Rescuing Rose Read online

  ‘Because, Ed,’ I said, irritated by now, ‘those people are depending on me. They’ve confided in me. They’ve put their faith in me. I have a sacred duty to write back. I mean, take this woman for example.’ I waved a piece of Basildon Bond at him. ‘Her husband has just run off with a dental hygienist thirty years his junior—don’t you think she deserves a reply?’

  ‘Well do other agony aunts write back to everyone?’

  ‘Some do,’ I said, ‘and some don’t. But if I didn’t then it would make me feel…mean. I couldn’t live with myself.’

  Gradually it became apparent that Ed couldn’t live with me either.

  ‘Will you be coming to bed tonight?’ he’d ask me sardonically, ‘and if so, how will I recognise you?

  ‘I shall cite the letters as correspondence in our divorce,’ he’d quip with a bitter laugh.

  Then he began getting on at me about all my other alleged shortcomings as well: my ‘total inability’to cook for example—well I’ve never learnt—and my alleged ‘bossiness’. He also objected to what he impertinently called my ‘obsessive’ tidiness—‘It’s like living in an operating theatre!’ he’d snap.

  By July conflict had long since replaced kisses and we were sleeping in separate beds. That’s when, in a spirit of compromise, I suggested marriage guidance—and that was that…

  ‘Ed was supposed to get the seven year itch, not the seven month itch,’ I said to the twins as I fumbled for a tissue again. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. It’s so humiliating.’

  ‘Well what would you advise a reader in this situation to do?’ asked Bella.

  ‘I’d advise them to try and get over it—fast.’

  ‘Then you must do that too. There’s an equation for post relationship breakdown recovery,’ she added knowledgeably. ‘It’s supposed to take you half the time you were actually in a relationship to get over it. So in your case that would be five months.’

  ‘No,’ Bea corrected her, ‘it takes twice as long, not half—so it’s going to take her a year and a half.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s half the time,’ said Bella.

  ‘No, it’s double,’ insisted Bea. ‘Look, I’ll show you on a piece of paper if you like. Right, where x = the time it took him to ask you out and y = the number of times he told you he loved you and z = his income multiplied by the number of lovers you’d both had before then—’

  ‘Oh stop arguing you two,’ I said. ‘Because you’re both wrong—it’s not going to take me five months or eighteen months—it’s going to take me the rest of my life! Ed and I had our problems but I loved him,’ I wept. ‘I made this public commitment to him. He was The One.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t,’ Bella said gently. ‘If he really was The One, he would not have a) objected to your new career—especially as he knew it made you happy—and b) carried on with Mary-Claire Grey.’ At the sound of her name my tears slammed on the brakes and did a rapid U-turn up my cheeks. ‘May I inject a little reality here?’ Bella added gently as I felt a slick of snot slither down my top lip. ‘You’ve been let down; your marriage has prematurely failed; you’re nearly forty…’—OH SHIT!!!!!!!—‘…so you’ve got to move on. And I think you’ll only be able to do that successfully if you expunge Ed from you life.’

  ‘You’ve got to expel him,’ said Bea forcefully.

  ‘You’ve got to eject him,’ agreed her twin.

  ‘You’ve got to exile him,’ said Bea.

  ‘Erase him,’ Bella went on.

  ‘Evict him.’

  ‘Excommunicate him.’

  ‘You’ve got to exorcise him,’ they both said.

  ‘Exorcise him?’ I whispered. ‘Yes. That’s it. I shall simply Edit Ed out of my life.’

  I felt better once I’d resolved to do that. Ed and I live eight miles apart, we have no mutual friends, my mail’s redirected, and we don’t have kids. We don’t even have to communicate through lawyers as we can’t start proceedings until we’ve been married a year. So it can all be nice and neat. Which is how I like things. Tidy. Sorted out. Nor do we have any joint financial commitments as the house belongs solely to Ed. I sold my flat when we got engaged and moved in with him. Ed wanted me to put in my equity to pool resources but Bella advised me to wait.

  ‘Rose,’ she said, ‘you haven’t known Ed long. Please, don’t tie up your cash with his until you feel certain it’s going to work out.’

  Ed seemed disappointed that I wouldn’t do it, but as things turned out, Bella was right. As for letting all our friends know about the split—that had been taken care of by the popular press.

