The Good Divorce Guide. Cristina Odone

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ a triumphant air, she watches me turn red. Then she slaps down the file, turns on her sensible heel, and sails away. She leaves me wondering, for the umpteenth time, if I shouldn’t hand in my resignation now, rather than wait to see whether I’ve been accepted on the counselling course. I’ve been working for Dr Hugh Casey, well-known dermatologist, since Freddy was four and I decided the children would not be traumatised if I were to step back into the work place a few days a week.

      When Jonathan and I met, I was twenty-two and working at HOME, a charity for the homeless. Jonathan was a pharmacologist bent on finding new drugs to revolutionise existing treatments. He yearned for the glory of being published in the BMJ—and the profits that would come in the wake of his discovery. By the time we had been going out for about a year, Jonathan had started talking about our future family; then the family was no longer just talk but a loud and needy wail from the little pink room I grandly called the nursery. I left HOME for home and soon found my daughter so engrossing, and Freddy’s arrival so overwhelming, that work languished. Jonathan encouraged me to stay with the children, taking pride in the fact that he could provide for his family.

      Five years ago, though, I decided to ease my way back into work. I wanted something not too taxing, part-time, that would allow me to do what I enjoy doing most: listening to people. ‘You certainly have a knack for getting people to open up,’ my dad’s patients would tell me when, as a teenager, I earned pocket money by helping out in his GP’s practice. I soon realised that often the men and women who filed in were distressed not so much because they were ill but because they were lonely, worried, unhappy, or just a little down. I only needed to give them an opening, and they would lean on the counter and unburden themselves about the daughter who hadn’t shown up at Christmas, or the husband who had died last spring.

      When I joined Dr Casey’s practice as a part-time receptionist, I looked forward to working with his patients—or clients, as Mrs Stevens likes to remind me: they might not work the land as my father’s Somerset patients did, or have priceless stories about their barnyard animals; but they would surely be eager to share similar small triumphs and secret sorrows. Dr Casey had recently cottoned on to the way he could more than double his profits by offering cosmetic treatments such as facial peel, Botox and collagen injections to his existing clients. He soon had back-to-back appointments to freeze foreheads, plump out lines and remove age spots for long queues of elderly dowagers and their daughters and daughters-in-law. Our waiting room filled with glossy women in sunglasses deep into copies of Vogue and Tatler. Most were forty—or fifty-something, but there was also a clutch of unbelievably young girls who thought they had to act now to stop time from having its wicked way with them.

      Unfortunately, Dr Casey was already sixty-plus when he discovered the riches he could make from cosmetic treatments. His plump white hands might not tremble, quite, but they are not as sure as they once were; and in the trade, and among some of the less than satisfied clients, he has been dubbed the Butcher of Belgravia.

      Dr Casey’s patients believe that their money entitles them not only to a timeless face but also to unending sympathy. This is where I step in: I book their appointments, greet them when they come, and above all listen, as temporary confidante, when they tell how their husbands tease them that they’re no longer spring chickens, their careers depend on their youthful looks and friends have recommended a make-over to inject a bit of wow! into their lives.

      Comforting wealthy women whose faces have turned to stone, or lips to balloons, is a far cry from the cutting-edge work among drug addicts I once dreamt of. But Dr Casey is an amiable man: ‘Top o’ the morning!’ he cries cheerily in a cod Irish accent as he steps into his elegant offices. The women who flock to him stir my protective instincts. I manage to remember their names and most of their family members’, and for this they are grateful and praise me to Dr Casey, who winks at me, pleased; and to Mrs Stevens, who sniffs, unimpressed. Despite Mrs S’s best efforts, the hours are flexible and my tasks not too onerous. Getting to Hans Crescent after the school run takes twenty-five minutes max by tube.

      Only Jill, now a GP, expressed disapproval of my decision to work for Dr Casey’s practice: ‘Why be with that old fraud? What about all the good work you were going to do? All those kids you were going to help?’

      ‘Working here suits me right now. It’s easy.’

      ‘Since when is easy best?’ Jill scoffed.

      ‘If I have to commit full time to a demanding job, I can’t look after the children, the house and Jonathan.’

      ‘Jonathan shouldn’t need looking after!’ Jill shook her head crossly. ‘You’ve got a gift for listening—you shouldn’t limit yourself to hearing about botched lip jobs.’

      ‘Oh, Jill!’ I cried, stung. ‘It’s not like I’m a paid-up member of the ladies-who-lunch club.’

      ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit dangerous to dumb down? I mean, I know I shouldn’t say this, but what if you and Jonathan ever split up?’

      From across the room, Mrs Stevens is watching me, so I pretend to look through Mrs Morrow’s file—she’s overdue for her Botox appointment, it’s more than four months since the last one—while steeling myself for the difficult campaign to keep my marriage from collapsing.

      After work, I go to Tesco’s. I come home lugging three carrier bags that would break a donkey’s back. I’m slightly out of breath as I make my way to our large kitchen. The appliances are ancient and the wooden table scarred, but I love this room with its Aga, bay window and white tiles. Jonathan prides himself on his gourmet cooking—‘the fastest way to relax outside the bedroom’ he always tells me—and sets great store by the Magimix, the collection of Le Creuset casserole dishes and Sabatier knives, plus a whole alphabet of glass jars of exotic herbs. I enjoy watching him frown as he takes up a pinch of this, a dash of that, mixing ingredients as if they were solutions in his lab. On weekends he takes over the kitchen to produce succulent cassoulet, or Thai coconut soup, or spicy salmon tartare. Weeknights are mine, though, and I cook my hearty if less sophisticated favourites. Jonathan is usually kind about my efforts—though he can’t resist sharing a tip or two: ‘That cauliflower cheese hits the spot, Rosie. But have you tried sprinkling it with breadcrumbs before you take it out of the oven?’

      ‘Mu-um!’ Freddy calls out from upstairs. ‘I need you to help me glue my Viking ship!’

      ‘Where’s the please?’ I shoot back. Even while contemplating your husband’s adultery, manners matter. ‘Let me get supper going and then I’ll help you.’

      ‘Mu-um,’ Kat looks over the banister, ‘Molly’s here. She needs advice.’ Molly’s head pops up beside her. Molly Vincent lives next door but can be found here most afternoons, munching biscuits and telling us about her difficulties with her boyfriend, her teachers and her mum. ‘What should I do, Rosie?’ she always moans, picking at the chipped black polish on her nails. At twelve, she’s the same age as Kat—but mercifully my daughter seems about five years younger. Carolyn Vincent is always apologetic about her daughter ‘bending your ear,’ but I don’t mind—or rather, I didn’t. Now I wonder if I should confess that I’m in no position to advise anyone about how to lead their lives.

      ‘I’d love to, girls, but Molly’s mum just texted me that she wants Molly over for supper now.’

      ‘Oooooooooh noooooooo!’ Molly’s dramatic disappointment is followed by her sloping down the stairs, with Kat disappearing back into her room before I can ask her to give me a hand in putting away the groceries.

      ‘Bye bye, Kat. Bye, Rosie. Goodbye, Mr Martin!’ Molly waves over her shoulder. ‘See you tomorrow.’

      ‘Goodbye.’ СКАЧАТЬ