new, exciting lives for themselves. Lizzie outwardly agreed with all of this and inwardly wondered whether Clare Morgan planned her week’s television viewing on a Saturday too, circling the programmes she wanted to watch in the TV guide, putting asterisks beside interesting documentaries. Probably not.
Lizzie locked the surgery door and, twenty minutes later, she was walking round the supermarket on Dunmore’s Cork Road, a basket over her arm as she debated what to buy for dinner. That was one of the nice things about living alone, she thought to cheer herself up. You could eat whatever you wanted. Myles had hated tuna in tins, while Lizzie could have eaten it every night. He loved proper dinners too, not speedy suppers like beans on toast. Now, she could eat beans and tuna together if she felt like it. She rounded the frozen pizza corner and went bang into Josephine who lived four doors up. Josephine, a gossiper of professional standard, was wielding a loaded trolley that proclaimed to the world that she had a husband and four big sons to feed. Giant family packs of meat and many loaves of bread were packed precariously on top of each other. If her trolley could speak, it would have loudly said, “I have a life.”
“Oh, hello, Lizzie,” she greeted. “How nice to see you.”
Lizzie made a sudden decision. She couldn’t face Josephine’s gentle probing. Her single-person basket clearly said that she had no life and the carafe of red wine that had been on special offer would proclaim that she coped with this lack of a life by knocking back litre bottles of booze.
“Lovely to see you!” she said gaily, and kept walking. “Sorry, but I’m rushing. I have someone dropping in and I’m late!” Lizzie smiled broadly to imply a busy, action-packed existence that left no time for concerned “how are you doing?” conversations amid the frozen food.
From the corner of her eye, Lizzie could see Josephine’s garrulous husband amble over to the trolley. Thank God she’d made her es-cape. She couldn’t face both of them. She rushed round another corner and hurried down the tea and coffee aisle, knowing exactly what Josephine would be saying: “Poor Lizzie, isn’t she wonderful, though?”
Lizzie knew that was what people said about her: “Isn’t she wonderful?”, as if she was some simple soul who’d finally learned to tie her shoelaces. What they meant was “Isn’t it great that she isn’t riddled with bitterness and with a long-term Prozac habit since Myles left her?” She had not been people-watching all her life for nothing. Her natural intuition told her what they were really thinking and she hated it. She knew that her friends and acquaintances had half expected her to slide into a decline when she and Myles had split up five years previously. But she had proved them wrong. She hadn’t buried her head in the sand and told people they were “taking time apart,” like one neighbour who’d kept blindly insisting that her dentist husband was merely working a long distance away when everyone and their lawyer knew he’d set up home with a curvaceous female colleague.
Prevaricating wasn’t Lizzie’s style. When Myles had moved out, she’d told people the truth. Well, most of the truth. “We’re getting a divorce. It’s over, I’m afraid,” she’d said brightly. What she hadn’t said was how shocked and devastated she felt, how humiliated, at the abrupt end of their marriage.
Tellingly, nobody seemed surprised. Not her friends, not her family. They all seemed to have half expected it. Only Lizzie, who’d prided herself on being practical, hadn’t.
“I know things haven’t been right for years,” her elder sister, Gwen, said comfortingly. “It’s for the best.”
Lizzie, who was rarely speechless, was reduced to utter silence. Gwen had always been an old-fashioned advocate of marriage, and thought that women who didn’t get married had a screw loose and were to be pitied. What
Lizzie locked the surgery door and, twenty minutes later, she was walking round the supermarket on Dunmore’s Cork Road, a basket over her arm as she debated what to buy for dinner. That was one of the nice things about living alone, she thought to cheer herself up. You could eat whatever you wanted. Myles had hated tuna in tins, while Lizzie could have eaten it every night. He loved proper dinners too, not speedy suppers like beans on toast. Now, she could eat beans and tuna together if she felt like it. She rounded the frozen pizza corner and went bang into Josephine who lived four doors up. Josephine, a gossiper of professional standard, was wielding a loaded trolley that proclaimed to the world that she had a husband and four big sons to feed. Giant family packs of meat and many loaves of bread were packed precariously on top of each other. If her trolley could speak, it would have loudly said, “I have a life.”
“Oh, hello, Lizzie,” she greeted. “How nice to see you.”
Lizzie made a sudden decision. She couldn’t face Josephine’s gentle probing. Her single-person basket clearly said that she had no life and the carafe of red wine that had been on special offer would proclaim that she coped with this lack of a life by knocking back litre bottles of booze.
“Lovely to see you!” she said gaily, and kept walking. “Sorry, but I’m rushing. I have someone dropping in and I’m late!” Lizzie smiled broadly to imply a busy, action-packed existence that left no time for concerned “how are you doing?” conversations amid the frozen food.
From the corner of her eye, Lizzie could see Josephine’s garrulous husband amble over to the trolley. Thank God she’d made her es-cape. She couldn’t face both of them. She rushed round another corner and hurried down the tea and coffee aisle, knowing exactly what Josephine would be saying: “Poor Lizzie, isn’t she wonderful, though?”
Lizzie knew that was what people said about her: “Isn’t she wonderful?”, as if she was some simple soul who’d finally learned to tie her shoelaces. What they meant was “Isn’t it great that she isn’t riddled with bitterness and with a long-term Prozac habit since Myles left her?” She had not been people-watching all her life for nothing. Her natural intuition told her what they were really thinking and she hated it. She knew that her friends and acquaintances had half expected her to slide into a decline when she and Myles had split up five years previously. But she had proved them wrong. She hadn’t buried her head in the sand and told people they were “taking time apart,” like one neighbour who’d kept blindly insisting that her dentist husband was merely working a long distance away when everyone and their lawyer knew he’d set up home with a curvaceous female colleague.
Prevaricating wasn’t Lizzie’s style. When Myles had moved out, she’d told people the truth. Well, most of the truth. “We’re getting a divorce. It’s over, I’m afraid,” she’d said brightly. What she hadn’t said was how shocked and devastated she felt, how humiliated, at the abrupt end of their marriage.
Tellingly, nobody seemed surprised. Not her friends, not her family. They all seemed to have half expected it. Only Lizzie, who’d prided herself on being practical, hadn’t.
“I know things haven’t been right for years,” her elder sister, Gwen, said comfortingly. “It’s for the best.”
Lizzie, who was rarely speechless, was reduced to utter silence. Gwen had always been an old-fashioned advocate of marriage, and thought that women who didn’t get married had a screw loose and were to be pitied. What
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