‘You look awful.’

‘Thanks. Don’t tell me: I have lost weight.’

‘Well, yes. I can see your ribs sticking out.’

I have a feeling of déjà vu.

‘It might have something to do with the fact that my tummy is in knots most of the time. Every time I think of a particular person, to be precise. If it’s not knots, it’s butterflies. Failing that, it’s the cramps of guilt. Whichever way you look at it, I don’t seem to have an appetite at the moment.’

My friend looks at me in complete astonishment. I have known her for the best part of eight years, and it’s rather amusing to see that I can still shock a person after all that time.

‘You mean… You are seeing someone?’

‘Well, I am occasionally seeing someone; but I am thinking of him all the time. Why are you so surprised?’

‘I never thought… I was sure… well… I thought you were happy.’

‘I did too. Sometimes when you think you are happy, the image you project onto the outside world strongly bears your belief.’

‘That’s complete tosh, Lucrezia.’

‘All right then. I pretend well.’

‘I have been seeing someone for the last three years.’

I look at her, and this time it’s my turn to be shocked. And hurt.

‘You never told me that. I thought I was your friend.’

‘And you are; but when I tried to tell you, three years ago, you stopped me and told me rather sternly that I should make an effort and concentrate on making my marriage work. So I thought you’d be disgusted to hear about it, and shut up.’

I have rarely felt so ashamed.

‘Is papá coming with us?’ asks Pest n.1 whilst I tuck his t-shirt in, just before bolting out of the door. We are late already.

‘No, sweetie. It’s just the three of us’, I answer, absent-mindedly.

‘Oh good. That means that you are not arguing and he is not saying the ‘F’ word.’

‘We don’t argue that much!’ I cannot believe I heard what I heard.

‘Oh yes you do.’ He is not upset, or smirking. He does not look bothered. It’s a matter-of-fact observation.

‘All right. Maybe we argue in the car. You know, about driving and directions.’

‘No you don’t. You argue in the house too. You argue in the landing, in the kitchen, in your bedroom, in my bedroom…’

‘Yes, ok. I got the message. We raise our voices. That does not mean we are arguing. You know I am loud.’

‘No. You argue. That’s why he says the ‘F’ word.’

I give up. Pest n.1 has even been polite enough not to mention the ‘F’ word in its entirety. I briefly ponder over whether I should praise him for just saying “the ‘F’ word”, or tell him off for even using the euphemism.

‘But he lets us play whilst you make us do the homework, so I think he is right.’

I push him and his brother out of the door, and slam it shut. Mr Husband is still in there, watching the Olympics. Play, eh?

Cataclysmic changes in one's life may happen in small, affordable doses. It is in the human nature, after all, only to cope with alterations when we can face them; and even, sometimes, conquer them.

Lucrezia unleashed Emma to move on the wings of her fantasies, but the blending of her two worlds, the real and the imaginary one, has brought Emma to heel.

I do not need to fantasise anymore. I do not need to escape to the bottom of the garden dressed in a diaphanous nightie. I have stuffed the magic into a make-believe universe, when the magic itself is readily available in every day life, if only I am willing to see it. In small doses, if only at first.

The tam-tam of women's emotional support works well in the jungle of complex love relationships. When writing as Emma, her dreams were enough to act as a buffer against the harsh reality. As Lucrezia, I cannot curl up in a little corner and imagine I am sitting on a segment of moon, fishing out the stars. I need to know that there are other people out there feeling the way I do, so that we can touch life together with trembling fingers.

My perception of my own world has shifted; in small doses, but fast. I am a stranger living in a place which I don't recognise any more.

That vase, for example, yes, the one sitting prettily on top of the old presser in the dining room: it perfectly matches the wall paper but it is just a lucky find; I have stripped it of all other connotations, just a beautiful thing belonging to a dimension I seem to have left behind.

I am grateful for the beauty around me, but no longer enjoy it; truth be told, I have never loved it. I have allowed Mr Husband to mould me into a satisfied middle class prude, objectively weighing beauty itself without completely matching it to my taste or desire. His steady affection, badly displayed, seems worryingly hollow.

As a result, the axis of one's priorities seems to have shifted, slowly but surely. How can I lavish my care on a garden which I no longer feel my own? Or decorate rooms, repair crumbling walls, design plans for a new bathroom, when my soul is somewhere else?

