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

is at a decibel level which would only be tolerable if the spare bedroom was in, say, Nova Scotia.’ I attacked the bed now, wrestling the duvet into submission. ‘But of course you don’t want to talk about it. The only thing we do talk about of late is how little we have to talk about!’

‘Actually, you know, I can talk about feelings – like how bored shitless I feel having conversations about feelings all the fucking time!’ Glaring hotly, he knifed to his feet. ‘I mean, what are you trying to turn me into? A female impersonator?’

‘No. I’m just sooo sick of living with a Neanderthal. Why don’t you just go kill a bison with your bare hands and get this macho shit out of your system?’

‘Hey, if it weren’t for us macho blokes, human beings would still be passing through the digestive systems of bears and tigers and lions. I mean, what are you suggesting I do?’ I could see Rory digging his fingernails into the pads of his palms in an effort to control his temper. ‘Go and find a cave somewhere and hibernate until you feel like starting an argument again?’

‘I don’t start them. You do.’

‘Look at us, Cass! We argue and then we argue about why we’re arguing. What is happening to us?’

‘We need help, Rore. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.’

We looked at each other for a silent eternity; though the clock recorded it as twenty-seven seconds. Then my husband’s eyes narrowed knowingly.

‘You know who you sound just like? Jasmine.’ He shook me by my shoulders. ‘Who are you? What have you done with my wife!’

‘I know you hate Jazz. You always have. But tell me, do you hate her more or less than you hate all my other girlfriends?’

‘I don’t hate her. It’s just that she’s encamped in the gender jungle, conscientiously patrolling her little patch of territory, just like those Japanese soldiers of the Second World War who occasionally emerge from obscure bits of Borneo to discover that the war is over and nobody bothered to tell them.’

‘The sex war’s not over. This is just a new front in the existing skirmish. I have tested this theory under scientific conditions and—’

‘Meaning, you’ve asked your girlfriends over cappuccinos.’

‘Well, um, yes. But the point is, Rory, if we were in a plane right now we’d be assuming the crash position.’

‘It’s not all my fault, you know. All I get from you is the cold shoulder and the hot tongue.’

‘Lucky you. ’Cause the only tongue I’ve felt for years is one in my shoe.’

‘Well maybe if you stopped emasculating me, I’d be more confident between the sheets. I mean, how can you knock my profession like that? You know I was the youngest in my year to graduate. I got there faster than anyone else!’

‘Oh, that is true of so many things you do, Rory.’

My husband looked at me like a kicked dog. ‘I would say sorry,’ he said sarcastically, ‘only the Testosterone Treaty obviously prohibits me from conceding defeat.’

‘Obviously. Does it allow some kind of Husband Relocation Programme?’

‘So what are you saying?’ he went on. ‘That the warranty on our marriage has expired?’

‘If our marriage were one of your pets you’d have it put down. Seems to me we’re at that stage where we either divorce or seek an “interesting couple for hours of uninhibited fun!”’

Reflexively he took a step backward. Judging by Rory’s expression, I might as well have pulled a pin on a live grenade. The clock’s luminous hands creaked into the suffocating silence.

‘So you really have lost your orgasm? Christ. What happened to us, Cass? We used to fuck like rabbits.’

I shrugged. ‘We got marital myxomatosis.’

11. The Three Muffkateers

Marriage is definitely Nature’s way of promoting masturbation. Only to me, wanking is like dancing without music, I confided to Jazz over the email.

You’re too young for the Pope to be ringing you for tips on celibacy, Cass, she replied. You need a toy boy. Think about it.

And I did think about it. A lot. I thought about it when I cricked my neck and found myself lying on my belly getting a massage from a bulky, hulky gym masseur, and I had to fight the urge to roll over like some beer-bellied businessman and ask for ‘extras’.

I thought about it when the sports mistress told us a joke in the staffroom. ‘Why are married women fatter than single women? Because when single women get home they look in the fridge – and go to bed. When married women look in the bed – they go to the fridge.’

I thought about it while reading the Guardian’s report on marriage, which stated that forty-two per cent of women surveyed said they often thought about running away with someone else. Half wished they’d never married. And a third found sex boring. I thought about it when I woke up crying, then realized I hadn’t been asleep yet. I ground my teeth during nightmares, only to discover I was wide awake.

I thought about it while visiting my parents. In England, fathers are often found at the bottom of their gardens, like fairies. My mum called my father’s shed his ‘anteroom to death’. He disappeared there for hours at a time. ‘I just pop down occasionally to check he’s still breathing.’

I was huddled with my half-pickled rellos by his shed one Sunday, freezing around a damp barbecue fire – when my father announced it was my wedding anniversary. ‘Go on, Rory. Kiss your lovely bride.’

I’d been studiously avoiding the subject. The biggest surprise Rory could give me on our wedding anniversary would be to remember it. And if he was reminded, I’d only have to endure some kind of dismal, pseudo-celebratory anniversary sex later. Cue The Hand. (Parents, can’t live with them – can’t be born without them.)

My mother was the only one who noticed that I’d become small, lumpen and anchored by anxieties. ‘I need a change,’ I