Good Husband Material. Trisha Ashley

for the muffled thumps and howls as Bess alternately throws herself at the kitchen door and vociferates her desire to be with me, and the deafening silence from Toby the parrot, building himself up for the wild eldritch shrieks my eventual appearance will generate.

      I can deal with Toby. He can – and often does – manage to open his cage door and escape, but let me see him fight his way out of two layers of candlewick bedspread, that’s all I can say.

      As for Bess, her idea of silent sympathy is to stuff her wet, germy black nose into my hand, which breaks up the train of thought, since I then have to go and wash the said hand. A dog’s nose is so unsanitary: if they haven’t got it stuck up another dog’s rear they’ve got it stuck up their own.

      It’s odd how the mundane weaves its way in among your thoughts when you’ve had a shock, isn’t it?

      Thoughts of Bess, and not having defrosted anything for dinner, and what time James would arrive back from seeing his client in Worcester, and whether the spirit would move the extremely evangelical born-again Christian girl on the third floor to try once more to convert me tonight, all performed a sort of mournful morris dance through my mind, bells muffled.

      I could always get Bess to drool the girl to death. Death by Drooling would probably make a saint of her. In stained-glass windows she could be depicted dripping, with the sort of wholesome, earnest, sincere expression that makes you want to take pot shots with an air gun …

      After a while I became aware of the flashing light on the answerphone, reached over and pressed the playback button.

      ‘Hi, James, this is Vanessa. You forgot your Filofax. I’ll just drop it in tomorrow morning in case you need it over the weekend. It’s no bother – I’m practically round the corner now. Around ten? Byeee!’

      ‘Find your own husband, you cow!’ I told the answerphone, and it bleeped thoughtfully.

      ‘Merry and Little!’ boasted a gratingly cheery voice.

      ‘Wrong, buster: big and miserable.’

      But the next words made me sit up.

      ‘This is Merry and Little estate agents, regarding your offer for 2 Dower Houses, Nutthill. I’m pleased to say your offer has been accepted. Could you call us back at your earliest convenience?’

      The cottage?

      My cottage?

      Part of my brain began to function cohesively. The vendor had accepted the offer we’d made for the cottage – an offer James insisted we made ludicrously low, in the hope, I’m sure, of having it rejected out of hand.

      And I had let him, spineless wet object that I am!

      It seems to me that rather than going all out for things I want, I’ve just been passively letting things happen to me. Except for the novels, of course. I’m determined enough there, though I always imagined myself as a writer living in the country, and now the realisation of that ambition is within my grasp.

      A rosy vision of Eden beckons enticingly: James, his interest in gardening rekindled, growing vegetables; myself inside, writing busily by the light of a log fire, and a sleeping baby in an antique wooden cradle at my feet. A clock ticking, distant sounds of cows going to be milked, birdsong …

      A room of my own, even.

      Not just a corner of table to work on in a dark dining room, but a whole room just for me. The little bedroom with the gable window, I think, looking out at the park.

      It’s time to put the past behind me and go forward, with James, towards the future we wanted.

      Only it seems to have taken a hell of a long time to get here.

      Lost as I was in this healing Elysian dream the sudden clicking on of the light was a painfully dazzling intrusion.

      James stood in the doorway, looking almost as startled as I felt.

      ‘Tish? Why are you sitting in the dark? And why is Bess howling in the kitchen?’

      As usual he let his coat and briefcase drop where he stood for the little fairies to come and pick up. They do, too: I must be mad.

      ‘Oh – hello, James. I was just – thinking.’ I attempted to contort my features into some semblance of a pleased smile, since it wasn’t his fault that he suddenly looked sober and unexciting. I’ve had intoxicating and exciting. Been there, seen it, done it, bought the self-igniting T-shirt.

      ‘Do you need darkness for thinking?’ he asked, puzzled,

      ‘You certainly don’t need light – all these magnolia walls may suit you, but they make the inside of my head twice as worth looking at as anything in the room other than my patchwork.’

      Blink! went his sandy lashes, in that ‘I register what she just said but it didn’t make sense’ way of his.

      ‘Has Bess been out? What have you been doing?’

      ‘Bess hasn’t been out yet. Isn’t she supposed to be your dog? You take her out, it’s cold out there.’

      ‘But I haven’t got time – I’m meeting Gerry and Dave in an hour.’

      ‘Oh, you aren’t going out tonight, James! You’ve only just got back.’

      ‘It’s Friday,’ he protested, as though it were some immutable law.

      It is an immutable law: Friday night out with ‘the boys’. Not for very much longer, though! And not for much longer will I have to suffer visitations from James’s friend Horrible Howard, who infested the flat for a couple of hours the other day. (He’s not really one of ‘the boys’, more one on his own.)

      ‘The offer we made for the cottage at Nutthill has been accepted, there was a message on the answerphone.’

      He looked aghast. ‘But—’

      ‘Isn’t it wonderful, darling? Exactly what we want, and at such a low price. You are clever!’ (Only the best butter.)

      ‘Well, I—’

      ‘It means we’ll have money to spare for decorating, and sanding the floors and things like that. I’ll phone first thing tomorrow and give the go-ahead.’

      ‘Yes – but, Tish, look, let’s think before we act hastily.’

      ‘I’ve thought. We’re buying it.’

      He was still making stupid objections when he went out, so I spiked his guns by immediately phoning the Rosens, a young couple with whom we’ve conducted an on-off affair re selling our flat for the last year or so. They still hadn’t found anything they could afford that they liked better, and were delighted to hear that Thunderbirds were Go.

      ‘Sweetness is so excited!’ cooed Charlie. (I kid you not – they have to be the most nauseating couple ever.) ‘She’d set her little heart on your flat, the poor darling.’

      There was a murmur of assent from Sweetness. I’d met them a couple of times (too many) and Sweetness had informed me she was a model, though since she was a five-foot anorexic I can only assume she modelled children’s clothes.

      ‘She’s absolutely delighted,’ confided Charlie.

      Girlish cries of glee could indeed be heard in the background.

      ‘Your flat is such a blank canvas for her – she has so many wonderful ideas of what to do with it. We’re both over the moon.’

      Excuse me, I thought, but this blank canvas just happens to be my home! However, it did look very bland and boring except for my patchwork throws, the baskets of dried autumn leaves, and the giant lime-green papier mâché bowl from Ikea.

      James may insist on magnolia paintwork, but I just refuse to have a magnolia life from now on. I’ve been drifting along, thinking I’m going somewhere, and I’ve finally found where I want to go and when: