Page 38

But I wasn’t going to give in to Sadie’s emotional blackmail. She’s let me down for enough training sessions – it’s a cheek to expect me to phone her last minute.

As we were getting changed, I asked her how often she thought a couple should have sex.

She said, ‘Whenever you want a man to buy you something.’

Then she asked how often Nick and I had sex.

I told her not very often.

She said, ‘I always thought he’d be weird in bed. He strikes me as the sort of guy who’d watch himself in a full-length mirror.’

But he’s only ever done that once.

Friday March 27th

Showed Nick some houses on Rightmove, but he said they ‘weren’t quite us’.

I shouted at him about being too picky and dragging his feet.

Nick said I was spoiled and ungrateful. Then he phoned his Mum and told her I wasn’t happy with the apartment.

Helen came round and made a big show of ignoring me.

It was quite nice actually.

Much better than her pointing out stains on Daisy’s clothes or complaining because I’ve brought the muddy stroller into the shiny kitchen.

Saturday March 28th

Most embarrassing day ever. EVER.

Oh my God. Oh my God! I can barely write it down.

Birthday lunch for Helen today, which was bad enough in itself. But worse, it was round Bill and Penelope Dearheart’s house.

Bill and Penelope hadn’t seen Nick in ‘far too long’. (In Helen’s world, Nick needs to be paraded in front of her friends regularly. God knows why. He hardly makes her look good.) So Helen and Penelope arranged a ‘simple birthday luncheon’ where the parading could take place.

The Dearhearts live in one of those big farmhouses at the end of a muddy tractor track.

It’s called ‘The Vicarage’ and has a huge conservatory and a garden full of lavender bushes.

You can only really get there by Land Rover, so my little car tipped and heaved through the muddy troughs like a lame dog.

Penelope Dearheart greeted us at the big oak front door with a forced smile.

She’s a shorter, blonde version of Helen – perfectly groomed, perfectly scarfed and perfectly fragranced.

And like Helen, she has those thin twitchy lips that always look a little bit angry.

Bill was his usual loud, rude self, with his big square head and booming laugh.

As Penelope ushered us in, her two crazy, inbred greyhounds, Sergeant and Horatio, bounded in from the garden.

They were the size of small horses and knocked over a bottle of scented fig oil and an antique chair as they leapt around the hall.

Sergeant was chewing a gnarled copy ofPeriod Homeand Horatio had clearly been eating mud.

If they had human faces, they’d have been cross-eyed and grinning.