here waiting passively for him to dictate the terms of my life.

‘I think a period of separation would be sensible, don’t you?’ I don’t want a divorce. My husband may be a habit, not a soul mate; and my marriage may be tired, not thrilling: but I won’t be pushed out of either.

‘Yes, if that’s what you want.’ Jonathan doesn’t meet my eyes.

‘It’s what I need.’ I cross my arms resolutely. ‘At least this way I’ll have time to sort things out in my own mind.’

Jonathan looks up and finally meets my gaze. ‘You’ve got a lot to offer, Rosie. You’re a good-looking woman, kind, and a great mum and…and you’re still the easiest person to talk to.’

A lot to offer—but not enough for him.

The thing to remember about a separation: there is your separation, his separation, and everyone else’s view of your separation.

Jill rushes over the next day: ‘That rat! God, I want to kill him!…look, don’t worry, I’ve been there. I’ll help you.’ She stands in the doorway, a bottle of wine in hand. Beneath her glossy black fringe, green eyes shine wide with sympathy.

‘I’m actually fine,’ I try to say, but she hugs me so tight the words are crushed against her yellow shirt dress.

‘Don’t breathe in, whatever you do. I’ve sweated my own body weight. I’ve just come from my Bikram yoga session.’ Since marrying a man five years younger, Jill has been trying out anything that promises to restore her youth. She smiles: ‘Brought some vino. God knows, we both need it. Though I shouldn’t be drinking.’ Jill shakes her head disconsolately, sending the short glossy black hair swinging, left to right. ‘The latest research says three units of alcohol a day are more ageing than a week in the sun without SPF.’

Looking slim and tanned in her short dress, Jill strides past, pulling me in her wake, as if I were the visitor rather than the hostess. ‘Let’s stick two fingers up at that pig. He was chippy, an intellectual snob, and had no sense of humour.’

‘Jill, do you mind!’ I stop my ears, looking cross. But I always listen to Jill: she’s been my protector since the first day we met at University College, when a trendy third year in a black patent leather miniskirt was teasing me about my old-fashioned Laura Ashley dress. ‘At least Rosie doesn’t look like one of Nature’s little jokes,’ Jill had snarled, giving my critic a withering look.

‘You need a drink.’ Jill beckons me to follow her into the kitchen where she slides off her Prada rucksack and places it on the back of a chair. ‘Glasses,’ she murmurs and rummages through the cupboard to find two. ‘When Ross left me, wine became like a saline drip to a comatose patient.’

I watch her, a little dazed, as she twists the wine open and pours it. Jonathan used to call her terrifying: my best friend effortlessly takes over most gatherings, and most situations. ‘She makes a man feel redundant,’ my husband had complained when they’d first met. Only men like your friends, I’d felt like answering. There was Tim, capable of amazing work in the lab but only of locker-room banter outside it; and Perry, who’d left pharmacology for the City and only thought of money. Jonathan kept assuring me they were clever and kind, and when Jill and I shared a flat in Islington after uni, he’d encouraged them to chat her up. But Tim’s idea of breaking the ice had been to let out a wolf-whistle as Jill swivelled her legs out of her Mini; while Perry had spent most of their dinner at an Italian restaurant calculating on the back of his napkin what he reckoned the takings were. ‘I really appreciate your looking out for me,’ Jill had told us, ‘but Tim’s only interested in getting it on and Perry’s only interested in raking it in. There might just be more to life, don’t you agree?’

‘Now’—Jill sits at the table and motions me to sit in front of her—‘tell me all about it.’ She crosses her arms on the tabletop and looks me straight in the eyes: ‘Who is she?’

‘A colleague. But actually it’s my decision…’

‘Bastard.’ Jill kicks off her high-heeled mules, stretches her legs out. With her long, lean frame and sharp haircut my best friend always makes me feel small and floppy in comparison. ‘It’s an open-and-shut case. He’s dumped his loyal, loving wife of twelve years.’ She beams a big grin: ‘He’s cheated on you and he’s gotta pay for your heartbreak.’

‘Actually, I’m not heartbroken.’

‘That’s the spirit!’ Jill’s red-nailed hand pats mine. ‘Don’t let the bastards get you down.’

‘I mean’—I shake my head—‘it’s not how you see it. Jonathan has found another woman, but I’m not devastated. The separation is my idea.’

‘Hmmm.’ Jill shoots me a look that shows she’s not convinced. ‘A bad marriage is like two drunks fighting: it doesn’t get any better, and someone’s got to break it up.’ She pours more wine. ‘Let me give you a few tips. First: you can see a shrink, a marriage counsellor, a clairvoyant—anyone—but you MUST get yourself the best divorce lawyer in town. Mine was known as the husband beater.’ Jill winks. ‘She left Ross battered and bruised.’

I have a fleeting image of Ross Warren, the dopey and dope-smoking younger son of a wealthy Gloucestershire farmer. He was a potter, charmingly hopeless and totally unsuited to Jill. They were married for three years, until he left her for a Latvian waitress. Or was she a dog-walker?

‘This is a separation, not a divorce.’

‘Second tip’—Jill ignores my protest—‘only ring your ex during office hours.’ Here she gives a sharp mirthless laugh. ‘I can’t tell you how many nights I spent snivelling on the phone to Ross. I told him I loved him, I’d forgive him, I’d take him back and never complain about a thing again…all kinds of stuff that at three p.m. would never have crossed my lips but by midnight sounded fine. Soooooo embarrassing. Third tip: don’t, whatever you do, find out the other woman’s address, email, telephone numbers…’ Jill pauses and for a nano-second looks embarrassed. ‘Unfortunately, I had gone through Ross’s computer and had every possible contact detail for Inga.’

‘You didn’t…’

‘I did.’ Jill nods her head and can’t hide a smile. ‘She got quite a few calls from Immigration requesting she show up at their offices. Then her name and mobile number somehow ended up in the Time Out personal ads—in a box that said something along the lines of “Busty Inga is just the thinga when you’re hot to trot”.’

‘Jill, how could you?!’ For the first time in days, I’m laughing.

‘I know, I know—wicked, isn’t it?’ Jill laughs too, then grows serious. ‘What do the children know?’

‘That their father and I need a break from each other. Just for a while.’ I swallow hard. ‘I can’t bear the thought of anything hurting them.’

‘No. Of course not.’ Jill’s eyes grow dark with longing: my best friend is thirty-eight and on her third cycle of IVF. Then she shakes her head. ‘You’ve got to move quickly, and club him before he can collect his wits.’

‘I don’t want to club him. I don’t wish him ill.’

Jill’s eyes widen into round Os. ‘That’s the shock talking. When you come to, you’ll want to milk him dry.’

‘He’s my children’s father…’

‘She’s your husband’s lover.’ Jill takes a long sip, then twirls her flute pensively: ‘You should get your revenge. Leave them penniless.’

‘Jill, I don’t want a nasty, messy break-up. Neither does Jonathan.’ I finish my glass. ‘I believe we can separate in a really civilised, non-traumatic way.’

‘And I bet’—Jill leans over, up close—‘that you believe in Father Christmas too.’

Mealtimes, I discover over the next few days, are tricky. Even though I’ve moved his chair into the garden shed, and leap in to fill every conversational gap with some innocuous comment about their school or my work, nothing can disguise the Jonathan-shaped hole at our table. I’ve taught myself to check the table setting before calling the children: if I’m not careful, I’m on automatic pilot to set for four, which then means I hurriedly whisk plate, fork, and knife away while Kat and Freddy look on, sad but silent.

But mealtimes could be tricky with Jonathan around, too. There was hair: ‘I’d be very interested to see if Louis Vincent keeps that head of hair,’ Jonathan would say, raking a hand through his own thick dark curls. ‘He’s what—forty? Forty-one? It really is phenomenally full. Unusual in a fair, Nordic type. Far more common in a dark-haired Latin. Which is why Zelkin sales are not very good in France or Italy.’

There was food: ‘Hmmmm…’ Jonathan would savour the mouthful of risotto, then cast me a suspicious look. ‘Did you make it with proper stock or is this a stock cube? I’m getting a slight aftertaste of monosodium glutamate…’ And I’d own up, feeling criminal for having failed to spend two hours boiling a chicken carcass with onion (four cloves stuck into it), bay leaf, carrot and two stalks of celery, as my gourmand husband insisted gave the best flavour.

Then there was the ‘Quiz’: ‘Let’s see, children, who can tell me how many wives Henry VIII sent to the block?’ Or, ‘Can anyone remember what a coniferous tree is?’ While I’d roll my eyes at supper being turned into quiz night at the local church hall, the children enjoyed their father’s inquisition, giggling openly about their ignorance and looking admiringly as Jonathan answered his own questions.

Without Jonathan, suppers were quieter but less testing.

‘Freddy, elbows off the table,’ I warn, ladling gravy over each plate. ‘Kat, put that phone away.’

I watch the children eat. Freddy’s round cheeks fill as he slowly chews the chicken. His expression is serious, brows gathered in thought. Freddy hasn’t shed a tear over our separation, but he’s coming to my room every morning at five, a toddler’s habit he’d shaken off six years ago. Your son needs you, Jonathan, I mentally address my husband, it’s no good pretending a part-time dad will do. I turn to Kat as she pours herself a glass of water. She has my mum’s colouring, darker than mine, but the shape of her mouth, her profile, even some of her mannerisms are reminiscent of a younger, fresher version of me. As she sits now, head to one side, a faraway look in her eyes, I am reminded of my twelve-year-old self, sitting between Dad and Tom at supper, eager to join in the grown-up conversation. I took our family’s wholeness for granted; it was a given that Mum and Dad were together, and would stay that way for ever. No such givens in Kat’s life. And without them, can she grow up confident and happy and independent?

A bleep brings me back to the supper table; under the table, I see Kat’s fingers busily tap-tapping away on her mobile.

‘Kat! The phone! It’s rude.’

‘OK, OK, it’s off !’ Kat sulkily switches off her mobile. ‘What’s the big deal?’