  I shall simply carry on as though I’d never met him I decided as I opened more packing cases the next day. I shall be very civilised about it. I shall not get hysterical; I’ll be as cool as vichyssoise. In any case the unpalatable image of him canoodling with our marriage guidance counsellor would keep sentiment firmly at bay.

  And now I masochistically replayed the scene where I’d found them together that day. I’d been invited to speak at a seminar on Relationship Enrichment and told Ed I’d be coming home late. I hadn’t thought it relevant to mention that it was being held in a conference room at the Savoy. But when I left at nine I had to walk through the bar and, to my astonishment, I spotted Ed. He was sitting at a corner table—behind a large parlour palm—holding hands with Mary-Claire Grey.

  My unfailing advice to readers in such disagreeable situations is, Just Pretend You Haven’t Seen Them And Leave! But in the nanosecond it took my brain to clock their combined presence I had walked right up to them. Mary-Claire saw me first and the look of horror on her snouty little face is something I’ll never forget. She dropped Ed’s hand as though it were radioactive, and emitted a high-pitched little cough. Ed swivelled in his seat, saw me, blinked twice, blushed deeply and simply said, ‘Oh!’

  I was relieved that he didn’t try and cover it up by saying, for example, ‘Gosh, Rose, fancy seeing you here!’or ‘Darling, do you remember our marriage guidance counsellor, Mary-Claire Grey?’ or even ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘Oh…Rose,’ Ed stuttered, getting to his feet. ‘Well, what a surprise! I, er expect you’re wondering what we’re…’

  ‘Yes,’ I interjected. ‘I am.’ I was so frosty I gave myself goose bumps, but inside I was as hot as a flame.

  ‘Well, I…we…we were just having a chat, actually.’

  ‘A chat?’ I echoed. ‘How nice. Well, don’t let me interrupt,’ I added with a chilly little smile. Then I turned on my heel, and left.

  Looking back, the only thing that gives me any solace is the knowledge that I retained my dignity. It’s only in my dreams that I throw things at him, and swear, and rage and hit. In real life I was as cool as a frozen penguin, which might surprise people who know me well. I’m supposed to be ‘difficult’ you see—a bit ‘complicated’. A rather ‘thorny’ Rose—ho ho ho! And of course my red hair is a guaranteed sign of a crazy streak and a wicked tongue. So the fact that I didn’t erupt like Mount Etna in this moment of crisis would almost certainly confound my friends. But I felt oddly detached from what was going on. I was numb. I guess it was shock. I mean, there was my handsome husband, of barely six months, holding hands with a troll! This realisation astounded me so much that I was able to retain my sang-froid.

  ‘Rose…’ he ventured an hour and a half later in the kitchen where I was tidying out a drawer. ‘Rose…’ he repeated, but I was having difficulty hearing him over the deafening thump, thump of my heart. ‘Rose…’he reiterated, ‘you must think badly of me.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘I do.’

  ‘I just want to say that I’m truly sorry. I know it doesn’t look good.’ Now that elegant little apology really annoyed me, because I was enjoying being on the moral high ground. The air’s very bracing at ten thousand feet, and of course there’s a wonderful view. ‘But I’d like to…explain,’ he suggested impotently.

  ‘No. Spare me, Ed. Please don’t.’

  ‘I
want to,’ he insisted. ‘There are things I’d like to say.’

  Suddenly I noticed that one of the cupboards was grubby and began wiping it with a damp cloth.

  ‘I’m not remotely interested in why you were holding hands with that pigmy,’ I said stiffly as I swabbed away.

  ‘Look, Rose. We’ve got to talk.’

  ‘You sound like the B.T. ad.’

  ‘Mary-Claire and I were just…chatting,’ he added lamely.

  ‘Ed,’ I said serenely, ‘that’s a lie: a) you were not just “chatting”, you were holding hands; and b) there was a pool of drool under your table big enough to support aquatic life. What’s the attraction?’I added breezily as I reached for the Ajax. ‘She looks like a pig in a tutu to me.’

  ‘Well…she…she…Mary-Claire listens to me, Rose,’ he said with sudden emphasis. ‘She hears what I say. You don’t. You take everyone else’s problems seriously, don’t you—but not mine, and would you please put that cloth down?’

  ‘There’s a nasty mark here,’ I said. ‘It’s very stubborn. I’ll have to try Astonish if this doesn’t work.’