'You look bloody awful', says one of the tam-tam jungle friends. I have finally started irradiating signals of distress and I am heartened by the many voices whispering from behind the bamboo shoots, even if just to comment on my apparent weight loss. 'You must be in love', she adds helpfully.

'I thought that being in love made you look radiant and rosy-cheeked', I protest, hugging a mug of coffee.

'Only when you are single and care-free, my dear', she answers. 'You'll find a way to deal with it, but only when you finally start to accept that responsibilities need to be apportioned and that there will be casualties. In a way, it would be a lot easier and more convenient to escape occasionally for a quick shag in the fields. Are you reciprocated, at least?'

'Would that make a difference?' I ask. The coffee, which I have allowed to get cold, has turned a nasty shade of grey-ish brown.

'Technically speaking, yes. It would be a disaster for you to drive a process which eventually leaves you alone and abandoned, would it not?'

'No, not really', I object. 'Not if the alternative if a more substantial kind of loneliness; the sneaky, malicious one you feel but do not see: the one that makes you want to scream when people comment on how lucky you are, with your lovely husband, lovely children and beautiful house.'

She laughs. 'That's the answer I was hoping you'd give me. It seems that Mr Lost has a legitimate place in your heart, being there for his own merits rather than just acting as a deploy, an excuse to flee.'

'I still don't know why these changes are taking place in my life, whether I wish them to happen or not', I say, stubbornly.

'I think sex plays an important part. We can be compatible, and become great friends. Flat-mates have been known to live together for years without an argument. However, to find someone with whom you can have real sexual intimacy, you know, the kind of 'rapport' which makes you drown in your man's eyes as he takes you, that intimacy... is a rare occurrence and a powerful tool for discovery: it then spills over into your everyday life. Intimate relationships last; the others sink into a comfortable friendship, or even comfortably ignoring each other.'

I suppose that's what Emma has taught Lucrezia: the degree of happiness which I am prepared to accept and strive for is way higher than I originally thought. Nice, proper middle class and comfortable living notwithstanding.

He hugs me a little gruffly, with the awkwardness of somebody who no longer remembers how to do it.
'Come here, darling. Let's have a hug. I never see you anymore. These days you seem to live your own life.'

I stiffen a little, then pat his back affectionately. He is the father of my children.

'We never watched 'Sleepless in Seattle', did we?', he reminds me.

My ironing marathon never ends. I don't mind watching a movie whilst my family's clothes disappear into the steam and come out looking preppy.

So it's settled for Seattle.

I do the ironing. I watch the movie.

He reads the newspaper.

Why do I feel guilty?

...If a trip to the supermarket loomed? If we were to search for AA batteries for the children's toys among hurried shoppers and sulking teenagers? If there were a queue at the petrol pumps, music blasting from the tinted glass of the latest 4x4 BMW behind which we are waiting? If preparing dinner for the family were always followed by the washing-up rather than scented candles in the bath?

Do mundane activities and chores always kill romance in the end? I shall be me whether I am scraping mud off little wellies or undoing my bra in the penumbra, but feel very much like a fatality in my own life.

With love

x

Dear Mr Lost,

I want temporarily to regress to a time in my life when school gates are not where you listen to mothers' gossips but a magical place to lean against, mouths hungrily discovering the curves of one's flesh under the thin fabric of a summer t-shirt. I want to have a picnic down the river bank and lie down to look at the tree branches and segments of sky between them from underneath, not clearing up discarded marmite sandwich crusts and empty cartons of juice. I want to be talked to, not at. I secretly believe that it's only through escaping, at times, that people find the real meaning of things. How do you add depth to life if not by exploring different aspects of what you already know?

x

The truth is, I have done all the things I was expected to do by the time I reached my age. And very few of the things I wanted to do.

I left home with my baby and went up North to stay at a friend's house in Chester. I chose her because I knew she would take care of me kindly but not allow me to wallow in self-pity or do anything rush. I switched off my phone and put the car radio on, very loud, to drown my thoughts.

For the first few days, my friend did not talk about the reason why I had suddenly turned up on her door step with the baby and enough clothes to last me a month, but no husband. I heard her whisper down the phone a couple of times; my name was uttered in those conversations. I idly worried that Mr Husband would come and fetch me, but he must have been told not to, to let things cool off a little.