‘It makes us think we don’t mean anything to you.’

‘Mum…’ Freddy sets down his fork and turns to me, suddenly serious; ‘do you think that’s why Dad left?’

‘Apparently one in two marriages end in divorce.’ My mother sets down her weekend bag. ‘We’re getting worse than the Scandinavians.’

‘It’s not divorce, Mum,’ I explain patiently. ‘It’s a trial separation. We need some time to think.’

‘I don’t think he’ll be using the time to think.’ My mum extracts her flowery toiletries bag.

We’re in the guest bedroom, once taken up by a succession of Latvian, Polish, and Hungarian au pairs. Now Otilya, our cleaner for the past ten years, has stemmed the flow of au pairs by offering to watch the children until I get home from work.

‘I never thought’—my mother shakes her head mournfully—‘it would happen in our family.’ She sighs. ‘It’s horrible. What am I going to tell your Aunt Lillian? And Cousin Margaret? Oh, it’s so…so embarrassing.’

Embarrassing? I give my mother a look: ever since I was this high, my mother has managed to embarrass me. Other mums accompanied the class responsibly on school trips; mine got caught smoking with the sixth formers and led the back of the bus in rousing renditions of ‘The Good Ship Venus’. Other mums might gently query their child’s mark with the relevant teacher; mine would write them five-page letters warning them not to be so provincial in their thinking. Other mums would put off any talk of the birds and the bees; mine was drawing diagrams and labelling them with rude words and inviting my friends to have a look ‘and see what’s what’.

Embarrassing, indeed.

With a huge effort I swallow my reproaches. She’s here and the summer holidays have not got off to a great start, as Jonathan has just announced that he thinks our usual fortnight in Devon would be ‘inappropriate’ this year.

‘Cup of tea?’ I volunteer.

‘I’ll come down with you, let me just organise my things,’ my mum says as she starts unpacking. Quickly and methodically, she hangs up her summer dresses and places her shirts and underwear in neat rows in the chest of drawers (I must have been looking for my mum when I married a neatness freak). She is always organising things: her house in the little village in Somerset she and Dad retired to; the members of her local Ladies’ Lawn Tennis Club; my dad’s life as a GP; mine and Tom’s as their none-too-ambitious children. She didn’t organise Dad’s untimely death, though, or my brother’s marriage to an Australian, who insists on Tom staying in Oz. And these failures spur her on to be even more in control of what is left.

‘I’ll come right over,’ Mum had said when I rang to tell her about Jonathan leaving home. ‘You need your mother at a time like this.’ She would brook no argument, and rang me within half an hour with station, platform and arrival time. Exhausted from days of poor sleep, I was too tired to argue—or remember that my mum’s assistance is not quite the balm to human suffering she believes.

‘I always did worry about your different backgrounds.’ Mum shakes her head as she hangs up her dress.

I haven’t forgotten the scene she made when she found out I was marrying a working-class boy from Leeds: ‘You are mad, barking mad! He won’t know how to hold his knife and fork!’

‘Mum, he’s lovely and so clever. His boss says he’s got a brilliant future ahead of him.’

‘I bet they have illuminated reindeers on the porch at Christmas.’

But Mum calmed down when Jonathan impressed my dad by confessing that he read the BMJ for pleasure. My parents’ grudging acceptance turned into positive praise when Jonathan made money with the patenting of Zelkin and invited them to stay with us the summer we rented a villa in the Dordogne.

‘Honestly,’ Mum now says, mouth set, ‘I don’t know how he could do it.’

‘He’s in love,’ I say, and I don’t think I sound too bitter.

‘Thank goodness your father’s not here to see it.’ My mother is rustling through her weekend bag. ‘Here, I brought you this—’ She pulls out a brochure and hands it over. ‘I know it’s not really your age group, but an older man might be just the ticket. And I thought it might take your mind off things.’

I look down at the glossy photos of a SAGA cruise around the Med.

‘Mu-um, I’m getting separated, not Alzheimer’s!’ I hand her back the brochure. I think ruefully of Jill’s comment about ‘the three stages of womanhood: “Aga, Saga, Gaga.”’

‘Well,’ my mother sniffs, ‘I found it very helpful when your father passed away.’

‘It’s not the same.’

‘No. Your father never chose to leave me.’

In her eyes, clearly, I’m a reject, she’s a survivor.

‘You’ve got to protect those poor children.’ My mother follows me down to the kitchen. ‘I know you’re still…raw, but I hope you’re not going to take this lying down, Rosie.’

I fill the kettle. ‘Mum, you’re just thinking in stereotypes…’

But Mum interrupts, cocking her head to one side to look at me appraisingly: ‘You look as if you’ve put on weight. Do you think that’s why—’

‘Mu-um!’ I cry, exasperated.

‘Sorry, darling, didn’t mean to upset you.’

Mum has never been one for diplomacy. When I was ten, miserable because my classmates were teasing me about my braces, Mum looked at the silver twin track that ran across my face and told me, ‘You do look dreadful, darling, but only for another two years.’ I catch sight of my reflection, distorted into a swollen shape on the shiny metallic microwave, and feel the tears sting: I do look dreadful.

‘You gave him the best years of your life.’ My mother shakes her head woefully.

‘I’ve still got a few left, Mum.’

‘They’re all the same’—Mum ignores me as she sips from her mug—‘these modern men. Not a thought about duties and responsibilities. It’s all about fun fun fun.’

‘That’s not fair on Jonathan.’

‘Fair? I don’t want to be fair. Is it fair for him to dump you when you’re nearly forty?’

‘He hasn’t dumped me,’ I protest. ‘Remember? The separation is my idea.’

‘What makes me spit is the thought of his having the pick of any woman he chooses, while you’ll be stuck with some broke divorc?or some Mama’s boy who’s not fit for anyone.’ Mum helps herself to the tin of biscuits. She starts to nibble a digestive. ‘Trust me,’ she says as she wipes the crumbs from the corners of her mouth, ‘it’s awful out there.’

I wince at the thought of my mum experiencing ‘out there’—does she date? Did she try to find herself a lover after Daddy died? She has looked the same for as long as I can remember: a soft brown bob that frames her remarkably unlined face, brown eyes brought out with charcoal-grey eye shadow, a lipstick that is more wine-hued than scarlet red. Her clothes are always neat and feminine, not so much eye-catching as a perfect complement to her trim frame. She is still, I realise for the first time in years, attractive.

‘Now, the thing is not to traumatise the children,’ my mother is saying decisively as we retreat into the sitting room. ‘We really need to show them that you will all do fine without Daddy, and that no one’s cross with anyone, and no one’s playing the blame game.’ She settles in the armchair, and takes out her crossword. ‘We’ll reassure them with a cosy family weekend. You’ll see.’ She tucks her feet under her legs and starts nibbling on her pencil. ‘Two across: “Hellish time…seven letters…” Hmmm…Divorce?’

Chapter 3

I fetch the kids from the tennis club. Feeling guilty about Devon, Jonathan has enrolled them for expensive tennis lessons. He should feel guilty, because although it’s true, as I told Mum, that we’ve done our best to reassure the children that relations between us are good, they are showing signs of anxiety: Kat is texting furiously, day and night, and seems totally indifferent to everything around her; Freddy is still coming to my bed at dawn, and has to be led back to his room with whispered assurances of love and devotion. Both cling to me, whenever we’re together: Freddy holds on to my skirt, clutches my hands, and climbs on to my lap the moment I sit down; Kat watched an entire episode of Dr Who with her head on my shoulder.

As I walk towards Haverstock Hill, I decide that I must enlist my mum’s aid, so that together we can drive home the point that our separation is not an act of hostility. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if I couldn’t turn Jonathan’s straying, and his guilt, to my advantage. Now that I’m being given time to review our marriage, I can think of a number of areas that need improving: Jonathan’s workaholism, his hours on the computer playing Mensa brain games, his obsession with files, drawers, and boxes, his horrendous taste in ties…Yes, if we use this time of separation wisely, we can improve our life together.

Even the children will benefit from that. Meanwhile, Mum must help me cheer them up. We can take them to a movie, and maybe go for a meal at Gourmet Burger Kitchen, or that nice caf?in Regent’s Park. Mum can do the granny routine and ask about friends and we could plan her stay at Christmas—she comes up every year, staying into the New Year—so that they know that some things are going to stay the same.

‘Mrs Martin?’

I turn to find Mr Parker, the skinny little man who runs Belsize Parker Estate Agents. He stands, as usual, on the pavement outside his bright green office, Marlboro in one hand, mobile in the other.

‘How are we doing?’ He ends his call and stubs out his cigarette.

‘Fine, fine.’ I try to look like I’m in a hurry.

‘I heard’—Mr Parker’s eyes find his shoes, then my face again—‘about your circumstances…just wanted to offer my sincere sympathy.’

I wonder how news of our separation has reached the property world, but then I remember that Otilya cleans for Mrs Parker on Saturday mornings.

‘Yes. Well, it’s sad, but’—I try to look determined, independent, business-like—‘we need a bit of time to…’

‘I was just wondering if Mr Martin’s found something to rent?’ Mr Parker’s little eyes sparkle with hope. I notice that his pinstripe suit looks too big for him, as if it were a hand-me-down uniform that he, or his parents, were hoping he would grow into.

‘You’ll have to talk to him.’ I’m not going to find my husband a nice flat in which to nest, for goodness’ sake. ‘I’m off to fetch the children…’ I try to walk on, but Mr Parker is at my heels:

‘Nearby would be convenient, given the situation.’ He coughs and splutters, out of breath. You can’t smoke thirty a day and hope to keep up with a woman in a hurry. ‘And I’ve got a nice little flat that would be just the ticket.’

‘Do give Jonathan a ring,’ I call to Mr Parker over my shoulder.

He is at a trot now, still pitching: ‘Obviously I know this won’t be for long, he’s looking for a short-term let,’ he splutters behind me, ‘but they’re hard to come by these days, and I think I could get him a good deal.’

