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

Rory splashed back into the room, more or less wearing a towel. He opened the door leading onto the hall and a German Shepherd with stitches bounded onto the bed, my brand new and now half-gnawed leopardskin slipper between his foaming incisors.

‘That’s it!’ I heard a voice raised in anger and realized that it was mine. My emotions were spinning round like a jam-jar lid dropped on a hard slate floor. ‘You may not have noticed in all the years we’ve been married, Rory, that I actually hate animals.’

‘Oh come on, Cass’, Rory, loin-clothed in terry towelling, struck his Johnny Weissmuller pose, hands on hips, chest puffed out, lats splayed. ‘He’s just playing. Satan – down, boy.’

‘Satan?! The fact that all German Shepherds are invariably called Hitler, Adolf, Eva or Satan slightly belies the notion that they’re “fun loving”, don’t you think? This is the sort of dog which rips the face off a baby for its teething toy.’

‘Actually, he’s a very upmarket dog. He was paper-trained on the New York Review of Books. This dog won’t even mount a leg unless it’s clad in Armani,’ he replied jovially, as he dressed.

‘Even if your patients aren’t having sex with my leg, they’re doing hideous things behind my Conran couch, which wouldn’t happen if only you were a real doctor instead of a vet.’

I couldn’t see his face beneath his floppy fringe, but I felt I’d scored a direct hit. ‘There’s nothing second-rate about veterinary science,’ he replied tensely. ‘My patients have certainly had to learn to be quick on their paws around you, Cassie. Come on,’ he tickled the big dog under his slathering jaw. ‘How could you not love animals?’ he asked, regaining his cavalier composure.

‘Oh, I do. They’re so good with gravy.’

‘What is wrong with you lately?’

‘Nowhere did it state in my marriage vows that I would have to cough up fur balls.’ I was up now, tugging on jeans. ‘I mean, this house is filthy enough, thanks to your domestic blindness.’

‘Oh, Cassie,’ he sighed. ‘Why must you always sweat the small stuff?’

‘Because it is all about the small stuff, Rory. Reality is about mundanity.’

‘But you’re clinically obsessed. It’s been years since I’ve seen you without a toilet brush in your hand.’

‘Oh, and you think I’m doing that for pleasure? No, I’m doing it because you claim psychological brutality if I ask you to put your dirty underwear in the laundry basket.’ Giving a melodramatic sigh, I set about tidying up the bedroom.

Rory waylaid me, turned me to him, took my face between the palms of his large hands and gave a cheeky smile. ‘But, Cass, that’s why I love you. Because you cope so well.’

Anger bulged up in me – big as a submarine surfacing, the wake rippling out. ‘They’re just words, Rory – those things that actions speak louder than. Just think about it.’ I broke free and recommenced tidying up with ferocity. ‘How many acres of toast do you think I’ve buttered for you? How many flocks of lamb do you think I’ve baked for your Sunday dinners? How many schools of fish have I fried? Pascal does all the cooking for Hannah, you know. The man sears salmon! Well, I want a salmon searer, goddamn it!’

Rory steadied my hand. ‘Would you please stop fluffing pillows for a second?’

‘Oh God, I hate that,’ I scowled. ‘I hate the way I can be lecturing you about how you should help me clean up the house while you just stand there watching me clean up the house. I work fulltime too, in case you hadn’t noticed!’

‘But you girls can juggle. A woman’s brain has a ten per cent thicker connecting cord between the left and right lobes. Men’s brains can only concentrate on one thing at a time. If I’m hammering and the doorbell rings, I’ll hit my thumb. I just can’t help it, you see.’ He beamed cockily, thinking himself off the biological hook. ‘It’s genetic.’

‘Oh really? I bet you wouldn’t have trouble multi-tasking at, say, an orgy.’

Rory was trailing after me now as I slammed drawers, shoved clothes in cupboards and kicked dogs.

‘If you didn’t have so many people over all the time, you wouldn’t have to do so much housework,’ Rory said with a studied air of truculence. ‘If it’s not your Witches Coven brewing husband-poisoning potions, it’s the Motley Whatsits for fondue.’

‘You are so anti-social, do you know that? “Oh no, we can’t go out tonight because we went out in October . . .” Well it’s now March – and what exactly are we staying in for? It’s not the sex, that’s for sure.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Dark crescents had begun to bloom in the armpits of his shirt. ‘Here’s a novel idea, Cassie. You could initiate sex now and again – and try different things. Couples do swap positions occasionally, you know.’

‘Yes. Let’s swap positions. You stand by the sink washing-up and I’ll lie on the couch farting and watching the footie. Believe me, a husband sprawled drunkenly before a blazing television is not exactly foreplay for a girl – not that you’d care. You don’t seem to have even noticed that I haven’t had an orgasm for over a year.’

He looked stunned. ‘What?’

‘You’re a surgeon. You’re good with your hands. You can fashion a temporary cistern ball float with a squeezy bottle and a coat hanger in five minutes flat, and yet you can’t find my G spot? Location! Location! Location! That’s all there is to say about the G spot, really.’

‘And you’re just telling me this now?’ Rory gave me the sidelong glance of a maltreated pet. ‘After how many years of marriage?’

‘A sensitive man would have noticed – he wouldn’t have to be told. But shucks, as long as you’ve had your pleasure . . . Then you just roll over and snore, like some caveman.’

‘Look, I told you if I’m snoring I’ll sleep in the surgery bedroom.’ He flopped back onto my dressing table chair, flummoxed.

‘Rory, your snoring