It was during that week that I suddenly realised how completely trapped I was. The brevity of those few days away only brought with it the sudden realisation that there was nowhere for me to go, apart from driving back home. I had never thought of personal responsibilities as shackles; I had viewed them more like an opportunity to grow as a person and exercise control over my otherwise shambolic life. In the process of adding on to my life, though, I lost the very person I was at the beginning of it.

Of all the persuasive arguments my friend used to convince me to view the disaster as a mere 'incident', there was only one which worked. I still remember the words: 'I would stay with the devil incarnate if he were the father of my children. They need him.'

So I went back, unsure as to whether my friend meant to call Mr Husband the devil incarnate. By then, it made little difference. I slept in the baby's room, on the floor. I kept out of the way whilst I was analysing the pieces and rebuilding the puzzle. Every time I added a new fragment, I felt stronger in a more detached way.

We tip-toed around each other with the politeness of new flat-mates.

It was only after another week or so, one morning, when I was feeding the baby in his high chair with a cup of coffee in front of me, and Mr Husband walked into the kitchen in his suit, ready to go to work, that I carefully positioned the last fragment in place and stepped back to examine my shattered life. Anger came in nauseating waves.

Without a warning, I picked up the cup of coffee and threw it at him. It was strong, hot black coffee; he was wearing a pristine white shirt, perfectly ironed.

The baby laughed. There were black lashings, elongated shapes of dark fury whipping the kitchen floor, walls, and even the ceiling. Mr Husband's shirt got completely soaked; so did his suit and shoes. The cup's broken pieces fell all over the place prettily, in slow motion. I spilt baby rice all over my clothes.

Mr Husband stood like a coffee-stained statue, shocked. I swear I heard the drip-drip of the last dregs falling onto the tiled floor. I'd never seen the kitchen that dirty.

After an eternity, the father of my children started to laugh. It was a merry laugh of relief, of lonely nights spent worrying silently, of guilt and fear. 'I love you', he said, looking fairly ridiculous in his soaked shirt. 'We can overcome this.'

The baby cooed. I wanted to say that I wanted to overcome it on my own, but I remembered my promise to love and obey. The devil incarnate. My children.

'Go upstairs and get changed', I replied. When he left the kitchen, I allowed myself to cry a little, but I turned my face so the baby would not see me.

Suitcase Little Master took ages to grow. He complained to me every week about being small, so I used to measure him against the wall and draw a pencil line across, marking it with the date. We could then both see that nature was taking its course and he was, slowly but surely, getting taller.

Over one summer, Suitcase Little Master left for a rugby match in the morning, and I swear that by the evening, when he came back with a broken thumb, he had turned into Troubled Teenage Stepson.

By then, my Suitcase Children no longer came laden with many plastic bags and little suitcases (hence the nickname) containing all they needed for the weekend (or the week) they were to spend with us. They had a permanent base at home, school uniforms which I washed and ironed and hang like stiff white soldiers in their wardrobes, and various toiletries clattering the bathroom I shared with them.

There was a new baby cooing in the cot. And I had touched the bottom of the 'Well Of Despair'.

One night, Troubled Teenage Stepson came back from another rugby match caked in mud - as usual. Less than usual, he did not bother to take his kit off and have a shower, but let himself plonk onto the sofa. Dried mud, little stones and perhaps the odd bit of coagulated blood from the war wounds he had suffered during the match flung everywhere.

I had already started my descent into the 'Cleanliness is Godliness' slippery slope. A new baby, frankly, was a boring as hell. He only ate, slept, filled his nappy and occasionally cried. I had been told by my work colleagues that they were not expecting me back for another six months; even then, if I couldn't guarantee my usual seven-day-a-week performance, I knew that I would not have been able to go back to what I did before I dared have a baby.

Looking around for something to do to fill the void, outside and inside, I had decided that housework was worth investing time and effort in. I had always been house-proud, but by now I could have run a string of commercials for cleaning appliances and liquids, featuring myself and the immaculate Victorian whitewashed house we all lived in.

All that was missing was a pinny over my maternity clothes (yes, I was pregnant again) and a scarf over my hair.

I asked Troubled Teenage Stepson to remove himself from the sofa and go to have a shower.

Bad move.

'Why can't I just sit here, as I want to? Why do you have to tell me what to do?' he growled.

