Free A Most Desirable Marriage by Hilary Boyd Page A

hand and jumping up to be patted.
    ‘Hey Maxy,’ Jo took the little face in her hands and stared into his pansy eyes. ‘Tell me the secret . . . go on, I’m sure you know.’ The dog wriggled out of her grasp. She looked up at Donna. ‘I just wonder how he can love me for so long, and then suddenly not love me at all. I’ve tried to do the same, but it’s not working.’
    ‘I’m sure he does still love you.’
    ‘That’s even more stupid then.’
    ‘If you were in the grip of a sexual passion, you’d probably forget him . . . certainly in the short term.’
    Jo growled with frustration. ‘Yes, but how do you get in the grip? That’s what I want to know. I mean I’m sure having it off with Hugh or Brian wouldn’t be horrible exactly . . . but passion? One so huge it’ll make me forget Lawrence? How likely is that?’
    Donna shook her head from side to side, considering. ‘You just never know. I had a friend once who—’
    ‘Don’t tell me . . . she was eighty and bonked the milkman every minute of every day until she died.’
    Her friend chuckled. ‘Close . . .’
    ‘It’s OK for you. You don’t want commitment. You scarper at the first whiff of love. I’m not like that.’
    Donna was silent for a moment. ‘I suppose I am happier on my own. I mean Walter and I rubbed along fine, but even in the early years I had a wandering eye. Don’t know what it is, but the thought of being like you and Lawrence – faithful for hundreds of years – makes me positively nervous.’
    ‘That didn’t work out so well though, did it . . . for me and Lawrence.’
    ‘For nearly forty years it did.’
    ‘And you’re not scared, as you get older, that you’ll run out of men to have affairs with and end up totally alone?’
    ‘Losing my sexuality scares me stiff. But I don’t see how having a permanent partner would solve that. I’d just be stuck with someone who only makes love to me because I’m there.
And
he’d probably expect me to cook his meals and wash his smalls.’
    Donna picked up Jo’s mug and her own and went over to the windowsill to make a fresh pot of coffee.
    ‘I took him for granted,’ Jo muttered, suddenly and painfully struck by the sheer comfort of being Lawrence’s wife. Of going out with him to social events, of knowing he would be home in the evening and she could tell him, over a glass of wine, all the things – be they thoughts or actual events, either trivial or vitally important – that had happened during the day. Of knowing there was someone there who was always on her side, who would actually listen when she told him a boring story about delays on the Central Line. Of waking in the night, worrying, and being able to get a cuddle and some common sense. Of sex with a person who knew her body as if it were his own. And unlike Donna, she enjoyed cooking for Lawrence, didn’t resent washing his socks, although she drew the line at ironing his shirts. She wasn’t pretending it was perfect, but the comfort was intrinsic, aside from the usual ups and downs of married life. No passion she was ever likely to enjoy in the future would wipe this from her memory.
    Her friend’s expression was weary. ‘Darling, listen. What’s gone is gone. You have to try and move on. There are probably hundreds of men out there who think as you do, who want real commitment. You just have to look.’
    But it was the thought of the looking that Jo found so depressing.
    *
    ‘Mum, I’ve got a job!’ Nicky’s voice was buzzing with excitement. ‘I’m round the corner . . . can I come over?’
    ‘Of course. What is it? What’s the job?’
    ‘I’ll tell you when I get there. Be about ten. Bye.’
    Jo was sitting at her computer looking unenthusiastically at the list of publishers Maggie was suggesting. She didn’t want to move, she liked the publisher she was with; they’d done a good job for her. But could she afford to write the book for so little? Maybe I should find a proper job, something