out for dinner and my fate was sealed from that moment on as he regaled me with clever stories of capricious foreign dignitaries and ambitious commonwealth aspirants. His Cambridge accent seemed so erudite, his turn of phrase so eloquent.
Nowadays I just wished he’d shut up.
When we got back to the villa he showered, went for a half-hour run, showered again and announced he was hungry. This was my cue to disappear into the kitchen and produce some culinary victual from the warmer.
Bridgette encouraged Andrew to believe that women loved men through food. The more effort put into a meal – the finer the filo pastry, the smoother the hollandaise sauce – the more a wife valued her husband. This he reminded me of at every meal with a crumb-by-crumb critique of his gastronomic experience.
Fortunately, our meal was interrupted halfway through by his mobile.
Unfortunately, the call was from Theodora.
He listened quietly while chewing on his sea bass en croute with grinding concentration.
‘I see,’ he said, pausing to take a swig of wine. ‘And where is it?’
He eyes settled on me with a look of annoyance.
‘I understand. I’ll get her to see it on Monday.’
Theodora would have prattled on for a quarter of an hour longer but Andrew didn’t suffer gasbags lightly.
‘Got to run. Thanks for your assistance Theodora.’
He hung up and poured another glass of wine thoughtfully.
‘Fay, I hope you are taking this house-hunting thing seriously.’
‘Of course I am,’ I replied, pushing my lettuce around the plate.
‘Theodora tells me she’s found a perfect property but you’ve refused to view it.’
‘I drove past it. Just to have a look. You can see it quite easily from the gate.’
‘Did you go in?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘It seemed a bit far from the Chora.’
He studied my face whilst cleaning out the inside of his cheeks with the tip of his tongue. I could feel myself blushing as I tried to lie my way out of the corner I was painting myself into, but how could I explain the truth to him? What was the truth anyway? That I didn’t want to pull the carpet out from under the man I’d become obsessed with? Oh my God, I was actually obsessed with him, wasn’t I?
Ridiculous! I thought to myself.
I hardly knew the man.
Barely spoken to him!
I got up and noisily started clearing away the plates.
Some bloody feminist you are! I mentally screamed.
Can’t seem to exist five minutes alone in the universe without switching allegiance to some other penis-wielding vassal.
At the mention of the word penis my subconscious skipped to thoughts of Urian naked.
I wonder if he’s well hung.
Bet he is!
I picked up my rolling pin and began caressing its long shaft with a suddy sponge. Seconds later I dunked it beneath the water with a loud splosh as if to silence my thoughts.
Stop this! It’s just pure lust.
The rolling pin emerged from the water covered in more suds than before. Suddenly, another thought occurred to me.
Isn’t that what we accuse men of doing all day long. Lusting after women?
Hang about! Perhaps that does make me a feminist after all.
I squirted more washing-up liquid onto the rolling pin with alacrity and began lathering it up again.
Hell yeah! I’m lusting after a man like an oversexed…sex…machine.
I am empowered enough to make men the object of my lust.
Well, Urian anyway.
I jumped as Andrew suddenly sharpened into focus through the suds of the rolling pin. He’d come over to the sink and was staring at me as if I was a science experiment. Blushing crimson, I made a pretence of taking out the garbage mid-washing up, leaving a trail of water and suds across the floor. Andrew dumped the rest of the dishes into the sink with crash
‘Well I think you should see it’, he snapped. ‘Sounds perfect. Two hectares with its own borehole.’
I hastily returned to the sink, skidding across the floor in alarm.
‘You can’t drink the borehole water,’ I replied desperately.
‘Is it hooked up to the mains?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Really! What have you been doing all week?’
‘The same thing I do back home in Chelsea,’ I muttered to myself as I started drying the dishes. ‘Sweet bugger all.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Andrew chipperly.
‘Nothing,’ I replied with a sigh. ‘I’ll ring Theodora tomorrow.’
Theodora’s man-sized hands clutched onto the steering wheel with military purpose. They were attached to short stubby arms that disappeared into the armholes of a shockingly yellow sundress. Flabby puckerings of flesh gathered at the armpits and her batwings wobbled alarmingly over every hump.
As we thundered along the dirt track towards Urian’s farm at maximum speed, an undeniable sense of smugness filled the air. Theodora had worked out the pecking order in my marriage:
Andrew – Head Honcho
Fay – Minion.
Her toadying days, such as they were, were over.
A plastic strawberry bobbed from her rear-view mirror, seeping sickly sweet vapours of rotting watermelon into the airless car.
‘That’s a nice smell,’ I said insincerely, flicking at it with my forefinger.
‘Smells exact of strawberry, isn’t it?’ she said pleased.
‘Yes,’