'Because you are covered in mud. Look, the sofa is all dirty. Go upstairs and have a shower, please', I replied.

'Do you know? I am sick and tired of you. What do you want me to do, take my kit off and sit naked here? Is that what you would like?' he was already shouting by then.

I was taken aback. I do not mind confrontations and am rather feisty, but there was something so unpleasant about his tone of voice that, for a moment, I was speechless with shock.

By the time Mr Husband finally decided to intervene, Suitcase Little Girl was sobbing in her room and the baby was beside himself; I had started shouting back, but stopped when Troubled Teenage Stepson told me that I was a fucking bitch who 'controlled' his father.

I did not mind the 'fucking bitch' bit, harsh as it was. In fact, I wished it were true.
However, I could not understand how he had come to the conclusion that I was the one who did any controlling whatsoever.

Mr Husband lifted me bodily to take me away; his son was still screaming abuse from upstairs when I got locked up in the kitchen; a little like a very mad kitten who must be protected from itself and is left on its own to calm down. Only, I was not doing much scratching.

Mr Husband disappeared upstairs in Troubled Teenage Son's room. A good half-an-hour later, when I ventured out of the kitchen, I found them together. Mr Husband was holding his son's hand, patting it reassuringly and whispering soothing words, asking whether he was all right.

I so much wanted to start shouting again, remembering and reeling off all the events in the past few years when I had been the one to make sure the Suitcase Children were 'all right'.

I heard a crack. I am not sure whether it was my stepping onto a shard of the vase I had broken earlier, in my fury, or my heart. Maybe it was both.

I gathered a few clothes and baby. I left the house for a week.

It nearly cost our marriage; it certainly cost quite a bit more than that.

I know that Troubled Teenage Stepson regrets those events, and has done so for a long time. Things were never the same between us, after that night. Nevertheless, I have let go of the resentment for him; I am not sure I ever did the same about his father.

My Mr Lost,

We clash and burn each other with the mighty power of the Titans. Surely there must be a relatively normal state of mind between being ripped apart by the thought that the other person may not care one jot, and feeling deliriously happy about that tiny portion of love we can afford for each other.

Caught in the whirlwind romance, we seem to have skipped all the steps which are necessary to get to know a person but irrelevant as reasons to love them. We have jumped straight to the symphony without taking a single look at the biography of the musician.

Would it make any difference to you, for example, to know that my favourite colour is orange? Or that I once wrote a love note to the ancient professor of Roman Law at uni, for a bet, and that he read it loud in the class, challenging the culprit to stand up if 'she dared'?

Would it surprise you if I said I did? In front of a hundred students?

Do the little things in one's life make the life, or the individual?

Emma x

I thought I was bored. I genuinely thought that, despite (or maybe because of) the nice house and lovely garden, the middle class blond children and my gym membership, I was yet another bored middle class housewife concerning herself with whether they do Georgian-style wallpaper.

I have stacks of Period Home and Period Ideas magazines, full of happy and smiling couples showing their beautiful house to the photographer and discussing the merits of a kitchen island and how to mix lime mortar.

Life and social cycles have gone full circle if nowadays it is 'in' and 'cool' to have a vegetable patch like mine in order to grow your own posh sprouts with exotic and unpronounceable names rather than just to feed the family. I concern myself with the children's homework and creative playing rather than worrying about whether there will be enough money for the heating this winter.

Yes. I thought I was bored.

I am deeply grateful for the life I am able to live, in a free country and with relative personal freedom. When single and lonely, I always wondered whether I would be blessed with children, and now I know I have. Mr Husband will never cheat on me or leave me. He will never forget an anniversary; he knows my shoe size and how to use my emergency medication if I should have a bad asthma attack. We have private jokes, memories and children together.

Mr Husband expects me to get on with life because there is so much to it! He is the ultimate provider and hunter: those traits satisfy the insecure me, but do not complete me.

I think that is an important issue; Mr Husband does not believe that I need 'completing' more than he thinks the world needs a push to spin around.

I do.

Why is it so bad to be needy? I have always wished to fall asleep wrapped around my companion. Literally. There is something hungry about the way I would like to relate to my lover which I have had to keep in check or hide away altogether. After I was unceremoniously pushed off to my side of the bed countless times, I finally got the message that Mr Husband liked to go to sleep without Mrs Octopus asphyxiating him. It was a relief when the first baby arrived and I got a little creature all for myself, to smother and love.

