My Secret Lover

I say, opening my Diet
Coke.
    It foams all over my hands.
    It’s that sort of day.
    I stare at the clothing section of
the supermarket. They’ve got a three-for-two on bikinis, but I never wear a
bikini because of my scar, so I certainly don’t need three.
    ‘It’s not the same without New Andy,
is it?’ I say to Richard. ‘It’s like the Big Brother house now Spencer’s
gone. It’s just no Fun any more.’
     
    It’s not that I mind Cy and Ry using
my bed as a trampoline so much as the fact that I keep having to hoover up
light falls of plaster dust from my Jeff Banks-At-Allied-Carpets sisal-effect
floor covering.
    ‘Stop it!’ I call up the spiral
staircase.
    ‘Stop what?’
    ‘Jumping.’
    There’s a few moments of silence,
which is always a bad sign, then renewed banging, and another dusting of
turquoise’n’pink.
    ‘I said Stop Jumping!’ I call up.
    ‘We’re not jumping. We’re hopping!’
    Joanna, whose powers of concentration
are such that she can ignore her children completely, looks up from the legal
papers she has out on my pine table, and says, with a nice helpful smile, ‘Why
don’t you get a cleaner? You don’t want to spend your life cleaning.’
    I snarl at the top of her head as she
goes back to her work.
    ‘Aren’t children supposed to have
some sort of bed time?’ I ask.
    ‘You’d know more about that than me,’
she says.
     
    * * *
     
    It’s the penultimate round and it’s
time to vote off the Weakest Link.
    We all hold up our cards on which
we’ve all scribbled the word ANDY.
    ‘Lydia!’ sneers Anne Robinson, ‘which
Andy?’
    I look at my two fellow contestants.
Andy who I am going to marry and a man I don’t know.
    ‘That one,’ I point, but they’re
standing next to each other and the cameraman goes to the wrong one.
    ‘Well,’ says Anne, ‘we’ve had some
competitive people on the programme, but never one yet who’s prepared to vote
off her fiancé... Andy, why Andy?’ I can’t hear his answer. I’m trying to get
Anne’s attention, but my mike’s switched off.
    ‘Well, Andy,’ says Anne, ‘with no
incorrect answers, statistically you were the strongest link, but your fiancée
has decided to get rid of you. You are the weakest link. Goodbye.’
    He gives me a filthy look as he does
the walk of shame.
    ‘I thought I knew Lydia,’ he says to the interviewer, as we regroup for the head to head. ‘But this is a side
I have never seen.’
     
    I wake up, sweating.
    Joanna is sleeping peacefully beside
me.
     
    *
     
    My mouse glides over:
    Arise Sir Mick Jagger!
    and:
    Big Brother — under cover sex?
     
    There are two messages in my Inbox.
     
    Time to move? Free valuation!!!
     
    I'm back in London.
     
    Any chance of us meeting? A
     
    My hands hover over the keyboard for
quite a long time before I click on REPLY.
     
    Not sure that's a good idea. L
     
    I wait, but he’s clearly out, or in
bed, like most normal people are at this time of night. Perhaps he’s with his
ex-wife? Or a new girlfriend?
    Ridiculous to feel even the slightest
bit jealous.
    I don’t know anything about him.
    I go back to bed.
    Joanna doesn’t snore. Of course not.

53
     
    ‘What comes next?’ asks the publican.
    ‘We’re usually good at these,’ says
Andy.
    He’s smiling, biro in hand, looking
at the publican like the cleverest boy in the class.
    I wonder for a moment whether this is
really a suitable way for two intelligent people to be spending an evening. I
take a swig of my Stella Artois.
    Andy looks at me slightly resentfully
because it’s officially my turn to drive, but it’s his own fault since he
hasn’t got round to putting me on his insurance.
     
    ‘Alec Douglas-Home, Harold Wilson,
Edward Heath...?’ says the publican.
    I write down James Callaghan. Quite
pleased with myself for getting a politics one, until I see that Andy has
written Harold Wilson again, which I imagine is the correct answer.
    ‘Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta...?’
    I write down Sydney. Andy doesn’t
write anything. ‘Mercury, Venus, Earth...?’
    I put the Moon. Andy puts Mars.
    ‘Taurus, Gemini, Cancer...?’
    I write Leo. Andy writes nothing.
    Serious and trivial. There is no
getting away from the fact that we complement each other perfectly.
    Emboldened by this thought, I
whisper, ‘What comes next: Meeting, engagement, marriage...?’
     
    If my life were a film, this would be
the point at which the Andy I am going to marry says something which makes