Long Division E-Book

Sarah Harvey

• Herausgeber: Piper ebooks in Piper Verlag
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Fliss Blakeney is an English teacher in an all-girls school, but now she really wishes she'd paid more attention to her maths, and to her men. It takes her one year, eight months and six days to work out that if she marries Richard Trevelyn she'll make the biggest mistake of her life. What she didn't count on was her younger sister, Sally, agreeing to become Mrs Trevelyn instead. Fliss can hardly believe it. Surely he can't make her happy? But with her sister adamant, her mother unyielding and her father no help at all, there seems to be nothing left for Fliss to do except sit back and let the ceremonies commence. However, when Richard's maneating ex-girlfriend Kat enters the equation, life becomes a little more complicated. And the discovery that Kat's husband Alex is the most gorgeous man Fliss has ever seen creates a brain-teaser too puzzling for even the cleverest of scholars...

Leseprobe

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For Terry, again … and again …

Complete ebook version of the print book by Headline Book

Publishing, first published in 2001.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

ISBN 978-3-492-96862-1

© 2001 Sarah Harvey

© Piper Verlag GmbH, Munich 2014

Cover design: Eisele grafic design, Munich

Cover: Geri Lavrov/Photodisc/Getty Images (cats in a box)

kuleczka/Bigstock (card)

Data conversion: Kösel Media GmbH, Krugzell

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Acknowledgements

Thanks as always to the usual motley crew of family and friends – I am fortunate in that each can easily fall into both categories; to Luigi, John and Amelia at Sheil Land; to all at Headline, in particular Clare, and Sherise for her help, good humour and advice on tanning; and thanks also to Germ, the Btart and GoGo for being such a constant bad influence, and the Bearded Wonder and the other Fat Bird for the light entertainment.

Chapter One

Life is a peppered steak, I muse, toying with the charred remains of cow on my plate. You think you want all the crap on top, all the garnish, but does it actually make the thing taste any better?

I look up, up and across at my fiancé Richard sitting opposite me.

He is talking down to the waiter.

Richard talks down to everybody, an excellent trick for someone who is such a small person. Small in stature, small-minded, and dare I say it small … Well, let’s just say small in other rather important departments.

Richard is my pepper sauce, my garnish, my piece of curling Lollo Rosso lounging on the side of the plate. Looks appetisingly good to the eyes, but tastes remarkably bitter. As a small person Richard likes to surround himself with large things. Large apartment (penthouse, of course), large car, large wallet, and large matching ego.

He is a prat, but my mother loves him. It has taken me exactly one year, eight months, six days to realise that I do not. I look at my watch. Make that one year, eight months, six days, three hours and thirteen minutes. I won’t go into seconds, I’ve wasted enough time already. I stand up, and reach for my handbag.

Richard looks away from the waiter and smiles briefly, anticipating another trip to the Ladies’ in order to titivate for his pleasure. He is what I would describe as an ego-hedonist, interested only in his own pleasure. A pleasure-seeker not a pleasure-giver, Richard’s main aim in life is …well, Richard.

He has dedicated a lifetime to pleasing himself, and expects those around him to follow his example and please him. Tonight, I do just that. He has decided that I am looking rather voluptuous.

Titivate: the word pleases him, arouses him. This whole scenario, the candlelit restaurant, the expensive wine, is the charade he believes is his key to the latter part of the evening, the important part of the evening, the sex part of the evening, his reward for enduring the rigmarole, the boredom, the tedious niceties of courtship.

I open my handbag. Amongst the flotsam of used tissues, loose change, keys, half-eaten lipsticks, and dried-up wands of mascara, lies a packet of condoms.

Ribbed.

My mind also moves forward to the latter part of the evening. The sex part of the evening, where I usually have to attempt to coax Richard’s small prick into being Richard’s slightly bigger prick while he lies back with the same smug look on his face, as though he is bestowing a great favour by allowing me to do this.

My resolve deepens. I take a deep breath, feel in my bag for the keys to Richard’s place, the keys to Richard’s life.

‘Richard,’ I rehearse in my head, ‘I don’t love you, and I’m leaving.’

I open my mouth.

‘Richard …’ I can hear myself speak, but my voice sounds somewhat detached. ‘I don’t … er … I don’t.’

‘You don’t what?’ he snaps at me, annoyed by my dithering interruption of his complaint about his meal.

I open my mouth but this time no words come out at all.

‘Well?’ he presses irritably, anxious to get back to berating the poor harassed little French waiter.

‘I don’t want any dessert, and I’m going to the Ladies’.’

The words come out in a breathless rush as I push back my chair and stride across the restaurant like my backside is on fire, although in reality the only cheeks burning are the ones on my face.

Inside the Ladies’, I press my hot forehead against the mirror, and watch my breath form warm pools on its smooth immaculately clean surface. Through the vaporous reflection I can see my face, familiar yet totally alien. Why does one never look as one imagines oneself to look? Sometimes I will walk past my own reflection and smile because the person looking back at me seems vaguely familiar. I stare at the strange dark eyes, which stare rather hazily back at me. Is that really my face? The only thing I recognise is my own fear. A fear of being single. As part of a couple one is regarded as a normal human being. As a single person one suddenly becomes a statistic.

What would life be like without Richard? Was there ever life without Richard? Sometimes it doesn’t feel as though there was. Is there life after Richard? Like life after death, this is an unknown phenomenon, although what I am certain of is the fact that I’m too young to die. There may well be life after Richard, but if I attempt to explore this unknown terrain, then my mother will kill me.