Therapy

me the other night. That may be why he took me to Rules, actually, because the padrona at the Italian restaurant we usually go to is always singing the praises of matrimony, casting hints that Lorenzo ought to make an honest woman of me — she doesn’t know he’s married already. I think that secretly, or unconsciously, he still yearns to be reconciled with Sally. He complains bitterly about her behaviour, but I think if she agreed to give the marriage another try he’d scurry back to her with his tail wagging. I’m under no illusions about that. But if she’s serious, if she really goes through with it, then I’m pretty sure he would want to marry again. I understand the way his mind works better than he does himself. He’s the marrying type. And who would he marry but me?
    I’ve been trying to imagine what it would be like. There might be some resistance from Zelda at first, but I think she would accept him eventually. It would be good for her to have an adult male in the house, good for both of us. A slightly rosy, soft-focus picture keeps coming into my mind of the three of us together in the kitchen, Laurence helping Zelda with her homework at the kitchen table, and me smiling benevolently from the Aga. We don’t have an Aga, so I suppose that implies that I would want to move house. Whatever Sally got in a divorce settlement, Laurence would still be pretty well off. You know how it is once you start daydreaming, you think vaguely about the possibility of getting married again, and before you know where you are you’re choosing the curtain material for your summer cottage in the Dordogne. But it has occurred to me that if Laurence were to pop the question one day, it would be as well to know already if we were, you know, physically compatible, don’t you think? Or don’t you?
    I’m sure it wouldn’t be a really bad experience, anyway. Laurence is very sweet and gentle. Saul was always so overbearing in bed. Do this, do that, do this faster, do that slower. He directed us as if we were making a porn movie. It wouldn’t be like that with Laurence. He wouldn’t expect me to do anything kinky — at least, I don’t think he would. Yes, Karl, I know it’s a subjective concept...
     
    Well, did you see the story in Public Interest ? The latest issue, it came out yesterday. No, I don’t suppose you do, but everybody else I know reads it avidly. While pretending to despise it of course. It has a media gossip column called “O.C.” It’s short for “Off Camera.” Somehow they got hold of the story of Laurence and the tennis coach. Yes. It seems that Laurence actually broke into the man’s house in the middle of the night, hoping to surprise him in bed with Sally, and found him in bed with another man. Can you imagine? No, I had no idea until I read the rag myself. Harriet came into the office yesterday morning with the latest issue and laid it on the desk in front of me without a word, open at the “O.C.” page. I practically died when I read it. Then I phoned Laurence but his agent had already told him. He says the story is essentially accurate, except that it has him holding a jemmy in his hand when in fact it was a pair of scissors. You may well ask. Apparently he was going to cut off the man’s ponytail. Just as well the rag didn’t get hold of that detail. The whole piece was cruelly mocking, needless to say. “Tubby Passmore, follically-challenged scribe of the Heartland sitcom ‘The People Next Door’, found himself recently in a situation funnier than anything he has invented... ” That sort of thing. And there was a cartoon of him as Whatsisname, the Greek god who was married to Venus and found her in bed with Mars — Vulcan, that’s the one. It was done in the style of an old painting, “after Titian”, or Tintoretto, or somebody, it said underneath. With poor Lorenzo very fat and bald in a tunic and the tennis coach and his friend very naked, intertwined on the bed, and all of them looking very embarrassed. It was quite witty, actually, if you weren’t personally involved. Laurence doesn’t know how they got hold of the story. The tennis coach didn’t press charges because he wants to keep his private life under wraps, so he obviously wasn’t the source. Fortunately for him the piece doesn’t give his name. But the police were involved, so probably one of them sold the story to P. I. Laurence is devastated. He feels the whole world is laughing at him. He daren’t