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

her own bouquet . . . I can’t believe she’s teaching couples how to stay together! That’s hysterical,’ Jazz shrieked.

A cold shadow loomed over me and I squinted upwards. If only I weren’t so wimpy. I needed a wimpectomy, urgently.

‘My, my. What a speedy recovery you’ve made, Cassandra. I am glad. Although I’m sad you’ve missed my class.’

To my amazement, I gave her a tart, withering look.

‘I think I’ll be missing it a whole lot more from now on, actually.’ It was as though I’d undergone a bravado-transplant and chutzpah transfusion.

‘Oh really? I think Rory is getting quite a lot from my self-help group.’

‘A self-help group is a contradiction in terms, you know,’ I pointed out, pedantically. Jazz and Hannah, astounded at my uncharacteristic outburst, applauded my sassiness.

‘I’m sorry you’re not as committed to your marriage as your husband is,’ Bianca seethed.

‘If I listen to you any longer, I’ll be committed alright. To an asylum.’

Which is exactly what I told Rory later that night. I was weary of being pushed around. It was as though my self-esteem were solar-powered, and it had done nothing but rain for day after day. But no more. I was no longer going to Cringe for Britain. The next morning, instead of cancelling the Science Museum excursion as instructed, I urged my pupils to get their parents to write to the Head expressing their disappointment. I also emailed Bianca to cancel the rest of our therapy sessions. But unfortunately, if I wouldn’t go to the sermon on mounting, the sermon on mounting started coming to me. Bianca was just suddenly always around. Inexplicably. Like carrot in vomit. You know how you can never remember eating any carrot, but there it is? Well, neither Rory nor I could ever remember inviting Bianca, but there she bloody well was. All the bloody time.

At first she popped over for advice on pets, which, as far as I could see, she didn’t own. Another June day, she zoomed over from Camden because her washing machine was on the blink. She then proceeded to confound and delight a neighbourhood full of horny husbands by prancing to the clothesline and pegging up a line of erotic lingerie; making my devotion to the Cottontail God pale a little in Rory’s eyes by comparison.

One day in early July, she arrived wearing a bikini top and minuscule shorts. ‘It’s just way too hot to wear clothes today,’ she sighed.

‘Yes, clothes are just so last season,’ I said ironically.

‘Yeah. I’m with you, Bianca,’ I heard my husband say, boggle-eyed at her curvaceous body. ‘Cass, what do you think the neighbours would say if I took the rubbish out naked?’ he said, palming the beard he’d started growing against my wishes.

‘Why bother? The neighbours already think that you’re a total Sex God. I mean, look around you. They obviously know I didn’t marry you for your money,’ I tried to joke, but was feeling nauseous with distrust.

‘My, my, my, Cassandra.’ Bianca seized on my comment with raptor-speed. ‘Do I sense a hint of animosity? Let’s examine your motives. Could it be because you’re a passive-aggressive coculprit?’

‘No, it’s because I think you’re a charlatan. I mean, you therapists are the ones who need therapists. The care of the id by the odd. Which is why we don’t want you coming around here any more.’ I moved to stand next to my husband. ‘Do we, Rory?’

Bianca wore the calculating expression of a praying mantis. Before my husband could answer, she said in her sumptuous, satiny voice, ‘Rory’s tragedy is that he has a huge capacity for loving, but the one person who should respond has rejected him. No wonder he retreats to the clinic.’

‘Ladies, ladies,’ Rory said, ‘I think Bianca’s clinic is making me a more evolved person. I relate to her energy.’

Relate to her energy? Evolved? Was this my husband speaking? The beard, the dire chill-out CDs, the incense, the candles . . . Mr I’d-Rather-Die-Than-Have-Therapy had become a poster boy for karmic laundering.

‘I mean, this was your idea, Cassie,’ he went on. ‘It was you who wanted me to get in touch with my emotions.’

‘I’d say you’re in touch with your emotions, Rore. Your selfish, arrogant, mean emotions.’

‘Well, he’ll be in touch with a whole lot more next week,’ Bianca boasted.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I was going to tell you,’ Rory said sheepishly. ‘Bianca’s holding a little graduation class.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Well, I prefer to call it a sensual, interactive surprise,’ Bianca preened. ‘At my home.’

I felt my chest tighten. I had a feeling that any party at Bianca’s would only require one etiquette tip. ‘Take off underwear – mingle.’ The woman’s front door no doubt had a sign: Come In! We Are Never Clothed!

‘Shall I take it you’ll be coming?’ she asked archly, before laughing fakely. ‘I suppose that’s pretty much the point of an orgy!’

I wondered how many times she’d made that little joke. Still, Rory laughed uproariously.

Perhaps now would be the right moment to pretend to her that my husband was just recovering from the surgical part of his sex-change operation. One thing was sure. It was time to page Doctor Freud to reception . . .

14. The Sensual Interactive Surprise

I don’t like surprises. Most surprises are so surprising that you could die of a heart attack. And this was to be a week of surprises.

The first surprise was actually pleasant. I was in the staffroom when Scroope strode in to announce that he’d had a change of heart about my Science Museum excursion. This was due to the number of disappointed letters he’d received from parents. He grudgingly congratulated me on having the foresight to book the museum trip a year in advance, reiterating for the benefit of the ‘chalk and talkers’, how much the Inspectors approved of field trips. ‘Therefore, I’m allowing you to take your class. As planned,’ he pronounced crisply.

As he then lectured me on Health and Safety and the endless Risk Assessment forms I would need to fill in i.e.