Free Mad Cows by Kathy Lette Page B

wife, until Maddy found Felicity’s short and curlies on the underside of his socks. She guffawed so hard she had to sit down.
    â€˜OK, I lie, I cheat on my wife, I drink, I won’t identify ex-girlfriends when they call from cop shops in the middle of the night, but name one
really important
shortcoming?’ Alex unleashed a lopsided smile of irresistible roguery.
    â€˜But Liberal Democrat? Hey, I get it. It’s like when you called yourself a “new man”. It’s just a
phrase
you’re passing through.’ They always talked like this; verbal ping-pong, with mouths as bats.
    Alex cocked one hip in casual arrogance, then lowered his muscular frame on to the bench next to her. ‘It’s a smaller organisation. Easier to get things done, get changes implemented.’
    â€˜Oh, I get it. “Smaller organization”, meaning that it’ll be easier to get a Peerage.’ During the year they were together, Maddy had learned to read between Alex’s lies. She turned her palm towards him, traffic-cop style, putting the brakes on his protestations. ‘I don’t care, okay, as long as you treat me like a voter.’
    â€˜What’s
that
supposed to mean for Christ’s sake?’
    â€˜Be nice to me for once. Look . . .’ She sighed. Maddy had expected detestation when she saw him again. But all she could think about was Alex emerging from the shower in the mornings, his tanned torso swaying above the knotted towel; tangoing buck-naked on the dining-room table singing Cole Porter songs; the time they’d licked the fresh caviar of Caspian sturgeons from each other’s navals. ‘I don’t know what came between us.’
    â€˜Um – you had a baby against my wishes and then rejected me.’
    â€˜Rejected you?’ Maddy reeled around violently to face him. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. It’s just that I obviously needed an etiquette guide entitled
What To Do When Your Fiancé is Still Married
.’
    â€˜You never asked if I was married with children,’ he said curtly.
    â€˜Go tell it to the Male Excuse Hall of Fame, okay?’
    Alex impaled Maddy on his topaz gaze. ‘My conscience is clear.’
    â€˜Well, buddy, you’ve obviously got amnesia. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out that it takes two to make a bloody baby.’
    â€˜Don’t try and guilt trip me, Maddy,’ he whispered, suddenly alert that the lighting man might overhear a suck and tell story worth selling to the
News of the Screws
. ‘You made the decision to have the child – despite my objection. You’ve always been your own person.’
    â€˜Only because I was nobody else’s,’ she said sadly. It had rocked her to her core, seeing him again.
    â€˜I tested positive to allergies to nappies, Lego, and broken sleep. Remember? You
knew
that.’
    A shudder ripped through her. Marooned in Holloway Prison, this conversation was about as relevant as arguing over who would sit at the captain’s table on the
Titanic
. ‘Look . . .’ she coiled her fingers around his warm, brown forearm. ‘It doesn’t matter. What
matters
is that you’re here and can clear up this whole god-damned mess.’
    â€˜Of course . . .’ Alex replied neutrally.
    She strengthened her grip. ‘You will help me, right?’
    â€˜Yes, yes . . .’ he said in the trouser-adjusting voice men use when they’re being all Male and evasive. ‘Though, of course, it must be handled delicately . . .’
    Delicacy was the last thing on the mind which was vaguely attached to the toothpick legs, pale and goosepimpled, which pushed between the two ex-lovers at that precise moment. Maddy had just opened her mouth to reply to Alex, when a tongue not unlike a slab of condemned salami shoved its way down her throat.
    â€˜J’know what I need, Malteser-breath?’ Sputnik asked in a voice both