“What a charming, insightful man, this Mr. Brady.” I reached for Ben, but he slipped through my fingers. Never had I seen him more ecstatic. After leaping on and off the bed a few times, pummelling the pillows and tossing them across the room, he whipped on some clothes, rummaged through his hair with his fingers and announced he must dash down to the cottage to share the news with Freddy.
“Don’t you want to phone your father?”
“And listen to his enthusiastic silence? Freddy and I have talked about including some of the recipes from the book on the restaurant menu-”
I opened my mouth but he was gone. Had I brought this exclusion on myself? I lay down on the bed and pressed my hands against my stomach. I was sure I had gained five pounds in the night. Ben had been muttering in his sleep about floating island pudding with a
I flipped to the Employment Wanted section. Ben had been urging me to find someone to help out with the housework. A personal secretary was on the lookout, as was an accountant and someone wishing to teach trapeze, but I didn’t think any of them would be interested in domestic work. I would have to advertise. I turned the page; thinking about the day Dorcas had responded to our plea for hired help would start me crying. Better to read the Personals: “Lost-adorable Pekingese. Answers to Valentino. Reward.” And this-“Man seeks attractive mature woman for dating and beyond. Must be nonsmoker, teetotaler, and bingo enthusiast.”
How fortunate I was to have escaped the clutches of loneliness. The door inched open. Tobias entered, yawning with every outstretched paw. I patted the counterpane and he tumbled alongside me. “Want me to read Dear Felicity Friend?” Only cats and the happily married can fully enjoy advice to the lovelorn.
“ ‘Dear Felicity: I am desperately in love with a man who is married to another, a woman unworthy to untie his shoes. At night I lie awake, fantasizing about invading his place of work and ripping off my clothes. I have a superb figure and know him to be a connoisseur. I am prepared to do anything to get him. Signed,
Tobias yawned mightily.
“Dear Felicity replies: ‘Dear Hot: Invite him to your home and rip off your clothes. That way you can butter the police up with crumpets and tea when they come to take you away.’ ”
I flopped back against the pillows and scanned a paragraph of moans from a woman with a mother-in-law who smothered her with attention. Some people and their problems! Now for the Confidential. “To Teary Eyes. Your problem will soon die a natural death.”
What sort of problem? Pain? Fear? Perhaps guilt-the guilt of a woman who has everything she could possibly want.
Dear Felicity, I imagined myself writing. I am married to the most marvellous, gorgeous, exciting man but there is something lacking in me. My first clue was that I don’t hear violins when we make love. And now I find myself missing, desperately, two friends who have gone away. Isn’t a husband meant to fill every need, every empty space of the heart?
Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Hanover, we thank you for accepting the place on the Fairwell Committee recently vacated by Beatrix Woolpack. Do join myself and the board in a celebration glass of sherry.
Oh; how kind, Madam President. Words do rather fail one. When one has so long wished to give back to the organisation some particle of the kindness and support one has received! Oh, my! Harvey’s Bristol. Most salubrious. As one says to the customers at The Dark Horse, nothing like the best.”
I must advise you, Mary, that we may not have an assignment for you until sometime after Christmas; Daisy Smith has seniority. But we trust you will, in the interim, prepare yourself emotionally and physically for the Grand Summons. You understand there must be no repeat performance of the train travesty.
Appalling. I hear Mrs. Woolpack is close to a breakdown, which I suppose says something for her. Dear! Dear! At our meeting last Wednesday, I had to cover my eyes when she stepped onto the dais, handed in her board resignation, was stripped of all honours and asked to step down as Chairperson of Dried Flower Arranging. One learns from witnessing something like that, although in my humble opinion she was fortunate to escape a harsher penalty.
Now, now, Mary! You know as well as I, that we in The Widows Club are safe from being an S.T.B.R. ourselves unless we commit the Unforgivable Offence. Cheers, everyone!
11
… “Our dear mother used to say,” remarked Primrose as Butler set down a pot of fresh tea and crept from the room, “that the best way to stay happily married is to keep busy…”
We were happy, but that was the problem. I couldn’t quite adjust. Take the morning in point. Instead of bustling down to the kitchen in my housewifely dressing gown, I was still in bed pondering whether Dear Felicity shunned the limelight because she was afraid of being cornered at Sainsbury’s cheese counter with questions on frigidity or because the elusive element improved readership. Edwin Digby, being a man of mystery in more ways than one, certainly added local colour. I would have to ask Rowland if he had ever asked either celebrity to open the church fete. That is, if I saw him before I had forgotten the question; Rowland didn’t stop by as often as he once did. I missed seeing him, and I hate to admit it, but I missed thinking about him. Marriage did have its curtailments.
A knock on the bedroom door and in came Ben with eggs Benedict and champagne. He really was wonderful. I was so ashamed.
To enhance the possibility that champagne did burn up calories, I did an exercise Jill had taught me: lifting and lowering my chin three times between bites. Ben eyed me askance a couple of times, but he was occupied balancing the tray on the bed and talking about
“Ben, perhaps this editor of yours, Mr. Brady, might wish to attend Abigail’s premiere and plug the book.” So much to be accomplished in a short time-and with Christmas in between. Some of the vigour fizzled. I was back to no Dorcas and Jonas.
“Remember last year?” sneered the Ghost of Christmas Past. All too clearly. Oh, the anguish of searching my client listing for the name of a single man who, for the price of a new window treatment, might accompany me to the office party.
I would invite Miss Thorn and Rowland for Boxing Day dinner. Moving the tray aside, I slid my arm around Ben, who was sitting on the edge of the bed talking about glace pheasant Viennese style.
“Sounds delicious,” I said.
“So you said at breakfast.” He turned sideways, met my lips in a kiss, stood up and placed my plate of eggs Benedict on the floor. “Here Tobias! Thousands of starving cats in China.”
Those words hurt. They also made me mildly angry. My husband’s ego was upstaging my physical well-being. “Ben…” I stopped. The mirror showed that yesterday’s calories had settled on my hips. As I twisted this way and