  ‘Will you stop cleaning, Rose, for Chrissake!’ He snatched the cloth out of my hand and hurled it into the sink with a flaccid slap. ‘You’re always cleaning things,’ he said. ‘That’s part of the problem—I can never relax.’

  ‘I just like things to be shipshape,’ I protested pleasantly. ‘No need to snap.’

  ‘But you’re always at it. It’s bizarre! If you’re not at work or the radio station you’re cleaning or tidying, or polishing the furniture, or you’re sorting drawers. Or you’re colour spectrumming my shirts: or filing stuff away, or you’re hoovering the floor, or telling me to hoover.’

  ‘But it’s a very big house.’

  Ed shook his head. ‘You can never relax, Rose, can you? You can never just sit and be. Look,’ he added with a painful sigh, ‘you and I have got problems. What shall we do?’

  At this my ears pricked up like a husky. Ed was talking my lingo now. This was just like one of my monthly ‘Dilemmas’ when the readers, rather than me, give advice.Rose (name changed to protect her identity), has just found her husband Ed (ditto), canoodling with their vertically-challenged marriage guidance counsellor, Mary-Claire Grey. Rose, understandably, feels shocked and betrayed. But, despite this, she still finds her husband desperately, knee-tremblingly, heart-breakingly attractive, so is wondering what to do. And I was just about to open my mouth when I heard Ed say, ‘Maybe we should have a trial separation.’ Separation. Oh. S, e, p, a, r…I reflected as I pulled the knife out of my heart.

  ‘One is apart,’ I said quietly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘One is apart.’

  ‘Well, yes—we will be. Just for a while.’

  ‘No, it’s the anagram of separation,’ I explained.

  ‘Oh,’ he sighed. ‘I see. But I think we should just have a breather…take a month off.’

  ‘So that you can shag that midget again?’

  ‘I haven’t shagged her—and she is a not a midget!’

  ‘Yes you have—and she is!’

  ‘I have…not…slept with Mary-Claire,’ he insisted.

  ‘I have a diploma in Advanced Body Language! I know.’

  ‘Well, I…’

  ‘Don’t bother to deny it, Ed.’

  He clenched his jaw, as he does when he’s cornered, and a small blue vein jumped by his left eye. ‘It’s just…’he sighed, ‘that I was feeling neglected and she—’

  ‘Paid you attention I suppose?’

  ‘Yes!’ he said defiantly. ‘She did. She talked to me, Rose. She communicated with me. Whereas you only communicate with strangers. That’s why I wrote you that letter,’ he added. ‘It’s the only way I could get a response! You’re…neurotic, Rose,’ he snapped, no longer contrite now, but angry. ‘Sometimes I think you need help.’

  At that I put my J Cloth down and gave him a contemptuous stare. ‘That is ridiculous,’ I said quietly. ‘Help is what I provide.’

  ‘Look, Rose,’ he said exasperatedly, running his left hand through his hair, ‘our marriage is not going well. We rushed into it because, being older, we thought we knew what we were doing—but we were wrong. And I found you so vibrant and so attractive, Rose—I still do. But I’m finding it hard to live with you, so for the time being let’s give each other some space.’

  ‘You want more space?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Space.’

  ‘Well you can have all the space in the universe,’ I said calmly, ‘because I’m going to file for divorce.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. I’d shocked him. I think I’d shocked myself. But I knew exactly what ‘let’s give each other space’ really meant, and I was going to be the one to quit first.

  ‘We’ll discuss it tomorrow,’ he added wearily.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘there’s no need.’ I’d been chewing so hard on my lower lip that I could taste the metallic tang of blood.

  ‘You want to call it a day already?’ he asked quietly. I nodded. ‘Are you really sure?’ I nodded again. ‘Are you quite, quite sure?’ he persisted. ‘Because there’ll be serious consequences.’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘I am.’

  ‘Right,’ he said faintly. He shrugged. ‘Right. Okay…if that’s what you want. Well then,’ he said bleakly, ‘I guess that’s…it.’ He inhaled through his nose, gave me a grim little smile then walked away. But as he reached for the door handle I said, ‘Can I ask you something, Ed?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’d just like to know why you asked me to marry you?’

  ‘I didn’t, Rose. You asked me.’

