How to Kill Your Husband (and other handy household hints) by Kathy Lette (top 10 novels to read TXT) 📗

‘Lucky you. My periods are so bad I have to wear pads down to my knees. I’m positively upholstered. So . . . what’s with all the tampons?’

‘Good God, Cass! I don’t want anyone to know. Cone of silence, promise? No wonder Studz has gone off me.’ Tears rim her green eyes. ‘What man in the world would want a woman who has,’ she can barely utter the words ‘passed her use-by date?’

‘Um, Prince Charles? He gave up a supermodel for an older woman.’

‘That’s true.’ Jazz rallies a little, blowing her nose. ‘Actually, I’ve really liked Prince Charles ever since he wanted to be a Tampon. Although it is a metaphor for his whole life, don’t you think? Always in the right place at the wrong time.’

We laugh and hug before parting, with promises to speak the next day. ‘Where is Studz?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know. No doubt off fornicating with a couple of crack-whores somewhere.’

‘Are you going to confront him?’

‘Not yet. He’s off to Haiti. Here, look.’ She fossicks through her Kim Novak bag and extracts a handwritten note. The letterhead declares it to be from a prison in Port-au-Prince. She reads it aloud. ‘My grateful thanks for coming to meet my Prime Boss on Death Row. I need not tell you that you and your family will always be welcome to my perfumed land fondled by the sun and the Creole beauties whose charms are unknown to the world . . . Which, I presume, is why Studz hasn’t asked his family to go with him,’ she post-scripts bitterly.

‘Maybe he thought it was too dangerous – that you’d be kidnapped before you could say “I wonder who that man is, with the handcuffs and the tranquillizer daaaaa . . .”’

‘No. That cheat of a husband of mine is just too busy saving the world to save his marriage.’

My Rory may not be famous for healing the world’s wounds, but he suddenly looked so good by contrast. You may be only one person in the world, but you can also be the world to one person. ‘I do love Rory, you know, Jazz,’ I say on an impulse. ‘Tonight he’ll redeem himself. I know he will.’

‘Yeah, sure. . . And Melanie Griffith is aging naturally.’

Days in the houses of working parents pretty much conclude as they began – in a state of chaos and confusion.

4.30: Somehow manage to shoe-horn car between two massive Range Rovers only one hour’s walk from my house and trudge home without getting mugged. Oh happy day!

5.30: Rory still not home. No Jeep outside but lots of rubbish. Rory hasn’t tied the drawstring on the garbage bag tightly enough, much to the joy of the urban foxes which have recently invaded London. Littering the garden are all my guilty working-mother secrets – the frozen food packets and fast-food containers which I don’t particularly want my stay-at-home organic mum neighbours to see.

5.40: Inside, find kids gazing mystified into fridge waiting for something edible to materialize. If ever I get time I’m going to hunt down Martha Stewart and ram that bread maker right up her jacksey! Domestic Goddesses from Mrs Beeton onwards have made the lives of ordinary women a misery. My favourite recipe would be to roast one slowly on a spit. Domestic Goddess en croute. Settle on chicken nuggets in the shape of comical cartoon characters which will no doubt introduce an array of inoperable tumours into my offspring’s delicate systems.

6.00: Whilst cooking dinner, yell at kids to do homework. Express regret when can’t answer their questions. From Jamie, ‘I took the Religious Studies exam at school, Mum, but shouldn’t my grade be determined by God?’

6.30: Pick up phone sticky with Nutella. Ring Rory’s mobile. ‘Rory? I’ve got to start filling in my Threshold Assessment form.’

‘Just write “etc” a lot. That’s what you write when you want bosses to think you know more than you do,’ he says, promising to be home soon. A Golden Retriever has died in surgery during foreign object removal, and he’s apparently on his way to break the news to the owners.

Try to revise my notes during dinner but kids keep up a stream of ridiculous questions.

‘Mum, wasn’t Hitler’s first name Heil? Tell Jenny, she won’t believe me.’

‘Mum, when that ad on TV says that dog food is new and improved tasting, well, who tests it? How do they know?’

Look at my offspring in bewilderment. Hadn’t I ingested gallons of fish oils during pregnancy to optimise brain development? Hell, I’d eaten so much fish oil I’d probably soon grow gills and start spawning. And for what?

8.00: Ring Rory. ‘The kids are driving me insane.’

‘Hmm. Obviously you’re still carrying a little residual anger over the whole breech-birth thing, pet,’ is his reply.

‘Come. Home. Right. Now,’ I beseech, burping the lids on the Tupperware.

‘But I’m just taking the dead dog owner for a beer to cheer him up. Turns out I forgot to get him to sign a consent form for surgery. I’m going to slip it under his nose when he’s had a few. You don’t want him to sue, do you?’

‘Oh great. Which pub?’

‘The Hobgoblin.’

‘Isn’t that the pub with the super wide-screen TV? God, there’s not a match on, is there?’

‘Won’t be long. Love you.’

I groan. A pub with a wide-screen TV is the earthly equivalent of the black hole in space. Once a man goes in, he won’t be coming out for an eternity. ‘Rory! Rory! No, don’t hang up on—’

9.00: Try to get Jenny to pack her school bag. Can’t get her off the phone. Actually, can’t remember what she looks like without half a phone growing out of her ear.

9.15: Give daughter phone-ectomy. March her into the bathroom to clean teeth.

9.30: Ring Rory again. Finally he answers, sounding inebriated. ‘I know kids are hard work but they really are so rewarding, kitten. Just get them to bed earlier and you’ll have loads of time. Even better, I won’t be there to annoy you. Lovely peace and quiet, eh?’

‘But Rory, I—’

9.45: