My Secret Lover

Cosmetics
are addictive. Once you start, you can’t go back to soap and water, never.
Nobody tells you that bit.
    Not that it matters now, because I
have been dumped.
    If I had known how to use concealer
properly, would it have made any difference?
     
    I’m in the corner shop for the Guardian and the Evening Standard and a bar of chocolate to cheer me up.
    OK! has Posh on the cover so I buy that too and Mr
Patel has got an offer on New Flavour Cranberry Breezers and cranberry is very
purifying.
    If I’d kept to the detox, would it
have made a difference?
     
    I re-read the exchange of e-mails.
    Wrong person?
    I wonder if Andy has flipped?
Possible first sign of CJD? Andy’s always viewed health guidance as a kind of
dare. Beef on the bone was the only time I’ve heard him mention human rights.
    Would I still marry him if he had
CJD?
    Horrible, but probably not.
    Even more horrible, being a tragic
widow has a certain appeal.
    Not that I appear to have the choice
any more.
    That goodbye is pretty final.
    Why should he have the last word?
     
    Click REPLY.
     
    Fine. You only just beat me to it. L
     
    Check that I am not drunk. Not
possible on two alcopops.
     
    Click SEND.
    I wait, expecting myself to burst
into tears, or wail, or throw something. But nothing happens.

 
Middle

12
     
    February
     
    I am lovable, desirable, sexy and
altogether magnificent.
     
    Fern says I should repeat these words
to myself all day, until they enter my subconscious. However, I keep
interrupting myself. I am lovable, but not to someone who is prepared to let an
ancient Labrador lick his face. (What meat do they use for the meaty chunks in
dog food, by the way? Is it beef? Is it tested for BSE? I mean, if infected
meat got into the human food chain, it must have got into the dog one, and
that’s another place that Andy could have contracted CJD. Not that he actually
eats it, but there must be traces in Honey’s saliva.)
     
    I am lovable, desirable, sexy and
altogether magnificent!
    Not sure about magnificent. Sounds a
bit large. Sounds like the sort of adjective they use to describe Dawn French.
    I think it must have been an American
book Fern got this from. The English version might have an alternative I would
find easier to say (even to myself). Like I am lovable to the people who’ve
known me a long time, I have quite good legs, and even though I do have mean
thoughts, I am not a bad person really.
    I reverse into my parking space at
the first attempt, so it must be having some effect.
     
    ‘How’s Andy these days?’ asks Richard
Batty.
    ‘We split up.’
    ‘Oh. Sorry.’
    His hands are actually shaking as he
lights his cigarette then ducks his head quickly out of the window.
    The witches pretend to be engaged in
another conversation, but I know they can barely contain their schadenfreude.
    ‘Oh dear, are you back on Slim Fast?’
says Mrs Vane.
    ‘It’s too easy to cheat on the
Internet,’ says Mrs Wates, ‘and I just don’t have the time for Weightwatchers.’
    ‘Have you tried Slim Fast, Lydia?’
    I duck my head out of the window.
    ‘How are you feeling?’ Richard asks,
concerned.
    ‘Fine, actually. Bit humiliating,
but. .
    ‘He was the one who ended it?’
    Richard’s astonishment is really very
comforting. If only his skin weren’t so bad.
    ‘He only just beat me to it,’ I say,
with a smile.
    The more I say it, the truer it
sounds.
    Perhaps that’s because it actually IS
true?
    ‘The only thing I miss is doing the
quiz,’ I elaborate, which doesn’t sound quite as true, but possibly will with
repetition.
    Andy has had the absolute EFFRONTERY
to send me two of his usual, Usual Time, Usual Place? e-mails. To which, on
Michelle’s advice, I have not replied.
    ‘I think I need a new quiz partner,’
I sigh.
    I should have waited until Richard
exhaled because now he’s choking which is not how he’s practised this moment, I
know.
    ‘If he’s not interested, count me
in,’ says New Andy, whose face has popped out of the window on the other side
of Richard’s.
    ‘No, no, I absolutely am interested,’
says Richard.
    Damn him!
    ‘What about your mother?’ I ask.
    ‘She’ll be fine if she’s got a pad
on. She probably won’t even notice, to be honest.’
    ‘Did you see the moguls?’ I ask New
Andy, bending farther over so that I can talk to him below Richard’s cloud of
smoke.
    I’m an official Winter Olympics fan.
I have bags under my eyes in the morning, and a whole new