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Authors: Trisha Ashley
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idea into his head it’s set there for all time like a fly in amber. Writing is my career.
He
says I’m only an author with a little ‘a’ because I write short romantic novels. I suspect he thinks you have to be a man to be a real Author, an attitude he only allowed to come out of hiding after we were married, when he seemed to think I wouldn’t need to write any more.
I discovered I had the knack of writing romances in my last year of university, after comfort-reading so many other people’s (the literary equivalent of a Mars bar), where the hero wasn’t quite right, and certainly didn’t suffer enough before the heroine relented and let him marry her.
Fergal Rocco may have been too much for one woman, but he provides a rich vein to draw on: distilled essence of sex appeal. Just as well James has never read any of my novels! I may be a sort of literary vampire, but Fergal
owes
it to me after treating me like that, and anyway, slapping a series of his clones into shape is rather fun.
My pen name is Marian Plentifold and I’ve been turning out two novels a year ever since college. James annoyingly refers to the money I make from them as ‘your pin money’ and doesn’t like me to tell anyone about them because of their being romance. But I’d like to tell
everyone
, and anyway, Mother knows, which is the same thing.
Funnily enough, he made no objection when I had poetry published, probably because no one he knew read that sort of magazine. (Sometimes I suspect that only poets and aspiring poets read them: all very incestuous.)
He might be a bit jealous, too, since he has trouble signing his name on documents, and reads James Bond. Impure escapism.
He’s unfortunately not much of a New Man (more of an Old Man lately) and the only help he really gives me is to do the weekly large shop at the supermarket.
I was glad when he’d gone, so I could savour the feeling of being alone in the cottage, now looking amazingly different – light and spacious, with stripped and sealed mellow golden-yellow floors and freshly painted walls and paintwork. Once all my brightly coloured vases, bowls, patchwork cushions and throws are scattered about, it will look a lot livelier. And a basket or two of leaves, and later some bright rugs …
It’s surprising how little furniture we have considering we’ve been married for six years but, as I’ve mentioned, I hate second-hand furniture, except antique. There’s something very antiseptic about the expensive gloss of an antique piece.
My dresser and table are scrubbed and sealed, and I at least know where they came from. The commode has had a Total Baptism by stripping solution, and I don’t think many germs could stand up to that. James has now waxed and polished it, and I must admit that it looks very nice in the hall.
I got him to remove the bowl and screw down the lid (he suggested seriously that we keep our gloves in it!) and have told him not to mention to anyone what it was. I neither know nor care what he’s done with the bowl, except that it isn’t in the house.
Later I measured up our bedroom window and made out the order for some bright curtains (tough luck, James!), then set out with an ecstatic and panting Bess to look for the postbox. I wouldn’t have taken the stupid dog except that she can’t be trusted not to Do Something in a fit of pique if left behind.
Strangely enough it was the first time I’d walked into the village. All our journeys have been in the car: the supermarket, the DIY centre, the common to give Bess a run. We know that Nutthill has a village shop, infants’ school and bus service, and is quite pretty and peaceful, but that’s about it.
I can’t imagine why it’s called Nutthill, either, because it’s pretty flat around here.
It was with an unusually exposed feeling that I closed the door and strode off down to the lane, and, glancing across the jungle of our front garden, I was just in time to see next door’s curtains
He
says I’m only an author with a little ‘a’ because I write short romantic novels. I suspect he thinks you have to be a man to be a real Author, an attitude he only allowed to come out of hiding after we were married, when he seemed to think I wouldn’t need to write any more.
I discovered I had the knack of writing romances in my last year of university, after comfort-reading so many other people’s (the literary equivalent of a Mars bar), where the hero wasn’t quite right, and certainly didn’t suffer enough before the heroine relented and let him marry her.
Fergal Rocco may have been too much for one woman, but he provides a rich vein to draw on: distilled essence of sex appeal. Just as well James has never read any of my novels! I may be a sort of literary vampire, but Fergal
owes
it to me after treating me like that, and anyway, slapping a series of his clones into shape is rather fun.
My pen name is Marian Plentifold and I’ve been turning out two novels a year ever since college. James annoyingly refers to the money I make from them as ‘your pin money’ and doesn’t like me to tell anyone about them because of their being romance. But I’d like to tell
everyone
, and anyway, Mother knows, which is the same thing.
Funnily enough, he made no objection when I had poetry published, probably because no one he knew read that sort of magazine. (Sometimes I suspect that only poets and aspiring poets read them: all very incestuous.)
He might be a bit jealous, too, since he has trouble signing his name on documents, and reads James Bond. Impure escapism.
He’s unfortunately not much of a New Man (more of an Old Man lately) and the only help he really gives me is to do the weekly large shop at the supermarket.
I was glad when he’d gone, so I could savour the feeling of being alone in the cottage, now looking amazingly different – light and spacious, with stripped and sealed mellow golden-yellow floors and freshly painted walls and paintwork. Once all my brightly coloured vases, bowls, patchwork cushions and throws are scattered about, it will look a lot livelier. And a basket or two of leaves, and later some bright rugs …
It’s surprising how little furniture we have considering we’ve been married for six years but, as I’ve mentioned, I hate second-hand furniture, except antique. There’s something very antiseptic about the expensive gloss of an antique piece.
My dresser and table are scrubbed and sealed, and I at least know where they came from. The commode has had a Total Baptism by stripping solution, and I don’t think many germs could stand up to that. James has now waxed and polished it, and I must admit that it looks very nice in the hall.
I got him to remove the bowl and screw down the lid (he suggested seriously that we keep our gloves in it!) and have told him not to mention to anyone what it was. I neither know nor care what he’s done with the bowl, except that it isn’t in the house.
Later I measured up our bedroom window and made out the order for some bright curtains (tough luck, James!), then set out with an ecstatic and panting Bess to look for the postbox. I wouldn’t have taken the stupid dog except that she can’t be trusted not to Do Something in a fit of pique if left behind.
Strangely enough it was the first time I’d walked into the village. All our journeys have been in the car: the supermarket, the DIY centre, the common to give Bess a run. We know that Nutthill has a village shop, infants’ school and bus service, and is quite pretty and peaceful, but that’s about it.
I can’t imagine why it’s called Nutthill, either, because it’s pretty flat around here.
It was with an unusually exposed feeling that I closed the door and strode off down to the lane, and, glancing across the jungle of our front garden, I was just in time to see next door’s curtains
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