Yesterday it was my ex husband’s birthday and the kids went off to see him with their carefully chosen and hand-made presents, the birthday cake that my eldest, as tradition demands, had baked and decorated, and the mail that has been accumulating over the last week since they last saw him.
Much of it bills.
Meanwhile I had a fun hour in an MRI scanner having the fillings shaken out of my teeth and then, with my finger on the dial button ready to cancel, went – as the lesser of two evils (the other being a one way ticket to lonely street) - to meet the Frenchman for a ‘glass of wine’ which for once wasn’t a euphemism. He had people staying with him he informed me up front, so his flat was occupied. And after telling me that I looked tired (this is euphemism for looking like shit as we all know) he took me to Julie’s, the spiritual home of all West London mistresses. I was sorely under-prepared for the role. No make up, no high heels, no décolletage, no hairbrush, definitely no perfume and no bloody interest either.
‘Bad day?’ he asks when we meet, then without pausing to hear about it tells me all about his.
At length.
After an hour or so he asked about my trip to Morocco. Bad conversation choice. ‘I didn’t want to come back,’ I said. In response, he told me that he also had a great time in New York where he had been the previous week.
‘It’s just a shame that I missed one day because I was ill. Haddock,’ He said by way of explanation.
‘Oh dear, what a pity… did you have food poisoning?’ I asked, immediately wishing I hadn’t as you really don’t want those kind of details while you’re eating.
He looked at me as though I was deaf and or stupid and we’ve already established that the first would be an advantage when dealing with the Frenchman and the second goes unchallenged.
‘No, I just maybe slipped a bit too much, I always get it when I travel far: haddock.’
'You always eat haddock?’
‘Yes, I always get haddock. I slipped for ten hours straight, so maybe this is why…’ and in explanation he dropped my hand to hold the side of his temples.
The mists cleared. Headache. He had a headache.
I couldn’t stop laughing.
Now that is a first.
