Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers Read Online Free Page A
Author: Marika Cobbold
The afternoon had turned chilly: April playing at winter, the wind chasing from the north making a nonsense of my short thin jacket and the flimsy skirt that blew and billowed around my legs exposing my thighs with every other step that I took. I walked as if I could outrun my own thoughts. When I had been a child I had been able to. If my mind was especially troubled I would shut the front door behind me and start running anywhere, as fast as I could, until I had reached the speed at which my mind was left behind. However, due to incipient middle age and a sedentary lifestyle, I wasnât so fast any more and my thoughts had no problem at all catching upwith my feet: I had upset Angel-face on a day that was meant to be a celebration and I had heard myself say that I was in an
unhappy relationship
. Yet how could I be? I had promised myself that it would be different with Dominic and I had believed me. Right through the arguments and screaming matches, the insults and petty betrayals I had believed that ours was still a grand love affair. Until today when I heard myself state the opposite.
Back home I stripped off the outfit that had seemed so appropriate that morning but now seemed to mock me with its simpering prettiness and changed into a far more suitable pair of black trousers and an oversized jumper. Sitting down at my desk I proceeded not to work but to stare out of the window and on to my street. Usually the view soothed me. Soon the hydrangeas in the tiny communal front gardens would be in bloom, some pure pink, some veering towards blue as if they had decided to change but had been interrupted halfway through. Now, in spring, the multitude of blossom on the cherry trees made me feel as if I were living across the street from Mary Poppins and, as everyone knows, when she was around nothing bad could happen. Only it seemed that it had. I needed someone to talk to, someone to ask if sometimes they too looked out on a much-loved view only to find that the trees and houses looked liked cousins of the usual trees and houses, alike but not the same, and the cars did not appear like the everyday items they were but alien things, newcomers. I needed someone, not Angel-face, who took my words and pierced her own heart with them, not Dominic, who reacted to any attempt at conversation beyond small talk or quips like a virgin to an indecent proposal, and certainly not Vanessa, my mother. Vanessa, or daughter of Pangloss, asI liked to call her, took bad news, any bad news, whomsoever it might relate to, as an unwarranted act of vandalism, graffiti scrawled across the pretty wall she had erected against the ugliness of life. Try telling her that all was not actually for the best in this the best of all possible worlds and she would tell you not to be naughty.
I thought of calling my friend Matilda.
âHello, itâs me. I know we spoke as usual at ten this morning but I just wanted to add that Iâm not in the enviably romantic and passionate, although somewhat stormy, relationship Iâve led you to believe I was in, but that actually Iâm unhappy. Whatâs that? Youâre not surprised? Youâre telling me all the signs have been there: the constant bickering in public that made everyone around us uncomfortable. Goodness, you noticed? And you say that I seemed quieter, not my usual confident self when he was around. His constant flirting with other women, you say, and me just having had the best holiday in ages â in Paris. On my own. Well, yes, Matilda, those were all clues but it seems that I needed something more to make me see clearly. A cosh with the words âYou are in a toxic relationshipâ? Well, thank you for offering that, Matilda, but I think Iâm getting the message. Would I like to come round for supper and talk about it? No!â
Or I could call my agent.
âHi, Gemma, itâs me. Yes, Iâm fine, work is going well. How is that gorgeous boyfriend of mine?
unhappy relationship
. Yet how could I be? I had promised myself that it would be different with Dominic and I had believed me. Right through the arguments and screaming matches, the insults and petty betrayals I had believed that ours was still a grand love affair. Until today when I heard myself state the opposite.
Back home I stripped off the outfit that had seemed so appropriate that morning but now seemed to mock me with its simpering prettiness and changed into a far more suitable pair of black trousers and an oversized jumper. Sitting down at my desk I proceeded not to work but to stare out of the window and on to my street. Usually the view soothed me. Soon the hydrangeas in the tiny communal front gardens would be in bloom, some pure pink, some veering towards blue as if they had decided to change but had been interrupted halfway through. Now, in spring, the multitude of blossom on the cherry trees made me feel as if I were living across the street from Mary Poppins and, as everyone knows, when she was around nothing bad could happen. Only it seemed that it had. I needed someone to talk to, someone to ask if sometimes they too looked out on a much-loved view only to find that the trees and houses looked liked cousins of the usual trees and houses, alike but not the same, and the cars did not appear like the everyday items they were but alien things, newcomers. I needed someone, not Angel-face, who took my words and pierced her own heart with them, not Dominic, who reacted to any attempt at conversation beyond small talk or quips like a virgin to an indecent proposal, and certainly not Vanessa, my mother. Vanessa, or daughter of Pangloss, asI liked to call her, took bad news, any bad news, whomsoever it might relate to, as an unwarranted act of vandalism, graffiti scrawled across the pretty wall she had erected against the ugliness of life. Try telling her that all was not actually for the best in this the best of all possible worlds and she would tell you not to be naughty.
I thought of calling my friend Matilda.
âHello, itâs me. I know we spoke as usual at ten this morning but I just wanted to add that Iâm not in the enviably romantic and passionate, although somewhat stormy, relationship Iâve led you to believe I was in, but that actually Iâm unhappy. Whatâs that? Youâre not surprised? Youâre telling me all the signs have been there: the constant bickering in public that made everyone around us uncomfortable. Goodness, you noticed? And you say that I seemed quieter, not my usual confident self when he was around. His constant flirting with other women, you say, and me just having had the best holiday in ages â in Paris. On my own. Well, yes, Matilda, those were all clues but it seems that I needed something more to make me see clearly. A cosh with the words âYou are in a toxic relationshipâ? Well, thank you for offering that, Matilda, but I think Iâm getting the message. Would I like to come round for supper and talk about it? No!â
Or I could call my agent.
âHi, Gemma, itâs me. Yes, Iâm fine, work is going well. How is that gorgeous boyfriend of mine?
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