A Crowded Marriage Read Online Free Page B

day, “and if I scooped the poop to keep the pong at bay, Sebastian would be none the wiser. He never comes down here, anyway.”
    â€œHe might see it from the bedroom window,” I said doubtfully. “I’ll tell him it’s a big dog.”
    â€œWhat, the Hound of Putney Common?”
    â€œWhy not?”
    I smiled to myself now as I gathered up my son’s belongings—book bag, lunch box, PE kit—and attempted to prise him away from the joys of Orlando’s toy box with its mountains of Lego and remote-control cars, and back to his own, less exciting quarters with no sisters, bantams or ponies. But as I told him the other day as he’d dragged his heels from this very same kitchen, other people’s houses were always more attractive, and Orlando probably felt the same about Rufus’s house. Rufus had turned contemptuous eyes on me.
    â€œCome on, Rufus.” I beamed down at him now.
    â€œWe’re going?” The eyes he turned on me now were anguished. “Aren’t we staying for tea?”
    My son had yet to enter polite society.
    â€œNo, darling,” I said quickly before Kate could offer, “because Daddy’s coming home early tonight so we can all have supper together. That’s nice, isn’t it?”
    Not as nice, clearly, as stopping here with Orlando and Laura and Tabitha and sitting around the huge tea table whilst Sandra, the nanny, produced tiny sandwiches with crusts off and meringues in the shape of white mice and melon balls— melon balls!— for pudding; whilst at home, Mummy hacked a doorstep off a loaf and frizbee’d a Jaffa cake at him. But he was an obedient child and I could do a lot with my eyes.
    â€œAlex is coming home early for a change?” Kate got up to show us out. “That’s nice.”
    â€œWell, relatively,” I said nervously, following her down the black-and-white-tiled hallway. “I mean, relatively early, not relatively nice. Nine o’clock rather than ten o’clock, probably.”
    She grimaced. “Tell him from me to break the habit of a lifetime and make it back for bath time for once. Really bust a gut.”
    I laughed, but was aware of a whiff of disapproval in Kate’s tone. A suggestion that Alex’s after-work socialising—even though it was client-oriented and he loathed it—was excessive and at odds with family life. But then as Alex had pointed out as he’d flopped down exhausted on the sofa the other night, his handsome face racked with tiredness, tie askew, fresh from yet another city cocktail party, it was all very well for Sebastian. His clients were all horizontal and anaesthetised by the end of his working day; there was no chance of one of them sitting up and saying brightly, “Mine’s a pint.”
    â€œAnd anyway,” he’d observed sourly, rubbing the side of his face and yawning widely, “we can’t all save lives for a living.”
    I think Alex was fond of our new best friends, but found them a little worthy for his tastes. An “ homme sérieux ” was how he described Sebastian, adding, “That man’s never dropped a bollock in his life.”
    â€œMeaning?”
    â€œHe can’t let go. Never has a drink and lets his hair down. What’s he afraid of? That he’ll make a prat of himself? So what?”
    â€œWell, he may be an homme sérieux , but he’s also a fairly grand fromage ,” I’d replied archly, thinking personally, I wouldn’t mind a little less bollock-dropping around here. Always the last to leave a party, always the life and soul, Alex was the ultimate bon viveur; but then, he would argue, it went with the territory. As a mergers and acquisitions specialist at Weinberg and Parsons, his job was to drum up new business and schmooze clients, and you couldn’t do that on a glass of tomato juice and a face like a wet weekend, now could you?
    Rufus and I