‘I’m sure he’d love to hear from you!’ I shout as I sprint for the gates to the low-bricked buildings of Belsize Tennis Club.

‘If you wouldn’t mind giving me his mobile number…’ I hear Mr Parker calling out as I enter the revolving doors before me. Before I can answer I’m being rotated into the warmth of the club.

The children let out a whoop when they hear who’s waiting at home for them.

‘Granny! Yippee!’ they chant as we stroll back home—unaware that I’ve short-circuited England’s Lane and Mr Parker’s agency by going the long way round. ‘Granny, hurrah!’

Jonathan’s mum lives too far away, and is too reserved, for the children to feel totally comfortable with her, but my parents (and since my father’s death, my mum) have always made them feel totally at ease. The criticism she cannot stop doling out to me is forgotten when it comes to her beloved grandchildren. I can do no right, they can do no wrong.

I let us in, and Kat and Freddy rush to the sitting room. As I watch the three figures wrapped in a hug, I smile to myself: yes, it was a good idea, Mum’s coming down.

‘Oh, my poor poor darlings,’ my mother sobs as she wraps her arms around both children simultaneously. ‘You are so precious…how awful for you to have to go through this! You’ll have to be brave and strong, my poor pets, no matter how difficult it is…’

So much for not traumatising the children.

Mother’s visit doesn’t get any better. She finds dust behind her cupboard and tells me that losing a husband is no excuse for becoming slovenly; sees Freddy glued to the telly and whispers to me that he’s retreating into a kinder world; and, after skimming through my copy of Good Housekeeping, begins, ‘Men need sex once a week, do you think that’s why…?’

‘Mu-um!’ I cry, exasperated.

On Monday, I receive a letter from the Marlborough Centre: they’re interviewing me next week for a place on the Counselling for Life course which starts in September. I study the letter, wondering if I should even attempt the interview at this point. Will my life become clearer over the next month? Do I commit to a course while holding down a job, reassuring the children, and trying to get my husband back? How can I think of helping others, even listening to them, when my own life is full of indecision?

‘What do you think?’ I ask my mum over tea and digestives.

‘For goodness’ sake, Rosie, what are you thinking of ?!’ Mum shakes her head. ‘You really need to concentrate now, put all your energy into getting Jonathan back home. You don’t have time for more work when your life is going down the plughole.’

Worse, on Wednesday when I come home from Dr Casey’s, I find her and our next-door neighbour, Carolyn Vincent, sitting in our kitchen having tea. Molly Vincent may sport black nail polish and three studs in her ear, but her mum is all Boden catalogue. Carolyn always manages to look pretty and peachy, with perfect creases on her trousers and nicely polished ballerinas and a girlish ponytail she swings over her shoulder when she wants to think things through.

‘Hullo,’ I say as I walk in on them.

Carolyn starts: ‘Hi, Rosie, how are you?’ She looks guilty and I can practically smell the pints of pity they have poured all over the subject of our s-p-l-i-t. Carolyn and Louis’s marital harmony is always on show—or at least within earshot, their cooings and tweet-tweets loud and clear beyond the wall that separates us.

‘Hullo, darling. Carolyn dropped by for a cup of tea.’ My mum looks totally unembarrassed.

‘Er…yes.’ Carolyn grows the colour of her beautifully cut pink linen dress. ‘Just seeing if the children wanted to come over for supper tonight. Louis is doing a barbecue.’

It’s a double whammy: first, Carolyn obviously suspects I no longer feed my children proper meals; second, she is letting me know that her husband hangs about the place lighting charcoal bricks and getting splattered by burgers and sausages while mine has made tracks with a sexy American.

‘That’s sweet of you, Carolyn, but I’ve bought lamb chops already,’ I lie.

Mum and Carolyn share a look of complicity.

‘Oh, and also…’ Carolyn begins, as she swings her blonde ponytail over her left shoulder and lowers her lids shyly, ‘I thought you might like to meet my friend Vanessa. She’s a brilliant therapist. Specialises in relationships and…sex.’

‘I thought’—my mother looks from Carolyn to me and back again—‘it sounded just the ticket. I mean, our subconscious does very weird things. And we all know how important bed is for the boys.’

‘Hmmm…’ I try to smile but my teeth feel set in stone—and misery. ‘I believe in therapy—though maybe it’s not the sex kind we need.’

‘Well, let me know if you change your mind. Louis and I just want to help.’ Carolyn sets down her mug, only half finished, and with a reproachful look makes for the back door: ‘Nice meeting you, Mrs Walters.’

‘A lovely girl.’ My mother watches Carolyn’s slender figure retreating across our garden. ‘And I like the look of him, too. You couldn’t hope for better neighbours, really.’ Then she turns to me. ‘Isn’t it extraordinary, how different marriages can be?’

In between such helpful comments we play Monopoly, Risk and Racing Demon, and Mum wastes a lot of time trying to teach the children bridge. We watch a DVD of High School Musical: Remix, sing along to the lyrics, and call in a pizza. The children relax, and the familiar routines of Mum’s stay—the questions about school which prompt her own, rather long-winded, reminiscences, the crossword, the Earl Grey tea and ginger biscuits for elevenses and 5 p.m., the insistence on a long walk after lunch—reassure them that all is as before. Almost.

Once the children are tucked up in bed, Mum and I sit reading in the living room.

‘Freddy’s such a star, did you see how he’s been running errands for me, fetching glasses, books, my crossword?’ Mum looks up from her Jeffrey Archer to smile at me. ‘And our little girl, she’s all grown up: do you realise what all that texting is about?’ I shake my head, no. ‘A boyfriend!’

‘A boy who is a friend, you mean?’ I look up, worried, from The Times.

‘No, no, Mungo is an official boyfriend. She says so on Facebook.’ My mother smiles, pleased. ‘I think it’s marvellous.’

‘Do you?’ I sound sceptical. Is my mum on Facebook, I wonder? I’m not.

‘Yes.’ My mother nods her head vigorously. ‘It’s a sign that she hasn’t been put off men by your split.’

‘Oh…’ I breathe deeply, guiltily, and hide behind the newspaper: I hadn’t considered that our separation could turn my daughter into a man-hater.

‘It’s not puppy love as we know it,’ Mum continues, fingers tapping on the Jeffrey Archer. ‘They’ve only met once, and their whole relationship is about texting.’

I set down the newspaper, feeling left out and slightly put out: first, my daughter chooses to confide in Mum rather than me; second, my twelve-year-old is beginning a relationship just as mine threatens to end. Kat, Kat… I want to take my daughter in my arms and whisper a warning: Be careful, my love. But even as I think the words, I know not to ever utter them; I don’t want my daughter to be scared of love.

It’s as if Mum reads my thoughts: ‘I wouldn’t worry about Jonathan, you know. These…sex things don’t usually last more than a few months.’

Immediately I start imagining all kinds of scenarios: Jonathan weeping, on his knees, begging me to start again. Jonathan ringing on the door in the dead of night telling me that he’s made a terrible mistake. The children and I coming back from tennis camp to find Jonathan on our doorstep…

From the depths of the chintz armchair, she gives me a long look. ‘Would you have him back?’

Would I? I’ve gone from being shocked to being furious, to wanting some control over our relationship, to wishing him back. So would I have him back? Like a shot. Separation sounded like a good idea: a pause in which to review, regroup. But nothing had prepared me for this loneliness. Jonathan and I have always been friends, after all. I won’t be able to survive much more of this.

Out loud I say, ‘For the children’s sake, yes.’

My mother’s hope becomes my certainty. Every time I hear a car park outside or a cab pull up, I’m convinced it’s Jonathan. Whenever Jonathan rings to speak to the children, I’m sure he is about to plead to be taken back. And when Kat complains that her computer’s acting up, and Jonathan offers to come by and look at it, and ends up also fixing the dripping tap in the downstairs loo, I read in these DIY efforts an attempt to worm his way back into our affection.

‘Don’t be pathetic,’ Jill scolds me when I tell her. ‘Men love playing at Mr Fix-it. They’d fix a tap for Myra Hindley if they got half a chance.’

I don’t listen. He’s left his electric razor behind—he wouldn’t do that if he thought he would be gone for long. His post continues to come every day, as do the International Herald Tribune and the Financial Times.

‘Don’t read anything into it,’ Jill warns. ‘When they’re in the throes of sex they don’t remember their own name. When Ross was cheating on me he was always getting locked out because he’d forgotten his keys, and showing up late because he’d lost his watch. Multi-tasking is for women.’

‘Hmmm…’ I murmur, unconvinced. Ross and Jonathan have nothing in common. Ross is still getting handouts from his parents, whereas Jonathan prides himself on being a caveman provider. Ross is bohemian, while Jonathan’s idea of being creative is thinking up names for pharmaceutical patents. Ross never wanted children, Jonathan adores his.

Which is another reason for my optimism. Kat and Freddy are my most powerful weapons against the American. I have to hide my smile when I hear Kat on the telephone to Molly, describing ‘what a pain’ Linda is. I feel a little thrill of victory when Freddy refuses to go to the Science Museum with his father and ‘her’. And I’m secretly delighted when I overhear the children telling their father that they want to be with ‘just you, Dad’, when he offers to take them out for lunch on Saturday.

Jonathan is sheepish when he comes to pick up or drop off the children. He tries to worm his way back into Otilya’s good graces by taking out the rubbish piled up in the kitchen. He offers to lend me the car so I can get to John Lewis to pick up the curtains I’d ordered. And he offers to help Freddy with his back stroke for hours on end. Between us, though, conversation has become impossibly stilted. We may be only separated, but we speak like a couple in the throes of divorce.

A brief guide to divorce-speak:

1 He says: ‘This is very painful for me.’ He means: This is going to be very expensive.

2 He says: ‘This is not doing either one of us any good.’ He means: I don’t want to have sex with you any more.

3 He says: ‘The children are so grown-up.’ He means: Don’t try a guilt trip on me.

4 He says: ‘You don’t understand…’ He means: You’d better do what I want.

5 He says: ‘Linda understands me.’ He means: Linda’s better in bed than you.

6 He says: ‘I want regular access to the children.’ He means: I want to see the children for fun outings on the occasional weekend, once you’ve fed them, bathed them, and made sure they’ve done their homework.

