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

‘Give me the phone,’ Studz ordered. He wrenched it from her and spoke monosyllabically. Gone was his famous flippancy. There was no warmth in his tone. Only anxiety and anger.

Jazz scrutinized him shrewdly. I found David Studlands as indecipherable as his doctor-like handwriting. But Jazz knew him inside out.

‘What’s going on? It’s your Plath-alogical ex-patient, isn’t it? Don’t tell me she’s stalking you!’ Jazz let out a harsh burst of nervous laughter. ‘That would serve you right.’

Studz looked momentarily unsettled. ‘How did you know about Maryanne?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. The imprint of her vulva on your face kind of gave it away. That’s where the money’s going, isn’t it? On diamond pendants and Mayfair penthouses. It’s not all going to your anti-ageing research. Is it?’

It was awful to witness the throes of a dying marriage. They were like two gasping fish out of water. I was sitting out of sight on one of Jazz’s antique chairs. Its slender, shapely little legs gave the impression that it could canter away. And I was willing it to do so now.

‘She’s threatening to report me to the General Medical Council,’ Studz sighed. ‘I could escape with a two-year supervision order, but . . .’

‘What? Are you serious? This woman is blackmailing you?’

‘Thanks to you, yes. Because you blabbed to her about me seeing other women. Then she got nasty. She’s threatening to sue my arse off.’

‘You’re a surgeon. Can’t you just sew it back on?’ Jazz replied frostily.

‘Not if I’m struck off. And what would my life be without my work?’

Jazz clenched her fists. ‘What will my life be without my house?! You bastard! The first duty of a doctor is to do no harm. That’s what Hippocrates said. You should be struck off the Medical Register. Having sex with a patient is completely off-limits. Every doctor knows it’s a career-ending offence.’

‘Christ! It’s not my fault. Female patients often fall in love with their doctors. Freud calls it transference. It was nothing more than a faux pas . . .’

A faux pas? I thought to myself. Yeah, a faux pas right up there with ‘never get involved in a land war in the Middle East’.

‘At first it was stimulating. Maryanne’s an intellectual. Conversations with her were so invigorating,’ Studz said, unaware of how he was crushing his wife. ‘Then she became besotted. Leaving poems in my briefcase. Sticking love notes on my car. Turning up at places she knew I would be. I mean, I should be able to sue her for harassment. Anyway, when she found out about the other women, she became psychotic. Unhinged. She followed me everywhere. The woman needs help. What did she expect? It’s the biological destiny of men to pursue new sexual attachments. We are programmed to—’

‘Programmed? What are you, A VCR?’ Jazz scoffed.

‘It’s the natural cycle of—’

‘Only washing machines have cycles, David.’

‘Of course, I broke off with her. But that’s when things got ugly.’ His shifty eyes jumped around the room. ‘She went to a lawyer and made an affadavit claiming that she came to me looking for help for depression and I took advantage of her insecurity. And that the affair only exacerbated her illness. She will testify that I exploited her physical and emotional vulnerability.’

‘What proof does she have?’ Jazz demanded, ashen-faced.

‘Well, there are my text messages – which she kept, I’m afraid. You might as well know the worst of it. She’s threatening to sell her story to the News of the World with details about how I took her to sex clubs in New York and Paris, where I asked her to have sex with strangers so that I could watch.’

Jazz slumped down into a chair. Through all this I had been doing my very best impersonation of a pot-plant. In fact, I kept trying to tiptoe to the door, but every time I made a move, lost my nerve. ‘If only you practised safe sex, David, and would just go fuck yourself,’ she said quietly.

‘You have no idea what a poor opinion I have of myself – and how little I deserve it,’ Studz sulked egotistically. ‘Haven’t I spent my life trying to help people?’

‘Yes, the world so needs more men like you, Studz, willing to tackle its problems and challenge injustice . . . That’s a quote for the notes I’ve written for your eulogy because I am going to kill you. Why didn’t you tell me about the blackmail earlier, before you re-mortgaged our home for the second bloody time?’

‘It would have been a breach of patient/doctor confidentiality,’ he joked darkly, carving himself a warm slab of the bread Jasmine had baked.

‘Now you have morals! That’s fucking helpful. I took you for better or for worse. You just took me for everything . . . I’m about to do what I should have done a long time ago, David. I’m divorcing you.’

‘I can’t afford a divorce. Or the scandal. If you divorce me I’ll get custody.’ From my hiding place I watched as he casually slathered homemade marmalade onto his bread. ‘And then you’ll get no maintenance. That “sleeping rough on the streets of London” look. Do you think that will work for you?’

Jazz guffawed. ‘You’ll never get custody. Who would ever believe you are a good dad? You don’t even know you have a son. You’re just vaguely aware of someone a bit shorter living in the house.’

‘Still, a father like me is better than a whoring mother.’ He reknotted his swimming towel, offering me a choice view of his infamous manhood.

‘You’re the whore, David. The girl from Cats, the Hollywood bimbo for UNICEF, the Newsnight reporter, our masseuse, your researcher, the . . .’

‘Ah, but can you prove it? Whereas I have a whole dossier on your Bedroom Olympics. Including your current ex-con. What was he in for? Murder, wasn’t it? Oh, the judge is going to love that.’ He took a hearty bite of his bread and munched appreciatively. ‘When you stopped pestering me for sex, I guessed you