The Good Divorce Guide. Cristina Odone

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СКАЧАТЬ my husband’s dazed, faraway expression. I remember it from sunny afternoons when we lay, exhausted after lovemaking, on our bed. Jonathan doesn’t stir. I’m damned if I’m going to sit here waiting passively for him to dictate the terms of my life.

      ‘I think a period of separation would be sensible, don’t you?’ I don’t want a divorce. My husband may be a habit, not a soul mate; and my marriage may be tired, not thrilling: but I won’t be pushed out of either.

      ‘Yes, if that’s what you want.’ Jonathan doesn’t meet my eyes.

      ‘It’s what I need.’ I cross my arms resolutely. ‘At least this way I’ll have time to sort things out in my own mind.’

      Jonathan looks up and finally meets my gaze. ‘You’ve got a lot to offer, Rosie. You’re a good-looking woman, kind, and a great mum and…and you’re still the easiest person to talk to.’

      A lot to offer—but not enough for him.

      The thing to remember about a separation: there is your separation, his separation, and everyone else’s view of your separation.

      Jill rushes over the next day: ‘That rat! God, I want to kill him!…look, don’t worry, I’ve been there. I’ll help you.’ She stands in the doorway, a bottle of wine in hand. Beneath her glossy black fringe, green eyes shine wide with sympathy.

      ‘I’m actually fine,’ I try to say, but she hugs me so tight the words are crushed against her yellow shirt dress.

      ‘Don’t breathe in, whatever you do. I’ve sweated my own body weight. I’ve just come from my Bikram yoga session.’ Since marrying a man five years younger, Jill has been trying out anything that promises to restore her youth. She smiles: ‘Brought some vino. God knows, we both need it. Though I shouldn’t be drinking.’ Jill shakes her head disconsolately, sending the short glossy black hair swinging, left to right. ‘The latest research says three units of alcohol a day are more ageing than a week in the sun without SPF.’

      Looking slim and tanned in her short dress, Jill strides past, pulling me in her wake, as if I were the visitor rather than the hostess. ‘Let’s stick two fingers up at that pig. He was chippy, an intellectual snob, and had no sense of humour.’

      ‘Jill, do you mind!’ I stop my ears, looking cross. But I always listen to Jill: she’s been my protector since the first day we met at University College, when a trendy third year in a black patent leather miniskirt was teasing me about my old-fashioned Laura Ashley dress. ‘At least Rosie doesn’t look like one of Nature’s little jokes,’ Jill had snarled, giving my critic a withering look.

      ‘You need a drink.’ Jill beckons me to follow her into the kitchen where she slides off her Prada rucksack and places it on the back of a chair. ‘Glasses,’ she murmurs and rummages through the cupboard to find two. ‘When Ross left me, wine became like a saline drip to a comatose patient.’

      I watch her, a little dazed, as she twists the wine open and pours it. Jonathan used to call her terrifying: my best friend effortlessly takes over most gatherings, and most situations. ‘She makes a man feel redundant,’ my husband had complained when they’d first met. Only men like your friends, I’d felt like answering. There was Tim, capable of amazing work in the lab but only of locker-room banter outside it; and Perry, who’d left pharmacology for the City and only thought of money. Jonathan kept assuring me they were clever and kind, and when Jill and I shared a flat in Islington after uni, he’d encouraged them to chat her up. But Tim’s idea of breaking the ice had been to let out a wolf-whistle as Jill swivelled her legs out of her Mini; while Perry had spent most of their dinner at an Italian restaurant calculating on the back of his napkin what he reckoned the takings were. ‘I really appreciate your looking out for me,’ Jill had told us, ‘but Tim’s only interested in getting it on and Perry’s only interested in raking it in. There might just be more to life, don’t you agree?’

      ‘Now’—Jill sits at the table and motions me to sit in front of her—‘tell me all about it.’ She crosses her arms on the tabletop and looks me straight in the eyes: ‘Who is she?’

      ‘A colleague. But actually it’s my decision…’

      ‘Bastard.’ Jill kicks off her high-heeled mules, stretches her legs out. With her long, lean frame and sharp haircut my best friend always makes me feel small and floppy in comparison. ‘It’s an open-and-shut case. He’s dumped his loyal, loving wife of twelve years.’ She beams a big grin: ‘He’s cheated on you and he’s gotta pay for your heartbreak.’

      ‘Actually, I’m not heartbroken.’

      ‘That’s the spirit!’ Jill’s red-nailed hand pats mine. ‘Don’t let the bastards get you down.’

      ‘I mean’—I shake my head—‘it’s not how you see it. Jonathan has found another woman, but I’m not devastated. The separation is my idea.’

      ‘Hmmm.’ Jill shoots me a look that shows she’s not convinced. ‘A bad marriage is like two drunks fighting: it doesn’t get any better, and someone’s got to break it up.’ She pours more wine. ‘Let me give you a few tips. First: you can see a shrink, a marriage counsellor, a clairvoyant—anyone—but you MUST get yourself the best divorce lawyer in town. Mine was known as the husband beater.’ Jill winks. ‘She left Ross battered and bruised.’

      I have a fleeting image of Ross Warren, the dopey and dope-smoking younger son of a wealthy Gloucestershire farmer. He was a potter, charmingly hopeless and totally unsuited to Jill. They were married for three years, until he left her for a Latvian waitress. Or was she a dog-walker?

      ‘This is a separation, not a divorce.’

      ‘Second tip’—Jill ignores my protest—‘only ring your ex during office hours.’ Here she gives a sharp mirthless laugh. ‘I can’t tell you how many nights I spent snivelling on the phone to Ross. I told him I loved him, I’d forgive him, I’d take him back and never complain about a thing again…all kinds of stuff that at three p.m. would never have crossed my lips but by midnight sounded fine. Soooooo embarrassing. Third tip: don’t, whatever you do, find out the other woman’s address, email, telephone numbers…’ Jill pauses and for a nano-second looks embarrassed. ‘Unfortunately, I had gone through Ross’s computer and had every possible contact detail for Inga.’

      ‘You didn’t…’

      ‘I did.’ Jill nods her head and can’t hide a smile. ‘She got quite a few calls from Immigration requesting she show up at their offices. Then her name and mobile number somehow ended up in the Time Out personal ads—in a box that said something along the lines of “Busty Inga is just the thinga when you’re hot to trot”.’

      ‘Jill, how could you?!’ For the first time in days, I’m laughing.

      ‘I know, I know—wicked, isn’t it?’ Jill laughs too, then grows serious. ‘What do the children know?’

      ‘That their father and I need a break from each other. Just for a while.’ I swallow hard. ‘I can’t bear the thought of anything hurting them.’

      ‘No. Of course not.’ Jill’s eyes grow dark with longing: my best friend is thirty-eight and on her third cycle of IVF. Then she shakes her head. ‘You’ve got to move quickly, and club him before he can collect his wits.’

      ‘I don’t want to club him. I don’t wish him ill.’

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