  Christ—I’d forgotten. How embarrassing! I could have sworn it was the other way round. I certainly don’t have any memories of getting down on bended knee. All I recall is whizzing round the London Eye, drunk as a monkey, and finding myself engaged by the time we got down. But if, as Ed ungallantly claims, I was the one who popped the question, then it’s right that I should also be the one proposing divorce.

  I was thinking about all this as I emptied the last few packing cases and cleaned the house after the twins had gone. The interior isn’t bad—just a bit dusty, that’s all. Off-white walls, limed wooden kitchen units, cream silk curtains (included in the price) and a perfectly respectable oatmeal Berber carpet everywhere. The house is the colour of string. It looks etiolated. Drained. Like me. I quite like it, I thought as I scrubbed and swabbed—too much colour would get me down. I decided I’d redecorate it later; I could live with this for a while.

  And now, bearing in mind what the twins had said, I prepared to expunge the memories of Ed. I’d given this very careful thought. I went to the Spar round the corner and bought a packet of party balloons. When I got back I laid them out flat, then wrote ‘ED WRIGHT’ in black biro on each one. Then I inflated them, watching his name grow and expand on the rubber skin. Ears aching from the effort I watched the balloons bobbing up and down on the sitting room floor. They looked incongruously, almost insultingly, festive as they bounced against each other in the breeze. Then I found my sewing box, took my largest needle and stabbed them, one by one. BANG! went Ed’s name, as it was reduced to rubbery shreds. CRACK! exploded the next. POP! went the third as I detonated it, feeling the smile spread across my face. I derived enormous and, yes, childish satisfaction from this—it gave me a malicious thrill. Ed was full of hot air—his vows meant nothing—so this was what he deserved. I burst nine—one for each month I knew him, then took the last one, which was yellow, outside. By now the wind had picked up, and I stood in the middle of the lawn for a moment, then let the balloon go. A sudden gust snatched it and lifted it over the garden fence, before it floated up and away. I could still make out Ed’s name as it rose higher and higher, bobbing and jerking in the stiff breeze. By now it was just a yellow blob against the sky, then a smudge, then a speck, and then gone.

  I heaved a sigh of relief then went inside for Stage Two of my ritual. I
took a piece of string and tied knots in it, one for each happy memory of my time with Ed. The first knot was for when we met, the second was for New Year’s Eve; as I tied the third I thought of our engagement party; I tied the fourth for our wedding day. As I tied the fifth I remembered how happy I had felt when I moved into his house. Then I lit the end of the string and watched a neat yellow flame take hold. It climbed slowly but steadily, leaving a glowing tail of embers and a thin coil of smoke. Thirty seconds later and my memories were just a thread of ash which I washed down the sink. Finally, I riffled through a wallet of snaps and found a photo of Ed. He’s usually extremely photogenic, but in this one he looked like shit. The camera must have gone off by mistake, because it was looking straight up his nose. He was scowling at something, it exaggerated his slight jowl, and his face was unshaven and tired. So I pinned it to the kitchen noticeboard and made a mental note to have it enlarged. Then I went into the bathroom to perform the final part of my cathartic rites. Suddenly my mobile rang.

  ‘It’s us,’ said the twins, one on each extension. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In the bathroom.’

  ‘You’re not taking an overdose are you?’ they shrieked.

  ‘Not at the moment. No.’

  ‘And you’re not slashing your wrists or anything?’

  ‘Are you crazy—just think of the mess!’

  ‘Well what are you doing in the bathroom then?’ asked Bea suspiciously.

  ‘I’m doing my exorcises,’ I said.

  I rang off, took my wedding ring out of my pocket, and looked at it one last time. Ed had had it engraved inside with Forever—I emitted a mirthless laugh. Then, holding it between thumb and forefinger, like a dainty titbit, I dropped it into the loo. It lay there, glinting gently in the shadeless overhead light. Now I took our engagement photo, ripped it into six pieces, threw them in, then pulled the flush. I watched the cauldron of water swirl and boil then it cleared with a glug, and refilled. Everything had gone—the ring and the photograph—all except for one piece. To my annoyance it was the bit with most of Ed’s face on and it was resolutely refusing to go down. It was unnerving, having him bobbing about like that, smiling cheerfully up at me as though nothing were amiss. So I flushed it again and watched the fragment spin wildly but, to my intense annoyance, it kept popping back up. After ten tries, defeated, I fished Ed’s still smiling face out with the loo brush, and scraped him into the bin.