7 He says: ‘I want you to know I’m always here for you.’ He means: Don’t bother me unless the house is burning down.

8 You say: ‘Everything will be fine.’ You mean: This is hell on earth.

9 You say: ‘Your father’s wonderful, really.’ You mean: Your father’s wrecked your lives and when you’re older you can sue him for negligence.

10 10. You say: ‘This can be a new beginning.’ You mean: I’m so emotionally battered I wonder if I’ll survive this.

‘I’m dead! I’ve had an electric muscle-stimulator facial, and you can’t imagine how loooooong that takes.’ Jill drops by Saturday morning. Jonathan has taken the children for pizza (’With just you, Dad, right?’). It’s a glorious day and I’m sunbathing in the garden, trying to ignore the Vincents’ loveydovey duet on the other side of the wall.

‘They say it takes years off your face.’ Jill opens and shuts her mouth in an exaggerated sequence. ‘You know, we’re supposed to give our facial muscles a daily eight-minute workout.’ She scrunches her face, then relaxes it. You’d never know this was a much-respected GP, a woman who is rational and ultra-sane about most things. ‘Now, are you ready to meet other people?’

‘I don’t need to, Jill!’ I’m on the chaise longue, and I need to shield my eyes to see my friend, sitting beside me. I’ve made us both iced tea. ‘He’s coming back.’

‘What?!’ Jill’s look of astonishment is comical. ‘Thrown over the Yank?’

‘Shshshshsh.’ I bring an index finger to my lips and nod in the direction of the wall. From the other side comes a steady stream of ‘Sweety’ and ‘Darling’, ‘Treasure’ and ‘Petal’. ‘No, he hasn’t left her yet. But it’s almost over.’

‘What’s “almost”? Almost as in, he’s told you to pack your bags because the two of you are off to the Caribbean for a love-fest, or almost as in, your wishful thinking?’

‘Neither. The children keep saying that he looks miserable when he’s saying goodbye to them, and he keeps hanging about the house, and he keeps doing things to be helpful, like offering to look into my mum’s prescription and find out why it’s not working…’

Jill draws her chair closer to me. She looks stern. ‘This does not mean that he’s coming back, Rosie. It just shows Jonathan’s not a complete bastard. He loves the kids. He probably even loves you—in a kind of fraternal, protective way. But I see no proof of a change of mind.’

‘Jill, you’re always so negative,’ I burst out. Then, mindful of the ‘petal’ and ‘treasure’ on the other side of the hedge I lower my voice: ‘I bet you anything he comes back, apologises, and we start a whole new life together.’

I hang on to the vision of our family reunited. And when I come home from Mr Ahmed the dry cleaner’s to find Jonathan’s message on our voicemail, I’m convinced this is it. ‘Rosie. It’s me. Can I come by this afternoon? I’m unhappy…garble garble…’ The tape becomes indistinct but I am sure of the sentiment conveyed: Jonathan is unhappy and wants to return.

I run upstairs to check my makeup. I hear footsteps outside the bathroom: I’m tempted to ask Kat what she thinks of my dress—scoop neck, cotton, light blue; but I don’t want to get her hopes up.

‘Mu-um!’ It’s not Kat, it’s Freddy coming up the stairs. I lock the door: my nine-year-old still has only a nominal notion of privacy.

‘What?’ I try to keep my hand steady as I draw eyeliner on to my lid.

‘I’m just going over to the Vincents’ to play FIFA 08 with Oscar. Kat wants to come to see Molly.’

‘Off you go.’ For only a second I feel guilty that I’m allowing the children to miss one of their father’s visits. If my suspicions are right, though, today marks their father’s return. Just me and Jonathan, I think, and my heart thumps. I feel shockingly lust-filled when I think about my straying husband: maybe someone else needed to find him attractive before I could get excited about him again.

The door bell goes as I finish brushing my hair. I rush down and let Jonathan in. Except I can’t. The knob that is supposed to unclick stays rigid in my hand. I try desperately to turn it but nothing happens. It’s an American-style, button-in-the-middle knob that Jonathan had warned was lethal for small children. He’s been promising to change it from the day we moved in. My husband is coming back to me and I’m stuck in the loo!

The door bell rings again. ‘Jonathan! I’m just coming!’ I yell. But there’s nothing for it: the handle resists all attempts to turn it. ‘I can’t!’ I scream.

Helplessly I look around the bathroom for something with which to prise open the wooden door. Tweezers? Nail scissors? Razor? I try to poke the little button in the middle of the knob, but nothing gives. I look up at the skylight that is the only window. If I stand on the loo seat, and prise it open, I could shout out so that Jonathan (and anyone else in the street below) could hear me.

The door bell goes again, this time for longer. Then I hear my mobile ring next door: Jonathan obviously thinks I’ve forgotten our appointment. As if. I’m up on the loo seat, and I push open the skylight: ‘Jonathan!’ I call out.

‘Where are you?’ I hear from below.

‘Up here! In the loo! I’m locked in!’ I try to sound calm and in control, but you can’t when you’ve locked yourself into a 3 × 5 room with your maybe-on-again-husband waiting on the doorstep below.

‘Let me come in and see if I can let you out!’ Jonathan shouts up. ‘I’ve got the keys still!’

‘Thanks!’

I press my ear against the door and hear Jonathan’s familiar heavy steps climb the stairs.

‘Here I am. Now how are we going to get you out of here?’ Jonathan asks affectionately. He sounds like Christopher Robin talking to Pooh Bear. It’s the manner I know well. ‘How do you manage these scrapes?’ he asked when I, in a coat with rabbit-fur collar and cuffs, emerged from his HQ to find myself in the midst of a dozen placard-waving anti-fur demonstrators. Or ‘I’d better come home and see to this’ when I rang in a panic because I’d forgotten my house keys when I’d nipped out to buy some dill and was standing there in front of our locked door, with six guests arriving in ten minutes.

‘I don’t know what happened,’ I moan as on the other side of the door I hear my husband trying the knob. ‘I just locked it!’

‘We should have got rid of these stupid locks when we moved in,’ Jonathan grunts as he keeps working on the knob.

‘I know. Do you think you can get me out?’ I steal a look at the mirror: I’m a bit flushed, but the makeup is still in place.

‘Of course.’ Calm, confident, in charge: oh, how I’ve missed my husband. ‘I have to get into the bathroom come what may. I’ve got to get my electric razor back. I’ve been using disposables and they’re killing my face.’

My heart lurches. Surely he doesn’t need to take his electric razor if he’s coming back?

‘You said you were unhappy…’

‘Hmm?’ Sound of a screwdriver working at the knob. ‘Oh, I know what it was. Kat told me you were having problems sleeping…’ (Oh no, she shouldn’t lay on the guilt trip, I’m sure that’s counter-productive!) ‘…and I wanted to say that usually I’m unhappy with anyone taking sleeping pills, but if it’s only for a short period…’

‘Well, it has been’—Don’t sound bitter, I remind myself—‘a bit difficult.’

More rattling of the knob.

‘Bloody hell, this thing is difficult…’

I lean against the door, and feel as if I’m leaning against him. I’ll take you back, I whisper, I know we’re no longer in love but we’re so comfortable together.

‘Hmmm…? Did you say something…Hey!’ The door handle falls on to the floor and the door opens.

‘Bless you!’ I cry and spontaneously (well, almost) throw my arms around him.

‘No worries.’ Jonathan gently unclasps my hands to free himself. ‘I think, er…you’ll want a stiff drink after your captivity.’ His face lights up with a smile, but not for me: he goes straight to the electric razor in its vinyl case. ‘Perfect.’ He turns back to me, adopts a look of concern. ‘Kat’s right. You do look pale.’

It’s all I can do not to scream, ‘Because of this mad separation, you idiot!’ Instead I say lightly, ‘Let’s have a drink.’

He follows me down the stairs to the kitchen. I open the cupboard, get out the bottle of Famous Grouse. Jonathan leans against the counter. ‘Where are the kids?’

‘Vincents. As per usual.’

It’s as if he’d never gone, I think. As if this episode had never taken place, Linda never existed. Then I notice it: the big green canvas weekend bag he’d packed that dreadful night. It’s back! He’s brought his things back and we’re going to be together again. I sigh with relief.

Jonathan follows my eyes. ‘I’ve brought my bag. I need to get a few essentials. In fact, Rosie,’ he looks me in the eye, right hand warming the whisky in his glass, ‘it really makes no sense procrastinating about painful decisions: I’m going to consult a lawyer on Monday and seek a divorce.’

My face must have given me away because he reaches out to touch my hand. ‘Don’t look like that. I care for you very much, I always will. But Linda and I…it’s not a fling. It’s for ever.’

Chapter 4

Jonathan holds my hands in his. ‘Rosie, we don’t need to be enemies, you know. We’ve got two wonderful children. A million memories. A divorce doesn’t need to be horrible and devastating. It can be an arrangement that suits us both. I’ll be with Linda, you’ll find someone too, the children will still be the centre of our lives.’ He studies my face for a reaction. ‘You can still do your counselling programme, I’ll pay for that. And the three of you can stay here, no problem.’

I shut my eyes: separation is for now, but divorce is for ever. I never meant to let this period drag on for more than a month or two.

Life without Jonathan for ever? I’ve never seriously considered it. Who else can find the shortest way from Belsize Park to Brixton? Or immediately guess what’s wrong with Mum’s prescription? We brush our teeth at the same time, check in with a telephone call at least once a day, eat supper together and, when it comes to the children, we lean on each other, like poles holding up the tent under which Kat and Fred can crawl and be cosy.