Funny how men complain of their wives shifting the centre of their attention to the new baby, when sometimes they never wanted to be that centre in the first place.

I wasn't smothered with kisses when I was small. I am making damn sure that my boys are, as it usually happens that we strive to give our children what we sorely missed in our childhood.

I have mourned the loss of my identity and life as I knew it; Mr Husband has wondered why I'd wanted a baby if then I moaned about missing my independence. I have mourned about losing friends to the casual game of destiny, and Mr Husband has suggested I make new ones. I have given every possible signal of being unhappy, without even realising it, and Mr Husband has just thought I was bored. Worse, he feels very much that it is not his problem, but uniquely mine. So did I, until recently.

Isn't it odd, how we think we have forgotten and forgiven when all we have done is to sweep painful events under the metaphorical carpet?

Suitcase Little Master was the most delightful little boy when we met. He had a gappy smile and gangly limbs (he still has the latter). For six months or so he spent more time with me than with his father; he would passionately defend me against what he thought was his father's 'ill-treatment' of his new companion; and fight his sister for my attention. It was idyllic.

Then I got pregnant. Whilst Suitcase Little Girl was already busy making drawings for the nursery and writing sweet poems about the new baby coming, Suitcase Little Master was the last to know because we were all very worried about his reaction, and with good reason. On being told there would be another child to contend with for attention, Suitcase Little Master unleashed some very angry reaction, hitting out at everything that was wrong in his life.

I thought about it long and hard; I wanted the little boy who loved me back, and did not like him to be hurt by my happiness. So I suggested he be the baby's godfather. The idea appealed to Suitcase Little Master a great deal, as it soothed his sense of insecurity, propping it up with a request for his input, for him to exercise control. All was well for a while.

However, I am too much of a woman not to notice little details, mood swings and attitudes, and I soon knew that things would never be exactly the same again. I blamed myself, as usual, but could not retrieve Little Master's young heart, no matter how hard I tried.

It was only four years later, during an uneventful evening, that the full impact of my existence on Suitcase Little Master's life became apparent.

Moreover, it was on the same evening that I realised of what little consequence my own pain was in Mr Husband's constellation of responsibilities.

I am not sure it was a good idea to dye my hair, after all. Beautiful Stepdaughter was annoyingly right, of course. As well as being a witch, I now look like one too.

Where are those bottles of frog's saliva and cat's footsteps? I want to make a love potion. I have just the person to give it to.

I thought about the issue of dying my hair. And what Sensible Beautiful Stepdaughter said.

I am now dying my hair. Off to the rinsing stage. If I should look more like a witch... well, so be it. I need to do things to distract my mind from other, more pressing matters.

Stay online to see the results.

Suitcase Little Girl became a woman overnight. Nowadays she is a Beautiful Stepdaughter with hair extensions and long fingernails – I am not sure about how natural those are either, but she does look like a young woman and not a little girl anymore.

It is interesting to ponder over the equilibrium of relationships within a modern family. Nowadays, with more and more of us living in a crisscross of human genealogy rather than the original core ‘mummy, daddy and 2.4 children + dog’, one needs to tread carefully over the labyrinthine connections and attached emotional black holes.

I maintain that it is easier for a woman to accept another woman’s offspring, than it is for a man to grow fond of someone else’s babies. It is a primeval force, that of the continuation of the species: a man’s babies are a threat to another man because they represent their father’s future. There has always been a time when there wouldn’t be enough space for everybody’s future.

A woman’s attachment to children is usually one of feral passion, a bonding beyond the umbilical cord and the sharing of blood flow. We protect the toothless and defenseless, in different degrees of intensity, for sure, but under the same principle.

One relationship is about continuation, the other is about preservation.

I was a single woman when I met my Suitcase Children, so there was no love to share or compare. I related to them better than Mr Husband ever did, possibly because I was closer to them in age and attitude. They appealed to my sense of joy and understanding of life. They lived by the day, just like I did. They climbed on play frames and trees and made mud cakes. I did that too. They had a very vague sense of danger. Sounds familiar?

Of the two, I found the girl easier to deal with. I have always wanted a little girl, ideally with curly red hair and a cheeky nose. A girl to cover in frilly pinks and lilacs, ribbons and laces. One to take to Caffé Nero and share a lemon cake and a hot chocolate with.

