Desperate Husbands Read Free

flies. Where have you been?’
    I challenge her immediately. ‘You’ve been getting into the Tennessee Williams again, haven’t you?’ I say, looking down at her. ‘I thought we had a deal about that?’
    ‘Well, honey, I just had myself the tiniest read. You know how fragile I’ve been feeling. And I can no more control those children than rule the storms of the sea.’ And with that Jocasta swoons back on the couch, quietly sobbing.
    I console myself with the thought: the Tennessee Williams phase might only last a couple of days. Jocasta is a fast reader. By midweek, she’ll be onto something else. It could be an Elmore Leonard thriller. An Emily Brontë romance. More hopefully, a cookbook.
    I quickly collect the plays, which she has left scattered on the coffee table next to an empty pitcher of mint julep. I search the shelves for something more robust. Maybe some Thea Astley or Fay Weldon. Some short stories perhaps, distilled and potent, so I can get the stuff into her real fast.
    Wednesday we meet up after work and she’s already found herself something new. It’s a biography of the Dalai Lama: complete with tips on living a virtuous life. She reads out a few bits about restraint and tolerance and love. It’s a wonderful book, she says. We head to a friend’s place for dinner, me driving, and Jocasta giving directions. She notices a car with a flashing blinker. ‘That fellow wants to turn into our lane. Why don’t you let him?’
    ‘Fellow’? Jocasta has never used a word like ‘fellow’ in her life. Jocasta’s normal patois is located somewhere between a Sydney wharfie and a Chicago mobster. I slow down and let the guy slip in front of me. Jocasta rewards me with a little serene smile. ‘Exercising restraint towards other road users can be a very pleasurable thing.’ She gives another Buddha-like smile. ‘Not that virtue needs any reward. It brings its own reward.’ In the rear-vision mirror I can see my own face. I can’t take much more of this. The car, for a start, has run out of sick bags.
    Mind you, Jocasta is not the only one who is suggestible. I’ve got the same problem. Thursday and I’m halfway through an Evelyn Waugh book and am behaving like a floppy-hairedaristocrat. ‘Dinner, old chaps,’ I yell to the old chaps. I tighten my cravat in front of the mirror, then hasten to the table. ‘It’s pretty good tuck tonight, by all accounts,’ I say to no one in particular, the butler being unaccountably absent.
    Jocasta, meanwhile, is getting into some heavy-grade Dashiell Hammett and is draped over the kitchen bench like a trash-talking blonde bombshell, looking sensational. ‘What’s a guy like you doing with a dame like me?’ she purrs, uncrossing and then crossing her shapely legs. ‘I’m nothing but a pile of leaves that just blew from one gutter to another.’
    The thought strikes me: if I weren’t a homosexual Brit with a teddy bear obsession, I’d really go for her.
    Friday I walk in, wearing a pair of blue chinos, my muscles clearly outlined again my Buck Brothers shirt, a stain of sweat across my chest. I’ve been reading a lot of Pete Dexter, and I’m looking forward to sharing a meal with my woman. ‘You are one gorgeous babe,’ I tell her, to which she replies: ‘I am alive—I guess—but how cold—I grow.’
    I make myself a pledge: tomorrow I’ll burn all her Emily Dickinson.
    Saturday, I’ve shifted to a Tony Parsons book and stagger in, full of confused but rather delightful male energy. Plus a bottle of wine. Jocasta’s been reading the Sex and the City book—the one I thoughtfully put in her briefcase the night before. She commandeers the wine and pours two glasses. I wrap an arm around her and nuzzle closer, talking in an amusing, snaggish way about our life together. This, I tell her, is the real us: me charming her with bon mots and little self-deprecating asides; her laughing girlishly, while slowly removing her clothing.
    It’s taken some