Normal Rules Don't Apply: Stories by Kate Atkinson

Author:Kate Atkinson [Atkinson, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2023-09-12T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Pamela was, in fact, neither happily nor unhappily divorced, she was simply divorced. The divorce in question had taken place over fifteen years ago now, which was time enough for the humiliation and shock to have died down into embers of resentment that were only occasionally fanned back into flames of fury. By then it had seemed too late to change her surname (“Gillette—like the razor!”) back to her maiden name.

Pamela had been completely blindsided by Colin’s decision to walk out—literally—on the marriage. They had just filled the dishwasher together and as she turned the knob to eco wash he said, “I’ll be off now, then,” as if he had been waiting for one last cleaning cycle before leaving. “Off where?” Pamela puzzled. Just “off,” apparently. He had a bag packed in the boot of his company car. She didn’t know which was more surprising—that he was leaving or that he’d packed his own bag. “Want to do a bit of living while I still can,” he said. Well, don’t we all? Pamela thought.

“Sex, drugs, rock and roll,” he laughed sheepishly, although really he was only interested in the first one of those. “Sow my wild oats,” he said. “Never got a chance when I was young.” He’d already begun, apparently, broadcasting his seed with someone called Lorraine in Acquisitions. “Nothing serious, just a bit of fun.”

“Fun?” Pamela echoed. She’d never thought of the word being used in this context. “Fun” was something she associated with pantomimes and games of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. (Did anyone play that any more?)

“Yes, fun,” he said defensively.

He had done his duty, Colin said. Mortgage paid, both children safely into their teens, all the hurdles of middle-class life successfully jumped. “The kids won’t miss me,” he said. (It was true, they hardly noticed his absence, which said something about his paternal involvement.) When Pamela objected to this unexpected turn of affairs—again, literally—he said, “Come on, Pam, you know there’s more to life than this.” Was there? How would she know?

He had already met with a solicitor, he said. The separation papers were all drawn up, just waiting for her approval. She could keep the house in exchange for his pension pot, everything else they’d split down the middle. He wanted to be fair. (“Fair?”)

Pamela was caught so unawares by all of this advance planning that she couldn’t think of anything to say. (“You’re such a fucking doormat, Mother,” Emily said.) “I’m keeping the dog,” she said eventually.

“Whatever,” Colin said. The dog—Bobby—was apparently the last thing on his mind.

Lorraine was soon out of the picture and Colin proceeded to conduct a series of short-lived relationships with a succession of women before eventually alighting on Hayley, who was twenty-five years younger than Pamela, with flesh still as firm as unripe apricots, thanks to good genes and endless step and spin. Pamela had been to a spin class—bad idea!

Pamela couldn’t understand what Hayley saw in Colin. “What—apart from his money?” Emily said. Colin

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