Instead, I got two hooligans.

Before the hooligans, though, I came as close as I probably will ever get to having a little girl. Suitcase Little Girl needed comforting, hugs and cuddles. She had nightmares that needed sweeping away and somebody to change her wet bed without telling her off for wetting it. I combed her long hair and shared my hair clips. I introduced her to high-heel shoes when she was nine. I was the one she told when she got bullied at school.

I got rich with payback time: when I got post-natal depression after Pest n.1 was born, and Mr Husband never knew, it was Suitcase Little Girl who took the baby off me as I cried alone in the kitchen, bathed and put him to bed. Silently, and without asking questions.

I wonder what Beautiful Stepdaughter would say to me if I told her about Mr Lost. Granted, she would be horrified and disgusted. She would reject me in more ways than I can think of, and possibly tell her father. But I have a feeling that a very tiny part of her would understand. Never forgive. But understand.

Very often, I shall look at all the good things that have been bestowed upon me, and cringe with guilt; but I strongly believe in retribution, and know the time will come when I’ll lose all that has made me Mrs Wife, but none of what has made me Emma. Somewhere in between those two, the real person will hope her children, if not her stepchildren, will still love her.

For the time being, Beautiful Stepdaughter is still here to discuss girlie issues.

‘I am going to dye my hair’, I say tonight, firmly. She is shutting the door to the boys’ room behind her, after reading them a story (The Princess and the Pea!).

‘I want do dye it black. I am sick and tired of my hair turning a pale shade of orange in the summer’ I add, ruefully.

‘Don’t be silly. It would not suit you. What do you need black hair for? Everybody knows you are a witch anyway’, she answers.

It appears that Suitcase Little Girl has grown into a Sensible Beautiful Stepdaughter. Yet someone else I don’t deserve.

You have often
Begun to tell me what I am, but stopp'd
And left me to a bootless inquisition,
Concluding 'Stay: not yet.'

(Miranda, The Tempest)

I stand, motionless, in front of you as you sit on the straw chair in the kitchen, legs slightly apart. Your half-drunk cup of tea is on the kitchen table nearby. I cannot remember what we have been talking about, but the kitchen is now silent with all the words that one needs not speak: I know that we must have just looked at each other in that peculiar way only people who share a deep desire for the other can muster. With longing, and beyond the eyes.

I stand between your legs, and hoist my skirt up to my hips, holding the folds with both hands. When I flex one of my legs over yours, and then the other, you lift your arms to hold my waist. I sit in that perfect place that is your lap, the thin fabric of my panties rubbing against your desire covered in jeans.

If one should seek proportions as the measure of an ideal fit, I’d say that we are perfectly matched: when I bend over slightly, your hands will cup my bottom and my mouth will kiss where your throat joins your neck. I whisper in your ear the eternally powerful words lovers have been whispering since mankind began. Your fingers linger a second or so between my skirt and my knickers, then begin their journey, sliding up my back and round my shoulders, where they meet mine and hold them.

‘Emma’, you sigh.

I shake my head slowly.

‘Lucrezia.’

I have allowed Emma to reach out and teach my real self how to live out fantasies; the man underneath my thighs and holding my hands is very much alive and tangible. And so are my feelings.

Is it possible to have dreamt of kissing somebody for so long that, when it does happen, it feels as if you’d just come back from a long trip in the cold to find home?

There is neither the thrill of novelty nor the shiny newness that ties your heart in knots the way you would, as a teenager, explore another young and unknown body. Quite the contrary: the pleasure comes from finally pulling closer to a man I have kissed and made love to a thousand times in my imagination. That I should feel excited by tasting a familiarity I have built solely through my reveries of several weeks is odd, but exhilarating.

Let me move my hips in harmony with your heartbeat. We have walked alone inside London’s crowds and dreamt of breakfast together. The intimacy of our bodies only reflects that of our souls.

Will I worry, when my knickers have joined the rest of my clothes on the floor and I am kneeling in front of you, that there will come a time I shall wave good-bye to you and never know whether I am going to see you again? Yes, but not now. Not now that your hands are in my hair and you are inside my mouth, my body and my mind. Not now that I understand the meaning of me and find it so easy to explain it to you.

Lost and found. Lonely and cherished.