But then I look at my husband’s expression of pity. Ugh! I can’t bear the thought of him and Linda shaking their heads over my lonely disappointment. Hey, you! I feel like shouting, You don’t need to feel sorry for me. I can build a new life, find a new love. I breathe in deeply: if I need directions, I can get myself a sat nav. If I need help with prescriptions I can ring Jill. And I’ll always protect the children, Jonathan or no Jonathan.

I can do this. I toss my hair and stand up straight; yes, I can. I’m going to explode every prejudice, and turn all preconceived notions on their head. I’m going to think the unthinkable and do the impossible. I’m going for…

‘A good divorce!’ My voice rings with conviction. ‘We’ll make this a good divorce. A civilised split.’

‘The most civilised divorce in the annals of break-ups.’ Jonathan gives me a lopsided grin.

‘Pain-free.’

‘Humane.’

‘Generous-spirited.’

‘No one will be able to say that we traumatised our children, or ruined each other’s lives.’

‘Everyone will congratulate us on how brilliantly we’ve managed a difficult process.’

‘Ours will be the most constructive collaboration ever.’ Then, with a look of concern, ‘Hey, sweetheart’—Jonathan takes a tissue from the Kleenex box on the mirrored shelves above the toilet—‘you’re crying!’

What not to do when you’re considering a friendly divorce: tell anyone.

I’d prepared my speech, and repeated its promises of ‘civilised separation…mutually convenient arrangement…friendly division of spoils…best for the children…’

Somehow, though, nobody heard these reassuring pledges, and the reactions to my announcement are the same as if I’d said Jonathan and I were fighting to the bitter end, no holds barred, until no one was left standing and the children were covered in our blood.

Kat: ‘How can you DO that to us?! We’ll have to see a therapist for the rest of our lives!’

Freddy: ‘I’ll be like Justin! His parents are divorced and he says he spends every holiday in the car, going from one to the other!’

My mum: ‘What?! No…you can’t be…Oh my God!’

Otilya, our Polish daily: ‘My husband’—she pushes the mop across the kitchen floor—‘he divorce me for new girl too. She not pretty, she not clever, she not rich. I ask him, “What she have?”’ Otilya leans her bulky frame on her mop. ‘He say, “She not you.”’

Dr Casey bestows upon me the look he usually reserves for patients whose excessive use of Botox has frozen their face into a mask. ‘Chin up, my girl! You know what they say: better unaccompanied than shackled to a bad ‘un.’ And I overhear him telling Mrs S: ‘Do be gentle Lavinia—she is obviously near breaking point.’

Strolling down the stretch of Haverstock Hill where I normally shop feels like running a gauntlet these days.

Mr Parker, smoking outside Belsize Parker Estate Agents as usual, is always on the look out for me. ‘Ah, Mrs Martin, how are we doing?’

‘Wonderful, Mr Parker, thank you.’ I don’t want to stop.

‘I understand’—Mr Parker stubs his cigarette butt on the pavement—‘things have become more…permanent.’

Otilya and her big mouth.

‘Yes.’ I sound as casual as I can. ‘We are making it as sensible and friendly as possible.’

‘Of course, of course.’ Mr Parker’s pinstripe suit smells of nicotine, stale and fresh. ‘I went through a very hard time just after my own divorce…but’—here he beams again—‘I then met Mrs Parker, and now my life couldn’t be better.’

‘Hmmm…wonderful…’ I try to walk off, but Mr Parker keeps up with me until after a few paces I stop: I don’t want him following me home.

‘I just thought that you should know we have worked with a lot of couples through…difficult times.’ He gives a little cough. ‘Divorce means two households. Two properties. I could help.’

‘We already have our property—and Jonathan has—’ I begin.

‘There’s some wonderful flats out there,’ Mr Parker interrupts me, taking a step closer. I wince at the stench of cigarette; standing this close to him is like passive smoking. ‘Really wonderful, if you and Mr Martin wanted to downsize. You should consider two flats. Or maybe you and the children could look at a maisonette and he could stay in a flat—with his friend.’ I scowl and Mr Parker hurries on, ‘And even if the market is soft at the moment, I think we could get a good price for your house.’

‘Our house?!’

‘I know it’s a bit tired—you remember when I sold it to you ten years ago I warned you that the kitchen and bathrooms would need redoing—but it has those original features, and plenty of light, and people place a premium on high ceilings and a bit of outside space…’

‘Our house,’ I hiss, ‘is not for sale.’

Mr Parker stretches out his hands to reassure me. ‘No-no-no, Mrs Martin, this is just in case. What often happens is that the original home can be associated with…strain, stress…and a new environment is seen as conducive to a fresh start…’

‘Mr Parker, our home is full of very happy memories, for us and for the children.’ I sound glacial, and Mr Parker shrinks further into his suit. ‘Jonathan is adamant that we stay put.’

‘Of course, Mrs Martin.’ Mr Parker nods eagerly. ‘I saw him the other day. I thought I could help him get something nearby—you know, makes it convenient for visiting the children…He told me he’s already got something in Bayswater with his…er, he’s got a place already…still, it’s just a rental property. We may be able to convince him that there’s better investments to be made.’ Mr Parker won’t draw breath. ‘Divorce means you have to be so careful about money…and if they can be had at a good price, two homes can mean two very profitable ventures.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘There’s a maisonette around the corner from you, thirteen hundred square feet. At ?50,000, it’s a bargain.’

‘Mr Parker, I’m not interested; we’re not moving.’

‘Maybe you don’t like maisonettes?’ Mr Parker extracts his packet of Marlboros, taps them nervously with his left hand. ‘There’s a nice little mews house up at Belsize Village, spanking new interior, got a designer in who really gave it the wow factor and—’

‘We’re NOT moving!’ I can’t help shouting.

For a moment, Mr Parker looks properly cowed. But then he springs back to his salesman life-form: ‘I know this is probably not the right time, you’re still very raw, but I can tell you there’s a block of flats in St John’s Wood’—I start walking away, shaking my head—‘that would be just the ticket for you and the children. Nice and quiet, very safe and a lovely garden out back…’

Mr Ahmed, our dry cleaner, is not much better.

‘You washing Mr Martin shirts at home now? You try to do my job for me?’ Mr Ahmed throws his hands up in the air when I bring in only a silk blouse and my ancient woollen jacket.

‘Mr Martin no longer lives at home,’ I tell Mr Ahmed without looking at him. Behind him, Mrs Ahmed’s eyes grow round and she stops unfolding clothes.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Mrs Martin…’ Mr Ahmed tugs one end of his thick grey moustache.

Mrs Ahmed draws up to the counter, a jumper in her hand. ‘These English men. No sense of family. The Queen’s children, look at them: they too, all divorced.’

‘It’s not quite like that.’ I find myself trying to defend Jonathan, and the Windsors, to our dry cleaner and his wife.

‘Tchtch!’ Mrs Ahmed shakes her head woefully, and her plump body beneath the red and yellow sari jiggles. ‘They want fun and new things all the time.’

Mr Ahmed leans over the counter. ‘You need an Asian man.’ He takes my blouse and jacket and hands me a receipt for them. Then, taking one of the lollies he keeps for his customers’ children, he holds it out to me. ‘Here,’ he says, ‘you take this.’

Nadine, my hairdresser, is also full of sympathy. ‘What?! With whom?! What a bastard!’ She tugs at my wet hair with a comb.

‘That hurts,’ I protest.

‘I know, I know. Trust me, I’ve been there. Me, it happened six years ago, and let me tell you, I lost two dress sizes, I cried so much. You know what makes it so hard?’ she asks my reflection in the mirror: I shake my head, no. ‘That he’s doing it to you at our time of life.’ I flinch: surely Nadine is a good ten years older than me? ‘It’s hard to get dates at our age. Show me a man who notices you when you’re over twenty-two,’ she goes on, addressing the woman with the stringy wet hair and pink towel on her shoulders. ‘But I’ve got a good book for you. In fact two: Couple Uncouples and Split Does Not Mean That’s It. Really deep stuff. Written by psychiatrists. Take up yoga, too; it really helps with the pain. It’s all in the breathing.’

‘This won’t do.’ Jill shakes her head as she undoes my top three buttons. ‘It’s not Sunday school, you know.’

‘What’s going on?’ I look from Jill to David as they draw me into their smart, ultra-modern sitting room. Black-and-white photographs decorate the walls, tall white orchids sit on window sills and mantelpiece. Jill ignores my query as she pushes back the hair from my face. David smiles mysteriously.

The door bell rings. Jill brings her index finger to her lips. ‘Not a word,’ she hisses over her shoulder at her partner as she opens the front door.

‘How funny!’ Jill trills as she walks back in, a handsome man in her wake. ‘David and I were just telling Rosie how wonderful your Romeo and Juliet is, and here you are, in the flesh. What a coincidence!’

‘Well, you did invite me,’ the new arrival replies, puzzled. He’s youngish, copper-haired and white-skinned, tall and wiry. He wears a purple velvet jacket and his hair in a ponytail: I take it he’s one of David’s friends—they’re all theatrically turned out.

‘Must be fate!’ Jill drags the ponytailed man to where I’m standing. ‘Orlando, Rosie. Rosie, Orlando.’

As I smile up at him, Orlando looks at me expectantly: I wonder if we’ve met before and I’ve forgotten.

‘You may recognise Orlando,’ David explains while his friend smiles modestly, ‘from his theatre work. He’s been in some very famous productions.’

‘Uh…I wonder…’ I try to rack my brains about the plays I’ve seen, but the only recent production I remember is the panto, Aladdin, when I accompanied Freddy’s class last Christmas. I sit on the huge grey silk sofa, wishing that I wasn’t wearing my most comfortable and least attractive jeans and a boring button-down shirt. Couldn’t Jill have given me some warning?

‘Did you see The Importance of Being Earnest last May?’ Orlando asks hopefully as he sits on the zebra-skinned stool in front of me. ‘I was Algernon’s butler.’ I shake my head.

David hands me a glass of wine. ‘Fabulous, he was, too. The Ham and High said he was “a scene stealer”.’

