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The Etiquette of Loving a Married Man |
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Written by Alice Ayres
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Thursday, 17 July 2008 |
I expect the phone to ring, any minute now…and it does. I can guess the conversation before it begins. It will involve talk of lace panties, your nature rising, strawberries and maybe whipped cream. Then we will talk, at length, about your day. I will enquire,
‘What did you get up to today, Biscuits?’
At this juncture you will inhale deeply and then delve into a lengthy soliloquy about the complicated science behind ‘watching your money,’’ which essentially involves being able to perfectly eat a Panini with no spillage, keep your eyes firmly on the bank or bureau doors and simultaneously, magically, hold cohesive ‘cash talk’ with both your runner, who is sitting in the back seat of your BMW 5 series coupe and one of your other thieving associates over your Bluetooth. I will interrupt you at some point and ask an obvious question with an equally obvious answer, just to stop this conversation effectively becoming a lullaby. You will then enquire after my day which I will brush over superficially and at some point, you will pause, and then ask me to hold on, you have an important call coming in. When you return, I sense by the change of tone and mood that it was your wife. I never know the nature of your conversations, and I prefer it that way, it keeps my conscience in slumber and guilt at bay. But when you’re back on the line I will more than likely taunt you about it and you will consequently proceed to call me out of my name…maybe ‘d***head’ or just ’d**’ or perhaps some other equally obscene cuss word, and I will laugh, and tell you I love you.
But today I am not going to tell you I love you, in fact I’m not even going to pick up the phone. I will put my phone on silent, lie here, on my couch, munch on my poptarts and watch Pride and Prejudice on the forty two inch LCD television you bought me for Christmas. And you will call, all three of my phones severally, and leave a surfeit of voice messages, of which I shall playback none! And you will continue to call, incessantly, just as I expect.
What I do not expect is for you to drive half way across the country and appear at my door, demanding of me answers to painfully obvious questions.
It’s not a hard thing, loving a man that belongs to another woman. It is much easier than I had suspected in fact. It does however require of a woman the specific skill of being able to dissect one’s emotions and do just as men do, ‘compartmentalise as convenient‘.
Firstly, to remove from yourself that inclination of compassion to fellow human beings that for so long has permeated your speech and behaviour. That compassion that that stops one from being deliberately cruel and careless, the compassion that your mother , your first grade teacher and the Good Book itself told you is the only rule to live by. The ‘other woman’ must, yes, must compartmentalise this innate sense and draw upon it only when necessary and convenient. My insufferable great aunt, an unhappily married cheating wife, declared this, rather than childbirth, to be the real woman’s burden. Her daughter ran off with the gardener at age sixteen.
Secondly, to remove from yourself certain aspects of reality, considerations of the future for instance. Because, how, pray thee tell, does one contemplate a future with a man who clearly has no idea of the real direction of his own path and grabs desperately in the dark at signs and stars that may harbour clues. He is after all, just as lost as you. You must not ever get it twisted that just because he says he wants to be with you always and forever, actually means he shall.
Thirdly, and this superbitch superpower need only be applied in the final stage which is when the discovery of your existence is made and eventually, inevitably, contact is made. I’ve always thought it to be bad manners for a woman to call her husband’s mistress, for whatever purpose. It always seemed to me to reveal a level of fallibility or relinquish a sense of dignity which does nothing but allow the other woman to manage an unreasonable feeling of superiority. My mother always thought it beneath her, it was a form of surrender as far as she was concerned, for the other woman can only do one of two things. Either deny vehemently and effectively cause you to appear borderline psycho. Or she can admit to the infidelity but say as one other woman did…
‘I’m afraid I cannot stop sleeping with your husband.’
And that is a defeat to which no wife ever ought to concede. But so many do. Out of fury or hopelessness, or just the desperate feeling of needing validation they pick up the phone and call the other woman.
On this auspicious occasion you must betray all the niceties your Cheltenham Ladies College public school breeding has bestowed you, and turn superbitch. It is the one and only occasion when you must extricate yourself from all etiquette for in the end, you must roll up your sleeves and convince yourself resoundingly that coveting another woman’s property is incompatible with the virtue of politeness. Effectively you must consider yourself morally corrupt and when necessary…speak as such.
Thankfully I am a million miles from stage three.
And now, here you are three minutes past midnight at my door. Infuriated, you ask,
‘So you’ve decided not to pick up the phone?’’
‘Obviously’ I reply, rolling my eyes hard.
Stupidly you persist ‘What? Why?’
And I take this opportunity to vex you beyond simple repair.
‘Really, my Biscuit, these questions, these are thoroughly daft questions….and did you have to drive your fat impudence all the way to London to ask me these daft questions which you could have asked me over the phone?’
‘Well maybe if you picked up your phone Mrs Jones…..’ you begin
I interrupt ‘…Oh, that’s right, I’m not picking up my phone and you know why, because that’’s the only way to get you to do something out of the ordinary, like haul yourself to London - which seems like such a chore these days- to come and put me in my place. That’s what you’re here for, right? To remind me that I am obligated as your ‘undercover lover’’ to pick up all phone calls that come through on that bootlegged basher of a phone you gave me. Well hell, well done Mr Point Fucking Dexter, you did exactly as you were supposed to. Welcome home.’
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Alice Ayres |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 18 July 2008 )
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