I have never found the taste of a man so sweet.

I have noticed that Mr Husband seems less impermeable, recently. He does not bite my head off as often, nor does he object to my eccentric modes, moods and deeds as much.

I remember a conversation we once had, not long ago. Mrs Ex-wife was the subject, but things quickly expanded to absorb current situations and people.

But before I go any further, a little background information about Mrs Ex-wife, who is a bubbly and independent woman who one day decided she had had enough of stability, and ran off with a young builder 'built like a Chippendale', as she made no qualms in telling me the first time we met.

Ah, my first meeting with Mr Husband's Mrs Ex-wife! I knew it would happen sometime. After all, she had to deliver the Suitcase Children at least once a week for the evening with daddy, and every other weekend. For a while I managed to avoid meeting her, as I was trying to concentrate on the Suitcase Children and understand how they felt about me, this new and strange woman in their father's house.

The Suitcase Children were very happy to share their breakfast with me, instead of having to wait for daddy to wake up early enough, at the weekend, to partake with pancakes and nutella. Whilst I found domesticity a suffocating concept, I was also aware of it as a rare currency to possess, and that both parties felt a need for it. Soon, I had negotiated to increase the number of nights they would spend at daddy's, on the basis that there was now a female presence in the house, who would get up in the night if Suitcase Little Girl had a nightmare, and cook a healthy supper to substitute the take-away Indian. Suitcase Master was suitably impressed with my 'Pollo alla Cacciatora.'

I still tried to avoid Mrs Ex-wife. The female in me was worried about the natural comparison; I also stupidly thought that if the Suitcase Children saw me with her, they would look at both of us and hate me immediately. As if they had to choose.

The children, though, seemed amused by my futile attempts to disappear every time the car pulled up the drive. They would call my name and ask that I come downstairs to say hello to their mother. I would pretend I was in the bathroom.

Until, one morning, I sensed that I could not really justify being locked up in the loo every time Mrs Ex-wife turned up; there are only so many nasty tummy bugs or baths to be had at that specific time.

I knew what she looked like: her photos were scattered all over the house, and from the golden frames she smiled, behind the flowers at their wedding, or wearing maternity jumpers, holding baby versions of the Suitcase Children and helping little hands bake birthday cakes.

Her blond hair was perfectly smooth, Eighties style. Her lipstick was a nice shade of fuchsia, the kind of colour that would make me look like I have died and been embalmed. She was a Laura Ashley and kitten heels girl; I was vintage Karen Millen and killer stilettos. She drove a diesel car, carefully; I drove a six-cylinder 3.0 V6 Alfa Romeo, recklessly.

The morning of reckoning, I resolved to look at my best; I laid out my make-up, hoping Suitcase Little Girl would not help herself to the mascara and drop it into the toilet, like the last time; I decided what to wear, short but not too short, tight but not tarty. You know, enough to show my wares to the enemy without making it too blatant.

The message, obviously, would be 'I am here to stay now, and I am good enough'.

Before I started getting ready, though, I thought I'd go downstairs and into the garage, where my rabbits lived. I had two, and they were like babies to me, the childless woman. Every day I'd release them into the garden, free to hop and roam amongst the dandelions and rose bushes. I even had chocolate buttons for them; they were house-trained and came to me when I called them. Crucially, my rabbits did not care what I looked like, and responded whether I was wearing an Armani suit or my white fluffy dressing gown.

It was then, as I had just opened the cage to let my babies out, that Mrs Ex-wife decided to arrive, Suitcase Children in tow. The diesel car stopped breathlessly on the gravel, and I thought it may be the post office van.

When I popped my head out of the garage door, the three of them were standing there, the children with their little suitcases, the sight of which always tugged at my heart, and Mrs Ex-wife with her smooth hair and fuchsia lipstick.

Only... My scraggy hair was up in a messy ponytail, my glasses were askew on my nose. The fluffy white dressing gown had a few brown pellets stuck to its fabric, where I had held and stroked my soft and lovely rabbits before letting them loose. I was wearing silly slippers.

'Hello!', she trilled, with glee. 'You must be Emma.'

No. I am not. Can we do a re-take? You know, you go away and come back in twenty minutes, when I look human, and we can say the lines again.

'Hello'. I didn't smile. I hadn't brushed my teeth yet.

