Mad Cows by Kathy Lette

Author:Kathy Lette
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409043249
Publisher: Transworld

16

Fear Of Landing

WHEN MADDY AWOKE at 2 p.m. to find the bed cold, the flat empty and no note, she didn’t panic. After a decade or two of dating blokes and pretending there was no difference between the sexes, she had now decided that men were from a different planet. She couldn’t think of one female who waited for the Toilet Fairy to change the roll on the spindle or would prefer to die rather than ask directions (which is why they now always include a token female on the space shuttle). Nor had she ever seen a woman play air guitar in front of a mirror or fiddle with the fridge thermostat just for fun. These differences weren’t down to nurture, this was nature.

The truth was that men were missing the DNA structure which enabled them to find the nail clippers, the TV remote, dry-cleaned shirts, matching socks, Panadol and black bow-ties – the things that were located, amazingly, exactly where they’d been for the past ten years.

Men were genetically geared to stand in front of the open refrigerator door and gaze at the interior for hours waiting for something to materialize; to rip holes in the sides of bread packets; blow their noses in the shower and pick them at traffic lights; to insist on driving the car – except at the end of a drunken dinner party when they suddenly announce that you’d better drive; to believe that the petrol gauge reading ‘Empty’ was the signal to drive another 10 K . . . and leave no note declaring undying love after a romantic night of unsurpassed passion. Maddy refused to take it personally.

What she decided to do instead was track him down. It wasn’t hard. Rummaging through his desk she found the gold-embossed invitation to a cocktail party to aid the Royal Soil Society at Highgrove House. Alex, more popular than the Heir Apparent, wouldn’t have needed it to gain entry. All Maddy had to do was slip into some of the ex-wife’s sartorial cast offs, Tipp-Ex out Alex’s first name and add the inky curlicues of her own signature. ‘Madeline Drake’ it now read (she realized, with a jolt, that she liked the way it sounded) and take the train to the Cotswolds.

The harsh apprenticeship of the past month had changed her. It had changed her enough to know that it was stupid to expect men to change too much. She picked up Alex’s discarded clothes from the floor and folded them tenderly. It was like her mother always said – better the devil you know . . . than the devil you’re not sure about.

Maddy had made her bed and now all she wanted to do was lie in it – with him. Was that so terrible? To want to make a go of it with the father of her child? Erica Jong had written Fear of Flying about summoning up the courage to cut loose . . . well, Maddy’s book would be called Fear of Landing – an irrational terror of setting up house and cooking shepherd’s pie.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.