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

mother had come back from the dead? Perhaps he’d developed Dr Doolittle traits and could talk to the animals – and they could talk to him? Perhaps Rory was a cross dresser making an appointment with his seamstress? All these excuses were more palatable than the fact that he might be having an affair. Especially when logic dictated that there was only one possible candidate.

I wanted to call the police and get them to throw fingerprint dust all across her naked body, because I was now imagining my husband’s hands all over her. Bands of anxiety circled my ribcage, tighter and tighter. Nervousness beaded my lip with perspiration as I fell into psychological quicksand. Men are creatures of habit. They don’t leave the comfort of their homes unless it’s for another woman. Terror slammed through me. Of course he was falling in love with her. One encouraging word from the Husband Rustler and he’d fled from our marriage so fast he’d left nothing but the outline of his body in the wood of the front door as he went through. Why had it taken me so long to admit it? I was a Mensa candidate, obviously.

As I blundered my way out of the veterinary practice, I felt sure the animals were mocking me from their cages. Can rabbits smirk? Because I was convinced I saw one chuckling snidely.

The Dickensian houses of Camden cast tombstone shadows across my car as I sat outside Bianca’s flat. I felt oppressed by fear and wound down the window for a blast of oxygen. It was 8 a.m. Rory opened the surgery at 8.30, so if he was here, he’d have to appear soon. Sure enough, a heart-stopping moment later, Bianca’s yellow front door squeezed open and they were there, together, on the doorstep. Peering between the suctioned feet of Jenny’s Garfield doll, I saw him kiss her. I strained my eyes until they stung, watching them. Oh. I clutched the steering wheel and despaired. My skin prickled as though I was being secretly watched, instead of the other way round. Rory looked so muscular and handsome. Yes, the entire world loves a lover – unless he’s your bloody husband.

‘I thought it was experimentation?’ I was out of the car and screeching across the street before I knew what I was doing. I gulped in air as tart as she was. ‘I thought it didn’t mean anything?’ I felt as though I’d been hollowed out by the wind. ‘Rory, I want you to get in the car and come home with me right now.’

Rory stood stock-still. Bianca, however, nuzzled his ear, no doubt whispering her spells. She was wearing a pink silk camisole with lace scanties. Her hair was fetchingly tousled and she was sporting false eyelashes which would have been more at home on a giraffe. Just the way all working mums look in the mornings. Not.

‘Rore?’ But Rory just stood there, staring. ‘When I say I’d like your answer soon, what I mean is, within my lifetime.’ It sounded bold, but I could feel a great floodtide of grief behind my tonsils.

‘Actually,’ answered Bianca, ‘we’re moving in together.’

Pain came, rapid and intolerable, like opening the blinds on a summer’s day when you have a hangover. A malicious smile shrieked across her face.

‘Where to? Your eco-sensitive igloo? Rory, she’s a fake. Can’t you see through her?’ The street, the world, seemed to tilt and start sliding slowly toward some dreadful abyss. Fear began to ooze from me. I looked at my nemesis. Bianca had obviously been to the Eva Braun School of Mistressing. ‘Don’t you care about the family you’re destroying?’

‘I care about Rory, in all his complexities,’ Bianca cooed in her creamy tones. ‘I can fulfil his needs in a way you never can.’

‘Gee, how many years of yoga did you have to do, to be able to kiss your own ass like that? It’s quite an achievement.’ I could feel my blood coagulating with rage.

‘I can nurture his creativity and tap into his untouched potential. You have done nothing but smother him.’

I wanted to make a Wildean quip, a Shakespearean reference, a caustic aside. But instead, I just smithereeened into tears. ‘Rory!’ If he didn’t hold me, I was going to fly apart, like an exploding landmine. ‘Can’t you talk to me alone?’ As addled as I was, I knew that it was a sure sign that your marriage is not going well when your husband has a loaded woman pointed at your chest. ‘Stop pointing that thing at me.’ I gestured towards Bianca. ‘It’s making me nervous.’

‘I’m sorry. But where Rory goes, I go. That’s the kind of devotion he’s been missing from his marriage,’ Bianca said with practised aplomb.

I had been hit by a psychological truck. And my husband was driving. ‘Listen to me,’ I told him. ‘You’re having a midlife crisis, obviously. But couldn’t you just worry over male pattern baldness, like other men your age?’

Rory palmed his new beard. He’d been sprouting the look of a revolutionary leader for a few weeks now. But it was me he was revolting against. Or maybe, just me he found revolting?

‘I know it was my fault, dragging you to therapy,’ I went on, ‘but when I told you to show more affection, I didn’t mean you to take a lover!’

Bianca shook her head. ‘Truth is, you just don’t satisfy him sexually.’

‘Well, you know I have a sex tip for you, Rory. The way to ensure that a wife stays moist during intercourse is to keep your bloody mistress out of sight!’

‘Mistress? For your information, Cassandra, Rory and I are soulmates. We are emotionally and psychologically simpatico. But of course, we also have so much to discover sensually about each other.’ She squeezed his hand and gave him one of her velvet glances. ‘In fact, he’s going to star in a video I’m making called The Body.’

‘Oh really? How big is his part? Must be quite small.’ Which wasn’t a bad reply,