The Suitcase Children were beaming. I picked up their little bags and walked back into the house, wondering whether my bottom looked big in my dressing gown. Probably.

'Are you doing anything nice this weekend, then?' I asked, desperate for any kind of small talk. Mr Husband Material, as he was then, was nowhere to be seen. I hated him.

'Oh yes. Mark and I are going to the Cotswolds on his big and powerful bike. It will be fun!' she said, and winked. I cringed and pulled the belt around my waist tighter. What if 'Mark' were in the car and had seen me too?

'He is supposed to take a rather large cabinet over to a customer, but I cannot think how he is going to secure it on the bike. He could just carry it there, I suppose. You know, he is built like a Chippendale.'

I had a vision of 'Mark' with enormous muscles and tattooed biceps, an earring and a gold chain round his bison neck.

'Children! Would you like some orange juice?' I asked. 'We are going to the park as soon as I am....ready.'

I look back, and analyze that memory of Mrs Ex-wife, and my feelings about it at the time. Mr Husband was abandoned, and hurt. It took him two years to gather up what he had left and look for another girl. And although he is probably as damaged as I am, he hardly shows it.

But I noticed that he makes sure he is always around when the builders come. And, as 'Mark' won Mrs Ex-Wife's heart by playing opposite her at an Amateur Dramatics show, I - who had been playing good parts in my own AD group for years - was never allowed to act again.

‘She never appreciated anything I did for her’, he said, during that conversation we had recently. ‘Some women consider integrity and faithfulness disposable virtues. I meant nothing for her, in the end. Our children meant little.’

‘Was it the affair that hurt?’ I asked.

‘I’d rather not have known about it. It did not last anyway’, was the answer.

‘But the impulse to leave did’, I thought.

'Let's watch a romantic movie', he says.

'Oh yes? Why?'

'To spend the evening together.'

'Which one?'

'This evening.'

'No, silly. Which movie?'

'Sleepless in Seattle.'

I consider that. I like the film, but it will bring on all the wrong feelings. I desperately need to sleep tonight. No pun intended.

'I am not sure.'

'Then let's have a baby.'

I choke on my water.

'You have never wanted to have a baby with me. You "endured" our boys', I say, matter-on-factly.

'But I know you want one.'

'That's never stopped you from saying no.'

'I have changed my mind.'

'So have I.'

He stops and looks at me in a funny way.

'Besides', I add, 'that would mean, you know, having sex.'

'God forbid', he says, sarcastically.

'I don't want another baby.'

'Since when?'

'Since I decided to do some paid work and earn some money. The monthly column I write is a start. Or I could concentrate more on the cookery classes.'

'So, no new baby.'

'No. I'll watch Sleepless in Seattle. And do the ironing.'

In a way, I am glad that the Olympic games are on. Mr Husband is enamoured; the TV is on in both rooms. There are desperate attempts to interest either me or the children in basketball and hockey, but they fall on deaf ears. Especially mine.

However, at least I can scuttle away without being noticed. I can nurse my fatigue without having to paint a glad face on. Occasionally, the boys will express their first politically incorrect attitudes, and I shall laugh, listening to their trilly voices from the other room (the one WITHOUT a TV set).

'I want the Americans to win', pipes up Pest n.1.

'Me too', says Pest n.2, who likes Pest n.1's opinions a lot.

'Why?' This is Mr Husband, who secretly wants the Americans to win too but is too polite to say it.

'Because I LOOOVE the Americans. They are big and happy. And they win all the wars.' This is Pest n.1 who obviously has not studied American History, but has watched plenty of war movies. You know, the ones where the Brits with posh accents are the baddies and the thirty-six-teeth big smile American boys save the world.

'Me too', says Pest n.2.

Things move swifty onto female syncronised diving: Chinese vs British. I endure the show because I am captive audience, having had to leave the playroom to do the cooking in the kitchen.

The Chinese girls are beautifully slim, with perfect, swim-lined bodies and pretty delicate faces. The British girls... Well, a little less so. For a start, they have straw-coloured hair all pulled back in a really tight ponytail; their features are stangely elongated because of the strain on their scalp; a little like a mini-facelift without the need of a scalpel, but it does mean that their faces follow the tension on the hair and the eyes are touching the temples.

Secondly, they have bulging tummies and thick arms and thighs. I know they are athletes and meant to be strong and muscular, but w