‘What about Oliver!?’ Orlando tries again. ‘I was one of Bill’s boozing buddies.’ I shake my head guiltily. ‘OK, you must have seen Wuthering Heights two years ago, with Heathcliffe as a Shia Muslim and Cathy as a Hasidic Jew? Everyone saw that!’

‘No,’ I confess. Then, seeing Orlando’s dejected expression: ‘But everyone did say how marvellous it was.’ Orlando shakes his head forlornly over his glass of wine. ‘It’s me,’ I try to console him, ‘I’ve been going through a philistine patch lately.’

‘Nonsense, Rosie!’ Jill interrupts me. ‘You’re very artistic. She once made me a lovely Christmas card—a collage of wrapping paper, really striking.’ She sits beside me on the sofa, nudging me with her elbow. ‘And she studied Shakespeare, didn’t you, Rosie?’

‘Well, yes, but only for A Levels.’ My admission earns a furious scowl from Jill. And her elbow in my side.

‘Tell Rosie about Romeo and Juliet.’ Jill smiles encouragingly at Orlando.

‘It’s a fab adaptation.’ Orlando bobs up and down enthusiastically, and some long copper curls slip out of the neat ponytail. ‘We’ve got an all-male cast. So it’s homophobia not a family feud that keeps the lovers apart.’

‘How interesting…’ I try to imagine the balcony scene between Romeo and Jules? (Julian?) and fail to. David holds up the bottle, enquiring if I’d like some more. ‘Thanks, yes, it’s delicious.’ I might as well get drinking at this point.

‘Hmmm, lovely, vino.’ Orlando holds up his own glass for seconds.

‘You both like Sauvignon Blanc: you’ve got so much in common!’ Cringing at Jill’s indefatigable matchmaking, I try to draw away from her on the sofa, but she goes on, heedless: ‘Like—divorce.’

Orlando’s eyes grow wide and round and interested. ‘Really? You too? I’ve just come out of three horrible years of it.’

‘Marriage?’

‘No. Divorce court. The harpy was determined to get her mitts on the Hall and I wasn’t going to let it happen.’

‘Northlay Hall is Orlando’s ancestral pile,’ David explains. ‘Adam. In Wiltshire. Stunning.’

‘Once she landed a role on EastEnders she got ideas above her station,’ Orlando explains. Then, in a high-pitched whine, ‘“Orlando, if I can’t have you I want your house.”’ Now he lowers his voice back to normal, ‘“Look, Violet, it’s been in my family for centuries, it means nothing to you but everything to my father.”’ He switches to the high-pitched voice: ‘“It means a lot to me, too. It means I wouldn’t have to slog all day and all night.” “You’re being unreasonable!” “You’re being mean!” “I need closure!” “You need a shrink!”’

I watch, baffled, as Orlando alternates his wife’s voice with his own. When Jill goes to the kitchen to fetch some nibbles, I follow her.

‘Why didn’t you tell me to expect a ventriloquist show?’ I whisper, cross.

‘I wish you’d get into the spirit of it,’ Jill scolds me as she opens the bag of handmade potato crisps. ‘Orlando’s gorgeous.’

‘He’s also bitter about his divorce and horrid about his ex.’

‘Everyone’s bitter about their divorce.’

‘Not me, and not Jonathan.’

‘Your attitude to this divorce is just not healthy.’ She fills the square glass bowl with crisps. ‘Divorce is as close as two people can legally get to murdering one another.’

‘It’s not true, I don’t want bitterness, recriminations, huge maintenance…’

‘Stop!’ Jill drops the empty bag of crisps on the counter and puts the back of her hand against her forehead in a dramatic gesture. ‘Stop right there. No to huge maintenance? What’s the point of divorce then?’

‘I don’t want Jonathan suffering. He’s a good man. An excellent father. A better husband than most.’

‘You can’t be nice about your ex when you’re in the middle of a split. It’s perverse.’ She grabs my hand. ‘Now, get back in there and strut your stuff,’ she barks.

In the sitting room, alas, Orlando’s one-man show continues: ‘“You’re a harpy!” “You’re an idiot!” “May you rot in hell!” “May your scrotum itch you for seven years.”’

The worst, though, is next door. Carolyn Vincent cannot resist a few words of concern every time our paths cross: ‘Oh, poor you!’ she intones piously when she sees me struggling under the weight of carrier bags. ‘Do you want a hand?’ she calls out from her doorstep. And then, over her shoulder: ‘My love, will you help Rosie with her shopping?’ And husband Louis, a square-jawed and handsome knight in shining armour, materialises to help me with the bags.

‘Well done, angel.’ Carolyn rewards her husband with a big smack of a kiss, right on the doorstep for everyone to see.

Worse, it seems as if whenever I stand at my window, lost in thought and wondering about what life will bring next, I am subjected to a sighting of the happy couple hugging, kissing, rubbing noses (nothing seems beyond them). These little vignettes of marital harmony have me reaching for the curtain cord and longing to move to Nuneaton.

Not that the Vincents are unkind. Carolyn is constantly inviting us over for a ‘kitchen supper’, or tea, or Sunday lunch.

Into the bright yellow kitchen we troop. Carolyn, in a pretty pale blue Cath Kidston apron, stands at her stove, stirring some delicious but non-fattening sauce. Louis springs up from the table where he was reading out loud, presumably for Carolyn’s amusement, the Daily Mail Richard Kay gossip column.

‘Hullo! Carolyn, Rosie and the children are here!’ He offers me a glass of Bordeaux, and an expression of condolence fills his face.

‘Kat, Freddy, will you fetch the children?’ Carolyn turns from the Aga, wooden spoon in hand, a perfect homemaker’s smile on her face. ‘It’s supper time. And wash hands.’ Then, when Kat and Freddy are no longer in earshot, ‘They’re being so braaaave, you must be so prooooouuuud.’

At table, Molly immediately sits beside me. She has not, I’ve noticed, been seeking my advice lately: she has obviously drawn her own conclusions about my ability to navigate emotional life. Louis, on my other side, keeps my glass and plate filled and makes kind suggestions like, ‘You will let me know if I can do anything, won’t you? DIY, dig you out of the snow, cart down any heavy rubbish…’

Worst of all is watching Carolyn and him perform a perfect duet as they move back and forth from kitchen table to sink, from stove to dishwasher, enviably in synch with every step and look. Were Jonathan and I ever like that?

‘Sweetpea, will you pour me a glass of water? Thanks, darling one. Rosie, are you and Jon…’ Carolyn stops in her tracks, flushes, gives a little embarrassed cough, then resumes, ‘er, I mean, are you going off somewhere nice before term starts?’

‘Nah,’ Freddy answers before I can.

‘We aren’t either,’ Molly scowls. ‘Dad just wants to be near a golf course so he can disappear for hours. Holidays are supposed to be, like, spent with the family all together and…’ A look from her parents sends her into manic backpedalling: ‘I mean, er…Actually who needs fathers on holidays?’

The children and I seek refuge in Carolyn’s tender roast chicken and comforting mash. We eat silently, leaving our hosts to find another subject of conversation.

‘Mum, did you get Oliver’s birthday present?’ Freddy asks me.

‘Oliver?…’ I ask blankly, wondering in a panic who Oliver could be and when this shock birthday party is to be held.

‘Oh, Mu-um!’ Freddy groans. ‘I to-old you!’

‘Well, your mum has had a lot on her plate,’ Carolyn says hurriedly. Then, trying to turn the conversation away from odious comparisons: ‘Oh, Kat, that is the prettiest pendant!’ Carolyn smiles. ‘Matches your eyes.’

‘Dad gave it to me,’ Kat sighs. ‘Hush money, I suppose.’

Chapter 5

Babette Pagorsky’s smile casts the soft and comforting glow of a child’s night light. I feel as if I am sitting on Kat’s or Freddy’s bed, waiting for them to fall asleep. ‘What brings you here?’ Babette asks in her deep man’s voice. I’m brought back to reality. I’m not with my children in their cosy bedrooms but with my soon to be ex-husband in a marriage counsellor’s room. In the month between Babette making her assessment of us, during which she asked a million questions—how had we met, what did we do for a living, where did we live, how many children, and when had our ‘problem’ arisen?—and her managing to slot us into her busy schedule for our first appointment, Jonathan and I have started proceedings on our friendly divorce.

‘So,’ Babette repeats as she looks across to us, ‘what brings you here?’

Jonathan and I sit side by side (but at least two feet apart) on a capable brown leather sofa. Babette sits in a squat armchair across an Oriental carpet from us. The room, painted the palest shade of green, looks elegant rather than cosy: antiques and silver ornaments, silk throw cushions, and two lamps on side tables rather than overhead lights. It’s brilliant sunshine outside, but heavy green curtains are drawn against all that.

Babette had already briefed me over the telephone about the ‘counselling process’: we could have several joint sessions and then, if desired, we could meet with Babette one on one. Every case, she’d warned, is different, and she could give me no guarantees, or even time frames.

Jonathan looks at Babette. I look at Babette. Babette smiles at both of us. She is an elegant plump woman, in her fifties, with soft dark hair and eyes. She has a colourful silk scarf draped over her shoulders, in the continental fashion.

Jonathan clears his throat. ‘We’re getting divorced, and want to make it as painless as possible.’

‘Oh?’ Babette looks a bit put out. ‘People usually come here because they want to avoid divorce.’

‘Well, we know what we want.’ Jonathan gives me an encouraging smile. ‘We just want to take all the proper steps.’

‘So you know what you want…’ Babette echoes Jonathan, and her tone is ever so slightly ironic. Her dark eyes settle on me: ‘You too, Rosie?’

‘Yes,’ Jonathan interrupts. ‘The divorce is a mutual agreement.’

‘Mutual?’ Babette raises a well-arched eyebrow. ‘You rolled out of bed one morning, one on the right, the other on the left, and said, “Hey, let’s get a divorce”?’

‘Well…’ Jonathan begins.

‘This divorce,’ Babette’s voice is warm and intimate, ‘is your idea, Rosie?’

