How to Kill Your Husband (and other handy household hints) by Kathy Lette (7 ebook reader .TXT) 📕

told her. ‘A thrill . . . And I don’t mean a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela or white-water rafting.’

Her advice was to just throw myself into my work.

And so I did. For the next week I threw myself into writing term reports. I was so distraught that on two occasions I nearly wrote the truth to the parents. Do not allow this child to breed under any circumstances. And, to the father of the school’s most disruptive pupil, Get a vasectomy. This must not happen again.

But at the end of the week, with the kids cascading down the corridor after lunch and the air electric with the buzz of their banter, I felt successfully diverted from my marital angst. If only I could have been similarly distracted from my Headmaster. But there he was, striding towards me, his trousers up around his chest, the turn-ups not quite reaching his ankles. ‘My office,’ he said ominously. If Scroope had a chin he would have jutted it out.

Once I’d sat down opposite his desk, he asked me if I thought he was the type to ‘fall prey to the enervating parasitism of staffroom gossip?’

I told him that once I’d worked out what that sentence meant, I’d let him know.

‘Did you really say to Mr Ratzinger that his child was born intelligent but that education had ruined him?’ If a power company could harness the steam coming out of his ears, London’s energy problems would be over.

‘Well, yes, I do think Jasper would benefit from some home schooling . . .’

‘Do you have any idea what an image of failure that creates for our school? Do you think that’s a confidence-building initiative?’

Mr Scroope always spoke in these terms. The man would call making love an ‘on-site merger’. He would call an orgy an ‘off-site team-building event’. He would call his wedding anniversary a ‘performance review of core competencies’. His children ‘pilot projects’. A divorce – ‘emotional downsizing’.

‘Um . . .’

‘I think it’s time you reassessed your critical success measures.’

And I think it’s time you did something about your chronic halitosis, I wanted to say in reply, but instead smiled meekly. If being pathetic were an Olympic category, I’d be a Triple Gold Medallist, I really would.

‘Your classroom skills are creative, as the Inspectors keep pointing out, but we must also stick to the curriculum. I’ve had a round-table discussion with the Governors and I think, to be on the safe side, it’s time you took some advice from a more . . .disciplined colleague.’

And I thought it was time he took a direct hit from an asteroid, followed by a round-table discussion about whether or not he’s the world’s greatest asshole. (Including open forum and role-play.) I bristled. Could people smell submission on me? Eau de Useless. ‘What sort of advice?’

‘Mrs Pendal has generously offered to go through your coursework and make sure that it’s in keeping with school policy. Despite being a rival, she’s kindly allowing you to drink at the fountain of her knowledge.’

Actually, I needed a stiff drink and I needed it now. I’ll have knowledge on the rocks, please.

And so, for the next week, I had to face the ignominy of Little Miss Priggy poring over my lesson plans. ‘Never forget, you’re unique, Cassandra. Just like everyone else!’ Perdita oxymoroned. Worse, she had also been put in charge of inset day. This was, usually, a relaxed, kid-free day where the teachers got to drink more tea than usual and indulge in some badly needed preparation time. But Perdita had the brainwave of the staff ‘bonding’ by playing games.

‘What shall we play first?’ she chirruped to a sullen crew, come Monday morning.

I looked at our Headmaster with loathing and thought, Pin the Toupee on the Bald Bastard’?

Gee, this throwing myself into my work thing was proving so rewarding, I might just as well go back to agonizing about my private life. Work, as we all know, is a pain in the ass. Funny isn’t it then, how people are always putting the word ‘work’ next to the word ‘marriage’.

‘It’s all organized. A double date.’ Jazz tossed her car keys in the air and kicked up her leather-mini-skirted legs, her eyes sparkling with mischief. I felt in awe of her brilliant, shifting surface. I so wanted to be Jazz, to enjoy her ease in the world, her way of knowing just how much to tip, just what to quip . . . and how to cross her legs to make every man she met want to part them immediately.

‘You should come as well, Hannah, for a little extra-curricular carnal activity.’ Bending into Hannah’s fridge, Jazz swung her tush pendulum-like, back and forth, as she helped herself. ‘While we’re still young enough. The Three Muffkateers.’

Hannah’s shoulders twitched towards her earlobes and she replied loftily, ‘You may only be young once but obviously you can be immature for ever.’

‘Hannah’s just been advising me to go to marriage therapy,’ I volunteered, then tried to make light of it. ‘You know, to stay Jung at heart in my own little Nietzsche.’

‘Therapy?’ Jazz cringed. ‘Are you insane?’

‘That’s the reason people normally have therapy,’ I replied, crestfallen.

‘Having counselling for a failing marriage is like, I dunno . . . the coyote in the Bugs Bunny cartoons, trying to stop a freight train with a twig.’

‘Not thinking you need counselling means that you obviously do.’ A by-now familiar frostiness had crept into Hannah’s voice.

Listening to their gaggle of contradictory opinions about my life made my brain flip flop like a dying fish. I looked from one to the other of my best friends. Here I was once again – the ham in the friendship sandwich. ‘Well?’ they demanded in unison.

I didn’t want to join Sad, Middle-aged Adulteresses Anonymous. Nor did I want therapy – the only profession in the world where the client is always wrong. ‘Um . . .’

One thing was for sure. I’d definitely skipped over the ‘for better’ bit of my wedding vows and was very firmly in the ‘for worse’ section now. I had to do something.