‘No…’ I sound uncertain. I shoot a look at Jonathan beside me on the couch. He smooths down the linen of his trousers. I’m suddenly conscious of feeling uncomfortably hot in this elegant but airless room. ‘But…but the separation was!’

‘I see.’ Babette grants me a smile so small you’d think she had to pay for it. ‘And so the separation didn’t work and you now want to go down the divorce route?’

‘I…agree that this is the best way to go.’

‘Best for whom?’ Babette asks, readjusting her silk scarf.

‘Best for…’ I begin lamely, looking around for Jonathan’s support.

‘Best for us,’ Jonathan weighs in, ‘best for the children.’

‘You think so, Rosie?’ Babette again looks at me. She’s spotted the weakest link.

‘Hmmm…?’ I’m scared of being caught out.

‘Are you succeeding’—Babette speaks slowly and articulates carefully—‘in keeping your divorce painless?’

‘Oh yes.’ I try to sound enthusiastic, but it’s difficult when Kat’s sobs last night woke me up and brought me to her bedside: ‘Oh, Mummy, will Daddy and you really never be together again?’

‘Not together as before,’ I attempted to comfort my daughter. ‘But still friends.’

But my twelve-year-old kept sobbing.

‘Yes, we’re making great progress.’ Jonathan’s optimism sounds forced. His mother hung up on him when he announced he was moving out, and she’s refused to speak to him since. When he told the children Linda would be coming along to Dim Sum last Sunday, Freddy kicked him in the shins, screaming ‘I hate her I hate her I hate her!’ And Kat very ostentatiously hugged and kissed me on the doorstep, in full view of the car waiting down below.

‘Amicable divorces rely on both parties feeling that their needs are being met equally.’ She smiles, pauses, turns to me again. ‘You, Rosie: you don’t feel bounced into the decision to split?’

Do I? I ask myself, almost surprised by the question. Babette Pagorsky’s put her finger on what has been bothering me all along. I may no longer be in love with my husband; I may no longer see my future in terms of his; but the timing of this divorce is not of my choosing. We’re not moving towards a parallel situation: Jonathan’s moving straight to Linda; I’ve got no one of my own. If I’d been able to choose, we might well have parted—but not until the children were grown up.

‘No one,’ Jonathan volunteers before I can say anything, ‘is putting any pressure on Rosie.’ He crosses his arms. I can see from the slight flush that has spread over his features that he’s annoyed.

‘That’s true.’ I nod. I give Babette a quick, uncertain smile. ‘I agree with Jonathan that there was something missing in our marriage.’

‘What’s missing, then?’ Babette gives a little tug at the scarf round her neck. ‘Have you identified the problem area?’

I sit, completely silent. I’m stumped. What was the problem? We agreed on how to raise the children. We agreed on how to spend our money. We had great sex once a week…

‘We’—Jonathan gives me a quick look—‘don’t have the same sense of fun.’

I’m stunned by Jonathan’s betrayal. ‘OK, OK’—I hold my hands up—‘I admit it, making a list of all our DVDs—alphabetically—is not my idea of fun.’ I shake my head. ‘But apart from Jonathan, is it anyone’s?’

Jonathan looks shocked. ‘I thought you found it amusing!’

‘What about talking?’ Babette seems to be studying the oil painting of a vase of roses behind our heads. ‘Do you talk in your marriage?’

We answer in unison.

Me: ‘Always.’

Jonathan: ‘Never.’ Then, with a sheepish look in my direction: ‘I mean, of course we communicate at some level.’ He shifts uneasily in his chair. ‘Rosie and I talk about the children, about the house, DIY, the garden…’

I feel a lump in my throat. It sounds so banal, so dreary, so boring.

‘The problem is,’ Jonathan won’t look at me, ‘Rosie’s never been able to understand what I do. Which makes our relationship rather limited. I can’t discuss a lot of things that are important to me.’ He is looking only at Babette. ‘It’s frustrating.’

Babette raises an eyebrow. ‘Please can you give me an example? We have to learn not to generalise but be specific.’

‘I love reading—proper, serious books. About my work—or general knowledge. Rosie doesn’t.’

‘I do read. Just not about hair follicles or the height of the Himalayas.’

‘You feel your interests are being ignored?’ Babette is asking Jonathan.

‘He ignores me ALL the time,’ I snap back.

‘Only talk about “I” not him,’ Babette chides me gently. ‘Remember that “he ignores me” is not the same as “I feel ignored”.’

‘I feel ignored, too, you know,’ Jonathan mutters.

‘You know what I’m hearing in all this?’ Babette tucks her legs to one side, and clasps her hands as if about to start storytelling. ‘I hear: “I want attention!”’

I open my mouth to deny this, but then I shut it again. Because maybe she’s right, maybe that’s what I feel Jonathan has been withholding: he’s good at noticing what I wear, the scent I’ve got on, the new haircut. But when did he last notice what I say—and what I don’t say?

‘When did you last notice me?’ Jonathan asks. And suddenly he turns directly to me. ‘Really notice what I’m up to, or what I’m saying?’

Hold on a second. I’ve played out the whole of my life reacting to, or predicting, Jonathan’s moves. I didn’t leave HOME for the course on substance abuse at Bristol because he said he couldn’t bear the thought of commuting to see me. I didn’t go with Jill on her round-the-world, year-long trip because he kept hinting that he was about to propose. I put my training as a counsellor on hold when he convinced me that to leave the children when they were young would jeopardise their well-being. It seems to me I pay very close attention to his needs.

But what about him?

‘What about YOU?’ I cry out. ‘You don’t notice anything any more. I had to remind you that we’d sent our deposit for the cottage back in February, that I changed my office days from Tuesday to Wednesday and that your mum not mine was hoping to come at Easter. You’ve been sleepwalking for months now. Sleeping with her and walking away from us.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘Are you going to lie about this as well?’

‘Am I’—Jonathan is suddenly furious—‘supposed to spend £00 an hour to listen to your insults?’

‘No, the insults are free,’ I shoot back.

We both take a deep breath, look away, then back to one another. Somewhere a clock chimes: 5.30. We’ve been with Babette Pagorsky only half an hour and already we’re getting hot and cross and forgetting all about our good divorce.

‘This is not very constructive,’ Jonathan says in a meek, low voice.

From her chair across the room, Babette shakes her dark head wisely. ‘I think airing issues like this is always constructive. You can see what you need to work on.’ She folds her hands neatly in her capable lap. ‘Look at the way you’re sitting!’ She raises both hands in our direction. ‘What does this say about you?’

I look down at my arms, and then at Jonathan’s, crossed protectively over our respective chests.

‘Oh dear.’ I feel miserable.

‘Defensive,’ Jonathan mutters, with a half-smile of recognition.

‘Yes. That’s a good word: “defensive”.’ Babette nods. ‘Why are you defensive with one another?’

Silence. I squirm on the sofa.

‘I feel uncomfortable,’ I manage to say. I do: this room is suddenly oppressive, with its plump inquisitor, subtle lighting and drawn curtains. I had wanted to study Babette Pagorsky and take some tips from her counselling style. I had planned to learn from her, professionally even more than personally. Instead, I’m finding the whole exercise intimidating, as if someone were pinning me down in order to examine me carefully. Counselling may lead to a better understanding, but getting there is awfully painful. Am I going to be capable of guiding someone else through this process? Am I going to be capable of doing anything at all, after more gruelling sessions like this one?’

‘You feel uncomfortable,’ Babette is repeating my words. ‘Uncomfortable because of Jonathan, or because of this meeting, or…?’ Babette’s gaze rests on me. Why does every sentence of hers hang in the air?

‘Well…’ I feel at a loss. I’m out of synch with everyone these days. I keep mistaking people’s intentions: the driver of the Chrysler Grand Voyager in front of me was not turning left, as I presumed, but trying to park; Lech the plumber was not trying it on as he pressed against me in the tiny guest loo—just trying to manoeuvre his way to answer his mobile; Dr Casey was not cross with me when, as I sloped in late after taking Kat to the dentist, he asked me what time I thought it was—he’d simply forgotten his glasses on Mrs S’s desk and couldn’t see his watch.

‘I’m not feeling my usual self,’ I explain to Babette. ‘Awkward.’

‘When did you start feeling awkward in Jonathan’s presence?’

Was it when he explained to Kat and me that Prada came from praeda, the Latin word for loot, and she and I burst into disrespectful giggles? Was it that night at the dinner party of some old school chum of his, when he wouldn’t laugh at my joke about how do you recognise a blonde at a car wash? (Answer: She’s the one on her bicycle.) Was it when he told me that he really didn’t want my shepherd’s pie for supper and that actually, if he was being truthful, he’d never liked it…

‘I don’t know,’ I answer, eyes picking out the vine-and-flower pattern on the carpet.

Babette turns to Jonathan. ‘Can you see why Rosie might feel uncomfortable with you?’

‘It’s not me. It’s that’—Jonathan moves forward on the sofa—‘from the first, Rosie has never fitted in my world. Do you remember when I took you to our office party?’

I wince at the memory of the wine-soaked Christmas party, when Jonathan’s ‘team’, as he likes to call his colleagues, stood about stiffly under festoons of holly and mistletoe, looking awkward and impervious to seasonal cheer. The conversation moved from what mead did to our ancestors’ liver to whether the side-effects of Rollowart warranted an FDA ban. At ten o’clock, just as I thought it would be perfectly acceptable for me to ask Jonathan if we could go home, I was cornered by some bearded professorial type banging on about how German pharmaceutical companies were beating British ones in R&D. After 35-45 minutes of his monotonous monologue, and after four glasses of Rioja, I yawned: ‘What about some party games to liven this lot up? Sardines? Charades?’ The prof gave me a vicious look and turned on his heels. A moment later, Jonathan came up, ashen-faced: ‘What did you say to Emory Watson? He’s my new boss. He organised tonight.’

Why would I wish to fit into this world? I ask myself now. Eggheads, formulae, labs, white smocks and smoking glass vials: Jonathan’s work has always struck me as an extended chemistry class. And I never did do well at chemistry.

‘The children,’ Babette interrupts my musings, ‘how are they taking your separation?’

Again we answer in chorus:

Him: ‘They’re fine.’

Me: ‘They’re gutted.’

‘Explain.’ Babette turns her gentle smile on me.

‘They’—I gulp, cross my arms again—‘seem in a daze. They don’t believe that their father is really leaving. They keep asking me if there is something we can do to get him back.’

‘Rosie, they are perfectly fine when they’re with me,’ Jonathan interrupts, scarlet with indignation. ‘Honestly, Dr…er, Mrs Pagorsky. They are quite old enough to take on board that grown-ups can change their mind about whom they want to spend the rest of their life with.’

The rest of their life. Till death us do part. I can almost hear the officious vicar at St Swithin’s intoning those words in the flower-filled church near Castle Cary where we were married. It had seemed so certain back then, among family, well-wishers and lilies. My father had had tears in his eyes, as did Jonathan’s parents. My mum had spent most of her time elbowing her sister Margaret, trying to direct her attention to the groom’s pews, where not one (’not one!’ she would repeat later at the reception, fuelled by a few glasses of champagne, to anyone who would listen) of the women wore a proper hat. But even Mum had proclaimed us a perfect couple, that perfect spring day. ‘They’re just so much in love,’ she had sighed, dabbing prettily at her eye with a white hanky.

‘People change. They grow apart…’ I listen to Jonathan’s platitudes, watch him shrug off our twelve-year-old marriage as if it was the wrong beach towel. ‘I’m not the only one who knows we need to move on. Rosie’s heart hasn’t been in this for years.’

‘Maybe not, but I’m not the one sneaking around with a lover from work!’ I jump up from the sofa, grab my handbag.

‘I wasn’t sneaking around! I was going to tell you everything!’ Jonathan jumps up too.

‘Only once I caught you!’ I try to stomp off, but Jonathan grabs my arm.

‘Please, Jonathan, Rosie, sit down.’ Babette’s dark eyes grow round in alarm.

‘Will you stop picking a fight?!’ he’s yelling. ‘What are you fighting for? We haven’t had a real marriage for years.’

‘What’s a REAL marriage?!’

‘We weren’t in love. We hardly ever had sex…’

‘Last time I checked, once a week was considered pretty normal!’

‘Please,’ Babette calls out again from her armchair across the room, ‘will you sit down? The session is not over—’

‘Oh yes it is!’ snaps Jonathan as he stomps off.

I wake up and stretch out my left arm and leg, and feel the rest of the large double bed is empty. I take a minute to adjust to my new circumstances. It’s been like this every morning since Jonathan announced he wants a divorce. The little armchair in the corner of the room is half-hidden by only my clothes—not layers of his and mine. The bathroom door is ajar, but Jonathan is not standing there in his striped pyjamas brushing his teeth as he methodically adjusts the shower jet, lays a towel on the radiator to toast it, and hangs up a clean shirt on the back of the door.

What is he doing, this Sunday morning? Do he and Linda have leisurely lie-ins, when they have sex non-stop and then eat a huge breakfast and read the papers and then more sex? Or does Linda get them up and out for a brisk run and then a joint shower that leads to hotvolcanicsex?

I try to picture the room my ex wakes up in—spotless and spartan, or is Linda into Disney princess pink, with a bit of ruffle on the dressing table and a four-poster bed as big as this one? Stop it, I tell myself. Because I can spend hours, in fact have done so, trying to picture their room, and what they do and say. This divorce may be a mutual decision, but how can I help being jealous when my husband of twelve years lies in someone else’s bed?

I hear Kat moving about next door. I look at my alarm clock: 9.20. As I stir and peep over the white cotton waves, I see an unfamiliar red light blinking at me: I forgot to switch off the DVD player after watching When Harry Met Sally last night until 2 a.m.

I stir myself, and notice other unusual sights: clothes strewn across the chest of drawers and even on the floor. Jonathan would have gone mad. The curtains only half drawn and, on the bedside table, yesterday’s mug of tea. It’s as if every bit of our bedroom announces that Jonathan’s gone.

It’s the same downstairs. In the sitting room, the bookshelves look like an elderly East European’s teeth: rows with huge black gaps where Jonathan has pulled out his must-have volumes: Hair Growth, Folliculitis Prevention, Baldness is Not for Life. In the kitchen, the Sabatier knives are missing, and half the Le Creuset set. Newspapers and tins and glass bottles spill out of the bin in one vast, unecological jumble.

I’m thirty-eight next year. I feel as wary of time passing as I do of crossing a motorway: I’ve made enough mistakes already, I daren’t trust my instincts to get me safely across. I want to see the break-up of my marriage as a beginning; but right now I feel it only as an end.

I turn on my other side: my gaze meets Jonathan’s in an old photo. It’s taken at uni, he’s nineteen, maybe twenty, and staring with a solemn expression into the camera lens. I know that expression so well: full of determination. Jonathan was the first Martin to finish school, the first to go to university, and the first to make any money. His parents were incredibly proud, and Jonathan could do no wrong in their eyes. Well, except marry a London girl from an uppity family. Thankfully, my dealings with the in-laws were limited by geography, so that I only had to hear about ‘Mary Mullin up the road, she always had a soft spot for you, Johnny’ every now and then.

My own parents’ reservations that Jonathan was not one of us—comfortable middle class—were carefully concealed behind polite smiles and dry little coughs.

‘Your parents,’ Jonathan would say the moment he was behind the wheel and we were pulling out of their gravel driveway in Somerset, ‘think you’ve married beneath you.’

‘They don’t,’ I lied. ‘What did they say to make you think that?’

‘They look at me as if I were the gamekeeper and you were Lady Chatterley.’

My parents’ class-consciousness melted in their enthusiasm for Zelkin, Jonathan’s profitable venture; but maybe their son-in-law never forgot it, or forgave them—or me.

Perhaps, I muse, Jonathan’s humble beginnings have played a role in his infatuation with Linda. My ex-husband has complete faith in meritocracy, and thinks that Britons have a great deal to learn from their American cousins. ‘If you’re bright, ambitious and hard working you can do anything there,’ he would enthuse after his professional trips to the States. ‘No questions asked about who your family is or what school or university you went to.’ Perhaps he sees Linda in the same way: someone who offers him a chance to be anything he wants to be. I, on the other hand, remind Jonathan of where he came from and what is expected of him. Linda is the stars and sky above, I’m a glass ceiling.

The door squeaks open: ‘Mum?’ Kat looks in. One day she almost looks grown up; the next, like this morning in her pink pyjamas, she looks like a baby. ‘Are you awake?’

‘Hmmm…’ I nod my head against the pillow.

‘Shall I make you a cup of tea?’ My tousled-head daughter peers at me anxiously.

‘No, yes, I mean…I should get up now.’ I stretch, and smile to reassure her.

‘No, you stay there, Mum.’ Kat tucks me in as if I were an invalid and she a nurse.

‘Sweetpea, sit down.’ I pat the bed beside me. ‘Did you sleep all right?’

‘Hmmm…n-n-n-ot really.’ My daughter’s pretty face crumples. ‘Mummy, it’s all so terrible!’ She dissolves in tears.

‘Come here, my darling.’ I take her in my arms, and Kat, now sobbing uncontrollably, slips under the duvet beside me. ‘Don’t cry, my little Kat…’ I try to comfort her by stroking her back; ever since she was tiny this would calm her down. I feel her silky warm skin, and keep up a soft soothing murmur.

‘Mummy, is Dad never coming back?’ she sobs, and presses up against my T-shirt. I’ve taken to wearing Freddy’s, now that Jonathan’s are in some flat in Bayswater, and today I’m in a Spiderman red and blue: it rides up, so that I can feel her against my naked stomach almost as clearly as when I carried her twelve years ago. ‘It’s really over?’

I stroke her hair. ‘Yes, if you mean is my marriage with Daddy really over. No, if you mean fun, and good things, and our family and friends.’

‘Mum, if break-ups are this bad, I don’t want a relationship, ever!’

‘Not every relationship breaks up. Not every relationship breaks up badly.’ I lift her hair and kiss the back of her neck: a hot sleepy spot that I always go back to. ‘And a good relationship makes you your best.’ I stroke her back again. ‘Are you thinking about someone in particular?’

‘Mungo.’ She nods shyly, looks away from me. ‘We’ve been texting.’ I can’t help smiling: as if I hadn’t noticed. ‘When he doesn’t get back to me immediately, I’m scared it’s because he’s broken it off.’

‘You can’t run a relationship worrying about it breaking up,’ I murmur into her neck. ‘You mustn’t think like that.’

‘The great thing about texting is you don’t have to say anything to their face.’ Kat’s voice is low and soft. ‘It’s not as scary.’

‘But not as satisfying either.’ I ruffle her hair. ‘Sometimes you have to take risks.’

‘But if you do, you get your fingers burned.’

‘You mean—like your father and me?’ Kat nods. She is crying quietly, pressed against me. Did I take a risk with Jonathan? My mum would argue that choosing a man from a different background was a risk. My dad worried about our different interests. But to me, our love was an insurance policy: there might be a setback along the way, but the outcome would always be in our favour. ‘Some risks are worth taking. Anyway, you can limit it to texting for now. But after a while you really need to be in each other’s presence…nothing else will do.’ I shut my eyes, and remember Jonathan’s daily letters to me over that first summer, when we were apart, me in Somerset, him in Edinburgh because he’d found an internship at a big hospital lab. How can I survive without you? Jonathan’s letters always began. I feel as if I’ve been asked to do without an arm, or a leg. I can’t work, I can’t sleep, I can’t eat: everything is pointless without you.

‘Mummy…’

I look up to see Freddy. My son, in his pyjamas, blinks with sleep.

‘Mummy,’ he whispers, and then, as he realises his sister is lying beside me: ‘me, too.’ He climbs into bed on my other side.

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